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The New Zealand Cricket Players Association (NZCPA) is seeking to reach agreement with the New Zealand Cricket Bargaining Team within the week in respect of the current player contract negotiations. The parties are agreed on a substantial number of the issues requiring resolution. In respect of the outstanding issues, the NZCPA is aiming to provide the New Zealand Cricket Bargaining Team with a counter offer.”We provided a reasoned response to the New Zealand Cricket Bargaining Teams settlement offer last week. As part of that response we have highlighted some key issues which require discussion and agreement prior to us being in a position to provide a meaningful and responsible counter offer,” said executive director and member of the NZCPA negotiation team Rob Nichol.”The key issue is reaching agreement on the mechanism that will be used to both calculate and forecast the income figures from which any player payment pool will be calculated. Until we have achieved this it is difficult to calibrate any offer and ensure the reasonableness of it.”The NZCPA has also made publicly available both the NZCPA background document relating to the players position and the players response to the New Zealand Cricket Bargaining Team’s settlement offer.”It is hoped that by making these documents available we will be able to provide the public and media with the player’s perspective in relation to the issues under negotiation,” said Nichol.”What the documentation shows is that there are some differences in the philosophies of the two parties and how the relationship should work. Both parties place different levels of priority and importance on the role the players play in that relationship.””We have discussed at length during negotiations the New Zealand Cricket Bargaining Team’s perspective and our own. We believe that both parties understand and respect the position of the other.””Somewhere in between lies the middle ground and that is more than likely where an agreement will be found.”We want to ensure the public of New Zealand that what will result will be in the best interests of cricket in New Zealand both in the short and long term” said Nichol.”This is a hard process. It is one which tests everyone who is involved. We ask for patience and understanding while we try and resolve matters in a professional and timely manner.”

MELBOURNE, Nov 23 AAP – Victoria’s Matthew Elliott turned a season of starts into the big score that always beckoned to apply the screws to South Australia on the second day of the Pura Cup match at the MCG today.Elliott’s superb 191 gave the Bushrangers a 175-run lead at the halfway mark of the first-versus-second clash, and erased some of the frustrations this season has produced personally.The left-hander has failed to go on from several decent starts this season and also missed out for Australia A against England in last week’s run-feast in Hobart when a blow to the elbow forced him to retire hurt.He made amends today in a seven-hour stay (21 fours, one six) to spearhead Victoria to 5-377 at stumps in reply to South Australia’s 202 after Redbacks captain Greg Blewett won yesterday’s toss and batted.A 189-run stand between Elliott and Brad Hodge (96) had the effect of a torturer slowly tightening the rack on an opponent that fielded in dry heat and got little help from a placid pitch.Like Elliott, Hodge has failed to fire this season and looked destined for a sparkling century until Blewett had him LBW.But Elliott was the mainstay and his 24th Pura Cup ton for Victoria continued a run of big centuries before he was out nicking a tired cut shot 15 minutes from stumps.It also erased the disappointment of Hobart, where everything that could go wrong did.”I think I’ve just kept it a bit more simple, particularly since Hobart,” Elliott said.”I think you can come away from a game like that and say ‘Oh, everything’s going against me, I retired hurt one ball and I dropped four catches and the world’s against me’.”That’s just what happened, I didn’t go there to drop catches or to retire hurt first ball, so I think sometimes you can beat yourself up too much about those sort of things.”I went out there this game and tried to be positive and watch the ball and it worked out pretty well.”It was a pretty good wicket and I made the most of it.”South Australia lost paceman Ryan Harris (1-25) to a side strain in the first session and, indicative of their day, Blewett (3-32) finished with the best figures despite not bowling himself until the last session.

Somerset find themselves staring relegation in the face in the NUL following their controversial defeat last week, and face a vitally important match this weekend.On Sunday they entertain Worcestershire at the County Ground in what will be a rehearsal for the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy quarter-final match later in the month.The black pear county are enjoying a run of good form in one-day cricket and are currently in second place in the table. The Sabres will be looking to make amends for the NUL defeat they suffered when the two sides met at New Road in May and for the Benson and Hedges defeat at Taunton a fortnight earlier.Sunday will also be a big day for Somerset’s popular wicket-keeper Rob Turner, who was born at Malvern, who has nominated this to be his benefit match.Somerset will go into the match without the services of their main strike bowler Richard Johnson, who is still recovering from a hamstring injury. Their bowling resources were even further depleted yesterday when Simon Francis, who gave his best display of the season against Surrey broke a finger, and will be sidelined for the next few weeks.Initially it had been hoped that Jamie Cox might have recovered from his broken thumb to face the Worcester Royals, but this now seems unlikely, and his return all being well will now be in the match against Yorkshire at Scarborough on Wednesday.The Somerset team will be: Matthew Wood, Piran Holloway, Mike Burns, Peter Bowler, Keith Parsons, Ian Blackwell, Rob Turner, Keith Dutch, Graham Rose, Matthew Bulbeck and Steffan Jones.Somerset coach Kevin Shine told me: "This is an important match for us, and after last week’s disappointments we will be looking for a result on Sunday."

Challow and Childrey:
Berkshire 385 (J Wood 129, TJ Pritchard 80, JR Perkins 60, GS Peddy 6-85)
Oxfordshire 66-0.Shrewsbury:
Shropshire 267 (TJ Mason 146*)
Wiltshire 58-3.Hertford:
Norfolk 451/7 (C Amos 180, CJ Rogers 153)- New 1st wicket record of 335
Hertfordshire 19/2

Stuart Lampitt and Alamgir Sheriyar bowled Worcestershire to a first inningslead of 151 on the second day at Bristol.But, with most spectators expecting Graeme Hick to enforce the follow-on,the skipper decided against it and was one of the batsmen to fall as hisside struggled to 21-2 in their second innings by the close.Gloucestershire must have been relieved after their woeful batting displayof the afternoon on an easy-paced pitch.Lampitt claimed 5-22 from 12.5 overs, sent down in two spells, whileSheriyar returned 3-46 from 21 overs. Both seamers were accurate and in goodrhythm, but that hardly accounted for the home side plunging to 67-5 inreply to 326.Jeremy Snape showed that runs could be made with the right application,hitting 69 off 122 balls, with 10 fours, after coming in at number seven.He was last man out, chopping a ball from Lampitt onto his stumps, with hisside still two runs short of avoiding the prospect of being asked to batagain.With the weather still overcast, the final 13 overs of the day were alwaysgoing to be testing for the batsmen, which made Hick’s decision a surprisingone.Anurag Singh soon edged Jon Lewis to slip and the captain himself had madeonly two when pinned lbw by James Averis. Presumably, Hick felt the pitchwas deteriorating, but that can be a dangerous assumption at Bristol.The day had begun with Worcestershire adding only 28 to their overnightscore of 298-6 as Lewis made good use of the new ball to claim three of thelast four wickets for figures of 5-71.

What a hiding Pakistan took and but for the weather, the match might have ended inside four days. No excuses please, not even the horrible decision against Inzaman-ul-Haq. Sri Lanka played total cricket and the commitment was so tangible, one could almost touch it. Not so Pakistan who looked out of sorts and in the words of P.G. Wodehouse “if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”Waqar Younis has denied reports of disharmony in the team and I am glad that he has done so and although one should not read too much into body-language, the Sri Lankans seemed to be enjoying themselves, there was a stoop to the shoulders of the Pakistanis. One obvious reason for this could be that the Sri Lankans were winning and the Pakistanis were on the back-foot, throughout the match.Great pains were taken to prepare the wicket and because some grass had been left on it, it was described as a green-top and the expectation was that the ball would fly about. I don’t think one can change the fundamental character of a wicket by leaving some grass on it.In the end, it was a typical Gaddafi Stadium wicket which got slower, with the occasional ball keeping low and to no one’s surprise Muttiah Muralitharan was the bowler of the match while our own Saqlain Mushtaq was turning his arm over, along with Wasim Akram, for PIA in the one-day competition.Wasim had not been picked by the selection committee because it was not satisfied about his fitness but Saqlain was in the squad and was, therefore, dropped by Waqar and his think-tank. This meant that Pakistan had decided to go into a Test match without a specialist spinner and in this particular case, one of the best spinners in the world.Both Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi were played more for their batting and were not seriously bowled. I found Saqlain’s omission particularly surprising as the Sri Lankans have so many left-handers including Kumar Sangakkara who scored a double century.The Australians have stripped the captain of any say in the selection of the playing eleven. I am not in full agreement with this because a captain is the one who is held responsible if things go wrong and should have a say in the playing eleven but in a home series, it should be the selection committee who should decide the playing eleven, giving due weight to any in-put from the captain and the coach.The Pakistan attack lacked variety. Saqlain would have provided it and I don’t think the Sri Lankans would have made 528, if he was in the team.The Pakistan cricket public is disappointed but there was some good news as well, the best being the return to form of Inzamam. As the cliche goes, form is temporary but class is permanent and it was only a matter of one good innings before the confidence would return to this burly Multan batsman, among the best in the world.He was out for 99 to a decision that seemed almost fiendish, a no-ball plus too high plus missing leg. I don’t know whether it would have altered the result of the match, it seemed too far gone but those of us who were in Auckland for the 1992 World Cup semifinal saw Inzamam pull out Pakistan from a deeper hole and who knows, he could have steered Pakistan to the safety of a draw?Inzamam has had a lot on his mind lately, the health of his father which is of urgent concern to him. But his return to form could not have come at a better time with New Zealand’s tour of Pakistan confirmed.Mohammad Sami bowled with a lot of heart, a hat trick being the reward of his honest labour. He seems to be a quick learner and I noticed that he had shortened his run. Shoaib Akhtar too bowled well and seemed fully fit which is good news.Afridi was run out in the first innings, a mix-up between him and Younis Khan but he batted with determination in the second, a calm innings by his standards but a very good one.He was deceived in flight by Muralitharan but better batsman than Afridi have been bamboozled by the Sri Lankan magician. But batting remains the main worry and though there is no Muralitharan in the New Zealand attack, there is plenty of high class bowling, as well as batting.Pakistan must forget this Test match, its overall performance being eminently forgettable and become a settled team as Sri Lanka was. Sri Lanka came with a plan and stuck to it, Pakistan, on the other hand, chose to play it by ear. Having lost the toss and been put in, the batting just folded and no one was able to stay long enough to take charge.There was some poor shot selection which at this level of cricket shows a lack of application and an inability to differentiate between Test and one-day cricket. Compared to the Sri Lankans who seem to enjoy their fielding, the Pakistan effort in the field made it appear as manual labour. But where we were decidedly better was in the bowling of no-balls. The Sri Lankans bowled some 60 no-balls in both the innings, the Pakistani bowlers were more disciplined. They bowled far fewer. This is not comfort enough.It’s not quite back to the drawing board but the Pakistan team must have a session among themselves and do some honest soul-searching. Why should there be this perception that a wholehearted effort was missing, that the team appeared to be stuck in second gear?I still rate Pakistan among the best Test teams in the world. And as far as the PCB is concerned, it has gone an extra mile to support the players. The players have never had it so good. There should be some reciprocity from them.

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POOR batting and useful bowling by two potent attacks on a pitch of variablebounce saw 15 wickets fall on the first day.By the close, Border were 76 runs behind on 114 for five in reply toNortherns’ first innings of 190.Not that the pitch was a major factor in all that timber tumbling, evenallowing for the odd bout of variable bounce. After all, Northerns captainGerald Dros won the toss and batted.Alas, the batting fairly reeked of ill discipline, while the bowling on bothsides was out of the top drawer, helped not a little by the significantswing on offer.Border took wickets with pure pace, in the form of Makhaya Ntini’s three for32, medium pace, with Piet Botha picking up three for 16, and spin,off-spinner Geoff Love taking three for 58.David Townsend bowled aggressively to do the damage for Northerns withfigures of three for 25, while Steve Elworthy was his steady self in takingtwo for 33.Bowling honours on the day probably belonged to veteran all-rounder Botha,who went for nine runs in his first over and then bowled immaculately toconcede just seven runs in his remaining eight overs.Border also held some good catches, epitomised by Laden Gamiet’s divingeffort at backward point to remove Jacques Rudolph.Northerns were 71 for three at lunch and were dismissed with what became thelast ball before tea. Their scorecard would have made even more mournfulreading were it not for a sixth-wicket stand of 57 between Dros and thenuggety Kruger van Wyk.Fittingly Dros and Van Wyk made the two highest scores of the innings, 35and 30 respectively, before being dismissed an over apart.The continuation of the unfinished partnership of 42 between captain PieterStrydom, who was 33 not out, and Gamiet, on 18, would seem to be Border’smost viable option for taking a substantial first innings lead.

Despite an impressive partnership between Mehrab Hussain (71) and Habibul Bashar (64), Bangladesh failed to take advantage of another rather disappointing performance by Zimbabwe’s bowlers and fielders. At the close they had 198 runs on the board for six wickets, with only Akram Khan of their top order remaining. For Zimbabwe, Raymond Price, with four wickets, had most reason to remember the day.Heath Streak, with some bitter experiences of the pitch behind him, put Bangladesh in to bat on winning the toss, expecting the usual early life. There was indeed a certain amount of movement, but it was not excessive and the bowlers did not bowl quite well enough to take full advantage of it. The outfield, dead slow for the one-dayers, had improved to be merely slow. After the first hour, it could almost be described as a 400-run pitch coupled with a 200-run outfield.Javed Omar was not to repeat his superb batting double of Bulawayo, as with only a single to his credit he snicked Streak to Andy Blignaut at third slip. Mehrab Hussain and Al Sahariar stood firm for a while against bowling that did not apply enough pressure and were helped by the occasional misfield. Then Streak showed what might have been achieved by consistent accuracy as Al Sahariar (11) failed to keep down a rising ball and was well held by the diving Grant Flower in the gully.Runs came at just under two an over, but it was not really an absorbing struggle. Bangladesh might have felt reasonably satisfied at lunch with two wickets down on a pitch assisting the bowlers had not Ray Price been brought on to bowl his left-arm spinners just before the break, and had Aminul Islam caught at slip by Alistair Campbell for 12. Mehrab was still there, having batted through the session for a watchful 21.With the pitch as usual playing more easily after lunch, Mehrab and Habibul Bashar settled in and then began to take toll of the bowling, choosing skillfully the right deliveries to hit. Mehrab enjoyed two lives, one early on and a second after reaching his 50. The scoring rate gradually increased and Zimbabwe toiled without taking any more wickets by tea. Mluleki Nkala was the most economical of the pace bowlers but Blignaut and Brighton Watambwa were wayward.After tea Bashar’s 50 was quickly followed by the century partnership, and the batsman celebrated by swinging Price over midwicket for six. At last the tourists were beginning to provide a much-needed wake-up call for Zimbabwe’s bowlers in this series. They added 114 for the fourth wicket before Bashar (64) leapt down the pitch to Price and was stumped. Shortly afterwards Mehrab (71) pulled the same bowler straight to Stuart Carlisle at midwicket and at 171 for five Bangladesh had undone much of their hard work. Their team would be disappointed that neither stayed for the really big innings required.The second new ball came with two new batsmen at the crease, but again Streak and Blignaut failed to use it to full advantage. Price returned after six overs with it and had Naimur Rahman (16) given out to a high-looking lbw decision just before the close. Akram Khan (15*) and Mushfiqur Rahman (0*) saw out the day.

ScorecardEngland’s Under-19 cricketers were taught a lesson in big-hitting in the first Twenty20 against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street, as they were thrashed by nine wickets with more than six overs of the contest to spare.Chasing a meagre total of 108, after Chathura Peiris had claimed 3 for 20 in a consistently dominant bowling display, Sri Lanka were given a flying start by their opener Bhanuka Rajapaksa, who cracked three fours and five sixes in an unbeaten 54 from 29 balls.He was ably supported by his opening partner, Ramith Rambukwella, who made 36 from 30 balls before falling in the eighth over to Adam Ball, but with 75 already on the board by then, the rest of the innings was a formality. Aside from one four and one six, Yasoda Lanka was required to make four runs from his remaining 21 balls as Sri Lanka strolled over the line.Despite their impressive series-levelling victory in last week’s Test encounter at Scarborough, England never really got going after winning the toss and batting first. Peiris claimed the opener, Luke Wells, with the sixth ball of the match, and though Jack Manuel responded with some spirited hitting in a 12-ball 23, he was gone before the end of the fourth over.By the halfway mark of the innings, England were already five-down, and facing a struggle. The wicketkeeper, Adam Rossington, ran hard between the wickets for a run-a-ball 22, but when England were bowled out with nine balls of their innings still to go, their total never look like being enough.