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Cricket fans take a bow. Cricket Victoria salutes you for your contribution to what has emerged as one of the most successful Test Matches ever staged in Melbourne.Approximately 178,000 people went through the turnstiles, nearly 1000 attended Cricket Victoria’s Boxing Day Breakfast, while corporate hospitality sales reached near-record levels.Chief Executive Officer of Cricket Victoria, Mr Ken Jacobs said the result was a tremendous one for Victorian cricket. "Its been a very successful five days of Test Match cricket, with the attendance figures reinforcing the position the Boxing Day Test holds amongst the top of Australia’s sporting events.Jacobs said the events accompanying the Test Match added to whole spectacle. "Cricket Victoria hosted a magnificent Volunteers Breakfast Awards function on the morning of the third day’s play at which ICC CEO Malcolm Speed was guest speaker, while the on-field entertainment showcased our junior development programs as well as some of our former Test legends. Victoria’s successful Under 19 side was lauded at the lunch break on day three and of course everyone enjoyed the contribution of the Barmy Army throughout the match".Jacobs added, "I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the cricket fans who attended the match. In particular I’d like to congratulate the Victorian fans who year in year out, turn up in their tens of thousands and contribute to make the Boxing Day Test the spectacle it is. Its economic value to the City of Melbourne cannot be underestimated and we are extremely proud of the contribution this match makes to Melbourne on an annual basis".

Riding on a fine unbeaten 158 by the in form opener Jai P Yadav,Central Zone ended with 342 for three at stumps on the opening day oftheir Duleep Trophy match against West Zone at the VCA stadium inNagpur on Thursday.It was a good toss to win for Central Zone skipper Amay Khurasiya andYadav and Amit Pagnis (62) gave their side a splendid start by puttingon 131 runs off 29.2 overs. Pagnis was then out to Hrishikesh Kanitkarafter facing 92 balls and hitting eleven fours. Kanitkar struck againin his next over when he bowled the dangerous Khurasiya for just one.But Yadav and Md Kaif prevented a collapse by some confident batting.After scoring 46 however, Kaif retired hurt, He faced 89 balls and hitfive fours. The experienced Gagan Khoda was out quickly, leg before toZaheer Khan for four. But Yadav continued to bat with ease and he andRaja Ali took the score from 244 to 342 off 25.4 overs. By close,Yadav had faced 272 balls and hit 22 fours and a six. Raja Ali, whohad dominated the unbroken fourth wicket partnership, was on 54 atstumps. He has so far faced 93 balls and hit six fours and a six.Kanitkar picked up two wickets but was expensive, conceding 70 runs inhis 13 overs.

Manchester United are stuck in limbo right now when it comes to their managerial saga.

It’s quite apparent that interim head coach Ralf Rangnick will be leaving his post in the summer and moving upstairs, but who will replace him at Old Trafford is anyone’s guess.

What’s the word?

Mauricio Pochettino is still believed to be among the favourites for the job but the man everyone appears to be talking about right now is Erik ten Hag.

The current Ajax boss has reportedly been interviewed by the club but now their pursuit of the Dutchman seems to be going up a notch.

That’s according to Sky Sports who claim that groundwork is being done in order to smooth over an announcement should everything be negotiated sufficiently.

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A report on Wednesday reads: “Sources close to Ten Hag and the Dutch club have suggested that dialogue has taken place over the financial element as well as how to handle a possible announcement – should the process progress that way – in terms of timing and presentation, given Ajax are in a tight title race.”

Great news for Man UnitedAlthough this doesn’t officially confirm whether ten Hag is on his way to the Theatre of Dreams, it does hint that the Ajax manager is considerably high up on their list of managerial targets.If they are already discussing the intricate details as listed above then it can only bode well for their pursuit of the 52-year-old.But why is it good news that they’re targeting him? Well, he’s one of the brightest coaches in the game right now, completing some quite wonderful achievements over the last few years.Possessing a clear winning mentality, ten Hag knows what it takes to win a major trophy, securing the Eredivisie title twice and taking home the nation’s domestic cup competition on two occasions too.Furthermore, he ranked fourth in a list of the best managers in world football for 2019, further demonstrating his enormous potential at the elite level.However, it is in the Champions League where he has arguably caught the eye the most, steering Ajax to the semi-finals in 2018/19 as serious underdogs.They almost made it to the final as well, but for Lucas Moura’s goal in the dying embers of the second leg.Also capable of taking talent to the next level, namely the likes of Hakim Ziyech, Dusan Tadic, Donny van de Beek and Matthijs de Ligt, everything would appear to bode well for a potential move to Man United.AND in other news, “Man Utd will sign..” – Romano drops huge transfer update, supporters surely buzzing…

	David Hussey’s strong form for Victoria has won him a national place © Getty Images

Younger brothers often want to be like their older siblings, although the desire typically disappears before adulthood. But for the past four years David Hussey has craved the chance to emulate his big brother Michael and burst into the Australia cricket team. Finally, he has an opportunity to do so.Hussey’s call-up into the Twenty20 squad for Friday’s international against India is much-deserved, and any thought that his surname helped him get there would be severely misguided. It has been anything but easy living in the shadow of Mr Cricket, who made his first-class debut at 19 and had such an impact at Test level that his average is second only to Don Bradman.It is unfair to compare the brothers, as they have grown into fundamentally different people since their childhood days playing backyard cricket in the outer Perth suburb of Mullaloo. Michael, a left-hand batsman, is an obsessive planner whose mind is constantly racing with instructions to himself; the right-handed David is more laid-back and once while standing in as Victoria’s captain admitted at the toss that he hadn’t even checked his team sheet to see who was playing.Perhaps he was still overwhelmed at leading his adopted state after several years earlier venturing 3500 kilometres from Perth to pursue his career in Melbourne. It took consistently high scoring at the Prahran club before Hussey was given a chance by Victoria at the age of 25. Similarly, ridiculous aggregates in county stints at Nottinghamshire and sporadic flashes of brilliance in Australia were ignored by the national selectors until he found greater consistency.Enough was enough after 911 runs at 53.58 for Victoria last season, 643 at 64.30 so far this summer, as well as 237 runs at 47.40 and a strike rate of 153 in this month’s Twenty20 tournament. Merv Hughes, the Melbourne-based selector, has seen plenty of Hussey and knows he is arguably the prototype Twenty20 cricketer.His aggressive batting is complemented by offspin that is superior to most part-timers, and he is one of the most gifted fieldsmen in the country. A strong bottom-hand batsman, Hussey is sometimes in such a hurry to score that it’s like he has just remembered his car is in a tow-away zone and he knows he’ll have to walk home if he doesn’t finish the game as soon as possible.He loves to get on the front foot and lean in to drive to either side, but he is equally unafraid to swing the ball over midwicket. Hussey’s strike-rate of 141 in 44 Twenty20 matches is remarkable, and he brings the same gusto to the longer forms. His greatest moment came in 2003-04 when he guided Victoria to a fourth-innings chase of 455 against New South Wales and his unbeaten 212 came from only 218 balls.Since that moment the younger Hussey – he is now 30 – has been talked about as a potential international player. Victorian fans were often parochial in their calls for Dean Jones to be recalled to the national set-up and their bewilderment at Hussey being overlooked until now is not surprising.Fittingly, his debut in Australian colours will come at his adopted home ground, the MCG. Hussey has come a long way from Mullaloo, physically and chronologically, and Australia could not ask for a more exciting pair to become the first brothers to represent the country since Steve and Mark Waugh.

Rebecca Rolls has called for more Twenty20 cricket for the women’s game. Rolls, the New Zealand keeper, believes that the short form of the game is a good promotional tool for the women, and can enhance the game. She says that the women’s game should follow the example of Australia, where women’s state teams have played before the men to raise public awareness in front of decent crowds.”We can improve our game by increasing accessibility for young girls by playing in lots of different locations in a country hosting a series, by getting in front of the general public through media and as has recently been done in Australia, perhaps playing Twenty20 curtain-raisers before a men’s game.”Rolls is aware, however, that any crowds coming along to any such Twenty20 match who are watching the women’s game for the first time must expect different styles of cricket to the men.”I think it’s important to recognise the differences between ours and the men’s game and emphasis the strengths women have such as shot placement, bowling variations and other intricacies, in the absence of brute force, speed and power the guys possess.”[We] can become even more attacking in our batting, field settings and tactics, and smarter with our bowling. Recent introductions of Twenty20 games have promoted this and I believe it’s a game we should play more of.”The White Ferns are already scheduled to play two Twenty20 matches when they head to England this summer, rather than the customary single match. This is, in part, to make up for the lack of Test cricket. New Zealand do not play Test matches, and there are rumours that this form of cricket may be scrapped for all countries.The Twenty20s won’t be followed by any men’s matches, but their profile will be raised on television, with Sky committed to covering both as well as the first one-dayer. All of these matches will be hosted by Taunton, the newly anointed home of women’s cricket.In the meantime, New Zealand will face England in the women’s quadrangular series, where they will also play Australia and India in Chennai. The tournament, which brings together the world’s top four countries, will be helpful preparation for the 2009 World Cup in Australia.New Zealand will attend a 10-day training camp in Christchurch before they depart. They will also play practice games against New Zealand A (7 and 9 February) and Australian Youth side (11 February) before departing for Chennai on 14 February. They open their campaign against Australia on 21 February.

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has not ruled out scrapping Zimbabwe’s one-day tour in April, nor of seeking compensation from the Zimbabweans after the cancellation of two Tests following Zimbabwe Cricket’s decision to suspend itself from Test cricket.Zimbabwe’s board announced that it would only play ODIs three weeks ago after bitter infighting left it struggling to raise a side. A series of humiliating defeats had also raised questions as to the country’s international status. The first casualty of the manoeuvre was Zimbabwe’s proposed tour of the Caribbean, but ZC did state that it still intended to proceed with the five ODIs against West Indies which were originally scheduled.Since the announcement, there has been speculation that the WICB would cancel the whole tour, but speaking to Cricinfo, Roger Brathwaite, the WICB chief executive, explained that no decision had yet been made.”This is under consideration,” he said. “However, we are continuing to monitor the situation in Zimbabwe as to the likely strength of the team they would send.”Brathwaite admitted that alternative opponents had been sought to replace Zimbabwe but none were available at the right time.Under the terms of the Future Tours Programme, the WICB would be within its rights to seek compensation from Zimbabwe for the cancelled Tests. “The FTP agreement between the member countries makes provision for situations such as this,” he said. “However, until we have a bit more clarity on the situation in terms of responses from our sponsors, media partners etc, I am unable to say if we would seek compensation under the agreement.”Zimbabwe Cricket were unavailable for comment.

IS Bindra, the former president of the Indian board, has criticised the BCCI’s decision to award a production contract to TWI for US$1.5million when an alternate offer worth US$1.29million by Nimbus, another production company, was available.In a letter to the BCCI, Bindra said he did not understand “how and when the decision was taken to accept the production offer of Trans World International (TWI) and at what rate,” acording to a report on Indiantelevision.com. Bindra said that the decision to award the contract was not unanimous, as the board had earlier claimed. He said that the board president, Ranbir Singh Mahendra, had only been authorised to negotiate with production companies and ensure that the board’s revenue was maximised and the production costs minimised.A while later, Mahendra responded to questions by media over Bindra’s letter by saying that there were no discrepancies in the contract and that Nimbus’s allegation that a board member had misled a BCCI decision-making team were false. He also wondered why Bindra had not spoken to him directly as both were on a flight to Chandigarh.This new conflict is the latest in a series of hard questions being asked of the BCCI by board members. Embarrassing letters have been leaked to media, making public disagreements within the board. The most recent of these was a letter by Niranjan Shah, a former secretary of the board, asking how much the BCCI had lost on television rights during the Australian and South African tours of India.

Mark Butcher completed his first first-class century of the winter, as England’s batsmen reacquainted themselves with the middle of a cricket ground, after a frustrating week of washouts and waiting. Butcher had been worryingly out of touch during the Bangladesh series last month, but was back to his fluent best as England reached 225 for 5 at the rain-imposed close, a lead of 44.With Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick taking a break from this match, the onus was on England’s Test specialists to come up with the bulk of the runs. And, with the exception of Nasser Hussain, who was unluckily bowled off his thighpad for a second-ball duck, they have so far delivered. Butcher added 93 for the second wicket with Graham Thorpe, whose eye for the gap was as astute as ever, and by the time Freddie Flintoff had walloped 47 from 53 balls, England were in a handy position.After taking their time to settle, Butcher and Thorpe rattled along at more than four an over. But, just when Thorpe looked to be hitting top gear, he allowed himself to get carried away after smearing two boundaries off Dilhara Fernando, and was caught behind in the same over, as he snicked an attempted pull (96 for 2).As England’s captain, Flintoff announced himself in the only appropriate manner – by hoisting his first ball for a six over square leg – and all but trod on his stumps in the process. He thumped three sixes in all, one of which clanged off the corrugated-iron roof of the green hut at cow corner. But, with tea approaching, Russel Arnold turned to the legspin of Bathiya Perera, and Flintoff clubbed his first ball down the throat of Chamila Gamage at midwicket (189 for 3).Butcher reached his century in emphatic style, by hoisting Thilan Samaraweera down the ground for a straight six, although England’s progress was slowed by two run-outs – Chris Read, who was beaten by a throw from point, and Gareth Batty, who was cruelly sent on his way after Butcher’s straight drive had clipped Samaraweera on the way through to the stumps. Before Geraint Jones could make an impact on his representative debut, however, the rains rolled in once again.In the morning session, England had endured a frustrating half-hour in the field, as Perera converted his overnight 29 into an opportunistic half-century. England didn’t help their cause by missing two catches in the slip cordon, and they watched a host of edges fly down to the unguarded third-man boundary as the President’s XI moved along to 181 in their first innings.Perera took full advantage with an unbeaten 55, although he ought to have added just five runs to his overnight 29, when Geraint Jones fingertipped a diving chance to his right off James Kirtley. Nandika Ranjith was later dropped at second slip by Thorpe – his second miss of the match.Flintoff had earlier persuaded Gamage to fend a sharp chance to Batty in the gully, and Batty himself wrapped up the innings with the wicket of Ranjith, courtesy of Jones, who redeemed himself with another smart stumping.

On Friday afternoon at 3pm a group of Somerset players will be taking the impressive Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy to Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital to show to the youngsters in the Children’s Ward.As well as showing the cup to the patients, one of the players will be cutting the ribbon to rename the ward.Among those expected to attend tomorrow’s renaming ceremony are Ian Blackwell, Steffan Jones, Keith Dutch, Mike Burns, Carl Gazzard and Simon Francis.The players will also be talking with the youngsters and giving out free Junior Sabres tee shirts, fixture cards and picture postcards signed by England star Marcus Trescothick.Ahead of the visit to the hospital Steffan Jones told me, “We are putting something back into the community which is important from our point of view. People come to support us and in this way we are showing that we are supporting them.We are really down to earth ordinary people who want to help others in anyway that we can.”

The P Ramachandra Trophy Under-22 match involving Tamil Nadu andAndhra at the AC Tech College Ground in Chennai on Friday meandered toan inconclusive draw. Tamil Nadu who declared having scored 438 fornine, earned five points by virtue of the first innings lead while Andhrahad to be content with three. So far, from two matches Tamil Nadu has goteight points and Andhra six.Andhra, who were tottering at 100 for 7 at the end of the second day,managed to add a further 64 runs to their first innings total. The Andhraskipper IG Srinivas (53) was the topscorer while Y Venugopal Rao (37) andGyneshwara Rao (21) chipped in with useful contributions. The Andhra lowerorder succumbed to the slow leftarmers of R Ramkumar (5 for 28).Following on 274 runs behind, and with a draw their only hope, Andhramanaged to hold the fort for 43 overs while scoring 128 for 2 when stumpswere finally drawn. Ram Kumar was again among the wickets as he dismissedboth openers Taher Hussain (7) and Anil Kumar (37). However Gyaneshwar Rao(41) and NM Khan (35) remained unbeaten while sharing a 58-run third wicketstand.Earlier on the second day, Tamil Nadu continued from where they leftoff to pile up a huge total. Skipper SV Saravanan (86) and SS Viswanathan(30) added 89 runs for the fourth wicket in 21.5 overs.With the score at 331, Viswanathan was caught by Khan off Faiq. Three ballslater, Saravanan departed, caught by Taher Hussain off Srinivas.R Satish (63) and K Manoharan put on 89 runs for the sixth wicket in 17.2overs. Thereafter three more wickets fell for the addition of 13 runs whenthe Tamil Nadu skipper declared the innings.In reply, Andhra were off to a bad start losing both the openers withineight balls. Taher Hussain was the first to go caught by Hemanth Kumar offShrinivas off the second ball of the innings. Then off the fourth ball ofthe second over Anil Kumar was caught bu Ram Kumar off Balaji. GyneshwarRao (21) and Venugopal Rao (37) however added 64 runs for the third wicketin 17.5 overs.At 66, Venugopal Rao was dismissed, caught by Manoharan off Bhatia. Thenext over was the exit of Gyneshwar Rao, caught by Vidyuth off RamKumar. Thereafter Andhra struggled to reach the 100-run mark whilelosing three more wickets at stumps.