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Anil Kumble will lead a 15-member Karnataka squad to take part in the Ranji Trophy Super League.Rahul Dravid’s presence in the squad, along with those of veterans Sunil Joshi and Yere Goud – who joined Karnataka last season after 11 years with Railways, is expected the bolster the squad. All eyes will be on Dravid, who has an opportunity to regain his form after being dropped for the first two ODIs against Pakistan.The selectors decided to stick with experience – C Raghu, B Akhil, Barrington Rowland and Thilak Naidu retaining their places in the squad. The player to watch out for will be KP Appana, the left-arm spinner. He had a successful tour to Sri Lanka with the India Under-19s and has taken 21 wickets at 24.66 in six first-class matches.Vijay Bharadwaj, the former India player, will coach the team after Rajesh Kamat, the original appointee, had joined the Indian Cricket League. The squad were part of 35 probables who had a 13-day conditioning camp at the Infosys campus in Mysore from October 13.Karnataka open their Ranji Trophy campaign by taking on defending champions Mumbai in a four-day match at the Wankhede Stadium starting on November 3.Karnataka squad
Anil Kumble (capt), Rahul Dravid, Yere Goud, C Raghu, Sunil Joshi, Barrington Rowland, NC Aiyappa, B Akhil, KP Appanna, Srinivas Dhananjaya, Thilak Naidu (wk), Devraj Patil, KB Pawan, Sudhindra Shinde, Vinay Kumar
Coach: Vijay Bharadwaj

Alastair Cook and James Anderson are being flown in to India as cover for an injury-hit England side. They will arrive in Nagpur tomorrow to join the England side ahead of the first Test beginning on March 1.Cook and Anderson, part of the England A side touring the West Indies, had been put on stand-by to join the England squad in India as injuries and illness continue to hamper the senior tour. However, the need of the hour has forced the England management to press the red light button. The pair flew out of the West Indies, where the first Test is being played, and landed in the UK yesterday.Andrew Walpole, the England team spokesperson, clarified the news at the start of the third day’s play of the tour match at Vadodara. He did not confirm whether any of the current England squad will be returning home.Michael Vaughan (knee), Paul Collingwood (back) and Simon Jones (virus) were ruled out of the current warm-up match against a Board President’s XI, while Kevin Pietersen joined the casualty list after retiring hurt with back spasms. Liam Plunkett was also unable to bowl on the second day after picking up a bruised heel.Cook was added to the England squad in Pakistan when Vaughan succumbed to his knee injury ahead of the first Test at Multan. He has already hit form on the A tour, scoring 101 in the warm-up match against an Antiguan XI. Anderson went wicketless, but towards the end of the one-day series in Pakistan showed signs of a return to form.

Australia’s coach, Tim Nielsen, believes his players need to buck up their ideas and refocus after a lengthy winter break. The side has now headed to India for a series of seven ODIs, followed by a one-off Twenty20 match at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai that has suddenly taken on added importance following India’s triumph in Johannesburg on Monday.Nielsen, who took over from John Buchanan at the end of Australia’s victorious World Cup campaign in the Caribbean, conceded that his side had not treated the Twenty20 tournament with enough respect. Following a humiliating loss to Zimbabwe in the opening game, Australia eventually succumbed to India in the semi-finals.”Twenty20 is a showpiece event now,” Nielsen told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Before, there wasn’t really much consequence to losing a one-off Twenty20 game as there was compared to a Test or one-day series. But that all changes when there is a tournament structure in place.”[Complacency] may have been a factor until we got beaten by Zimbabwe, and that straightened us up real quick. We had a bit of bad luck. We were coming off a break, and it would have been better if we had been a little more cricket-fit. We’re more aware of that now, and we’ll be better prepared next time.”The teams reconvene in Australia over Christmas and the New Year for four Tests followed by the Commonwealth Bank Series, which also features Sri Lanka, and Nielsen believes that the forthcoming tour is the perfect opportunity to put one over the Indians before their visit.”This is a great chance for us to get the wood on them a bit,” Nielsen said. “It’s important that we make an impact here. We’ve been pretty disjointed up to now, with our preparation and some injuries, so the challenge is there for us. When we get out there for a one-dayer and are facing three-and-a-half hours in the field, it’s going to feel like a Test match. Everyone will have to adjust their thinking.”

Ireland have gone to the top of the ICC Associate ODI rankings after the previous leaders Scotland were beaten by Kenya at Mombasa.The rankings, which indicate how the five teams below the top 11 are faring, look set to change further over the coming weeks with the ICC World Cricket League and World Cup on the horizon and with all these sides set to play a large number of ODIs.Kenya’s victory by a margin of 192 runs dropped the Scots’ win rate down to 71%, four percentage points below Ireland. Scotland will get the chance to repair some of the damage on Thursday, though, when they take on Canada at Mombasa as part of an ongoing ODI Tri-Series. Victory in the fixture will take Scotland level with Ireland at the top, while if Canada win they will move off the bottom of the table, above Bermuda into fourth place.ICC High Performance Manager Richard Done said: “The ranking system is in place now to provide an opportunity for the top Associate teams to rate themselves in relation to their immediate competitors.”It also provides a context to the ODIs which they now play and gives them a constant benchmark and incentive to improve. But more than that, it gives them a definite pathway towards qualification for the LG ICC ODI Championship,” he continued.The rankings were set up in 2005 following the ICC Trophy, when the top five were awarded one-day status ahead of the 2007 World Cup. The countries are Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands. Kenya are not part of the competition, but results from matches against them count towards the Associate rankings table.

Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute have been released without charge some 36 hours after they were arrested by police in Harare. The Attorney General’s office ruled that the pair had no case to answer. They were arrested on Monday night and charged with offences under Zimbabwe’s tough Exchange Control Act.But Chingoka and Bvute will not attend today’s stakeholders meeting called by Ahmed Ebrahim where it is expected that there will be an attempt to remove them from office. “How can I attend meetings I haven’t been invited to,” Chingoka told Reuters. “I do have a bit of etiquette.” Ebrahim claimed he has made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the pair.Their release does not change the reality that both remain deeply unpopular among many factions inside Zimbabwe cricket, and if they remain the crisis is likely to drag on.

All those who have classified Virender Sehwag as an exciting one-day strokeplayer who does nothave the temperament for the longer game had better think again. Sehwag showed today, as hehas in the past in Tests at Bloemfontein, Trent Bridge and Mumbai, that playing strokes andbeing judicious are not contradictory qualities. He played with the discretion of a quintessential Test player today, while hitting everything that was hittable.His 128 came off 212 balls at a strike-rate of 60% – not quite as belligerent as his one-dayperformances, but pretty much the rate the dominating Australians play at most of the time.Consider where his runs came. Sehwag is normally a fluent strokeplayer in the point region andjust behind – while he gets a lot of his runs there, he had also got out on occasion slashingto gully. Stephen Fleming played to this tendency of his: in the first Test, Fleming sometimeshad three gullies and a third man for Sehwag, and he followed a similar policy this time.Sehwag’s response: to eschew all shots in that region. Only three of Sehwag’s 128 runscame in the point region – so much for all of Fleming’s gullies. This is an astonishingstatistic that indicates the thought that Sehwag has put into the game, and his capacity forself-denial – an essential characteristic in any Test player.

As many as 53 of Sehwag’s runs came in the cover region, 23 came in the midwicket region and32 in the V between mid-on and mid-off. The 22 full-length deliveries bowled to him went for37 runs and the 18 short balls he received went for 17 – Sehwag, with his superb range ofshots, took full toll of the loose balls he received. Fleming might have plugged the pointregion – but what about the rest of the field.

Division One

Yorkshire capitulated in the face of tight, controlled Lancashire seam bowling but ended the third day just 16 runs adrift of the follow-on target with that man, Jason Gillespie, providing another dogged tailend performance. Not for the first time this season, the Lancashire captain Mark Chilton turned to Tom Smith for a breakthrough who duly provided, bowling Matthew Wood for 13. And when Luke Sutton caught Matthew Lumb off Smith’s bowling, Yorkshire had stumbled to 99 for 3. Darren Lehmann and Anthony McGrath rallied with a fourth-wicket stand of 57, but Lehmann was outdone by Gary Keedy’s flight, allowing Sutton to whip off the bails. With the dangerman gone, Yorkshire collapses from 156 for 4 to 198 for 9 until Gillespie (39*) and Deon Kruis (21*), the No. 11, edged Yorkshire up to the follow-on target. If this last pair can knock off the final ten runs needed to avoid the follow-on, the game is as good as safe with just one day to go.Durham made slow but steady progress on the second rain-affected day against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, but nevertheless made the most of their time in the middle to reach 332 for 6. Jonathan Lewis and Gordon Muchall extended their promising partnership last night, nothing up a vital hundred stand before Lewis was trapped lbw by Paul Franks. Gary Pratt batted cautiously for his 26 before Dale Benkenstein played the anchor innings, adding useful stands of 64 with Pratt and 47 with Gareth Breese. After a brief rain delay, Benkenstein was trapped in front by Mark Ealham for a patient 73 shortly before the close.

Division Two

Michael di Venuto could only add a further three runs to his overnight 90, but two excellent hundreds from Steve Stubbings and Travis Birt has put Derbyshire into the comfortable position of 399 for 6 on the second day against Leicestershire at Derby. Di Venuto fell to David Masters for a fine 93, and the same bowler accounted for Chris Taylor (23) soon after. However, Stubbings continued where he left off last night to bring up his hundred and, together with Birt put on 148 for the third wicket to hand Derbyshire the advantage.Yet another hundred from Mark Ramprakash, together with useful and aggressive lower-order contributions has put Surrey in complete control of their match against Worcestershire on day two at The Oval. Ramprakash was in belligerent mood, cutting powerfully and lofting a huge six. He and Butcher (74) shared in a third-wicket stand of 156 before Ramprakash was bowled by Kabir Ali for a magnificent 118. Rikki Clarke then took up the attack in a brisk, and all too brief, 38, containing two sixes and four fours before James Benning smashed a 54-ball 52 as Surrey declared on 501 for 7. In reply, Worcestershire raced to 54 without loss, trailing by 446 runs.

Michael Vaughan has dismissed suggestions Australia have gained a psychological advantage having staved off defeat at Old Trafford. Only a tenth-wicket stand lasting four overs between Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath kept the series at 1-1 at Manchester on Monday.”We’ve been talking about psychological advantages and disadvantages throughout the whole summer,” Vaughan said. “We will arrive at Trent Bridge next week fully focused and hoping to go 2-1 up. What we do know is we can take a lot out of this last game because we dominated four days of Test cricket against the number one team in the world.”However, Shane Warne told the England missed a big chance at Old Trafford and would have been disappointed not to be beat Australia in the final over. “They’ll be thinking, ‘should we have declared earlier?’,” he said. “Ashley Giles won’t be happy with his performance getting 0 for 90-odd on a spinner’s paradise on the last day of a Test to win a game. There’s a few individuals that aren’t performing.”Vaughan said the team had bounced back and shown a lot of character since Lord’s. “It can be hard to produce two performances on the trot of such high-intensity and high-pressure cricket but we have,” he said. “I really do hope the two final games are as good as the last two because the series deserves that.”Since inheriting the Test captaincy from Steve Waugh 18 months ago, Ricky Ponting has not faced anything like the extended challenge of the past fortnight. “There are only two Tests to go so we better start getting things happening pretty quickly,” he said. “I don’t think there will be any personnel changes as far as the batting goes because all the guys are in good form and we have just made errors in judgment at times.”

John Buchanan, the Australia coach, has no qualms about seeing his side’s ageing attack involved in back-to-back Tests against England. Australia are 1-0 up after Lord’s, but there is just a two-day gap scheduled between the second Test, which starts at Edgbaston on Thursday, and the third Test at Old Trafford.Before this Ashes campaign got underway Matthew Hoggard, the England seamer, questioned whether the 35-year-olds Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne could stand up to the rigours of back-to-back games. The pair took 15 wickets between them at Lord’s, a match where McGrath joined Warne as one of only four bowlers with 500 Test wickets.McGrath’s long-time new-ball partner Jason Gillespie is also the “wrong” side of 30, as is Michael Kasprowicz, his rival for a Test place, while Brett Lee is 28. By contrast the left-arm spinner Ashley Giles is the only frontline England bowler over 30.”These next 14 days are pretty crucial to the whole tour,” Buchanan said. “One of the aspects of playing back-to-back Test matches is the fitness and mental toughness of individuals in both teams. It’s a pretty big issue. The weather will dictate that a bit. There’s no doubt that a team that is fit and mentally strong will have some advantage by the end of these two games.”Everybody will be tested if that’s the case, particularly bowlers. But one of the strengths of our side has been we are able to front up game after game. I don’t see at this point in time it being any different. If you’re in a winning frame of mind, a confident frame of mind or you are playing well, that confidence aids your physical recovery and therefore also your mental strength.”If England play as well as they can play, potentially I see a little bit of a rollercoaster ride. But if we play the way we know we can play over this period of time, and there are good signs that we will, then I would expect to come out certainly in front by the end of this 14-day period.”Buchanan refused to be drawn too deeply into commenting on the media storm surrounding Giles. The spinner hit back at his critics on Monday with a bizarre newspaper column where he demanded “more respect”. “I’m not here to tell England how to cook their eggs,” Buchanan said. “I don’t know Ashley Giles and obviously there’s been a lot of talk about him and from him in the lead-up to this Test match. We look at the way England unfold their strategy and he’s one part of that.”

Mudassar Nazar has arrived back in Kenya and is set to resume his coaching duties despite reports that he was about to turn his back on the country.Mudassar was the Kenya Cricket Association coach, but given the deep-rooted problems blighting the board, it was thought that he would not return from a break in Pakistan, and he had been linked with a vacancy at Pakistan’sa academy in Lahore.But Mudassar reportedly resumed his coaching duties at the Aga Khan Sports Centre earlier in the week, with Alfred Boi Njuguna, the man named as Cricket Kenya’s coach, working as his assistant.The pair have less than three weeks to get the side ready for the ICC Intercontinental Cup match against Uganda on April 22 to 24 at Kampala.At least they will have a full side to pick from. At the weekend the striking players said they were willing to play again following an agreement by the KCA to hold elections in May.