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Queensland 6 for 282 (Simpson 71, Love 52, Nye 59*, Bracken 3-42) v New South Wales
Scorecard

Australia’s loss has been New South Wales’s gain. Nathan Bracken, not wanted by the Test selectors for the tour of Sri Lanka, ripped through Queensland’s middle order on the first day of the Pura Cup match at the SCG, taking 3 for 1 in 24 balls, including the prized scalp of Martin Love, to keep New South Wales’s title defence alive.But the patched-up Queensland team, forced to rush Damien McKenzie onto a flight from Brisbane to Sydney when Ashley Noffke was a late withdrawal with an ankle injury, refused to surrender, reaching 6 for 282 at stumps as Aaron Nye made an unbeaten 59 on debut.”It’s interesting at the moment, pretty evenly poised,” said Bracken. “We’ve just got to get out there tomorrow and if we bowl well for an hour, we can do some serious damage and hopefully finish them off quickly.”Bracken was untouchable after tea. It must have been something he ate. Starting the final session wicketless with Queensland travelling relatively comfortably at 3 for 181, Bracken claimed the vital wicket of Love for 52, trapped James Hopes lbw for 8, and had Chris Hartley caught by Michael Clarke at third slip for a duck as the Bulls staggered to 6 for 202.Hundreds of schoolchildren, on hand to watch Steve and Mark Waugh’s last game at the SCG, had just gone home. They contributed to a crowd of 2409 – about 2000 more than normal for a day at the Pura Cup. Steve Waugh – who would have expected to roll Queensland over before stumps after sending them in – bowled the last over as the crowd in the Noble Stand sang “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow”.Bracken’s burst, combined with Matthew Nicholson (2 for 68) getting rid of the prolific Stuart Law for just 10 and Glenn McGrath’s miserly effort of 0 for 26 from 17 overs, gave NSW every chance to pull off the outright win both sides require to sneak into the Pura Cup final. To get there, NSW or Queensland also need Tasmania to go pointless against Victoria at Hobart.New South Wales could have done without a late 80-run partnership between Nye and Andy Bichel (46*). “We were in a position where we had the opportunity to go through them but they dug their heels in,” said Bracken, who finished with 3 for 42 from 17 overs. “We were looking at 350 as being the par score for the day, so we’re happy.”Dominic Thornely took 12th-man duties to new heights. Squeezed out of the starting XI, he grabbed two vital catches – one of them a blinder, the other just plain difficult – to send Love and Law back to the pavilion. Having only taken the field because Adrian Tucker needed treatment for a finger injury, Thornely dived full-length to his left at square leg to catch Law, before accepting a lofted pull-shot from Love as he ran in the opposite direction to the pitch at midwicket. They were big breakthroughs – Law is Queensland’s highest alltime runscorer, and Love is sixth on the list.The New South Wales camp denied they were keeping close tabs on Tasmania’s progress against the Vics. “We’re 100% on this one here,” said Bracken. “If we don’t get six points [by winning outright], there’s no point even worrying about that game.”

Surely, Test cricket never came any better than this. Three innings of class and aggression, from Alec Stewart, Adam Gilchrist and above all from Steve Waugh, for whom you simply couldn’t have written a better script. On his home ground, after becoming only the third batsman to pass 10,000 Test runs, the Australian captain drove the final ball of the day from Richard Dawson to the cover boundary to complete his 29th Test hundred, equalling Sir Donald Bradman’s record. England, truly combative at last, are still 125 runs ahead with Australia on 237 for five.Waugh and his vice-captain resume an unbroken sixth-wicket partnership of 87 tomorrow, which threatens England’s hopes of a substantial first-innings lead. They came together at a paltry 150 for five, after first Andrew Caddick and then Steve Harmison had shown rare fallibility in Australia’s top five. Their response was immediate and electrifying. Waugh’s 102 came off just 130 balls, while Gilchrist, perhaps more predictably, rattled off a run-a-ball 45.The day ended amid high drama, as the will-he-won’t-he issue of Waugh’s hundred kept virtually every spectator glued to his seat until that memorable last ball. With Gilchrist blazing away in idiosyncratic style, it was a joyful reminder of cricket’s capacity to entertain regally on multiple fronts. Hardly in the game’s history can gate money have been better spent.Australia’s initial response to England’s 362 had been far less imposing. Three wickets for Caddick had reduced the hosts to a perilous 56 for three, and brought the Somerset opening bowler to 227 Test wickets, just one behind his former new-ball partner Darren Gough.Matthew Hayden, after an attacking 15, was first to go, lbw to a swinging full toss. Ricky Ponting followed in Caddick’s next over, trying to leave a lifting delivery that brushed his bat on the way through to Stewart. Four overs later Justin Langer, trying to hook, got a top edge for Matthew Hoggard to run in from the long leg boundary, doing magnificently well to take a high, swirling catch.Waugh then joined Damien Martyn to feature in the first of two telling partnerships. The two put on 90 for the fourth wicket, with Waugh racing to his 50 off just 61 balls. He joined Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border on the 10,000 run landmark with a back-foot push for four off Dawson, but lost Martyn (26), playing a wild pull at a short ball from Harmison which was caught by Caddick at wide mid-on, leaving Australia on 146 for four. That became 150 for five when Martin Love edged a lifting Harmison delivery to Marcus Trescothick at slip.Waugh’s record-breaking knock was not the first of the day. Stewart, England’s veteran wicket-keeper batsman, overhauled Geoff Boycott’s 8,114 runs to become England’s third-highest run scorer, and then treated another sell-out SCG crowd to a delightful display of strokeplay. He hit 15 boundaries in an 86-ball innings of 71 before he was bowled off his pad trying to put an Andy Bichel half-volley through mid-wicket.Stewart, who had shrugged off a bout of chicken pox, received a standing ovation on the ground he regards as his second favourite after Lord’s, but was quickly followed by Dawson as England’s innings went into a tailspin. The Yorkshire off-spinner was caught behind pushing firm-footed at Bichel.Caddick became leg-spinner Stuart MacGill’s first wicket of the innings, bowled trying to sweep, and Hoggard was stumped in MacGill’s next over. Last man Harmison was run out at the non-striker’s end to finish the innings, leaving John Crawley unbeaten on 35. England had lost their last five wickets for only 30 runs in 13 overs.

It was a long time coming but India finally broke a fifteen year oldbarren sequence outside the subcontinent by sealing a crushing 8wicket victory against Zimbabwe at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.That should offer some balm for a wounded national psyche sufferingfrom the cumulative baggage of a grim history that has yielded 15 winsin 158 overseas Tests, a success rate of only 9.4 per cent. Here is acomplete wrap-up of India’s 15 away victories:* vs New Zealand at Dunedin, 1967/68India’s first away victory came in their 105th Test and 44th outsidethe country. Making a maiden trip to New Zealand on the back of a 4-0whitewash at the hands of their Trans-Tasman neighbours, India won thefirst Test at Dunedin. It halted a gloomy run of seven consecutivedefeats. Erapalli Prasanna engineered a Kiwi second innings collapseand chasing a target of 200, the Indians held their nerve to win byfive wickets. Ajit Wadekar’s twin efforts of 80 and 71 left a hugeimpact on the final result. [Scorecard]* vs New Zealand at Wellington, 1967/68After the hosts had evened the score in the second Test, India wentahead again at the Basin Reserve. Ajit Wadekar who had fallenagonisingly for 99 in Melbourne on the Aussie leg of the tour twomonths earlier, made 143. It was his first and last Test hundred.Pursuing a meagre 59 in the fourth innings, India won by eight wicketswith more than a day and a half to spare. [Scorecard]* vs New Zealand at Auckland, 1967/68At Auckland’s Eden Park India wrapped up their first ever seriesvictory abroad, by the convincing margin of 3-1. More than eight hourswere lost to the weather on the first two days. Rusi Surti sufferedthe misfortune of being dismissed on 99; he would never make a Testcentury. Prasanna was again the chief wrecker with eight wickets totake his series tally to 24 as the Kiwis collapsed to 101 in thefourth innings. [Scorecard]* vs West Indies at Port of Spain, 1970/71Sunil Gavaskar made 65 and 67 not out (including the winning boundary)on his Test debut as India clinched a historic seven wicket triumphinside four days. Vice captain S Venkataraghavan grabbed 5/95 in thesecond innings although the decisive blows were delivered by left armspinner Salim Durrani who removed Lloyd and Sobers in the same over. [Scorecard]* vs England at the Oval, 1971Five months later Ajit Wadekar’s men completed an astonishing doubleby toppling England in the final Test at the Oval for a 1-0 serieswin. Trailing by 71 on the first innings, Chandra’s bewitching spellof 6/38 saw off the hosts for 101. Despite early hiccups, India wasnot to be denied, Abid Ali square cutting Luckhurst to the fence for the winning runs even as the crowd surged into the playing arena. [Scorecard]* vs New Zealand at Auckland, 1975/76Bishen Bedi pulled a leg muscle on the eve of the contest, leaving hisdeputy Sunil Gavaskar in charge for the first time. Sunny duly strucka century as did debutant Surinder Amarnath who emulated father Lalain the process. The deadly Prasanna ripped through the New Zealandsecond innings with pickings of 8/76 to leave India a target of just68 which they polished off for the loss of two wickets. [Scorecard]* vs West Indies at Port of Spain, 1975/76This was the apogee of India’s overseas victories as they chased downa victory target of 403 with six wickets to spare. Having outplayedIndia for three and a half days, Clive Lloyd believed that his threeman spin attack of Jumadeen, Padmore and Imtiaz Ali could bowl India outon a wearing track. He was proved horribly wrong. While Amarnath heldone end up with the tenacity of a limpet, Gavaskar and Viswanathproduced centuries as the chase heated up and finally boiled over inIndia’s favour. [Scorecard]* vs Australia at Melbourne, 1977/78Having gone 2-0 down to a depackerised Australian team led by veteranBobby Simpson, India struck back at the MCG with a 222 run victory.Sunil Gavaskar made his third successive second innings century in theseries but the win owed most to BS Chandrasekhar who did not allow themortification of making a duck in each innings (his fourth Test pair)distract him from taking identical figures of 6/52 twiceto finish with 12/104 for the match, still the best away haul by anIndian bowler. [Scorecard]* vs Australia at Sydney, 1977/78One week later India knotted up the series at 2-2 with an even moreconvincing rout at the SCG. For the first time in 23 years, Australiasuffered two successive Test defeats at home. It remains the onlyinnings victory by an Indian team in an overseas Test, but only barelyso, by an innings and two runs. [Scorecard]* vs Australia at Melbourne, 1980/81India came back from a first innings deficit of 182 to level theseries 1-1 in a thrilling climax. Defending a target of just 143 inthe fourth innings and operating with two bowlers nursing discommodinginjuries, the tourists scuppered their hosts for 83. Kapil Dev, whobowled with a pulled thigh muscle, cut through the bottom half of theAussie batting to close with 5/28. This was after skipper Gavaskar,enraged by an lbw decision against him off Dennis Lillee, cameperilously close to forfeiting the match by walking off with hisopening partner. [Scorecard]* vs England at Lord’s, 1986Kapil Dev had never won a Test as captain in 20 previous ventures,dating back to Kingston in 1983. On the final afternoon, Kapil hoisted PhilEdmonds over midwicket for six to bring up a five wicket triumph forIndia, their first ever at the game’s HQ. Dilip Vengsarkar’s thirdsuccessive Lord’s century was the meatiest effort with the bat andwhile the seamers grabbed 15 wickets between them, Maninder Singh’ssecond innings effort of 3/9 from 20.4 overs was a splendidexhibition. Incredibly it was the first time India had won a Testafter inserting their opponents following 18 failed attempts. [Scorecard]* vs England at Leeds, 1986Mike Gatting was greeted in his debut Test as captain by a 279 rundrubbing an hour and a quarter into the fourth morning. Vengsarkargave another virtuoso performance, collecting 61 and 102 not out on acapricious wicket when none of the other 21 batsmen could cross 36. [Scorecard]* vs Sri Lanka at Colombo, 1993/94Vinod Kambli made 125, following up on scores of 224 and 227 in hisprevious two innings. And Sidhu and Tendulkar struck second inningstons as India set the hosts an unreachable target of 472. There wereconcerns voiced by the visitors over the decisions of the two umpires but it was Anil Kumble who proved the most decisive figure in the game with eight wickets. [Scorecard]* vs Bangladesh at Dhaka, 2000/01The Indian team invited considerable chaff after conceding 400 in thefirst innings to Test babes Bangladesh, the second time they allowed adebutant nation the benefit of such munificence. India huffed andpuffed their way to a first innings lead but Bangladesh had alreadyreached the full extent of their defiance. They collapsed for 91 inthe second knock as India ran out nine wicket victors late on thefourth evening. [Scorecard]* vs Zimbabwe at Bulawayo, 2000/01Buoyed by the inspirational series victory over Australia at home,India went to Zimbabwe with the unfamiliar tag of favourites. Theyfully justified that appraisal with a crushing eight wicket victory atBulawayo that was harder than the margin suggests. It took a tailendassault in the first innings fashioned by Harbhajan Singh and SamirDighe to hand India a decisive advantage and although the bowlers thenmade heavy weather of dismissing their opponents a second time, afinal target of 184 was always going to be a canter, given the benignnature of the wicket. [Scorecard]

Victoria’s emerging fast bowler Peter Siddle says he will draw extra motivation from playing against a near Test-quality New South Wales team in the Pura Cup final. The Blues have included Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Nathan Bracken, Stuart MacGill, Michael Clarke, Phil Jaques and Brad Haddin, but Siddle believes the less well-known Victorians have nothing to fear.”You always want to play against the best players,” Siddle said. “These names come back and they’re the blokes playing for Australia at the minute, and obviously if you do well against these type of players the selectors take notice.”Unlike New South Wales, Victoria have a reasonably settled line-up, although they have had injury concerns with their fast bowlers. Siddle has had ongoing shoulder worries – he had a reconstruction in 2006, dislocated it earlier this year and aggravated it a couple of weeks ago – but he is confident he is now fully fit.The niggles have limited him to four Pura Cup matches this season, however his results have been outstanding. He has 24 wickets this summer at 14.70 and has drawn praise from Victoria’s coach Greg Shipperd, who believes Siddle, 23, should be in the national selectors’ plans for the years ahead.”He’s bowled brilliantly in the games that he’s played for us,” Shipperd said. “He’s a really hit-the-wicket-hard, aggressive character and we have high hopes for him in the game and in the future.”The burden will not be entirely on Siddle when the final begins at the SCG on Saturday, with all of Victoria’s top bowlers available apart from Gerard Denton, who has ankle soreness. Shipperd said he had no doubt the Bushrangers could overcome the disadvantage of playing away from home.”It’s a wicket that is going to attract an outright result and so that’s what we need,” Shipperd said. “We played up there recently and the ball spun enormously day one, so we think that will assist all spinners in the game but it will also attract the opportunity to take 20 wickets and that’s what we’re looking for to win the game.”Last time Victoria played in a Pura Cup final they were destroyed by Queensland, who piled on 6 for 900 at the Gabba. That was only two seasons ago but the state’s personnel has changed significantly in that time and Shipperd is certain there will be no lingering anxiety in the current squad.”That’s in the distant memory now,” Shipperd said. “We’ve got different faces in the team, we’ve got a different bowling attack, we’ve got a side that’s got two years’ more experience under its belt.”Siddle was only a rookie back then and was not required for the decider. He has vivid memories of Victoria’s most recent Pura Cup triumph, which came at the MCG in 2003-04 when Siddle, then 19, was still making his way with his club side Dandenong.”It’s amazing, I can remember coming here four years ago when they won it at home here against Queensland, just watching those blokes then,” Siddle said. “Hearing about the celebrations and being part of the team and winning something so big, it is exciting and hopefully I can be a part of that myself.”Siddle and Shane Harwood are the two inclusions in Victoria’s 13-man squad with Darren Pattinson dropped from the side that beat Queensland on the weekend. The two main decisions for the selectors are whether to ask Rob Quiney or Lloyd Mash to open with Nick Jewell, and which of Clint McKay and Dirk Nannes will be retained in the attack.Victoria squad Nick Jewell, Rob Quiney, Lloyd Mash, Brad Hodge, David Hussey, Cameron White (capt), Andrew McDonald, Adam Crosthwaite (wk), Shane Harwood, Peter Siddle, Clint McKay, Bryce McGain, Dirk Nannes.

Michael Vaughan will return to county action on April 29, the ECB has announced in a release which listed when centrally contracted players can turn out ahead of the first Test against West Indies. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen will face each other at The Rose Bowl from May 9 after being given one Championship match before the international summer begins.Vaughan, who was desperately short of runs during the World Cup until his 79 against West Indies in England’s final match, will take on Scotland in the Friends Provident Trophy before his first Championship match on May 2 against Hampshire at The Rose Bowl. He will have a maximum of two four-day games and two Friends Provident outings before leading England in the first Test at Lord’s on May 17.Flintoff and Pietersen have less action with a single one-day match alongside their Championship head-to-head. It will be Pietersen’s first first-class match for Hampshire since 2005 and Flintoff only made one appearance for Lancashire last summer.Of the other centrally contracted players who were at the World Cup, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood are available for their counties from May 7 until the end of the Championship matches on May 12. Andrew Strauss can turn out for Middlesex from May 6, while Monty Panesar has been given two Championship matches – against Essex and Somerset – but no one-day cricket before the first Test.Alastair Cook, Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Marcus Trescothick have already begun their seasons, after not being part of the World Cup, although Jones has been left out of Glamorgan’s squad to face Essex as he manages his return from injury.Lancashire pace bowlers James Anderson and Sajid Mahmood have been given two weeks rest despite not being contracted. They are both available to feature against Hampshire alongside Flintoff, while Mahmood can also play against Northamptonshire on May 6 and Anderson against Durham on May 7.

The non-centrally contracted England players’ availability is as follows:Ed Joyce, Jamie Dalrymple, Paul Nixon and Ravi Bopara will all be free for the Friends Provident ties this Sunday. If Stuart Broad passes a fitness test on a minor injury he will also be available for Leicestershire, alongside Nixon.Lancashire will have Saj Mahmood from May 6, when they play Northants in the Friends Provident, and James Anderson will be free the very next day, against Durham in the same competition. Liam Plunkett also makes his county return in that match.

Shane Bond, the New Zealand fast bowler, will return home because of a knee injury that has forced him to miss the remaining two Test matches on the tour of South Africa.”Shane was asked to bowl six overs yesterday as part of his fitness assessment, which he did. But the knee became sore after cooling down and Shane came to the conclusion that he could not take his place in the next two Tests,” said Lindsay Crocker, New Zealand’s general manager.”The medical assessment is that Shane will now need four to six weeks rest for the injury to settle completely, before starting on building himself up again. This will be further assessed when he gets home. Shane will withdraw from his county contract with Gloucestershire, which he was due to take up at the completion of this tour.”Reacting to the news, Bond said that he wasn’t sure his knee would stand up to the rigours of the five-day Test. “If it was a series of one-dayers I may well have played, but we’ve bowled on every day of every Test so far this summer and I don’t think the knee would’ve stood up to that,” Bond was quoted as saying by . “It wasn’t worth the risk. I’d hate to go into a Test and let the team down in those circumstances, and I also have faith in the other members of the squad to go in there and do a good job, as they’ve done in the past.”He admitted that the financial setback of missing a county contract would hurt, but chose to look ahead, especially at the prospect of being fit for the World Cup in 2007. “Financially it’s going to hurt a little bit but my priority has always been to play for New Zealand, especially in another World Cup,” he said. “So I try not to think too much about losing that money and instead concentrate on doing things properly so I can be around for next year’s World Cup and other events like that.”Michael Mason had already been called up as cover for Bond so New Zealand will not need a replacement for the second Test at Cape Town beginning on Thursday.Bond missed the first Test at Centurion because of the same injury. He has been plagued by injury in the last few years, managing to feature in just six Tests since the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.

Keith Miller, the regal allrounder who impressed everyone in pubs to palaces, has died at the age of 84.An Invincible, a Second World War fighter pilot, a journalist, an elderly recluse: Miller was many things. Above all he was a hero to generations of Australians, even in his old age. “The ladies loved him, and every man wanted to be him,” the broadcaster Michael Parkinson said of his boyhood hero. Boasting film-star looks and a game to match, Miller helped shake the Commonwealth from its postwar despair with his dash and dare.During the war he flew fighter planes over Britain, and survived when the average lifespan was about three weeks. The experience shaped the remainder of his career and helped develop his legend. Cricket was merely one of life’s asides. “I’ll tell you what pressure is,” he once said. “Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse. Playing cricket is not.” A crash-landing left a bad back – “Nearly stumps drawn that time, gents” – but he walked away. On one mission he detoured over Bonn on the way back so he could see the city of Beethoven’s birth. Still, the Allies had stolen his early twenties. He entered the forces as a batsman and exited, reluctantly, as Australia’s fastest bowler.Unconventional and his own man, he raised the ire of Don Bradman on his Ashes debut, at the Gabba in 1946-47, by refusing to bowl fast and short to Bill Edrich. “I’d just fought a war with this bloke. I wasn’t going to take his head off.” He bowled cutters instead, taking 7 for 60 in the first innings in the greatest bowling performance of his career. The batting highlight had come at Lord’s the year before, when he played for the Dominions against England.Players from all over the world were selected yet Miller, according to Wisden, “outshone them all”. On those two August days in 1945 Miller scored a magnificent 185 and peppered seven sixes, one landing on to the top tier of the pavilion, another on the broadcast box. Spectators felt they were safer in the bar; Pelham Warner called it the greatest exhibition of batting he ever saw. RS Whitington, the journalist, author and Miller’s great friend, observed, “It is a tragedy that Australians have never quite seen the Miller of 1945.”

Keith Ross Miller was born in Melbourne in 1919, and named after the aviators Keith and Ross Smith. “Nugget’s” first Test came against New Zealand in 1945-46, in a journey that would lead to his being named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1954 and inducted into the Australian Hall of Fame. Capable of batting at No. 4 and opening the bowling, Miller finished his 55 Tests with 2958 runs at 36.97 and 170 wickets at 22.97. The greatest omission was that he never led his country. Richie Benaud regularly described Miller as the greatest skipper he’d played under. “He was the best captain never to lead Australia,” he said. But Miller was not in the Australian Cricket Board’s image and his anti-establishment methods rankled with more straight-laced administrators. Yet his photo was one of only two in the Canberra office of the Australian prime minister Sir Robert Menzies.He was always at his best in a proper contest. As the Invincibles careered towards 721 in a day against Essex, Miller let himself be bowled first ball by Trevor Bailey and headed for the local racecourse via the dressing-room. In Test retirement he became a touring journalist and columnist for the Daily Express, and in later life was rather reclusive, rarely giving interviews but regularly returning to England. Three hip operations, cancer and a stroke slowed him down, and his shock of black hair turned grey. It blew easily in the wind at the MCG in February, when his statue was unveiled and he gently clapped his frail hands. “I don’t take too much interest in the cricket,” he told Australia’s Inside Edge magazine at the time. “There seems to be a Test match on every day. I spent years playing 55 of them, and these blokes run up 190.”Peter English is Australasian editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

As if they needed any reminder of their current predicament, England have been drawn to face Zimbabwe in the opening match of this summer’s ICC Champions Trophy, at Edgbaston on September 10.But where England and Zimbabwe are concerned these days, nothing can be taken for granted. The match is scheduled to take place a matter of weeks before England themselves fly out to Zimbabwe for a full Test tour, but that trip is in doubt because of Britain’s opposition to Robert Mugabe’s disgraced regime. In turn, the ICC have the right to withdraw the Champions’ Trophy from England, and may choose to do so at a meeting of the ten board chairmen in Auckland next month.Although Zimbabwe’s visit to England passed without incident last summer, the same cannot be said of the last time the two teams were scheduled to face each other in an official ICC event. In February 2003, England withdrew from their opening fixture of the 2003 World Cup, after a player-led boycott, a decision that may cost the ECB upwards of £2 million.England versus Zimbabwe is the match with an added frisson, but other notable fixtures include England’s second group match against Sri Lanka at The Rose Bowl on September 17, and India against Pakistan at Edgbaston two days later. The final is scheduled for The Oval on Saturday, September 25, England’s late-summer weather permitting, of course. Fortunately, reserve days have been allocated for all matches, to reduce the need for Duckworth/Lewis calculations in the event of rain.As Australia proved in the VB Series finals this week, they remain the pre-eminent side in one-day cricket. But Malcolm Speed, the chief executive of the ICC, was sure that the tournament would throw up some intriguing results. “Since the World Cup last year, we have seen a number of teams undergo a radical transformation,” said Speed. “The England and Pakistan teams are barely recognisable from the sides that crashed out in the first round, and this tournament will be the opportunity for the cricketing world to see just how far these teams have now come.David Clarke, the ECB’s tournament director, was equally optimistic about the prospects for the tournament. “The ICC Champions Trophy presents a tremendous opportunity for cricket fans here to see the best in the world at close quarters,” he said. “The intensity of the competition will guarantee plenty of top-quality action as the best one-day players in the world go head-to-head for this prestigious title in three of England’s top venues.”Twelve teams will be split into four groups of three for a round-robin group stage, with the winner of each group moving through to the semi-finals.

SYDNEY, Jan 2 AAP – Mark Butcher and Nasser Hussain made Australia pay for a raft of missed opportunities to steady England after a worrying start to the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground today.By tea on the opening day, the pair had steered the tourists to 2-150 with an unbroken partnership of 118.Butcher was not out 67 and Hussain was on 57.Both had survived dropped chances in the first session and Butcher was handed another life after lunch.Australian legspinner Stuart MacGill spilled a straight forward caught and bowled chance off Hussain when he was on six with England floundering at 2-63.Butcher was lucky on 13 when Damien Martyn got a hand to what would have been a spectacular catch off Andy Bichel’s bowling.On 43, Butcher edged a Jason Gillespie delivery which bounced in and out of Adam Gilchrist’s gloves as the wicketkeeper stretched to his left.Earlier, Gilchrist managed to hold an excellent catch, launching himself high to his left to dispose of Marcus Trescothick (19) off Bichel.That dismissal left England in trouble at 2-32 after opener Michael Vaughan had been caught by Gilchrist off Brett Lee in the fourth over of the match for no score.Bichel received treatment on the field for what appeared to be a dislocated left index finger after fielding Hussain off his own bowling.