It took less than a month in charge for Michael Vaughan to blame county cricket for all the ills of the England team. But, when he feels brave enough to examine the latest dispatch from Lord’s, perhaps he might concede that the problem lies rather closer to home. For the schedule for England’s 2004 season was released today, and it is every bit as terrifying as expected.Never mind the daily grind of the County Championship. It will be a miracle if the core members of England’s Test and one-day teams are still in one piece by September 25 next year – the uncommonly late finish to an exhausting seven months of non-stop internationals. That seven Tests and 28 one-day internationals have been scheduled for England’s domestic season is knackering enough. For these matches to follow hot on the heels of a gruelling 11-international tour of the Caribbean, however, is masochistic in the extreme.Midway through the 2002 season, England appeared to boast a stable of fast bowlers that would keep them in wickets for the next ten years. Fourteen months later, however, many of these thoroughbreds are only fit for glue. No fewer than eight first-choice seamers, from Andrew Caddick to Alex Tudor, via Matthew Hoggard and Simon Jones, have been ruled out this summer with injuries of one sort or another – and the body count is sure to rise this winter, in the thankless conditions of Bangladesh and Sri LankaIt is a measure of the intensity of next season that a player in both the Test and the one-day teams, such as Andrew Flintoff, will be available for his county for a maximum of two matches in 2004. That means no opportunity to tinker with a damaged technique or rediscover some lost confidence in quieter surrounds. James Anderson, the Truman Burbank of English cricket, has already discovered this only too well.Anderson has been compared to David Beckham several times already in his short career. But even Beckham, the greatest attention-grabber of our age, spends less of his life in the direct gaze of the public than cricketers. Ninety minutes of a football match, half-an-hour of press conferences, a couple of shopping sprees and a film premiere is not the same as spending six hours in the blazing sun, remembering not to pick your nose in case the world is watching.The off-camera life isn’t particularly compelling, either. Time spent away from loved ones is felt far more acutely in your hotel room than on the field. And then there’s all that travelling – whether it’s island-hopping, long-haul flights, or traffic jams on the M6. And what other sport tangles quite so messily with politics? It’s a sure bet that when the players attempt to embark on a month’s R and R at the end of next season, they’ll find their peace ruined by the inevitable row that awaits them before their scheduled tour of Zimbabwe.It is hardly original to make the plea that there is too much cricket being played. But the longer the objections of players and media alike are ignored, the more agitated the appeals become. It was the overkill of 2002-03, as intense a winter as any cricket team can have faced, that broke Nasser Hussain’s spirit and drove Graham Thorpe into a late withdrawal for the sake of his family. What lies ahead will be every bit as strength-sapping.It also has the makings of a typically farcical finale. Never before has a major tournament (if the ICC Champions’ Trophy warrants that tag) been scheduled so late in the English season. The last time the ICC held their jamboree, in Sri Lanka’s rainy season in September 2002, a two-day downpour wiped out the final (and the replay).What price a repeat performance?

Recently appointed ING Captain, Cameron White, is to lead Victoria’s 2nd X1 in game 1 of the Cricket Australia Cup in South Australia from October 7-10.The team for the match at Adelaide Oval No. 2 has been confirmed and is as follows:

• Cameron White (C)
• Will Carr
• Adam Crosthwaite
• Matthew Elliott
• Brett Harrop
• Ian Hewett
• Nick Jewell
• Brendan Joseland
• Michael Klinger
• Andrew McDonald
• Graeme Rummans
• Tim Welsford

South Australia 400 and 137 for 5 beat New South Wales 267 and 267 by five wickets
ScorecardGreg Blewett, South Australia’s captain, is confident they can retain top spot in the table after a deserved five-wicket win against New South Wales at the Adelaide Oval.Chasing 135 for victory, SA finished on 5 for 137, with Blewett hitting the winning runs to reach 65 not out. The win took them to 12 points, with two outright victories from three matches, and ahead of NSW and Tasmania, who are both on eight points.”We’re travelling beautifully,” Blewett said about his side’s progress under new coach Wayne Phillips. “We’re undefeated at this stage of the year, with two games away and one at home, and we’ve got Queensland here next week, who we’ve played pretty well against here. So we’re sitting well, and as long as we keep doing what we’re doing and not get too far ahead of ourselves, we can set ourselves up nicely for the latter half of the season.”SA started the day on 2 for 38, needing a further 97 runs to win, potentially a tricky target on a wearing last-day pitch, with Blewett and nightwatchman Jason Gillespie at the crease. But the pair put on a fifty partnership to take the score to 85 before Gillespie was caught driving at point off Stuart Clark.Gillespie’s 32 went with his 5 for 54 yesterday to complete a good allround match for him in his comeback from a side injury which had kept him out for five weeks.SA then lost Andy Flower, caught behind off Clark for two, and Mark Higgs, caught in the deep off Stuart MacGill for 23 off 20 balls, while attempting to finish the match with a six. MacGill had 1 for 28 from three overs today.Mark Cosgrove, 19, was named Man of the Match after making 118 in SA’s first innings. He was nought not out at the close, which came well before the scheduled lunch break, although he did not face a ball.Blewett said Cosgrove, who made his debut late last season, was an exceptional talent. “I remember when I first started out, I wasn’t that young, but I wouldn’t have dreamt of playing like he did,” Blewett said. “It’s very exciting for us to have a junior Boof [Darren Lehmann] in the making, hopefully.”Steve Waugh, NSW captain, also praised Cosgrove, who took a sharp catch at backward square leg to dismiss him for a golden duck in their first innings. “I think it was probably the best catch I’ve ever seen taken off myself when I’m batting, it was a freakish catch,” Waugh said. “Batting-wise, he looks an exceptional talent for 19, he hits the ball very nicely. He’s very similar to Darren Lehmann at the same age and that’s a big rap to put on a young kid.”Waugh said that SA had showed more desire to win than NSW, and had shown better concentration with the bat and sharper work in the field.

Muttiah Muralitharan will captain Central Province in Sri Lanka’s newfour-day provincial tournament in January. All the international players areexpected to participate in the four-team tournament, which was introduced tohelp bridge the quality gap that exists between club and internationalcricket.Hashan Tillakaratne will captain Western Province, Marvan Atapattu will leadSouthern Province, and Mahela Jayawardene will skipper Northern Province. Allthe teams have also been allocated a coach, manager and selector.The tournament is due to start on January 3. Each team will play each othertwice, meaning 12 group games in all, with the final scheduled for February11-14. The matches will be played at Kandy, Galle and Dambulla, as well as the Premadasa Stadium and the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo.

Canterbury took a stranglehold of their State Championship match against Wellington. It would take the escape effort of the season for Wellington to get out of the trouble they are in.Canterbury batted on to amass 499 for 8 before Chris Cairns, the Canterbury captain, made the declaration. A fine 145-run partnership between Paul Wiseman, the nightwatchman, and Chris Harris frustrated the Wellington bowlers further during the morning session. Wiseman scored 75 before he fell to James Franklin’s bowling while Harris was trapped leg before wicket to Franklin for 65.The rest of the innings petered out very quickly and Franklin had some reward for 35.4 overs of work by ending with 3 for 146. Andrew Penn took 2 for 87 and Matthew Walker 2 for 93.Wellington looked set to make a competitive response as international openers Matthew Bell and Richard Jones settled in for the long haul. However, Richard Jones got a good ball from Chris Martin and was dismissed for 20, after 71 minutes of batting, when the score was 57. Stephen Fleming, who is using the match as a fitness test before next week’s Test against Pakistan, was out for two, falling victim to Cairns’ bowling.The only Wellington defiance came from Bell, who scored 75, before he was given out to a bat-pad catch off Wiseman’s bowling. Wiseman also picked up the wickets of Grant Donaldson and Franklin to end the day with 3 for 17 from 11 overs.

Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting continued their remarkable run of form in 2003, as Australia returned to something like their best form on the second day of the Melbourne Test. Neither man though was taking anything for granted, not after the manner in which India had stormed back at Adelaide after being under the cosh for most of the first two days.”It was a very satisfying day all round,” said Ponting, whose unbeaten 125 took him to 1340 runs for the year. “We had identified the first session as one of the biggest in the series for us. We didn’t have much luck yesterday and we put a couple [of catches] down, which never helps. Sehwag played beautifully as well. We hung in there, but we know that we need three more good days to win this match.”Hayden, who now has three successive hundreds at the MCG, said it was an awesome place to play cricket, with bumper crowds cheering all the way. He admitted though that it was no stroll in the park. “We had to work hard early, but once you get in, the game tends to open up. It’s a rewarding place to play cricket.”Hayden said the Adelaide debacle, when Australia batted in shockingly cavalier fashion on the fourth afternoon, had receded into the background after today’s display. “We’ve put that behind us now. We needed a big partnership to get back in the hunt after a tremendous bowling performance in the morning. Punter [Ponting] and I bat really well together. On this wicket, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself … it’s hard to play square-of-the-wicket shots. Ricky tends to play straight and he also pulls, which is very similar to the way I play.”Ponting also spoke of Adelaide, saying, “It hurt us. The environment in the dressing room afterwards was very different. There were two sessions of play on the fourth day where the Test was lost, and we knew we’d let ourselves down.” But he added that his brilliant 242 at the Adelaide Oval hadn’t influenced the way he played this innings. “I don’t look back too much at all. I didn’t think of Adelaide at all.”

Neither man was too interested in the run aggregates for the year, though Ponting raised a laugh or two when he said, “Stephen [Waugh] told me I was level with Mark [on 20 Test hundreds] when I walked back in. It’s been a good year so far, and hopefully it will get better.”For India, the talking point was Zaheer Khan’s fitness, or lack of it. Rahul Dravid said he was fit enough to play when the team was announced, but that he had felt a twinge in his hamstring the fourth or fifth over he bowled in the morning. “He showed character to stay on and keep bowling,” he said. “It is a slight worry though, but he knew he had to keep going today.”Dravid accepted that India had had a “tough day”. “We didn’t bat well,” he said. “We had a great platform but we couldn’t build on it. It was a combination of poor shots and them putting the ball in the right areas. From 278 for 1, we should have done much better.”Of Ponting and Hayden, he said, “They showed why they’re two of the best in the world at the moment. It was a tough day for them yesterday and a tough one for us today. You shouldn’t forget that we’re playing a very good side.”Dravid brushed off suggestions of a momentum shift, saying, “We didn’t have momentum the first two days at Adelaide either. I’m not a big believer in that. We showed some spirit today, and we just have to come back and try our best tomorrow.”Ponting said that Zaheer’s injury was a big blow for India. “He was bowling well within himself. It’s a good sign for us. They capitalised on the mistakes we made yesterday and now it’s up to us to take advantage of some good fortune.”Tomorrow, all that will most likely be relegated to a snippet, as the headline writers gear up for the next instalment of Australia’s favourite ongoing soap opera, the Steve Waugh retirement show. There’ll be enough and more red rags on show…thank heavens we’re not in Pamplona for the running of the bulls.

India A 213 for 5 (Sriram 105*) beat England A 210 (Smith 76*, Newman 68) by five wickets
ScorecardSridharan Sriram scored an unbeaten 105, adding 155 for the fifth wicket with Venugopal Rao, as India A eased past England A’s substandard target of 211 to complete a 3-0 clean sweep in Chennai. The victory was secured with nearly five overs to spare, and ensures that England will enter the first-class phase of their tour with spirits at a low ebb.It was a disappointing performance from start to finish for England. The high point came when Scott Newman and Ed Smith were adding 99 for the third wicket, but only one other batsman could reach double figures – Sajid Mahmood, who made a rapid 13 from No. 9. England tumbled from 141 for 3 to 210 all out with nearly three overs of their innings still remaining.It has been a difficult week for England A, with defeats in the first two matches, and the loss of their captain, Alex Gidman, to a hand injury. His absence was compounded by the suspension of Bilal Shafayat for dissent in the second match, and when James Tredwell won the toss and chose to bat, his decision instantly backfired. England lost two early wickets, including the big scalp of Kevin Pietersen, whose hard-hitting 131 had salvaged the innings in Tuesday’s match.But Newman and Smith held the innings together. Newman was especially impressive, but when he fell for 68, the innings disintegrated despite Smith’s best efforts to stay afloat. Smith, who is used to tough situations after making his Test debut in last summer’s closely fought series with South Africa, was left not out on 76, as the last seven wickets tumbled for 69. The pick of India’s bowlers was Sairaj Bahutule, who claimed 3 for 33 from a 10-over spell.England made a fighting start to India’s innings, with Mahmood leading from the front with three early wickets, including both openers – Dinesh Mongia included – for single figures. He later added the scalp of JP Yadav, while Graeme Wagg removed Mithan Manhas for 14. But from 34 for 4, India A rallied through the efforts of Sriram and Rao, who were not parted until the match was as good as over. On the plus side for England, Simon Jones came through another 10-over spell unscathed, finishing with 0 for 39.

On Friday night, the Indians liked what Javed Miandad cooked up, according to . Miandad had invited Dilip Vengsarkar for dinner, and Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra and Parthiv Patel went along. The players had heard about Miandad’s hospitality, and savoured the occasion.”We discussed a lot of things. Cricket obviously was the main topic,” Miandad said. “But there were a lot of discussions on other things also and they enjoyed themselves. We enjoyed playing hosts and serving them some delicious Pakistani cuisine.”He was impressed by Tendulkar’s humour and humility: “He has matured a lot now and his sense of humour has also improved a lot. He is more relaxed and we enjoyed the evening with him.”***Make the umpires accountable for their mistakes, writes Harbhajan Singh in his syndicated column in . “Our bowlers toiled hard but were clearly hard done by the umpiring. To make matter worse,” Harbhajan adds, “Parthiv Patel also copped a fine.””A cricketer is bound to give vent to his frustration if even clear-cut catches are denied to his team,” he argues. “… and the next thing that happens is that he is hauled up and punished.”Same newspaper, different column. Ajit Wadekar writes about Steve Bucknor, who “seems to have developed a taste for Indians and has been chasing the team around the world.” Wadekar pointed out that the umpire had played a large role in India’s recent fortunes “so much so, that Sourav Ganguly reportedly marked him ‘zero’ in the captain’s report in Australia recently.””He is singularly unrepentant about his mistakes, especially against India. And despite the succession of complaints the Indian management has made against him, the ICC seems to derive vicarious pleasure in slotting him for all India’s series.”***Kapil Dev wants a player to run the BCCI, though he clarified he had nothing against Jagmohan Dalmiya, who currently heads India’s cricket board. According to , Kapil proposed the idea at Ali Bacher’s book launch, and cited him as a good example of a player-turned-administrator.On being questioned whether cricketers would be interested in running administrative affairs, he had a unique reply: “Ask Sunil Gavaskar if he is interested in heading the Board. I would like to know his answer. Well, the point is there have to be opportunities.”

Chris Read has been dropped from England’s one-day squad to make way for Geraint Jones, while there is a first call-up for Lancashire’s fast bowler Sajid Mahmood, who impressed on the England A tour to India and Malaysia earlier this year.Robert Key, the Kent opener who was the first batsman to pass 1000 runs this season, has also been recalled to the fray, although Gareth Batty and James Kirtley have both been omitted from the squad that toured the Caribbean earlier this year.It is a particularly cruel blow for Read, whose glovework this winter was of the highest order, and whose ability to take the long handle to the bowling at the end of an innings had been in evidence in England’s victory over West Indies in Guyana. David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors, has admitted that the decision had been one of the toughest he had faced.”I will be speaking to Chris to ensure that he fully understands the reasons for his omission,” said Graveney. “Ultimately, we had to make a very fine judgment as to who we thought was the best person for the job. Geraint has the ability to bat in a number of different positions and this was an important factor.”Simon Jones did not come into consideration because of his foot injury, although Anthony McGrath – the forgotten man of England’s winter campaign – has been retained in the squad ahead of his fellow allrounder Rikki Clarke, who had failed to cement a role in the side. Despite popular belief that he would soon be eased out of the picture, Darren Gough has kept his place in the squad.England squad Michael Vaughan (capt), James Anderson, Ian Blackwell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Darren Gough, Stephen Harmison, Geraint Jones (wk), Robert Key, Sajid Mahmood, Anthony McGrath, Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick.

A flu bug that has already laid low Marvan Attapattu, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chaminda Vaas, has seriously handicapped Sri Lanka’s preparations for their crucial second-stage Asia Cup encounter against Pakistan.Atapattu, the first to be laid low as the team travelled to Dambulla lastweek, was so weak that he was forced to hand over the captaincy to Mahela Jayawardene during Sri Lanka’s 12-win against India on Sunday night. Both Atapattu and Dilshan are receiving antibiotics and the managementremains hopeful that they will be able to play on Wednesday. Vaas firstcomplained of the bug on Tuesday morning and the seriousness of hiscondition was not yet known.”There is not really a lot we can do about the situation apart from makingsure they take on plenty of fluids and rest,” said CJ Clarke, the team physio, talking to reporters. “The problem is that the players are very tired after Australia and all the travel, and their resistance to these bugs is therefore very low.”There was better news, though, on Sanath Jayasuriya, who appeared to berecovering well from his side strain, an injury that forced him out of thematch against India . He resumed bowling on Tuesday morning and should be available for selection.Meanwhile, John Dyson, the coach, was delighted with Sri Lanka’s performancein the first round, an effort that he believes has now set the team up wellfor the next stage. “The team played very well in both games in Dambulla and they are feeling pleased with their game and looking forward to the rest of the tournament,” said Dyson. “It was good boost for the rest of the tournament. It lifts you up and makes you look forward to the next game.”It was difficult to come straight in from Australia as it is a long journeyback and when you add the bus drive to Dambulla the guys were pretty tired.They have recovered pretty quickly. They are pretty fit and watch what theyeat and make sure they get enough sleep so they are ready to play.”But Dyson remained wary of Pakistan. “Pakistan are a very exciting anddangerous team and they are a side that can do anything and our boys willneed to be right on their game.”