It’s the coming of the evolution of cricket – the Stanford 20/20 tournament to be played at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua from July 11 to August 13.The Barbados cricketers got a chance this week to try out the new kits and from all reports they are loving it. The gear was handed over by Raj Walia, the Toronto-based manufacturer, who is part owner of Vampire and BAS cricket equipment.The bats are black, with the Stanford 20/20 logo on the front and back. The balls are orange and will offer more swing. The helmets are black and will have a blue and yellow stripe. The pads and batting gloves will have a similar design. Each player in the 19 participating teams will get a kit, and over 500 balls have been manufactured.The stumps and bails will be silver, and organisers are promising a spectacle during the matches which will be played in the afternoon under natural light and at night under floodlights.

Division Two

Cameron White piloted Somerset with an unbeaten 197 as they tried to avoid a heavy loss to Derbyshire at Derby. The visitors have just three more wickets left in their pursuit of a further, and unlikely, 179 runs. Having already gamely fought his way to the verge of his maiden double-century – he blasted 33 fours and three sixes from 178 balls – White will be Somerset’s biggest hope tomorrow. Steffan Jones is Derbyshire’s most successful bowler so far this innings, taking three wickets to bring his match haul to seven.Craig Spearman made his second century of the match – and just missed out on his 150 for the second time – to take Gloucestershire to 272 for 2 by stumps, a deficit of six runs. He and Phil Weston put on 227 for the first wicket as Gloucestershire worked their way towards parity. Matthew Nicholson eventually grabbed both openers, but they were to prove the only wickets for Northants on a frustrating day for their bowlers at Northampton.Surrey strode to an emphatic victory at at New Road, crushing Worcestershire by an innings and 108 runs to keep their title contention firmly on track. Ahzar Mahmood took 4 for 53 to start Worcestershire’s slide and then Ian Salisbury (3 for 36) and Anil Kumble (2 for 28) wrapped up the tail between them. Vikram Solanki offered the only resistance of note, his 56 propping up the home side for a while, but the rest of the wickets slid away, until they were all out for 165. Rikki Clarke had earlier lifted Surrey’s total past 500 with a firecracking 40 not out.

Division One

Anthony McGrath’s defiant century took Yorkshire to a decent lead ahead of the final day at Old Trafford. After the early loss of Joe Sayers (6), the senior pairing of McGrath and Craig White added 183 before McGrath fell just before the close, to take Yorkshire to 192 for 2, with White making 78 not out. Earlier, Luke Sutton had made his way to 151 not out, just about reaching the 150-landmark before the Lancashire innings came to a close on 441, to give Lancashire a first-innings lead of 96.Shane Warne opened up Hampshire’s contest against Middlesex at Lord’s with a positive declaration as soon as his team had reached 400, and taken maximum batting points. Nic Pothas’s third century of the season compensated for the early loss of Michael Carberry in the day’s fifth over after adding just a single to his overnight 103. Sean Ervine contributed a forthright 42 before edging the new ball to first slip, but Pothas pressed forward and reached three figures with a Chinese cut. In the next over Warne carved the ball to the cover fence and promptly jogged off the park, aware that Hampshire need to win this match to maintain pressure on the top-of-the-table teams.An intriguing final day is in prospect at Edgbaston after Nottinghamshire‘s openers made inroads into their mammoth target of 404. Darren Bicknell and Jason Gallian shared an unbeaten stand of 88 to set up a tester tomorrow. Bicknell had reached his fifty by the close, with Gallian making 30. Warwickshire had earlier made their way to 230 for 9 before declaring, Mark Wagh topscoring with 70.

Cricket South Africa has announced that it will not be able to send a side to play in England should Pakistan not be able to honour their commitments.”We were approached by the ECB earlier this week, requesting the Proteas to replace Pakistan should they withdraw from the ODI tournament against England,” Gerald Majola, the board’s chief executive told reporters. “We have turned down the request on the basis that we are committed to playing against Zimbabwe in the three-match ODI tournament starting next month.”Majola also indicated that South Africa are concluding arrangements to face as yet un-namedopposition in Abu Dhabi “`We are looking for extra one-day games and they are almost finalised,” he said. “The conditions in Abu Dhabi are very similar to those in India and that willgive us the preparation we need for the Champions Trophy.”England have also been reported to have approached New Zealand and West Indies asking whether they could fill the gap should the need arise.But West Indies are due to play their opening match in Malaysia on September 12 – two days after the scheduled date for the last ODI in England – and are also likely to find themselves struggling to help out.

A small fault in the underlying structure of the pitch had caused several balls to stay low during India’s opening game of the DLF Cup at Kuala Lumpur, Chris Broad, the ICC match referee, has revealed.Broad’s statement came after grubbers at the Pavilion End had accounted for Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the first innings of the second game, when full-length deliveries from Dwayne Smith and Jerome Taylor died after bouncing and scooted onto the batsmen, dismissing Dravid lbw and the other two bowled.According to the media release, Michael Box, the ICC’s consultant groundsman, had noticed the fault on the eve of the game, but the lateness of the hour and the hardness of the surface meant that the ground staff could do little to rectify it. And following play today it developed into a small depression.The depression, short of a good length outside the off stump for right-handed batsmen, has forced officials to reassess the pitch-rotation plan for the series. It had originally been planned to rotate the matches between pitch 2, used for the opening game, and this one, pitch 4. But with repairs clearly needed on this surface, the other pitch will be used for the next two matches before pitch 4 is used for the final two league games. It will also be used for the final on September 24.

New South Wales will play a minimum of two domestic limited-overs matches at Sydney’s Telstra Stadium over the next four years in a deal announced by Cricket NSW today. The Blues will stage a Twenty20 game against Tasmania at the former Olympic track venue on January 10 and a domestic one-day fixture against the Tigers on January 24.David Gilbert, the Cricket NSW chief executive, said the agreement continued the state’s investment in greater western Sydney. “The growth of western Sydney continues apace and is a vital catchment area for cricket participants and supporters,” he said. “We hope playing matches at Telstra Stadium will provide a great opportunity for Sydney’s west, in particular, to support the Blues.”The ground has hosted occasional domestic matches over the past three years and continues Cricket NSW’s push to take games away from the SCG. Telstra Stadium was one of the tenders for international matches in Sydney last season, but the bid of the SCG Trust was accepted.

Leading figures in Pakistan have praised the ICC’s decision to ban the umpire, Darrell Hair, from officiating any further in internationals. Percy Sonn, the ICC president, announced Hair’s fate following a two-day ICC board meeting in Mumbai, following the debacle of the Oval Test between Pakistan and England in August in which Hair accused Pakistan of ball-tampering.”I had already forgiven Hair,” Inzamam-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, told reporters. “It is [the] ICC’s decision and I will not say much on it.”The former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) director Abbas Zaidi said Hair’s removal had vindicated Inzamam and the PCB. “Since we were involved in the standoff it vindicates whatever we believed and advocated. We thank the British media and all the Asian cricket boards, especially India, for the support in the Hair issue.”The former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad was equally pleased, saying the ICC “has set an example” while adding that “all other impires will be under pressure to take [the] right decisions. “The ICC has upheld the game’s esteem and its own esteem,” he said.However Rashid Latif, another former Pakistan captain, was concerned the ICC have reacted too strongly. “Hair has suffered enough,” he said, “so I thought he would be forgiven because Inzamam had forgiven him. I think Hair had stigmatised his reputation by demanding compensation and it spoiled his case,” Latif added, referring to Hair’s leaked email to an ICC official demanding $500,000 dollars for an early retirement.

Zimbabwe’s one-day series defeat to Bangladesh is set to open another can of worms with the board and local cricket followers infuriated by the team’s poor performance. Zimbabwe went down to their third straight defeat at Bogra, on Tuesday, handing the series over with two matches left.Pressure on the coach Kevin Curran has quickly resurfaced and the board, which previously backed him when he came under siege from former board member Crispen Tsvarayi and the former head of selectors Bruce Makovah, has also become edgy. The humiliating loss to Bangladesh could be the final straw.Curran is not alone, though. Calls to axe under-performing players – a riot act was reportedly read by selectors before the tour – have grown by the day since Zimbabwe lost the first ODI by nine wickets.Sources have told Cricinfo the board wanted Curran to stay on until the World Cup, but there are now whispers in the corridors of Zimbabwe Cricket power that he is a contributing factor to the team’s slide.The defeats are dreadfully timed. The board is making frantic efforts to be seen to nurture a team that will be competitive when it finally returns to Test cricket at the end of next year.Many blame the board for the team’s continuing plunge, and it is feared that more players may quit the team to run away from taking stick on their own while the Peter Chingoka regime exonerates itself. Vusi Sibanda, the opening batsman, has already missed two tours with Zimbabwe after deciding to play league cricket in Australia where he is reportedly performing well.

Shaun Pollock was delighted by the manner in which South Africa foughtback on the second day at Newlands, but he wasn’t about to take anythingfor granted with his side still 270 adrift on first innings. Pollock’s naggingaccuracy fetched him figures of 4 for 75, and contributed to India losingtheir way in the afternoon – the last five wickets fell for just 19.By stumps, Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla had taken South Africa to 144 for1 after Sreesanth had got AB de Villiers early. According to Pollock, thefate of the match rested largely in the hands of South Africa’s batsmen,with batting supposed to be at its easiest on day three.”We haven’t discussed that at this stage,” said Pollock, when asked whatsort of score his team was looking at. “There’s a lot of cricket to beplayed. We can’t afford to get too ahead of ourselves. We need to find apartnership tomorrow and launch from there. But the quicker we do get abig score, the more time it gives us to try and win the Test match.”That’s the ideal route. We find ourselves in a good position now becausewe got those five wickets so quickly at the end. That was really theturning point for us. And to have batted the way we have sets up a base tolaunch from. We were pretty comfortable throughout the afternoon.”While Pollock’s wickets came as no surprise, there would have been someconsternation in the Indian dressing room over the identity of the otherfour-wicket man. Paul Harris was making his debut, and at times thismorning, he was clouted over the infield. But each time, he held his nerveto strike back with a telling blow, showing the sort of character that wonPollock’s approval.”They do score quickly, and their idea was to take on the spinner,” saidPollock. “There was a little bit of risk involved [in bowling Harris fromone end], but we always knew there was going to be an opportunity. Ithought he bowled very well. To take some big scalps like he did – I thinkSehwag and Sachin are pretty good players of spin. For him to come intohis debut Test match and have those two was pretty big for him.”Though the pitch showed few signs of deterioration late on day two,Pollock was hopeful that things would be different once the game went intothe final two days. “If we can bat well in this innings, it might beeasier for the bowlers later on with variable bounce and the cracksstarting to widen.”We’d like to get as much as we possibly can. It’s very dangerous to talkabout big targets; it can easily backfire on you. Any lead we can get willbe fantastic. If we can get them into a pressure situation and be 150ahead, then they will be behind the eight-ball fighting back to try andget back into the game. If the wicket starts misbehaving, then we’rereally in the front seat.”His one-time new-ball partner, Makhaya Ntini, went wicketless; a rareoccurrence for him in a home Test, and Pollock admitted that bowling on aplacid pitch had been no vineyard stroll. “There’s probably not that muchin it for the seamers,” he said. “Maybe, there’s a little bit of reverseswing going. There’s some assistance for the spinners, especially from outof the rough at one end.”You’d expect that day three is best for batting, and you’d expect thepitch to wear on days four and five. If we can build up a big scoretomorrow, we can use the wear and tear on days four and five. It onlyneeds two or three balls to misbehave to get you wickets.”Before all that though, he might need to bat. And on the evidence ofDurban, where his accomplished second-innings 63 set India an imposing 354to chase, few will be as well-equipped to handle the Kumble factor.

Rajesh Sharma’s career in cricket has been put on hold, at leasttemporarily. Cricinfo had earlier reported that the Punjab offspinner’s actionhad been reported to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on twoseparate occasions, something which the chairman of the Punjab selectioncommittee then claimed to have no knowledge of. All that has changed.”We have asked the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) not to select him for thefinal Ranji match of the season,” Niranjan Shah, secretary of the BCCI,said. “He was reported two times and there is a danger of him being calledin a match. It is better this way [than him being called in a match].”There was some confusion over how the Sharma case would move forward afterhe was reported for a suspect action, first in the final of the DuleepTrophy, and then in Punjab’s Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra.”We do not want any bowler with suspect action playing domestic cricket,”said Shah. “Now we will send him to the NCA [National Cricket Academy] for him to reviewed by the bowling review committee, of which Shivlal Yadav is a part.” Yadav will provide technical assistance to Sharma in an attempt to straighten out the kink in his action.When asked if the board was being more pro-active with issues such asthese, Shah said he did not see any harm in what the BCCI was doing. “Theboard has to take an active role,” he said. “There has to be communicationbetween the board and the players and others. We have to let them knowwhat we are thinking. After all the board runs cricket, and the attentionof people and media is so high.”At the same time Shah did not give much credence to suggestions that hewas growing in stature as his term of office unfolded, and that he wasbeing more assertive in his role as secretary as he gained experience. “Ihave to follow the policy of the board. I speak to all my colleagues andtake their opinions on any issue,” he said. “I think I now have enoughexperience [in administration] and that counts. I’m lucky to have apresident like Sharad Pawar who gives me the freedom to do my work.”In the past there have been numerous cases of players being reported forsuspect actions in domestic cricket, by umpires and match referees, butthis is one of the few times any concrete steps have been taken to remedythe problem.