Stephen Fleming will captain Nottinghamshire during the 2005 season. Fleming, 31, had been in talks with Surrey, but they pulled out of negotiations with New Zealand cricket when it was decided that his availability would not be sufficient to fulfil the job that would have been desired of him.Fleming, who already has some experience of county cricket after stints with Middlesex in 2001 and Yorkshire last summer, will be free to play for Nottinghamshire almost all the summer, with New Zealand playing in a home Test and one-day series against Australia in March. That will be followed by a five-month break before New Zealand’s trip to Zimbabwe in September, although the exact dates for that tour are yet to be confirmed.”It is a real coup for Nottinghamshire to sign the world’s leading captain, and one of the best batsmen in international cricket,” said Mick Newell, Nottinghamshire’s director of cricket. “Stephen will bring fresh ideas and challenges to our players, and will demand international level standards of performance which will help bring out the very best in both our young players and those aspiring for international honours.”Fleming, meanwhile, said that he was looking forward to joining Nottinghamshire next season, and pointed out that the club already has strong links with New Zealand cricket. Sir Richard Hadlee, Chris Cairns, Daniel Vettori and Nathan Astle have all played for Nottinghamshire in the past.”I enjoyed my previous experience of county cricket, and have harboured an ambition to captain a leading English county team,” said Fleming. “Nottinghamshire proved they are one of the up and coming counties with double promotion last season, and Trent Bridge holds special personal memories with my Test century on the ground this summer.”The facilities are world class at Trent Bridge,” added Fleming. “I was impressed with the ambition and the plans outlined by Mick Newell and I look forward to joining the club in April.”Fleming will take over from Jason Gallian, who had been captain since 1998 and has been awarded a benefit year in 2005. Gallian has also signed a contract to play for Nottinghamshire until at least the end of the 2007 season.”As soon as it became likely that Stephen would sign, the question of the captaincy was discussed,” he said. “As he is arguably the best captain in world cricket, I offered to step down. I have a good few years left and I am sure that I will learn something playing alongside a player of his capability. After such a successful season leading Nottinghamshire to promotion in both competitions, I look forward to being part of a team that will hopefully win more trophies next season.”Newell, the man responsible for luring Fleming to the club, has also signed an extension to his contract as director of cricket.Speaking about his extension, Newell said: “I am grateful for the confidence and support which the club has demonstrated by extending my contract and I am focused on bringing more trophies back to Trent Bridge during the next two years.”In order to be competitive I needed to further strengthen the squad and the signing of Graeme Swann and Stephen Fleming demonstrates our ambition for next season.”

Sachin Tendulkar, laid low by an elbow injury, recently admitted that his style of batting had changed. “When you play for a long time, it is natural,” Tendulkar told Sambit Bal in a freewheeling interview from the October issue of Wisden Asia Cricket. “Changes are going to take place and you always try and make changes to become a better player. The basic idea is to cut down on the risky shots and try and be as consistent as possible.”But Tendulkar has not taken lightly to criticism about the way he has batted in recent times. During the Asia Cup he came out strongly against suggestions that he was not enjoying batting any more: “I thought too much was being said about it and unfortunately guys who have played cricket themselves were making too many rude statements. Someone who has played should definitely understand that there are things like team meetings and team plans. It’s not all about what my natural game is, but about executing a team plan. I should be doing what the team wants me to, and not what someone sitting 85 yards away in the commentators’ box feels. You can’t be talking about what the country should be doing and then focus on an individual. There is no question that it is a team game, and it is the responsibility of all 11 individuals to execute a team plan on any given day.”Tendulkar also disagreed with the suggestion that he was batting too cautiously at the moment. “I really don’t know how to put it across, because I can never make everyone happy. If I play a big shot and get out, some people will say, what’s the need to do that when there are so many strokeplayers around, can’t he just try to play 50 overs? I feel I should play the way I think I should play and not according to how XYZ feels. There might be a day when we need 100 runs in the first 15, and I will bat differently.”Whatever way Tendulkar bats, there will be some disgruntled fans about. “It’s very easy to say that you should go out and play your natural game, but sometimes you end up taking plenty of risks, and if you get out doing that, people start talking one way. And when you try to do what the team has planned, they think differently. So it is difficult for any player to keep outsiders happy. We have to think about what the team has planned. As long as I know I am doing the right thing, I don’t need to worry about what people are saying.”People keep saying, ah, he is not playing the same number of shots as before, but if you look at the strike rate you’ll see I’m scoring at the same pace, just scoring in a different way. As you spend more and more time in the team, your role changes. It cannot be what it was 15 years ago or seven years ago. I don’t think there is any player in the world who has played in the same gear throughout his career.”Tendulkar also looked back at his captaincy days with some regret. “The day I gave in my resignation [from captaincy], I have never thought of it after that. I felt we were not all heading in the right direction and it was affecting me as a person. I couldn’t switch off at all. Even ten days after a match I would still be thinking about why this happened and why that happened, and it started affecting me as a person. Not as a player, as some people pointed out, because I scored over 1000 runs in both forms of the game that last year. Also, I felt there was lack of support from every direction.”Tendulkar now admits that he did not see eye-to-eye with the selectors. “Yes. I was not happy with the selectors at all. It just didn’t work out. They had different ideas, I had different ideas. The only thing is, I had to go in there and play with their ideas.”And, while it might be the ultimate ambition for many players, captaincy isn’t that a big a deal with Tendulkar. “Captaining India was obviously a great honour for me, but it wasn’t the ultimate thing for me. The ultimate thing was to play cricket for India and at that time, when I was removed from captaincy, I said in my statement that you can stop me from leading India, but no-one can stop me from playing cricket. Playing cricket is the ultimate thing in my life.”

Adam Gilchrist will consider promoting himself to No. 3 as Australia struggle to decide on Ricky Ponting’s replacement for the first Test against India, which starts on Oct 6.Aware that he is close to bursting with responsibility as he combines wicketkeeping and the stand-in captaincy, Gilchrist could leap up from No. 7 after deciding to retain the stability of Damien Martyn and Darren Lehmann at 4 and 5.While batting at No. 3 would increase the pressure on Gilchrist in his fourth Test in charge, it would also reduce the risk of his entering to the spin of Harbhajan Singh – who dismissed him four times in 2001 – and a ring of close-in fielders.Pushing Simon Katich up from No. 6 or introducing Brad Hodge, the uncapped top-order specialist, are also options for filling the spot of Ponting, who will miss the first two Tests with a broken left thumb.”Simon’s a very real chance and he’s grown up batting at No. 3,” Gilchrist said. “I’ve got an interest in batting there. It’d be tough work with everything that’s going on, but it’s an option. I’m reluctant to change the middle order, I like that stability there.”But the coach John Buchanan warned that if Gilchrist was swamped he would not move from his usual place: “If workload is an issue then there’s no way Gilly will bat at 3.”The chances of Gilchrist dealing with the extra task would improve if Australia batted first and he contemplated – then ruled out – adopting a floating position in the order. “I wouldn’t bat at 3 because I was captain and wanted to take control of the team,” Gilchrist said. “I would do it because I thought it was the right tactical decision.”Gilchrist has batted three times at No. 3 and at short notice against Sri Lanka at Kandy in March, when Ponting was injured, he blasted Australia out of trouble with 144. He was also elevated during the second innings of the final Test against India in the 2000-01 series, which he ended with scores of 0, 0, 1 and 1.

Bangladesh’s captain, Habibul Bashar, has been named in a preliminary Test squad of 21 players for the forthcoming series against New Zealand, after recovering from the broken thumb that ruled him out of the Champions Trophy.Bashar returned home on Wednesday night from Australia following a successful operation on his right thumb at the Avenue Hospital in Melbourne on September 6. Although he will not be able to hold a bat before the first week of October, he will nonetheless be joining in the fitness training, when the squad reports to the Army Stadium on Sunday morning.Bashar, Bangladesh’s leading batsman, will take back the reins from Rajin Saleh, who stood in against South Africa and West Indies, but was unable to prevent two heavy defeats. Bangladesh’s morale will, however, be boosted by the return of Mashrafee bin-Mortuza, their impressive young paceman.Mashrafee has not played international cricket since twisting his knee badly during the second Test against England at Chittagong last October, and is still in the early stages of his comeback. It is unlikely that he will be match-fit in time for the first Test, which begins at Dhaka on October 19, but there will be plenty opportunity in the weeks ahead for the selectors to assess his progress.Another man who hasn’t played a Test since Chittagong is Enamul Haq jr, who captained the Under-19 team in England recently, until a ruptured posterior cruciate ligament curtailed his tour midway through.Squad Habibul Bashar (capt), Rajin Saleh, Khaled Mashud (wk), Khaled Mahmud, Javed Omar, Mushfiqur Rahman, Hannan Sarkar, Alok Kapali, Mohammad Ashraful, Mohammad Rafique, Manjarul Islam, Tapash Baisya, Faisal Hossain, Alamgir Kabir, Mashrafee bin-Mortuza, Enamul Haque Jr, Nazmul Hossain, Tareq Aziz, Nafees Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed, Talha Jubair.

Scorecard

Surrey slumped to the brink of relegation on the opening day at The Oval, on a day where their performance lurched from the mediocre to the abysmal.A match that could have gone down to the wire will become academic when Surrey lose their third wicket – unless by some freak of nature they reach 400 for 2. From next summer the Championship is changing to a two-up, two-down format and, on the evidence of this performance, Surrey are going to have a tough job climbing back up.Middlesex’s declaration on 404 for 5 – taking advantage of the bonus point system and rubbing more salt into Surrey’s wounds – left their London rivals needing to gain full batting points for less than three wickets to maintain any hope of maintaining their first division status.Surrey lost their quota of wickets before the close as, needing a faultless effort from their top order, they got off to shocking start when Mark Butcher was brilliantly run out by Jamie Dalrymple from backward point (7 for 1). It has been a desperate summer for Butcher, only making his belated comeback from injury in late August and then proving powerless to halt Surrey’s demise. Rikki Clarke was then trapped lbw, leaving Mark Ramprakash at the helm. At least he made his former club wait until tomorrow morning.The foundations for next season are already being put in place with the news that Mark’s father, Alan, has taken charge of the first team with immediate effect – a strange state of affairs considering that Steve Rixon, the previous incumbent, is still around the team. The strange timing of the announcement was played down by the club as just “the logical move” but Butcher would have been struggling to see the merit of it as he realised the size of the task in front of him.The current state of Surrey cricket is highlight by the fact that only one of their players – Clarke – will be involved with the England set-up in any form this winter. Clarke has secured an Academy spot but today his bowling performance was dire as he sent down three overs for 30 runs and was not trusted with another spell. He is a talented cricketer but Duncan Fletcher is big on attitude and Clarke’s will need to improve if he is to add to his international honours. On the other hand Middlesex’s batting order consists of three potential England stars and two of them played their part in taking Surrey to the cleaners.But the contributions of Owais Shah and Ed Joyce were contrasting, which gave some indication of how the two players feel about their winter rewards. Shah was widely tipped to gain a spot in at least one of the tour squads to Pakistan after topping 1600 runs. He has had to be content with an Academy spot and while the player himself has not made any comment to suggest he is unhappy, his innings suggested a certain amount of frustration.

There were a couple of uncontrolled heaves that betrayed an eagerness to make a point, but then his strokeplay returned to the crispness that has characterised his summer. He reached his fifty from 87 balls and was in no trouble against pace or spin – not that there was much to worry him in the fare that was offered. It was a surprise when Saqlain Mushtaq found a touch of extra bounce and Shah steered the ball into the hands of Scott Newman at short-leg (172 for 2).Ben Hutton also tucked into the loose offerings with as much timing as Shah; a rush of blood caused him to charge at Saqlain, missing the ball by miles, and got comfortably stumped (199 for 3). When Dalrymple edged his third ball to slip, Surrey were suddenly back in the match, a position that their bowling performance barely merited (200 for 4).But Joyce was already creating a feeling of permanency in the middle while Scott Styris was also into his stride quickly. While Shah may have wanted to prove a point about only making the Academy, Joyce’s stint at Loughborough – and a probable tour to the West Indies – will enable him to enhance his reputation. Throughout the summer he has been touted as a like-for-like replacement for Graham Thorpe – and on Thorpe’s home ground produced an innings right out of the same mould.Surrey’s plight was summed up shortly before Middlesex reached their 400 when Saqlain bowled Paul Weekes off a no-ball. In the next over Weekes swept a boundary to complete a full hand of batting points meaning a declaration would deprive Surrey two bowling points. There was one final matter to consider though, with Scott Styris unbeaten on 99. He was given the chance to reach his first century for Middlesex and duly obliged by working a single from the next ball – and promptly marching off to the pavilion.For Middlesex the day could not have gone any better, while Surrey will be scouring the tourist guides of Derby, Northampton and Bristol. It may be a father and son team taking this Surrey side into the future, but they are a long way away from making it a happy family at The Oval.

Scorecard
Rawl Lewis played a captain’s innings to lead Windward Islands to a four-wicket victory against Jamaica in the second round of the KFC Cup at the North Stars Cultural & Social Club on Tuesday.Chasing a revised target of 230 runs from 43 overs, after rain interrupted play, Windwards coasted home with 17 balls to spare, when Lewis slashed a searing cut off the left-arm spinner, Nikita Miller, to bring up his tenth four.Lewis finished with an undefeated 65 from 47 balls. He also hit one six that helped him to earn the Man-of-the-Match award, after his side dipped to 176 for 6 and had looked in danger of giving up the ghost.The long-standing wicketkeeper/batsman Junior Murray helped to set up the victory with six fours in his 53 from 77 balls. He batted through the later stages of his innings with a runner, after suffering cramps. Murray shared 70 for the first wicket with the left-handed West Indies opener, Devon Smith, who struck nine fours in his 43 from 29 balls.The West Indies fast bowler Daren Powell was the most successful of Jamaica’s attack: he took four wickets for 64 runs from seven overs. But his costly last over, in which he conceded 15 runs, nearly gave the match away.The opener, Brenton Parchment, and West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels had hit half-centuries and added 97 for the second wicket to pave the way for Jamaica’s total of 254 for 8 off 50 overs. Parchment hit eight fours and one six in a top-score of 65 from 102 balls, and Samuels hit 54 from 77 balls which included three fours and one six.Darren Sammy, who played a couple of limited-overs internationals for West Indies last year, was the pick of the Windwards’ bowlers with four wickets for 49 runs from ten overs. Smith then played some exciting strokes to give Windwards an enterprising start with Murray before he was caught behind off Dave Bernard Jr, top-edging a cut in the ninth over.Craig Emmanuel joined Murray and batted circumspectly to add 48 for the second wicket before he was caught behind for 21 in the 22nd over to leave Windwards on 118 for 2.

It has been one of the poorer aspects of South African cricket that for sometime they have been getting nothing out of their legendary former fastbowler Allan Donald. All that is set to change, however, following his appointment on Sunday as a specialist coach for the high performance programme, alongsidethe record-breaking batsman and former team-mate, Gary Kirsten.Donald, who was South Africa’s highest wicket-taker with 330 in 72 Tests,has been auctioning his considerable expertise mostly in England with hisformer county, Warwickshire. But now he will be ploughing his considerableexperience back into South African cricket.”It’s not nice working in another country, especially with the talent wehave here,” Donald said during the first one-day international between SouthAfrica and New Zealand in Bloemfontein on Sunday.According to Vintcent van der Bijl, the former Natal, Transvaal andMiddlesex bowling hero who is now Cricket South Africa’s general manager ofprofessional cricket, Donald’s role will be “coaching our young aspirants toensure they are Test-ready”.”I’ll be placing an unbelievable emphasis on intensity,” Donald said. “The intensity needsto be lifted in our franchises by some notches. It’s not true that our conveyor belt of fast bowlers has stopped. We have a list of 15 potential guys who I will be working really hard with. Especially fringe guys like Dale Steyn and Monde Zondeki, they can come up a notch or two.””We now have a balance between a batting and bowling focus in the highperformance programme and it’s great to have people who have just come outof the game,” Van der Bijl said. “We are delighted that one of the trulygreat fast bowlers, with all his expertise and, most importantly, Testexperience, is joining Gary Kirsten, who has an equally impressiveinternational pedigree. Allan is a master at his trade.”

Virender Sehwag, who celebrated his home captaincy debut with an emphatic win at Rajkot, hailed his bowlers for sticking to a good line and length and restricting Sri Lanka to just 196. He said he was “very impressed” with Rudra Pratap Singh, who set up the win with a fine spell, and S Sreesanth and also acknowledged the contributions made by the spinners in the middle overs.On a pitch that both captains admitted was on the slower side, Rudra Pratap, playing just his third ODI, was rewarded for sticking to the nuts and bolts of medium-pace. Coming on to bowl in the 12th over, he began with a maiden and had Upul Tharanga flinching and edging one that reared superbly from a good length. “RP is a very talented bowler,” Sehwag added,” and his specialty is that he can bring the ball into the right-handers and swing it both ways.”Despite being struck for a few fours early, Rudra Pratap, who made his first class debut on this very ground against the touring New Zealanders two years back, didn’t waver too much with his rhythm. Known around the domestic circuit as a bowler who can prodigiously swing the ball, he showed that he could deliver even when the atmospheric conditions weren’t on his side. “In Zimbabwe [where he made his debut] there was more swing for me, here I needed to concentrate on my length. I’ve been learnt a lot from Irfan [Pathan] and he’s advised me on bowling in different situations.”Even with Ajit Agarkar ruled out with flu, India found all their moves paying off yet again. Sehwag said that he was confident that his bowling attack could do the job, a fact which had partly influenced his decision at the toss. “In the past we had won games while chasing and our bowlers were doing well. Also the Sri Lankan bowlers were not in form and I felt we could chase any target. We had planned to cut down on the number of extras and I’m glad we conceded just three in this game.”He added that his inability to convert 20s to 50s and 100s was both “difficult and irritating”. However, he said that he really enjoyed his role as captain during the game and said that he was learning with each experience. “Captaincy is something which one needs to get used to,” he said. “I learnt a lot from the Ahmedabad game and made sure I didn’t repeat the same mistakes here.”

Jason Gillespie is on track to force his way back into the national side, according to South Australia’s coach Wayne Phillips, but he admitted that next month’s Test series against South Africa might come too soon. Gillespie grabbed 7 for 35 against Victoria at the weekend to give the selectors a timely reminder that he is not finished despite being written off by many after a dreadful Ashes series.Nathan Bracken is expected to claim the third quick-bowling berth at the WACA, but Gillespie’s nine-wicket haul in the match put him back in the frame along with Michael Kasprowicz. “Bracken probably has the inside running and that is probably fair enough, but what Gillespie brings is different, but pretty exciting too,” Phillips told AAP. “I never thought the national selectors had written him off at all, but they do need him if he continues to provide the selectors and team management with these sorts of performances, there is no reason why he can’t force his way back.””I don’t expect to get any call up to the Australian side anytime soon,” Gillespie admitted. “I think the selectors have shown their cards and basically put me at the back of the queue, I know that, I acknowledge that and I have no problem with that.”I am not seen as one of the best seven or eight fast bowlers in the country at the moment because there is a team going to New Zealand today and they have rested Glenn McGrath from that trip and picked four fast bowlers and I am not among them.”But there was encouragement from Ricky Ponting. “Dizzy’s done nothing wrong since he’s been back,” he said. “It’s great to see him back bowling well and taking the wickets, and being the sort of bowler that we know he can be.”

Ireland are aiming high at next month’s Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka according to their coach Brian O’Rourke.”Our aim is to make it through to the Super League stages of the tournament which would be a first for an Irish team,” he said. “We are also looking to repeat the very good performances of our team at the last World Cup in Bangladesh in 2004 and establish our position as the top associate nation in the world. We aim to beat a Test nation at this World Cup.”Those goals might sound ambitious but close examination of the Ireland squad, their results in that previous tournament and the draw for this one, shows why O’Rourke is so positive.To start with, Ireland have been drawn in Group D, a group that looks, on paper at least, to be wide open. It does contain England, semi-finalists two years ago, but they are hardly brimming with confidence after losing all 11 matches on their tour of Bangladesh before Christmas.And with Zimbabwe, something of an unknown quantity at this level after their recent internal strife, and Nepal, which was hardly stretched in winning the Asian Cricket Council U-19 Cup last November to complete the line-up, it is a very tough group to predict.If that draw is enough to convince Ireland they can achieve something special at this tournament, then the fact they also have an experienced side is another reason for optimism. They have retained five of the players that took part in the tournament in Bangladesh two years ago and the form of one of them, the captain Eoin Morgan, could be crucial to their chances.Morgan, a left-handed top-order batsman and right-arm seam bowler, gave a glimpse of his talents in 2004 when, as a 17-year-old, he scored 65 in 69 balls against Australia in the Plate semi-final, an innings that followed 117 against Uganda.Since then he has played a key role in the Irish senior side’s qualification for next year’s World Cup in West Indies, made his first team debut for Middlesex in county cricket and scored a brilliant 151 against the United Arab Emirates in the semi-final of last year’s Intercontinental Cup.If that is not enough, he also spent two months late last year at the ICC’s winter training camp in Pretoria, South Africa honing his skills in readiness for this tournament.So Morgan will be a key figure for Ireland but they are far from being a one-man team with the other survivors from the 2004 line-up also capable of making substantial contributions.There is the legspinner Greg Thompson, who has played second team cricket with English county Lancashire, wicketkeeper-batsman Gary Wilson, opener Gareth McKee, who made 129 against the Netherlands last July, and left-arm spinner Gary Kidd.Thompson, who took 5 for 49 against West Indies two years ago, Kidd and the offspinner James Hall mean that Ireland are well-blessed with spinning options and that style of bowling is always likely to play a role in Sri Lanka.In the seam bowling department they have right-armers Neil Gill, Richard Keaveney and Niall McDarby with all of them playing in the European U-19 Championships last year, when the side finished as runners-up to Scotland.Morgan’s talents with the bat will be supplemented by Wilson, together with Andrew Poynter, who was born in London but qualifies to play through his Irish mother, David Rankin (whose brothers Boyd and Rob played in 2004) and the left-handed Fintan McAllister.If Ireland are searching for further encouragement then they are likely to find it by looking back at several of their performances from two years ago, which was their third time in the tournament after previous appearances in 1998 and 2000.In that previous event in Bangladesh they lost by only six runs to the eventual runners-up, West Indies, when chasing 266 for victory and in the Plate competition they thrashed Uganda and Canada to book a semi-final spot. Although they lost to Australia, conceding 340 for 5 in 50 overs, they showed plenty of spirit to respond with 291 for 9.O’Rourke thinks performances like that, or even something better, are what Ireland are after in this World Cup. “We are looking to further bridge the gap in playing standards between the leading associate countries like ourselves and the Test-playing nations.””Realistically we are not looking to win this World Cup but rather to establish ourselves as the leading associate country in world cricket. A win against a Test-playing nation at this World Cup would help us achieve this aim.”The team will arrive in Colombo on 28th January for three days of acclimatisation before they join the tournament on 31st January. They will then play two practice matches on February 1, against Scotland and February 2, against Uganda.Ireland squad Eoin Morgan (capt), Gary Wilson, Neil Gill, James Hall, Richard Keaveney, Gary Kidd, Fintan McAllister, Niall McDarby, Gareth McKee, Gavin McKenna, Andrew Poynter, David Rankin, Richard Stirling and Greg Thompson.