India's tour of England

India's cricketers are heading for a Test and limited overs series in England with a bowling attack that is short on experience and expecting a tough contest, the Indian captain said on Sunday.

Without the services of fast bowler Javagal Srinath, India will have "a comparatively inexperienced bowling attack," Sourav Ganguly told reporters during a visit to his hometown, the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.

Srinath, one of India's quickest and most experienced bowlers, announced his retirement from Test cricket during the tour to West Indies last month. Indian selectors did not choose him for the limited overs series in England either.

"The absence of Srinath will be felt," Ganguly said.

New Zealand in West Indies

Fifth one-day international, St Vincent
West Indies 295-6 beat New Zealand 291-8 by four wickets

The West Indies clinched a dramatic last-ball victory against New Zealand on Sunday, as Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming blasted "incompetent" match officials.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul - who had earlier retired hurt after being whacked by a Shane Bond ball - rushed back from hospital to blast the winning run off the last ball as the West Indies hit 15 from the final over.

The victory gave the West Indies a 3-1 win in the five-match series, although Fleming said incompetence from match officials had cheated his team of victory.

Sri Lanka in England

Third Test, Old Trafford, day four
Sri Lanka 253 and 63-1; England 512

England made light of the loss of Andrew Caddick to put Sri Lanka on the rack.

And though bad weather has played a significant part in this match, England could still force a win on the last day which would give them a 2-0 series victory.

England bowled well enough on a pitch that is still an excellent batting surface to enforce the follow-on when Sri Lanka were all out some 259 runs behind England just before tea.

Alex Tudor and Matthew Hoggard stepped into the void created by the absence of an injured Andy Caddick to bowl with real aplomb.

Scorecard | Match report | Slide show

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England's bowlers produced an inspired performance to bowl Sri Lanka out and enforce the follow on, and the visitors now face an uphill task to save themselves from a second defeat.

Happily, the most successful bowler was Alex Tudor, who found himself so short of work at Edgbaston that he must have received his match fee with just a tinge of embarrassment.

Here, in the absence of Andy Caddick, he was given added responsibility, and rose to the challenge admirably.

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Andy Caddick will find out on Tuesday how much cricket he will miss after pulling up with a side strain on Saturday evening.

Caddick, England's only experienced seamer so far this summer in the continued absence of Darren Gough, was not able to take any further part in the final Test.

But he will have a scan on the affected area to establish exactly how long his absence from cricket will be.

Caddick, 33, said he was disappointed to be missing out as England attempted to force a victory over the last two days of the Test.

"It's good to play, regardless of the situation," he said.

Miscellaneous

Daryl Foster has quit as Sri Lanka's bowling coach following a pay dispute with the board's interim committee.

It is understood Sri Lanka refused to reimburse Foster $1600 - his return airfare to Australia - when he was forced to visit his seriously ill granddaughter in Perth during the first Test against England at Lord's.

"That's something between me and the board," said Foster.

"We had a slight disagreement with a request I made (and) I don't want to go into it in detail."

Foster is currently working with Ruchira Perera after the fast bowler was cited for throwing at Lord's in the series opener by umpires Daryl Harper and Srinivas Venkataraghavan.

"I made clear to them unless certain things happen, I wouldn't be coming back and I'll have to stick by that," Foster added.

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Glenn McGrath has become the latest Australian to hit back at the complaints made by South African batsman Graeme Smith about sledging.

Smith's outburst last month in a South African magazine broke an unwritten code between players to keep on-field events between themselves.

But his reasons for going public with those comments appear to be flawed.

First, Jimmy Maher defended the Australian stance, and now McGrath has said Smith was not the innocent victim of a concerted campaign by the Aussies.

McGrath told that Smith gave as good as he got in the verbal battle on his Test debut in Cape Town in March.

"The Australian way of playing is what happens out in the middle stays out there and he wasn't Mr Clean himself, he was having plenty to say," McGrath said.

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When the ECB last year revealed the names that would form its first cricket Academy, the boyhood dreams of 15 young cricketers were instantly fulfilled.

It was the chance of a lifetime: an opportunity to be fast-tracked from boy to man under tutelage that produces Test cricketers as a matter of course.

At least that is what you would expect. In the case of Surrey fast bowler Alex Tudor, seeing his name among the elite 15 to go to Adelaide was like taking two steps forward and three steps back.

According to Surrey team-mate Mark Ramprakash, Tudor, the oldest academy member and the only one with Test experience, was crestfallen.

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International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Malcolm Speed announced plans on Sunday for a new world one-day championship along the lines of the one currently in place for Test matches.

Speed speaking ahead of next week's ICC executive board meeting at Lord's said: "We will put in place a similar thing for one-day cricket."

But he admitted that the current Test championship, where all major cricket nations play each other home and away during a five-year period was facing problems.

The political situation in Pakistan has seen nations reluctant to tour there with New Zealand leaving before their scheduled second Test when a bomb exploded near their hotel.

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