Steve Watkin has announced his retirement from first-class cricket in order to take up the role of Academy Director for the new Welsh Cricket Academy.The Glamorgan and England seamer will play his final first-class game against Surrey this week.Watkin recently joined a distinguished group of Glamorgan cricketers to have taken 900 first-class wickets. He made his debut in 1986 (capturing Graeme Hick as his maiden wicket) and has been one of the most reliable and consistent bowlers in domestic cricket ever since.Tall, thin and with a high action, Watkin soon became a favourite at Glamorgan where his willingness to bowl and dedication to the team cause has been much admired. His best year came in 1989 when he captured 94 first-class wickets, and won his county cap.He was a vital component in Glamorgan’s Championship winning team of 1997 and was rewarded with a successful benefit season the following year.His international career has been disappointingly brief, however. He won a place on the A tours of Kenya and Zimbabwe in 1989-90 and Pakistan and Sri Lanka the following year.Watkin’s Test debut came against West Indies at Leeds in 1991. He performed well, taking five wickets in the game (including Richards, Haynes and Hooper), but after a disappointing performance at Lord’s was dropped.He won a Test recall on the strength of 92 first-class wickets (and a prominent role in Glamorgan’s Sunday League winning side) for the final Ashes Test of 1993, taking six wickets (4-65 in the second innings – including the top three in the order) as England pulled-off a rare victory.It was enough to win his a place in the England squad to the West Indies, and although he never played another Test, he played four One-Day Internationals on the tip, with a best of 4-47 at Sabina Park.”It will be a huge wrench to give up playing professional cricket as I have been involved with Glamorgan – not to mention England and England A – for 16 seasons but this was too good an opportunity to miss,” Watkin admitted.”I have thought about it long and hard and accept that this is an important job, with substantial cash being invested in the scheme by the Sports Council for Wales. I am looking forward to the challenge of helping to develop the next generation of Glamorgan cricketers.”There is a lot of talent at junior level in Wales and I’m sure the new Academy will only add to the development of the best young players.”I feel very lucky to have enjoyed considerable success as a cricketer and I am now looking forward to giving something back to the game that has been nothing but good for me.”Hopefully, I can bow out with a few wickets against Surrey in our last match this week.”But Watkin did suggest that Glamorgan followers may not have sent he last of him.”Glamorgan have said they intend to keep my registration as a player just in case I am required to play,” he added.

The CFX Academy: three years on
The CFX Academy in Harare has just completed its operation. John Ward talks to the man who did more than any other to get it going, and is now the Academy coach, former Test cricketer Dave Houghton. Dave also gives his views on the future direction of cricket in Zimbabwe."The idea of the Academy originated from my trip to Australia in 1985. I saw their academy, and also their centres of excellence in different states, and I brought back that idea then. But Zimbabwe cricket in those days was living from hand to mouth, and there wasn’t enough money to proceed with a project like this. So it just stayed on the shelf as no more than a good idea for 13 or 14 years.Then, when I took over as fulltime national coach and was no longer involved with English cricket [Dave coached Worcestershire from 1994 to 1997], I was back here all year round. I decided we would try to pursue the idea again, but there was still no money at that stage. I came up with the idea of copying Ian Botham and doing a sponsored walk from Harare to Bulawayo to see if we could get some money in.That brought in almost Z$1 million, and we started digging straight away, which forced us to continue to raise funds to finish the job, because otherwise it would always be no more than a nice idea that never happened.I managed to involve a few others besides myself: Rod Bennett from Schweppes and Simon Parkinson from Radio Three. They got behind me to help me do the walk. At that time I was already in negotiation with Gwynne Jones to come back and run the Academy.This was the first money to come in. Some of the money came simply in the form of donations, while some was sponsorship per kilometre, and of course there were a lot of donations given on the road while we were walking. The walk also created an awareness that allowed us to market the Academy and get it going financially.Three years ago in Zimbabwe, a million dollars was going to cover most of what we needed. We had organized a committee that was going to help us build the pavilion, and the quote at that stage was for about Z$3 million. But it was never going to cost us anything, because we had a subcommittee tasked with sourcing funds from extra sponsors. Things changed dramatically over the next three years and in the end it cost us about Z$15 million to put it up.But a lot of it has been sponsored; where there were shortfalls we found other sponsors to help us out, and Zimbabwe Cricket Union also came in. ZCU put money into the completion of the pavilion and also into the car park, and they have been covering salaries for Gwynne Jones and myself. A lot of people feel ZCU haven’t contributed to the Academy, but in fact they have.CFX [the official Academy sponsors, a foreign exchange company] were our first major sponsors, who were sourced and secured by Gwynne Jones. It’s amazing how golf does things in this country, because it was through a golf game that Gwynne met Shaun Molony, the CFX managing director, who agreed to meet and talk further on the project, and after a couple of weeks of discussion CFX decided to come in and assist us for the next three years with our running costs. It is still continuing and has been absolutely invaluable, because it’s one thing to have buildings but there are also running costs to be covered.We wanted the Academy to be sited near the centre of town, but not at Harare Sports Club, because with their calendar the way it is – club cricket, first-class cricket and international cricket, together with the use of their nets for development coaching and so on – the demands on that ground were astronomical. So there was no way we could also move in there and run an academy.Country Club was selected because it is fairly central and is a beautiful facility that was being underutilized. I think the cricket area was actually being used as a chip-and-putt practice area for their golf course. So we had discussions with Country club, who have quite a progressive committee, and they saw the value in it as well, so we signed a 25-year lease with them.We really started much too early with the first intake, but it was at my insistence, even though nothing was ready except for the field, because if we hadn’t started it would have been put off until the next year, and then to the next, and so on. My feeling was, rather like starting the Academy itself, that if you don’t get it going it just remains a good idea.So we started, and we started with about 18 kids, mainly hand-selected. It proved to be too many and we didn’t really have the facilities. I was involved with the national side, so Gwynne was not only having to try and co-ordinate the building of the Academy but also to coach. I feel sorry for the first-year students because we feel we didn’t really give them the course they should have got, but we had to start.Through my connections in England we also got a couple of English pros out to join us [Mark Wagh of Warwickshire and Nathan Batson of Worcestershire]. We charged them for coming to the Academy – not money, but Worcestershire bought us an overhead projector and Warwickshire a digital video camera, equipment we really needed here.My input at that stage was mainly background connection, as I was national coach: advice for Gwynne and assisting as a trustee, and on the management committee, giving advice, because I couldn’t be here often enough to run it. I would occasionally do a few coaching sessions, but it has really only been since I stopped travelling, in September last year, that I’ve been fully committed as head coach.My television commentary duties made it a bit of a problem this year because we played so many matches in winter. But normally it should work out nicely, as the Academy runs through winter and I will be doing commentary during the summer.We are obviously now in the process of re-staffing this place. Gwynne has now left, so we need someone to replace him on an admin side. His actual job, which was mainly connected with the building of the Academy, has now fallen away, so we really need an administrator to replace him.I also want to get in at least another two coaches. That again will ease the problem should I happen to be away for the odd week doing commentary.As we go along, we are learning year by year. This year was better than last year; next year will be better than this year, because we’re learning to run an Academy just like the players are learning to play cricket. Being a national team coach is a lot easier than being an Academy coach, for example, but we want to try to increase the staff and also increase the curriculum.I don’t think we’re doing enough at the moment about everything outside the playing of the game that is still part of cricket. We’re not doing enough on marketing or teaching the kids about reading or negotiating contracts, or about how to run clubs – because that will eventually be the case in ten or 15 years’ time; people will have to go and run sports clubs – ground maintenance and the preparation of pitches, practice areas and so on. They all need to know these things and we haven’t done enough of it, so this year we want to make sure our curriculum included these extra parts of the game.For the future, there are plans for a sports science institute to go in above the ground floor behind the sightscreen. Some people in the management committee have that as a priority; I don’t. I would much rather see us do this thing well first before we go on to the next thing. My priorities would be to improve the equipment on the grounds – a better tractor, for example. I’d rather see money put into those areas, and into transport. I think we need a bus, preferably something like a 22-seater, because at the moment we’re rather static and we can’t travel without hiring vehicles, which is a major expense. Those are my personal priorities, but I’m just one of the management committee and others think that the sports injuries side is a bigger priority.We are in negotiation about getting an electronic scoreboard for the ground; the people who helped us out with the sightscreen, the present scoreboard and the netting seem to be quite interested in it. But it’s not a major priority to me, because the scoreboard we have is adequate for the cricket we play, and that would be a luxury bonus. I’d rather see us build up what we have and produce better cricketers first, and then look to those other areas.We have reached the stage now where we feel 15 or 16 at the Academy is the ideal number. In our first year we had 18, plus two England professionals, and in our second year we took 17, and those were too many. This year we took 15, which we think is an ideal number. In the first two years we arranged to send the kids over to England in the winter to play club cricket, which was quite a good idea but a huge expense.I think we have now got down to where we are going to end up, which is to run the Academy from March to September, through the winter months. That doesn’t affect club or provincial cricket, so we’re not being accused by anybody of stealing their players. I think things are starting to fall into line quite nicely.We have a problem in that the Logan Cup usually starts in February, but we will get around that because we will know who will be at the Academy during the next year by the end of December. So I will advise them that we start the Academy on 1 March, but we do have Logan Cup in the middle of February, so I will call the guys in for a week, train them up as a team and we will play the Logan Cup games. It’s nice to be part of the first-class system, but it’s not our priority. Our priority is to teach them everything we can about cricket in six months.So we will still get through the Logan Cup, but obviously playing at the start of our Academy year is not ideal. It would be better to play later in the year, but I live in hope that once they have finished the restructuring in ZCU they will appoint someone with vision as director of cricket who will organize that.In the last three years we have set about building up a local first-class structure, which I think has gone well. The standard might not be the best ever, but it will be much better in a few years’ time. Everybody else seems hell-bent on playing national league one-day cricket and getting our sides to play in the South African first-class competitions. This defeats our object.The view is that next season our A side will play in the SuperSport Series, which is nice, but it takes all season and we just won’t see those guys. They also want to field another side, a third team, in the Castle Bowl. If we have those two sides, together with our national side that we never see, that takes 45 first-class players out of our system. How are we ever going to have a decent first-class domestic competition?That is what we need in this country, a reasonably strong domestic first-class competition. There is no reason why, if we didn’t put a bit of effort into it, we couldn’t have a domestic first-class system as good as, say, New Zealand. Their first-class structure in New Zealand produces some decent players and they hold their own in international cricket. We should be doing the same.But we seem to be pushing everything to go and play in South Africa with a select band of people. We need somebody to direct cricket in this country who has a feeling for improving the standard of local cricket. That’s where we’re heading and that’s where we’re trying to put our focus. "

Rob Turner, who has been awarded a thoroughly-deserved benefit Somerset in 2002, has recorded a hole in one at the par-three fourth hole at Oake Manor Golf Course near Taunton.

Rob, who described himself to me as “a modest golfer” said: “I hit a good tee shot, but when I looked towards the green I couldn’t see my ball. Nobody was more surprised than me to find that it had gone in the hole.”Wicket-keeper batsman Rob, who celebrates his 34th birthday next month,was born in Malvern but brought up in Weston-super-Mare where he attended Broad Oak School. He later moved to Millfield, where he was in the same first eleven that included Jonathan Atkinson, Paul Bail and Harvey Trump who all went on to play for the county.Rob went on to Cambridge, where he captained the University side as well as the Combined Universities XI. He made his first team debut for Somerset in 1991, and has become a firm favourite with Cidermen fans.Rob’s year gets under way with a Benefit Tour to New Zealand between February 12th and 27th, which has been planned around the five-match one-day internationals between England and New Zealand.A Benefit Year Launch lunch is planned at The County Ground during March.

Australia’s position of dominance in the second Test with New Zealand at Hobart has been a little undermined by the weather and has the media pundits wondering if another declaration-decided Test might be on the cards.The Sun Herald: “[Shane] Warne’s first ball was full and clipped hard into short leg’s leg in a rare display of aggression from Matthew Bell. His next offering was swept from glove on to pad and through to Adam Gilchrist.”Bell, whose stance during the first Test in Brisbane was odd enough, has reverted to what is perhaps the most unorthodox set-up in the game. Starting well outside leg stump with his back leg staggered like that of a distance runner at the starting line, he takes three distinct steps across the crease as the bowler approaches. His captain conceded last week he was ‘probably a little fragile’, adding that ‘if you’re a little bit different you’re going to get attention’.”Bell got plenty of it yesterday before umpire John Smeaton, standing in for the injured Steve Davis, raised his finger and ended the misery.”Bell, who faced a painful 33 balls before scoring, has made six, five and four in the series. Unless something changes soon, it’s not only his figures that will be fading away.”The Age: “Steve Waugh’s relentless Australian team insists there is still time to pluck a victory over New Zealand from the waters of Bellerive Oval despite another rain-marred day in the second Test yesterday.”Only 35 overs were possible yesterday – just one more than on Friday – with NZ moving to 2/71 in its first innings.”But the speed with which Australia reached its imposing first innings score of 8/558 declared from only 124 overs has left it confident of achieving a win to make up for the draw in the first Test in Brisbane, when rain also intervened.”‘There are plenty of opportunities for the game to be won from our point of view,’ said Australian coach John Buchanan.”However, Australia’s chances depend on some finer weather reaching Hobart, and showers are forecast for the last two days.”The Sunday Telegraph: “In the first Test at the Gabba, half of which was lost to rain, Australian skipper Steve Waugh set up a thrilling final day by declaring and asking New Zealand to score 284 off 57 overs for victory.”The tourists went within 10 runs of the target with four wickets in hand.”Afterwards Waugh and [Stephen] Fleming said they would be prepared to throw their chips on the table if the same scenario arose again.”With about five hours already lost in this Test, the two captains are again under pressure to go for broke in a three-match series which already has taken a financial battering from the weather.”Interestingly, both said they were prepared to roll the dice after the exciting finish in Brisbane two weeks ago.”NZPA: “Black Caps skipper Stephen Fleming says the current second test against Australia is unlikely to produce a nail-biting finish.”There will be no repeat of the declarations that led to the first test’s thrilling finale, he says.”Fleming said there was virtually no chance of he and opposite Steve Waugh setting up a run chase on the final day.”Saving the game was the only realistic target for New Zealand.”‘It’s probably getting that way,’ he said.”‘There’s more showers predicted for the next couple of days and they’ve got far too many runs on the board to harbour any thoughts like we did in Brisbane.'”

Otago’s under-19 cricketers are in good heart after a stirring finish to their annual match with the Southland Hawke Cup team.Batting first at Queen’s Park in Invercargill, Otago squeezed through to 175, the inning ending in the 49th over. Best of the Otago batsmen was Michael Ross with 51. Dave McQueen took three for 22 for Southland.Southland was in trouble early but a fine partnership between No 7 Kieran Lines, with 44, and No 8 Geoff Folster, 33, saw the home side take the honours off the first ball of the 50th over.

LCCA Blues will defend its title in the Quaid-i-Azam crickettrophy Grade-I tournament starting throughout the countryfrom Jan 2.According to the draws announced by the PCB Friday, LCCABlues who recorded sensational one wicket win over KCCAWhites in the final at Karachi to win the country mostprestigious cricket tournament last year, were placed inGroup-II. In all, 18 teams will vie for the main trophy. Theteams have been divided into two groups I and II.Top teams of each group will play the final to be held fromMarch 1 to 5. The winning team will get Rs 1,00,000 whilethe runners-up Rs 50,000. Besides it, cash prizes of Rs10,000 will be given each to best batsman, bowler, fieldersand wicket-keeper of the tournament.Teams from all the four provinces are also taking part. Theanother significant feature of the tournament is the thatthe first class matches will be held at Gymkhana CricketGround, Okara, and the Country Club, Muridke, for the firsttime.One bottom team from each group, except of the provincialteams will be relegated to Grade-II for the next season(2002- 2003).The group position is as under:Group-I: KCCA Whites, KCCA Blues, Hyderabad,Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Rest of Baluchistan andRest of Sindh, Gujranwala. Group-II: LCCA Whites, LCCABlues, Sheikhupura, Peshawar, Sialkot, Islamabad,Rawalpindi, Rest of Punjab, Rest of NWFP.Following are the draws (details as: date, teams, venue):Jan 2 to 5, 2002: KCCA-W vs KCCA-B, KCCA Stadium,Karachi; Hyderabad v Bahawalpur, Niaz Stadium; Sargodha vFaisalabad, Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad; Rest of Baluchistan vRest of Sindh, National Stadium, Karachi, (Group-I)LCCA-W v LCCA-B, LCCA ground; Sheikhupura v Sialkot, CountryClub, Muridke; Islamabad v Rawalpindi, KRL Stadium; Rest ofPunjab vs Rest of NWFP, Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar (Group-II).Jan 8 to 11: KCCA-W v Rest of Sindh, NationalStadium, Karachi; KCCA-B v Rest of Baluchistan, KCCAStadium,Karachi; Hyderabad v Faisalabad; Iqbal StadiumFaisalabad; Sargodha v Gujranwala, Jinnah Stadium,Gujranwala; (Group-I).LCCA-W v Sheikhupura, Sheikhupura Stadium; LCCA-B v Sialkot,LCCA ground; Peshawar vs Rest of NWFP, Arbab Niaz Stadium,Peshawar; Rawalpindi v Rest of Punjab, Gaddafi Stadium(Group-II)Jan 14 to 17: KCCA-W v Rest of Baluchistan, NationalStadium; KCCA-B v Rest of Sindh, KCCA Stadium; HyderabadvSargodha, Sports Stadium, Sargodha; Bahawalpur v Gujranwala,Bahawalpur Stadium; (Group-I)LCCA-W v Sialkot, Jinnah Stadium, Sialkot; Rawalpindi vPeshawar, Pindi Stadium, Rawalpindi; LCCA-B v Rest ofPunjab, Gaddafi Stadium; Islamabad v Rest of NWFP, KRLStadium, Rawalpindi; (Group-II)Jan 20 to 23: KCCA-W v Gujranwala, National Stadium,Karachi; KCCA-B v Faisalabad, Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad;Hyderabad v Rest of Baluchistan, Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad;Rest of Sindh v Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur Stadium, (Group-I)LCCA-W v Pehsawar, LCCA ground; LCCA B v Islamabad, KRLStadium, Rawalpindi; Islam Khan- Rawalpindi v Rest of NWFP,Pindi Stadium, Rawalpindi; Sheikhupura v Rest of Punjab,Gaddafi Stadium (Group-II).Jan 26 to 29: Gujranwala v Hyderabad, Niaz Stadium,Hyderabad; KCCA-B v Sargodha, Sports Stadium, Sargodha;Faisalabad v Rest of Sindh, Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad,Bahawalpur v Rest of Baluchistan, Bahawalpur Stadium;(Group-I).LCCA-W v Rest of Punjab, Gaddafi Stadium; Sialkot vRawalpindi, Jinnah Stadium, Sialkot; Islamabad v Peshawar,Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar; Sheikhupura v Rest of NWFP,Sheikhupura Stadium (Group-II).Feb 1 to 4: KCCA-B v Gujranwala, Jinnah Stadium,Gujranwala; Bahawalpur v KCCA-W, Bahawalpur Stadium;Faisalabad v Rest of Baluchistan, Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad;Sargodha v Rest of Sindh, Sports Stadium, Sargodha (GroupI).LCCA-B v Sheikhupura, Sheikhupura Stadium; LCCA-W vIslamabad, LCCA ground, Peshawar v Rest of Punjab, GaddafiStadium; Sialkot v Rest of NWFP, Jinnah Stadium, Sialkot(Group-II).Feb 7 to 10: KCCA-W v Hyderabad, Niaz Stadium;Bahawalpur v Faisalabad, Bahawalpur Stadium; Gujranwala vRest of Sindh, Country Club, Muridke; Sargodha v Rest ofBaluchistan, Sports Stadium, Sargodha (Group-I).LCCA B v Rest of NWFP, LCCA ground; Sheikhupura vRawalpindi, Sheikhupura Stadium; Sialkot v Peshawar, JinnahStadium, Sialkot; Rest of Punjab v Islamabad, Gym. CricketGround Okara (Group-II).Feb 13 to 16: KCCA-W v Faisalabad, National Stadium,Karachi; Bahawalpur v Sargodha, Sports Stadium, Sargodha;KCCA-B v Hyderabad, KCCA Stadium; Gujranwala v Rest ofBaluchistan, Country Club, Muridke (Group-I).LCCA-B v Peshawar, Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar; LCCA-W vRawalpindi, Pindi Stadium, Rawalpindi; Sheikhupura vIslamabad, Sheikhupura Stadium; Sialkot v Rest of Punjab,Gym Cricket Ground, Okara (Group-II).Feb 19 to 22: KCCA-W v Sargodha, KCCA Stadium,Karachi; KCCA-B v Bahawalpur, National Stadium, Karachi;Gujranwala v Faisalabad, Jinnah Stadium, Gujranwala;Hyderabad v Rest of Sindh, Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad (Group-I).LCCA-W v Rest of NWFP, LCCA ground; LCCA B v Rawalpindi,Gaddafi Stadium;, Sheikhupura v Peshawar, Arbab Niazstadium; Sialkot v Islamabad, KRL Stadium, Rawalpindi Final:March 1 to 5. (Venue will be announced later).

Shane Bond came into the Bangladesh series with an average of 96.33, but after today’s play in Hamilton it rests on 44.12.He took career best figures, in his third Test, of four for 47 in Bangladesh’s first innings of the first National Bank Test and then picked up a fifth in the second innings for a cost of 17 runs to date.He felt he bowled better against Australia for less result, than he did in Hamilton today and that the Australians would have punished his bowling.”I still think I was a little inconsistent and if I did that against Aussie they would have been different figures,” he said.Bond said it was difficult to adjust the length of his bowling because the Bangladesh players were so tiny.They had been aggressive batsmen but New Zealand stuck to its game plan and had put the ball in the right areas often enough to keep the pressure on.”We are in a good position,” he said.”It is about us trying to be more patient than they were,” he said.Bond said he was enjoying being able to play Test cricket in New Zealand and it was up to him to put the bowling performances on the board.He had no problem with not having first choice of ends, having to defer to senior bowler Chris Cairns and he felt it was good that skipper Stephen Fleming was able to rotate the bowlers around.While he hasn’t played a lot of one-day cricket Bond said he would like the chance to return to Australia with the next squad for the one-day tri-series with Australia and South Africa.

NIC POTHAS is a South African international wicketkeeper with a Greek passport, and will be lining up for Hampshire in the County Championship this summer.Director of cricket, Tim Tremlett, revealed last night that they had snapped up the talented 28-year-old from under the noses of at least four counties, including Lancashire.”We’re delighted to have signed Nic,” he said. “This shows the ambition of Hampshire.”There will be a lot of top teams in Division 1 this summer. Last time we came straight down, but this signing will prompt competition for places in the team, and enable us to compete in the championship.”Pothas, who has played three one-day internationals for South Africa, is currently plying his trade with Gauteng where he has a batting average of 36 and a top score of 165.He has signed a two-year contract with Hampshire and will join up with the team at the end of the domestic season.He holds a Greek passport, so will qualify to play for Hampshire under EC regulations enabling them to field Zimbabwe international Neil Johnson and Pothas in the same team.Tremlett revealed that they had been chasing Pothas for the last 18 months. “Our coach Jimmy Cook has known Nic since he was quite young, during his playing days with Transvaal,” added Tremlett. “He is a quality player and comes highly recommended.”This deal has been a long time in arranging. The registration finally came through from Lord’s in November.”Pothas’s signing could potentially put pressure on Hampshire number one wicketkeeper Adrian Aymes, and talented second team keeper, Iain Brunnschweiler.Tremlett admitted they were keen to increase the strength of the squad and boost competition, but they saw the South African primarily as a batsman.He added: “We have explained the situation to Nic. At the moment some people regard him more as a batsman/wicketkeeper. He regularly opens the batting for Gauteng in one-day game, and bats at four in the championship.”Nic does keep wicket, but we are looking to him primarily as a batsman, who can keep wicket.”Adie is one of the best wicketkeepers in the country, who also scores lot of runs, and he is certainly the number one.”Tremlett revealed that Hampshire are still keeping tabs on Lancashire batsman John Crawley. The England international stepped down as captain of the county last summer and has stated his intention to leave.Hampshire are keen to sign the player, but the county’s Director of Cricket admitted they were watching from the sidelines while Crawley sorts out his wrangle with Lancashire, who have refused him to be released from his contract.

SYDNEY – New Zealand all-rounder Dion Nash has been ruled out of tomorrow’s second tri-series cricket final against South Africa.Nash suffered a side strain last night during New Zealand’s heavy loss to South Africa in the first one-day final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.Kiwi coach Dennis Aberhart said Nash was unavailable for tomorrow’s match at the SCG and it appeared unlikely he would be able to play in the third final scheduled for Sunday.There has been no word on Nash’s replacement but with the rain-affected SCG pitch expected to suit fast bowlers, the most likely candidate is James Franklin.The Kiwis were hopeful of practising at the SCG today, if it stoppedraining.

Sargodha will need a miracle to avoid defeat against Karachi Whites after they struggled to 190 for four in their second innings on the third day of the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy Grade-I clash at KCCA Stadium here Wednesday.Skipper Misbah-ul-Haq holds the key for visitors as he survived the wiles and guiles of Test leg-spinner Danish Kaneria to remain undefeated on a watchful 34. Giving him company was Mohammad Aziz with 23.Kaneria, taking advantage of whatever wear and tear on the placid KCCA track, extracted bounce and turn to claim all the four wickets to fall in Sargodha’s innings.Only opener Mohammad Hafeez was able to counter him with a fair degree of success. He made a well-compiled 80 off 127 deliveries before he unwisely tried to cut Kaneria and perished to a catch at the wicket. Hafeez laced his otherwise excellent knock with nine fours and one six.Earlier, Karachi Whites extended their first innings lead to 282 by making 451 after resuming the day at 363 for six. All-rounder Arif Mahmood took his overnight 39 to 64 despite running a temperature.The burly right-hander lashed seven boundaries during stay of 148 minutes and negotiated 121 balls.Right-arm medium-pacer Umair Hussain turned out be Sargodha’s chief wicket-taker with a return of six for 141. However, he was guilty of sending no less than 24 no-balls in his 31 overs.Umair’s opening partner Mohammad Sarfraz, the stocky left-arm pacer, chipped in with three for 132.