Gerald Majola, the South African board’s chief executive, has confirmed that the post of national coach will be advertised for three weeks from this coming Friday (February 18). The panel that will sift through the applicants is to be named next week.Majola was less forthcoming about when the new coach would be confirmed, although it will have to be fairly soon as the contract of Ray Jennings, the present incumbent, finishes in May. “It will depend to a large extent on the candidates and the interview process,” Majola said. “We have to allow sufficient time for the panel to interview all the potential candidates and to be completely satisfied that they have appointed the best person for the job.”He also dismissed suggestions in some parts of the media that Jennings was being unfairly treated. “Ray has always been aware of the situation and understood the process of finding a long-term coach. He was well aware that he would have to apply for the full-time post along with all the other candidates if he wanted to continue in the job.”Jennings himself backed that viewpoint. “When I took the job in October, I knew what the process would be and that, should I want to continue, I would have to apply for the permanent job at the end of my tenure. If there has been any misunderstanding in this regard I regret it.”And he effectively threw his hat in the ring when he spoke of the improvements he had made, adding: “I hope the players will want me to stay on. It doesn’t help if I waste my time and energy and the people around me don’t support me. I’ll talk to the players in the next two or three weeks and ask them, because I’m still in the dark at the moment.”However, Graeme Smith, South Africa’s captain, gave Jennings lukewarm support and was quoted in some newspapers as saying he would welcome Steve Waugh in the role.”Jet [Jennings] is very important,” he observed, “but we will have wait and see what the board decides. It is a difficult situation.”

Reports in some newspapers this morning are suggesting that Duncan Fletcher is considering quitting his job as England coach and returning to work in South Africa, where he has a home.Fletcher, who took charge of a struggling England side in 1999 and is widely credited with turning them into the second-best Test side in the world, is on a rolling contract and recently said he wanted to stay at the helm until the 2007 World Cup.But the reports claim that while Test results have been impressive, some players and officials are unhappy with the performances of the one-day side. In 112 games since he took over, England have won only 53.In the Guardian, Mike Selvey wrote that “among the areas of concern are the continued use of Geraint Jones as an opener despite his consistent failure, the relegation of the promising Ian Bell to a lower-order “finisher” and an unwillingness to experiment even when the series [in South Africa] had gone and some players were patently exhausted.”As a result of Fletcher’s success, expectations have risen, and there is a feeling in the country that England could well give an aging Australian side a real run for their money this summer. If that turns out to be yet another false dawn, then whatever has happened since 1999 might be forgotten as thoughts turn to the World Cup and centre on the one-day side.Selvey points out that Fletcher has an exit strategy. His book, co-written with former England and Glamorgan batsman Steve James, will be ready at the end of the summer and publishing in the immediate aftermath of an Ashes series would represent ideal timing. But Fletcher will be restricted in what he is able to say while still under contract to the ECB.But If England perform decently against Australia in this summer’s excess of one-day matches then, whatever the outcome of the Ashes series, that will buy Fletcher time. The book launch can always be delayed for another day.

“It hasn’t been easy playing 100 Tests,” Inzamam-ul-Haq said beforethe match. “I never thought I would get so far.” But in this 100thTest, walking in with Pakistan on 7 for 2, he showed that he still hasplenty of juice left in him. Playing with an ease that made bowlers’efforts seem almost comical, he stroked his way to his 21st century.He got there by guiding the 131st ball he faced, from Irfan Pathan, tosquare leg for a single. He reached the other hand, took off hishelmet, raised his arms, and smiled broadly. He looked with pride andaffection towards the pavilion, where his team-mates stood clapping.The audience applauded too, as did Anil Kumble, another weatheredgiant who knew how it felt to be underestimated.

Lions 134 for 4 (van Jaarsveld 64) beat Western ProvinceBoland 129 (Duminy 43, Terbrugge 4-20) by six wicketsLions eased to a six-wicket victory against Western Province Boland in a low-scoring PRO20 Series match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. Western Province got off to a brisk start after choosing to bat, scoring 28 off the first three overs.But three wickets then tumbled before another run was added to put them on the back foot as David Terbrugge got the ball moving around. They recovered, though, JP Duminy (43) and Thami Tsolekile (35) bringing them back into the game with a stand of 62 – then the match swung again, as they lost their final seven wickets for 39 runs. Terbrugge finished off the innings with two furtherwickets to end with 4 for 20 in his four overs.With a moderate target, the Lions paced themselves well to record the win inthe 19th over. Man of the match, Vaughn van Jaarsveld 64 off 49 balls with five boundaries and a six. Neil McKenzie finished the game off, hitting a four and a six off the final two balls to give Lions the five points.The match between the Warriors and the Titans was declared a no-resultwithout a ball being bowled at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth.

Sandeep Patil, the former Indian batsman and one of the four candidates shortlisted by the Indian cricket board for the position of India’s next coach, has opted out of the fray citing existing commitments with the Oman cricket team, according to a report in Mid-Day, a Mumbai based newspaper. Though Patil refused to either “confirm or deny” the report, it is learnt that Patil has communicated his unavailability through a written reply to the board’s invitation for an interview scheduled.Patil will be travelling to Ireland next month with the Oman team for their World Cup qualifiers. He is also involved in conducting the Complan coaching scheme to unearth cricketing talent from schools.Patil had earlier coached India in 1996, when he took over from Ajit Wadekar, but his tenure was a forgettable one and was replaced within six months. In the next few years, though, Patil guided the Kenyan national team and helped them enter the World Cup semi-finals in 2003, after overcoming Test-playing countries like Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. He then returned to take charge of the India A side, guided them to a very satisfactory tour of England before winning the tri-series in Kenya, in a tournament also involving Pakistan A. He quit the post as he felt he was being treated “shabbily” by the Indian board and took over the responsibilities of coaching Oman.

Scorecard

Middlesex and Surrey played out a draw on a slow final day at Lord’s. Surrey’s bowlers failed to make inroads as Middlesex kept their Eds – Smith and Joyce – long enough to put the result beyond doubt. Smith posted 88 and Joyce made 60 and, with Surrey’s bowlers failing to find any penetration on a flattish pitch, the game petered out into a tame draw.The final day started with Surrey in a position to go for the win and Graham Thorpe – Surrey’s stand-in captain in the absence of the injured Mark Ramprakash – kept the catchers in but his bowlers lacked the venom to force the issue. Thorpe turned to Dominic Thornely to try for the breakthrough. It was a sound decision: Thornely removed Smith 12 short of what would have been only the third championship century for Middlesex this season. But by that time, Smith and Joyce had posted a stand of 100 and the result was a foregone conclusion.Smith played well for his 88 while Joyce again showed why he is England class with his 60, which included nine fours, before Harbhajan Singh eventually trapped him lbw. Singh bowled consistently but, as with the rest of the attack, rarely was he threatening. Not that he had much opportunity: he was given only ten overs on the final day.The game meandered on – and even the commentators on Sky Sports began to question whether this was a great advertisement for the county game. Scott Styris helped himself to a stylish 55, while Ben Scott added 61 not out from lower down the order and by the close Middlesex were 353 for 6.The pitch didn’t help the search for a result, neither did the loss of 30 overs last night through bad light. “We wanted to try to get a lead [on the third day] and there were some tired bowlers out there,” Ramprakash told Sky Sports after the match. “But then the bad light came and we can’t control that.”Nevertheless, he was in bullish mood, as Surrey recorded yet another draw. “We are very happy with how we are playing at the moment. Twice in this match we had Middlesex under pressure. If we keep putting ourselves in those positions, I think those wins will come.”He confirmed that he has a hairline fracture of his thumb and is not anticipating a return to action for at least three weeks.

Queensland 9 for 264 (Maher 92, Symonds 73) defeated South Australia 195 by 69 runs
ScorecardQueensland extended South Australia’s horror run at the Gabba with an emphatic 69-run ING Cup victory. Unbeaten in two matches, Queensland charged four points clear of Tasmania at the top of the competition table by bowling the Redbacks out for 195 and earning a bonus point.The captain Jimmy Maher (92 from 123 balls) and Andrew Symonds (73 from 72) laid the foundations with a 132-run second-wicket stand to push the side to its 22nd win from 27 limited-overs matches against South Australia, who have won only twice at the Gabba.South Australia never appeared in the hunt chasing 265 after Andy Bichel continued his early-season purple patch by removing Ben Cameron and Callum Ferguson inside the first 10 overs. The offspinner Chris Simpson chimed in late to finish off the tail.Maher was Man of the Match but Symonds could easily have earned his second award after guiding the Bulls to a two-wicket win over New South Wales a fortnight ago. Symonds made an extremely cautious start, taking 10 balls to get off the mark, but peeled off 12 fours as his last 70 came from 52 balls.His wicket sparked a middle-order stumble and they lost 8 for 92 in the last 20 overs. Maher, the competition’s all-time leading run-scorer, looked set for his eighth domestic one-day century before being painfully run out in the 37th over.

The 2002 cricket season may only just be over but already Somerset fast bowler Richard Johnson is looking forward to next season and being involved with one of the best pace attacks in the country.With West Indian bowler Nixon McLean joining the Cidermen as their second overseas player next season, and the possibility that Andy Caddick might be available more for his county I asked the former Middlesex for his thoughts about the Somerset pace trio.He told me: “I would love to be a part of that bowling attack. There are not many county sides around who can boast anything quicker, I’m already looking forward to it.”Like all of the other Somerset players `Johnno’ is bitterly disappointed with the teams performances that saw them relegated to the second division in both the county championship and the NUL National League for 2003.He told me: “Of course I’m hugely disappointed that we underachieved as a team and there are lots of reasons why. With a small staff you can’t afford to sustain the number of injuries that we had last season. In 2001 Steffan Jones and myself bowled 1200 overs and took 120 championship wickets between us. This season we did not bowl together in a championship match which speaks for itself.”He continued: “Simon Francis was signed as a long term prospect and then because of injury found himself opening the bowling attack alongside Matt Bulbeck who has himself been missing from the scene because of injury for two years. On the batting front we depend a lot upon Jamie Cox and Peter Bowler. Jamie started off well but got injured at Bath and never really recovered his form, and Peter Bowler didn’t get so many runs as he did in 2001.”He went on: “In 2001 things seemed to go right for us, we were virtually injury free and we got on a roll. This season at the start we were well placed in several games early on but then the weather denied us and we had a succession of injuries and got into a downward spiral.”Comparing the two seasons he told me: “This season was almost the complete opposite of last season, and it’s very hard to explain why unless you have been a part of it.”What about his own season during which he played in nine championship matches and took 43 wickets at a cost of just over twenty one a piece to end top of the Somerset averages.He told me: “Everytime that I bowled I felt good, and that is why I became so frustrated when I had to miss games because of injury. It wasn’t actually my knee that caused the problems it was two hamstring injuries.”What was the situation regarding his injuries I asked. `Johnno’ told me: “All of the feedback that I am getting from the specialists is quite encouraging. I have just come back from seeing somebody in London who doesn’t think that I need an operation, so we are looking at technical aspects of my action or perhaps injections to help to put things right, so it isn’t all doom and gloom.”During the winter `Johnno’ will be following his own personal fitness programme that is designed to get him back to full fitness for the start of next season and prevent a reoccurrence of this years problems.He told me: “We are very disappointed with 2002 but all of us are determined to put things right next year. I’m very upbeat about the whole thing.”Finally I asked him what he felt about the prospect of Mike Burns being captain for 2003. He told me: “It’s a great appointment , I think that `Burnsie’ will be very good. He gets on well with all the team and will get good support from everybody. We all need to back him next season and help him to do the job.”

Terry Jenner’s roles as Shane Warne’s mentor and an ECB legspinning coach have been cleared as a conflict of interest. The ECB received complaints after Jenner had fine-tuned Warne’s action before the first Test at Lord’s, where his six wickets sent a new generation of English batsmen looking for answers.However, an ECB spokesman told Jenner was a consultant rather than a full-time staff member on a program to unearth Test quality spinners by 2007. “As far as we are concerned there is no problem at all,” the spokesman told the paper. “Terry Jenner is his own man. He was involved for one specific project and his work on that is finished.”At a pre-Test net session Jenner, who has coached Warne for more than a decade, worked with him for two hours after spotting some areas where his loop and drift could be improved. Warne then produced what Adam Gilchrist said was “some of the best bowling I’ve kept to from him”. “That’s a pretty big statement, he has set such high standards,” Gilchrist told . “When he bowls over the top he gets that drift towards leg. Then, when you are spinning it, you only have to spin it six inches and you are going to deceive batsmen.”Gilchrist will miss the tour match against Worcestershire, which starts on Saturday, but plans to work on problems caused by Andrew Flintoff bowling around the wicket. The second Test begins at Birmingham on August 4.

Jason Gillespie’s tour has been pretty wretched, and after taking 3 for 300 in the first three Tests, it was not a surprise when he was left out of the Australian side at Trent Bridge.But on the eve of the match he turned on the English crowds in a remarkable interview with the Mirror newspaper. Gillespie has been the target of some hefty abuse from crowds at Lord’s, Edgbaston and Old Trafford, with his appearance attracting particular attention.”Some of the crowd behaviour is appalling, the insulting things people say,” he said. “People pay their money to come in and they think it is their right to question your parentage and have a crack at your mother. It’s always these guys that abuse you, call you effing this and effing that and 10 seconds later they are asking for an autograph for their kids. You say, ‘Look mate, I’m not going to sign it for you’, and all of a sudden you are the worst bloke in the history of the world, so you can’t win.”His complaints cut no ice with the Barmy Army. Katie Cook, one of their leading members, told BBC Radio Five: “I think he’s been a bit pathetic really. I hope he’s been misquoted because the Australians give the English more stick than any other country in the world.”Us lot questioning his parentage or saying he lives in a caravan – and let’s face it, he looks like it – is not bad compared to what the Australian public give the English players over there. Hopefully, we’re squaring it up now.””I’ve got no sympathies for that man,” said Phil Tufnell. “Every time the ball came to me at Melbourne or Sydney I used to be petrified … it was a case of get it in your hands or get it away, otherwise the flack you got was awful.””You can get shirty about it but it is not going to achieve a hell of a lot,” Gillespie concluded. “I have got my way of ignoring what is going on.” Unfortunately, by drawing attention to it, he has ensured that the next time he fields near the boundary, he is sure to be the target of some more banter.