Brett Lee is enjoying the extra responsibility of being Australia’s main bowling man following the unfortunate absence of Glenn McGrath. While McGrath is missing the one-day tour to look after his sick wife Jane, Lee is stepping up to guide an inexperienced attack in the Twenty20 International on Friday and the five-match one-day series.”[Lee] has been vital to us in both forms of the game – to be able to take wickets with the new ball – and we will be looking for him to do that again for us,” Ricky Ponting told . “When he is bowling the way he is, bowling fast and swinging the ball, he’s very difficult for any batsman to play.”Only Muttiah Muralitharan and Nathan Bracken took more wickets than Lee’s 15 at 29.26 in the VB Series, and Ponting said he was looking forward to unleashing him in South Africa. “Because he has got his own game in such good shape at the moment, he’s really enjoying that extra responsibility,” Ponting said. “We’ll have other guys around him in the one-day side, and even when the Test matches come around, who can do the other jobs. Brett’s strengths are his pace and being able to use that in short bursts, so that’s the way we’re planning to use him.”Bracken and Stuart Clark, the New South Wales team-mates, are likely to be the first-choice back-up for Ponting, who also has Mick Lewis and Mitchell Johnson in the squad. “I couldn’t really have been much happier with the way Stuart and Nathan have performed over the summer and really matured into good international bowlers,” Ponting said. “We’re not exactly sure if we are going to have Glenn for the Test part of the tour. We’ll have to wait and see how that pans out.”McGrath must play for New South Wales if he is to be considered for the tour and Michael Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie, who both performed strongly in the Pura Cup match at the Gabba this week, are the leading contenders to fill any vacancy. The first Test starts at Cape Town on March 16.

Following the signing of Chris Silverwood today, John Emburey has been promoted to the position of Director of Cricket for Middlesex.”We are delighted that John has accepted the position of Director of Cricket, responsible not only for first team performance as Head Coach, but also overseeing all cricket in the county from grass roots to the first XI,” Vinny Codrington, the chief executive, told the club’s website.”He will continue in his role as head coach and will continue to work closely with Jason Pooley the assistant coach, and Toby Radford the Academy director.””We have an exciting future here at Middlesex.” Emburey commented. “Thanks to Jason and Toby we have an excellent youth system and there are some very exciting cricketers in our Academy.”This season should see the emergence of some exciting new talent with Eoin Morgan and Billy Godleman, who is the first to come through the Academy system. The county is in good shape for its long-term future.”Middlesex’s opening match of the season is against Oxford on April 20.

Ian Harvey, the former Australia allrounder, will return to Gloucestershire on a short-term contract for the 2006 season. Harvey helped Gloucestershire win six one-day titles between 1999 and 2003 before joining Yorkshire for two seasons.”It is great to be coming back to Gloucestershire and l am looking forward to being back in Bristol,” he said. “Even though I will only be playing for a short period of time, I am looking forward to staying involved with the club by helping out with the Academy and the development of the younger players, as well as playing in the warm up to the Twenty20 international.”Gloucestershire’s two main overseas players – the New Zealanders Shane Bond and Hamish Marshall – join the club in May; Harvey will play in the first three Championship matches and three one-dayers. After his contract with Victoria wasn’t renewed, he spent the winter playing for the South African side, Cape Cobras.Mark Alleyne, Gloucestershire’s head coach, is delighted at Harvey’s return to the club. “Ian’s record for us is outstanding and there is no doubt he is one that we all love to watch.”Ian is an explosive batsman that can impact an innings from his first ball, he is a bowler with such variation that he is unpredictable and he is now a cricketer with such maturity that he can make a real difference to Gloucestershire.”

Bennett King, the coach of West Indies, says there are several players who can take up the mantle of captaincy of the national team.Speaking on the heels of Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s resignation, King pointed to players like Sylvester Joseph, the A-team captain, as possible candidates for the job.”There are a number of players I suppose in the side that have got reasonable experience, having been around international cricket for quite some time. There are some people,” King told the . “I thought Sylvester Joseph did a very good job with the West Indies A side as well. But certainly the players that we have got and the help that is surrounding them, I think there is always room for development and improvement.”King pointed out that leadership was an area in West Indies cricket which needed to be addressed. “Certainly leadership is one of those areas that I think the West Indies need to take a good look at as well,” he said. “It is an area in our cricket which we need to try to nurture and develop, and great leaders just don’t fall out of trees. They come along every now and then and if they are backed up with a very good team, people automatically think that he is a very good leader, but that is not always the case either.”He said that even though an individual leader was important, the entire team needed to be responsible for the leadership of the side. “You want more people contributing to the total development of the side. I think Utopia for a sporting team is a side in which players take complete ownership and coaches aren’t necessarily required any more,” he said. “Moving forward I think that is what any coach would want – for the players to be the ones who ultimately run the entire show. I think in the past it has been proven in certain sporting teams. The best sides are the ones that are self-driven.”The West Indies Cricket Board are expected to announce a new captain shortly.

Sri Lanka’s captain, Mahela Jayawardene, praised the performance of his young team and said that their efforts ranked up there with the best, as the first Test at Lord’s was saved through a brilliant rearguard action.Having followed on a whopping 359 runs in arrears, Sri Lanka ground their way through 199 overs on the final two-and-a-half days before bad light brought their epic innings to an end on 537 for 9. No fewer than seven batsmen recorded fifty in the innings, and after slumping to 91 for 6 in the first innings, Jayawardene was thrilled with the fight they had shown.”It was a brilliant effort which showed a lot of character from top to bottom,” he said, after being named as Man of the Match for his twin scores of 61 and 119. “It will have given a lot of confidence to the youngsters, and that’s what they need, belief that they can do it at this level of cricket, because most of them haven’t achieved anything in their careers yet.”The effort will also have given Jayawardene a lot of belief. Since assuming a senior role in the side, he has endured criticism of his leadership skills, and still remains as the official vice-captain on this tour, in the absence of the injured Marvan Atapattu. But he was able to answer the doubters by leading from the front and watching his charges take inspiration from his resistance.”In the past when I’ve been given responsibility, people have said how difficult it is for me to concentrate on my batting at the highest level,” he said. “I think I’ve proved people wrong. It’s how I go out there and perform that matters. It’s all to do with team efforts.”Jayawardene admitted that the thought had crossed his mind to declare once they had established a lead of 140-150, but added that good sense had prevailed, given the placid nature of the wicket. Even so, had England managed to take that final wicket and set themselves up for a run-chase, his side were ready and waiting for the challenge.”If we had been put in that situation we would definitely have gone for it,” said Jayawardene. “It was really flat out there but with three or four wickets we would have had a chance. It was all about the effort we had put in, and we couldn’t have let it go like that.”Jayawardene insisted that the spate of dropped catches shouldn’t detract from his team’s achievement, but he did recognise Sri Lanka had issues to address. “We’ll need to show the same determination in our bowling,” he said, “and we might have to look at different combinations when we get to Edgbaston. We have to get England out twice to win Test matches, and we only got five wickets. Those are the areas we have to improve.”

Andrew Flintoff is doubtful of being fit for the first Test against Pakistan beginning July 13 at Lord’s, with recurring pain in his injured left ankle.Flintoff had been out of the one-day series against Sri Lanka and specialists feel that there might be floating bone particles in the ankle that are causing the pain.”There is scar tissue in there and whether the bone fragments were the result of the operation or were already in there, we don’t know,” Flintoff told Sky Sports. “We will have another look in two weeks and see where we are.”Though unlikely to play the first Test, Flintoff was optimistic about recovery. “I am not running at the moment, I am doing a lot of cycling. I am doing things that don’t cause pain and trying to tick over.”We are going down the route of physio and exercises to strengthen the ligaments around the ankle. We will have another look in two weeks and see where we are.”England will play four Tests and five one-day internationals against Pakistan. They are 4-0 down to Sri Lanka in the ongoing one-day series, with a last match to be played on July 1.

ScorecardIreland stormed to a surprisingly comprehensive 85-run win over Scotland in the 3rd match of the European Cricket Championships at Ayr.Despite possessing the services of Warwickshire’s Dougie Brown, Scotland’s performance was limp – especially from their bowlers who suffered with their line and length. Eoin Morgan, the young Middlesex left hander, was the chief beneficiary with a fine 99. He and Niall O’Brien came together with Ireland in the tricky position of 19 for 2, but soon steadied the innings by adding 70 for the third wicket. Morgan played the anchor to O’Brien’s aggressive role, bringing up his fifty from 83 balls.O’Brien, looking settled and increasingly confident after smashing four fours, fell to Craig Wright, the Scotland captain, but Morgan found strong support from Kyle McCallan who struck a brisk 46 to take Ireland to an impressive 240 for 8.Scotland, though, were never in the hunt for 241. Navdeep Poonia, Brown’s Warwickshire team-mate making his debut for Scotland, looked settled and confident at the crease, crunching four boundaries before David Langford-Smith sneaked one through his defence to begin the procession of wickets. When Brown fell for just 11, leaving Scotland on 72 for 4, their hopes were shattered and despite a plucky 31 from the No. 10, Paul Hoffmann, Scotland were dismissed for just 155.Scotland now face the Netherlands tomorrow at the same ground, while a confident Irish side take on Italy, on Monday, at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow.

Percy Sonn, former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) and now president of the International Cricket Council, has been made an honorary life member of Cricket South Africa.”Percy Sonn has been made an honorary life member because he has devoted more than 30 years to the administration of cricket in South Africa,” Ray Mali, president of Cricket South Africa said after the general body meeting on August 3 at which the UCBSA changed its name to Cricket South Africa.”He was a pioneer of the struggle against apartheid, as well as a pioneer of the unification of South African cricket that led to its current membership of the ICC,” Mali added. “It is a great feather in the cap of South Africa that he now holds the highest office in world cricket”.President Thabo Mbeki led the tributes to Sonn when he was sworn in as ICC President on 7 July 2006. “The president, government and the people of South Africa congratulate advocate Sonn on his appointment as ICC president.”

Brian Lara advised his players to be “focussed mentally and physically” as they prepare for the next 18 months of cricket.Lara, who has been through the rigours of international cricket for 15 years, said the upcoming period would be crucial, as the West Indies look to rebuild a team for the long-term future of the side. “We will have burn-outs and we will have injuries at some time, but the exposure the West Indies team will be getting will be very important and I hope that the guys will see it necessary to get themselves fully focussed-mentally and physically. It’s necessary for us to play and wind our way back to the top.”The West Indies are presently in Malaysia where they face Australia and India in the DLF Cup Tri-Nation one-day series next week. They will move on to the Champions Trophy in India in October and November and, from there, on to Pakistan for three Tests and five ODIs. In January, they return to India for five one-dayers and will be home for the 2007 World Cup in March and April.They then have four Tests, three ODIs and two Twenty20 Internationals on the summer tour of England. After England, there will be the international Twenty20 series, Test tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa, and Test visits from Sri Lanka and Australia from March to June, 2008. Lara cautioned that fatigue and injury would always be factors. “Burn-out will always be a factor and there will always be a concern. I hope, however, that the guys don’t miss the most important parts of the two-year period.”We want to play cricket. We are languishing near the bottom of world cricket in both forms of the game, so we need to play cricket to lift our game, and we need to start winning to lift our spirits.”

Scorecard

A magnificent 158 from Chris Benham took Hampshire into Division One of the Pro40 for next season after comprehensively beating Glamorgan at The Rose Bowl, in the tournament’s inaugural play-off. Set a sizeable 266 to win, Glamorgan were never in the hunt and they crumbled limply to 114 all out.The day revolved around Benham whose wonderfully attacking innings provided the perfect end to Hampshire’s summer. It was his second one-day hundred and by some distance his best innings for the club who he has played for since he was 10. Right from the outset, he took the attack to Glamorgan’s bowlers – particular to James Franklin, before using his feet to the spinners. Though the pitch was even and true for the seamers, there was no shortage of turn available for Robert Croft and Dean Cosker, but Benham’s poise and balance – not to mention his fearless strokeplay – was a cut above.To emphasise the quality of his strokeplay, no other Hampshire batsman passed 30 and six failed to even reach 10. And in 130 balls, he smashed 21 fours and a six. His captain, Shane Warne, was understandably elated at Hampshire’s elevation to the first division but reserved special praise for Benham.”I thought he played magnificently. It was one of the best innings I’ve seen all year and he took it away from Glamorgan,” Warne told Sky Sports. “Hopefully he’ll know what he has to do [to progress further]. I’m just proud of him – he’s a potential captain of the club and we’re lucky to have him.”Glamorgan’s reply began disastrously when James Bruce, who bowled an impressive line at decent pace, removed Richard Grant with his second ball. Warne, always unpredictable as a captain, threw Sean Ervine the new ball which brought immediate success when he removed Mark Wallace for 3. Though David Harrison crashed five fours in a breathless 28, there was scant support from the middle-order who folded in rather inevitable fashion. Appropriately it was Warne who took the final wicket of the summer, removing Cosker to hand Hampshire a crushing 151-run win.”It’s not easy getting up for it at the tail-end of the season,” Warne said, “and it all comes down to how much passion you’ve got. We’re hungry. Unfortunately we didn’t play well last year in the Pro40 and got relegated. We’ve got a really good squad, some young players and it’s a privilege to captain this club.”