Tony Howard, the West Indies manager, does not expect the recent contracts dispute to have any divisive effect on the team as it prepares for the upcoming tour of Australia. Howard said that despite the history of the differences between the West Indies Players’ Association and the West Indies Cricket Board, he anticipated a professional approach from the players in the current training camp.”Generally speaking [there has been] camaraderie, and I expected nothing less. These are players who have been playing on the circuit for several years and any minor things that come up among the organisations that represents them should not really affect them when it comes to playing cricket,” Howard told CMC Sports during the West Indies training camp at the Three Ws Oval. “So I didn’t expect anything different and they are demonstrating that they are all still friends.”When negotiations between WIPA, the players’ union, and the WICB broke down prior to the Sri Lanka tour, it resulted in a second-string team being selected to represent West Indies. Key players like Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle all sat out the tour refusing to sign match/tour contracts after WIPA and WICB failed to reach an agreement.With a month to go before the start of the Australia tour, negotiations are currently going on between the two bodies. With Australia still smarting from their loss to England in the Ashes series, West Indies are expected to face a tough time on that tour, but Howard explained that he was remaining focused on preparing the team.”I am not particularly interested in England, Australia or anybody else. My job is to get the West Indies team to be the best it can be and I think once we get them to that level, irrespective of who we play, we are going to give a good account of ourselves,” Howard said. “Ability is not all, it’s application, it’s attitude, it’s training and practice and these are the invulnerables that we are trying to get into these young men.”

The problems in Mashonaland continue unabated. Cricinfo has learned that, at the weekend, a match between Harare Sports Club and Old Hararians had to be moved from Harare Sports Club to another ground after two senior Mashonaland Cricket Association (MCA) officials disrupted the game.Cyprian Mandenge, the MCA chairman, and Bruce Makovah, the province’s head selector, arrived at Harare Sports Club with two policemen and, according to witnesses, made threats to the players’ safety if they did not stop the match immediately. They are also accused of racially abusing certain players, and of telling others that they would never play for the province again.Their intervention followed a meeting of the MCA on Friday at which both clubs, along with Alexandra, Old Georgians, Takashinga, and Universals, were expelled from the association after the board accused them of insubordinance and trying to remove board officials when the clubs did not fulfill their Mashonaland Vigne Cup fixtures last weekend.Harare Sports Club is a private ground which is leased to Zimbabwe Cricket for matches organized by the board, and neither those concerned, nor anybody else not authorised by the club, have any legal right whatsoever to interfere with matches being played there. So at that point, the players decided to up sticks and continue the match at nearby St George’s College.Universals and Takashinga also played each other at the weekend in what could ultimately lead to a splitter league containing the six affected clubs. The six contain nearly all of the province’s international players.Stakeholders in Zimbabwe cricket are supposed to meet this week to try to resolve the standoff in Mashonaland, but the incident at Harare Sports Club has left serious question marks over Makovah`s fairness and integrity as a national selector.Mandenge took over the Mashonaland board chairmanship last week, but clubs have refused to recognised the new leadership. Four of the board members have been put under pressure by the clubs to resign.It was subsequently reported that the incident had been reported to the police, but given the fact that Mandenge and Makovah were accompanied by the police, it is unclear what further action is likely.

The row engulfing Zimbabwe cricket continued to rumble on, with reports that the authorities had raided the offices of Zimbabwe Cricket at the national academy and that Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, and Ozias Bvute, the managing director, continued to help officials of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with their investigations.The RBZ are remaining tight-lipped about the line of their enquiries, but sources inside Zimbabwe suggest they are probing a number of the claims made in the dossier compiled by the provincial chairmen.There was some progress yesterday, however, with the announcement that the board had concluded negotiations with the players over contracts and other outstanding issues. “It was a positive meeting,” Wilfred Mukondiwa, ZC’s human resources manager, said. “We were in agreement as far as those were concerned.”While that would seem to remove one of the grievances aired by the players last week, it seems unlikely that the threat made by them to strike will be withdrawn as long as Chingoka and Bvute remain at the helm. The players made it clear that they were not prepared to play while the pair remained in charge.And while Tatenda Taibu remains in hiding after receiving threatening telephone calls after the players made their statement last Thursday, the fiercely pro-government Herald newspaper, which totally ignored all last week’s events, launched a savage attack on him.In an interview with Themba Mliswa, the chairman of Mashonaland West, one of the new provinces critics claim have been created to give the ZC board enough votes to survive the rebellion by the established provincial set-ups, Taibu is accused of selling out.”It is quite disturbing that Taibu and some of his charges are now engaged in a dirty war, emanating from petty racial wars fomented by a known clique of the Asian and white groups in Zimbabwean cricket,” said Mliswa. “I have also realised that his (Taibu’s) game has deteriorated for a captain and he has abandoned the game of rules for the one with unwritten rules, which is politics.”Mliswa, who has had no involvement in cricket until recent weeks, said that he supported the investigations into the board’s activities. “If there are any violations, we humbly submit that the probe must go on, but the investigations must cover the entire ZC board and management. Accountability, transparency and honesty are key values or cornerstones of any organisation’s success, ZC included.”Those comments would be of interest to the Zimbabweans who claim they were duped by Mliswa in a scheme he ran to bring them into the UK which left many being deported on arrival. The venture was eventually cited by the UK authorities as the reason for Mliswa himself being deported in 2002.

ScorecardAustin Richards and Sylvester Joseph featured in a 105-run third-wicket partnership to guide the Leeward Islands to a tame draw on the final day of their second round Carib Beer series match against Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) at Ronald Webster Park.Facing a deficit of 103 runs after T&T had responded with 274 to the Leewards first innings of 171, they lost Shane Jeffers (0) and Runako Morton (10) very early on to leave them in some difficulty at 26 for 2.But Joseph (54 not out) and Richards (61) took them to safety with some resolute batting, playing the bowling on merit in stark contrast to their first innings approach. The Leewards first lost Jeffers, who failed to keep down a back foot stroke off Richard Kelly and presented Lendl Simmons at short cover with a simple catch. His replacement, Morton, seemed in a hurry, looking to force the pace, and his indiscretion saw him chase a wide delivery from Emrit, to be caught behind.Richards and Joseph batted patiently against the varied T&T attack and although the spin of Dave Mohammed, Sherwin Ganga and Samuel Badree occasionally troubled Richards in particular, they held firm. Richards was eventually caught at the wicket off Badree to leave the Leewards at 131 for 3. He struck two boundaries and faced 219 balls. Joseph was more aggressive and reached his fifty off just 67 balls, hitting four boundaries in the process. Tonito Willett (0 not out) joined Joseph, but the match was called off just after 4.30 pm.Earlier, T&T, who had resumed from their overnight 240 for 7, added a further 34 runs for the remaining three wickets as they sought some quick runs. Gibran Mohammed carried his overnight unbeaten 28 to 39, while Rayad Emrit (10) pushed his score up to 20. Both batsmen, along with Dave Mohammed (1), fell to Wilden Cornwall, who finished with 5 for 54. Daren Ganga was named Man-of-the-Match for his top-score of 63 in his team’s innings.

The fit-again England fast bowler Simon Jones wants to become the best bowler in the world in 2006, beginning with the tour of India next month.In a major interview in the February issue of , Jones says: “I want to try and become world No.1 in the next year. I want to have a go at it.”To achieve his goal Jones, currently ranked 18th behind top-of-the-table Glenn McGrath and England team mates Andrew Flintoff (5), Matthew Hoggard (11) and Steve Harmison (15), will once again need to prove his fitness.Talking about his well-chronicled injury problems he tells the magazine: “I’m pretty realistic, I’m as fit as I ever can be, but you can’t exactly prepare your bones to play. My knee was a freak injury. There’s nothing I could have done about that. This one has just come from wear and tear. Everyone gets injuries, every bowler in the world. I’ve just been unfortunate that mine have been quite lengthy ones.”You realise you get sent these tests every now and again, they’re there to see how you deal with them and if you can’t push yourself that extra bit harder to get back from them.”Jones believes last summer’s Ashes success has raised his stock with the England captain Michael Vaughan. Before Australia he was regarded as a reverse swing specialist, often not tossed the ball until it was dirt-brown. “There’s nothing I could do: I couldn’t go up and say ‘Look, Vaughany, I want to bowl,’ because maybe I wasn’t in his plan of attack. So I took it on the chin and worked my socks off last summer.””People labelled me a one-trick pony at the start of the series,” he says. “But when I bowled those spells at Trent Bridge I was bowling with a normal ball and swinging it conventionally.”Jones claimed 18 Aussie scalps in four Tests. “I think I’ve gone up a little bit in his [Vaughan’s] estimations,” he says modestly.But not content with his current armoury of deliveries, Jones has been working on a looping trajectory, Shoaib Akhtar-like slower ball. “I can bowl one at 95 miles-an-hour; I did it in South Africa. It’s just about getting it right; Troy [Cooley] and I have been working on different ball positions. Hopefully this year I’m going to be rolling out a good slower ball.”Talking of Cooley, Jones says his decision to return home is, a “sickening blow”. “England are going to lose a very, very good bowling coach and I’m going to lose a very good friend,” he says.A new approach to his game includes curbing his temper, which has made him the England player with the shortest fuse and the most frequent visitor to the match referee’s office. It was not always the case. “When I first came to the Academy I was a lot shyer than I am now. Rod Marsh really brought me out of my shell. Now I’m thinking you’re here to do a job and, if you’re intimidating someone, then you’re doing a good job and don’t worry about it.”So does he ever regret his actions? “No, I’ve never regretted them to be honest because I’ve never done anything that bad.” Nevertheless, he does plan to learn more self-control. “Yeah definitely. I’d be skint otherwise.”

Scorecard

A thrilling hundred from Brad Hodge and some disciplined bowling earned Victoria a crushing 93-run win over New South Wales as they became the first Twenty20 champions. Cameron White’s decision to bat was promptly rewarded as Victoria, who were powered by Hodge’s 106 from just 54 balls with seven sixes, raced on to an imposing 7 for 233 in their 20 overs before dismissing NSW for 140.Hodge, whose only Twenty20 innings this season was a 15-ball 26 against South Australia on January 8, needed only 54 deliveries to post his maiden Twenty20 hundred, and it proved far too much for NSW. Hodge hoped the innings would increase his chances of returning to the Australian one-day team.”It is a very hard side to get into, whether it be the Test or one-day side,” he said. “I have just got to try and score runs and if they [selectors] are up there seeing me striking the ball cleanly, it can’t do any harm.”Hodge added 60 for the second wicket with Michael Klinger and 91 for the third with David Hussey as he battered the NSW attack. While Hodge punished the opposition with 18 boundaries, White was brutal in his final-overs assault, clubbing six sixes in his 46 from 16 balls. Aaron Bird, with 3 for 39 from his four overs, was the most successful NSW bowler, while Moises Henriques had figures of 2 for 38.NSW were given a positive start from Craig Simmons and Jarrad Burke, who added 64 before Simmons was bowled by Shane Harwood for 39. NSW then lost the plot as the remaining nine wickets collapsed for 76. Victoria’s bowlers were impressive in their ability to apply the pressure, with Peter Siddle (2 for 43) and Harwood (2 for 18) serving decisive blows before White ran through the tail with 3 for 8.The tournament was such a success that James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, said it would be expanded next season, although he confirmed the current reluctance to introduce more matches involving Australia. “We don’t want to expose it at the international level and our plan is to play one international match a season and expand this [domestic] competition,” he said. “Each state has only hosted one home match apart from the final and we will look at doubling that next year.”

Robert Haynes has resigned as head coach of Jamaica following their disastrous performance in this season’s Carib Beer Cup when they finished bottom without a win.Haynes, 41, had been coach of Jamaica since 1999 when he took over from Rohan Kanhai. In 2004-05, Jamaica won the Carib Beer Cup at a canter, but this season the side has been a far from happy unit, with reports of internal disputes.”Losing out in the competition was a big blow; this is just part of the same big blow,” said Brian Breese, Jamaica Cricket Association’s cricket operations officer. “I suppose. But we have to wheel and come again and do what we did last year when we won the competition easily.”

Despite their morale-boosting Twenty20 success on Friday night, South Africa still have problems heading into the first one-day international against Australia, at Centurion Park, on Sunday. Their bowling attack, which was stretched to breaking point on the tour of Australia, continues to be hampered by injuries.The most serious problem is with Shaun Pollock, who played the Twenty20 match purely as a batsman, and requires keyhole surgery on a right knee ligament injury. He will play the first ODI but Mickey Arthur, South Africa’s coach, is aware that it is a risk.”It’s a dilemma. Do we take him out of the rest of the one-day series to make sure he is fit for the six Test matches we have coming up, or do we keep playing him and hope he doesn’t break down?”South Africa are really being forced into playing Pollock with Makhaya Ntini and Andre Nel still recovering from their injuries. Ntini made his comeback in the Twenty20, after picking up a knee injury in the Boxing Day Test, but was dispatched for 44 runs in three overs and was some way short of his best.Nel, who returned to South Africa after the Tests in Australia in early January, was only due to play his first match of the one-day series in Cape Town, next Friday, but came through a net practice well and will be considered for the opening matchSouth Africa have also drafted Roger Telemachus into the squad after Charl Langeveldt was ruled out with a broken index finger. He is due to undergo surgery in Cape Town early next week and aims to be fit for the Test series, which starts on March 16.Australia will again be without Andrew Symonds, who has been ruled out with the hip injury that caused him to miss the Twenty20. The Australian physio, Errol Alcott said: “Andrew is improving steadily. He had a run around at training today but we will err on the side of caution and rule him out of tomorrow’s match.” Alcott is confident Symonds will be fit for the second match on Friday.Stuart Clark is also unavailable after experiencing increasing discomfort to the rib area and he underwent a minor procedure today. However, Michael Hussey, who only arrived in South Africa on Friday after staying in Australia for the birth of his second child, is set to return to the side.”I’m still relatively new in the team so I don’t want to miss any games,” said Hussey. “You can never feel secure about your place.” Hussey said the Australians expected a tough series against opponents who are still ranked second despite failing to reach the final of a triangular series in Australia. “We saw in Australia that South Africa are a very disciplined, committed team.”Australian captain Ricky Ponting was confident his team could bounce back after their two-run defeat in the Twenty20. “We’ll be able to put a stronger team on the ground and we can hopefully get back to playing the way we have been over the past few weeks. If we do, we’ll be very hard to beat.”South Africa (from) Graeme Smith (capt), Boeta Dippenaar, Herschelle Gibbs, AB de Villiers, Ashwell Prince, Mark Boucher (wk), Justin Kemp, Shaun Pollock, Andrew Hall, Robin Peterson, Johan van der Wath, Andre Nel, Makhaya Ntini, Roger Telemachus.Australia (from) Ricky Ponting (capt), Adam Gilchrist (wk), Simon Katich, Damien Martyn, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Shane Watson, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken, Mitchell Johnson, Mick Lewis.

Auckland took firm control on the second day of their State Championship match against Wellington at Eden Park with a splendid allround performance. First, their bowlers bundled out the opposition for 157 and their batsmen rubbed it in by finishing on 215 for 1 at stumps in their second innings, with an imposing overall lead of 281. Tama Canning (4 for 48), Lance Shaw (3 for 10) and Andre Adams (3 for 43), the Auckland seamers, combined to earn a first-innings lead of 66. Then, Richard Jones and Martin Guptill, Auckland’s openers, piled on the pressure with an opening stand of 148. Jones fell eight short of his ton, bowled by Mark Gillespie. His innings included 16 fours and a six while Guptill remained unbeaten on 71, with Lou Vincent.A sporting declaration by Craig Cumming, the Otago captain, after gaining a valuable first-innings lead of 58, laid the foundation for an interesting final day’s play, in their State Championship match against Northern Districts at Dunedin. Stubborn batting by the Otago lower order helped extend the lead, giving good support to Neil Broom, who top-scored with 78. Bruce Martin was the most effective bowler for Northerns, taking 5 for 73. In their reply, Northerns lost Grant Robinson early but ended the day at 117 for 3, with Alum Evans remaining unbeaten on 59.Canterbury strengthened their position on day three of their State Championship match against Central Districts at Christchurch after their bowlers triggered a collapse which saw them bag a first-innings lead of 107. Centrals lost their last five wickets for 29 runs, dismissed for 299 in response to Canterbury’s 406. Chris Harris had a good outing with the ball as well, with three scalps, including that of Ross Taylor for 53. Canterbury lost Gary Stead early, but Michael Papps (55*) and Shanan Stewart (52) added 132 for the second wicket. The hosts ended the day at 153 for three.

Talks to resolve the latest stalemate between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) over terms and conditions of retainer contracts continued yesterday.West Indies are preparing for a seven-match limited-overs international series against Zimbabwe, starting with a double-header on Saturday and Sunday in Antigua, but negotiations over retainer contracts have held sway over the last two weeks. West Indies are the only team in international cricket without a retainer contract system for their players and the players have been unrelenting in their demands for better terms and conditions.Ken Gordon, the WICB president, led the regional governing body’s team that also included WICB directors Deryck Murray and Desmond Haynes, two former West Indies vice-captains and members of the newly-appointed Cricket Committee, which has taken the lead in the latest round of negotiations.Dinanath Ramnarine, executive president, headed WIPA’s team that also comprised industrial relations advisers David Abdulah and Dr Krishna Harratsingh for the meeting that commenced around 1.30 p.m.The board announced on Sunday that it would meet with WIPA in an attempt to conclude retainer contracts negotiations, after a meeting between Murray and Ramnarine last Friday yielded no results. The WICB warned, however, that if arrangements are not finalised, it would issue retainer contracts to the ten or so selected players, who have until May 3 to sign their contracts. The WICB said where retainer contracts are not signed, alternative players would be offered. The board said the retainer contracts will be for a term of one year from May 2006 to April 2007. In the meantime, match/tour contracts, separate from the retainer contracts, were expected to be offered to the players on Monday in an effort to assemble a squad in time for the first two limited-overs internationals against the Zimbabweans.Last Wednesday, the WICB’s Cricket Committee, under the chairmanship of Clive Lloyd, former West Indies captain, had fixed last Friday as a deadline for completion of negotiations on the issue. Today, the WICB is expected to announce a captain to replace Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who resigned from the position two weeks ago, as well as the squad for the two matches in Antigua.