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Shaun Tait has shrugged off suggestions he is the weak link in Australia’s attack and remains keen to take the new ball against South Africa on Saturday. Tait said he had no interest in Daryll Cullinan’s comments that South Africa would target him for early runs.”I couldn’t care less what Daryll Cullinan or others have to say for me,” Tait told . “To be honest it doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t know him.”I suppose being the young bloke in the side coming up there’s no reason why they shouldn’t target me but I am looking forward to the match.” Tait had limited impact in Australia’s opening two World Cup matches, taking 2 for 45 against Scotland and 1 for 29 against Netherlands.He said he was disappointed by his pace so far in the Caribbean but was looking forward to challenging South Africa with the new ball. “Hopefully there will be some really quick spells coming up,” he said.”I’ve been a little bit disappointed but I suppose the different conditions, pretty hot and dry and a flat wicket, it’s probably not the ideal place to be bowling high 150s. I think it is more important [for me to bowl] when the new batsman comes in, in general, and if we get a couple of early quick wickets, [Glenn] McGrath comes on.”Tait said he wanted to remove Graeme Smith cheaply in the same way Brett Lee has in several ODIs. “[Batsmen are at their] weakest early on, especially if it’s reversing a bit it’s quite hard to pick up on these tracks so it’s quite a good time to bring me on,” he said. “I hope to do the same job Lee used to do.”Australia and South Africa each have two wins from two games. The winner of Saturday’s clash will take two points through to the Super Eights.

Had Stephen Fleming’s final Test innings been scripted for a film about his life, it would have been deemed too boringly realistic to make the final cut. He entered with the stage set for heroism and sparkled briefly as New Zealand began their long and unlikely trek towards salvation. By tea he had achieved his first aim, the 54 runs required to nudge his career average past 40, but within minutes of the resumption, he was gone – not to a sublime piece of skill from the bowler, Monty Panesar, but to yet another wafty, half-conceived flash outside off stump.That’s been the story of his career for 14 eventful, eye-pleasing, but ultimately under-fulfilling years. “It was short and wide, and I was trying to run it down to point,” said Fleming, as he reflected on the delivery that ended his 189-innings, 111-Test career. “But it was the quicker one, and it seemed to skid through, out of the rough, and hit the bottom edge of the bat. Once again, it wasn’t flamboyant, it was just another mistake that I’d have liked to get away with. But not this time.”And so he trooped off the field, applauded all the way to the boundary’s edge by the England team who had broken off their celebrations to join his ovation. At Michael Vaughan’s instigation, the players had also got together a guard of honour to welcome him to the crease, a tribute that Fleming described as “humbling”, even if – as a fellow tactician – he recognised the underlying ploy in Vaughan’s actions.”I took three or four, maybe half-a-dozen, balls to get into my innings, which was probably very smart from Michael,” said Fleming. “I regard him as a very good captain and a nice guy, and the same goes for the English side, so it was humbling. I tried to think about everything that would go on, but it’s hard to keep a lid on the emotions when you walk through a thing like that.”Ever the professional, Fleming kept his feelings in check for 103 deliveries, right up until the moment a puff of the cheeks and a guilty glance at the umpire betrayed the error that sent him on his way. “I walked off frustrated, which has happened about 50 or 60 times in my career,” he said. “I did have a wry smile at myself, thinking that was a fitting way to go. If I’d scored a hundred it would have been an anomaly. Instead it was another fifty, and there we go.”Fleming’s pregnant wife, Kelly, was among those who stood to applaud him, as Fleming at first appeared lost in his own thoughts, then belatedly lifted his head, removed his helmet and saluted all corners of the ground. “I had a lot of things to cram into 55 metres, and it seemed to happen pretty fast,” he said. “Those first 30 paces, I was just annoyed to be walking off with another start to my name. Then it was about savouring who was here, and what it was about, and enjoying the ovation. It was all just mixed emotions, which is what I’ll have for the next two or three weeks, maybe longer.”Fleming’s international retirement has been a long drawn-out process, which began when he stepped down from one-day cricket in Jamaica last April, following New Zealand’s defeat in the World Cup semi-final. It continued through to Auckland earlier on this tour, when he announced that the current Test series against England would be his last, and finally culminated in today’s anticlimactic departure.It’s a fairly open secret that this is not how he would have envisaged his final days in the game – he had designs on a final tour of England before handing the Test captaincy over to Daniel Vettori, but events overtook him and now, at the age of 35, he’s walking away for good. “The selectors seem to have their ideas of what they want,” he said darkly, when asked who he believed could fill his shoes as a No. 3 batsman. “My ideas are a lot different to the selectors.

“I loved the captaincy and everything that went along with it,” he said. “The pressure, the emotions, the ability to control a game and a group of men. That’s something I do miss and have missed, so if the opportunity with other sides, I’ll look forward to it.” His next stop is the Indian Premier League, while Nottinghamshire and Wellington also beckon. His tactical nous, not his runs, are what he will be remembered for, and in that regard, he might not be quite finished yet.Regardless of the unspoken grievances, Fleming was asked if he would leave the game satisfied with his contribution. “Only just,” was his disarmingly honest answer. “I am satisfied with 40 on the chest. It sets you apart, in terms of New Zealand batters anyway, but as a batsman I’ll always feel I underachieved because I couldn’t convert my starts, and I’ll never know why. Sometimes I was the master of my own failings, other times it just wasn’t meant to be.”Even if I’d converted a quarter or a half [of my fifties] I’m up into the 20-25 centuries category which, as we know, is pretty good going,” he said. “I’ll always rue that fact and wonder why, but I guess there are bigger things out there so it won’t last too long. When I take time to reflect, I’ll be satisfied to have 4 in front of my average, but it would have been nice to chalk up ten hundreds, and have a crack at saving this game.”At 222 for 5 overnight, New Zealand are not completely beaten yet, but Fleming’s role in the match is finished, and he’s seen too much in his 14-year career to start believing in miracles at this late stage. “We’ve got some batting to come but we’ve got our backs against the wall,” he said. “But that’s the way it goes. In the first innings we were going pretty comfortably … and look at my career, things go comfortably until the mistake, and then we’re in trouble.”Unfortunately four wickets in a session is trouble,” he said. “If we’d lost one or two, we’d be going into a tight final day, but as it is, it’s going to take some pretty strong resistance in the morning, and then we’ll see how we go in the afternoon. The belief would be stronger if we hadn’t lost those wickets but unfortunately the tendency of this side is to lose five or six wickets, not one or two. We’ll make England work damn hard, but we only did that in patches today.” The same, to his eternal chagrin, will also be said of his batsmanship.

There are serious concerns over the fitness of Andrew Flintoff after he picked up an ankle injury during the third Test against Sri Lanka. He admitted struggling through the match and was unable to bowl during England’s brief stint in the field on the fourth morning. England have delayed naming their one-day squad until a further assessment on his condition has been made, but Duncan Fletcher has already said it would be a bonus if Flintoff played.He went for a scan following the third day’s play – when he’d bowled off a shortened run and at reduced pace – and he is now waiting on the advice of specialists. At the post-match presentation he told Sky Sports: “I struggled through this game and have got a little bit of soreness. I went for a scan yesterday which showed some bone fragments around the ankle.”Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, admits it’s a major worry: “It has got to be a concern because he is such a major player for us; also he helps get the balance of the side right. When it comes to the one-dayers I have sat for two days with [assistant coach] Matthew Maynard and a few of the players thinking about how we can balance the side.”How do we add five players to the squad which allow us batting depth and still have quality bowlers who can knock sides over? We have also got to have a look at whether Fred can play just as a batter. There are a whole lot of permutations which are difficult to answer at the moment.”Last year Flintoff had surgery on the same left ankle and was nursed back into full bowling action ahead of the Ashes. “It’s around the same area they have found these fragments,” Flintoff said following England’s 134-run defeat at Trent Bridge. “Whether they have been there all along or they are new, we’re not sure. It’s up to the specialists to look at the scans and then we’ll have more of an idea what to do.”If surgery is required, the England management will want to give Flintoff as much time as possible ahead of the Ashes to recover and if there is any doubt he will surely be left out of the one-day squad. With Michael Vaughan only just beginning his comeback, Flintoff was expected to be named captain but that might now be handed to Andrew Strauss or Marcus Trescothick. England will also have to watch the fitness of Kevin Pietersen, who suffered a grade one hamstring tear in the final Test.

Sialkot did well on the opening day to restrict Karachi Harbour to a score of 235 for 8 at the National Stadium in Karachi. With opening bowler Kashif Raza drawing first blood and offspinner Tariq Mahmood later taking three wickets, Karachi Harbour lost their way a little after opting to bat first on a wicket that looked full of runs.The opening partnership between Khalid Latif and the in-form Wajihuddin was worth 64 in exactly two hours’ time. Wajihuddin, fresh from a half-century in either innings of the previous match against Faisalabad, was the first to go after having scored 47 off 104 balls with six fours.Latif was the next to go, after making a slow but defiant 22 off 111 deliveries with a four and a six. Naumanullah then saw his team slump to 87 for 4 with Tariq sending Aariz Kamal and the prolific Fawad Alam, for a duck, back in a matter of eight balls.Wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed lifted Karachi’s spirits through a 61-run stand for the fifth wicket with his captain Naumanullah. Sarfraz, who led the victorious Pakistan Under-19 side to victory in the World Cup in Sri Lanka last year, scored a fighting 70 off 138 balls with seven fours. Naumanullah hit a brisk 44 off 72 balls with seven boundaries.Later, only the eighth-wicket pair of Anwar Ali and Atiq Maqbool showed some resistance. Anwar was still at the crease with an unbeaten 23 to his name, having hit two fours and a six while facing 58 balls.Opener Agha Sabir made a fighting century as Karachi Urban looked good for a place in the Gold League final against Faisalabad at the United Bank Limited (UBL) Sports Complex Ground No.1 in Karachi.By the close of play, Karachi Urban, currently placed second behind defending champions Sialkot in the points table, had reached an impressive total of 288 for 6. Karachi got off to a poor squad after opener Asif Zakir was bowled by Tauqeer Hussain for a duck off the first ball he faced. Saeed Bin Nasir and captain Hasan Raza both struck form after having failed miserably in the previous round match against Sialkot. Sabir and Saeed added 117 for the second wicket in just over two hours 20 minutes.Sabir’s 102 came off 174 balls with nine fours and a six. Saeed made 52 off 123 balls with seven fours and a six. Sabir added 87 for the third-wicket with Raza, who scored 41 off 86 balls with five boundaries. Asim Kamal, having recently returned from Pakistan’s tour of South Africa, failed with a score of six. Faisal Iqbal, however, made 31 not out and shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 53 with Imran Javed (23).Rain washed out the opening day of the match between Peshawar and Lahore Shalimar at Peshawar’s Arbab Niaz Stadium. Peshawar, champions twice before in 1998-99 and 2004-05, although currently placed at number five in the points table with 18 points, have an outside chance of making the Gold League final if they attain an outright win in this match with the full nine points.At the same time, they would hope that the two top sides in the ranking — Sialkot and Karachi Urban — do not add to their tally of 24 points each. With the first day lost to rain and no prospect of play on the second day either, it is a setback.Lahore Shalimar too are looking for a win here. They are at rock bottom in the table with a mere six points from their previous five matches of which they have won none. Only an outright victory over Peshawar can help them avoid demotion to next season’s Silver League circuit.

Andrew Symonds has been named in Australia’s starting 11 for the third Test beginning at Perth on Thursday. Adam Voges, who was in the original 13-man squad, has been left out and Mitchell Johnson will be 12th man.Symonds, who will play his 11th Test match, has been listed to bat at No.6, with Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke each moving up one spot in the order. Ricky Ponting said there was no reason Symonds could not permanently hold down a place in the team. “I am pretty confident in him actually,” Ponting told . “I have watched him pretty closely over the last few days.”He might have thought his Test career has passed him on, but he is really excited about being back in the team again and right now he feels better about his game than he probably ever has before. We all know what a great talent he is and he hasn’t shown it at Test level yet, hopefully over the next few days we will see some of that.”Ponting said Symonds’ ability to bowl both medium pace and offspin – which he did with success for Queensland in a Pura Cup match at the WACA last month – would be vital. “He was the pick of the bowlers on a wicket that might have been pretty similar,” Ponting said.”It will give Shane [Warne] a chance to have a bit more of a rest, and probably Glenn [McGrath] at different times. We are going to need some guys to bowl a number of overs up into the wind and Symo will probably give us that.”Australia 1 Justin Langer, 2 Matthew Hayden, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Hussey, 5 Michael Clarke, 6 Andrew Symonds, 7 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 8 Shane Warne, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Stuart Clark, 11 Glenn McGrath.

The Indian board today launched its official ratings for international and domestic cricket, including women and juniors, but preferred to keep the prize money on offer a secret till close to the planned annual awards function in April 2007 at Mumbai.The ratings cover all segments and fall under the familiar broad categories like batting, bowling, fielding and all-round performance. Lalit Modi, the BCCI vice-president, said the official ratings have been introduced to reward performances which largely remain unrecognised, especially in domestic cricket.”But we are keeping details of the awards close to our chest till the last moment and the annual awards ceremony would be held at the end of the season, in April,” Modi said.The categories are as follows: Best Test and ODI batsman, bowler, fielder and allrounder; Best Test and ODI Opening Batsman, Most Consistent / Reliable ODI and Test player; Best Test and ODI Innings of the Year.The popular categories are: Test and ODI Player of the Year; My Favourite Player; Most Stylish Player and Master Blaster of the Year. Viewers’ voting categories would include Player of the Week and My Favourite Player.The ratings system is based on parameters defined by the BCCI panel that includes cricketers and statisticians. For the first time in such ratings processes the public would be able to participate by casting their votes through various TV channels, Modi said.The BCCI ratings process is being done in partnership with Percept Holdings, he added.

Former BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, a long-time administrator and currently secretary of Saurashtra Cricket Association, has endorsed Shashank Manohar’s “personal” view that the ICC needs to be more democratic. This comes as important support for possible change in the structure of the ICC, especially considering BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur had essentially opposed Manohar’s view.Shah had told ESPNcricinfo in November that it was not fair that everybody earned equal revenue when India contributed a majority of it. “I remember we fought against the infamous veto rights of England and Australia,” he said. “Now it is almost like we have brought back that system, except that we have added ourselves to that list.”Last week, Manohar had said in an interview with the that the revenue-sharing structure the Big Three had imposed needed changing. “I don’t agree with the revenue-sharing formula, because it’s nice to say that India [BCCI] will get 22% of the total revenue of the ICC, but you cannot make the poor poorer and the rich richer, only because you have the clout. The ICC runs cricket throughout the world.”This had brought about an opposing view from Thakur. “The [BCCI] president said this in his personal capacity,” Thakur told . “He made it very clear that it was his personal opinion. The Indian subcontinent contributes close to 70% of the ICC’s revenues. To take 21% of that is not much. That was the position with Australia and England earlier, and no one objected to it then. If this happens to India today, we shouldn’t object to it.”Shah, who will be a voting power if this issue comes up for discussion in the BCCI, believes the board shouldn’t take the view that this becomes right just because somebody else had done it in the past. Shah also compared it with the structure of the BCCI. “In India Tripura and Mumbai have the same voting powers and get the same share of the revenue,” he said and reiterated Manohar’s view that even if India contributes more to the world cricket financially, it needed good competition to do so.Shah said that if the ICC was to be restructured, the matter would be brought up in the BCCI first. Asked if he, as a member of the BCCI, would support such a move, he answered in the affirmative, but said that only a majority view was likely to be considered.

The ICC has said that there are no plans to extend the number of Associate members who will gain ODI status.On a visit to Uganda, Cassim Suliman, the CEO of the African Cricket Association, was reported as saying that he would push for more countries to be added to the six Associates that currently have one-day status.”I will try to see that within 180 days, three more countries get one day international status,” Suliman said. “You [Uganda] have good facilities, development programmes and administration. I see no reason why we do not have more countries out there.””I’m currently working on ensuring that Uganda, Namibia and Kenya gain full ODI status in the next 18 months.”But an ICC spokesman told Cricinfo: “There is no intention at this stage to increase the number of teams playing ODIs. However, the six Associates currently enjoying ODI status may not be the same ones doing so after the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier [formerly the ICC Trophy] in 18 months’ time. Conceivably, Uganda could be playing ODIs after that, provided they qualify for the next ICC World Cup.”Uganda – along with Namibia, Argentina and Denmark – have been added to the ICC High Performance Program, making a total of ten teams. However, only six of those teams play ODIs and that is not about to change.”

The Super League stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy ended on Tuesday – the same day as the IPL 2026 auction – with Jharkhand and Haryana booking their final berths for a title clash on December 18 in Pune. Here’s how the day unfolded.