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Justin Langer will undergo a fitness test before the first match of the three-Test series against West Indies, which starts on November 3. Langer retired hurt after being hit by a Gerard Denton delivery during an ING Cup match between Western Australia and Victoria today (Saturday), and scans later revealed a hairline fracture.Trefor James, the medical officer for Cricket Australia, said: “Justin was in considerable pain after receiving the knock to the rib-cage, and scans taken of that area have discovered a small fracture in one of his ribs. We are optimistic, though, that he will be able to take his place in the Australian line-up for next week’s Test, however he will need to be monitored prior to that time before a final decision is made.” The medical team also decided that Langer would travel with the team to Brisbane, the venue of the first Test.Langer himself was confident of recovering in time for the match. “I’ll be playing on Thursday,” Langer was quoted as saying by AFP. “Apparently with a cracked rib the thing you have to get used to is the pain… I’m not going to miss a Test match.”Langer has been in excellent touch in the last one year, averaging almost 57 from his last 14 Tests, with three centuries and six fifties in 26 innings. Langer was also the one batsman who consistently handled England’s pace and swing with some degree of comfort during the recently concluded Ashes series, scoring 394 runs at nearly 44.Should Langer withdraw, the most likely replacement would be his state team-mate Mike Hussey. Hussey has also been in excellent form at the one-day level for Australia and opened the innings for Australia A on their recent tour of Pakistan.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Australia narrowly survived hurricanes from Chris Cairns and Kyle Mills and another terrible middle-order collapse to draw level in the Chappell-Hadlee Series at Sydney. Knowing New Zealand could steal the series before the final match at Brisbane on Friday, Australia produced a stronger defence than at the Telstra Dome, but were again stung by late resistance.New Zealand required the highest score in a run-chase for a one-day international at the SCG and were in reasonable shape until Brad Hogg claimed the important breakthroughs of Stephen Fleming and Jacob Oram as their middle-order folded. A bright partnership between Cairns and Brendon McCullum, who fell leg-before despite a thick edge, lifted their spirits and they rose higher as Mills hit out. But their brave challenge ended 17 runs short when Glenn McGrath bowled the injured Chris Harris.Arriving in desperate danger at 5 for 84, Cairns launched a stinging counter-attack that included two huge sixes off Hogg and Darren Lehmann. As long as Cairns stayed his side was a chance of winning. He raised his half-century from 39 balls, but departed immediately after to a skied catch to McGrath and victory was being celebrated in the 35th over (7 for 154).Harris, who dislocated his right shoulder and tore a rotator cuff while fielding in his 250th one-day international, was sitting in the dressing-room with his arm in a sling and the danger seemed to have passed. Mills had his own ideas and walloped four sixes to cut the target down to a run-a-ball with six overs remaining. Harris wandered out with his runner Hamish Marshall and Australia sweated for nine more balls.

It was an amazing match for power hitting, with Mills’s 44 from 26 pushing Cairns’s knock to the third most exciting of the day. Adam Gilchrist had set off another fireworks exhibition after making 68 under the Telstra Dome roof and deposited short balls to the point and square-leg boundaries. Gilchrist really exploded in a three-over onslaught of eight fours and one six as the Kiwi bowlers went for 14, 19 and 11 in successive overs; Matthew Hayden contributed a single in that time.Cairns was called to stop the flood of runs, but Gilchrist treated him the same way as Mills and Oram, blasting his fourth ball for six over square leg to bring up a 37-ball half-century. Like any good fireworks display, Gilchrist’s innings of 60 from 47 deliveries was over while a sparse crowd still wanted more.Australia were desperate for an extra boost after 26 overs when they had lost 4 for 8 to be 5 for 148, giving up a spectacular beginning in eerily similar fashion to Melbourne. Mills, returning from an early thrashing, picked up Ricky Ponting with a slower ball, and trapped Damien Martyn leg-before, while Daniel Vettori, who ended with 1 for 36 off 10 controlled overs, dismissed Andrew Symonds for his second consecutive duck.Again Australia looked like reaching 300 comfortably, and again Lehmann began the rebuilding process. His 74-run partnership with Brad Hogg, whose valuable support collected 41, gave the innings a second wind and he finished with his second one-day half-century in a row.Having watched their opponents waste a strong position, New Zealand then copied them. Fleming won an entertaining early battle with Brett Lee but attacked Hogg’s first delivery and was given out by the umpire Peter Parker when hit on the front pad (4 for 78).Mathew Sinclair and Fleming appeared settled before New Zealand lost two wickets in as many overs. Jason Gillespie tempted an edge from Sinclair with a short ball and Hayden took a sharp catch to his left at first slip, while Scott Styris was lbw to the medium-pace of Symonds, although he appeared to get an inside edge (3 for 68). Hogg then turned things further Australia’s way to finish with three wickets and the Man-of-the-Match award.

After being ruled out for the entire season with a shoulder injury, Paul Collingwood has been passed fit to play for Durham in their Frizzell County Championship match against Hampshire, starting at Chester-le-Street on Wednesday.Collingwood played a key role for England during the World Cup and had been in line to make his Test debut this summer. But he suffered a dislocated right shoulder on April 16, while playing in a pre-season friendly against Lancashire. It had been feared that he would be ruled out for the entire season, but has made an impressive recovery.Collingwood, 27, has scored 874 runs at 32.37 in 38 ODIs for England, including one century against Sri Lanka. He has also taken 16 wickets with his medium-pacers, with best figures of 4 for 38 against New Zealand at Napier in 2001-02.

FULL NAME: Charles Kevin Coventry
BORN: 8 March 1983, at Kwekwe
MAJOR TEAMS: Matabeleland. Present Club sides: Bulawayo Athletic Club and Universals
KNOWN AS: Charles Coventry. Nickname: Chappie
BATTING STYLE: Right Hand Bat, Wicket-keeper.
BOWLING STYLE: Leg Breaks
OCCUPATION: None at presentFIRST-CLASS DEBUT: 5-7 January 1999, Matabeleland b Mashonaland, atBulawayo Athletic Club
TEST DEBUT: Still awaited
ODI DEBUT: Still awaitedBIOGRAPHY (November 2001)At the moment, Charles Coventry junior, generally known as `Chappie’, is most famous for being the youngest-ever Zimbabwean first-class cricketer. At the age of 15 years and 303 days he played, unexpectedly, for Matabeleland against Mashonaland in the Logan Cup match on his home ground, Bulawayo Athletic Club (BAC), and actually produced the third-highest score of the innings, 33.Charles shares the same name as his father, who is generally known as Chuck and is a leading Matabeleland umpire, with international experience. Chuck was actually umpiring in this match when Charles made his debut. Charles had taken his cricket kit to the ground – `just in case’, he says – and found that due to a mix-up one of the Matabeleland players had not arrived at the start of the match. He was thus thrust into first-class cricket almost by accident, but also because he had been keen and ambitious enough to be ready for his chance and to take it.He went in to bat at number five as Matabeleland chased a Mashonaland total of 243. The score was 66 for three when he joined Guy Whittall at the crease. “I got hit a few times by Andy Blignaut,” he said. He also had to face an array of test-match bowlers in Eddo Brandes, Paul Strang, Everton Matambanadzo and Grant Flower. He had never faced any of them before, and he says that the pacemen were the quickest he had ever faced. Yet he survived to score 33 off 121 balls before being run out.”Guy Whittall guided me through a lot of my innings,” Charles says. “He told me to concentrate on every ball and helped me out with the bowlers.” Since then Charles has become a regular player for Matabeleland, opening the innings as he has always done.It was naturally Chuck who introduced Charles to the game, in their family garden and the nets at BAC. Charles remembers with pleasure the hours they spent together when he was very young, getting a firm grounding in the game. Charles started to play at Whitestone School when in Grade 3, and the following year played for the schools colts team. He spent two years in the colts and two in the senior side; his most memorable performance at Whitestone was when he took a hat-trick bowling leg-breaks. Nowadays he rarely bowls, having taken up wicket-keeping to add to his batting skills.In his final two years at junior school he represented Matabeleland Schools in the national primary schools cricket week, scoring a couple of fifties but failing to make the national side at that level. He progressed to Christian Brothers’ College (CBC) in Bulawayo, and was selected for the national Under-14 team, following through into the Under-16 and Under-19 teams. His best performance here was 94 against Northerns in the South African Schools Coca-Cola Week. He played first-team cricket for CBC for two years, after scoring a century against St John’s College of Harare at Under-16 level.When in Form One at CBC he played club cricket for BAC teams for the first time, beginning with their third team and working his way up quickly. He freely admits the bowlers were too quick for him at that stage. It was at BAC that he was encouraged to take up wicket-keeping, and now considers himself a regular keeper, although Warren Gilmour has kept the gloves at provincial level. He never kept wicket at school, but at national age-group level he became the understudy to Tatenda Taibu.Charles left school after completing his O-levels at the end of 2000, but did not take up employment immediately, concentrating on his cricket. He applied to join the CFX Academy in 2002. He also enjoyed a tour of Kenya with the Zimbabwe development team. As a batsman he feels his main strength is on the off side. Chuck has continued to play a major role in his development, correcting faults and encouraging him; “He’s always been there for me, and chips in money whenever I go on tours.”Charles also names Win Justin-Smith of CBC and the national Under-19 manager who has helped him over the years with coaching, although he resisted his attempts to turn him into a full-time leg-spinner. “Shane Cloete helped me out quite a bit on the Kenya tour,” he adds. “There were quite a few things I was doing wrong then. Steve Rhodes has helped me a lot with my wicket-keeping.”Charles made his mark on club cricket on 4 November 2001 with a remarkable innings of 155 for Universals against Alexandra Sports Club in Harare. He was staying in Harare in preparation for the Under-19 tour to South Africa and then to the Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand, to save frequent travelling from Bulawayo for training, and so temporarily joined a local club.”I went out there and decided to be as positive as I could,” he says. “And it came off. I enjoyed it. There was a very nice pitch to bat on at Alex, although it started to move around a bit at the end, a bit of turn.” The bowling attack was not very testing, though, as the national players were all overseas and none of the home side’s bowlers had played first-class cricket. But a batsman still has to take his opportunity when it arrives, and Charles did that with both hands.Cricket heroes: “As batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Waugh.”Toughest opponents: Eddo Brandes. “He swings the ball around and has good height, and I’m not the tallest of people! He’s also a very experienced bowler.”Immediate ambitions: “I want to make Zimbabwe A as quickly as possible and hopefully go on to the national side. I want to take up cricket as a career. If I keep on working hard I think I could become a good keeper, but obviously batting is my strength. After the Academy, if I get in, I probably will go back to Matabeleland and do a bit of coaching there. By that stage I hope to be quite close to the Zimbabwe side.”Other sports: “I like to play a bit of squash, and I’d like to start playing golf. I do quite a bit of gym in Bulawayo. I sometimes played rugby at school, but didn’t take it seriously at all.”

The 25 first-class umpires, increasingly concerned for their own safety in an era of ever-powerful batsmen, modern bats and the kind of explosive hitting on view at Twenty20 finals day, are examining forms of protection including to the head, the heart and the back of the neck, that could be introduced in one day and championship matches next season.At their end of season meeting next month, the umpires will discuss research carried out at Cardiff Metropolitan University, where a form of non-foam material – markedly different from the kind of chest protection Colin Cowdrey used when facing Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson 40 years ago – to cover the heart is being tested in secret. Visors and a form of head protection less cumbersome than batting helmets are also being developed.A number of umpires have offered to trial equipment before next season. They have voiced their concerns to Chris Kelly, the ECB’ s umpires manager, and last March met George Fox, a specialist in sports protection. “Umpires are in a precarious position. Being struck on the shins and thighs is not going to end their careers but the sternum, the heart, the kidneys and the back of the head are vulnerable places. But we do not want a superman syndrome and overheat them or produce head gear that will make them look ridiculous,” Fox said.”Additional protection would need to fit within the umpire’s conformity and not be distracting to the batsman. The head moves more quickly out of the line than the body and there is a real risk of the ball deflecting off the stumps, but because of the question of insurance, equipment would be an umpire’s personal choice. Any sensible solution would be well received by them and would not necessarily need an ECB stamp of approval,” he said.Fox, who is liasing with Dr Craig Ranson of the sports injury research group at Cardiff Metropolitan University, emphasised that extra protection has become uppermost in umpires’ minds following the death of Phillip Hughes, the Australia batsman who was struck by a ball on the back of his head last November.”The focus is on non-foam technologies as maintaining unexaggerated body temperature is critical when standing in high emperatures,” Fox said. It is intended the first designs will be completed in late 2015 with trials going ahead in time for the 2016 season.The umpires feel vulnerable when standing at square leg as well as facing the striker. Rob Bailey, a former England batsman who has had a long-serving umpiring career at county and international level, said that they were worried about their unprotected hearts and ribs. “A lot of people are in danger. Bats are massive now and are only going to become more powerful and the ball is pinging off them. Fortunately no-one has been badly hit.”I have been struck once this season. Umpires are pretty mobile now but the ball followed me at square leg in a televised match and luckily hit the battery pack strapped on my back. Some umpires are wearing boxes now and chest pads in the future are a consideration.”Graham Lloyd believes that the heart is the “vital organ” to protect. Russell Evans said that his main concern was the drive that deflected off the stumps towards his body. “I would not want to wear a helmet for a full day’s play and my worry is that this will turn into a health and safety requirement,” he said.Evans, who monitors the development of equipment through his own company, B3 Cricket, believes that bats are as technologically advanced as they can be. “The only way that the ball will be hit harder is if batsmen become stronger,” he said. The Laws of Cricket, controlled by MCC, state that the maximum width and length of bats are 4.25in/10.8cm and 38in/96.5cm respectively at their widest/longest points.At least two companies are thought to be working on a form of light chest protection that can be worn under an umpire’s white coat, so experiments in Cardiff are being conducted in secret and the nature of the non-foam material is not being disclosed. An ECB spokesman said: “Nothing has been decided yet for next season.”

Here we go with another round of the almost threadbare personality debate, as if one great saviour from afar or at home will save us from the seemingly interminable decline of West Indies cricket.I know many who still harbour hopes of a revival sometime in the foreseeable future, or even a few of those who are resigned to things becoming increasingly bleak, are tired of being hammered over the head with all of this negative news surrounding something that has given us all so much pride and joy for such a long time. In protesting that they have had enough, their concern is essentially that there seems to be almost an eagerness to pick apart whatever vestiges of respectability that are left.There is certainly some merit to that argument, yet it still seems that too many people, especially a few in positions of influence, harbour the belief that it’s nothing that an academy, a superstar coach, plenty money and a fully professional league won’t sort out in a few short years. Will it really matter if the West Indies Cricket Board chooses to again go foreign in appointing the apparent favourite, Dav Whatmore, as head coach?On the other hand, can Ottis Gibson or any other Caribbean candidate do anything meaningful to even slow the decline (I think we’re all agreed now that the turnaround that many were confidently predicting year after year was just a mirage)?More and more, those who were prepared to be guarded in their observations, for fear of being seen as jealous former players only intent on hitting our current crop of heroes for six, are starting to swing for the hills in the manner of the just-concluded Twenty20 World Cup.A report in yesterday’s Nation newspaper in Barbados highlighted just the latest of those instances, with the greatest all-round cricketer of them all venting his frustration that our once proud legacy has come to this extremely sorry pass, due in no small measure to players who seem totally disconnected from their relevance as West Indies cricketers.

“Players have to start thinking about the game as a team game and go out there and try and play the best for their team and forget self performances,” said Sir Garfield Sobers, who was speaking after participating in the opening ceremony of the island’s National Heroes Gallery and Museum of Parliament on Wednesday. “Cricket in the West Indies is very important to the people in the West Indies, even if the players don’t think it’s important to them.”None of this is especially earth-shattering, as we’ve heard it said by many personalities before over the past decade. But when someone of Sobers’ stature takes a turn in the players’ tail, you know it can’t just be dismissed as the ranting of some run-of-the-mill naysayer.The only living member of Barbados’ current list of ten officially designated National Heroes, Sobers was assigned to work with the senior West Indies squad as an adviser in October 2004 at the same time that Bennett King had commenced his term as head coach. Many viewed the appointment as a public relations exercise to soften the public backlash at choosing a foreigner to take charge of the regional side.His comments of two days ago suggest that even if he were sincere and committed to the effort, the reaction of the players turned the whole thing into a waste of time.”A lot of the young (players) think players like myself, Sir Everton Weekes and Wes Hall have passed and have nothing to pass on, but that is where they are wrong,” he contended. “I think we have more to pass on. We’ve been through it, we know what it’s like, we know how to build a team and what a team needs to win.”Again, we’ve heard this all before from other sources, except that you can almost feel the deep sense of hurt in Sir Garfield’s words. I wonder if he was ever made aware that another left-hander of more recent vintage (no, not Brian Lara) once claimed to be better than Sobers after being admonished by a member of the technical staff for a particularly poor shot in the nets during the 2001 home series against South Africa?Incidents like that which used to raise eyebrows or cause others to splutter in disbelief, are now accepted as a matter of course from this lost generation of pretenders. Almost everyone can refer to his or her favourite moment, either on or off the field, that encapsulates the causes for the plummet from the summit. It may be a wild swipe when the match could still have been saved or a wild swipe at a teammate at a nightclub bar.Never let it be said that the champions of previous eras were all paragons of virtue, certainly not Sobers, who enjoyed the good life and nightlife as much as anyone else. Yet as his peerless record reveals (8,032 runs at 57.78, 235 wickets at 34.03 and 109 catches in 93 matches – to go into further detail will require two more columns), he never let external distractions get in the way of delivering on the field.Compare that with the abysmal statistics racked up by most of their strutting, image-conscious successors, and you realise that the more our golden icons expose the naked emperors who now represent us, the better the chances of reality taking root and bearing fruit in the next generation.

Virender Sehwag has been virtually ruled out of the first one-dayer against South Africa to be played in Johannesburg on Sunday after it was revealed that the dressing on his injured right ring finger would only come off on Sunday. “His [Sehwag’s] injury is not serious as such but the stitches would come off only on Sunday morning and we hope the problem doesn’t extend beyond the first game,” Greg Chappell, the coach, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.Sehwag suffered a cut on the finger during practice ahead of India’s tour match on Thursday, November 16, and required four stitches. He took no part in the game, which the Indians lost by 37 runs, but was present at the ground with his team-mates.India begin their one-day campaign on November 19, and while Sehwag might miss the first match, it is hoped that he will be fit in time for the second match, to be played at Durban on November 22. If Sehwag is ruled out, India now have to choose between Wasim Jaffer, who would be front-runner to partner Sachin Tendulkar at the top of the order, and Dinesh Karthik, the wicketkeeper batsman. Rahul Dravid too is an option, having often in the past stepped in as opener when the situation required.India are already without Yuvraj Singh, a key player in the one-day team, after he suffered an injury to the cruciate ligament of his left knee last month. Sehwag’s latest injury got India’s tour of South Africa off to an inauspicious start. Having gone through a lean patch in ODIs, Sehwag had shown signs of a revival in his most recent innings, a streaky half-century against Australia in the Champions Trophy clash at Mohali.In some good news for the Indians, though, Chappell has fully recovered from the food poisoning that laid him low and prevented him from supervising the practice session ahead of the warm-up match.

After continuous suspense for the last 48 hours the Indian board’s AGM has finally begun in Kolkata. Central minister Sharad Pawar was nominated as candidate for the post of president by the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association.All of yesterday, the opposing lobby supporting Pawar had accused the ruling dispensation under Jagmohan Dalmiya and Ranbir Singh Mahendra of trying to scupper the elections. With the leaking of Greg Chappell’s scathing email on Saurav Ganguly sent to the BCCI to a Bengali daily, supposedly close to Dalmiya, another dimension has been added to the snowballing crisis in Indian cricket.But even as the AGM gets underway the Dalmiya-Mahendra faction have filed a petition at the Calcutta High Court seeking its adjournment. Their argument is that the three observers appointed by the court do not have the right to overrule decisions made by the board president at least in the conduct of the AGM.On Thursday, the Kolkata High Court had stayed the AGM which was originally scheduled for 12.30 PM yesterday. Justice Soumitra Sen ruled that a three member panel – comprising former chief justices of India K N Singh and M M Punthi, and retired Supreme Court justice S C Sen — will act as observers and preside over the election process.The AGM did assemble briefly yesterday with one of the observers — Justice S C Sen — in the chair but was later adjourned. The official version is that the meeting has been adjourned and will be held again after the other two observers arrive in town. The opposing lobby has, on the other hand, said that the meeting could only have been “adjourned” if it had been convened in the first place.In his ruling Justice Soumitra Sen has ordered that all disputes regarding eligibility and disqualification of voters for the BCCI elections would be decided by the three-member panel before the election begins. In case of differences in opinion among the observers, the majority decision would be valid, the judge added. According to Justice Sen the entire problem is a result of the absence of specific and clear election rules.Pawar, who had lost a closely-fought election to the present incumbent Ranbir Singh Mahendra last year, has decided to contest again.According to PTI, Farooq Abdullah, president of the JKCA which has nominated Pawar, “A good consensus was worked out 15 days back. It was decided that Mahendra will continue for another year following which Pawar would take over the reigns in 2006. The Dalmiya group initially agreed to it but later went back on its word and said that they wanted Mahendra to be in the post till he completed his three-year tenure.”Earlier, the Madras High Court had dismissed a petition filed by a Chennai-based club thus initally paving the way for the elections to be held today itself.The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, run by AC Muthiah, who are opposed to the present dispensation run by Dalmiya, had moved the Madras High Court to pre-empt Mahendra from crucially tilting the scales by being both chair and candidate for the AGM. But the Kolkata-based Kalighat Club, affiliated to the Dalmiya-led Cricket Association of Bengal moved the Calcutta High Court and got it to appoint an observer of its own.

A flaw in the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) player contract has allowed Muttiah Muralitharan to go scot free from being handed out a stern punishment. When the SLC Executive Committee met on Tuesday to take up the issue of whether Muralitharan had flouted his contract by speaking to the media without prior permission, they ran into a snag.It was discovered that the player’s contract did not specifically mention any course of action or warning to the player if he violated its clause. What it said was that a player should first obtain permission from SLC before expressing his views to the media. In this regard SLC were helpless to initiate any course of action against Muralitharan.”We got a lawyer to go through the contract before we took any action. The contract was very vague. So we decided against taking any course of action,” said SLC president Mohan de Silva.De Silva said that SLC would caution Muralitharan and remind him to comply with his commitments with SLC in the future. De Silva said that the necessary amendments would be made to the contracts when they come up for renewal in February next year.Muralitharan is one of ten players contracted with SLC on a yearly basis. He got himself into troubled waters when he aired his views on the International Cricket Council (ICC) cricket committee’s recommended increase of tolerance level to an Australian radio station. The ICC committee decided to raise the level to 15 degrees for all bowlers which automatically allowed Muralitharan to bowl his currently banned ‘doosra’ delivery.The station quoted Muralitharan of accusing Australian fast bowlers Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie as ‘chuckers’, an allegation which the Sri Lankan spinner has denied saying his comments had been misinterpreted.This statement the SLC accepted after Muralitharan had written to them explaining his side of the story. Muralitharan with 532 Test wickets is chasing Shane Warne’s world record of 549 wickets. He is currently in Melbourne with his surgeon Dr David Young who will decide when he can turn his bowling arm over after it had undergone an operation to remove a cyst which was causing him a lot of pain. Muralitharan has been out of cricket since pulling out of the second Test against South Africa at the SSC on August 11. He is hopeful that he can make a come back to international by January next year in time for the second Test against New Zealand. But everything depends on the outcome of his meeting with Dr Young.

Jacques Kallis will miss the second Test against England which starts at Lord’s on Thursday, but will return in time for the third Test which starts at Trent Bridge on August 14.Gerald de Kock, the South African team spokesman, broke the news. “We don’t know yet when he will be rejoining us but he will be back beforethe third Test,” he said.At the same time it was announced that Andrew Hall, a member of SouthAfrica’s one-day party but not originally included in the Test squad, had been called up. Hall, 28 on Thursday, has been playing county cricket in England for Worcestershire.