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The Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association was plunged into another crisis with the resignation of Nilesh Lakhani from the executive.Lakhani, who is chairman of the Parklands club, is seen as one of the people within the NPCA who actually gets things done, and his resignation will be a serious blow to the credibility of the already beleaguered executive. The NPCA has already lost its chairman and secretary this year.What will really hurt the NPCA is the stinging attack on the executive’s abilities in his letter of resignation. “I have looked at the position and have concluded that I have no confidence in the way that NPCA is currently operating,” he wrote. “It is no secret that there is no proper management in the NPCA executive. It is something we have been criticised for by everyone who has any sensible interest in cricket.It has been difficult for me to understand not only who is running the NPCA but also how it is run. At present the NPCA has no “official” chairman, it has no vice-chairman and now it has no “official” secretary . How long are you going to continue like this? And yet we continue to pretend to the outside world that we have no problems without accepting our fault.”I have taken little part in attending NPCA meetings over the past several months … [because] the way in which NPCA executive meetings are called is pathetic. I usually receive an SMS around 4.30 pm on a particular day saying that NPCA executive will be meeting at 7.00 pm on the same day to discuss urgent matters. How can you operate in this way and expect commitment from members?”Lakhani’s attack on the NPCA comes after months in which the executive has been roundly condemned from all sides for its lack of openness and accountability and its continual stalling of the introduction of a new constitution and an AGM.This might turn out to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and it will be hard to see how, bereft of its last credible administrator, the current executive can carry on with any credibility.

Ehsan Mani, the president of the ICC, has said that suspending England from international cricket was never really considered. On Wednesday, Mani watched the second one-day international at Harare Sports Club, when England beat Zimabwe by 161 runs."Talk of suspension was never on the radar," he told reporters. "The threat of suspension was a possibility, even if it was only a 1 per cent or 5 per cent or 10 per cent possibility. It could have been a terrible penalty, which would have hurt badly.”I felt terribly disappointed because the tour was hugely important for the development of cricket in Zimbabwe. The country has enough problems without adding another. The game would have gone backwards and that was my concern, not punishing England.”Mani is a resident of St. John’s Wood in London, close to Lord’s, and is aware of the antipathy in England towards the tour taking place. But at the same time, he supported the way David Morgan, the ECB chairman, has handled the entire affair. "He has gained a lot of respect in the ICC for the way he handled this issue. I could see that England were caught between a rock and a hard place, but he has been absolutely superb, honest and totally upfront with people. He has had to deal with a lot of domestic pressures, which is understandable because of the unique situation between England and Zimbabwe. The issue was not going to die down."Mani wants to meet with England’s players within the next few day to talk about all aspects of their experience of Zimbabwe. “It is very important to hear their views," he said. "I want to know what they think about the level of cricket in Zimbabwe and their experiences in the country so far.” England are due to play back-to-back one-day matches at Bulawayo over the weekend.

The Super Fours champions of 2003 will be decided on Saturday 21st June when the four teams meet at The Parks and Radley College, Oxford.Super Fours is the domestic competition for elite women cricketers, now in its second year, aimed to bridge the gap between domestic and international women’s cricket.Currently topping the Super Fours table by just one point are The Super Strikers, captained by England batsman, Claire Taylor (Berkshire). They will face The V Team at Radley College, who have yet to win a match in the competition.Title contenders The Knight Riders, skippered by England’s leading run-scorer Charlotte Edwards (Kent), will face The Braves who won the title in 2002 and are led by England Captain, Clare Connor (Sussex).With bonus points awarded for attacking run-scoring and economical bowling, the Knight Riders could still steal the title if they win and individuals perform at their best.Both matches start at 12 noon.Berkshire and England bowler Isa Guha (The Braves) has the most wickets in the competition, leading the table with 14. She is closely followed by England team-mates Lucy Pearson (Knight Riders/Staffordshire), Laura Spragg (Super Strikers / Yorkshire) and Clare Connor who all have 13.England all-rounder Laura Newton (Lancs) is leading the batting averages with 85 for The Super Strikers; with Edwards on 82 and Taylor 57.5 completing the top three.This final round of matches provides England selectors with their last opportunity to see those players in England contention face each-other.Full tables and statistics can be found at www.super4s.play-cricket.com

There is justifiable pomp and ceremony going on up in Durham at the moment as the raring-to-go Riverside revs up for its first taste of Test cricket. A special clock at Chester-le-Street has been counting down the seconds till the match starts – possibly with Durham’s own Steve Harmison bowling the first ball, if the fates conspire to get the toss right.That clock was set in motion 101 days before the match. Why 101? Well, it has been 101 years since England last tried a new Test ground. That was Bramall Lane, in Sheffield, which staged the third Test of the 1902 Ashes series. Australia won by 143 runs, with Clem Hill scoring the only century – and England never played there again. It’s unlikely that Chester-le-Street will be such a one-cap wonder.The 1903 Wisden intoned that the defeat was "a severe disaster for England", but observed: "The match – the first of its kind ever decided at Bramall Lane – naturally proved a strong attraction, but a mistake was made in fixing it for the latter part of the week, Monday being always the best day for public cricket at Sheffield."Nowadays the Sheffield public can’t see first-class cricket on any day of the week, as Bramall Lane cannot stage it any more. Even in 1902 it was primarily a football ground – Sheffield United’s – and in 1973 a stand was built across what was the square to make the ground a proper four-sided soccer stadium. In case you’re wondering why England played there anyway, it’s probably because Yorkshire’s headquarters were at Bramall Lane until they moved to Headingley in 1903. (That didn’t stop them playing a Test at Headingley in 1899, though.)In fact, in 1902 they liked the new-ground idea so much they tried it twice. Three weeks before the Bramall Lane game, England and Australia kicked off the Ashes series in the first match ever staged at Edgbaston. We have some idea of the arrangements for that game, because Rowland Ryder, the son of Warwickshire’s secretary at the time, wrote about it in his book Cricket Calling (Faber, 1995). Ryder recalled that his father had no assistant and no telephone. The only help in counting the gate receipts came from the groundsman, and they toiled till 3am to do it. Fortunately for the dedicated duo, Tests at the time were only scheduled to last three days.The backroom staff at Chester-le-Street will number rather more than the secretary and a groundsman-cum-cashier. But some of them will still be awake at 3am before the Riverside’s Big Day – especially if rain is threatened.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.

In every sense, except the one that matters most, Colombo’s weather has been regular as clockwork. At three o’clock this afternoon, with the groundstaff hovering expectantly between two practice nets in the middle of the Premadasa Stadium, the clouds rolled over and the rain came pouring down. It was the same story yesterday afternoon, and in all probability, it will be the same tomorrow as well, when the second one-day international is due to get underway.As things stand, the rain may be regular, but, in fact, it shouldn’t be raining at all. The current weather pattern has got the locals stumped. Sri Lanka’s captain, Marvan Atapattu, was at a loss to explain the conditions, which are usually dry and sunny by this time of the year, with the monsoon left long behind. “It is pretty unusual,” he said. “I can’t remember it raining this consistently in the past.””We can’t control the weather, so we leave it well alone,” said John Dyson, Sri Lanka’s new coach, who was still beaming at the facile nature of his first match in charge. Nevertheless, as an Australian, Dyson was far more bullish about his homeland’s prospects in Saturday’s rugby World Cup final, than he was about Sri Lanka’s chances of a clean sweep in this series. Strange really, seeing as he shares his name with a vacuum-cleaner manufacturer.”I would expect England to come back strongly,” warned Dyson. “After the Bangladesh series, maybe they were finding their cricket a little too easy. Tuesday’s game will have been a useful wake-up call, if that is what they needed. It is clear that they are starting to gel into a good unit, so I’d be surprised if they play like that again.”They were magnanimous words, but the gloomy weather has been the only appropriate reflection of England’s current mood. Just about everything that could go wrong in the last 48 hours, has gone wrong. As if the massacre in Dambulla wasn’t bad enough, England are now facing up to the probable loss of half their strike force for the first Test at Galle. Only minutes after Steve Harmison’s withdrawal had been confirmed last night, James Anderson twisted his ankle playing squash, and now faces a two-week lay-off.”The injury is less than 24 hours old and we will need a few days to assess it,” said Dean Conway, England’s physio. “We are quite optimistic at this stage that he will be back in 10 days to two weeks, but that is based on a quick judgment.” With Richard Johnson staying out in Harmison’s place, and Matthew Hoggard already flying out to join the squad, no decision has yet been taken on whether a replacement will be required for Anderson.But it just so happens that the next cab off the rank – to use the Australian vernacular – is the man against whom Anderson was playing when he suffered his injury. “We were just trying to get a bit of a sweat on,” protested James Kirtley, who is sure to take Anderson’s place tomorrow. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”I was actually at the other side of the court, attempting a return,” he added, disassociating himself from the injury as far as he possibly could, “when I heard a thud. We immediately feared the worst.”Kirtley is well aware of the success that another skiddy English paceman enjoyed in the 2001 series: “Darren Gough and I are not dissimilar in style.” It remains to be seen whether Kirtley would be as able and willing to go through his full repertoire of slower balls and legcutters to make an impact, although, it has to be said, the conditions are far more favourable than they were for Gough’s tour.For the time being, however, England’s chances of a swift revenge are very much in the hands of the elements. The most recent match to be held at the Premadasa Stadium was the Champions’ Trophy final between Sri Lanka and India, in September last year. That match really was scheduled slap-bang in the middle of the rainy season, and the upshot was a two-day farce in which no Champion could be determined, and no Trophy could be awarded outright.Once again, a reserve day has been scheduled – just in case – although that is unlikely to find much favour with either England’s players or their punters. Saturday’s rugby final might just ensure that the ground would be devoid of travelling supporters, long before the rains had their say.Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Sanath Jayasuriya, 2 Romesh Kaluwitharana (wk), 3 Marvan Atapattu (capt), 4 Kumar Sangakkara, 5 Mahela Jayawardene, 6 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 7 Upul Chandana, 8 Chaminda Vaas, 9 Dinusha Fernando, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Nuwan Kulasekara.England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Rikki Clarke, 7 Ian Blackwell, 8 Chris Read (wk), 9 Ashley Giles, 10 Richard Johnson, 11 James Kirtley.

Thilanga Sumathipala, the president of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), faces an anxious week. A long and complicated legal battle is drawing to a close, and on Thursday (January 8) Sumathipala will appear before a Sri Lankan court.Sumathipala, who is also the chairman of the state-owned Sri Lanka Telecom, has been caught up in passport scandal after allegations that Dammika Amarasinghe, an alleged underworld figure, traveled to England to watch the 1999 World Cup as a guest of the cricket board, apparently on a false passport.Sumathipala is also alleged to have authorised the release of £1500 in travellers’ cheques to Amarasinghe from the cricket board’s coffers. Last week, a Criminal Investigations Department (CID) team obtained a court warrant and raided the SLC headquarters in Colombo in search of accounting documents.Should Sumathipala be charged on Thursday it may shatter his dream of heading the International Cricket Council (ICC) when it is Sri Lanka’s turn for the rotated presidency. That has been a personal and oft-stated ambition, which he had looked certain to achieve thanks to a formidable power-base of support in neighbouring Asian countries, especially India.Wisden Comment by Charlie Austin:<BRThilanga Sumathipala's power-base in Sri Lanka, among the clubs and associations that vote in cricket-board elections, is rock solid. Although his two previous administrations were cut short by the government, he won a landslide victory to claim a third term in June 2003. The clubs respect the dynamism and business acumen that has transformed the way cricket is run in Sri Lanka.No-one, whether friend or foe, can deny that it was Sumathipala that sent board revenues soaring in the late 1990s. On the cricket side he has also presided over several notable achievements: the construction of the Dambulla International Stadium, a frenzy of developmental activity in country areas, the launch of a new provincial tournament, and a new intensive international programme for the Sri Lankan A team.Sumathipala's fate is not clear. If you believed every word printed by the Sunday Leader, the newspaper that broke the story, then his future is bleak. They claim that CID sleuths have uncovered a mountain of incriminatory evidence in the last month: travellers-cheque stubs, memos and letters, and visa documentation, to add to the original explosive testimony from a former crony of Amarasinghe that first linked Sumathipala to Colombo’s mafia.However, the newspaper’s claims have to be treated with caution. The manner in which they have pursued Sumathipala is more akin to a witch-hunt than balanced investigative journalism. News articles have been clouded with comment, and you cannot entirely rule out Sumathipala’s claim that he is the unfortunate victim of a malicious political conspiracy.Nevertheless, Sumathipala is clearly facing the biggest fight of his career. Those who have followed his meteoric rise closely, as a self-made and highly successful businessman and cricket administrator, will still back him to emerge from scandal for his canniness and determination is legendary but the next few days will be crucial to his future.

Frizzell County Championship Division One

Following his return from the Caribbean, James Anderson has been named in a 14-man Lancashire squad, which also includes a proud new father, Peter Martin, who missed this week’s stalemate against Middlesex. For Worcestershire, Gareth Batty is back in the reckoning, along with Andy Bichel, who takes over from Mark Harrity. All eyes, however, will be on Graeme Hick, after his blistering double-century against the New Zealanders.
Gloucestershire will be hoping the rains do not follow them westwards after the final three days of their match against Kent this week were completely washed out. Matt Windows may return to their eleven after missing that game with a groin strain, while Shabbir Ahmed makes his home debut. Northants have named an unchanged side, after pushing Sussex to the brink on Monday.
Surrey desperately need a boost after a beleaguered start to the season, so they will be expecting big things from Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe, England’s batting heroes of the Caribbean tour. Mind you, those two didn’t manage a run between them, when these two teams met in the National League on Saturday, and nor did Rikki Clarke, who is also expected to play. Alex Tudor will play for the 2nd XI, as he continues his rehabiliation from a back injury.

Frizzell County Championship Division Two

Darren Gough will make his eagerly-anticipated debut for Essex, as they travel to Cardiff to play Glamorgan. Ronnie Irani and Paul Grayson are both still recovering from knee injuries, so Andy Flower will continue to stand in as captain. Glamorgan are expected to field an unchanged side, although Dean Cosker has been added to the squad.
Leicestershire’s offspinner Jeremy Snape will start his first Championship match of the year, and will bat at No. 6 in place of the out-of-form Darren Stevens. Mark Cleary has a slight back problem and needs a late fitness test before making his debut. For Nottinghamshire, Chris Read is back from England duty and takes over from David Alleyne behind the stumps.
Shoaib Akhtar will be looking to start afresh after a month of controversy, as he and Paul Collingwood make their first appearances of the season for Durham. Graeme Onions and Liam Plunkett are out of the squad with leg injuries, although Durham’s problems are nothing like as chronic as Somerset’s. Their captain, Michael Burns, has a hamstring injury; John Francis has concussion; Ian Blackwell has a back problem, and Aaron Laraman a side strain.Yorkshire v Hampshire at Headingley
High-flying Hampshire must face up to the temporary absence of their inspirational captain, Shane Warne. He is on international duty, so Will Kendall takes charge with Billy Taylor stepping up to the squad. Matthew Hoggard is back in action for Yorkshire, but Darren Lehmann is also preparing for Zimbabwe. Phil Jaques, however, has been signed as an 11th hour replacement. Michael Clarke remains available to Hampshire until the one-day series begins.

Other matches

Cambridge UCCE v Middlesex at Fenner’s
Sussex v Loughborough UCCE at Hove