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India seamer Zaheer Khan has announced his retirement from international and first-class cricket. He will, however, continue to play in the IPL for one more season.With 610 international wickets, Zaheer finishes as one of India’s most successful bowlers, being the fourth-highest wicket-taker for India across formats. He has the second-highest wickets tally – 311 – for an India seamer in Tests, behind Kapil Dev’s 434. Zaheer, though, played few international matches in recent years after being dogged by injuries. An injury he sustained to his bowling arm in May 2014 had put him out of action for a long time, although he managed to play seven games in this year’s IPL.While his final Test was against New Zealand in Wellington early last year, his last ODI was more than three years ago, against Sri Lanka in Pallekele. He ends his international career with 92 Tests, 200 ODIs and 17 T20Is to his name.In a statement, Zaheer thanked his team-mates in the various sides he played for, and said his greatest moment was winning the World Cup in 2011. “Cricket has been my only life over the past two decades and is in fact the only thing I know well. Cricket has made me the individual that I am, giving me everything in life and much more. I walk away with fantastic memories, life-defining experiences and great friendships. My mother summarised it well in reaction to my decision: ” (fair enough, I had a wonderful journey).He traced his journey “as a kid from the small town of Shrirampur (Maharashtra)” to his stint at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 1996 and at the MRF Pace Academy to his eventual debut for India in 2000. Referring to a favourite newspaper headline, he hinted at his future plans, saying, “Zak is back’ is perhaps a headline that may come my way again as I have every intention of giving back to this game.”Zaheer finishes his Test career with an average of 32.94 and ODI career with 282 wickets at 29.43. After his international debut in 2000, his most prominent performance in Tests came on the England tour of 2007 when he finished with 18 wickets at an average of 20.33. In ODIs, he played a vital role as the leader of the pace attack during India’s victorious 2011 World Cup campaign with 21 wickets to finish as the join-highest wicket-taker.”He feels with a hurt shoulder he cannot bowl at his best for him to perform at international level consistently, so he has decided to call it a day,” Zaheer’s mentor Sudhir Naik told ESPNcricinfo.”He served Indian cricket with remarkable passion and commitment,” BCCI preisdent Shashank Manohar said in a release. “Being a fast bowler in the Indian sub continent is challenging but he led the bowling attack with distinction and contributed significantly to the success of Indian cricket .I wish him all the best for the future.”

Newcastle fans aren’t too sure what to make of this week’s striker links, after the club has been linked to both Fernando Torres and Bas Dost.

It seems like the Magpies have been linked to Bas Dost about a hundred times now, but they do say there’s no smoke without fire.

This time, it’s Portuguese outlet Record (via TalkSport) that are claiming Dost is open to leaving Portugal this summer, after grabbing an incredible 24 goals in 24 league starts.

The towering striker was reportedly the subject of a huge bid from Newcastle last summer, so fans have been here before and aren’t all that convinced by the fresh links.

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Fans are however getting very excited about the prospect of signing Fernando Torres.

After being linked with a move for the 34 year-old Spaniard in January, the Magpies have this week been moved into 6/1 favourites to sign Torres when his contract runs out this summer.

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The Atletico Madrid legend has managed seven goals in nine starts this season, and fans love the idea of teaming him up with Rafael Benitez again, who brought him to Liverpool back in 2007.

Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…

Andrew Strauss’s arrival in New Zealand has been delayed after flight problems at Johannesburg airport. He was due to make his debut for the Northern Knights on Wednesday, but that has now been pushed back to the clash against Otago on Sunday.Strauss had been on a family holiday in South Africa but after boarding his plane the main door would not close properly. The subsequent delay meant that he was unable to make it to New Zealand in time for the match against Canterbury.The stint in New Zealand, where Strauss will play in the State Shield and Twenty20 tournaments, had been organised with the aim of pushing for an England recall. That has now already happened after he was named in the 16-man Test squad for the tour of New Zealand in March, so his domestic stint is a chance for him to acclimatise before joining up with the squad.

Brad Hodge will replace Ricky Ponting at No. 3 © Getty Images

At the start of the CB Series there were mutterings about Australia’s outfit being so dominant – and the opposition so poor – that they would quickly regain the world record one-day score. While part of the belief is Australian chest-beating after the Ashes cleansweep and a strong limited-overs start, Adam Gilchrist insists scores of 400-plus will become more common as a flow-on effect from Twenty20.Gilchrist, who will lead the side against England in Brisbane on Friday, is likely to have a strong say in any massive Australian total and is convinced they will get bigger. “I do believe 400s are going to become parts of the game,” he said. “Slowly but surely they may become the norm, but they’re a little way off yet.”Batsmen are power hitting earlier and Twenty20 is going to show teams how expansive they can be.” However, he does not expect too many repeats of Australia’s mind-blowing game against South Africa last year when 872 runs were scored in 99.5 overs and Australia held the world mark for only an innings.As Gilchrist talked in the Gabba gym he was asked by Angus Fraser, the former England seamer, whether it was a good thing for the game if the batsman had an unequal advantage. “I can’t see why bowlers have got such a raw deal,” Gilchrist said. “The powerplay changes it a lot, but there was always an overs restriction. The bowlers will adapt and they are adapting. Looking at bowling now in one-day cricket compared to 20 years ago, they are smarter about it.”Australia will regain two of their most knowledgeable fast men for Friday’s match with Glenn McGrath cleared of a groin problem and Brett Lee recovering from a chest infection that ruled him out of the first two games. The pair’s inclusion forces Ben Hilfenhaus out of the squad – he will play for Tasmania in the Pura Cup game against Queensland in Hobart – and Stuart Clark and Brad Hogg will also be missing.

Brett Lee has recovered from a chest infection © Getty Images

McGrath was rested for the 105-run win over New Zealand in Hobart on Sunday and did not bowl in the nets today. “They are just managing his workload and monitoring him closely,” Gilchrist said. “We’re sure he’s 100% fit.”Gilchrist will captain Australia for the 14th time in one-day games as he replaces the resting Ricky Ponting, and he downplayed the prospect of the side’s invincibility. “There’s every chance we could lose a game to England or New Zealand,” Gilchrist, who will play his 250th ODI, said. “It’s the nature of one-day cricket. That’s what we’re trying to guard against.”Not for a minute are we thinking we have wrapped up this tournament. Far from it. But if we maintain the standard and keep progressing we shouldn’t lose too many.”Australia 1 Adam Gilchrist (capt, wk), 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Brad Hodge, 4 Michael Clarke, 5 Andrew Symonds, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 Cameron White, 8 Brett Lee, 9 Nathan Bracken, 10 Mitchell Johnson, 11 Glenn McGrath.

Inderjit Singh Bindra: shaking up the game © Getty Images

The England & Wales Cricket Board are emerging as key players in the gradual restructuring of cricket’s world order, after talks between David Morgan, the ECB chairman, and Inderjit Singh Bindra of the BCCI resulted in an agreement in principle for the two countries to play each other every alternate year.As two of the biggest drawcards in the world game, it would be an itinerary that replicates the Ashes scenario of a home-and-away cycle over four years, and India are keen to increase the frequency of their clashes with Australia as well. The situation is being closely monitored by the ICC, who last week went out of their way to remind India of their commitment to the Future Tours Programme, which requires all countries to play one another over the course of a five-year cycle.England, for their part, are keen to forge closer links with India, the new powerbrokers of the world game who are responsible for 60% of the game’s global income. “We’ve had exploratory discussions and are very interested,” a spokesman for the ECB told Cricinfo. “We believe [such a situation] would be mutually beneficial.”But equally, the ECB remain keen to stay on the right side of the ICC, who are in danger of being marginalised by India’s increasingly confrontational attitude to the FTP. They have threatened to withdraw from future Champions Trophy tournaments, and are increasingly adverse to hosting unprofitable series against the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Last week Bindra told a press conference in Mumbai that Bangladesh would be afforded “meal allowance only” if they were ever to take part in a Test series in India. After five years of Test status, India is the only country they have yet to tour.”All cricket boards have to honour their ICC commitments,” Morgan emphasised to The Daily Telegraph, although with an ICC Board meeting looming next month, the prospect of a rejigging of the FTP is very much on the cards. “We’re moving to a six-year cycle for our Future Tour Programme and, within that, countries can play each other more frequently,” Ehsan Mani, the president of the ICC, told The Daily Telegraph. “The Indians don’t have to re-invent the wheel.”Under the ICC ten-year plan, England had originally been pencilled in for a Test tour to Bangladesh in February next year – a short stop-over between the Ashes and the World Cup. But such is the fixture congestion of the modern-day tour, this was simply not a realistic option. “The first match of the World Cup begins on March 5, and our tour of Australia could finish as late as February 13,” explained an ECB spokesman. “There’s simply no time.”It is little wonder then, given the fixture overload that will require England’s cricketers to be on international duty for more than 300 days in the coming 12 months, that the ECB are proving receptive to these new proposals. “We’ve always wanted to develop closer ties with India,” Morgan concluded. “This was on our wish list that we gave to the ICC. They have a middle class which is as big as the entire population of the United States. Bindra was pushing at an open door.”

ScorecardGuyana beat Trinidad and Tobago by 148 runs in the round-six Carib Beer match at Albion. Guyana, who dominated the game throughout, were made to struggle until the final hour of play, thanks to a maiden first-class century from Denesh Ramdin and middleand lowerorder resistance from T&T. Guyana moved to joint 2nd position with Windward Islands on 34 points amd T&T were left in 5th position with 24. Reon King, the pick of the bowlers, snapped the last wicket to end with four for 78. T&T were boosted by a strong performance from Ramdhin, who hit 107, and the injured opener, Imran Khan, who batted at No. 8, chipped in with 46. Dwayne Bravo, the T&T allrounder, only added 12 to his overnight 28. Damodar Daesrath, the Guyana vice-captain, picked up three for 38.Jamaica 448 (Bernard 102, Pagon 84, Jeremy 5-77) drew with Leeward Islands 510 for 9d by 62 runs
ScorecardPlay was abandoned on the fourth day without a single ball being bowled due to heavy overnight and morning showers.

New Zealand, under interim coach Ashley Ross, are going to great lengths to replicate the conditions that they are likely to face on their tour of India next month, and their final training camp – at Christchurch next week – will feature noisy headphones and dirty pitches.Ross is trying to acclimatise New Zealand’s players to every scenario they are likely to face on Indian grounds, developing their mental strength by looking at how other experts, such as violinists and chess players, learned to cope with stress.”We’ve done similar things in the past before heading to India and Sri Lanka and the players are always receptive to new ideas that are going to make them better players,” said Ross to .The batsmen will practice on indoor artificial pitches with dirt, string and paper sprinkled on them. Ross is also keenly aware of noise levels in Indian stadia; at a recent coaching programme, he had a group of 10-year-olds shout constantly for 15 minutes at Matthew Sinclair when he was batting. At the camp, batsmen will don headphones under their helmets, and CDs with sudden noises will play through them during batting sessions.”The basic concept is looking at different ways of stressing our athletes,” Ross said. “If they can survive batting in an unpleasant training environment then it has to help their mental strength.”

Brendon McCullum made scoring look easy for Otago at Carisbrook against Northern Districts in the State Championship match today, but it proved a false dawn.While he scored 50 off 60 balls, in the attacking fashion he has already become renowned for, he wasn’t able to maintain the scoring rate and was out with the score on 63 and the only other batsman on the team able to match his final total was Craig Cumming who scored 56, but off a more sedate 144 balls.Otago’s final total of 215 was a disappointing return, although similar to other returns for teams all around the country on the first official day of the season.Chris Gaffaney scored 22, but the Otago effort overall was not as convincing as it would have wanted to produce.The Northern Districts attack took a pasting from McCullum initially, but with his departure came back well with Bruce Martin finding he was able to get good reward with his left-arm spin to take three for 24 from 10.3 overs.Joseph Yovich and Ian Butler both received some early tap but Yovich, especially, responded well with three for 55.James Marshall ensured ND had a good start to its bid to build a handsome first innings advantage by getting to 45 not out from 76 balls by stumps on what was a drawn out day with play going well after the scheduled finish time of 6pm.Mark Bailey was 12 not out as ND reached 69/1 by stumps. Otago’s solitary success with the ball was achieved by Evan Marshall who secured his first wicket after being out of first-class play for five years.

Graeme Smith, the former South Africa captain who took charge of his country’s Test fortunes as a callow 22-year-old in 2003, hopes that Jason Holder can put the team politics to one side when he takes over as West Indies’ Test captain for the first time in Sri Lanka next month.Holder, 23, was named as Denesh Ramdin’s successor for the two-Test series that gets underway in Galle on October 14 after displaying impressive leadership credentials at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year. Coming only months after a pay dispute led to West Indies’ withdrawal from their tour of India in October 2014 – a move that landed the WICB with a multimillion dollar bill for compensation which is still being thrashed out – the team battled back from an early defeat against Ireland to reach the quarter-finals, where they eventually lost to the finalists, New Zealand.Despite his tender years, Holder has already received the endorsement of one of the region’s greatest players, Brian Lara, who praised his “demeanour” during that tournament and likened his stature to that of a young Clive Lloyd.”Clive Lloyd was not the best batsman, he was not the best bowler back in the early 70s but you could tell that a lot of the players respected him,” Lara told ESPNcricinfo ahead of the Help for Heroes charity match at The Oval. “I hope that Jason gets the same respect from the players, and also the board. He finds himself in a very tough situation where there are unhappy players but if the board give him the support that he needs and he can express himself, then he can become a very successful captain.”There are no better role models for young captains than Smith, whose tenure began against the backdrop of South Africa’s humiliating early exit as hosts of the 2003 World Cup, and with the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal still an open wound for many of the country’s leading cricketers. He went on to lead South Africa for 11 years and a record 109 Tests after being appointed at an even younger age than Holder.However, Smith recalled how he had been forced to learn on the job in the early years of his captaincy and warned that Holder would face as many challenges from outside the dressing-room as from within it.”I think he’s got to understand the unique challenges within West Indies cricket,” Smith told ESPNcricinfo. “From my perspective I had to do that in South African cricket also. It took me three or four years to come to terms with it.””I think when I was 26, I had captained South Africa for four years and I only really started figuring it out then. I think that next period was probably my best period as captain, when I understood my team, the type of players I had, myself as a leader, and how I wanted the team to play.”Smith sustained his authority in the intervening years through his sheer weight of runs, not least his extraordinary scores of 277 and 259 in the opening two Tests of the tour of England in 2003. But, by his own admission, he “bumped his head” as a leader on several occasions, not least during a feisty one-day series in 2004 when he was outmanoeuvred by New Zealand’s veteran captain, Stephen Fleming.”The sooner [Holder] learns his own strengths and weaknesses, the better he’ll be able to lead that team,” Smith said. “We all know West Indies has the unique challenges. I wish him all the best but we all know it’s not going to be easy.”Smith added that the best means of sustaining his authority and escaping the pressures caused by the inter-island rivalries that have often beset cricket in the Caribbean was for Holder to foster a team environment that protects and nurtures West Indies’ competitive spirit.”You’ve got to separate the two,” he said. “You have to understand and manage that space as well as possible outside, but if you can protect that environment, you can get those players playing for you and get the most out of them.””The minute the two environments leak [into each other], when there’s a lot of politics, it’s tough. He’s got to find a way of galvanizing that environment, and create a culture within that team space where the players want to play for him, want to do well, and separate the two in many ways.”Lara praised the selectors for the appointment of Holder, but reiterated the need for the WICB to follow that move up by backing their captain. However, he also believed the new leader would be fully capable of looking after himself.”He’s a tall, good-looking guy,” said Lara. “Nobody would have backed Clive Lloyd into a corner back in the day, looking for a fight. I don’t think anyone is going to back Jason Holder into a corner. I think he’s going to get a lot of respect from his team-mates.”

Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero will be fit to play against Aston Villa on Saturday, but Roberto Mancini is weighing up whether to risk the attacker.

The Argentina international has had a scintillating start to his time in England, but suffered an adductor strain in the 4-0 win over Blackburn in the Etihad Stadium outfit’s last game.

With a crucial fixture against Villarreal in the Champions League coming up on Tuesday, the Italian coach may rest his in-form frontman.

“Sergio could be ready for Saturday but I don’t know if we will take the risk. I am sure [he will be] 100% for Villarreal on Tuesday,” he told the side’s official website.

City’s form domestically has been good, but with only one point from two games in Europe, the English team need a victory against their La Liga opponents in midweek to keep their chances of progression alive.

Ironically enough, if Mancini does decide to rest Aguero for the Villa clash, the side are short of options in attack, with Carlos Tevez not currently being considered.

Mario Balotelli may be able to deputise however, as he seems to have shaken off a back knock that prevented him from inclusion in Italy’s Euro 2012 qualifiers with Serbia and Northern Ireland.

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By Gareth McKnight

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