Hamilton’s long-awaited lights at WestpacTrust Park are about to become a reality.The first of the new lights which will allow day/night international cricket to be played in Hamilton was expected to be in place late this afternoon.Town planning consent for the move finally allowed the installation of the lights at a cost in excess of $1 million.Four light standards 50m in height are being placed at the ground. Two of the lights will produce 68 lumieres while the other two will produce 79 and 81 respectively.The lights will be first used on November 8 when trans-Tasman touch rugby internationals will be played at the ground.Permission has been granted for the lights to be used on 29 days each year.Hamilton is to stage a day/night game between Northern Districts and England at the start of the England tour while one of its State Shield domestic one-day matches will also be under lights.Northern Districts chief executive John Turkington said today that WestpacTrust Park had recovered well from its use as Waikato’s main rugby venue this year while renovations were done to the traditional rugby ground in the city at Rugby Park.”The pitch has been renovated and we have levelled the outfield,” he said.He saw no problems for the ground being ready for New Zealand’s first home Test against Bangladesh in Hamilton, starting on December 18.

SYDNEY, Nov 5 AAP – New South Wales has turned to its contingent of Clark(e)s to fill the gaps for the Pura Cup cricket match against Victoria starting in Melbourne on Thursday.With Test trio Mark Waugh, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee unavailable and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin back from a thumb injury, the selectors made four changes to the team which beat South Australia in three days at the SCG last week.Recalled alongside Haddin, who replaces Nathan Pilon, were paceman Don Nash, batsman Michael Clarke and off-spinner Anthony Clark.To make the scorers’ job even more difficult, fast bowler Stuart Clark will almost certainly be promoted to the starting XI after being 12th man against South Australia.The Clark(e) contingent have played together on only one previous occasion, in a drawn Pura Cup match against Victoria at the SCG last summer.Anthony Clark, who took six wickets at 47.66 in his opening season of first class cricket last summer, has already bagged a couple of five-wicket hauls in club cricket during the current campaign.His return of 5-109 for Fairfield against Bankstown last Saturday included the prized wicket of Australian captain Steve Waugh, who he bowled for 84.”I’ve worked pretty hard on my fitness and just hope to work on what I’ve started on last year and get a few more games this year,” Anthony Clark said.One of the vacant bowling spots seems certain to go to Stuart Clark, who took 5-64 against Tasmania but was relegated to drinks waiter against South Australia to accommodate Lee and Nathan Bracken.Depending on the Punt Rd wicket, the 12th man position would appear to rest between Anthony Clark and his Fairfield clubmate Nash, who was dropped for the last Pura Cup match.Victoria called up rising leg-spinner Cameron White to replace Shane Warne, who’s absent on Test duty.White, 18, made an impressive first-class debut against the Blues last season including a haul of 4-65.”I think that last year’s experience was very important for me, particularly the game at the SCG and I’m looking to build on those performances,” he said.White, who has just returned from a tour of New Zealand with the Commonwealth Bank Academy team, also said the recent chance to train with Warne had been a great learning experience.The Victorian selectors could not consider skipper Paul Reiffel, who had yet to recover from a back injury.Victoria has made a wretched start to the domestic season.It props up the Pura Cup table after two rounds and has also lost all four of its ING Cup matches.NSW is in second place on the Pura Cup table behind Queensland.Teams:Victoria: Matthew Elliott (capt), Jason Arnberger, Brad Hodge, Matthew Mott, Michael Klinger, Ian Harvey, Darren Berry, Colin Miller, Damien Fleming, Mathew Inness, Michael Lewis, Cameron White (12th man to be named).NSW: Shane Lee (capt), Michael Slater, Greg Mail, Michael Bevan, Mark Higgs, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Anthony Clark, Nathan Bracken, Stuart MacGill, Stuart Clark, Don Nash (12th man to be named).

Funny about that.Trevor Chappell came to New Zealand yesterday. No devilish horns protruding from his close-cropped grey hair. No horned tail curled up inside his smart slacks. Not a sign of a cloven hoof.Here was the man whom New Zealanders vested with yellow-shirted infamy on February 1, 1981 after he finished a one-day win for Australia over New Zealand by six runs at the MCG by bowling the last ball underarm.Now Chappell, every bit the journeyman cricketer, has returned for a longish stay in New Zealand as coach of the Bangladesh side which will play first-class matches at Wanganui and Auckland and Tests at Hamilton and Wellington.No place for him to hide, to live down the endless procession of shock-horror dissertations by every Australian cricket after-dinner speaker who has visited New Zealand in the last 20 years.Chappell, who has played cricket for South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, and coached in Sri Lanka and now in Bangladesh, has been in New Zealand since 1981, to play in benefit matches for Bruce Edgar (102 not out on THAT day) and Gavin Larsen.He promises not to talk about the under-arm incident while here, and would probably prefer that everyone else dropped the cone of silence on that boring-boring piece of cricketing history.

The recent India-England series outlined the differences in the thinking process between Sourav Ganguly and Nasser Hussain. The hosts were not unduly worried about the visiting team, since they were without their best players. Some of the leading English stars had pulled out of this tour due to personal reasons, and with Graham Thorpe returning to England after the first Test, Hussain’s team was further depleted. Mind you, their performance at Mohali was not encouraging, to say the least, but this is where Hussain, as a visiting captain, showed great enterprise in keeping his inexperienced side on track.

Hussain was completely aware of his team’s strengths and weaknesses, and it would be fair to say that the weaknesses outweighed the strengths. Yet he was faced with the task of reviving morale and inspiring his team to do better than its best. The bowling looked thin without the likes of Darren Gough and Andrew Caddick, and the spinners – Ashley Giles and Richard Dawson – hardly lookied capable of running through a side. The top-order England batsmen too looked lost against spinners, especially on the dusty tracks in India. Apart from all these concerns, Hussain also had to formulate a game plan to put it across the hosts.The uncompromising toughness and individuality of Hussain landed him in trouble with the Essex management some years ago, but ironically those very attributes won him accolades on this tour. He always was in charge of proceedings and never allowed the game to drift. His bowlers were told to stick to his plans, and they were utilised in the best manner possible. Andrew Flintoff has come a long way as a bowler on this tour, and Matthew Hoggard looks a very good prospect for the future. Furthermore, Hussain simply did not bother to think about the prospect of being criticised for his tactics. The visiting captain may not have scored big runs, but this did not deter him from leading the team with an iron hand. It is at times when things are not going well that the character of a cricketer is severely tested and, based on what Hussain has done, he has passed with flying colours.

On the other hand, Sourav Ganguly was definitely not in the best of form with the bat, and this resulted in him being slightly hesitant throughout the series. A captain has to keep track of a lot of issues, and when personal form is poor, there is every chance of haziness creeping into the mind. The spinners were expected to bowl the visitors out without too much fuss; they did that well enough, but the batsmen were the ones to be blamed. In a way, Ganguly’s gang was puzzled by Hussain’s tactics. Ganguly may not come out openly and say so, but one got the impression that he did not get his choice of medium pacers. Even so, it was a shame that the visitors were allowed to call the shots in the second and third Tests.The lesson to be learnt from this series is that Ganguly should try to utilise the resources on hand rather than brood over the absence of his choices. This is where Hussain showed that inexperienced bowlers can do the job as long as they enjoy the skipper’s confidence. This has not been Ganguly’s problem alone; the same mindset prevailed in the case of his predecessors as well. To add to his woes, the visiting team’s medium pacers zeroed in on Ganguly, and it was clear that he succumbed to pressures that were mounted on him from all directions. It just goes to show that, regardless of experience, pressure has a sinister knack of having the final say.

A major sponsor is about to be announced for the recently launched Hampshire Youth Development indoor cricket competition being staged at the Rose Bowl.League officials are on the verge of tieing up a lucrative deal with a national concern, details of which are expected to be announced before next Sunday’s third round of matches.Fair Oak’s youngsters emulated the opening week feat of BAT Sports by winning their first two matches.They edged home by two runs against Mudeford and then outscored Locks Heath to win by 37 runs.Paul Malone (27), James Scutt (25) and Tom Luff (19) did the spadework as Fair Oak (120-3) narrowly bettered Mudeford’s 118-3. Tom Gadd (29) and Lewis Baker (27) top scored for Mudeford, while Ed White bowled a tidy three-over spell for Fair Oak.Luff (27), Scutt (22) and Malone (16) were again to the fore as Fair Oak rattled up 141-3 against Locks Heath, who had the consolation of beating Mudeford in their final match.Nick Bampton (23), Daniel Copeman (21) and James King (21) ensured the young Heathens collected a batting bonus point at 104 all out.Hampshire Under-14 all-rounder Gareth Ransley starred in Locks Heath’s 15-run win over Mudeford, scoring an unbeaten 39 and then returning a useful spell of 1-15.With Ben Lewis (22) and King (14) offering support, Locks Heath reached 96-5 and then restricted the Christchurch club to 79-5 (Baker 20). Mudeford’s Nick Shaw (3-23) produced the best individual bowling performance so far, but finished a loser.Results –
Fair Oak (11) 120-3 (Malone 27, Scutt 27, Baker 2-12)
Mudeford (1) 118-3 (Gadd 29, Baker 27)
Fair Oak won by two runsFair Oak (12) 141-3 (Luff 27, Scutt 22)
Locks Heath (1) 104 (Bampton 23, King 21, Copeman 21, Rose 2-20)
Fair Oak won by 37 runsLocks Heath (10) 98-5 (Ransley 39, Lewis 22, Shaw 3-23)
Mudeford (0) 79-5 (Baker 20)
Locks Heath won by 17 runsSunday’s fixtures at the Rose Bowl:
6pm Havant v South Wilts, 7pm St Cross Symondians v Havant, 8pm South Wilts v St Cross Symondians

A study of New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming in the nets these days reveals a skipper working hard at adapting to new elements in the one-day game, new elements that may have a big say in just who will be holding the World Cup aloft in South Africa next year.Fleming would no doubt like to be that man.He’s getting used to holding trophies aloft. The trophy for the New Zealand-England Test series in 1999 and the ICC KnockOut in Kenya in 2000 are the two occasions he has savoured.He led the side into a position of advantage that could have seen New Zealand steal the Trans-Tasman Trophy – wouldn’t the Hadlee-Border Trophy be a better name for that prize – from Australian noses after that fine Test match in Perth, and he could have been excused for thinking the VB Series trophy might have had New Zealand’s name on it at the halfway stage of the event.That was before the side moved onto Suicide Alley when facing four games in seven days in the last stages of the competition – two in Adelaide, one in Melbourne and the last in Perth.However, the arrival of the sanctioned one bouncer an over has changed the shape of one-day cricket. While good scores can still be achieved in the first 15 overs of games, the bowlers have an extra weapon, and that is what Fleming is attempting to counter with his own batting.He held New Zealand’s innings together in the third ODI against England in Napier and finished on 76 not out, possibly a vital innings in terms of his summer.For the two days before, Fleming had looked out of sorts in the nets, several times being cleaned out by the bowlers and was nowhere as much in control as he likes.That’s what made his innings all the more impressive in the match. He didn’t bat as fluently, or as quickly, as he would have liked but neither was he out.However, there were signs in those moments when the big Fleming shots – the straight drives, in the air and along the ground, the powerful pull to mid-wicket and the occasional cover drive – were unleashed that the fluidity was not too far away.He has not been helped by different pitches on the various New Zealand grounds. The miserableness of the summer this year has been reflected in slower decks than usual, and it may well be Dunedin before the work he has put in sees the timing return to his strokeplay.”I’m not hitting the ball as crisply as I have in the past,” he said.Fleming is trying to adapt his play to the unpredictability of the bowling resulting from the bouncer rule.That involves trying to playing more shots off the back foot, scoring faster yet at the same time wanting to spend more time at the crease to bat through the innings more.Fleming has had a good success rate in working out his problem areas in the past. Chances are that the formula is not too far away from bearing fruit.”I’m having to grind more than anything. That frustrates me a little bit at times. When you are losing wickets, there is a certain amount of responsibility to keep going.”The nature of bowling these days is not as predictable. We need to get a platform at the top of the order so these guys [New Zealand’s strokeplayers] can come in and play more freely,” he said.Fleming has absorbed the demands of the captaincy in impressive style after some unfortunate criticism of his taking command.Chances are that similar results could be seen from his one-day batting as New Zealand builds toward the World Cup.Now that would be a very significant extra string to the side’s batting bow should it happen.

MELBOURNE, Dec 28 AAP – Jason Gillespie looked mean and nasty.His figures at the end of the day looked great.Two lively spells from Gillespie and a marathon effort from Stuart MacGill helped Australia make short work of England on day three of the Boxing Day Test, keeping Steve Waugh’s side firmly on track for a baggy green sweep of the Ashes.Resuming at 3-97 in reply to Australia’s first innings of 6(dec)-551, England lost 3-7 in the first hour before being rolled for a paltry 270 – only 20 runs more than Justin Langer made in his epic knock.Allrounder Craig White made an unbeaten 85 carrying a torn side muscle that will prevent him bowling for six weeks and probably rule him out of next week’s Sydney Test.”It’s touch and go,” he said.Asked to follow-on, England openers Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan made a better fist of it, putting on 67 runs only for MacGill to strike through a baffling LBW decision from Zimbabwean umpire Russell Tiffin.At stumps, England was 2-111, still 170 runs behind.Trescothick (37) attempted to sweep a leg break from MacGill that landed outside off stump.The ball hit his front pad still outside the line, but Tiffin raised his finger anyway as MacGill fell to his knees.He may have been in shock.Australia got its money’s worth from 31-year-old MacGill, who was filling the big shoes of injured Shane Warne.He bowled 36 straight overs during England’s first innings, finishing with 2-108, then resumed his work in the 10th over of England’s second innings and bowled out the day.He kept bustling in and landing his repertoire on a good line and length, proving less expensive than feared.He almost struck again in his final over, enticing England captain Nasser Hussain out of his crease as Adam Gilchrist whipped off the bails.It was close, but the video umpire said not out.”Stuart bowled really well, he was spinning the ball a lot and looked like he was going to get a wicket a lot of the time,” said Gillespie.”He bowled most of the day, I can’t speak highly enough of him, he bowled really well.”MacGill has sent down a total of 49 overs in the match, including 38 today.But it was Gillespie, snarling like always through his run-up, who did the real damage from the other end.He bowled fast and straight for the outstanding return of 4-25 from 16.3 overs in England’s first innings and picked up 1-20 in the second.Waugh says Gillespie never bowls badly, but sometimes he doesn’t get the rewards.He got his just desserts today.He took care of Mark Butcher (six) in the second innings when Martin Love continued his dream debut by taking a screaming one-handed catch low to his left at first slip.Fiery Brett Lee (2-70) and ever-reliable Glenn McGrath (1-41) joined the wicket-taking action in the first innings, while Waugh gave himself four overs, trapping James Foster LBW to take 1-13.Waugh’s men remained firmly on course for the first Ashes whitewash since Warwick “The Big Ship” Armstrong led his Australian side to a 5-0 triumph in 1920-21.The only bright spot for England was opener Michael Vaughan (55no) beating Dennis Amiss’ record for the most runs by an English batsman in a calendar year – on the same day and ground Matthew Hayden broke Bob Simpson’s Australian record a year ago.Vaughan has made 1,391 runs this year, more than any other Test player except India’s Sachin Tendulkar (1,392).Hayden has been Australia’s most prolific with 1,159.

The South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) has announced the South Australian team to compete in the Under-17 Youth Championships in Perth from January 3 to 14.Captain of the side is 16 year old James Harford, who was a team member in the Under-19 Championships recently held in Canberra. James scored three half centuries in six innings during the Under-19 carnival.Ten out of the thirteen players selected were members of the SA team which won the Under-15 National Championships in 2001.The South Australian Under-17 team is:

James Harford (c – Kensington)
John Pratt (vc – Prospect)
Paul Allegreto (Kensington)
Adam Carey (Southern Districts)
Chad Harper (Sturt)
Shannon Hurn (Northern Districts)
Tom Kurzel (Prospect)
Phillip Maddocks (Adelaide)
Logan Pastyn (West Torrens)
Gary Putland (Southern Districts)
Simon Roberts (Southern Districts)
Chadd Sayers (Woodville)
Simon Wiese (West Torrens)

The year 2003 gets into motion to the strident cries of well-meaning people advocating a total cricketing boycott of Zimbabwe for the World Cup. Once more we ask them, "What about the very serious effect such a boycott would have on the game in Zimbabwe? What plans to you have to counter that damage?"At least England look likely to play now – now that their politicians have refused to pay the compensation that they would owe Zimbabwe if they pulled out unilaterally. It looks, then, as if the only hopes of those wanting a boycott of Zimbabwe lie in what they would call `a deterioration of the security situation in the country’. But we hope nobody wants that. Zimbabweans have little enough to cheer them at present, so at least allow us a World Cup that will stimulate the game in this country.CONTENTS

• National League scores and averages
• Updated biography: Gus Mackay
• Detailed first-class career record: Grant Flower
• Letters

Next week sees the start of an innovation, an official one-day inter-provincial competition in Zimbabwe. Normal one-day rules apply, with 50 overs per innings. Provided obstacles can be overcome, some of these matches will be covered from the ground by CricInfo. They are as follows:

Wednesday 15 January: Matabeleland v Midlands, at Harare Sports ClubManicaland v Mashonaland, at Mutare Sports ClubFriday 17 January: Manicaland v Matabeleland, at Alexandra Sports ClubMashonaland v Midlands, at Country ClubSunday 19 January: Manicaland v Midlands, at Alexandra Sports ClubMashonaland v Matabeleland, at Harare Sports Club

The decision by the International Cricket Council not to reschedule England’s cancelled fixture against Zimbabwe has had further repercussions in that English umpires Peter Willey and Neil Mallender have expressed doubts about going to Bulawayo to officiate in the matches there and have been replaced by the ICC.Based on the evidence presented to the ICC by the England and Wales Cricket Board, Willey and Mallender had concerns about their safety if fulfilling appointments in Zimbabwe.Willey was due to partner Dave Orchard in the Zimbabwe versus Australia match in Bulawayo on Monday, 24th February, with Mallender as third umpire. Willey was also to be third umpire for the Zimbawe against the Netherlands game, also in Bulawayo, four days later.Billy Bowden of New Zealand will replace Willey for the Australia match, while Nadeem Ghouri of Pakistan stands in for the Dutch game. Mallender will be replaced by Brian Jerling of South Africa.In announcing the changes, ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed said: "Both umpires had separately advised the ICC that if the ECB did not send its team to Harare, they would be reluctant to fulfil their appointments in Bulawayo."Since the cancellation of the England match, they have reconfirmed their decisions that they do not want to stand in Zimbabwe."Willey said: "I advised the ICC some time ago of my concerns and indicated that if my employer, the ECB, did not send its team to Zimbabwe, I would be unlikely to travel to the country."Willey has always been regarded as one of the hard men of the game. Most of his international cricket was played against the might of the West Indies when they were at the peak of their powers because it was known that he would not flinch against their battery of fast bowlers. He is also regarded as one of the best umpires around but refused to allow his name to be put forward for the ICC Elite Panel because he did not want all the travel and time away from home that such an appointment would involve.Both Willey and Mallender will complete their other scheduled appointments. Willey is third umpire for the South Africa v Sri Lanka match in Durban on 3rd March, while Mallender will act as third umpire for the Australia v Namibia game in Potchefstroom on 27th February. He will also stand with Asoka de Silva in the Kenya v Bangladesh game at The Wanderers in Johannesburg on 1st March.