Andrew Symonds says he will not tour Pakistan next year unless he is convinced the country has become more safe than in the days following the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Symonds said while Australia’s visit had not been cancelled, he would be prepared to pull out if selected.”I’m not interested in going into a situation that’s dangerous, where people are getting killed and hurt,” Symonds told the . “There’s no point in that, in my opinion. I’m giving it some serious thought.”At the end of the day, it’s a game of cricket. I take my cricket very seriously and I love playing for Australia but I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I can be harmed. There’s no need, not for a game of cricket.”Australia are scheduled to tour Pakistan in March and they are unlikely to make a decision on whether the trip will go ahead until a Cricket Australia security delegation assesses the conditions in February. Symonds said he would also be monitoring news reports and would speak to people who had spent time in Pakistan to learn more about the situation.”You personally choose whether you want to play for Australia,” Symonds said. “If you’re selected, you can choose to decline the offer of going on a tour or playing a game. Unless CA hear otherwise, they assume you’re playing. At some point a decision needs to be made. We don’t know if things can get worse [in Pakistan].”As it stands, we’re still going. It is not a place you want to be right now, but there is some water to go under the bridge. The assassination of someone that important is not ideal is it?”Symonds said news of Bhutto’s death had left the Australian dressing-room in silence after the third day of the Melbourne Test as the implications began to sink in. “There is obviously huge concern,” he said. “After stumps we watched the television report in the dressing-room and the entire room stopped to listen to it.”Mitchell Johnson said the players trusted in Cricket Australia to make the right choice on whether to tour. “Security are going over to see what it’s like,” Johnson said. “The trip is a long way away and no decisions are being made at the moment.”The 2002-03 Pakistan-Australia series was held in Sharjah and Sri Lanka but the Pakistan Cricket Board said they were not interested in relocating this season’s games. If the tour goes ahead three Tests are expected to be played between March 17 and April 6, to be followed by five ODIs.

Scorecard
India Under-19s continued their good form with a seven-wicket win over South Africa, to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.India’s win was set up by their bowlers who restricted South Africa to less than 200 in both innings. Ravindra Jadeja, the left-arm spinner, took seven in the match including 5 for 32 in South Africa’s second innings.Bowling first, India put themselves in an excellent position after dismissing the hosts for a paltry 164. Only Riley Rossouw stood in their way with 83, and just two other batsmen reached double figures. Pradeep Sangwan took 3 for 37, while Harshad Khadiwale, Garikina Prasad and Jadeja bagged a couple each.Khadiwale then led India’s reply, putting on an unbeaten century stand with Abhinav Mukund at the close of the first day’s play. South Africa’s bowlers performed little better on the second, restricting India to a lead of 95. Khadiwale, Mukund and Virat Kohli, the captain, scored fifties for India, but the rest of the batsmen failed to drive home the advantage.South Africa’s top order then wiped clean the deficit, finishing day two on 116 for 1, leading by 21. However, India fought back on the final day to dismiss the hosts for 176, with Jadeja picking up five, leaving them a mere 82 to chase.India’s batsmen needed only 15.4 overs to complete an emphatic seven-wicket win. Tanmay Srivastava was unbeaten on 34, while Roy Adams picked up two wickets in his three overs.The second and final match of the series begins in Chatsworth on January 16.

It may have been the `golden age of cricket’ but Edwardian professionals were treated as a lesser breed, their lives often ending in alcoholism and suicide, as Robert Palmer reveals…

“Smith EJ £1 weekly during winter if willing to work (or 10% weekly if no employment found): £2 weekly during summer and farm out at Leamington if possible, or elsewhere, failing which on ground staff.”Such was a minute in the Warwickshire CCC records for August 23, 1907, referring to the famous ‘Tiger’ Smith, who later became the club coach until his retirement at the age of 77. The minute reads as a very inhuman entry – especially ‘farm out’ – and reflects the undignified haggling which went on to obtain players as cheaply as possible.In the early years of the 1900s, these players were known as ‘professors’, the term possibly originating from their role as coaches at universities. The players may have felt that the term conferred upon them some status, but it certainly did not fill their pockets.Although the players were at liberty to work in the winter, opportunities were not abundant and many relied solely on their wage from the county. At best, this provided a hand-to-mouth existence. Even Willie Quaife, who was probably the highest paid player at Warwickshire at that time, earned only around £125 per year. This sum compared to the pay of a railwayman or a clerk but these professions carried a job for life and a pension at the end of it. A cricketer was usually finished when he was 35.In those clays, there was a huge gap between the income of a working man and those of the upper classes. As the Englishwomen’s Domestic Magazine stated, “A well bred young woman’s trousseau in the early 1900s for lingerie alone was expected to cost £100”. In other words, roughly Jim ‘Tiger’ Smith’s wage. Furthermore players were expected to buy their own kit and to pay their own hotel bills and rail fares. `Tiger’ recalled that “the return fare Birmingham- London then was 9s 7d and you could get dinner, bed and breakfast at the Adelphi in Adam Street for 7s 6d. We had nothing to grumble at”.Admittedly clubs like Warwickshire were not well off. For example, in 1902 there was a bill for the new pavilion of £1,374 to find. The profit for that year was a slender £60. Possibly this was why the players were invited to a dinner in 1902 with the touring Australians on the understanding that they paid for their own drinks. Contrast this with the conditions of today’s cosseted cricketer, with his generous salary, perhaps an England contract, lucrative sponsorship, book deal and six-figure benefit cheque. A Geoffrey Boycott speaking engagement would bring in more than a professor’s annual salary.

Of course the lucky player might expect a Benefit after 10 or 11 years as a capped player. Smith in fact had two Benefits: in 1922, he received £700; and in 1954, he had a testimonial worth £698. This, however, was a rarity. And very often much of a player’s benefit went on paying off debts. The Warwickshire player Johnnie Shilton earned £700 from his Benefit, but he was an undischarged bankrupt and most of the funds were already spoken for by various debtors. The committee was forced to have a discussion about his position, “he being in prison for debt”. Shilton died three years later, aged 37.It has been claimed that Shilton was 42 when he died but, having been unable to gain employment at Warwickshire because he was born a Yorkshireman, he used the birth certificate of his cousin John, who was born in Coventry five years before Shilton.

Cricket, generally, was not a long-lived profession in those days. A further hazard was the weather, which could destroy a player’s one chance of putting by a nest egg for his old age, or perhaps of buying a small shop. A player called Syd Santall, who had taken more than 1,000 wickets for Warwickshire, had his benefit in the match against Yorkshire spoilt by rain and he received only £400, which would be worth about £8,000 today. Scant reward indeed.It was not altogether surprising, therefore, that many players ended their days in penury. This was often due to their own failings, among which an addiction to drink ranked high. The players could not afford much to spend on drink. It was their admirers who were the danger, and clubs made appeals to the public not to treat professionals to a tipple. The impecunious Shilton, who was known as Lord Warwick because he was often seen riding around in a hansom cab, said: “Drink, sir, why I could swim in drink. I wish they wouldn’t give me drink. I wish they would give me the money.” Another said he could have drowned in drink.It was not unknown for players to take to the field the worse for drink. Another Warwickshire player, Frank Foster, who was an amateur but strongly inclined against those of his status, recalled that he had hardly tumbled into bed at seven o’clock in the morning after a night’s carousing than two team mates came into his room, stripped him, put him in the bath and for an hour “pummelled and punched” him. They then ordered him a beef steak and a pint of beer for his breakfast. He recalled that he could hardly crawl to the wicket when play began. Even so, he managed to catch Wilfred Rhodes in the first over. On another occasion he remembers leaving the card table for the breakfast table.These anecdotes are not meant to malign old cricketers as a breed. On the whole they were fine, hard-working, steady types, which made it even worse that they should be treated the way they were. We have all heard Lord Hawke’s dictum “Pray God no professional player is ever allowed to captain England”. The magical gift of leadership was felt to reside only in those who had been to a decent public school.Patsy Hendren, the old Middlesex and England player, spoke about the professionals not only having separate dressing-rooms to the amateurs, but also separate gates to the playing area at Lord’s. In one match it happened that 10 amateurs were in the side together with a solitary professional, Hendren. As a concession he was invited to use the amateur’s gate, but with his quirky sense of humour he insisted on using his own gate in solitary splendour.It was much less humorous for the professors when inferior amateurs, such as public school teachers on their summer holidays, took their places, which often led to them losing badly needed match fees. Also galling was the rule at many clubs that professors were not allowed in the pavilion except at meal times or when they were specially called for.

A particular indignity was the extraneous duties that the players were required to carry out. For example, the professors were expected to umpire club and ground games or to bowl to club members in the nets for a couple of hours. This latter chore was greatly resented, as evidenced by the experience of Shilton. After bowling his heart out at a corpulent member for an hour, he was rewarded with tuppence, the price of half a pint of ale. Legend has it that he threw the money at the member’s feet and shouted, “You must bloody need this more than me”.On another occasion Shilton told a member, a parson wearing a gaudy Free Foresters cap, to “get back to your pulpit where you’ll be more bloody use”. One can imagine the response of the great Fred Trueman to being asked to bowl to plump members wearing multi-coloured hats. ‘Dick’ Lilley and Sam Hargreave, who were both senior Warwickshire professionals, paid £15 apiece in order to secure their release from having to bowl at the members.For all the penury and the indignities, life for the old professors was largely enjoyable; glorious days, in retrospect anyway, of endless sun with springy turf beneath their feet, performing legendary feats in front of adoring crowds. The reality once they hung their boots up was grim. Many could not cope with life after cricket. Then the hangers-on quickly melted away. Presents and souvenirs went to the pawn shops. Suicide was not uncommon: even the great Arthur Shrewsbury, unable to face a summer in which he would not play cricket, shot himself.I once assumed that all cricketers found some congenial benefactor when they retired, someone who provided pleasant work somehow connected with cricket. Unfortunately there were many professors in the early 1900s who had to fend for themselves in the brutish world of the Edwardian underclass. With no marketable skills, many were forced to take ill-paid jobs: if they were lucky, a coaching appointment at a public school; if they were less lucky, working as an unskilled labourer.How surprised the old professors would be if they could come back and see the grounds of today: the ample accommodation, with no separate dressing-rooms, nor gates for amateurs: no amateurs full stop: free and plentiful equipment; a physiotherapist to minister to aches and pains; the indoor schools, the parking spaces for the sponsored cars. The old-timers only had their bicycles to ride.This article first appeared in The Cricketer in September 2002

The latest intake for South Africa’s High Performance Programme (HPP) includes a number of players with international experience as the selectors continue to assess the depth of talent available. The 23-man squad will attend the high performance centre in May and June before an Emerging Players tournament in Australia during July.JP Duminy, Johan Botha and Robin Peterson – who are in the current Test squad touring Bangladesh – will spend their off season with the HPP while ODI members Albie Morkel and Justin Ontong are also included. After the recent quota row that hit selection for the Bangladesh tour, coloured players are strongly represented.A number of players have been rewarded for impressive domestic seasons including quick bowlers Dillon du Preez and Lonwabo Tsotsobe and batsman Henry Davids. Vaughn van Jaarsveld, who turned his back on a Kolpak deal with Warwickshire, makes his first step towards a possible international career.Joubert Strydom, the convenor of selectors, said more players could be included on a short-term basis depending on their commitments with the national side.”We are extremely happy that these are the players we have earmarked as the next wave of players that should take South African cricket forward,” Strydom said. “Some of them have played for the country at the highest level already; hence, they have been identified to undergo the high performance training in order to ensure their wonderful talents are developed to the full.”Unfortunately, the busy schedule of the South African squad has ruled out some of the younger players currently playing for the Proteas. However, ad hoc invitations could be extended to other individuals where the camp’s content might warrant skill specific development.”Alongside the HPP there will also be a specialist spin camp, in Port Elizabeth, as Cricket South Africa tries to bolster one of the weakest areas of the game which will be led by the national spinners co-ordinator and selector, Shafiek Abrahams. At this camp wicketkeepers will also be invited as will a wider range of talented spinners outside the performance squad.”The HPP is designed to help the South Africa aspirants to take the step to become significant Test, ODI and Pro20 players. The HPP works closely with the franchises as we are all part of CSA integrated pipeline working together to help these players reach their full potential,” Vince Van der Bijl, the high performance general manager, said.Gerald Majola, the CEO of CSA, said South Africa’s recent successes show the value of the HPP: “A number of last year’s graduates from the HPP have made the jump from domestic professional cricket most successfully into international cricket,” he said. “The franchises are to be congratulated on helping to widen the pool from which the Proteas are selected by providing most capable replacements for established players who have retired or lost form.”The HPP has also made it possible to develop more variety into the South African set-up, and this was graphically illustrated in the recent successes against Pakistan, New Zealand and West Indies. We face a challenging season, touring India, England and Australia. The HPP squad and the programme itself will be there to provide meaningful backup in our bid to be the very best”.Squad Ahmed Amla, Gulam Bodi, Loots Bosman, Johan Botha, Henry Davids, Dillon du Preez, JP Duminy, Dean Elgar, Matthew Harris, Imraan Khan, Rory Kleinveldt, Heino Kuhn, Ethy Mbhalati, Albie Morkel, Justin Ontong, Alviro Petersen, Robin Peterson, Vernon Philander, Andrew Puttick, Blake Snijman, Thandi Tshabalala, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Vaughn van Jaarsveld.

Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, has calmed speculation that England’s top players could be lured into the financially lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL).The IPL – which is officially sanctioned by the ICC, unlike the Indian Cricket League – has attracted some of the biggest names in world cricket. Dimitri Mascarenhas is the only Englishman to have signed up so far, largely due to the IPL clashing with the county season, but Clarke insists no player can be poached without the ECB’s consent.”We have a contract with BCCI,” Clarke told . “In that contract, they’re not allowed to take any English players of any kind to play in IPL if there is no ‘No Objection Certificate’ [NOC].”IPL will not play any player who has not received an NOC.”Clarke would be powerless to prevent the likes of Kevin Pietersen joining the non-sanctioned ICL, although any player who went down that path could be barred from playing Test or county cricket in the future. Two days ago, the ECB rejection the registration of five county players for their association with the ICL.”If they obtain a No Objection Certificate from their home board then we’re going to consider their cases,” Clarke said. “I don’t think we’re telling players they can’t earn a living. We’re saying here are the rules in our country. Our job is to nurture, to protect and to develop cricket in England and Wales. We make those judgements as to how we go about doing that. We do so with clarity, legally. If people from other countries have different views as to how we’re doing that, I’m sorry but they’re not in our country.”We’ll run the game according to our regulations and our rules and we expect them to comply. We have no interest in seeing rogue leagues in other countries develop. We have no interest in seeing rogue leagues in our country develop.”Some of England’s higher profile names, such as Pietersen and Alastair Cook, have poured water on the attraction of the IPL, committing their immediate future to England. Ali Brown, Surrey’s pugnacious batsman, also turned down an offer. However, earlier this month Lalit Modi, the Indian IPL commissioner, said the tournament’s second season could be moved in order to accommodate England players.

Haroon Lorgat, the former convenor of Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) selection committee, has been appointed the ICC’s next chief executive officer. Lorgat, 47, will take over from the current CEO, Malcolm Speed, following the ICC Annual Conference, scheduled to take place between June 29 and July 4.Lorgat’s appointment, comes days after Imtiaz Patel, another South African, turned down the ICC’s offer and follows a meeting he had with David Morgan, the ICC’s president-elect, in Pretoria on Wednesday.The appointment was approved by the ICC’s recruitment board, comprising Morgan, the ICC president, Ray Mali, the vice-president, Sharad Pawar and Creagh O’Connor, the chairman of Cricket Australia.Lorgat said he look forward to an “exciting and rewarding journey in a game I have truly loved from a very young age.”He takes over at a time when the game, and the ICC, face several difficult decisions. “I am under no illusion about the challenges that await me but those challenges are also opportunities and I cannot wait to start work at the highest level in such a great game.”Mali expressed his delight at Lorgat’s appointment. “I have worked alongside him for a decade in South African cricket and I have seen first-hand what a great team player he is and that is something that will serve both him and the game extremely well in the years to come.”Lorgat previously held several posts in cricket administration. He was chairman of Western Province Professional Cricket and a board member at Western Province Cricket Association.He also served as a finance committee member for the United Cricket Board of South Africa (1999-2004), was a member of the ICC’s World Cup finance committee (2000-2003), was a board director and treasurer of CSA (2003-2004) and a selector (2001-2003). In 2004, he was appointed as chairman of selectors for CSA, a position he held until 2007.

Maintaining appearances: Greg Chappell was the man out in themiddle with both captains for the toss. And when Sourav Ganguly’s turncame to have a chat, you’d never have guessed that the two men had beenresponsible for one of the most damaging schisms in the history of Indian sport.Those looking for any drama from the former coach and ex-captain weresorely disappointed.Any time banking: Yuvraj Singh’s dismissal was a huge blow to theKing’s XI Punjab’s hopes of a massive total. But for over a minute, no one couldeven figure out if Wriddhiman Saha had dislodged the bails in time. Thereplay from side-on was inconclusive, thanks largely to the logo of a bankthat kept twirling around the screen even as everyone tried to make out ifthe bail had come out of the groove. Talk about milking every last dollar.Son of Swampy: Sean Marsh was just four when his old man, Geoff[Swampy to his mates], made his highest one-day score. That was down theroad at Chandigarh’s Sector 16 Stadium, in a World Cup match against NewZealand. By the standards of that era, Marsh senior’s knock was a rapidone, and the son showed signs of replicating the feat before a fellowAussie, David Hussey, sent him on his way.Not quite champagne class: With wickets falling in a heap and noboundary for three overs, the crowd was getting restive even in the poshseats above the pavilion. Then, Ishant Sharma misfielded on the rope andthe drumbeats boomed out with renewed vigour. A group of men celebratedwith a spray. Not Dom Perignon, but a soft drink of a dark hue. Othersthat got soaked didn’t look too delighted.A better man?: Having reacted as though he’d been jilted by a loveron being denied an appeal against Debabrata Das, you wondered howSreesanth would react when a subsequent delivery was off-driven for four.With good grace, a word of appreciation and a handclap or two. There was anelement of theatrics when he dismissed him soon after, but it finallylooks like he’s ready to button his lip and let the ball do the talking.Middling it: No matter whether it’s a Test match, a club game in apark or the IPL, there are few finer sights than watching a quick bowlershatter the stumps. When Laxmi Ratan Shukla made room for an expansivedrive, it was VRV Singh’s turn to feel that adrenaline rush, with themiddle stump poleaxed, and the Kolkata Knight Riders down for the count.

Cynical gamesmanship or well-meaning attempt to improve the spirit in which cricket is played? The answer to that question probably depends on whether you like – or hate – England or Australia more. But if it was England’s intention to improve relations between the sides when they invited their Australia counterparts for a drink in the dressing rooms at the end of the Cardiff Test, it may well have backfired.Certainly, some in the Australian dressing room were underwhelmed by the invitation. Going in the face of modern convention – in recent times, at least, the sides would only meet for such a drink at the end of the series – it has been interpreted, coming moments after a heavy defeat, as antagonistic. Nobody likes a gloater.What is not disputed is that Alastair Cook, the England captain, invited Michael Clarke, the Australian captain, and his team into the England dressing room immediately after the game was completed. Nor is it disputed that the Australia team did not accept. Everything else is open to interpretation.

James Anderson on…

Stuart Broad: “He hardly bowled a bad ball. He hasn’t bowled badly in recent months but you just sometimes forget how dangerous he can be when he snaps into that slightly fuller length. He was always trying to find the outside edge and at pace with the bounce that he gets, he can be unplayable at times. It was great to see him in that sort of form.”
England’s balanced attack: “It probably is the best balanced attack we’ve had since Flintoff retired. It’s great to have Ben Stokes at No. 6 to bring us that four seam option and with him and Mark Wood bowling so fantastically it eases the burden on me. Moeen bowled brilliantly throughout the Cardiff Test, too, which is a big help.”
England’s positive approach: “We did exactly what we talked about: we took the positive options throughout. We were in trouble a couple of times with the bat but Joe Root did what he has been doing for a year and with the ball we kept asking questions of them.”

“It was Cooky’s idea,” James Anderson confirmed. “After the New Zealand series we had a beer after each game and we found that that was quite an enjoyable thing to do. Just to chew the fat after a hard Test. It didn’t matter if we won or lost. We still did it at Headingley after we lost. So Cooky went and asked. We were all happy to do it. I don’t know why they didn’t come in.”Clarke said he discussed the idea with the Australia coach and senior players before responding. “When Cooky approached me after the game I was a little surprised, to be honest,” he said. “It hasn’t happened too many times in my career no matter who we have played after the first Test. Normally we do it after a series.”I spoke to Darren Lehmann and a few of the senior players to get their views. They were of the opinion – like me – that at the end of the series we’ll have a drink with England. If they ask us again at the end of this match, we’ll worry about it then. For us it’s not a big deal and I’m sure for England it’s not a big deal either.”The invitation comes at the same time as England embrace a new, aggressive style of cricket and after they have spoken of playing “with a smile on their face”. While they have not specifically said they will not “sledge” they were notably quieter in Cardiff this year than they had been in the earlier matches of the summer of 2014 when the Sri Lanka players were notably unimpressed by their antics.Yet now, inspired, in part at least, by the refreshing attitude of the New Zealand side, who played a hard but good-spirited brand of cricket, England have reasoned that, to appeal to a wider fan base and to engage with a general public that seemed underwhelmed by their Ashes success in 2013, they have to do more than win. Their focus has moved away from talk of fighting and battles and more to enjoyment and the expression of skills. They appear, at first glance, to have embraced the new approach with the zeal of a recent convertBut it’s not hard to understand Australia’s cynicism towards England’s new approach. Until very recently, England gave as good as they got in terms of gamesmanship and sledging. It was, after all, only a year ago that James Anderson was accused – though subsequently cleared – of “crossing the line” in an off-field incident with Ravi Jaedja. It remains to be seen if this is a passing phase – a ploy, even, to show-up Australia’s more brusque approach – or a meaningful change.Certainly Peter Siddle, who may well come into the team for the second Investec Test at Lord’s, is unconvinced. “It’s my fifth Ashes series and it’s the first time anyone has ever gone to have a drink after one Test match,” he said. “So it’s a little bit of an interesting story.”Especially coming from Jimmy Anderson. You know what Jimmy is like. After the Oval last time we had a drink and he said ‘I don’t know why we do this, I can’t stand it’.”I’ve played four Ashes series and we’ve never had a drink after a Test match until the very last one so I don’t think anything is going to change there. It’s always a hard, aggressive match and obviously after the game it’s move on to the next one and get prepared to go again. But at the end of the series, we’ll be happy to have a drink.”Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, such issues matter little. Perhaps it is more important to note that Moeen Ali, sore after his exertions in Cardiff, did not train at Lord’s on Tuesday, but is said not to be a risk for the second Test. Perhaps it is more important to note that Mitchell McClenaghan, New Zealand’s left-arm fast bowler currently playing for Middlesex, was among the net bowlers helping England prepare for the on-going challenge of facing Mitchell Johnson and, fitness permitting, Mitchell Starc.Or perhaps, after a few years where the image of the game has been tarnished by on-field posturing and childish sledging, it is refreshing that teams are beginning the reflect on their behaviour and the actions they can have on the next generation of cricket lovers. These are very early days in England’s conversion. It remains to be seen whether it takes root.

ScorecardNic Maddinson scored two centuries in the Matador Cup (pictured) and now has his first of the Sheffield Shield summer•Getty Images

Nic Maddinson’s first hundred of the Sheffield Shield season gave New South Wales the lead on the second day of their match against Queensland at the SCG, where they finished the day on 6 for 272. At the close of play, Jay Lenton was on 15 and Steve O’Keefe was on 5, and the New South Wales lead was 13 runs after Queensland had earlier been bowled out for 259.Maddinson and Ed Cowan put on 135 for the third wicket and while Cowan missed the chance for a century, brilliantly caught at cover by Marnus Labuschagne for 90, Maddinson did reach the milestone. Although Maddinson had a productive Matador Cup – he was the third-leading run scorer in the tournament – his Sheffield Shield campaign had started with scores of 17, 6 and 10.His seventh first-class century was enough to push the Blues into the lead, although he fell soon after they passed Queensland’s total, caught behind off Jack Wildermuth for 112. James Hopes finished the day with three wickets. Earlier, the Bulls had added 38 to their overnight total for the loss of their last four wickets.