An expectedly upbeat Tom Moody, the Sri Lankan coach, hailed his bowlers for cleaning up South Africa for a paltry 169, adding that the pitch was likely to get slower as the match went on. Mickey Arthur, his South African counterpart, admitted to some opening-day nerves but blamed his batsmen for an “ordinary” display.”If we won the toss we would have batted first,” asserted Moody when asked about South Africa’s decision to bat. “Runs in the first innings are crucial. If we had the opportunity to bat first we would have made a good feast of it. This wicket looks a little bit different than the one against Pakistan. That wicket had more grass coverage and more root. There was a lot of seam movement in the first two days of that Test match. This wicket is a lot more placid and slow in pace. It might even turn slowly as the game progresses. Murali likes to bowl first here because it does bounce more. He was not unhappy for us to lose the toss. He bowled superbly today.”Moody reckoned that the middle session had proved to be the most crucial part of the day. “We bowled particularly well in the middle session,” he continued. “We got the early break straight after lunch and that broke the backbone of their top order. That was significant from our point of view particularly since South Africa went in with the option of losing one of their top order batsmen for an all rounder in Hall. Making that double break straight after lunch was significant. The way that Murali was bowling and Dilhara bowled we made inroads throughout their innings.”Dilhara Fernando’s fine burst complemented Murali’s magic and Moody hailed the hard work he’d put into his fast bowling. “He’s made vast improvements. It’s not a new thing. Dilly’s been working very hard in the last 12 months. Since I’ve been here he’s worked hard on a number of aspects on his bowling. He’s had no-ball problems in the past but most fast bowlers in world cricket have that problem. He’s overcome that through hard work, working on a number of different drills that helped. It’s not an instant fix. The decision to leave him out of the England tour for the Test matches was maybe the wake up call. He really may have needed to say ‘now, this is the time to really get it right and work extremely hard’. His confidence is very high. He is going to go from strength to strength. He showed how effective it is to have someone who can bowl 90 mph coming as first change.”Arthur, while mentioning how disappointing a day it was, preferred to dwell on the positives. “There was a fair amount of soft dismissals,” he added. “We never got going and we were slightly tentative. There were a lot of nerves in the dressing room this morning obviously coming into a series like this from guys who haven’t played under conditions like this before. The guys were feeling nervous and tentative and it came out in our batting unfortunately. We never seemed to get the momentum going. We were caught between being positive and being mindful of Muralitharan. It certainly wasn’t the way we planned to play.”A performance like today helps a lot. It actually shows the approach that we don’t want to play. I want us to play with freedom. We had one bad day in office but we got four days to come back. I am not looking for excuses but we lost two senior batters. It was quite difficult for the younger guys coming into a Test match looking to secure places. We discussed playing Murali from the crease but it didn’t work out that way. It’s all part of our learning process.”The only batsmen who countered Murali with any degree of confidence was AB de Villiers. “I enjoyed every second of my innings,” he said at the end of the day. “I was under a bit of pressure when I came in but that’s what I like. Murali is one of the best bowlers in the world, if not the best. I still like to keep my thoughts positive and go at him. All bowlers must be put under pressure and that’s where the bad balls come in. That’s the way I am going to play and hope it will come off. If you let him bowl at you and are not willing to score, you are in trouble.”

Recalled to the Indian one-day side for the first time since April 2005, Dinesh Mongia, the left-hand batsman, says he will not make the same mistakes that cost him his place in the side. With the tri-series in Malaysia, also featuring Australia and West Indies, due to start in early September, Mongia admitted he would curb his aggression and convert good starts into big scores if given the opportunity.”I was getting good starts. I should have made use of those opportunities and should have converted those 30s and 40s into bigger scores,” he told . “Now, I have worked on it. Being a professional cricketer I should always think positively. Once I start thinking negatively, the negativity will creep into my game. Life is not fair always.”Mongia, 29, enjoyed a successful county stint with Leicestershire, making runs and taking wickets. His selection, as the selectors admitted last month, was also based on his ability to bowl a few tidy overs of left-arm spin. By Mongia’s own admission, it is this feature which could mark him out as a key allrounder. “It was in 2002 that I thought of taking up bowling seriously,” he said. “In the Australian team that played the World Cup in 2003 everyone were allrounders. I knew that the future belonged to allrounders.”Mongia was also quick to point out that there were aspects of his game that needed sorting out. “I am not ashamed to accept that I was lacking fitness when I made my debut in 2001,” he said. “I would like to improve my fitness. We did not have the National Cricket Academy those days [when he made his first-class debut in 1995-96]. I built my confidence after three or four first-class seasons. I am a firm believer that the more you play the better you get.”

Muttiah Muralitharan attributes his recent good form to the abuse that he faced during VB series in Australia this January. “If there is one thing that maybe has helped me this year it was the experience I had in Australia,” Murali told Bigstarcricket website.”It may sound a strange thing to say as it was a very tough tour for me on and off the field, especially with the abuse we received.”Murali was greeted with chants of ‘no-ball’ by Australian crowds during the series. He was first no-balled at Melbourne by umpire Darrell Hair in Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia in 1995.”If you go through difficult times and come out the other side, you become a stronger character for it,” Murali said. That’s what happened to me. I like to think that I am quite strong mentally anyway. But these sort of experiences only make me more determined.”Murali has had a phenomenal run of form the past year collecting 108 Test wickets at an average of 19.37, from 15 matches between September 2005 and August 2006. But in one-day cricket during that period, Murali has got only 36 wickets from 28 matches. “Cricket is like this, wickets can come all at once and at other times you can bowl well and maybe not receive your rewards,” Murali said.”I am in some good form but I wouldn’t say it is necessarily the best form of my career. I am just bowling well and have found some good rhythm. For the last year I have bowled well and I haven’t done anything different in these series than at other times,” he added.

Tickets for next year’s World Cup that are bought on internet auction sites or from unauthorised outlets will not be honoured and people risk being turned away from matches.Some tickets are already appearing on sites such as eBay and have been receiving bids of more than twice their face value. A package of four tickets for matches in Barbados, with a face value of $US900, had attracted bids higher than $US1900 with a day left in the auction.Stephen Price, the World Cup commercial manager, said officials are working with eBay and internet monitoring services to work out who is selling tickets. “We’re telling people before they make a bid on eBay that those tickets won’t be valid,” he said. “We’re trying to protect people from price gouging.”Price added that the problem had first been noticed last month and that the number of tickets being offered online is in the hundreds rather than thousands.People who have bought any of the 800,000 tickets that are available through official channels won’t have received them yet as mailing only starts in January. “People are selling tickets they haven’t even received yet,” Price said.

Justin Langer has scoffed at suggestions the Australia team is too old to pose a threat to England during the Ashes. Ian Botham and Dennis Lillee have both argued that the home side’s starting 11 for the first Test, which should include at least six players aged 35 or over, could be Australia’s undoing.Langer, who turns 36 next week and is the oldest of Australia’s batsmen, was one of the players lampooned by England’s newspaper as part of an Australian “Dad’s Army” photo. He said such criticisms worried him less now than in the past. “I’m better at handling it now than I was six or seven years ago,” Langer told .”I understand how it all works with the media so I don’t get too caught up in it. I say to people who reckon I’m past my best, in my last few first-class matches I’ve made my highest first-class score [342 for Somerset] and made 188 not out [against Victoria].”Langer, who topped Australia’s batting averages in the 2005 Ashes series, was struck on the helmet by Makhaya Ntini in the South Africa series earlier this year and then missed Australia’s tour of Bangladesh. “Last year was the toughest year I had for four or five years because of injuries, which I’ve never had before,” Langer said.Despite debate about the age of Australia’s team for the opening Ashes Test on November 23, Ricky Ponting said it was unlikely the in-form Phil Jaques, who is 27, would play. “I wouldn’t have thought so, no,” Ponting told the . “[Phil’s] doing everything he can, but Justin’s the incumbent and he’s been doing such a great job for Australia over such a long time, I think that would be unrealistic.” The Australia team for the first Test will be announced on Thursday.

Michael Kasprowicz will today make his comeback from a back injury that has kept him out of the game for eight months. Kasprowicz will line up for University in Brisbane club cricket as he works his way towards full fitness.He has not played a first-class match since early April, when he and Brett Lee carried Australia to victory in the third Test against South Africa at Johannesburg. But a disc problem that he picked up in that game, combined with a groin strain he sustained during Australia’s boot camp in August, has hampered his chances of playing a role in the Ashes series.Kasprowicz said he would strictly limit himself to ten overs in his comeback match. “Even if I’m on a hat-trick on the first ball of my 11th over I’ll say ‘no’. I want to get it right,” he told . “It’s the biggest setback of my career, for 18 years of first-class cricket.”But he will increase his workload next weekend with two days of grade cricket and he hopes to be available for Queensland’s Pura Cup game against South Australia in two weeks. Kasprowicz said he had not given up hope of again playing for Australia. “Nothing will change,” he said. “I’ve always concentrated on doing well for Queensland and when I enjoy doing that other things happen.”

The powerful Asian bloc is set to nominate Sharad Pawar, the Indian board’ chief, for the ICC presidency, a top BCCI official said on Wednesday. At its annual meeting in July next year, the ICC will vote on a successor to Percy Sonn of South Africa for a two-year period from 2008 .”It has been decided that Sharad Pawar will be our candidate,” Niranjan Shah, the Indian board secretary, said. “Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are in favour of Pawar and we hope to elicit the support of the West Indies too.” Nominations for the elections will close on January 1, 2007 at the ICC’s headquarters in Dubai.David Morgan, the English Cricket Board chairman, is also reportedly in contention following backing from Australia and New Zealand.Pawar, 66, is a powerful politician who is also the federal agriculture minister. The decision to support Pawar was taken at a meeting of officials from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in New Delhi last week to finalise plans for the 2011 World Cup, which the four countries will be co-hosting.

The frequent visits of former Australian offspinner Ashley Mallett has sent out a clear message that Sri Lanka are on the hunt for a successor to Muttiah Muralitharan. Four bowlers from the national spin academy will be sent to Australia for a month in February next year to undergo intensive training and to gain experience. The four spinners are yet to be finalised.Mallett was assigned as consultant spin bowling coach for Sri Lanka on a three-year contract since April, which commits him to four visits to the country each year, with each visit not longer than two weeks . His duties include coaching spinners from all levels and training coaches. Ruwan Kalpage, the national spin bowling coach, is also working alongside Mallett in setting up an ongoing structure for the development of spinners.”In the main we are also looking for a replacement for Murali,” said Mallett. “Just in case he falls over and breaks his leg, we’ve got to find someone pretty quick. We’ve got a number of people in the mix but nothing definitive yet. We’ve got a lot of terrific talent in the cubs and juniors. I like to see an ongoing structure which other countries have got. “Mallett said that he initially saw more than 600 spinners before pruning it down to four squads of 12 each – cubs, juniors, colts and seniors. He said that there were no age restrictions because he wanted it to be flexible.”There are still blokes we haven’t seen,” he added. “This time around we did a little bit more moving around from Colombo. Next time round in April, I want to work the four squads with the flexibility of adding and sometimes subtracting from them.”Tom Moody was talking the other day about the amount of talent he has seen in this country. He said it is the best in the world. It’s incredible. There is an incredible amount of raw spin talent that needs guidance. They spin the ball hard, but there are a few technical things that are inhibiting their progress. A lot of the guys are front-on; the arms of the leggies [legspinners] are a bit too high. These are things you can easily sort out especially when they are young. That’s why we are putting in a structure which will be an ongoing thing long after I stop coming.”Mallett’s recipe to become a successful spinner was to spin the ball hard and have a lot of patience.”You should also have a strong base to get the energy going up and over,” he continued. “The more time you can spend on the front foot the more raise you can get on the ball. Have a look at Warney [Shane Warne] and Murali. They spend a lot of time on the front foot. Saqlain [Mushtaq] spent so much time on the front foot you wondered when he was going to let go of the ball. He didn’t have rhythm in his run up. He ran like a duck but landed strongly, spent a lot of time and got a lot of rip. That’s for blokes who genuinely spin the ball. You don’t want fellows who wouldn’t spin flat off the pitch. We want blokes who genuinely spin. Monty Panesar is one good example.”Mallett said the understanding of spin bowling in the subcontinent was good, as was in Australia since the arrival of Warne.”In the mid-eighties if a fast bowler came along and was square-cut to the fence, they would say it was a great shot,” he said. “If the spinner got hit down the ground, that was a bad ball. That was the mentality. That mentality still exists in South Africa today.”In Sri Lanka the understanding of spin bowling is good. But there are blokes who need help in coaching to understand what’s required in young people coming through. It’s a very important part of our brief to touch the coaches and make sure that we are on the same wavelength in coaching expertise.”Mallett played 38 Tests between 1968 to 1980, in which he took 132 wickets. He runs the Spin Australia academy at the Adelaide Oval and has worked with spinners in the last 25 years in Australia, with stints in counties and academies in England and South Africa.

England Under-19s have lost their captain for their tour of Malaysia which gets underway in three weeks. Rory Hamilton-Brown has failed to recover sufficiently from a shoulder operation in November.Greg Wood, the Yorkshire wicketkeeper, will replace him as captain. He has two Tests and seven one-dayers for the under-19s under his belt. The tour comprises two triangular one-day tournaments, the first between England, the hosts Malaysia, and Sri Lanka, and the second between England, Malaysia and India U19.Adam Lyth has been called in to bolster the squad.Surrey’s Hamilton-Brown, meanwhile, will continue to recuperate in Loughborough and train with the England A squad ahead of their tour of India. “I am obviously very disappointed to miss out,” he said. His next aim will now be to get fit for the county season in April.

After asking for his team to be tested during the CB Series, John Buchanan’s words came back to bite him when England secured a 2-0 success in the finals. However, he has no regrets over the comments, still insisting the loss will have long term benefits for the Australians.”It’s important that’s happened because I think it’s important to find out where there are some deficiencies, where we do lack some consistency and so on,” he said. “I’d rather us find that out now than some time in the West Indies.”Buchanan said he did not believe Australia’s three losses constituted a slump in form and felt it would have little effect on how selectors would approach Tuesday’s choice of a 15-man squad for the World Cup.”I don’t think two games in the course of the season, and going back to the ICC Champions Trophy, changes a heck of a lot,” he said, referring to the finals. “It’s just that we haven’t played as consistently as we would have liked over a short period of time.”Certainly, over the last few games we have been tested by England and haven’t consistently responded to that. I think the selectors would have the same questions on their mind that they had prior to the finals.”However, Buchanan, who will coach Australia for the last time at the World Cup before standing down, does have concerns over the workload of some of his squad, especially Adam Gilchrist. Even when Gilchrist returns to the squad after the birth of his third child, Buchanan would like Brad Haddin available as a stand-by.”We’ve been exceptionally fortunate with Adam in his career that he hasn’t sustained any major injury, touch wood,” he said. “But it’s such an important tournament that my leaning is to take a second specialist wicketkeeper, but that second specialist wicketkeeper has to offer us more than just wicketkeeping.Haddin, picked for this week’s three-match Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series in New Zealand with Gilchrist being rested, is the leading run-scorer in the domestic one-day competition with 406 runs at 67 and has batted in all positions in the top seven during his 18-match Australian career.Buchanan also defended the timing of allrounder Shane Watson’s return to the Australian side after his pace bowling was shown to be underdone in both finals. Watson had just 27 overs in state and club cricket but the selectors did not believe the Chappell-Hadlee series would give him enough time to get back into the one-day groove after being a key player as a bowler and opening batsman at last year’s Champions Trophy.”He bowled exceptionally well at the Champions Trophy and in the lead-up to that and batted well so he’s on his way back and the quicker we can give him game time, and finals time as that was, the better,” Buchanan said. “Certainly he hasn’t got the bowling under his belt and the general bowling fitness, but it was important to inject him into the tournament.”Buchanan added Watson was a “frontrunner” to open with Matthew Hayden in New Zealand but indicated he would have to bat well further down at the World Cup. He listed Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Brad Hodge and Michael Hussey as virtual certainties to remain in their positions despite Watson’s game suiting a move higher up the order.