West End Redbacks batsman Chris Davies today announced his retirement from first-class cricket.25-year-old Davies recently underwent surgery for the fourth time on his left shoulder which has led to his decision to retire.Davies, who plays Grade cricket for the Adelaide Cricket Club, made his first-class debut in 1997-98 and has played 25 first-class games since that time. He was recently awarded the 2003 Tanya Denver Award, for sportsmanship and endeavour, at the Channel 7-The Advertiser Sports Star of the Year Awards.Chris says that it was an enormously difficult decision to make."Since undergoing surgery two weeks ago, it became apparent that my shoulder was not going to recover to the level required to play first-class cricket.""This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I will miss the camaraderie with the boys – some of whom have become life-long friends.""I would like thank both the SACA and the Australian Cricketer’s Association for their continued support," he said.Redbacks coach Wayne Phillips says that Chris will be sorely missed from the SACA."Chris embodies all that we want from Redbacks cricketers – enthusiasm, desire, their ethic on and off the field. He does it in such an uncomplaining way.""He will be sorely missed from a playing point of view but we hope to be able to retain him in some capacity at the SACA," he said."
Mystery surrounds the participation of India ‘A’ in the upcoming Carib Beer Cricket Series which bowls off on Friday.It is still unclear if the tourists will indeed be in the region for the competition. A check with the West Indies Cricket Board’s (WICB) public relations handlers yesterday evening revealed they had been trying to contact the Board for Cricket Control of India (BCCI) for some time without success.Further checks with the official website of the Indian board and monitoring of newspaper revealed nothing, and it is not sure if a team has been selected as yet, or if any systems have been put in place.India ‘A’ are due to bowl off against West Indies ‘B’ at the Windward Cricket Club, St Philip, the second first-class match at that venue. If the Indian reserves fail to make the trip the other teams in the eight-match competition would be awarded a bye.Last night, a Barbados Cricket Association official said it had received no word on the Indians’ arrival and had little details to go by. The official however added that they had gone ahead to make hotel booking and land travel arrangements.Efforts to contact officials of the WICB yesterday proved futile, but NATIONSPORT understands that WICB president Wes Hall was in recent contact with Indian board president Jagmohan Dalmiya, but the details of their discussions were not available.This is the third time an ‘A’ team has been invited to participate in the regional competition. England ‘A’ was the first to visit in 2000 for the Busta Cricket Series, while Bangladesh ‘A’ participated last year.
Barcelona is going through a hard period in these past couple of years as the club is struggling to reach the peak form that it had during the 2010s. However, this isn’t something that should surprise football fans. Why? Because it is a well-known fact that all clubs go through a period of great success, then fall off and need a couple of years to recoup and get back to the top.
Ups and downs are part of the journey and that is what Barcelona is experiencing at the moment. After falling off in the Champions League, Barcelona is now set to compete in the Europa League, which is something that left many speechless as they are used to watching this club perform with the best in Europe.
Punters are fond of these developments, though. They consider Barcelona as the clear favourite to win the Europa League and earn itself a spot in the CL next year. After all, Europa League is still a trophy and it counts in the total tally.
The odds are also decent and this is a win-win situation for bettors. Not only will they be able to play a so-called safe bet, but they might end up earning a decent reward in the process. Of course, there are tons of other bet types and predictions in store and if you are thinking of placing a bet, feel free to take a look at the latest Europa League predictions from squawka.com.
Barcelona might even reap a few benefits from the fact that it is in the Europa League this season and these benefits mostly concern its young stars. Here’s why.
They Will Get Familiar With the Feeling of Playing in a Major Tournament
Many of the young stars in the club were thrown into the pit when they started competing in the Champions League. After all, the CL is the cream of the crop and there’s a chance that it may have been a bit too much to handle. After all, we are talking about young boys who are just experiencing what pressure means.
Europa League is the perfect competition where they can learn the importance of being in a major international tournament without the pressure and eyes on them. You always start small and gradually graduate and that is exactly what the transition from Europa League to the Champions League means.
A Chance to Develop
Europa League is a second-tier tournament. Now, we’re not saying that this competition features weak teams, but there’s no denying the fact that the teams that are competing in the Champions League are far better than the ones competing in Europa League.
This is a good thing for Barca’s young stars as it provides them with a great chance to develop and learn everything about them individually, but also how to play as a collective. After all, Barca is known for its team play and the so-called tiki-taka tactic.
Experimenting with new strategies against the calibre of Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester City, PSG, etc., is not the best option, but many Europa League teams are below Barca’s standard and that provides the young stars with the perfect chance to learn something new. Plus, it is also a benefit for Xavi as he will be able to determine what are the strengths and the weaknesses of his players and thus, come up with the best tactics.
Barcelona Needs a Break from the Champions League
At the beginning of this article, we mentioned that Barcelona is not the team that it once was. However, everyone at the club is so keen on holding on to its former glory and that may have torn it apart. Trying to compete against the best even though you are not in their realm might have a negative effort on the team’s mentality.
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In other words, a break is needed from time to time, and the entry to the Europa League might be a good thing for the young stars as they will start building up a winning mentality in an international tournament and build up from that point.
After a while, they will be able to use that mentality to achieve better results in higher competitions, such as the Champions League.
Following their five-wicket defeat in the first Test, Jamie Siddons, the Bangladesh coach, said he does not expect his side to beat South Africa unless a miracle occurs.Siddons said the Bangladesh batsmen were not used to batting against the sort of pace generated by South Africa’s fast bowlers. “They [the batsmen] go from playing for their clubs in the National League to trying to take on the best fast bowler in the world. [Dale] Steyn kept striking in the first few overs and we never recovered. We spent the [whole] Test trying to recover all the time. He [Steyn] ripped us apart in the second innings with 150 kph outswingers [to the right-handers] or inswingers to the left-handers.””When your batsmen are out of confidence and having to play against Steyn, Morne Morkel or Makhaya Ntini, that is a tough assignment. The pressure they transmitted is too much for our batsmen at the moment. Their bowlers were just too good for our batsmen.”Despite the loss, Siddons was not keen on changing the squad for the second Test. “You’ve got to give young players time. I think they have the talent to improve, even if it takes eight years. What happens if we bring all the experienced players back in and get the same results? I’m not going to do that.”Graeme Smith, South Africa’s captain, felt his side had to work hard for the win because of the nature of the Mirpur wicket. “[It] is a little tougher than the other subcontinent wickets,” Smith said.”The lack of bounce and pace is something we took some time to get used to. It is good to see the way the guys played in the second innings to chase down more than 200 runs.”Having bowled out Bangladesh for 192 in the first innings, South Africa proceeded to concede a 22-run lead when they were bowled out in 60.3 overs. Smith said that after playing three months at home, using a different style and game plan, coming to Bangladesh had been a wake-up call. “Our whole style of playing we were brought up with is turned day and night here. You need a whole different technique as a batsman, as a bowler, in your thinking method and in the ways you get people out. It all changes.”These are not our natural conditions here. We have to learn how to play here, we have to adapt our style and I think we’ve done that now. We’ve won series in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh so obviously we are much more accustomed to playing here now. We’ve found a way to adapt our cricket to do well here.”Smith was impressed with Shahadat Hossain, the Bangladesh right-arm seamer, who took a career-best match haul of 9 for 97. “He [Shahadat] used the conditions well, he got reverse-swing, which made it tough. He bowled the ball in the right areas. And I think [Mohammad] Rafique really did a good job in the first innings containing one end, which made it difficult for us to score.”The second Test will start on February 29 in Chittagong and will be followed by three one-dayers between the two sides.
Mahela Jayawardene admits Sanath Jayasuriya’s decision to put his Test match retirement on hold could be the decisive factor in his country’s World Cup bid.The 37-year-old Jayasuriya briefly retired from Tests last year before changing his mind and returning to the ranks. Despite his age, the veteran of the 1996 World Cup winning team is enjoying a new lease of life in the Caribbean and looked near his best during his 115 against West Indies on Sunday, his 25th one-day century.”We felt when you come into a World Cup year it’s important you play all the matches. When you play all the time it keeps you going so it probably was a good decision for him to come back and play Test cricket as well,” said Jayawardene.”He’s been brilliant. He’s working harder, he’s enjoying his cricket and he played some really good innings, not just the one you saw against the West Indies. He keeps going, that’s the character of the guy.”Sri Lanka, who were facing England in their latest Super Eights match at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on Wednesday, are being tipped as potential World Cup winners with their exciting mixture of youth and experience. Jayawardene, whose side crushed England 5-0 last year, believes that tour, where they also drew the Test series 1-1, was a crucial staging point in the squad’s development.”It was a brilliant tour for us but we’ve come a long way. From that start in England we’ve pushed on and played some really good cricket,” said Jayawardene. “The youngsters learnt a lot from that England trip. From there onwards guys like Lasith Malinga and Upul Tharanga have come up pretty well.”The 2006 series in England culminated in an emphatic eight-wicket win at Headingley where Tharanga (109) and Jayasuriya (152) shared a world record first-wicket stand of 286 as Sri Lanka won with more than 12 overs to spare.Jayawardene, who said that series had been the launch-pad for a run of form that has seen Sri Lanka tipped to repeat their 1996 World Cup triumph here, said he didn’t expect last year’s series to have too much of a bearing now. But he warned: “It depends if England is thinking about it.””For us it’s not an issue because we are playing in different situations, different tournament, different conditions and probably different personnel as well. Things have changed since we played England.”Sri Lanka enjoyed a crushing 113-run victory against hosts West Indies in Guyana on Sunday and Jayawardene, who scored a morale-boosting 82 in that match, said: “The mood is pretty good. The way we played against West Indies was very satisfying.
About a year and a half of difficult negotiations was finally settled in 15 hours of urgent talks which ended in the wee hours of yesterday morning. And West Indies cricketers finally have the chance to be covered by retainer contracts.The major announcement was made yesterday at the Carlos Street, Woodbrook office of West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) president Ken Gordon by himself and West Indies Players Association (WIPA) boss Dinanath Ramnarine.Addressing the local and Caribbean media, Gordon said eight to ten players still to be named by the WICB, would be put on a one-year retainer starting from May 1 this year.He said in the interim, the 13 players selected to play against Zimbabwe in the seven-match one-day international series starting in Antigua on Saturday, would be given match/tour contracts. West Indies will be led by Brian Lara who it was also announced yesterday had been appointed as skipper for the third time.Both sides, entangled in various tense contract and sponsorship negotiations since November of 2004, heralded the agreement as a landmark one.”This is history for West Indies cricket,” Ramnarine said. “For the first time we set out a framework to deal with disputes In the past we operated in a very ad hoc way. This framework really deals with the board and the players as equal partners. So we are equally responsible for the future of West Indies cricket.”Gordon praised the negotiating teams of both sides-the WICB’s headed by Deryck Murray and which also included Desmond Haynes and Barry Thomas and the WIPA quartet of Ramnarine, David Abdullah, Kusha Harracksingh and Roland Hosein.Murray, a founding member of WIPA and currently a WICB director, also expressed his pleasure with the final outcome. “It is great that we have reached this point in West Indies cricket at this stage. It is one of the steps that we need to put in place to help our cricket to move forward.”Murray, recently appointed to conduct the final phase of the negotiations which had been started by outgoing WICB CEO Roger Brathwaite, ventured further to say: “It’s just one step and it’s almost the beginning of a new relationship between the board and the players. The agreement is relatively easy to sign But making it work to the advantage of the players, the public, all the stakeholders of West Indies cricket is extremely important and it is the beginning of the process I think it’s really the beginning of the resurgence of West Indies cricket.”Disagreement over the final terms of the retainer had threatened to disrupt the start of the Zimbabwe series, with the newly-constituted WICB Cricket Committee, headed by former captain Clive Lloyd, issuing two ultimatums for the conclusion of negotiations.According to Ramnarine, at the heart of the impasse was the matter of compensation for the players over intellectual property rights. Describing the final agreement on the Memorandum of Understanding, code of conduct, retainer contracts and match/tour contracts for non-retained players as, “fair and reasonable,” Ramnarine said that give-and-take on both sides was required.”We have recognised the financial situation of the Board. We have also taken into consideration the position of the team, the performance of the team. There are some performance-based incentives which we have agreed to.”The WIPA boss was also moved to praise his WICB counterparts. “I have to say credit to the board. I’ve criticised the Board at times, but I think that you ought to be fair. And I think the Board has negotiated in good faith. Yesterday both parties compromised and were prepared to do that and hence the reason we were actually able to reach agreement.”In particular, Ramnarine paid tribute to outgoing WICB CEO Roger Brathwaite and former president Wes Hall for the roles they had played in framing the documents and initiating the process, respectively.Neither Gordon nor Ramnarine would say what the contract package-inclusive of a lump sum and match/tour fees-would be worth. But Gordon said his board was determined to fulfill their responsibility. “We’ve had to make some assumptions. We hope those assumptions will be justified by events But we are committed to making this work.”And asked whether the retainer agreement could put an end to major disputes between the WIPA and the WICB, Ramnarine responded: “It’s a fair statement What we did not have in place prior to these agreements was a mechanism to deal with those conflicts. What we have in place is a mechanism to deal with them. There are going to be issues that we disagree on no doubt it (But) we have found a way how we deal with them We just have to deal with it with mutual respect.”
Matthew Maynard has been appointed as assistant coach of England’s Test and one-day teams. The 39-year-old Maynard, who retires from playing for Glamorgan with immediate effect, will take up his new appointment on June 9, and his contract will continue till the end of the 2006 domestic season. During this period, Maynard will also work with the players in England’s National Academy and the representative age-group teams.In a media release, Hugh Morris, ECB’s performance director, said: “Matthew’s role will be to provide specialist coaching and support to both the England head coach and the director of the National Cricket Centre at Loughborough. His knowledge and experience of the game are first rate, and he will clearly have a significant role to play in preparing our best young cricketers for the demands of international cricket.”Maynard’s international career was nothing to write home about – in four Tests, two each against West Indies and Australia, he only managed 87 runs at an average of 10.87, while 14 one-day internationals fetched him the meagre return of 156 runs – but as a county cricketer, he was a giant. He showed early promise, becoming Glamorgan’s youngest centurion when, as a 19-year-old in 1985, he scored a hundred on his debut, against Yorkshire. Over a first-class career spanning 20 years, Maynard scored 24,799 runs at an average of more than 42, with 59 centuries. He also captained Glamorgan from 1996 to 2000, and was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1998.Reacting to his appointment, Maynard was suitably delighted. “I really enjoyed being a part of the England management team during the winter and am very pleased that I am now going to be involved with England’s elite cricketers on a longer-term basis. I have spent 20 years with Glamorgan and leaving Sophia Gardens behind will be a big wrench, but this is a terrific opportunity for me to bring my skills and experience to bear at the top level, and I am very excited about the prospect.”Mike Fatkin, the Glamorgan chief executive, expressed his disappointment at Maynard’s impending retirement, but wished him luck with his new assignment. “It’s disappointing to be losing a player of Matthew’s calibre, but he had indicated his intention to retire at the end of the season anyway, and as opportunities such as these don’t come up too often we’re happy to help in any way we can. Matthew has made a terrific contribution to cricket in Wales, both on and off the field, for more than 20 years and his will be substantial shoes to fill. But we’re delighted that he’s been identified for such an important role and we’ve no doubt that he will be a great success in his new position.”
Close of 2nd dayCentral Zone 532 for 7 (Khoda 156, Yadav 80, Prakash 73, Bundela 72, Saxena 69*) v West Zone ScorecardWest Zone spent another day on the field, while Central Zone batted them out of the game. A run rate of 2.74 fetched the batting side 255 runs for the day, and at close of play, the score read 532 for 7. The 108-run stand between Gagan Khoda and Devendra Bundela was ended when Rakesh Patel bowled Khoda for 156. Shortly after, Bundela fell for 72, but Saxena and Jai P Yadav accumulated more runs, adding 68 for the sixth wicket. Two sixes and seven fours laced Yadav’s innings of 80, and when he was finally dismissed by Sairaj Bahutule, it was left to Saxena to take his team to a more formidable total. Assisting him with the task was Harvinder Singh, on 24, and they shared an unbeaten partnership worth 53 runs.Close of 2nd daySouth Zone 93 for 3 (Ramesh 57, Rao 12*, Prasad 2*) trail East Zone 388 (Das 120, Shukla 84, Arindam 55, Singh 4-66) by 295 runs ScorecardA rescue act by East Zone’s lower order kept South Zone at bay, and took the team to 388. By the end of the day, South Zone were in a shifty position at 93 for 3, still 295 runs away from taking the first-innings lead.The overnight batsmen, Shiv Sunder Das and Rajiv Kumar, fell to Narender Singh early on the second day, and when Sunil Joshi removed Saurasish Lahiri for a blob, the end was quite close. But the last three wickets put up 105 runs between them, and Laxmi Ratan Shukla led the way with 84. He was helped by Utpal Chatterjee (25) and Debasish Mohanty (26), who played out valuable overs, and kept the runs coming.South Zone got off to a start, but two wickets in quick succession set them back. Barrington Rowland was dismissed after contributing 15 in a 52-run stand with Sadagoppan Ramesh, who blazed away to 57 off 91 with nine boundaries before getting out. And in the middle of all this, Shukla ran out Sridharan Sriram. At the end of the day, Venugopal Rao was at the crease at 12, with Mannava Prasad for company on 2.
Taking full advantage of his first outing in the Deodhar Trophy thus far, Sridharan Sharath hit a responsible 65 to guide South Zone to a three-wicket win over Central Zone at Gurgaon on Tuesday.Batting first, Central Zone made 230/8 in their allotted 50 overs. The bulk of the runs came from openers Jyoti P Yadav and Gagan Khoda, who made 55 and 44 respectively and put on 107 runs for the first wicket. The highest scorer of the innings, however was Mohammad Kaif, who hit 60 off just 52 balls, with four fours and two sixes.Chasing 231, South Zone started well with a 61-run opening partnership. But wickets tumbled thereafter, and when they were 141/5, Central Zone had a decisive upper hand. But Sharath played calmly, accumulating the runs at exactly the right pace.When Sharath fell, therefore, as the sixth wicket with the score on 213, he had taken South to the threshold of victory. He scored 65 off 86 balls, with four fours and one six. Only one more wicket fell thereafter, and South Zone reached their target with three wickets and 16 balls to spare.