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John Taylor, the allrounder, has decided leave Western Australia for family reasons and will return to Victoria. Taylor, along with his wife, will leave Perth and return to Melbourne, his original home.Taylor moved to Western Australia in the beginning of the 2002-03 season and excellent performances with Willetton in the WACA Pennant competition led him being offerred a full contract for the next season.Taylor made his first-class debut against New South Wales at the SCG in November and he went on to play in six Pura Cup matches, taking 12 wickets at an average of 51.25. He excelled in the ING Cup, though, where he picked up 11 wickets at 22.45.Wayne Clark, the Western Australian coach, bid Taylor farewell when he said, “John Taylor was valuable member of the Retravision Warriors. John has decided to return to Melbourne with his wife for family and personal reasons. The WACA would like to wish John all the best on his return and we hope he can have a successful career.”

Mashonaland celebrated a four-wicket victory over Manicaland in three days,in what Gus Mackay announced in the morning would be his final first-classmatch. He is retiring from first-class cricket immediately and also leaveshis job as general manager of the Mashonaland Cricket Association at the endof May. He was pleased to end his career as captain of a winning side.Mashonaland had a good morning, taking five wickets before lunch afterdeclaring at their overnight total of 431 for nine, a lead of 34.Manicaland passed 100 with only two wickets down, one of them being thecrucial one of Neil Ferreira for 21, Mackay’s last first-class victim. Hedid not open with the new ball this time, feeling that the time had come foryounger and faster bowlers to gain the experience.Then, at 119, Manicaland crumbled under pressure, with Guy Croxford (78)trying in vain to hold the innings together; none of the last seven batsmenreached double figures.Trevor Gripper bowled his off-breaks very well to take five wickets for 66runs, and the other bowlers supported him well and stuck to their task.Mashonaland were left with a relatively simple target of 159.The result was never really in doubt, and Mackay felt that they would havewon by a larger margin had it not been for their eagerness to finish thematch that day. Conan Brewer batted very well for his 45, the top score,while Stuart Carlisle followed his double-century with 43 before being runout. The middle order shivered as off-spinner Richie Sims took two wickets,but they were never in real danger and just achieved their target in extratime.

The Sports Editor
Daily Telegraph
Dear Sir,Did the Australians field their Test Team at Taunton and if not, why not? So it is okay for Australia and England, via Central Contracts, to rest key players ahead of Test Matches but not okay for counties to rest key players ahead of vital promotion/relegation battles.Leading Telegraph cricket writers, past and present, have continually denigrated the county championship game and all forms of one-day cricket as unimportant and then wonder why the game of cricket tends to struggle on all fronts.Column inches and controversy are far more important to their own pocket and egos than the wider picture, it seems. For the record then, 15,000 people watched the Somerset Tourist match grossing £100,000 which considerably helps the Club to finance all of its youth development projects for which local sponsors are hard to attract because of the negative leadership provided by our esteemed cricket writers.Mark Nicholas was good at leadership on the pitch; we now need him off the pitch.Yours sincerely,P W Anderson
Chief Executive Somerset County Cricket Club

Holders Karnataka State Cricket Association XI could not have beenvery happy at stumps on the first day of their Buchi Babu All Indiainvitation tournament quarterfinal against National Cricket Academy atthe CPT-IP ground in Chennai on Thursday. They struggled during theday to score at two runs an over and when play was called off with 4.5overs still left to be bowled because of bad light, they were 182 forfive wickets.After KSCA won the toss, Mithun Beerala was off to a confident start.He hit four boundaries and out of the first wicket stand of 22 runsoff 10.5 overs with Roland Barrington, he scored all but one beforebeing caught by Sharandeep Singh off medium pacer RB Patel.Joined by Amit Kumar, Barrington continued to struggle and by the timehe was second out, leg before to skipper RS Sodhi, at 56 in the 21stover, he had batted 104 minutes and faced 61 balls for his 18.Vijay Bharadwaj did not last long. He was bowled by Sriram for sixruns for which he took his time – 48 balls. Amit Kumar who haddominated the scoring till then was fourth out at 86. For his 34, hebatted two hours, faced 67 balls and hit six fours.AR Mahesh and RC Shanbal then brought about a recovery of sorts byadding 40 runs for the fifth wicket but the runs continued to bescored at a tardy rate. The association lasted all of 25.4 oversbefore Shanbal was caught by Gambhir off Kaif. During his stay of anhour and a half, Shanbal faced 74 balls and hit two fours.The recovery process continued with Mahesh and SN Shiraguppi adding 56runs for the unbroken sixth wicket partnership which has so far lasted29 overs. When stumps were drawn prematurely, Mahesh had come throughunbeaten with 40 for which he had faced 180 balls. He had only threeboundary hits. Shirugappi was not much more enterprising scoring 25off 93 balls with just one four.Sodhi tried eight bowlers in all including himself and five of themcame through with one wicket each. At the end of the day’s play, theyoungsters from the Bangalore based academy would have no doubt lookedback at a job well done.

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Sri Lanka completed a facile nine-wicket win over Bangladesh, following up a tidy display in the field with a professional chase of a paltry 121 with with 145 balls remaining.Sri Lanka chose to field first, and had Bangladesh in early trouble. Janakanthy Mala removed Shukhtara for a nine-ball duck and added Shathira Jakir in her next over, and left-arm spinner Suwini de Alwis struck to make it 29 for 3. Ayesha Akhter stuck around long enough to top-score with 30 from 75 deliveries but nobody else crossed 20 and Bangladesh were all out for 120 in 49.3 overs. Janakanthy Mala finished with the most excellent figures of 10-6-9-3 and was backed up by Shashikala Siriwardene’s 3 for 28.Rumana Ahmed struck early to dismiss Chamari Polgampola for 14 in the 15th over of Sri Lanka’s chase but that would be Bangladesh’s only moment of success. Dedunu Silva remained unbeaten on 66 from 82 balls, with the help of 12 boundaries, and added 81 in 11.4 overs, at 6.94 runs an over, with Siriwardene (23 not out) to wrap up victory.
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India trounced Pakistan by 207 runs in the final league match after rattling up the highest total of the tournament so far. Three Indian batsmen got half-centuries after which Neetu David and Snehal Pradhan took three wickets each to bowl out Pakistan for a miserable 76.India, who have got four of the five 200+ totals in the tournament, were given an impressive start by the openers, Karuna Jain and Jaya Sharma, who added 114 in 20.4 overs. Anagha Deshpande and Mithali Raj put on 53 more before Raj and Rumeli Dhar added an unbeaten 90 to take India to 283.An out-of-depth Pakistan lost their first four wickets for 44 runs. Snehal Pradhan, a medium-pace bowler making her debut, removed Bismah Maroof off the second ball she bowled. Pakistan had crawled to 62 when left-arm spinner David took two wickets in one over to reduce them to 66 got 8. The misery lasted six more overs before India ended it ruthlessly. India will now play Sri Lanka in the final.

The Indian players today had their way on the contentious contracts issue, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) returning to the graded system under which the top five players get a retainership of Rs 50 lakh each annually.The graded system had been abolished after the team’s disastrous performance in the World Cup and replaced by a combination of match fees and bonuses. The BCCI had also capped players’ endorsements by restricting the number of products they could endorse to three and introducing a performance-based payment system. The contracts, due from October 1 last year, could not be signed before the team went for the World Cup in early March.Faced with stiff resistance by the top players such as captain Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly, the board’s Working Committee backed off and chose to revert to the system under which the top 15 players are graded A, B, and C.The committee which met in New Delhi with Dravid being present decided to have the graded system till September this year. The ‘B’ and ‘C’ category players get Rs 35 lakh and Rs 20 lakh each per annum.Meanwhile, the BCCI extended the contracts of Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, the bowling and fielding coaches respectively, for one year.N Srinivasan, the BCCI treasurer, refused to take questions about the launch of Indian Cricket League (ICL) launced by the Zee Network. But after repeated queries on the subject, when asked if the committee had given permission for Zee to go ahead with their plans, he said, “no”.Incidentally, sources in the board said that no show cause notice would be issued to Kapil Dev and Kiran More, who have been appointed on the board of directors of the ICL.The committee also announced the itineraries for the forthcoming home series against Australia and Pakistan. Australia are scheduled to play seven ODIs between September 29 and October 17. Pakistan’s visit will be a full Test tour, starting with a five-match ODI series starting on November 6, followed by three Tests. The Tests will be played in New Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore.SchedulesAustralia in IndiaSeptember 25 – Arrival in India
September 29 – 1st ODI, Bangalore
October 2 – 2nd ODI, Kochi
October 5 – 3rd ODI, Hyderabad
October 8 – 4th ODI, Guwahati
October 11 – 5th ODI, Baroda
October 14 – 6th ODI, Nagpur
October 17 – 7th ODI, Mumbai
Pakistan in IndiaNovember 2 – Arrival
November 6 – 1st ODI, Faridabad
November 9 – 2nd ODI, Mohali
November 12 – 3rd ODI, Kanpur
November 15 – 4th ODI, Gwalior
November 18 – 5th ODI, Jaipur
November 22-26 – 1st Test, Delhi
November 30 – December 4 – 2nd Test, Kolkata
December 8-12 – 3rd Test, Bangalore

India suffered an injury blow ahead of the second Test in St Lucia when their fast bowler, Sreesanth, was ruled out with a sore heel. John Gloster, the team physio, revealed that Sreesanth, who bowled the final over of the tense draw at Antigua, would need three to five days of rest before he gets back to full fitness.”Sreesanth pulled up sore in the [left] heel at the end of the last Test match,” Gloster observed. “He has got an inflammed bursar at the back of the heel. We saw a specialist this morning, and he has just taken an injection in that heel. The specialist is confident it will settle down reasonably quickly but at this stage, we are going to give him three to five days’ rest. We will then work him back to full fitness after that. At this stage, he will be unavailable for Saturday.”Sreesanth had missed the first matches of the recently concluded one-day series owing to a heel injury, but Gloster confirmed that the situation was slightly different this time. “This one came on during the last match, so it’s a little bit unfortunate for him. But we are pretty confident the injection he took this morning will get on top of the injury, and we will see how he goes over the next three to five days.”Gloster also said that the injury hadn’t affected Sreesanth’s bowling in the previous game. He added that there weren’t any other injury concerns. “Apart from him, at this stage everybody else is pretty fit. I think we are pretty fortunate to have got this far with just a little niggle.”At this stage, with a generous smattering of green on the pitch, it would appear that Irfan Pathan would be the obvious choice to replace Sreesanth.

The Bangladesh opening batsman Hannan Sarkar has paid the price for a dismal run of form, as he has been dropped for the second Test against New Zealand, which starts at Chittagong on Tuesday.Sarkar, who in the Caribbean earlier this year earned the dubious distinction of falling to the first ball of consecutive Test matches, managed scores of just 0 and 1 at Dhaka this week, as Bangladesh slumped to defeat by an innings and 99 runs. His place has been taken by the uncapped middle-order batsman Aftab Ahmed, a former Under-19 player.”We have decided to call Aftab Ahmed into the middle order as we had a bitter experience in the first Test,” said Bangladesh’s chief selector, Faruk Ahmed. Aftab made his one-day debut in the recent Champions Trophy in England.And following the relative success of Bangladesh’s spinners – Mohammad Rafique and Manjural Islam Rana shared nine first-innings wickets between them – the selectors have recalled Enamul Haque junior for the second Test, at the expense of the seamer Alamgir Kabir. Khaled Mashud continues to captain the side, in the absence of Habibul Bashar.Bangladesh squad Khaled Mashud (capt, wk), Rajin Saleh, Javed Omar, Mohammad Ashraful, Nafis Iqbal, Manjural Islam Rana, Tareq Aziz, Mushfiqur Rahman, Aftab Ahmed, Alok Kapali, Tapash Baisya, Mohammad Rafique, Enamul Haque jr.

Victoria 6 for 592 (Elliott 155, Moss 98, Arnberger 90, Hodge 89) v Queensland
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The record books were spared but Queensland’s bowlers were not as Victoria continued using their licence to bat with abandon on the second day of the Pura Cup cricket final at the MCG. With Victoria 6 for 592 at stumps in 186 overs and 723 minutes, the innings was a statistician’s delight but prolonged agony for Queensland, who faced another three days of formalities before Victoria were crowned champion.Needing only a draw to secure its first first-class title since 1990-91, Victoria appear certain to continue batting on the third day to become just the third side after Queensland (in 1994-95) and Western Australia (1986-87) to post 600 in a Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup final. Darren Berry, Victoria’s captain, said, “We’ll bat until Queensland get us out.”While the first day produced a stack of records to century-maker Matthew Elliott, the second day was more like a thousand cuts, with the Victorian middle order knuckling down after Queensland’s pacemen picked up three wickets before lunch. The star of the day was Jonathan Moss, who made an entertaining 98, and was denied a century when he failed to get to the pitch of the ball for possibly the first time all day, and chipped Nathan Hauritz to short mid-on.Moss and Cameron White (54) put on 135 to regain Victoria’s ascendancy and then Ian Harvey (34 not out) and Andrew McDonald (37 not out) rounded off another dominant batting performance.Berry smiled when asked if it would be hard keeping a lid on celebrations for the next three days. But he said that Victoria were still chasing an outright win, and could get some help from a pitch that has been dead for two days but starting to show signs of life.”Speaking to McDonald and Harvey, they said a few kept a little bit low today towards the end of play today, which is obviously very encouraging for us with almost 600 runs on the board,” Berry said. “There was a few cracks in it at the start of the first day so I’ll have a look at it again in the morning, but I would imagine it will be difficult to bat on day five.”Although disappointed at missing a century, Moss was pleased to have played his part in such a crucial match given that Victoria lost three wickets in the space of 33 runs early in the day. “The fact is if we win the Pura Cup I won’t let it bother me too much,” he said. “It would have been great to get the hundred but as cricket goes, sometimes you’ve got to cop the disappointment. It might hit me later on tonight … but it’s great we’re in such a good position and that I contributed to putting us into that good position.”Victoria resumed at 1 for 322 but the morning belonged to Queensland, as Joe Dawes, Andy Bichel and Ashley Noffke removed Brad Hodge (89), Elliott (155) and David Hussey (16) respectively.But as the sun emerged from the cloud, it rendered the pacemen to spectators and the batsmen went largely untroubled against Hauritz and the part-time spin of Stuart Law and Chris Simpson. Moss hit a six off Law into the MCG construction site and the resulting delay for getting a replacement ball only drew Queensland’s agony out further.

Somerset Under 13 have enjoyed mixed fortunes on their tour to South Africa, and found the first two matches tough going when they were comfortably beaten by Lions and K.E.P.S.However they quickly returned to winning ways and their following two matches both resulted in resounding victories.In the first match, against Penryn, Somerset fielded first and thanks to all of the bowers performing well their opponents were dismissed for 58.The pick of the bowlers was Jason Strong, who ended with 4 for 22 in his 8 overs. His bowling spell in tandem with Mick Le Mare did the real damage, with Le Mare conceding just 3 runs in 8 overs. They were well supported Will Robinson who ended with 3 for 19 and Callum Haggett 2 for 9.In reply two early losses did not prevent an easy victory thanks to Matthew Green who was the mainstay of the innings with 24 and Matthew Horsley who gave good support to see the side home by 6 wickets.In the day night match against their Worcestershire counterparts the midland county batted first and were all out for 192, thanks to some tight bowling by Alex Thomson, Johnathan Mould and Haggett who ended with two wickets a piece, and a good fielding display.In reply the Somerset pair of Jos Butler and Haggett quickly put their side in control and shared a partnership of 156 from 19 overs, before Butler was out for 92, just 8 runs short of what would have been a thoroughly deserved century.Haggett remained until the end to guide his side home to an 8 wicket victory with eleven overs to spare.The Under 13’s have two games remaining on the their South African tour before travelling back to England.