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The MCG pitch for the Boxing Day Ashes Test between Australia and England, which ended inside two days, has earned itself an “unsatisfactory” rating from the ICC match referee for the game, Jeff Crowe. As a result, the MCG will get one demerit point.Under the ICC’s four-tier pitch-rating system, ”unsatisfactory” is the third ranking and characterises a pitch that “does not allow an even contest between bat and ball… by favouring the bowlers too much, with too many wicket-taking opportunities for either seam or spin”. The MCG pitch had received the highest “very good” rating for the past three Boxing Day Tests.”The MCG pitch was too much in favour of the bowlers,” Crowe said. “With 20 wickets falling on the first day, 16 on the second day and no batter even reaching a half-century, the pitch was ‘unsatisfactory’ as per the guidelines and the venue gets one demerit point.”Related

• SCG curator 'really happy' with pitch for final Ashes Test

• MCG curator in 'state of shock' after costly two-day finish

• The three millimetres which created a firestorm

It was the second two-day Test at the ongoing Ashes, following the opening match in Perth where the surface was rated “very good”. Australia won that and the next two Test matches before losing at MCG.”We were disappointed for the fans holding tickets for days three and four, and also the millions of fans excited to watch the action in Australia and around the world, that the pitch did not provide the MCG’s customary balance between bat and ball,” James Allsopp, Cricket Australia (CA) chief of cricket, said in a statement.”We appreciate the outstanding work the MCC staff have done over recent years producing excellent Test match pitches. We’re confident they will deliver first-rate surfaces for next year’s Boxing Day Test against New Zealand and the hugely anticipated 150th Anniversary Test against England in March 2027.”A day after the Test ended, MCG curator Matt Page said he was in “a state of shock”, having watched 20 wickets fall on the opening day and 16 more the next in a total of 142 overs.Page’s decision to leave 10mm of grass on the surface – informed by a hot forecast for the final three days of the match – had come under significant scrutiny after 7mm was left on against India last season which produced a Test that ended late on the fifth day.The two-day finish is expected to cost CA up to AUD10 million on top of the significant loss from the opening Test.0:52

Finch: To happen twice in four Tests is very disappointing

Having two such finishes in a series – the first time it has happened in 129 years – prompted CA chief executive Todd Greenberg to float the possibility of the governing body having more of a say to curators who, traditionally in Australia, have been able to work independently.Australia coach Andrew McDonald hoped that would remain the way and offered his support to Page, who started in Melbourne when McDonald was still Victoria coach, having been brought in from the WACA after the MCG received a “poor” rating (under a previous ICC system) for the 2017-18 Ashes Test.”I don’t want to get to a situation … where we are asking for specific surfaces and tailor-made,” McDonald said on Monday. “I don’t think Australia will ever go there, and I don’t think they’ve ever been there, to my knowledge.”Sometimes these things can happen, but we support him in what he’s done and really proud of the evolution of the MCG. We don’t want to scare him off and get back to where we were. He’s found a nice balance for a long period of time. We believe we’re a better batting group than that, but what we did there says otherwise.”

Scorecard

Faisal Iqbal’s precious innings of 74 took Pakistan within reach of Australia’s first-innings score © Getty Images

A late-order fightback by Sarfraz Ahmed and Mohammad Sami ensured Pakistan A ended the second day of the second Test against Australia A on 238 for 8 after resuming on 22 for 3.The day did not start well for Pakistan as they lost their fourth wicket for the addition of only three runs when Khurram Manzoor, who was included in the team in place of Hasan Raza, became Doug Bollinger’s second victim and Luke Ronchi’s fourth catch of the innings. Naved Latif then formed an 86-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Faisal Iqbal, Pakistan’s captain, as Pakistan crossed the 100-mark without any further loss.Naved, however, was run out after scoring 41 with the help of three fours and two sixes as Pakistan lost another quick wicket in the form of Mansoor Amjad, who made 10. When Faisal was caught by Cameron White off the bowling of Stuart MacGill for a patient 74, Australia looked set for a sizeable lead.Sarfraz (56 not out) and Sami (32), however, played some aggressive strokes to ease the pressure and took Pakistan within 56 runs of Australia’s first-innings total when Sami was cleaned up by Bollinger.Sarfraz will resume with Tahir Khan at the crease and Mohammad Khalil to follow as the hosts will try hard to extend their innings and push for victory in order to draw the two-match series. Australia won the first Test by an innings and 203 runs.

Will they be watching cricket on a new channel soon? © Getty Images

Sport marketing company Nimbus Communications have said it had struck a deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Star to distribute its new 24-hour cricket channel in India.Nimbus, which paid US$612million to secure the rights to screen live coverage of Indian cricket until 2010, said it will start test transmissions of the new channel next month. The channel will be seen in millions of Indian homes via the third party Star platform that already penetrates 96% of homes with cable in India, said Harish Thawani, the Nimbus chairman.Indian homes with cable and satellite was estimated at 55million in 2005 and was projected to grow to 90 million by 2010, according to an industry report this year. “They [Star] will act as our exclusive distributor of cable and satellite in India,” said Thawani.Nimbus secured the live rights for India’s home series earlier this year in the biggest television deal in world cricket. The scale of the deal highlighted the passion for the sport here in India, where it regularly makes the front pages, stars proliferate on hoardings and games are played out on every spare scrap of land.Thawani declined to give financial details of the Star deal but said it was designed to lower distribution costs. He said Nimbus expected to distribute the channel directly to homes in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia within the next three months.

Andrew Flintoff clips Matthew Hayden’s leg stump to continue his lean run © Getty Images

Two of Matthew Hayden’s high-profile predecessors believe the opener should hold his position despite missing a century in the past 28 innings. Mark Taylor said Hayden needed to convert his starts into big scores while Geoff Marsh told him to “hang in there”.Taylor, who had an horrific struggle for runs in the lead-up to the ’97 series, said Hayden was being troubled by late movement that hindered his driving down the ground. But he told The Australian Hayden’s poor run was nothing on his. “I don’t think for a minute Matthew Hayden is going as badly as I was in that time,” Taylor told the paper. “He still seems to be making some useful contributions. He’s making a lot of 30s and 40s. He just needs to convert one of those starts into a score.”Marsh partnered Taylor at the end of his career and is a former Australia coach who closely monitored Hayden’s progress. “He’s scored runs but just hasn’t gone on and got a big one and I think that’s working mentally on him at the moment,” Marsh said. “He’s just got to hang in there. I certainly wouldn’t be thinking about making any changes on this tour because he’s been such a great player.”

Javed Miandad: ‘How can anyone question my commitment and credentials even after all these years?’© Getty Images

Javed Miandad has expressed his fury at the manner in which the Pakistan Cricket Board terminated his contract, describing the board’s actions as “unethical”, and adding that such hasty decisions hadn’t benefited the country or its cricketers in the past.”While my contract was in effect, they settled terms and conditions with someone else,” said Miandad. “This is a clear breach of contract, which I consider unethical. If I was not good enough, why was I brought in as coach last year?”In an earlier interview with The News, Miandad had been in a more conciliatory mood, saying: “I am deeply hurt that they have used the word ‘terminated’ for my stepping down as coach. I stepped down as coach after a mutual understanding with the board.”Miandad revealed that he had asked the PCB to give him more authority and power when it came to selection matters. However, according to him, things didn’t work out the way he wanted. “I felt if I was not getting what I want, to make the team improve its performance, it was no use to carry on like this,” he said. “But we reached a mutual understanding that they will honour my remaining contractual terms and conditions and I will step down myself.”According to Miandad, the performance of the Pakistan team hadn’t been poor enough to warrant a change of coach. “It [the performance] was not disastrous,” he said. “Coaches and teams are only changed if results are disastrous and I think since I took over as coach we have performed creditably. Even our performances against India were not bad.”Miandad also suggested that the foreign coach option might not be the best one for Pakistan, given the manner in which men like Richard Pybus had struggled to establish any sort of authority or put an effective system in place. “In the past also they have taken such decisions and regretted it,” he said. “In the past also, they brought me back. My only grouse is if they are going to treat their own people like this where are we supposed to go? How can anyone question my commitment and credentials even after all these years?”Despite his anger, Miandad wished Woolmer all the best in his new job. “I wish him the best of luck on his assignment,” he said. “It is going to be a tough one.”

The International Cricket Council has announced a relaunch of its Test Championship in the light of South Africa’s elevation to top spot last year at a time Australia were universally regarded as the best side in the world.Whereas the old calculations were based on simple series win/draw/loss points, the new Championship relies on a complex weighting system, and each Test will count rather than just the series result.”The original ICC Test Championship was launched in May 2001 and we stated at the time that we would monitor its application,” Malcolm Speed, president of the ICC told reporters at Lord’s for the relaunch. “That process has now been completed and the revised points system provides a fair reflection of the achievements of all ten full members.”England’s two-match npower series with Zimbabwe is the first to count towards the re-launched Championship. England need to win the series 2-0 to improve their rating, while a 1-0 win will keep them unchanged on 97 while a draw will cause them to fall to 95.If England lose 2-0 they will narrowly hold on to fifth place in the table. That outcome would give Zimbabwe’s rating a massive boost to 67, and even a drawn series would extend their lead over Bangladesh by four points.The ICC Test Championship table, 21st May 2003

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Position (prev pos in brackets)	Team	Matches	Points	Rating
1 (1)	Australia	47	6041	129
2 (2)	South Africa	41	4721	115
3 (3)	New Zealand	35	3615	103
4 (4)	Sri Lanka	41	4144	101
5 (5)	England	45	4375	97
6 (6)	India	43	3914	91
7 (8)	Pakistan	33	3012	91
8 (7)	West Indies	44	3468	79
9 (9)	Zimbabwe	31	1841	59
10 (10)	Bangladesh	25	102	4

Explanation of the ICC Test ChampionshipThe new ICC Test Championship takes into account the result of every individual Test Match with a bonus awarded for winning a series. It also recognises the strength of the opposition in calculating the points awarded.The system means that there are no longer any `dead rubber’ Test Matches and that in any series both teams have the opportunity to improve or worsen their rating.The ICC Test Championship reflects performances in all Tests completed since a given date (currently 1st August 1999), in contrast to the previous system which included some series played in 1996/97 yet excluded some more recent series. More recent matches have a stronger weighting and the rankings are refreshed every August.A rating of 100 reflects average performance, so a team winning and losing a similar number of matches and playing a broad mix of opponents will have a rating close to 100.For the up-to-date ICC Test Championship table plus full scenarios for forthcoming series and details of the formula for calculating ratings visit the official ICC website www.icc.cricket.org.

Former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar said on Friday he was taught torespect decisions of umpires very early in his career “but at timesdue to unavoidable pressures I have reacted negatively for which Istill have regrets.”Inaugurating the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s two-day 13thall India Umpires’ seminar in Mumbai, Gavaskar said players shouldlearn to respect the decisions of umpires so that the game can go onsmoothly as cricket is considered to be a gentleman’s game.Gavaskar, who is also one of the leading TV commentators in the worldtoday, said new technology has put umpires under tremendous pressure”but still I think they are doing a very good job out there as theyhave to be 110 per cent sure of their decisions.””When you watch replays on TV, you see 95 per cent of the decisionsmade by the umpires are right and it is human that a few decisions maygo the other way due to the tremendous pressure faced by umpires,” headded.The second highest run getter in Test cricket, Gavaskar said he wasfortunate to have umpires like Pillo Reporter, MV Gothoskar, PRPanjabi and AM Mamsa when he was playing.”In fact, during my days players and umpires had a good rapport onand off the field and we would discuss the rules and regulations ofthe game in detail,” he said.Gavaskar, recipient of the Padma Bhushan and Maharashtra Bhushanawards, praised the BCCI for conducting such seminars, saying they actas a platform for umpires to exchange their views.”The seminars also help discuss the new rules of the game and give aninsight into the problems faced by umpires in the country,” he added.BCCI secretary JY Lele, joint secretary Jyoti Bajpai, Mumbai CricketAssociation (MCA) joint secretaries Ratnakar Shetty and MayankKhandwala, vice president Pravin Bharve and international umpires AVJayprakash, SK Bansal and VK Ramaswamy attended the seminar.About 180 umpires from all over the country are participating in theseminar.

Nathan McCullum, 35, has said that he will retire from international cricket at the end of this New Zealand season to spend more time with his family.”I don’t want to make a big song and dance about it, but it’s time to start thinking about the next phase of my life,” McCullum told the . “I’ve got the sense that the end of this season is the right time to call it quits in international cricket.”The offspinner had a meeting with New Zealand coach Mike Hesson and manager Mike Sandle, and will help mentor young spinners such as Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner over the remainder of his playing career. “We’ve got to get these guys up to speed and I’m looking forward to playing a mentoring role there.”He said he was also keen to be able to devote more attention to his wife and three young children. “It’s been hard work for Vanessa in the past five years,” McCullum said. “She’s spent a lot of it pregnant and has had to do it on her own most of the time. It’s time for me to start investing time in my family and being there for dinners and helping the boys with their homework.”McCullum made his T20I debut in 2007 against South Africa while his ODI debut came in 2009 against Sri Lanka. Till date, he has taken 63 wickets from 84 ODIs at an average of 46.92 and an economy-rate of 5.01. In T20Is, he has 55 wickets from 61 games at an economy of 6.9. He has also struck four fifties and has a batting average of 20.98 in ODIs.McCullum said the 2011 World Cup quarter-final win over South Africa was “special.” He took 3 for 24 from ten overs as New Zealand defended 221 by 49 runs. “To come back and win a match we shouldn’t have won was pretty special.”He had words of praise for his younger brother and captain Brendon. “Every now and then it’s hard case when your little brother is barking orders at you… but he deserves everything he gets in terms of praise. He’s worked his butt off and created this team along with Hess and Mike Sandle.”

I have said for quite some time that the Barbados cricket selectorsneed to be politically correct to get in sync with the several changesin West Indies cricket and for Barbados not to be left behind.How timely then for them to blood a number of youngsters in thetraining squad announced to prepare for Barbados’ first Busta gameagainst Guyana at Kensington Oval.I give them a perfect 10 for their foresight.At this stage it can’t only be about picking a team that must win theBusta Cup or any other cup but ideally we need the type of selectionsthat will present the West Indies selectors with many more optionsthan we are providing at the moment.We are mainly to blame for the fact that Barbados, once looked upon toproduce most West Indies cricketers, struggles these days to get evena handful of players on the regional team.The truth is that our standard at club level may have dropped but Idon’t think it’s any worse than what obtains in the other islands butthe difference is that the other territories recognise the talent ofyoung players and thrust them into the firing line from earlier.Most take a little time to blossom but it’s the long-term investmentthat brings reward to their deliberate gamble.The evidence is commanding: Ramnaresh Sarwan, Marlon Samuels, JermaineLawson are all current West Indies players who got early experience inthe senior after being outstanding at the youth level.On the other hand, we have only been left to ponder about what couldhave been for the likes of Ian Bradshaw and Shirley Clarke only ifthey had been exposed much earlier after graduating from the youthranks.I am not trying to say that we assemble our team with all youngplayers but we have to put the promising ones to learn from theseasoned and experienced crop so that there will be a smoothtransition when age, loss of form or whatever cause may make the olderplayers ineligible.The recent selection of the team epitomises this and it should bearfruit once those responsible for choosing the final eleven are braveenough to take the next logical step by including the youngsters thatqualify by merit and circumstance.The exposure we give them could very well determine if we have achance of increasing our numbers in the West Indies team.And surely the pronouncements of coach Roger Harper that West Indiesneed to find tearaway fast bowlers again to win Test matches make anobvious case for the inclusion of both Tino Best and Fidel Edwards inthe first match against the Guyanese.In fact, I believe that Harper’s statement on the return from the illfated trip to Sri Lanka may have influenced the local selectors toinclude them even if they had second thoughts.If his trip to the Bradman Academy in Australia wasn’t going to makehim ineligible for the first match, I would have recommended theinclusion of 16 year-old Martin Nurse in the starting line up for theGuyana match.The belligerent Dwayne Smith and the nonchalant Kurt Wilkinson shouldalso provide stiff challenges for middle order places although I don’tbelieve that both will start.For now, the selectors have made a step in the right direction byheeding the call to give more youth a chance.Once given the opportunity to play it’s up to them to grab it withboth hands.

Aston Villa have been scouting Marseille’s Boubacar Kamara for ‘the past few weeks’, according to But! Football Club (via Sport Witness). 

The lowdown

The 22-year-old defensive midfielder is also capable of operating as a centre-back. His contract expires on 30 June, which means he is currently free to negotiate pre-contract terms with clubs outside of France.

Villa signed Lucas Digne and Philippe Coutinho in January but were unable to land a defensive midfielder as they’d hoped, having refused to meet the asking price for either Yves Bissouma or Rodrigo Bentancur.

The Athletic’s Gregg Evans has said that the club are now expected to address that perceived weakness in the summer.

The latest

The report from But! Football Club (via Sport Witness) stated that recruitment staff from Aston Villa have been watching Kamara during the month of February.

The expectation is very much that the player will ‘pack his bags’ and leave Jorge Sampaoli’s side come the end of the season.

The verdict

Could Kamara be the answer for Villa in the middle of the park?

The Daily Mirror’s David Anderson has talked up his potential to GiveMeSport, hailing him as ‘one of the next big things’.

Indeed, figures from FBRef illustrate that the 22-year-old is a well-rounded number 6 in the same mould as Liverpool’s Fabinho. He ranks in the 70th percentile or better (relative to positional peers) for pass completion, progressive passes and interceptions.

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One potential problem for Villa, though, is that Manchester United are also said to be tracking the £22.5m-rated Frenchman, and they will hope to use the significant carrot of potential Champions League football to persuade him to choose Old Trafford over Villa Park.

In other news, Ashley Preece has an update on Bertrand Traore