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The Australian Cricket Board announced today that champion leg-spinner Shane Warne and wife Simone are celebrating the arrival of their third child, Summer Warne, who entered the world at 8.20am this morning weighing 7 pounds, 14 ounces.Summer is the sister of Brooke and Jackson.About the birth, Shane said:”Simone and I are absolutely over the moon. It was the first birth I have witnessed after being in England when Brooke and Jackson were born. It really is an amazing experience and a special part of life.”

Eoin Morgan has been ruled out of Middlesex’s final County Championship fixture of the season against Worcestershire at New Road tomorrow after failing to recover sufficiently from the blow to the head he took while batting against Mitchell Starc in last week’s fifth ODI against Australia.Morgan, England’s limited-overs captain, was forced to retire hurt on 1 during the seventh over of the series decider at Old Trafford on September 13, when he took his eyes off the ball from Starc that struck him a fierce blow on the side of the helmet.After a lengthy period of treatment on the field Morgan was forced to retire hurt, and he did not return either to complete his innings as England were bowled out for 138, or lead the team in the field during Australia’s series-sealing eight-wicket win.Angus Fraser, the Middlesex director of cricket, confirmed that the club were following the current advice from the ECB medical team, which recommends that players who have shown signs of concussion need to be symptom-free for a full week prior to their next fixture.Morgan, who was described by Trevor Bayliss, the England head coach, as “having a lump on his head and a headache” after reportedly taking an hour to come fully to his senses in the dressing room, was apparently still worse for wear last Tuesday morning, a full 48 hours after the incident.”To be eligible to play in the next game after suffering concussion, the ECB advice is that a player has to show no symptoms for a week,” Fraser told ESPNcricinfo. “Unfortunately Eoin was still a bit groggy and fuzzy when we assessed him last week. He is absolutely fine now and I’m sure he would be available to play if there was another fixture next week.”The management of head injuries in cricket came sharply into focus last November following the death of Phillip Hughes following a blow to the head during a Sheffield Shield fixture between South Australia and New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground. That incident was clearly on the minds of several of the Australian players at Old Trafford, not least Starc, who had been fielding for NSW when Hughes was struck, and was visibly shaken by this latest incident as he was comforted by his coach, Darren Lehmann.In common with many other sports, such as Australian Rules Football and America’s NFL, the ECB this season introduced new guidelines for counties when dealing with concussed players, a move that has become imperative for all sports administrators following a study into Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease of the brain that was recently found to be present in 96% of a study of ex-NFL players.This season has involved several high-profile head injuries, not least the on-field collision between the Surrey fielders Rory Burns and Moises Henriques at Arundel in June. Burns, who suffered cuts above his left eye as Henriques sustained a broken jaw, was back playing for Surrey within a fortnight.An ECB spokesman confirmed that Middlesex took the decision to rest Morgan last week, having followed the current advice and guidelines from the ECB medical team.This article was amended at 2130 on September 21, 2015 with additional information.

It has been cat and mouse between East and Central Zone over the vitalfirst innings lead at Green Park, Kanpur in their Duleep Trophy match.Fluctuating fortunes all through the day saw the third day’s play end onSaturday with East on 230/4 trailing Central by 191 runs. Rohan Gavaskarwith an unbeaten 51 is leading the East charge with Rajiv Kumar on 20.The morning did not start too well for Central who started on 417/8 andwere bowled out for 421 in the third over of the day. Right arm mediumpacer Javed Zaman finished with 5/99 to take the bowling honours.East Zone got off to a flying start thanks to India opening batsman ShivSunder Das and Nikhil Haldipur. The pair added 68 runs in 12.4 overs. Daswas first to depart, trapped in front of the wicket by JP Yadav. Hisquickfire innings of 40 in 50 balls included 8 boundaries. Left handerHaldipur also fell to Yadav at 96 after making 34 runs.SS Raul was bowled by Kulamani Parida for just 11 and East were reduced to120/3 in the 28th over. Rashmi Parida and Rohan Gavaskar steadied theinnings for a while with a partnership of 61 for the fourth wicket. Paridawas trapped LBW by Murali Kartik as soon as he got to his half century. Hemade 53 runs off 110 balls hitting a six and six boundaries.East were precariously placed at 181/4, but Gavaskar and Rajiv Kumar playedsensibly for 19.3 overs adding 49 runs for the unbeaten fifth wicket whenplay was called off for the day. Gavaskar carried on with his impressiveform, knocking the ball for two sixes and four boundaries so far in hisunbeaten innings.

There’s barely time for the dust from the celebrations of the ICC World Twenty20 to settle and the Australians are upon India for a seven-match ODI series. In India, the reaction was predictably exaggerated, both spontaneous and genuine and pre-planned and stage-managed. The players basked in the limelight and the administrators cashed in on the euphoric response of fans. The players though will have to wind up the celebrations soon, as India take on Australia in the first game in Bangalore on September 29.It’s interesting that India and Australia should play right after the ICC World Twenty20 for the two teams approached that tournament so differently. India were diffident and hesitant to begin with, with little or no experience in that form of the game, and completely unfancied. Australia were natural favourites, as they are in any cricket match, irrespective of the length or format. By the end of the tournament, though, India had beaten England, Australia, South Africa and Pakistan. Australia had limped out, first not too interested in the hit-and-giggle, shocked by Zimbabwe, and then outplayed by lesser teams.But Australia’s limping out, at least in the literal sense, will have an impact beyond the tournament. Ricky Ponting’s hamstring niggle has not stopped him from touring India, though it is unlikely he’ll play a part in the early games. Shane Watson and Michael Hussey have been ruled out, and Shaun Tait continues to stay out. What this will mean is a step-up for Brad Hodge, who has to keep Ponting’s batting place warm, even as Adam Gilchrist stands in as captain.While Ponting the batsman will undoubtedly be missed, there are players who can step in and fill that breach with runs. Ponting the captain, however, will not be so easy replace. Even in the Twenty20, the Australian team looked different with him at the helm and when he was not in charge, out there, on the field. Speaking before the series began, it was Ponting who fired the first salvo. “They [India] definitely deserved it [Twenty20 win]. Just look at the last three teams they beat. They thoroughly deserve to come back as champions but that’s finished now,” Ponting said. “We’ve got to look at the seven games we have here in India and we know what we have to do to win in the subcontinent. If anything now, a bit of the pressure will come back on the Indians.”And there’s little doubt that the already unrealistic expectations of this nation have been heightened. The open-bus parade and the grand felicitation ceremony certainly wouldn’t have helped, and India have always taken a bit of time to adjust between different forms of the game. If they come out swinging in the forthcoming ODIs, taking too much out of the Twenty20s, they’ll be in for a rude shock.

“Cricket in general is about how much pressure you can apply on the opposition; that’s what we try and do all the time, whether batting or bowling. That won’t change in this tournament and it won’t change because we’ve played a couple Twenty20 games,” Ponting said. “We’ll have lots of individual plans for their players and it’s about us being able to execute those over 100 overs. That means they are under pressure and we’re in control. That’s what any type of cricket is about for the Australian team.”The Australians have already congregated in Bangalore and have their sights firmly trained on the one-day series. India’s players will come in, in batches over Thursday evening and Friday morning. There will be little time for the new captain to get together with his team. The personnel have changed since the World Twenty20, with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Zaheer Khan coming back into the mix, and people like Rohit Sharma slipping out. The BCCI is yet to appoint a cricket manager for the series, although that is expected to happen some time in the course of Thursday. In all, the Indians will have to catch their breath, hit the ground running and somehow turn up to take on the best team in the world. Even in the best of times, with the most meticulous preparation, Australia are hard to beat, especially over seven matches. India are anything but in that situation. No-one should be surprised if the results reflect this.

If you have any left after the injuries and absences that have ravaged England and Pakistan, spare a thought also for Sussex. Fighting for room at the top of the County Championship, they are resigned to be without the cheery – and startlingly effective – presence of Rana Naved-ul-Hasan for the season.They could also lose out on the services of their talisman Mushtaq Ahmed, should Pakistan choose to test whether he can beguile England’s international batsmen as much as he does their county counterparts. And now, having smartly covered the potential absence of both by recruiting Yasir Arafat, Pakistan’s allrounder forever on the fringes of national selection, they might conceivably lose his services as well at some point this season.Arafat is an allrounder of typically Pakistani ethos; ideal for ODI cricket but capable of spectacular feats in Test matches. And though useful as a lower-order plunderer, his bowling remains his stronger suit. His type of straight, full, skiddy bowling accounted for Andrew Flintoff’s wicket at an ODI in Pakistan last year, nine wickets against England in a warm-up game during the series and five wickets in six balls in a domestic game in December 2004 (four of the five were either leg-before or bowled), a feat performed by only three other bowlers. His experience of English conditions has also borne fruit; in three county matches for Sussex this season, he has already taken 17 wickets (two five-wicket hauls) and scored two fifties. The performances haven’t gone unnoticed.”We have considered him and his name has come up in discussions but no decision has been taken yet,” Bob Woolmer told Cricinfo. “Because of the nature of our injuries many players will be talked about, discussed. Ultimately we have to do as well as we can with what we have.”With concerns over Abdul Razzaq’s fitness heightened after the drawn first Test at Lord’s, Arafat’s chances of being called up would have increased. But Zaheer Abbas, Pakistan’s manager, confirmed that Razzaq is likely to play at Old Trafford. Abbas told that Razzaq had started running at the weekend and is expected to take part in nets at Old Trafford. These nets will decide whether or not Razzaq has overcome the back strains that have afflicted him since the final day of the first Test.”We will have our first nets at Old Trafford tomorrow and Razzaq is supposed to take part. It would be there we will know whether he has fully recovered from a back problem,” Zaheer said. “Razzaq is keen to play and I am sure that he would work hard to get fully fit for the next match.”Apart from the return of Younis Khan it is unlikely too many changes will be made after just one Test. If there are any more injuries – and that is hardly unlikely over this summer – who knows. Wasim Bari, chief selector, confirmed to Cricinfo that no requests had been made by the team management for any back-up or replacements. “We have told them just to inform us if they feel they require a certain player but at the moment nothing has been said.”Though Arafat might not mind it too much, Pakistan will keep their fingers crossed that Bari receives no SOS calls between now and Thursday when the second Test begins. Ditto Sussex.

New Zealand have left for Zimbabwe to play a two-Test series despite strong opposition to the tour because of the president Robert Mugabe’s campaign to demolish urban slums, leaving thousands homeless. According to polls, most New Zealanders are opposed to the tour because of the human rights violations in the country.Rod Donald, the New Zealand Green Party co-leader who has been leading a campaign to prevent the tour, said on Monday the trip could be prevented. “Our government could still find the courage to stop the tour,” he told . “There is also the prospect that the fuel and food shortages in Zimbabwe will deteriorate to such a point that New Zealand Cricket (NZC) will decide that it’s unsafe for our team to be there anyway.”The New Zealand government had asked the ICC to allow NZC to cancel the tour without facing a fine of US$2 million and being liable to compensate Zimbabwe for lost revenue. The ICC said NZC could refuse to play without penalty only if the government made it illegal to tour Zimbabwe. However, Phil Goff, the foreign minister, said the government was not willing to restrict its citizens from travelling overseas. NZC then said that it could prevent the tour if the security of the players was threatened.New Zealand will train and play warm-up matches in Namibia before arriving in Zimbabwe on August 4. They will also feature in a triangular one-day tournament involving India and Zimbabwe.

Shaharyar Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, is keen that former players and officials refrain from unsubstantiated comments regarding the match-fixing issue. Shaharyar said that it would be one of the points that he would bring up in the International Cricket Council meeting in London, for which he left for yesterday.”We have prepared a proposal,” Shaharyar said before his departure, “through which we will press the ICC and its executive-board members to have some sort of code of conduct to discourage former players and officials from making unsubstantiated match-fixing allegations.”Shaharyar added, “We know that the ICC has already said it is not in a position nor does it have any legal framework through which it can prevent former players and officials from giving statements on match-fixing.”But at the same time he wished that the ICC understood the potential damage that these allegations could inflict and wished that they had a protocol in place for such incidents. “Players around the world, including in Pakistan, are being damaged badly because of former players and officials making unsubstantiated and damaging allegations of match-fixing from time to time in the press.”Shaharyar’s comments come in the wake of Rashid Latif’s remarks regarding the one-day series between India and Pakistan. Latif, the former Pakistan captain, had expressed his fears that the series might have been fixed. That provoked a severe backlash from the board, which contemplated legal action, while Inzamam-ul-Haq threatened to walk out of the team.

The Australian cricket team has called for a thorough police investigation after being robbed of their cricketing gear at Trinidad airport. Forty-two items were stolen as the team checked in on Monday for their flight to Grenada. It was the second time on the current tour that the Australian team had been robbed at the Trinidad airport – their gear had been burgled after last month’s second Test as well.”There’s been an issue at Trinidad airport for a number of seasons, where past touring sides have suffered from pilfering of cricket gear from team bags,” Steve Bernard, the Australian team manager, said. “We feel that because it’s a repeat – of a repeat of a repeat of a repeat – it’s vital the police are involved and it’s a thorough investigation. That would be my hope, but I’m not a decision-maker here.”Among the items stolen were bats, shirts, shoes, sunglasses, pads and gloves. Matthew Hayden, Michael Bevan and Andy Bichel all lost their bats, with Bichel losing the willow which brought him spectacular success at the World Cup.Australia are not the first team to suffer this fate in the West Indies – Indian and South African teams have also been robbed on earlier tours to the Caribbean. With the West Indies scheduled to host the 2007 World Cup, the authorities have plenty of work to do to ensure a trouble-free tournament.

Richard Davis, the former Kent left-arm spinner, has been diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumour. The thirty-five year-old has been appearingas player coach for Berkshire in the Minor Counties Championship since retiring from the first-class game, and has also been undertaking some coaching duties with the England women’s team.Known throughout the game as ‘Dickie’, Davis made his debut for Kent in 1986, was capped in 1990 and spent nine successful years as the successor to Derek Underwood. He left Kent to join Warwickshire for the 1994 and 1995 seasons, after which he played two seasons for Gloucestershire. He played as a one-day specialist for Sussex in 1998 before interrupting his retirement last summer to make one CricInfo Championship appearance for Leicestershire, when he returned figures of 6 for 73 in one innings.Davis first realised that something was wrong when he suffered two epileptic fits, and is now due to visit a brain surgeon for further examinations andtreatment.By a macabre coincidence, Alan Igglesden, the former Kent and England fast bowler, joined Berkshire as player-coach after his first-class career. However, he had to step down when it was found that he was suffering from a brain tumour. His former Kent team-mate, Davis, replaced him.

ScorecardRiki Wessels scored his second List A hundred and first for Nottinghamshire•Getty Images

The best one-day score of Riki Wessels’ career helped Notts Outlaws maintain their unbeaten start to the Royal London Cup and secure their place in the knockout stages.Wessels scored 132 as the Outlaws posted 295 for 9 to beat Middlesex by 49 runs at Lord’s, with 12 balls to spare.The 29-year old scored his runs from 118 deliveries and hit 12 fours and seven sixes as he registered just his second century in the format and first since 2008.Steven Mullaney and Luke Fletcher added some lustre to the Outlaws’ innings, sharing an eighth-wicket stand of 63 in just 8.1 overs before both fell in the final over of the innings.Ollie Rayner returned his career-best figures of 4 for 35 and Gurjit Sandhu ended with 3 for 64.Sam Robson scored 88 in Middlesex’s response but when he fell in the 38th over the home side’s chances disappeared with him as the Outlaws’ spinners took control. Imran Tahir ended with 3 for 38 and Samit Patel took 3 for 45.A combination of an uncertain weather forecast and a tube strike meant that very few spectators were in the ground to see the Outlaws’ openers walk to the middle after James Franklin had inserted his former county.Alex Hales was clearly attracted to the shorter boundary on the Tavern side and deposited Sandhu several rows back before then drilling a return to the same bowler to depart for just 11.Michael Lumb, playing his first match in this season’s competition only made a single, before edging Toby Roland-Jones behind as the powerplay produced a meagre return of 28 for 2.James Taylor, like Hales, had made a century in this same fixture 12 months ago but perished for just 8, shuffling in front to be given lbw against Roland-Jones.Brendan Taylor, fresh from a pair of ducks against Essex and Lancashire, over the last four days, scored 19 before sweeping Rayner’s first delivery to short fine leg.Wessels was already starting to pepper the short side, hitting two sixes in his fifty but then lost Samit Patel who chipped back to Rayner for 9.On 87, the opener had his only moment of concern as Dawid Malan got a hand to a leg-side blow but had to settle for pawing the ball back into play, rather than conceding the six runs it would have been had he continued to topple over the rope.Wessels reached three figures for the first time in a Notts shirt, from 100 balls, with his fifth six, a switch hit off Rayner. Two more sixes, from consecutive Roland-Jones’ deliveries, took him to 132, whereupon he presented a catch in the deep, off Rayner.Brett Hutton made just 9 but solid contributions from Luke Fletcher, who blasted 39 from 29 balls, including two sixes, plus 51 from Mullaney, saw the Outlaws to within five runs of 300.Mddlesex’s response was given the perfect start with a solid opening stand of 71 before Tahir had Malan caught at backward point by Hales for 33.Robson, playing just his 13th List A match, passed 50 from 70 balls with five fours and received good support from Nick Gubbins in a second-wicket partnership worth 81.The 29th over saw Notts make a double strike. Hutton sent back Gubbins for 45, with Taylor gratefully clinging on at midwicket and then former Outlaw, Franklin, was run out for nought by a direct hit from Lumb.Robson’s top score in this format came to an end with an ill-advised blow down the ground in Tahir’s comeback over and the tail folded meekly as Patel picked up the final three wickets to seal the win.