It was a depressing end to a superb innings. As Alastair Cook trudged despairingly from the crease after recording his maiden Ashes century, he was so crestfallen he could barely raise his bat to acknowledge a deserved standing ovation. He was seen in the dressing-room being consoled and congratulated in equal measure by his team-mates, and afterwards he admitted to mixed feelings about what he proclaimed to be the finest innings of his fledgling Test career.”I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t get that nagging feeling I could be walking out to get a bigger one and get us closer to the target,” said Cook at the close. His departure, caught behind off Glenn McGrath with just 16 balls of the day’s play remaining, turned a day of genuine hope for England into another one of grim resignation. With just five wickets remaining and an entire day to survive, Australia seem certain to regain the Ashes by the close of play tomorrow.Even so, Cook can and should be immensely proud of yet another performance that belied his tender years. This was his fourth Test century in 12 matches, an achievement that brackets him alongside Sunil Gavaskar, Graeme Pollock and Vinod Kambli – all of whom made that many hundreds before their 22nd birthday. “I think it helps being 21,” he said of the way he survived yet another intensely humid day, batting for six-and-a-half hours and 290 balls for a nuggety 116.”I’ve felt in quite good nick throughout the series but I haven’t got a score,” said Cook, whose highest to date had been 43 in the second innings at the Gabba. “It’s been frustrating to keep making starts but if someone had offered me a hundred, I’d have taken it, especially against Australia in Australia on a turning wicket. But it would be nice if I was not out this evening, and could come back tomorrow and get an even bigger one.”Quite apart from the effort that he showed, his composure at the crease was the most striking feature of his innings. “Lessons had been learnt from Adelaide,” he admitted, as he and Ian Bell – who greeted Shane Warne with two sweetly struck sixes – made a concerted effort to stay positive in the face of huge Australian pressure. “We had a change of mentality,” Cook said. “The balls come on a bit better here and it’s easier to score runs, which was hard at Adelaide.
“We stuck to our gameplans and tried not to get overawed by the situation,” he continued, after the pair had added 170 for the second wicket in a partnership that lasted for 56 overs. “Playing Australia in Australia is quite tough. You’ve got guys with 700 and 500 Test wickets coming at you at two ends, so you are made to work for every run.”That hard work was exacerbated by another typically theatrical performance from Warne, whose appealing was insistent and at times excessive, as he toiled through 31 overs for figures of 1 for 100. “He’s always a bit unlucky isn’t he?” joked Cook. “There was a bit of banter, but that’s just the way the Aussies play their cricket. They play it tough but if someone does well they congratulate them. They’ve been very good like that.” Sure enough, Cook was shaken by the hand by Warne when he notched up his hundred.Though he was still disappointed by his late dismissal, Cook still held out hopes of the draw, an achievement that South Africa managed in similar circumstances last year at the WACA. “It would be nice if we were still three-down, but we’re still in there fighting hard,” he said. “I think the pitch will hold up, because there’s only a couple of balls that did anything all day. One to KP didn’t bounce and a couple have gone through the top, so we hope it’ll stay together.”Unfortunately those last two wickets set us back a bit, but there’s a lot of fight in here. KP and Freddie don’t hang around, so who knows what can happen if we get through the first hour, first session, like we did this morning. Some people are due some runs, and hopefully they can perform tomorrow.”
Michael Vaughan is expected to return for the second Test against Pakistan at Faisalabad on Sunday. Vaughan suffered a recurrence of a knee injury in England’s warm-up match against Pakistan A which ruled him out of the first Test defeat at Multan.Despite rumours at the start of the first Test that his tour was over, Vaughan has been batting in the nets and jogging on the last three mornings before play.”He seems to be coming along fine. There’s a very good chance he could play in that Test,” Duncan Fletcher, England’s coach, told BBC Sport. “We’re pretty confident that given another couple of days of work on it he will be ready.”Ian Bell replaced his captain in the first Test, but Bell’s good form – he struck a gritty 71 in England’s first innings, and took an outstanding catch at short-leg – could force Paul Collingwood to make way for Vaughan. Collingwood made just 13 runs in the Test, and his medium-pace was sparsely used by his acting captain, Marcus Trescothick.”The knee is improving. It’s always been a bit of a problem and it might still be,” Fletcher added. “But he feels comfortable, he’s running around and feeling no pain.”
Dennis Lillee has left his coaching post in Australia after a fallout with Australia cricket authorities, according to Sydney’s .Lillee, 55, who has helped shape the careers of many bowlers, including such established stars as Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath, had been involved with developing and coaching players for Australia for 15 years.”They didn’t want me to do the states, so I would have no contact with the ones who really need the help, the under-17s and -19s,” he told the newspaper. “They wanted me to focus on the academy and the Test players, and wanted to cut my days down from 30 to 15 per year and for me to take a discount on my daily rate.”I am disappointed from the point of view that I felt the work I was doing there was bearing fruit. I loved what I did there. I wrote to them and said ‘nothing goes down’ and I am not at all happy. But life moves on and I have got plenty to do.”Cricket Australia has advertised for the post at their Academy, and there are a number of coaches who learned their trade in Australia, but have gone elsewhere, such as Bennett King, who recently took over as West Indies chief coach. Others include Steve Rixon who is at Surrey, John Dyson, Sri Lanka’s coach, and Rod Marsh, who is head coach at England’s academy based in Loughborough.In the meantime, however, it is likely that Damien Fleming, the former swing bowler who retired 17 months ago and who shared some of Lillee’s duties, will take over in the interim.
Yuvraj Singh had a shabby county season, but he got some valuable advice from a player whom he is very likely to come up against in the near future – Stephen Fleming, the captain of New Zealand.Yuvraj returned from England last week and, speaking to the press on the first day of a week-long training camp at Bangalore, said that he became “good friends” with Fleming during his Yorkshire stint. “I learnt a lot from him, he helped me a lot. He’s a very experienced player and an excellent captain. I’ve picked up lots of important tips for the future,” said Yuvraj.The tips may have helped before the season; Yuvraj made only 145 runs from seven first-class matches for Yorkshire. “It was a good experience playing county cricket. The first month was pretty good, I played a couple of good knocks, but later on I was struggling,” he said.He was confident of regaining form soon enough, and with India’s international season starting soon, he will need all the form he can get. “I’ve done well in domestic cricket,” Yuvraj said. “I just have to try and be consistent in India’s one-day games and then try to get into the test team.”
The Wellington team to compete at the National Under-21 tournament in Christchurch starting on December 27 is:Sarah Bradbury, Amy Burgess, Belina Clifton, Amanda Cooper, Amanda Green, Emily Hobbs, Nicole James, Francis King, Asmita Rama, Sian Ruck, Megan Tuapawa, Megan Wakefield, Pam Yates. Coach: Andrew Cavill. Manager: Philly Gordon.Anna Corbin was unavailable for selection due to committments for the CLEAR White Ferns tour to Australia prior to Christmas.This team is a young team with seven secondary school girls included, but their selection is reward for hard work with an eye on future talent to play for the State Wellington Blaze.
David Warner’s determination to post bigger scores is driven partly by the proliferation of flat pitches in Australia and around the world. On the morning he was dismissed for 253 after collaring 244* on day one of the WACA Test against New Zealand, Warner said flat pitches were necessitating his desire to bat for longer periods.Much comment has surrounded the WACA surface for this Test, with the ABC Grandstand commentator Jim Maxwell describing it as a “chief executive’s pitch”, and Tom Moody expressing his disappointment at its relative lack of pace and carry. While Warner said it would be wise to suspend judgment until Australia’s fast battery had bowled on the strip, he pointed out that friendly batting surfaces were pushing him to redefine his own approach.”The key factor here is the type of wickets we’re playing on, they’re nice and generous for batsmen, the bowlers are really going to have to work hard,” Warner told before the second day’s play. “That’s something we know in Australia as a batsman you really have to cash in, we’re fortunate enough to play on very good wickets, and around the world I think in general the wickets are pretty batter friendly today.”It [the pitch] was a bit disappointing, you see generally after lunch or even tea time it does quicken up, but it felt like it got a bit slower through the middle. The second new ball came through a little bit, but I think it also has something to do with their bowlers only reaching 130-135 and they’re quite tired. When we’ve got two bowlers at 140 plus, that’s when we can see if the wicket has actually fastened up. But generally pretty slow for a WACA wicket.”Friday was the first time Warner had managed to bat a full day in a Test match, after he went close on day one of the first game at the Gabba. Leaning heavily on singles and strike rotation with Joe Burns and then Usman Khawaja, Warner said his play had been dictated largely by the field settings of Brendon McCullum, who was notably more conservative than he had been in Brisbane.”It wasn’t really in the back of my mind to achieve that, it was more about trying to take the singles that were on offer, that allowed me to do that and achieve batting out the day for the team,” Warner said. “That’s what it comes down to, if the fields are a little bit more attacking you can play your shots a bit more and it might create the chances, there were odd occasions when Brendon did bring the field back in, but for us it was rotating that strike.”I really did enjoy it, putting another 100-run partnership on with Joe, but to go out with my childhood mate Ussie and see him and be out there and hug him for his hundred and our 300 partnership, our family will be so proud of that because we’ve grown up with each other, to be out there and put what we used to do when we played together as youngsters, to put it out here on the global scale is fantastic.”Warner described putting up a 300-plus partnership with his childhood mate Usman Khawaja as “fantastic”•Getty Images
Warner described some of the concentration battles he had fought across the day, which related mainly to his natural desire to hit out or premeditate shots once he was settled and the bowlers began to tire. “I think the battles come when you start predicting shots before the bowler’s bowled,” he said.”That’s one thing when you’re in and feel like you’re really in, you’ve got the second person in your mind actually talking to you. That’s the hardest thing about this game, when you’ve got so many singles on offer bring able to rotate the strike, the big shots are always in the back of your mind. When I was on 190 and BMac was on, I just felt like I could hit every ball for six, and that’s what happens in your mind.”Even with the spinner at the other end you’re thinking ‘how can I get to that 200 fast’ and that’s by hitting those big shots. But you still have to respect the bowler, and I was actually quite nervous when he came on to bowl, so I was hoping he put one in my half, which he did. I tried the little dinky shots down leg but they weren’t working either.”Since the start of the West Indies tour that preceded the Ashes, Warner has sworn off alcohol, something he said he was doing in part to be united with his pregnant wife Candice. However, he admitted he would ponder a beverage after this match, now that it has reaped his highest ever Test score.”A lot of that decision was to try to get through England and our summer, to give my body the best opportunity to get through the summer,” he said. “Also it helps when you’ve got your wife who’s seven months pregnant now, her not being able to have alcohol it’s more about myself setting a goal to see if I can go her full term with not having alcohol. Going well so far but I think I might need one after this game.”
Some big Newcastle United team news has been dropped involving Ryan Fraser ahead of their game at Brentford in the Premier League this afternoon.
The Lowdown: Injury scare
The 28-year-old suffered an injury scare late on in the 1-1 draw at West Ham United last week, having to be substituted for Miguel Almiron with just over 10 minutes left in the match.
Eddie Howe has since revealed that the Scotland international missed the early part of training in preparation for the clash against the Bees, but also commented on whether the winger will be fit enough to play.
The Latest: Fraser OK for Brentford clash
Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of the fixture, Howe has now confirmed (via Jordan Cronin) that Fraser ‘will be OK’, while he also gave updates on the fitness of five other players in his squad.
A ‘late call’ will be made on Allan Saint-Maximin, while Javier Manquillo is ‘getting closer’ to full fitness, but Callum Wilson, Kieran Trippier and Matt Ritchie all miss out once more.
The Verdict: Big news
If Saint-Maximin is declared unavailable for the match, then it is certainly a big plus to have another winger in Fraser fit enough to play.
Coupled with his one goal and one assist in the top flight so far this season, the former Bournemouth ace ranks fourth out of his Newcastle team-mates in terms of crosses per match (1.2). That is something from which Chris Wood should be able to thrive, as he wins far more aerial duels per game (10.2) than any Magpies player.
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Howe will surely want a threat out wide if Saint-Maximin is absent, and Fraser would certainly provide that if he features in west London today.
In other news, NUFC are now ahead in terms of talks to sign this ‘phenomenal’ Ligue 1 star
Scorecard Sri Lanka A completed another victory against Zimbabwe Select to end the series 3-0, beating them by 31 runs. The Zimbabweans were strongly placed in the chase of 264, with Vusi Sibanda and Chamu Chibabha taking them to 148 for 2 inside the first 30 overs, but when they both fell with 198 on the board, the rest of the innings fell away as Rangana Herath and Dilruwa Perera swept up.All of the Sri Lankans’ top five made decent starts, with Mahela Udawatte and Perera putting on an opening stand of 74. Once Gary Brent had removed Udawatte for 21, the home side took wickets at steady intervals. It was the first of four wickets for Brent, the most successful bowler, while there were two each for Chibhabha and Elton Chigumbura.Thilina Kandamby led them with 62, and he and Dammika Prasad (28) gave them a late boost with 74 for the seventh wicket to take them to 264, which proved the difference as Sri Lanka A signed off their tour on a high note.
Ian Healy, the former Australian wicketkeeper, believes Adam Gilchrist’s lean batting run is an aberration but he will need to fight his way early into his innings in the Ashes series with England.Gilchrist gave a timely reminder of his devastating strokeplay with a whirlwind 63-ball hundred – 131 with 17 fours and four sixes – in Western Australia’s domestic one-day cup win over Queensland in Perth on Friday. Since the 2005 Ashes loss in England – a series in which Gilchrist made minimal impact as a batsman for the first time in his Test career – he has averaged 28.88 in 12 Tests, almost half his career level of 48.80.The English bowlers exposed a flaw in his batting technique by attacking him from around the wicket and bowling marginally short of a length with little width for Gilchrist to play his prolific run-scoring shots. Cramped for room and with the added problem of the ball swinging, Gilchrist found himself regularly chopping the ball on to his stumps or edging into the slips.But Healy sees nothing new in the English strategy and is in no doubt Gilchrist’s lean run is a one-off. “They have bowled at him like that for his whole career,” Healy told newspaper on Saturday. “Right from the start, opposition bowlers have tried to go around the wicket and cramp him for room around off-stump. He’s dealt with that for seven years, and he’s got the ability to counteract it. He just needs to get in and watch the ball intently. Maybe at the moment he does have to fight his way through that initial 20-ball or 20-run barrier. And it’s obviously better if he keeps the ball along the ground during that period.”In 12 Tests since the Ashes changed hands at The Oval, Gilchrist has batted 17 times and has been dismissed for 12 runs or fewer on 11 of those occasions having faced no more than four overs on each of those ill-fated trips to the crease. That constitutes 65 percent of his Test innings over that time. Before, he failed to reach 12 in just 28 percent of his trips to the middle.Gilchrist admitted that his recent Test-form has not been great but expressed confidence that he can “deliver whatever the team needs”. “The keeping feels fantastic, but the batting, I haven’t got the results in recent Test cricket,” Gilchrist told AAP. “Two Tests ago I got one of the best hundreds I have ever scored, which will forever and a day live in an unnoticed packet because it was Bangladesh in Bangladesh.”History won’t show how difficult that game was. But as a general rule, my results haven’t been there, and that has been a little bit frustrating. But … I am sure I can deliver whatever the team needs, when we need it. Whether that means living up to the results and statistics I have got before I am not sure. I am still certain I can deliver what the team requires.”And even though Gilchrist turned 35 last week, Healy does not subscribe to the theory that, when the years advance, it is a keeper’s batting acumen that deserts him before his glovework. Healy said that in the final year of his career (from age 34 onwards) he felt his batting skills were undiminished at training, but he just couldn’t pull it together in the middle and he failed to reach 20 in his final 16 Test innings.Ricky Ponting has no such misgivings about the form of Gilchrist. “I get asked these questions a lot about some of the senior players in the side, and it’s never a concern of mine,” he said. “I don’t need to worry about those blokes. It’s like when I get asked about [Glenn] McGrath or [Shane] Warne, or how [Matthew] Hayden is batting. They’ll be fine. They’ll sort it out because they have been too good for too long not to.”
Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the West Indies captain, has said his side would have preferred more playing time ahead of the first Test against Australia, which starts from November 3 at the Gabba in Brisbane.Chanderpaul said the West Indies’ only warm-up match – a four-day game against Queensland starting from Thursday – was not ideal preparation.”Probably we needed two warm-up games.” West Indies, said Chanderpaul, will field a full-strength team for the opening match against the Queensland team, which has Australian Test players Matthew Hayden and Shane Watson.”We want everybody to have a go, and there is only one game before the Test match. You want everybody to have a shot at it, and a little bit of time before the game. But it’s okay. We have another one after the first test.”The first Test will be followed by a three-day match against Victoria state and then the second Test at Hobart.