Former South Africa captain Shaun Pollock, who was sacked from his post following his team's poor show in the World Cup, has received praise from the country's National Cricket Committee. The NCC was unanimous in complimenting Pollock on his conduct and continued commitment to the team while lauding him after holding a meeting in Cape Town on Thursday.

"Shaun has conducted himself with dignity and grace through what has been a difficult time for him. His positive approach and his exceptional commitment continue to make him a most valuable asset to South African cricket. Shaun must be complimented on his attitude and thanked for it," CEO of South African Cricket and NCC chairman Gerald Majola said. He appreciated Pollock, who has vowed never to return as captain but still maintains the same dedication and support to the team.

"Shaun has seized the new opportunities that he faces in his role as a senior player and he has committed himself again to the national squad and to contributing to ensure that the team performs as a successful unit under the new captain Graeme Smith," he said.

The dismal performance in the World Cup continued to haunt the Pakistani players as the country's cricket Board has decided to deduct 50 per cent of their total earnings for the team's early exit from the mega-event. "This was an agreement signed before the World Cup and the players agreed to performance-based terms and conditions," Pakistan Cricket Board spokesman Samiul Hasan was quoted as saying by BBC Sports web site.

"The agreement was that if they failed to go beyond the preliminary rounds, they would face 50 per cent deductions from their total earnings from the tournament," Hasan said. The accounts department of the Pakistan Cricket Board has completed paper work on the amount to be deducted from each player's total earnings in the World Cup. PCB officials said that the players cannot complain about the deductions as they had agreed to the performance-based formula in their contracts.

"The players can't complain, because they all agreed to the World Cup contract prepared by the Board which was a performance based one," a Board official told the local daily The News. "The performance based formula is simple. If the players perform well to a certain level they get additional percentage of their total earnings which includes match fees and tour fees. If they perform badly they lose a percentage of their earnings," the official said.

Emphasizing that he still has a lot of motivation and passion for the game, former Pakistan captain Moin Khan has said that he has no "grouse" with current incumbent Rashif Latif and is willing to play a part in the team's rebuilding process. "I have no grouse with Rashid Latif. He got his chance and grabbed it. He has performed," said Moin, a former wicketkeeper, who was part of the team's World Cup triumph in 1992 but ignored for the event in South Africa.

The 31-year old Moin said despite Latif performing well behind the stumps, he is hopeful of making a comeback. "I am neither dejected nor have lost hope after being ignored for selection even after the World Cup. I have eternal hope that I will make a comeback soon to the team," he told The News.

"Disappointments are part of an international cricketer's life and we learn to accept them. But we have to fight on for another day." Moin said he still plays the game with a lot of passion and with his experience can contribute in the rebuilding process of the team. "The fact that I still have a lot of passion and motivation left for the game and the fact that I am still very much active on the domestic circuit means I will never be out of sight or mind of the selectors," said Moin. "I think at my age and with my experience I can contribute a lot in the rebuilding process of the team although I don't necessarily agree with the decision to sack eight senior players at a time."

The International Cricket Council and European Cricket Council have decided to contribute a grant of 50,000 pounds to the Scottish Cricket Union to help fund its participation in the National Cricket League Division Two. Scotland, one of the top-ranked ICC Associate Members, had only narrowly failed to qualify for the Cricket World Cup 2003 having played in the 1999 event in England. The invitation to play in the domestic one-day league is an exceptional opportunity for an Associate Member country to receive extensive exposure to top class cricket.

"For the Associate Member countries to develop, they need to have regular exposure to competitive cricket. Both the ICC and the ECC recognise the importance of this opportunity to the development of Scottish cricket and we are pleased to be able to offer them High Performance funding to ensure their participation," ICC Development Manager Andrew Eade said. The grant now guarantees Scotland's involvement in the National Cricket League this season and their campaign will begin with an away fixture against Durham at the Riverside on May 4.

Not satisfied with the report of Justice Karamat Nazir Bhandari Commission which had said that Pakistan's defeat to Bangladesh and India during the 1999 World Cup were not fixed, the International Cricket Council may request for a new probe into the allegations.

The ICC may seek another inquiry because submissions from its investigative body - the Anti-Corruption Unit - were not included in his report by Justice Bhandari, who was appointed by the Pakistan government to probe into the allegations that the players took bribe to lose matches, Bloomberg news agency quoted a source familiar with the case. However, the chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board, Tauqir Zia, said that much evidence is not available to establish the match-fixing allegations against the players.

"The Code of Conduct Commission (the ICC's disciplinary body) said we have not looked into this and not looked into that but not much evidence was available," Zia said in a telephone interview. "It's just a misunderstanding in my opinion." When contacted, ICC and ACU declined to comment while Justice Bhandari could not be reached for comment, the agency said. Justice Bhandari, in his Jan. 31, 2002, report, said the ACU "had no material in support of the theory that the (Bangladesh) match was fixed."

With the World Cup over, the vexed contract issue is likely to resurface with the International Cricket Council sticking to its decision to withhold India's guarantee money from the Cup due to the dispute. "The contract issue was temporarily put on the back-burner because of the Cup. But now that the Cup is over, the process to sort out the matter has to start once again," BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said. The dispute figured prominently during the ICC Executive Board meeting in South Africa last week, with some of the members trying to pin India on the controversy.

Though Dalmiya remained tight-lipped on deliberations at the Executive Board, sources said the meeting was "stormy" and at one stage ICC Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Speed even proposed that the BCCI heavyweight be banned from all its meetings. Speed was apparently peeved by a PIL filed in the Delhi High Court against ICC, and made a scathing attack on the BCCI in his report before the Executive Board.

In his report, Speed reportedly claimed that two directors had asked him to report to the Executive Board on the role played by BCCI in that litigation. Dalmiya said the matter would now be sorted out through arbitration by the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, or "we can sit together and sort out the matter." As for the cost factor, a BCCI source said it was forced to move towards arbitration as it could not sacrifice players' rights only to pave the way for granting some unilateral privileges to Global Cricket Corporation, which holds the marketing rights of ICC events till the next World Cup in 2007.

Former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga identified political interference in cricket as the reason for Sri Lanka's dip in standards and blamed the cricket board for the fall. "There is political interference in selection and that is why we are going down and down in standards," said Ranatunga.

The cricketer-turned-commentator was on his way to Mumbai where he will be leading a Sri Lankan XI in an exhibition match to raise funds for a philanthropic project by renowned playback singer Lata Mangeshkar. In a brief chat with reporters, Ranatunga attacked the Sri Lankan cricket board for the fall in the team's performance since he led the team to victory in the 1996 World Cup.

Ranatunga said the Sri Lankan Sports Ministry is not doing anything and the "interference" in selection was happening for the past couple of years. As for the team's performance in the recent World Cup, Ranatunga said "We are disappointed but we made mistakes too. We did not play well enough against the Australians in the semifinals". Vice-captain of the team in South Africa, Mahela Jayawardene was ready to take the blame and said "I am equally disappointed about my own form and the team's poor showing".

The stylish batsman said he has been consulting his coaches about the dip in his form and hoped he would get back to form soon. Spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan refused to accept that there is a big gap in standards between the Australians and other top cricket playing countries in the world, especially in one-dayers. "The gap is not big. It is just that the Aussies have maintained their winning habit and therefore their confidence is on the high. Their confidence will also drop once they lose a couple of games," Muralitharan, who has been rested from the Sharjah squad, said.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee lauded the Indian cricket team for its "splendid performance" in the recently-concluded World Cup in South Africa and expressed hope that it would win the title next time. "The Indian team played very well throughout the tournament although it was unlucky to lose in the final," the Prime Minister said during an interaction with students of the Ramnath Ashram Shala, run by Rajya Sabha member, Nanaji Deshmukh's Deendayal Research Institute.

Vajpayee said the fact that India lost in the final did not matter much because victory or defeat were part of any game. "The Indian team defeated teams from many nations before it reached the final," he said. Vajpayee said the team had earned a name for itself and added that there was no harm in being defeated in the final.

Steve Waugh added another first to his long list of accomplishments when he won the award bearing his own name as the New South Wales Cricketer of the Year. The NSW and Australian Test captain polled 213 votes from his teammates to win the inaugural Steve Waugh Medal ahead of fellow batsman Simon Katich (206) and Michael Clarke (157). Waugh's exclusion from the World Cup winning Australian one-day team enabled him to shine for his state in his busiest season for the Blues since the early stages of his career.

NSW beat Queensland in the Sheffield Shield final to cap a memorable season. In seven Sheffield Shield matches Waugh amassed 659 runs at an average of 50.69 including three centuries. Waugh received a nine-carat gold medal from NSW cricket association president and former Test fast bowler Alan Davidson. The award was decided by votes cast on a 3-2-1 basis by each NSW player at the end of each state match.

The Kenya Cricket Association (KCA) has extended its players' contract by two months in view of the team's participation in next week's Sharjah tournament, officials said. "The contracts would have expired on March 31 and the players would have had to accept or refuse our new terms," Sharad Ghai, chairman of KCA said, claiming that previous contracts entered into after an acrimonious period in 2001 had drained the association's coffers.

"The players have been receiving 98 per cent of our revenue and as a result we have been operating on overdraft," he added. The thorny issue was set to put the KCA and its players in another collision course but Ghai said the two parties had resolved to agree on a way out.

"There is a continuous dialogue which we believe will culminate in an agreement by May 30th," Ghai said. Ghai confirmed that United Arab Emirates cricket coach Abid Ali would take temporary charge of the Kenya team in Sharjah. The team has had no coach since Sandeep Patil opted to return home to India after the World Cup in South Africa.

West Indies' first-class cricketers went on strike for higher match fees on Friday, stalling the first day of Carib Beer cricket series semifinal matches. Barbados was scheduled to play its semifinal Carib Beer series match against Trinidad and Tobago at Barbados's Kensington Oval today, while Guyana was set to face Jamaica at Albion in Berbice, Jamaica.

But neither game began as players followed the instructions of their union and declined to take the field. "We have reached the point where we have decided that the best thing for us to do is not play in the first-class game," said Dinanath Ramnarine, president of West Indies Players Association. The strike was called after talks between the union and West Indies Cricket Board broke down last night. It was immediately unclear how long the players would boycott the field.

Players have asked for higher fees for regional competition and compensation for players injured while on tour, said Ramnarine, but would not give details about how much exactly they were seeking. The cricket board said it had already increased fees last month, and questioned the union's authority in negotiating on the players' behalf, according to a statement.