The ICC executive has decided to recommend to its annual general meeting in June that Kenya be stripped of its status as an ODI member and will revert to being as associate member. The executive, who have been meeting in Dubai, also announced that the Africa Cricket Association (ACA) would be looking into the ongoing crisis in the country.The ICC accepted an offer by the ACA to travel to Kenya to speak with the parties involved in the current dispute to see if a resolution to the current impasse is possible. The ACA will be assisted by Percy Sonn, the ICC’s vice-president, and will report to the executive on the findings of thisvisit and its view on whether the current issues can be resolved.At the same time, the ICC will continue with the initiative of an independent commission to develop a new constitution for cricket in Kenya. This commission, which was established last year, has been in limbo since the announcement of the formation of Cricket Kenya in January.Another blow to the Kenyan Cricket Association came with the news that that suspension of the special funding from the ICC would continue, although the executive did agree to release the $54,000 associate member entitlement to help “deal with the pressing financial obligations of the KCA.”Kenya’s loss of one-day membership almost exactly two years after they reached the World Cup semi-finals will be a bitter pill to swallow and is clearly a result of the bitter in-fighting which has blighted Kenyan cricket for so long.But it will retain its one-day status for matches against Test-playing countries and also against other members of the top six associates.

Ireland have been given a huge boost with the return of Andre Botha, the allrounder, for the Quadrangular series after a tennis elbow kept him out of the ODIs against India and South Africa, their coach Phil Simmons said.”We really missed him at the start of the summer when we gave a lot of younger lads the chance,” Simmons told sportinglife.com. “He always gets through his overs efficiently and his batting gives us options at the top of the order.”In their final match of the series, against Scotland, Botha picked up 3 for 27 in nine overs after adding 46 with Niall O’Brien as Ireland beat Scotland by 23 runs. But Ireland failed to gain the bonus point point needed to share the series title with West Indies. They had to bowl out Scotland for 177 but the visitors managed to make 199.Meanwhile Ryan Watson, the Scotland captain, felt that his side had played well in parts but were not good enough to win matches at the international level. Chasing 223, Scotland were at a comfortable 167 for 3 in the 44th over before they lost their last seven wickets in the space of 39 balls.”We didn’t bowl as well as we can, which is unusual for us, but there were positives,” said Watson, who top-scored with 83. “Neil McCallum showed what a good player he is with his 54 and we’ve got to follow his lead in the Intercontinental Cup matches against Ireland and Netherlands next month.”Scotland play two four-day games against Netherlands and Ireland as part of the ICC Intercontinental Cup between August 2 and 12.

ScorecardDurham came crashing back to earth after their Friends Provident success with a 31-run defeat against Somerset in the Pro40. Marcus Trescothick, Craig Kieswetter and Neil McKenzie all scored at better than a run-a-ball as Somerset piled up 289. Durham’s challenge faded once Phil Mustard’s blistering 84 had been ended by Andy Caddick, who claimed five-wickets in a match dominated by the bat.As usual, runs flowed from the start at Taunton as Trescothick and Kieswetter added 153 for the first wicket. All the Durham bowlers came in for heavy punishment before Gareth Breese broke through. Liam Plunkett took two quick wickets, but the runs kept flowing as McKenzie cracked four fours and three sixes in his 53-ball 69.But Durham didn’t go down without a fight as the impressive Mustard led the reply. Kyle Coetzer made 42 off 33 balls before being bowled by Ian Blackwell and the main stand came between Mustard and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (68) added 95. However, Caddick had Mustard caught by Justin Langer then removed the middle order and Blackwell claimed two more to end the match to keep Somerset’s promotion hopes alive.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

After the run-fest at the Wanderers on Tuesday night, it was back tonormalcy and worse for Kenya at Kingsmead. New Zealand may have enjoyed alengthy off-season and gone through a change at the top, with DanielVettori taking over from Stephen Fleming, but out on the pitch, it wasvery much normal service as the World Cup semi-finalists romped to anine-wicket win after bowling Kenya out for the lowest-ever score inTwenty20 internationals, 73.Shane Bond, Mark Gillespie, Chris Martin and Vettori exploited the extrabounce on a well-grassed pitch to bowl the hapless Kenyans out with 19balls remaining of the 20 overs, and it took New Zealand just 7.4 overs toannounce their intent. But for a 36-run partnership for the fifth wicketbetween Thomas Odoyo and Collins Obuya, it might have been immeasurablyworse. A late flourish from Rajesh Bhudia and Jimmy Kamande nudged thetotal further towards respectability, but it was never going to stretch apowerful New Zealand line-up.Predictably, it was Bond’s pace that started the slide, with a balldarting back into Maurice Ouma and crashing into the stumps via the elbow.When the promising Tanmay Mishra then slashed one to point, it brought thecaptain, Steve Tikolo, to the crease.But worse was to follow as Gillespie took over. David Obuya went gingerlyback to the first ball, and ended up treading on his stumps, and fourballs later came the biggest blow as Tikolo was trapped plumb in front bya delivery that swung in at pace.Odoyo and Obuya revived matters somewhat, taking Jacob Oram for two foursin an over when he came on, but New Zealand had too much in reserve. ChrisMartin had Odoyo miscuing a pull to mid-off, and Nehemiah Odhiambofollowed in identical fashion before Vettori decided to get in on the act.

Obuya was smartly stumped off a leg-side wide, and Alex Obanda bowled offthe pad, and after Budhia slammed a six to slightly tarnish Martin’sfigures, two full tosses from Gillespie finished things off.Kenya needed early wickets, but after two vociferous appeals from Odoyowere turned down, Lou Vincent and Brendan McCullum made short work of aminiscule target. Vincent crashed four fours and a six in his 27 beforesmashing one low to mid-off, and after Peter Fulton survived an excellentshout from Peter Ongondo, two huge sixes off Bhudia put the seal on anemphatic display.Bond’s figures of 2 for 12 were the best for a completed spell in aTwenty20 game, but Gillespie’s 4 for 7 fetched him man of the matchhonours. And the four zeroes at the top of the Kenyan order were anominous sign as Vettori’s team illustrated just why the All Blacks aren’tthe only team in with a chance of a world title in the not-too-distant future.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has set a deadline of October 30 for the appointment of a national coach.The decision comes in the wake of BCB’s ad-hoc committee supporting a proposal by the board president Major General Sina Ibn Jamali. “We have decided to appoint a new national coach before October 30. We are hopeful that we will be able to finalise it before the deadline,” Ishtiaque Ahmed, the vice-chairman of the BCB’s media committee, told the Dhaka-based . .Ahmed was reported as saying that John Dyson, the former Australian batsman who coached Sri Lanka, had expressed his interest but this was neither confirmed or denied by Gazi Ashraf Hossain, the chairman of the board’s cricket operations committee.”It is better to mention a name only when we can reach a certain level of communication with someone,” said Ahmed. “It is always good to set a target but that doesn’t mean we compromise with our requirements just to meet the deadline. You need some time to locate the candidates”The board had made a fresh start in its search for national coach, after all three short-listed candidates had either refused or been ruled out. John Harmer turned down the post after being the only one to make a presentation to the board. Prior to that, Dave Houghton, the former Zimbabwe captain, had withdrawn his candidature citing family problems; while Jamie Siddons, the former Australian batsman, was out of contention after the board couldn’t match his terms and conditions.The board has been looking for a national coach since Dav Whatmore, who guided them for four years, refused to extend his contract. His last assignment was the home series against India in May. Shaun Williams has been interim coach of the team since the the away series against Sri Lanka in June and July.

Adam Gilchrist, Australia’s stand-in captain in the last two games, admitted the team never managed to hit the stride after a long lay-off since the World Cup win in the West Indies.”A bit stuttery for us, wasn’t it? A bad start and then a win and a loss and a win … We never really got into a great rhythm,” Gilchrist said after the semi-final loss to India at Kingsmead. “Probably to be expected from the break we had – and the lack of preparation. But by the time tonight came around, we’d played enough to be ready.”Gilchrist singled out Sreesanth’s dismissal of Matthew Hayden as the turning-point of the semi-final at Kingsmead. “I felt Sreesanth was the difference in that game. I felt like we were in control, particularly with Matty [Hayden] and Symmo [Andrew Symonds] there, but then that big over. Getting Matty out just turned things their way.”Unsurprisingly, he also praised the form of one particular Indian batsman: “Yuvraj is in a great mindset. He’s confident, he’s seeing the ball well, he’s just trusting himself. Crowds love [cricketers who] play without fear.”And there was admiration, too, for his opposite number as captain. “I thought [Mahendra Singh] Dhoni captained beautifully tonight. He just chose the right times to bowl those bowlers in the last three or four overs.”But when encouraged to pick a winner of Monday’s final in Johannesburg, Gilchrist refused to be drawn. “Both teams are playing with a high level of skill. The Indian batting is so dangerous – and Pakistan are bowling beautifully … so I can’t pick a winner because it’s that type of game. A little bit of luck does help teams get over the line in the big game. I’m sitting right on the fence.”There was a moment’s hesitation when he was asked if he thought Twenty20 was cricket dumbing down. “I’ve been wrestling back and forwards with it … I do think it’s going to improve one-day cricket. I’m not sure it’ll do much for Test cricket, but Test cricket’s still a pretty good product.” But, warming to his subject, he declared, “I think it’s very much a positive for the game.”However, he did call the worth of individual, non-tournament Twenty20 games in to question. “It’ll be interesting to see the one-off Twenty20 games now, what rides on those if there’s nothing really up for grabs.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

A clinical South Africa levelled the five-match series 2-2 with a seven-wicket win over Pakistan in Multan. The visitors boosted their chances of a comeback by restricting Pakistan to 230 after the hosts decided to bat on a flat surface.Following that, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith effortlessly outclassed the opposition with a match-winning 159-run stand after Herschelle Gibbs got the ball rolling. Pakistan failed to really fire with the bat and they completely fizzled in the field, putting all the pressure on themselves going into the final ODI in Lahore.The home side was put under the kosh by Gibbs, who exploited the Powerplays by using his feet against the pace bowlers to get width and elevation. Inside six overs the field was scattered – fine leg was in, mid-on up, a man square out on the off-side boundary – but Gibbs continued to make it look easy in the middle with 39 from 35 balls. A flustered Shoaib Malik called Shahid Afridi in the second Powerplay and the in-form man – enjoying an exceptional 2007 with bat and ball – – got Gibbs first ball courtesy Billy Bowden’s error in judgment. The ball, fast and sliding down leg stump, caught Gibbs on the knee roll as he hopped up. Replays showed it would have missed leg stump.If Pakistan thought they had made a breakthrough, they were to be sorely disappointed. As Mickey Arthur, South Africa’s coach, suggested the day before, Pollock was promoted because of his ability to play spin well and score quickly. And that’s what he did, cutting Afridi for repeated fours and sweeping Abdur Rehman’s left-arm spin to minimise the spinners’ effect. It didn’t help Pakistan’s cause that the ball didn’t turn much, but Pollock rose to the occasion, hitting his 13th ODI half-century without any fuss.There was simply no pressure on him. He found the gaps almost every time he played a shot but what stood out was his ability to pick up boundaries. Mohammad Asif returned for a second spell and was whipped off the pads before being driven through cover; then Pollock pulled him for four more. After dropping Smith and giving him his umpteenth life of the series, Umar Gul returned just to be slapped for four and six in successive balls by Pollock. With 12 to win and 14 for a hundred, Pollock holed out to long-off for 90 from 84 balls but there was little remorse as he walked off.Smith, meanwhile, had been confident pushing off the front foot into the gaps as Pakistan’s body language slumped. He struggled to sweep but was fluent when offered width. Smith only had seven boundaries in his 81 but it hardly mattered as he supported Pollock and held up one end.Like he has all series, Smith grafted but with South Africa only chasing a moderate total his approach worked like a charm on an easy batting track. He fell with just three to win and fiercely admonished himself with his choice of shot, but South Africa wouldn’t have complained.In a see-saw first half, a watchful partnership of 91 between Younis Khan and Malik lifted Pakistan from a precarious 38 for 3 before Andre Nel’s double-strike brought the visitors back into the game.

Younis was forced to buckle down right from the start, after Afridi miscued his first delivery against Makhaya Ntini to a back-pedalling Andre Nel at mid-on for 0. Yasir Hameed’s first aggressive shot, in the ninth over, was intercepted by a diving Gibbs at midwicket and Mohammad Yousuf’s slowness resulted in his first failure of the series, as he was run out for the 35th time in his career.Younis mostly waited, watched, nudged and steered, and at times preferred walking across and flicking the pace bowlers across the line as he chugged along to his first fifty of the series. While Younis used his feet and hit Johan Botha for six over long-on, Malik also ticked along to raise the run-rate to four an over. After inside-edging Botha onto his boot early in his innings, Malik settled down, dropping the wrists or tucking off his pads for singles. When Jacques Kallis was thrown the ball in the 32nd over Malik checked a drive to mid-off, falling for a 54-ball 45.South Africa kicked down that window of opportunity, with Nel picking up Younis and Misbah-ul-Haq in the 38th over, both to loose shots. Kamran Akmal and Rehman then pushed Pakistan over 200 with some aggressive but chancy strokes in a 60-run seventh-wicket stand.South Africa aren’t ranked No. 2 in the world for nothing, and they came out in ruthless fashion. Their aspirations of maintaining their record of never having lost a bilateral ODI series against Pakistan just got a whole lot easier.

Despite coming under pressure from the England and Indian boards, the UK-based players who have signed up to the Indian Cricket League have insisted that they will not renege on their contracts.In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Nixon said that Leicestershire have been under increasing pressure from the ECB to block him taking part. “At this stage of my career it’s an exciting challenge to play in the ICL,” he said. “Surely it’s a good thing for any county player to experience high-pressure cricket on surfaces where our national team has traditionally struggled?”Nixon entered into the deal with ICL after consulting with the Professional Cricketers Association in the summer, but since then the Indian board has upped the ante and threatened to bar anyone participating from its own official Indian Premier League. That has led to the ECB starting to flex its muscles but one county chairman stated that attempts to obtain clarification from the board had proved unsuccessful.The ECB has fallen into line with its Australian Pakistani and South African counterparts in taking an increasingly hard line towards players allied to the ICL. The official reason given is that the ICL has no drug-testing or anti-corruption controls and “would threaten media and sponsorship revenue generated by official competitions”.Darren Maddy is the only other England-qualified cricketer known to have signed. Two county-contracted Irish players – Surrey’s Niall O’Brien and Warwickshire’s Boyd Rankin – have also joined and a fifth as yet unidentified person is thought to have signed. While the Irish board will not take action against its pair, the problem comes if their counties qualify for the IPL as the Indian organisers will almost certainly block their participation.

“I signed up at the end of August,” Rankin told The Daily Telegraph. “I knew there was a bit of uncertainty, but I’ve been speaking to the Proffesional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) and I’m fairly happy about the position. I can’t do much about it now in any case …””My sympathies are with the players,” Neil Davidson, Leicestershire’s chairman told the paper. “I can’t see any point banning them because they appear in independent tournaments out of season, when they’re out of contract.”The ECB were forced to back down on their decision to deselect Maddy from the England side for last month’s Hong Kong Sixes when approached by the PCA’s lawyers. “The ECB seem to be going further in supporting the Indian board over the ICL than any other board and it is not clear to us why. We would like some clarification as to why,” Ian Smith, the PCA’s lawyer, said last week.What will be at the back of the ECB’s mind are the similarities with World Series Cricket, which ironically launched 30 years ago this month. Attempts then to block players who signed with Kerry Packer were overturned in the High Court in a legal case which cost English cricket a fortune. Their ultimate sanction this time – banning those involved with ICL – could well again be construed as restraint of trade.

Lou Vincent, one of New Zealand’s opening batsmen, feels a safety-first approach will work better than outright aggression in the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy from Friday. Australia crushed New Zealand in the Twenty20 international and Vincent was wary of the threat Brett Lee and Shaun Tait posed.”We have to soak up the heat rather than strike out and chance our arms too much,” he told stuff.co.nz. Lee removed Vincent first ball and Brendon McCullum a few overs later in Perth, while Tait got Jamie How and Ross Taylor, something he prided himself on after the match. New Zealand’s batsmen struggled through a disastrous tour of South Africa, where they could not cope with the pace of Dale Steyn and the other fast bowlers.Tait has already spoken of his aim to use the three one-dayers against New Zealand in his bid to get back into the Test frame. Having faced Tait before, Vincent was more concerned about Lee. “Tait hits the bat harder,” he said, “but Lee bowls with a beautiful straight seam and swings it away.”John Bracewell, New Zealand’s coach, said the batting just had to improve. “We have now seen how Australia are going to come at us and we will put in place strategies to try and counter that and take advantage of that,” he said. “We’ve faced fast bowlers in South Africa, we are going to face them in Australia, and we are going to face them against England later in the season.”

The under-fire umpire Steve Bucknor will not be replaced for the third Test between Australia and India in Perth, despite an official protest from the Indian board following his controversial performance in Sydney.The Indian board demanded that Bucknor be stood down for the third Test, which gets underway on January 16, after a string of errors contributed to India’s thrilling last-ditch defeat in Sydney. But an ICC spokesman invoked the playing conditions that both teams signed up to before the series, saying: “Neither team has a right to object to an umpire’s appointment.”Bucknor’s colleague in Sydney, Mark Benson, is not due to stand in Perth – the Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf is earmarked to replace him. The only way Bucknor could have been removed from the for that Test would have been if the executive board took up the issue and a majority voted in favour of removing him.That has not, however, happened, and Bucknor, 61, is instead preparing to stand in his 121st Test, which is more than any other official in history.