Peter Moores, the new England coach, will have less power over the team than Duncan Fletcher, his predecessor, according to a report on the BBC.Unlike Fletcher, Moores will have less day-to-day control, and on tour he will no longer fulfill the role of team manager, chief selector and coach.The changes are believed to be ones that will be recommended by the Schofield report, an investigation into England’s performances over the last four years, when it is published later this month.Among other things, the report will look at how the selection committee works and how the coach reports to the ECB.

Shoaib Akhtar has said that he would always be thankful to Jagmohan Dalmiya, the former ICC and Indian board president, for supporting him when doubts were being raised about his bowling action.”The first time, in 1999-2000, was awful,” said Shoaib, in an Asian News International report, of the suspicions raised at the time. “I’m always going to be thankful to Mr. Jagmohan Dalmiya, the then ICC president, for his support. But, as I said, every controversy has made me a better and stronger person. I may have felt gutted, but the controversies haven’t killed my josh (passion) and desire to play for Pakistan.”Shoaib also said that the doping controversy, during the Champions Trophy last year, was one of the toughest periods in his life. “My own countrymen shunned me, with some even refusing to look at me. It was a terrible period. Everybody’s body mechanism isn’t the same and certain levels are higher in my body compared to others.”My hormone level fluctuates. I didn’t take drugs to enhance my performance. I don’t need to. I don’t know why I was treated so badly. The test didn’t show I was an evil person. I’ve always been misunderstood. I’ve never seen myself bigger than the game.”In an interview with , Shoaib added, “The Court’s decision was a relief. Those times when I was banned were the darkest of my life, as I was in such agony and pain and mental stress. But I have never taken illegal substances, I never did anything wrong.”Surprisingly, given that he didn’t ultimately face any punishment at all, Shoaib blasted the Pakistan board for their handling of the matter. “The way the doping case was handled was stupid and pathetically wrong,” said Shoaib. “They (the PCB) could have saved their country’s respect and a big disaster because the two of us lost our fitness and never ended up going to the World Cup.”The last four years for Pakistan cricket have been ballistic with The Oval fiasco, my doping fiasco, it was too much for Pakistan cricket to handle. Now the Pakistan team is recovering and we would like to do well once again.”

Cricinfo has found no evidence to support comments made by Dinanath Ramnarine, the president of the West Indies Players’ Association, that players have been threatened and intimidated during the current sponsorship dispute.Ramnarine, whose role in the row is coming under increasing scrutiny, claimed that players had faced “overwhelming pressure including death threats, and threats from the WICB never to play again … threats and intimidation from sponsors, and pressure from the highest political levels within the length and breadth of the Caribbean community.”The West Indies board dismissed the comments as “highly emotional and totally inaccurate,” adding that they were “most unbecoming and unworthy of an organisation representing professional sportsmen.” A source at Digicel said the claims were “utter nonsense”.And Michael Holding was equally forthright. “It’s absolute rubbish,” he told Sky SPorts. “No player has even mentioned it. They have been under pressure from many parties – WIPA, Cable & Wireless, the public – but no death threats.”And Cricinfo spoke to representatives of some of the players involved who denied any knowledge of the allegations purporting to involve their clients. One said there had been pressure, but pointed out it had come from representatives of Cable & Wireless and WIPA.Ramnarine’s outburst came following the announcement that Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan had decided to terminate their personal contracts with C&W. But it now seems that both players had been trying to withdraw for more than a fortnight but they had been stalled by C&W and WIPA officials.The conduct of Ramnarine in recent weeks has been increasingly volatile, and his latest outburst hardly seems to be in the best interests of the bulk of players who he should be representing.

Cricket Australia will honour a commitment for its Australia A and under-19 sides to tour Pakistan despite Hockey Australia’s decision to pull out of December’s Champions Trophy for security reasons. The trips are scheduled for September and October, and a five-man delegation from Australia completed a security inspection of Pakistan last week.”It’s our intention to fulfil our tour obligations,” a Cricket Australia spokesman told . “We will continue to monitor with the relevant security agencies both in Australia and overseas on the day-to-day developments in Pakistan.”The commitment was only for this year’s series, however the Australian board said at this stage it was still planning for Australia’s three-Test tour of Pakistan next March to go ahead. There have been security concerns in Pakistan lately, after a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks by militants following an army raid on the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad in early July.Last week’s inspection was led by Cricket Australia’s operations manager Michael Brown and Paul Marsh, the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association. “The group received some first-class presentations from the PCB and Pakistani authorities on a wide range of issues including security,” the Cricket Australia spokesman said. “We feel we are in possession of good and the most up-to-date information.”

South Africa women 239 for 6 (Brits 46) beat Netherlands women 140 for 9 (Rambaldo 34) by 99 runs
ScorecardSouth Africa’s women eased to a comfortable 99-run win over their Dutch counterparts at the VRA Ground in Amstelveen, thanks to a solid batting performance from their top five, and a disciplined bowling effort in which Sunette Loubser, Lonell de Beer and Susan Benade were the pick with two wickets each.After winning the toss and batting first, South Africa never looked back. Having already got the measure of the Netherlands attack during their Test victory in Rotterdam earlier in the week, they racked up a comfortable 239 for 6, with Cri-Zelda Brits top-scoring with 46.In reply, the Netherlands top-order capitulated, with four of the top six making single-figures. Helmien Rambaldo held the innings together with 34 from 69 balls, but South Africa were never in danger of defeat.

Paul Collingwood put the blame for England’s 19-run defeat against SouthAfrica at Newlands on their poor fielding rather than the crucial, andslightly controversial, run-out of Kevin Pietersen. With Englandchasing 155, Pietersen was dismissed after colliding with ShaunPollock as he attempted a quick single.”He [Pietersen] was looking at the fielder and the ball and Pollock,whether he meant it or not, got in his way,” explained Collingwood.”He would have got in very easily and that was a bit of bad luck wehad tonight, but even with that we still should have knocked thoseruns off.”Collingwood then suggested that the third umpire could have givenPietersen not out, even though it isn’t within his remit. “Sometimesyou think common sense would prevail and maybe the third umpire wouldgive him not out.”If that’s something that has to be put into the rules regardingdecisions like that I’m not too sure. I don’t want to make it a bigissue. It was the third umpire’s decision and he has to make thatquick decision.”Graeme Smith had no issues with the dismissal: “If I felt Shaun did iton purpose I would have called KP back but he was trying to get backto the stumps. It’s a big pitch out there and Kevin ran straight athim in the middle of the wicket.”Collingwood said it was England’s shoddy catching which let SouthAfrica off the hook after they had been reduced to 94 for 6. At leastsix chances went down, the most costly of which came when Albie Morkelwas on 14. Collingwood, back peddling from midwicket, couldn’t get a hand to a steepling top-edge and it appeared a more comfortable chance for OwaisShah running in from long-on.”It was very noisy out there and I wasn’t sure whether Owais had heardmy call because I saw him out of the corner of my eye,” saidCollingwood. “I don’t think our ground fielding was too bad, it wasthe catches and it was very costly in the end. It is something we haveto look at. I can hold my hands up on that one and we could haveprobably bowled South Africa out for maybe 130.”If they’d have got a score like that it would have put them out ofthe game – saying that I think we’d have still taken 154 at the startof the day and we were disappointed we didn’t knock them off.”

Legspinner Shahzaib Ahmed took five wickets to help shoot out Australia Under-19 for 78 in the second one-dayer in Sheikhupura. Pakistan then cruised to a nine-wicket win as they chased down the target in 11.4 overs to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.Captain Sam Robson’s decision to bat backfired as the Australians slipped to 16 for 4. Kane Richardson and Jamie Smith helped stage a mini-recovery with a 43-run stand, but another collapse saw the last six wickets fall for 19 runs. Shahzaib was the star for Pakistan with 5 for 21 and was ably supported by the rest of the attack.The Pakistani opening batsmen, Ahmed Shehzad and Shan Masood, put on a rapid 76 to take their side to the brink of victory. They were helped in their cause by the indisciplined Australian bowlers who sent down 12 wides and overstepped on three occasions.The Australians had put on a better show in the first match on Thursday which they lost by seven wickets after setting a target of 199. Left-arm-spinner Imad Wasim was Pakistan’s wrecker-in-chief with five wickets while Shehzad and Masood laid the platform for the win with the bat.The remaining three one-dayers will be played at Mirpur, with the next game on Tuesday.

Darrell Hair’s case against the ICC for racial discrimination suffered a major blow when Billy Doctrove, his colleague during the infamous Oval Test in 2006 and the chief witness for the defence, failed to appear on the third day at the London Central Employment Tribunal.Doctrove was expected to take a flight from his home to London yesterday but it now seems he never did so. The hearing was told that he had been unable to leave Dominica “for personal reasons that are too confidential to explain”.There were also further doubts whether Pakistan’s Inzamam ul-Haq would appear. “Mr ul-Haq has not formally said that he will attend – to answer questions, give a statement or attend,” the court was told. “I must be fair to him and everybody else … he has mentioned difficulty in this respect to his position being picked for the Pakistan team and Ramadan.”In the morning ICC associate board member Prince Tunku Imran of Malaysia told the hearing by phone he had been “concerned” because Hair was apparently the man who stood in the way of the match resuming. “I thought that Darrell had exercised bad judgement on that day by failing to consult with the match referee,” he said.

Scorecard

After a false start in the first innings, Phil Jaques ignited his campaign to replace Justin Langer in the Test team with 167 on a day when New South Wales overwhelmed their hosts. Western Australia’s under-strength bowlers were unable to contain Jaques and the Warriors’ miserable match continued when Doug Bollinger’s hat-trick had them heading to defeat. At stumps they were 7 for 139 chasing an impossible 469.While Jaques had a stronger Australia A tour of Pakistan than the Warriors’ Chris Rogers, the real battle for the opening spot at the Gabba on November 8 centres around the early-season performances in the Pura Cup. Both specialists failed in the first innings, but Jaques quickly moved on from his 13 to underline his case for inclusion and strengthen New South Wales’ position. Jaques, who has played two Tests and six ODIs, began on 71 and moved cautiously towards his century, which took 171 balls and came with a straight boundary off Brett Dorey.Once Jaques posted three figures he lifted his scoring rate and dominated an attack missing Ben Edmondson, who strained his right hamstring on day two, and David Bandy. “I wanted to get some runs over here, and I suppose I was a little bit scratchy at the start, just to get going and until the nerves settled a bit, and then I started to flow a bit better,” Jaques told AAP. “Today I felt really good, I felt quite fluent and it was a different me today.”He brought up his 150 shortly before lunch and holed out to deep midwicket looking for a 26th boundary from his 250th delivery. Shortly after Peter Forrest fell to Aaron Heal for 64 New South Wales declared at 3 for 300.Bollinger struck in the third over when he removed Langer for 1, but his highlight came when he picked up Shaun Marsh, Bandy and Luke Ronchi in consecutive deliveries, leaving Western Australia at 6 for 78. Marsh was lbw, Bandy was caught at gully by Matthew Nicholson and Ronchi fell to a stunning diving catch from the wicketkeeper Daniel Smith. It would have been four from four for Bollinger if Dominic Thornely had taken Heal’s edge at second slip. Luke Pomersbach stood out with an unbeaten 54 while Bollinger captured 4 for 23.Grant Lambert was also on a hat-trick after ruining Rogers’ hopes of a long stay and following up with the dismissal of Adam Voges. Rogers added 17 to his first-innings 9 on a day that belonged to Jaques, Bollinger and New South Wales.

ScorecardTahir Khan scored his second first-class century, a career-best 142, to take Services to a position of strength against Assam. Assam will be relieved they got Tahir out, four overs before stumps. Tahir hit 19 boundaries in his innings and scored at a fine strike-rate of 55.90. He got good support from captain Yashpal Singh who scored 40. They added 83 for the fourth wicket. Kushaljit Das and Arnald Konwar took two wickets apiece for Assam.
Scorecard
Haryana made up for a late and poor start at Jammu by scoring 247 for 4 in 57 overs, with Sachin Rana scoring an unbeaten 108 off 160 deliveries. They were 54 for 3 at one stage after Vijay Sharma had struck thrice in his first spell. That’s when Rana came in to join Sumeet Sharma and they added 102 runs for the fourth wicket. Sumeet scored an even fifty. But the innings of the day came from Rana who hit 13 fours and two sixes in his 108.
Scorecard
Jharkhand’s Sujit Roy, playing in his fourth first-class match, picked up his first five-wicket haul to keep Goa down to 251 for 7, despite four of their batsman scoring forties. Roy, a right-arm medium-pacer, dismissed three of those batsmen.Goa will rue that none of the four batsmen – Sagun Kamat, Saahil Dhuri, Manoj Joglekar and Ajay Ratra – who looked set went on to play a big innings.
Scorecard
Led by steady half-centuries from Amit Pagnis and Mahesh Rawat, Railways made a strong start against Madhya Pradesh, scoring 256 for 5 on the first day. MP had to struggle for the wickets, as the first-wicket stand lasted 26 overs and produced 90 runs. After Pagnis’s wicket for 66, MP got two quick wickets, but Rawat made sure there was no collapse.For MP, Jalaj Saxena took 4 for 49; his previous best is 4 for 54.
ScorecardNiraj Patel narrowly missed what would have been a second consecutive century, as he, in company with Bhavik Thaker put Gujarat in control against Vidarbha. They ended the day at 270 for 5, making Vidarbha, who tried eight bowlers, work hard. Thaker and Niraj added 134 for the third wicket, after Gujarat found themselves in a somewhat precarious situation at 63 for 2.