MCC has announced its side for the traditional curtain-raiser to the English season, their match against the County Champions, Nottinghamshire.The MCC side will be led by former England opener John Stephenson, who is now the club’s head of cricket, and includes Monty Panesar and Alastair Cook.The four-day game begins at Lord’s on April 14 and continues throughout the Easter weekend. Ticket prices are £12 for adults and £6 for juveniles (under 16 years of age) and over-65s.MCC (from) John Stephenson (MCC, capt), Ravinder Bopara (Essex), Stuart Broad (Leicestershire), Rikki Clarke (Surrey), Alastair Cook (Essex), Steven Davies (Worcestershire), Ed Joyce (Middlesex), Robert Key (Kent), Alex Loudon (Warwickshire), Monty Panesar (Northamptonshire), Luke Parker (Warwickshire).

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

For five days at Fatullah, David had led, scrapped, slipped but fought back and hung in there tenaciously before falling to the Goliath after one hell of a battle. The Australians were no doubt stung by that embarrassment and today, with a little bit of help from the Bangladesh batsmen, hit back with vengeance. Asked to bowl first on a flat pitch, they got on top almost immediately, thanks to Jason Gillespie, who struck three blows in his first four overs. Rajin Saleh hit back with a fluent 71 but Stuart MacGill and Shane Warne prised out three wickets apiece to bowl out Bangladesh for a paltry 197. Australia rubbed it in further as they reached 76 for 1 at stumps.

It was a day where Australia, going in with a five-man bowling attack, eschewed their arrogance, be it while fielding – a sweeper cover was put straightaway for the spinners, or batting – Matthew Hayden and Phil Jaques didn’t bludgeon but chose to caress, and slowly forced Bangladesh into submission. That Australia meant business was evident in their selection: both Brett Lee and Warne played, shrugging off exhaustion and shoulder injury. Stuart Clark, who didn’t impress in the first Test, was replaced by the debutant offspinner, Dan Cullen.

The wicket offered bounce and turn but then so did the one at Fatullah. Bangladesh played without any pressure in the first Test – no-one expected them to rattle 355 on the opening day – but the pressures of expectations seemed to have burdened them at Chittagong.

The slide began with a relatively innocuous delivery: a ball drifting down the leg side was casually flicked away by the first-Test centurion Shahriar Nafees to fine leg. Habibul Bashar, nicknamed Habitual Basher for his tendency to have a go at the bowling, chose to spontaneously combust at the crease. Two lovely square-drives to the left of point off Gillespie prompted Ricky Ponting to move in a fielder in that position. Bashar flashed again and before one could blink, a diving Phil Jacques had the ball in his hands.

After 11 overs of pace, in which time Javed Omar fell as well, Ponting switched to spin and Shane Warne removed Mohammad Ashraful in his second over with a gentle legbreak which Ashraful guided straight to Matthew Hayden at first slip.

The one batsman who showed the resilience, courage and flair to resist the Australian attack was Saleh. Early in his innings, Lee pinged him on the helmet. Saleh responded by driving him to the cover fence. Lee’s response was another short one at furious pace that crashed into Saleh’s helmet again, but Saleh remained unfazed, battling Lee just as he had withstood a barrage of bumpers from Shoaib Akhtar on Bangladesh’s previous tour to Pakistan. Against the spinners, he was precise in his footwork, going back or forward as the trajectory and the length demanded of him. He lofted Warne to long-on to bring up the fifty for Bangladesh, drove MacGill against the spin to the midwicket fence and then pulled a short one to ease the pressure which the early wickets had put on the team.

Post lunch he punched Lee to point, reached his fifty with a miscued lofted drive off Warne and celebrated the landmark by cutting MacGill to the fence. Aftab Ahmed, who was circumspect in the first session, shifted gears in the second. Warne was lofted imperiously over long-off, Lee was square-driven and Aftab repeated that shot again to bring up the fifty of the partnership.

However, the stand ended in controversial circumstances. Warne floated one up that drifted in and dipped, taking the inside edge before bounding off Ahmed’s boots to Gilchrist. The unsure field umpires, Ian Howell and Aleem Dar, referred it Mahbubur Rahman, the third umpire, and after countless replays it seemed the decision was made in the batsman’s favour when Ricky Ponting entered the fray. An animated chat with Howell, the umpire at the bowler’s end, resulted, quite surprisingly, in a review of the decision as the umpires went into further conversation with Rahman. This time the verdict came in favour of the visitors, and Aftab trudged back for 18.

Soon Bangladesh slipped into further misery when Saleh was deceived by MacGill. He set him up with a slow legbreak that was pulled to the midwicket fence before slipping in a straight one which hastened off the pitch. Mohammad Rafique and Abdur Razzaq biffed a few, while Khaled Mashud rode his luck despite being quite clueless against MacGill, but even the lower-order resistance only took Bangladesh to a below-par 197.

Australia lost Hayden, against the run of play, to a sudden urge to dominate, lofting straight to long-on, but Jaques and Gillespie, the nightwatchman, prevented any further damage. The day belonged to Australia and the manner in which they approached their batting, Bangladesh could well be spending a lot of time sweating under the sun on the second day.

BangladeshShariar Nafees c Brett Lee b Jason Gillespie 0 ( 0 for 1)

Habibul Bashar c Phil Jacques b Gillespie 8 (11 for 2)

Javed Omar lbw Gillespie 2 (17 for 3)

Mohammad Ashraful c Hayden b Warne (41 for 4)

Aftab Ahmed c Gilchrist b Warne 18(102 for 5)

Rajin Saleh b MacGill 71 (130 for 6)

Mohammad Rafique c Hayden b MacGill 19 (152 for 7)

Mashrafe Mortaza c Gilchrist b Cullen 4 (157 for 8)

Abdur Razzak c Lee b MacGill 16 (193 for 9)

Shahadat Hussain c Gillespie b Warne 0 (197 all out)

Australia

Matthew Hayden c (sub) Alok Kapali b Mohammad Rafique 29 (67 for 1)

The long overdue accounts for the old Kenyan Cricket Association, covering the year to the end of 2004, have now been submitted to the ICC and club officials, and they show the level of chaos inside the board in the months leading up to the elections which saw the removal of the old regime.The most revealing part of the accounts are the notes by Shah Patel & Company, the Nairobi-based auditors.The five-page document reveals that many transactions cannot be verified because of missing documentation. “A number of transactions … were not adequately supported by invoices,” the report stated. “As a result of our queries we subsequently received a file containing random invoices not filed in any particular order. We have noted a very large amount of expenses accrued at the year end. Since most of these are not adequately supported, we are unable to comment on the correctness of these expenses.”Critics of the old regime, who were unhappy with the relationship between the KCA and Media Plus, the rights company owned by Sharad Ghai, would have been interested to note that there were “a number of cash payments to Media Plus Sports Ltd for which no supporting documents were available. The payment voucher, which must be authorised by two signatories as per the Association’s protocol has only one signature, that of Mr Ghai.”The report continued: “Media Plus Sports Ltd has been paid US$28,000 as ground expense. This payment is besides the contracted public expenses paid to Media Plus Sports Ltd. There is no authorisation on the payment voucher except a signature by Mr Ghai. The explanation we received was that the Association had to pay Nairobi Gymkhana and Mr Ghai made the payment hence these payments were a reimbursement to Mr Ghai. No documentary evidence was available to support this.”The auditors also stated that they failed “to understand how no supporting documents are available for large amounts spent”. Some items of more than US$20,000 have no documentation at all.While there is no suggestion of anything untoward, what the audit does highlight is the lack of financial control exercised by the old KCA.The new board, which assumed control in May 2005, inherited debts in excess of US$500,000 with no meaningful assets.

Nearly seven weeks after the retainer contract issue was said to be resolved, West Indies cricketers are still playing without one in place and without even a match tour contract to boot.As Brian Lara and company currently prepare for the third Test on Thursday in St Kitts, they don’t know how much money, if any at all, they are entitled to for the recently concluded tour of Zimbabwe and this ongoing one versus India. And despite several requests by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) are yet to indicate a date for settlement of the controversial matter.Amid great fanfare back on April 26, Ken Gordon, the WICB president, announced that a year and a half of difficult negotiations was finally settled. Following protracted contract and sponsorship negotiations that dated back to November 2004, the new retainer agreement was heralded as a landmark one that was supposed to include eight to ten players on a one-year retainer starting back on May 1. It is yet to materialise.Both Gordon, who is reported to be currently in Germany for the 2006 World Cup, and Dinanath Ramnarine, the WIPA president, had heaped much praise on the attainment of a retainer accord following disagreements over the final terms, a conflict that threatened to disrupt the start of the Zimbabwe series when the newly-formed WICB Cricket Committee headed by Clive Lloyd issued two ultimatums for the conclusion of negotiations.”This is history for West Indies cricket,” Ramnarine had commented, “It is great that we have reached this point in West Indies cricket at this stage. It is one of the steps that we need to put in place to help our cricket forward.”Instead, the process seemed to have come to another stutter despite frequent reminders to the Board from the WIPA. Yesterday when contacted by the , Ramnarine was not as ebullient as on that occasion. “I’m disappointed,” he admitted, “I thought we had gone past this stage but it seems the Board is not prepared to move forward. But we are going to hope that good sense prevails and that we can finally meet with them for the purpose of securing a final resolution on this issue”.On the last of “numerous” communications with the WICB on the finalisation of the retainer issue last Thursday, Ramnarine stated that the Board responded the following day acknowledging the receipt of the correspondence and saying they would respond “in due course”. The players who are without a retainer or match tour contract are said to be “very displeased and very dissatisfied with this sort of treatment.”The worst case scenario is we should have, at least, had match tour contracts. If someone gets injured, how are we gonna be dealing with that?” Ramnarine asked rhetorically. “We have given the Board dates to meet because we want to resolve this issue without making it another public battle again because the public is totally fed up of this situation. So hopefully as I said, good sense prevails.”Earlier this year, Gordon said that anyone who prevented the finalisation of retainer contracts did not have West Indies cricket’s best interest at heart.

The new coach of Mumbai for the forthcoming domestic season is expected to be named on August 21, when the Mumbai Cricket Association’s (MCA) Cricket Improvement Committee meets.Lalchand Rajput, the joint secretary of the MCA, said that invitations have been sent to all members. Contenders for the post include Kenia Jayantilal, and former Test players Balwinder Sandhu, Pravin Amre and Ashok Mankad. It is learnt that Mankad, a former India opening batsman, is one of the strongest contenders.Karsan Ghavri, a former India medium pacer, was appointed as coach in May, but left to join Tripura. The committee was unable to convene any meetings in the last two months as many of its members were unavailable. However, all the members are expected to attend this meeting, with the exception of Sanjay Manjrekar, who is away in Sri Lanka commentating for a television channel. The remaining members include Raju Kulkarni, Milind Rege, Madhavrao Apte, Sanjay Patil and Shishir Hattangadi.Mumbai begin their Ranji Trophy campaign in December.

Darren Gough believes he has a shot at being named in England’s provisional 30-man squad for October’s Champions Trophy in India. “I’m not as quick as I used to be but I know where the ball is going. People say I’m not fit enough but I’ve been bowling well this year,” he told BBC Sport. “In the Caribbean [in next year’s World Cup] you’re going to get hit off a good length so control is everything.”Gough, 35, last turned out in England colours back in July 2005 against Australia. Since then, England have lost 13 of their 16 limited-overs games. As he has done in the recent past, Gough said he could offer plenty of experience if the selectors saw felt his worth.”My role with England would change now with Steve Harmison and the likes being the main strike bowlers, whereas I’d come on later and put it on a length and try to get a few wickets here or there,” he said. “I know I can do a job and they know it too, so it’s just up to them now. If they pick me then great, but if they don’t, then I could probably understand. There’s a World Cup around the corner, if it was after the World Cup I wouldn’t expect to play again but it is looming up and you don’t want to tinker being so close so we’ll just have to wait and see.”Paul Collingwood remained confident that England could do well despite the absence of Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles and Simon Jones. “The Champions Trophy is important for our one-day form and a stepping stone for the World Cup,” he said. “We haven’t played well in the one-dayers for the last few months but we believe we have the players to do very well so it’s something to look forward to. Confidence is a massive thing in any sport and our confidence has dipped in the one-day game because the results have been poor. We’ve lost key one-day players but, as in the Tests, others need to come in and hold their hands up.”Among the youngsters tipped to be included in the provisional list are Stuart Broad, the Leicestershire fast bowler, Essex’s Ravi Bopara, an allrounder, and the Surrey batsman James Benning. Lancashire’s James Anderson is set to return to international cricket after a stress fracture of the back.

Zimbabwe are likely to retain the same side that completed a 3-2 one-day triumph over Bangladesh for their short tour to South Africa next month. Zimbabwe have been slotted in for three one-day internationals and a Twenty20 match in the aftermath of South Africa’s withdrawal from the eventually aborted tri-series involving Sri Lanka and India.Kevin Curran, the national coach and member of the selection panel, told that the opportunity to play South Africa was just what his practice-lacking side needed. “The only way we can improve is by playing better and stronger opposition,” he said. “We will pick the squad from guys who played against Bangladesh.”Prior to their departure on September 10, Zimbabwe will host three one-day fixtures against the touring Australian Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence squad.

Herschelle Gibbs is believed to have named the former South African offspinner, Derek Crookes, as one of three former team-mates involved in a match-fixing scam, during his questioning by Indian police in Delhi. The authorities now want to speak to those players.Ranjit Narayan, the crime branch joint police commissioner, led two-and-a-half hours of questioning of Gibbs who he said was “part of the conspiracy” to fix match results for money during a tour of India in 2000.”Gibbs was asked about his role in the entire episode and the illegal gratification offered to him to underperform or throw away matches,” Narayan said in a statement. “In light of the information given by Gibbs today, further investigation to collect corrobative evidence shall be conducted.”Gibbs has been informed that he may be questioned again should the need arise. He was cooperative and has agreed to provide any further information which may be sought later by the investigating agency. Gibbs admitted he was made the offer twice, first in 1996 and then in 2000. And he has revealed three names and we will be sending a letter [to South Africa] to seek their presence to question them in India.”Narayan noted that India had sent a first letter to South Africa in 2000 to which no reply has been received. “Gibbs’s lawyers described that as a huge mistake,” the police chief said.”He is cooperating with us. He has given us a lot of leads,” Narayan added. None of South Africa’s current Test squad in India for the Champions Trophy were implicated, he added. “We have certain information that helps us move forward.”Gibbs has admitted accepting money from disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje to score fewer than 20 runs against India in a one-dayer during a 2000 March-April tour. He subsequently scored 74 runs and said he had “forgotten” about the deal, but was suspended and fined by the South African authorities.

Crookes, meanwhile, was asked to open the bowling during a one-day international at Nagpur on that same tour, and was taken for 69 runs in ten overs, including 53 in his first six-over spell. He was implicated in the scandal back in 2000, when his name cropped up in a taped conversation that was alleged to have been between Cronje and a representative of an Indian betting syndicate.Narayan said the whole South African team had received a match-fixing offer in 1996 but had turned it down. India was also shaken by a betting scandal that rocked the national team in the late 1990s, but Narayan said Gibbs did not name any Indians.Police officials took Gibbs’s voice samples to match it with the telephone records that they have. Gibbs, accompanied by his lawyer Peter Whelan, arrived at the police headquarters at 11am and was questioned by a high-level team of crime branch officials led by Narayan.”He [Gibbs] might need to appear again before the Delhi police so that the legal process can move forward and both Gibbs and his lawyer agreed that they would fully cooperate in this respect,” Narayan revealed.Gibbs went to the South African high commissioner’s office after meeting the police. He is scheduled to fly back to Mumbai at 7.30pm local time to rejoin the South African squad.Earlier, Gibbs had made it clear he could only repeat what he told the King Commission, the South African inquiry into match-fixing held in 2000.But KK Paul, Delhi’s commissioner of police, who headed the original Indian match-fixing investigation, said Gibbs would need to elaborate on the answers he had given the King Commission.”Whatever the cricket authorities decided by way of fines and bans is a matter for them alone,” Paul told The Daily Telegraph. “This is a criminal investigation into a conspiracy to defraud and is a serious matter and certain procedures must be followed. [He] will be asked a full range of questions, including about various bank accounts. I cannot predict what the outcome will be.”Gibbs had previously missed tours to India for fear he would be arrested. He is expected to join the rest of the South African squad later today.South Africa’s team spokesman, Gordon Templeton, told 702 talk radio that he had spoken to both Gibbs and his lawyer Peter Wheelan, who said the reports were inaccurate.

The regeneration of Surrey’s headquarters at The Oval will include an honouring of its previous generations, after it was announced that the club intends to name certain sections of the newly rebuilt Vauxhall End after 20 of its greatest players.The Oval staged its first Test match in 1880, making it the oldest Test venue in the northern hemisphere. But until last season, when it began a massive redevelopment ahead of this summer’s Ashes series, it was beginning to look its age as well, especially at the long-neglected Vauxhall End, which had changed little since Surrey’s heyday in the 1950s.All that has now changed, with the state-of-the-art OCS Stand dominating the Western skyline. The entrance from the Harleyford Road will be through the newly inaugurated Alec Stewart Gate, named in honour of the Surrey and England stalwart who played a record 133 Tests in a 13-year international career.Stewart retired after playing in England’s series-levelling victory against South Africa at The Oval in 2003, which means there are just three current players among the 20 illustrious names – Graham Thorpe and Mark Butcher, who toured with England this winter, and Martin Bicknell, who also featured in the 2003 series.Two overseas players are among the list – Saqlain Mushtaq, who was instrumental in Surrey winning three County Championship titles in four years between 1999 and 2002 (their first successes since 1971); and the West Indian Sylvester Clarke, who terrorised the county circuit for nine seasons from 1979 to 1988, but died in December 1999 aged 44.The great names of Surrey’s past include two more England captains in Douglas Jardine and Percy Fender, as well as the great opening batsman of the 1960s and 70s, John Edrich, and the former club president and captain in the 1950s, Stuart Surridge.In addition, two function rooms have been renamed. Micky Stewart, Alec’s father and a former England opening batsman and coach, now lends his name to the "Micky Stewart Surrey Clubs’ Room" (formerly the Sydney Room), while the Long Room Bar has been renamed "Ali Brown 268 Bar", in recognition of Brown’s phenomenal hitting in a now-legendary C&G Cup tie against Glamorgan in 2002.The club will announce the official openings through the course of the season.

Pakistan have left out Shahid Afridi from the 14-man squad announced forthe first ODI against the West Indies. Shahid Nazir, despite impressing through the Test series, has also not been considered, alongside Faisal Iqbal and Samiullah Khan Niazi.Afridi has been in desperately poor form through the year managing just114 runs from 17 matches at an average of just over eight. His 14 wicketshave also come at a relatively high cost. Younis Khan will lead the teamin Rawalpindi in place of Inzamam-ul-Haq, who will be serving the finalpart a four-match ban for his part in The Oval Test fiasco in August thisyear. “He hasn’t performed so well domestically,” Wasim Bari, the chairman of selectors told Cricinfo. “But the door is open always and he can do well on the domestic circuit and make a comeback.”Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, overlooked for the ongoing Test series, has beenrecalled, alongside Danish Kaneria, Yasir Hameed and Mohammad Sami. Thelatter three were not in the squad for the Champions Trophy in India inOctober.Bari said that Kaneria was selected keeping in mind the team’s future commitments in South Africa and the World Cup. “Anil Kumble has been successful in South Africa and we are going there soon so he might be a handy option in the ODI series there.”The West Indies have already announced their one-day squad with CoreyCollymore, Fidel Edwards, Daren Ganga and Omari Banks returning home afterthe Test series. Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Smith and Ian Bradshaw havearrived as replacements.The first in the five-match series will be played in Rawalpindi onDecember 5, followed by the second at Faisalabad (Dec 7), third in Lahore(Dec 10), fourth at Multan (Dec 13) and the final game in Karachi (Dec16).Squad: Younis Khan (capt), Mohammad Hafeez, Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed,Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Rao Iftikhar,Umar Gul, Mohammad Sami, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Danish Kaneria, AbdulRehman.