Mohammad Sami, the Pakistan fast bowler, has said he would play against India with a positive outlook and the will to prove his critics wrong that his temperament was not suited for international cricket. Sami, 24, said while carrying out bowling exercises advised to him by former Pakistan captain and great Imran Khan on Friday that he had been boosted with the positive remarks about him made by Imran. “It has not been easy for me. People tend to look at my averages but don’t see how many Tests I have played abroad or at home on generally batting tracks. They don’t see the number of times luck has simply not supported even some good wicket taking balls,” he said.But Sami said he had always been encouraged and supported by his captain, coach and teammates and Imran’s visit to pass on some advice to him had come as a big confidence booster for him before the series against India. “It is a big series for me, no doubt about that. I know there are expectations from me and I need to take more wickets. But I have had some good spells and after some tips passed on by Imran I am positive about the coming series,” Sami said while targeting one stump with the new ball.Imran specially visited the Pakistan camp at the National Cricket Academy here on Friday and spent over an hour working with Sami, whose selection has been criticised by many critics and some former players who point out to his Test bowling average of 46. Sami has taken 65 wickets in 24 Tests and another 105 in 74 One-day Internationals. Sami said getting advice from Imran had come as a big help and he learnt one or two new things from the former fast bowler. “But he made it clear to me what line of attack I should adopt and spoke about the importance of being disciplined in the basics of fast bowling,” he added.Sami said he was looking forward to the Tests against India despite their strong batting line-up. “I am preparing myself for the challenge because they have some quality batsmen. But I am confident because I have bowled a lot to them in the last two years and I have got a feel of their individual batting traits at the crease.”

Over eleven hundred runs scored, only eight wickets taken and over half the number of scheduled overs lost to rain and bad light; only two subjects were ever going to be talked about at Inzamam-ul-Haq’s post-match press conference – the pitch and the weather.Inzamam denied rumours that Pakistan’s batsmen had asked for a flat pitch. “I always want to have sporting wickets, where fast bowlers, spinners and batsmen all have a chance,” he said. “In today’s Test matches, it’s not just that one team scores 400, another team scores 400 and the match is drawn. ODI cricket and the pace means that batting is so quick, if you get90 overs in a day then there shouldn’t be draws. The wicket has to be better than this.”But Inzamam was also quick to point out that the pitch shouldn’t take any credit away from the batsmen, six of whom scored centuries and three of whom did it at more than a run a ball. “On this type of wicket, it is difficult to contain run-making but the credit should go to the batsmen aswell because even though it was so flat, they have to bat well and score runs.” But he insisted that batsmen won’t have it this easy in the remaining Tests. “They will have some confidence definitely but I don’t think a wicket like this will be seen again for this series.”He also pointed out that his bowlers didn’t perform as well as they might have done, although it is unlikely changes will be made. “The wicket wasn’t so flat that over 400 runs are scored for the loss of only one wicket, the bowlers will also have to bowl a little better than this. Wewill keep the same team for Faisalabad. ” Ultimately, however, too many questions – most of them not dissimilar – prompted Inzamam to reveal that “I am a captain not a groundsman.”As both teams now make the short journey to Faisalabad, Inzamam said his bowlers will take their pre-series confidence with them, despite the hammering they received here, but also hinted that the weather may yet continue to play its part. “The weather was a disturbance obviously andFaisalabad isn’t too far away so there is a chance of disruption there as well. There were so many stoppages here that we weren’t getting any rhythm but I don’t think there will be any effect on the confidence or morale.”He also had praise for Virender Sehwag, although typically, it was brief and to the point. Pakistan have yet to find a way to mute Sehwag’s boisterousness and he has now made over a thousand Test runs against them, including a triple century and two double centuries in consecutive Tests.”We have tried to find ways of stopping him, but it isn’t working. If a batsman like him gets a wicket like this, then it is difficult to contain him.”

Points table
Group A
Pakistan beat New Zealand by eight wickets
Scorecard
BulletinGroup B
West Indies beat South Africa by seven wickets
Scorecard
BulletinGroup C
India beat Sri Lanka by four wickets
Scorecard
BulletinGroup D
Zimbabwe beat England by two wickets
Scorecard
Bulletin

Chris Gayle may rue hitting a powerful six in the second innings at Auckland as it was a hit that not only lost the ball, but could have cost his side the game. The match-turning incident came midway through the fourth day of the first Test between West Indies and New Zealand at Eden Park, resulting in West Indies frittering away a great position.The big-hitting Gayle, who put on a 148-run opening stand with Daren Ganga, swung Daniel Vettori into the stands, losing the ball in the process. Alarmingly the replacement cherry started to reverse swing, something the New Zealand bowlers were unable to extract with the previous ball. From having all wickets intact and needing just 143 to win, West Indies were rattled by the reverse-swing and crumbled to a close 27-run defeat.Shane Bond, the wrecker-in-chief with four quick wickets, including that of Brian Lara, acknowledged the turn-around provided by the replacement ball. “The turning point was Chris [Gayle] whacking the ball up on the roof and we got a new ball and it reversed a few overs later and we exploited it well, we never gave up and we got the result,” Bond told AFP.Stephen Fleming, the New Zealand captain, concurred: ”We were able to get more swing and put more pressure on them. We finally started to hold our catches and we got into them a bit. ‘Shane Bond bowled very well with the swing he was able to achieve and that let us get wickets and keep the pressure on.”Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the West Indies’s captain, also reckoned the change of ball made a difference. ”I don’t want to say much about that but the new ball did swing around,” he added. ”The lost ball was 35 overs old and this ball was 12 or so but there’s not much I could say about it.”

Despite the best efforts of the Sri Lankan board (SLC) to draw in crowds for the series against Pakistan, including giving free entrance for the first Test, the Pakistani players are not pulling in the spectators.Just a few hundred people showed up on the first day of play in the Test here on Monday after rains washed out the opening day’s proceedings, SLC announced free entry for some of the spaces inside the Sinhalese Sports Club in a bid to draw in the crowds. Unfortunately for them even this move has not worked although the Pakistan Cricket Board enjoyed better results with this ploy during their home series against England and India earlier this season.”The problem is that except for two or three players there are no glamorous names in both teams at the moment and to make matters worse Sanath Jayasuriya, who is a genuine crowd puller, also didn’t score runs in this match,” a home board official said. “Historically India draws the biggest crowds followed by Australia and England. Pakistan was a popular team when Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were playing. But now the team except for Inzamam-ul-Haq doesn’t have any big names. We’ve no doubt had fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar been playing we would’ve got better crowds for the one-day series and the first Test.” He said that Shoaib remained a popular player in Sri Lanka whom people paid to watch in action.However, a senior journalist said the local board had also messed up things by holding the first two one-dayers at the Premadasa Stadium and charging as much as 5000 rupees for the grandstand. “With the Sri Lankans not doing well in recent times why would people pay this amount to come and watch them,” he asked.The Sri Lankans are now looking forward to the tour by India and South Africa later this year and a triangular one-day series involving both teams to attract big crowds once again. Perhaps the extreme humid and hot conditions have also played their part in the keeping away the crowds as at times the weather can get suffocating.But while the Sri Lankan board might not be earning from gate money receipts but they are well off thanks to a long-time lucrative sponsorship deals including US$50 million for the sale of television rights until 2008. Which is why the nine players who have been given central contracts by the board get paid a top monthly salary of 300,000 rupees (US$2800) besides the senior ones like Jayasuriya and Muralitharan also get paid match fees according to seniority basis, with the highest slab being approximately 600,000 rupees (US$5600) per match.

Suggestions circulating inside the US to the effect that the ICC would again withdraw recognition of the USA Cricket Association because of its failure to meet certain deadlines have been dismissed.While the ICC did impose deadlines, and ICC spokesman pointed out that none of these were imminent.The conditions under which the USACA was readmitted to the fold were as follows:

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Batsmen from both teams struggled – Bangladesh against a subtle change of pace and Australia against left-arm spin – but Adam Gilchrist’s brutal brilliance made the difference and spurred Australia to a victory that was in little doubt after the 10th over of the chase. Gilchrist’s assault came after a disciplined bowling performance by an inexperienced attack had dismissed Bangladesh for 195 in the first one-day international at Chittagong.Gilchrist’s whirlwind 76 off 46 balls blasted away a huge chunk of the target before Bangladesh’s spinners came into play. Australia galloped to 96 off 10.5 overs but after Gilchrist’s dismissal the remaining 99 runs took 33.1 overs to get. Abdur Razzak applied the brakes with his left-arm spin, taking 3 for 36 and Mohammad Rafique, though wicketless, conceded a miserly 14 runs in ten overs. Eventually, Michael Hussey and Brett Lee steered Australia to victory but if not for Gilchrist’s blitz, it could have well been Bangladesh’s match.Australia started cautiously, only 11 runs came off the first three overs. In the fourth over, Gilchrist exploded. A slap through covers, followed by a fierce cut off the back foot and a drilled drive down the ground made it three fours in a row off Mashrafe Mortaza. Three more fours came off Syed Rasel’s next over and in the sixth, Gilchrist rocked back and man-handled Mortaza by carting him high and far over midwicket for the first of five sixes. In that same over, he miscued another attempted six and the top edge swirled down to long leg where Syed Rasel floored a crucial catch. Rasel had to bowl the very next over and Gilchrist rubbed it in by clouting another six to bring up his fifty off just 29 balls. Habibul Bashar brought on Razzak but Gilchrist hammered him for two sixes over midwicket. He eventually did get Gilchrist out, trapped in front while attempting a slog-sweep, but the proverbial horse had bolted several overs ago.Though all this carnage, Simon Katich remained a spectator, accumulating 14 off 22 balls as it rained runs at the other end. He miscued a pull off Mortaza to midwicket soon after and Razzak trapped Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting with arm balls in quick time. Michael Clarke’s run-out reduced Australia to 155 for 5 and gave Bangladesh a window of opportunity. But Razzak and Rafique had finished their overs and Bangladesh couldn’t find that extra something to pounce on the jugular.While Australia had to scrap for their runs against quality spin, Bangladesh’s batsmen brought about their own misfortune by playing indiscrete shots at inappropriate moments during what was a rudderless innings. To play out the new ball and take advantage of Australia’s inexperienced support bowlers, should have been the plan but Bangladesh’s top order had other ideas. Dan Cullen was making his debut and Mitchell Johnson had played just two ODIs, but Bangladesh lost two wickets each to Brett Lee and Nathan Bracken before the 20th over and were unable to put the untested bowlers under any sort of pressure.Only Bashar showed the needed concentration during a gritty half-century but by then there were hardly any batsmen left to follow his example. After opting to bat on a flat deck with a speedy outfield, Bangladesh made an ideal start by scoring 26 from the first three overs. Then Bracken, who conceded 13 off his first over, began to cleverly change his pace and conceded just nine off his next five overs. Saleh’s top-edge off Bracken to third man was the first of several rash strokes and soft dismissals.

The runs dried up at one end but Aftab Ahmed had no trouble in maintaining a healthy strike-rate at the other. While Aftab was playing stunning shots like the swivel pull off Johnson that sailed over deep square leg for six, Mohammad Ashraful, normally a flamboyant batsman, struggled to even rotate strike and his frustration ended with a failed attempt to clear mid-off. Aftab’s wicket, spooning Lee’s slower ball to point, left Bangladesh struggling at 79 for 4. Such was their plight that when Cullen was introduced on his ODI debut, he bowled two consecutive maidens.Bashar and Khaled Mashud added 54 for the sixth wicket, the only partnership of note in the innings. Though he didn’t score at a rapid pace, Bashar bound the innings together in the middle overs. His stumping off Hogg in the 43rd over snuffed out any hopes of Bangladesh posing a challenge during the slog and hastened the collapse.Had Bangladesh snared Gilchrist early, 195 may have been enough. But they didn’t, and his innings made all the difference.

BangladeshRajin Saleh c Lee b Bracken 7 (26 for 1)
Shahriar Nafees c Gilchrist b Lee 16 (33 for 2)
Mohammad Ashraful c Cullen b Bracken 5 (52 for 3)
Aftab Ahmed c Clarke b Lee 30 (79 for 4)
Tushar Imran c Gilchrist b Hogg 20 (117 for 5)
Habibul Bashar st Gilchrist b Hogg 52 (171 for 6)
Khaled Mashud b Mitchell Johnson 27 (182 for 7)
Mashrafe Mortaza c Gilchrist b Hogg (185 for 8)
Mohammad Rafique c Hogg b Symonds 8 (194 for 9)
Syed Rasel c Gilchrist b Symonds 0 (195 all out)
AustraliaAdam Gilchrist lbw Razzak 76 (96 for 1)
Simon Katich c Bashar b Mortaza 18 (101 for 2)
Andrew Symonds lbw Razzak 0 (109 for 3)
Ricky Ponting lbw Razzak 14 (133 for 4)
Michael Clarke run out Ashraful 16 (155 for 5)
Hogg c Razzaq b Tushar 7 (174 for 6)

How can it take longer to purchase tickets to a day’s cricket then it can to watch it? Cricket Australia has done extremely well to alienate the Australian public. Couldn’t they have staggered the release of tickets to avoid such a debacle? I guess that is too logical. Ticketmaster isn’t entirely blameless either; it is a regular occurrence for its website and phone lines to get overloaded when they sell tickets for a major event.Ben MaroneyAt 9.01am I made the first of probably 100 phone calls to Ticketmaster, it was busy. At 11am I was annoyed, but not angry at the non-loading web page and busy phone line. But by 1pm, I was angry and now, at FOUR O’CLOCK, I am not one step closer to having a ticket and feel like tearing my hair out. I must say a big warm-hearted thank you to Cricket Australia for inviting me into their family. How about next year we, the fans, organise the family banquet? Surely we couldn’t do any worse of a job.Morgan GibsonI’ve had to give up after nearly six hours of busy signal and servers down. How on earth did other people get through? Sadly, I don’t like my real family much, but my newly adopted one doesn’t like me! Absolutely ridiculous, Cricket Australia. I doubt I will ever try to attend a match again thanks to you. Not just a disappointed cricket fan.Chris WrightI don’t think I’ve ever been as upset about anything as I have with this experience. The anticipation and excitement of having an opportunity to book in advance remained unabated until around 10am. I was ready and had done all my homework and from 9am I was consistently, non-stop, trying the phone and the internet. I think I now have RSI. After 60 minutes of `pages not available’ and Ticketek’s irritating message I got through …YES! I was delighted. I could see celebrations in the street and much adulation from my wife. I eagerly put in my membership number and got through to the Venue Tix page – yes you read correctly, I had ended up in Adelaide, but of course I didn’t know till my membership number had been accepted. The end result was good though – well, fairly good. I did eventually get on to the Sydney booking and I even was able to use my membership number. The only problem nothing was that nothing was left.Paul BuckinghamEvery year I purchase tickets day-night ODI in Sydney and the event is used as a family reunion. This year I was again “hanging-out” to purchase tickets. Can you imagine my surprise and disappointment to find out about the new “cricket family” system and not being able to join and take advantage of this system because I missed the deadline. The deadline I didn’t know about. Cricket Australia has alienated me and others like me. I do attend other first-class cricket matches during the course of the season as well. Maybe I should organise my annual family event at the Adidas International tennis event in Sydney. It’s hard to remain loyal to cricket when you’ve been slapped in the face.Michael LangleyAfter waiting so long and being sold out within hours, I won’t be watching cricket anymore. If that’s the best the administration can do they don’t deserve Australian supporters.Ken MangravitiWhy did we bother registering if we can’t get tickets for the Ashes? I will naturally look towards the ODIs, but it’s the Ashes that we all want to see. I am going to keep trying, but I am going to be spitting chips if I don’t get two tickets for my wife and I to go together.Steve BrayIt’s the greatest failure in Australian cricket history. I gave up after our hours of trying to get onto the website to purchase tickets. It’s easier to fly to England and wait for the next series there than it is to get any tickets here. I’d saved my work leave and fully intended travelling interstate to all the test matches. But its impossible to get tickets.Ian KenyonI will be extremely annoyed if on the second of January I sit down on my lounge chair to watch the game and see the Barmy Army watching the game live at the SCG. I guess time will tell.Glen GallagherObviously there were a lot of sickies today as getting tickets are impossible. Mind you I did get through once only to find there were no tickets on that day – then the next, then the next. Obviously I was doing something wrong else there is some unfair advantage somewhere. David Flint I skipped my second last day of university, when I should’ve been studying for final exams, to sit in front of a computer with a phone in my hand all day. After hours of an engaged phone, “Ticketmaster busy” error screen and even my mum making a last minute ditch to go to an actual Ticketmaster store, I was greeted by an “Allocation exhausted” message. My mates have gone to every opening day of the Gabba Test since we could legally drink. This year was going to be our first five-day experience. I am annoyed. They’ve been touting this for months and constantly reminding us to get in early. You think they would’ve been ready for the response they we’re boasting about.Allan AllportI called Ticketmaster at 8:58am exactly to see if the lines had opened up early, but they were shut. I rang back three minutes later and it was engaged, and I heard nothing but that engaged signal for the rest of the day. Somehow, with two computers operating at a furious pace pressing refresh every five seconds, we were able to, in the space of six hours, book the tickets that myself and my group required for this summer’s action. Strangely enough, I encountered no problems booking tickets for the Adelaide and Sydney Tests. However, Ticketmaster were a disgrace. I would sometimes stand with the phone to my ear and press on, redial, end, on, redial, end for twenty minutes or half an hour at a time without a break at all, and all I would hear is the engaged signal. My arms started to cramp! Not happy Cricket Australia, or Ticketmaster.David GallichioFolks, Ticketmaster have dropped the ball. Absolutely useless. I have missed hours of work today attemping to buy Melbourne test tickets and I haven’t even got close. They knew exactly how many people were going to apply and they didn’t take any steps to ensure good service. How are we meant to support our country when our own ticketing companies obviously don’t want us to be there? They should lose their contract for this debacle.Dan McMahonAfter reading the stories from other not so lucky buyers, I consider myself fortunate to have managed to get tickets to all five days of the Adelaide Test. I too started at 9am and by virtue of a work phone conference was able to keep clicking till about 11:30am, when I was finally able to get in and purchase day five. Not so lucky were my friends in Sydney who didn’t manage to get a single ticket for their annual day at the Sydney test. I’ve suggested to them that they come to Adelaide. Peter KelleyAfter patiently waiting in front of the computer screen for 9am to roll around, I was met by a sequence of “unavailable” screens. I managed to proceed through to the purchase tickets page after 30 minutes, only to have the system go down and an ultimatum of having to start again! Forty minutes further and two glorious day-one Boxing Day reserved tickets are now mine! I can assure you that they will be going nowhere near ebay!JacqeleneFrom the CA web site: “The Australian Cricket Family is a new initiative from Cricket Australia that aims to reward loyal cricket fans” … I don’t think so! After wasting the day with mouse in one hand and phone in the other, I’m left wondering if CA will help me purchase one of the many Ashes tickets already listed on Ebay for $550! Some reward!Andy Chambers, former Australain Cricket Family memberYou would think after the problems faced by Football Australia, who were unable to cope with demands for tickets to the Fifa World Cup, Cricket Australia would have learnt a thing or two. But no. After six hours of trying, the only page I managed to get to says that Ticketmaster’s system is currently busy. If they couldn’t cope with this, then perhaps a bigger company should have been put in charge of selling the tickets, because quite frankly this is just amateur stuff. Cricket Australia and the method used by their ticketing agencies amounts to nothing more than a lottery that rewards neither the loyal customer who has been turning up for years or new members who have been caught up in the post 2005-Ashes bandwagon. Life just isn’t fair.Ganesh BalendraThe ACF’s been a great initiative by Cricket Australia – the only two things I could suggest could have been improved is that the ticket releases for each match could have been scattered, and the limit of ten tickets per day could have been reduced to six or eight to stop scalpers. It was a great initiative in order to give more Australian fans a chance to get to the games. At the end of the day, demand exceeded supply and there was never going to be a situation where everyone could be pleased. I may be a little bias now that I have my tickets.Matt CossI have no problem with the system chosen to get tickets out to Australians – I think the cricket family was a good idea. But I cannot understand how CA and the ticketing agencies have not been able to cope with the demand. They knew before today that they were going to have to cope with 128,000 people accessing the system, potentially at the same time, and had plenty of time to prepare their systems to cope. I have been trying to access the system both via computer and phone for five hours and 20 minutes today without luck. I’m sure a creative lawyer out there could have a field day with this! Oh well – the best seats in the house will be at my house. Andrew HornWhen I got through to Ticketek, I was told the ACF allocation had been exhausted. However, I was also told that the majority of seats will be on sale when general public sales commence. Thus, at the SCG, some 22,000 tickets (or more) remain per day.For the fair dinkum Aussies who are desperate to catch even one day of the Ashes, and registered with the family, why haven’t more tickets been allocated to us? Now we have to either jam the phone lines, crash the internet, or line up in the wee hours of the morning all over again, along with the rest of the public. I am disappointed now, but will be even more so if I miss out to someone who never bothered to register with the ACF, and just got lucky.Andrew Rutherford

Lashings World XI 292 for 4 in 41.3 overs (Tendulkar 147, Richardson 95, Pope 3-61) drew with Reigate Priory 197 for 7 in 51 overs (Gale 64, Drakes 2-12)
Scorecard

Sachin Tendulkar continued his comeback from injury with a second successive century for Lashings World XI in a charity match against Reigate Priory in Surrey on Sunday.Tendulkar made 147 off 109 balls before retiring, while Richie Richardson, the captain, hammered 95 as Lashings raced to 292 for four in 41.3 overs.Jon Gale scored an unbeaten 64 and Alex Richard added 31 to Reigate’s total of 197 for 7 in 51 overs, but by then most of the crowd’s attention was on England’s World Cup match taking place in Germany.Tendulkar is scheduled to play three more matches in the coming fortnight for Lashings

Rao Iftikhar Anjum, the Pakistan fast bowler, has returned home mid-way through Pakistan’s tour of England after hearing news of his father’s death on Sunday.Zaheer Abbas, Pakistan team manager, said that the entire Pakistani squad was saddened by the death of Rao’s father and the management made hectic efforts to send the player back to his home town.Rao came to England as a replacement for the injured Mohammad Asif. He did not play the first Test at Lord’s in which Pakistan played Mohammad Sami and Umar Gul but took two wickets in Pakistan’s seven-wicket win in the tour match against Northamptonshire. Zaheer said that Pakistan would not be asking for any replacement for Rao.”Almost everybody who can be in the Pakistan team is here and if any such player is not already with us, that means he is injured. I mean, we don’t have anybody left to try out any more,” said Zaheer.Pakistan decided against net practice at Old Trafford on Monday in a bid to give their players some much-needed rest ahead of the second Test starting on Thursday. “Some of our players needed more rest so we have decided to have the nets tomorrow,” said Zaheer. “The boys have now fully settled down. Players like Younis Khan, who faced injury problems earlier on this tour, are now completely fit and looking forward to play in the next Test.”Younis did not play in the Lord’s Test because of a knee injury he sustained earlier this month. Zaheer said Abdul Razzaq, who suffered from a minor back problem on the final day of the Lord’s Test, was also almost completely fit and would take part in the nets session on Tuesday.