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Spin bowlers should be encouraged to bowl more in the early overs of one-day games, says Dipak Patel, the former New Zealand offspinner who famously opened the bowling in the 1992 World Cup.Patel’s comments come in the wake of Rahul Dravid’s comments about the Powerplay rule, saying an extra fielder outside the circle would encourage spinners during that phase of the game.”The problem with many captains is that they tend to use spinners either too attackingly as too defensively,” said Patel when asked about the modification. “Spinners need to be used smartly, with inside out-fields. You need to attack and defend at the same time.”Martin Crowe, the former captain, and Warren Lees, the former New Zealand wicketkeeper who was appointed coach, came up with a plan to open the bowling with Patel in the 1992 World Cup. On small grounds with fielding restrictions in operation, Patel ended with eight wickets in as many games with an economy-rate as impressive as 3.10.”The role of the captain is vital. I was lucky to have Martin leading me and he knew exactly where to place the fielders when I was bowling,” said Patel, currently in England doing research on spinners for the High Performance wing of the New Zealand board. “He always used to tell me, ‘We’re going to keep the runs down at the other end. So you throw it up and try to get them out. They’ll try and hit you and give their wickets.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”But how easy is it for a spinner to be bowling with a hard, white ball? “It’s great, especially with such a prominent seam. It helps your grip and turns enough to beat the bat. I sometimes think spinners look for too much turn these days. You just need an inch or so.”

Medium-pacer Sony Cheruvathur, the 29-year-old with just eight first-class matches under his belt, has been appointed as Kerala’s captain for the forthcoming season.The team doesn’t boast any heavyweights but the new coach Vedam Hariharan felt it was an opportunity for the youngsters to stand up to the challenge. “True, the last five to six years we had to depend heavily on imports for our batting,” Hariharan was quoted as saying in the . “This year, we don’t have men with heavy records. Players should now stand up to be counted.” Hariharan, who has coached sides in Australia, Scotland and Ireland was roped in earlier this month.Sadagoppan Ramesh and S Suresh, experienced hands from Tamil Nadu, were Kerala’s outstation professional players last year but the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) decided not to draft anyone in this time. Kerala begin their campaign with an away match against Vidarbha in Nagpur, between November 3 and 6, and host Services in Palakkad from November 15 to 18.The side is also set to play a friendly against Karnataka in Bangalore from October 29 to 31. Kerala plays four of its five matches away from home but Cheruvathur, making his captaincy debut, wasn’t deterred. “We do very well in away matches for we get tracks where we can use our fast bowlers,” he said. Former Indian fast bowler Tinu Yohanan will be leading the pace attack along with the accurate Prasanth Chandran.Squad for the first two Ranji Trophy games: Sony Cheruvathur (capt), VA Jagadeesh (vice-capt), Prasanth Parameshwaran, Sebastian Antony, Sambasiva Sarma, Rohan Prem, Robert Fernandes, Sreekumar Nair, Raiphy Vincent Gomez, Vinan G. Nair (wk), Tinu Yohanan, Prasanth Chandran, S Aneesh, P Prasanth, KJ Rakesh. Coach: Vedam Hariharan.

Northwest surprised Western Province with a four wicket victory off the penultimate ball of the match in the Standard Bank Cup clash in Potchefstroom on Friday.Northwest scored 261 for six in response to Western Province’s 258 for five in their allotted 45 overs.Home side opener Hendrik de Vos scored 82 not out while West Indian Mark Lavine blasted 44 off 21 balls down the order that swung the match in favour of the hosts.Western Province’s bowling was well below par as they conceded 23 wides to compound their misery.It started well for the visitors, who won the toss and elected to bat. Spearheaded by a maiden one-day century from opener Graeme Smith they looked well placed to record a win that seemed a mere formality.Smith scored 106 and took three for 46 in 8.2 overs to earn the man of the match award. His heroics were not enough as the rest of the team failed to raise their game when it was needed.Western Province openers Smith and suspended national team player Herschelle Gibbs put on 40 for the first wicket. Gibbs blitzed 22 that included five boundaries before being caught by De Vos off the bowling of seamer Garth Roe.Zimbabwean international Neil Johnson played the dominant role in a 103-run second wicket partnership with Smith, scoring 58. It was an aggressive knock that included four boundaries and one six. He holed out to Craig Light off spinnner Corrie Jordaan.Lloyd Ferreira then played the support role as Smith moved to his century. Ferreira was Roe’s second victim caught in the covers by West Indian Mark Lavine.Smith was run out two overs from the end of the innings as he tried to force the pace further. But he had already done enough to put his side into a strong positionThe Northwest response was spirited as they tried manfully to stay with the required run rate of five and a half to the over.They had fallen behind with the loss of opener Glen Hewitt (42), Arno Jacobs (18) and Martin Venter (3) before Lavine made hay and turned the match on its head.When he holed out to Herschelle Gibbs at point, the way was paved for De Vos to steer his side to victory.

Johnny Hayes, who made 15 Test appearances for New Zealand as a fast bowler in the 1950s, has died at the age of 80.A tall right-arm bowler who on his day was genuinely quick, Hayes toured England under Walter Hadlee in 1949 but sustained a groin strain which meant he was a virtual passenger for much of the trip. His Test debut eventually came against England in 1950-51 and the following season he produced possibly his best single burst when he removed Gomez, Walcott and Worrell in eight balls against West Indies.In 1955-56 he toured India and Pakistan with success, taking 35 wickets at 32.11 in first-class games where he used the new ball with skill. He was less penetrative in the Tests, his 13 wickets in six outings costing 46.61.He made a second trip to England in 1958 where he took 62 wickets, including 11 against the MCC at Lord’s. The New Zealand side was widely regarded as one of the worst to tour overseas and Hayes struggled in the four Tests with only six wickets. The bulk of those came in England’s only innings at Lord’s where Hayes took his Test-best 4 for 36.In all first-class cricket he took 292 wickets, playing his domestic cricket for Auckland and Canterbury.After retiring from cricket in 1961, he worked in an import-export business and was Morocco’s honorary consul-general in New Zealand until his retirement in 2004.

Lawyers working for the Indian Cricket League are believed to be preparing the ground to file lawsuits against the ECB, following yesterday’s news that five ICL players were refused registration by the England board.The five players – Justin Kemp, Hamish Marshall, Johan van der Wath, Wavell Hinds and Andrew Hall – were all refused by a rule which requires non-England players not to have played for their home countries in the past 12 months. The ECB seem confident that they are on a firm legal footing but, privately, the ICL believe they have a very strong case for a ‘restraint of trade’ suit.”Our clients are taking this extremely seriously,” a lawyer representing the ICL told the , “and we will be supporting them. They find themselves in a nightmare situation where they have signed a contract with the counties in good faith and now they are not allowed to play.”The counties themselves are unlikely to take action against the ECB; most have seen this situation coming for months. The worst situation for all, though, is if the players take action against the counties themselves; if the counties lose, the ECB would have to bail them out. Where this leaves the likes of Marshall, who turned his back on New Zealand and is now effectively unemployed, is unclear.These five players won’t be the last; the ECB are expecting another raft of applications which will only intensify the pressure on both the counties and the board, not to mention increase the ICL’s belief that their legal case for action is solid. The Professional Cricketers Assocation (PCA) announced two weeks ago that it would step in to help the players better understand the muddle, and would conduct meetings with all the counties before the start of the season.”Our position hasn’t changed from two weeks ago when we made our last statement,” Jason Ratcliffe, the PCA’s assistant chief executive, told Cricinfo today, adding that the meetings had yet to be concluded.

England’s bowling coach, Ottis Gibson, believes Steve Harmison is working his way back to his best form after grabbing nine wickets in the first of his two outings for Highveld Lions in South Africa.Harmison had not played a first-class match since July. He missed England’s Test series against India after undergoing a hernia operation and was not initially included in the squad that sets off for Sri Lanka on Thursday. However, he seems set to earn a late call-up after taking 6 for 91 and 3 for 78 against Cape Cobras in Paarl this week.It was not a flawless performance by any means, and Harmison was once again troubled by a spate of wides and no-balls. But he found an improved rhythm in the second innings, which pleased Gibson no end.”First day, first innings, it was his first ball since July, so you expected probably that he wasn’t going to go in at 100 per cent,” said Gibson. “He’s here to get back into things and he was obviously a little bit rusty for a start.”The second innings was a lot better – he only bowled two wides as opposed to 20 – with a lot more control, and he’s obviously had a lot more bowling under his belt and it showed. He bowled quite well and in pretty good areas.”Gibson was a team-mate of Harmison’s at Durham this season, and has been sent to South Africa to assess his rehabilitation. “I’m feeding back information [to the selectors] all the time on how he’s going, his mindset and the wickets,” said Gibson. “The biggest issue is that we need him to be firing and bowling up to Test standard, but the ultimate decision isn’t mine.””I think as long as he’s happy in himself that he’s bowling well then obviously he’s going to move on to Sri Lanka,” added Gibson. “I don’t think he would want to go to Sri Lanka if he didn’t feel like he was ready for that. He will know whether he is ready or not.”

Rory Hamilton-Brown has been reinstated as England Under-19 captain after the ECB was forced to make an about-turn, less than a week after it had stripped him of the captaincy and banned him from the first of two Tests against Pakistan.On Monday, it was reported that Hamilton-Brown had been punished for drinking on the eve of the first Test. He was named in the squad for the second match at Derby, which starts today, but only as a player with Ben Wright continuing as captain.But this morning the ECB issued a statement which said: “Following an investigation, Rory Hamilton-Brown has been reinstated as captain. Following the original decision taken by the England Under-19 team management there were suggestions that Hamilton-Brown had been involved in purchasing and consuming alcohol. Those suggestions have now proven to be unfounded.”The ECB has launched a full inquiry into the circumstances which led to the initial suspension which was imposed by the team management of John Abrahams and Andy Pick on the morning of the first Test.Whatever the outcome, board officials are likely to face some embarrassing questions as to how he was so swiftly banned on what now appears to be unsupportable evidence.

India and Sri Lanka have been fined for slow over-rates during their CB Series match in Adelaide on Tuesday. Jeff Crowe, the match referee, imposed the fines after the two sides were found to be one and two overs short of their targets, respectively, when when time allowances were taken into consideration.In accordance with the ICC Code of Conduct regulations governing over-rate penalties, players are fined 5% their match fees for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time, with the captain fined double that amount. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was fined 10% of his match fee, with each of his team-mates receiving 5% fines. Mahela Jayawardene was fined 20% and the rest of his players 10% of their match fees.”The over-rates for all teams in this series so far have been pedestrian at times with teams failing to complete their full quota of overs in the stipulated time on several occasions,” said Crowe. “Allowances and early finishes have meant players have been fortunate to escape fines in previous matches and this is an area that all the sides need to give further attention to and improve upon.

Saqlain Mushtaq, the former Pakistan offspinner, has said he would jump at the chance to represent England if the call came his way. Saqlain has a British passport through his marriage and qualifies in April as he begins another season with Surrey.”If they [England] call me, definitely I’ll play,” he told BBC London. “I’ve been discussing with my family and friends and they’ve all been saying ‘Saqqy, if they give you the chance, definitely go for it’.”Saqlain hasn’t played international cricket since 2004 when a serious knee injury threatened to end his career. However, following surgery he signed with Sussex – alongside former team-mate Mushtaq Ahmed – before rejoining Surrey for the 2008 campaign.”To be honest, I love my cricket and I want to play at the highest level,” said Saqlain. “I’ve been thinking about it because last year the press asked me the question and I said I’m looking after my body and my form at the moment.Saqlain, who has 208 Test scalps and 288 ODI wickets, adds that motivation wouldn’t be an issue. “If England needs you and asks you and you can’t play with that passion, that’s wrong. [But] If I’m playing for a national team, for a country, I don’t want to lose.”

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