Ahead of their County Championship tie against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham, Yorkshire have dropped Yuvraj Singh from their middle order, bringing in Gavin Hamilton instead.Yuvraj has struggled in the County Championship, making only 137 runs in 10 innings. His big knocks for Yorkshire came only in the Twenty20 Cup.Geoff Cope, director of cricket for the county, said: “Yuvraj has come over here and has not found it easy. Pressure has been coming from the second team, with Gavin Hamilton in good form and scoring runs, and we felt the time had come for a change.””Yuvraj is struggling,” Cope added. “He has accepted the decision and we all hope that he will find his touch and show everyone what he is capable of.”Yuvraj Singh in county cricket

Alton will clinch the Southern Electric Premier League, Division 3 championship tomorrow – provided they avoid their 13th match of the season proving unlucky on Southsea seafront.Leaders all season, Alton have swept to 12 successive wins, but are unlikely to find Portsmouth II much of a threat.The city club has lost its last six matches and are probably favourites to go down, alongside Flamingo, who host Hungerford at The Holt.If Australian Chris Baumann shines, fellow strugglers Waterlooville could end their relegation worries with a win over Hook & Newnham Basics.Also in the mire, but ten points clear of Waterlooville, are South Wilts II, who visit Southsea.Ventnor will all but clinch the runners-up spot behind Alton if they win at Leckford, but Trojans plan to battle it out until the end and need to beat Havant II at Stoneham Lane in order to stay up.Nigel le Bas returns to the Stoneham side.Paultons, aiming for a top five finish, visit Bashley (Rydal) II, with all-rounder Tony Richman in peak form.

Deep Dasgupta and Sadagopan Ramesh will get another opportunity to stake their claims for berths in the national squad, as both were named in the 14-man India A line-up which will play against New Zealand in a tour game from October 2-4. The selectors also announced the Board President’s squad, which will take on New Zealand from September 26-28. Akash Chopra, who performed creditably on the A tour to the West Indies before being forced out with a knee injury, was the only player to figure in both squads.The selectors also plumped for Munaf Patel, the fast bowler from Gujarat who is yet to play a first-class match. Patel came into prominence this season after drawing high praise from Dennis Lillee and other experts at the MRF Pace Academy. Munaf was included in the India A squad, while Tinu Yohannan, who promised plenty on his Test debut before falling away, was included in the Board President’s line-up.The search for openers continues, with five specialist ones in the two squads, apart from Virender Sehwag, who has evinced an interest to bat in the middle order in Tests. Sanjay Bangar does not feature in either squad, suggesting that he is a certainty for the Test series against New Zealand.Board President’s squad
Akash Chopra, SS Das, Wasim Jaffer, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag (capt), S Sriram, Ajay Ratra (wk), Ramesh Powar, Amit Mishra, Amit Bhandari, Trivedi, Tinu Yohannan, Amit Uniyal.India A squad
S Ramesh, Akash Chopra, Connor Williams, Mohammad Kaif (capt), Hemang Badani, Mithun Manhas, Rohan Gavaskar, Abhijit Kale, Deep Dasgupta (wk), Murali Kartik, Sarandeep Singh, Sri Shanth, Munaf Patel, RP Singh.

Sourav Ganguly has renewed his contract with Percept D’Mark for the next five years and the deal is believed to be in the region of Rs 50 crore. The agreement meant that Percept D’Mark will take care of Ganguly’s endorsements, appearances, interviews and promotional campaigns till 2008.The finalisation of the deal ends a contractual row between the Ganguly and the company that cropped up during their three-year association from 2000.Percept D’Mark’s CEO, Sanjay Lal, declined to share financial details of the agreement in the course of a conference at Bangalore. However sources said the deal is in the region of Rs 50 crore.Ganguly admitted that Nimbus had approach him with a deal, but conceded “we decided to continue with this commitment. This association till 2008 will be till I finish my career." This however was not a reference to his retirement and Ganguly pointed that even in 2008 he could renew the contract.

Bankstown will go into tomorrow’s concluding day of Sydney Grade cricket’s Round 7 with first-innings points already wrapped up, after rookie Speedblitz Blues paceman Aaron Bird demolished a Manly-Warringah batting line-up sorely missing stars Shawn Bradstreet and Michael Bevan. Bird finished with seven wickets as the Sea Eagles scraped past the one-hundred mark, a score that the Bulldogs overtook last Saturday for the loss of only one wicket. Elsewhere, competition leader Eastern Suburbs again surpassed 400 runs in a day, while Blues opener Greg Mail scored 137 for UTS-Balmain.A recent graduate of the Australian Under-19 team, Aaron Bird (7/35) further impressed State selectors with his match-winning haul at Manly Oval. Bankstown replied to its host’s score of 109 with 1/171 by stumps, Peter Dugmore (70no) and James Allsopp (66no) leading the charge for outright points.At Village Green, home side University of NSW must chase close neighbour Eastern Suburbs’ 6/414. Andrew Jeffery (108) and Mark Patterson (87) starred for the Dolphins. Unfortunately for the Bumblebees, an injured Michael Slater will be unable to assist his club in its daunting local derby.Greg Mail, Slater’s Speedblitz Blues opening partner, displayed his class at Hurstville Oval last week, recording 137 in UTS-Balmain’s 6/364 against St George. He was well supported by Jason Krejza (81), who is in fine early-season form. Saints’ best bowler was again 16- year old Moises Henriques (2-51), who eventually claimed Mail in his second spell.In other matches- Blacktown 179 v North Sydney 4/150 at Joe McAleer; Campbelltown-Camden 334 v Sutherland at Raby 1; Fairfield-Liverpool 294 v Gordon at Rosedale; Mosman 321 v Northern District at Rawson; Parramatta 8/266 v Penrith at Howell; Sydney University 8/247 v Randwick Petersham at University; Western Suburbs 151 v Hawkesbury 2/42 at Pratten.

Aravinda de Silva, the vice-president of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), has made it clear that .Marvan Atapattu is in line to inherit the Test captaincy from Hashan Tillakaratne."Marvan knows that it is only a matter of time before he is handed over the Sri Lanka Test captaincy," said de Silva, himself a former Sri Lanka captain and the country’s leading run-scorer in both forms of the game. "He is aware of it and he has been told that he will be Hashan’s [Tillakaratne] successor.""We want to make the transition as easy as possible for Marvan and the best time to hand the captaincy over to him is when the team is performing well and when the batsmen are in good form. This way there will be no extra pressure on Marvan," added de Silva. "We have identified that Marvan is the best player to lead the country to the 2007 World Cup and we don’t want to burden him with the captaincy too early.""Marvan has been told what our future plans are and to make our intentions clear we have always invited him to all selection committee meetings so that he is aware of what is happening," said de Silva."However strong a personality you are, captaincy affects you in some ways. It may even affect your individual performances. Our main worry was that it should not affect Marvan’s batting because he is our premier batsman."The reason why we decided on two captains was to give Marvan enough time to establish himself as one-day captain before taking over the Test captaincy. We thought one year would be sufficient.” The 33-year-old Atapattu was appointed as Sri Lanka’s one-day captain in May last year following the resignation of Sanath Jayasuriya. After a disappointing beginning in the Bank Alfallah Cup triangular against New Zealand and Pakistan, in which his team failed to qualify for a home one-day final for the first time, he has led Sri Lanka to series wins over West Indies (2-1) and England (1-0).De Silva refuted accusations in some sections of the media that he was siding with Tillakaratne for the Sri Lankan captaincy, because of their common background of school (D.S. Senanayake) and club (NCC). "I will be the last person to favour anyone. To me individuals don’t matter. The best team should play for Sri Lanka. We cannot allow such loose talk to divert our attention from carrying out our responsibilities as selectors.""My opinion on certain individuals may not necessarily be shared by the other members of the selection committee," said De Silva. "There are four of us including the chairman and we discuss what is best for Sri Lanka cricket and take a collective decision. We also invite the coach John Dyson who gives us a lot of input into selections."

Bengal 280 for 6 (Arindam 63, Subhomoy 84, Tiwari 68*) beat Tamil Nadu 260 (Suresh 65, Ganeshkumar 64, Bose 6-35) by 20 runs
ScorecardBengal needed not only a victory over Tamil Nadu, but a bonus point as well, if they were to challenge Mumbai for the Ranji one-day trophy. They came out on top by a margin of 20 runs, but without the extra point, found victory a bittersweet pill.Bengal racked up 280 for 6, as Arindam Das, Subhomoy Das, and Manoj Tewari notched up contrasting half-centuries, and Tamil Nadu’s bowlers could do little to contain them. Arindam scored an 84-ball 63 and put on 51 for the second wicket with Debang Gandhi. But three wickets fell in quick succession, and Bengal found itself at 144 for 4. Das and Tewari then scored 96 runs together, until Thiru Kumaran dismissed Das for 84, with nine hits to the fence. That was Tewari’s cue to turn on the heat, as he smashed 68 runs in 56 balls, aided by 6 fours and two sixes. His late battering enabled Bengal to score 40 runs off the last 20 balls of the innings. Among the bowlers, only Ramakrishnan Ramkumar was shown respect with his 10 overs costing 25 runs. To put matters into perspective, the other 40 overs went for 255 runs.Tamil Nadu scored 260, with S Suresh and S Ganeshkumar scoring 65 and 64, but the undoubted star of the day was Ranadeb Bose, who struck down six batsmen for 35 runs.

According to Tuesday’s edition of The Guardian, Ed Giddins, the former Surrey and England seam bowler, is thought to be the man at the centre of gambling allegations, after it was revealed on Monday that the England & Wales Cricket Board is investigating claims that a player placed a bet on a county match.Although the ECB refused to name either the player or the match concerned, The Guardian has pointed the finger at Giddins, who retired from county cricket at the end of last season. It is suggested that he stood to earn £7,000 after allegedly betting that Surrey would lose a Norwich Union League game against Northamptonshire in August 2002.In the event, Giddins did not actually play in the match, although Northants nevertheless won by 102 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis method. Surrey had fielded a weak team because most of their first-team players were at Headingley, preparing for a C&G Trophy semi-final against Yorkshire.”An allegation of betting has been made against a player,” said Andrew Walpole, the ECB’s media relations officer. “That matter is now in the hands of Gerard Elias, chairman of the disciplinary committee, and it is now up to him to make a decision.”ECB rules state that “no person may bet, whether directly or indirectly, for reward on any match, matches or series of matches, or any aspect of any match, matches, or series of matches”. In the wake of cricket’s match-fixing scandal, all international players, and all English county players, are required to sign an agreement to that effect. Rule-breakers face a ban of up to five years and an unlimited fine.Giddins is no stranger to controversy. In August 1996, he was sacked by Sussex and banned for 18 months after traces of cocaine were found during a routine blood test. He later joined Warwickshire, and played four Tests for England between August 1999 and June 2000, taking a remarkable 5 for 15 against Zimbabwe at Lord’s.

The poor weather which has blighted the one-day series between New Zealand and South Africa looks set to continue. The omens are not good for the fifth match, scheduled to be played on Saturday at Eden Park, with a tropical cyclone forecast to hit the North Island in the early hours.Spectators – well, those brave enough to attend – might have been left huddled under cover, but New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has been left counting the losses.”Weather has affected just about every game but we’ve managed to get them all played,” Martin Snedden, NZC’s chief executive, told reporters. “The problem has been that people have been put off buying tickets before the game because they have been unsure just how much play they’ll see.”Snedden admitted that the board’s profits had taken a hammering, but stressed that things had to be kept in perspective. “I have been watching the news every night and seen the devastation of the floods in the southern parts of the North Island,” he said. “What we are going through is nothing compared to what so many people are going through and we’ve got to realise that life goes on outside the cricket arena.”

Russel Arnold, Saman Jayantha and Nuwan Kulasekara are due to return toSri Lanka at the end of the five-match one-day series againstZimbabwe after the selectors trimmed down their Test squad to 16.The Test specialists – Thilan Samaraweera, Ian Daniel and PrasannaJayawardene – arrived in Harare on Tuesday. They are expected to play a three-day practice game against a Zimbabwe A team at Takashinga CC Ground in Harare, which starts on May 1.Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara and Chaminda Vaas have picked up nigglinginjuries and will be rested for the final ODI on Thursday. Sangakkaratwisted his knee while wicketkeeping on Tuesday and and Vaas is recoveringfrom a slight ankle strain. Both are expected to be fully fit forthe first Test.