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A career can end in many ways. Some prefer a planned exit, others an impromptu departure. Some retire too quickly, others too slowly. Some Asian cricketers drag out their demise, eking out every morsel of acclaim and monetary reward. The bigger they come the slower they fade. Kapil Dev and Javed Miandad are two prime examples. This is not just an Asian trait, but it certainly runs more strongly in our blood.Such dithering can become a little bothersome for a cricket board intent on a clearout. What to do with a great cricketer who won’t let the fat lady sing? The answer is genius in its simplicity: announce a farewell match and stop the debate. The question is, why has nobody thought of it before? And the man with a chance to go down in history as a pioneer is Waqar Younis.Waqar has had some difficulty in the last few months. He hasn’t quite got the message. After Pakistan’s abysmal World Cup performance it seemed inevitable that he would retire from international cricket. Indeed, if Pakistan were to fail in the World Cup, a bad failure probably suited the purposes of the Pakistan Cricket Board best. Off the record, Pakistan officials will admit that it was a relief – they now had a mandate for change.Instead Waqar vowed to fight for his place, with a return to county cricket as part of his comeback plan. But in the meantime Pakistan’s young fast bowlers have rendered Waqar obsolete. And the recent public tiff between Waqar and Shoaib Akhtar underscores the painful tussle between old warhorses and young bucks that has paralysed Pakistan cricket over the last year. In offering Waqar a farewell home game against South Africa the message from the Pakistan Cricket Board is clear and simple: thank you and goodnight. The subtext is that this is Waqar’s best chance of a dignified exit, whereas the alternative is adding his name to the long list of great Asian cricketers who have departed with acrimony.It is touching too that this planned farewell will be hand in glove with Wasim Akram’s. Together they formed the most potent fast-bowling partnership in the history of Asian cricket, perhaps in world cricket. Together they will reward their fans with a final hurrah. Wasim, as ever, has shown a shrewder touch. Sensing that the mood was against him, Wasim announced his retirement and was instantly rewarded with a farewell game. During the NatWest Challenge in England I asked Wasim if he thought he should be playing. His reply? "I’ve had my time. It is time for the youngsters to enjoy themselves in the middle."Waqar should have taken a hint from Wasim’s retirement. Now the ignominy of having a farewell game foisted upon him can only be surpassed if he refuses to accept this unique offer. Waqar’s glittering career has brought many records. But there are no more on the horizon, except the dubious one of the first forced farewell. Waqar has still not accepted the Pakistan board’s proposal. He should. The selectors have said goodnight to Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram. Against South Africa in Pakistan it will be time for thank you.Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is deputy editor of the British Medical Journal.

Welcome to the first issue of Zimbabwe Cricket Online for the 2001/02 season. Every week we plan to bring you news of cricket all over Zimbabwe, although for reasons beyond our control we will not be able to cover every area of the game, or even as extensively as we have done in the past. Still, we will try our best.In this issue we bring you news from Mashonaland, Matabeleland and Manicaland,and also a report on the first round of the Vigne Cup, the Mashonaland club competition. Unfortunately our regular club cricket contributor, Clive Ruffell, is no longer able to cover this, and we would like to thank him for his outstanding contributions of the past. Larry Moyo, sports reporter for The Herald, has willingly taken over this task. We also include a look at the coming season, through the eyes of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union managing director Dave Ellman-Brown, whose energy on behalf of cricket in this country remains as strong as ever.The South African tour has been covered extensively on CricInfo, and we have just a few thoughts to add on what was generally a disappointing Zimbabwe performance, with the exception of the incredible Andy Flower.Here is the cricket programme for Zimbabwe for the rest of the month:Friday 21 Sept: Zimbabwe A v South Africans (Queens Sports Club)Sunday 23 Sept: Zimbabwe v South Africa (1st ODI, Queens Sports Club)Vigne Cup Round 2 in HarareSaturday 29 Sept: Zimbabwe v South Africa (2nd ODI, Harare Sports Club)Sunday 30 Sept: Zimbabwe v South Africa (3rd ODI, Harare Sports Club)As usual, South Africa will be strong favourites to win the one-day series by three victories to none, but Zimbabwe have twice before upset the odds, once in the World Cup in England and once in South Africa. Can they do it a third time?

Leeds United are evaluating several options to replace Marcelo Bielsa as pressure starts to mount at Elland Road.

What’s the word?

The Yorkshire outfit were thrashed 6-0 by Liverpool in midweek, which was yet another humiliating and heavy defeat to one of the Premier League’s top teams.

Those six goals takes the Whites’ worrying record to 38 goals conceded across their last 12 outings in all competitions, in which they were beaten 7-0 by Manchester City and 4-1 by Arsenal, meaning they are leaking 3.2 goals per game at the moment.

According to verified Italian journalist Gianluigi Longari, Bielsa’s situation at Leeds is “complicated” and the club’s hierarchy have turned their attention to a new name in Paulo Fonseca.

Premier League rejection

Whilst it remains to be seen whether any managerial move would occur immediately or at the end of the season, all of the signals are suggesting that it could be Bielsa’s final few months in charge of the Yorkshire giants.

Back in December, ever-reliable reporter Phil Hay of The Athletic claimed that he had a “hunch is that this might be his last season”.

And evidently, recent results and the prospect of being dragged into a relegation dogfight have mounted the pressure on the 66-year-old, who has been at the helm since June 2018.

What he has done for the club will always be remembered and after all, he is something of a cult hero around west Yorkshire but these past few matches have been unacceptable, so it’s easy to see why Victor Orta may be planning for a different future.

But it’s unlikely that Fonseca is the answer. He has already been rejected by three other Premier League teams in the past year.

The 48-year-old came closest to Spurs, this weekend’s opponents, before the appointment of Nuno Santo in the summer but talks stalled despite sporting director Fabio Paratici naming him as his first-choice.

Newcastle United also were also close to appointing him following their Saudi-backed takeover. After three interviews, they turned their attentions elsewhere before settling on Eddie Howe, as per local news reports.

And then Aston Villa had him on their shortlist alongside Steven Gerrard, who they opted for instead.

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The Portuguese, who was once slammed for having an “abysmal” record against the big teams by Serie A expert Conor Clancy to Football FanCast, would clearly be no improvement on Bielsa as the pair have the same deficiencies.

If he wasn’t wanted by three other teams, including one below them in the standings, then that is rather damning, so Orta ought to stay clear of the former AS Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk boss.

AND in other news, £20.2m wasted: Leeds’ “forgotten man” has been robbing Radz blind for over 113 weeks…

Mahela Jayawardene: “It’s going to be good fun” © AFP

The English season may still be another six months away but Mahela Jayawardene is already looking forward to making his county debut. Jayawardene, the Sri Lanka captain, signed for Derbyshire yesterday as the county ring the changes with a new-look squad which includes Wavell Hinds.”It’s good,” he told Cricinfo in Adelaide, as he warmed up for Sri Lanka’s tour match here this weekend. “I haven’t played before. It’s a great opportunity.”I don’t think I will be there for long because of my international commitment. But they’re trying to start all over again, Derby, and they’ve got a few good players coming in. It’s going to be good fun and hopefully I can learn something at a different level of cricket.”And he promised to lend new captain Rikki Clarke, who will be joined by former Surrey team-mate Nayan Doshi, the benefit of his experience. “I’ve played against him a few times and I think he’s a very good cricketer.”Give him the responsibility, he’s a young guy and I think he’s looking forward to it. It’s a good challenge for him as well, so if I can help him in any way it would be great and try to start anew at Derby. A good challenge for me, as well.”Jayawardene will arrive towards the end of April and stay until the middle of July after which he can be replaced by another overseas player.

The bitter infighting inside Zimbabwe took yet another twist this week as the ten provincial chairmen disassociated themselves with claims by Themba Mliswa, the political extremist who held a media conference during which he said he was speaking on their behalf.Mliswa called on Peter Chingoka, the board chairman, to account for recent events and repeated accusations of financial impropriety against board members as well as making threats that he had friends in high places who were behind him.But the Zimbabwe Cricket website has said that last weekend the chairmen met and voted unanimously to disassociate themselves from Mliswa’s remarks. A statement issued by them said: “While we do not wish to go into detail with regards to Mliswa’s statements, and whilst we prefer to reserve our comments on his statements against certain individual members of the ZC interim board, our conscience is clear as we make this brief statement.”Mliswa was slung off the board in July, and the chairmen reiterated that he “does not represent any of the ten provinces”.While the removal of Mliswa from the scene – if that is what the upshot of this is – can be no bad thing, the chairmen’s stance is hardly surprising given that by and large they are in effect appointees of the ZC hierarchy.This is not the end of the unrest as Crispen Tsvarai, the senior executive who left the board a fortnight ago, has raised a number of issues which will need to be addressed.

Bennett King believes Glenn McGrath and Co. will be quite a handful for even the likes of Brian Lara and Chris Gayle © Getty Images

Bennett King, the West Indies coach, reposes more faith in his unproven bowling attack than in the team’s batting. King believes it will be the Australian bowlers who will turn on the pressure on the West Indies in the three-Test series that begins in Brisbane on November 3.”We have the bowling that can unsettle the Australian batsmen,” King was reported as saying in the . “History shows they have two of the best bowlers in the world, so batting is in for a tough time, I guess.”King regards Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as the prime threats to a star-studded batting lineup that includes Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle, all of whom have played over 50 Tests. Lara averages 53.75 with the bat, Chanderpaul 47.41, Sarwan 40.87 and Gayle 39.38, but King feels that they have their task cut out for them.The West Indies squad to Australia includes six fast bowlers, none of whom has played more than 17 Tests. Jermaine Lawson, whose action has been scrutinised in the past, is the only fast bowler who averages less than 30 with the ball. King believes all six have the necesssary pace and fire to succeed, and cited their good showing in Sri Lanka in July. “We didn’t get enough runs in Sri Lanka on very good batting decks but we certainly got very good players out,” King said. “We know we can get good players out. We have to make sure we get runs as well.”King’s claims come a day after his bowlers, led by Daren Powell (4 for 58), bowled out Queensland for 323 in a warm-up game ahead of the Test series. Lawson, Fidel Edwards and Corey Collymore were all rested but are expected to come into contention for the first Test.

South African cricket is going through a period of transition, and Gerald Majola, the chief executive of the United Cricket Board, is at the helm of the transformation process. He spoke to the media during the first Test at Kanpur.

Gerald Majola: facing the press in Kanpur© Getty Images

On the reasoning behind such an inexperienced squad
As far as we are concerned, this is the best team for South Africa, as selected by our standards. We outlined those standards at the beginning of the season, and every player here has been selected on form. If you look at their statistics, they stand out.On the policy of including five or six black players in the squad, and whether that puts pressure on his selectors
I was asked this question in Parliament. A day earlier, at the selectors’ meeting, they had all agreed to pick the team based on form and not by any other qualification. But the selectors know about our transformation policy and they understand it.On the importance of the policy, given the controversies with the rugby team last year
Transformation in South Africa is very important, not only for cricket but for the entire country. We have to transform and know where we are coming from. South Africa suffered under apartheid for decades and transformation is something that doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a process. In 1998, the United Cricket Board started its own transformation chapter without any external pressure, because we understand that we have to transform the sport.Cricket is part of South Africa and we have set ourselves targets that we must achieve, which is why you now see black players being picked on merit. We have recently reduced our provincial teams from 11 to six, and the number of black players playing there is almost 50 percent. They are all coming through on merit and many of those performing well are also black. They are being selected on form and not because they are black. Thami Tsolekile, Alfonso Thomas and Charl Langeveldt, who is not here, are some of those players doing well.Is the emphasis on long-term planning or short-term goals?
It’s a long-term process and not a matter of numbers.Will you be distracted from this path if you lose a couple of series?
No, definitely not.How about the white players who feel they are being ignored?
No one is being ignored because everyone is selected on merit. So, any white player who performs will be selected.On including former players like Barry Richards in the development programme
You can’t force someone to do something they don’t want do. Barry Richards has chosen to be a commentator and that’s his field. You have others like [Ray] Jennings who are still involved in the system and therefore being used by it.Any special plans for the development programme?
Everyone has to have access to the sport. Previously some of us did not have access to the same facilities that our white colleagues did.On Mark Boucher being dropped
He was out of form.

Duncan Fletcher will continue to combine his role of head coach with that of tour manager in all of England’s overseas series.Following a report from the ECB on the 2002/03 Ashes series, the proposal for a separate tour manager was rejected.Dennis Amiss, the International Teams Management Group (ITMG) chairman, produced the report which also recommended measures to be taken to improve day-to-day communications on tour. As a result, Fletcher will report directly to John Carr, the ECB’s director of cricket operations, rather than to the chief executive.Carr is to receive a daily bulletin from Phil Neale, the team operations manager, and new protocols are to be put in place to ensure the management, ECB personnel and the Professional Cricketers Association are appropriately updated on administration and injury news.

Gaining respect from other states is at the top of the South Australian cricket team’s “to do” list as it attempts to erase the memory of a lacklustre last season.State cricket manager Greg Chappell laid down the law to his squad after it took the Pura Cup four day tournament’s wooden spoon and narrowly missed the final of the one-day competition in 2000-01.”At the moment South Australian cricket has very little respect,” Chappell told AAP.”We’ve had little blips on the radar where we’ve produced a group of players who have been good enough and desperate enough to win the competition.”But by and large, if you took a straw poll within the competition, we don’t have much respect and we never have.”The former Australian captain said his players needed to display the desire to be successful as well as good form.”If they meet that, they’ll be chosen, if they don’t, then they better start thinking about another career,” he said.”I don’t have any set ideas on who our first side is going to be.”Form is obviously going to count but commitment is also going to count.”As part of its mental preparation for the coming season, the Redbacks squad will take part in a training camp in Victoria on Wednesday and Thursday.The camp, conducted in the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park near Mildura, will focus on goal setting and team building.It will be the second year in a row the squad has taken part in the camp.The Redbacks have also called in a sports psychologist, who will be available to work with players throughout their season, which starts with a day-night limited overs match against Western Australia in Perth on October 12.Chappell said he had also spoken to players about publicity surrounding his contract negotiations earlier this year.”Within our group, it’s never been a huge issue,” Chappell said.After negotiations were resolved in May, SA Cricket Association chief executive Michael Deare said this summer would more than likely be Chappell’s last in charge of the Redbacks.Deare said due to other business interests, Chappell wanted to live in the eastern states this summer and commute to Adelaide to coach the Redbacks but the SACA found the proposal “totally unacceptable”.Chappell’s current contract expires at the end of March next year.

Ravi Shastri, India’s team director, has thrown his weight behind his batsmen and has asked the bowlers to learn their lessons. India have scored 309, 308 and 295 in the first three ODIs of the series against Australia, but have failed to defend any of those totals. In particular, Shastri has defended the batsmen against charges of selfishness.India have so far scored 67, 67 and 60 from overs 31 to 40. These have been the overs when their set batsmen have approached their hundreds. In Perth, Rohit Sharma took 24 balls from 83 at the start of the 31st over to reach his hundred. Similarly in Brisbane, between the 30th and the 40th overs, Rohit took 21 balls to move from 86 to 100. Virat Kohli took 15 balls to score the last 16 runs of his century between the 38th and 43rd overs in Melbourne.This has reignited a belief held by some Australians that Indian batsmen slow down near a milestone, costing their team crucial runs. Matthew Hayden said so 10 years ago, and it has begun resonating in the Australian media again.MS Dhoni calmly said “no” when asked if he thought Indian batsmen were milestone-driven, but Shastri had a more colourful answer. “If they were focusing on milestones, Virat Kohli wouldn’t have been the fastest to 7000 runs; he would have taken another 100 games. If that was the case, Rohit Sharma would not be having two double hundreds, and a score of 264.”Shastri also said there wasn’t much more the batsmen could have done even though they were playing probably a third-choice Australian bowling attack. “I don’t think so,” Shastri said. “If you look at the skills of those bowlers, there is skill there. You might say inexperience. They have played a lot of cricket, a lot of domestic T20s, a lot of one-days. So the skill factor is very good.”The Indian attack is far more experienced, but a mix of conditions and poor bowling has let them down. Shastri said the bowlers needed to learn fast. “Finishing touch is better bowling, and being more consistent as a bowling unit. As MS mentioned, there were too many easy boundaries. It is not like the batsmen had to earn it, they were given. That should be eliminated. Even if you cut that by 60%, we will have tighter games. Those are the areas. Attention to basics. If we do that right, who knows…”With the series lost and expectation reduced, Shastri said he wanted the bowlers to show him they had learned their lesson. “What you want to see is the bowlers learning from what has happened in the first three games,” he said. “If that happens, that will be the biggest plus irrespective of the result. That is what I said last year when we played cricket in Australia. We might have lost the series 2-0, but deep inside I knew the way the boys played there was only going to be improvement.”Shastri did mention the tough schedule and injuries (one, to Mohammed Shami) as a mitigating factor. “It is a young side, there have been three debutants, we have been plagued by injuries,” Shastri said. “No excuses, I am not giving any excuses here, but it is an opportunity for the youngsters to learn. In Australia nothing comes easy. It’s one of the hardest places to play. You are playing against the world champions. The fact that you are competing, and they have competed right through this one-day series, is very good.”We need bench strength, this is one of the toughest tours. And I have been to Australia many many times. I tell you why. Because if you look at the last six days we have been in three time zones. It is not often you go through that. You play in Perth, get on a flight to Brisbane where the time is different, then to Melbourne where the time is different. All in a matter of six days. When you consider all that, I think the boys have done extremely well.”Shastri said he will ask the BCCI to send a 16-member squad for such tours.