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Jagmohan Dalmiya hopes that the Indian junior team’s forthcoming visit to Pakistan will pave the way for a resumption of matches betweeen the two nations at senior level.”I’ve been getting positive indications from the government aboutresumption of bilateral cricket ties with Pakistan,” said Dalmiya, the President of the BCCI, after a meeting of the Asian Cricket Council. “The government is yet to give the final permission, but I think it may be round the corner.”The Indian government last week cleared the national Under-19 team’s visit to Pakistan in November, where they will take part in a four-nation tournament which also features Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The government has also cleared a Pakistan second XI to participate alongside Sri Lanka in a limited-overs tri-series in India in December, while the Indian academy side will take on Pakistani opposition during their tour to Sri Lanka this month.These junior tournaments are the first clashes between Indian and Pakistani cricketers on the sub-continent since the senior teams met in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh in May 2000. The Indian government later banned bilateral cricket matches with Pakistan due to political tensions, but allowed them to meet in multi-nation events such as the World Cup.The Pakistan Cricket Board has invited India for a Test series in March next year, although no agreement has yet been reached. India has not played a Test match in Pakistan since 1989, while Pakistan played three Tests in India in 1999-2000, despite threats of disruption from Hindu fundamentalists.

D Vinay Kumar and AT Rayudu slaughtered Goa’s bowlers to help Hyderabad notch up a massive 159-run win in their Ranji one-day match at Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.Hyderabad, winning the toss, opted to bat, but lost both both openers with only 19 on the board. But Goa’s bowlers could then not make another impact for 196 runs, as Vinay Kumar and Rayudu scored runs almost at will, hitting the ball to all parts of the park.Rayudu was the first to fall, having made 117 off 107 balls, with 10 fours and five sixes. Anirudh Singh, his replacement, did not let up on the scoring rate, making 60 off 50 balls.Vinay Kumar fell as the fourth wicket, having scored 101 off 126 balls with six fours. S Vishnuvardhan provided another late surge to take his side to 338/4 in their 50 overs.Goa simply wilted in the face of their target. Barring opener SV Kamat’s 61 off 83 balls, none of the individual scores could even come to terms with Hyderabad’s bowling. PIS Reddy took four wickets to finish off the lower middle order, bring up a Hyderabad victory by 159 runs.

Spinners Venkatpathi Raju and Kanwaljit Singh bowled Hyderabad to aremarkable 92-run victory over Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophyquarterfinal at the Green Park in Kanpur on Monday.It was a magnificent win for Hyderabad who were behind by 71 runs onthe first innings. A superb effort in the second innings, spearheadedby VVS Laxman who scored his sixth century this season in the nationalcompetition, gave Hyderabad a chance to come back. But when UPresumed this morning at 38 for no loss chasing a victory target of311, the home team did seem to have the better chance of qualifyingfor the penultimate round. After all they had already secured thefirst innings lead. This feeling gathered momentum when UP were 104for one and in mid afternoon, 163 for three. But then there was anamazing turnabout and the last seven wickets fell for the addition of55 runs. UP were all out for 218 with six overs to spare.UP suffered an early blow when Jyoti Yadav was bowled by KanwaljitSingh for 18 with the total on 43. But the other opener M Saif and MdKaif came together in a second wicket partnership which realized 61runs off 24.2 overs. Saif then fell to Raju for 57. He batted a trifleover three hours, faced 162 balls and hit seven fours. In the sameover, Raju dismissed R Shamshad for nought.Shortly before lunch, Kaif reached his half century. At the interval,UP were 119 for three. Kaif and Saurabh Shukla then seemed to havecarried UP to safety by adding 59 runs off 25.3 overs. However at 163,Shukla was caught by wicketkeeper Sheikh off Raju for 27. He batted anhour and a half, faced 68 balls and hit four boundaries. Anothercrucial wicket was taken in the same over with skipper GyanendraPandey being held by Nandakishore for a duck.Now UP were under siege. Raju and Kanwaljit wove patterns around thebatsmen, trapping them in their web of spin. Kaif continued to playconfidently but the wickets fell at regular intervals at the otherend. Finally Kaif, UP’s last bastion of strength, was ninth out at213, held by Nandakishore off Kanwaljit Singh. The India batsmen hadbatted courageously for 282 minutes, faced 229 balls and hit sevenfours. Satwalkar ended the match having last man Sriwatsava caught bySheikh and Hyderabad’s triumph was complete. Raju took six for 57 off37 overs while Kanwaljit had three for 78 to finish with match figuresof nine for 175.Hyderabad now play reigning champions Karnataka in the semifinal.

Aston Villa have not been shy when it comes to spending significant amounts of money on bringing new players to the club over the past few years.

As is the case with a lot of clubs who are particularly active in the transfer market, not every player that joins ends up proving their worth on the pitch.

One player that falls into this category for the Midlands club is striker Wesley.

He made the move to Villa Park back in the 2019 summer transfer window from Belgian side Club Brugge in a deal worth a reported fee of £22m.

His debut campaign in England turned out to be a very unfortunate one for him, after scoring just five goals in 21 Premier League matches, the Brazilian suffered a severe knee injury in January 2020 that kept him out of action for a whopping 15 months.

This season, after making a one-minute cameo in Villa’s 2-0 win against Newcastle United back in August, the striker returned to Brugge on a loan deal but only made six appearances before moving back to his home country in January for another temporary spell, this time with Internacional until the end of the campaign.

In December 2019, a few months after making his big-money move to the Midlands, Transfermarkt rated the 25-year-old’s value listed at £27m, but following a torrid few years, it now stands at just £5.4m.

That shows a significant decrease of 80%, presumably as a result of the lack of game time at Villa due to his injury as well as his disappointing spell back at Brugge.

Taking all of this into account, it’s safe to say that the centre-forward, who is currently picking up a weekly wage of £46k-per-week according to Salary Sport, has not exactly repaid the hefty transfer fee that Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris splashed out for him.

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Having been labelled as a potential “burden” for the club in the past by Paul Robinson due to his lack of consistency in front of goal, Wesley has a big challenge ahead of him if he wants to convince Steven Gerrard that he has a future at Villa Park and can be an important figure for them.

In other news: Lange plotting bargain AVFC swoop for “monstrous” £6m-rated gem, he’d be a big upgrade – opinion

	“He’s a little bit different in the fact that he probably brings the ball back into right-handers more than most right-arm bowlers we have faced.” – Ricky Ponting explains why Ishant is dangerous © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting is still working out how to tackle Ishant Sharma. You could say he is a bit puzzled. The Australian captain admitted as much as Ishant waited to talk about his spoils at the post-match media briefing.”He’s been a big improver for India through this tour”, Ponting said of Ishant, who has already got him thrice this summer. Memories of the WACA Test, where he twice edged Ishant to the slips, during the Test series, seem to still haunt Ponting and he had no answer to Ishant’s poser on Sunday.Not surprising, then, that Ishant knows the value of having the number of the one of the best batsmen of this decade. “Ponting is one my favourite batsmen and if you get the batsman complimenting you, it feels good,” Sharma explained modestly.Even if he was taking the new ball for the first time in the ODIs Ishant had fast-tracked his growth as a bowler on the first leg of the tour to a position where he was able to handle the pressures of sharing the new ball. He stuttered a touch initially; his first ball was a no-ball, the fifth was a wide and in between Hayden edged one just above the outstretched hands of Rohit Sharma at the third slip. He was clearly still settling in the next over and went for 18 runs, including three fours from Hayden’s bat.Ishant wasn’t beaten, though, and recovered sufficiently to pick up three top-order wickets in Hayden, Ponting and Andrew Symonds to effectively turn the match in India’s favour. Later, he explained his turnaround. “After that over [when he went for 18] Dhoni told me to stick to my plans. He felt I was trying to do something else and instead I should do what I had to. I calmed down from that point.”It wasn’t just calmness, of course; it also involved execution of a plan. “We had our plans for each batsman and I just worked on that. For Ponting, it was to bowl to him on the fourth stump.”Ponting reckons Ishant is one of the few right-arm fast bowlers who can bring the ball in and that makes him a difficult proposition. “He’s a little bit different in the fact that he probably brings the ball back into right-handers more than most right-arm bowlers we have faced. Normally as a right-handed batsman you usually only get the ball coming back in from left-armers. He’s tall, he hits the deck pretty hard and he gets a little bit of inconsistent bounce off the wicket.”Ponting said Ishant has the variety that can also trouble the left-handers and compared him to the Makhaya Ntini in that respect. “He’s looked dangerous. With the angles he creates he can be pretty dangerous against the left-handers as well and he swings the ball away from them, a bit like Ntini does.”When asked if the workload has been an issue, Ishant said he was fine even if he felt a “little tired” at the end of today’s encounter. “I was a bit tired and I had stomach aches but I have bowled long spells and my stamina is improving.”

Geoff Barnett’s 41 was the only positive John Davison could draw from Canada’s loss © Getty Images

John Davison, the Canada captain, conceded his side resembled a village cricket team in their seven-wicket loss to Kenya. Davison was equally concerned with Canada’s bowling as their batting after Steve Tikolo guided Kenya past their target of 200 with 40 balls to spare.”There weren’t too many positives there for us,” Davison told . “Geoff Barnett got us off to a pretty good start but once he was out I don’t think we competed for the rest of the game. That pretty much sums it up.”Barnett departed for 41 and Kenya’s spinners troubled the Canada middle-order before the innings finished with what Davison called a series of “village and embarrassing” run-outs. In the field, Canada gave away 18 wides and two no-balls.”It didn’t click,” Davison said. “It was really disappointing. We haven’t bowled that many extras in a game for a long time. Maybe the pressure of the occasion got to us.”Davison said the efforts of the Kenya spinners, especially Hiren Varaiya (1 for 19 off ten) and Jimmy Kamande (2 for 25 from ten) were good but Canada could have handled them better. “(Varaiya) is a good spinner but I don’t think there is a world-class spinner in that team,” he said. “It’s an opportunity missed for us.”Tikolo, who made 72 not out and took 2 for 34 in a Man-of-the-Match performance, said Kenya were a chance to progress past the group stage with a win over England or New Zealand. “I believe in my players, I do have confidence in them,” Tikolo said.”They know this is the World Cup and this is the big stage. How they carried themselves today goes to show they were up for it. All in all it was a good game. Up front we gave away too many runs but the spinners pulled it back in the middle.”

Phil Jaques makes a reflex stop on Test debut, but his skills haven’t impressed Trevor Hohns © Getty Images

Phil Jaques, the New South Wales opening batsman left out of the South Africa touring squad, has been told by Trevor Hohns, the chairman of selectors, to improve his fielding. Since making 94 on one-day debut at Melbourne, Jaques has been pushing to replace Simon Katich, who sealed his spot with a maiden century on Tuesday, at the top of the order.Jaques usually stands in the slips or at short-leg for the Blues and Hohns said his fielding was definitely an issue. “He is aware of it and we’re all aware of, and the coach [John Buchanan] is aware of,” Hohns said in the . “We’re obviously hoping he’ll do something about it and we’ll be there to help him wherever we can. If that means getting him some specialist attention, that’s what we’ll do.”Brad Haddin, the New South Wales captain, told the paper he was surprised by Hohns’s concerns, but said Jaques had worked hard on improving his skills since his Test debut in December. “It’s something that can be blown a bit out of proportion,” he said. “His fielding for us has been very good.”Hohns said the team had been picked before Katich’s century on Tuesday night and he was happy with his partnership with Adam Gilchrist. “I think we’ve shown a bit of faith in him all through the VB Series,” Hohns said in the . “There has been a lot of talk about his position in the side, and for him to make that breakthrough and get that hundred you could see he had a little bit more emotion that he didn’t let out.”Hohns said it was “nice” to have Jaques putting pressure on the top side. “Phil Jaques is probably doing exactly what Matthew Hayden did a few years ago when he wasn’t playing for Australia – he just keeps scoring runs,” he said. Australia start the South Africa series with a Twenty20 International on February 24 before the five-match one-day competition.

Gerald Majola: ‘We will not enlarge the contracted group without good reason’© Getty Images

Martin van Jaarsveld, Lance Klusner and Paul Adams are among seven players to be left without a central contract after the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) decided to cut down the number of contracted players to 13 from 20.Gerald Majola, the CEO of the UCBSA, was quoted by the News24 website as saying decision was in line with the selector’s wish to award contracts to those to played for the country regularly.Albie Morkel, Robin Peterson, and Monde Zondeki are the other players to miss out. Majola said: “We do not want to be in a situation where we have to carry players who do not play for South Africa regularly. It is quite simple. We will not enlarge the contracted group without good reason. This is an elite group and this is how it should remain.”However, Tony Irish, chairperson of the South African Players’ Association, said that the move was motivated by financial reasons. “It makes sense that players who regularly play for the country should be paid by the UCBSA. It does not help to pay players who do not play for South Africa on a regular basis. It is acceptable from our point of view that the UCBSA makes contracts more streamlined.”The new policy adopted by the board might increase the financial burden on the franchises, who will be forced to financially support more players. Neil McKenzie and Garnett Kruger, who represent the Lions, will now have to be paid by them. This could in turn force the franchises to offer fewer contracts.

Little has gone right for Shane Warne in recent weeks, and now it seems that he might be banned from training with Victoria after the federal government appeared to apply pressure on Cricket Australia (CA) to take action.Although he is serving a 12-month ban suspension following his failed drugs test, Warne has been training with his state and club sides in the belief that while he is barred from actually playing, that doesn’t extend to off-the-field activities. Now the government-funded Australian Sports Commission (ASC) has said that this is in breach of the terms of the ban. Officials from the Australian board will meet with the ASC next week.Warne’s brother and manager Jason said he was very disappointed at the government’s advice. “It’s something we have to look into,” he explained, “because it conflicts with the information we’ve had over the last few months.”James Sutherland, chief executive of CA, said that his belief was that Warne was clear to train. “Our own interpretation has been that training can be permissible in certain circumstances, such as when a suspended player is giving rather than receiving help, as long as there is no material assistance such as travel, accommodation or provision of equipment,” he said in a statement. “[We] have … a determination that there is no place for doping in cricket, but implementation of this ideal needs discussion.”Tim May, the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, sought clarification from Sutherland yesterday on Warne’s status, after Sutherland was quoted as saying he was “not comfortable” with the prospect of Warne training publicly in Australian squad workouts.An arbitration case last month cleared Warne to play in charity matches during his suspension, and his advisers will examine that ruling to see if it also covers training.Given that CA receives federal government funding for game development, it is unlikely to take on the ASC if next week’s meeting does not change the advice.Cricket Australia distances itself from Warne

The first Test at Mohali ended in a predictable manner with the visitors caving meekly. The middle-order batsmen were incapable of countering the guile of the spin twins, Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. There was not even an iota of resistance and, considering that the pitch still played well, the visitors would not be pleased with their performance. Nasser Hussain appeared courageous in his comments after the game, but if his side can fight back in the remaining two Tests, it would be a bigger surprise for him rather than for the Indian cricketers.

Anil Kumble © AFP

The openers, Mark Butcher and Marcus Trescothick, triggered the collapse with some very poor shot selection against debutant Tinu Yohannan. The Indians have gained a promising medium-pacer in Yohannan and, though he is short on experience, he showed good temperament for a rookie. He was wayward at times, but he came back well in both innings to account for the openers. The fact that he dismissed the openers means that he has the ability to bowl well with the new ball. He can only get better, especially if he bowls in tandem with Javagal Srinath once the latter returns to the side. Iqbal Siddiqui may be enthusiastic and jovial, but it does seem that he has been given a break rather late in the day. He is not quick enough to surprise batsmen at the top level, and his control over line and length is nothing spectacular.England were looking to Graham Thorpe to rewrite the script in this match, but his stroke-filled innings proved inadequate under the circumstances. He has shown that he is capable of tackling spinners and will be a thorn in the Indian flesh. Thorpe and Hussain apart, the current English batting line-up looks too inexperienced to handle the pressures of playing under Indian conditions. They have a couple of all-rounders in the side, but they will realize soon that the Tests are a different ball game altogether from the first-class matches. Matthew Hoggard looks to be a hard-working medium-pacer, and he must be pleased with the way he bowled in this Test.The Indian spinners have ample reasons to be pleased too. Harbhajan Singh has once again got into the wicket-taking act after a very ordinary tour of South Africa. He bowls better with the ball used in Tests at home, although he believes otherwise. Kumble, the Man of the Match, is back to his tormenting best, and the Englishmen must be dreading the proposition of facing him on more helpful tracks. Kumble must have enjoyed this haul, for this spell would have gotten rid of any doubts that he had in his mind. There was talk of him being dropped in Port Elizabeth, which upset him visibly, but he is too hardened a professional to let circumstances get the better of him. He seemed a bit emotional after the match, which is very unlike him, and Sourav Ganguly can be sure of Kumble delivering in the remainder of the series.Deep Dasgupta has done a good job in this Test, and it is imperative that he keeps his fitness levels up because of his dual role. The think-tank must give a lot of thought when they decide the combination for the next match and seriously consider sending Dasgupta in to bat lower down the order. Agreed that he has a ton at the top of the order, but if at all he has to be on the field for a day and a half, it will only compound his problems. Of course, the other way of looking at it is that the performance of the English batsmen does not encourage this line of thought.