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Daren Ganga, the West Indies batsman, has urged the entire Caribbean to unite behind whoever is chosen as the new captain.He is among the candidates to succeed Shivnarine Chanderpaul, having led Trinidad and Tobago to victory in the Carib Beer Series final. He told the BBC: “We need to come together and support one individual who’s going to take our team forward. When that happens, then we’re going to start the turnaround.”Chanderpaul resigned the captaincy earlier this month after an unsuccessful year in charge, during which West Indies lost all of the 14 Tests they played and 14 of the 16 one-day internationals.But a decision on who should be the new skipper has been delayed because of another contracts dispute between the players and the West Indies Cricket Board. “Time is of the essence. It’s how quickly we rise above what has happened in the past in terms of the strikes and contract disputes . . . we’ve got to realise that what is most important is West Indies cricket.”When we come to thinking about that, then we’re moving in the right direction. All the players are very eager. We’re sick of going on tours and losing matches. We don’t want to play every series and end up on the losing end,” said Ganga. “What the administrators and what the supporters need to understand is we all need to work together as one and no one is fighting against each other.”It’s a total or common consensus we need to come to and that is giving the support and making the right decision for West Indies cricket. We’re definitely going to be making some money from the World Cup being here, so we need to put things in place and ensure that even after World Cup we put ourselves in good shape in terms of the quality of our cricket and our facilities.”

After weeks of speculation, it has been confirmed that Ed Smith has left Kent and joined Middlesex on a two-year contract.Smith has been a marginalised figure at Kent in recent months after it was rumoured that a group of senior players had refused to accept some of his decisions as stand-in captain. Although he was offered a new contract at the end of the summer, his move was not a surprise.Smith spent nine seasons at Canterbury, scoring 8690 first-class runs at an average of 40.79. He made three appearances for England in 2003.”Ed will be a major addition to our squad,” said Vinny Codrington, Middlesex’s chief executive. “He has joined a talented and happy side, and believes that by starting a new chapter of his career with us, that he can help us win things and push to regain his place in the England set up.”

Western Province Boland 122 for 7 beat Eastern Cape 121 for 9 (Kleinveldt 3-18) by 3 wickets
ScorecardEastern Cape found it tough going in their first outing in theSeries, as Western Province Boland restricted them to 121 for 9 in 20 overs. Mark Boucher top-scored with 24, but they were always on the back foot as Rory Kleinveldt took 3 for 18. Two run-outs did help matters either.WPB made heavy work of the chase, however, scrambling a run off the final ball to win by three wickets. Both openers, Andrew Puttick and Herschelle Gibbs, were out without scoring, while Jacques Kallis, making his first appearance, received a painful blow to the hand from Monde Zondeki. He responded with two pointed boundaries, but when he fell for 30, the run-rate decreased and WPB were left needing five off the final over. A wicket for Makhaya Ntini increased the excitement, but WPB prevailed.

Steve James, who withdrew before the start of Glamorgan`s County Championship match withHampshire at Cardiff should be able to return to action next week.The Glamorgan captain, who had aggravated a knee injury, saw a specialist in Cardiff who drainedhis swollen knee, and James should be able to play in the two limited overs friendlies that Glamorgan have arrangednext week against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge and Middlesex at Cardiff.

Mark Ramprakash has vowed to continue playing in his natural, attacking manner – despite the criticism he received after his dismissal against Shane Warne in the second innings at Trent Bridge.Ramprakash was stumped by Adam Gilchrist as he came down the pitch to hit Warne over the top in the second innings. The manner of his dismissal, and its timing, coming as England battled to save the game and not long from the close of day two, provoked a furious reaction from some sections of the media.But Ramprakash defended his positive intentions, and reiterated his desire to carry his county style of play into the Test arena.”I wasn’t happy with the execution of the shot at Trent Bridge, I didn’t get close enough to the pitch of the ball and I was disappointed with that but I’m happy with the thinking behind it,” explained Ramprakash.”I was looking to play my natural game, the seam bowlers were bowling very well at one end and I felt confident enough to try and attack the spinner.”The barrage of criticism that Ramprakash has been subjected to since his dismissal in the Third Test is ironic considering that, in the past, he has been criticized for his caution at Test level.”Throughout my Test career I’ve been accused of not playing my shots, but this year I’m happy with the way I’m approaching the game and I will be looking to take the attacking option when I can – even if that means going down the pitch to Shane Warne,” Ramprakash said.”At the start of the summer both Ian Botham and Graham Gooch said England should try and attack Australia wherever possible and I think that’s the right way to go.”Ramprakash also expressed concern at the effect the level of criticism he had been subjected to would have on young players.”It’s a shame about the negative reaction,” he said. “We want young players growing up in England to come up and play aggressively and play their shots – we want them to go out and express themselves.”As a player you always have to be honest with yourself and accept when you’ve done something wrong, which is what I’ve done, but the general way of thinking should be to encourage players to go out and play their natural games.”It’s something in the past that has concerned me. It’s almost as if in England we’d rather a batsman get out playing a forward defensive shot than trying to take the attack to the opposition.”When you play for England you know there’s a lot of media attention on you and you know that everything you do is going to be under the spotlight.”As a player you have to come to a decision that if you’re going out to play for England the best thing is to play your natural way. When you go out on the pitch you have to be certain in your own mind what you’re going to try and do.”I realise it was a shot that didn’t come off, but I know how to play the shot and if I think the shot is on then I will have to weigh it up when I’m out there.”The Surrey man conceded that with Thorpe and Vaughan likely to return to the England side for The Oval Test, his place could be in jeopardy. So a good performance in Leeds is crucial.”I realise that Graham Thorpe and Michael Vaughan have been playing really well for England over the last 18 months and I could be one of the guys left out for the Oval,” he admitted.”For me, it’s a question of looking to play hard in this match and go on from there. I’m taking this as a one-off and we’ll see what happens after that.”

Lancashire have announced a strong profit for 2007 but their chief executive, Jim Cumbes, has warned about the cost of staging international matches.Despite the poor weather during last season, which had a severe impact on matches at Old Trafford, the club made a profit of £185,174 after tax. However, Lancashire also had to pay more to host their international games, a Test against West Indies and ODI against India.”With much of the club’s profit going towards increased staging fees, it limits the amount of funds available to invest back into the ground, which is going to be critical for the clubs with larger grounds, which of course includes Old Trafford,” said Cumbes.”Lessons must be learnt from the 1970s and 80s when international grounds fell into decline due to lack of profits from international matches which in turn led to lack of investment.”Lancashire are entering the first phase of a major redevelopment of Old Trafford, starting with a new outfield. Work will begin in August meaning Lancashire’s home matches will be played at outgrounds such as Liverpool and Blackpool. Work will continue with the building of a new £12m conference and banqueting facility early in 2009.”By and large it has been another very satisfactory year for the club both on and off the field,” added Cumbes. “Cricket is our raison d’etre and we will continue to invest in that side of the business, but we are approaching a critical time in terms of our redevelopment plans.”If we are to continue to stage top class international cricket, we must firstly secure funding to realise our vision of creating a ground with world class facilities. In that respect we need the certainty of international cricket over a long period of time in order to be able to create a programme of continued re-investment.”

The match between Knights and Cape Cobras in Kimberley was tied after rain ended play with the scores level on the D/L method during the chase. Pursuing 182, Rilee Rossouw made an explosive start, scoring 29 at a strike-rate of 241 to lead Knights to 40 in 2.5 overs, when he was dismissed. Wickets began to fall before partnerships could be built after that, and though they maintained a run-rate of close to 10, Knights had slipped to 119 for 5 when rain ended play after the 13th over. As it turned out, they were on par with the D-L score. In their innings, the Cape Cobras top three produced quick and substantial contributions to lead their team to 181 for 4. Andrew Puttick made 51, Stiaan van Zyl 48 and Owais Shah 45.Half-centuries from Martin van Jaarsveld and Farhaan Berhadien helped set up Titans‘ 29-run victory against Warriors in East London. The pair lifted Titans from 45 for 3 in the sixth over, after they had decided to bat, with a 94-run partnership. van Jaarsveld made 77 off 46 balls and Behardien an unbeaten 54 off 37. Both batsmen hit three sixes, and Titans finished with 174 for 5 from 20 overs. Titans’ decision to open the defense with Roelof van der Merwe’s spin paid off as JJ Smuts was dismissed in the first over. van der Merwe went on to have figures of 2 for 21 in four overs. Left-arm spinner Paul Harris also had a good outing, taking 3 for 22, his wickets being those of the Warriors’ top-scorer Ashwell Price, for 49, and middle-order batsmen Justin Kreusch and Kelly Smuts. The Warriors lost wickets at regular intervals and were restricted to 145 for 7 in their 20 overs.Impi made their debut against Lions in Potchefstroom and it was not a happy one. They were restricted and dismissed for 92 in 19.5 overs in pursuit of 154. Only two Impi batsmen – Cobus Pienaar and Ryan Canning – made double-figure scores. Ethan O’Reilly had figures of 4-1-4-2 for Lions, and Aaron Phangsio and Dwaine Pretorius also took two wickets apiece. Lions did not perform impressively with the bat either, slumping from 89 for 2 to 108 for 7 in 16.3 overs, before Chris Morris blasted 31 off 13 balls to lead them to 153.

Assembly elections in Karnataka have forced itinerary changes in the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches. The match scheduled for May 10 between Royal Challengers and Mumbai Indians has been pushed to May 28 and a direct switch has been made between Bangalore and Hyderabad for their matches against each other. Bangalore will now host Hyderabad on May 3 and visit them on May 25. The elections are on May 10, 16 and 22 and the counting of votes is on May 25.”Because of the elections and the counting, we will have massive repercussions on hospitality and security,” Charu Sharma, the CEO of the Bangalore franchise told Cricinfo. “The law stipulates that you can’t serve liquor in public functions one day before the elections and that would have affected the hospitality plans in the ground. Also, the availability of adequate security would have been affected as the focus might be more on the elections.”The Bangalore franchise consulted the IPL governing council, and the Hyderabad and Mumbai franchises, before making the changes in the schedule.

England have arrived in Antigua for a week that could well make or break their World Cup campaign. They face two matches in the space of five days against Sri Lanka and Australia – two of the four teams who, along with New Zealand and South Africa, have been all but inked into most pundits’ semi-final shake-downs. Victory in either, or preferably both, will propel England ever closer to the next round. Back-to-back defeats, on the other hand, will all but ensure their early flight home.On current evidence, however, England have no right to be anywhere near the semi-finals. They have been ponderous and uninspiring in their four matches to date, not least in their 48-run victory over Ireland in Guyana on Friday – a match that Duncan Fletcher, their coach, admitted had been laced with a tinge of complacency.”I don’t think we played as well as we could have, there’s no doubt about it,” said Fletcher. “It was still an important win from our point of view, because we could have slipped up. But there are areas we can work on. We got a little complacent at times, and we need to make sure don’t get that complacent against better sides.”It’s an extraordinary admission to make, especially in light of Australia’s furious trouncing of Bangladesh at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on Saturday. “There are no easy games in this tournament,” Ricky Ponting said after that ten-wicket victory, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And yet, if Australia’s next opponents are to be believed, this whole World Cup campaign is a bit of a breeze really.Maybe it is preferable from Fletcher’s point of view to give the impression that England are a good side going through a slack phase, rather than a bad side struggling to stay afloat. Last week, the 144th edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack was published, and featured a broadside against a coach under whose leadership England had managed, at once, to be “worn out but under-prepared; complacent yet over-apprehensive; inward-looking yet dysfunctional as a unit; closeted yet distracted.”Fletcher himself brushed aside the criticism, insisting his focus was on the tournament and nothing else, but listening to him talk about England’s need to master the basics was further evidence of the gulf that exists between the best and the rest in this tournament. “The most crucial thing is that we must play to our strengths with the players available to us,” he said, implying that England are still – even at this crucial juncture of the biggest tournament of all – hankering after the men who did not make this trip; the likes of Marcus Trescothick, Simon Jones, Steve Harmison and (knowing Fletcher) Ashley Giles.”Maybe we’ll change a few things,” Fletcher added, hinting that Andrew Strauss could come into consideration for a recall, “though maybe that would be dangerous at this stage. But we mustn’t ask players to do things that are foreign to them, because that could really be pretty disastrous. All our players must play to their strengths.”Quite what those strengths are, however, remains a moot point. England’s sluggish scoring and scattergun new-ball bowling has provided cause for concern ever since the opening defeat against New Zealand in St Lucia, and though Fletcher rightly extolled the importance of building partnerships and bowling “in the areas discussed at the start of the match”, the orthodoxy of his team’s approach is sure to be challenged on Wednesday when Sri Lanka, arguably the most flamboyant of England’s remaining opponents, arrive in town.

Sri Lanka, who marmalised England 5-0 last summer, haven’t looked this impressive at a World Cup since their victorious campaign in 1996 – a tournament in which England, again, were the fall guys atFaisalabad. And now, spearheaded by the maverick slinger, Lasith Malinga, who grabbed four wickets in four balls in a searing spell against South Africa last week, Sri Lanka are even more potent opponents than ever before.”Malinga is a threat, he is unusual to any other bowler,” said Fletcher, referring to the vicious round-arm action that delivers the ball from in front of the umpire’s chest. “Once you get out there and it hits you, it’s completely different to the talk. When you’re under pressure, the way you think is you always fall back on what you’ve done before. It’s hard to ask guys to suddenly change to something they haven’t really done consistently.””As long as the top-order can build some partnerships, that’s the crucial aspect,” added Fletcher, in defence of his under-performing top three of Michael Vaughan, Ed Joyce and Ian Bell. “We must be very careful we don’t put too much pressure on them. They are experienced, they’ve been around a bit, but they’ve got to build partnerships. Once it’s set they can accelerate from that platform.”As true as it may be, the need to reiterate such basic disciplines was alarming. At a time when the big guns of this tournament are applying a glossy finish to months and years of groundwork, England – rather like the stadiums in which they are appearing – are frantically trying to disguise their skeletal framework.

On the first day’s play
We are really pleased in our camp about how it ended up – [Kumar] Sangakkara and [Thilan] Samaraweera really played well to get us out of a hole at 61 for 3. The way it was moving around this morning we could have been bowled out by tea time. I think if we had bowled first we’d have bowled them out by now. Obviously, we’d prefer to be four or five down rather then eight but I think its honours even at the moment.On the condition of the pitch
It got flatter as the ball got older and then once the new ball was taken it started to seam around again. I think it will stay seaming for the next couple of days and we were quite pleased to see some turn out there.On Mohammad Asif’s performance
Asif bowled well in the last Test and beautifully today, hitting a good length and moving the ball both ways to make it very difficult for our batsman.On whether Sri Lanka have the firepower to do something similar
[Farveez] Maharoof bowled beautiful in the last Test and he can do exactly the same job. We then have [Nuwan] Kulasekera and some pace from [Lasith] Malinga. While Asif bowled really well I didn’t think their other seamers backed him up well. I hope we can bowl better as a unit.On Sanath’s disappointing start to his farewell Test
It was perhaps not ideal to have a little ceremony just before going out to bat. I know I had a lump in my throat and goosebumps – it was a very special moment. But I thought Sanath did really well to bat for nearly an hour out there and then got a really good ball – hopefully he will fire in the second innings.On his first day in-charge
I enjoyed the experience. I have not been speaking to Tom [Moody] but he has been text-messaging the manager all the time. I think he is quite pleased too.