Shaun Pollock, the South Africa allrounder, has announced his retirement from international cricket following the second day’s play against West Indies in Durban. The current Test, his 108th, will be his last and the one-day series that follows the final matches for his country.”I’d like to thank Cricket South Africa for allowing me the opportunity of representing my country for the last 12 years,” Pollock told a press conference after the day’s play. “I thoroughly enjoy the honour and privilege of wearing the Protea badge and take with me some remarkable memories having played against some great players.”I made the decision at the start of the season that the West Indies series would be my last,” he said. “I have been fortunate to be in a team that has had the calibre of players to beat any opposition on any given day. I have made some wonderful friendships and have played against some remarkable characters.”Pollock, 34, regained his Test place for the deciding match against West Indies after not playing in the five-day game since January 2007. He currently stands on 420 Test wickets, the most by a South African, and 387 in ODIs. There is a chance he will finish with 400 in both forms depending on his success in the one-day series against West Indies.Pollock was thrust into the captaincy of South Africa in April 2000 when Hansie Cronje was drummed out of the game, and he faced the biggest challenge of his career – to lift a shocked and demoralised South African side. However, after a solid start to his captaincy, he lost some credibility after a 3-0 drubbing in Australia in 2001-02, and was later blamed for South Africa’s disastrous World Cup in which they failed to qualify for the Super Sixes.As a result, Pollock immediately lost the captaincy and was replaced by Graeme Smith. Though his nagging brilliance around off stump remained, his pace and ability to take wickets at the top of the order dipped in latter years.”I realise I have been blessed by God,” he said, “and feel I have nurtured my talents to the best of my abilities.”

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Combined Colleges and Campuses (CCC) caused the upset of the tournament by defeating Barbados by 24 runs at the Three Ws Oval in Bridgetown. Barbados, who looked well in sight of victory chasing 223, collapsed from 162 for 3 to 198 all out, losing their last seven wickets for 36 runs to hand CCC their maiden win in only their second match of the Carib Beer Series. Barbados vice-captain Dwayne Smith’s 78-ball 85, which featured nine fours and two sixes, went in vain as fast bower Jason Bennett took 5 for 46 to change the course of the match. Smith was involved in a 53-run stand for the second wicket with Jason Haynes (25 off 66 balls) and added 68 runs for the fourth wicket with Alcino Holder (28), but the slide started when he was trapped after playing across seamer Kurt Wilkinson. Bennett went on to receive the Man-of-the-Match award for match figures of 11 for 105. Earlier, CCC, resuming on their overnight score of 138 for 7, were bowled out for 159, with Tino Best adding two wickets to finish with 6 for 47 and a match haul of 10 for 84, while left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn claimed four wickets.
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Jamaica moved to the top of the table after a convincing eight-wicket win over Guyana in Kingston. Wavell Hinds and Xavier Marshall, with unbeaten knocks of 50 and 48 respectively, helped Jamaica reach their target half-an-hour before the close of play. Jamaica’s chase got off to a poor start after they lost their openers for the addition of 11 runs, but Hinds and Marshall stabilised the innings. Hinds swept offspinner Zaheer Mohammad over long-leg to bring up his half-century, while Marshall struck Narsingh Deonarine for six to finish the match. Earlier, Guyana looked to extend their overnight score of 59 for 1, but once Assad Fudadin was run out for 31, they lost three more wickets in quick time – Deonarine caught in the deep off Nikita Miller, captain Ramnaresh Sarwan failing to open his account after being trapped by David Bernard Jr, and Travis Dowlin run out for 10 – as they went into lunch at 116 for 5. Leon Johnson, who had added 70 runs for the second wicket with Fudadin, tried to keep Guyana afloat, bringing up his half-century in the process. Guyana’s innings folded up in quick time once Johnson was dismissed by Germain Lawson. Offspinner Odeon Brown claimed three lower order wickets to finish with 3 for 35, while Lawson took 3 for 61. Brendan Nash, the left-hand batsman, was named Man of the Match for his unbeaten 91 in Jamaica’s first innings.
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No play was possible on the third day in St Maarten due a soggy outfield. Umpires Luther Kelly and Goaland Greaves abandoned play after making their final assessment of the playing conditions in the scheduled post-tea session.

The first-ever coaching course organised by the Indian board for women coaches is underway at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore. Those attending have been selected by the state associations and will take a Level A coaching test at the end of the camp.The course, which began last week, is being attended by several former players, including Anju Jain, the former India wicketkeeper who is now national selector for the women’s team. She will not be applying for any coaching jobs this year, she said, but wanted to take part to inform herself of new developments in the area. “As a former player and now as a selector, I’d like to give sensible advice to players,” she told Cricinfo. “That’s why I’m here.”The course is divided between interactive coaching classes and practical exercises on the field. The classes include discussions on writing a match plan, simulating a competitive match situation in the nets and safety procedures. In one class the group was divided into into five ‘teams’, with each given a problem to tackle in the nets – poor running between the wickets, bowlers bowling mechanically without thinking, a batsman hitting the ball in the air and getting out – and asked to come up with solutions.The women-only course was in response to demand, said Dr Kinjal Suratwala, a member of the NCA’s Sports Science department who is in charge of the coaching programme. “We have had many such courses for men. What we are concentrating on are basic skills, safety and first aid, fitness and efficient conduct of nets.”The course is seen as having various utilities. The first step is that the students take the Level A test and go back to their state associations. “Hopefully it will spread the message,’ Mahua, a former Bengal and East Zone player, said. “When officials in associations realise the NCA is producing women coaches they will be willing to pick them up.”Manjula Kishore, a former South Zone player, said the main benefit would be to empower women as coaches. “It will give women cricketers the chance to extend their careers in the game. We have played the game but we don’t know the fundamentals of coaching, of telling young kids how to apply what we know to their game. The point of this course is to have several full-fledged professional coaches go back into the system.”The former India opener, Arati Vaidya, believed the course would make the women’s game more competitive. “When there is no proper coaching you lose good players, especially among women. That is why [qualified] people like us are important and that is why this course is important.”

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England’s pace bowlers enjoyed a productive workout as they blew away a strong New Zealand Invitational XI batting line-up on the second day in Dunedin. The match ended in a draw, but that was almost irrelevant as this was never more than an early-tour loosener for the tourists.The home side’s top order contained four players likely to feature in the first Test next week, but replying to England’s overnight 369, they were skittled for 146. Even that represented a recovery as they had been 26 for 5 midway through the morning session. James Anderson and Matthew Hoggard shared six wickets while Steve Harmison grabbed two in a performance which improved after a wayward start.Rather than another two hours batting practice, Michael Vaughan enforced the follow-on and Monty Panesar took two wickets as the NZ Invitational XI closed on 102 for 3.”It’s always nice to knock a few of the batsmen you’re going to play against maybe next week over cheaply,” Vaughan said. “Steve gets better and better the longer he bowls, he was one of the reasons we went out and bowled again.”We’ve learnt a little bit about the conditions and the ball is swinging, which is good for us and hopefully that will continue. Before the game started we came up with a plan that we were going to bat a day and they were going to bat a day, but we bowled them out.”I thought there was an opportunity to get some more wickets and also to get some more overs in our legs as fielders and a bowling unit, which is important because we’ve only got the three-day game to go before the Test. We could have taken the option to bat on for a little bit, but I thought overs in the legs and in the field would be just as important.”The one downer for England was that Ryan Sidebottom was unable to bowl because of a hamstring strain he picked up in the last ODI on Saturday. He will sit out the three-day warm-up match at the same venue starting on Thursday.”We’re not concerned about him for the Test match at this stage and it’s a little bit of a precaution that he’ll miss the three-day game, but he has got a slight problem so there has to be some concern,” Vaughan said. “Hopefully over the next few days he’ll heal fast and he’ll be able to start bowling towards the end of the three-day game or when we arrive in Hamilton (for the first Test).”

The UK government has said it will support the ECB if they decide to cancel Zimbabwe’s tour of England next year although denied reports it was considering a blanket ban on sportsmen from the country.The BBC’s programme cited “Downing Street sources” and said that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was keen to take a tough stance against the Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and that banning Zimbabweans from competing on British soil could be part of that.However, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said the government had been “surprised” by the story and added: “It is not the case that the Prime Minister is considering a blanket ban on Zimbabwe’s sportsmen.”The spokesman also said that a decision on Zimbabwe’s tour was down to the ECB. “If they decided they want to ban Zimbabwe, we would support them.”The future of the tour has been a long-running debate. The prospect of refusing to host Zimbabwe would run into strong opposition from the ICC and could put England’s staging of the ICC World Twenty20, due for June 2009, in jeopardy. Zimbabwe are due to play two Tests and three one-day internationals next summer although they are yet to return to the Test scene following their self-imposed suspension.The ECB would have to pay an estimated £225,000 in compensation under ICC rules if the one-day matches were cancelled. They have already held talks with the Zimbabwe Cricket Union to try to reach a financial settlement to call off the tour.A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: “There are ongoing discussions between the government and the ECB, but no decisions have been made.”An ECB spokesman added the board would not comment until it had discussed the matter with government officials. Last month the foreign secretary David Miliband said a Zimbabwean tour of England would be inappropriate. “The situation in Zimbabwe is obviously deeply concerning. I think that bilateral cricket tours at the moment don’t send the right message about our concern.”

A number of counties are waiting anxiously for the outcome of an ECB meeting on Wednesday that will determine the fate of player registrations which have been affected by the Indian Cricket League (ICL).Five players – Wavell Hinds, Andrew Hall, Johann van der Wath, Hamish Marshall and Justin Kemp – were rejected by the ECB due to their links with the ICL. Northamptonshire have said they won’t appeal against the Hall and van der Wath judgement, having signed Johann Louw as a replacement, and Derbyshire have moved on from Hinds.However, Gloucestershire are still trying to secure the services of Hamish Marshall who they signed on the basis of his Irish passport. He has continued pre-season preparations despite the uncertainty surrounding his future. “We have been given the right to make representation to the ECB on Hamish’s behalf and we’ve done just that,” chief executive Tom Richardson told the . “Of course it’s a difficult situation for him, but he continues to train very hard and I gather he’s batting extremely well in the nets.”Kent are also trying to overturn the decision against Kemp, who is still taking part in the current ICL tournament. Graham Ford, the Kent coach, told BBC Radio Kent: “Looking at Justin’s case I’m reasonably optimistic the decision will go our way – I’m really hopeful.”Meanwhile, Hampshire are hopeful that Shane Bond will be allowed to take up his deal after Mushtaq Ahmed and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan were both cleared having received No Obligation Certificates from the PCB. “We have got a form of words now from the New Zealand Cricket Board which we think will fulfil the expectations of the ECB for registration,” Rod Bransgrove, the Hampshire chairman, told BBC Radio Solent.Jason Gillespie’s future at Glamorgan is also under the spotlight even though Cricket Australia have said he is now nothing to do with them after retiring from state cricket.Surrey are still waiting to hear whether Saqlain Mushtaq will be cleared after his participation for the Lahore Badshahs. They also don’t know if the deal with Pedro Collins will go through. Although he hasn’t been involved in the ICL, Collins has had to go for an interview with the ECB ahead of his Kolpak registration. Collins turned down a place in the West Indies squad to face Sri Lanka because of his deal at The Oval.

The Titans are considering taking action over comments made by their former players Pierre de Bruyn and Alfonso Thomas about the Titans coach Richard Pybus last week. The two players were released from their Titans contracts in January and signed with the Dolphins, and on Friday they came up against their old team in the Pro20 final.Before the decider, which the Titans won, de Bruyn and Thomas slammed their former team and coach in the Afrikaans newspaper . “We owe the Dolphins a win in the final after they gave us a lifeline after being chased away from the Titans like dogs,” de Bruyn said.Their attacks on Pybus included describing him as “one-dimensional” and “a very boring coach”. de Bruyn was critical of what he called “yoga and other nonsense” that Pybus included in the team’s preparations. “The players get so drained from this that on completion one does not know where you are,” de Bruyn said.Pybus had the last laugh when the Titans secured an 18-run win in the final but his employers said in a statement they took extreme exception to the comments of de Bruyn and Thomas and the issue might not be closed. “The franchise will be taking the matter further through the channels available to it,” the statement said.”Pybus’ track record as a coach who has won four trophies in three years as well as the number of national players that he has produced is exceptional. This, together with his grooming of the next crop of Titans stars, must place him as a top contender for the domestic coach of the year award.”

Beau Casson will enter the big time when he joins his new Australia team-mates at the national camp in Brisbane from Sunday. Casson, the left-arm wrist-spinner from New South Wales, was a surprise choice for the West Indies tour and will be trying to impress when the squad gets together.”I’m feeling a little anxious now, but I’m also excited about meeting the guys in camp and I’m probably lucky that I’ll have plenty of other New South Wales guys there to make me feel comfortable,” Casson told the Daily Telegraph. “I had a bit of a break, but the last few weeks have been good and I’ve upped the ante in terms of training and making sure everything is right.”Casson has been working with the opener Phil Jaques while some of their team-mates have been operating in the Indian Premier League. In a strong finish to the season, Casson scored 89 and took four wickets in the Pura Cup final victory on the way to earning a national spot next to Stuart MacGill.Following Brad Hogg’s retirement, MacGill will return for Australia after wrist and knee injuries cut short his 2007-08 campaign. He will be the No. 1 slow-bowling option in the three-Test series against West Indies, which starts in Jamaica on May 22. The team leaves Australia on May 9.

ScorecardDawid Malan top-scored for the Lions with 51 but it was not enough to secure victory•Chris Whiteoak

An unbroken century stand between Iftikhar Ahmed and Babar Azam helped Pakistan A to a seven-wicket win in the first unofficial T20I against England Lions at the ICC Academy in Dubai.Dawid Malan top-scored with 51 from 44 balls, including three fours and three sixes, for the Lions and they looked to be in control when Pakistan A slipped to 25 for 3 in the fifth over. However, Iftikhar and Azam, both of whom featured in the recent ODI series against England, successfully regrouped with unbeaten half-centuries as they finished off the chase with an over to spare.Jake Ball claimed the scalps of Shahzaib Hasan and Sohaib Maqsood in the space of three balls after Reece Topley had found Fakhar Zaman’s edge in the opening over of the innings. But with canny strike rotation and selective hitting, particularly against the spin pairing of Liam Dawson and Stephen Parry, Pakistan A’s fourth-wicket pair turned the tide.Iftikhar struck two fours and three sixes in 66 not out while Azam finished unbeaten on 53, with six fours and a six.With the World Twenty20 looming in March, the Lions fielded four members of the team that beat Pakistan 3-0 last month – and it would almost certainly have been a fifth had it not been for the decision to allow David Willey to take up an offer to play for Perth Scorchers in Australia’s Big Bash League.James Vince, who impressed in each of his three innings for the senior team, fared less well as the Lions captain on this occasion. He fell in the second over of the match for 2, bowled by the impressive Aamer Yamin, who delivered a similar knockout to Jason Roy in Sharjah last week to claim a wicket with the first ball of his T20I career.Tom Westley made 11 from 17 balls before being stumped off the bowling of Bilal Asif, but the arrival of Sam Billings at No. 4 helped to kick England’s innings into action. He made 31 from 21 balls, with three fours and a six, and added 47 for the third wicket with Malan in the space of 6.1 overs.Two overs later, Billings became Bilal’s second victim as he holed out to midwicket but Ross Whiteley ensured that the Lions’ tempo was maintained in the closing overs with two sixes in a 15-ball 22. His stay was ended by a Rumman Raees slower ball, and Raees then added his second with the penultimate ball of the innings to remove Joe Clarke for 15.The second of the five-match series will take place under lights in Dubai on Thursday.

West Indies Cricket Board has withheld the no-objection certificate (NOC) that Jason Holder needed to participate in the inaugural Pakistan Super League (PSL) on the grounds that he is a contracted player and his primary objective is to serve West Indies cricket.Holder, who is the captain of West Indies in Tests and ODIs, was picked by Quetta Gladiators in the player draft held on December 21. It became clear he won’t be able to play for them when he took to twitter and said… According to WICB chief executive Michael Muirhead, Holder had just signed a fresh retainer contract, which allowed the board to hold the rights to grant or deny him permission to play in overseas domestic leagues.”He is a retained player. So it gives us a right to say to a retained player, if you request a NOC in a time, that we have something geared towards the development of West Indies cricket, and then we have the right to say no to him,” Muirhead told ESPNcricinfo.Muirhead also pointed out that Holder had the responsibility to captain the Barbados team, which is currently competing in the Nagico Super-50, West Indies’ List A competition. “We have our premier 50-over competition going on now and it is going to be played at the same time as the league (PSL). He is the captain of the Barbados team, which wants him to play. We need him in the region. It promotes cricket. It sends a sense of unity. It sends the right message.”