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.

Ian Botham and Imran Khan, two of world cricket’s leading allrounders in the 1980s, returned to the High Court yesterday to argue over the settlements of the costs from the high-profile libel action that took place there in 1996.According to London’s , Imran, who won the verdict in the original trial, is claiming £250,000 but says that he will settle for £75,000 less. Botham’s lawyers yesterday asked the presiding judge, Justice Richards, to throw out the cost application. However, if Imran’s claim is not thrown out, Botham will claim counter-costs and negotiations between their lawyers will be complex. Botham and Imran have argued over the costs since the original action eight years ago, and the hearing lasted all day yesterday.Botham brought the original libel action after reading an interview given by Imran in the magazine . He alleged that Imran had libelled him by saying that he was a racist and a cheat, and saying that he had no class or upbringing. But halfway through the trial Imran stopped trying to say his comments were justified, and instead claimed he had been misquoted.Justice Richards is expected to give his judgment within the next week or so.

Andrew Leipus, the Indian physio, plans to quit after the tour of Bangladesh in December. Leipus had earlier asked the Indian board to relieve him of his duties with the team as he wanted to spend more time with his family as well as pursue a professional course in sports physiotherapy.Speaking to , Leipus confirmed that he planned to quit after the team completed the Bangladesh tour. “It won’t be after the South Africa series,” he said. “After that the team goes to Bangladesh and there’s not too much gap between the two series. After the Bangladesh tour there is a decent break in play before Pakistan tours India. The time is enough for the BCCI to finalise on another candidate.”Leipus, 34, spoke about how he couldn’t stay on for India’s series against Pakistan. “That’s not possible at all. My Masters course in Sports Physiotherapy at the University of Adelaide beings in February and the Pakistan tour is scheduled in February and March 2005.”He was also surprised at reports that spoke about a communication gap between him and the board. “That was disappointing. There were strange reports in different sections of the media about the BCCI not knowing about my decision to resign. My stand was clear ever since I communicated to the board about not being able to be with the team on a full-time basis.”In his letter to the Indian Board Leipus had suggested that John Gloster, the former Bangladesh physio, be considered as a physio. Gloster, who has also worked with Surrey in the past, spent about two years as the physio of the Bangladesh team, but left them on October 9 when his contract ran out.

With the Indian team yet to settle on an opening partner for Virender Sehwag, Punjab’s Ravneet Ricky threw his hat into the ring with a belligerent 133 as his team seized control of their Group B match against Assam. Yuvraj Singh, fighting to get back his place in the Test team, made just 29, but there was a half-century for Pankaj Dharmani, another of the domestic stalwarts that Indian cricket forgot.Elsewhere, Mumbai choked off the runs as Madhya Pradesh dawdled to 164 for 7 by stumps. Naman Oja (33) and Amay Khurasiya added 50 for the second wicket, and Nikhil Patwardhan chipped in with an unbeaten 34 late in the day as runs came in a trickle. For Mumbai, Wilkin Mota (3 for 21) and Swapnil Hazare (2 for 43) took the bowling honours, while Ajit Agarjar went wicketless.Also in Group A, Gujarat recovered well from a mid-afternoon wobble to post 286 for 7 against Karnataka. Parthiv Patel made just 16, but there were half-centuries for Mukund Parmar (73) and Niraj Patel (54). For Karnataka, both Vinay Kumar and Dodda Ganesh picked up three wickets apiece, but they were frustrated late in the day by Siddharth Trivedi and Timil Patel, who batted through to stumps.On a day of mixed fortunes for those trying to find their way back into the Indian squad, there was a fine unbeaten 68 from Jai P Yadav as Railways made 305 for 9 against Bengal. Tejinder Pal Singh (86) and Amit Pagnis (57), who used to represent Mumbai, provided the early impetus, while Bengal were indebted to Ranadeb Bose (4 for 52) and Sabir Ali (3 for 48), their new-ball combination.In the other group A encounter, Delhi made sedate progress to 258 fo 2 by stumps, with Aakash Chopra managing a laboured 78 (245 balls). Shikhar Dhawan, his opening partner, slammed a stylish 49, but the innings of the day came from Mithun Manhas, who stroked an unconquered 91 against an insipid Andhra Pradesh attack.In Group B, Baroda had one of their consistent performers to thank for a close-of-play score of 290 for 6 against Maharashtra. Satyajit Parab made 120 and added 164 for the first wicket with Connor Williams (58) before Iqbal Siddiqui, who played his only Test for India three years ago against England at Mohali, made inroads into the batting line-up. Siddiqui ended the day with figures of 5 for 78, but Maharashtra’s late rally was thwarted by the experienced duo of Nayan Mongia (42) and Jacob Martin (40).And in the other game in the same group, Tamil Nadu’s batsmen produced a torpor-ridden performance against Uttar Pradesh. Sivaramakrishnan Vidyut managed a stolid 52, and there were contributions from Sridharan Sriram, S Badrinath and S Sharath as the home side crawled to 197 for 4 by stumps. For Uttar Pradesh, RP Singh was the best of the bowlers on view, finishing with 3 for 54.

India are likely to play a Test in Karachi during their tour of Pakistan early next year. Natwar Singh, India’s foreign minister, expressed no reservations regarding India playing a Test there during a recent visit to Pakistan.Shaharyar Khan, chairman Pakistan Cricket Board, told PTI he met Singh at a social gathering and discussed the issue informally. “It was not a formal [meeting], but a social gathering and I found a little time to discuss cricket. I was told by Singh that the Indian government has no reservations about India playing a Test in Karachi. I think it is a big development and although the official confirmation has to come from the Indian board, I am now quite certain that India will play in Karachi.”Shaharyar added, “Actually, Natwar said the decision has to be taken by the BCCI. The government approval to BCCI was delayed due to the sad demise of Sunil Dutt, the Indian sports minister.”When India toured Pakistan in 2004, Shaharyar and Rameez Raja, then chief executive of the board, played crucial roles in convincing India to play at least one ODI at Karachi. And despite Sri Lanka playing a Test match in the port city in November last year, the venue’s status remained under a cloud, especially after England refused to play a Test match there on their forthcoming winter tour, which gets underway from October 26.The Indian cricket team are expected to arrive in Lahore on January 2 and play a two-day warm-up match before the first Test starts in Karachi, tentatively scheduled for January 7.

The Special General Meeting of Zimbabwe Cricket scheduled to take place on December 1 has been postponed. It is the latest in a series of meetings delayed by the board, who have yet to hold a committee meeting following a controversial AGM almost three months ago.The SGM was called to discuss the highly-controversial move to affiliate five new provinces – Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. Opponents of the board have made it clear that they see this as little more than an exercise to give the ruling group, led by chairman Peter Chingoka, enough votes to head off a revolt by the established provinces.The unease with the move has been exacerbated by the revelations that Themba Mliswa, the chairman of Mashonaland West and a man with very limited cricketing credentials, was identified as the person who threatened Tatenda Taibu and his wife. “We have said people like Mliswa are not good for the game of cricket,” Taibu said. “It appears to me that he is so close to Chingoka that there is nothing that will be done to him.”The board statement said that some documentation had not been received in time and so the meeting had been rearranged for December 23.

Sometime on Friday evening, the final details regarding the annual central contracts for India’s cricketers will be decided. Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, Niranjan Shah, the secretary, Kiran More, the chairman of selectors, and Greg Chappell, the coach, will meet in Mumbai and finalise the list of players who will receive contracts for the forthcoming year. However an announcement from the board on the list of contracted players will only happen on Saturday morning, after the selectors pick the squad for the Pakistan tour.The players are guaranteed a sizeable raise in payments. But this is only to be expected, as the players’ salaries are a percentage of the overall profits of the board, and this sum has gone up every year. At the moment the BCCI has allocated 26% of total profits towards payment of players’ salaries. Of this, 13% goes towards payments to the national team, while 13% goes to payments of domestic cricketers, cricketers who go on A-tours etc. It is expected that the premier slab A will fetch Rs 80 lakh to 1 crore (previously Rs 50 lakh), the second slab Rs 60-70 lakh (previously 35 lakh) and the last slab Rs 30-40 lakh (previously 20 lakh).Irfan Pathan is likely to be the only addition to the premier category, while it is not clear whether Sourav Ganguly will remain in the A grade. “It is too early to say anything at this stage. It has not even been decided how many people will get contracts or in which category. So we can’t really say where a specific individual stands,” a BCCI source told Cricinfo. “Everything will be discussed in detail at the meeting on Friday evening.”Ganguly was an automatic selection for the A grade last year, as captain of the team, but currently he figures neither in the Test team nor in the ODI team. If he continues to be out of the team, and does not figure in the long-term plans of the management, there’s every chance he will lose out on top billing. It is, however, expected that he will get a B-grade contract.On Friday another high-powered committee – the marketing committee – is set to meet, at a suburban hotel in Mumbai at 11am, to open the bids for the logo sponsorship on the non-leading arm of t-shirts of India’s cricketers. The main sponsorship, for the leading arm, has already gone to Sahara, who will fork out Rs 313 crore over four years.

Ricky Ponting expects Australia to adapt quickly to the extra bounce of Perth for the start of the South Africa Test series after the less-than-ideal preparation of a one-day series in New Zealand. After experiencing slow and seaming wickets during the Chappell-Hadlee Series, Australia face three heavy training days to acclimatise for Friday’s match while their opponents have had two weeks to settle in.Ponting said the change in conditions and outlooks was more of a “mental” adjustment. “It’s not a huge skill thing,” he said in . “We’re still playing cricket, we’re still getting bat on ball, and the bowlers are expected to bowl certain lines and lengths, it’s just a matter of adjusting to those.”It takes time, anyway, when you’re coming from another Test match to go to Perth,” Ponting said as the team left Christchurch. “So we’ll get there and train really hard and make sure we’re as prepared as we can be.”The timing of the one-day series was strange and Cricket Australia has already said it would review the player-workload demands after Adam Gilchrist was originally given the tour off by the selectors before being overruled by the board. Instead of a short summer holiday Gilchrist struggled through the three matches with scores of 3, 8 and 0.”We’ll review the process we had in place for New Zealand and look to make it better,” Michael Brown, the Cricket Australia operations manager, said in the . “Managing player workloads is very important to us.”Paul Marsh, the Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive, told the paper the players supported the idea but in this instance the process was flawed. “It wasn’t so much that he played in New Zealand, that’s their job and they want to play for Australia, but more the order in which it took place,” Marsh said. “If the CA hierarchy didn’t want him to miss that tour, they shouldn’t have gone to him in the first place. The idea is obviously keeping them fresh and giving them the chance to have long and successful careers.”Ponting said he was not worried about Gilchrist’s form entering the Test series. “He’s not always going to be the most consistent player, just because of the way he looks at the game and the way he plays the game,” he said. “He’s performed over a long period of time and I’m sure when he gets home and gets to Perth that he’ll be right.”

Kerry Packer, the man responsible for World Series Cricket (WSC) and the explosion of the one-day game, has died in Sydney aged 68. Packer, a media mogul billionaire, was behind the damaging split from the Australian Cricket Board in 1977 in a fight over television broadcasting rights.Packer realised that cricket was in need of an image overhaul, and crucially that while the game was generating huge amounts of cash, little of that was going to the players. It meant that recruiting around 50 of the top cricketers was relatively straightforward. While WSC only last two years, it changed the game forever, and many of the things we now take for granted – coloured clothing, day/night matches – were Packer innovations. The other knock-on was that for the first time, players were paid a decent amount. And when peace was achieved in 1979 his Channel 9 coverage led the way in broadcasting innovation.A minute’s silence was held before the start of the second day of the Australia-South Africa Test and Cricket Australia said he was one of the most “influential men in its history”.Packer, who had a kidney transplant in 2000, had a history of serious illnesses and suffered severe health problems over the past couple of years. But until then he lived life to the full, and was renowned as one of the world’s largest gamblers, on occasion winning and losing millions in a day. Forbes magazine valued his wealth at $5 billion earlier this year. His interests also included mining and property.A statement from Channel 9 said he died “peacefully at home with his family at his bedside” on Boxing Day.

Scorecard
How they were out

Dubious umpiring and some unintelligent bowling by the hosts left both Uttar Pradesh and Bengal hanging desperately on the edge with two more days to go in the Ranji Trophy final. At the end of the third day, when bad light stopped play an hour before regulation time with 27 overs still remaining, the match was on a knife’s edge with Bengal at 349 for 8. UP require two wickets while Bengal need 39 more runs to snatch the vital first-innings lead.It was a day that was mostly dominated by the cavalier batting of Laxmi Ratan Shukla and the attacking bowling of Piyush Chawla, the young legspinner. Shukla, who last played for India in an ODI in 1999 as a bowler, and who has now grown into an allrounder, was carrying the Bengal flag with an unbeaten 50, along with Ranadeb Bose who put a dead bat to almost everything for his 38-ball 3.Shukla walked in when Uttar Pradesh were smelling blood. The old war horse Ashish Winston Zaidi had just removed Deep Dasgupta, the Bengal captain and centurion in the previous game, when the batsman, attempted a wild cut off an innocuous straight one outside off, only succeeded in edging to Amir Khan, the wicketkeeper. Dasgupta’s 20 was well short of what his team needed from him especially after Rohan Gavaskar was sent back by umpire AV Jayaprakash in controversial circumstances at the stroke of lunch.Till his unfortunate dismissal, Gavaskar was the batsman of the first session. After the early fall of Arindam Das, the overnight batsman who was caught at the wicket off Chawla, Kaif brought on Shalabh Shrivastava, the well-built left-arm pace bowler, who peppered Gavaskar with constant short-pitched deliveries. But Gavaskar was unruffled and counterattacked with gusto, pulling and cutting. A couple of pulls either side of square leg and a spanking cut shot off Shrivastava were the highlights of his innings. When Kaif replaced the slow cutters of Zaidi with the pace of Praveen Kumar, Gavaskar pulled him over midwicket and caressed a late-cut past point to put the pressure back on the bowler.But Kumar hit back soon, albeit with the help of the umpire. Bowling from round the wicket and wide of the crease, Kumar got one to bend in to Gavaskar, who was slightly late into his defence, and his head fell over in the process. The ball was clearly moving down the leg side, but Jayaprakash thought otherwise.With most of the top and middle order back in the dressing-room, Manoj Tiwary and Shukla had plenty to do, but soon after lunch they were in their stride, confidently dealing with the constant fielding changes of an increasingly impatient and desperate Kaif and handling the bowlers with ease. After unsuccessfully trying to bounce out Gavaskar in the morning, Shrivastava continued his barrage of short ones against Shukla, but the batsman was defiant even after once being rapped hard on the fingers.With the tea break fast approaching and Uttar Pradesh getting increasingly desperate for a breakthrough, Jayaprakash committed his second blunder of the day. Getting some reverse swing with a ball which was barely 25 overs old, Kumar got one to bend into Tiwary and rapped him on the pads. The ball was sliding down leg, but once again Jayaprakash didn’t hesitate to raise the finger. It was a sad end to a 50-run partnership that had looked set to give Bengal the edge at the end of the day.

New bat Saurasish Lahiri played some fluent drives but was caught at short leg to become Chawla’s fourth victim, with Bengal still 58 runs away from taking the lead. Amid these edgy moments Shrivastava faltered with his line and length and struggled to bowl to his field. He still continued with the questionable tactic of trying to bounce out Shukla. With an off-side cordon which included two slips, two gullies, a cover and a mid-off, the line of attack should have been around off, but Shrivastava continually bowled from round the wicket and slid the ball down the leg side. Shukla brought up his fifty with a push towards long-off. UP had one opportunity to nail him, on 25, when Suresh Raina failed to latch on to a difficult chance at point off Kumar.Early in the morning Kaif had erred by taking the new ball when he should probably have persisted with Chawla, who had troubled the batsmen. With two more days to go, an outright victory for either team is still a possibility, but both sides will be desperate for the first-innings lead, which could be the deciding factor in this match.

Arindam Das c Amir Khan b Piyush Chawla 60 (143 for 3)
Tried to cut a simple leg break, caught at the wicketShivsagar Singh b Piyush Chawla 23 (186 for 4)
Caught in two minds against a fastish Chawla turner from round the wicket, bowled.Rohan Gavaskar lbw b Kumar 49 (204 for 5)
Trapped plumb to one that came in from Kumar.Deep Dasgupta c Amir Khan b Zaidi 20 (252 for 6)
Went for a wild cut off Zaidi, gifts a catch to keeper Amir KhanManoj Tiwary lbw Kumar 43 (302 for 7)
Caught in front of stumps trying to play a forward defensive against Kumar’s reverse swingSaurashish Lahiri c Shukla b Piyush Chawla
Tried to drive, takes an edge to the short leg