Liam Plunkett, the England fast bowler, hopes the use of modern technology can help his team-mates prepare for their World Cup opener against New Zealand on March 16 in St. Lucia. Mark Garraway, England’s team analyst, has ensured footage of practice and matches, including that of opponents, were transferred onto players’ iPods and games consoles, a decision fully endorsed by Plunkett.”When we are batting I can go on the computer and have a look at the wickets I’ve taken and the way I’ve bowled,” he said. “The good thing about Mark Garraway is that he’s put a lot of the video footage onto our iPods and our games consoles.”Plunkett said the technology was beneficial for batsmen and bowlers alike, but that not everyone would need the boost of watching themselves play. “That’s obviously a good thing before you go in for a bat and you want a confidence boost,” he said. “KP [Kevin Pietersen] might want to have a look at himself scoring a hundred or a fifty to give him that bit of confidence, not that he needs it.””If Belly [Ian Bell] wants to have a look at how [Daniel[ Vettori grips the ball or how Shane Bond is running in or mixing his slower balls up, he can do that.”While players from all leading teams have long been able to sit at a computer and study footage, Plunkett said the iPod transfer had “only happened in the last week”.New Zealand aside, England will play Canada and Kenya in Group C, but Plunkett chose to focus on what he termed “a massive game”. “It will set the standard for the way we play in the rest of the tournament. We beat them and been through lots of plans against them so we know what each player does. They’ve got two good spinners who will play a massive part [Vettori and Jeetan Patel] and Shane Bond bowls plenty of slow balls so he’ll be useful on these wickets.” The winner of the England-New Zealand match will carry two points through to the Super Eights.England are expected to rest at least one fast bowler from Plunkett, Sajid Mahmood, Jon Lewis and James Anderson for that game. “I finished well [in Australia] but Jimmy and Lewy bowled really well at the start of the one-day series,” Plunkett said. “It’s good for the team but I want to play every game, especially in a World Cup. We’ve been getting together and chatting about the wickets. It’s been really valuable having people like Lewy around who has played county cricket for a long time and knows a lot about his game.”

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An Adam Voges century was unable to cover up a horrible start as Western Australia failed in their bid to reach the Pura Cup final. The Warriors had to beat South Australia, who recorded their first win with their last ball of the season, and they were given a strong chance when set a generous 292 by Darren Lehmann in 78 overs.However, their hopes quickly faded when they lost 4 for 14 before lunch and were terrorised by Ryan Harris and Jason Gillespie. Harris, who was swinging the ball menacingly, bowled Justin Langer and Marcus North and had Shaun Marsh caught behind while Gillespie chipped in with the wicket of Chris Rogers.Voges and David Bandy avoided further damage during a century partnership that re-floated the Warriors, but Gillespie swiftly regained the momentum for the Redbacks. Bandy had reached 58 when he edged trying to cut Gillespie and next ball the dangerous Luke Ronchi lost his off stump.Voges, who struck seven fours and a six in his unbeaten 103, was unaffected, but he was unable to drag the Warriors on his own and the spinners Cullen Bailey and Dan Cullen made sure Lehmann’s gamble was successful. Lehmann had declared at 7 for 366 after Mark Cosgrove reached his half-century and Voges picked up personal-best figures of 4 for 92.

Tipped over the bar
When the usually accurate Ian Bradshaw strayed a little down the leg side, Sanath Jayasuriya teed off in trademark fashion. As the ball dipped down towards deep square leg, there was a buzz of anticipation in the crowd. Shivnarine Chanderpaul threw himself off the ground and palmed the ball over the rope. Had it been a game of football, it was a save that Gordon Banks would have been proud of. As it was, it was six more.The air leaves the World Cup balloon
Kumar Sangakkara not only had the eagle eye and presence of mind to spot Brian Lara’s back foot outside the crease, but also fast-twitch fibres akin to a White City greyhound in whipping off the bails. The entire stadium, and perhaps the World Cup organising committee as well, held its breath through a couple of minutes of replays before the stadium scoreboard flashed what no one wanted to see. As Lara trudged off, head bowed, you sensed that West Indian World Cup hopes were leaving the field with him.All-round woe
As Sri Lanka were wrapping up a facile victory, Michael Holding walked down from the commentary box. A World Cup winner in 1979, he has often been a strident critic of this West Indian team. When asked what he’d thought of West Indies’ terrible display in the field, Holding smiled ruefully and said: “It wasn’t just the fielding. The batting and bowling were terrible as well, give or take a couple of names.” We could only think of Daren Powell, Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan.Boo girl
As we walked across the stadium perimeter on our way to the press conference, Jayasuriya was being presented with the Man-of-the-Match award. As he walked up to accept it, a little girl in the stand above me started booing. She carried on, even while those around her looked around awkwardly. Too young to have experienced Caribbean cricket’s halcyon years, she might have to get used to many more days of disappointment. Booing the wrong colour shirt won’t help either.Save the best for last
On a day of stunning hits from Jayasuriya, the pick of the bunch was perhaps the last ball of the Sri Lankan innings. Dwayne Bravo dropped one in the slot, and Tillakaratne Dilshan’s bat cleaved through the air to send the ball soaring deep into the stands at midwicket.Fast man goes slow
Victory had been clinched and the sun had gone down but even at half past six, Lasith Malinga was in front of the stand adjacent to the pavilion signing autographs. Two West Indian fans waited patiently, and thanked him politely after he’d slowly scrawled out a signature. Next in line was a policewoman, paper and pen in hand. No doubt she found something arresting about Malinga’s hair.

It was a batting performance that will haunt South Africa. Only Mark Boucher in the top six can say he was out to a wicket-taking ball; the others charged, slashed and wafted like men seemingly unable to adjust their minds to the reality of the situation. Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, however defended his batsmen by saying it was a plan that had misfired.”I don’t think we played reckless shots and threw our wickets away,” Arthur said. “We had a plan. We needed to disrupt Australia’s momentum somehow. We needed to get on top and we needed to get on top quick.”To be fair, the South Africans have batted pretty much the same way throughout the tournament, but shouldn’t they have reassessed the situation after a couple of wickets went down quickly? “We have been quite aggressive throughout,” Graeme Smith said. “We felt we could be quite aggressive upfront today. But once we went three down, it became really difficult to wrest the initiative back.” He also pointed out that Australia having Shaun Tait as first change didn’t help.When asked if they choked Smith smiled ironically. “I expected that question from you boys,” he said. “We certainly didn’t choke. We were just not good enough. We were outplayed, and you have got to give them credit. To me a choke is when you get close to winning and you kotz up [throw up] on yourself. Maybe there were one or two loose shots at the beginning. The top order got out to good bowling.”Their batting disarray wasn’t the only thing that went wrong. Smith admitted it had been their plan to bowl first here. “It was a decision based on information we had received about local conditions and on talking to teams that had played here,” he said. But they were persuaded by the dryness of the wicket which hinted turn and sluggishness as the match wore on. “There was a bit of swing early on,” Smith said. And Nathan Bracken used it pretty well.But just how hazardous it would have been to bat second was never really found out because South Africa didn’t have the bowler to use the conditions. Even Ricky Ponting pointed out how simple it was to deal with the sameness of the attack once a batsman got his eye in. Smith singled it out as a big area of concern.”One of our challenges going forward is to find a spinner,” he said. Robin Peterson, the left-arm slow bowler, was picked in the 12 but was not considered good enough to make the XI. “That is one facet to our game we always talk about and always get questioned about,” Smith said. “If we can find a spinner like the ones Sri Lanka and Australia have, it will change our cricket in a lot of ways.”

Was the defeat one of the biggest disappointments of his career? “I guess you don’t mind losing,” Smith said. “But when you know you haven’t played to your potential, you haven’t given yourself a real chance, it is quite disappointing.”As a team we know what we are capable of. I think we have been a little bit up and down in the World Cup. We have had some outstanding performances, we have had some medium performances. Being two games away from winning a World Cup and not putting in the performance that you are looking forward to, it is disappointing. I wouldn’t say we were just beaten today. We also let ourselves down.”Smith also chose to look at the brighter side. “We have certainly worked our way up,” he said. “Two years ago we were fourth or fifth in one-day cricket. In the 2003 World Cup we went nowhere. We have just made it to a World Cup semi-final, and we have been the only other team [apart from Australia] to have made it to the No. 1 spot. It certainly shows we are moving forward.”Looking ahead, Smith didn’t foresee too many changes. “I think there are quite a few guys who are going to be around for a few years. In the next couple of years, South African cricket is going to get very strong.” But he hinted that Shaun Pollock, who will be 34 in July, will be one of the players with a decision to make.”Shaun is probably the one who is in the balance,” Smith said. “He is deciding where he wants to go with his future and his career. I don’t think Shaun will be around in the next World Cup, and I don’t think he will mind me saying that either.”Questions were also raised about Makhaya Ntini, whose indifferent form in the West Indies led to him being dropped from the last two matches. Arthur conceded Ntini had a few things to sort out when bowling in different conditions.

The ECB are refusing to budge on Ian Harvey’s attempts to register as a non-overseas player. His citizenship application has become stuck at the Home Office with a drink-drive conviction meaning it can’t be processed.”While sympathetic to Ian Harvey’s position the board reconfirmed the ruling that Derbyshire would be able to continue to select [him] as an unqualified player,” said the ECB.Derbyshire are using the example of Ottis Gibson who was allowed to play while awaiting his citizenship. The ruling means that Harvey will remain on the sidelines as Derbyshire have two fellow Australians, Simon Katich and Travis Birt, as their overseas players.”We are disappointed but not surprised by the decision and we will continue to pursue the matter through the Home Office,” said chief executive Tom Sears. “Most of all, we feel a huge amount of sympathy for Ian who is being prevented from continuing his Derbyshire career, which began in such terrific fashion at the start of the season.”We remain determined to get Ian back to doing what he does best and we will continue to explore every avenue to make that possible.”

Kenya’s major stakeholders will be asked to vote tomorrow night on whether to support plans to establish a new authority to run Kenyan cricket or to stick with the embattled Kenyan Cricket Association.At the weekend Ochillo Ayacko, the minister for sports, summoned various parties, including representatives of the country’s provincial associations, striking players and other leading officials, and announced his intention to form a new body – provisionally named Cricket Kenya (CA) – to bypass the KCA. Ayacko will present his application to have the new organisation ratified by the Registrar of Societies tomorrow morning.The country’s two largest bodies – the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association and the Coast Cricket Association – will both consult with members clubs in the evening over whether to back the new venture. Given that between them they represent almost all of Kenya’s functioning clubs, their support will decide whether Ayacko’s bold initiative gets the go ahead.If it does, then it is likely that Ayacko will seek an urgent meeting later this week with Malcolm Speed and Ehsan Mani, the chief executive and president of the ICC, to try to get their backing and ICC recognition that CA should be confirmed as the real authority representing Kenyan cricket.Although the ICC has repeatedly refused to be drawn into an increasingly messy business, it is widely rumoured that the minister’s decision to finally act against the KCA received its tacit backing after investigations revealed the scale of the problem in the country.Ayacko’s move is thought to have caught the KCA executive off guard. Last Thursday, a scheduled court hearing was delayed in rather strange circumstances after the High Court judge who had summoned the warring parties to appear before him suddenly found he was too busy to hear the legal arguments and postponed the hearing until March 7.The judge claimed that as he had read newspaper reports stating that the national squad was in training, there was no urgency in holding the hearing. However, the reports, which Cricinfo understands were not true, appeared in The Nation, a leading newspaper which has pro-KCA leanings and which critics have accused of being a virtual mouthpiece for Sharad Ghai, the KCA chairman.

Chandigarh’s Sector 16 stadium is likely to host its first one-day international in 14 years when Australia tour India later this year. The venue has been slotted for the fourth ODI on October 8 instead of the initially-scheduled game at Guwahati, but following the change the Assam Cricket Association will stage a match there against Pakistan on November 6.The Indian board (BCCI) and the Haryana Cricket Association (HCA) agreed to host the game there after some deliberation as the HCA was first allotted the opening ODI of the series against Pakistan.Confirming this, the BCCI joint secretary MP Pandove told Chandigarh’s , “The BCCI has okayed the HCA’s proposal to shift international matches allotted to them from Faridabad to Chandigarh. A team from the International Cricket Council (ICC) would be visiting the city in July to inspect whether the stadium could host an international match.”The last ODI hosted by the city was an India-England match in January 1993.”The stadium [at Chandigarh] has good facilities and experience of hosting international cricket before,” said Ranbir Mahendra, the HCA secretary. “I would be coordinating with the administration soon for making the facilities at the stadium match the international standards. If this match is organised well, many international matches could be in line for Chandigarh.”SK Sandhu, the finance and sports secretary, said the immediate plans for the stadium were “on track”. “The stadium is almost ready; an electronic scoreboard would come up soon. The press box also needs furnishing, as both national as well as international media would be there to cover the game. We have sufficient funds, you will find an international-class stadium ready when the match would be played here.”Australia will now play at Bangalore, Kochi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Baroda, Nagpur and Mumbai and Pakistan will play at Guwahati, Mohali, Kanpur, Gwalior and Jaipur.

Lasith Malinga has moved into the top ten bowlers in the ICC ODI rankings following his four wickets in the two ODIs he played in the series against Bangladesh.Malinga has moved up four places to ninth place on the rankings, replacing Abdur Razzak of Bangladesh, who has dropped three places to 12th. Razzak continues to be the top-ranked bowler for Bangladesh.Malinga’s team-mates Farveez Maharoof and Dilhara Fernando and Bangladesh’s Syed Rasel are the others who’ve made significant improvements in the bowlers’ list.The number one spot is still occupied by South Africa’s Shaun Pollock, followed by Nathan Bracken of Australia, Shane Bond in third place, and Sri Lanka’s Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan in the fourth and fifth places respectively.Sanath Jayasuriya, named the Man of the Series, has climbed up two spots in the allrounders table. Jayasuriya, the first player to score 12,000 runs and take 300 wickets in ODIs, is in third position, behind the South African duo of Pollock and Jacques Kallis.Sri Lanka also draw level with Pakistan in the ICC ODI championship table on 111 rating points after completing the clean sweep against Bangladesh. However, Pakistan have retained their fourth position by the margin of a few thousandths.

Full rankings on www.icc-cricket.com

ScorecardAnother seesawing day between Lancashire and Sussex left proceedings intriguingly poised at Liverpool. The first session was fairly even, as Stuart Law played defiantly with reasonable but not dominating support at the other end. First Sussex and then Lancashire surged ahead in turn during the afternoon session, only for Sussex to redress the balance during the final two hours.Law has often been the scourge of Sussex bowling, and he looked like adding another century to his tally of five against them. It was a grafting innings, with few memorable strokes, but was of immense value. Without him, Lancashire would probably have been out of this game by now.More memorable during the morning was the return of Andrew Flintoff to the crease after missing half a season. He quickly played a superb cover drive for four and ran up 34 off 36 balls, with six boundaries, before he tried to turn a straight ball from Naved-ul-Hasan to midwicket and was trapped lbw.After lunch, Law showed more aggression, taking 14 off an over from Jason Lewry, but soon after he was caught for 95, slashing the same bowler to third man, Lancashire were nine wickets down with a deficit of 23. Then came their best hour of the match to date.Their last pair, Glen Chapple (30 not out) and Muttiah Muralitharan (28), produced a highly entertaining stand of 50 in quick time, the latter in particular playing some exotic strokes that were enjoyed by the crowd as much as himself. By the time he backed awayfrom a low full toss from Naved to be bowled, Lancashire had gained a lead of 27.The home side’s golden hour was not yet finished, as the opener Chris Nash, the topscorer of the first innings, was caught at the wicket off the first ball of the Sussex second innings, and his partner Richard Montgomerie scored only a single before being caught at slip. Then came the Sussex fightback. Mike Yardy and Murray Goodwin got their heads down and blunted the Lancashire attack with a sound partnership. Lancashire, searching for a breakthrough, decided Flintoff was ready to rise to the challenge.He began with a harmless bouncer to Yardy, and bowled two spells of two overs each at reasonable pace without either falling over or taking a wicket and conceded just a single. Even Murali failed to trouble the two batsmen.Goodwin was especially impressive through the covers, and by the close had 68 to Yardy’s 52, with their team now in the ascendancy. Even though the sun shone little this time, there was still a crowd of more than 2000 to enjoy another fine day’s play on a prominent outground. Most had left, though, by the time the match finished more than 30 minutes late due to another pathetic over-rate.

Scorecard