Pakistan’s chance in the World Cup hangs by a slender thread. By the time this column appears in print, we will know whether Pakistan will live to fight another day or the team will return home, probably , one player at a time and with none of the fanfare with which the team left midst high hopes and much muscle-flexing.I want to concentrate on Pakistan’s match against India and put this ‘clash of titans’ in its proper perspective.273 was an eminently respectable score and India would have to bat outstandingly or Pakistan bowl atrociously. In the end, it was a combination of both. The key was always going to be Sachin Tendulkar.The moment of momentum came in Shoaib Akhtar’s first over and more specifically when Tendulkar hit Shoaib Akhtar for six at cover-point. Sachin had thrown down the gauntlet. Shoaib Akhtar went for 18 in that first over and was promptly taken off. The fear factor that Shoaib Akhtar represented had been eliminated.Thereafter, Sachin Tendulkar batted like Sachin Tendulkar at his murderous best. I would have said like Viv Richards but even Richards must have watched that innings with awe. Even as it hurt, one was left spell-bound. It could have been said that he had saved his best for this ‘match’ but so gifted is this young man, that it is entirely possible, that the best is yet to come. Pakistan might have come back into the game had Abdul Razzak held on to a sharp chance when Tendulkar was 32. But that’s the way the rub of the green goes.Shoaib Akhtar did get Tendulkar when he was 98 but by then, the real damage had been done and the Pakistan bowling was a spent force. And Saqlain Mushtaq had once again been left out, the one bowler who could have slowed down the Indian charge. There is the danger of mistaking obstinacy for mental toughness. I have a feeling that Pakistan’s think-tank has not been watching the other matches or not watching them with a critical eye. Once the ball has got soft then pace becomes a liability.The game has to be slowed down and this is done by taking the pace off the ball so that the runs dry up. You need Bichel not Brett Lee. The most vital piece of information was that the World Cup matches are being played at the end of the South African cricket season. The wickets are ‘tired.’ There may be bounce but the tracks are slow. That should have been factored in to the game plan.Just as the batsmen need to adjust, so too the bowlers and the line and length become paramount. In every match that Pakistan played, it gave away extras on an average of some 25 runs and the corresponding extra deliveries. This is unacceptable. Throughout, we have complained about the batting but when the batting came through, it was the bowling that let Pakistan down badly.Waqar Yunus has got a lot of flak. That, unfortunately, goes with the territory. Let’s face it, had Pakistan won the match, he would have been praised to the skies and the mistakes he made would have gone unnoticed. But there’s no getting away from the fact that his captaincy has been far from inspiring. He seems to be stuck in a groove and was too rigid, hence he was not innovative.He settled for a settled tempo, neither able to speed it up or slow it down. Understandably, the biggest disappointment was Shoaib Akhtar. I can’t help feeling that he was his own worst enemy. There is a difference between being a showman and being a loudmouth. I was surprised that he was allowed to make statement which were boastful. He had promises to keep but in the words of the poet, Robert Frost, “miles to go.”But again, he wasn’t the only bowler who was off-target. We are painfully accustomed to batting collapses but in this crunch match, it was the bowling that collapsed.In our disappointment, we should not lose sight of Saeed Anwar’s hundred. He was under tremendous pressure and many had begun to question, if not, mock his selection in the team. He delivered when most needed to deliver. A sobering reminder, perhaps, of Tennyson’s lines: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” It was a superb innings and he handed the match to the bowlers on a platter. Inzamam’s run out showed only that when one’s luck is out, one’s luck is out and nothing goes right.Of course, we are all disappointed but we must be careful that disappointment is expressed in constructive ways. The team was not able to turn around its fortunes. We now need to do an agonising reappraisal but not in the heat of the moment. We need to remember that Pakistan has never won against India in the World Cup and only won the World Cup once.As I write this, only a miracle can keep Pakistan in the World Cup and if that miracle does not happen, we need to go back to drawing-board, calmly, without anger.

Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya has badly bruised his forearm after being hit by a Brett Lee thunderbolt and is expected to miss Sri Lanka’s next game against India on Monday.Jayasuriya was struck by a short delivery in Lee’s first over of the innings and forced to retire hurt as Sri Lanka chased a mammoth 320 runs for victory.The left-hander – Sri Lanka’s highest run score in the tournament with 269 runs in the first six games – was rushed to hospital where x-rays revealed no broken bones in his arm but a fracture in his thumb.The intial prognosis was that Jayasuriya would play no further part in the tournament but the management are now hopeful that the left-hander could return in time for Sri Lanka’s key clash against Zimbabwe next week.”His forearm is badly bruised and x-rays revealed a slight fracture. We will have to wait and see what happens. It is not as bad as we first thought,” confirmed team manager Ajit Jayasekera.A talismanic figure with the bat, as well as an important part of the bowling attack with his slow left-arm spin, his injury is a major blow for Sri Lanka.

The just released findings of the Review Committee set up by the PCB to investigate the performance of the Pakistan team at the World up has done an excellent job – of ingeniously shifting the onus of failure away from the Board. That indeed may have been their unwritten mandate, but can shifting of the blame absolve the Board of any responsibility?To be fair to the PCB, and to General Tauqir, the problems with Pakistan cricket pre-date the recent World Cup, and indeed the present cricket set-up. It is not a question of one match, tournament or a series. The origins of present troubles date back to the match-fixing allegations that surfaced in the early and mid-90s. These sharply divided the team between the whistle-blowers and the accused. The fissures were deepened by lingering rivalries over the captaincy issue along the already existing fault lines and have hung over the team ever since. This is, of course, only part of the problem. The main problem is structural.Pakistan cricket has alternated between spurts of achievement and periods of stagnation and sterile performance, when either the team was in transition when talent shrank and dried up, or it under-achieved despite its capability.To an extent, this has been the story of most other cricket teams as well, that is until recently. But world cricket has changed beyond recognition. And Pakistan unfortunately has not kept pace with it, and this is the other half of the story of what happened at the World Cup, which, I am afraid, the Review Committee has missed entirely.Increasing pressures and opportunities of competitive cricket, the introduction of neutral umpires which has levelled the playing field, and enormous money brought by television and sponsorships is forcing as well as enabling cricket administrators everywhere to organize and run cricket on scientific, efficient and modern lines to stay in the game. It has involved multiple challenges – imaginative organization of domestic cricket, academies and grounds, the appointment of coaches, managers, analysts and physios, training of umpires, and the appointment of selection committees etc. And above all, what is most important, it has helped the delineation and demarcation of everyone’s precise and autonomous role to ensure effective coordination and to avoid over-stepping and intrusion of authority.On a symbolic level it is like all those countless names that scroll by at the end of a movie whose role in the direction, screen play, special-effects, musical score etc significantly contributes to the success or failure of the show. This is not meant to be an extended metaphor, but I am presenting it simply by way of illustration, to make the point.So how can the Board evade responsibility for what happened at the World Cup?I have said before, I am not holding General Tauqir personally accountable, some of whose actions have been good, but certainly a major responsibility for the World Cup debacle and what is wrong with our cricket lies at the door steps of the PCB, its set up and method of operation. But as Imran Khan wrote in his article, there does not seem be an adequate acknowledgement or self awareness of what has happened and that does not inspire much confidence about the future.Our cricket team has been having problems of varying degree ever since the departure of Imran and Miandad. They were extraordinary sportsmen who provided exceptional leadership to the team both with their superior achievement as well as exemplary inspiration and motivation. The team had potential for similar under achievement and infighting then as now but these individuals managed to overcome or transcend these weaknesses.But times were different. Modern cricket has become fierce and brutal. The ways Australians have used the technology to study weaknesses of the opposing players and launch a relentless attack on them virtually strips them naked and demolishes their confidence. After grinding the opponents psychologically, the battle is half won. The opponents are defeated even before they come to battle. The Australians have turned the game into warfare. It is significant that they themselves are very fond of comparing their approach to a surgical operation, as it has become fashionable with them to use the word `clinical’ in describing their match-winning strategy, indeed a term that is now beginning to be parroted by lesser teams as well though not equally convincingly.In Australia we do not hear the coach, selectors and the chief executive or the head of their cricket board giving statements every day. While in Pakistan, everyone is busy contradicting each other and speaking authoritatively or deciding about issues falling in other people’s areas of responsibility. Aussie cricket is being run on professional lines by those who know the game through long and active association. And there is a certain stability, continuity and predictability. Coaches and selection committees, for instance, do not change every day.It is not like in Pakistan where cricket administrators have always been appointed, as I have said before, on the strength of their personal connections with the political leadership of the day. They have always claimed to have great personal passion for the game, which in some cases has indeed been true. But that is where their qualifications begin and end. We all love the game, but does it qualify us to run the game?Since this is a piece about the organizational aspects of the game, I have refrained from discussing individuals, whether players or administrators.I would conclude with a suggestion and here again I am not pointing any fingers of blame or responsibility. I think now that we have had an enquiry into the performance of the team, we need a similar assessment of the PCB itself, especially whether the way it is organized and being run, is it fit to meet the challenges of modern cricket?The roles of all the constituent units and institutions, specially the chief executive, selection committee, the coach, the manager as well as the method of team selection, have to be examined and reformed, where necessary, and the competence of individual officials has to be appraised, and changes made where desirable.There is no better person better qualified to head this task than Imran Khan.Ed: Touqir Hussain is former Ambassador of Pakistan to Japan

Somerset recorded their second championship victory of the season when they beat Glamorgan by an innings and 143 runs at Taunton earlier this afternoon.Resuming on 29 for 1 it was Nixon McLean carrying on where he left off in the first innings who claimed the first wicket to fall, when he tempted Adrian Dale to give a catch to skipper Mike Burns in the slips.His overnight partner David Hemp was next to go, when with the score on 58 he gave a catch to Rob Turner off McLean, followed two overs later by Jonathan Hughes who exited in exactly the same manner to give the West Indian the first three wickets to fall.The next three batsmen fell to the young all rounder Aaron Laraman who accounted for Mike Powell LBW in the twenty ninth over, he then bowled Mark Wallace two over later before tempting Robert Croft into chipping a straightforward catch to Ian Blackwell at mid wicket.Richard Johnson tempted David Harrison into giving a catch to Turner with the score on 111, and then in the last over before lunch Simon Francis took the prize scalp of Matthew Maynard after the veteran batter had scored 30.During the interval the rain fell down, but abated sufficiently for the players to return to the pitch, and in the fourth over of the afternoon session Alex Wharf edged Johnson to give wicket-keeper Turner his eighth victim of the match. Glamorgan were all out for 133 to give Somerset a well deserved victory.In the visitors second innings McLean took 3 for 38, to record match figures of 8 for 81 and take his championship wicket tally this season to 22, whilst Laraman completed a good all round performance by taking 3 for 20 from his six overs.At the end of the game Somerset coach Kevin Shine told me: "We deserved that victory, and we carried it out in a very professional manner .It was the ultimate in team performances with everybody contributing with bat and ball, but if I had to pick out one person then it must be Nixon McLean who bowled magnificently throughout the game."Chief executive Peter Anderson added: "I’m very pleased for the captain and the players who have not enjoyed the best of luck this year. They have played lots of cricket without success but they thoroughly deserved their victory today and well done to them all, it is exactly what was needed."

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Australian squad’s equipment last May in Trinidad has finally been clarified, according to the Trinidad Express.Trinidad police, acting on a tip-off, discovered some of the 35 missing items in a local taxi-driver’s car and house last weekend, and it has been revealed that the culprit was planning to make a bob or two out of the stolen stash as well.The thief was planning to use the pads, bats, gloves and sun-glasses as prizes for a cricket tournament he was in the process of organizing in Couva, central Trinidad. Claiming to be the cricket coach of the Metal Industries Company in nearby Macoya, and wearing an official Australian yellow t-shirt to boot, he approached the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC) and said he wanted to co-ordinate a tournament between the two organisations.To pull the wool further over the NESC official’s eyes, he gave them two white cricket balls, claiming they were a gift from the Australian squad, before showing off the rest of the stolen gear which he had in his car, again saying it was given to him, this time by Matthew Hayden.He then offered the equipment as prizes for the tournament, with a generous cut of the gate money in return.It has since emerged that the crook was hired by the Australian team as part of their retinue, and that he stole the goods while they were temporarily under his supervision at the Hilton in Trinidad. Trinidad police then questioned everyone who had responsibility for the equipment, and after they searched his car and house and found some of the missing items, they duly arrested him.However, he was released two days later after the police said that they could not proceed with the charges without a formal complaint from the Australian Cricket Board.However, Stephen Bernard, the Australian manager, contacted Trinidad-based BWIA airlines to say he would be sending them a list of the stolen items by the end of the week, which will then to be forwarded to the police.

The chairman of Durham County Cricket Club, Bill Midgley, has resigned with immediate effect, following a row with a section of the club membership.Midgley, who took up the post nearly four years ago, had overseen a steady improvement in the club’s fortunes, and last month looked on in pride as the Riverside Ground at Chester-le-Street staged its maiden Test match, against Zimbabwe. But he was considered by some members to have "sold the soul" of the club."Quite simply cricket does not survive on membership alone," said Midgley in a statement. "The role of chairman, of what is a company and not a club, is to look after the interest of all stake-holders – that is you the members, our lenders and our sponsors. That is the reality of the situation, whether members like it or not.”In the circumstances, therefore, I am no longer prepared to spend 30 to 40 hours per week representing members’ interests and trying to ensure the long-term security of Durham CCC. I shall resign, with immediate effect, as chairman and director of the club which I have little doubt will satisfy many of the members who have offered no views on how to repay the Bank the £1.8m we owe to them, whilst securing our own long term security."

Day 1 report
Frizzell County Championship Division One
Division One TableKent 384 for 4 (Smith 203, Walker 92*) v Lancashire
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Ed Smith continued his hot streak of form for Kent with his third Championship century in a row, as he became the first batsman to pass 1000 runs for the season. Smith took only 114 balls to reach three figures, while his double-hundred came off 255 deliveries. His 196-run third-wicket partnership with Matthew Walker (92 not out) ensured that Kent ended the first day on top. Lancashire were without England’s Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson, and their attack melted in the Stanley Park sun. Eight bowlers in all were used with Carl Hooper wheeling through 37 overs to finish with 2 for 104, while the former England legspinning hope Chris Schofield had a nightmare spell, throwing down a host of looping full tosses and long-hops.Warwickshire 315 for 7 (Brown 113, Frost 84) v Middlesex
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An enterprising 209-run stand for the sixth wicket between Tony Frost (84) and Dougie Brown (113) rescued Warwickshire from a perilous 100 for 5 at Southgate. Middlesex struck back in the closing stages, dismissing both Brown and Frost with the total on 309, but Warwickshire ended the first day at a relatively safe 315 for 7 with honours just about even.Sussex 51 for 0 v Leicestershire 320 (DeFreitas 103, Mushtaq Ahmed 5-93)
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Phil DeFreitas scored a 116-ball hundred to lift Leicestershire to 320, after they had slumped to 127 for 5. It was DeFreitas’s tenth first-class century and he added 96 for the seventh wicket with Jeremy Snape (36) and 69 with Charlie Dagnall (15 not out) for the ninth. For Sussex, Mushtaq Ahmed continued to weave his magic as he wrecked Leicestershire’s middle order with 5 for 93, and poor old DeFreitas was wrecked too as he had to take time out to recover when Sussex began their reply.Frizzell County Championship Division Two
Division Two TableYorkshire 340 for 6 (McGrath 86, White 82*) v Durham
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Anthony McGrath enjoyed his return to county cricket with 86, as Yorkshire ended the first day on a comfortable 340 for 6. Steve Harmison did the early damage with the ball, dismissing both Yorkshire openers cheaply, but McGrath began the recovery which was carried forward by an undefeated 143-run stand between Craig White (82 not out) and Andrew Gray (60 not out). Shoaib Akhtar, however, had a quiet day as he finished wicketless from his 14 overs.Glamorgan 436 for 9 (Maynard 129, Dale 123) v Hampshire
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Adrian Dale (123) and Matthew Maynard (129) both scored centuries against a Hampshire attack sorely missing Wasim Akram. They were also without their senior spinner, Shaun Udal, and had to draft in Richard Hindley, an offspinner from a local league club. Hindley finished with 0 for 46 from 9 overs as all the bowlers struggled to keep the Glamorgan under control. Dale and Maynard led the way and shared a partnership of 129 for the fourth wicket as Glamorgan raced along at more than four an over and brought up the highest total of the season at The Rose Bowl.Worcestershire 155 for 6 v Derbyshire 163 (Mason 5-43)
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Sixteen wickets tumbled in 101 overs of play as Derbyshire hit back after being bowled out for a paltry 163. Mohammad Kaif top-scored for Derbyshire with 31, but Michael Mason’s 5 for 43 gave Worcestershire the early advantage after they had lost the toss. By close of play, Dominic Cork had dismissed Worcestershire’s top three, and with Graeme Welch chipping in with a couple of wickets, Derbyshire were back in the game.

Trevor Hohns, the chairman of the National Selection Panel, has been awarded life membership of Queensland Cricket at the 2003 Annual General Meeting.The delegate council appointed Hohns as the latest Life Member in honour of his exemplary service to the sport as a player, coach and administrator.A star schoolboy performer for Sandgate-Redcliffe, he made his first grade debut as a teenager in 1969-70 and his first class debut for Queensland in 1972-73.He became a regular member of the Queensland team and made his State captaincy debut in 1982.Hohns toured South Africa as part of two “unofficial” Australian tours, in 1985-86 and 1986-87, taking 9-125 in the third international in Durban on the 1986-87 tour.After serving a two-year ban from first class cricket, he made his national debut against the West Indies in Sydney in 1988-89 and played five Tests on the 1989 tour of England that saw Australia regain the Ashes. He took 17 wickets at 34.11 on that tour.Hohns returned to lead Queensland in the 1990-91 season, his final in first class cricket. He is one of the members of the Queensland 100 Club, playing 120 first class games for his State.In all, he scored 5210 career first class runs and took 288 wickets in his 152 matches.He became a national selector in 1993 and became Chairman of the National Selection Panel in 1995.Hohns served as a Queensland Cricket Vice-President from 1992 until 2002. He was a also a member of the Queensland Cricket Executive Committee in 1987 and 1988.Queensland Cricket President Damien Mullins SC praised Hohns’ professionalism and dedication, singling out his willingness to stay active in coaching juniors at a grass-roots level while dealing with the expectations of serving as a National selector.Tonight’s meeting was told that Queensland Cricket had recorded a profit of $338,204 in the wake of last season’s lucrative Ashes Test and One Day International Series in Australia.

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.”

County Championship round-upWhen you’ve got a maiden Championship title at stake, there’s nothing quite like sealing it in style. And in Mushtaq Ahmed and Murray Goodwin, Sussex found two players with the perfect sense of occasion.On the first day, Mushtaq became the first bowler for five years to take 100 wickets in a County Championship season. He reached the landmark with his first wicket, that of Leicestershire’s Brad Hodge with the last ball before lunch, on his way to 4 for 71.The last bowlers to take 100 wickets in a season were Andrew Caddick for Somerset and Courtney Walsh for Gloucestershire in 1998. The last spinner to reach 100 was Northamptonshire’s Anil Kumble in 1995.Mushtaq’s efforts put the destiny of the Championship beyond reasonable doubt, but it took a supreme innings from Goodwin to set the champagne corks a-popping. When Chris Adams finally declared at 614 for 4, Goodwin had lamped a wonderful 335 not out. It was the first triple-century of his career, and appropriately enough for such an historic day, the highest first-class score in Sussex’s history. The previous record of 333 had belonged to KS Duleepsinhji, set against Northants at Hove in 1930.At Headingley there’s plenty at stake as well, with Yorkshire needing a victory to secure promotion to the first division. Damien Martyn duly followed up the fastest first-class century of the season by reaching 200 in record time against Gloucestershire. Martyn’s hundred came off 65 balls, with 15 fours and four sixes, beating the previous-fastest, Bilal Shafayat’s 100 in 73 balls for Nottinghamshire against Durham UCCE on the second day of the season.Martyn’s innings looks likely to secure him AON’s £5000 prize and the Walter Lawrence Trophy for the season’s fastest hundred. If so, it will be the first time in the history of a competition which started in 1934 that the winning innings has been scored at Headingley.Martyn’s double-hundred took only 128 balls (including 32 fours and seven sixes). Again, it was the fastest of the season, beating the previous best of 134 balls, set only last week by Ian Blackwell for Somerset against Derbyshire.