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Glenn McGrath has not revealed whether he plans to stay after the Ashes series, but he insists he still relishes bowling at the highest level. McGrath played down a report in the that he would bow out of the Test scene in Sydney but continue to appear in one-day internationals.McGrath said Shane Warne’s resignation from the Australian team didn’t mean he would be doing the same. “To be honest, I haven’t said anything [about retiring],” he told commercial radio. “It’s funny where it all comes from.”To me, I’m just preparing for another game. Nothing’s changed since the end of the Perth Test, apart from the fact that Shane Warne’s retiring at the end of the Sydney Test. So it’s funny how Warney decides that and … whether it’s in his wake and I’m being pulled along as well or whether the media think it’s time for me to go, I don’t know.”Asked whether this series would be his last, McGrath was non-committal. “All I’m saying is that, to me, it’s business as usual,” he said. “I’m just preparing for these next two Test matches, then it’s the one-day series and then I’ll take it from there.”The reported McGrath would fly to Melbourne today for the fourth Test carrying his resignation letter after discussing his departure with his wife Jane, who has endured a lengthy battle with cancer.”All I did was finish in Perth, come home and I’ve done nothing since and I’ve had journalists camped on the front door and hassling me at home and everything,” he said. “For me, it’s just another day at the office.”I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we, [whether I will play on]. I don’t look that far ahead. In previous years, I haven’t said I’m looking forward to the Test in eight months or 12 months so, for me, it’s just another day at the office. I’m still enjoying it. I’m still loving playing and I’ve still got a lot of cricket in me.”

Lancashire have signed Neil Wagner as their overseas player for the majority of their 2016 first-class season.Wagner, the New Zealand left-arm seamer, will be available from the start of the County Championship season and will feature primarily in that competition. He will be available until at least the end of July and could be available for the entire season if not required for New Zealand’s tour of South Africa.He has currently taken 67 wickets from his 18 Tests. He has previously had a brief spell in county cricket with Northamptonshire – he came into a struggling side in 2014 and took only 10 first-class wickets in five matches at a cost of 72.80 apiece – and has also played club cricket in the region for Ormskirk in 2008. He claimed five wickets in an over while playing for Otago against Wellington in April 2011.His aggression, stamina and commitment should render him a useful addition to a Lancashire side that was promoted back to Division One at the end of last year. With the top division almost certain to shrink to eight teams (from nine) at the end of 2016, Lancashire will have little opportunity to consolidate.”We are delighted to have brought in Neil Wagner to strengthen our bowling attack,” Lancashire coach, Ashley Giles, said. “Neil is a world class bowler with a tremendous pedigree and having him available for such an extended period will give our Division One campaign a real boost.””I am extremely excited to play for such a great club,” Wagner said. “I have always admired Lancashire, ever since playing in the Liverpool Lancashire league for Ormskirk in 2008.”

Pakistan A have bolstered their pace attack for the second Test against Australia A in Lahore with the return of Mohammad Sami, who has recovered from the viral infection which ruled him out of the first match in Faisalabad.Injuries to two fast bowlers has resulted in more changes to the bowling attack. Anwar Ali replaces left-arm seamer Najaf Shah, who is nursing a back injury while Abdur Rauf, who top-scored with 73 in the first innings in Faisalabad, is down with a groin strain. Offspinner Tahir Khan comes in for Atif Maqbool.In the batting department, the selectors have included opener Khurram Manzoor, who scored a career-best 200 against Mumbai in the Nissar Trophy last week. He replaces former Pakistan batsman Hasan Raza, who scored 0 and 3 in Faisalabad.Pakistan suffered a big defeat in Faisalabad, going down by an innings and 203 runs. The second and final match of the series begins on September 19.Squad: Faisal Iqbal (capt), Taufeeq Umar, Khalid Latif, Khurram Manzoor, Yasir Hameed, Naved Latif, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Mansoor Amjad, Tahir Khan, Mohammad Sami, Mohammad Khalil, Mohammad Irshad, Anwar Ali, Adnan Raza, Rizwan Ahmed

The Ranji season has reached the stage at which teams have to keep an eye on other results in their respective pools. Karnataka, sitting in fifth place in the Super League Group A with eight points from three games, will want to make the most of this match against Rajasthan. Already thrashed three times this season, the young Rajasthan team are under intense pressure to avoid relegation.Rahul Dravid’s role in Karnataka’s first two games was crucial, but he and Anil Kumble are back in the Indian side and won’t be returning this Ranji season and Karnataka will have to rely on their core strength going forward. The star is Robin Uthappa, but he is yet to ignite this domestic season as he did last season with his exciting hundred here at the Gangothri Glades. Thilak Naidu, the wicketkeeper-batsman, and C Raghu, the offspinning allrounder, are key players and have done well this season.The bowling will again be led by Vinay Kumar and NC Aiyappa, the right-arm medium-pace duo, and Sunil Joshi, the veteran left-arm spinner. There’s little to speak of in terms of back-up, but with Rajasthan’s batting struggling so far that could well prove enough.Gagan Khoda, who played two one-day internationals for India in 1998, is the only Rajasthan batsman in form. His 244 runs are the high for the team by some distance, and highlight his side’s plight this year: they just haven’t been able to put up big totals. Pankaj Singh, the 22-year-old fast bowler, has done well in the last two seasons and has India A experience. That aside, the cupboard looks fairly bare this year. Rajasthan appeared to show a bit of fight in their last game, against Maharashtra, but the bowlers need runs to defend.A cursory palm across the surface showed it was hard, but there’s a tinge of green too. Vijay Bhardwaj, Karnataka’s coach, and Nagaraja, the curator, concurred in their readings of the wicket. “We’ve tried to make a sporting pitch,” Nagaraja said. “It is definitely looking like a four-day surface, with lots of bounce for the quick bowlers. That said, it will also assist the spinners late on the second day.” Bowling first may seem like an option, but it might still be better to bat first and see out the first session.This is only the second match at Gangothri Glades since the Ranji Trophy returned to Mysore last season after 18 years. Karnataka won that match against Haryana by 253 runs, with Uthappa and Barrington Rowland lighting up the third day with a stunning 213-run opening stand. Rowland has been dropped for this game following a string of average performances following that innings.Situated on the scenic University of Mysore campus, with the Chamundi Hills in the background, the large, tree-ringed ground bore a festive look. (tents) were being set up, as were loudspeakers and an array of coloured chairs. A good amount of sponsorship has been generated for this match, the sponsors including Reid & Taylor.A good weekend crowd is expected, made up primarily of university students. Spreading cricket into the smaller parts of the country is important and a rollicking innings from the likes of Uthappa or a stellar spell from the likes of Pankaj would be apt advertisement for a town where top-level cricket seldom rolls through.Teams:Karnataka (probable): 1 Robin Uthappa, 2 KB Pawan, 3 Sudhindra Shinde, 4 C Raghu, 5 Yere Goud (capt), Thilak Naidu (wk), 7 B Akhil, 8 Sunil Joshi, 9 R Vinay Kumar, 10 KP Apanna, 11 NC Aiyappa.Rajasthan (probable): 1 Rohit Jhalani (wk), 2 Gagan Khoda, 3 Nikhil Doru, 4 Vineet Saxena, 5 Robin Bist, 6 Rajesh Bishnoi, 7 Afroz Khan, 8 Shamsher Singh, 9 Pankaj Singh, 10 Mohammad Aslam (capt), 11 Nishan Singh.

James Bruce has announced his retirement from professional cricket to pursue a career in the City.Bruce represented Eton and Durham UCCE before signing for Hampshire as a fast-medium seamer in 2003. He was a member of the side that won the C&G Trophy in 2005 and enjoyed his most successful summers in 2006 and 2007, taking 38 and 39 wickets. He was awarded his county cap in 2006.”The decision to retire has been a decision that I have not made lightly,” said Bruce. “I’ve been gaining work experience in the City over the last three winters with the intention of developing a career for when I had finished playing. Whilst initially I didn’t know when that might be, I was always conscious of the importance of preparing for life after cricket.”The recent work that I have done this winter has made me realise that the transition from sport into the working world is not as easy a process as I originally thought. I have thoroughly enjoyed the work I have been doing and became aware that the longer I left this transition the harder it would be for me to secure a career in exactly what I wanted to do.””Over the last few years Brucey has put an enormous amount of work into getting his body and mind into a position where he has proved a formidable opponent for opposition batters,” Paul Terry, Hampshire’s coach, said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say, in the right conditions, he has become one of the better English-born bowlers. Having witnessed the work he put into his fitness in Perth in the early years, it always gave me a sense of pride to see how well his career had developed – a sentiment shared, no doubt, by all those who have helped him along the way.”In 49 first-class matches, Bruce took 124 wickets at 34.07. In 31 one-day outings his 44 wickets cost 22.18. he had few pretensions as a batsman and his 243 runs came at an average of 7.14.

Paceman Alan Mullally prolonged his sizzling vein of form with another fivewicket haul today for Hampshire on the opening day of the CountyChampionship clash with Leicestershire at Southampton.The left armer claimed the wickets of Darren Maddy (8) and Ben Smith (5) inhis first spell of the day to have the visitors at a shaky 28/2 beforereturning later in the afternoon to remove Vince Wells (22), DominicWilliamson (4) and Neil Burns (0) as Leicestershire battled to a stumpsscore of 265/9 after losing the toss.Following his fourteen wicket haul against Derbyshire last week, Mullally(5/84) was always likely to be the man to whom Hampshire looked forinspiration in the absence of Shane Warne. To that end, he did not let histeam down. He bowled with control in helpfully overcast conditions,seaming the ball both ways and maintaining an excellent line to keep theinjury-hit Leicestershire batting line-up under consistent pressure.Dimitri Mascarenhas (2/59) also performed well, snaring the vital wicketsof Aftab Habib (61) – dismissed with the very first ball after the playershad returned to the field after a rain delay in mid-afternoon – and DarrenStevens (12).Leicestershire, which had entered the match with Chris Lewis, James Ormond,Phil DeFreitas and Anil Kumble all missing from its line-up, meanwhilerelied largely on three players for its end of day position. Habib’scombination of resolute defence against straight deliveries and strongdriving of anything loose earned him the honour of being the top scorer forhis team for far from the first time this season.Jonathan Dakin (60) also showed his usual fluency before being dismissed in the second last over of the day, while opener Iain Sutcliffe (53) helped to hold things steady at the top after the two early wickets had fallen at the other end. In assembling his first half century of the summer, Sutcliffe formed a half of the best partnership of the innings – one of ninety-two with Habib for the third wicket.Dakin was also involved in a crucial partnership, finding unlikely support in the form of number ten Carl Crowe (26*) to raise a priceless seventy-one runs for the ninth wicket just when Mullally seemed ready to work his way right through the bottom half of a batting list again.

New Zealand and Bangladesh are in discussions to play a Twenty20 charity match to raise funds for survivors of Cyclone Sidr, which devastated Bangladesh last week.Although Bangladesh officials have already said the match will be played in New Zealand on December 23, just before the start of a one-day series between the teams, a New Zealand spokesman said discussions were ongoing. A warm-up one-day match between Bangladesh and Northern Districts is currently scheduled for that date.Bangladesh’s tour includes three one-day internationals, starting on December 26 in Auckland, and two Tests in Dunedin and Wellington during early January.

According to Bruce Aanensen, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief executive, the crucial factor surrounding the next coach will be ability and not nationality. Bennett King, the first foreign coach of West Indies, recently resigned after their failure to reach the World Cup semi-finals.”What we want to do is get the best possible coach for the team and it really doesn’t matter to us where that coach comes from,” Aanensen told the Caribbean Media Corporation. “I think if you look at most of the foreign teams, most of them have coaches that are not local to their establishment. It’s the same thing in the football World Cup, I think that all but four of the teams in the last World Cup finals had foreign coaches so to speak.”So this thing that people have that we must have a local coach, we must have the best possible coach that can take our cricket forward and whether is West Indian, English, Australian, New Zealander as far as I am concerned it doesn’t matter.”King succeeded Gus Logie in 2004. It was a controversial decision with many in the region insisting that a local should be put in charge.The WICB is scheduled to name a new captain on Sunday to take over from Brian Lara who retired from the international game. “A full board meeting is scheduled for Sunday, April 29, in Barbados. At that time the matter will be addressed,” said a WICB statement. “The new captain will then join the other selectors on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 to select the other members of the team. The WICB expects that it will be able to release the names of the players on Wednesday May 2, 2007, after the convenor of selectors has notified the players.”Ramnaresh Sarwan, Lara’s long-time vice-captain, is expected to be given the job of leading the squad on the tour to England which gets underway in May.

Sunil Gavaskar, the chairman of the ICC cricket committee, has questioned the role of umpires and the match referee in diffusing on-field confrontations between players.The recently-concluded one-day series between India and Australia saw ill-tempered exchanges between the players on the pitch and through the media. Gavaskar said while the blame rested on the management of the teams for letting the situation deteriorate, the umpires and match referee were no less culpable.”One is not privy to the report the match referee may have sent to ICC but the fact that not even one player from both sides has been reported and reprimanded shows the referee and the umpires did not do the job assigned to them and that was to see that the game was not brought into disrepute and the spirit of cricket maintained,” Gavaskar wrote in his column in the tabloid.Gavaskar questioned the need of a match referee if he could act only when the umpires had made a report. “He [match referee] is there not just to protect the umpires from the players but to see that the game goes on without any untoward incidents and what happened between the two players was definitely not cricket. By abdicating their responsibility, match officials let the game down big time and have raised a big question mark on their ability to control the game and players.”It would be sad if the ICC turns a blind eye to what happened during the series, for even while accepting that the game has changed and become far more aggressive than yesteryears, what was seen on the cricket field did not do any good to the image of the game nor enhance the quality by any stretch of imagination.”

Justin Langer has decided to play on for Western Australia next season in an attempt to lead the Warriors to their first Pura Cup title since 1998-99. And if Langer has his way, the man who captained that successful team eight years ago, Tom Moody, will be back in Perth as coach.Speaking at Western Australia’s awards night on Monday, Langer said his international goals had been achieved but he had unfinished business at state level. “One of the great highlights of my career was winning that first Sheffield Shield [in 1992],” Langer told .”When I stood here this time last year I had a burning desire to win back the Ashes with my mates, and for a long time the Australian cricket team have been my mates. I have felt in the last six months, I have started to develop some really good friendships, some mates, with the West Australian guys. And I have still got a burning ambition to win the Pura Cup back, so there’s your announcement.”Langer, 36, is scheduled to play county cricket for Somerset this season. He hopes by the time he returns to Western Australia after winter, his old mate Moody will have replaced Wayne Clark, who announced his retirement as coach in January.”I’m still fit, I am still enjoying the game … hopefully Tom Moody will be coach, and if that is the case that would be an added bonus,” Langer said. “I am sure if Tom wants the job he is a walk up start. We are all hopeful we see him coming through the arrivals gate at Perth airport in a month or so.”Langer said captaining the side was not a condition of him staying on as a player, but it was something he was keen to continue. “I’d like to think my experience, working in conjunction with someone like Tom, would be a great leadership group for WA cricket,” he said.