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Scotland have named a depleted 14-man squad for next week’s quadrangular series in Ireland. With Durham refusing to release Kyle Coetzer, Dougie Brown unavailable through injury and Dewald Nel only freed by Worcester for one match, the Scots have decided to recall Warwickshire’s Navdeep Poonia, even though he has been unable to gain a county first XI spot this season.The squad, which will tackle the West Indies on Thursday, the Netherlands the following day and Ireland on July 15, is reliant on the nucleus of players who have struggled badly this season since Scotland’s abject World Cup campaign. Most of the batsmen are out of form and practice, given the recent poor weather, which explains Poonia’s inclusion but the team still seems top-heavy with bits-and-pieces cricketers at the expense of specialists.All this makes Coetzer’s continued omission all the more controversial, given that ICC rules state he should have been released by his county to represent Scotland in this event.”Although there have been one or two availability issues, we are pleased to welcome Poonia back into the national squad,” said David Loudon, Scotland’s chairman of selectors. “He is an exciting player and we are sure we have not seen the best of him yet. The rest of the squad has a good balance to it and affords the captain various options.”Scotland squad
Ryan Watson (capt), Fraser Watts, Craig Wright, Majid Haq, Omer Hussain, Neil McCallum, Navdeep Poonia, Colin Smith, John Blain, Glenn Rogers, Dewald Nel, Gordon Drummond, Paul Hoffmann, Qasim Sheikh

Following England’s defeat against Sri Lanka in the first ODI at Lord’s, David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, warned that England will have to lift their performances in both forms of the game if they are retain the Ashes later this year and be a contender for the World Cup in 2007.England have had an ordinary start to their summer, surrendering a 1-0 advantage in the three-Test series against Sri Lanka by losing the third Test at Trent Bridge, as well as the Twenty20 international which preceded the ODI series. The side has been plagued with injuries to key players like Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones, while newcomers Glen Chapple and Ed Joyce are also among the casualties.Graveney, however, said that it was time to stop using injuries as an excuse. He told BBC Sport, “If we continue to play the way we have been doing this summer, we will not retain the Ashes and we will not win the World Cup.”Commenting on Michael Vaughan, Graveney stressed that it was not worth rushing him back into the side as yet. Vaughan, who resumed his commitments with Yorkshire after undergoing knee surgery, said earlier that he wouldn’t make himself available for selection till he feels he is fully fit.”His value to the England team as a cricketer, as a captain, as a person is immense,” Graveney said. “However, you want to play people in the best possible form and Michael Vaughan is quite right in saying that he wants to return when people look at Vaughan as a cricketer and are not worrying about how his knee is.”I speak to him on a regular basis and we are not going to ring him every single hour of every single day to say ‘How are you?’ He knows the level of fitness that is required to be captain of England.”England’s coach Duncan Fletcher added: “It’s all up to him. He’s the individual who’s got to say whether he’s ready to play. We can’t say he’s ready to play, it’s up to Michael to make that decision.”

Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach, has asked England to target Adam Gilchrist and prevent him from taking the game away with his aggressive batting in the upcoming Ashes series. “Someone must bowl as if Gilchrist is their bunny,” Woolmer told . “England should be targeting Gilchrist. He scores quickly and almost inevitably turns the game around.”Woolmer, who was the coach when Pakistan toured Australia early his year, saw his team thrashed 3-0 largely due to the efforts of Gilchrist, who averaged 76.66 and rescued his team on several occasions.”They are so dangerous because they have a top seven who are all capable of taking the game away from you, but Gilchrist is the most destructive batsman in the world and will be the key,” Woolmer insisted. “We had Australia in trouble a few times when he came in and changed the game. My feeling is there are two ways to trouble him: take the pace off the ball and try and swing it and make him come at you, maybe through Mathew Hoggard. The other way is with genuine pace.”Tell Steve Harmison to bounce him early and get stuck into him and try to rush him in his strokes. I don’t think teams bowl enough short stuff at him and it’s something England should be looking to do. They have to find a way of unsettling him. Harmison’s pace and bounce could make it more difficult for him to hook and pull. And once you can knock him over, you can get through the tail.”Woolmer, who represented England in Ashes series back in the 1970s, also offered some advice to Michael Vaughan. “Australia are like the West Indies of the Eighties: they try to bully you and you have to stand up to it. Teams become overawed by them. Michael Vaughan’s team have to make them feel unwelcome in England instead of being all pally, pally,” he continued. “The captains who have succeeded over the years have usually been aggressive: Jardine, Illingworth, Gatting, they were all hard men.”Woolmer also noticed that Shane Warne wasn’t quite the same dominating force he was once. “I say this in all humility, but I don’t think he’s the bowler he used to be,” Woolmer said. “He’s still a very fine bowler, but he bowls you more bad balls than he has in the past. Watching him against us, he didn’t seem to have that fizz. Our blokes played him pretty well.”Pointing out certain weaknesses in Australia’s batting, Woolmer said, “There are ways to trouble them if the bowlers have the skill to put the ball in the right areas: Ricky Ponting can be vulnerable to the ball coming back into him; Damien Martyn plays away from his body early on; Matthew Hayden goes for his shots a lot early and gives you a chance.”Justin Langer is a stickler who will play on the bowlers’ patience and, while Michael Clarke is one of the most exciting cricketers the world has seen for some time, I’m not sure he enjoys genuine pace and bounce. Flintoff hits the deck hard and could give him problems as well as Harmison.”

As first days of the seasons go, Hampshire could not have asked for a much better one as they finished the day with a first innings lead of 67 with 5 wickets in hand.Hampshire gave debuts to Michael Brown, Michael Clarke and Billy Taylor, and new Hampshire captain Shane Warne played his first game for the county since 2000. Durham too had new faces, but were without their overseas signings Hershelle Gibbs and Shoaib Akhtar and two players on England duty, Steve Harmison and Paul Collingwood.Durham captain Jon Lewis’ decision to bat first after winning the toss backfired on him, The home sides four pronged seam attack took full advantage of the conditions. Mullally and Tremlett both looking fit caused all sorts of problems, dismissing Lewis and Muchall with 6 on the board.Billy Taylor and Dimitri Mascarenhas also bowled tightly and were rewarded for their efforts. Shane Warne the return of the prodigal son not only took two wickets but also three sharp slip catches.When Hampshire batted, Derek Kenway and Brown gave the innings a solid start, and when both were dismissed to the persevering Davies, John Crawley was joined by the Aussie Clarke. Clarke delighted the sizable opening day crowd with a stirring 73 not out, an innings of just 73 balls and 14 beautifully struck boundaries. Hampshire supporters are going to be in afor a treat this season if this is a taste of what is to come.The loss of two late wickets put a damper on the day, but skipper Warne and manager Terry promised Hampshire fans an exiting season. After day one we now know what they mean.

With just a few weeks to go until the start of the new cricket season Somerset coach Kevin Shine was in a very positive mood when I spoke to him at the County Ground earlier this week.He told me: "As far as I am concerned all of the players have met my initial challenge of hitting the ground running. I have been very pleasantly surprised because they have met my targets, and booked themselves in regularly to work with me over the last few months."The coach continued: "Now we are all looking forward to March 24th, the day that everybody reports back for the new season, and then April 2nd when we play our first friendly out on the grass against Glamorgan."He went on: "It has been a different pre-season to last year. This year we have put the responsibility much more onto the players themselves to identify their strengths and weaknesses and then help them to plan and develop their skills levels."What did the coach expect in 2003. He told me: "We know that this season in Division Two of the county championship we just have to win matches, and my challenge is to try to improve an already talented group of players. To give ourselves a chance of being promoted we will need to win at least seven or eight matches, and we need to win matches at home."He continued: "Over the last few seasons it has been a case of `fortress Taunton’ and getting 10 or 12 points from drawn matches at home to try to stay in the top division. This season however we need to start winning at home especially as a win is now worth fourteen points, two more than last season."Looking forward to he new season the coach continued enthusiastically: "With Andrew Caddick and Marcus Trescothick now having six weeks off I would be disappointed if they don’t figure in some early season matches and in Nixon McLean and Richard Johnson we have got two high class bowlers."He went on: "In our end of season post mortem one of the weaknesses that we identified was the lack of competititon for places. We have certainly delivered competition with our three new signings and have some high quality players here so there will be tough battles for places.""Competition is healthy for the side, and if we do suffer some injury problems then this season we have got some back up, where perhaps last year we didn’t. On the other hand it did allow players like Simon Francis to come of age very quickly," he continued.The coach also talked about the quality of some of the younger players who are at the club. He said: "There really is some young talent here and we now have a situation where the Head and Assistant coaches along with Mike Burns the captain all work regularly alongside these Academy youngsters. They are all pushing their way through towards the first team which has got to be good for the long term prospects of the club."

Zimbabwe entered their final match in the first round of theirinaugural triangular tournament knowing they had to beat West Indieshandsomely, and then have India beat West Indies in Wednesday’s match,to reach the final. But, in a fluctuating match where they almostovercame the severe disadvantage of losing the toss, they went down byfive wickets in the final over.It was another clear winter’s morning in Bulawayo as Zimbabwe lost thetoss once again and were put in to bat. They did have some much-neededgood news as Heath Streak was fit to play again.Zimbabwe again lost a quick wicket as Dion Ebrahim (1) fished outsidethe off stump to Cameron Cuffy, again bowling superbly, and was caughtat the wicket. Stuart Carlisle announced his arrival at the creasewith a sweetly timed four to square leg but was then caught at slip byChris Gayle off Collymore without addition. At 9 for two, Zimbabweonce again had their backs to the wall and the suitability of wintercricket in Zimbabwe was being called into question. On the evidence sofar, the pitches tend to be too sluggish and give an inordinateadvantage to the side bowling first, more through unexpected swing inthe cold morning air, perhaps moistened by dew, that laterdisappeared.Alistair Campbell (17) looked good for a while, but then Cuffy struckagain, having him caught at second slip, Gayle again. Craig Wishart,so often underestimated and neglected by the selectors, stood in thebreach as he had on Wednesday, batting with fine discrimination andthe occasional powerful drive or pull.Wishart went to his fifty off 67 balls with a drive to the coverboundary and, with Cuffy having bowled out his ten overs for 30 runsand two wickets and the conditions yielding no further help to thebowling side, the West Indian attack suddenly began to look quiteinnocuous. Flower ran to his fifty with a reverse sweep to theboundary, and the pair added 126 before Wishart (71) uppercut Dillonto be caught at third man. Zimbabwe were 153 for four.Guy Whittall came in and played his usual improvised strokes, the pairlofting the ball skillfully into the gaps and running like haresbetween the wickets. Whittall offered a couple of difficult chancesthat went down, while Flower played some superb shots, including twosixes into the crowd, but was caught on the long-on boundary offDillon for 94, scored off 107 balls.Zimbabwe finished with 255 for five (Whittall 39*, Andy Blignaut 12*),a remarkable recovery after such a dismal start. Their middle orderhad given them a good chance of victory after all; now it was up totheir bowlers to complete the job, and by a good margin.Unfortunately, Zimbabwe’s performance in the field was patchy. Streakerred in direction and there were some minor but unnecessary lapses inthe field. To add to their problems, they were playing only fivefront-line bowlers, including Grant Flower, and lost Brian Murphyearly on when he injured himself in the field. Alistair Campbell’soccasional off-spin was soon required. Against this, Daren Ganga andespecially Gayle played a sensible game of accumulation, developinginto aggressive strokeplay with the Zimbabweans powerless to put abrake on them.Gayle’s fifty came up off 61 balls, but soon afterwards he lost Ganga(34), sent back and coming off second-best to fine fielding byBlignaut. Gayle eventually fell for 76, skying a catch to midwicketoff Flower, but at 137 for two West Indies were more than halfwaythere.Wavell Hinds and Shivnarine Chanderpaul shared a solid partnership,but West Indies were imperceptibly falling behind the required scoringrate; about eight an over were now needed. Chanderpaul (24) sufferedan unlucky dismissal when he swept at Campbell and lost his grip onhis bat, which hurtled straight into his stumps, giving a hit-wicketdismissal.Carl Hooper immediately came close to running himself out in hiseagerness to get off the mark, and the batsmen reached the boundary attimes, but Hinds fell for 54, slashing at Streak and edging to thekeeper. West Indies were now under pressure as Hooper and RidleyJacobs gradually improved the situation against some superb fieldinguntil 19 were needed off the final three overs.At this point Streak made an unexpected but inspired bowling change,bringing back Flower who struck immediately, as Hooper (24) holed outat long-off. But it was not quite enough and, in a frenetic final overbowled by Streak, West Indies scraped home with one ball to spare,Jacobs hitting the winning boundary to finish with 20.

ScorecardFile photo: Karun Nair made his first century since March 2015•K Sivaraman

Karun Nair found a good time to break his rut and his first century in any format since March 2015 ensured a draw for India A, even though they had been trailing South Africa A for the bulk of the first unofficial Test in Wayanad.The visitors would have fancied their chances of a first victory on this tour to India when the final day began – eight wickets to get and a 371-run cushion to play with. But Nair would not budge. He struck an unbeaten 114 off 192 balls, his first ton since the triple in the Ranji Trophy final, and a couple of fifties by Vijay Shankar and captain Abhinav Mukund ensured the other end was just as plucky.There were 78.2 overs of play possible. More than enough for the South Africans to hope, considering they had already dismissed India A for 204 in the first innings. The fourth innings meant spin would be doing the bulk of the work – Dane Piedt, who completed a five-for yesterday, trundled in for 49 overs for only one wicket. Slow left-armer Keshav Maharaj got through 36 overs for two wickets. Although both men kept their economy rates under three, South Africa A would have wanted more wickets from them. Oddly, though, Wayne Parnell bowled only three overs in the innings.That they couldn’t live up to that mandate was down to a very fluent innings from Nair. He had struck only one fifty in 10 innings against both Australia A and South Africa A. He could have been bogged down, but 18 fours and a six indicates otherwise. He walked out in the 12th over of the day and was there, seeing his team to the safety of a draw. Nair strung a 148-run fifth-wicket at a run-rate of 3.4 with Vijay Shankar, who contributed a steady 74 off 142 balls.It was Vijay Shankar’s sixth first-class fifty in 14 matches, and his Tamil Nadu state-mate Mukund eased to his 23rd in 96 matches. This resolute display from India A ensured the series remains 0-0 ahead of the second match, starting from next Tuesday.

Phil Jaques is confident that Cricket Australia has done its utmost to ensure security levels are high for Australia A’s tour of Pakistan in September. Pakistan will provide the A and Under-19 sides with the kind of security measures usually reserved for Test sides, including close protection officers at all times.”It’s one of those things, isn’t it,” Jaques told during Worcestershire’s match with Surrey at Guildford. “We put faith in Cricket Australia making the right decision with regard to our safety.”I’ve toured there before [again with Australia A, in September 2005] when incidents have happened over there not far from where we were. It was scary but it’s one of those things – you put faith in Cricket Australia and the guys that go there on pre-tour investigations to know the area.”That’s their job; they’re security people. It’s their job to make sure it’s safe for us and I’m sure it will be safe.” A security delegation from Cricket Australia has already reviewed arrangements for the tours and a Pakistan spokesman has said it was “fully satisfied with what it saw during the visit.”Jaques is hoping to use the tour to cement the Test opener spot vacated by Justin Langer earlier this year. He has competition from Chris Rogers, Shane Watson and Brad Hodge. “It’s exciting times,” he said. “Hopefully I can use the tour to push for one of those spots.” His English season has been going well – before the floods started to hit Worcestershire.He wasn’t affected by the flooding, as his house is on high ground, but he had to come to the rescue of team-mate Gareth Batty was stranded for a couple of days. “He had to stay at my house, he got cut off,” Jaques said. “A couple of other guys were stuck trying to get in.”Worcester don’t have indoor training facilities, so it’s been a question of fitting in fitness training where possible. “We’ve now got an outdoor swimming pool, though,” he said, referring to the New Road ground, which is underwater. “Fifty metres or so? It’s probably the biggest swimming pool in England.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

India’s batting finally hit the high notes it was expected to throughout this series, and with a forecast of thirty percent chances of rain tomorrow – there were heavy showers in the evening – the first Test in Antigua is tantalisingly poised.Wasim Jaffer creamed a delightful maiden Test double-century, while Mahendra Singh Dhoni lit up the ground with some murderous hitting in an innings of 69 off 51 balls which ended with the umpires providing some farcical entertainment of their own. The fallout was an Indian declaration on 521 for 6, leaving West Indies with a target of 392. By close of play they had reached 13 without loss.The Indian batsmen had underperformed on this tour so far, but here – on a pitch which had settled into an excellent batting strip after assisting the bowlers earlier – they found their groove, with Jaffer leading from the front with his 212. He added 203 for the third wicket with Rahul Dravid (62), while Yuvraj Singh (39) and Mohammad Kaif (46 not out) added valuable runs as well.West Indies clearly had the worse of the day, but they had a hero as well in Ian Bradshaw, who bowled with exceptional control and stamina, sending down an incredible 25 overs at a stretch – interrupted only by the lunch and tea intervals. Keeping a tight leash on line and length, Bradshaw only conceded 47 in those overs, covering up superbly for the absent Fidel Edwards, and finally nailing Jaffer with a fine delivery as well.Before that ball which sneaked through his defences, though, the day had been all Jaffer’s. It was a mixed innings – there were plenty of occasions when he played and missed outside off, or mistimed his strokes – but in between those blemishes, he unfurled some gorgeous strokes. Particularly impressive was his driving: when the bowlers offered him width, he leant into the ball and sent it scurrying to the cover fence; when it was straighter, he dispatched it down the ground with élan; and anything on the pads was easily put away past midwicket. The confidence of runs under his belt also showed in the manner in which he tackled Dave Mohammed, going down the pitch and hoisting him for six over long-on early in the day. He received fine support from Dravid, who buckled down and played with typical caution after showing some flourish at the start.

West Indies had a few half-chances early on, but Chris Gayle failed to latch on twice at slip when both Jaffer and Dravid swished at deliveries outside. After those early lapses, though, neither batsman was too bothered even when Brian Lara opted for the new ball. The absence of Edwards meant there was no bowler who could attack with genuine pace, while Corey Collymore bowled only nine overs today.The rest of the bowlers primarily had a containing job to do, which they did pretty well: Yuvraj and Kaif struggled to come to terms with the lack of pace in the wicket, taking 18 overs to put together 44. When Yuvraj left, India needed more runs – and very quickly – to feel that they had enough on the board to put West Indies in to bat in the evening. Dhoni was just the man for the job.In the one-dayers, he had only modest success, but here he was in his elements from the start. Using his powerful arms and quick footwork, he immediately took the attack to the spinners: he tonked Gayle through midwicket for four to announce his intent, then took on Mohammed, clobbering him to deep cover and then hoisting him over midwicket for two successive sixes. He showed he could be cheeky as well, nudging Gayle over the wicketkeeper’s head in bizarre fashion. The finale was truly spectacular, as he launched into Mohammed for three consecutive sixes, all of them launched into the orbit with plenty of bottom hand, and all of them ending with a spectacular twirling flourish of the bat in follow through. Then he went for another six, and what followed was utter mayhem.The ball soared towards midwicket, where Daren Ganga took the catch apparently right at the fence. The television replays were inconclusive on whether Ganga touched the ropes while taking the catch, and as Billy Doctrove, the third umpire, passed on the decision-making back to the on-field umpires, complete confusion reigned. The umpires seemed unable to decide, and finally seemed to indicate that Dhoni could bat on, only for Lara to angrily intervene. A long discussion between the umpires, Lara, and the batsmen ensued, after which Dhoni finally decided to take Ganga’s word, and was declared caught for 69. That brought the Indian innings to a close, setting up the prospects of an enthralling final day.

Rahul Dravid c Bradshaw b Mohammed 62 (350 for 3)
Wasim Jaffer b Bradshaw 212 (375 for 4)
Yuvraj Singh c Chanderpaul b Gayle 39 (419 for 5)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni c Ganga b Mohammed 69 (521 for 6)
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