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Don Bradman’s home town of Bowral will soon boast its own International Cricket Hall of Fame (ICHOF). The ICHOF – not to be confused with the unconnected ICC Hall of Fame – will open in late 2010 and will be a fully interactive, permanent exhibition of cricket, built at the Bradman Oval.”Bradman Oval has always been viewed as the spiritual home of cricket as it is the scene of Don Bradman’s early triumphs,” Michael Ball, chairman of the Bradman Foundation, said. “Now the complex will be enlarged and enhanced by a splendid new building which will house the International Cricket Hall of Fame, an interactive museum based on the international game of cricket with a focus on the greats of the game from all over the world.”The aim is to create a “living centre of cricket” that will be dedicated not only to the game’s history but also to the more modern versions of the sport. The project is being financed by a federal government grant to recognise last year’s centenary of Bradman’s birth.”Importantly, for all international cricketers who have represented their countries in all forms of the game, the ICHOF will honour them for their participation at the elite level,” Ball said. “The ICHOF will also look at many other aspects of the game including umpiring and game technology, international media delivery, sports physiology, spectator experience, global venues, and the game’s administration.”

Charlotte Edwards has shrugged off the pressure of being favourites for the women’s first World Twenty20 which begins next week. England are the hot tip following their success in the World Cup in March and the announcement of a settled squad for this home tournament.Rather than being burdened by the tag Edwards, England’s widely admired captain, welcomed the situation. “I’d rather be in our position than not to be honest,” she told Cricinfo. “It’s new territory for us, but we’re not feeling the pressure from it at all.”Australia have been used to dominating world cricket but underperformed at home in the World Cup, while England’s strong campaign impressed everyone and moved them to the No.1 seat. A typically straight-talking Edwards added: “I honestly don’t know how it will affect us as we have never been in this position before. We want to enjoy it and play some good cricket like we did in winter and then hopefully we’ll have continued success.”With such a strong foundation of ongoing support and the confidence-boosting player contracts, England have played consistent cricket in recent years, including a record winning streak in ODIs. The strength-in-depth of the talent pool and the ECB’s and Cricket Foundation’s significant investment in the elite players as well as the women’s game in general, has left England the envy of the world and a constantly dangerous opposition.For the World Twenty20, Edwards and Claire Taylor, the world’s No. 1 batsman and Wisden Cricketer of the Year, will again provide the solid backbone of the batting department. The openers Caroline Atkins and Sarah Taylor forged a useful alliance at the top in Sydney and will seek to take that form into this tournament.Katherine Brunt, Isa Guha, Jenny Gunn and Nicky Shaw are the pace options. Shaw, England’s vice-captain, will expect to play more games in the World Twenty20 following her heroics in the World Cup final where she took four wickets as a late inclusion for the injured Gunn. The spin attack is strong – with the reliable Holly Colvin and Laura Marsh, who took the most wickets at the World Cup – providing a heavy challenge.The only change to the squad which won the World Cup is the last-minute swapping of one teenager for another. Danielle Hazell has been included in place of the injured Anya Shrubsole but the change should not disrupt the side too much.England – whose Twenty20 record is middling at six wins and five losses – have been warming up with many Twenty20 games of late. They have played against the Sussex Academy, Brighton College, Surrey Academy and Dulwich College and the England women’s Academy. They have also hit the gym hard and had weekly nets with coaching staff Mark Lane and Jack Birkenshaw.They will not expect home advantage to make a huge difference given that it is Twenty20 cricket, the shortest format. “I don’t think it will have much of an impact,” said Edwards, “but we’re hoping for lots of home support.”England will certainly get that if they make the semi-finals and then the final where they could potentially play before sell-out crowds ahead of the men. The group stages, tucked away in Taunton, may prove less conducive to large audiences although the county ground is the official home of English women’s cricket and there can be decent local following.Twenty20 is, of course, the most unpredictable format of all cricket and, with such a short tournament anything can happen. However, England have the strongest chance of any team to take the title.

Tim Bresnan is ready to banish the memories of his first spell in international cricket if he is handed a Test debut against West Indies at Lord’s. He endured a harrowing experience at the hands of Sri Lanka in 2006, but believes he has emerged a better and stronger player.Bresnan was plucked out of county cricket as a 21-year-old by Duncan Fletcher and thrown in against the powerful Sri Lanka top-order. He began promisingly enough in the first one-day international at Lord’s with 1 for 44 off nine overs, but life became progressively harder after that. In the final match of the series, as England slumped to a 5-0 whitewash, he was carted for 29 off two overs on his home ground at Headingley.”The first time I played I was picked more on potential than performance and last year was probably the first time I thought that I’m ready for this,” Bresnan said. “My game has been going from strength to strength ever since then and I believe I’m ready now.”Bresnan didn’t feature in any of the England squads over the winter, instead working on his fitness, and is now reaping the benefits of being able to bowl on fresh legs “for the first time in about six years”. His early-season call to play for MCC against Durham at Lord’s showed he was clearly in the selectors’ thoughts and Bresnan sensed he was getting closer.”I knew they were watching, you see the selectors knocking around early in the season and I had an indication from Martyn Moxon who said I was close and the next thing I pick the phone up and it’s Geoff Miller saying I’m in.”He admits his first experience probably came too soon, but he wasn’t the only one to suffer at the hands of Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga. At Headingley, Steve Harmison went for 97 off his 10 overs and Kabir Ali a horrific 72 from six. Kabir hasn’t played for England since, so Bresnan’s copybook clearly wasn’t terminally blotted by his experience.”I was blown away by it to be honest,” Bresnan said about tasting international cricket. “It wasn’t just me it got the better of, Jayasuriya took everyone apart. I took a lot away from the series, worked on bowling at left handers, and took confidence out of the fact that it wasn’t just me. They took Harmy down, Kabir Ali, Saj [Mahmood].”Bresnan went back into county cricket, humbled by his experience but not humiliated. He now knew what it took to play at the highest level. Last season was his best as he finished with 45 Championship wickets at 28.40. “I’ve been improving for the last four years,” he said. “I got thrown into county cricket quite early as a 16-17 year old. If you look at my career stats they don’t look that good, but in the last three years I’ve been on the up and up.”In his favour he has been involved with a Yorkshire dressing full of seam-bowling know-how. Matthew Hoggard has been a regular source of advice, as was Darren Gough when he returned to captain the club. “When you can have a sensible conversation with him [Matthew Hoggard] and get him one-to-one he’s brilliant for things like that,” Bresnan said. “Last year Goughy was quality, he’s good to have a drink in the bar with telling us how good he was.”However, Bresnan’s greatest source of advice wasn’t a fellow Englishman. “The one for me a couple of years ago was Jason Gillespie, he was fantastic. I spent time just chatting with him often over dinner or in the bar,” he said of the former Australian quick who played for Yorkshire in 2006 and 2007. “He was an ultimate professional and often he was too good for the batsmen.”But if he gets the chance to step out at Lord’s on Wednesday, Bresnan won’t be overcomplicating the game with too much advice swirling around his head. “I just try to be my own person and my own player and hopefully that will be the style that brings the goods.”

The former England wicketkeeper, Bob Taylor, has been named as Derbyshire’s president at the club’s AGM yesterday evening.”It gives me great pleasure and is a terrific honour to be the president of Derbyshire for the next two years,” said Taylor.”The bottom line is success and I know that John Morris is working very hard with the team and I would love to see them be successful on the field – hopefully getting promoted to the first division of the County Championship.”Taylor, 67 – or “Chat”, as he was nicknamed in his playing days – played 57 Tests for England in a first-class career which spanned 28 years for Derbyshire.

Quarter-finals

Piyush Chawla’s all-round efforts helped Uttar Pradesh sail through to the semi-finals with a 34-run win against Himachal Pradesh at the Maharaja Bir Bikram College Stadium. Chawla scored a breezy half-century before picking up 4 for 41 to knock HP out of the tournament. UP found the going tough after choosing to bat, and were struggling at 105 for 5, before a 79-run partnership between Chawla and Ravikant Shukla propped them up. Shukla stroked four boundaries during his 79-ball 55, and Chawla slammed two sixes in a 46-ball 56 to take UP to a competitive 210. HP’s chase got off to a poor start, losing Mukesh Sharma in the first over, caught behind off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Bhuvneshwar then removed the other opener Sangram Singh before Bhavin Thakkar steadied the innings. His 54-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Ajay Mannu looked to have steered HP away from danger. However Chawla struck in the 32nd over, having Thakkar caught by Shivakant Shukla after a fighting 60, which included eight boundaries. Chawla and Praveen Gupta then struck at regular intervals to bowl out HP for 176 in the 43rd over.Left-arm seamer Ikram Zampawala’s four wickets helped Baroda crush Hyderabad by seven wickets at the Polytechnic Institute ground and advance to the semi-finals. The 23-year-old Zampawala scythed through the top-order, leaving Hyderabad at 19 for 3 in the 10th over, blows from which they never recovered. Swapnil Singh provided good support for Zampawala, picking up 3 for 25. Dwaraka Ravi Teja played the only innings of note for Hyderabad – a 137-ball 77, which included four boundaries. None of the other batsmen made more than 20 as Hyderabad were shot out for 167. Baroda suffered an early hiccup during the chase, with Kedar Hemant Devdhar exiting in the third over, but were rarely in trouble after that. Powered by half-centuries from Shailesh Solanki, Azharuddin Bilakhia and Rakesh Solanki, Baroda overhauled the target in the 31st over.

David Collier, the ECB chief executive, has said he will not resign in the wake of the Allen Stanford fiasco. Collier admitted he and ECB chairman Giles Clarke have discussed their positions but maintained they still enjoyed the support of the board.Collier and Clarke were seen as the key people behind the board’s now-terminated contracts with the Stanford group, and the pressure has been mounting on the two to quit following the charges of fraud against Stanford.”Certainly I’ve discussed that with Giles but more importantly members of the board have been phoning to say we have full confidence and you must carry on,” Collier told BBC Radio Five’s Sportsweek. “We’ve looked back at all of the events and said ‘what more could we have done at the time?’ It’s not as though we’ve been involved in any of the fraud that is alleged. This is another party altogether.”Collier said he had been urged to stay on. “I have been extremely heartened that many people involved in cricket – and I suppose having worked in the game for 30 years I’ve probably got as many contacts as anyone – have urged me to continue what they see as the immense progress we’ve made over the last four years,” he said. “I’ve certainly looked back and said ‘would we have been able to do things differently?’ and I believe that as professionals we went through all the correct contract procedures.”I believe therefore that I could not have done more at that time and I don’t think the board could have done more. So the answer is no on that [resigning].”The ECB severed all ties with Stanford group earlier this week after the Texan billionaire was charged with fraud in the USA. The development could see the ECB lose a potentially lucrative revenue stream, but the board assured the counties “there would be no impact on fee payments in 2009”.Clarke, who was recently re-elected as chairman, had admitted the ECB may have made an error of judgement in getting involved with Stanford.

Stuart Clark could be the beneficiary of southern English hospitality in his bid to return to full fitness for the Ashes series. Clark, who is recovering from an elbow injury, is understood to be considering a county stint, with Kent or Hampshire looming as the most likely destination.Clark made a premature comeback in a desperate 11th-hour bid to earn selection for Australia’s tour to South Africa, but now finds himself with few competitive options ahead of the Ashes. He was overlooked in the Indian Premier League draft, and is no certainty to make the one-day and Twenty20 squads for the away series against Pakistan and the Twenty20 World Cup in England. Clark has also been ruled out of New South Wales’ final Sheffield Shield match on the orders of Cricket Australia’s medical staff.Paul Millman, the Kent chief executive, confirmed he had held discussions with Clark, and said he would have no qualms signing an Australian player in an Ashes year. “I went through all that with Steve Waugh [in 2002], and I can honestly say that getting him over was one of the best things that has happened to Kent cricket,” Millman said.”He brought so much to our team, and our players learned a lot from him. I don’t think that, in the grand scheme of things, having an Australian over for a month or two is going to have a huge impact on the result of the Ashes.”A spell at Kent would provide Clark with the intriguing prospect of playing under the coach Graham Ford. Ford is considered among the front-runners to assume the England coaching post ahead of the Ashes.Any move to Hampshire would be contingent on the county parting ways with the Australian Marcus North, who made his Test debut on Thursday. North signed with Hampshire in January, but could become a regular fixture in Ricky Ponting’s side.

Odds-on favourites Oman crushed Bhutan by 213 runs in the final of the Asian Cricket Council Challenge in Chiang Mai. Put into bat, Oman amassed 322 for 9 and then dismissed Bhutan for 109.The decision to insert Oman caused raised eyebrows as the conditions looked perfect for batting, and so it proved. Maqsood Hussain, whose 76 runs in the tournament included 72 in boundaries, cracked 14 off six balls and from then on it was one-way traffic.The key moment came when Adnan Ilyas was dropped when on 8 by the wicketkeeper in the day’s third over. He raced to 50 off 38 balls and brought up his hundred off 95, and by the time he was bowled by legspinner Jigme Singye for 113 the game was all but beyond Bhutan. “We were waiting for the mistakes,” Bhutan’s coach Damber Singh Gurung admitted, “But we made them.”Bhutan did well to keep things under some semblance of control after Ilyas departed, the last 16 overs only producing 107 runs for the loss of six wickets, but the damage had been done.Oman’s bowlers were as tight as their batsmen had been rampant. Bolstered by an attacking field of four slips, Farhan Khan, who was named bowler of the tournament, took 2 for 19 and Hemal Mehta almost took a hat-trick as he finished with 3 for 22.Opener Kumar Subba set out his stall to bat through the innings, grinding out 40 off 103 deliveries, and at the halfway point Bhutan were 65 for 4. He was eventually beaten for pace by Awal Khan and the victory was completed in the 43rd over.In the third/fourth place play-off, Thailand, who were widely expected to make the final until their shock defeat by Bhutan, ended on another disappointment as they lost by eight wickets to Maldives. Thailand were skittled for 60 as daft run-outs coupled with Abdulla Shahid, who took 4 for 13 off his ten overs, took their toll. Maldives lost an early wicket but a second-wicket stand of 44 between Ahmed Hussain and Ahmed Hassan ensured there were no more alarms.

Pakistan will tour Bangladesh for a series of five ODIs after thescheduled tour by Sri Lanka in March next year, the PCB has announced.Pakistan have not played a bilateral series in Bangladesh since 2002although they played in the tri-nation Kitply Cup earlier this year inMay. “There will be a series of five ODIs in Bangladesh,” Salim Altaf,chief operating officer PCB, told Cricinfo. “The team will leave on March3. The tour is part of the FTP.”Pakistan has played little cricket over the last year, hit bypostponements and cancellations. The latest blow was India’s withdrawalfrom their January tour, though Sri Lanka have said they will replacethem. The series, Altaf said, means at least that the board is trying toarrange matches for the side. “There is an opinion that Pakistan has beenisolated at international level but it’s not correct and we have arrangedtours for the team.”In a bid to ensure that the team does play, Ejaz Butt, the PCB chairman,will meet Cricket Australia officials at an ICC meeting in Perth inJanuary to finalise the five ODIs and Twenty20 Australia is scheduled toplay in March-April in Pakistan.Privately, board officials believe it is likely those games will be playedat a neutral venue. A security assessment is expected before any decisionis made but it is believed that Butt will try and convince CA to sendtheir team over when they meet on January 31.If the series is shifted to a neutral venue, Abu Dhabi or Dubai remain theforemost options, though other venues are also being looked at.

Andrew Symonds has apologised to his team-mates for the events of the past few days after being cleared of any wrongdoing by Cricket Australia. Symonds is free to keep playing, including in Friday’s Adelaide Test against New Zealand, having avoided punishment for an incident in which a member of the public was alleged to have thrown punches at Symonds in a Brisbane pub on Sunday.”I maintain that I acted appropriately while at the hotel, but I regret making the decision to visit the hotel as I realise I put myself in a compromising position,” Symonds said in Adelaide on Wednesday. “I have told my team-mates that I am sorry to have put them through this distraction at a time when they are trying to prepare for a Test match so soon after the Brisbane game, particularly those who were also at the hotel and were named in media reports.”Symonds has effectively been on a final warning since his Cardiff pub crawl in 2005. After that incident, in which he turned up on the morning of an ODI still drunk, he was told by James Sutherland, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, that another off-field indiscretion would result in him losing his contract.That threat was not carried out this year, when Symonds’ fishing trip and other behavioural issues were treated as a welfare concern. Sutherland said he was “totally satisfied” that Symonds had acted appropriately by not retaliating at the Normanby Hotel on Sunday. “Andrew did nothing wrong, in fact he coped with a difficult and challenging situation well,” Sutherland said.Several of Symonds’ team-mates were reportedly angry that Symonds had been drinking in a busy pub having just completed his first Test since being welcomed back into the side. The incident also came only a week after Symonds admitted on national television that he had sometimes been drinking too much during the past year.Symonds said he would not rule out visiting hotels in the future but he would be more careful about when and where he would do so. His manager Matt Fearon said there could be merit in Symonds keeping a lower profile for the time being. “Maybe faced with the choice, it’s not an option for him to be out socialising at this time,” Fearon told the . “But they are the lessons he needs to look at and make choices on. He regrets this, there is no question.”Paul Marsh, the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, agreed that Symonds had handled the situation well and he said there was nothing wrong with Symonds declining to pose for a photo, which reportedly led to the altercation. “He has a policy that he is not going to have his photo taken in a bar,” Marsh said in the . “People don’t always understand that, but I don’t see what is wrong with that.”Steve Waugh, the former Australia captain, said it might be in Symonds’ interests to accede to requests for photos and autographs in the future. “My philosophy is don’t look down on people who look up to you,” Waugh told the . “Sometimes you are larger than life to people, they might have only seen you on TV or whatever, you have to be polite.”Most of the time the easier option is to give the person their autograph or have the picture taken. It takes longer to say no than just to oblige with a fan’s request – as long as the person is respectful. If they aren’t respectful, it can be a delicate situation but you just have to back out of it before it becomes a problem. How you handle that makes the difference. If someone gets a bit aggressive you just have to shrug your shoulders and walk away.”It has also been reported in the that Symonds had struggled so much with his fame that earlier this year he offered to take a pay cut of $250,000 to avoid all off-field commitments. Cricket Australia reportedly turned down the offer, which came after Symonds became the highest-paid non-Indian player in the IPL.