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Alec Stewart has followed in his father’s illustrious footsteps by being awarded an OBE for his services to cricket in the Queen’s Birthday Honours’ List.Stewart passed Geoffrey Boycott and David Gower to move into second place in England’s list of Test run-scorers against Zimbabwe at Durham last week, and was also awarded the MBE in the 1998.On receiving the honour, Stewart said: “The great thing is that I’ve now managed to catch up my Dad because he was awarded the OBE a good few years ago.””It’s a terrific honour and it’s really pleasing to be recognised in this way.I’ve always gone about my cricket in a professional way and to be honoured in this way for it makes me very proud and it’s a moment I’ll treasure.”Stewart, now 40, has continued to defy his critics by making more appearances than any other England player at both Test and one-day level, and his ability with the bat and behind the stumps has stood the test of time since making his international debut 14 years ago.He retired from one-day international cricket after the World Cup, but has no plans to do the same in Tests. He recently said: “All I’ve ever said about the future is that while the enjoyment is there and I feel I’m playing well enough to warrant a place in the side, I see no reason to give it away myself.””I feel exactly the same as I did 20 years ago. I have the same buzz and pre-match nerves I’ve always had and that’s a good thing because that shows you’re still up for the game.”

Only a miracle can save New Zealand’s World Cup now after a poor 47-run loss to Sri Lanka in their opening game at Bloemfontein.Worst of all, the batting woes of the home summer were exported with the side to South Africa.Only Scott Styris’ 141 off 125 runs, the second highest score by a New Zealander after Glenn Turner’s 171 not out against East Africa, was anywhere near representative of the batting ability in the side.But having to chase 273 to win, the appalling start made it all but impossible. No side can afford the carnage New Zealand experienced in its top-order. All the hope and expectation lay in tatters by game’s end.Nathan Astle 0, Stephen Fleming one, Craig McMillan three.New Zealand 15 for three wickets says it all.The first wicket lost from a suicidal run out of Astle’s choice, and two more examples of wooden shots played by leaden footed top-order batsmen Fleming and McMillan.A pitch tailor-made for run scoring, as Styris and Sanath Jayasuriya proved.Jayasuriya scored 120 off 125 balls but New Zealand started this run chase in the most important match of their World Cup campaign with an attitude as carefree as if it was going to be a dawdle in the park.The only dawdle was for the Sri Lankan bowling attack.Styris offered defiance of the type expected from all members of the side to achieve a fine maiden One-Day International century off 104 balls, a perfectly-paced innings but which went largely unsupported.The looseness in thinking from the batsmen should not have been a surprise, it was evident throughout New Zealand’s bowling effort.Had it not been for the employment of Astle as the seventh bowler, who was basically asked to put seven stitches in the artery of cheap runs that had haemorrhaged, and Jacob Oram, whose 10 overs cost only 37 runs, Sri Lanka would surely have scored 320.Having chosen to bowl first, Fleming would have had to be disappointed with his bowlers.Certainly there was frustration over umpire Neil Mallender’s failure to give out Jayasuriya to what was a blatant catch behind from Daryl Tuffey’s bowling when he had scored only 14.But to see Tuffey go for 36 runs from his five overs, and for Andre Adams see his first three balls despatched to the boundary en route to 58 off his nine overs was not, surely, in Plan A, B or C.From the moment the team for this vital match against Sri Lanka was named there was a nervousness about how New Zealand were attempting to play this game.It is difficult to understand why it was decided to reduce the effectiveness of one area of consistency in the New Zealand side this summer, the fielding in the circle. Lou Vincent is crucial to that strength because of the sheer dynamism he gives the side.To ask him to take the wicket-keeping gloves is to reduce one outstanding strength of the side, while also reducing the effectiveness of the ‘keeper.And his batting was ineffectual facing only three balls before attempting a cut shot as loose in its way as the dismissals of the top order.For all the talk about having batting length, it proved a false claim, a dream shattered. No side can afford to lose two of its batsmen after 1.5 overs, and certainly not three by 5.3 overs.Apart from the softness of the top-order dismissals, Chris Cairns will have nightmares about offering Aravinda de Silva an easy return catch while Chris Harris and Oram were too easily undone by Muttiah Muralitharan and Adams’ mid-wicket blast was desperation plus.The selectors have some work to do because if New Zealand’s lack of ODI success in South Africa is growing longer, the prospect of beating South Africa, a South Africa who will be equally desperate for success, has suddenly assumed huge proportions.Will there be blood on the floor in the aftermath of this loss?Something certainly has to happen if the slight crack in the Super Six door is to be pushed open a little.

The 2003 World Cup finally gets underway on Saturday with the opening ceremony at Cape Town. This after all the uncertainly that seems to have gripped the game ever since the ICC Champions Trophy last September. Unfortunately, that element of uncertainty still continues with New Zealand’s reluctance to play in Kenya, and England’s confusion over playing in Zimbabwe.Despite all this, I don’t think that there will be another World Cup, which will be as hyped as the current one. In fact, all the controversies leading up to this World Cup – be it the one over the player’s contract or the morality behind playing in Zimbabwe – have only helped to sustain this unprecedented media hype. In hindsight, perhaps it is only a reflection of our times that such tangential things are made to sound more important than the real event – the game itself.

With such uncertainty surrounding this World Cup, it becomes extremely difficult to predict a front-runner who will go on to win the World Cup. Had this been a World Cup for Test Cricket, well, I wouldn’t have thought twice before saying Australia. But when it comes to the ODI World Cup, I have serious doubts about whether Ricky Ponting has it in him to pull off what Steve Waugh would have definitely delivered as a captain.As for hosts South Africa, their record of having choked on numerous vital occasions goes against them. No doubt they play brilliant cricket, but the South Africans are past masters in putting themselves under tremendous pressure even when the going is great. Add to that the pressure of expectations of being the host country and it is tough to be optimistic of their chances.When it comes to India, my heart will understandably always beat for them. As always the key to their success will lie in their ability to convert the surplus potential energy to kinetic. Their batting is the most potent in world cricket if it starts firing. But therein lies the whole problem – ‘if only India play well’.The Achilles heel of Sourav Ganguly’s men has always been their inability to play to a plan. Take the case of Sehwag for instance. There is no batsman in world cricket today who is as exhilarating as him; the fiery opener can win a match on his own with his batting. But the hit-or-miss element of his exuberant batting, and the woeful run of form of Ganguly, could expose India’s batting line-up to some world-class fast bowling during the course of the World Cup.As we all know, one-day cricket is more or less a batsman’s game. This being the case, a team like India just can’t plan to set a target or chase a total with their uncertain batting. If they are to win games against serious opponents in this World Cup, it would be thanks to the individual brilliance of a Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh or Sehwag. The confusion in the Indian team when it comes to planning can be easily made out from the fact that they are willing to sacrifice a bowler to pack in seven batsmen. So much so for a team that has a famed batting line-up.

And it is the lack of that one bowler, which worries me the most. Apart from Zaheer Khan, I just can’t see any other attacking bowler in the Indian line-up. Whether India will play Harbhajan Singh ahead of Anil Kumble also seems uncertain at the moment.If you ask me, the absence of a fifth bowler surely is the destabilising factor that India will have to deal with. In the circumstances, I reckon someone like Sehwag will have to play a crucial role as an off-spinner and claim wickets in the middle overs.A quality all-rounder would definitely have boosted India’s prospects in this World Cup. But let us face the truth; India does not have an all-rounder who can score runs when it matters and also claim crucial wickets. The all-rounder is the pivotal man, one who contributes to a team’s success when the going really gets tough. Look at someone like Brad Hogg who scored 70-odd runs when Australia were struggling against England in the VB Series final.On rational assessment, it is none of the above teams but New Zealand whom I rate as having a very good chance of winning this World Cup. It is quite another matter if the Kiwis decide to shoot themselves in the foot by not playing in Kenya. But if New Zealand qualify to the Super Sixes, they have the best chance of going the distance and taking the World Cup home. And Chris Cairns could well be their man of the tournament.

It certainly is not a wild guess that I am making. In Stephen Fleming, New Zealand have the best captain in the competition. In my book, he ranks just below Steve Waugh, who is arguably the best captain in world cricket today.As a team, New Zealand are super-efficient. Put in a thinking captain like Fleming, match-winners like Cairns and Nathan Astle, genuinely wicket-taking bowlers like Shane Bond, Daryl Tuffey, the best left-arm spinner in the world today, Daniel Vettori, that quintessential superman Chris Harris and you certainly have a team capable of winning the World Cup.My mind, then, says New Zealand, while my heart says India will win the World Cup. That said, whoever wins the tournament will certainly be a worthy champion.On a sad note, this World Cup will be the last one featuring Allan Donald, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan and others. But the beauty of the game of cricket is that worthy champions will emerge. Personally, I would advise you to keep an eye on this chap from West Indies – Marlon Samuels.

Growth in cricket in the primary/intermediate school area is reflected in participation numbers in the annual MILO Cup and Shield which reach their finals this week.The MILO Cup for boys will be played between Havelock North Intermediate, from Havelock North, in the Hawke’s Bay and Rosedale Intermediate from Invercargill.The MILO Shield for girls will be played between Viscount Navigator School in Auckland and the Woodend Primary School in North Canterbury.This year 165 schools played off in the Cup section while 84 schools played in the Shield section.Thursday’s finals at Fitzherbert Park in Palmerston North will cap this year’s event.The boys will play a 35-over game and the girls a 25-over game.New Zealand Cricket’s national development manager Alec Astle said entries for next year in the competition suggested that already, the numbers taking part will be greater than this year.Getting through to the finals is worthwhile. Teams have all their travel and accommodation paid while the winners receive $600 of cricket equipment and the losers $300 of cricket equipment.Astle said that this summer over 90 MILO summer squad cricket development officers were operating throughout New Zealand and visiting primary schools and recruiting children into the MILO programmes.There are 128 MILO Have-A-Go Cricket Centres catering for 4209 children and 32 MILO Kiwi Cricket Centres involving another 817 children.These centres are organised and run by more than 1000 parents and teaches who have all trained as coaches under the scheme.”It is New Zealand Cricket’s aim to have every child in the country able to try cricket, and to have the game played in every schoolground and backyard,” Astle said.

Twenty years ago one of the classic Test matches was played at the MCG. David Wiseman takes a look back in this four-part series which backgrounds the MCG, Boxing Day Tests, and the epic of 1982/83.Take a piece of grass. Mark out a 22-yard strip, the old-fashioned English chain, in the middle of it. Place three sticks at both ends of this strip and you already have something. Erect some grandstands and electricity starts to generate.That’s all a cricket ground is and the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the grandest cathedral in the cricket world, is no exception. What began in the early 19th century as 10 acres of swamp in Yarra Park became the MCG in March 1856.Twenty-one years later, the MCG was host to cricket’s first Test match. Australia met England in March 1877. For Australia, Charles Bannerman was the hero with the bat, making an unbeaten 165, and Tom Kendall the hero with the ball after taking seven for 55 to bowl Australia to victory by 45 runs. Bannerman’s 165 was 67.35% of Australia’s 245 – surely one of the oldest of all world records in sport which still stands today.A great rivalry between England and Australia was formed, and the MCG came to host many other memorable cricket matches between the two sides.On New Year’s Day 1908, Australia met England at the MCG for the second Test, after Australia had won the first by two wickets in Sydney. A batting line-up stacked with immortal names such as Victor Trumper, Charles Macartney, Clem Hill, Monty Noble and Warwick Armstrong saw Australia bat first and make 269. England responded with 382, including 83 on debut from Jack Hobbs and 126 from Ken Hutchings. Australia was bowled out early on the fifth day for 397, a lead of 281.At stumps on the fifth day, the match was precariously placed with England 4/159. In this era of timeless Tests, the game would be played until a result came.When Armstrong had English wicket-keeper Joe Humphries trapped in front for 16, England required 39 to win with their No 11 and known bunny, Arthur Fielder, joining Syd Barnes at the crease. At the time, Barnes had a batting average of nine with a top score of 26 which he had made in his maiden Test innings.The English pair had scraped and nudged their way to level the scores. With one run needed for victory, a mix-up saw both at the same end. Gerry Hazlitt’s throw missed wicket-keeper Hanson Carter behind the stumps and the duo crossed for the winning single and the most unlikely of victories.For Australia, this was their second one-wicket loss in an Ashes match – the first being in the fifth Test at the Oval in 1902.Barnes was more accustomed to winning Test matches with the ball and not the bat, but striving to win an Ashes Test for his country brought out qualities in Barnes he never knew he had, just like it would bring out heroics in others down the track.The MCG has often been the venue for such heroics: Wilfred Rhodes taking 15/124 in 1904, England successfully chasing 331 in 1928/29 and Bob Cowper’s defiant 307 in 1965/66. And then, of course, there was the 1976/77 Centenary Test!There was no consistency with the scheduling of Tests at the MCG. With four Test venues in Australia, sometimes Sydney and Melbourne would host more than one Test in a summer. The dates moved around.In 1968, a tradition was born with Australia squaring off against the West Indies in the first Boxing Day Test match.After dropping the first Test in Brisbane by 125 runs, Australia bounced back the only way it knew how. Sending the West Indians in, Graham ‘Garth’ McKenzie captured eight for 71 to roll the West Indies for an even 200.After combining for a 217 run partnership in the First Test, Ian Chappell and skipper Bill Lawry put on 298 to bat the West Indies out of the game. Australia was bowled out for 510 late on the third day for a lead of 310, and Gleeson claimed his second five-wicket haul of the series to spin the hosts to an innings victory.Despite the success of this event, the Boxing Day Test wasn’t yet a permanent fixture. The next one was six years later in 1974. The split of World Series Cricket saw it put on the backburner for a number of years.But in the post-WSC era, a remarkable Test between Australia and the West Indies was to enshrine the Boxing Day Test in the Australian sporting landscape…

Former New Zealand Test captain and coach Glenn Turner believes the answer to many problems being experienced by bowlers may lie in under-use rather than over-use.With New Zealand having suffered a remarkable string of bowlers suffering from stress-related back injuries in recent years, Turner has done some research looking at bowler workloads, as far back as the 1920s.”I went back that far to see what some of the workloads were, especially in county cricket in England.”Some of the old boys back then were bowling 2000 overs a year.”Blokes like Fred Trueman and Brian Statham were bowling 1200 overs a year in their prime.”In his busiest year Richard Hadlee bowled something like 1200 overs in the year,” he said.Turner compared that to a bowler like New Zealand left-arm medium-fast bowler Shayne O’Connor who last year, in one of his busiest seasons before injury, bowled only 450 overs.”What’s happened?” Turner asked.He believed that bowlers nowadays have not trained to cope with the workload required of them. Some bowlers also came back too quickly from injuries and other bowlers were just not capable of achieving the workload asked of them in bowling 25 overs in a day.Turner recounted his days at Worcestershire during the 1960s and 1970s when regular bowlers like Len Coldwell and Jack Flavell bowled 25 overs day in and day out, warmed up by bowling six bouncers in the morning and had six or seven pints of an evening after a day’s play.Turner wasn’t against players building their strength and conditioning in gymnasiums, there was a place for that but he felt that many could take on more bowling as part of their preparation.”The balance does have to be right,” he said.Turner also expressed reservations about the intrusion of biomechanics into bowling actions. He appreciated there were instances where change was good.But he also wondered whether much was known about the danger of changing people’s actions and the effects of different muscles being used.Having seen a bowler like South African Mike Procter in action so many times Turner could only wonder what might have happened to him had someone tried to make his wrong-footed action biomechanically correct.”If someone is breaking down often maybe you do have to make changes,” he said.”The other thing about those bowlers of earlier times was the rest they had. Invariably when they weren’t bowling they put their feet up and when they had a game off for bad weather they had total rest, and that is an important facet,” Turner said.Turner has taken up the coaching position of the Otago team this summer after last year’s coach Denis Aberhart was appointed to the New Zealand coaching position.

*Powar livens up proceedingsA century from Kiran Powar brightened up the first day of play inTamil Nadu and Goa’s Ranji Trophy tie at Chennai.Winning the toss, Goa’s openers were separated early. One-down batsmanPowar, however, batted resolutely, shrugging off the regular loss ofpartners at the other end.Making 111 off 282 balls, with five fours and three sixes, Powar wasfinally out with the score on 206, being the fifth wicket to fall. Noother batsman really contributed to Goa’s total.At stumps, Goa were 217 for six, with Rajesh Naik (12*) and HAS Khalid(2*) at the crease.*Karnataka hold on for tepid drawA century from Karnataka middle-order batsman Thilak Naidu saw hisside hold on for a draw in the face of Hyderabad’s mammoth firstinnings total in their Ranji Trophy league match at Secunderabad.Batting first with Vijay Bharadwaj (76) and then with the lower order,Naidu became the eighth wicket to fall with the score on 390. Helpinghis side avoid not only the follow-on, but also a loss, Naidu’sinnings spanned 340 minutes and 225 balls, and contained 14 fours anda six.Bowled out finally for 416, Karnataka tried their best to liven upproceedings in a match that was always destined for a dull draw. DoddaGanesh picked two wickets in Hyderabad’s brief second innings, withmakeshift openers Vinay Kumar and Anirudh Singh both falling to him.At stumps on the final day, Hyderabad were 64/2. They picked up fivepoints from this match by virtue of their first-innings lead, whileKarnataka picked three points.*Kerala collapses on Day OneAndhra Pradesh, playing Kerala at Cochin in their Ranji Trophy leaguematch, bowled their opponents out on Day One and reached 49/1 at closeof play.Kerala, winning the toss, could not make the most of batting first.Although opener MP Sorab made a slow 49, none of the other batsmencould occupy the crease for any length of time. Sorab was dismissedwith the score on 113, and the rest of the batsmen fell quickly.Being bowled out for 176, Kerala must have looked for quick wickets togain some semblance of upper hand. But, even though opener PIS Reddyfell early, Andhra Pradesh consolidated and reached a score of 49/1 atstumps.*Match interestingly poised at KanpurAlthough Vidarbha gained a slender first-innings lead, Uttar Pradeshbatted resolutely to make for an interesting fourth-day’s play intheir Ranji Trophy league match at Kanpur.Overnight on 227/6, Vidarbha could only add 20 runs to that total. Thelast four wickets fell in a hurry and Vidarbha were bowled out for 247within a space of seven overs. For Uttar Pradesh, Ashish Winston Zaidipicked four wickets.Looking to erase the first-innings deficit and then build a sizeabletarget for Vidarbha to chase, Uttar Pradesh started with a solidopening stand of 61. And, although wickets fell at regular intervals,each batsman in the top order reached double digits.Mohammad Kaif top-scored with fifty, and Uttar Pradesh reached a totalof 194/5 at stumps, with Mohammad Saif and Nikhil Chopra at thecrease.

It’s about as surprising as hearing of another Ashes defeat for England, but Nasser Hussain has been confirmed as England’s Test captain for the coming summer. Hussain, who stood down as one-day captain after the World Cup, will take charge of seven Tests – two against Zimbabwe, and five against South Africa.The England selectors met at Edgbaston yesterday, and agreed that Hussain should carry on the job he began against New Zealand in 1999 – also at Edgbaston, as it happens. Since then Hussain, who was 35 on March 28, has captained England in 42 Tests, winning 15, drawing 12, and losing 15, eight of them to Australia.The ECB said that Hussain’s replacement as one-day captain would be announced by the end of April.

As metaphors go, they were pretty telling.In perfect sunshine at the ‘Gabba at the start of the second day of this tour match between Queensland and New Zealand, Nathan Astle (223) continued his near-remorseless assault on the home team’s bowlers.Yet, as a chain of storm clouds began to brew at the end of a steamy afternoon, so the murky problem that continues to plague the tourists reared its ugly head again.Astle remained a tower of strength in the morning session, not only outlasting Adam Parore (30) and Glen Sulzberger (0) at the other end but alsorearranging several individual and collective milestones.He steadily pushed his score into unchartered territory, rendering Martin Crowe’s hand of 188 in 1985-86 (previously the highest score by aNew Zealander at the ‘Gabba) the first major landmark to be overhauled.Astle’s domination of the attack had already extended into a seventh hour by the time that he then moved past both his own previous first-class best of191 and 6000 first-class runs in total.Just for good measure, he quickly proceeded to square cut the 333rd delivery of his innings, an off cutter from Michael Kasprowicz (0/118), to the point boundary to reach his first-ever double century at this level as well.But, where Astle’s voracious run scoring had given the Kiwis a position of early ascendancy, the tourists’ total of 9/444 – reached before amid-afternoon declaration – soon began to be placed in better context.Admittedly, there remained little on offer for bowlers in the pitch. But the sternest examination of the New Zealanders’ readiness for next week’sFirst Test against Australia was always likely to arrive when their attack swung into action. The Kiwis have so far been unable to take ten wickets inan innings at any stage of the tour and, in coming face-to-face with a talented batting line-up, the early results of this battle were not encouragingeither.Queensland openers Matthew Hayden (56*) and Jimmy Maher (47) were not discernibly bothered by anything offered to them in a 64-runassociation that spanned either side of the tea break, both defending and attacking with minimal risk.Maher, in particular, slaughtered loose deliveries. And such commodities seemed to be in ever-increasing supply once the shine started to disappearfrom the new ball. There was a classic cover drive at Chris Cairns (0/23); a thunderous hook and off drive at Chris Martin (0/35), and severalsuperb straight drives from the bowling of Shayne O’Connor (0/28).Even across an increasingly damp outfield, many of Hayden’s drives also showed few signs of slowing in their passage to the boundary.When Maher ultimately gifted away his wicket – charging, driving and missing as he attempted to smear a delivery from Sulzberger (1/52) to theboundary for the third time in the spinner’s opening over – it resembled something of an act of mercy.Martin Love (33*) quickly took up the slack upon replacing his teammate at the crease, albeit that his elegant approach was briefly curtailed by aflurry of rain that forced a five minute recess in the action.Matthew Bell had missed a tough, low chance at point as Maher (on 32) drove uppishly, and a shy at the stumps of the scurrying Love (on 13) flewwide when a minute window of a run out opportunity existed.Otherwise, there was not a single semblance of alarm for the batsmen. And even Astle couldn’t intervene this time, forced off the field as he was because of a minor groin strain.The Queenslanders still require a further 155 runs to avoid the follow-on when they resume in the morning. But either they would have to bat verypoorly, or New Zealand’s attack would have to produce a major reversal of form, to make the prospect of successive Queensland innings a reality.

It wasn’t just that it was a century. Or that it was only the third three-figure score of the 2001 ICC Trophy tournament. Or even that it came at a ground that has tended to offer good encouragement to both fast and slow bowlers through most of the warmup and tournament matches to date.Instead, there were many things that were extraordinary about Kenneth Kamyuka’s score of 100 for Uganda in the crucial Division Two contest against Malaysia at Eglinton Flats today.When the powerfully built fast bowler took up his role as a number ten batsman thirty-five overs into the match, his team was in more than just an idle spot of bother. Eight wickets had just crashed for thirty-five runs and a great start from their upper order was being squandered by the Africans. Moreover, their dream of translating excellent lead-up form into a victory over the side expected to provide them with the main opposition in their group was rapidly turning sour.But, by the time that he left the crease just over an hour later, another 124 runs had been thunderously added in a liaison with Richard Mwami that completely changed the complexion of the game … and quite possibly Uganda’s entire tournament as well."I definitely had to go after the bowlers," said Kamyuka with a smile after his heroics."It wouldn’t have made any sense for me just to have stuck around for another fifteen overs just to score thirty runs or so."Defending 150 against such opposition would have been very very risky but 200-plus always gave us a good chance.By any measure, Kamyuka’s century was sensational. Achieved from only fifty-four deliveries – the fifty-fourth being the very last of the Ugandan innings itself – it was based on a phenomenal display of controlled hitting. Although the majority of his runs came from shots powered down the ground, his blows were littered to almost all of its parts. Just for good measure, several carried well out of the field of play itself, eight sixes complementing a quartet of fours."I’m not always comfortable against the medium pacers but I’m very happy looking the spinners."Although Richard is a senior player in our team, I asked him to give me the strike against the slow bowlers. He refused me initially but I insisted!"For his home club in Uganda, Kamyuka is used as a number six batsman in something of an all-rounder’s role. The presence within this current national team of an excellent array of strokemakers has, by necessity, forced him down the order for much of his representative career. But don’t expect him to be batting so low for too much longer.