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Kevin Pietersen has wished his Hampshire colleagues the best of luck for their Friends Provident t20 semi-final against Essex on Saturday, after the county confirmed he won’t be selected for the showpiece finals day at the Rose Bowl, despite being one of four England players made available for county duty by the England coach Andy Flower.In a statement, Hampshire confirmed that the club’s policy regarding Pietersen remains the same as when they declined to select him for a CB40 match against Kent last month, a move that stemmed from his comments earlier in the season, in which he confirmed he’d be leaving Hampshire when his contract expires at the end of the summer. He said the commute from his home in Chelsea made it impractical for him to continue at The Rose Bowl and Middlesex are currently the favourites to gain his signature.”The decision remains consistent with the club’s policy to stand by the players who have performed well for them in limited-overs cricket so far this season,” read a statement from the county.”Hampshire would like to re-iterate that this is, by no means, a reflection on Kevin Pietersen as a player or as an individual. However, since Kevin has already made it clear that he intends to play cricket elsewhere next season, the club believes the teams’ best interests are best served by selecting those who have performed so well so far this season, many of whom are aspiring England players, themselves.”Pietersen responded in a post on his Twitter page, in which he played down any perceived falling-out. “I fully understand Hampshire’s position in not selecting me for finals day,” he wrote. “I wish them all the best on the day. I will be watching the lads!”Although Pietersen made a significant contribution to England’s nine-wicket victory against Pakistan at Edgbaston his 80 was a horribly scratchy innings which included three clear-cut dropped chances. Another innings before the third Test at The Oval, and in a format that would allow Pietersen to express himself, may have been welcome but Hampshire are sticking to the batting line-up that has impressed in the tournament to date, with the likes of Michael Lumb, Michael Carberry, Neil McKenzie and James Vince all making contributions.”We are very pleased to be involved in Finals Day, particularly at The Rose Bowl,” said Hampshire’s chairman, Rod Bransgrove. “The players who have got the Royals to this point have made their county and everyone associated with the club very proud. We would, therefore, like to stand by them.”We wish Kevin and England all the very best for the future and all their forthcoming internationals. We look forward to welcoming them back to The Rose Bowl for the England v Pakistan NatWest One-Day International at The Rose Bowl on September 22.”Hampshire’s opponents in the semi-final, Essex, will have Alastair Cook available after he was also made available but that also poses some interesting selection questions. Cook would open the batting, but the combination of Mark Pettini and Ravi Bopara have proved successful in his absence and Cook’s current form is woeful after a tough time against Pakistan.However, Nottinghamshire are unlikely to have any issues including Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann in their starting line-up against Somerset for the other semi-final. Swann was named Man-of-the-Match in the second Test against Pakistan after a career-best 6 for 65 in the second innings and Broad also bagged six wickets in the game, although lost half his match fee after hurling the ball at Zulqarnain Haider on the third day.”We will select the best players available to us and Stuart and Graeme will add significant strength to our team,” said director of cricket Mick Newell. “We’ve used a lot of players to get to finals day and everyone has made a good contribution.”I’ll talk to the players who will have to make way for Stuart and Graeme but everyone understands that we will pick the team that will give us the best possible chance of winning the match and progressing to the final.”

Essex have insisted they will not be allowing Adam Wheater to leave the club, despite interest from other counties. Wheater is not out of contract at Chelmsford until the end of 2013 but has attracted the attention of several other clubs who hope to lure him with the offer of a role as first-team wicketkeeper.Wheater, 22, who has a first-class batting average of almost 43, retains aspirations as a wicketkeeper but has been limited to a role as a specialist batsman at Essex by the presence of former England keeper James Foster. Wheater may also have been overtaken as understudy at the club by the progress of 19-year-old Ben Foakes, who scored 93 on Championship debut in May and was named in the England Performance Programme squad to tour India later this year.Hampshire had been linked with a move for Wheater. The club won the limited-overs double in 2012 with 21-year-old Michael Bates, a product of the club’s own youth system, impressing behind the stumps and making a maiden first-class century. Concerns about his ability as a batsman linger, however, with his first-class average remaining under 20 and his List A average below 10.Hampshire also attempted to sign James Foster in 2011, before he recommitted his future to Essex.”Adam is contracted to us until the end of 2013,” Essex’s head coach, Paul Grayson, told ESPNcricinfo. “There is no release clause in his contract. He’s staying.”

David Collier, the ECB chief executive, has apologised for suggesting that South African players “provoked” Kevin Pietersen into sending the messages that led to the player being dropped from the England team.Pietersen was omitted from the England team for the third Test of the series between England and South Africa in August after it emerged he had sent messages containing inappropriate comments about the England captain, Andrew Strauss, to members of the South Africa touring party. Pietersen was subsequently omitted from England World T20 squad and their squad for the Test tour of India, though he is now undergoing a “rehabilitation” process that could see him return to the side shortly.Just as it seemed the matter was close to resolution, however, Collier gave a live radio interview with the BBC on October 7 in which he claimed Pietersen had been reacting to messages from members of the South Africa team and that the episode may have been orchestrated to disrupt the England dressing room.Asked about the context of the messages sent from Pietersen to members of the South Africa touring party, Collier replied: “These were responses to messages from certain members of the South Africa team and I would not condone an England player doing it if it was the other way around, and I certainly think they provoked the situation. There was definitely a policy that was happening but we shouldn’t blame the South Africans, we should be above that. I think there was a tactic which was used. I think that is sadly some of the ways of modern sport.”The comments angered Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the South Africa Cricketers’ Association (SACA). The acting chief executive of the former, Jacques Faul, expressed his “disappointment”, while SACA demanded an apology. While it is clear that the ECB and CSA do not agree on all the details of the episode, they have now released a joint statement making it clear that Collier has apologised for his comments and underlined the respect the ECB have for the “highest ethical standards of behaviour” observed by South Africa players:”CSA and ECB have discussed the events which led to Kevin Pietersen’s non-selection for the third test,” the statement said.”Cricket South Africa has made clear to ECB that the electronic messages were not part of any initiative or plan to undermine the England team or players. ECB has unreservedly accepted that assurance and wishes to reiterate that it has no issue at all with CSA – or the Proteas players – on this matter and appreciates that the South African and England players follow the highest ethical standards of behaviour.”Although the two boards do not agree on the sequence of events regarding any responses to messages between Kevin Pietersen and certain Proteas players, CSA and SACA accept Mr Collier’s apology based upon his earlier utterances that the team may have acted in a way which was underhand. Both CSA and ECB regard this matter as now closed and will not comment on the confidential information shared in discussion between the boards.”The episode is an embarrassment to the ECB and may well lead to questions about Collier’s future. But, while Collier will forever be tainted by his involvement with the Stanford debacle, his record as CEO is, on the whole, good. The England team has climbed the rankings in all formats since he was appointed in 2004 and the ECB has gone from a position of poverty to boasting a surplus of more than £20m.Furthermore, the ECB lead the way in the funding of women’s and disability cricket, while huge sums – in excess of £30m a year – have been invested in grassroots cricket and the numbers of people playing the game has doubled. He was close to being appointed CEO of the ICC earlier this year, but missed out to former South Africa wicketkeeper Dave Richardson.The issue will do little to improve relations between the ECB and Pietersen, though. While Collier has previously admitted that the ECB has never seen the messages, which were reported to be deleted some weeks ago, they have received a “binding assurance” from Pietersen that they were not derogatory of Strauss and did not contain tactical advice. It seems they also accepted, at the time, that they were sent in response to messages from South Africa players.

In arrears by 309 runs on the first innings, South Zone were fighting hard to avert an innings defeat at stumps on the third day of their Duleep Trophy league match against Central Zone at the Bhausaheb Bandokar Stadium in Goa on Saturday. Led by a strokefilled unbeaten 102 by Tamil Nadu left hander SridharanSriram, South Zone at close of play were 204 for four. Earlier, Amay Khurasiya declared the Central Zone innings closed at 550 for seven after Gagan Khoda got his triple century.Resuming at 469 for three, Central Zone lost Yere Goud for 85. D Bundela was run out off the first ball he faced and Venkatpathi Raju then took the wickets of RJ Kanwat and wicketkeeper RB Jhalani. In the meantime however Khoda had got to the coveted 300. At the declaration, Khoda had batted 610 minutes, faced 467 balls and hit 33 fours and six sixes. It was the second highest score in thecompetition, next only to Raman Lamba’s 320 in 1987-88.South Zone made a poor start in their second innings losing Nandakishore and stand in skipper Laxman with only 28 runs on the board. But Sriram and Vijay Bhardwaj figured in a rescue act by adding 128 runs for the third wicket off 42.3 overs. Following his fighting half century in the first innings, Bhardwaj again battled it out for 172 minutes for 40 before he was bowled by Kanwat. He faced 124 balls but hit only three of them to the ropes. Wicketkeeper VST Naidu did not last long but Sriram and Sunil Joshi (18) came through unbeaten at stumps. Sriram has so far faced 220 balls and hit 13 fours.

Slow scoring, slow over rates, slow progress. Painful, in fact. Yet far from a slow death. As a contest, the Pura Cup Final between Victoria and Queensland somehowroared back into life on a laboured third day here at the ‘Gabba ground in Brisbane.It was Victorian opener Matthew Elliott (88*) who lay at the core of the day’s events. In a display laced with character and unstinting application, he batted throughthe entirety of the proceedings to lead his side into a genuinely competitive position at stumps. By the close, the Bushrangers had crawled their way to a second inningsscore of 4/172, and an overall lead of 106 runs, with two days still remaining in the 2000-01 season decider.On another hot day in Brisbane, some of the headlines were also stolen by Matthew Mott (19), whose 141-ball stay at the wicket seemed not only to provokefrustration throughout a crowd of 4708 but also caused tempers to boil among some of the Bulls in the field.Changes to the playing conditions under which domestic first-class finals in Australia are conducted have been mooted regularly over recent seasons. Neutral venues,the inclusion of the competing states’ international representatives, greater haste in over rates, and amendments to the rule that ensures that one side can draw thematch and still win the title, have all been raised as topics for discussion. Maybe after this match, there might be a move to abandon the first two sessions of each dayaltogether.Through close to six-and-a-half hours, just 170 runs were accumulated and only four wickets fell. Save for the generous contribution of thirty-seven runs that wasoffered to the Bushrangers from seven overs of innocuous spin bowling from rival captain Stuart Law, the day was devoid of an uplifting tempo.In a stadium already holding only around one-eighth of its capacity, it did nothing to impress the audience. Between slow handclaps, ironical cheering for runs andserial chants of ‘boring’, they found little by which to be impressed. It was only during the last two hours of the day – against the backdrop of the comparatively giddyclatter of three wickets and the addition of a monstrous seventy-nine runs – that they had motive to awake from their slumber.Potentially, this had all the makings of one of the most exciting days of domestic cricket in a long time. Instead, it turned into one of the most defensive.With time on their side, the Victorians assiduously built a foundation from which they can mount a concerted push for victory; requiring only so much as a draw toretain its title, Queensland sought to spoil and frustrate their ambitions.In some ways, the opening two sessions of the day’s play almost defied description. For there was virtually no action. The Bulls set defensive fields, stationing at leastsix men on the off side for the vast majority of those four hours and their bowlers then maintained a consistent line outside off stump. Law infamously drew the ire ofTasmania in Queensland’s first home game of the first-class season when he used similar tactics; now much the same strategy was applied in the last.Under a baking Brisbane sun, and at the end of a long and dry Australian summer, the home team’s suffocating hold over the run rate resembled Chinese water torture.”It was another tough day, wasn’t it?” mused Bushrangers’ captain, Paul Reiffel.”This is hard cricket. This is ‘finals cricket’. We’re just fighting our way back into this game after the first day. We’ve still got some work to do tomorrow but we’veslowly crawled our way back into it.”The visiting skipper certainly wasn’t overstating the case about the speed of his team’s advance toward its position of near-parity. Mott, in particular, was the modelof eternal vigilance.Yet, as they meandered toward a half-century partnership in the small matter of 160 minutes, an uncharacteristically grafting Elliott was not far behind his partner in a contestwhich could never have been described as a race.Former Test batsman Elliott is a player of vast experience, of sound temperament, and of classical strokes. But he could hardly at any time in his career have played aninnings as determined or as responsible as this one – one that has already spanned 372 minutes and soaked up 273 deliveries of lionhearted Queensland bowling.He weathered a serious blow on the point of the right cheekbone from a Joe Dawes (1/35) beam ball early in the morning, and was not allowed to feel completelyimmune as Adam Dale (2/43) and Andy Bichel (1/20) sought to offer verbal advice to a number of his partners much later in the day. In the end, though, he meted outfar more punishment than he received.Alongside a watchful Jonathan Moss (5*), the left hander’s durability was especially crucial late in the day once Mott had played around the line of a superb seamingdelivery from an emotionally unrestrained Dale; Brad Hodge (3) had fallen to a magnificent catch at a wide third slip from Clinton Perren as he drove uppishly atBichel; and Michael Klinger (9) had padded up to a delivery from Dawes that cut sharply back in at him.By this stage, the pitch was no longer proving quite as dormant as it had done previously; indeed, for the first time in the match, fleeting signs of variable bounce weregradually appearing. It was a development which must have added to the Victorians’ sense of satisfaction by the end of the day. Painstaking though their progress hasbeen, the visitors are now firmly back in this contest.

In a revolutionary and unprecedented move, the PCB has invited interested Pakistani expatriates to send their children to Pakistan for cricket coaching and training under the supervision of Board officials. If good enough they can also appear in trials for domestic or senior teams.This move has come in the wake of thousands of e-mails and letters, coming from virtually all parts of the world, asking the PCB to patronize aspiring youngsters living abroad. It is a well-known fact that many families living especially in Europe and America are devoted followers of cricket, what to speak of those whose children want to be a part of Pakistan’s national cricket team. However, failing to find a right channel, they only end up living in obscurity. The latest decision by the PCB must be a breath of fresh air for these talented youth.The name of Lahore Cricket Academy is relevant in this regard. Run by Intikhab Alam, arguably the most successful of Pakistan’s cricket captains and a former coach and manager of the national team, the LCA is located within a modern country club of international standards. Apart from providing coaching to aspiring youngsters, the Academy arranges tours to and from Pakistan. The Academy is fully equipped for coaching as well as allowing its trainees a chance to play competitive cricket. They also arrange for trials to pick out talent for local or national teams.In recognition of these services, the PCB has authorized LCA to organize the arrival and stay of youngsters coming to Pakistan. The Board would arrange for their training and coaching at a nominal cost.Interested families can get further details of tour and coaching packages from Lahore Cricket Academy or write to Pakistan Cricket Board directly or email at [email protected].

Captain Steve Waugh will order a full mental assault on key South Africans Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis tomorrow when Australia faces the crippled Proteas in the second Test in Cape Town.Boucher and Kallis can expect a torrid time from an Australian team which has shown no pity for the dire problems that have affected South Africa since thehumiliating loss in the first Test at the Wanderers.Wicketkeeper Boucher is again the reluctant captain after another injury setback to skipper Shaun Pollock and the walkout by senior batsman Daryll Cullinan over a contractual dispute.It’s hard not to feel sorry for Boucher, who must convince three debutants and scarred teammates that they can beat a ruthless Australian team hoping to celebrate Shane Warne’s 100th Test and Justin Langer’s 50th with a series win.”If you can take the leader out then that’s the way to go. There is no doubt about that. I know what it is like,” Waugh said.”There is a lot of pressure and everyone is looking to you to lift. (Boucher) has a big responsibility. He’ll know we will come after him pretty hard as well. It is a big test for him.”Kallis will also feel the heat because the Australians suspect the talented all-rounder is running low on enthusiasm after a gruelling year anchored by four consecutive thrashings by Waugh’s team.Kallis had a poor first Test, dropping centurion Matthew Hayden before he had scored a run, while the Proteas also received little zest from veteran openingbatsman Gary Kirsten.South Africa’s paper-thin hopes of winning this Test rest with the leadership abilities of Boucher, Kallis, Kirsten and new vice-captain Neil McKenzie.”When you are down the senior players have to lead the way. If we can break those guys down it is going to be hard for the young guys to stand up,” Waugh said.”There is a lot of pressure on senior guys like Kallis. They are the guys who have to lead the way for the rest of the team and I know our bowlers will be targeting them.”Teams have been intimidated by our firepower. We have match-winners in our team which is what you need in Test match cricket.”We play aggressively and we never let a team have a breather. If we get on top we try and keep the momentum going. It is hard to fight back.”Waugh will again entertain the prospect of sending South Africa in to bat if he wins the toss on a Newlands wicket which looks ideal for batting.With the recent hot weather, the pitch could turn as the Test moves on, leaving the Proteas with the genuine chance they could bat first after their dismal efforts of 159 and 133 in Johannesburg.”When you’re bowled out twice cheaply I don’t think their batters will be real keen to bat on the first morning,” Waugh said.”It’s definitely tempting to bowl, particularly after the West Indies (in 1998-99) when we bowled them out for 51 (and Australia won the Test by 312 runs),” Waugh said.”We batted first in the next Test and they got a bit of momentum and got back into the series.”When you’re down and out batting it’s very hard to have confidence to bat first. We’re comfortable either way and if it comes down to they’d rather not bat first it’s certainly tempting to send them in.”Australian selectors were yet to announce their team but no changes are expected from the line-up which won the first Test.Australia (likely): Steve Waugh (capt), Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Brett Lee,Jason Gillespie, Glenn McGrath.South Africa: Mark Boucher (capt), Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Ashwell Prince, Neil McKenzie, Andrew Hall, Makhaya Ntini,Dewald Pretorius, Paul Adams.

Nick Knight has been recalled to the England squad for the second Test againstPakistan at Old Trafford as a batting replacement for injured captain Nasser Hussain.The Warwickshire left-hander has not played for England since breaking hisfinger during last summer’s momentous victory over West Indies at Lord’s, but has begun the season impressively and averages 54.33 in championship cricket.Knight won his recall ahead of other experienced players like John Crawley ofLancashire and Surrey’s Mark Ramprakash, who was expected to end his year-longwait for another opportunity following his controversial switch from Middlesexto the county champions during the winter.Yorkshire left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom, who performed impressively on hisTest debut during the innings victory over Pakistan at Lord’s even though hefinished wicketless, fails to retain his place because of the return to fitnessof Headingley team-mate Matthew Hoggard after a back problem.”In our discussions about a replacement batsman for Nasser, there were anumber of outstanding candidates to choose from in particular younger playerssuch as Owais Shah and Usman Afzaal,” said chairman of selectors DavidGraveney.”In this instance, however, with Ian Ward having only just made his debut, wedecided to go for a more experienced player and we considered Mark Ramprakashand John Crawley as well as Nick Knight.”Our decision to pick Nick was based on the fact that he has been inoutstanding form for Warwickshire this season, has batted in the middle orderfor England before and has also scored a Test hundred against Pakistan.”Injured trio Hussain, Ashley Giles (Achilles tendon) and Craig White (back)will all be at the practice sessions in Manchester, which begin on Tuesdayafternoon, but none will be selected.Glamorgan off-spinner Robert Croft is again in the squad but with Old Trafford in particular suffering a wet start to the summer, he may well be left out when England choose the side later in the week.At this stage, the more likely option is that we will play seven batsmen andthe four best bowlers, but our final decision will depend on an assessment ofthe pitch and local weather conditions,” added Graveney.

Australia put last week’s wobble at Kingsmead quickly behind them with a 19-run victory over South Africa in the opening Standard Bank One-Day International at the Wanderers on Friday. For just a while, though, Lance Klusener threatened to wrest the game away from them.The Australians had to live through 109 minutes of Klusener as the left-hander hammered 83 off 77 balls to endanger Ricky Ponting’s first victory as one-day captain. But the failure of the earlier South African batting had left Klusener too much to do on his own and Klusener was eventually last man out, caught at deep midwicket in a death or glory bid for victory.”It got a bit more exciting than I would have liked,” said Ponting. “But right the way through I still thought we were going to win.”The win demonstrated that for all the fuss generated by the axing of Steve Waugh, the current World Cup champions will still be one of the teams to beat back here in South Africa next year.Australia’s 223 for eight on a pitch that played inconsistently looked to be something short of a winning score, but Jason Gillespie lopped the top off the South African batting with the wickets of Herschelle Gibbs, Gary Kirsten and Jacques Kallis in his opening spell. At 23 for three South Africa had veered off course and at took some time to get the ship pointing back in the right direction.Boeta Dippenaar, dropped from the Test team after the crushing defeat in the first Test, put together a stylish 51 to initiate something of a recovery. He was missed at slip on 15 by Damien Martyn, fielding there in the absence of Mark Waugh and Shane Warne, but looked in particularly good form until he became Nathan Hauritz’s first international wicket.A little earlier Ian Harvey had winkled out Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock in the space of three balls and at 93 for seven, South Ad to do was frica looked completely out of.But Klusener found a parner in Nicky Boje as the eighth wicket added 71 before Boje was run out by substitute fielder Brett Lee’s wonderful throw from the deep. Roger Telemachus went quickly and at 166 for nine, all Australia had to do, it seemed, was get Makhaya Ntini on strike and bowl straight.Klusener farmed the bowling, though, hitting with a power reminiscent of his amazing 1999 World Cup run, but it couldn’t last and it didn’t.The Australian innings, after Ponting had won the toss and chosen to bat, fell away somewhat after Adam Gilchrist had given it an explosive start. Gilchrist thrashed Roger Telemachus out of the attack, 26 coming off the medium pacer’s first three overs and it needed the introduction of Makhaya Ntini to bring some order to the South African bowling.Ntini started with two maidens and then bagged Gilchrist, caught at midwicket for 37. It proved to be the joint highest score of the innings as one Australian batsman after another got himself in only to get himself out.Matthew Hayden made 27, Ponting 14, Martyn 24, Darren Lehmann 37, Michael Bevan 18 and Harvey 19 as the South Africans managed to nip almost every partnership in the bud.Ntini was instrumental in containing Australia, taking two for 14 in his first seven over spell and finishing with three for 24 off his 10 and it remains a mystery as to why he was not given the new ball in the first place.In the field, too, South Africa looked sharper than at any stage during the Test series with Jonty Rhodes making his presence felt when he took a stunning right-handed catch at point to get rid of Hayden and then later with a direct hit on the stumps at the bowler’s end to run out Bevan.

Six months ago, when the Reverend Wes Hall took over as thePresident of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), he said thatthe re-elevation of the West Indies to the top echelons of worldcricket has always been his ambition. To achieve that, Hall said,"We have to be competitive. We know there is an intestinalresistance to change. It is a fact that people don’t like change,and they are not going to like this programme because it is notthe same old thing…so we have to change or perish, it’s asobvious as that. We have to look at this ‘dinosaurial’ syndrome.”The upcoming Indian tour of the West Indies, then, provides thehome team a chance to prove that they have overcome the”dinosaurial syndrome.”The problem with the West Indies of late has been that they havenever learnt from their defeats. They seem to have developed thelosing habit, having lost 23 of their last 27 away Tests and alsothe last home series they played – against South Africa in 2001.They should have lost to Pakistan too at home, but for one of theworst umpiring decisions ever. Debutant West Indian umpire BillyDoctrove gave Courtney Walsh “not out” after the latter hadclearly hit the ball to short-leg, the West Indies just a fewruns away from victory.Sports psychologists keep reminding us that losing is a habit,just as winning is. The current attempts to help the team losethe losing habit, then, are being directed at technique (not tobe ignored) rather than at the attitude of the players. Somehow,the latter seems to be more necessary.West Indies coach Roger Harper explained his views on the matter."There has been a myth going around that West Indian players arestrong technically. That is one of the greatest myths that hasbeen thrown around the West Indies for some time now. When welook at our cricket, we realise that we have a lot of technicaldeficiencies. So it is not a case of us having great techniqueand not being able to execute, but our technique is not up toTest-level.”He said that this did not happen earlier, as there were always"old experienced players who took it upon themselves at the clublevel to develop the young players, imparting technical knowledgeand sharing their experiences with their young players.””After the 80s, that sort of thing did not happen,” added Harper.”The older players (former Test and first-class players) justleft the game, some migrated or because of economic reasonsweren’t able to put in enough time at the club level with theyounger players.””The youngsters were not brought on the same way as the playerswere previously brought on. This means that they were comingthrough without the proper background they needed to have whenthey got to first-class level, much less international level,”Harper emphasised, explaining why West Indian cricket hassuddenly taken a nose-dive.Probably understanding this, the current training camp for theplayers selected in the preliminary squad for the series againstIndia saw the unprecedented involvement of previous greats likeSir Garry Sobers and Andy Roberts, among others. Sobers wasoptimistic that the players, whom he had seen at the camp, could,with the right guidance, do the region proud.”What I have seen is a lot of good youngsters, and if they getthe right guidance, they will certainly help the West Indies inthe near future. There are just the technical aspects, and theway of thinking that must be honed as cricket at Test level isplayed from the shoulders up,” Sobers said.The man who was named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of theCentury said he was convinced the downfall in the last sevenyears was caused as much by the deleterious change in attitude asanything else.”They must learn and enjoy reading the game, knowing what shotsshould and should not be played in certain circumstances. That iswhat I have been working on – looking at them in the nets, tryingto get them to buy into the best habits. They have beenlistening, they are paying attention,” he said.Talking about the Indians, Sobers said, "They are coming to win.This is where we will find out how much these boys have improvedor how badly their morale has been damaged."He felt that the West Indies, for their part, needed a good startafter the morale-shattering defeats in recent times. "They need abit of insurance by having a good start in the series. They needsomeone to talk to them, to make them realise the circumstancesof the game and boost their morale,” he added.Meanwhile, a keen sense of anticipation is building up in theCaribbean ahead of the series, especially in Guyana and Trinidad& Tobago, where about 45 percent of the population is of Indiandescent.The pitches at most of the Test grounds should be helpful to thetwo Indian spinners, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. The WestIndies batsmen will have to put on their dancing shoes if theyare to cope with the Indian spin twins. The Kensington Oval atBarbados, which may lay claim to having the best pitch in thecountry, and the Sabina Park Oval at Jamaica, where the third andfifth Test are to be held, should still favour the quicks.This is where someone like Adam Sanford, who might be the newstar on the West Indies fast bowling horizon, is expected tothrive. He burst onto the scene in this year’s Busta Cup afterencouraging fast-bowling performances for his native Antigua &Barbuda during the Leeward Islands championship last year. He hastaken 37 wickets at 24.24 each.Overall, the series between the two sides should be a veryinteresting one that the West Indies would do well to win andbring some pleasure back to the fans in the Caribbean. If Sanfordis selected and proves his mettle, and the rest of the batsmenrally around Brian Lara, who seems fit to play, then the WestIndies could be more than competitive. They could actuallysurprise all and win.