Jhulan Goswami, the fastest bowler in women’s cricket, has received the Castrol Special Award for her outstanding bowling on India’s recent tour of England.India lost the one-dayers, but claimed the Test series, the first time India have ever beaten England in a Test. It was in that match, the second Test at Taunton, that the player of the match Goswami became only the second Indian, and first woman, to take ten wickets in a Test on English soil.Goswami received her award at the ceremony in Mumbai on Friday. “I’m happy that we beat England on their home ground,” she told Rediff, “it was a really big win and a special one. It is really special that I played a part in it.”Success has not come easy. Women’s cricket demands heavy commitment from players, many of whom must juggle jobs and study, and Goswami’s dedication is no less significant. At the age of 15 she would get up at 4.30am to catch the train for a five-hour round trip of practising. “Many times I missed the train and used to reach late for practice; but I never lost heart.”Now aged 22, she feels there is still room for improvement in her game. “I am focusing on my accuracy.”

Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg will host the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa next year. The 12-nation tournament will be staged between September 21 and 30.Steve Elworthy, the tournament director, announced the three venues – Kingsmead (Durban), Newlands (Cape Town) and Wanderers (Johannesburg) – following a Policy Committee meeting earlier this week. The ICC is due to approve the venues when its executive board meets in Dubai next month. The format, fixtures and the venue for the final will be decided soon.”These are world class venues for what is going to be a world class event,” Elworthy was quoted in a media release. “This will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase South African cricket and South Africa to millions of television viewers around the world.”Earlier, all six Test venues in South Africa had submitted their bids to host the championship and the above venues were chosen based on key requirements.

Only the never-see-come-see variety of West Indian fans would be depressed this morning.The rest, who have seen enough to operate on the principle of hoping for the best but fearing the worst, will just be disappointed that the considerable high of whipping South Africa in the semi-finals last Thursday could be followed so soon by such an anti-climactic performance against the revenge-minded Australians.To indulge in all sorts of long-winded analysis of the eight-wicket defeat in the Champions Trophy final is really futile. What is there to analyse?Some will lament that the Caribbean side performed below par when it really mattered, as against the same opponents in the DLF Cup final six weeks earlier in Kuala Lumpur.If so, then what is par for this team? The evidence of the tournament in India suggests that it is somewhere between 80 (vs Sri Lanka) and 272 (vs England). So being bundled out for 138, even after racing to 49 without loss off five overs, doesn’t qualify as a major shock. Remember the nine for 29 capitulation against Ricky Ponting’s side in the Malaysian capital, or the scramble to defeat India in the final over of this tournament, or even the little stumble at the end of the rousing triumph over the South Africans?Consistency, people, consistency. This is the elusive quality that the West Indies under Brian Lara are still struggling to achieve, and, as the upcoming three-Test series in Pakistan will confirm, the inability, as yet, to put together a succession of good performances or sustain pressure and maintain concentration for a protracted period means the team will remain potentially dangerous but practically so up-and-down that a grand resurgence is still some way off.Lamenting over the decision to exclude Dwayne Smith in preference for Corey Collymore or Lara’s decision to bat first are mere diversions from the fundamental challenge: getting players who are ever-so-slowly showing signs of improvement in their overall attitude to the game to accelerate that rate of progress so that, more often than not, they will have the character and discipline to battle tougher foes, testing pitches and pressure-cooker situations.

Let us not, in the rush to find reasons why things went so very wrong yesterday, ignore the blinding reality that Australia are, and have been the best team in the world for the better part of a decade. In the last two World Cup finals against Pakistan and India, they obliterated the opposition with clinically efficient cricket.Having finally made it into the Champions Trophy final at the fifth attempt, they were never going to just cave in, never mind how deceptively ominous the early assault from Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderpaul was.It takes more than a couple expensive overs to throw Glenn McGrath off his stride, and when emerging players like Nathan Bracken and Shane Watson are already so well equipped to fill the occasional breach, Australians can be reasonably secure that, even if they are not always at the top of the tree, they won’t endure a decline as swift or as disheartening as the recent West Indian experience anytime in the forseeable future.Whether or not the regional side has made any meaningful progress along the way to upsetting the odds by reaching the Champions Trophy final will only be known in the coming days, weeks and months.After nine weeks of focusing entirely on the shorter form of the game, they now must change tact and tactics with remarkable speed going into the first Test against the Pakistanis at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore from November 11. With only a two-day match in that northern city on November 8 and 9 to prepare for the more attritional duel, the danger is that they will be under-prepared, mentally more than technically, and find themselves up against it shortly after ball one.But adversity has been a common denominator for the West Indies in Test cricket for they have not won a series anywhere in the world for two and a half years. In fact, their last Test match win away from home against a team ranked above them was, incredibly, more than six years ago against England in Birmingham.For the third time, however, a strong showing in the Champions Trophy lures fans into believing that better days are coming. On the first two occasions, the West Indies destabilised their own encouraging foundation to leave the team in even greater despair.Beaten by South Africa in the final of the inaugural tournament in Bangladesh in 1998, a subsequent standoff led by Lara and then vice-captain Carl Hooper prior to the historic first full tour of South Africa proved so destructive that the visitors were an embarrassment to their fans back home and the millions of non-white South Africans who had taken heart through the dark era of apartheid in the glorious deeds of the men from the Caribbean.Two years ago, the dramatic two-wicket victory over England in the final at The Oval offered another springboard to redemption. But the West Indies players and administrators responded with a belly-flop into an empty pool as the protracted dispute over team sponsorship proved both debilitating and distressing for the next 18 months.In that context, should the squad touch down in Lahore today with everyone ready and willing to play, that in itself will be a step forward.Even after reaching the final in Mumbai, we must still be grateful for small mercies.

Pakistan’s relieved new-ball duo of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have said they were eager to get their careers back on track after winning an appeal against doping charges.The pair also thanked their team-mates and bosses after a three-man committee overturned the two-year ban imposed last month on Akhtar and a one-year ban on Asif after they allegedly tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone.”I am breathing again, my life was jolted no-end by the ban. I can’t describe the feeling,” said Akhtar, who almost announced his retirement from cricket after the ban. “I was so disappointed that I was not sleeping properly. I am thankful to the Almighty, and to the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Dr Naseem Ashraf, to give both of us a proper chance to fight the ban.”At 31, a relatively advanced age for a fast bowler, Shoaib had feared that the ban would end his cricketing career. “I missed playing cricket for my country and now I hope that I will resume my career. The whole team had supported me and I am thankful to my teammates and every cricket lover who prayed for me.”Both players had denied taking any banned substances and the appeals committee said that neither player had been advised on vitamin supplements which may have caused the positive tests.The 23-year-old Asif, an emerging star this year, said his whole family had been in turmoil since the dope test results were revealed in October. “I am delighted to hear that I will be playing again. These two months have been the worst of my life and only today I resumed training,” said Asif, adding that he had lost six pounds through worrying.”I hope the bad days are over now. I badly want to play and it was only through the support of my captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and coach Bob Woolmer that I kept myself going.”

Scorecard

West Indies A tied the fourth one-day with Sri Lanka A in a dramatic last-ball affair when Russell Arnold was run out while attempting to take a run to seal victory for his side at the Beausejour Cricket Ground in St Lucia.Chasing 261 to win, Sri Lanka needed 18 runs from the last over. Two sixes from Arnold off Ryan Hinds, the left-arm spinner, eased things a bit for Sri Lanka and they needed two runs from the last ball to win the match and go 2-0 up in the series. Arnold took the first run easily but was run out when attempting to run back for the second.West Indies chose to bat after winning the toss and Travis Dowlin, the opener, along with Sylvester Joseph, the captain, added 98 runs for the third wicket. From 168 for 3 West Indies slipped to 177 for 6, Malinga Bandara, the Sri Lanka legspinner, accounting for Dowlin, Narsingh Deonarine and Patrick Browne, the wicketkeeper in the space of nine runs. But Hinds and Omari Banks added 83 for an unbeaten seventh-wicket partnership and took West Indies to a fairly safe score of 260 at the end of 50 overs. While Hinds made 55 Towlin top-scored in the West Indies innings with 75.Sri Lanka openers Avishka Gunawardene and Mahela Udawatte started out well making 77 before Darren Sammy bowled Udawatte out for 25. The second wicket fell soon enough but when Sammy caught Kaushal Lokuarachchi off Hinds’s bowling for a duck. Gunawardene and Jeewan Mendis added 50 more runs to the total score and Sri Lanka looked in no trouble chasing West Indies’ 260. But in a situation similar to the West Indies’ mid-innings collapse, Sri Lanka lost three wickets – all to Gavin Tonge – for 11 runs. Arnold rallied the tail along and added 72 along with Gayan Wijekoon and Kaushal Silva. He was batting on 79 alongside Bandara, unbeaten on 13, at the time of the nail-biting finish. Tonge ended with match figures of 3 for 40.The series is tied at 1-1 and the two teams will play the final ODI on December 17 at the Beausejour Cricket Ground.

Jason Gillespie insists he is still one of Australia’s best bowlers and the selectors should stop looking at his age. Gillespie, 31, has not been included for any of Australia’s matches this season and he was surprised when Shane Harwood, who is a year older, was picked for the Twenty20 against England last week.”There’s this perception that I’m too old and it’s cr**,” Gillespie told the Sunday Mail. “They shouldn’t be discounting me because I’m one of the best bowlers in the country and they should be looking at me.”Gillespie, who is fourth on the Pura Cup wicket list with 20 at 22.90, said the current decisions “annoy me”. “The selectors talk about bringing youth into the side and then I look at the Twenty20 game and they pick Shane Harwood,” he said. “The perception is I’m older than I really am.”Age can’t be a factor. The selectors clearly feel I don’t fit into the Australian team’s plans. But I’m going to keep taking wickets and gradually eliminate their reasons for not picking me.”Despite his desire to return, Gillespie does not expect to be part of Australia’s next contract list. His last Test was in Bangladesh, when he scored 201 and was the Man of the Series, but he was overlooked for the Ashes series and the 30-man preliminary squad for the World Cup.”It didn’t kill me to miss the Ashes but to not even be in the framework for selection was hard to accept,” he said. Gillespie, who has played 71 Tests, was initially dropped during the 2005 tour of England.”I’ve resigned myself to the fact I won’t be on the contract list,” he told the paper. “It shows how much they don’t rate me any more. I don’t think they even wanted to give me a CA contract this year but it would have looked silly not to give me one after my Test against Bangladesh.”It’s almost as if I’m a bit of a fall-back plan if the s*** hits the fan. It happened in Bangladesh. Glenn McGrath took time out, Shaun Tait and Michael Kasprowicz were injured and Stuart Clark missed the second Test and it was like, ‘s***, we’ve got no options left, we’ll just play Dizzy again’.”

Ireland 279 for 3 (Carroll 100, J Bray 89, E Morgan 43) beat Eastern Province XI 219 (Wessels 62, J Smuts 60, T Johnston 4-34, D Langford-Smith 3-39) by 60 runsTwenty-three-year-old Dublin postman Kenny Carroll has given Irish coach Adrian Birrell a selection headache, after the Railway Union opening bat scored a marvellous century in a 60-run win over Eastern Province.The batting disappointment of yesterday was quickly erased as Carroll and Jeremy Bray shared an unbeaten opening stand of 183 in just 34 overs, before both batsmen retired to give the others practice ahead of the World League which gets under way on Monday. Carroll struck 13 fours and one six in his score of 100, while Bray was just a little slower, taking 117 deliveries for his 89, which included 12 fours.The only batsman to be dismissed was Eoin Morgan of Middlesex, who looked in supreme touch in his knock of 43 off just 30 balls. He struck three sixes and the same number of fours being being caught off the bowling of Newton. Northants new signing Niall O’ Brien scored 24 not out, while Andrew White also finished unbeaten on 9, as the Irish racked up a formidable 279 for 3 in their 50 overs.However, Eastern Province set about the total in positive fashion, and thanks to a 104 run stand for the second wicket between Jan Smuts (60), and Rikki Wessels (62), were well placed at 157 for 1 in the 30th over. Ireland’s most capped player, Kyle McCallan made the decisive breakthrough, having Smuts caught by Andy White at backward square leg. When skipper Trent Johnston then had Wessels caught at midwicket, again by White, in the next over, it sparked a dramatic collapse.Johnston took 4 for 34, while Dave Langford-Smith came back well to finish with 3 for 39. The other wicket takers were Boyd Rankin, 2 for 37, and McCallan, 1 for 35 in his 10-over spell. Easter Province finished on 219 all out in the 48th over, giving the Irish a welcome win.Coach Adrian Birrell was delighted with the performance, “We batted superbly, with everyone taking advantage of the fantastic batting conditions on offer. Carroll continues to impress, and I’m delighted for him. It’s the result of hard work put in over the last few years, and his time at the ICC Training Camp has taken his game to a completely new level. It gives me plenty of options both at the top and in the middle of the order.”He also had special praise for both Johnston and McCallan. ” The two guys bowled extremely well at a time when Eastern Province looked like they were getting on top. They tightened things up, applied the pressure, and got their rewards as the run rate increased. The fielding has been sharp, and it’s something I’ve worked on a lot over the winter. I’m hoping for more of the same in the day/night game tomorrow.”

Concerned by the fallout of the long-drawn telecast dispute, the Indian board today appointed a four-member committee to resolve the vexed issue of sharing the live feed of cricket matches between Nimbus, the rights owner, and public broadcaster Prasar Bharti.The decision to form the committee, which would interact with the government and Nimbus, was taken at the BCCI’s working committee meeting in Delhi. Shashank Manohar, the board’s vice-president, will head the panel while Lalit Modi, N Srinivasan and IS Bindra will be the other members. “The issue was deliberated upon and a four-member panel has been constituted. It will look at the pros and cons of the ordinance and talk to the government and hopefully the issue will be resolved,” BCCI vice-president and media committee convenor Rajiv Shukla told reporters.The dispute between Nimbus, which bought the telecast rights for a whopping US$ 612 million, and Prasar Bharti had prevented thousands of fans from watching the first India-West Indies one-dayer live. As both the parties moved the courts, the government came out with an ordinance making it mandatory for the right owners to share the live feed with Prasar Bharti.”The board thinks that people should not be deprived and the rights holders should not be affected. The BCCI understands its responsibility towards both the sides and it is better that a middle path is found,” Shukla said.The working committee also discussed the proposed performance-linked contract for the players and decided to implement the scheme before the World Cup. “Before the World Cup it will be ready. We will call some senior players for a meeting and it will be resolved,” the board’s secretary Niranjan Shah said. “There were so many tournaments and the schedule is so busy. We are looking at some modalities. We will put it before the players soon,” he said, adding the delay would not affect the cricketers as the contracts would be applicable with retrospective effect – from October, 2006.The board also decided to appoint Sanjay Jagdale, a national selector, and joint secretary MP Pandove as managers of the Indian team for the World Cup in the West Indies. “Jagdale and Pandove will be the two managers for the team during the World Cup. Since Pandove is a government servant, he had to seek some permissions and because of this he will join the side after 15 days,” Shah said.

Twenty-five percent more from his team, and this game might just have gone the other way, suggested Trent Johnston after what might be called Ireland’s impressive loss against England at Guyana’s National Stadium.”I’m very proud but probably disappointed,” he said. “If the way we played against Pakistan, the way we played against Canada or South Africa in the warm-ups we may have got close. It’s just another learning curve for us, we’ve got another five games hopefully we can improve on that and if we do I’ll be very happy. We’ve got to go out there and lift it by another 25%.”At 23 for 2 and again at 113 for 4, the Irish were in with a chance to keep England down to a manageable score. But sloppy fielding and weak bowling at the close, weakened further by the absence of Boyd Rankin because of cramp, made the ultimate difference.”The way we played in the first 40 overs was outstanding,” said Johnston. “On that wicket, the quality of batsmen we were bowling to … they probably got 90-odd in the last ten overs that swung the momentum back in their favour. While batting we got sort of stuck in the middle as we have been recently with spinners. You had Flintoff coming back at the end that was very difficult.”That exceptional last spell from Flintoff, three wickets in 2.1 overs, might have snuffed out any last Irish hopes, but Johnston regarded it a testament to his team’s performance. “It’s a credit to us that Michael Vaughan had to bring Andrew Flintoff back at the tail,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s 100% fit, he certainly doesn’t look to me, but for him to come back and bowl that spell, that’s what won them the game in the end.”Paul Collingwood’s fine innings came in for praise but “he’ll be the first to admit there were a few balls he didn’t hit in the middle but they still went for sixes,” Johnston said. “We discussed Collingwood in our team meeting, he is the quality player in the team, he’s the guy who gets you the run-a-ball hundred. Today we were off by a few inches to him and the result was nine runs an over.”It was another low turnout day at the Super Eights, but still about ten times the crowd Irish cricket team is used to. “We usually play in front of a couple of hundred,” Johnston said. “Look, we can’t complain about support. We had about 1000 Irish fans in Jamaica sounded like 10,000. They were the ones who got us to this stage.”Hopefully they’ll be very proud of what the guys have been doing. We’re probably 25-30% short of our best and we need to lift. All me and [coach] Adrian [Birrell] are telling the boys is to enjoy, these are the best days of your life.”

Farveez Maharoof, the Sri Lankan allrounder, has made a strong case for selection ahead of Dilhara Fernando for Tuesday’s semi-final against New Zealand in Jamaica.Fernando secured his spot in the XI with impressive performances against India and England but suffered an ankle injury against Australia. Maharoof, who replaced him against Ireland, was adjudged Man of the Match for his haul of 4 for 25.”I will give 200 percent in the match and I would back myself to perform,” Maharoof told . “We have played really well so far. It will be a case of continuing to give it our best.”I got injured earlier in the tournament against Bangladesh but I just kept working hard in the nets. This is my first World Cup and it is something I have been looking forward to ever since I became professional three years ago.”All the bowlers have proved their class at the World Cup. We have been talking about getting the basics right and putting the ball in the right areas. We are very happy with the way things are going and we are looking forward to the semi-finals.”Upul Tharanga, the out-of-form opener, looks all set to retain his place in the semi-final line-up amid reports that former captain Marvan Atapattu could replace him. Tharanga has managed only 17 runs in the last three innings but has been assured of his place by Asantha de Mel, the chairman of Sri Lankan selectors.”We must not forget that Tharanga scored two centuries against England last year and also scored two centuries in the Champions Trophy,” de Mel said. “In this World Cup also he was the highest scorer with 65 against India.”Jeetan Patel, the New Zealand offspinner, was not so optimistic about gaining a spot in the semi-final line-up in spite of taking 2 for 48 against Australia. “I’ve heard Jamaica is a dirty, green seamer and Barbados is hard and bouncy, so I’m not sure how much more action I’m going to see,” Patel told the , a New Zealand newspaper. “I wasn’t sure of my place in the squad because I wasn’t sure how the wickets here would play. But so far it has been very good.”Jacob Oram has said New Zealand would use the extra bounce at Sabina Park to target Sri Lanka’s top order but Mahela Jayawardene was unconcerned. “Like any other cricketers in the world, our batsmen love to play on bouncy tracks when the ball is coming on,” Jayawardene said. “And we’ve got a very decent bowling attack to complement those conditions.”