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Australia’s former Test captain, Steve Waugh, says his wife Lynette is making good progress in her recovery from surgery to remove a blood clot from her brain.”Lynette’s recovery is very pleasing,” Steve Waugh said in a joint statement with Charles Teo, the surgeon who carried out the operation. “So far all investigations into the cause of the haemorrhage have been negative. There are still a few investigations to be carried out.”Lynette Waugh, 38, had the surgery on Friday after being rushed to a Sydney hospital. “Dr Teo suspects the most likely scenario was a spontaneous haemorrhage and one that, hopefully, won’t reoccur in the future.”The Waugh family would again like to acknowledge the incredible support, goodwill and positive encouragement from the public and the media,” Waugh added. “It is greatly appreciated.”

Caribbean Premier League chief executive Damien O’Donohoe has said that the league is committed to put development over profits as the key aim of the CPL’s foray into the United States for the 2016 season. The CPL announced on Wednesday that six games will be held in the USA this July and O’Donohoe says making tickets affordable to bring in new fans is a high priority.”I think the opportunity to play games is obviously a huge opportunity both for ourselves and for the ICC in terms of developing the game,” O’Donohoe said from the CPL draft in Barbados. “We’re going to be the first professional league. We’ve seen the All-Stars games go in there in November and it was great to see the turn-out even though the ticket price was very expensive.Less than 15% of the available tickets for the Cricket All-Stars matches in New York, Houston and Los Angeles originally went on sale for $50-75, while the overwhelming majority of tickets were priced at $150 or more all the way up to $325 in Los Angeles. Though the crowds were large compared to other venues around the world, the vibrant scenes were dwarfed by empty seats, especially in Los Angeles with a crowd of 20,900 showing up to the 56,000-seater Dodger Stadium.When West Indies hosted New Zealand in 2012 at the Central Broward Regional Park [CBRP] in Florida, general admission on the grass bank on the north boundary cost $20 while reserved seats under the south grandstand were priced at $30. The low prices produced an estimated crowd of 15,000 people for the opening T20I of that series. It was recognised as a sell-out crowd for the CBRP, though temporary seats could have been added to accommodate up to 5,000 more people. O’Donohoe hopes that same formula will lead to success for the CPL in the USA.”We’re going to go in a very low-end ticket price and make these games accessible to everyone because this is about developing the game, building a fan base in the US and growing the game internationally. The West Indies have hosted games there but we’re going to be the first professional T20 league. Now that’s an opportunity obviously but it’s also a risk.”Although the CPL release stated only that games would be played in the USA, the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida is the only ICC-certified ODI stadium venue in the country. Multiple sources told ESPNcricinfo on Wednesday that the CBRP has been reserved for use by the CPL from July 17 to 31. Even though O’Donohoe would like to plant the seeds of CPL interest beyond Florida, having a lone ICC-certified turf pitch venue limits his options.”We haven’t confirmed exactly where we’re going to play the games just yet,” O’Donohoe said. “Obviously the lack of stadiums is always going to be a challenge. There’s only one at Lauderhill as we know but we’ve always wanted to play games in the US as part of CPL and we’ve said that from day one. So now we have the opportunity and we’ve been working very closely with Tim Anderson and Dave Richardson at the ICC in terms of just how we’re going to enter the US market but we really have one chance and we need to make sure we get it right.”With everything that we do there’s a Caribbean flavor and hopefully we can mirror what we did in the Caribbean in the US. Cricket has been on the decline a little bit here. No one makes any secret of that and I think CPL has done amazingly well to revitalize and reenergize cricket here in the Caribbean and we want to take that same approach to the US.”O’Donohoe says both the quantity and quality of player applications took a big step up for this year’s competition, an indication to him that the CPL is fast turning into a desirable destination for both players and fans. He hopes that bringing matches to the USA is another forward step in building up the profile of the league one he feels is worth mentioning in the same category as the IPL and Big Bash.”The standard of players that we’ve had apply and from 14 or 15 countries around the world, it just shows how far CPL has come,” O’Donohoe said. “I think playing the games in America is just another statement just to show how serious we are and hopefully that we’re seen now as one of the big three in terms of the T20 leagues around the world.”

Ashes Test series in Australia are set to be rescheduled so they don’t take place just before the World Cup, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced.David Collier said he was in discussion with his Cricket Australia counterpart, James Sutherland, and they would soon be putting forward proposals to their respective boards. Collier insisted England were “locked in” to their current programme until 2011 because of agreements already in place with other boards.England are due to host an Ashes series in 2013. Breaking the cycle so the next Ashes in Australia didn’t lead up to the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand could see them played in 2012. But Collier said clashing with the London Olympics in 2012 would be “suicide” and that the series would be shifted forward instead to 2014.England have never won the World Cup and there is a feeling within English cricket their chances were being hampered by a lead-in of a busy home programme followed by an Ashes tour. Australia’s hectic summer of cricket in 2006-07 did not seem to affect their World Cup efforts, however, as they went through the tournament undefeated.

Defending champions Karnataka began their Vijay Hazare Trophy campaign with defeat, as Railways hung on for a one-wicket win off the last ball in Bangalore. Chasing 229, Railways were struggling at 70 for 4 once their opener Asad Pathan was dismissed for 50. However, Mahesh Rawat and Karn Sharma chipped in with fifties of their own, and Railways were seemingly on track at 190 for 5. Karnataka, though, wrestled their way back into the game, as bursts from Vinay Kumar and Aniruddha Joshi saw Railways lose four wickets for 32 runs, with the equation now reading seven required off nine balls, with one wicket in hand. Railways’ final pair of Akshat Pandey and Krishnakant Upadhyay held their nerve though, with Pandey striking two fours during a run-a-ball 19 to complete the win.Karnataka would have hoped to post a total in excess of 228 for 9 when their openers Mayank Agarwal and Lokesh Rahul added 60 inside 13 overs. However, Pandey (3 for 45) and Ashish Yadav (3 for 25) struck blows at regular intervals to throw the hosts off course, and only an unbeaten 48-ball 50 from the captain Vinay dragged Karnataka above the 200-run mark.Half-centuries from Ishank Jaggi and Kaushal Singh set Jharkhand up for a nine-run win over Jammu and Kashmir in Alur. Jaggi’s 54 at the top of the order, and Kaushal’s 64-ball 53 at No. 7 helped Jharkhand post a total of 210 after they were sent in to bat. Sixties from Shubham Khajuria and Parvez Rasool took J&K to a strong 144 for 2 in the 36th over, but they slipped thereafter, losing both in the space of seven balls to finish on 201 for 7.Jharkhand’s win came despite lukewarm displays from their two biggest stars. Batting at No. 5, MS Dhoni was out for 9 off 24 balls, while Varun Aaron, bowling first-change, went wicketless, conceding 52 in his 10 overs. Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem was their most successful bowler, with figures of 3 for 28.Three-wicket hauls from Jayant Yadav and Amit Mishra fired Haryana to a nine-run win against Kerala in Alur. Kerala were struggling at 106 for 9 in their chase of 242, but recovered through a 92-run partnership between Sachin Baby and Padmanabhan Prasanth. Prasanth was dismissed for 27, but with three wickets in hand, and Baby still at the crease, Kerala had every chance of gunning down their required 44 runs off six overs. Kerala were unable to gather the required acceleration though, and three wickets in the final over, bowled by Mohit Sharma, meant Haryana hung on for victory.Earlier, Haryana’s 241 for 7 was built on the back of fifties from Nitin Saini and Mohit Hooda, and the pair’s 95-run partnership. Besides just sharing six wickets between them, Jayant and Mishra also contributed with the bat, scoring 40 and 27 respectively.

Though he took three catches on the second day of the first Test against South Africa in Karachi, it was the one that got away from Kamran Akmal yesterday which could yet cost Pakistan.Jacques Kallis was on 36 when he attempted to cut Danish Kaneria. He succeeded only in edging it; Akmal succeeded only in fluffing it. He rectified it but, 55 overs and 119 Kallis runs later, the true cost of the drop may ultimately prove much higher.This isn’t a one-off, of course. Akmal’s form behind the stumps since his remarkable first year in the team as a regular has deteriorated so spectacularly that one journalist quipped that Kallis had found the unluckiest way to be dismissed in cricket: ‘caught Akmal’.He has been persisted with through 27 consecutive Tests, and if the first 15 Tests were outstanding, the last 12 have been exceedingly poor. His batting has fallen away (only three fifties in that period) and he has read spinners, particularly Danish Kaneria, as adroitly as Englishmen used to pick Abdul Qadir.Opinion on what has happened is not particularly diverse. Rashid Latif and Wasim Bari have long felt there are technical problems and that he should be rested. Imtiaz Ahmed, Pakistan’s first Test wicketkeeper, agrees, though he points out Akmal’s poor footwork particularly to the spinners.”His [Akmal’s] initial movement is wrong: he should be moving his right foot to the right to an off-stump line, and not back as he does at the moment,” he told Cricinfo. “The technical shortcomings aren’t anything that can’t be overcome but he has to work at it. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take him through recordings of his early career when he did well.”The only question is how long Pakistan can persist with a man who has become, some snigger, the poor man’s Parthiv Patel. The selection committee has already started asking it. “He is a little off-colour at the moment,” Salahuddin Ahmed, Pakistan’s chief selector, admitted, “and we have been looking at other options as we should.”Those options include Sarfraz Ahmed, who was captain and wicketkeeper of the Pakistan U-19 team that won the World Cup in 2006. He has since been impressing on the domestic circuit and played against the South Africans in the tour match for the Patron’s XI.”Sarfraz was impressive in the warm-up and he also played a couple of crucial, fighting innings against Australia A, so he’s in form,” Salahuddin said. Also in the fray are Rawalpindi’s Zulqarnain Haider and Faisalabad’s Mohammad Salman, who comes with recommendations by Rashid Latif.Immediate change is still unlikely – though not ruled out – mostly because of the security Akmal’s batting brings, especially on slower, subcontinent pitches. He opened Pakistan’s innings in place of Salman Butt and contributed a quickfire 42 to a much-needed solid start. “He is still agood batsman and that certainly helps his cause,” Salahuddin said. “It is a dilemma certainly and one we have to take a decision on.” Sooner, you think, rather than later.

Nottinghamshire have moved quickly to recruit Matthew Wood from Somerset as a replacement opener for Jason Gallian. Wood, 26, has joined on a three-year deal following Gallian’s departure to Essex.Wood is hoping for more regular first-team cricket than he found this year at Somerset – he played just two first-class matches before losing his place to Marcus Trescothick.”It’s been quite frustrating for me as there have been limited opportunities to play,” Wood admitted, “and I can’t wait for the challenge of moving to Trent Bridge. I’m signing for a club on the up, who are in Division One in both competitions and play at a Test venue.”Wood has scored 4375 first-class runs from 76 matches at an average of 34.72 with nine hundreds. His career-best of 297 came in a marathon nine-hour innings against Yorkshire at Taunton and helped him to 1000 runs in 2005.Mick Newell, Notts’ director of cricket, said: “Matthew is a quality player who has been unable to get into a very strong batting line-up. He’s a nice lad, an intelligent cricketer and at the right kind of age to be able to play in all competitions for us.”

Jarret Park might have been packed for the Indians’ warm-up game against a Jamaica XI but it’s pretty obvious that cricket’s popularity has taken quite a battering in these parts. The declining standards of the West Indian side appear to have triggered a sense of disillusionment, and it’s not too uncommon to find young boys veering towards other sports. One man, though, can change all that and, on the eve of the first game, he faced the press with an air of assurance.Brian Lara made it clear that the 5-0 verdict against Zimbabwe could hardly be used as an index to measure West Indies’ competitiveness. The real battle was just about to begin. “We’ve definitely improved over the last two or three weeks – ever since I took over as captain – but we can’t use Zimbabwe as an indicator. I’m 90% happy with our current form but we need to work on a few areas. Our allrounders did well with the ball and on the field, but they need to do more with the bat.”The mere fact that they won, though, and that too comprehensively, could be a vital factor. “Winning can be contagious,” he continued, “and it’s important to keep our momentum going.” Also, a number of new players capitalised on the rotation policy and grabbed their chances. “All good teams around the world have been resting players and we rotated some during the last series. Players like Carlton Baugh, who was picked for the last two games, took his chance and ended up replacing the earlier keeper [Ramdin].”But would he experiment against India? “You wouldn’t want to experiment too much while playing against a tough team. We have a pretty settled batting line-up and also have the option to change batting positions around.”Rahul Dravid pretty much made it clear that India would continue to be flexible. “It’s benefited us in the past, helped us to not rely on particular individuals.”Both captains agreed that India’s new crop of fast bowlers could make the difference. “We haven’t seen too much of them but are using videos of the England and Pakistan series to analyse their performance,” said Lara. “They appear to have a varied attack.” Dravid proffered another angle: “Most of them haven’t come to West Indies earlier and it’s good in a way because they won’t be carrying the scars of defeat. The history of experiencing toughtours won’t haunt them.”

After risking their careers by joining the Indian Cricket League, a few Hyderabad cricketers defended their decision – citing selection flaws and the increased opportunities – to turn their backs on their home state. Hyderabad had a mass exodus of players including Ambati Rayudu, Alfred Absolem, Inder Shekar Reddy, Ibrahim Khaleel, Shashank Nag, D Vinay Kumar, Kaushik Reddy and Anirudh Singh.”I’m a professional cricketer and it doesn’t really matter where I play, but with ICL now my standard will only improve,” Absolem told reporters in Hyderabad. A right-arm seamer, he has played just one full season for Hyderabad and made an instant impact, picking up 30 wickets from six matches at under 20.Seamer Kaushik Reddy said that they had no choice but to take such a drastic step, citing anomalies in team selection where deserving players weren’t allowed to progress. “There are many private grounds and we need not depend on Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) facilities to train and practice,”said Reddy. “We have not lost hope but we had no choice.”Perhaps the biggest loss for the side was Ambati Rayudu, the promising top-order batsman who has been on the fringes of national selection since his days as a junior cricketer. He said it was a “reality check” and, when asked about his future, said that his employers had assured him of help.The BCCI has taken a firm stance by banning all players from associating themselves with the ICL, denying them use of its facilities and privileges. The HCA said none of the players had consulted them before joining and new talent would be recruited, hinting that all the ICL players were not eligible for selection.

Japanese wicketkeeper-batsman Tatsuro Chino may be small in stature but he is making a big splash in East Asia Pacific cricket circles.The talented Chino has been selected in the EAP squad for the 2007 Australian Country Cricket Championships, and through the support of Cricket Victoria’s partnership with the Japan Cricket Association, is spending an Australian summer playing with Balwyn CC in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association.In addition to his playing activities Chino also stepped out on Tuesday 28 November to help Cricket Australia launch a new school resource titled ‘CricKids Playing in Harmony’.Tackling social and community issues such as bullying, racism, prejudice, leadership and fair play, as well as curriculum subjects such as English, Art and Information Technology using cricket as a basis, the resource aims to reach 70,000 students and teachers over the next 12 months.The resource launch, held at Melbourne’s Federation Square, saw hundreds of students take part in cricket activities with Chino providing encouragement and advice throughout the day.Chino is also spending time coaching junior players at Balwyn CC while in Melbourne, and is scheduled to travel to Fiji in late January to assist the Japan team in the EAP Under 15 Cricket 8s. A conversation with Chino will leave you in no doubt about as to where this impressive young man is heading … as far and wide as his cricket journey will take him!

Sourav Ganguly has received a letter from Niranjan Shah, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary, seeking an explanation for his absence from a crucial Ranji Trophy match involving Bengal and Gujarat at Surat.Only a day after Kiran More, the national selection committee chairman, showed his disapproval at Ganguly missing the match, sources from the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) have stated that a “two-line letter” addressed to Ganguly was received by the player himself.The reports that the letter was not addressed to Jagmohan Dalmiya, the CAB president, or Saradindu Pal, its joint secretary. Pal remained non-committal on the matter, stating that he had spoken to Ganguly. “I spoke to Sourav last Friday, the day before the Indian team for Pakistan was selected,” he said. “He told me he’d missed Bengal’s Delhi match, and would also not play the Gujarat match because of unavoidable personal reasons.”Pal also stated that he had been trying to contact Ganguly since December 24 – the day the Indian squad was selected – but had no luck in doing so. Dalmiya, having earlier stated that Ganguly had missed the match against Gujarat for “logistical, and not personal” reasons, refused to comment on the matter today.Ganguly’s absence from the match seems to have agitated the BCCI, given that More emphasized that it was important to members of the Indian team to “engage in domestic matches as much as possible” prior to their departure to Pakistan on January 5. Speculation remains as to whether the message was passed on to Ganguly.Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan and VVS Laxman turned out for their respective state sides in the ongoing fifth round of the Ranji Trophy.