The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), at its annual general meeting last week in Barbados confirmed the 2002 home series.Both India and New Zealand will tour the West Indies next year. India will engage the West Indies for five (5) Tests and seven (7) One-Day Internationals. Meanwhile, New Zealand will play in two (2) Tests and three (3) One Day Internationals.Also coming out of that meeting was the confirmation of the management team for the West Indies Under 19 tour to the United Kingdom later this summer. The management will comprise of the following persons; Jeff Broomes (Manager), Gus Logie (Coach), and Dave Cumberbatch (Physiotherapist).This year’s West Indies Under-19 tournament will be held in Guyana during the month of August.

Zimabwe’s world-class wicket-keeper/batsman, Andy Flower, has angrily refuted claims emanating from India that his left thumb is not as badly injured as reported.Speaking to CricInfo earlier today, he said: “I received a knock on my left thumb when I took the first ball of the fourth day of the Second Test, bowled by Andy Blignaut. I kept on for the remaining 20 overs or so of the innings but, when I found I could not hold a bat, I saw a doctor.”An MRI scan revealed that the thumb was dislocated and a ligament had been torn from the bone. I have got to have an operation on Tuesday to re-attach the ligament and will then have the hand in plaster for some four to five weeks.”Flower has been ever-present in Zimbabwean international teams since he made his debut in the 1992 World Cup in Australia.That in itself is a remarkable record and it is regrettable that scurrilous stories should have been circulated suggesting that he had other motives for missing this triangular series involving India and the West Indies as well as the host country, and then the two Test Matches against the West Indies which follow.While his absence in the middle order and behind the stumps will be a severe blow to the Zimbabweans, listeners to CricInfo.com’s audio coverage will benefit from Andy Flower’s presence in the commentary box.

Matt Bulbeck suffered a hamstring injury whilst fielding on Tuesday and did not appear on the pitch on Wednesday morning. His injury is likely to sideline him for days rather than weeks.Carl Gazzard is making a good recovery from his shoulder injury and is “nearly back to full mobility.” He hopes to be able to play cricket again this season but is unlikely to keep wicket.

Martin Speight produced his biggest innings for two years to frustrate Warwickshire as Durham closed on 284-8 at Chester-le-Street.Resuming on 12-0 in pursuit of a target of 404, there was never any chance of Durham making the runs once Vasbert Drakes had their skipper Jon Lewis caught at the wicket for 32.The visitors had a chance of victory when Neil Smith had Paul Collingwood and Martin Love caught at slip to reduce Durham to 119-4, but Speight then put on 107 with 18-year-old Nicky Peng.Three more wickets then went down quickly to make it 243-7 with 14 overs left, but Nick Phillips survived for 13 of those with his former Sussex team-mate.Speight finished on 67 not out, made off 176 balls, while Peng made 70 before being yorked by Dougie Brown.Peng survived a torrid examination from Drakes, who had him dropped at short leg on 23 then saw successive balls edged to third slip. David Hemp dropped the first and held the second as the cry of no-ball rang out.Most of the 106 runs Drakes conceded flew to the third man area.

Durham survived a double dose of inspirational cricket by Alamgir Sheriyar before Danny Law took them 33 runs clear of Worcestershire’s first innings total of 227.The left-arm paceman made 20 – only one short of his career-best – in a last-wicket partnership of 54 with Stuart Lampitt and then took 6 for 88 – one wicket short of a personal-best – when Durham reached 260 on a day of twists and turns.What Lampitt did for Worcestershire with an unbeaten 42 was surpassed by Law with 64 as the former Essex all-rounder put on 84 for Durham’s 10th wicket with Nicky Hatch. Law’s first Championship half-century since moving to the Riverside this summer ended in the penultimate over when he was caught behind off Andy Bichel.The second day began with Worcestershire’s last three wickets adding 78 before James Brinkley wrapped it up with 3 for 58 and continued in a sunshine phase as Martin Love reached an eye-catching 50 in 38 balls for Durham.The Australian stroke-maker hit nine fours and a six but faced only one more delivery before he was given out lbw to Lampitt.Durham lost their momentum with that dismissal and lost a fourth wicket before tea when Nicky Peng, recovered from a blow on the hand while fielding on Thursday, became Bichel’s 48th Championship victim of the summer.Only 80 behind with six wickets standing at tea, the northerners ran into an unexpected storm as Sheriyar replaced Bichel at the Railway End and took five wickets for 11 in 26 balls.Two came from lbw decisions and three were bowled, including the most important prize when Paul Collingwood pulled across a straight ball after making 47.

West Indies comfortably completed a 3-0 one-day series victory over Kenya with a seven-wicket win in the final game in Nairobi.But the result was harsh on Kenya’s Steve Tikolo who hit 71 and took two West Indies wickets.Tikolo is generally regarded as the finest Kenyan cricketer of all-time and showed just why with a dashing innings.But West Indies openers Leon Garrick and Chris Gayle put on 116 to set up victory. Gayle was eventually caught by David Otieno for a run-a-ball 70, while Garrick, in only his third One-Day International, dug in to make 76.Number three Wavell Hinds compiled a patient 44 not out, with Marlon Samuelsadding 30 before being dismissed only eight runs short of the victory target of 233.West Indies finished on 234 for three, easing to what had looked a testing target with 17 balls left.Tikolo’s 55-ball innings was the highlight of Kwenya’s effort as they made 232 for seven in their 50 overs. Tikolo made his debut 11 years ago and averages more than 30 in One-Day Internationals.Other major contributors in the Kenyan innings were openers David Otieno (34)and Ravindu Shah (29) who put on 74 for the first wicket, while Thomas Odoyuhit 31 and left-hander Hitesh Modi made an unbeaten 29.Spinner Neil McGarrell was the top West Indies bowler with three for44.

Craig White and Matthew Wood both thrashed centuries as Yorkshire enjoyed a run bonanza against Glamorgan at the Scarborough Cricket Festival today.Yorkshire finished the second day strongly placed on 433 for five, their first innings lead over Glamorgan being worth 210.In an early celebration of clinching the CricInfo Championship title – now a mere formality – White and Wood piled up 243 in 63 overs for the second wicket.Wood, who rejoined White at the crease in the first over of the day after retiring hurt last night, cracked 124 off 240 balls with 18 fours and two sixes before falling lbw to left-arm spinner Dean Cosker.But White continued to plunder runs off the Glamorgan attack and he was in sight of a maiden double century when his off stump was removed by Darren Thomas for 183 which included 25 fours and two sixes and was made off 273 deliveries.It was Wood’s fourth century of the season while White was left just three runs sort of equalling his career-best score which he set up a fortnight ago in the Roses match at Old Trafford.The 6,000 crowd were expecting some early fireworks from Darren Lehmann when the Australian came in at 353 for three but after making only a single he launched himself into a big drive and lobbed back a catch to Cosker during the spinner’s marathon spell.Michael Vaughan made an elegant 45 before chopping Steve Watkin into his stumps but Anthony McGrath and captain David Byas settled in together to cause Glamorgan more grief.A big cheer went up when Byas pulled Simon Jones for the boundary which took Yorkshire to 400 and secured maximum bonus points – so guaranteeing them the title if they go on to win the match – and Byas celebrated the moment by hooking the next ball for six.McGrath was unbeaten on 29 and Byas 31 at the close, the sixth wicket pair having put on 59 together.Wood said later: “I had six stitches put into my cheek after being hit but it could have been a lot worse and I just wanted to get back in the middle. Once I had struck that early six I felt much better and really enjoyed my partnership with Craig.”

Essex skipper Ronnie Irani steered his side to their third NUL win of the season with an unbeaten 56 that helped secure a four-wicket victory over Middlesex with more than six overs to spare in their day/night match at Colchester.Chasing a target of 174 for victory on a slow pitch, the home side started positively and had reached 48-2 in the 14th over but the loss of two wickets in three overs to Chad Keegan put Middlesex back into contention.Stuart Law and Ronnie Irani combined for a significant partnership worth 70 runs in 79 balls as they pushed the singles to the deeper set fielders. Law had just reached his half-century with a splendid lofted drive over mid off when he tried a repeat stroke and was caught to give Keegan his third wicket and leave the home side 123-5 with 16 overs remaining.Keegan finished with figures of 3-28 but Irani continued to prosper and took 12 runs from an over from Tim Bloomfield to put his side in sight of victory. The re-introduction of Simon Cook into the attack produced immediate reward with Paul Grayson caught for seven but with only 18 runs required, Irani was in no mood to be denied.He reached his half-century with a boundary off Paul Weekes and in the next over struck his fourth boundary and the winning runs to lift Essex off the foot of the Norwich Union Second Division table.For the visitors, opener Andrew Strauss has batted steadily to score 59 although he utilized 30 overs and once he had been dismissed, the innings relied on a partnership of 48 in 12 overs between Paul Weekes and James Dalrymple to give the total some substance. Weekes struck two boundaries in his 36 whilst his enterprising partner collected an unbeaten 38 from 39 deliveries.

All the planning in the world couldn’t cope with disruption such as the terrorist attacks in the United States caused for world sport, and as one of the first sports groups to have their plans upset, New Zealand’s cricket selectors have to re-think their summer.The almost inevitable prospect that a tour of Pakistan will not be possible, with the cut-off time being Friday next week, means the two New Zealand sides, One-Day Internationals and Tests, will join those sports trivia oddities as teams that never took the field of play.Pakistan is known to be hoping to organise a seven-match ODI in the wake of the abandonment of New Zealand’s tour, but that will depend on the international political scene.What the New Zealand selectors face is having to re-think their plans for the tour of Australia which gets underway at the start of November, or earlier if matches can be arranged.While the tour of Pakistan coincided with rehabilitation work being undertaken by world-class all-rounder Chris Cairns and recovery and managed workload being done by Dion Nash, it was another chance to test other players in the heat of battle to see how they would respond.That test, for all intents and purposes, will not now be undertaken and the selectors will be required to dish out some disappointments to prospective team members.The emphasis now falls on Test match play and fielding the strongest possible team for that most demanding of tours.Selection chairman Sir Richard Hadlee said the selectors would now have to totally reassess their thoughts.”There are only so many places available for Australia and with Chris Cairns available, and possibly Dion Nash, the competition is going to be tough.”We have to have the strongest team possible,” he said.Hadlee was hopeful that more games could be arranged in Australia.”Four first-class games before the first Test in Brisbane would be ideal. It doesn’t matter where, although we do already have one against Queensland before the Test, it is mainly to get used to the harder grounds,” he said.Coach Denis Aberhart has also had to do some rethinking about his own plans because of the loss of what would have been a team-building tour to Pakistan.”Pakistan is a difficult place to tour and to do well there the team has to work closely and fight hard. We were looking forward to doing that to build our confidence for Australia,” he said.But there was an opposite stance which involved the team preparing well and doing all the right things in their build-up to go into the Australian series fresh.”We’re waiting to hear from NZC what options we’ve got but the main thing is to have players continuing to work on fitness and skills on a daily basis,” Aberhart said.He was also working on programmes for players to get together in each of the main centres to work on maintaining skill levels.”It’s just a case of stepping back and going back into preparation phase, rather than game phase,” he said.

Delhi’s new recruit off-spinner Sarandeep Singh spun magic, grabbingsix wickets, to send Services crashing to an innings and 23 run defeatin the North Zone Ranji Trophy League Match at the Palam Ground heretoday.Requiring 170 runs to make Delhi bat again after they made 297 in thefirst innings and followed-on., Services were bundled out for 147 onthe last day. Delhi had scored 467 for five declared in their firstinnings. Unlike in the first three days, the Delhi spinners receivedassistance from the pitch, which had developed cracks and the servicesbatting except Yashpal Singh were bedazzled by the zip, turn, andbounce extracted by Sarandeep, Abishek Sharma and Rahul Sanghvi.Yashpal Singh, who hit 83 facing 182 balls with nine hits to theboundary, was the only one to show some resistance, as seven of hiscolleagues returned with single digits scored.Delhi were bang on target from the very beginning as the bowlersbowled according to the attacking field set by skipper Mithun Manhas.The strategy yielded reward in the seventh over when seamer AmitBandhari trapped opener NP Singh in front of the wicket. Services losttwo more quick wickets as Sarandeep send back Jasveer Singh (2) andPMS Reddy (13) in the space of twelve balls to leave Services reelingat 27 for 3. The offie then struck the crucial blow in the 24th overwhen he rattled the stumps of services skipper Sanjay Verma whoattempted a mighty heave over long-on, bringing Yashpal Singh to thecrease.Yashpal Singh straight away counter-attacked and played some lustyshots to shrug off the early losses and grafted 49 runs with SarabjeetSingh for the fifth wicket. The resistance however was shortlived asSarabjeet Singh edged one to first slip to give young Abishek Sharmahis maiden wicket in first class cricket. Yashpal Singh got nosupport from the other batsmen and with Sarandeep claiming three morevictims the procession towards the pavilion hastened.At 127 for nine, Yashpal Singh went for the big shots in an effort tomake Delhi bat again. He perished in the process, castled byBandhari.