Mohammad Azharuddin’s presence at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium as anaccredited media representative of Aaj Tak, an Indian news channel, has raisedeyebrows in media circles. Azharuddin is serving a life ban from theBoard of Control for Cricket in India for his alleged involvement withbookmakers in fixing matches.Azharuddin was spotted sitting in the grandstand just in front of themedia box, using his mobile phone to file updates.G Krishnan, the executive director of the TV Today network, confirmed that Azharuddin was doing work for Aaj Tak, and said, “His involvement in match-fixing is alleged. What has the fact that someone is alleged to have done something got to do with his commenting on a cricket match? He is not playing. Just being accused of something does not mean much. People are ministers in this country while they are accused of greater crimes. The point is they are not convicted. You have to be reasonable to everybody. Till you find someone guilty he is innocent.”Asked whether the fact that Azharuddin was banned for life made a difference, Krishnan replied, “The ban is another thing. The personresponsible for the school that burned down in Tamil Nadu yesterday was removed from his position. Does that mean he was responsible for the fire? I don’t think I or anyone else has a right to make a judgment on a person till the courts make a decision.”According to Ray Illangakoon, Sri Lanka’s media manager, “Sri Lanka Cricket has no problem giving Mr Azharuddin accreditation as a media journalist as he has not been banned by the ICC.”The ICC, meanwhile, made it clear that it would not stop any cricketerfrom working in the media as a reporter, columnist or commentator. “Weregulate accreditation for ICC tournaments and ensure anyone connectedor found suspicious of corruption isn’t allowed access to restrictedarea,” Jon Long, an ICC spokesman, was quoted as saying in an Associated Press report. “But the ICC doesn’t necessarily approve accreditation at all matches.”Wasim Akram, who was fined 300,000 Pakistan rupees and censured for his alleged involvement in match-fixing, is also in Sri Lanka commentating on the series for ESPN-Star Sports, and has been working in the media for some time now. He has always denied any involvement in match-fixing.

Cricket equipment worth around £60,000 has been destroyed after a rabbit, caught in a bonfire, ran out with its tail on fire and set light to a storage shed in Devizes in Wiltshire.Two groundsmen had just lit a pile of leaves and branches when the rabbit shot out, tail ablaze, and bolted into a shed containing mowers, wheelbarrows and other pitch-care equipment belonging to the 150-year-old Devizes CC. John Bedbrook, their chairman, told Reuters: “After it had been going five minutes, the rabbit shot out of the bonfire on fire and went into the hut which is our equipment store.”The fire brigade was called, but two fire engines – and 11 firemen – could not save the shed or its contents. There was no sign of the rabbit, either, which is presumed to have gone up in flames too. The Devizes fire-station commander, Philip Flowers, said that in 22 years he had never fought a fire caused by a burning animal before. “We’re 99% confident it was the rabbit that caused the fire,” he said. “It was either burnt to a cinder or it escaped through a small hole in the corner of the shed – but I imagine it perished and went to bunny heaven.”The BBC website blamed a “Hot cross bunny” for the blaze.

Michael Vaughan refused to let his own dismal run with the bat take the sheen off England’s emphatic victories in the NatWest Challenge against India. England followed up their facile seven-wicket win at Trent Bridge with a crushing 70-run triumph at The Oval, on the back of brilliant innings by Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood.Vaughan, who has led England to 10 wins in their last 11 Tests, insisted that a run of failure which has produced just 51 runs in his last seven one-day internationals, wasn’t preying on his mind unduly. “I just try to keep doing what I have been doing and not change my game from Test match cricket to one-day cricket,” he said. "Hopefully, sooner rather than later it will happen. I’ve not got enough runs yet to find my form. All I can do is keep going. I got a good ball on Wednesday and strangled down the legside today.”Flintoff made a blistering 99, and put on 174 for the fifth wicket with the impressive Collingwood (79 not out), and Vaughan was effusive with his praise afterwards. "He [Flintoff] is a big player. He’s playing as well as anyone in the world.” He didn’t ignore Flintoff’s contribution with the ball either, saying, “He’s bowling very straight and is our most experienced one-day bowler behind Darren Gough.”Vaughan pinpointed last summer’s Test series against South Africa as the turning point in Flintoff’s career. “He got a hundred at Lord’s in a dead game and then a 95 at The Oval which must have given him a huge amount of confidence," he said. "The game depended on him getting those runs and since then he’s been our most consistent batsman.”Sourav Ganguly, India’s captain, was once Flintoff’s team-mate at Lancashire, and he admitted that he was impressed by the rapid strides that he had made. "He always had the talent – I could see that when I was at Lancashire – but he has improved immensely.”Flintoff himself put the improvement done to greater self-awareness. “I am more confident and I know my game a lot better, the way I play, and I am a bit more mature on and off the pitch,” he said, refusing to be too downcast on missing a century.Though the series is already won, Vaughan said that there would be no let-up in intensity for the final match at Lord’s. Both teams will want to go into the Champions Trophy on the back of a victory, and Vaughan said there was no question of fielding a weakened side. “We’ll pick a team to win," he said. "It will be the best 11 players out of the squad of 14 to beat India at Lord’s.”

Despite suffering last-match losses, South Australia and Tasmania have named unchanged line-ups for the Pura Cup match at Bellerive Oval tomorrow. The Rebacks lost outright to Queensland last week at Adelaide while Tasmania were overpowered by Victoria at Hobart.South Australia Graham Manou (capt), Mark Cosgrove, Paul Rofe, Dan Cullen, Nathan Adcock, Callum Ferguson, Greg Blewett, Tom Plant, Ben Cameron, Jack Smith, Mark Cleary, Shaun Tait.Tasmania Daniel Marsh (capt), Michael DiVenuto, Michael Bevan, Sean Clingeleffer (wk), Jamie Cox, David Dawson, Michael Dighton, Xavier Doherty, Andrew Downton, Brett Geeves, Adam Griffith, Damien Wright.

Wellington 65 for 1 trail Northern Districts 184 (Marshall 51, Franklin 5-23) by 119 runs
ScorecardNorthern Districts floundered after being asked to bat first byWellington at the Basin Reserve. They were dismissed for a disappointing 184, with James Franklin taking 5 for 23.Overlooked from the side for the three-match series against the FICA World XI starting next week, Franklin bowled superbly. Northern Districts were 26 for 2 before Mark Orchard and Scott Styris attempted to steady the ship. They battled through to lunch but did not last long after the break – Orchard fell to Jayesh Patel’s offspinners for 27, while Styris was dismissed by Franklin for 31.Hamish Marshall then applied himself to make the most substantialeffort in the innings, scoring 51 in just under two hours. Apart from Peter McGlashan’s support, however, the effort was notenough to give the side the sort of total that could be expected to putsome pressure on a strong Wellington line-up.That was borne out as Wellington made it through to stumps having lostonly their captain Matthew Bell, who fell to Daryl Tuffey. Wellington ended the day on 65 for 1, a deficit of 119 runs. With Stephen Fleming unbeaten on 38, and the enterprising Luke Woodcock on 25, Wellington have an excellent opportunity to bat ND out of the match.Earlier, Chris Nevin, the regular wicketkeeper for Wellington, was included in the side as a specialist batsman after dislocating a finger in the last State Shield match. Stuart Mills kept wicket in the ND innings.While Franklin made the biggest impact for the Wellington bowlers, Patel also enjoyed reasonable success, returning figures of 3 for 49 to continue his impressive season.The two remaining matches in the round start on Saturday.

Shane Warne has admitted that he had to leave his country and flee to Spain to save his marriage, after having an affair with a Melbourne stripper in 2003. Warne, who disclosed this during the 60 Minutes programme on Australia’s Channel 9, said that he was embarrassed by the affair and couldn’t face his wife.”It’s not easy to talk about,” he was quoted as saying by AAP. “It was quite a tough time in my life. It was something that I thought was personal between my wife and I. I did the wrong thing and that’s something I have to live with, and it’s not easy to live with because I’m embarrassed about what I did.”Unable to cope with the intense media scrutiny after news of the affair broke, the Warnes fled the country. “We were angry about the 50 [media] people outside our house. We couldn’t get out of the driveway. It was the wrong environment to try and talk, and so we couldn’t really talk; we had to get out of the country. We ended up going to Spain.”Warne, a father with three children, said that the family managed to overcome the crisis and his wife, Simone, had conducted herself with dignity during the saga.”I think she has handled herself very well in a lot of tough situations, and it’s an unfortunate part of our live and now, hopefully, it’s gone.”This isn’t the first time that Warne has been involved in a sex scandal. He also stole the spotlight when revelations of phone sex with a British nurse were made in 2000. This resulted in Warne’s losing the vice-captaincy of the Australian side. And in 2003, Warne was also accused of making raunchy phone calls to a 45-year-old South African woman Helen Cohen Alon. However, the woman was later sentenced to jail for attempting to extort money from Warne. He has also served a 12-month ban from cricket for taking a banned substance contained in a diet pill during the 2003 World Cup.

The United Cricket Board of South Africa is expected to reduce its current number of centrally contracted players from 20 to a figure nearer 13, when the current deals expire at the end of South Africa’s tour of the Caribbean in May.According to a report in the Johannesburg-based Star newspaper, 13 players have already been recommended for new deals, although AB de Villiers and Justin Kemp, who currently fall outside that list, are expected to be added, if their performances against West Indies are up to the anticipated standard.But there will be no new deal for Lance Klusener, while Paul Adams and Neil McKenzie are two other veterans whose hopes of a contract have faded. The only other new face currently in the mix is Charl Langeveldt, who made an instant impact on his Test debut in January, bowling South Africa to victory in the Newlands Test despite the pain of a broken hand.South Africa has been suffering from a steady drain of white talent to England county cricket in recent years, with Martin van Jaarsveld – who played in the Durban Test against England – becoming the latest to take advantage of the Kolpak ruling by joining Kent for the 2005 season. But this news should at least prevent further losses from the squad, by safeguarding the incomes of their leading players for another 12 months.The UCB has set a target of seven black cricketers in the squad for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, and this quota looks set to be handsomely filled. In addition to Langeveldt, there are three more senior squad members in Herschelle Gibbs, Makhaya Ntini and Ashwell Prince, plus JP Duminy, Monde Zondeki – who has been selected for the third one-day international against Zimbabwe – and the up-and-coming spinner, Thandi Tshabalala.

Anil Kumble and VVS Laxman have been omitted from the Indian squad for the first two one-day internationals against Pakistan. The selectors have also decided to drop Dinesh Karthik and Gautam Gambhir, opting instead for Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Murali Kartik and MS Dhoni.Kumble and Laxman have been regulars in the Test side, but have struggled to make it to the one-day team of late – both were left out for the ODIs against Bangladesh in December as well. Dhoni made his debut in that series, and though he didn’t get too many opportunities with the bat, his aggressive batting in the domestic games ensured that he got the nod ahead of Karthik, who kept wicket in the just-concluded Test series against Pakistan. Mongia was on the tour to Bangladesh as well, and gets another opportunity to make his case after strong performances for Lancashire in the county circuit and in the Indian domestic season.Pakistan play a warm-up one-day match against India A on March 30, while the first of six internationals will be played at Kochi on April 2.Squad
Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly (capt), Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Mahendra Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Ashish Nehra, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Zaheer Khan.

Sri Lanka’s cricket board crisis is set to continue for several weeks after the Court of Appeal restrained Jeewan Kumaratunga, the sports minister, from dissolving or cancelling Sri Lanka Cricket’s registration without a hearinguntil the completion of the case.The complicated legal fight started on March 30 when Thilanga Sumathipala’sexecutive committee, elected on March 27, filed a lawsuit to quash the sportsminister’s order to suspend the board on the grounds of financial mismanagement.Sumathipala also sealed off the board headquarters, sending home all theemployees on paid leave, so that the six-man interim committee appointed totakeover would not be able to gain access. Only “moveable property” such asfiles and documents were handed over to the new officials.Although the interim committee is technically empowered to run the cricket board and make decisions, in practice the legal fight has effectively paralysed the administration, hampering decision-making on several important pressing concerns, including the sale of team sponsorship rights, the renewal of player and coaching contracts and planning for future tours.The status quo will continue – assuming the sports minister does notcircumvent the current interim order by appealing to higher authorities -until June 1 when the Court of Appeal will reconvene to hear the sportsminister’s objections to Sumathipala’s legal challenge.

International cricket is so crammed full of firsts these days that the lasts rarely get a look in. Old players tend to fade away (or take coaching jobs in Sydney) rather than retire. But the second Test between West Indies and Pakistan at Sabina Park will feature a notable farewell: it’s the last Test match for the umpire David Shepherd.The Kingston game will be Shepherd’s 92nd Test – only Jamaica’s own Steve Bucknor (102) has officiated in more. And even Bucknor can’t match Shep’s current total of 167 one-day internationals (there will be a couple more in England before he finally hangs up that wide-fit white coat).Shepherd, who turns 65 in December, has been a fixture as long as most people can remember. He started as a ruddy-faced batsman for Gloucestershire – he hit 108 on his first-class debut, against Oxford University in 1965 – and continued, seamlessly, as a ruddy-faced umpire who soon floated to the top.He played for Gloucestershire for 15 years, with modest success – he crept past 10,000 runs, at an average of 24, collected 11 more centuries to go with that debut one, and he didn’t really bowl. But his ample waistline soon marked him out as one of county cricket’s characters: I can recall an amusing batting partnership between Shepherd, red-faced and blowing hard, and the whippet-like Jim Foat, with Shep in some danger of being lapped. He was nonetheless a handy one-day performer, and played in both Gloucestershire’s Lord’s final wins in the 1970s – the Gillette in 1973 and the Benson & Hedges in 1977.Popularity as a player soon translated into popularity as an umpire. He told Cricinfo recently: “I’d like to think I had a good relationship with most of the players I umpired. I think it helped that I played first-class cricket, it helps you to know what the players are thinking and going through if they are having a bad trot.” In the white coat his size somehow added to his authority – he looked like an umpire, which always helps. Shepherd stood in his first ODI in 1983, and made his Test debut against Australia two years later. Soon he was part of the Test-match furniture, calm and confident, authoritative without being authoritarian.He made mistakes – who doesn’t? – and was particularly upset a couple of years ago when the all-seeing TV eye showed that he’d missed a number of no-balls, some of which took wickets. Square-on cameras and Hawk-Eye are great innovations for the armchair viewer, but they make the umpire’s job a sight more stressful. And for the elite official, there’s another problem: “The travelling has been the major change, not being able to umpire Test matches in your own country. Now umpires are expected to spend large amounts of time away from their families and this has put some people off taking up the role.”What really cemented Shepherd’s name in the public consciousness, though, was not a super career but a superstition: those fey little skips when the score reaches Nelson – 111 – or a multiple. It all started back in the county dressing-room, with a belief that things would somehow work out better if no part of you was touching the floor, and carried on from there. The commentators were tipped off, and the cameras have zeroed in at the vital moment ever since: “I’ve always done it, I’ve always been superstitious,” he told us. “When I went into umpiring people said I should carry on doing the hop, but I thought I would look an idiot. But I decided to go with it …”The bottom line is that you could have all the hop-skip-jump gimmicks in the world, but if you’re not a damn good umpire you won’t survive very long in county cricket, let alone the international cauldron. Dickie Bird showed that, and David Shepherd followed suit.