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Shane Watson still considers it a miracle that his body no longer falls apart at the merest hint of stress. So it is understandable that his ascension to the vice-captaincy of Australia, in all three forms of the game, was a little difficult for him to comprehend. Only a handful of years have passed since Watson was roundly dismissed due to his many injuries, and in 2006 he was lampooned for a phantom heart-attack in India. Now, Watson is a heartbeat away from the Australian captaincy.”It really has been an amazing couple of years, and something I never really thought would be coming my way after my previous part of my career when I really struggled to get on the field,” Watson said in Sydney after he was unveiled alongside new Test and limited overs skipper Michael Clarke. “For things to come together now to mean I’m vice-captain of the Australian cricket team, it’s still hard for me to get my head around. It is hard for me to get my head around that I’ve been able to play for a number of years with the Australian team and be able to contribute the way that I have, it is something I never thought would come about.”I feel like my game’s in a really good place now and my mind’s in a great place to be able to really have the mental space to be able to contribute as much as I possibly can.”The changeable nature of the vice-captaincy is a source of curiosity. Some, such as Clarke or a young Mark Taylor, are chosen with a view towards the future, while others like Ian Healy and Geoff Marsh serve as loyal lieutenants without ever really inching towards the top job. Healy was replaced by Steve Waugh before the 1997 Ashes tour in order to smooth the line of succession if Taylor did not pull out of his form dive.Watson’s role seems likely to marry both, for chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch is aware that Clarke’s Test batting has been decidedly poor for some time. Far more successful with the bat in the past year, Watson, however, is lacking in formal leadership credentials, something Ponting seemed acutely aware of as his reign stuttered towards a sad conclusion.”He hasn’t had a lot of leadership experience,” Hilditch said of Watson. “One of the big reasons we’ve made this appointment now was the reality is that Shane’s such a good player he’s not going to play much domestic cricket. So if he’s going to get his leadership skills up to another level it has to be now and it has to be as vice-captain. So it’ll be a learning curve for Shane but his first role is to support Michael.”Ever honest, Watson baulked at the PR-friendly line that leadership will add vitality to his batting. Instead he reminded all in attendance that his chief task when Australia resumes Test match duty in Sri Lanka later this year will be to turn his promising starts into match-shaping hundreds.”That’s my bigger task, even more than the vice-captaincy is actually turning my 50s into some bigger scores,” he said. “No doubt there’s something I need to continue my development as a player. I think just even over the last year or so being around the group and trying to be a leader in some way or help the younger guys … I feel like it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, to help people out more than anything.”That’s something I’m really excited about, really trying to help the young guys out coming through, because I have been very lucky to come through an era of Australian cricket as great as it really ever has been. I know how lucky I am to have those experiences from a very young age, and I’ll be trying to get the best out of everyone within the team.”

As the Bangladesh-Pakistan game went on in front of what seemed a healthy crowd for a warm-up game, more ticket-holders were left stranded at the adjoining indoor stadium. A few thousand people with vouchers in hand, bought at local banks and over the internet, waited in queue since early morning on Tuesday to collect their tickets, but while the match was being played out, the ground remained half full.Kyazoonga, an entertainment and sports ticketing company, is looking after the ticketing process. Apparently it was its insistence on verifying identity cards before issuing tickets that caused the delay. One of its officials present at the ticket booths refused to speak to the media, but the chairman of the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s ticket and seating committee, GS Hasan Tamim, termed it an unfortunate incident. “It is their [Kyazoonga’s] job to distribute the tickets, but we told them not to check name and other identifications. We told them to just distribute it as the tickets have already been bought,” he said.The real trouble was when the BCB announced that 5,000 tickets are still left unsold on the eve of the match, which meant a large number of people stood in the queue to buy tickets, depriving the voucher-holders of their right.”I will have to take a look at what happened but it is very unfortunate,” Tamim said. It must have been confusing for some to see a few empty stands at the Shere Bangla National Stadium after a huge demand for tickets across the country. At the start of the Bangladesh innings, well into the evening, the count at the ground was 13,088, (later 14,500), and not a full house of 25,000-plus. It also presents the organisers a big challenge for the other big games in the tournament because vouchers have been sold at banks for those matches too.

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq credited his bowlers, who sparked a dramatic New Zealand collapse in the evening session to seal his team’s crushing win. Abdur Rehman and Wahab Riaz began the demolition, picking up three wickets apiece, while Umar Gul came in to blast out the tail as the hosts were rolled for 110. New Zealand lost all ten wickets for 77 runs in the final session of play, bringing a premature end to a Test match that had promised a closely-fought contest at stumps on the previous day.”We didn’t feel like we were going to win today because the wicket was a bit flat and a bit slow,” Misbah said. “It wasn’t easy to get batsmen out here, but I think the bowlers did a fantastic job and they won the match for us today. They stuck to the job and did very well for the team.”He said the aim for the Pakistan bowlers had been to keep a good line and length and limit scoring opportunities. “The pitch is slow so it’s not easy to score runs. The way I batted, I felt that it was a really tough wicket to score runs on. Batsmen get frustrated when they get stuck there and have to face a lot of deliveries without scoring many runs.”So that was the key, to bowl in the right areas and just keep the batsmen frustrated and they are going to make mistakes.”Misbah also praised his batsmen for sticking to their plans, as they attempted to bat time and accumulate steadily. “We batted well. Our plan was to bat a bit longer and we wanted a bigger lead, because it looked like batting in the fourth innings was going to be trouble on this wicket.”Misbah put New Zealand’s woeful collapse in the second innings down to inexperience and lack of patience, while affirming his side’s efforts in the field. “I think that most batsmen are not used to these kinds of wickets where run-scoring is really difficult. You have to be a bit patient. As a batsman you feel under pressure when there are maiden overs and dot balls and you do make mistakes. We bowled and fielded well, and a 92-run lead would have been another thing on the batsmen’s mind. I think all these things came together and we were able to get through.”

MS Dhoni has come down hard on his bowlers after India started yet another tour with a demoralising defeat. “One of the things was we still couldn’t get them all out,” Dhoni said. “Although we all said the wicket was different to first day, but you have bowled on flatter tracks and you’re still expected to get the sides out, so that’s an area of concern because to win a Test you have to get 20 wickets.”It was not just the failure to bowl South Africa out that ought to concern India. They conceded 225 runs in one session on the third day, which hastened the declaration from South Africa. The extra time South Africa gained proved to be a big factor in India’s fight for a draw. “You’re supposed to either take wickets or not let the opposition score at five runs an over in a Test match,” Dhoni said. “The conditions are difficult out here, it’s not like in India where it’s turning and the ball doesn’t come on. So you can tie the batsmen down and not let them score at a brisk pace. But over here scoring is quite easy, in the sense once you’re set, the ball comes on nicely and you can score on both sides of the wicket. So that’s also an area of concern. Even our scoring-rate, despite us losing wickets, was quite good. So that means, the only way out is to take wickets.”It was difficult because there was not much help from the wicket. Our bowlers are not express quick. They don’t generally bowl over 140-plus. They have to be very precise with their line and length. We tried different fields. We tried to work around their bowling aspects, which, more often than not, will work with a set batsman. We tried to contain them but it was not successful for a period of time.”Dhoni was also worried about the over-rates, which could potentially earn him a one-match suspension. “Another area of worry is the over-rate because we were five-and-a-half overs down at one stage,” he said. “That’s a lot. That’s a big worry. We need to step that up. We need to bowl our quota in the time allotted.”Dhoni is looking forward to Zaheer’s return, not just for what he does with the ball, but how he leads the attack. “It’s not just that when Zaheer plays he always gets wickets,” he said when asked if the attack was not even half as effective in Zaheer’s absence. “But what is good with him is the amount of experience he has got, the way he comes up with new plans and changes his plans during the course of the game. What we need to see is if he can be there in the next Test, whether we can make something happen on the field.”Dhoni seemed resigned to India’s tendency to start Test series poorly. “That’s one quality we have,” he said. “It’s not only in India. Most of the Test series, the first Test has often gone bad, but after that we have come back really well. Again we are back to a start that we are quite used to now, hopefully we will cope with that in the coming two games.”That said, he had a few positives to draw on. “Apart from the first day I think we batted really well,” he said. “In the second innings, if you have to achieve 400 or 400-plus score you are under pressure. It may be a flat track, but handling that pressure is very difficult. That [India handled it] is definitely a big positive.”

Salman Butt, one of the three Pakistan players suspended following accusations of spot-fixing, has denied the allegations and said the money found in his room was legitimate – including payment for opening an ice-cream parlour – and accounted for.”I have not done anything such as this in all my life or cricketing career,” he said in an interview with Sky television, broadcast in the UK on Monday night.Butt was made captain of Pakistan’s Test side after Shahid Afridi’s retirement midway through the England tour. During the fourth Test against England at Lord’s, Butt, along with seamers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, was implicated in a sting video that alleged that the trio was involved in bowling deliberate, planned no-balls. The ICC has since suspended the three players from the international game and will decide their fate at an independent tribunal from January 6-11 in Doha.Butt has now claimed that since he was newly in charge of the side, he could not have exerted the kind of influence required to convince bowlers to deliberately overstep. “I became captain as a result of an accident where the previous captain suddenly decided he couldn’t play Test cricket anymore, so to have this kind of influence by three or four games, I think any kind of captain would like that,” Butt said. “These kinds of people [Asif and Amir] do not let others decide their roles. The team knows, the opponents know who is going to open the bowling. They just have to decide their ends which they always do, so there is nothing more I would like to say.”Butt did not elaborate on the video evidence since he was bound by the ICC’s code of conduct to remain silent on the issue. When asked about the currency notes found in his hotel room in London during a raid following the release of the video, Butt said the money was legitimate and accounted for.”People can have their opinions but I actually know where the money came from,” Butt said. “Everybody knows the Pakistan Cricket Board pays us daily allowances on tours and it was a long tour, so about £11,000 of this money was from my daily allowances. Being captain, I had extra entertainment allowance which amounts to around £4500 from the tour.”The rest of the money was advance payment for my bat stickers for which I was under contract with Capital Cricket, which shows on the back of my bat. I was given £2500 for the opening of an ice-cream parlour in Tooting [in south London]. I believe the name [of the parlour] is Afters and the manager, or the people working over there, will tell you that I had to do the opening of the ice-cream parlour along with Mohammad Amir. That’s what we were paid for.”Meanwhile, Aftab Gul, the lawyer who will be representing Butt at January’s hearings, has claimed he has evidence of corruption in the game and the names of the people involved “will make your hair stand on end”. Gul said spot-fixing was the biggest form of cricket corruption since it was easy to pull off.

Captain Calamity
But for the mercy of the Gabba’s extra bounce, Andrew Strauss could well be batting in binary in this series – 0, 0, 1. After his third-ball slap to gully on the opening day in Brisbane, Strauss padded up to Ben Hilfenhaus’s first delivery of the second innings, and escaped a raucous appeal with the ball skidding over the bails. Today at Adelaide, however, he showed he hasn’t yet learned the lessons of that reprieve, as he hoisted his bat high in the air once again, and listened in horror as Doug Bollinger tickled his off bail.Brothers in arms
Ryan Harris and Bollinger are the fresh faces for Australia and they confirmed their bowling bromance after Bollinger’s first-over strike of Strauss. Harris went in for a congratulatory cuddle but as Bollinger turned his head the exchange almost turned into a sweaty kiss. It ended in cheek-to-cheek contact, which they felt was a bit too intimate for such blokey, burly men.Costly drops
In Adelaide, it’s important to make the most of half chances but Australia failed to take a series of offerings and were made to pay. The spills began when Xavier Doherty had a chance to do a Trott on Trott, but his throw from square leg went a metre wide of the stumps, giving the batsman a reprieve on 6. Four runs later, Trott was dropped at gully by Michael Hussey, who crouched forward and felt the ball go through his hands. Trott benefited again on 76 when Brad Haddin got both gloves to an edge behind but couldn’t close them in time. The last miss wasn’t costly, with Michael Clarke taking Australia’s first catch of the game when Trott was 78.On and on and on …
Alastair Cook and Trott looked as though they could have batted for another week as they walked off the pitch at Brisbane. And once Trott had digested his early good fortune, they resumed where they had left off with a pitiless assault in some of the most brutal heat of the year. Trott in particular was ravenous through the leg-side, so it was quite a shock when he finally mistimed a clip off Harris and picked out Clarke at midwicket. The breakthrough meant that for the first time in five sessions Trott had to walk back to the pavilion alone, although he had by that stage helped to add 502 consecutive runs for England’s second wicket.Referral woe
“Oh bad luck you Aussies!” was Geoffrey Boycott’s immortal cry at Old Trafford in 2005, when Michael Vaughan was bowled by a no-ball, only moments after surviving a dropped catch off Glenn McGrath. Whether or not one agrees with the referral system (and plenty of people do not) the effect of watching a hard-earned wicket being snatched away by technology is arguably more deflating than any error on the part of the fielding team. Such was the case when Peter Siddle thought he’d induced a glove down the leg-side off Cook on 64. Even as the finger went up, however, Siddle was mentally preparing himself for it to be taken back down again. Replays rightly showed that Cook’s elbow had caused the deflection.Death by cuts
Doherty’s spin was meant to be more important than his fielding but he struggled with that too, particularly in an over before tea. Cook was in charge as Doherty dropped short outside off with three balls in a row and was cut to the boundary each time. Finger spinners hate being hit to point but Doherty could do nothing to stop the punishment.Hello Kevin, where’ve you been?
Kevin Pietersen has not had much to get his teeth into in Ashes cricket of late. His 2009 campaign was curtailed after two Tests by injury, and his only chance to bat at Brisbane came on that frenetic first day. Since then he’s been itching to get involved, but thwarted at every turn – firstly by the crease occupation by the trio above him in the order, and then by the Adelaide groundstaff whom he grumpily denounced as “pathetic” for failing to cover the nets during a downpour. This afternoon, however, he put all such issues to one side, and cashed in on a flat deck for his most effortless innings in months.

Kemar Roach, the West Indies fast bowler, is ready to battle the tough conditions of Sri Lanka and lead his team’s attack during the three-Test series. West Indies arrived for their tour on Sunday, having prepared at a training camp in Barbados, and Roach is eager to build on the promising start to his international career.He made a name for himself by roughing up Ricky Ponting during last year’s tour of Australia, particularly a head-to-head during the Perth Test when Ponting had to retire hurt, and Roach has taken 26 wickets at 29.69 in his seven Tests to suggest he can be a fixture in the West Indies side for a long time.However, pitches in Sri Lanka can often be hard work for the fast bowlers and the home side boast a powerful batting line-up including Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawaradene and Tillakaratne Dilshan while they will also be on a high after a successful tour of Australia.The pressure will be on Roach because he has inexperienced support in the shape of Nelon Pascal and Andre Russell with Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards still sidelined. Roach, though, is not perturbed by the challenge ahead.”The pitches in Sri Lanka are quite flat but ball tends to swing a bit,” he said. “If you can get it right as a fast bowler, you can be quite successful. I have been working on swinging the with the coach. I still have a little bit of work to do on my lengths, but I’m satisfied with what I got out of the camp. It will be challenging but I’m willing to take on the challenge and do what the captain wants me to do and what is required to help the team.”The West Indies squad has been put through their paces ahead of the trip with an intense training camp and now have a three-day match starting on Thursday to prepare for the Test series.”I believe I have prepared well and I’m excited about the possibilities as I look ahead to this tour. We had a good camp in Barbados and we did some hard work,” said Roach. “It was a lot of hard work but I enjoyed every moment of it. It was good preparation, the ideal kind of preparation, for a tour like this.”The series begins in Dambulla on November 16 followed by two Test matches in Colombo before a five-match one-day series and one-off Twenty20.

ScorecardUsman Khawaja stormed to 175 not out on the opening day•Getty Images

Usman Khawaja sent a timely reminder to the national selectors and Nic Maddinson became New South Wales’ youngest first-class debutant to reach three figures as the pair crushed South Australia. After Maddinson, 18 years and 294 days, collected 113, Khawaja raced to an unbeaten 175 to push the Blues to 3 for 366 at stumps on the opening day.In a stunning display of young talent – Khawaja was the veteran of the stand at 23 – the pair put on 153 at more than four an over to gain the momentum over the hosts. Khawaja, who hit 28 fours, toured with the Test team during the winter and the size of his contribution will be noticed, especially if he goes on to a double-century.Maddinson, the left-handed opener, will gain immediate attention for his display, which included 17 fours and two sixes, and ended with a mistake to the part-time medium pace of Daniel Harris. The performance was even more special because the Blues had battled to 1 for 66 at lunch, with Maddinson on 29, and was all over before tea.Maddinson took the record from Arthur Morris, who was almost 19 when he posted 148 against Queensland in 1940-41. Only Archie Jackson, Ian Craig and Doug Walters have raised centuries for the Blues at a younger age.South Australia’s mostly imported bowling attack struggled for penetration without Peter George, who is in India with the Test side. Chris Duval, the only home-grown specialist, removed Phil Jaques (20) before lunch while Ben Edmondson, who was picked up from Western Australia, collected Peter Forrest after tea for 11.

Ireland allrounder Alex Cusack has been ruled out for the tour of Canada, which includes two ODIs and an Intercontinental Cup match. Cusack is set to undergo surgery on a long-standing injury problem and his recovery is expected to take about six weeks.Cricket Ireland stated in a release that he is suffering from ‘chronic compartment syndrome’, which happens when the muscles don’t have room to expand in the fascia which surrounds the muscle nerves.The 14-man squad includes Andre Botha and Phil Eaglestone, who have recovered from their respective injuries. The allrounder Botha was down with a stress fracture while Eaglestone, the left-arm seamer, suffered a side strain. Niall O’Brien, the wicketkeeper, is recovering well from the operation on his finger, and expects to resume playing before the end of the season.Those missing the trip are William Porterfield and Boyd Rankin, who have county commitments. Wicketkeeper Gary Wilson will miss the Intercontinental Cup in Toronto starting August 31 but his county Surrey has agreed to release him for the ODIs alone.Squad: Trent Johnston (capt), Andre Botha, George Dockrell, Phil Eaglestone, Allan Eastwood, Nigel Jones, Rory McCann, John Mooney, Kevin O’Brien, Andrew Poynter, Paul Stirling, Albert van der Merwe, Andrew White, Gary Wilson (ODIs only)

Guyana are aiming to replicate the performance that helped them win the Caribbean Twenty20 during their Champions League campaign in South Africa, their captain Ramnaresh Sarwan has said. The team arrived in South Africa yesterday and Sarwan said his players were determined to go a step further than Trinidad & Tobago did last year, when Darren Ganga’s team made the final of the inaugural Champions League but lost to New South Wales.”It’s important that we should do the things we did that helped us to win the Caribbean competition,” Sarwan said. “We have lots of young, inexperienced players, but they are all very capable to springing surprises on the other teams.”Trinidad & Tobago were the runners-up last time, and we hope to go one better. They did so well last year when they weren’t expected to, and we beat them in the Caribbean T20, so that gives us lots of confidence. Their (T&T) performance is a motivating factor and we would like to go a step further than them, and my team is looking forward to the challenge.”Guyana qualified for the Champions League by beating Barbados in the final of the Caribbean Twenty20 and are pooled in Group B along with Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians, Highveld Lions and South Australia Redbacks.Sarwan said that though his team’s preparations had focused on the opposition, he was more concerned with producing the same intensity that won Guyana a berth in South Africa. “We have been studying a lot of players but we are more focussed on what we have to do,” Sarwan said. “I am trying to do what we did in the Caribbean and what helped us win that tournament. We are looking to stick to our basics and try to do the best we can.”Guyana’s first match of the Champions League is against Bangalore at Centurion on September 12.