Zaheer Khan must be wondering which part of his body will give way next. Back problems, shin niggles, knee injuries, heel stresses, and a frail hamstring of late – it has been a career riddled with breaks. The latest in the list was the tweaking of a quad muscle in his left leg, which ruled him out of today’s game against Bangladesh. All these injuries have forced him to miss five Tests and 27 one-dayers (including today’s match). The following time-line tells the story:Final one-dayer v Zimbabwe at Rajkot, December 14, 2000
Misses the match due to a back problem. He had played in the first four matches.July 2001
Has shin-related problems apart from a snag in the in-step of his landing foot before the Test series against Sri Lanka.October 2002
Knee stress forces Zaheer to miss the Kolkata Test against West Indies and the seven-match one-day series thereafter.One-dayer v South Africa at Dhaka, April 13, 2003
Zaheer leaves the field after a hamstring pull. He was rested for the next two matches.Second Test v Australia at Adelaide, December 12, 2003
Zaheer does not bowl in the nets and spends the time testing his hamstring injury. He is ruled out of the match.Third Test v Australia at Melbourne, December 27, 2003
He bowls with a shortened run-up after suffering a hamstring injury in his fifth over, though he had passed a fitness test before the match. This injury rules him out of the final test at Sydney and the tri-series following it.First Test v Pakistan at Multan, April 1, 2004
Zaheer doesn’t bowl in the second innings because of a strain in his right leg. He is ruled out of the rest of the series.One-dayer v Sri Lanka at Dambulla, July 18, 2004
Before bowling a ball, he tweaks a quad muscle in his left leg while sprinting for a ball while fielding.

Wasim Bari, the chairman of Pakistan’s selection committee, has launched a scathing attack on the 63-year-old David Shepherd, according to the BBC. The fierce criticism followed Pakistan’s narrow defeat in the Videocon Cup final, with Bari claiming that the umpire’s mistakes had cost Pakistan the game and suggested that age had caught up with him.”Shepherd’s umpiring decisions were like target killing and cost Pakistan the final. It’s time for the inaccurate Shepherd to retire,” Bari was reported by AFP as saying. “His decisions were not only doubtful but disgraceful. The Pakistan team management must mention with protest in their match reports.”The decisions that rankled Bari were given against Inzamam-ul-Haq and Yousuf Youhana. While Inzamam scored only seven runs, Youhana was adjudged caught-behind on 43, with Pakistan 32 runs away from victory.Incidentally, a few days ago, most international captains agreed with the ICC’s plan to implement more technology to ease umpires’ burden. Inzamam was one of them, and he was quoted, “Yes, I’m very much in favour, because the game of cricket has become very professional, small errors have been affecting results. So much cricket is being played and umpires have been under tremendous pressure due to the heavy workload on them.”But Shepherd didn’t just come under fire from the Pakistan Cricket Board. Omer Kureishi, a cricket columnist, was scathing about the umpire’s performance: “Shepherd has crossed his retiring age and I have always advocated that all umpires standing at international level must go through medical tests. He is an old man and his judgment in the final was very poor.”

Marvan Atapattu knows the value of home advantage, and he certainly thinks beating Pakistan in Pakistan will be a challenge. “Cricket is a game of uncertainties and I wouldn’t want to predict anything at this stage,” said Atapattu, as Sri Lanka departed for Pakistan on Sunday to play in the Paktel one-day triangular series and two Tests.”Pakistan is a good and well balanced side. The way they have played in the past few months under Inzi’s [Inzamam’s] captaincy, they have done exceptionally well. Beating them is as difficult as somebody coming here and defeating us.”Pakistan had more strength in their bowling till very recently. However, they have found some good players to get runs at the top and in the middle. They are a very competitive side.” Atapattu said the squad of 16 players picked for the one-day triangular tournament covered all areas to suit the conditions they are going to play in Pakistan – four seamers, three spinners and eight batsmen. “We have covered all options to play any side at any given moment.”Pakistan is the team to beat for Sri Lanka even though Zimbabwe is also part of the competition. In the past six months Sri Lanka have beaten a struggling Zimbabwe six out of six times, the last occasion being the Champions trophy game at The Oval last month when they won by four wickets.Zimbabwe have been playing Sri Lanka so often in the last few months that they are gradually picking up the strengths and weaknesses of the players and are not going to be any pushovers. It was to be Sri Lanka’s only win in the Champions trophy tournament for in their next encounter against England they lost and were eliminated.”It was one of those games that every team goes through. There were teams with more hopes than us. We went there with 18 wins out of 22 games. It was purely bad luck. I don’t think we played the game that we are all good at against England,” said Atapattu. “Nothing went right. Had everything gone to plan we would have won. I don’t want to pinpoint to anyone. We take credit as a team and likewise we take the blame also.”Atapattu said that to make Sri Lanka the best one-day side, they had to keep on improving in all three areas – batting, bowling and fielding. “To be competitive in the cricketing world you have to be updated and be looking at improving day by day, maybe 1%. We make an effort to constantly do something different at practices not just go through the motions. It may not come right every day but it helps.”The areas we need to work on sometimes depends on the country that you are play in. At home the margin is less. You may have heard from various other teams that Sri Lanka is a difficult place to play. Going into a country like England maybe we got to concentrate on the middle overs and probably the top order batting. You learn by experience. You should be prepared to do experiments.”On seamer friendly wickets if you safeguard your wicket for a while it would do you good. It depends on the country that you play, the attack that you are facing and the wicket that you are playing on. Generally we need to keep improving in all three areas.”Atapattu said that he would still go for seven batsmen in a one-day side unless the conditions forced a change. He said the absence of any warm-up games ahead of the two Tests against Pakistan has given less opportunity to fringe players to make any impact for selection. Sri Lanka will open their tour against Pakistan at Karachi on October 6. They play Pakistan and Zimbabwe twice each before the final on October 16 at Lahore after which they go straight into the two Test series starting at Faisalabad on October 20 and at Karachi on October 28.

Plate Group
Scorecard
ScorecardVidarbha were left chasing 96 for victory – a small but tricky target in the context of this game – after a remarkable innings by Gagan Khoda took Rajasthan to 151 in the second innings. His 87 was, by far, the highest individual score in a game where teams totalled 101, 157 and 151. He retired hurt on zero, and returned when the score was 59 for 8. Then began a counter-attack that took 91 balls, contained ten fours, three sixes, and gave Rajasthan a chance of victory. Earlier in the day Vidarbha recovered from their overnight score of 97 for 7, and battled to 157. This was due to the efforts of Harshal Shitoot and Pritam Gandhe, who scored invaluable 30s. The runs they added could prove to be the vital difference when a result is achieved some time on the third day.
ScorecardSree Santh became the first bowler from Kerala to take a hat-trick, but not even his triple-strike could limit the damage Himachal Pradesh’s batsmen inflicted. First he dismissed Maninder Bisla (134), breaking his 277-run stand with Sangram Singh, who remained unbeaten on 206 – an effort that took him more than nine hours. But Santh then removed Ajay Mannu and Paras Dogra to claim the hat-trick (330 for 5), and then took one more wicket to claim 5 for 103. Along the way Karumanaseri Ananthapadmanabhan claimed his 300th first-class wicket as Himchal progressed to 465. But before the day was done, Kerala were in more trouble than ever. They were 4 for 2 within eight balls, and though they recovered to 165 for 7, none of the batsmen could go the extra mile and score big runs.
ScorecardA couple of Singhs took Services to 507 for 5, giving Goa a momentous task to avoid the follow-on, let alone take the lead. Yashpal Singh went on to 200 before the team declared, while he was assisted by Sarabjit Singh, who scored 56. They shared a stand worth 167 runs before Faisal Shaikh, who bowled 51 overs during the innings, finally dismissed Sarabjit. Then Goa had to deal with AK Mohanty, who added 30 runs to the total. Goa were 1 for 0 when the second day ended.
ScorecardAfter dismissing Haryana for 200 on the first day, Tripura went into the black, reaching 221 for 4 when the second day ended. Ramaswamy Prasanna fell short of a century by two runs right at the end of the day, but his innings ensured that Tripura recovered from a shaky start to take the lead. He had able partners in Tirtha Roy (55) and Chetan Sachdev (33 not out). With plenty of wickets left in hand, Tripura look set to take control of the game.

Roland Holder has decided to resign from the post of secretary of the West Indies Players’ Association. Holder, the former West Indian batsman, felt that the association had become too confrontational, and quit the post that he had held since 1996.”WIPA has gone in a direction I’m not totally comfortable with,” said Holder, 36, in a conversation with . “I’ve become less and less involved and times change, people change and views change. We [WIPA] have become very confrontational. When I started, the view was that we should work with the West Indies Cricket Board and other stakeholders. These confrontations have led to some challenges and I prefer not to be involved.”Though he didn’t spell it out, Holder was clearly referring to the recent disagreements between the players’ association and the West Indian board, the latest of which was the row that was triggered when Digicel were signed up as the sponsor of the national team. Several players protested, through the players’ association, about their image rights being compromised as they had existing agreements with rival companies.Holder, who played 11 Tests between 1996 and 1999, was appointed as the manager of the Barbados team earlier this week. He will take over from Tony Howard for the upcoming Carib Beer Series, which begins on January 7, as Barbados look to defend their title.

Sachin Tendulkar has said he will play in the charity match on January 10 for the victims of the tsunami, but will only field, following medical advice that he shouldn’t play a ball for a month.”I am definitely participating in the match. But I won’t be batting in that game as advised by my doctors,” Tendulkar told Press Trust of India. He had earlier hinted that he wanted to be a part of the match even if he couldn’t participate in it.Tendulkar had also been advised not to play domestic games to rest hisleft elbow which kept him out of international cricket for over two months.He was quoted by United News of India, saying, “The doctors have recommended a month’s rest during which they have advised me not to play a single ball and to take complete rest.”Speaking about the tsunami tragedy, he said it was important for every person to do his bit to help the victims’ families and the survivors. Tendulkar also said he had made no goals for the year 2005. “No goals for 2005. I am just going to go out there and play my game.”

Papua New Guinea (PNG) beat Nepal by 72 runs on the opening day of the ICC World Cup Qualifying Series Division 2 tournament in Malaysia, an event that will determine the final qualifying spot for July’s ICC Trophy 2005.Inspired by the destructive batting of Jamie Brazier who hit 97 from 83 balls, PNG rattled up 240 runs for the loss of eight wickets in their 50 overs after winning the toss. Brazier, whose innings included three huge sixes hit over the fence into the adjacent residential area, was ably supported by fellow right hander Arua Uda in a crucial stand of 133.Nepal have performed impressively at junior level over recent seasons, including beating South Africa in the ICC U-19 World Cup 2004, and were one of the higher-fancied teams going into the event. But PNG’s total at the Kelab Aman ground proved too good for the senior Nepal players who completed their 50 overs on 168 for 9. The win puts PNG joint top of Group A after the first round of games along with Kuwait who beat Italy by four wickets.In Group B, Qatar beat Zambia by nine wickets and, in the tightest game of the day, Fiji beat Cayman Islands by nine runs. Group B’s most impressive individual performance came from Qatar off-spinner Saleem Aktar who picked up five wickets for two runs in 4.1 miserly overs of offspin.Tuesday’s FixturesGroup AItaly v PNG
Kuwait v NepalGroup BCayman Islands v Qatar
Fiji v Zambia

The ongoing controversy over telecast rights between the Indian board and the television channels means that there will be no live coverage of the Challenger Series, which starts in Mumbai on February 7. The tournament has normally been telecast on Doordarshan, the state-owned channel, but this year, the only way to watch the matches will be by going to the venue.”Last year we had TVS which had come in a big way to sponsor the tournament and there was a live telecast for four days," Ratnakar Shetty, the joint secretary of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), told NDTV, a national news channel. “This year both the things are not happening which is a big loss to the game.” In 2003, the tournament was held in Bangalore and sponsored by TVS, a motor company, which contributed almost Rs 25,000,000 (approx US$555,000), much of which went to the Karnataka State Cricket Association.This year, however, the MCA will get no such benefit, thanks to the telecast imbroglio. “I think domestic cricket has suffered this season because of the television right matter which is pending in the courts,” Shetty complained. “I feel that it is important that these matches are telecast live because it would have helped us to gain some form of revenue.”

The second tsunami fundraising match between the World and Asian XIs, which was scheduled for Calcutta in April, has been cancelled. Jagmohan Dalmiya, the Asian Cricket Council president, said the weather would be too hot for the match, which was already postponed from February 13 because too many top-level players were unavailable.”Due to the heat in second half of April, the tsunami match cannot be held,” Dalmiya told Press Trust of India. Following the success of the first match at Melbourne, which raised $14m (US$11m) for victims of the Boxing Day tsunami, the ACC was due to organise another game to continue to aid the rebuilding process.The crowded playing schedules of international teams had also made it too difficult to arrange the match. “We were all geared up and ready to go,” Syed Ashraful Huq, the ACC chief executive, told the Weekend Australian. “We had sponsors in place but were forced to push the match back because of the overworked players, who wanted it later in April.”

Stephen Fleming has requested that the umpires standing in the second Test against Sri Lanka, in Wellington, (starting Monday) remove their black trousers because the New Zealand batsmen were finding it almost impossible to pick up the ball from Lasith Malinga, the Sri Lankan swing bowler, who delivers the ball from in front of the umpire.Malinga, 21, was the most impressive Sri Lankan bowler in the drawn first Test at Napier, taking a career-best 5 for 80 in the second innings, and match figures of 9 for 210. Seven of his wickets were either bowled or lbw, as the Kiwi’s continually struggled to pick up his deliveries.Fleming told the news agency: “”We can’t see him. When it’s a bit overcast and late in the evening, you saw last night when Hamish (Marshall) who’s in great form, just couldn’t see the ball. We asked the umpires to change the colour of their trousers, there’s a period there when he’s delivering when it gets lost in the trousers.”One the first day in Napier Steve Bucknor and Darrell Hair were asked to remove their dark ties and on the last day Fleming asked Bucknor to put a white jumper around his waist to act as mini sightscreen. Fleming said: “I’m not sure if the rules are but we’ve asked if they can change (to light coloured trousers). It’s a factor, hence putting the sweater in front of the trousers.”But John Dyson, the Sri Lanka coach, hopes that Malinga continues to cause problems. “He was chosen because he does bowl quickly, he’s a little bit unorthodox and guys have trouble picking him up. We’ve seen it in the middle with Australia, South Africa and now New Zealand, he is very difficult to pick up, hopefully more difficult in Wellington.”