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Ricky Ponting has admitted to being disappointed by the timing of Damien Martyn’s shock retirement last week. Martyn stunned the cricket community, including his Australia team-mates, when he quit the game mid-series.Speaking as his side prepared for the third Test at Perth, Ponting said he would have liked Martyn to play a farewell game at home. “When I sat back and digested that he had retired, I thought why didn’t he give it one more week?” Ponting said. “He would have had a home Test match and the chance for us to win the Ashes in this Test was there.”I guess it was the timing that was the real big surprise for me. I am really shocked and surprised. I am as close to Marto as any of the guys in the team and I didn’t see it coming.”Martyn is believed to be on holiday in Hawaii with his wife and Ponting said he had been hard to contact since the announcement. “We have all tried to be in contact with him as much as we can over the past few days, but he has been pretty aloof. He will talk to us after the game, he doesn’t want to get in the road at the moment. He wanted to do the right thing by the team and get away and not have the spotlight on the team.”Ponting wondered if the mounting pressure on Martyn to retain his berth, with speculation Shane Watson would replace him as soon as the allrounder was fit, had got to him. “He probably didn’t make the runs he would have liked in the first two games,” he said. “Knowing Marto he would have put a lot of extra pressure on himself.”Martyn, 35, has not spoken publicly since his decision. His only statement on his retirement came in a letter, which it was later revealed was prepared by the Australian radio personality Alan Jones.

Sourav Ganguly and Shane Warne have been fined 10% of their match fees, while Pratap Kumar, the on-field umpire, has been suspended for a game following the catch controversy during Thursday’s IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals. Ganguly asked Kumar to refer a decision to the third umpire after he wasn’t convinced about a take by Rajasthan’s Graeme Smith at the deep-midwicket boundary.Asad Rauf, the third umpire, ruled in favour of the batsman after replays weren’t entirely conclusive. In his post-match comments, Warne, the Rajasthan captain, hit out at Ganguly’s behaviour and condemned his attitude towards the IPL’s spirit of cricket agreement.Farokh Engineer, the match referee, ruled that Ganguly’s act of asking the umpire to refer a decision constituted a level 1 offence according to the ICC’s code of conduct. Warne was found guilty of violating section 1.7 of the code, which deals with “public criticism of, or inappropriate comment on, a match-related incident or official”.Engineer also found there was no reason for Kumar to accede to the plea to refer the decision, and ruled him out for a game. Kumar is the second umpire to be suspended in the IPL. Amiesh Saheba was dropped for two matches following his comments about Sreesanth’s behaviour to the tabloid newspaper.

The Canadian board has announced that the quadrangular Twenty20 tournament this September has been postponed. Canada had hoped for West Indies and two other full-member ICC countries to play a competition in Toronto ahead of the World Championships the same month.The board says there was not enough time to obtain TV rights for such an event, but will continue to look at possibilities in 2008 and afterwards. A Canada spokesperson told Cricinfo: “Unfortunately, due to the difficulties of securing global media support in such a short timeframe, the CCA reports that it has proved impossible to bring the project to fruition in 2007.”The West Indies board apparently remains committed to working with the CCA to expand cricket in Canada, particularly through exposure to the Twenty20 version of the game, which is ideal for the North American cricket public.

Gary Kirsten, the former South African batsmen who is the front-runner to become India’s next coach, said that the deal with the Indian board would be “pretty much signed and sealed” by Monday.Kirsten was interviewed in Delhi on November 26 by the coach selection committee, comprising former captains Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and S Venkataraghavan, BCCI joint secretary MP Pandove, treasurer N Srinivasan and secretary Niranjan Shah. Anil Kumble, India’s Test captain, was also present at the meeting.”They [BCCI] have given me a week to make a decision but it’s pretty much a reality,” Kirsten told PTI. “I have turned down numerous coaching opportunities due to family reasons in the past but this is such an esteemed one that I have to take a different look at it. I am very keen in principle to take up the post.”At present, I am just looking at the logistics with my family and how it is going to work out. Negotiations are underway about this and I will make a final decision by Monday.”The coach selection committee had wanted to speed up the process by appointing a coach before the tour of Australia next month, but Kirsten said that although the job would become effective immediately, he had obtained an assurance that he could start later because of a number of commitments in South Africa.”The reality is that I was approached quite late by the Indian board, and, in accepting the job, I told them I had commitments over Christmas and New Year,” Kirsten explained to the . “But it looks like we are close to resolving that issue, and I will join the team for the last two Tests.”The last thing you want to do is come in and be a distraction, but I have spoken to Anil [Kumble] about my situation, and he is comfortable with me joining the tour again later. I will not be coming in and imposing my ideas on them. That would be wrong. Instead, I will try and blend in and help anyway I can.”Kirsten, 40, was one of South Africa’s leading batsmen, playing 101 Tests scoring 7289 runs at 45.27 and playing 185 ODIs scoring 6798 runs at 40.95. Soon after his retirement from Test cricket in March 2004, he embarked on a coaching career, taking up an assignment as Cricket South Africa’s high performance manager, after which he set up the privately-run Gary Kirsten Cricket Academy.

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Left-arm spinner Dave Mohammed had a dream debut, claiming figures of 5 for 8 to help dismiss St Lucia for 105, after which Trinidad and Tobago chased the target with ease to claim an eight-wicket win at the Stanford Cricket Ground. Incidentally, Mohammed’s were the best ever returns in Stanford 20/20 history.Chasing 106, openers Lendl Simmons and William Perkins gave Trinidad a blazing start, putting on 75 runs in 51 balls, before Perkins, who made 25, was caught by Cyrille Charles of offspinner Shervin Charles. Simmons failed to reach his half-century, when, after scoring 42 with four fours and a six, he was dismissed by seamer Xavier Gabriel. Daren Ganga and Kieron Pollard then knocked off the remaining runs to complete a facile win.Earlier, St Lucia’s openers Keddy Lesporis and Johnson Charles added 45 runs in eight overs before Charles was bowled by Richard Kelly. The second-wicket stand between Lesporis and Shervin Charles (17) fetched 35 runs, before Charles was caught by Mervyn Dillon of offspinner Sherwin Ganga.But the complexion of the match changed when Lesporis, who had kept up St Lucia’s scoring rate with a 40-ball 45 with three fours and a six, was caught by Samuel Badree of Mohammed, who was introduced in the 16th over. Mohammed then dismissed Mervin Wells to make it two wickets in succession. Medium-pacer Rayad Emrit claimed the wickets of Cyrille Charles and Sergio Fedee, while Mohammed had Alleyne Prospere caught by Sherwin Ganga before adding two more wickets to get his five-for. Not surprisingly, Mohammed went home richer by US$25,000 when he received the Man-of-the-Match award.

Indian Railways denied an outside chance for Andhra Cricket Association XI to enter the semifinals by recording a 3 wicket win over the former at the AOL ground in Hyderabad on Saturday. At the start of the sixth round of matches India Pistons had to lose the encounter with Indian Oil Corporation by at least 100 runs and ACA to enter the semifinals had to defeat Indian Railways by the same margin.Electing to bat, the Andhra Cricket Association innings was soon in disarray, losing four wickets with only 47 on board in 18.3 overs. Then Venugopal Rao in the company of RVC Prasad defied the Railways’ attack for an 83 run fifth wicket stand in 13.5 overs. But after their departure the rest of the ACA batsmen could not manage to stick around and ended their innings at 155 for nine.Railways lost an early wicket that of Sanjay Bangar (5) to Panav Raju, the other opener Tejinder Singh (58) ensured that his team was on the right track with a 81 run second wicket partnership in 12 overs. VJT Rammohan then (4 for 48) triggered a minor collapse. But with only a small total on the board, Railways reached home safely in the 33rd over with 3 wickets to spare.

Robin Peterson believes he has a major role to play in the World Cup despite his limited impact with the ball so far. Peterson hoped the success of other spinners – including Brad Hogg, Muttiah Muralitharan and Daniel Vettori – in the Caribbean might be an indication that he can help South Africa reach the semi-finals.”Coming to the West Indies I thought the wickets were always going to be slow and I expect, at some stage, to have a role in the tournament and I must make sure that I am ready,” Peterson told . He has played only two of South Africa’s four World Cup matches, for figures of 0 for 43 from 11 overs.With Shaun Pollock struggling to contain top-order batsmen and South Africa’s attack dominated by fast bowlers, Peterson hoped he would be called upon more often as the tournament progressed. “I think because of the heat the role of a spinner was always there,” he said.”You can’t bowl seamers all the time and it’s also important to control the over rate, change the pace of the game, so there’s always a role for a spinner. You look to spinner to slow the run rate, just get the batsmen thinking of a certain style of bowling and as a spinner you think all the time and, if you pick up wickets, it’s a bonus.”Peterson’s bowling has been economical but unspectacular, however it is for his only World Cup innings that Peterson’s team-mates will thank him the most. When Lasith Malinga claimed four wickets from four balls to leave South Africa unexpectedly on the verge of a loss to Sri Lanka, Peterson edged a boundary to third man to ensure victory.”I’m not a hero, I was just lucky,” he said. “Obviously I’m happy that it was important to win the game and the two points came our way. The important thing was that we came out on top at the end.”South Africa face Ireland in Guyana on Tuesday, and Peterson said his team would not take the encounter lightly after almost losing to Ireland in a warm-up game. Two days later South Africa will play Bangladesh before finishing the Super Eights with a string of tough clashes against West Indies, New Zealand and England.

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Wicketkeeper Niall O’Brien’s unbeaten 137, aided by captain Trent Johnston’s 69, furthered Ireland’s advantage on the second day after their bowlers had dismissed United Arab Emirates for 228. Ireland, resuming on 46 for 1, finished on 366 for 7, a lead of 138.William Porterfield and Eoin Morgan made 25 and 47, before a 64-run stand between the O’Brien brothers – Niall and Kevin. Left-arm spinner Ahmed Raza bagged his second wicket for the match by dismissing Kevin for 33, but Niall O’Brien, who had made a nervous start, held fort against the UAE bowlers.The hosts must have a sensed the possibility of a fightback when Andre Botha and Alex Cusack departed in quick succession; Ireland were 203 for 6, still needing 25 to more to match UAE’s first-innings score.However, Johnston joined hands with Niall O’Brien, and the two not only put Ireland in the green, but seized the momentum with a record seventh-wicket stand of 163. Johnston needed only 95 balls for his 69, which included ten boundaries. O’ Brien’s 137 contained 20 fours, and his presence at the crease on the third morning will give Ireland the chance to further their lead before aiming to bowl out UAE for the second time in the match.The umpires signalled the close at the fall of Johnston’s wicket – stumped by Amjad Ali off Saqib Ali. For UAE, Zahid Shah, Saqib and Raza took two wickets apiece; Raza was the best of the lot: his 2 for 47 coming off 24 economical overs.”I’ve been a bit ill over the past day, but I’ve been on tablets and special drinks and I’ve managed to get through it to the end,” a delighted Niall O’Brien admitted. “I missed out on the game here last year when all the records were broken, so it’s great to score a hundred today.”

The board of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) is still awaiting a decision on a disciplinary matter involving Sulieman Benn earlier in the season.Benn, who has been named in a 16-man Barbados squad for the upcoming KFC Cup, was embroiled in an on-field confrontation with Robin Parris on June 23 during the Banks Division 1 match between arch-rivals Super Centre Spartan and ICBL Empire at Queen’s Park.BCA chief executive officer, Dr Roland Toppin, said after receiving a report from match officials, that the matter was referred to the complaints and disputes committee. It was heard by a sub-committee but the findings are yet to be passed on to the office.The incident, which both clubs apologised for a week later, developed after Benn delivered a beamer to Parris. When Parris was attempting to run a single off the next ball, television cameras captured Benn gently kicking him.Parris showed his frustration by walking past the stumps at the bowler’s end and approaching Benn in a face-to-face, glove-pointing remonstration

Mahmudur Rahman, CEO of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), says that outgoing coach Dav Whatmore lacked a “characteristic essential” in dealing with sub-continental teams. With a fair amount of speculation building as to Whatmore’s future in India, also in search of a coach, Rahman offered a word of caution about the Sri Lankan-born Whatmore.”From what we’ve read and seen, the issue for India seems to be that coaches have not been able to get into players’ heart and that could be one aspect the Indian board might want to talk about,” he told , an Indian television channel, in Dhaka.”Dav being an Australian is used to the Australian way of doing things.”There [in Australia], you do not have so much of explanation. Here in the sub-continent, we’re very emotional people and sometimes a player performs depending upon how he feels when he gets out of bed.”Whatmore stepped down as Bangladesh’s coach last month, but also expressed his interest in coaching India following Greg Chappell’s resignation in the aftermath of India’s quick exit from the World Cup. Whatmore’s comments didn’t go down well with the BCB, which stated that it could affect the morale of the team.Whatmore, whose four-year tenure will end after the current home series against India, has declined to comment on Rahman’s comments.