Duncan Fletcher has been granted British citizenship after 15 years of trying after Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, stepped in to review his application. All it took was an Ashes series victory, although the Home Office are saying it is just a “happy coincidence” that it occured the day after England’s 2-1 series triumph.The cries for Fletcher to be given a British passport had grown increasingly vocal during the summer as England got closer and closer to regaining the Ashes. However, his application was rejected because he spends more than three months of the year outside the UK.Fletcher, 56, qualifies for British citizenship as both his parents and all four grandparents were born in the UK. But he had been caught out by the small print which says those applying must have lived in Britain for five years, with no more than 450 days outside of the county, including 90 within the past year.But Home Office sources confirmed that it was discovered at least half of his time outside the UK was spent touring overseas with England. A spokesman said: “It is right to say the home secretary used his discretionary powers and it was decided Mr Fletcher deserved to be granted citizenship.” Fletcher must now attend a citizenship ceremony to confirm his new status.
Zimbabwe’s outcast white cricketers, with nowhere to play and big legal bills to pay, are considering staging a rebel tour of social matches across the UK.Discussions have only just begun, but if the tour goes ahead the 15 players currently at odds with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union would play a series of matches against teams such as the wealthy village side Lashings."There are quite a few logistics to sort out," the batsman Grant Flower told The Age newspaper. "But it is a possibility because the guys have got some good marketability in England at the moment."Heath Streak, the exiled former captain, looms as the man most likely to lead the proposed travelling outfit. "I’ve obviously got to make a living," he said."If there’s no resolution to this whole thing then I’ve got to look at making the best of the years I’ve got left in cricket and capitalising so I can get myself into a stable financial position to support my family … I’ve lost a lot of income out of not playing."Apart from the loss of wages, the players’ agent Clive Field estimates their legal bills at around 50 million Zimbabwean dollars. He said funding the players’ ongoing legal skirmish with the ZCU was a prime motivation behind the proposed tour, which was still "very much at the drawing board stage".Hypothetically, if the 15 rebels were accompanied by fellow Zimbabwean exiles Andy Flower, Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson and Henry Olonga they could field a reasonably formidable outfit.The cricketing futures of most of the 15 are at this stage unclear. Streak is playing for Warwickshire, Sean Ervine has moved to Western Australia and Andy Blignaut has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Shane Watson at Tasmania. For the rest, any kind of tour – official or unofficial, rebel or otherwise – might seem a particularly tantalising prospect.
ADELAIDE, Jan 18 AAP – Australian batsman Darren Lehmann was today suspended for five one day international matches for breaching the International Cricket Council’s racial vilification code.Lehmann was found guilty of a breach during a three hour hearing in Adelaide today.Lehmann is the first international cricketer to be suspended for breaching the game’s racial code of conduct.Lehmann was to have been vice captain in the tomorrow’s one day match against England at Adelaide Oval, but national selectors are believed to have summoned New South Wales batsman Michael Clarke as his replacement.The South Australian and Yorkshire captain had already apologised for a racial slur after being dismissed against Sri Lanka in one day match in Brisbane on Wednesday.He offered a verbal and written apologies to the Sri Lankans which were immediately accepted.The Australian Cricket Board instructed Lehmann to also undergo counselling but did not impose a further penalty, prompting the ICC to charge the left-handed batsman under its racial vilification code.
England captain Nasser Hussain can expect a torrid time when his county side Essex take on the Australians at Chelmsford tomorrow.The three-day game is the tourists’ last warm-up match before the First Test at Edgbaston next Thursday – and they intend to make things particularly hot for Hussain who has played just two first-class matches this summer.He is desperate for time in the middle after fracturing his thumb in the First Test against Pakistan; since then he has played just a single one-day game.But any thoughts of a gentle practice tomorrow will be dispelled when he sees that Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee are lining up against him.Adam Gilchrist, who will be captaining the Australians in the absence of Steve Waugh, said: “Obviously the big interest will be Hussain and I can’t see any reason why we would want to try and take it easy on him.”It’s fair to say that we will be fine tuning for a Test Match. We areplaying a strong bowling line-up.”With regards to our quick bowlers playing, they are obviously primecandidates for the Test Match so they are going to want to make sure they aresecuring their spots.”I think that alone is going to provide a fairly torrid time to the Essexbatsmen.”Gilchrist went on: “I don’t know if it would have a psychological effect on Nasser or not, I don’t know him well enough.”But if you go out and bat against a bowler or a group of bowlers and theywork you over and get you out – which is the main thing we will want to dorather than him get time in the middle, I suppose – that will be to our interestin the Test match.”He has obviously had a tremendous effect on their cricket, on their team asa leader and that is probably why they want him back most. He’s obviously done agood job and is inspirational.”Justin Langer will have a fitness test in the morning to see if he has recovered from a painful blow to the wrist while fielding against the MCC at Arundel yesterday.With scores of four and nought against the MCC, the pressure will be on theleft-hander and the same is true of openers Michael Slater and Matthew Hayden,who struggled in the same match.”They haven’t scored the runs and Matty missed out in the one-dayers but wehave confidence that they will come through,” said Gilchrist.”They have all got great records and they have established themselves inthose positions.”In contrast, Simon Katich and Damien Martyn looked impressive in innings of168 not out and 80 respectively at the Castle Ground.”I don’t think there is any need for looking around in panic situations atwho is going to replace who. We have had a consistent line-up for a number ofconsecutive matches now and it would be nice to keep that momentum going.”Teams:Essex (from): N Hussain, A P Grayson, D D J Robinson, S G Law, R C Irani (capt), S D Peters, J S Foster (wkt), M C Ilott, A P Cowan, P M Such, J E Bishop, R S Clinton, M K Davies.Australians: Slater, Hayden, Langer, M Waugh, Ponting, Martyn, Gilchrist (capt, wkt), Miller, Lee, Gillespie, McGrath.
Well there we go, the day we’ve all been waiting for is now gone, with Chelsea and Swansea having played the final game of the opening day of the Premier League season. It was expected that Jose Mourinho’s side would claim all three points – they always do – in their first match, but a 90 minutes of thrills and spills in west London saw Swansea take a point back to South Wales – no more than their performance deserved. Oscar opened the scoring with a cross/shot free-kick before Andre Ayew levelled. Willian then got lucky as his effort looped in, but controversy struck in the second half as Thibaut Courtois was sent off for bringing down Bafetimbi Gomis – who then netted from the spot.
And while the football on the pitch was attracting plenty of attention, there were plenty of fails, funny moments and bizarre incidents to get us all talking on Twitter. So sit back, grab some popcorn and have a good ol’ laugh at the less then fortunate people. We have a whole season of this to look forward to!
Times must be hard for Roman…
New season, new Redknapp?
Courtois suspended… Chelsea fans must be missing Cech now!
Diego Costa or Lego man? Who knows…
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Indian Culture?: The Delhi Daredevils got rid of their cheerleadersa fortnight ago, after complaints that the scantily dressed girls weren’trepresentative of Indian culture. But in their place, you can see twotopless men with faces and torsos painted in red and black, the teamcolours. They dance around the outfield, with a bhangra troupe followingthem. More Indian? We wonder what the crowd thought of that.Helping hands: No bowler enjoys catches being dropped off hisbowling, and the excitable Sreesanth was near the end of his tether as twochances went down in the space of three balls. First Yuvraj Singh spilleda sitter at mid-off to reprieve Virender Sehwag, and then VRV Singhmisjudged a chance at third man after Gautam Gambhir had miscueda drive. Two costly mistakes, redeemed only by the batsmen on the strokeof midnight.Pace isn’t everything: VRV bowled the fastest ball of the match,clocked at 143.2 kmh, and Sehwag responded with a nonchalant swipe overbackward point. VRV’s two overs went for 33, proof that pace alone doesn’tcount for much.Fat men can move: You may remember Wesley Snipes and WoodyHarrelson in , and the rotund Ramesh Powarexploded another myth tonight with a smart running catch at midwicket tosend back the dangerous Farveez Maharoof. He had two wickets as well. Notbad for a debut outing.Yours? Mine? Oops: When Shaun Marsh lofted one high into the dustyDelhi night, Shikhar Dhawan and Shoaib Malik both ran towards the rope totry and snaffle it. With the crowd making such a noise, calls of “Mine”are unlikely to have been heard, and the two men ran into each other.Fortunately, there was no repeat of the sickening Steve Waugh-JasonGillespie collision , and a jubilant Dhawan rose off the turf with theball in his hands.Three strikes, you’re out: Glenn McGrath had been on the money forthe first nine balls of his spell, but then Yuvraj lofted sixes overlong-off and backward square leg to rouse the sleeping Punjab lion. Buthis attempt at three in a row was brilliantly taken on the run [and dive]by Maharoof at long-on.
India were at the receiving end of two contentious umpiring decisions in the deciding match of the series but Rahul Dravid, their captain, didn’t think present-day technology was good enough to aid umpires in all situations.Both Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar were disappointed with their caught-behind decisions and stood their ground after umpire Aleem Dar raised his finger, but Dravid wasn’t in favour of technology being used more often.”I don’t think the technology is good enough at the moment, especially for fine edges, snicks and lbws,” he said. “It is for line decisions and I think there it should stay.”Replays were inconclusive with regard to Dravid’s dismissal, suggesting that there might have been a faint edge after all. “I did not feel the snick at that stage,” he said when asked about the Andrew Flintoff delivery that cut him in half before he had opened his account. “The technology showed that I got a snick and I have to accept it. May be they were right as I did not feel it at that moment because generally, you feel when you snick it. May be this time I didn’t feel it. But I can’t argue with snicko, can I?”There were no doubts, though, about Tendulkar’s dismissal. The bat did not make contact with the ball and television replays indicated that the bat had brushed the pad.India’s administrative manager Rajeev Shukla had earlier said that the team were planning to lodge a protest regarding umpiring standards in this series. “We’ll lodge a complaint with the ICC about the decisions,” Shukla was quoted as saying in . Dravid was expected to furnish an umpires’ report, as all captains do at the end of the series, and said he will convey his thoughts in that report.England captain Paul Collingwood was satisfied with the overall quality of the umpiring despite the number of errors over the tour, starting from the Tests.”I think overall the standard of umpiring has been pretty high,” he said. “There’s been some decisions that probably haven’t been correct at times but we all make mistakes.”
Kenya have only brought in one new face for their series of three one-day matches against an Australian Academy side at Nairobi Gymkhana starting today.Rakheb Patel, a 17 year-old allrounder, was drafted into the 14-man squad after good performances in the Nairobi league. But three of those who were in the side for the recent Bangladesh series – Brijal Patel, Jimmy Kamande and Timothy Muange – were dropped.Also returning are Alfred Luseno, probably Kenya’s fastest bowler, who has missed recent matches because of a shoulder injury, and Nehemiah Odhiambo and Kalpesh Patel.Kenya’s selectors will be watching the top-order performances particularly as it is those that caused so much trouble in recent matches.The second and third matches take place at the same venue at the weekend.
Rawle Brancker has resigned from his post as chairman of the West Indies organising committee for the 2007 Cricket World Cup.Brancker, a former Barbados cricketer, tendered his resignation on Saturday during a meeting with organisers in St. Kitts without giving a reason, according to a statement from the West Indies board. Brancker’s resignation was accepted by Kenneth Gordon, the president of the West Indies board, and the statement also added that several other non-executive directors, who were present at the meeting, also resigned.Brancker took the position in 2003 and there is no immediate word on his successor. Gordon thanked Brancker for his work preparing for the 2007 World Cup, to be held in the region for the first time.Cricket officials will begin another series of meetings in St. Kitts on September 5 at which they are expected to discuss possible replacements.
Andrew Penn has announced his retirement from first-class cricket after a season of injury and frustration. A calf strain at Christmas ruled him out of the Wellington side, and he was unable to regain his place, watching from the boundary as they secured the State Championship last weekend.”I can’t complain when they go and win the Championship but it was still hard not to be a part of it when I thought I was probably good enough," he told reporters. “The season’s been a bit of a nightmare. I was taking wickets well in the first three Championship games only to break down against Auckland.”Penn was an aggressive fast-medium outswing bowler who thrived at domestic level as his career figures show. But although he was a model of consistency, he made only five one-day appearances for New Zealand and was unable to break into the Test side. He won state titles with Wellington and Central Disctricts.Penn, who is a lawyer, made his decision when he joined a new practice and gave them an undertaking that he would not play representative cricket again.