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Harbhajan Singh has been temporarily suspended from the Indian Premier League following his spat with Sreesanth at the end of the Mumbai-Punjab game in Mohali on Friday.His suspension is pending the inquiry into the incident on Monday, which means he would not be able to play Mumbai’s home match against Deccan Chargers on Sunday.”Based on prima facie video evidence as seen and reviewed by the match adjudicator and referee Farokh Engineer from the tapes provided by Sony & TWI a decision has been reached to suspend Harbhajan Singh pending the inquiry into the incident on Monday, April 28th 2008,” a release from the Indian board said.Engineer will conduct a hearing on April 28 inquiring into the Harbhajan-Sreesanth row in Delhi. Both Harbhajan and Sreesanth will be present and video evidence, if any, will be used during the hearing which will be conducted as per the ICC Code of Conduct.Ratnakar Shetty, the chief administrative officer of the board, said Harbhajan was answerable to both the IPL and the BCCI. “There will be separate inquiries from the IPL and BCCI,” he said.Engineer was the match referee of the game between the Kings XI Punjab and the Mumbai Indians, after the completion of which Harbhajan allegedly slapped Sreesanth, reducing him to tears on the field. Although both players sought to play down the incident, the Punjab team lodged a formal complaint against Harbhajan Singh to the BCCI. The Indian board took a serious view of the incident and asked him submit his explanation before April 28.”The inquiry date has been fixed for Monday in New Delhi. We are not going to sweep things under the carpet. The complaint has to be carefully examined before any decision is made,” Engineer said. “Everything possible will be done to adjudicate it immediately.”The complaint made by the management of the Punjab team has been referred to me by Lalit Modi, chief commissioner of the IPL, for immediate adjudication under the ICC Code of Conduct. I have already started the process and will be summoning all concerned and will also seek any video evidence recorded by the host broadcaster.”Since the process has started I will request the media not to seek any further clarification or information. I will furnish my report to chief commissioner of IPL, keeping in view the ICC code of Conduct and interest of cricket.”The Mumbai Indians are hopeful the issue will be resolved amicably. Reacting to the news that Harbhajan has been temporarily suspended till the hearing on Monday, a top team official of the Mumbai Indians said, “The incident involving Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth of the Kings XI Punjab was most unfortunate.”The [IPL] governing council has set up an adjudication panel to inquire into the incident. The Mumbai Indians are confident that the decision taken by the panel will be in the best interests of cricket and the Indian Premier League.”IS Bindra, the Punjab Cricket Association president, said they would provide logistical support to Engineer to conduct the inquiry. The hearing will take place at the Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi on April 28th, after which Engineer will announce his verdict.

The BCCI’s shambolic efforts to find a national coach took an embarrassing turn today when it was revealed that Graham Ford, the former South African coach who’s now director of coaching at Kent County Cricket Club, had turned down the offer to coach the national side. Ford had been chosen last Saturday after a seven-man committee listened to presentations from him and John Emburey, the other candidate to be invited to the meeting in Chennai.It was no secret that Ford was the players’ choice, with the grapevine suggesting that the move for him had been initiated by Rahul Dravid, the Indian captain. After Greg Chappell’s tenure, characterised by off-field controversy as much as anything on the field, Ford – who has a reputation as a back-room facilitator rather than an outspoken disciplinarian – was seen as the perfect choice to heal the fissures within the Indian team.The news will come as a severe blow to the BCCI, who didn’t have any other noteworthy candidate lined up once Dav Whatmore was ruled out by the committee. The top officials are currently in Bangalore, in parleys with senior players over contracts, and this development will force them to send out fresh smoke signals for what was once seen as one of the more prized assignments in international cricket.Soon after that meeting, N Srinivasan, the board treasurer, spoke about the decision. “We have received a communication from Graham Ford that he cannot accept our offer at short notice because of his commitments to Kent. He has said he’s withdrawing as candidate for the position.” Srinivasan added that the matter would be discussed at the working committee meeting in New Delhi tomorrow.Sunil Gavaskar, a member of the committee that interviewed Ford, said he was unaware of the reasons behind Ford’s decision. “We are back to square one, that is a fact of life”, he said. “I don’t know what the BCCI’s thinking is, whether it will start the process [of appointing a coach] all over again or make a short-term appointment as it did for the Bangladesh tour.”There is also the possibility that it will fall back on Emburey. When contacted by Cricinfo, Emburey said: “I haven’t heard anything from the BCCI, I understand they are trying to contact me but haven’t heard yet.” However, Times Now, an Indian television channel, reported that Emburey had turned down the offer as well.A media release issued by Kent quoted Ford as saying: “I am very grateful to the club for allowing me to go to India to find out more about the job of coaching the Indian Team. I have had a chance to reflect on the offer made by the BCCI and their urgency to fill the vacant position.”After careful consideration, I have decided to continue my work here at Kent. This has been a really difficult decision. I am honoured that India have shown such interest in my capabilities, but feel that this is the right decision for me and my family.”Kent were understandably delighted by Ford’s decision to stay. Graham Johnson, the club chairman, said: “This is really great news for Kent cricket. We are delighted Graham has decided to stay with us. I would like to say how much we appreciate the way Graham has handled the last few days.”I know that all in the business at Kent, the playing staff, the coaching staff and all our administrators will be thrilled by his decision. It also says much about the future vision we have for Kent, the way we conduct our business and how we all play a part in the delivery of that vision, not least through what we do on the field.”

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.

Kabir Ali has been assured by David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors, that he does have an England future, despite being overlooked for the winter tours to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.Kabir was in the victorious NatWest Series squad this summer, and made his Test debut later against South Africa at Headingley, taking five wickets in the match. However, he was dropped for the final Test at The Oval and didn’t make either the Test or one-day international squad to the sub-continent.”I’ve spoken to Kabir a lot and there are areas of his game that he needs to work on,” said Graveney. “I’m sure the taste he has had with England will be the first of many, many times where he is involved.”Instead of a long hot slog in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka this winter, Kabir will have the colder comforts of Loughborough and the national academy. “I’ve spoken to Tom Moody [Worcestershire’s director of cricket] about things and we feel that is the best course of action for him this winter,” Graveney explained. “He will be involved with the academy part-time to work on those things.”

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.

Frustration, and the ability to cope with it, has long been the lot of New Zealand cricket fans, but for once, in Durban today, the luck went New Zealand’s way.The horrendous state of affairs that saw South Africa tie their game with Sri Lanka under the Duckworth/Lewis system had to be even more freakish than South Africa’s exit in the semi-finals of the 1999 World Cup.But after suffering the dent that was the lowest score in Test history of 26, for waiting 26 years for their first Test victory, of being denied regular competition against the might of Australia, of losing Martin Crowe to a hamstring injury in the semi-finals of the 1992 World Cup, of having to do without key players at various times over the last three or four years and a host of other calamities that had to be taken in stride, New Zealanders could be entitled to feel that the tide might be momentarily swinging their way.For all those reasons there will be sympathy with South Africa and their failure to advance. However, the signs were there for them.They failed to beat any of the top three opponents they faced in pool play. The West Indies and New Zealand both beat them and then there was the tie with Sri Lanka.Had New Zealand missed out, their demise would have been the result of the first-game loss to Sri Lanka, far more than it might have been because of the forfeiture of the Kenyan game.New Zealand knew before the tournament started they would probably lose those four points to Kenya. They couldn’t do anything about that.However, the beating of Sri Lanka was in their own hands, and they exposed themselves to unnecessary anguish by succumbing to experimentation, and rampant recklessness at the start of their innings which almost undid them.Now the chance is there for New Zealand to advance.The side Stephen Fleming has built around him has shown increasing solidity, confidence and awareness that their time, after years of building up, is upon them.What happens over the next few weeks will define their careers.They are within a chance of establishing themselves as the equal, if not the superior, of the finest team of the 1980s.That is the reality facing a side who have risen to No 3 on the ICC Test Championship, who have won the first international competition by a New Zealand side at the 2000 ICC KnockOut in Kenya, who have proven the only side capable of giving Australia a nudge in Test cricket and who have started to produce world-class performances by individuals within their ranks.Yet, even they would admit that there is a need to step-up their level of performance as they head into the next phase of the tournament.The bowling must tighten up.The respective attacks of Australia, India and whoever of England, Pakistan or Zimbabwe will play them in the Super Six leg will be well-primed to take toll of the New Zealand faults if they exist.What is encouraging is the solidity of the batting that has emerged, after what was a horror season at home in difficult conditions.Yet, of the batsmen, only Fleming and Scott Styris with their centuries against South Africa and Sri Lanka respectively, have really taken attacks apart.Craig McMillan, Nathan Astle, Chris Cairns, Lou Vincent, Jacob Oram and Andre Adams all still have more to pull out of the fire, and they will need to if New Zealand is to realistically aim for a finals place.There is still plenty for all members of the side to offer, and now they have the perfect platform in which to strut their stuff.

* Bengal select 28 Ranji probablesThe selection committee of the Cricket Association of Bengal havesprung a few surprises by omitting notable players like SrikantKalyani, Alokendu Lahiri, Wrichik Majumder and Sujay Parui from thelist of Ranji probables for the 2001-02 season.The 28 probables will start their conditioning under the guidance ofVace Paes from the first week of August. Bengal’s new coach, formerTest all rounder Karsan Ghavri will reach Kolkata on July 27. Thisyear the Bengal team will play in the Buchi Babu Trophy tournament inChennai and the Moin-ud-Dowlah Trophy tourney in Hyderabad. The seniorselection committee and the junior selection committee sat along withThe CAB President Jagmohan Dalmiya and the joint secretaries and theassistant secretaries while selecting the players.The probables: Arindam Das, Amitava Chakrabarty, Aurijeet Basu, NikhilHaldipur, Rohan Gavaskar, Devang Gandhi, Subhamoy Das, SaikatMukherjee, Soumen Singh, Safi Ahmed, Souvik Mukherjee, SubhradipGanguly, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ranadeb Bose, Sabir Ali, Shib ShankarPaul, Samad Akhtar, Sanjib Sanyal, Dharmendra Singh, Samrat Guha,Utpal Chatterjee, Pradipta Majumder, Gaurav Sharma, Murtaza Lodghar,Sourashish Lahiri, Saujan Biswas, Deep Dasgupta and Ritesh Jaiswal.* 54 teams for Chennai inter-school tourneyThe Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, with the help of sponsors,regularly conducts age wise tournaments in the age group of 12, 14 and16 to help unearth young talent. And the Parle-G TNCA C RamaswamyTrophy (under-16) tournament is a step in this direction.According to Ashok Kumbhat, secretary, TNCA, Parle Products Ltd aresponsoring this tournament for the second year in succession. Thetournament will be played at various grounds in Chennai from July 25.As many as 54 school teams are in the fray. Matches will be played on30-over basis initially and on a knock-out format till the prequarter-finals. The last 16 teams will be divided into four groups andthe matches will be played on 50 overs on a league basis. The top teamin each group will qualify for the semifinals to be played on 50overs. The final will be a two day match.To make it attractive to the young participants, the sponsors havecome up with a number of incentives. There are prizes for the teamswho qualify for the semifinals while the prize money to the finalistsis Rs 9,000 (runners-up) and Rs 16,000 (winners) besides trophies.There will be a man of the match award for all games. Uniforms will begiven to the players with the logo of the sponsors and the TNCA.

Hamish Marshall’s unbeaten 155 in the New Zealand Academy’s game with Tamil Nadu Districts in Chennai is a significant step in his burgeoning career.His effort ensured the side complete control in its first game in the MRF Buchi Babu Invitation Tournament as it reached 382-8, a lead of 223 runs.The twin brother of James Marshall, Hamish has been the later developer of the two. However, he was always seen as a potential international. Three years ago, he was called into New Zealand’s Youth World Cup team when Michael Papps returned home injured.He won a place in the final of that tournament and a season later was playing for Northern Districts. While he took time to adapt, he was persevered with by the ND selectors and in 13 first-class games before the Academy tour to India, he had scored 418 runs at 20.9.His best score was 58 against Central Districts in last summer’s Shell Trophy competition.His Northern Districts coach Chris Kuggeleijn was delighted with news of his innings.”What that will do for his confidence is great. It is great to see someone doing well over there, not just because he’s from Northern Districts, but because we want to see New Zealand cricket do well.”Hamish could be anything he wants to be. He hadn’t really blown the world away in his last season but you can’t push young guys, just keep working with them.”You can see the potential is there, and what he does in the field is tremendous. He is a great fielder.”Watch him in four years time, who knows how good he will be?”I’m looking forward to catching up with him when he comes back. He might just have got the monkey off his back and gone from a promising player to a good one.”I’ve got a lot of faith in him and, in fact, in all the young players in our side. They can play three times better than what they did last season,” Kuggeleijn said.Yesterday he faced 223 balls when batting for much of the day and hit 19 fours in his innings. He came to the wicket with New Zealand 50/3 and added 83 for the fourth wicket with Jacob Oram, who was dismissed for 54.Aaron Redmond then dug in with Marshall during a 153-run fifth wicket stand. Redmond was next out for 71.New Zealand also maintained a good scoring rate with its 350 posted in 100.3 overs.

Scorecard

Lancashire may have had a wry smile when the fixture list pitted them back at The Oval, the scene of their heartbreaking 25-run defeat last September which handed Sussex the Championship title, for the first match of this season. They weren’t grinning, however, as Mark Ramprakash added to the twin centuries he scored in that game with his 98th first-class hundred as Surrey motored to 242 for 2 and overshadowed the return of Andrew Flintoff.For Ramprakash it was as though 2007 had never finished, but he should have been marching off with a duck. The over after Flintoff struck with his 20th ball Ramprakash edged the lively Oliver Newby behind, but Luke Sutton could only palm a regulation chance through the slips. There will have been a feeling of déjà vu in the Lancashire camp; during the match last September they had a chance to remove Ramprakash twice in single figures. History repeated itself when Ramprakash, on 24, pushed the ball towards mid-off and set off for a single before slipping mid-pitch. Flintoff collected, turned but missed his shy at the non-striker’s end with Ramprakash stranded.From then on it felt inevitable that Ramprakash would reach three figures, and the second half of his innings was markedly quicker. He brought up the hundred off 164 balls with a meaty pull through midwicket. It was just one of a string of imperious shots with his driving a stand-out feature. Before this game Ramprakash spoke about a couple of soft dismissals he’d suffered in pre-season and how it warned him to keep working. Faced with the first real serious challenge of the season it was enough to focus the mind.However, regardless of how many runs Ramprakash makes – and today’s came in front of Geoff Miller, the national selector – an England recall seems to have passed him by. Miller, though, was really here to watch Flintoff, playing his first first-class match since last August and he produced spells of five and four overs before bad light cut short his third stint. Play had been delayed by two hours by heavy overnight rain, but the surface was unaffected and Mark Butcher was happy to bat.Flintoff came on in the 13th over and worked up a decent head of steam from the Pavilion End on a typically true Oval pitch, following through nicely and getting the ball carrying to Sutton at waist height. His first spell ended with the impressive figures of 5-3-9-1 and he remained the pick of a Lancashire attack that struggled to contain except when Gary Keedy wheeled away from the Vauxhall End.The ball that gave Flintoff his first first-class wicket since August 11 was one of his more undisguised efforts as he dragged the delivery down short. Scott Newman quickly latched on with a pull, but didn’t keep the ball down as it spiralled towards long-leg where Newby sprinted in and held a fine, low catch. Newby had taken the opening wicket in the previous over, trapping Jon Batty lbw with a full delivery.Newby should have also been involved in a third wicket and Lancashire were made to pay for giving Ramprakash a life. Butcher joined in an entertaining third-wicket stand of 186 and was actually the more fluent early on. He crunched a couple of pleasing early drives and reached his half-century off 89 balls. His chance to open the hundred account for the season must wait; Ramprakash has already started and the countdown is on.

Dinanath Ramnarine, the West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) president and CEO, has rebutted Bruce Aanensen, CEO of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), on his version of how the arbitration process had gone to date on the issue of the England tour, stating that some facts were misrepresented in a WICB media conference on Friday.After giving the players the go-ahead to sign up for the controversial tour yesterday, Ramnarine disputed Aanensen’s version of why the resolution for the controversial England tour had arrived at this juncture.The failure of the regional administration to deliver their supporting documents by an extended May 4 deadline set by an arbitration panel led by the Barbados Chief Justice Sir David Simmons forced Simmons to give a new deadline of May 7, 10.30am, for the WICB to submit their case and supporting documents.”If this time frame is not kept, the panel may have to consider proceeding to determine the issue on such documents as it has at the time,” Simmons said.The Chief Justice’s warning follows Aanensen’s claim that the board had submitted their case to the arbitration panel last Tuesday, a statement that was in contradiction to the one made by Aanensen in Friday’s WICB media conference that was broadcast throughout the region from the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain.”All the documents have been submitted to him,” Aanensen said in a CMC [Caribbean Media Corporation] interview last week. “He [Simmons] says he needs time to study them and that he doesn’t believe there is any way that they can have this arbitration prior to the team leaving on the 8th.”However, in Friday’s media conference, Aanensen explained the discrepancy in his earlier disclosure by saying the WICB could not be expected to have supplied their supporting documents and written submissions because they were only informed about the terms of reference on May 1.The terms of reference are whether the tour to England is within or outside the ICC Future Tours Program.”So how could Ramnarine say that the WICB did not meet the deadline of April 27 for submitting documents when the terms of reference were only known on May 1?” he asked, before adding that the Simmons-chaired panel would rule on the matter on May 15.However, documents seen by the Sunday Express showed no mention of a resolution by May 15, the panel only advising that if the need for oral argument arises, that would be facilitated on Wednesday (May 9) and Thursday (May 10) this week.Simmons had also attempted to extend the deadline to the WICB to May 4 but was advised by the board’s lawyers they would not be ready due to previously-pending matters.”In the circumstances I must insist that I have WICB’s case and documents no later than 10.30am Monday May 7,” the Simmons insisted.The Sunday Express understands that after the April 22 stalemate between WIPA and the WICB that sent the issue to arbitration, the Players’ Association issued both their supporting documents and written submissions to Simmons on April 27. The WICB are yet to issue theirs.If the WICB are tardy, the arbitration panel said it will be forced to issue a ruling without data to support the board’s case. Asked about other matters still outstanding from previous arbitrations, Ramnarine said he was concentrating on the England tour issue and would deal with those matters subsequently.