While England’s cricketers used their day off to hare around Cape Town on roaring Harley Davidsons, England’s forgotten spinner Monty Panesar has been trying to make amends with his former employers Northants, after ruffling a few feathers with comments he made last weekend.

Monty is in Johannesburg where he’s playing for the South Africa domestic side Highveld Lions, with a view to getting his career back on track. A bid to win back his England place is also behind his recent move from Northamptonshire to Sussex.

Panesar told reporters last week: “I felt Northants were no longer working with me to become an England player. I loved playing for Northants. I regarded it as my home club but I had to go to where I was most wanted.”

He now insists he was misunderstood, that he had no intention of criticising the club and is adamant his relationship with Northants has not soured since signing a three-year deal with Sussex. In a flurry of introspection he also told me he believed it was his fault - if he was still performing for England, none of this would have happened.

When we spoke on the phone, an animated Monty was anxious to smooth over a few things and stress how much his home club means to him.

“The pitch changed at Wantage Road and didn’t suit my style. It used to be a turning track but it’s become more seamer-orientated. The way the pitch has changed meant it was going to be better for my cricket to move somewhere else.”

“It was portrayed that Northants didn’t help me with my England career, but they did. I think for whatever reason things have been written to create a difference between me and Northants. It’s my home club. Northants have done an awful lot for me and have always been Read more…

Administrator England Blogs.CMDN.com, Cape Town, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, David Capel, ECB, England, Harley Davidsons, Highveld Lions, Johannesburg, Monty Panesar, Mudhsuden Singh Panesar, Nicky Boje, Northants, Sussex

Caribbean cricket could splinter into individual nations if it does not learn from T&T’s spirited run in the Champions League

Trinidad & Tobago’s joyful progress to the semi-final of the Champions League could not have carried a clearer message to the dolts and ne’er-do-wells who have been responsible for the decline of West Indies cricket.

Trinidad have played with unity and passion in the Champions League only weeks after West Indies, embroiled in a prolonged power struggle between the board and players’ representatives, brought international cricket into disrepute by sending a reserve team to the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

T&T’s impressive captain, Daren Ganga, has spoken intelligently about the “great legacy” of West Indies cricket and how proper investment is long overdue to respect and continue that legacy. It cannot be guaranteed that the G&T-sipping crowd are listening to T&T. But the warning could not have been starker, with Ganga visualising a break-up of West Indies cricket into individual nations if the various stakeholders do not get their act together. “I tell you that if that doesn’t happen then it is inevitable that countries will go separately,” he said. “West Indies cricket cannot afford the turmoil that it has now.”

Ganga is not the first Trinidadian to voice such sentiments. In July, T&T’s chief executive, Forbes Persaud, admitted that if the West Indies Cricket Board continued to blunder along then he favoured Trinidad requesting permission to play as an individual nation, just as Trinidad’s football team do.

It is an outcome that cricket’s major nations rightly fear. The International Cricket Council has charged the WICB’s new chief executive, Ernest Hilaire, with sorting out the mess – and he already seems to be making progress, with optimism abounding that a full-strength West Indies side will tour Australia next month. Hilaire has a Masters degree in economics and an MPhil in international relations from Cambridge University, both of which should come Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20, West Indies Blogs.CMDN.com, Caribbean cricket, CARICOM, Champions League, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daren Ganga, G&T, Somerset, South Africa, Sussex, T&T, Twenty20, West Indies, WICB

AS NSW and Victoria prepare to play in the Champions League first semi-final late tonight, the competition has become a major embarrassment for the billion-dollar Indian Premier League.

None of the teams from the much-hyped, mega-rich IPL have made the semi-finals of the inaugural Champions League, with the Cape Cobras, from Cape Town, and Trinidad and Tobago playing off in the second semi-final tomorrow night.

The IPL had three sides in the 12-team competition, which brought together the best domestic Twenty20 teams from the eight leading cricket nations, playing for $6.6million in prize-money. NSW and Victoria are already guaranteed $550,000 for making the semi-finals and one of the sides will make $1.4m for reaching the final, with $2.6m on offer for winning the tournament.

Prize-money is shared between the players and the state associations. State players who do not have Cricket Australia contracts will make about as much in a fortnight as they would for an entire domestic season - $120,000 - if they claim the title.

NSW and Australia veteran Stuart Clark claimed there was surprise among the Australians that IPL sides had not fared better.

“We expected them to be quite dominant, given we were playing in their conditions and given their IPL experience,” Clark told The Australian.

“The reality is they’ve been outplayed by other teams from around the world. It says what we’ve always believed, that Australian domestic cricket is strong and that’s why the Australian team is strong.”

The tournament was on course for a Victoria-NSW final until the Cape Cobras suffered an upset last-round loss to the Delhi Daredevils in a dead rubber. “It would have been nice if two Australian teams had made the final because it would have been a great showpiece for Australian cricket and how good domestic cricket is in our country,” Clark said.

“Once this game starts, it’s going to be a little bit weird because two Australian Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Allan Donald, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cape Cobras, Cape Town, Champions League, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, Delhi Daredevils, IPL, NSW, Royal Challengers, semi-finals, Somerset, South Africa, Stuart Clark, Sussex, T20, Trinidad and Tobago, Victoria prepare

As the committee men work out how to crack the Champions League dollar, the county coaches have problems of a different sort to solve before embarking upon another campaign against the world’s best Twenty20 outfits.

The fact one English side, Somerset, reached the final eight just about fulfilled the minimum requirement for the two county teams. Unfortunately just one victory, by one wicket off the final ball, from six matches proves that luck played a part in their progression.

Neither side were humiliated at any time and enjoyed good spells, usually with the ball, in each match, apart from a Trescothick-light Somerset’s final defeat against New South Wales when they looked exhausted and dreaming of the flight home.

But the usual English one-day weakness of a lack of power in the batting line-up cost Sussex and Somerset a chance of making any real impact in India.

Only five county batters featured in the top 50 strike rates. Luke Wright was the only Englishman to hit more than one six in the entire tournament and Wes Durston recorded the solitary county half-century.

Tactics were often rigid and only once did a county employ spin during the powerplay, despite the fact slow bowling has been the tournament’s key to stopping an onslaught. The intensity of the tournament, travel and media interest may have been overwhelming at times and both counties looked tired after a long summer.

It showed that Trinidad and Tobago have spent two months preparing for this trip and Somerset were not helped by the fact they were twice followed on stage by the Caribbean side.

They are chock full of clean hitters and one batsman, Daren Ganga, capable of sticking the team together if things go awry. They threw a 19 year-old, Adrian Barath, in to open the batting in their final last-eight match and he responded with 63 from 41 balls. It was his Read more…

Administrator CMDN.com Adrian Barath, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions League, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daren Ganga, Luke Wright, Somerset, Sussex, Trescothick, Trinidad and Tobago

Cash-rich IPL sides are struggling to compete with the so-called minnows of the Champions League

The Champions League needed a Super Over as much as an old roué needs Viagra. For almost a week, games not involving the Indian Premier League sides had been played out in front of largely empty stands, curtain-raisers to the main event. It didn’t help that the marquee names – the Royal Challengers, the Delhi Daredevils and the Deccan Chargers – all belly-flopped badly at the first time of asking, beaten by teams operating on a fraction of their budgets.

Like the boy Pepe in the Asterix comics who goes red in the face, the franchise owners sat short of breath in their ivory-tower boxes, contemplating the vast investments that had led to such humiliation. For the neutral who abhors the Real Madrid-Manchester City model and what it has done to sport, those were moments to savour, with the Cape Cobras and Somerset the equivalent of an AEK Athens or Standard Liège.

Tuesday was different. A double-header in Delhi, with not one Indian side in action. Few turned up, but those that did conform to the jaded stereotype about Indians loving the game wouldn’t have gone home disapppointed. First, the Wayamba Elevens, with Kumar Sangakkara trying hard not to be partial in the commentary box, successfully defended 118 against a Victorian Bushrangers side that had routed Delhi. They missed out on the next stage because of net run-rate, but until Andrew McDonald came along and slugged a few down the ground, Victoria had looked alarmingly vulnerable, caught between the quest for victory and the pursuit of 83 that would guarantee a place in the next phase.

With the entire square having been relaid in the summer, this was another slow and low pitch. On such surfaces, no batsman is ever in, no run chase a formality. That was illustrated beautifully in the second game, as the Diamond Eagles went from 70 for 0 at halfway to 115 for 4 with just one ball remaining. The South Africa-asphyxiation headlines were already composed when Ryan McLaren – an exception because of time spent with Kent? – coolly picked up a Yasir Read more…

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It’s a far cry from Taunton as county side seek solid start in India’s cash-crazy tournament against Chargers today.

The Champions League will turn the world of cricket upside down, so they say, but for Somerset things are already changing.

The West Country side become the first English team to play in this latest Twenty20 competition when they face Deccan Chargers in Hyderabad today and the atmosphere – if predictions of a 40,000 crowd are to be believed – should be somewhat different from that normally experienced at Taunton.

But while big crowds are thrilling (Somerset’s home support has never amounted to more than an fifth of that number, even if they are far from the meekest cricket-watchers on the circuit), the financial rewards on offer in India are rather more arresting. A combined pot of £3.7m means no side will go home unrewarded, but Somerset will have their eyes on the £1.6m winners’ purse. That may be relative peanuts in the world of Premier League football but, given the County Champions receive just £500,000, it is serious cash for the summer game.

Marcus Trescothick, who has travelled to India despite the stress-related illness that curtailed his last overseas tour with England, for the Ashes in 2006-07, will have much to do if Somerset are to succeed. Trescothick’s value to his side was amply illustrated during the Twenty20 Cup Finals day in August, when his 56 from 32 balls blew away Kent in the semi-finals. He showed then what uncommon timing and power he still possesses, but he couldn’t repeat it in the final and Somerset were overwhelmed by Sussex.

Trescothick won the Professional Cricketers’ Association Player of the Year award on Thursday night in his absence, having arrived in India in the early hours of the morning Read more…

Administrator Champions League T20 Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brett Lee, Champions League, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, Delhi, Eagles, ECB, Giles Clarke, IPL, Lalit Modi, Marcus Trescothick, Mumbai, Phillip Hughes, Sharks, Simon Katich, Somerset, South Africa, Sussex, Twenty20

When history has its say, it can be hard to argue. The 1985 Ashes series tends to be pigeon-holed as uninterrupted English dominance, even though it was 1-1 with two to play. Twenty years later, we supposedly witnessed two teams at the top of their game – when the truth is England played out of their skins and Australia did not. But how, one day, will we look back at 2009? The way things are going, the temptation is to think the prize will go to the team which self-destructs second.

At the weekend England received an unwelcome reminder of pedalos past with the news that Andrew Flintoff had been reprimanded for missing the team bus on a trip to the First World War memorial at Ypres. The time for rolling our eyes with mock disapproval and passing the incident off as a harmless piece of Freddie hi-jinks disappeared long ago. When Strauss says Flintoff “generally recognises when the times are to drink and when not to drink”, you wonder how generally he means.

Flintoff was once a source of unquestioning inspiration for his team-mates. But that was around 2004 and 2005. Since then, England have learned to live without him. In fact, they have learned to play better without him. Read more…

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Australia batting prodigy Phillip Hughes believes he is starting to hit form again in the lead-up to the Ashes, starting in Cardiff on July 8.

The 20-year-old New South Wales batsman enhanced his reputation for quick scoring on a six-week stint with Middlesex at the start of the summer, but on a sunny Friday in Hove a 7,000 sell-out crowd witnessed a more studied approach.

The right-hander from Macksville occupied the crease for over two-and- a-half hours for his 78 that included 11 fours, only to be bowled for the second time in the match by Sussex’s South African seamer Pepler Sandri following an over-ambitious waft across the line.

Undaunted by missing out on his hundred, Hughes said: “You look to get a fair bit out of these practice games in the lead-up to the first Test and you have to take them seriously. Read more…

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