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West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul has regained the No.1 ranking for Test batsmen after nearly three years. Chanderpaul was the leading run-scorer in the recently concluded home Test series against Australia with 346 runs at an average of 86.50. Australia, after winning the series 2-0, moved up to No. 3 in the ICC Test rankings, replacing India.Chanderpaul reached the top after his twin half-centuries in the final Test in Dominica, moving ahead of the South African duo of Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers. He also passed the 10,000-run mark in the series.Chanderpaul last attained the No. 1 ranking in July 2008 and held it for seven months. He briefly dropped to No. 2 in February 2009, but returned to the top spot three Tests later, after the fifth Test against England in Trinidad. In May 2009 he lost his spot to Pakistan batsman Younis Khan. Chanderpaul’s ranking slipped to as low as No. 15 before he made his way back up.”It feels good to be back in the top spot in Test cricket,” Chanderpaul said. “I am batting well at the moment, and when things are going well for you at the crease, you try to keep going and building and look to make the most of every innings you play.”Australia began their tour of the West Indies on equal points with India. The win gave them a one-point lead over India.

Mahela Jayawardene was left to rue missing the opportunity for Sri Lanka’s first Test series victory since 2009 and believes if they had survived Graeme Swann’s last over on the fourth evening they would have saved the match.The complexion of the game was changed by Swann who claimed two wickets in the penultimate over to leave the home side with a huge task on the final day. A couple of early dropped catches by Alastair Cook suggested it would be a frustrating time for England, but when Jayawardene received one that spat from Swann this time the catch was taken and Sri Lanka’s main hope had gone.”On a fourth-day wicket that will happen, especially against the second new ball and we knew Graeme would get more bite with it,” Jayawardene said. “It was a period we had to survive and if we’d got through the situation I think we would have batted through two more sessions and the game would have been different but that’s the quality Swann has.”Graeme is one of the best offspinners I’ve faced and he’s got variety. We knew going into the series that he would be the challenge. Him and Jimmy Anderson are the two main bowlers that will bowl well in any conditions, which proved the case. We handled them well on some occasions but when you are up against two quality bowlers they will strike as well.”Although those late losses on the fourth evening knocked the stuffing out of Sri Lanka, Jayawardene pinpointed the first two days as the key period of the game. Having won what was expected to be an important toss Sri Lanka could only post 275 and England’s top three set a platform from where Kevin Pietersen was able to take the game away from them with a destructive 151 on the third day.”Before the game started I said the first innings is a very important part, especially in the subcontinent where you need to take advantage up front to put the opposition under pressure,” Jayawardene said. “We didn’t do that, but credit to the England bowlers who did really well on the first day. I thought 350-375 would have been a good score and the difference was that towards the end. We were playing against a strong team. I thought KP came and changed the game with the way he batted. He took some risks and it paid off.”Jayawardene also stood out with the bat and was named Man of the Series for his 354 runs at 88.50, includeding two centuries. “Over the previous two overseas tours I hadn’t been consistent so I had to improve,” Jayawardene said of his own performance. “In Australia my one-day form was pretty good and I was able to continue with that. I felt in Test cricket I went too negative, going into my shell but in Galle I came out of that very quickly. Even though at times it looked slow I was in control. I’m doing a lot of things right but the next tour will be a different challenge.”With a little more support the outcome could have been different for Sri Lanka. Kumar Sangakkara’s struggles left a big hole in their run-scoring capability although Angelo Mathews suggested during the second Test that he can forge a career as a specialist batsman. Overall, however, Jayawardene was content with his team’s performance and the fact they shared a series against the No. 1 Test side. The game in Sri Lanka faces a number of difficulties – not least financial – but following on from their impressive showing in the one-day tournament in Australia, where they almost claimed the title, there were signs that their longer game can develop.”Good players will step up and that’s what England have got. But I’m quite happy, we kept fighting and gave ourselves a chance,” he said. “Going forward we can develop the youngsters so as long as the commitment levels are there I’m quite happy. It was a good indication of where we are right now, especially in our conditions. We played against very good opposition and that gave us the chance to challenge ourselves.”Edited by Alan Gardner

Matthew Wade has said he is not getting ahead of himself despite his likely Test debut looming on the horizon. Wade is expected to earn his first baggy green on Saturday next week, when the Australians take on West Indies in the first Test in Bridgetown, after the Test incumbent Brad Haddin flew home for family reasons and announced he would not rejoin the tour.That will give Wade, 24, the perfect opportunity to make the Test position his own, with three matches on this tour and then a break until the start of the next Australian summer, by which time Haddin will be 35. But Wade said he was not thinking any further ahead than the Caribbean tour, and simply wanted to grab every opportunity that came his way.”Every time you get a chance to show what you’ve got for Australia you’re trying to do your best,” Wade said in Barbados. “I’m just going to concentrate on these three games and look no further than that. Hopefully I do get the opportunity to play and can do well in these three games. If I look too far down the track that won’t help me at all.”The New South Wales wicketkeeper Peter Nevill is also on the tour but Wade is clearly the first in line, as the incumbent in both the shorter formats and the man who was to be Haddin’s Test backup in the original squad. Should he make his debut he will be part of an elite group of only five men to take the gloves in Tests since Ian Healy’s retirement, the others being Adam Gilchrist, Haddin, Graham Manou and Tim Paine.Wade said playing in the five ODIs and the Twenty20s in the West Indies had helped him adjust to the conditions ahead of the Test series, and he was also keen for some time at the crease during the three-day tour match ahead of the first Test. So far on the tour Wade has made scores of 0, 3, 2, 15 and 26, but his form in the Australian summer showed his value with the bat.”The first three games I didn’t get a lot of time in the middle, it was over pretty quick,” he said. “But the last couple of games I’ve felt like I’m going in the right direction. I’ve had a little bit more time in the middle to get used to the conditions so hopefully the wicket has a bit of pace in it, which the Aussies will like a bit more.”Playing the one-dayers and the Twenty20s has definitely helped me adjust to the conditions. The first few games were trying conditions, which we’ll probably come against at some stage in this Test tour. So to get a little bit of experience under these conditions has been fantastic for me and hopefully it will hold me in good stead for the rest of the tour.”Wade said he felt for Haddin, whose sudden departure from the tour due to family reasons caught everyone by surprise.”I think every human being is going to feel for someone in that situation,” Wade said. “It’s unfortunate and a sad situation. I feel for Brad that he’s had to go home and give up the opportunity to play for Australia. It’s obviously a pretty serious event to give up the opportunity to play for Australia.”The three-day tour match begins in Barbados on Monday and the first Test starts on Saturday, April 7.

WICB responds to Jamaica Prime Minister

The WICB has said it regrets the comments made by Jamaica prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller that Chris Gayle had been treated unjustly by the board and kept out of the West Indies team. The WICB said Simpson-Miller was not privy to all the information when she made her statement at the Jamaica Cricket Association Awards dinner.
“Had the Honourable Prime Minister been briefed she would have been informed that Mr. Chris Gayle has been written to by the WICB, clearly outlining the full details of what is required of him,” the board said. “The WICB is awaiting a response from Mr. Gayle.”
The WICB requested Simpson-Miller to ask Gayle to respond quickly to the board and end the dispute. “The WICB implores the Prime Minister to use her good office to urge Mr. Gayle to respond favourably in an effort to put this issue in the past,” the WICB statement said.
Simpson-Miller had said “justice delayed is justice denied” and demanded that “a resolution be found as quickly as possible” regarding the Gayle issue. The WICB, however, said it would not select Gayle until he retracted the comments he made criticising the board and the coach Ottis Gibson, and responded to their previous letter about NOCs.

The WICB has asked Chris Gayle to make up his mind about his future with the West Indies team. In an email to the batsman, the WICB chief executive Ernest Hilaire wrote that Gayle could not ask for unconditional no-objection certificates (NOCs) to play domestic Twenty20 tournaments around the world and simultaneously make himself available for West Indies selection.The email was dated January 30 but made public in the past 24 hours.Hilaire said the WICB rules conformed to the ICC’s operating manual and that a player would be granted an NOC to play a domestic tournament in another country on the condition that he be available for selection if an international series clashed with the tournament.”So, Chris, it is your choice, whether you receive a conditional or unconditional NOC. But you cannot have an unconditional NOC and be considered for selection to play for the West Indies,” Hilaire wrote in the email dated January 30. “Either you wish to make yourself available to play for the West Indies, in which case you must accept that NOCs will be granted to you on the same conditional terms as other international players, or you do not, in which case you can have your unconditional NOC. All that is required from you is a clear statement, one way or the other.””If a player has no contractual obligation to WICB, and does not wish to make himself available to play in international matches for which he may be selected, then he has the option of ceasing to be a FTS (first team squad) Player, by retiring from international cricket, or otherwise declaring himself ineligible and/or unavailable for selection for the foreseeable future. In that event, WICB would not consider it necessary or appropriate to issue a player with anything but anunconditional NOC.”Gayle has not played for West Indies since the 2011 World Cup because of comments he made against the board and the coach Ottis Gibson during a radio interview. The WICB asked Gayle to retract his comments and the batsman has refused to do so. Gayle has just arrived in South Africa to be part of Dolphins’ domestic Twenty20 campaign after playing for Barisal Burners in the Bangladesh Premier League.In his email, Hilaire told Gayle he was “ineligible for selection pending resolution of certain matters.””The Board requires you to provide a general public retraction of the comments made in the interview in question and the effect it has had on the team, Coach, Captain and Management and to express a commitment to team and management. If the terms of that retraction can be agreed, WICB will be happy to consider you eligible once again for selection.”Edited by George Binoy

ScorecardAs England were spinning to defeat in the third Test against Pakistan, the next generation had just secured an encouraging victory on the subcontinent. The Lions, featuring several players likely to be included in the senior England squad to play Pakistan in the ODIs, clinched their series against Sri Lanka A 3-2 after a resounding 117-run win in Colombo.The victory was set up by Joe Root’s first limited-overs hundred – as well as another thunderous cameo from Jos Buttler – before England’s spinners, Samit Patel and Danny Briggs, cleaned up Sri Lanka for combined figures of 6 for 82. Buttler, Briggs and Patel are all in the frame for England’s one-day squad, which will be announced tomorrow, and their performances may have provided the selectors with a crumb or two of comfort as they begin to sift through the wreckage of their Test whitewashing.The series win comes after the Lions had lost 3-2 in Bangladesh last month and ECB performance director David Parsons was particularly pleased with the team’s display, suggesting that it boded well for England.”Today was the nearest thing possible to a complete batting performance in these conditions and befits a series win,” Parsons said. “The batters demonstrated the learning that has been invested since this squad embarked on the performance camp in India in November and December, followed by a tough tour in Bangladesh and now in Sri Lanka in 2012.”These are also the skills that are required to help take England forward in playing in these conditions and things that we are determined to keep working on.”Root finished the innings unbeaten, having come in at No. 3, as the Lions persisted with the experiment of Patel opening. The allrounder struck a rapid 50 in the previous match but made just 19 here, while Alex Hales departed for 46 to bring the captain James Taylor together with Root. They added a patient 86, Taylor contributing 41 – his first real score since the Lions left Bangladesh – but the innings went into overdrive shortly after his dismissal, Buttler scoring two-thirds of the runs in an association with Root worth 97. The Somerset batsman’s 31-ball innings contained five sixes and five fours.Jonny Bairstow, who has already broken into England’s ODI side, thumped three more sixes as the Lions set a plus-300 target for the second time in the series. The hosts set off with an eye to matching the run rate – Chris Woakes saw his three overs disappear for 25 – but managed just one 50-run partnership as a series of top-order batsmen got in and got out. When Patel removed Mahela Udawatte their chances effectively disappeared and left-arm spinner Briggs was able to mop up the tail with almost 10 overs still to bowl.”We were particularly pleased with the approach that we took to their spinners on a used pitch, and showed that with hard work we can play on the subcontinent,” Taylor said. “Playing intelligently, but with appropriate aggression, it is possible to overcome a good bowling attack on these wickets.”

The ICC has paid 42.36% of the fees due to Sri Lanka’s cricketers from the 2011 World Cup to September 30, 2011, ESPNcricinfo has learned. The payment of US$2 million was made directly into the players’ bank accounts, instead of routing it through Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), on December 16.The Sri Lankan players, who had not been paid since the tournament ended in April, were owed a total of about $4.3 million by SLC, who had not been able to pay the players because of financial constraints. The money from the ICC represented the participation fee from the tournament due to Sri Lanka.While the money was paid directly, it was arranged with assistance from SLC, who told the ICC of the amounts owed to each player and provided their respective bank account details, a person with knowledge of the payments said. Tony Irish, the chief executive of the South African Players Association, said that arrangement to pay the players was negotiated between the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) and the Sri Lankan Players Association (SLCA).Earlier this month the Sri Lanka sports minister, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, said the ICC had agreed to pay US$2 million to SLC and that the coach and players would be paid out of those funds. The SLCA had also contacted FICA for assistance over the delay in the cricketers’ salaries for series following the World Cup this year.SLC ran into financial problems after running up debts of $32.5 million to finance the building of two international stadiums in Hambantota and Pallekele, and to renovate the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, for the World Cup. All three stadiums have since been handed over to the military because the board was struggling to maintain them.

Australia have turned an injury predicament into a selection opportunity by naming four potential debutants in the squad for the first Test against New Zealand. They are unlikely to be the last tyros tried this summer.Under the authority of the team performance manager Pat Howard, the new panel of John Inverarity, captain Michael Clarke, coach Mickey Arthur, Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel are intent on expanding the group of cricketers capable of playing Test cricket, eventually hoping to have as many as 25 players ready for the baggy green at any moment in the calendar.”This summer we are taking on a squad mentality and building depth,” Howard said. “Players are going to come in and out regardless of who they are. We will take performances on board to try and build the strength of depth that we really need – that’s regardless of the 18-year-old or the 36-year-old.”To that end David Warner, Ben Cutting, James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc were named in the 12 for the Gabba, an accent on youth and current form ruling out the likes of Trent Copeland, Ben Hilfenhaus and the Australia A centurion Ed Cowan. The latter trio might all have been selected at another time, but a series against New Zealand has been judged the ideal moment to explore the selectors’ options for the future.”We’ve got very much an eye to the future, it is a disappointing we’ve got so many injuries, but the injuries have created a wonderful opportunity for young cricketers,” Inverarity said in Brisbane. “The way ahead for Australia is to see how good these young players are, and it is a fantastic opportunity for these young men.”We were hoping that those who were pressing for selection would be in the younger age bracket, and that’s exactly what was the case. They were the ones who were really impressive, they were performing, they were looking good. We need to develop a very good squad of players, particularly a squad of faster bowlers. There’s a very heavy workload and that workload needs to be shared. To have promising young 22, 23-year-old pace bowlers is very encouraging.”Copeland is known to be extremely disappointed at missing out on a berth for the first Test, having contributed to Australia’s Test series win in Sri Lanka then serving as first reserve in South Africa. Inverarity pointed out that Copeland had lacked for bowling and wickets in recent weeks.”Trent has been slightly a victim of opportunity,” Inverarity said. “Since the beginning of October he’s in his fifth game since than, and if you look at his stats, in the last eight weeks he’s only taken one wicket for about 250 runs, so just at the moment he wasn’t pressing for selection. But knowing the sort of young man and bowler he is, we’re hoping he can start racking up performance and knocking on the door again – we need depth of bowlers.”While the fast bowling and wicket-keeping spots are the subject of some debate, Inverarity indicated that the likes of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey are not yet being sufficiently pushed by batsmen beneath them in domestic cricket. The selection panel would dearly like a return to the heavy runs being made by the batsmen in line a decade ago.”We want lots more batsmen knocking on the door,” Inverarity said. “You pick your best time always with an eye to the future. If there are some senior batsmen to be replaced, then it’s got to be the younger batsmen who are making the quantity of runs that presses their claims.”We’re delighted we’ve got two young ‘keepers in the wings. The strength of any sporting team has got a great deal to do with the depth of the squad, and we’re delighted we have those two ‘keepers and a number of fast bowlers pushing.”In its first major squad since convening, the selection panel sought a balance between choosing fit and in-form cricketers but also making them earn a place in the team. Howard, who also sits in on selection meetings, said there would be other times in the future when players would not be asked to carry niggling injuries through five days of a Test because of the greater squad depth presently being grown.”It is a fine balance, you don’t want to cheapen the baggy green, but you’ve got to make sure you’re putting players onto the field that are in absolutely tip-top condition,” Howard said. “There are some players who are 80% or 70% and sometimes you’ll give them the Test off to come back at 100%, means you’re putting the best players on the field for each game.”This game we have the opportunity to put the best players in the best conditions, who are performing, who give the selectors a group or a bevy of players to put forward. What we hope is to manage the players outside the team very strongly to give the selectors more of a headache over the coming weeks.”Arthur has arrived in Brisbane to join Howard, Inverarity, Marsh and Bichel, and will meet with Clarke for the first time on Sunday, before addressing the squad once it assembles at the team hotel in Brisbane.

Daniel Vettori could miss nearly a month due to the injury to his left hamstring that ruled him out of the second Test against Australia in Hobart. Vettori arrived at Bellerive Oval with tightness in the muscle and aggravated the problem during New Zealand’s warm-up, forcing him out of the side and allowing fast bowler Trent Boult to make his debut.Fortunately for New Zealand, their next international appointment is not until the end of January, when they take on Zimbabwe in a one-off Test. That means he should only miss out on Twenty20 cricket, with both New Zealand’s HRV Cup and Australia’s Big Bash League – Vettori has signed with the Brisbane Heat – to be played in late December and early January.”Unfortunately Dan sustained a recurrence of his left hamstring injury that’s been problematic for him over the last few years,” the New Zealand physio Paul Close said. “We expect him to be rehabbing the injury and back to full fitness within three to four weeks. We are confident he will be back to play some HRV Cup cricket at some stage in the new year.”The loss of Vettori was a major blow for New Zealand in Hobart, after he again proved himself one of their most reliable batsmen in the first Test at the Gabba. He also sent down 37 overs and collected two wickets, keeping things tight in Australia’s first innings, and in his absence New Zealand might need to find extra overs of part-time spin from Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill.”He started to warm up and realised that it wasn’t good enough and decided to pull the pin,” the batsman Dean Brownlie said after play. “With it seaming, hopefully our four seamers can do the job. Hopefully it doesn’t prove any price [cost] really.”

Scorecard
Amit Verma notched up his career-best score•Fotocorp

Ramesh Powar took the usual few steps to deliver his, and the innings’, eighth no-ball. Embarrassed he walked back to the bowling mark. Rubbing the sweat from his forehead and temples, first with his left shoulder followed by the right, Powar prepared to bowl again. For a moment he gathered his breath, stared at the batsman before moving in with his quick-step bowling action to deliver. This time the ball slipped out of his sweaty palm and Powar fumbled to collect it from the ground. Finally he managed to deliver successfully what turned out be a flighted ball. Abhimanyu Mithun, Karnataka’s No. 9 batsman, skipped out of the crease immediately, confidently, to loft Powar over the straight boundary for a six. It was that kind of day for Mumbai: their bowlers were shown scant respect while the opposition batsmen ran the roughshod.Karnataka tightened their control over the game by adding a further 319 runs on day two. Manish Pandey, who had left the ground yesterday due to dehydration and cramps, returned to compile his maiden double-century in the Ranji Trophy while Amit Verma notched up his career-best score and his fourth century in this format.To compound Mumbai’s misery, the hosts lost their most experienced batsman when their captain Wasim Jaffer, erroneously, offered no shot to the fourth delivery of the innings from his Karnataka counterpart R Vinay Kumar. The ball nipped back into Jaffer’s right pad, just below the knee roll, prompting K Hariharan, the umpire, to raise his finger.The previous evening Pandey had made clear the visitors’ intentions: Karnataka would aim for at least 450 on a pitch where batsmen could comfortably play their strokes. And, so, 101 runs came in the first session. The visitors moved into top gear in the middle segment, cracking 189 runs in 30 overs, and, by then, Karnataka had breached the 600-run mark.Pandey walked in at the fall of Vinay, who enjoyed a harmless first hour to complete a fine half-century. Unlike Thursday where he was the pilot, Pandey allowed Verma to take the flight controls. It helped that Brabourne was a familiar environment for Verma, who had honed his basics under the tutelage of Vasu Paranjape, himself a former Mumbai stalwart, for three consecutive summers during his teens.No bowler presented any difficulty for the left-handed Verma, who picked runs on both sides of the wicket. Powar, bowling wide of the popping crease, tried luring Verma with flight and was soon dispatched past the cover boundary. Iqbal Abdulla focussed too much on bowling in to Verma’s legs only to be thwacked over his head a few times. The other left-arm spinner, Ankit Chavan, was not spared either.On 88, Verma reached three-figures with consecutive sixes against Powar – the first over the sight screen at the Churchgate End followed by another strong hit that sailed over long-on. Both batsmen easily charged bowlers, who tried everything – bowling from both ends, bowling negative lines, bowling to spread-out fields – yet failed to gain the upperhand.Disappointingly for Mumbai not one bowler could tie down the batsman. Ajit Agarkar, Powar and Abdulla, Mumbai’s leading bowlers in the past many seasons, were rendered useless. Interestingly, Powar and Abdulla had faced similar problems against a much weaker Rajasthan batting line-up last week on a similar track.There could be some sympathy for the bowler. The Brabourne pitch is not bowler-friendly as five wickets on the first day and four today indicated. However, domestic bowlers over the decades have toiled on flat pitches and gained respect by bowling tighter lines. On evidence, it would not be wrong to say that Mumbai’s bowlers have failed to maintain consistent lines of attack. Karnataka could have easily piled a 700-plus score but it seems they have more confidence in their bowling attack that contains three bowlers who have been in the Indian dressing room in the last two years.In Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma – the pair are part of the current Indian Test squad playing West Indies – and Abhishek Nayar, Mumbai have the wherewithal to challenge Karnataka. Each have their own individual ambitions to fulfil. And that could be a good enough spice to lift this contest which is in Karnataka’s favour at the moment.

Vikrant Shetty, the UAE offspinning allrounder, has been reported for a suspected illegal action during the drawn Intercontinental Cup clash against Afghanistan. Shetty, 27, made his first-class debut in that match, scored a half-century in the first innings and earned figures of 5-1-28-0 and 6-6-0-0. He was reported at the end of the match by on-field umpires Ahsan Raza and Buddhi Pradhan, and third umpire Iftikhar Ali.ICC policy – in the case of a development tournament game – requires the home board of the reported player, in this case the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB), to initiate as assessment. In the interim, the player is allowed to take part in international cricket. UAE play two 50-over games against Afghanistan on October 10 and 12.The ECB has three weeks to make arrangements to assess Shetty’s bowling action. Once completed, it will have to report to the ICC about the assessment and any relevant action.