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Brian McMillan, the former South Africa allrounder, has hailed his ex team-mate Makhaya Ntini as a “great servant to the game” after the fast bowler announced his international retirement. McMillan was Ntini’s mentor during the 1998 tour to England when Ntini was playing in just his third series, and the two formed a strong bond.For McMillan it was Ntini’s fitness levels that stood out, a trait the fast bowler said he modelled on McMillan. Ntini became well known as the work horse of the South African attack, which he credited the allrounder for teaching him. “He had a lot of dedication which not all the guys have now,” McMillan told ESPNcricinfo. “Whenever you would throw him the ball, he would bowl. In some ways he was a lot like Shaun Pollock, in that he got through a lot of overs.”The connection between the two started from an early stage. “He was still very much a junior and one of the first development players in our side,” McMillan said. “He used to babysit my son Joshua on the sidelines, and Joshua is 17 now. It is things like that which make Makhaya not just special to me but also to my family.”However, there is still one bone of contention as far as McMillan is concerned. “There’s one thing I will have to talk to him about. He promised me he would invite me to his wedding and he didn’t,” he joked.McMillan believed that Ntini had made his own decision about quitting the international game and that it was not for him or anyone else to judge whether he had retired at the right time. “He must’ve known it was time.”Meanwhile, the current Test and one-day captain, Graeme Smith, gave his own tribute to Ntini after the third one-day international against Pakistan in Dubai which Smith missed due to injury. “Makhaya epitomised what the Proteas stood for and has been a great servant to the game both on and off the field,” said Smith. “I am most grateful to have been part of his career and successes and wish him all of the best with his life after international cricket.””He brought so much energy and laughter to the team, not forgetting that he is one of the fittest players I know, and as a captain it was always a pleasure to be able to call on him. I am so proud of his achievements, his records speak for themselves, and he leaves behind a lasting legacy for many to aspire to.”He has been a pioneer for youngsters out there and has represented every South African while he has donned the Protea jersey.”

The next Caribbean T20 could feature the finalists of the Friends Provident T20, England’s domestic 20-over competition. The West Indies Cricket Board, at the meeting of its board of directors on October 2 and 3, took the decision to invite participation from two counties in an effort to build on the tournament’s brand by increasing the number of teams to ten. The inaugural Caribbean T20 was held in July this year with Guyana emerging triumphant and earning a spot in the Champions League Twenty20.However, the Calypso Cup, another Twenty20 tournament planned for January 2011, has been postponed indefinitely due to “ongoing financial challenges” faced by the board. The tournament was meant to include four domestic teams from the Caribbean, three English counties and one overseas team.The board also decided to introduce central retainer contracts for players in the women’s team. In the initial phase six women cricketers will be handed out these contracts.

ScorecardKent lost their last eight wickets for 120 runs in a session and nine balls to gift Lancashire only their second success in Canterbury since 1936. The 121-run drubbing moved the visitors to fourth in the County Championship Division One table with a game in hand to maintain their outside championship hopes, whereas Kent slip back toward the relegation scrap following their fifth defeat of the top-flight campaign.Resuming on their overnight score of 84 for 2 and in pursuit of an unlikely victory target of 339, Kent added 13 runs before the start of their nightmare slide against the twin seam threat of Tom Smith and Glen Chapple that saw them lose four wickets for three runs in the space of 27 balls.Visiting skipper Chapple was first to strike, running one down the Canterbury slope and away from right-hander Martin van Jaarsveld who edged to Paul Horton at slip to make it 97 for 3.In the next over Sam Northeast went back and across his stumps to Smith only to work across the line and go leg before then, in his next over, Smith got one to lift sharply at Geraint Jones who feathered a catch to his counterpart Luke Sutton.Without addition to the score Darren Stevens followed a Chapple leg-cutter to give Sutton another catch and leave Kent floundering on 100 for 6. Lancashire struck again through Smith when Alex Blake, chopping down late on a short one, played the ball onto the base of off-stump.Kent partially saved face thereafter with a sprightly eighth-wicket stand of 72 in 63 balls between left-handers James Tredwell and Matt Coles (51) that at least took the game into its penultimate session.Coles raced to his maiden half-century for the county from 41 balls and with six fours but, two deliveries after raising his bat, the 20-year-old miscued a slog sweep against Gary Keedy straight into the hands of Sajid Mahmood at deep midwicket.In the over before lunch, Tredwell, having hit five boundaries to take Kent beyond 200, danced past one from Keedy to be stumped by a yard. Nine balls after the restart and without addition to the total, Cook swept at Keedy only to be caught at deep mid-wicket and hand Lancashire their 21-point win while Kent bank only four.

Six months ago, Scott Styris’ international career was on the rocks after he was axed from the one-day side for the home series against Bangladesh. The drop came barely four months after his recall for a limited-overs series against Pakistan. How many can make two international comebacks after turning 34? Yet, Styris is now firmly back in New Zealand’s plans for the 2011 World Cup, and he gave another demonstration of his usefulness on a tricky Dambulla track to set his team up for a victory that pushed them to the No. 2 spot in the ICC rankings.An inexperienced New Zealand side wasn’t given much of a chance coming into the tournament and it seemed to show why when it tumbled to 28 for 3 in the face of a hostile new-ball spell from Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar. That brought together Styris, the most experienced man in the line-up, and Ross Taylor, their captain and most important batsman. The two senior players just about managed to survive the next few overs, before getting more settled once the spinners were brought on.Styris, in particular, had a nervous beginning. There was an lbw appeal from Praveen which Hawk-Eye suggested would shave the outside of legstump, a close caught-behind shout in Abhimanyu Mithun’s first over, before being saved by the height on being struck in front of middle by Mithun’s stock incutter. His biggest reprieve was a missed stumping off Pragyan Ojha when he was beaten by the turn after waltzing out of the crease, but the sharp spin meant Dhoni also failed to collect cleanly.By then, the pair had added more than 50 runs with Taylor unleashing a bunch of boundaries. With Mithun suffering a heat stroke and the senior quicks having already bowled plenty of overs, Styris then cashed in on some amiable left-arm spin. Boundaries off Ojha and Ravindra Jadeja were mixed with sensible singles and before you knew it New Zealand had moved to 150 off 30 overs.Then Taylor risked taking the batting Powerplay early. Styris’ boundary-count shot up in those five overs, at the end of which 300 was in New Zealand’s sights and the two batsmen seemed to be in a race to reach triple-figures. Styris drew level with Taylor on 89 with a straight swing for six off Ojha but a fifth ODI century eluded him when he was dismissed two balls later. On a pitch where 240 was talked of as the par score at the toss, Styris had piloted New Zealand to 219 for 4 with more than ten overs to go.”The bounce is spongy here. It’s not true bounce as at WACA or some of the pitches in South Africa. It’s a tennis ball bounce. On top of that it spun fast,” Styris said after New Zealand completed their win. “It was particularly tough to bat on and that’s why Ross and I are particularly pleased with the runs we were able to get.”The 200-run victory was New Zealand’s biggest over India. “We are obviously delighted with the result,” Styris said. “We were missing [Brendon] McCullum and [Daniel] Vettori and perhaps we didn’t have the same respect from the opposition and the media.”Today’s performance extends a rich vein of form for Styris, who kickstarted his attempt to re-cement a place in the one-day side with a cool 34-ball 49 in a big chase against Australia in his first match on comeback. He put in four solid contributions with the bat in five games that series, and has continued the run during his stint with Essex over the New Zealand winter.With emergence of Grant Elliott and the presence of Jacob Oram, New Zealand aren’t exactly short on medium-pace allrounders and the competition for spots remains fierce. “Some nine-ten months ago I was a bit on the outer, which was disappointing. But since than I have done well in domestic cricket, in the series against Australia and for Essex,” Styris said. “Always wanted to play in the 2011 World Cup and if you put performances on the board you have the right to be picked.”It’s been a long time since Styris bowled his full quota of overs, but he insisted there was no move to play as a specialist batsman. “I still want to have a big role with the ball, I have a couple of niggles that are holding me back a bit but I think over the next 6-8 months I will continue bowling hopefully a lot of overs,” he said. “While in the past I have bowled 10 overs in every game, maybe now I’ll bowl six to seven overs in each.”

The chief curator at the Galle International Stadium, Jayananda Warnaweera, has ruled out producing a turning pitch for the first Test as a farewell gift to Muttiah Muralitharan, who needs eight wickets in his last Test to reach 800 wickets. Warnaweera, the former Sri Lanka offspinner, was confident Murali wouldn’t need much assistance from the conditions to reach the landmark.”If we compare the last India Test with this, we have a good wicket,” said Warnaweera. “You will ask why we are not giving Murali a turning track. But Murali doesn’t need a turning track. On any wicket, any flat wicket, Murali will take wickets. We were more concerned about number of days of cricket. We want all five days to say cheerio to Murali.”Warnaweera said Murali’s favourable history at the venue should help his cause. “Murali has played 11 to 12 Tests in Galle, and he has nearly 110 wickets (sic. 103 wickets in 14 Tests),” he said. “That means his average is more than nine wickets a match. He needs eight wickets only. We want to have good time with Murali, so we need all five days of cricket.”There is a little bit of grass left to hold the pitch together. Any wicket will turn on the fourth, fifth day, and this should go to a fifth day. It’s up to the players, though.”India, meanwhile, didn’t have the best of days as they prepared for the Test that begins on Sunday. Overnight rain had left the practice pitches wet, and the batsmen could have a hit only in the indoor facility. The Sri Lankans enjoyed a full practice session, though, as the pitches had dried up suitably by the time they arrived.Harbhajan Singh, recovering from a fever, didn’t bowl in the nets, but indications are that he is on track to make it for the Test. In his last Test in Galle, Harbhajan took 6 for 102 and 4 for 51 to set up India’s series-levelling victory. He is now the most experienced bowler in an Indian squad depleted by the absence of Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth.

Australia’s Test against Pakistan at Lord’s this week will be a historic occasion for a number of reasons, not least as the first neutral Test in England since 1912. But when the teams take the field on Tuesday, it will also be a special moment for Australia’s smallest state; for the first time three Tasmanians will be playing together in the Test team.Tim Paine, Ben Hilfenhaus and Ricky Ponting will ensure more than adequate representation for the state, which accounts for only 2% of the nation’s population. It has been a long road to this point, for over the first hundred years of Test cricket, Tasmania produced only three Test representatives: Ken Burn, Charles Eady and Laurie Nash, although others like Sam Morris and Max Walker had been born there before moving to the mainland.Now the state has that many in one team. It’s not surprising that it took so long, for until the late 1970s, Tasmania wasn’t included in the Sheffield Shield. They won the competition for the first time in 2006-07 and have lifted the state one-day trophy three times in the past six years, so it was only a matter of time before their numbers in the Test outfit grew.

Tasmania’s Test cricketers

• Ken Burn

• Charles Eady

• Laurie Nash

• Roger Woolley

• David Boon

• Greg Campbell

• Ricky Ponting

• Shaun Young

• Colin Miller

• Jason Krejza

• Ben Hilfenhaus

(Players who were representing Tasmania at the time of Test selection)

“I think it is a great thing for Tassie cricket,” Paine, who will make his debut on Tuesday, said. “The last few years we have started to win some titles down there and I suppose with more team success there has been more individual success so we are starting to build a good group down there. There were three or four guys playing for Australia A last week so it is good that the Tassie boys are starting to be recognised.”In the 1980s, men like Roger Woolley and Greg Campbell broke into the Test team, but David Boon was the man who really put Tasmania on the world cricket map. At the tail end of his career, he handed over to the Launceston boy, Ponting, and they played three Tests together in 1995-96 before Boon’s international career ended.At that stage, Hilfenhaus was 12 and Paine was 11. They’d grown up with Boon as their state hero and watched as Ponting went on to become one of the game’s undisputed modern champions.”Seeing them do really well, it was a goal to look towards,” Hilfenhaus said. “[Ponting] definitely gives you a bit of belief, doesn’t he? He is one of the greatest players of all time so obviously him being a Tasmanian has been a good thing as well.”For Hilfenhaus, the Lord’s Test will not only be a Tasmanian milestone but a personal achievement as well, the culmination of a long period of recovery from knee tendonitis that has kept him out of action since November. He bowled 13 overs in the tour match in Derby, where he collected 1 for 32, and after the match he said he was learning to push through the pain barrier.”I wouldn’t say there’s no soreness,” Hilfenhaus said. “There’s still a bit of a niggle there, and from the reports from the experts it’s probably going to hang around for another six to twelve months. But it’s at the stage now where it’s very manageable and can cope with the workloads.”

Matthew Hayden, the former Australia opener, has said Australia missed an opportunity to capitalise on the enormous potential of Twenty20 cricket when the format was still in its developing stages. He claimed the desire to protect 50-over cricket – Australia’s own creation – and a primary focus on Tests and ODIs when the IPL was yet to materialise may have contributed to Australia’s delay in cashing in on Twenty20. Hayden also spoke of the need to make one-day cricket more meaningful and exciting for fans and players alike.”As a player, I think we in Australia were slow to react to T20,” Hayden, who is now part of Cricket Australia as board director, told the . ”We didn’t see much of it here for a start. It seemed to be something that was happening everywhere else. England created it and was holding competitions, but the IPL hadn’t started yet and our primary focus here was on winning every Test match and being one-day champions.”A conservative approach in trying to safeguard 50-over cricket, Hayden said, could have prompted the delay in realising the potential of Twenty20. ”There must have been some concern, being conservative as Australians tend to be, that we’ve got this great product, 50-over cricket, which KP [Kerry Packer] invented and which changed the cricketing landscape, and we didn’t want to leave it behind,” Hayden said. “We were all proud of 50-over cricket, we’d nurtured it and grew it and it was – and still is – good for the game.”But the little brother, Twenty20, isn’t little any more. He’s grown up, he’s now market leader and yelling from the mountain. Twenty20 is fuelling change.”The surging popularity of Twenty20 cricket, many believe, has threatened the viability of the 50-over format. Cricket Australia, in order to draw more people to the game, has decided to trial split-innings one-dayers next summer, with games divided into four innings of 20-25 overs each. Hayden said that, in addition to making one-day cricket more exciting, it was also important for administrators to ensure there wasn’t an overdose of the format.”I understand the fans more now than ever because, as a viewer, I want to see a game that’s exciting, innovative and entertaining,” Hayden said. “When I was in the Australian team, I could sense there was meaningless cricket going on. I always struggled to get myself up for matches against minnows. It’s not like Freddie Flintoff with his eyes wide open, bearing down on you for the Ashes. I could feel that in the team and now I can feel it from the outside, too. It needs to be dealt with.”With one-day cricket, people say they still love it, but it doesn’t have the excitement it used to, certainly not compared to T20. We have to work out when and how we play one-day cricket. It’s a pathway to the World Cup, which is still a valuable property, but it has to be programmed in a way that makes sense. Seven one-dayers at the end of a Test series isn’t [giving much] meaning.”Hayden has compiled his suggestions in a dossier, which he has submitted to the ICC. ”Greater minds than mine will act on this, but these things must be considered when discussing the game’s future,” he said. ”The intention of that dossier was to start conversations. I hope it leads to a more meaningful calendar.”The game’s gone beyond cigars and meetings in cloakrooms. The way it’s played and viewed has changed and now we need to streamline what’s important and what’s not. It brings great challenges. I think CA understands that. They know change is coming and needs to be embraced.”

The transformation is complete. The ECB can hunt for those keys to the trophy cabinet, silverware is on the way to Lord’s. As they have been since the start of the Super Eights, England were magnificent as they powered past the previously indomitable Australia.It was quite fitting that Paul Collingwood was there in the middle to hit the winning runs with a six and two fours. He had been a reluctant leader of this side when it was decided that Andrew Strauss didn’t have a place in Twenty20, but along with Andy Flower, who is developing a reputation as one of the game’s finest coaches, has formed a limited-overs unit that might already be regarded as England’s greatest of all time.Collingwood had a lean tournament with the bat but that didn’t matter a jot as he was chased around the Kensington Oval by Kevin Pietersen, followed close behind by their ecstatic team-mates. After waiting 35 years there was a lot of pent-up emotion to release. What made the achievement even more remarkable was that England cruised to victory and any nerves were purely with the English fans who have been so used to one-day failure.”This is a very special moment,” Collingwood said. “This is right up there, with the best, the guys deserve everything they’ve got today. We’ve won a World Cup, and you can never take that away from us. We thoroughly deserve the victory, because the way we’ve played throughout the tournament has been consistent and also [we’ve been] taking the game to the opposition.”We’ve had a lot of belief, and the guys have thought very well for themselves and made the right decisions. In the end, we’ve turned up on a big occasion like this and we’ve performed. I’m absolutely delighted with the guys. We knew it was a monkey on our back. We knew what it meant, and that is why I am so pleased that these last two performances in such pressurised situations were absolutely spot on.”In fact, they played like a side that had been winning tournaments for years. After the tension in Guyana where the weather nearly scuppered their chances, everything the team has touched has turned to gold. Ryan Sidebottom, a controversial selection ahead of James Anderson at the beginning of the competition, continued to justify his place with two vital early wickets (and he stayed fit throughout). Even the move to give Luke Wright his only over of the tournament, when Michael Yardy proved expensive, paid dividends as he removed the dangerous Cameron White.England began the chase in a measured fashion, aware of the new-ball threat from Dirk Nannes and Shaun Tait, but they were still well ahead after the Powerplay with 41 for 1 compared to 24 for 3 by Australia.Craig Kieswetter converted his start into a substantial contribution and Pietersen completed a memorable week with a stroke-filled 47 that included a front-foot drive for six off Tait. England’s limited-overs cricket has never been so vibrant with the one-day side also making significant strides, and all of a sudden the World Cup next year isn’t something to be dreaded.”You can see from the way the guys have gone out from the first ball, believing in themselves, taking it to the opposition and playing a brand of cricket that is unlike England in the past,” Collingwood said. “I think a lot of credit goes to every single player in the dressing room, to have the confidence to go out there and really give it their best shots and have no regrets. I think we have done that throughout the tournament and it has certainly paid off.”Never has an England team fielded better – Stuart Broad’s horrid drop off David Hussey notwithstanding – while they have also rarely seemed a happier unit. That is obviously easy to do when you are winning, but the strides the side have made in the 18 months are remarkable given the state they were in when Pietersen and Peter Moores lost their jobs. A large part of that has been down to Andrew Strauss, whose efforts weren’t forgotten by the Twenty20 skipper.”Straussy comes back as captain, and we’ll get his team ethos and ideas,” Collingwood said. “That’s been a big part of this victory as well – what Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss have done over the past year. It’s been magnificent, and they’ve got the team pointing in the right direction.”After the fallout from the 2005 Ashes victory celebrations, English cricket has learnt to handle success with a little more composure. An open-top bus tour is unlikely and the likes of Yardy, Tim Bresnan and Eoin Morgan will have to wait a little longer for their MBEs. As was the case after last summer’s Ashes triumph there is already talk of looking forward, but the team will enjoy this victory first.”We’re not going to get carried away – well, we are for the next couple of days,” Collingwood joked. “We’re going to savour the moment and enjoy it, because we deserve to. But good teams kick on, and that’s exactly what we’ll get drilled into the guys. We’ve got a lot more potential as well – that’s the scary part about it. We can go even further.”But this is what we came here to achieve, and we’ve done it. The next step is to savour the moment, celebrate as a team – and then we’ll come across the next hurdle.”The biggest issue facing the team is now a race to get home before ahead of the volcanic ash cloud, but given what they have achieved over the last two weeks they might be able to beat that as well.

The ECB is still awaiting communication from the organisers of the Champions League Twenty20 over the participation of teams from England for the tournament to be held in South Africa from September 10-26.The participation of teams from England had been put in doubt after it emerged that the schedule, announced in February, would clash with crucial fixtures at the end of the English season which runs until September 16. England will be playing Pakistan in an ODI series at the time, the final two rounds of the County Championship will be on as well as the semi-finals and final of the ECB40 competition.”It is extremely improbable that any English county will be taking part in the Champions League. The sanctity of the domestic season is of the utmost importance, as all the clubs agree,” David Collier, the chief executive of the ECB, was quoted as saying in the .”We are awaiting a response from the BCCI on a number of proposals. One of them is for the winners and runners up of the Champions League to play our winners and runners-up. Now that the IPL is over we hope to hear from them soon.”Sussex and Somerset took part in the inaugural tournament last year in India, but further English participation this season has been in doubt since Lalit Modi, who was the league’s commissioner, tweeted that two invites had been sent to the ECB. The ECB was quick to state that the offer was not official. Cricinfo had subsequently understood that the ECB had failed to accept the invitation within the stipulated deadline. The Champions League’s governing council meeting in March had failed to yield a decision on English participation, but in the wake of therecent announcement that this year’s edition will be held in September, the organisers have said venues and competing teams would be announced in the near future.

Shakib Al Hasan admitted that the experience of taking consecutive Test matches deep into the fifth day had left his team weary when it came to the sharp end of the contest, as he reflected on a series from which his players emerged with great credit, but once again, nothing tangible to show for their efforts.For Shakib it was a match from which he took great personal pride, as he underlined his credentials as a world-class allrounder with scores of 49 and 96, as well as a marathon haul of 4 for 124 in 66 first-innings overs. But those three statistical near-misses encapsulated the frustrations that Bangladesh felt collectively, as a match that they had dominated for large parts of the first half of the game degenerated into a sapping nine-wicket defeat.”We were bowling in the last session of the fifth day, and in the last Test we also played five days, so it was tiring for us,” said Shakib. “Normally we don’t play so much cricket, so it was a very tough job for us, and I think many of us lost our intensity. We need to see how physically fit we are, because maybe some of us thought we cannot do it anymore at this stage. When England got to 100 for 1, we were a bit loose, which should not have happened.”Inevitably, much of the blame for Bangladesh’s collapse will be pinned on the umpiring on the third day, but Shakib denied that his side had still been dwelling on those missed opportunities when they shipped six match-changing wickets the following day. Instead he blamed misfortune, with Junaid Siddique being caught off Alastair Cook’s boot, and Imrul Kayes bowled via an improbable deflection off the thigh-pad.But at 172 for 6, with a lead of 94 going into the final day, there was still a slender opportunity to bat out for a draw, a result that would have counted as a very moral victory. Shakib’s intent was plain upon the resumption, as he set about establishing a total that could be defended, but in the end he played one rash shot too many with a century beckoning and only the No. 11 Rubel Hossain for company.”The situation was that we had to score either 40-odd runs or survive 10 more overs,” said Shakib, whose stumping for 96 off James Tredwell left England needing 209 in a minimum of 55 overs. “I thought the second one was a difficult option, so I went for my shot. Maybe I could have defended it, but in that case, if Rubel was out in the next over, I would have regretted it.”At first I thought to play a sweep over square leg,” he said. “Then I thought his ball was not spinning at all. Everything was coming straight, so I wanted to play straight. But that did spin and I missed it. It was a very tricky situation because I had to think both attack and defence, and I’ve hardly ever faced a situation like this. It was a new experience for us, but hopefully we will learn from it.”Personally, I tried to give whatever I could. If you consider my Test career, I would say I worked harder in this Test than anyone,” he added. “I just wanted another 20-25 runs, so that we could have push them. If they had needed more than 110 runs in each session things would have been easier for us. But they needed only 100 and 100, and on the last day of the last game, it was difficult for us.”For Shakib, it was the third time in his Test career that he had been stuck on 96 at the end of an innings, although he did reach his maiden century against New Zealand in February. “Nowadays luck is not doing any favour to me,” he said. “I’ve got 49, 96, four wickets … the last one was not coming. Hopefully luck will smile on me again.”With a little more experience – and they are gaining more and more with each match – Bangladesh will be better placed in the future to capitalise on situations such as they faced in this contest. For all that England’s approach to the match attracted few admirers, their greater awareness of the end-game paid off in the final stages, as Cook pointed out afterwards.”I think we could have chased up to 250 in 50 overs on that wicket,” said Cook. “We didn’t mind Bangladesh playing a few shots, because we were happy to sacrifice a few runs for wickets, instead of having to prise them out. Once we’d got a good start, and kept our wickets in hand, towards the end we felt we could chase anything down.”On that wicket, you needed a really big score in the first innings,” he added. “Bangladesh needed a bigger score if they wanted to win the game, and they will learn from that experience that 400 wasn’t good enough. But the fight that they showed here and at Chittagong has surprised us all and it bodes well for their future.”