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The head of the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association has described the Indian Premier League (IPL) contracts reportedly signed by Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris as “the worst contracts I’ve seen in professional sport”. Heath Mills, the association’s manager, said Styris had signed the deal but he was unsure if Vettori had committed.Mills said the IPL and New Zealand Cricket (NZC) had pressured the players to accept the lucrative three-year deals or the offers would be withdrawn. “We recommended they didn’t sign the contract put in front of them and I’m not sure Daniel has signed,” Mills told the .”The contracts put in front of the players are the worst contract I’ve seen in professional sport. Players around the world have been signing it and they have no idea what they are signing away. It does not stipulate the rights they are giving away to Indian cricket. I’m concerned our guys signing it will put them in breach of their NZC contracts.”I don’t think it is a very good contract at all. It is a one and a half page document. Our contracts are 100 pages long and people are very aware of their obligations and restrictions.”The paper reported Vettori was unhappy with a clause in the memorandum of understanding that “the player is not allowed to play for any other team that may at any point in time qualify for the Champions League”. “I know Daniel is concerned about the contract put in front of him and is trying to get some late changes to it,” Mills said.The IPL is a domestic Twenty20 competition in India that will feature international players from other nations. The Champions League is an extension of that concept, with leading Twenty20 sides from domestic competitions around the world invited to play each other.Vettori’s Northern Districts team could therefore qualify, leading to his worries about the contractual clause. However, Justin Vaughan, the chief executive of NZC, told the paper he did not share the concerns of Mills and Vettori.

13 – The number of times Sachin Tendulkar has fallen to Glenn McGrath in international cricket (seven times in ODIs and six times in Tests)67 – The number of runs India scored in their last ten overs108 – The number of runs Australia had piled up after 15 overs. India, at a similar stage in their innings, had made 57400 – Number of dismissals for Adam Gilchrist in ODIs (355 catches and 55 stumpings). Mark Boucher, in second place, only has 33166 – Sachin Tendulkar’s aggregate in his last six ODI innings against Australia, including this match150 – Number of ODIs Steve Bucknor has umpired in. Only David Shepherd (172) and Rudi Koertzen (156) have stood in more matches1975 – The last time no team from the subcontinent made it to the semi-finals of a major one-day competition1015 – The number of days since India last beat Australia in a one-day international

Less than a week after a meeting of provincial chairman in Harare which discussed passing a motion of no confidence in the Zimbabwe Cricket board, three of the provinces have distanced themselves from proceedings. Manicaland, Midlands and Masvingo have since written to Peter Chingoka, the ZC chairman giving him their backing.A report in today’s Zimbabwe Independent newspaper said that Caesar Bond Nayoto, on behalf of Midlands clubs, had disowned Tim Savory, who attended the chairmen’s meeting as the provincial chairman, and were challenging his mandate as chairman.The Masvingo board, whose chairman Max Ebrahim was part of the provincial chairmen’s meeting last week, claimed it had “learnt with shock” about the meeting and insisted that Ebrahim had not consulted his board.Manicaland board member Phillip Matiza and representatives of three clubs in the province wrote a joint letter denouncing their board chairman Allan Walsh’s “unilateral decisions and actions”.A spokesman for the chairman said that a vote had not been taken but they were compiling a list of grievances which would be submitted to the board.An ICC spokesman said: “This is an internal matter for the stakeholders of Zimbabwe cricket. We do not seek to get involved in the domestic matters of our members.”

Somerset are set to announce that they have signed two South Africans – Graeme Smith and Albie Morkel – as their overseas players for the 2005 season.Smith, who captains South Africa on their tour of India starting this week, has been linked with the county for several weeks, and news that he was just waiting for South African board approval before confirming was not a surprise. It is expected that he will replace Michael Burns as Somerset captain.”It’s a fantastic opportunity for me and Albie, and playing county cricket is something I have always wanted to do,” Smith told Reuters. “My first loyalties are to South African cricket and the UCB, and they have yet to approve the deal,” he added. “I’m hopeful they will see it as beneficial for all of us.”The intention is that Smith would arrive at Taunton in May, straight after South Africa have finished their tour of the Caribbean.Morkel, an allrounder who bowls right-arm fast-medium bowler and bats left-handed, has played three one-day internationals for South Africa. Their new coach, Ray Jennings, is a big fan and recently predicted that he would become a world-class allrounder.

In odds released today by bet365, South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith is rated 9/4 to beat Don Bradman’s record series aggregate of 974 runs, set back in the 1930 Ashes series. Smith is rated 1/3 to fall short of the mark. In the spread-betting player-index markets Sporting Index are similarly pessimistic about Smith’s chances of overhauling The Don – they expect his series total to fall between 860 and 875 runs.Smith has six possible innings still available to him in this series, and already has 621 runs from his first three – a record for the first two Tests of any series. At the same stage of his all-conquering season in 1930, Bradman had managed only 393 of his record 974 runs – but he did hit 334 in the third Test! Good weather, the traditionally good pitches at Trent Bridge and The Oval, and an England attack in some disarray all count in Smith’s favour.bet365 now rate South Africa hot favourites to win the series at 2/5. England are now rank outsiders at 8/1, with a drawn series 5/2.bet365Sporting IndexIn-depth Graeme Smith statistics

The Islamabad Cricket Association (ICA) on Tuesday finaliseda list of 25 players to be submitted with the PakistanCricket Board for the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy.Following two days of trials at the Fatima Jinnah Park, thechairman of ICA, Syed Mansur Ahmed announced the followingplayers:Bilal Asad, Irfan Bhatti, Azhar Mahmood, Ali Naqvi, NadeemHussain, Saeed Anwar Jnr, Saeed Ajmal, Stephen John, RaoIftikhar, Asif Ali Saeed, Ashar Zaidi, Tauseef Satti, NaseerAhmed, Ali Raza, Rauf Akbar, Anwarul Haq, Atif AshrafQureshi, Abdul Qayum, Shahid Iqbal, Ishtiaq Rabbani, WaseemAkhtar, Hashim Khan, M. Zahid, Sajid Mahmood, Yasir Javed.The chairman also named Qaiser Hussain, Mustafa Bashir andFazeel Ahmed as the reserves.The boys have been directed to report to ICA secretary IrfanManzur on Wednesday alongwith their photographs and theiridentity cards and a proof of their residence. Meanwhile, inaccordance with the new policy of the PCB that allows theassociations to include any under-19 player in the playingXI for the Quaid Trophy, the ICA named the followingyoungsters:Raheel Majeed, Farrukh Hayat, Rashid AMin Butt, MuhammadAltaf, Shakir Mahmood, Talat Hussain, Saifur rehman,Muhammad Shahzad, Jawad Hassan, Ameer Khan, Raja Kashif.The Rawalpindi Cricket Association (RCA) meanwhileshortlisted 52 players. Their team for the Quaid Trophy willbe announced after a series of matches.The probables: Muhammad Naveed, Muhammad Waseem,Nasir Ahmed, Asif Mahmood, Shahid Javed, Arif Butt, PervezAziz, Mujahid Hameed, Tassawar Hussain, Babar Naeem, HashamIqbal, Nauman Aman, Shah Faisal, Waseem Ahmed, MaqsoodAslam, Muhammad Saleem, Mazhar Abbas, Raja Jahanzeb, ZahidKhan, Ehsan Khan, Makhdoom Shah, Ziaul Haq, M. Sultan,Sohail Nasir, M. Yaqoob.Fast bowlers: Shoaib Akhtar, Naeem Akhtar, YasirArafat, Azhar Bhatti, Muhammad Fayyaz, Shahid Mahmood,Zaheer Ahmed, Ziaul Haq, Zaheeruddin Babar, Sahd Altaf,Junaid Zia, Najaf Shah, Shakeel Nawaz, Tahawar, M. Afzal,Yasir Ashfaq.Spinners: Shakeel Ahmed, Jawad Hameed, Sheraz Khalid,Iftikhar Mahmood, Ayaz Akbar, Riasat Mahmood, Munir Ansari.Wicketkeepers: Nadeem Abbasi, Muhammad Zubair,Mehboob Rasheed, SM Suleman.

Just when Tamil Nadu’s tailenders were getting a feel of the bat towards the end of their training session at the the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai’s business hub, M Vijay padded up to take guard for the second time in an hour.Vijay, seeking to return to match fitness after missing two of India’s three Tests in Sri Lanka due to a hamstring injury, defended balls from pacers for a while. Vijay’s defence, which has been the hallmark of his game during his resurgence as a Test opener over the last two years, was tight as ever.Tamil Nadu may be taking on Mumbai in one of the more high-profile clashes of the 2015-16 Ranji Trophy season, but more than the rivalry between the sides, the spotlight over the next four days will be on Vijay, with the Test series against South Africa starting in three weeks.Vijay may have emerged as the leaver in Tests over the last couple of years, but he started his prolonged training stint in an unusual manner. He first asked spinners and seamers to bowl onto his pads for a good 20 minutes. Then, the line changed to outside off stump. But Vijay hardly had any difficulties in judging it. He returned towards the end of the session to finish off with a string of defensive strokes.It was Vijay’s first serious net session since scoring 82 in Kumar Sangakkara’s farewell Test. His stint at the crease on Tuesday, hours after joining his team-mates in Mumbai, was all about expressing himself freely.”I am pretty excited to play this game because it has been a long gap,” Vijay said. “After the Sri Lanka tour, I did not get any game at all. I am really working hard on my fitness. I am looking forward for a positive result if I play all four days of this match and get some confidence going.”It will be music to the ears of his Tamil Nadu team-mates, as well as the national selectors if Vijay gets into his groove straightaway. It will not be that way for the hosts, though.After earning a bonus point against Punjab at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai will be striving for consistency. They will be banking on the new-ball duo of Dhawal Kulkarni and Shardul Thakur to pull the brakes on Vijay early on.Six years ago, Vijay scored a breezy 154 against the same opponents. If he can produce a knock of similar quality over the next four days, it would be the most opportune manner for him to prove his fitness.

JJ Smuts lashed nine sixes in his 107 off 58 balls in East London, where Warriors chased down a target of 217 with an over to spare against Dolphins. The result kept Warriors within two points of Titans, the table leaders.Warriors lost opener Clyde Fortuin for a duck in the first over of the imposing chase, but Smuts and Colin Ingram made shrugged away that setback. They added 107 in nine overs before Ingram was out for 55 off 26, lbw to Imran Tahir. Colin Ackerman fell cheaply, but Christiaan Jonker made an unbeaten 36 off 20 balls in a partnership of 88 with Smuts to complete the seven-wicket victory.Smuts’ performance meant that for a second successive game Kevin Pietersen made a half-century in defeat. Pietersen had scored 79 in Dolphins’ loss against Cobras on December 4, and against Warriors he clobbered 81 off 46 with six sixes. His partnership of 145 for the second wicket with opener Morne van Wyk, who made 77 off 52, led Warriors to 216 for 5. Of the 14 bowlers used at Buffalo Park, only Smuts conceded less than 8.50 per over, finishing with figures of 0 for 23 in four overs for Warriors.A powerful batting performance at Supersport Park helped Titans beat Lions by 46 runs and open up a two-point lead at the top of the league. Opener Jonathan Vandiar headlined the show, smacking 67 off 41 balls, but the thrust that spurred Titans to 230 for 5 came from their middle and lower order. Heinrich Klassen made 26 off 15, Heino Kuhn 29 off 11, Albie Morkel 32 off 17, Farhaan Behardien 19 off 9, and David Wiese 17 off 5. Though Titans did not have big individual scores, their relentless hitting ensured that all the Lions bowlers, except for Bjorn Fortuin, went for over eight an over.Rassie van der Dussen got the Lions chase off to a cracking start, his 45 off 18 balls charging them to 53 before he fell in the fifth over. The chase fell away after that – only Temba Bavuma passed 30 – with batsmen failing to convert starts and score at the same intensity that Titans did. Malusi Siboto took three top order wickets for Titans, but it was Wiese’s spell of 1 for 21 in four overs that was the bowling performance of the match.Wayne Parnell led a Cobras bowling performance that set up victory against Knights in a low-scoring contest in Cape Town, after the 200-plus run fests in the other two games. Parnell took 3 for 20 in four overs, Kieron Pollard 2 for 18 in three, and Rory Kleinveldt 1 for 21 in four. Patrick Kruger and Theunis de Bruyn, who made 52, took Knights to 94 for 1 in the 12th over, but they fell away after that, losing 7 for 52 to finish with 146 for 8.Richard Levi’s 58 off 32 balls led the Cobras chase. He put on 78 for the first wicket with Wayne Parnell, who scored 34. Pollard smashed 39 off 12 balls to complete an eight-wicket victory with 32 balls to spare.

Cricket entered a new paradigm on Thursday with the launch of an international Twenty20 competition that will feature teams, operated as franchises, and players from across the world. Called the Champions Twenty20 League, it will be run by four cricket boards – of India, England, Australia and South Africa -and will feature the top two teams from each of those countries.Though no players were named as participants, several big names were present at the ceremony – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Glenn McGrath and Stephen Fleming.The inaugural tournament is scheduled to start in October 2008 and is planned over nine days, with $5 million in prize money, including $2 million for the winners.That the league has official sanction, as opposed to the Indian Cricket League, was borne out by the men on the dais – ICC president Ray Mali, Indian board president Sharad Pawar, the Cricket South Africa CEO, Gerald Majola, and Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland. The ECB was represented by deputy chief executive Hugh Morris.While the teams from England, Australia and South Africa will be the top two teams of their existing Twenty20 tournaments, India’s representatives will qualify through a new league called the BCCI Indian Premier League. This tournament, to be held in April 2008, will last for 44 days and involve 59 matches.Each team in this league will have a minimum of 16 players, including four international players and four from the area where the team is based. The matches will be played on a home-and-away basis, guaranteeing seven matches at each venue. The matches will be played on Saturdays, starting at 5 pm India time and 8 pm. All matches will be televised and the rights to telecast these matches will be sold through a separate tender. No matches will be played concurrently.The league will be run by a governing council comprising former Indian captains Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi, BCCI office-bearers Rajiv Shukla and Chirayu Amin, Inderjit Singh Bindra, the Punjab Cricket Association president, and Arun Jaitley, the president of the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association. Lalit Modi, a BCCI vice-president, was named as its convenor.Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said the new league would boost interstate cricket. Apart from giving the two state KFC Twenty20 finalists the chance to compete for the overall prize, it would expose interstate cricket stars to international competition and give fans of local state-based teams the excitement of supporting their favourite players on a global stage.

As was widely predicted, Dilip Vengsarkar, the former Test cricketer, wasappointed chairman of the national selection committee. The other new faceon the panel is SL Venkatapathy Raju, the former left-arm spinner, whileSanjay Jagdale, Bhupinder Singh Sr and Ranjib Biswal continue on thepanel.In a separate development Kapil Dev, the former Indian allrounder, hasbeen appointed director of the National Cricket Academy. He replaced SunilGavaskar, whose term ended with the Annual General Meeting, which was heldat the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai. The AGM of the board, normally atwo-day affair, where the main item on the agenda is the election of theprincipal office bearers of the board, ended in less than a day this time.Sharad Pawar (president), Niranjan Shah (secretary), N Srinivasan(treasurer) and MP Pandove (joint secretary) were all re-electedunopposed, and under the revised constitution will serve a term of twoyears. Professor Ratnakar Shetty, who has served as the executivesecretary in-charge, has been appointed the Administrative Head of theBCCI – for five years, which will carry him through to the 2011 World Cupwhich will be held in India – and on a full-time, paid basis.”There will be no elections next year for these posts and the selectorscan get an extension of an extra year after the completion of their twoyear term,” said Srinivasan. Of the five vice-presidents of the board,four – Lalit Modi (North), Dayanand Narvekar (South), Chirayu Amin (West)and Shashank Manohar (Central) – were re-elected, while the incumbent fromthe east zone, KP Kajariya, who did not seek re-election, was replaced byRajeev Shukla.Srinivas Venkataraghavan was appointed the director of the UmpiresDevelopment Programme. “He will have five retired Test umpires, one fromeach zone, to assist him in raising the standard of umpiring, and tofacilitate the standardisation of umpiring in India,” said Srinivasan. Atthe moment India is unrepresented in the ICC’s elite panel, and the BCCIis keen to change this.In the course of the AGM the BCCI also heard petitions from thePondicherry Cricket Association and the Cricket Association of Pondicherryseeking associate membership to the BCCI. “The members decided tounanimously regret the application for associate membership of thePondicherry Cricket Association and the Cricket Association ofPondicherry,” said Srinivasan. The BCCI constituted a committee to lookinto similar applications from other states comprising Shashank Manohar,Sanjay Jagdale, Arun Jaitley, Shivlal Yadav and Ratnakar Shetty.It was also decided that the CK Nayudu Awards function will take place onNovember 4, the same day on which an executive board meeting of the ICCtakes place in India. It was also proposed that the BCCI headquarters, inthe Mumbai Cricket Association premises at the Wankhede Stadium, would beinaugurated on the same day.In another initiative the BCCI will host a South Asian Universitiestournament, to be conducted from February 4 to 8, with university teamsfrom India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh taking part.