Shane Warne seemed destined to play forever. He was as unlikely to give up Test cricket as he was to rub out his other vices. He loved the game, the dressing room, the camaraderie and was in command whenever his right hand gripped the ball.Even at 37, a time when many true greats are incapable of sustaining their standards, he was heaving and weaving his side towards the Ashes. Surely the talk of him stepping down was like his promotion of the flipper – more bluff than fact. Glenn McGrath, who is also tipped to retire, spoke about playing till he was 40, but it was always Warne who was most likely to get there. It won’t happen.This is the news Australia has been dreading since his finger operation in 1996 when we first realised his mortality. Ten years later – through wonderful, successful, jaw-dropping, career-threatening and often infuriating times – he has finally realised his career is ticking towards midnight and the Sydney Test will be his 145th and last.It’s impossible to measure how much Australian cricket will miss him. Warne has ensured the stunning reputations of four captains during his 15-year career and helped change the game’s reputation as a sombre examination of endurance. Warne made everything exciting with his beach-boy looks and snapping wrist that killed batsmen in a way we had forgotten about in a world dominated by pace.Over after over he walked in and lobbed the ball invitingly before it would drift, dip and turn. It was cruel for batsmen and delicious for the rest. Later in his career he proved he could work miracles when the same thing happened with the ball going straight.Warne was a matador who refused the traditional weapon of speed. Thousands tried to match him, from impressionable children to envious parents, and the most dramatic measure of his success – more than the wickets, the strike-rates or the scandals – is that nobody has been able to copy him.In a side where the new boys step comfortably into the role of their predecessors, no matter how big the names, Warne’s spot may never been filled. We have been fortunate to live in the age of a Cricketer of the Century, just like those who boasted about seeing Hobbs, Bradman, Sobers and Richards.Warne is more than a great name. He has kept people young, lifted the sport’s interest and become a global superstar. With his passing, probably into the commentary box next season, cricket will wait for somebody to step up. Perhaps it will be Kevin Pietersen. Perhaps we’ll be sitting in hope for a long time. What a ride, what a player.

Sourav Ganguly must love irony. Of all the grounds in the world to make a one-day comeback, of all the venues to seek redemption, he returns to Nagpur. His previous trip here, when India were humiliated in a series-deciding clash against Australia, is widely considered the starting point of his downfall. Today, with close to 500 spectators cheering him on at the nets, he was like Napoleon preparing for revenge at Waterloo.Ganguly hasn’t played a one-day international for India since September 2005. Ironically – yes, that word again – he’s managed seven Tests in that period, ironical because Ganguly in one-dayers is colossal compared to Ganguly in Tests. Few have blended bravado and skill so deftly in the first 15 overs and almost nobody has trotted down the track to 150kph thunderbolts and slotted them over long-off.His half-hour workout today, divided between the fast bowlers and the spinners, was the most exciting part of a rather mundane nets session. Apparently simulating the first 15 overs of an ODI, he swung his bat merrily. He spanked Zaheer Khan, who was the sharpest bowler on the day, RP Singh and Sreesanth – his short arm jab off RP Singh that soared into the stands was most eye-catching. The spinners were simply mangled. Harbhajan Singh was clattered for two huge sixes, Ramesh Powar received some back-foot peppering and the lesser known net bowlers didn’t stand a chance.Batting in the nets next to him was Robin Uthappa, who has butchered bowlers around the domestic circuit and is a likely opening partner for the first match. Sachin Tendulkar, recently promoted to the vice-captaincy and looking all pumped up with the responsibility, is likely to be moved down the batting order. He and Rahul Dravid, quite detached from the action today and looking tired while running between the wickets, will be expected to shore up the middle order. Yuvraj Singh, who isn’t in the squad for the first two games, batted and bowled for brief periods but didn’t look in any sort of discomfort.Just one glance at India’s cricketers practicing at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur, and you knew that this was a team back to square one, as they were before that sorry 4-0 defeat in South Africa. Three hours of run-of-the-mill loosening up, involving players trying to desperately overcome their lethargy, was as sober as you can get. Forget adventure sports, military-training sessions and fancy rolling camps – this was a good old-fashioned warm-up.

Nobody typified the rustiness more than Ramesh Powar, huffing his way through the fielding drills. Anil Kumble’s absence provides India a chance to try out two spinners on a pitch that will assist turn as the game progresses and India’s advantage is that the two offspinners have contrasting styles. “Harbhajan has a flatter trajectory. He looks for bounce from the wicket — not that he doesn’t get any turn. He gets big turn too and he has been our best ODI bowler in the last year,” Dravid said yesterday. “Powar, meanwhile, looks to beat batsmen with guile. Flight is his preferred mode of attack. I think he will be around for a long while and will be able to step into Anil Kumble’s shoes whenever the situation arises. Despite the fact that both of them are offspinners, they tend to bowl well in tandem. They complement each other well and if the opportunity does arise, we will bowl them together.”Kumble’s shoes aren’t easy to fill but Dravid’s tone pretty much conveys that the series won’t be about set patterns. Trying out a few new players – Joginder Sharma warmed up nicely with both bat and ball today, Dinesh Karthik smashed a few around before undertaking a fielding workout – may just be the idea. It’s not as bad an idea as it sounds because India’s one-day graph over the last one year had soared, dipped and finally reached starting point. Now that’s another big irony of our times.

Scorecard

It ought to have been the series showcase but Scotland’s batting crashed in the final of the World Cricket League at the Gymkhana Ground in Nairobi before a fierce innings from David Obuya carried Kenya to the title on home soil.For a tournament that had produced so much fine batting it was disappointing that it finished on a low-scoring note, but Kenya’s attack proved too much for Scotland. Only some stubborn lower-order efforts lifted then beyond 150 but it was never likely to test Kenya.Bar one nonsensical run-out, they attacked the lowly target of 156 with vigour led by the efforts of Obuya and Maurice Ouma. The pair batting sensibly before the tensions that still surround Kenya cricket made a brief reappearance.Obuya cut Craig Wright to point and called no – but Ouma wanted a single, and wasn’t stopping, leaving both stranded at one end as Neil McCallum sent in a direct throw. Obuya’s response – hurling his bat several metres behind him, waving and shouting at the departing Ouma – said more than enough. Winning doesn’t always heal everything.But it was a blessing in disguise for Kenya as Obuya took out his anger at the careless wicket by attacking Scotland’s wayward bowlers, smashing Wright over his head for four before pulling him over midwicket for a livid six.Kenya’s hundred was brought up in brilliant style, Obuya creaming Majid Haq inches past the window of the press box for his second six. It didn’t matter where Scotland bowled, Obuya was in no mood to hang around while Ravi Shah, at the other end, played the perfect deadbatting foil. Although Obuya fell shortly before the end he had left a lasting impression on Kenya’s march to the trophy.Scotland had not left quite such a flamboyant memory after choosing to bat first on a firm, easy-paced pitch. They lost Haq to the first poor shot of the day, edging Thomas Odoyo to Steve Tikolo at second slip.But Fraser Watts and Ryan Watson soon made the most of the excellent batting conditions with Watson looking in particularly good touch, crashing Odoyo down the ground and twice carting Lameck Onyango through cover.It didn’t last. After registering their fifty partnership Watson fell to a lazy shot, trying to hook Onyango. A skier was easily snaffled by Peter Ongondo and the gates were open. Watts fell to to Kenya’s best fielder, Tanmay Mishra, stationed at short midwicket who was floored by a fierce pull shot but parried it up in the air, taking it expertly on the second attempt and Gavin Hamilton edged one behind to leave Scotland in a perilous state at 62 for 4.It got worse, too, when Neil McCallum was farcically run out when, defending Varaiya, he hit it straight to Collins Oboya at silly point who threw down the stumps leaving him a foot short. It summed up Scotland’s morning. It summed up Scotland’s morning and the tail was left with plenty to do.Some solid resistance from Craig Wright stopped a complete collapse while Ross Lyons made 23 off 47 balls. However, the Kenyan spinners kept the scoring rate down before some late blows from Paul Hoffmann. But it couldn’t make the match into a contest and Kenya impressive romped home, to confirm their standing as the best of the rest, and possibly a match for one or two above them.

Kevin Pietersen, who missed England’s CB Series triumph in Australia after flying home to nurse a broken rib, is impressed with the quiet resolve being shown by his team-mates since their arrival in the Caribbean, and believes they are ready to make a big impression on the World Cup.”There is a definite difference around the squad,” said Pietersen. “To win a trophy abroad, especially against Australia and come back after a few weeks off and get the batteries recharged is great. You can just tell the difference here at the hotel. The boys have smiles on their faces, there’s a different feel.”There is a lot more joking around and messing about and a lot more positives,” added Pietersen, who admitted how depressing the atmosphere had been for much of the Ashes tour. “There weren’t too many positives when I was out there nine or 10 weeks into the trip and we kept getting hammered all the time, so it was totally different.”Pietersen’s rib injury was sustained when he advanced down the track to a Glenn McGrath short ball and missed out on an attempted pull shot. But, he added, he didn’t mind one jot to have missed out on the glory, even though he felt he had been in just the sort of form to make a big impression on the competition.”I know how difficult the winter was, it was as hard as anything I’ve experienced,” he admitted. “I didn’t get a victory at all and I was out there for two-and-a-bit months and didn’t see a victory once. To see the boys win, it didn’t matter whether I was there or not, was brilliant. The break might have done me good, but I’d have preferred to have been in Australia.”England have an intriguing rematch lined up against Australia in St Vincent tomorrow, their final warm-up match before their first competitive fixture gets underway against New Zealand on March 16. And Pietersen believes that the absence of such key performers as Brett Lee and Matthew Hayden will undermine Australia’s preparations.”We had our vulnerable times when we didn’t have Vaughan, Trescothick, Flintoff last year and we don’t have Simon Jones,” said Pietersen. “That’s when we got a lot of stick and we weren’t as competitive as we were the previous year. I think a team does become vulnerable when they lose big players. They still have great players in their side, but hopefully they will be vulnerable when we play them.”

More than half-way through the tournament and with their chances of advancing to the semi-finals diminishing after three heavy defeats in the Super Eights round, the West Indies players finally got clearance yesterday to sign their contracts for the World Cup 2007.It followed the second ruling by an independent arbitration committee that first met on February 11 to settle a disagreement between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) over certain terms and conditions.Details were revealed on Tuesday night in a statement signed by arbitrators, Chief Justice of Barbados, Sir David Simmons, former Attorney General of Barbados and Bermuda Elliott Mottley and management consultant Dr Aubrey Armstrong. Under the arrangement, players are expected to earn between US$110,000 and US$180,000 for the tournament, depending on experience.Although the rulings on February 11 were accepted as binding, the panel noted that “it was deemed expedient” to seek further arbitration on “new issues” that had arisen between the two parties in the interim. Some of those issues caused such disquiet within the team that there were reports of a threat to strike prior to the start of the tournament in Jamaica. As a result of the second arbitration, the 15 players in the World Cup squad would split their 22% share of the US$ 11.5 million the WICB is receiving from the International Cricket Council (ICC) “in accordance with a tiered, hierarchic formula as recommended by WIPA and accepted by WICB”, the arbitrators stated.They also determined that contributions to the players’ Provident Fund be made in accordance with the standard WICB Match/Tour Contract, as was argued by the WIPA. The division of the ICC money is known to have been a sensitive matter among the senior players since fees are normally paid according to experience based on their number of Tests and ODIs.The WICB had initially offered the players a 13% share of the US$ 11.5 million expected from the ICC but the arbitrators decided on 22% along with “an appropriate sum representing three per cent” to go to “a fund for the development of other regional cricketers”. The remaining 75% would be retained by the WICB.The panel also ruled that, in addition to its 25% management fee for certain sponsorship revenue, the WICB should deduct a further 40% of the sponsorship income “for its own purposes” and pay the remaining 60% to the WIPA.The WICB have contracted Slazenger, the bat manufacturer, and Mittal, the steel company, as two new joint sponsors for the World Cup.Digicel, the Irish-based mobile telephone operation that took over from rivals, Cable and Wireless, as team sponsors for home and away international series in 2004 is ineligible for the World Cup since Cable and Wireless is one of the official sponsors.

A proposed one-day series between Australia and India in Northern Ireland in June and July is in danger of being scrapped. The Indian board (BCCI) announced in February three matches would be played in Belfast, but Cricket Australia is still waiting for information about the games.”We have been discussing with the BCCI about New York, about Toronto and most recently the discussion has been Ireland,” Peter Young, a Cricket Australia spokesman, said in the Daily Telegraph. “We are waiting for them to give a written reply as to where we stand.”India, who exited the World Cup after the first stage, initially planned to use the series as preparation for their tour of England in July. Australia’s winter is light but 2008 is going to be extremely heavy with a world-record 20 Tests scheduled and around 30 one-day matches. Australia will host India and Sri Lanka in 2007-08 before touring West Indies and Pakistan. When they return they are due to face Bangladesh, India, New Zealand and South Africa.

The Irish Cricket Union has confirmed the dates for India’s three-match series against South Africa in Belfast and also two ODIs where Ireland will play both teams.The three-match series will start on June 26 with subsequent matches on June 29 and July 1. Ireland will play India on June 23 and South Africa the following day in their first ODIs since the World Cup.”The Irish Cricket Union is proud that two such great cricketing nations as India and South Africa are coming to Ireland to play each other and against Ireland,” said ICU chief executive Warren Deutrom. “Following last year’s hugely successful match at Stormont between Ireland and England, the ICU is delighted that top-class cricket continues to come to Ireland, in the first ever matches between full Test nations here.”These matches will not only continue to put Irish cricket on the map after the success of the Ireland team at the World Cup, but should provide a real financial impetus to our objectives for the future of the game.”In original discussions it had been suggested that Australia would be India’s opposition but those plans fell through. The series will be South Africa’s first commitments since the World Cup although some of the players are due to appear in the Afro-Asia cup in early June. For India, the three ODIs will act as preparation for their tour of England which starts in July.

Andrew Flintoff has been released to play for Lancashire in Sunday’s Friends Provident match against Yorkshire at Old Trafford. He was ruled out of the first Test against West Indies with a recurrence of his ankle problem and will only line-up as a batsman.Flintoff felt pain after bowling nine overs against Hampshire last week and England left it until the first morning of the Test to rule him out. There is a fear that given the concentrated nature of the series – four Tests in four weeks – that he could miss all the matches.However, Peter Moores wouldn’t have released him if there were major concerns over his long-term fitness and the match will show whether Flintoff can handle a match in the field and his role as a batsman. His condition will be reassessed before the second Test at Headingley, which starts on May 25.Given the form of England’s top order it is unlikely Flintoff will force himself into the England side while he is unable to bowl. During his last comeback from injury, in the Champions Trophy, he played as a specialist batsman for the first two matches and has performed the role in other one-day internationals but never in Tests.

Kenya’s striking players have given their support to a move to establish a new government-backed body to replace the embattled Kenyan Cricket Association.At a meeting on Sunday, Ochillo Ayacko, Kenya’s minister for sports, announced that he was setting up a new organisation – Cricket Kenya – to bypass the KCA and to try to bring some semblance of order to the running of the game.Many of the players who have been on strike since last October attended the meeting, and gave their support to the new body. Steve Tikolo, speaking on their behalf, said that they would immediately end their strike and play for free for the sake of “national pride”.That presents an interesting scenario as the KCA-based national selectors meet tomorrow to name their side for the Intercontinental Cup tie against Namibia which takes place at Windhoek on February 25. The striking players have already withdrawn from the squad, and the availability of several others is unclear. But under ICC competition rules, Kenya has to name its final squad this week.If the new body subsequently picks its own squad – which will be stronger as it includes the strikers, among others – there is the possibility of two separate groups turning up at Nairobi airport, both with the aim of travelling to Namibia.

Simon Jones is in line for his first Championship match since mid-May, when he suffered yet another setback in his recovery from the knee surgery he underwent last season.Since then, Jones has played two one-day matches, but it will be the first chance to test out his knee at first-class level in three months, when Glamorgan host Leicestershire at Abergavenny on Wednesday.He sorely needs some cricket; he has taken only one first-class wicket since the 2005 Ashes, in his sole Championship match, against Essex, last year – and on the rare occasion when he has set foot on a cricket field, it has usually resulted in him limping off.His comeback for Glamorgan during the 2006 season, following his aborted return on England’s tour of India, lasted four matches before he broke down against Ireland in the C&G Trophy.This season, he has played one Championship match so far, against Gloucestershire, when he went wicketless in his 37 overs, with 112 runs coming off him. At that point England had hoped he would be in the frame for a return sometime this season. As it is, he now seems a long way off playing.Nevertheless, news of his return will lift Glamorgan, who have been without another pace bowler, David Harrison, since a back injury in April ruled him out for the season. Batsman Michael Powell is still recovering from the operation to remove a blood clot.They have also recalled Huw Waters, a seamer in the Jones mould, who was rested for the draw with Derbyshire. But all eyes will be on Jones, to see if his knee can hold up this time.