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Nottinghamshire have signed Ali Brown, the former Surrey batsman, on a two-year deal as they build for the new season.Brown, 38, spent 21 years at The Oval and has scored first-class centuries against all the other counties, but was released by Surrey at the end of the 2008 season as they started to build for the future following Championship relegation.Nottinghamshire, though, have snapped him up and believe he can still play an important role. “Ali has a lot to offer as a cricketer but he’s also an experienced head who will act as a role model to younger players,” director of cricket, Mick Newell, said. “He’s an exiting one-day player at the top of the order and he can play an important role for us over the next two years.”Brown, who also played 16 ODIs for England, is looking forward to joining a team who are pushing for honours. “Nottinghamshire are primed to challenge for the Championship and I want to hit the ground running and help the team to push for honours,” he said.”For me, the buzz of playing cricket comes from winning competitions and I feel that I’ve got two more years to win things at this level. I’ve always been confident in my ability, I’m feeling fit and I want to play for Nottinghamshire in all forms of the game.”Nottinghamshire have been busy during the off-season, securing the futures of a number of key players including Samit Patel and Darren Pattinson, while also strengthening the squad with offspinner Jason Brown joining from Northamptonshire.

Michael Vaughan has been left out of England’s 16-man Test squad to tour West Indies next month, leaving his international future in the balance. Ryan Sidebottom is back after injury while Adil Rashid is also named after being included for the India trip to gain experience.The squad, named after a five-and-a-half-hour meeting, is a show of faith by the selectors in the players who went down 1-0 before Christmas, with Steve Harmison, Ian Bell and Monty Panesar facing an important tour after a disappointing time in India. Bell’s poor form at No. 3 was a possible route back for Vaughan but he has retained his place, though he faces increasing pressure from Owais Shah.The plan had been for Vaughan to find some form with the Academy in India but that was disrupted by the Mumbai terror attacks, which forced the team home. Vaughan’s chances of having another crack at Australia now rest with his early-season form for Yorkshire after he also missed out on the Lions squad that will head to New Zealand in February.”Michael Vaughan has not yet had an opportunity to prove his form in order to be considered for selection for the Test side,” national selector Geoff Miller said, “He does, however, remain very much in our thoughts as we continue to plan for the Ashes Test series against Australia later this summer.”He will play a full part in Yorkshire’s pre-season programme, which will include a tour to Dubai, and we will continue to monitor his form closely once the domestic season begins in April.”Rashid’s inclusion follows the time he spent with the squad during the Test series in India and shows the England management expect him to launch his international career sooner rather than later. The spin department is well stocked for the tour with Panesar and Graeme Swann likely to fight it out ahead of the first Test.The quick-bowling stocks are also strengthened with the return of Sidebottom, who suffered a string of injuries during the second half of 2008 after being England’s main strike bowler. He struggled against South Africa and missed out on the one-dayers and Tests in India with a side strain.”Despite losing the Test series in India 1-0, we felt the team performed creditably against strong opposition and all the players originally chosen for that series have been retained in the squad,” Miller said. “We are pleased to welcome Ryan Sidebottom back to both squads now that he is fully recovered from injury.”Adil Rashid was added to the Test squad for the India tour and we have again included him in the party to tour West Indies. He is an exciting prospect for the future and his inclusion will enable us to continue to monitor his development closely as well as providing extra competition for places in the spin-bowling department.”The one-day squad includes one new face with Steven Davies, the Worcestershire wicketkeeper-batsman, named in the 15-man party alongside current incumbent Matt Prior. Alastair Cook and Luke Wright have been dropped while Dimitri Mascarenhas is recalled.”Dimitri Mascarenhas has performed well for England before in the shorter form of the game and we feel that his experience will serve the team well in the Caribbean,” Miller explained. “Steven Davies had an excellent season for Worcestershire in both forms of cricket and is a young player of tremendous promise whose performances we have been monitoring for some time. This is an exciting opportunity for him and I am sure he will be keen to impress.”Miller added that it had been a close call between Davies and James Foster, the Essex wicketkeeper, who many feel is the best one-day gloveman in the country. Davies had a prolific Pro40 season in 2008, hitting two hundreds and three fifties as an opener, and provides the selectors with another option at the top of the order after Prior slipped down to No. 8 against India.Robert Key has been named captain of the New Zealand-bound Lions squad, which includes Amjad Khan – who toured India for the Test series – and Sajid Mahmood. Gareth Batty, the Worcestershire offspinner, is given a chance to resurrect his international career, while Joe Denly’s progress will be monitored with interest. Davies will swap with Tim Ambrose after the Test series in West Indies is completed.Test squad Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen (capt), Paul Collingwood, Owais Shah, Andrew Flintoff, Matt Prior, Tim Ambrose, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad, Steve Harmison, James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom, Monty Panesar, Adil RashidOne-day squad Kevin Pietersen (capt), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Steven Davies, Andrew Flintoff, Stephen Harmison, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Samit Patel, Matt Prior, Owais Shah, Graeme Swann, Ryan SidebottomLions squad Robert Key (capt) Gareth Batty, Ravi Bopara, Mark Davies, Steven Davies, Joe Denly, Amjad Khan, Sajid Mahmood, Stephen Moore, Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Liam Plunkett, Jonathan Trott, Luke Wright

The New Zealand coach John Bracewell has no plans to alter his “starstruck” batting order and will not be rushed into changing a line-up he hopes will eventually become an international force. Runs were a severe problem for the tourists after they challenged Australia for the opening two days of the first Test before tumbling to a 149-run defeat.Totals of 156 and 177 led to a loss inside ten sessions but Bracewell is content with his side for the second Test in Adelaide from Friday. The batting order contains only one player, Brendon McCullum, who has appeared in more than 20 Tests and the team management is happy for the line-up to learn on the job.”It’s been going on for a while now,” Bracewell said of the batting problems. “I keep putting it down to experience and we’re still reasonably inexperienced. Most of these guys have had limited first-class careers and been picked on their talent and potential. I believe their talent and potential is enormous when we get enough Test matches into them.”The problem for New Zealand is they are already using the best in the country so they have few options except to hope the unit, which includes the highly talented Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor, develops into one that is capable of lifting the side. If New Zealand lose the second Test they will slip to eighth on the rankings, below West Indies and above Bangladesh.Ryder, an attacking No. 3, will remain there after looking reasonably comfortable during short innings of 30 and 24 – Australia will continue to attack him outside off stump – and McCullum is unlikely to be moved from No. 5 despite two failures. Bracewell does not want to bow to the populist demand for McCullum to drop back to seven and is pleased with the development of Daniel Flynn, who is a long-term project at six.”The more experience we get in to them, the better they will become,” Bracewell said. “I have no doubt they will get better. When they gather enough experience they will become a world force.”There are players in the side who are so fresh that they are in awe of playing against Australia and on the Test grounds in Brisbane and Adelaide. “A lot of our guys are still a little bit starstruck,” Bracewell said. “We were talking about it the other day, the opportunity to play at Adelaide. A lot of them go ‘wow’.”They’ve done the same thing over the last couple of years. A lot of these guys are in positions where they see this as just a wonderful adventure. We need to step up and see ourselves as world class in order to become world class.”New Zealand are in this situation because of the departure of a group of senior players, including the former captain Stephen Fleming, to the Twenty20 competitions in India. The captain Daniel Vettori said before the first Test Shane Bond was the only player involved in the new events who would demand selection, but Bracewell felt there were people who left too early.”Everybody has to regenerate at some point,” he said. “If you look at the history of the side that has actually moved on they were all around the same age, they all grew up together … and they all got to the point where they started to have families and were looking for other commercial – perhaps easier – commitments than the hard slog of international cricket. It’s a lot easier to go to ICL and get the big bucks for six weeks.”

Javed Miandad, the former Pakistan captain and coach, has been appointed director-general of the PCB. The appointment isn’t a complete surprise as Miandad’s name had been linked to several roles in the board, and he had also met Ijaz Butt, the chairman, recently.The exact nature and ambit of the role is not yet clear, but Miandad hopes first to lift Pakistan’s standing in the ICC rankings. Pakistan, who have not played a Test in 2008, are sixth in the Test rankings and fourth among ODI teams.”The main purpose of my appointment is to look after the cricketing affairs in the board,” Miandad told . “It’s good that the new chairman of the board [Ijaz Butt] is inducting former Test cricketers in the PCB and I hope it would benefit Pakistan cricket in the future.Among former players handling positions in the PCB is former fast bowler Saleem Altaf, who only last month had been named as director-general, but is now the board’s chief operating officer. Altaf’s current position had originally been scrapped when his appointment as director-general was made.Speaking to Miandad said, however, that his role would be a purely cricketing one, not overlapping with Altaf’s role. “Basically I shall be overseeing the cricketing side. That includes both domestic and international levels as well as the academies. For this I would be going to different parts of the country.”I won’t be involved in the PCB’s administrative matters because that is the domain of the COO. And at the same time I won’t be intruding in the path of Aamir Sohail [director NCA]. Generally I am here to help develop the standard of our cricket .”A spate of changes have taken place in Pakistan cricket after Butt, a former Test player, assumed charge. Former Test batsmen Ijaz Ahmed and Shoaib Mohammad were appointed to an interim selection committee, with Saleem Jaffar, the surviving member of the previous three-man panel, named chairman of selectors. Talat Ali, the team’s permanent manager since October 2006, stepped down, with Yawar Saeed, a veteran administrator and former manager, taking up duties for the ODI series in Abu Dhabi.Sohail, the former Pakistan captain and opener, was appointed director of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), replacing Mudassar Nazar, who left for a coaching post with the ICC last month. Wasim Bari, the former wicketkeeper and chief selector, was appointed director of human resources and administration. On Tuesday, Bari had said the PCB would aim to cut down heavily on the administrative expenditure of running the organisation in order to cope with decreased revenues.Miandad had been tipped to take over as Pakistan’s coach following the dismissal of Geoff Lawson last month, but to the PCB’s disappointment, he turned down a fourth stint in charge of the team, instead offering to help the board in an advisory position. Butt admitted Miandad was the board’s first choice for the job, now taken up by Intikhab Alam.

Brian Lara believes that Ricky Ponting can eventually take the Test run-scoring record from Sachin Tendulkar, who overtook Lara’s mark of 11,953 runs on Friday. Lara said there was no better person he could have passed the mantle on to than Tendulkar, who he said had been “a great for so many years”.Lara held the world record for nearly three years, having passed Allan Border’s milestone in Adelaide in November 2005. Tendulkar is nearly two years older than Ponting and has a lead of almost 2000 runs on him, but Lara expects Ponting to be the next man to top the Test tally.”I would think that he [Ponting] still has 30 or 40 Tests matches [left] under his belt,” Lara said while visiting Australia this week. “He has already gone past 10,000 runs, so it is one of those records that if you play long enough and you score runs consistently, you are capable of doing it.”Tendulkar, 35, overhauled Lara’s total during the second Test against Australia in Mohali. Lara knew his record would not stand forever and he said he was pleased that it was Tendulkar who succeeded him as the greatest run scorer.”[There is] no better individual or batsman in the world that could go past you, or maybe you can pass the mark on to, than Sachin Tendulkar,” Lara said. “He has been a great for so many years and is someone who is deserving of such a record. So I just want to wish him the best.”To have held it for a couple of years is good. [I have] a couple more records in the bag so I’ve still got a few to hold on to. But it’s a feeling that I’ve had my opportunity. To get there first of all and to achieve it and hold that mark for a period of time is great in itself. There was no sadness at all.”

Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, has confirmed for the first time that the club are interested in hosting Indian Premier League matches at The Oval.”It is true we have spoken to certain IPL franchises about staging games here,” Sheldon said. “If it was possible within the calendar and with the blessing of the ECB, we would certainly look at it.”Earlier this year Keith Bradshaw, the MCC chief executive, visited the tournament’s chairman, Lalit Modi, about the possibility of bringing IPL “exhibition” games to Lord’s. At the time, Sheldon was rumoured to have also shown interest for The Oval, though he denied any talks had been made.Now, however – thanks to the agent of Surrey’s offspinner, Saqlain Mushtaq, who revealed Surrey’s plans to PakPassion.net – Sheldon has confirmed that the IPL might one day be coming to England.”Looking forward to 2009, the domestic and international calendar is very tight – so it will probably be difficult to find time for it,” he said. “If it were possible we would be very keen to do it, but we would always work closely with the ECB.”

ScorecardAn impressive performance from the middle order helped Sri Lanka Academy level the three-match one-day series with a four-wicket win over the Bangladesh Cricket Board Academy in Colombo. Captain Jeewan Mendis scored 70, while Milinda Siriwardene made a 62-ball 66 and Nadeera Nawela chipped in with 40 as the hosts chased down a target of 234 in 48.5 overs.Mahbubul Alam struck in his first two overs to reduce Sri Lanka to 12 for 2, but Nawela and Mendis steadied the innings with a 79-run stand. An 85-run partnership followed between Mendis and Siriwardene after Nawela was run out. Mendis took 121 deliveries for his 70, while Siriwardene kept the chase in pace with the required-rate, hitting four fours and two sixes in his innings.When Siriwardene was lbw to offspinner Naeem Islam, Sri Lanka still needed 25 off 27 balls. Arafat Sunny, the left-arm spinner, took his second wicket of the match to leave the hosts at 216 for 6 off 46.3, but wicketkeeper Gihan De Silva and Sachith Pathirana steered them to victory.Bangladesh would perhaps rue not having scored a few more runs in their innings. Imrul Kayes top scored with 98 and at a strike-rate of around 80, but the other top-order batsmen Shamsur Rahman and Sunny were unable to push the scoring. Captain Naeem gave the innings momentum with his 58-ball 52. However, Shalika Karunanayake, who conceded 41 in his seven overs, removed Kayes, Naeem and Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh’s hero in the first game, in his three successive overs. Three run-outs didn’t help their cause as they finished on 233 for 9.Both the teams will face off in the series decider on Thursday.

Andrew Flintoff has criticised Lancashire’s decision to release Dominic Cork, the former England bowler, at the end of the season. The county had announced last month that they wouldn’t offer 37-year-old Cork a contract for the 2009 season in order to promote younger players.”I’ve enjoyed playing with Dominic over the years and I wish I was playing with him again next year,” Flintoff said. “I was very surprised to hear he was being released and I think Lancashire should have kept him on.”Cork had moved to Old Trafford in 2003 after building his career at Derbyshire. “If you look at that [Lancashire] side, players like Dominic are among the leaders and I’d have him as one of the first names on my team-sheet. It’s not just the way he bowls, but it’s his presence on the field as well and I’m sure there will be a lot of counties chasing him.”The best thing that could happen is for someone to turn around and tell him we’ve made a mistake and keep him at Lancashire, but I’m not sure that is going to happen,” he said. “I’m all in favour of bringing younger players on, but they have got to be good enough and have got to perform.”Dominic is a great influence on the dressing room and I’m sure his presence will be sadly missed. Experience like his doesn’t grow on trees, and Lancashire will find it hard to replace him.”Cork had expressed his disappointment at the decision, and even vowed to “come back and haunt Lancashire”. The move also didn’t find favour with Stuart Law, the Lancashire captain. He said: “Dominic Corks don’t come off the conveyer belt. Very few players can do what he does on a cricket field.”

India’s one-day specialists have one opportunity to acclimatise to conditions before the five-ODI series and the team management faces selection headaches ahead of Friday’s warm-up match against a Sri Lankan XI in Colombo. The momentum is with Sri Lanka, who won the Test series 2-1, while the Indians are still grappling with methods to handle Ajantha Mendis, who took 26 wickets in three Tests and a six-wicket haul in the recent Asia Cup final against India.Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who joined the squad on Wednesday, said he was not going to talk about the Test series, which he opted out of, but on how his ODI side would tackle whatever came their way. India’s one-day squad has two uncapped players – Subramaniam Badrinath, the Tamil Nadu batsman, and Virat Kohli, who led India to victory in the Under-19 World Cup earlier this year – and Dhoni stressed on the importance of youngsters stepping in to fill the breach left by Sachin Tendulkar’s absence.It’s likely that Badrinath and Kohli will be competing for a spot as the batting order picks itself. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir will continue their partnership at the top, followed by Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma. Dhoni will bat at No. 6, leaving the next spot for Badrinath, Kohli, or an allrounder.India are without fast bowler Ishant Sharma for this series and their pace options include Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Munaf Patel, Praveen Kumar and Irfan Pathan. Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha are the only two spinners in the squad. The warm-up match gives India the chance to test Ojha, RP and Munaf, neither of whom played in the Test series but choosing between Kumar and Pathan is tougher.The bowling attack is likely to comprise three medium-pacers and one spinner. With Zaheer virtually certain to play, the other four – RP, Munaf, Kumar and Pathan – will compete for two spots and performances in the warm-up match could decide who plays. Harbhajan could be the lone spinner which means India will have to consider getting ten overs out of part-timers Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag on helpful pitches.India’s last one-day international was the 100-run defeat in Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka. Sanath Jayasuriya scored 125 before Mendis snuffed out India’s chase by taking 6 for 13. Neither of them will be playing the warm-up game but they will be an intergral part of the challenge that awaits India in Dambulla, a notoriously low-scoring venue, on August 18.Teams
Sri Lanka XI: (probable) 1 Malinda Warnapura, 2 Upul Tharanga, 3 Mahela Udawatte, 4 Jehan Mubarak, 5 Chamara Silva, 6 Chamara Kapugedera (capt), 7 Kaushal Silva (wk), 8 Kaushalya Weerarante, 9 Malinga Bandara, 10 Dilhara Fernando, 11 Thilan Thushara.Indians: (probable) 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 S Badrinath 8 Irfan Pathan 9 Pragyan Ojha, 10 RP Singh, 11 Munaf Patel.

Ricky Ponting will make an early departure from the Caribbean as he continues to battle an injury to his right wrist. Ponting will fly out for Australia immediately after it became clear he was unlikely to play in the final ODI of the series against West Indies in St Kitts on Sunday.”Ricky has a tendon injury in his right wrist and he will be flying home to see a specialist in Melbourne,” Justin Steer, the team physio, said. “Given his unavailability for the last match of the series we see this as a good opportunity to have him see the specialist at his earliest convenience.”He suffered the injury while batting in the third ODI in Grenada on Sunday and was ruled out of Friday’s fourth game in St Kitts. Ponting’s absence means Michael Clarke will captain the side as they aim for a 5-0 series whitewash, with Michael Hussey to act as Clarke’s vice-captain.Ponting will be the third squad member to head home from the West Indies mid-series. Matthew Hayden was ruled out before the first Test with an achilles tendon injury and Brad Haddin departed after one ODI as he battled a broken finger.