The Glamorgan team for the four day Frizzell County Championship fixture to face Northamptonshire at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff starting on Wednesday, 10th September at 10.30am will be drawn from the following squad:

J P MaherM A Wallace +A DaleM J PowellM P MaynardD L HempR D B Croft *A G WharfM S KasprowiczD S HarrisonD A CoskerS D Thomas

Western Australia’s biggest electrical retailer has signed a one-year agreement with options to extend for a further two years as the major sponsor of the re-named Retravision Warriors valued at an estimated $1 million a year for WA cricket, whilst continuing the group’s support of the sport’s junior players which commenced last year.Announcing the new major sponsorship today at a special launch event at the WACA Ground on the eve of the 2003-04 season-opening Lilac Hill Festival Match, WACA President Mr Brian Rakich said the values represented by Retravision – professional, competitive, family and community based – mirrored the traditions of the sport and WA’s premiere team."This is a great match for the Warriors, the sport and for our new major partner Retravision," Mr Rakich said."The sport sponsorship market is very tough. Getting this support from Retravision puts in place a vital foundation on which to build the future performance of WA’s most successful sporting team."Last year Retravision put its sponsorship support behind junior cricket in WA and that’s been a great success. When the major sponsorship of the Warriors became available it seemed logical to see if we could build on that relationship. The WACA is delighted to have secured this agreement with Retravision," Mr Rakich said.The WACA President said for the first time in the history of the sport in WA the State team would carry the sponsor’s name in its logo – this follows a trend which has been adopted by other State cricket teams in recent years.Retravision Chairman Bill Harries said the deal with WA cricket was the biggest sponsorship the group had ever undertaken."Retravision has looked at a number of major sponsorship proposals and opportunities in recent years but none of them fitted with the values our brand represents through the 58 mainly family-owned and operated stores which are a part of communities throughout Perth and regional WA. The traditions, ethos and following of cricket fits the bill. We’re really looking forward to being part of the Warriors team," Mr Harries said.Last year Retravision committed $50,000 to sponsoring WA junior cricket for the first time. Retravision’s investment in the sport through the new combined sponsorship agreement announced today is estimated to represent a value of $1 million a year through a cash component, plus leveraging the Retravision Warriors involvement through the retailing group’s planned advertising, marketing and sales programs."The commitment of Retravision to leveraging the sponsorship will continue to develop the Warriors high profile. That’s very important for keeping cricket in the spotlight in a highly competitive sports market in WA," Mr Rakich said.The Retravision Warriors make their first home appearance for the 2003-04 domestic season with the opening fixture of the ING Cup series, a day/night game against the Southern Redbacks at the WACA Ground on Friday, October 24.The Retravision Warriors first Pura Cup match will be against NSW in Sydney, starting on November 4. Their first home game will be against the Tasmanian Tigers, starting on Sunday, December 7.

The 15 cricketers representing Sri Lanka ‘A’ who left on a five-week tour of India on Saturday will have the home series against England very much on their minds.The reason for such thinking can be explained by the fact that they have been told by Lalith Kaluperuma, the chairman of selectors, that anyone performing outstandingly well will be given due recognition for the England Test series starting on December 2. Kaluperuma emphasised when the team was picked 10 days ago, that in the event the national team needs any replacements during the England series, players who are in form in India will be given due consideration.That comment by Kaluperuma is encouragement enough for the players to perform well. “Touring India is not easy. We expect to play tough cricket. If anyone can score runs and take wickets in India he has to be good,” explained Hemantha Devapriya, Sri Lanka A’s coach. "Our strength is batting and we have a few batters who can fill the middle-order slot in our national team with good performances here.”Among those who are vying for places are Jehan Mubarak, a beautifully balanced player who scored centuries in South Africa and Kenya during Sri Lanka ‘A’s recent tour, skipper Naveed Nawaz and Lanka de Silva, who batted with tenacity. All of them have had a brief taste of Test cricket some time during their careers.The tour also affords wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene to make amends for his batting failures in South Africa and Kenya and prove to the selectors that he can get useful runs at the highest level. “Prasanna is the best wicketkeeper we have today," said Devapriya. "He kept beautifully on the African tour. It is very unfortunate that he cannot combine his high level of wicket-keeping with some runs on the board.”Devapriya said the bowling was a bit inexperienced and a lot of their success on the tour would depend on how well they bowled. That Kaushalya Weeraratne is the most experienced of the fast bowlers tells a story of how green the attack looks. Others in support are Tharanga Lakshitha, Lasith Malinga and Umesh Wijesiriwardene.To persist with left-arm spinner Rangana Herath, who was one-time Muttiah Muralitharan’s spin partner, is an indication that he is still the best spinner available apart from the banned Kaushal Lokuarachchi. Apart from his lack of height which at times is a disadvantage, a lack of confidence has been his main concern.Batsmen Nuwan Shiroman and Anuska Polonowita and off-spinner Chamara Mudalige are being rewarded for their performances in the Premier trophy competition.Sri Lanka ‘A’ will play four first-class matches against India ‘A’ and then participate in the ACF ‘A’ team one-day triangular with Pakistan and India. Kaluperuma said that changes will be made to the team for the one-day competition.Sri Lanka A tour party Naveed Nawaz (capt), Lanka de Silva (vice-capt), Ian Daniel, Tharanga Paranavithana, Nuwan Shiroman, Jehan Mubarak, Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), Anushka Polonowita. Thilina Kandamby, Kaushal Weeraratne, Rangana Herath, Chamara Mudalige, Tharanga Lakshitha, Lasith Malinga, Omesh Wijesiriwardene, Officials: Nuski Mohamed (manager), Hemantha Devapriya (coach), Chris Clark (physio).

Leewards fast bowler Adam Sanford has been called into the West Indies squad as a replacement for Omari Banks, who had to pull out of the tour with a back injury. Sanford made the last of his seven Test appearances in 2002 against New Zealand.Banks had a cortisone injection to counter inflammation in his lower back last week, but after no improvement, the team doctors advised him to rest the injury for the next three months.Banks is the third player to return home with injury. Jerome Taylor was the first casualty, also with a bad back, and Marlon Samuels will miss the tour with a knee injury.The first Test starts on December 12 at Johannesburg.

Scorecard

England held on for a fighting draw in what was a tense finish to a closely-fought opening Test against Sri Lanka at Galle. After battling efforts from Mark Butcher, Paul Collingwood and the lower order, the umpires offered England the light with four overs to go and nine wickets down.The weather certainly came to their rescue, but England’s draw represented an impressive display of tough concentration and commitment to the cause, especially against Muttiah Muralitharan on a wearing pitch. And as always in these situations, England will feel like champions and take plenty of heart with them to the next Test. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, will be ruing their inability to finish the job off, and their slow batting on the fourth day.After Collingwood was out on the stroke of tea for a gutsy 36, England were staring down the barrel at 170 for 7. But Ashley Giles and Gareth Batty made sure the floodgates didn’t open. They scrapped it out together for valuable 50 minutes after the tea break, before Batty threw all his hard work away in a moment of madness to give England the wobbles again. He gifted Murali another wicket when he played a vile heave across the line and was bowled middle stump (204 for 8). Batty stayed on his knees for a few seconds, realising the foolishness of such an irresponsible shot at such a crucial time.The light slowly deteriorated, the umpires continually checked their metres, but the show went on. Richard Johnson curbed his attacking instincts and admirably played one big block for 35 balls. But with seven overs remaining, he played on to Murali trying to leave the ball, and it was all down to Giles and Matthew Hoggard to save the day as the tension mounted.Giles refused to buckle under the pressure, and took the brunt of the strike. The umpires continued to deliberate on the conditions at the end of every over, and after what felt like an eternity for England, they offered the light – and the batsmen were off in a shot. Giles finished with an invaluable 17 not out, and as he looked up to the darkening skies, he knew his side had done enough to escape with a hard-earned and exciting draw.From the moment Dinusha Fernando resumed play with the new ball this morning, England realised they were up against it. Michael Vaughan was never allowed to settle as Fernando worked him over outside off stump. He squirted an attempted leave through third man for four, and after one sweet pull through midwicket, he propped forward to an immaculate full-length outswinger, and Hashan Tillakaratne at first slip grabbed the edge at the second attempt (16 for 1).Marcus Trescothick was in no mood to be dominated. He cracked a half-volley from Chaminda Vaas through the covers, and helped to put a dent in Fernando’s figures with a bullet of a cut shot. But his positive intent proved his downfall, when he danced down the track to Sanath Jayasuriya, failed to make contact and was bowled straight through the gate for 24 (62 for 2).Murali by this stage had barely bothered to warm up, but he was never going to be kept out of the limelight for long. Sure enough, he popped up with the prize scalp of the morning. Graham Thorpe was easing into his stride when he badly misread Murali’s doosra, and top-edged a simple chance to Vaas, who nonetheless made a meal of it as he ran in from mid-off (73 for 3).

Butcher and Collingwood provided stern resistance and ate up valuable time. Both batsmen showed good concentration and discipline against accurate bowling, led by Murali and Jayasuriya. But it wasn’t all just blocking. Butcher launched Kumar Dharmasena for six over mid-on, and then stroked an elegant straight drive off Murali to bring up a well-deserved half-century. Collingwood provided good support at the other end, playing with a calm concentration, as the pair put together a valuable fifty partnership.England’s bid for survival was slowly starting to take shape, but back came Vaas to pierce a double dent in their progress. Vaas landed one on a perfect length outside off and Butcher nibbled at the ball as it went through to Kumar Sangakkara (125 for 4). In his next over, Andrew Flintoff drove him loosely to Tillakaratne at point for a duck, and suddenly England were hanging on at 125 for 5.Chris Read refused to lie down and he swept his way to 14, including a six over midwicket. Collingwood continued to stand firm, putting away anything wide or short to the boundary. The clouds began to roll over the ground, but if England had any thoughts of scrambling to safety, that man Murali made them think again. Read propped forward to defend another big offspinner and gloved the ball via the pad to Mahela Jayawardene at short-leg (148 for 6).Batty knuckled down to give Collingwood support, and found time to effortlessly clip Dharmasena over midwicket for six and thwack Murali past midwicket. The rain started to trickle down, but the umpires decided to stay on. It was a big call, as England lost their anchor in Collingwood. He pressed forward to Dharmasena and was superbly caught by Tillakaratne low to his left at silly point (170 for 7). It was a big blow, as shown by the Sri Lankans’ shrieks of delight, and it set up a thrilling final session in which England somehow survived.

Five years after being unceremoniously axed from British television, Geoff Boycott has been brought in from the cold by Channel 4 and will join their commentary line-up for next summer’s tours by New Zealand and West Indies.Boycott was ostracised by the British media following a high-profile court case in France in 1998, although he continued to work regularly overseas. In 2002 he was diagnosed as having throat cancer, which he successfully fought, and made a few low-key guest appearances for Channel 4 last summer.Announcing the news, David Kerr, Channel 4’s head of sport, told The Guardian: “Geoff Boycott is one of the great voices of cricket and we are very happy to be bringing him back to the commentary box. He has strong opinions informed by a career playing cricket at the highest level and a unique insight into the game of cricket.”After Geoffrey commentated on the C&G final this summer we had a very positive response from viewers and we wanted to give them the chance to hear his thoughts over the coming summer."Boycott remains one of the most popular media analysts, renowned for his blunt comments.

Ngconde Balfour, South Africa’s sports minister, will meet the leaders of the country’s major sports federations at Johannesburg this week to discuss restructuring the way they operate.Talking to the media today, Balfour said the meeting would also focus on weakness in the administration and management of sport, and the value of a code of ethics. “We will look at the weaknesses in the federations, especially in the administration and in the structure of sport.”He picked out cricket and rugby as having particular problems. “There are problems … that are structural. I have met the administrators of both sports, and we are mapping the way forward.”Balfour also criticised the managements for not focusing on the performances on the field: “Some of them seem to have abandoned performances on the field of play in favour of boardroom squabbles, leaving the perception of structural weaknesses that impact specifically on team sport.”However, Balfour stressed that despite these problems, the country wasn’t on the brink of collapse. He decreed, “We have what it takes to be a winning sports nation, but a few things need to be fixed.”On a better note, he also announced that by the end of this financial year, the government would have spent R500-million on basic sports facilities in disadvantaged communities.

Cricket Australia has said that Australia’s tour of Zimbabwe will go ahead as planned. Steve Bernard, the manager of the team, said that the Australians were satisfied with the security arrangements made by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU), and that it would take “something drastic” to derail the tour now.”There’s no doubt we’re coming, unless something drastic has to happen just before the tour,” Bernard said. “We were coming anyhow but we had to make all the necessary security checks ahead of the tour.”An Australian delegation has spent the last two days inspecting the arrangements in Harare and Bulwayo, the venues for the Tests. Bernard took pains to stress that even this was routine procedure before any tour. “We would want to stress that the pre-checks we are conducting are not only for Zimbabwe but we have had security checks in Sri Lanka and the West Indies, where our teams have played before.”

Given that his team had just been thumped by 247 runs in the final of an international tournament, Botswana’s captain, Akram Chand, shouldn’t really have been smiling quite so broadly. But the margin of their defeat – shot out for 96 in reply to a South African Country Districts XI total of 343 for 5 – was of little consequence.That is because Botswana’s mere presence in the final of the World Cup Qualifying Series in Benoni ensured that they would process to the next stage of a lengthy qualification process – one that could ultimately lead to an appearance in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. The crunch game had come in their semi-final on Thursday, when Botswana beat Ghana by four wickets to book their places in the African Cricket Association Championships (ACAC) in Zambia in August.The County Districts XI had only been drafted into the tournament as late replacements for Morocco, who withdrew apparently because their government refused to let the squad out of the country, after the national handball team failed to return from a tour to Europe earlier this year.They proved to be the best team in the tournament by some distance. Ghana were sent packing for 18 in their first match, and the target was knocked off in just eight balls. The South Africans followed up by dismissing Mozambique for 29, before batting first against Rwanda, andamassing 418 for 6. They then dismissed the Rwandans for 60 in 26.5 overs to win by 358 runs.In their semi-final, South Africa dismissed Malawi for 20 and took 2.4 overs to reach the target with all 10 wickets standing.However, the tournament winners enjoyed important advantages over the other seven sides in the tournament – they are used to turf pitches, they play regularly and at a reasonably competitive level, and they form part of the rich culture of South African cricket.Unsurprisingly, therefore, Chand was not downcast at the size of their defeat. “Our cricket is more competitive and of a higher standard than in some of the other countries playing here,” he told Wisden CricInfo. “We back ourselves to be one of the best teams in Africa.””In Gabarone we have one main ground, but we’re developing a second,” Chand said. “In the other towns we have another four grounds. There are no turf pitches in Botswana, we play mostly on Astroturf. A few of our players are based at universities in South Africa, so they have experience of turf pitches, but for the rest of us it’s a learning experience."Despite those hardships, cricketers in Botswana enjoy a busy season.”We start our season with a six-a-side tournament in February and March,” Chand said. “After that we have a 35-over league, in which 16 teams play in two divisions. That takes four months, and then we play an inter-town league of 50 overs-a-side matches.”Not surprisingly, Chand’s eyes gleamed at the thought of playing in the World Cup. “It would be a tremendous achievement for Botswana,” he said. “Playing for the country is one thing, but to make it to the biggest stage of all would be awesome.”Two teams from the ACAC will play in the ICC Trophy in Ireland in July next year, while a third will go to the ICC Trophy Qualifier in Malaysia next February.

Now that the uproar over Wasim Akram giving tips to Indian fast bowlers has ceased, Bishan Bedi might be hopping across the border to train Pakistani spinners. Pakistan’s selectors, alarmed at the decline of spin bowling in Pakistan, have proposed to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that they hold a specialised clinic for spinners at the National Cricket Academy, under the supervision of Bedi, Iqbal Qasim, Mushtaq Mohammad and Abdul Qadir.Mid Day, the Mumbai tabloid, quoted Wasim Bari, Pakistan’s chief selector, as saying: “Bedi is still considered as one of the finest exponents of spin, and we feel his presence and tutelage would benefit our youngsters a lot.”Bari said that seven or eight talented spinners would be picked to take part in the camp. “Pakistan is not short of talent in the pace-bowling department,” he said. “More and more youngsters are coming through. But we have lacked quality spinners for a while now, and we need to address this problem urgently to take home advantage.”