Ashes: England to escape from the first Test

England last pair Jimmy Anderson & Monty Panesar proved their country's unlikely batting heroes when the hosts defy the rules of probability by drawing the first Ashes test against Australia on Sunday.

Australia, who had dominated the match in all sections for the first four days, were moving inexorably to what emerged an inevitable 1-0 lead in the five-match series as the England batsmen found new ways to gift their wickets.

Ex-Skipper Paul Collingwood was the exception, fighting a single battle for the best part of six hours. But when he was out for 74 England still needed six runs to make Australia bat 2nd innings with a minimum 11.3 overs left in the day's play.

Panesar was greeted with the vast cheer he gets whenever he chases a ball in the field or comes out to bat as England's last man. Unlike his fielding, however, Panesar can bat and he played determinedly straight to everything the Australian bowlers could hurl at him.

"I was pretty anxious but Jimmy and I were communicating pretty well," Panesar told a news conference.

"We just said to each other play the ball directly and watch the ball hard. Now we're sitting here with a draw."

Two boundaries to Anderson off destructive paceman Peter Siddle persuaded Australia captain Ricky Ponting to bring on occasional off-spinner Marcus North to accompany the specialist Nathan Hauritz.

Ponting protected his decision by saying both men spun the ball away from the left-handers and would get their overs finished quickly in the final hour.

But England captain Andrew Strauss said he think left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnson would have been a better choice & Anderson did not hide his relief at facing North rather than a fast bowler.

"Certainly when Marcus North came on we thought we had a great chance," he said.

Former England Skipper Michael Vaughan announced his retirement

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan announced his retirement from all professional cricket with immediate effect here at Edgbaston on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old Yorkshire batsman said the time was right for him to step aside and allow a new generation of players their chance to shine.

"It's been a hard decision," Vaughan, who as captain led England to their 2005 Ashes series triumph, told a news conference at Edgbaston here on Tuesday.

"The decision came two weeks ago at Worcester when I realised there were younger players around the Yorkshire team, and certainly England, who need to be given a chance to move the game forward.

"I wanted to give it one last effort to get into the Ashes squad. I've given it that shot but haven't been playing well enough. I've had a great career."

Vaughan, England's most successful Test captain, has not played for his country since tearfully resigning the captaincy in August during the home series loss to South Africa.

His career has been blighted in recent years by a knee injury and speculation about Vaughan's future intensified after Vaughan failed to win a place in England's squad for the Ashes series against Australia which starts next week in Cardiff.

"It was always a long shot to get me back in ," Vaughan added. "The last thing players like Ravi Bopara needed was for me to get a 100 for the media to build up my chances.

"Wherever I've played this year I felt that warmth and crowd reaction to try to give me one more chance. I now move on and wish the team all the best in an Ashes series they can win."

Vaughan said he'd known for a while his time was up. "I was getting 30 or 40 and suddenly I was getting out - in the past that wasn't happening.

"It's very hard to explain when you know it's time to move on but it felt right to go before what's going to be a great Ashes series. I started emotional here today but it almost feels like I've been released."

He added: "Two weeks ago in the garden my little lad Archie bowled a ball that hit a weed and knocked my off-stump out. If a three-year old is bowling you out, it's time to move over."

Reflecting on his career, Vaughan said: "The Ashes in 2005 was the pinnacle. "We captured the nation and cricket hadn't captained the nation for a long time."

Asked what the key to his captaincy was, Vaughan replied: "I was a good actor. Captaining your country is a very special moment and the skill is making sure no-one knows what you're thinking."

Vaughan, who stressed he'd made no plans yet about his future, said he was encouraged by the way in which England under coach Andy Flower and captain Andrew Strauss were developing as a team.
"I like the job Andy Flower and Andrew are doing. Andrew is a great leader and so far he seems to be dealing with it in a similar fashion. I'm sure he'll do a similar job."

Vaughan said he'd been proud to play in an era of rapid change in cricket.

"I started at 16 in Yorkshire's second team and there was a can of lager at the table. Now it's smoothies, ice baths and Twenty20 cricket - and it's been a privilege to come through it."

Paying tribute, Strauss said: "I learned a great deal from watching him captain the side for five years at close hand and his ability to identify a new strategy for outwitting the opposition or bring the best out of his own players was a priceless asset.

Vaughan's record as captain during his five year spell in charge from 2003-2008 of 26 victories, 11 defeats and 14 draws, make him England's most successful skipper in terms of overall wins.

England's 2005 Ashes series win - which included a nailbiting two-run win at Edgbaston - was the crowning achievement of Vaughan's time as captain with his knee problem leaving him sidelined for months at a time.
Unsurprisingly, his form as a batsman - which had seen him touch the realms of greatness during the 2002/03 tour of Australia when he made three hundreds - also began to decline.

Desperate for one last series against Australia, Vaughan vowed to regain his place through sheer weight of runs but so far this season he has managed just 147 runs in seven County Championship innings for Yorkshire.

Meanwhile the emergence of Bopara, who this year has made hundreds in three successive Tests against the West Indies, at No 3, also dented Vaughan's hopes of a recall.

Vaughan scored 5,719 Test runs in 82 matches at an average of 41.44 with 18 hundreds and a best of 197 against India at Trent Bridge in 2002.

Source: Cricbuzz.com

Brett Lee 'jumping out of his skin': Ricky Ponting

Australia skipper Ricky Ponting said fast bowler Brett Lee was "jumping out of his skin" in his mission to get back in the Test side ahead of the Ashes series 2009 in England.

Australia will play two matches with Sussex here at Hove starting on Wednesday and the England Lions, before the 1st Ashes Test gets underway in Cardiff on July 8.

And Skipper Ponting, speaking at Hove here on Monday, said of Brett Lee: "He's looking good at the moment. He's trained harder than I've ever seen him train before in the last couple of weeks, whether it would be with his bowling or in the gym or all the extra stuff he's been doing.

"Anyone that lays eyes on him can see how good a physical shape he is in, which is a real positive for us and a actual positive for him.

"I recognize he's jumping out of his skin to get back out there on Wednesday and start playing again. It's imperative for him and all our bowlers to take what opportunities come their way in the next couple of weeks.

"We have got two games, it's not as if it's going to be an out-and-out bowl-off or bat-off among any players. I just need to see what everyone's got in these conditions and what they can distribute for the team."

Australia finished up with more training time than they had planned for following their first round way out from the World Twenty20 in England earlier this month.

But an upbeat Rickey Ponting said his team were on course to defend successfully the Ashes they'd so forcefully regained under his leadership following their 5-0 series win on home soil in 2006-07

Ricky Ponting remains Aussies' most marketable star

Test cricket skipper Ricky Ponting remains Australia's most marketable sports star but teammate Andrew Symonds has lost his luster with sponsors, a survey has found.

Ponting, who is preparing to lead the Australian team in defence of the Ashes in England over the coming months, has held his place at the top for the third successive year of the Sweeney Sports Report.

The Aussie skipper tops the list ahead of recently-retired Olympic swimming champion Grant Hackett and semi-retired cricketer Adam Gilchrist.

But while Ponting is in favour, the contentious Symonds is on the nose with the marketers and has tumbled to 36th in the survey after reaching a high of 10th position in last year's report.

Symonds last week missed selection for the Ashes tour following his struggle to recover form after a series of off-field incidents.

The problems started when Symonds was cleaver from the national team after his 'gone fishing' episode in Darwin last year, while he was also fined for a well-publicised alcohol-fuelled rant in a radio interview.

"His fall from favour continues a consistent attitude among Australians that sports stars involved in controversial behaviour are not regarded as highly marketable," Sweeney Sports general manager Todd Deacon said.

Fellow cricketer Shane Warne and tennis stars Jelena Dokic and Mark Philippousis have in the past suffered similar falls, Deacon said.

Another sportsman to fall from grace was Sonny Bill Williams, who generated headlines last year following his controversial departure from Australia's National Rugby League to play rugby with Toulon in France.

The Kiwi international, who left the Canterbury Bulldogs in the lurch, is listed at 78th in the survey, a fall of 34 positions.

Triple Beijing Olympic swimming gold medallist Stephanie Rice debuted in seventh place in the latest survey and is the highest-ranked sportswoman, ahead of former Olympic 400m champion runner Cathy Freeman, in eighth.

Fellow Olympic champion swimmers Leisel Jones and Libby Trickett climbed the list to 12th and 13th positions respectively, up from equal 20th position last year.

Two-time grand slam tennis champion Lleyton Hewitt slumped to 32 in the survey after an injury-hit year.

The survey's findings are based on 1,000 interviews conducted with the public between October 2008 and March 2009.

The survey's top ten are: 1. Ricky Ponting (cricket)
eq2. Grant Hackett (swimming)
eq2. Adam Gilchrist (cricket)
4. Glenn McGrath (cricket)
5. Pat Rafter (tennis)
6. Ian Thorpe (swimming)
7. Stephanie Rice (swimming)
eq8. Cathy Freeman (athletics)
eq8. Steve Waugh (cricket)
10. Casey Stoner (motorcycling).

England won the toss and bat against the West Indies

England skipper Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat against the West Indies in the 2nd Test at the Riverside here on Thursday.

Two teams were unchanged from the first Test at Lord's last week which England won by 10 wickets, with more than two days to spare, to go 1-0 up in this two-match Test series.

Teams

England: Andrew Strauss (c), Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior (w), Stuart Broad, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Graham Onions

West Indies: Chris Gayle (c), Devon Smith, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Lendl Simmons, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Brendan Nash, Denesh Ramdin (w), Jerome Taylor, Sulieman Benn, Fidel Edwards, Lionel Baker

Umpires: Steve Davis (AUS) and Asoka de Silva (SRI)

TV umpire: Peter Hartley (ENG)

Match referee: Andy Pycroft (ZIM)

Ravi Bopara hundred bolsters England

West Indies captain Chris Gayle won the toss and elected to field in overcast conditions which looked as if they might assist his pacemen.

Ravi Bopara's second successive Test hundred was the centrepiece of England's 289/7 on the first day of their test series opener with the West Indies at Lord's here on Wednesday.

Bopara prohibited a complete collapse against Fidel Edwards, who took four wickets for 53 runs in 19 overs including the reward scalp of Kevin Pietersen for nought.

Bopara said he had not been edgy atall as he approached the century mark.

"I felt really relaxed, but I wanted to reach it off a single and not a boundary so I could run down the other end and really respire it in," said Bopara, whose century will have satisfied the selectors they made the right choice in picking him and not Ian Bell or former captain Michael Vaughan.

"It was a good day, to be honest I wasn't thinking too much about it this morning or in the days leading up to it. I was just hanging out with my friends."

Fast bowler Edwards might have had a few more had not Ravi Bopara been missed off a simple ability and Stuart Broad, dropped two catches off the Bajan's bowling, given four reprieves as the West Indies put down a potentially costly six catches after the tea interval.

Broad, was eventually out for 38 when he cut left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, who'd dropped him off his own bowling, to Jerome Taylor at point after a stand of 69 with Bopara had taken England to 262 for six.

Benn then had Test debutant Tim Bresnan lbw for nine, with Graeme Swann seven not out at the close.

Both Bopara and Edwards had recently honed their games by playing in the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 tournament featuring most of the world's leading players.

Bopara, whose temperament was a key factor in his promotion up the order from number six ahead of Bell and Vaughan, rarely looked flustered.

In his first Test at Lord's, Bopara went to a 207-ball century with a quick single off Lionel Baker.

England at tea were 182 for four after Edwards had dismissed Alastair Cook, Pietersen and Paul Collingwood.

Bopara should have been out five balls afterwards when he clipped Edwards straight to square leg only for Brendan Nash to drop the chance.

Edwards though did have his fourth wicket when Matt Prior, facing his first ball after tea, hit straight to cover on 42 where Lendl Simmons made no mistake to leave England on 193 for five and so end a partnership worth 84.

Edwards had now taken four wickets for 19 runs in six overs and then had Broad missed twice with West Indies Skipper Chris Gayle, who only arrived in England from IPL duty on Monday, dropping a comfortable first slip catch.

Edwards, 27, had earlier rocked England in the fourth over after lunch with two wickets in successive balls.

He first bowled Cook for 35 off the inside edge and next ball produced a 91mph beauty which squared up Pietersen and took the outside edge with wicket-keeper Denesh Ramdin holding a fine one-handed catch as he dived low to his right.

England, who had been 88 for one at lunch, were now 92 for three with Edwards on a hat-trick at the start of his next over. Collingwood lived that but fell soon afterwards.

However, the cloud cover soon disappeared as England captain Andrew Strauss and fellow left-handed opener Cook an established in on a ground where the last six Tests have all ended in draws.

But Andrew Strauss, who made hundreds in three successive Tests against the West Indies during England's 1-0 series loss in the Caribbean this year, was trapped behind off Taylor.

Gautam Gambhir placed fourth in the ICC test rankings

Indian Opener Gautam Gambhir is the highest-placed Indian batsman at 4th while Harbhajan Singh is the top Indian bowler at 6th in the most recent ICC Test Rankings issued today.

India is 3rd in the Test Championship bench just two points behind South Africa.

Other Indian batsmen Sachin Tendulkar (14th), VVS Laxman (16th) and Virender Sehwag (20th) are the inside the top-20.

Meanwhile, England, now placed sixth on the table, will straight away move up one spot if it wins both the matches of its upcoming two-Test series against West Indies.

Victories at Lord's and again at Durham would make England three ratings points giving it a total of 101, a single point ahead of Pakistan. A 1-0 series win would leave it on 100 ratings point except behind Younus Khan's team by a portion.

However, a 2-0 win for the West Indies would leave just one ratings point unraveling the two with England chink three points to 95 and the men from the Caribbean gaining five points to 94.

England's highest-ranked batsman is Kevin Pietersen in 6th position. The highest-ranked batsman from either side is Shivnarine Chanderpaul who occupies the top spot.