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James Tomlinson, the Hampshire left-arm seamer, has announced his retirement after a 14-year career, saying he feels like the ‘old dog’ at the back of pack and now is the time to ‘head back to the den’

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Sep-2016James Tomlinson, the Hampshire left-arm seamer, has announced his retirement after a 14-year career, saying he feels like the “old dog” at the back of pack and now is the time to “head back to the den”.Tomlinson, 34, played 129 first-class matches taking 382 wickets at 31.92 with a career-best 8 for 46 against Somerset, at Taunton, in 2008. Known for his humorous personality, Tomlinson confirmed his retirement with a colourful statement.”I remember years ago watching a nature documentary that followed a pack of wild dogs on a hunt. At the front of the pack there were the young and keen dogs who couldn’t wait to get stuck in, then in the middle were the experienced, healthy dogs who knew what they were doing and held the pack together.”But I will never forget the image of one old dog at the back of the pack trying to keep up. He had half a leg missing and an ear hanging off from what must have been years of previous battles. When he finally arrived at the scene all that was left were scraps… Although I was once both the young dog at the front and the healthy dog in the middle I feel now is the right time to head back to the den. I now have the opportunity to do just that and look after all the young dogs coming through. A job I already love and cherish.”He went on to thank his brothers, Hugh and Ralph, as well as former Pakistan great Wasim Akram who had a spell with Hampshire in 2003 which was early in Tomlinson’s career. He also praised Hampshire’s slip cordon and the Dukes ball used in county cricket, before signing off in light-hearted style.”However I would most like to thank the opposition batters who somehow for over a decade missed the straight ones and nicked the half volleys… to you all I will be forever grateful!”

Leicestershire have been deducted 16 points in the LV= County Championship and fined £5,000 for at a disciplinary panel hearing at Lord’s called to rule on the persistent misbehaviour of their players

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Aug-2015Leicestershire have been deducted 16 points in the LV= County Championship and fined £5,000 following a disciplinary panel hearing at Lord’s called to rule on the persistent misbehaviour of their players.The punishment severely undermines their attempts to avoid the wooden spoon for the third successive season and leaves them 32 points behind the second-bottom club, Kent, with only four matches remaining.Leicestershire’s chief executive, who attended the hearing with chairman Paul Haywood and head coach Andrew McDonald, called the sanction “severe”.The Disciplinary Panel, chaired by Gerard Elias QC and including the former players Mike Smith and Ronnie Irani, convened to hear a charge brought by the ECB against Leicestershire in respect of five or more separate occasions when their players committed fixed penalty offences in a 12-month period.The ECB statement read: “The points deduction is immediate but the fine will be suspended for a period of 12 months and will be imposed if Leicestershire players commit a further two fixed penalty breaches within that period. In addition Leicestershire were ordered to pay £500 towards the cost of the hearing.”The panel took into account the guilty plea and the changes that have taken place at the club within the past year as well as the club’s stated intention to improve their disciplinary situation. However they noted the overall seriousness of the five offences and felt that more substantial action should have been taken to address these issues at an earlier stage. “Khan, who has shown signs of revitalising Leicestershire since taking over last winter, said: “Andrew and I have worked hard, and continue to do so, to improve the expected standards and levels of discipline expected of Leicestershire cricketers. It is unfortunate that two of the highest level indiscretions happened last year that we had no control over and we believe that the latest low level incident reported was particularly harsh.”Unfortunately there is no platform for us as a club to appeal any of the reported incidents. We have already put in place procedures relating to player education and will be talking to the Professional Cricketers Association as to what further programmes we can put into place.”The players have a duty to behave on the field as well as off the field in a manner that the club expects and so this is simply not acceptable to us. Further discussions with regards to future behaviour and the repercussions will be outlined to players within the next 24 hours.”The conclusion to today’s hearing is bitterly disappointing to us considering the superb win earlier this week against Derbyshire and taking into account the significant strides we have made this season.”Clearly more needs to be done, but we will brush ourselves off and remain determined to do everything possible to improve every aspect of the club.”

Shane Watson will be pushing against the prevailing tide of Australian cricket should he choose to abandon bowling in his search for a way out of the maze of injuries that have blighted his sporadic Test career

Daniel Brettig29-Dec-2012Shane Watson will be pushing against the prevailing tide of Australian cricket should he choose to abandon bowling in his search for a way out of the maze of injuries that have blighted his sporadic Test career. In the aftermath of the Boxing Day Test, in which he aggravated a calf niggle he had taken into the match, Watson admitted for the first time that he was seriously considering recasting himself as a batsman to play more consistent sequences for Australia.The national selectors and the team performance manager Pat Howard have made it patently clear their preference is for Watson to remain an allrounder, in keeping with a policy to push for cricketers as widely skilled as possible. This has been underlined by the selection of the Victorian Glenn Maxwell for the New Year’s Test at the SCG, where his assortment of skills will contrast with the one-note batting role Watson may yet turn to.”At the end of the Test series Shane will have the opportunity to sit down with a few of us and have that discussion,” Howard said. “The selectors have been very keen on having people who are multi-skilled across the board. You’ve seen many of our players bowl this summer, even the wicketkeeper. I think the selectors are open to discussion with any player regarding how they see they can get the best out of them. If Shane Watson opens that dialogue he’s free to do that, and to be judged on those performances.”Very much the selectors do want that multi-skill ability. That’s not just about Shane Watson, they love people being able to bat, bowl, field, bring some leadership to the table, and having more than one skill. When the selectors sit down they do look at that ability, but also they look at the mix as well. If Shane or anybody wants to be a batsman only, well somebody else has got to be able to take up the overs.”That’s something selectors think about when they put up a squad of 13 but also when they put up 11. How can they make sure that Michael Clarke, Mickey Arthur, the selectors and the team have a bowling armoury that can work together and deal with a James Pattinson situation from Adelaide. We got exposed there, obviously, it had flow-on effects for Perth and probably flow-on effects afterwards.”The push towards cricketers of greater versatility may presently be linked to reducing the chances of injuries to the squad’s younger fast bowlers, but has its origins in the West Australian Sheffield Shield teams of the 1970s led by John Inverarity and his deputy Rod Marsh, now the senior selection figures on the national panel. The emphasis on batsmen who could bowl and vice versa was pronounced enough to mean even wicketkeeper Marsh bowled his quota in the nets. Howard also noted that at 37, the highly valuable Michael Hussey could not be expected to bowl as much as he has in recent times, leaving further slack to take up.”The reliance on Mike taking at 37 years of age a lot of overs is something we can’t rely on,” Howard said. “Being able to do the odd over here and there we’ve seen Dave Warner bowl, so that multi-skill is being pushed. I know Usman Khawaja bowled in the Chairman’s XI and got a wicket against Sri Lanka. So that message is getting through from the selectors. Those who work hard on their fielding, work hard on their other attributes … we want that ability to bat deep, we want batsman to bowl, and John Inverarity and Mickey Arthur and the selection panel do drum that in.”Typically, Watson has been reluctant to play when picking up injuries, even minor ones. Yet in Melbourne he played, his calf niggle perhaps overshadowed by the greater doubt surrounding Clarke’s hamstring and the presumption that Watson would take up the leadership of the team if the captain failed to prove his fitness.”It was a niggle, nothing more than that,” Howard said. “If you’re a professional sportsman you have niggles you have going in. He had a niggle, so did a lot of guys, but it did get worse during the Test match. That [Watson not playing] was a possibility. But we know that he can contribute, we know he had a heavy workload in Hobart, but so did Peter Siddle, so did Mitchell Starc, and we knew from the lesson from Adelaide to Perth, taking a group of guys all with high injury risks, you can’t take everybody in together.”Howard also sounded a note of gratitude for the selectors’ fortitude in ignoring public pressure not to rest Mitchell Starc from the Melbourne Test after his five-wicket haul to close out the first Test in Hobart. Mitchell Johnson and Jackson Bird were instead included as fresh pacemen and shared 10 wickets between them as Sri Lanka were routed on two and a half days.”The fast bowling discussion was a very big one in the lead-up to this Test,” Howard said. “There’ll be differing views through that process but there’s the opportunity to give the selectors a bit of a wrap regarding that. They held firm and I think many of you would say there’s been some benefit to that process, so I think on reflection it’s been a reasonably positive couple of days.”Injuries are a difficult part of the world game at the moment that we’ve all got to try to be very good at, we want to be the best at it, and we’ve got a long way to go. It’s one of those things where if we try to play with 11 [fit] players it makes a significant difference to the outcome of the game.”

Matthew Wade is expected to earn a Test call-up for the tour of the West Indies in April after the national selector John Inverarity expressed his desire to have two wicketkeepers in the squad

Brydon Coverdale30-Jan-2012Matthew Wade is expected to earn a Test call-up for the tour of the West Indies in April after the national selector John Inverarity expressed his desire to have two wicketkeepers in the squad. Wade has been named in Australia’s side for the first three ODIs of the upcoming tri-series while Brad Haddin rests following a long period of cricket.Strong performances from Wade in those matches could build pressure on Haddin, 34, who has had a difficult few months with the bat and behind the stumps. The coach Mickey Arthur wants Haddin to still be around for the 2013 Ashes but Wade, 24, is also viewed as a potential Test player and averages 40.16 in first-class cricket.Last time the Australians played Tests in the West Indies they were forced to fly Luke Ronchi in mid-tour as a standby player for Haddin, who in his debut Test series broke a finger, but battled on and played all three Tests. Inverarity said a backup gloveman was desirable for this year’s Caribbean trip, which included three Tests in April.”The West Indies is a pretty difficult place to get to from Australia, so at this stage and it will depend on the budget, but we’re keen to have two keepers there throughout the West Indies tour,” Inverarity said. “If a keeper breaks his hand it would probably be five days to a week before a replacement could get organised, get there, recover from jetlag and be ready to play.”If you’ve got one wicketkeeper in the West Indies and two days before a Test he breaks his hand and cannot keep, what do you do?”With Tim Paine still out due to a long-term finger injury, Wade is the logical choice as the next in line behind Haddin, although Peter Nevill of New South Wales is also pushing his case. Wade might even open the batting in the ODIs in February, as no obvious opening partner for David Warner was named in the squad with Shane Watson still injured and Shaun Marsh dropped.Inverarity said it remained to be seen whether Haddin would return for the later stages of the one-day series against Sri Lanka and India or whether he would be better off taking a longer break. He said it was up to Haddin, who will captain the Prime Minister’s XI against Sri Lanka this Friday, whether he would play any Sheffield Shield cricket in the meantime, after a lean few months with the bat in Test cricket.”That’s up to Brad. He won’t be playing the next Shield match because being a Canberra lad he’s captaining the side for the Prime Minister’s XI,” Inverarity said. “The Shield match starts the next day. I think that’s a good opportunity for Brad to be able to put his feet up for a bit. I think an essential part of preparation is refreshment and the opportunity to take it easy for a time and get mentally refreshed.”It provides a terrific opportunity for Matthew Wade. We hope Matthew Wade keeps and bats brilliantly and then we have two keepers at the level, because you never know when a wicketkeeper is going to break down. We’re all for developing Matthew Wade and Brad Haddin both together.”

A lack of mental toughness and an inability to deal with high-pressure situations are Zimbabwe’s major weaknesses, according to their batting coach Grant Flower

ESPNcricinfo staff17-Dec-2010A lack of mental toughness and an inability to deal with high-pressure situations are Zimbabwe’s major weaknesses, according to their batting coach Grant Flower. Flower, who made a brief comeback to international cricket during a tour to South Africa in October, accompanied the team to Bangladesh on his first overseas tour since taking up the coaching role.Zimbabwe won the first one-day international at Mirpur by nine runs but then capitulated against Bangladesh’s left-arm spinners to slip to a 3-1 series defeat. Abdur Razzak was the chief destroyer, picking up 13 wickets – including a haul of 5 for 30 in the second game.”Look, there are guys who have played a lot of cricket in this team,” Flower told . “There’s no longer any excuse of inexperience. I think the guys need to toughen up a bit. They need to deal with the pressure a lot better. Look, it’s a balance between technique and the mental side. I think it’s the mental aspect we need to work on.”Flower added that Zimbabwe’s success at the World Cup, which begins in February, will depend upon their ability to adapt to what are likely to be similarly spin-friendly pitches in India and Sri Lanka. As well as a pre-tournament trip to Dubai in order to acclimatise to subcontinental conditions, Flower suggested that wickets suited to slow bowlers would be prepared in Zimbabwe’s domestic season, which is currently underway.”When our domestic season resumes in January, we will try to practice on turning wickets,” he said. “We will prepare turning wickets in our local competitions. We are also going to have a training camp in Dubai for 10 days in early February before the World Cup. Hopefully we will have conditions similar to India and Sri Lanka.”Flower also said that he was looking forward to working with Brian Lara, who has agreed to a batting consultancy contract and will work with the national side ahead of the World Cup and a tabled return to Test cricket in a home series against Bangladesh in May next year.”I have never worked with him before so I’m looking forward to it. He is one of the world’s best batsmen, but it doesn’t mean he will be the best coach. I might learn something from him. I hope I will.”

No tickets were sold for the fourth ODI between India and Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens after the Cricket Association of Bengal decided to offer available seats to its members and affiliated clubs

Cricinfo staff24-Dec-2009No tickets were sold for the fourth ODI between India and Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens after the Cricket Association of Bengal decided to offer available seats to its members and affiliated clubs. The stadium is being renovated for the World Cup in 2011 and with four stands out of service, only half the seats were available for the match.”We are obliged to reserve seats for our members and clubs,” CAB official Biswarup Dey said. “Even all of them were not accommodated because there was just not enough space. So we decided not to sell tickets for the game.”The one-dayer was Kolkata’s first since February 2007, when former BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, a rival of the current Sharad Pawar-Shashank Manohar faction, returned to power in the state. But Kolkata will host four World Cup matches.Virender Sehwag, India’s stand-in captain, said it was unusual not to play in front of a packed Eden Gardens. “But there will be a better, bigger stadium for the World Cup,” Sehwag said. “Still, 40,000 is more than what we get at many grounds around the world.”