Mustafa Kamal positive about Bangladesh touring Pakistan

Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik (centre) with BCB president Mustafa Kamal (left) and PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf

Mustafa Kamal, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president, has said he will work with PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf at the ICC level to return international cricket to Pakistan. Kamal was speaking in Islamabad, after meeting with Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik to discuss security issues regarding Bangladesh's proposed tour in April.Although no formal decision was taken at the meeting, the delegation from Bangladesh was briefed about the security arrangements the Pakistan government would make and Kamal was optimistic about the limited-overs series going ahead. The delegation will inspect facilities in Lahore and Karachi before returning home on March 5 to submit a report to the Bangladesh government."Now I am here to make a commitment that both Mr Zaka and I will work together to make things right at the ICC level," Kamal said. "We have our endeavour and always will work hand in hand to convince our other colleagues in the ICC to bring back cricket to Pakistan at the earliest."I am here with a positive frame of mind and I want us to be in a position to convince our ICC board members, so that they also agree to play in Pakistan as early as possible."The ICC was not part of the meeting between the BCB and the Pakistan ministry and they will carry out a separate assessment of the security situation if the tour is confirmed. Malik assured the Bangladesh delegation of the security their team would be given, saying the government had taken "total political ownership" of the series."I have given full assurances regarding security, they will visit two stadiums, let them have a look at all those arrangements which we are proposing," Malik said in Islamabad. "I assured him [Kamal] from my side, on behalf of the government, that we have taken total political ownership of this match."I've also given him the prerogative that if he wants to add or subtract [to security arrangements] we will do it. We will show our capabilities, and of course then it comes to the planning, the road map, security parameters as to how we're going to take care of things. So all those things at international standard, they all will be met."Two members from the Bangladesh delegation went to Karachi to witness the security arrangements that would be put in place should a match go ahead at the National Stadium there.There are two itineraries proposed at present: one is a three-ODI series and the other is two ODIs and one Twenty20 international to be completed in a week in April. Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium and Karachi's National Stadium are the potential venues."This is the first step, and I am sure they will be fully satisfied with the security plan being given by the ministry and by the provinces of Sindh and Punjab," Ashraf said, "And when they go back home, they go back home fully satisfied."It is three years to the day that terrorists with guns attacked the bus carrying the Sri Lankan team to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, and several players and officials were wounded. Since then, no international side apart from Afghanistan, has toured Pakistan. They were removed as co-hosts of the 2011 World Cup and have been playing their home bilateral series at offshore venues such as England, New Zealand and the UAE.

Nasir Jamshed, Sarfraz Ahmed in Pakistan squad

Pakistan have dropped Shoaib Malik, Imran Farhat and Adnan Akmal from the squad that lost the ODIs 4-0 to England, and picked opener Nasir Jamshed and wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed for the Asia Cup in Bangladesh. Fast bowler Junaid Khan was not considered for selection because he was sidelined with a knee injury.The 15-man squad was the first selection by thecommittee headed by Iqbal Qasim, who replaced Mohammad Ilyas as chief selector. The selectors had met with Pakistan's new coach Dav Whatmore, whose first assignment will be the Asia Cup, in Lahore on March 2 to pick the team."We have selected the best possible squad for the Asia Cup in the shortest time available, and since Malik was an additional member for the England series we couldn't find a place for him in the 15-man squad," Qasim said. "We did consult Misbah and he agreed to the selection."We had to maintain the balance keeping view of the pitches in Bangladesh. But now we have to compete with quality teams, especially Sri Lanka, who returned to form, and India will obviously come hard after the Australia tour."Jamshed has played 12 ODIs for Pakistan, the last of which was in August 2009. He has just been in Bangladesh, where he played for the Chittagong Kings in the BPL. Before going to Bangladesh, Jamshed had scored 320 runs at 53.33 in four matches for Punjab in the Pentangular Cup, a first-class competition in Pakistan. Sarfraz replaced Adnan Akmal as the specialist wicketkeeper in the squad; he played for Pakistan as recently as December 2011, during the tour of Bangladesh."Jamshed earned his recall only after he has done well in the domestic circuit as an opener," Qasim said. "There was an added pressure on Umar [Akmal] and this is why he might not giving his best with the bat. He always was selected as a designated batsman, we wanted a batting wicketkeeper who can bat effectively in ODIs to score quick runs."Qasim said that the Asia Cup would be Sarfraz's last chance to seal his place in the Pakistan team. "It's our inability that we don't have a batting wicketkeeper but this would be the last chance for [Sarfraz Ahmed] to step up and do well with the bat. Otherwise, after the series, we are starting the talent hunt for an all-round wicketkeeper."While Junaid's absence from the squad may have been forced, the other three - Malik, Farhat and Adnan Akmal did not perform impressively against England in the UAE. Malik, who was not in Pakistan's original ODI and Twenty20 squads against England but included later at the request of the captain Misbah-ul-Haq, averaged 15 in two one-dayers. Farhat scored 66 runs in three matches, while Adnan Akmal played only two ODIs; his brother Umar kept in the matches that Adnan was not selected for.

Chelsea back in EPL top 4 after beating Bolton 3-0

Chelsea produced a stirring second-half performance to beat Bolton 3-0, lifting the team back into the English Premier League s top four and easing some of the pressure on manager Andre Villas-Boas. David Luiz, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard scored after the break to end Chelsea s five-match winless run in all competitions that had left Villas-Boas  job under threat. The victory, only the London club s third in 11 Premier League matches, sees it climb provisionally above Arsenal into fourth place. Bolton stayed in the relegation zone and is without a victory over Chelsea since 2003.

Federer beats Lopez to reach Dubai quarterfinals

Federer beat Feliciano Lopez of Spain 7-5, 6-3 on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals. The Swiss star broke the 15th-ranked Lopez in the final game to settle a tight opening set. The second set was more routine, Federer breaking the Spaniard to lead 5-3 and closing out the match with a volley winner from the net. Federer, who was beaten in the Dubai final last year by top-ranked Novak Djokovic, faces Mikhail Youzhny after the Russian beat the out-of-form Mardy Fish of the United States 6-2, 7-6 (0).

European clubs sign “less football” deal with Uefa

European football clubs on Tuesday announced a deal with UEFA to cut the number of international fixtures, which they complain can overload players, but FIFA, which has the final say, questioned their stance. The European Club Association (ECA), which groups 201 sides from all 53 UEFA member nations, said that it had backed moves to cut the annual number of international matches from the current 12 to nine. “The agreement with UEFA is a major breakthrough for European club football. With this agreement, UEFA clearly recognises the importance of clubs and the significant contribution they make to the success of national team football,” ECA and Bayern Munich chief Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in a statement. The announcement came after an ECA general assembly in the Polish capital Warsaw, a fitting venue for debate given that the country is poised to host the European Championship in June along with neighbouring Ukraine. The deal foresees the end of August friendly matches and the introduction of rules allowing the release of each player for international duty for no more than one tournament per year. It also calls for a push to ensure that all the globe’s international championships end by mid-July and for the Africa Cup of Nations to start as early as possible in January. Releasing players for that tournament, whose 2012 edition ran from January 21 to February 12, can hinder clubs in European leagues, notably those without a winter break. The ECA-UEFA deal, valid from June 1 to May 30, 2018, also covers injury insurance for European clubs’ players on international duty. It will also bolster their share of profits from the European Championship, which are awarded as recognition of their contribution to the quadrennial tournament. Under an existing deal, the clubs can expect a total 55-million-euro ($74m) slice from Euro 2012. That will be “substantially increased” at Euro 2016 in France, the ECA said. While lauding European football’s governing body, the ECA has been at loggerheads over the calendar with UEFA’s global counterpart FIFA, the ultimate arbiter. “The situation remains unsatisfactory in relation to FIFA,” Rummenigge said. That sparked a terse statement by FIFA, which said it was “surprised” and took Rummenigge to task for boycotting talks on the issue. FIFA said that stance made it “very difficult for progress to be made in discussions with the European clubs”, and underlined that it had called a global meeting on the issue on March 5. “FIFA remains, as always, willing to discuss with ECA on these topics, as it does with all other stakeholders in the world football community,” it said. “FIFA would like to recall that the international dates and the international match calendar have to be applied on a worldwide basis and that this calendar is ultimately regulated by FIFA, as football’s world governing body.”

Australia dump Saudi Arabia out of World Cup contention

Australia scored three goals in five whirlwind minutes to come back from behind and dump Frank Rijkaard’s Saudi Arabia out of 2014 World Cup qualification in Melbourne on Wednesday. Australia trailed 2-1 at half-time but hit back with three second-half goals to run out 4-2 winners, as Oman leapfrogged the Saudis to claim the second Group D qualifying spot. Oman’s 2-0 home win over Thailand took them past the lavishly-funded Saudis into the March 9 draw for the final round of Asian group qualifiers. Saudi Arabia will miss out on their second straight World Cup finals campaign after qualifying for four consecutive tournaments from 1994 to 2006. The Saudis rocked the home side, scoring twice in the opening half and controlling possession, but Australia emerged stronger after German coach Holger Osieck’s half-time team talk. The road to Brazil has not been altogether smooth for Australia – they lost in Oman in November and were lucky to scrape a win against Thailand four days later – and skipper Lucas Neill admitted Saudi Arabia caught them off guard on Wednesday. “It wasn’t the best of first-half performances, we knew the Saudis would come at us, but it was a great response and a good talk at half-time and passing the ball around quickly in the second half opened them up a little bit,” Neill said. “It’s March 9 now and then we can look ahead and we can really focus in on what we have to do to get to Brazil, the games are going to get tougher than this and we’re going to have to be at our best.” Young midfielder Salem Al-Dossari put the Saudis in front in the 19th minute with a brilliant goal, controlling the ball and eluding three defenders before unleashing a strike that beat Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer. Australia gradually got more possession and equalised two minutes before half-time when the recalled Mark Bresciano put Alex Brosque clear and the Shimizu S-Pulse striker beat Waleed Abdullah from close range. But the Socceroos paid for slack marking in first half injury time when Hassan Fallatah’s cross found Nasser Alshamrani, who put the Saudis ahead for a second time. Neill had a headed equaliser – which would have been his first international goal – flagged offside on 63 minutes, though replays suggested he was in line with the last defender as the ball was whipped into the box. But the home side did finally equalise in the 72nd minute when the impressive Brosque laid on a ball for Harry Kewell to sidefoot home his 17th international goal. The hosts then netted twice in quick succession to lead 4-2, with Brosque glancing home a Brett Emerton cross and Emerton scoring after an assist from the outstanding Bresciano to leave Rijkaard shaking his head in disbelief. Former Blackburn Rovers midfielder Emerton, 33, has now scored in four World Cup qualifying campaigns.

Dazzling Kohli ton keeps India alive

Virat Kohli was "in the zone" during his 133 not out off 86 balls

India 3 for 321 (Kohli 133*, Gambhir 63) beat Sri Lanka 4 for 320 (Dilshan 160*, Sangakkara 105) by seven wickets

Turnarounds don't come any better. Fortunes don't change more dramatically. And emotions don't bear a starker contrast. At the halfway stage, Sri Lanka would have felt they had one foot in the final, having left the India bowlers deflated after a dominating performance with the bat. And they would have been right to think that way, the Indian batting having shown little promise in the series and the team on the brink of elimination.But Virat Kohli put on an imperious display of strokemaking, his malleable wrists powering an Indian fightback conspicuous by its absence on what had been, until now, two forgettable overseas trips. Kohli's innings made a mockery of an imposing score, kept India's finals hopes alive and left Sri Lanka having to beat Australia for a third time in the tournament to knock India out.Given India's poor outings with the bat in their recent games, one would have expected them to struggle to chase a target of 321 in 50 overs. They achieved it in 36.4 - needing to chase it in 40 to stay alive in the series - and did so with Kohli finishing things off in a blaze of glory. Kohli was in the zone; he dismissed anything that came his way with clinical precision, found the boundary at will whether the field was in or pushed back, ran swiftly between the wickets to catch the fielders off guard and middled the ball with scarcely believable consistency.While Kohli was the protagonist in India's successful chase, the other characters played their due part. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar would have wanted to do more but gave India the explosive start they desperately needed to stage a counterattack; Gautam Gambhir continued to be fluent, just four boundaries in a knock of 63 off 64 balls showing the toil behind the runs; and Suresh Raina, under pressure to perform, kept Kohli valuable company in a matchwinning stand.If India were insipid with their bowling, Sri Lanka were far worse, as wides flowed, gift balls were doled out with regularity and the fielding buckled under the pressure of an unexpected fightback. Both innings were replete with fumbles, misfields, wayward throws - one of them, had it been on target, could have run Kohli out - making batting even more profitable on the easiest track in the series thus far. The brisk start to the chase and the subsequent consolidation by Gambhir and Kohli meant India were in with a fighting chance with two Powerplays still remaining, and both proved highly lucrative.Kohli made both his own, first targetting Nuwan Kulasekara in the 31st over, which began with India needing 91 in 10 overs for a bonus point. He carted three consecutive fours as attempted yorkers failed to meet their desired lengths and served as tempting length balls. Two were whipped - in trademark Kohli fashion, a momentary turn of the wrists imparting tremendous force to the ball - and the other sliced over point in an act of improvisation.The Sri Lanka fast bowlers misfired badly but even when they got it right, like an accurate yorker from Malinga, Kohli was able to shuffle across and expertly work it past the short fine fielder. He took 24 from Malinga in the 35th over, flicking him for six, sending one through the covers for four and then picking up three more fours past short fine, and finished the game with two thunderous drives through the off side. A pump of the fists was followed by a roar of elation and relief as MS Dhoni calmly trudged on to the field to join in the celebrations.A win this dominating seemed a distant possibility when Kohli joined Gambhir at the fall of Tendulkar's wicket. Tendulkar had walked across too far to be caught plumb by Malinga, ending an innings in which Tendulkar seemed devoid of pressure and completely uninhibited in his approach. Sehwag and Tendulkar batted with freedom, the former smashing Malinga into the grassbanks behind deep midwicket in a fiery opening stand of 54, and Tendulkar going over the top on the off side, and displaying an adeptness in picking Malinga's variations. But at 2 for 86 in the 10th over, with India's two most experienced batsmen back in the pavilion and the required-rate still very high, Kohli and Gambhir faced a daunting task.That both took little time to get going was crucial in maintaining the tempo that had been set. Gambhir steered Kulasekara for four off his third delivery before punching one past midwicket, and Kohli warmed up with one of several whips off Malinga off his second ball. The pair didn't get bogged down despite a 35-ball boundary drought, running swiftly between the wickets, converting ones into twos by putting the outfielders under pressure and making the fielders inside the circle appear redundant by stealing quick ones.Kohli broke that drought with a drive off Thisara Perara past extra cover and later clobbered Angelo Mathews over the wide long-off boundary. At the halfway stage in the chase, the pair had notched up half-centuries, laying a solid foundation for the onslaught to follow with ten Powerplay overs still remaining. After Gambhir fell to an accurate throw while trying to steal a second, Raina infused the innings with greater urgency, providing a quicker partner at the other end to Kohli and indulging in some power play of his own to help hasten the finish.he Kohli show overshadowed an assured and commanding performance by Sri Lanka with the bat, and centuries from Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara, who capitalised on a palpably below-par show from India's bowlers.Dilshan shrugged off his initial unease against the swinging ball to gradually open up and march towards his 11th ODI century and Sangakkara played an innings as attractive as several of his abruptly terminated cameos this tournament, only longer in duration this time, full of confidence and more pleasing on the eye. The determination and focus of trying to bat India out of the game was unwavering in their innings, and the smiles on their faces and the India players' drooping shoulders suggested a one-sided game. But body-language is not always a reliable indicator, for it had taken an about turn in three hours' time.

England seal series in thriller

Jade Dernbach sinks to his knees after earning England a narrow victory 

England 129 for 6 (Pietersen 62*, Ajmal 4-23) beat Pakistan 124 for 6 (Shafiq 34) by five runs

England produced world-class death bowling coupled with moments of brilliance in the field to snatch a five-run victory in the deciding Twenty20 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi and seal the series 2-1. With Misbah-ul-Haq and Umar Akmal together, needing 35 off the last five overs, Pakistan were in control but Stuart Broad and Jade Dernbach showed nerves of steel to finish the tour on a high.Broad bowled the 16th and 19th overs which cost just four runs apiece and that included a misfield by Jonny Bairstow at long-on in the penultimate over which gave away a boundary. Broad removed Akmal, who skied a catch to long-off after missing the first two balls of the 19th over, and Bairstow redeemed himself in the last with a powerful throw to Craig Kieswetter which found Shahid Afridi short of his crease.Dernbach, who bowled the 17th over for six runs, was left with 13 to play with for the last and was in control except when a slower ball looped out short to be called wide. That left Pakistan needing eight off three deliveries but Hammad Azam and Misbah could only muster two singles before a trademark slower ball from Dernbach castled Misbah and set of wild celebrations from the bowler.The series win, a notable result for Broad who is still in his infancy as a captain, will give the England squad a significant surge of confidence ahead of their title defence at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. Their remaining T20s before that tournament are all at home, so success in conditions similar - if not identical - to Sri Lanka will have provided a wealth of knowledge especially for the younger players.Misbah, meanwhile, could well face further criticism after ending with 28 off 32 balls but it should have been the anchor innings to guide his side home. Only in the final four overs did the asking rate hit eight-an-over and some of Akmal's wild heaves to leg didn't show very clear thinking. It had been difficult to hit boundaries all evening - the match produced 15 fours and three sixes - and huge credit must go to England's bowlers and fielders. Graeme Swann built pressure for the quicks with a guileful spell and Jos Buttler, having endured a poor series with the bat, manufactured a wicket with a flat throw that was superbly collected by Kieswetter to remove the well-set Asad Shafiq.It is a fine line batsmen tread in Twenty20. For the failure of Misbah to get his side across the line there is the success of Kevin Pietersen after his unbeaten 62, made from a sedate 52 balls, gave England a defendable total. It was clear early on that this wasn't a 150 pitch and Pietersen judged it was better to stay until the end than aim too high. Samit Patel contributed a spritely 16 and Pietersen finished the innings with a last-ball six off Aizaz Cheema which ultimately proved the difference.What Eoin Morgan would give for some of Pietersen's end-of-tour form. His last innings of the trip was a tortured affair, as many of the 16 before this one had also been. He chipped short of long-off against Afridi on 6 and should have been stumped on 8 as Akmal added another error to a long list. But this one didn't prove costly although Morgan was left cursing a team-mate rather than himself. Pietersen drove firmly to cover, where Misbah fumbled, and didn't adhere to the adage of "don't run on a misfield", leaving Morgan stuffed when he changed his mind again.Bairstow couldn't repeat his showing from two days ago as he misjudged the length against Saeed Ajmal, who claimed 4 for 23, and England's other young middle-order batsman, Buttler, had another tough innings. He scored four runs off the nine combined deliveries he faced from Ajmal and Afridi and was then given lbw against Ajmal playing a sweep that left him on his knees in the crease. This tour hasn't launched Buttler's international career as it appeared it could do but he can still make the World Twenty20.Crucially, however, Umar Gul had a poor day. Trying to react to Pietersen's movement in the crease, he conceded five wides down the leg side and, in his final over, sprayed another wide outside off stump with Pietersen proceeding to hit the seventh ball to the midwicket boundary. That's all it takes to change a tight Twenty20.