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Ranadeb Bose has lashed out against national selector Ranjib Biswal for suggesting he was not quick enough. Biswal, the East Zone selector in the five-member committee, said recently that it was tough to “fight” for Bose because the team management believes he “is almost as slow as Dada (Sourav Ganguly).”Hurt by the statement, Bose said, “If he has said that, he’s lying. Nobody in his right mind can say I am as slow as Souray. I was between 132-134 kmph at the Challenger Trophy. It was live on TV and those who want can check. Souray bowls at around 120 and the difference in our pace is significant. Biswal saw me in the recent Ranji match against Orissa where the keeper was collecting it from near his chest. I must say he is a liar if he says I bowl at Sourav’s pace.”Biswal had also said that the competition for the fast bowler’s slot for Australia tour was between Pathan, Ishant, Munaf, VRV Singh and Pankaj Singh. “Of the five, only VRV and Pankaj are faster than me,” Bose said. “Given the pace Munaf has bowled at of late, that is. And I am not talking about performance, since the selector has talked just about pace.”I know I don’t have a chance to play for India anymore. Maybe because I don’t do a lot of things like sending messages to certain people on their birthdays, marriage anniversaries or don’t try to please them by doing things that go beyond performing in the cricket field. It’s disappointing, but I have to accept it.”

Matt Nicholson, the Australian fast bowler, will deputise for Mohammad Asif at Surrey for the first half of the season – and possibly the entire summer.Nicholson took 44 wickets for Surrey last season in the Championship, but with uncertainty over Asif’s involvement, he could play a fuller role than was first anticipated. Asif, the Pakistan fast bowler, will be unavailable until June at the earliest, and his board have also expressed concerns about his workload.”The Pakistan board have said they are not going to allow their quick bowlers to play county cricket, which is understandable as most of their first-choice bowlers are on the sidelines at the moment,” Alan Butcher, the Surrey manager, said.”So while we have a contract, it must be said it’s far from certain that he’ll be able to take up that contract. At the end of last season Matt made it very plain that he’d be delighted to come back and play for us, and I know that everyone in the dressing room is really delighted he will be with us for at least the first part of the season.”I would have no qualms at all if it turned into a full season’s contract.”

The West Indies Cricket Board is expected to submit a review of the bowling action of the fast bowler Jermaine Lawson to the International Cricket Council by August 12.Lawson, 21, was reported to the ICC for a suspect bowling action during the fourth and final Test between West Indies and Australia in Antigua in May. His career-best figures of 7 for 78 had decimated Australia’s first innings, but he was unable to take any further part in a famous victory.”Jermaine has been carrying along very well with the remedial programme in Jamaica,” remarked Dr. Michael Seepersaud, the WICB’s chief cricket development officer, who is supervising the review process of Lawson’s bowling action.”The back problems that set back the remedial work on his bowling action are now over,” he added. “He’s free from pain, and substantial progress has been made to ensure his all-round biomechanical efficiency.”Next week, the WICB is expected to fly biomechanics specialist Dr. Paul Hurrion from Britain to conduct an assessment of Lawson. “Dr. Hurrion has worked in a similar capacity for the ICC with other bowlers,” said Dr Seepersaud. “He is highly recommended, so we are pleased to have him come and work with Jermaine. Once we have his analysis, we will convene the bowling committee and send our review to the ICC for their consideration.”Lawson has captured 29 wickets at 24.31 runs apiece in seven Tests to date. In addition to that seven-wicket haul at St John’s, he picked up a hat-trick in the preceding Test at Bridgetown.

The ECB have named the England under-19 squad for the first Test against South Africa, with Nottinghamshire allrounder Bilal Shafayat continuing as captain.The match takes place from August 1 to 4 at Headingley and is the first of three Vodafone Tests and three Vodafone one-day internationals against South Africa during the month.England under-19 squad:Bilal Shafayat (Capt)
Ravinder Bopara
Tim Bresnan
Neil Edwards
Adam Harrison
Andrew Hodd (wk)
Mark Lawson
Michael Parsons
Samit Patel
Liam Plunkett
Joseph Sayers
Luke Wright
Tim Boon (Coach)
Graham Saville (Manager)

The ICC has announced that the winner of the India-Pakistan series, to be decided in the fifth one-dayer on March 24, will be ranked higher than the other in the ICC ODI championship table.At present, Pakistan is ranked fifth with 107 points, and India and England are just behind on 106 points. If India win the series, they will climb to fifth, with 107 points, and Pakistan will go down to 106. If Pakistan win, they will go to 108, with India slipping to 105. If the series – and the final match, of course – is tied, then the status quo will be maintained.Australia, of course, head the table, with a mammoth 135 points.

Sri Lanka’s cricket authorities are adamant that the Asia Cup will proceed as planned, despite Wednesday’s suicide bombing in Colombo that killed five people.The Asia Cup, in which the Test nations of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will be joined by the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, is set to begin on July 16, and continue for a fortnight.But Ray Illangakoon, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Cricket Board, told BBC Sport that there was no threat of cancellation. “It is not a bad situation here. Not one cricket board has approached us and asked for a re-scheduling of the tournament.” he said, adding that extra security would be provided on request, although no team had yet seen fit to do so."Security is a matter of concern," added SK Nair, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, “though it was not discussed at the selectors meeting. We will be coordinating with the Sri Lankan board on this issue.”

After what feels like the longest phoney war in history, England’s summer finally gets underway for real tomorrow, when two confident and competitive teams come head to head in a must-win clash in Nottingham. Trent Bridge is the venue for the first of three floodlit matches in the NatWest Series, and the stakes could not be higher for England and … err … Bangladesh …?It’s been a surreal and eye-catching week for cricket. Australia’s astonishing run of defeats, which reached its nadir at Cardiff on Saturday, has been compulsive viewing, with incessant exposure on both the front and back pages of every newspaper in England. It is a measure of how badly they have stumbled that Sunday’s loss to the Poms was widely regarded as a hugely improved performance.Nobody truly doubts that the Aussies will rise again before the series, let alone the Ashes, are out, but for the moment their wobble has turned a disgracefully mismatched tournament into the most enthralling one-day jamboree in years. Call it schadenfreude if you will, but until this tour, the so-called lottery version of the game might as well have been sponsored by Camelot – because the odds of an Australian defeat, like the jackpot, were roughly 14 million-to-1.Consequently, Bangladesh’s rollover at Cardiff has provided an improbable spice to tomorrow’s encounter at Trent Bridge. During the Test series, Michael Vaughan was fond of referring to “potential banana skins” when trying to be polite about the challenge posed by Bangladesh, but on Saturday night, “no comment” was the best, and wisest, words he could come up with. With rain in the air (and the capricious prospect of batting under lights, should his form at the toss fail him), Vaughan will be unexpectedly wary of the side whom England trounced by ten wickets at The Oval last week.Nothing is unthinkable anymore, but it is not merely stating the obvious to suggest that a repeat performance is improbable. Bangladesh have thrived on their diminished expectations in this tournament – and when the sun shone at Sophia Gardens they soared – but it has taken twenty years for their victories tally to reach double-figures. Two in four days would be stretching fantasy to its limits.What is more, they are up against the team that has been giving them short shrift all season. Vaughan’s men have been careful to maintain a professional ruthlessness without veering towards complacency, but the weekend’s events will have been a timely reminder that nothing in this game can ever be taken for granted.The only error England made in their first match against Bangladesh was to lose their focus at 76 for 6, and allow the tail to recover to a competitive total of 190. It was a similar mindset to the one that led Ricky Ponting to bat first in juicy conditions at Cardiff, but it didn’t prove nearly so ruinous. Should Vaughan win the toss tomorrow, he would be ill-advised to field first in a bid to wrap things up nice and quickly.England do, nevertheless, have a few issues to resolve, not least the lack of time in the middle that Andrew Flintoff and Geraint Jones have enjoyed so far this summer. Neither lasted long on Sunday, nor at the Rose Bowl during the Twenty20, so there may be some temptation to tinker with the order and allow them a hit from Nos. 3 and 4 respectively. With Pietersen and his 162-run average lurking in the middle of the innings, England do have the most enviable of failsafes.The return of Ashley Giles is a boon as well. His pivotal presence at No. 8 hasn’t yet been missed, but his restrictive bowling spells certainly have – it has been more through luck than judgment that the part-timers, Paul Collingwood and Michael Vaughan, have not been better exploited. Assuming his dodgy hip doesn’t suffer a late relapse, he should return to the side in place of Vikram Solanki.But for Bangladesh, the afterglow of the Australia triumph will live on long, regardless of what happens tomorrow. “There will be no mental block in the next game,” promised Habibul Bashar, one of the architects of their victory. “We are really confident now.” England have been forewarned. The momentum of their summer demands that there can be no slip-up.England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Andrew Strauss, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Kevin Pietersen, 7 Geraint Jones (wk), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Jon Lewis, 10 Darren Gough, 11 Steve Harmison.Bangladesh (probable) 1 Nafees Iqbal, 2 Javed Omar, 3 Tushar Imran, 4 Mohammad Ashraful, 5 Habibul Bashar (capt), 6 Aftab Ahmed, 7 Mohammad Rafique, 8 Khaled Mashud (wk), 9 Mashrafe Mortaza, 10 Tapash Baisya, 11 Nazmul Hossain.

After carelessly arranging to get married in the middle of next week’s fourth and final Test against West Indies, Andre Nel’s awkward situation has finally been resolved.Nel and his fiancé, Deanne Weitz, have postponed the big day so Nel can play in the match at Centurion Park. The wedding was originally planned for 4.30pm on Saturday January 17, the second day of the Test. Nel had not expected to feature in the series when he set the date ten months ago, before he was contracted to the South African board.They have now managed to put the start back by two hours to 6.30pm that Saturday, meaning Nel will have to quickly swap his whites for his morning coat after play.Nel was delighted with the solution: “It’s been a pretty confusing and difficult time for us, but I am very pleased we were able to find an alternative time," he said. "I am fully committed to playing in the Test match and will be giving my usual %100 on the field throughout.”Deanne has been very understanding and supportive throughout the whole issue, as have the coach and convener of selectors,” he added. Nel wasn’t worried about anything going wrong, such as the possibility of play overrunning: “For once the groom might be late for the wedding!”Eric Simons, South Africa’s coach, was also pleased the issue has been settled: “Its good news all round," he said. "Nella has been a key man in our attack and it will be good to be able to select from the full squad.”The fourth Test starts at Centurion Park on Friday, January 16.

Queensland have the chance to avenge their Pura Cup final loss when they host New South Wales in the opening ING Cup match of the season at the Gabba in October. Cricket Australia launched the domestic fixture list today with a move towards more night matches and the introduction of twilight games.While capital city spectators will benefit from the more accessible times, regional supporters in New South Wales and Victoria have received a boost as matches will be staged away from the main grounds. The Blues will play an ING Cup fixture at Coffs Harbour and a Pura Cup game at Lismore while Drummoyne Oval, North Sydney Oval and the SCG will also be used.Victoria return to Wangaratta for the first time since they played West Indies in 1996, and the Bushrangers will set up camp at St Kilda as the MCG prepares for the Commonwealth Games. The Wangaratta match against New South Wales will start at midday and four more twilight matches are scheduled for Tasmania’s home one-day clashes.South Australia will need to be owls as they are due to play six ING Cup games under lights while Western Australia and Queensland have four of their limited-overs home affairs as day-nighters. The Bulls, who suffered a one-wicket loss in last season’s Pura Cup final, will open the first-class season against Tasmania at the Gabba on October 17.James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, said the domestic competition and its scheduling continued to provide value and interest for all cricket followers. However, details of the Twenty20 domestic tournament, which will be a much-hyped event and is set down for January, are still being finalised.Fixtures at a glance
New South Wales
Country double-header against Victoria with an ING Cup match at Coffs Harbour on January 14 and a Pura Cup game starting at Lismore on January 16.
Drummoyne Oval to host Western Australia in the final ING Cup group match on February 19.Queensland
Four day-night ING Cup fixtures at the Gabba.
Home games at the newly-completed Gabba, which holds 40,000.South Australia
Four home ING Cup matches under lights at the Adelaide Oval.
Six of ten ING Cup matches are day-night fixtures.Tasmania
Home Pura Cup matches at Bellerive Oval.
Four home ING Cup fixtures are twilight games starting at 11.30am.Western Australia
Four home ING Cup matches under lights at the WACA.
Victoria
Home matches at the St Kilda Cricket Ground.
An ING Cup twilight fixture beginning at midday at Wangaratta.

Kabir Ali has been called up to replace Glen Chapple for England’s one-day series against Sri Lanka which gets underway at Lord’s on Saturday. Chapple has been forced out of the squad owing to an abdominal muscle strain he picked up in England’s win over Ireland on Tuesday at Stormont.Chapple, who made his one-day international debut in the match against Ireland, will return to Lancashire to receive treatment and misses England’s Twenty20 clash against Sri Lanka at the Rose Bowl today. Ali last played for England against India during the winter, with mixed success, and will join the England squad at Lord’s tomorrow.”Obviously it’s very disappointing for Glen,” said David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, “but everyone hopes that after receiving the right treatment at Lancashire he’ll be able to rejoin the squad and play a part in the latter stages of the NatWest Series.”England’s Twenty20 clash begins at 19.15BST this evening.