BCCI-CAB case set for next hearing

The Supreme Court hearing in the BCCI v Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) case resumes on Wednesday with the board's lawyers expected to argue its case instead of filing a reply to the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by CAB. The BCCI's decision is aimed at speeding up the hearing on the CAB appeal, which challenged the Bombay High Court order on July 30 because it did not appoint a new committee to probe the alleged corruption in the IPL.

On August 28, CAB had filed an appeal against the High Court order that had originally found the constitution of the BCCI's two-man probe panel - which cleared Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra, officials of the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals franchises, of corruption - to be illegal. In its plea, CAB senior counsel Harish Salve argued the High Court should have formed a fresh panel, because the allegations of betting and spot fixing in the IPL were grave and a private body like the BCCI should not be empowered to make its own findings.

Normal procedure demands that one files a reply through an affidavit against the petitioner's appeal before the court hears the case. However, the BCCI decided to enter the final arguments in the hearing, to avoid delaying the judgement. "The intention is to expedite the case. If the BCCI files a reply then the CAB will file a rejoinder," a board source said. "Then the court after the completion of all pleadings will decide another date."

The main reason behind the BCCI trying to expedite the process is to clear its president N Srinivasan's name of all accusations, including his involvement in the appointment of the inquiry committee. The High Court had pointed out that there was a "degree of probability" in Srinivasan have had a role in the formation of the panel.

"The most that can be said in favour of the petitioner (CAB) at this stage … is that it has made out a prima-facie case that respondent No. 2 (Srinivasan) was involved in the formation of the commission," Justices SJ Vajifdar and MS Sonak had said in their order. "The least that must be said in favour of the petitioner is that the respondents have not established that respondent No. 2 had no role to play in the formation of the commission."

However, it is understood that neither the court order nor the ongoing appeal in the Supreme Court will hinder Srinivisan from attending any BCCI meetings, including chairing the annual general meeting on September 29.

In order to clear his name, the BCCI and Srinivasan have to refute the observations made by the High Court. They will have to prove that the probe commission was constituted as per IPL operational rules, as they noted in their appeal admitted by the Supreme Court on August 7. The board also has to prove that Srinivasan played no role in the appointment of the probe panel.

In its SLP, the CAB had said the issue should have been supervised by some court of law and not a private body, like the BCCI. The CAB's suggestion was that the court should have constituted the probe panel, and if the BCCI wanted to appoint its own panel then it should allow the court to study the panel's findings.

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Why Zimbabwe need more Tests

Zimbabwe showed good application in the first two sessions and with more Test experience they could avoid being suckered into traps set by the Pakistan bowlers after tea

Until 19 minutes after tea, Zimbabwe were making a strong case for why they deserve to play more Test cricket in what could be their last long-format fixture until July next year. They were 172 for 3, had seen off an hour of high quality seam bowling on a lively surface in the morning session. Two of their batsmen, one of whom was still at the crease, had made half-centuries and their line-up also featured one partnership in excess of 100 runs.

Then, Malcolm Waller fell into a trap that had obviously been set for him. Having watched Waller's ease against the spin of Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman, Misbah-ul-Haq brought back Junaid Khan to try and unsettle him. He delivered four short balls in the first over Waller faced but started the second by reverting to a good length. With the fourth ball, he held it just back of a length and Waller was trapped.

Perhaps expecting a slightly fuller length, Waller did not move his feet at all as he fished and found only an outside edge. That started a familiar middle-order wobble, which Zimbabwe had managed to avoid in the last Test but which they have become known for. They lost 4 for 31 to turn the innings from respectable to needing rescuing.

Zimbabwe's position did little to reflect their hard graft earlier, which once again demonstrated their top-order has the temperament for Test cricket. For the first 10 overs, they had no choice but to try and survive.

Junaid moved the ball both ways in a spell that underlined his worth to the Pakistan attack while Rahat Ali backed him up fairly well. Through a mixture of either moving the ball away from the batsmen at the last instant or swerving it back into them, Junaid ensured Zimbabwe had to play at all but four of the first 30 balls he bowled. Rahat was slightly less menacing and made them go for 21 of the 30 balls he delivered. Between them, they also beat the outside edge eight times in 10 overs.

Tino Mawoyo went early and Vusi Sibanda and Hamilton Masakadza came close to following. Neither were sure what Junaid was going to present them with next and hasty withdrawals of the bat could easily have taken the edge. Run-scoring was almost impossible and if bat managed to find ball, it was only with the aim of defence.

A far lesser side than Zimbabwe could have found themselves four or five down in the face of hostile, incisive bowling by Pakistan's pace attack. That they did not, would only have helped the confidence of the batting pair, especially when Younis Khan came on and offered some relief.

For Sibanda, the self-assurance overflowed too quickly. He resorted to his favourite stroke, the pull, and ended up playing on. Questions will rightly be asked about his ability to pace an innings and whether he becomes too aggressive too quickly, especially since he has not scored a Test fifty in almost two years.

He need look no further than his captain, Brendan Taylor, for an example of how to hang back until absolutely sure. Taylor, who knew he was struggling for form in the lead-up to this match, played just five scoring shots in the first 60 balls he faced. His boundary came off an edge to the third man boundary and the three singles he scored in that time were the result of slightly better timed pushes than the ones he was employing in defence the rest of the time.

Taylor did not take risks because he was battling through the initial stages of his innings. When Pakistan overpitched, he mistimed his drives. When he got a full toss, he did not hit it with any power and eventually he resorted to trying one of his favourite one-day strikes, the ramp over the wicket-keeper's head but when he could not even get hold of that, he knuckled down and waited for something to go his way.

Only when the spinners started giving it a bit more flight, did Taylor start to come into his own. With nothing more than sheer determination, Taylor found his rhythm and he had the luxury of time because Masakadza was playing a fairly fluent knock, and was especially comfortable against the spinners, on the other end.

Masakadza was well-set, enough to suggest hopes for a Test century, but when he was dismissed, it was up to Taylor to bat through the day. He enjoyed a sprightly stand with Waller and had that grown, Zimbabwe's promise may have been fulfilled.

Zimbabwe endured a period of play that even their most loyal supporters are calling more of the same. Waller threw it away, not realising he was being set up by Junaid, Richmond Mutumbami was careless in the channel outside off stump and tried to play a defensive stroke too late and Elton Chigumbura was bowled by a Rehman delivery that kept low - a sign of what this surface will deliver as the match progresses.

Greater awareness may have saved all three of them and the lack of such foresight is the clearest indication that Zimbabwe need to play more Test cricket. Without facing bowlers for extended periods of time, they will not know when plans are being worked out against them and how to guard against that.

Building and timing an innings is learnt only through practice and only batsmen who are able to make those skills a habit succeed at Test level. This innings could be Zimbabwe's penultimate chance to do that.

They will bat again in this Test but then face at least nine months with no Test cricket, because of the postponed Sri Lanka series and a flawed Future Tours Programme. Zimbabwe's performance in this series should stand as a reason why they should not be left out in the cold and despite financial and fixture concerns worldwide, something should be done to ensure these players benefit from more time in the middle.

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Masakadza hails Junaid's spell

Junaid Khan's opening spell in the second Test was described as "one of the best I have faced," by Zimbabwe's No.3 Hamilton Masakadza, who top-scored with 75 on the first day. Masakadza began his innings after only two deliveries had been bowled and faced 19 balls in Junaid's first seven overs. He said that spell had made tricky batting conditions more difficult.

"He [Junaid] was much harder to face today than he has been so far in the series," Masakadza said. "In the one-dayers, he actually bowled quite a few bad balls, which did not make him that difficult to face, and then in the first Test we knew what he was going to do. He took the ball away from the right-hander and we were prepared for that, even though it was still a challenge to actually face him. But today he was also getting the ball to come back in to us, which made it really tough."

Junaid made the batsmen play at 26 of his first 30 deliveries by ensuring they were in two minds about whether it would be safe to leave the ball. The first run he conceded was via an edge from Masakadza and then there was a a mis-hit from Sibanda. Only after he had bowled 29 balls was there a confident stroke played against him.

Masakadza said he and Sibanda could only hope to see Junaid off. "When you don't know what he is going to do, you have to make up your mind early about whether you're going to play or not. And if you decide not to, you have to hope it misses you," he said. Junaid found Masakadza's edge twice but neither proved too dangerous, and after the batsman had survived the tough period, he said that batting became easier.

Towards the end of the day, however, there was evidence that the afternoon session on day one might have been the best for batting. A few deliveries had already begun to keep low, notably the one from Abdur Rehman that bowled Elton Chigumbura. The crack outside the right-handers' off stump on the south end of the ground threatened to cause more problems.

Masakadza expected the pitch to deteriorate quickly from here on. "You can already see it starting to play up and by the afternoon of day two and early day three, it's going to be very difficult for batting."

For that reason, he though a first-innings score of over 250 will end up being "very good." Besides turn, the unpredictable bounce will also become a factor, which could make Junaid more dangerous the next time Zimbabwe bat, although he hoped the home bowlers would have their say first.

The pitch had only two-and-a-half days of preparation after the first Test ended on Saturday and both captains had expressed their concern over how it would hold up. If Masakadza is correct, it will not last for much longer.

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Voges backs Johnson for Ashes

Adam Voges has said that Mitchell Johnson is "doing everything right" in his bid to win a recall to Australia's Test side.

Voges and Johnson were both part of the side that thrashed England in Sunday's ODI at Old Trafford, leading Voges to suggest that performances over the remaining games could have relevance to the Ashes series starting in November.

Not only does Voges believe that players such as Johnson can prove their worth for selection for the series - he bowled in excess of 90mph in dismissing two of England's top three in successive deliveries on Sunday - but he believes that Australia can gain some confidence by beating England in the ODIs.

Johnson's chances of a Test recall would appear to have taken a boost with the news that Mitchell Starc, the left-arm pace bowler who appeared to have moved ahead of Johnson in the pecking order, has sustained a stress fracture in the back and is an injury doubt for the Ashes. And while English crowds have not missed an opportunity to heckle Johnson - something of a pantomime villain among England supporters - in Manchester, at least, he had the last laugh.

Certainly the brute of a bouncer he produced to dismiss Jonathan Trott first ball suggested he could be quite a force on the quicker-paced Australian wickets.

"Facing him in the nets and watching him over these last few games, his pace is right up," Voges said. "He is bowling fast, he is swinging the ball and he is making life for England's top order tough work.

"I know there's been a lot of talk about Mitch possibly playing in the Ashes series. He's doing everything right at the moment. He's been outstanding."

"When you're bowling 90mph-plus and swinging the ball, I think that's a challenge for any batsman, no matter who you are. If he can do that consistently throughout this series, then I hope that will go a long way towards us winning it.

"The crowd don't miss him, do they? Every opportunity they get, even when we were up in Scotland, they didn't miss him up there either. But I actually think he relishes it."

Voges also felt that, as Australia battle to regain their confidence ahead of the next instalment in the Ashes, the ODI team had could play a key role by defeating an under-strength England and perhaps strike the first blow to their morale.

"There's no doubt that, in this one-day squad, we've got a real responsibility to try to win as many games as we can in this series," Voges said. "Any wins we can take back to Australia, for our home summer, will be really important.

"It's obviously been a tough few months. But we're very pleased after the way we played in Manchester the other day. We'll take a lot out of that, and it gives us the opportunity to take that into tomorrow and really apply some pressure on England in this series."

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Incremental gains squandered by Zimbabwe

The final day was written off as nothing more than an exercise in time keeping and it became evident the clock had been speeded up as early as the eighth ball of the morning

Disappointment, like many things in life, comes in more than one form. There is the dark, foreboding type which like a bad smell or storm clouds, hangs in the air for too long and spoils a sunny day. And there is the lighter, less serious kind which can be dealt with by masking it in cynicism and humour. Zimbabwean fans' acceptance of their loss to Pakistan was the latter. 

They gave each other knowing looks and managed wry smiles and jokes as they watched Zimbabwe's resistance crumble quicker than a pillar of salt. The truth is that the match was considered lost on Friday evening when Younis Khan and Rahat Ali took the target beyond reach. The final day was written off as nothing more than an exercise in time keeping and it became evident the clock had been speeded up as early as the eighth ball of the morning. 

Hamilton Masakadza was dismissed before the first coffees had been sipped and when Vusi Sibanda followed nine balls later, Zimbabwe's hopes of batting out a long period were all but stubbed out in those early exchanges. 

The possibility of an embarrassingly hefty loss became more real when two first-innings heroes, Malcolm Waller and Sikandar Raza, fell to Abdur Rehman. Both played shots they will, in hindsight, not be happy with - Waller sweeping a flighted ball and Raza pushing forward for turn to a straight one - and their departure underlined the feebleness of Zimbabwe's challenge. 

Their preoccupation with the threat Saeed Ajmal would pose on a surface that was keeping low and taking more turn than Hamilton Masakadza seemed to suggest it would when he decided Zimbabwe would bat last, meant they almost forgot about the rest of the attack. Junaid Khan and Rehman had the advantage of surprise and used it well. 

Junaid bowled an incisive spell, moving the ball back into the batsmen and startling them with the occasional bouncer while Ajmal kept the batsmen guessing from the other end. By the time they were replaced with Rahat and Rehman, Zimbabwe made the mistake of thinking the pressure was off. Waller, having just hit Rehman for four, had no reason to take him on the very next ball. Similarly Raza, who had been confident against spin throughout, perhaps became overly so. 

With the middle order snuffed out, Zimbabwe's quick end was being predicted by everyone including the television crew. They took a media sweepstake from 48 people, including cameramen, technicians and journalists, on when the last wicket would fall. Before lunch was the popular choice.

There were some cheers when Elton Chigumbura played his natural, attacking game but that quickly turned to jeers when he gave Mohammad Hafeez catching practice at slip. Attention turned firmly to the South African rugby team's match against Australia, which was being broadcast in the Centurion Pub at the end of the next over when Ajmal had accounted for both Prosper Utseya and Shingi Masakadza. 

Some took farcical solace in the fact that the interval - once considered cricket's only immovable apart from Rahul Dravid - was extended to allow Pakistan to finish Zimbabwe off. At least Zimbabwe had lasted more than a session, they joked to each other. When Tendai Chatara had some fun at the end, with a couple of swipes over midwicket, the noise levels through clapping and whistling were the highest they had been all match. 

It was a pity they were tinged with such irony and an even greater pity that on the day more people were able to come to the ground than any other, by virtue of it being a weekend, they saw the home team at their worst. Some of those people have been keeping an eye on Zimbabwe's progress over the match and although they did not want to get their hopes too high, were heartened by what they saw.

For an hour short of four days, Zimbabwe had the better of Pakistan. They managed to shelve their off-field troubles and conjured up a performance with heart. Tinashe Panyangara, Chatara and Shingi Masakadza showed discipline Zimbabwe's bowlers have lacked in the past, Utseya found some turn and there was a middle-order fightback that Zimbabwe have not had in recent times. All that unravelled in the time it took Younis to push on his accelerator pedal and made Zimbabwe's second innings irrelevant. 

Long-suffering supporters will remember only that. Incremental gains don't mean much to them because the end result is still the same. At the Centurion Pub, there is nothing to celebrate to. The usual drowning of sorrows will take place before many of them return again next week, hoping for a different outcome but not actually expecting one.

They do not regard the incremental gains as small victories and, unless those can eventually add up to something, one can understand why they dismiss them that way. As far as people at Harare Sports Club are concerned, the only winner from this match apart from Pakistan was commentator Ed Rainsford, who correctly predicted the last man would troop back to the change room at 12:36. He has US$48 to show for it.

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We were on top for a long time - Masakadza

Hamilton Masakadza, Zimbabwe's stand-in captain for the first Test against Pakistan, has urged the team "not to change too much" in the short turnaround ahead of the second match starting Tuesday against the same opposition at the same venue. Masakadza was pleased with both the batting and bowling efforts in the first innings and said if Zimbabwe built on those performances, they could continue to challenge Pakistan.

"There were definitely some positives. For us to take a 78-run lead after the first innings, for example, that was one of them," Masakadza said. "We were on top for a long time. It just shows that it doesn't take much for you to lose the game."

Zimbabwe were in a controlling position until the latter stages of Pakistan's second innings when Younis Khan powered his way to a double-hundred and shared in an unbeaten stand of 88 with No 11 Rahat Ali. "The partnership right at the end - that was what cost us," Masakadza said. "I didn't even expect them to be in a position to declare. I was wondering when we would finish them off and we just didn't."

Despite that, Masakadza did not believe Zimbabwe lacked the firepower needed to win a Test. "We took 19 wickets and we could have taken all 20 because we had two chances that we didn't take," he said. Younis was let off on 83 by Tino Mawoyo at first slip and on 117, Malcolm Waller put him down at gully. "We didn't have any problems creating chances. It's what you do after you create those chances. That's what we want to work on."

Masakadza praised the work put in by Zimbabwe's three frontline seamers, who kept the scoring-rate under three runs to the over. "They have improved a lot. In the past they didn't have this much control, especially for the period of time they were out there."

Between them, Tendai Chatara, Tinashe Panyangara and Shingi Masakadza bowled 97 of the 149.3 overs in the second innings, with Panyangara conceding only 1.40 runs per over. "I thought he was particularly good because he was not traditionally known as a workhorse but he showed he can do it," Masakadza said.

Panyangara was part of the group of youngsters who were fast-tracked into international cricket after the white-player walkout in 2004 but struggled to make an impact as an 18-year old. He was selected again for the 2011 World Cup but only began to register as a genuine possibility for the longest format recently, now that his fitness and form have improved considerably.

Masakadza hoped those gains would be on display in Panyangara's next showing, which would require him to recover quickly. With just two days between matches, Masakadza joked the bowlers will need "bed rest and maybe a drip" to ensure they can repeat or even better their showing next week.

It will likely fall on the same trio to carry Zimbabwe's hopes with Masakadza indicating changes to the pack would not be warranted unless there were injury concerns. Brian Vitori and the uncapped Michael Chinouya are available if needed but Zimbabwe would prefer not to tinker with a combination that worked.

Masakadza himself can do the work of a fifth bowler to render another specialist seamer surplus to requirements and Elton Chigumbura remains an option. However, the allrounder only bowled two overs in the first Test, and Masakadza explained he was picked only as a batsman because he has been "struggling" with the ball, although he may be called upon if needed.

With Prosper Utseya, who Masakadza called a "quality" spinner, likely to hold on to his slow-bowling role, the only adjustments will be made to the batting line-up. Regular captain Brendan Taylor is a certain starter and will slot back in at No 4 after missing the first match on paternity leave. But because both Malcolm Waller and debutant Sikandar Raza impressed, making room for Taylor could cost someone else his place.

Richmond Mutumbami, the wicketkeeper, may be dropped and Taylor asked to keep while there is also the possibility of Masakadza opening the batting in Tino Mawoyo's place to make room for Taylor. "We'll have to do something like that," Masakadza said. "But overall, we won't change too much."

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Glamorgan reach final on Allenby exploits

Glamorgan 234 for 4 (Allenby 74*, Wright 47*, Tanvir 2-40) beat Hampshire 203 for 8 (Adams 59, Ervine 54, Hogan 4-51, Allenby 2-18) by 31 runs
Scorecard

Jim Allenby has been the saviour of Glamorgan this season. He is so prized the county secured him on a new four-year contract in August; some deal for a 30-year-old. But his value was evident as he top-scored and bowled a painfully mean spell to send Glamorgan to their first showpiece final since 2000.

His knees must be creaking given the weight of responsibility he has been forced to carry this year. Without his 1700 runs in all competitions, Glamorgan would have endured a miserable year. Here, he read the conditions far better than any of his colleagues with the bat and, with the ball, showed the correct length to bowl on a sluggish pitch.

A 60-ball half-century gave some progress to what was for 30 overs a laboured first innings. From Allenby's stability, Glamorgan added 81 in the final eight overs. That blitz, which included four fours and two sixes in Ben Wright's unbeaten innings, was more like the cricket seen recently at the Ageas Bowl. Four hundred runs were scored here in the Friends Life t20 quarter-final and run-fests ensued in England internationals with New Zealand and Australia.

The push gave Glamorgan a very competitive total, which they defended well, despite Hampshire's own late surge of 71 in the final 10 overs, led by Sean Ervine, who arguably played the innings of the day by continuing to find the rope and keep Hampshire in the hunt with 54 in 51 balls. But once he holed out to long-on with 58 needed in 27 balls, the champions were dethroned.

Ervine was removed by Michael Hogan - another who has made a standout contribution for Glamorgan and who they have relied on in all formats to be competitive. Having been slightly too full in his opening three overs, which conceded 20, Hogan closed out the match with full, straight bowling to end with 4 for 51.

But it was Allenby who led the way with the ball, conceding only 18 runs from his eight overs and claiming the wickets of openers James Vince and Michael Roberts, who were pulling their hair out at how difficult the bowling was to manoeuvre.

The Ageas Bowl has seen some cracking wickets for one-day cricket but a slow, sticky surface was unveiled for this semi-final and the conditions were alien to hosts Hampshire, as they lost a second one-day semi-final this season. Hitherto unbeaten at home in the competition this year, and successful in seven out of eight chases in the group stage, Hampshire were unable to hunt down a target asking for just under a run a ball.

Allenby was almost impossible to score off. He bowled wicket-to-wicket on a length just fuller of good. With no pace or angle to work with, the batsmen endured eight overs of largely patting the ball back up the pitch. Only one boundary came from his spell, Jimmy Adams reaching out to flick a ball from middle and off wide of deep midwicket.

It was Adams who headed the pursuit. Like Allenby, he largely settled for carefully working the bowling around and it was the Hampshire captain who elected to take the batting Powerplay in the 28th over when the required rate had leaped to 10 an over.

Two slog sweeps found the rope but as he attempted a third, Andrew Salter, Glamorgan's 20-year-old offspinner, slid one on to the front pad that was somehow not given out lbw by umpire David Millns. It was the second exceptionally close lbw appeal Adams had survived. He also escaped a caught behind decision when it appeared he gloved an attempted sweep to Mark Wallace.

But he rode his luck and brought up a 73-ball fifty with a leg side swat that bounced over the head of Wallace. It was cricket straight from a schoolboy fixture and matched the six-yard run-out Adams missed earlier in the day; one of three run-out chances Hampshire didn't take in a lacklustre fielding display.

Adams fell top-edging an on-side flick that went straight in the air when 76 were needed from 42 balls and it was too much for the new batsmen who followed to settle on a pitch where timing was very difficult all day, even accounting for a fairytale scenario from Dimitri Mascarenhas, playing his last game for Hampshire.

It was not the swansong he had hoped for. He stood at the end of his run at the Northern End preparing to bowl the 31st over of the Glamorgan innings. But the public address delayed his shuffling few strides to the crease to announce that this would be Mascarenhas's final over at the Ageas Bowl.

He acknowledged the generous applause before sending down a typically slippery over from which only three balls were scored off. A standing ovation followed as the Hampshire faithful recognised the final sight of one of their great servants. Hampshire lost the match and a legend.

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Geo Super got 'fair deal' on TV rights - channel head

Pakistan sports channel Geo Super's business-unit head, Mohammad Ali, has said the channel struck up a "fair deal" with the PCB for the rights to broadcast the upcoming series against Sri Lanka in the UAE.

While Ten Sports bagged the rights for the series against South Africa, Geo Super won the television rights for a series of three Tests, five ODIs and two Twenty20s along with a one-off T20 against Afghanistan. The values of the deals were kept confidential by the PCB when the deal was announced, but the board had said the amount was "higher than the previous contract". Media reports had the deal valued at close to $3.5 million.

"It's a fair deal compared to the previous contract [the Sri Lanka series in 2012, covered by Ten Sports], which was much lower than the current one," Ali told ESPNcricinfo. "This time the values are higher by up to 35%, so I think we offered a very decent price. We are looking to build our reputation here and establish a long-term relationship. For us it's a positive thing.

"It's not easy to do your business going away from your base but we wanted it and we got it and we will manage it. With the venture, we want to get our presence noticed and want people to know that we are promoting international cricket as well."

Geo also holds the rights for domestic cricket in Pakistan until October 2013 and is said to have run into financial difficulties during previous broadcast deals while showing world events. While the PCB has asked for a full bank guarantee before the series, Ali claimed that the channel had never defaulted in business in the past. "We never defaulted on any front," he said. "I am not saying we don't owe others money but when you are in business, you owe others money and others owe you money as well, so it's all about business."

There is also said to be excessive advertisements aired by Geo Super while broadcasting domestic games; when asked about the same for the upcoming international matches, Ali said they would "try to maintain a balance" and the "focus would be on cricket".

"It will be different but we will try to balance things. It's an extensive series with three Test matches so we have plenty of time to balance the advertisements with no intrusion. Yes, sometimes there are exceptional stages in rain-affected matches but obviously we won't book more than our capacity. The focus will be mainly on the cricket and we will ensure the best international cricket coverage for our viewers."

Ali also said the channel would not be sharing the broadcast rights with PTV, Pakistan's national channel, as there was no such specification in the contract. Geo Super was involved in a conflict with PTV in 2003 but Ali said their rivalry aside, they are "improving" their relationship with the national channel.

"There is no clause of sharing the rights with PTV at all in the contract but it has been written that we are to share the feed with the terrestrial networks at a price," Ali said. "We will share after a commercial arrangement, we believe people should not be deprived of anything. We are negotiating with them [PTV] and have maintained good relations with them. The rivalry aspect is put to one side, but we are improving our relationship with them and will move on together in a mutually beneficial relationship."

This is not the first time Geo TV network has taken international cricket rights from the PCB. The previous instance, in 2003, ended in a bizarre episode when the first one-day match of New Zealand's tour of Pakistan was blacked out worldwide. The controversy was defused when the then-president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, intervened. A meeting led to an agreement for a joint broadcast of the remaining matches, with Pakistan Television screening the games for viewers in Pakistan and Geo TV beaming the signal abroad.

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Fawad's choice opens cultural faultlines

Hurried in as the legspinning saviour of Australian cricket, Fawad Ahmed's choice to not wear the Australian shirt bearing their beer-company sponsors has sparked a wider debate on immigration

Fawad Ahmed arrived in Australia as a Pakistani asylum seeker. He became a Melbourne sub-district cricketer and net bowler, then a permanent resident, then a Melbourne Renegades, Victoria and Australia A player, and now a member of the national team. His rise has been hastened by a climate of inclusiveness and expansion championed by those who run Cricket Australia. What has become patently clear this week, and this election month, is that not everyone shares quite the same desire for his inclusion.

As part of their approach, CA lobbied for Fawad to be granted permanent residency, and then for a tweak to Federal legislation that would allow his citizenship to be expedited. With support from both sides of politics, the bill passed. Even before Fawad became eligible, CA asked whether or not he, as a Muslim and teetotaller, would be comfortable wearing the beer sponsor's logo that adorns the Australian team's kit on tour. When Fawad replied that he would prefer not to, uniforms were produced that excluded the Victoria Bitter badge.

He wore these personalised colours for Australia A in England before the Ashes tour, and in South Africa, without anyone raising so much as a hackle. Debuting for Australia in Southampton, and in the second T20 in Durham, the logo was again absent.

But now the matches were higher profile, beamed live back to the other side of the world. A story was written in the Sydney Morning Herald, observing that Fawad was not wearing the sponsor's logo. CA disclosed the bowler's preference not to, and their respect for his decision. A parody Twitter account cast the first stone Fawad's way, making the repugnant suggestion that the logo had been replaced with that of "a major brand of explosives".

CA's chief executive James Sutherland made his indignation plain, declaring: "Cricket Australia would like to express its extreme disappointment over racist comments towards Fawad Ahmed on social media this afternoon. CA does not condone racism in any way, shape or form. CA is fully supportive of Fawad's personal beliefs and he is a valued and popular member of the Australian cricket team and the wider cricket community."

They were strong words, and might have drawn a line under things. Yet two days later another story was published in a rival Sydney newspaper, The Daily Telegraph offering the unvarnished (though far from unprompted) view of the former batsman, raconteur and champion drinker Doug Walters, that "if he doesn't want to wear the team gear, he should not be part of the team. Maybe if he doesn't want to be paid, that's okay".

A day later, with Fawad due to play his first ODI against England at Headingley, the former rugby international David Campese also weighed in, this time decidedly unprompted and via the medium of Twitter. "Doug Walters tells Pakistan-born Fawad Ahmed: if you don't like the VB uniform, don't play for Australia," he wrote. "Well said Doug. Tell him to go home."

Once again, Sutherland spoke for Fawad. "These comments are out of order," he said. "He is an Australian citizen and he is eligible to play cricket for Australia and he has been selected to play for Australia irrespective of his religious beliefs. He is an Aussie and he is welcome to play cricket for his country and any suggestion to the contrary we are strongly opposed to. Some people have used this issue to move away from the central debate, which is largely a commercial issue about sponsorship and taken that into a space as to whether he is entitled to play cricket for Australia or live in Australia and that is just rubbish. They are bigoted views."

	The political manoeuvring undertaken by CA to enable Fawad to be eligible as early as possible in 2013 was criticised in some quarters as either opportunism or tokenism, yet there are other initiatives further down the chain of command that reflect the same goals.

Fawad is not the first Muslim cricketer to decline wearing an alcohol logo. Hashim Amla does not sport the sponsors of South African cricket on his uniform for the same reason, and by way of finance does not accept the money that trickles down to the rest of the players from that sponsor. When Campese was reminded of this in a subsequent Twitter dialogue his response was as follows. "It is SA. Who knows what the deal is. And I don't care. At least Doug Walter [sic] cares. Which is a start. Great player."

Not for the first time, Australian cricket finds itself out of step with wider society. Usually, the game has found itself at the conservative edge of the zeitgeist, whether it be bowing to political pressure not to entertain a tour by apartheid South Africa in 1971-72 after being the last nation to pay a visit in 1969-70, or not remunerating players fairly until forced by the cataclysmic force of Kerry Packer's revolution later in the same decade. It could be noted that even the famously shaggy haired Australian Ashes tourists to England in 1975 were sporting a look the Beatles fancied as early as 1967.

This time, CA is looking anachronistic once more, though unusually on the liberal side of the spectrum. As Australia contests the 2013 Federal election with draconian measures against refugees a central plank of both major party's platforms, cricket's custodians are pushing an entirely more enlightened view, preaching inclusion and expansion of the kind favoured by earlier Australian governments, rather than stingy immigration rhetoric summed up by the "Stop the Boats" slogan.

Several years ago at the Australian Cricket Conference, CA board members and management were stunned by figures projecting the inexorable decline of the game if they did not engage more fully with an increasingly diverse community. Thus awoken to the urgency of the matter, the game's governors took an approach akin to the immigration minister Arthur Calwell's "populate or perish" mantra in the years after the Second World War.

For all its faults, the Twenty20 evangelism of the Big Bash League has the lofty goal of diversity as central to its objectives. At the same time, the advancement of players like Usman Khawaja, Gurinder Sandhu, Ashton Agar and Fawad towards prominent roles at the top level of the game is an outcome desired by Sutherland, for names like Clarke, Ponting, Hussey and Smith are no longer as representative of Australian people and culture as they once were.

	"Part of our real focus at the moment is to grow and diversify our participation base. There are a number of players from different cultural backgrounds who are playing in domestic cricket and I guess there are opportunities to highlight that." Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland

The political manoeuvring undertaken by CA to enable Fawad to be eligible as early as possible in 2013 was criticised in some quarters as either opportunism or tokenism, yet there are other initiatives further down the chain of command that reflect the same goals. On August 28, it was announced that each BBL team would offer two community rookie contracts, described by CA as "part of a wider plan to provide opportunities to players who might not otherwise be identified as one of Australian cricket's pathway programs; players from rural communities, indigenous backgrounds, low socio-economic areas, and those from non-English speaking backgrounds".

One of the players promoting the community rookie program was Sandhu, as part of a CA marketing contract he was granted in June, alongside Fawad. As Sutherland said at the time: "Part of our real focus at the moment is to grow and diversify our participation base. There are a number of players from different cultural backgrounds who are playing in domestic cricket and I guess there are opportunities to really highlight that and for them to be some sort of inspiration to others in our community to be part of the Australian cricket scene."

These words and their sentiment could not be further removed from those offered by Walters and Campese who, whether knowingly or not, expressed the sorts of monocultural views that have been cropping up an awful lot in the wider dialogue leading up to the Federal election. They were not a million miles removed from the observation of the western Sydney parliamentary candidate Fiona Scott, who said this week that asylum seekers "are a hot topic here because the traffic is overcrowded".

Comments like those offered by Scott, Walters and Campese may be decried for ignorance, exclusivity or any other number of reasons. Yet they are likely to come up more frequently over the next few years. Scott's side of politics are expected to win handsomely on Saturday, and their leader Tony Abbott has pushed for a roll-back of racial discrimination laws on the basis of causing offence.

His argument, made to The Australian last month: "If we are going to be a robust democracy, if we are going to be a strong civil society, if we are going to maintain that great spirit of inquiry, which is the spark that has made our civilisation so strong, then we've got to allow people to say things that are unsayable in polite company. We've got to allow people to think things that are unthinkable in polite company and take their chances in open debate."

Among other planned legislative changes in an Abbott government is the removal of the rights of asylum seekers to ever seek permanent residency or citizenship in Australia. Had CA not intervened in Fawad's case, he would be facing the same uncertain future. To Sutherland, such legislation may mean countless potential Australian cricketers lost. To Walters, Campese, beer companies and politicians, it will more likely mean one less minority to worry about.

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Modi involved in rebel county plans - BCCI

The furious stand-off between the ECB chairman Giles Clarke, Lalit Modi, the former IPL commissioner, and the global sports and media business IMG, over alleged talks about a rebel Twenty20 league in England has been stripped bare in the report of a BCCI disciplinary committee.

Modi has been found guilty on eight charges of "various acts of indiscipline and misconduct" during his time in charge of IPL and he is expected to face recommendations of a life ban at a special general meeting of the BCCI on September 25.

But it is previously unseen details of alleged emails between Modi, IMG and key administrators in English county cricket which will be read closely by those interested in the feverish debate which sounded three years ago about the future of Twenty20 in England.

Clarke's allegations that Modi and IMG were involved in embryonic plans to launch a rebel T20 league in England were denied by both parties and the protracted legal claims and counter-claims that followed were eventually settled out of court.

Any introduction of a T20 franchise operation in England - which became known as Project Victoria - would have transformed professional cricket in England and left the game facing the most unpredictable period in its history.

Instead, the ECB, with Clarke at the forefront, has reasserted its rule over professional cricket in England and has confirmed plans next season for a revamped T20 tournament based on all 18 first-class counties to be played over most of the summer, largely on Friday nights.

The league has been presented as a solution which takes regard of England's traditions, weather and potential, but critics argue it as unambitious and fear that it will not attract overseas players because it is played over such a prolonged period.

The BCCI disciplinary report outlines an alleged plan "to create a rebel 20:20 league in England without the involvement of English Cricket Board by targeting weak and cash starved counties."

For the first time, a series of emails between administrators and IMG representatives have entered the public domain, with the BCCI disciplinary committee concluding: "It states that membership has been obtained of counties that are financially vulnerable and potential acquisition targets. The said counties are Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Northants, Derbyshire and Leicestershire as potential acquisition targets."

Under Project Victoria, according to further emails, the 18 counties could be amalgamated for the purposes of T20 into eight franchises. Scotland would also be considered as, according to one email exchange, "there were a lot of Indians in Glasgow".

The BCCI disciplinary committee concluded: "We are convinced that by being part of a plan to create a new T-20 League in England by targeting weak counties, which Mr Modi knew was outside the ECB's knowledge and umbrella, Mr Modi endangered the harmony between the BCCI and the ECB. We hold that the charge is proved against Mr Modi on this count."

Clarke protested to the Indian board once he learned of a meeting in Mumbai between Modi and a party of county chief executives representing four Test match counties: Yorkshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire.

Modi's written submission stated that county representatives "were all frustrated about the lack of vision at the ECB and they wanted some form of ideas to stimulate discussion back home. However, no deal was offered or proposed. They simply talked about ideas and the respondent told them what was obvious: there was an opportunity in England to create an EPL."

Many county representatives involved, however tentatively, in confidential discussions about the future of Twenty20 in England have since moved on or have had to work hard to repair relationships with the higher echelons of the ECB.

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