January 2015 ~ InulPoker Sleeping

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Klitschko to fight Thompson again

Wladimir Klitschko will defend his WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles against American challenger Tony Thompson on 7 July in Berne, Switzerland.

Thompson, 40, was knocked out by Klitschko in their first match in 2008.

However, the 36-year-old Ukrainian maintains Thompson gave him "one of the toughest challenges in my career".

The bout will be Klitschko's 21st world championship fight and his first appearance since a knockout win over Jean-Marc Mormeck of France in March.

Klitschko, who beat Britain's David Haye in 2011, has 57 wins (50 KOs) and three defeats since turning pro in 1996.

Southpaw Thompson, who has won all five bouts since the defeat by Klitschko, has a career record of 36-2 (24 KOs).

GB Boxing picks women for Worlds

Britain's three female Olympic boxing hopefuls have been chosen for next month's World Championships in Qinhuangdao, China.

Middleweight Savannah Marshall, lightweight Natasha Jonas and flyweight Nicola Adams have the chance to qualify for the London Games.

Jonas got the vote over Chantelle Cameron and Amanda Coulson after a series of impressive performances.

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“Just winning the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics, ahead of two superb boxers like Amanda and Chantelle, is a great achievement”

Natasha Jonas "We should see some qualifiers," said GB Boxing head coach Rob McCracken.

"Nicola and Savannah won silver medals at the last World Championships [in 2010] and Natasha has secured the berth at lightweight after some very good performances in the last few months."

To qualify for the Games, the trio will need to make the semi-finals or be among the last four Europeans in the quarter-finals of their category.

Liverpool's Jonas, 27, won bronze at the 2011 European Championships and gold at last November's test event in London, where she overcame boxers ranked two, four and seven in the world.

"Just winning the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics, ahead of two superb boxers like Amanda and Chantelle, is a great achievement," said Jonas.

"However, the challenge now is to do well at the World Championships and make sure I earn a place to compete at London."

The team will spend eight days acclimatising in a training camp before the tournament starts on 11 May.

Lisa Whiteside from Lancashire has been selected to compete for England in the featherweight (57kg) category, which is not included in the Olympics.

Maccarinelli facing title rematch

Enzo Maccarinelli has been ordered to a rematch against Shane McPhilbin for the British cruiserweight title.

Controversy surrounded the original fight when the bell to end the first round was sounded 47 seconds early.

Maccarinelli had been knocked down by title holder McPhilbin seconds earlier and was clearly hurt as he stood up.

Timekeeper Martin Fallon has since been suspended until 1 January 2013 by the British Boxing Board of Control, who have ordered a rematch before October.

Maccarinelli was also knocked down in the third round as McPhilbin continued to dominate the early exchanges.

But the 31-year-old former WBO cruiserweight champion recovered to take a unanimous points verdict, giving him his first British title of his career.

McPhilbin's manager, Carl Greaves, called for a rematch shortly after the judges' verdicts were given and the BBBofC have sanctioned the fight following an enquiry into the events of the first round.

Sick Cleverly cancels WBO defence

Nathan Cleverly has been forced to withdraw from his WBO light-heavyweight title defence against Robin Krasniqi due to illness.

The Welsh star was set to face the Kosovan on 28 April at the Royal Albert Hall, London, but has been unable to train for his fourth title defence.

"I've been unable to train because I've been laid up in bed with a viral infection," Cleverly said.

"There's not enough time to make up what I've missed in training."

It is not yet clear whether the fight with Krasniqi will be rearranged, or whether Cleverly will have to face the WBO's mandatory challenger, Russian Dmitry Sukhotsky.

"I've taken the advice of my doctor and been told to fully rest before attempting to start training again," Cleverly added.

"I'm really disappointed because I was looking forward to being the first fighter to bring boxing back to the Royal Albert Hall in over a decade and the first of the century."

Cleverly had been set to be the first Welshman to appear in a world title fight at the Albert Hall since Howard Winstone beat Mitsunori Seki to win the WBC featherweight crown in January 1968.

Another added incentive was that the 28 April date was on the same night as Bernard Hopkins's WBC world light-heavyweight title rematch with Chad Dawson in Atlantic City.

The unbeaten Cleverly, 25, still holds hope of a possible summer showdown with American legend Hopkins, with promoter Frank Warren keeping in touch with Golden Boy Promotions chief executive Richard Schaefer.

"It was a big night for me as Hopkins was facing Dawson on the same night and I was looking to do a good job on Krasniqi to get a fight with the winner," Cleverly added.

"I'm sorry for my fans, but I'm happy that the show will go on and a great talent like Billy Joe Saunders will now be topping the card along with Sam Webb and Matthew Hall, which looks like a cracking fight."

Hatfield's Olympic star Saunders, who was chief support on the card, will now replace Cleverly as one of the headline fighters when he takes on Hill for the vacant English middleweight title.

Joint top of the bill on the show will see Chislehurst's Webb in a final eliminator for the British light-middleweight championship against Manchester's hard-hitting Hall.

The rest of the card includes unbeaten welterweight Bradley Skeete, hard-hitting super-middleweight Frank Buglioni, light-welterweight Bradley Saunders, plus welterweights Freddie Turner and Dean Byrne.

Khan one-dimensional - Peterson

Lamont Peterson says Amir Khan is incapable of altering his game-plan for their May rematch and that his British rival is mentally "all over the place".

American Peterson beat Khan on a split decision last December, after which Khan claimed he had been robbed of his WBA and IBF light-welterweight belts.

And Peterson added that Khan's pronouncements had only succeeded in piling extra pressure on himself.

"He'll do what he always does, he always fights the same," said Peterson.

"He's either straight forward or straight back. That's the way he fights, he's not going to change it.

Continue reading the main story

“He's still out there saying he's the champ, but he's not. He's all over the place. Really, I don't know what to make of him”

Lamont Peterson "The way the fight went the first time, I was pretty comfortable with it. I won the fight so I really don't want to change anything."

Khan's trainer Freddie Roach has promised his charge will employ different tactics for the return bout at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on 19 May.

In the first fight, Khan found himself fighting off the ropes for sustained periods, allowing the challenger to work to the body and eventually leading to a two-point deduction for pushing.

But while Peterson admits the choice of referee could prove crucial, he is confident he is versatile enough to adapt whoever is chosen.

Veteran official Joe Cortez, who has a reputation for preventing inside fighting, is widely expected to take charge of the rematch.

Peterson, 28, told BBC Sport: "His strategy [in the first fight] was to hit and move and I didn't allow him to do it. It won't be any different this time. He'll hit and move and I'll stay close and smother him.

"If the ref knows the difference between a foul and a push, then I'll be OK with that. But if he doesn't know the difference between a push and an elbow, I'll have a problem with that.

"The referee we had [Joe Cooper] allowed me to fight out of clinches, and I liked that, that tends to favour my style.

"If he calls break every time we get on the inside, then I'll have to change my strategy and do something different, anything I need to do to win the fight.

"The referee will be key but I'm not worried about it either way, I'll win the fight, I'll do what I have to do.

"I'll be relaxed like I always am in the ring, but he's putting a lot of pressure on himself, saying he won the last fight, saying he's going to change this and that for the next fight.

"He's still out there saying he's the champ, but he's not. He's all over the place. Really, I don't know what to make of him.

"If he fights on after he loses to me, he's going to lose to average fighters, not just world champions. People need to see what you can do, not just hear what you can do."

Chisora to challenge licence ban

Dereck Chisora has appealed against the withdrawal of his licence by the British Boxing Board of Control.

He was deemed not "a fit and proper person to hold a licence" for his actions before and after his defeat by Vitali Klitschko in Munich.

Chisora slapped Vitali at the weigh-in, spat water at his opponent's brother Wladimir before the bout and brawled with David Haye after the fight.

"All I want to see is a fair hearing," said promoter Frank Warren.

Explaining why he was unhappy with the way the hearing was conducted, Warren pointed out that there was no chance to review any evidence before the hearing, while no BBBofC steward had represented Chisora's interests.

"The appeal has gone in already. The grounds for the appeal are that we're not satisfied with the way the hearing went," he said.

"Dereck Chisora will present his side of events and then we'll see what happens."

Zimbabwe-born Chisora, 28, who lost the WBC heavyweight title bout on points, had his boxing licence withdraw earlier this month, though he could look abroad for a licence for any future fights.

Chisora had already been suspended indefinitely by the World Boxing Council, which suggested the boxer should have anger management treatment.

Dereck Chisora in bloody brawl with David Haye

As well as confirming the appeal, Warren talked of his desire for a bout between Chisora and Haye.

"It's a natural fight, it doesn't matter what anyone says," said Warren. "It's a bigger fight than either of them fighting Wladimir or Vitali Klitschko.

"There's lot for them to fight about - in a proper environment. I do see the fight happening. It's the proper forum for them to settle their differences."

Mayweather & Pacquiao irk Leonard

Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard has implored Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao to fight, for the sake of their own legacies.

Mayweather and Pacquiao are widely considered to be the two best pound-for-pound boxers on the planet but have been unable to negotiate a deal.

"More than damaging to boxing, it's damaging to their legacy," five-weight world champion Leonard told BBC Sport.

"This is for history, for people to say 'I remember when'. It's beyond money."

Plans for a fight between Mayweather, the American who has won world titles at five weights between super-featherweight and light-middleweight, and Philippine Pacquiao, a seven-weight world champion, fell through in 2010 when Pacquiao rejected his opponent's demand for random drug-testing in the build-up to the bout.

There have been repeated attempts to renegotiate the fight in the intervening months, but to no avail.

"When I decided to come back, everyone thought I was crazy. And for a while, I thought I was, too. I'd had one fight in five years and I was coming back to fight Marvin Hagler, a man who hadn't lost a fight since 1976, a man who had beaten everybody from Duran to Hearns."

American great Leonard fought in the sport's last golden era, alongside fellow hall of fame fighters Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler.

The five men fought a virtual round-robin tournament through the course of the 1980s, making the failure of Mayweather-Pacquiao all the more frustrating for Leonard.

"Boxing is always taking black eyes, but this is the longest boxing has taken a black eye for," said Leonard, who fought and beat Hagler 25 years ago on Friday.

"From the 1990s back to the 1960s, there were great fighters, there was an abundance of talent. Now you just hear about Pacquiao and Mayweather.

"They are amazing guys who could have dealt with the guys in our era, but they've got to do what's best for themselves, and I don't mean financially.

"When someone comes up to you and says, 'you know what, I was with my grandfather when you fought Tommy Hearns' or 'when you lost that fight to Duran, my dad cried', those are special moments."

Meanwhile, Hearns's trainer Emanuel Steward told BBC Sport the failure of Mayweather and Pacquiao to meet in the ring made him fear for the future of the sport.

Steward, who trains world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, told BBC Sport: "There's only one major fight the public is interested in - two little fellas, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who most likely will never fight.

"Boxing's not in good shape. It's more of a business now and it's hurting boxing. We need to return to an era when the best fight the best and it wasn't all about money and egos.

"Unless some drastic changes come about, I don't like the way things are looking for boxing. There's not one dream heavyweight fight - you've got Wladimir Klitschko and Vitali Klitschko and nobody else. That's not good.

"What made that [1980s] era great was that they fought each other. They could have played politics but they were true warriors."

Steward, who also trained Britain's Lennox Lewis, added that the first fight between Leonard and Hearns in 1981 took less than a day to negotiate, from start to finish.

Steward said: "I could see something building up, so finally I called up [Leonard's manager] Mike Trainer and said 'Mike, it looks like the public wants to see Ray and Tommy fight and he said 'why don't we meet today?'

"So I jumped on a plane and we met at an airport coffee shop. Mike Trainer said 'what are you looking for for Tommy?' I said, 'I want $5m for Tommy'. He said 'have you lost your mind? How much do you think Ray should get?' And I said $8m.

"They were all shocked, they thought I was going to ask for more for Tommy. They stepped out for a minute, came back and said 'pal, you've got a deal'. I shook hands and flew back to Detroit on the exact same plane that I came on - that's how quick the deal was made.

"One of the biggest fights in history was made on a quick handshake in about 30 minutes. There were no egos involved. We knew the public wanted it.

"The money is there [for Mayweather-Pacquiao], the two guys would make a minimum of $50m apiece, and it still can't be made because of egos. Times have changed and it really frustrates me because I remember how easy it was for me to make the fight with Ray."

Sugar Ray Leonard boxing special, BBC Radio 5 live, Tuesday 3 April, 1930 BST

Fury stops Rogan in Belfast bout

Tyson Fury stops Martin Rogan in the fifth to win the Irish heavyweight title but crowd trouble mars the big Belfast fight.

Former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Tyson Fury maintained his unbeaten record as he stopped veteran Martin Rogan in five rounds in Saturday's bout in Belfast.

Fury, 23, made a tentative start as Rogan produced the better work in the first two rounds at the Odyssey Arena.

However, Fury put Rogan on the canvas with a left hook in the third round.

Fury controlled the rest of the bout and the end came after a body shot put the 40-year-old down again.

Rogan did get up after the fifth-round knockdown but the Belfast boxer's trainer Bernard Checa insisted that the contest be stopped.

Manchester-born Fury's win, which earned him the Irish heavyweight title, brings his record up to 18 straight wins.

Fury, currently rated eighth by the World Boxing Council, gave up his British and Commonwealth belts earlier this year in the hope that he could move closer to earning a world title shot.

The 23-year-old caused surprise early in the bout as he opted for a southpaw stance and Rogan did all the work in the opening round as he came forward and appeared to land a decent right hand just before the bell.

Rogan shaded the second round as well but the bout turned dramatically in Fury's favour in the next as a series of strong jabs were followed by a big left hook which felled the Northern Irishman.

Fury continued to dominate Rogan in round four and the end, when it came, was not a surprise as a fierce body shot left the 40-year-old gasping on the canvas.

Rogan just managed to beat the count but his trainer Checa intervened to stop the contest.

"I found it comfortable to go left handed in that fight," said Fury.

"I'm a world-class heavyweight and I'm going to try different things."

GB boxers progress in qualifier

Heavyweight Warren Baister moved a step closer to Olympic qualification with a thrilling win over France's Abdoulaye Diane in the final qualifying tournament in Trabzon, Turkey.

The Sunderland boxer must win his 91kg category to make the Games and his 18-17 victory put him into the last eight.

Liverpool light-heavyweight Callum Smith claimed a second-round win, beating Montenegro's Bosko Draskovic.

Meanwhile, middleweight Anthony Ogogo defeated Macedonia's Fatlum Zuta 18-5.

Ogogo, free from the shoulder injury that hampered his 2011 season, now faces Georgia's Jaba Khositashvili, who beat an injured Ogogo by a single point at last year's European Championship.

Smith, making his debut at 81kg, earned a comprehensive 18-8 win over Draskovic to leave him two wins away from securing a place at the London Games.

In the first round of qualifying lightweight Sam Maxwell stopped former world and European champion Albert Selimov in round three, while lightweight Josh Taylor overcame Miroslav Serban of the Czech Republic 15-6. However, Welsh lightweight Joe Cordina was beaten by Ireland's David Joyce.

Light-flyweight Charlie Edwards, who received a first-round bye, fights on Tuesday.

Five GB boxers have already qualified for the 2012 Olympics. They are Andrew Selby, Luke Campbell, Tom Stalker, Fred Evans and Anthony Joshua.

Sexton eyes titles with Warrens

Cheshunt's Ashley Sexton believes everything is in place for him to become a future world champion, after signing with Frank Warren Promotions.

The former English flyweight champion is unbeaten in 14 professional fights.

"Generally, if you want to fight and win a word title the Warrens are the ones you want to be with," the 24-year-old told BBC Three Counties Radio.

British: Lee Haskins (Bristol) Commonwealth: Yaqub Kareem (Kenya) WBC: Yota Sato (Japan) WBA: Tepparith Singwancha (Thailand) IBF: Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr (Mexico) WBO: Omar Andres Narvaez (Argentina) "We've spoken about a lot of things. We even spoke about the WBC title. That's the ultimate goal."

Sexton, who has dropped the English flyweight title to concentrate on the super flyweight division, made a successful return to the ring in March after eight months without a bout, beating Frenchman Thomas Masson in a convincing points victory.

His deal with the Warrens - which will see him managed by Frank Warren's son Francis - guarantees him at least five fights a year over the next three years.

And Sexton is confident that is enough time to propel him into world title contention.

"I'm only 24. I'm still a baby really. Over the next 18 months I'll be maturing a lot more and should be well within touching distance of a world title," he said.

"But what we're going to focus on first is the British Super Fly. I'd like to nail down the British and Commonwealth titles this year.

"I've watched world class fighting for so many years and I know that I'm capable of it.

"What I need to do is fight a world class fighter to show that this is where I'm meant to mix it.

"We're on the right track. It's just a matter of time."

Sexton, who has 12 wins (five by knock out) and two draws from his 14 fights, is lined up to face an unnamed opponent at London's Troxy on 3 May.

Bellew-McIntosh fight postponed

Tony Bellew's British light-heavyweight title defence against Danny McIntosh has been postponed until 27 April after McIntosh pulled out through illness.

The pair had been due to meet at Liverpool's Echo Arena on 13 April, but a chest infection has forced McIntosh to withdraw from the initial date.

Bellew, from Liverpool, won the British title against Ovill McKenzie last July.

But the 29-year-old failed in his attempts to become WBO world champion, losing to Nathan Cleverly in October.

McCloskey has change of opponent

Dungiven light-welterweight Paul McCloskey has a change of opponent for his contest in Belfast on 5 May after former IBF world lightweight champion Julio Diaz pulled out of the bout.

Diaz has been forced to withdraw from the bill because of weight problems.

Instead, McCloskey will fight DeMarcus Corley who is currently ranked 15th by the World Boxing Council.

McCloskey will hope that victory over the American could edge him towards another world title shot.

Thai fighter Prawet Singwangcha was linked with a possible bout with the Northern Irishman but that match-up also fell through before the Corley contest was agreed.

The contest will take place at the King's Hall as McCloskey, 32, aims to press his claims for another world title shot.

McCloskey has not fought since beating Breidis Prescott in September 2011.

That came five months after McCloskey lost to Amir Khan on a controversial points decision in Manchester.

The then WBA light-welterweight champion got the verdict after the contest was stopped in the sixth when McCloskey sustained a gash above an eye.

Cleverly receives Hopkins boost

Nathan Cleverly has received a boost in his bid for a light-heavyweight unification clash with Bernard Hopkins.

For it to happen Cleverly and Hopkins have to win their fights against Robin Krasniqi and Chad Dawson on 28 April.

But Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions is confident Hopkins wants to fight Cleverly.

"I've talked to Bernard about Nathan and he said 'Look, I'm used to fighting younger guys. Just keep bringing them on'," said Schaefer.

"I went with [promoter] Frank [Warren] through some numbers. Now I'll have to go to Bernard and we'll go through some numbers.

"If the numbers which Frank has outlined to me hold true, I think there's a good chance the fight could take place in the UK, absolutely,"

"We don't want to jinx anything - Bernard has a very difficlut fight ahead of him against Chad Dawson who's a young, hungry fighter, so lets see what happens.

"But definitely, if everything goes well, I would very much like to make that fight."

Unbeaten WBO champion Cleverly will first defend his title for a fourth time against Krasniqi at the Royal Albert Hall on 28 April.

The London show is on the same night as American legend Hopkins's WBC world light-heavyweight title rematch with Dawson in Atlantic City.

Warren wants the two winners, who he hopes will be Cleverly and Hopkins, to meet in the summer in Wales - possibly at the Millennium Stadium.

Warren insists 25-year-old Cleverly's career would not be derailed should he suffer his first professional defeat against wily 47-year-old Hopkins.

"It would be a tough fight but even if he got beat, so what?" said Warren in March.

"He is young enough to come again. Even if you lose a fight it is how you lose a fight - and I just feel for Nathan it would be a great fight for him to take.

"I think styles make fights and I think if the opportunity comes for Nathan Cleverly to fight Bernard Hopkins, it is a fight he should take.

"It will be a tough, tough fight for him but I think his youth and his speed is the key to winning the fight.

"I think we can make the fight. I've been talking to Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy and it was him who suggested the fight to me.

"Hopkins will get a big pay day and where is he going to fight where they are to draw 40,000 to 50,000 people? There isn't anywhere in America where that is going to happen.

"So the money is there to be made. I know HBO [American TV channel] will be very interested in the fight and Box Nation [British TV channel] will be prepared to step up to the plate as well to ensure Nathan got his opportunity to unify the titles."

The World Boxing Organisation cleared Cleverly to fight Kosovan Krasniqi as long as his next defence was against mandatory challenger Dmitry Sukhotsky within 120 days.

But the Welshman admits his "preference" would be to unify his belt against IBF champion Tavoris Cloud, WBA title-holder Beibut Shumenov or WBC champion Hopkins.

Cleverly was only 18 months old when Hopkins made his professional fight debut in October 1988 but he wants to fight the "master."

"I feel I'm ready for those guys," said Cleverly. "Hopkins would be the bigger draw, he has the name, status and is still a class operator.

"He will probably demand a lot of money to tempt them to Wales.

"But if that's what is needed to bring him over, then we'll sure do that and get the fight on."

Scot Taylor secures Team GB place

Lightweight Josh Taylor has qualified for the Olympics, ensuring there will be one Scot in the GB boxing team.

Taylor will fight in the 60kg division after reaching the semi-finals of the final European qualifying event, coupled with Sam Maxwell's defeat.

Middleweight Anthony Ogogo, who won a thrilling contest on countback, and light-heavyweight Callum Smith box for qualifying places on Friday.

But Warren Baister lost, meaning GB will not have a heavyweight in London.

To reach the last four in Trabzon, Turkey, Taylor had a 17-9 win over Armenia's Vladimir Sarukhanyan, while England's Maxwell lost against home favourite Fatih Keles.

Taylor initially tried to qualify at light-welterweight before Liverpool's Tom Stalker sealed the Olympic berth at 64kg.

And coach Terry McCormack hopes he can emulate Dick McTaggart, the last Scottish lightweight to go to the Games, who won gold in 1956 and bronze in 1960.

"It is an absolutely fantastic achievement and the result of three years of non-stop hard work from Josh," said McCormack.

"We moved him down to lightweight and there has been no stopping him. He can really punch and as a southpaw he must be a nightmare to fight.

"It is amazing to get a Scottish boxer into the team for the London Olympics. Boxing has come a long way since Dick McTaggart but there is no reason why Josh cannot go on to reach the same kind of level."

Lowestoft boxer Ogogo beat Jaba Khositashvili of Georgia on countback after a 14-14 draw, having started the last round six points behind.

Smith, making his senior debut at light-heavyweight, scored a 16-6 win over Hungarian Imre Szello.

Sunderland heavyweight Baister, meanwhile, was beaten 19-5 by Bulgaria's Tervel Pulev.

Andrew Selby, Luke Campbell, Tom Stalker, Fred Evans and Anthony Joshua have already been selected for Team GB.

Groves out of world title fight

George Groves has pulled out of his WBO world title fight against Robert Stieglitz on 5 May because of injury.

The British and Commonwealth super-middleweight champion was injured while training in Northern Cyprus.

"I am truly sorry to everyone who will be affected by this," said Groves, 24.

"This is the toughest decision I've ever had to make and I am gutted, but nothing worth having is given away. It's only made me more determined to become world champion."

Groves, who was set to fight the 30-year-old Russian-born German in Erfurt, Germany, added: "We tried to work through it, but soon realised I wouldn't be able to perform the training needed to prepare for this fight.

"After immediately coming back to London and seeking medical advice, I hope this problem will be quickly sorted and cause only a short delay."

The Londoner had to pull out of a second defence of his British and Commonwealth titles against Scot Kenny Anderson last month because of a back injury.

Groves had an impressive 2011, first beating Olympic gold medalist James DeGale in May to take the British and Commonwealth super-middleweight crown, then defending it with a second-round knockout of Paul Smith at Wembley Arena in November.

The bout with Groves was to be Stieglitz's sixth defence of his WBO belt. The champion has lost two of his 43 previous fights.

Craig Kieswetter set to learn if injury will end his career

Craig Kieswetter could find out this week if his cricket career is over as he battles back from an horrific facial injury.

Kieswetter is expected to miss the entire 2015 season but in recent weeks there have been growing fears he will be forced to retire by a serious eye injury sustained while batting last summer.

He is due to see a specialist in Belgium this week with Matthew Maynard, the new Somerset director of cricket, admitting the injury is “potentially career ending” for Kieswetter, who was man of the match when England won the 2010 World Twenty20 final.

“We're hoping that after he sees the specialist he'll have a method of getting his eye back to 100 per cent,” Maynard said. “The feedback we get from that will be quite instrumental, but potentially it could be career-ending.”

Kieswetter sustained the injury while batting in a County Championship match against Northants in July. He was injured when the ball pierced the gap between the grill and peak of his helmet, fracturing his eye socket and cheekbone.

He returned to championship cricket and the end of the season and was playing T20 cricket in South Africa this winter, but stopped when realised he was having problems with vision.

"He came back for a couple of games and although he knew the eye wasn't quite right, he was just delighted to be back playing at that stage," Maynard told the BBC. "But then he went out to play in South Africa in the Twenty20 and he struggled. He was struggling to pick up the line and length of the ball.

"If you can't do that, it's going to be hard to score runs and it also makes you very vulnerable. If we were to get him back that would be a huge lift for everyone. But we are planning for him to not be around this season."

Alastair Cook departs as England one-day captain

Cook’s struggles in one-day cricket have been painful to watch over the last two years and under his captaincy the side have endured a losing streak that in the end was too alarming to ignore. He won just one of his last nine series in charge, although that spell did include narrowly missing out on winning England’s first

50-over global tournament when they lost by five runs to India in the Champions Trophy final.

Cook signalled himself that change was afoot after the match on Tuesday when he said he could have no complaints if he lost his job. Cook looked worn down by the pressures of failing form and constantly having to defend his position as captain and in the team after just one fifty in his last 22 innings.

But Cook also confirmed he would not resign, forcing Paul Downton and Peter Moores to make a decision they had desperately hoped to avoid. England’s managing director and head coach had both backed him publicly in the days leading up to his sacking knowing that anything else would increase speculation and be unfair to a man they hugely respect.

But during a round of media interviews before the final one-day international Downton admitted the selectors had taken a week before deciding to reappoint Cook for the tour to Sri Lanka.

After that admission Cook had to score runs in the final match. A 4-3 scoreline would have been respectable but England were thumped by 87 runs and Cook could have been out four times in his 49-ball 32. A series average of 19 and 5-2 defeat left only one outcome for the hapless captain.

England’s reluctance to remove Cook reveals concerns over his successor. Morgan’s form this year has been awful and he only averaged 12 in Sri Lanka.

Since his brilliant century against Australia in Brisbane in January, he has passed fifty only twice for England in both one-day and Twenty20 cricket but the has shown in the past he can be one of the world’s best batsmen in one-day cricket.

He will not be afforded the luxury of a honeymoon period. England leave for Australia on Jan 2 to play a tri-series against the Australians and India, two of the leading one-day sides in the world, before the World Cup campaign begins in Melbourne on Feb 14.

Cook’s place in the squad for Australia is expected to be filled by Gary Ballance, the Yorkshire batsman who had such a fantastic summer in Test cricket. Ballance was surprisingly overlooked for the tour to Sri Lanka despite averaging more than fifty for Yorkshire in one-day cricket.

England hope he can provide the glue in the top three batting through the innings after Alex Hales and Moeen Ali have got the side off to a blistering start.

The selectors are also likely to jettison Ian Bell today, almost certainly signalling the end of his one-day career as England look to the future.

Joe Root, the standout batsman in Sri Lanka, is favourite to be appointed vice-captain to Morgan, an important step on his road to eventually taking over the Test captaincy.

Cook won 36 and lost 30 of his 69 matches as one-day captain but only 15 of his wins happened in his last 37 games. He twice came close to the sack as one-day captain in the summer but was saved by Moores. England were close to making the call after the Test defeat by Sri Lanka at Headingley but postponed the decision until after the Test series to India. When he led England to a 3-1 victory in that series after going 1-0 down at Lord’s, England believed he had rediscovered his leadership skills and sacking him so close to an Ashes series next year would hit Cook’s confidence.

When the one-day series against India was lost 3-1 Cook’s job again was again threatened but Downton and Moores backed him once again although it was a lack of ruthlessness that has left England attuning to a leadership change just days before leaving for Australia.

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Michael Vaughan: Cook was dragging England down

Reaction: Cook should be proud, but it's the right decision

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Alastair Cook and Ian Bell nervously awaits England selectors' World Cup verdict

England’s four selectors, watched by their boss, Paul Downton, will on Friday decide on whether Alastair Cook’s one-day career can continue and, if so, which player loses his place in the squad to accommodate the out-of-form captain.

James Whitaker, the national selector, will chair the meeting in the Midlands with Mick Newell, the Nottinghamshire coach, and Peter Moores, who landed back in England on Thursday, joined by Downton, who has said he will offer an opinion if asked but will have no vote. Angus Fraser, the fourth official member of the selection panel, is expected to join the meeting via telephone conference call.

Downton has sat in on selection meetings since starting work in January, a departure from protocol and something his predecessor, Hugh Morris, never did.

Any decision to remove the captain has to be approved by the England and Wales Cricket Board, but it will not interfere and will leave the call to the selectors when they choose the 16-man squad for January’s tri-series against Australia and India in Australia.

Downton said last week he would be very surprised if Cook was not captain in Australia and Moores’s support remains strong. But pressure has built on England’s management since their media interviews last week with another hapless team display in the final match of the Sri Lanka tour marred by another poor innings from Cook.

He is horribly out of form, as Downton admitted, and taking him to Australia is as much of a gamble as sacking him and appointing a new captain so close to the World Cup.

England have used statistics to defend Cook before but the excuses are wearing thin. It is true his career strike rate of 77 is not too dissimilar to the likes of Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Michael Clarke. In September, when Cook was under pressure after losing the one-day series to India, Moores defended him by saying he had scored more one-day hundreds than any other England player over the last four years and was in the top-10 run scorers in one-day cricket since the last World Cup (he is now 11th).

But the simple fact is that the team are losing, and losing badly. Cook has not won a series since beating New Zealand in March 2013. His last ODI century was in June 2012 and in the two years leading up to this World Cup, a better gauge for form, his average is 30 and strike rate 73.

Downton pointed to his record in Australia and New Zealand this week and the fact two new balls will be used at either end in the World Cup as the reason for needing a classically trained opener such as Cook. But in one-day cricket Cook’s average in Australasia is worse than his overall career record. Ian Bell, the man most likely to be axed if Cook stays, has a better record opening in Australia. In eight innings, he averages 42 with a strike rate of 81. Cook’s is an average of 35 at 73 runs per 100 balls.

But Bell will fear the worst on Friday. The meeting could be the final cut for a one-day career that has never matched his Test achievements.

He was left out of the team in Sri Lanka and the emergence of Moeen Ali, James Taylor and the six-hitting attraction of Alex Hales looks to leave Bell behind. England can afford only one technician in the top three and if Cook survives then it is Bell who is likely to be left out of the squad from the tour to Sri Lanka.

The selectors have to find two spots to accommodate the returning Stuart Broad and James Anderson. Harry Gurney will be dropped but Steven Finn and Chris Jordan did enough in Sri Lanka, making it appear like a straight call between Bell and Ben Stokes for the final place.

Memories of Stokes’s performances in Australia last year should earn him another chance, as well as his undoubted potential to be a star performer in the future. If he is shown a little faith by the selectors today it could be the confidence boost he needs to rediscover his form.

The return of Broad and Anderson will bring more control and it is the bowlers who let Cook down in Sri Lanka, continually bowling short lengths and conceding too many wides (67 to Sri Lanka’s 25).

England will have to be satisfied with right-arm-over seam and off-spin in Australia and be without a 90mph fast bowler, or wrist spinner, they will need strong totals to defend or an improved capacity to gauge a run chase. This puts more pressure on the batting and the presence of any misfiring players in the top six.

Kevin Pietersen declares he wants to play against England in Australia tour match

There would be no better way for either side to make a point than Kevin Pietersen playing against England and he set up the intriguing prospect by asking the selectors to consider him for the Prime Minister’s XI match this week.

Mike Hussey, who is five years older than Pietersen, was due to captain the Prime Minister’s XI against England in Canberra on Wednesday but he has sustained a calf injury.

Pietersen said: "Jeez, I fancy that," when asked during the Melbourne Stars Big Bash match against the Melbourne Renegades if he would like to play against his old team-mates in their last warm-up match before the start of the tri-series against Australia and India.

It might be tempting for the Australian selectors, who often pick an iconic player to captain the Prime Minister’s XI, to turn to Pietersen just to wind up the England team, although it is more likely that they would prefer to use the match to give a chance to young Australian players.

It would pit Pietersen against a new-ball attack of Stuart Broad and James Anderson that he accused of bullying behaviour in his recent autobiography. If selected, they would bowl to a Pietersen in form for the first time in more than a year. He fell one run short of his third half-century of the Big Bash as the Melbourne Stars won a match against their local rivals at the MCG which went down to the final ball as slapstick cricket provided great entertainment.

It was almost the Pietersen of old as he hit a switch-hit for six over the longest boundary at the vast MCG off the leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed, and two overs later played a classy lofted drive for four as he appeared to once again have the time to place the ball.

The match ended with Stars losing four wickets for nine runs as victory was in touching distance, including two run outs in the final over. With one run needed off the final ball Tom Triffitt scampered a single, he was short of his ground but television replays proved the stumps had been disturbed by bowler Nathan Rimmington’s shoulder rather than a shy at the wickets from James Faulkner. It was a messy end for the Stars but provided great entertainment for a tournament that is captivating Australia.

Pietersen again wore a helmet camera and a microphone, swapping digs with commentator Adam Gilchrist, and is certainly a happy figure in the Big Bash.

Speaking before the Melbourne derby he explained why he feels so at home in Australia, where he was on the receiving end of taunts as an England player. "There’s no jealousy here. That’s the fact," he said. "None of these guys are jealous of anything. We’re just good guys, hanging out and playing cricket. All these guys play in franchises around the world, they’ve all benefited from the IPL.

"The England lads: too much jealousy. I was the only one profiting – very, very well – out of India, and in an auction, if you don’t get picked up, it’s pretty demoralising."

When he was an England player, Pietersen’s colleagues such as Matt Prior, James Anderson and Graeme Swann all entered the IPL auction but failed to attract a single bid. Pietersen himself is looking for a contract in the next IPL auction after losing his deal with the Delhi Daredevils.

Ashes 2019: Headingley and Old Trafford chosen as venues but Hampshire's dream is dashed

The traditional Test venues were the big winners in the latest allocation of lucrative international matches by the England and Wales Cricket Board, with Edgbaston and Old Trafford announced as Ashes venues in 2019.

For the first time since 2005 the Ashes series in 2019 will be played at established Test venues with other Tests held at Lord’s, the Oval and Headingley, grounds which held agreements with the ECB to stage Tests against Australia that summer.

All Tests between 2017 and 2019 will be held at six venues apart from, one match against India in 2018 which goes to the Ageas Bowl.

However, the dream of Hampshire’s chairman, Rod Bransgrove, of hosting an Ashes Test has been dashed. He has invested millions in building the Ageas Bowl, turning it from a horses’ field into an international ground, and has once again missed out on an Ashes Test.

"We really felt this was our opportunity to remove that burden as the only English Test ground not to host an Ashes Test," he said. "That would have been the icing on the cake for us. I would love to live long enough to see an Ashes Test at this ground but it is not going to be in this decade. But we just have to continue to do our best and keep staging fantastic matches."

Trent Bridge misses out on an Ashes Test for the first time since 2009 but has been the big winner in the past, hosting matches in 2013 and on next year’s tour. This time they have to be satisfied with five matches in the 2019 World Cup and Tests against South Africa and India in 2017 and 2018.

There are always winners and losers in a major match allocation but the decision to restore the traditional venues as Test grounds will hit counties like Glamorgan and Durham. Both invested heavily in facilities and were rewarded with Cardiff hosting Ashes Tests in 2009 and next summer, and Durham in 2013.

Taking Ashes fixtures to Cardiff and Durham did ensure that grounds such as Headingley and Old Trafford improved ramshackle facilities in the face of competition, but there is an acceptance at the ECB that Test cricket in particular has to be played in front of the largest crowds possible and the sight of empty seats at Ashes matches was a risk too far with Durham and Cardiff struggling to sell the longest format of the game.

"Our preference was for a package including a Test but the allocation was not a surprise having had an Ashes Test last year," David Harker, Durham’s chief executive, said.

Now the Ashes matches in 2019 will be played at the grounds with the biggest capacities increasing the likelihood of higher ticket revenue. It will also help the burden of debts for clubs like Yorkshire and Warwickshire. In the new year the ECB will invite tenders for matches between 2020 and 2023, giving grounds security of international fixtures for the next eight years.

The ECB also announced that Lord’s would host its fifth World Cup final in 2019, but the opening match of the tournament would be played at the Oval. Semi-finals will go to Old Trafford and Edgbaston, with group games at Durham, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Cardiff, Bristol, the Ageas Bowl and Taunton. The International Cricket Council has to approve the venues before matches are formally allocated. Both Durham and Yorkshire will have to install floodlights to host World Cup matches.

Somerset have hosted World Cup matches in the past but will for the first time be an international venue outside of a global tournament when it holds a Twenty20 between England and South Africa in 2017. The ground is entering the fourth phase of a 12-year rebuilding project, the completion of which this August is a condition of hosting the Twenty20 in 2017.

"It is a massive deal for the club and has been 12 years in the making," Andy Nash, the Somerset chairman, said. "We have had World Cup matches before and the really significant one for us is the T20 against South Africa in 2017. Our business plan for phase four of our building works assumes no international cricket so this is a very substantial increment and our financiers are going to be very happy."

Under pressure from the counties the ECB tweaked its staging agreements for the 2017-2019 period. Grounds and the ECB will share ticket revenue on matches which are at risk of not selling out, thereby ensuring the county does not take on all losses from poorly attended matches.

"The board commissioned international consulting firm Deloitte to examine very carefully the financial condition of all our major match venues," Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, said. "A significant amount of work was carried out with the ECB executive and the first-class counties to ensure that these awards are made on a new financial basis which involves the share of risk between the ECB and the grounds. It means that grounds are incentivised to sell out while providing the best possible spectator experience."

Great survivor Giles Clarke will report to ECB chairman Colin Graves

Giles Clarke will report to new chairman Colin Graves in his role as the England & Wales Cricket Board’s first president.

Clarke persuaded a meeting of the 18 county chairman and the MCC on Tuesday that he is the best-qualified person to fill the newly created position of president and represent the ECB at the International Cricket Council as well as safeguard the delicate relationship with the India.

Graves was formally proposed as the new chairman, with potential opponents having until the end of January to be nominated. There was also unanimous agreement to create the new role of president which will now go to a vote of the 41 members of the ECB. Clarke was nominated for that role and will stand aside as chairman in May.

Graves outlined his vision for the future and promised to deliver a more “transparent” ECB as well as promise more money for counties.

He told the meeting the ECB will “serve as well as lead” under his chairmanship with counties feeling the current regime led in an overly autocratic manner.

Tom Harrison, the new chief executive, was given the mandate to lead a root-and-branch review of English cricket “with the responsibility to develop a strategy for the future of the game”, said an official release. This will almost certainly include reopening the debate around the structure and future of Twenty20 cricket in England, which the larger counties based at Test match venues believe has drifted.

Harrison’s report will be presented to the ECB board in late 2015. The debate around franchise cricket is set to start again.

Graves is almost certain to stand unopposed with no clear candidate emerging from any other county or outside the game.

He will serve a five-year term of office to avoid the scenario of a chairman’s election taking place during the 2019 World Cup to be staged in England.

He will be given a unique opportunity to change the game in England. He has avoided the horse trading that normally characterises cricket elections and instead won support by promising to deliver more money for the counties in general.

By the time he takes office, England’s major matches up to 2022 will have been allocated, leaving the relaunch of Twenty20 cricket and negotiating the ECB’s domestic broadcast rights deal post 2019 as his main challenges.

Clarke’s capacity for survival is remarkable. It was clear the counties felt change was needed and if Clarke had lost an ECB election it would have ended his ambition of becoming president of the ICC.

Now, by persuading the ECB that representing the board at the ICC as well as running the game in England is too much for one man, he can continue to chair the ICC’s influential finance and commercial affairs committee and potentially replace N Srinivasan as the ICC’s next president in 2016.

Clarke will leave the ECB having enriched the board which now has reserves of over £40m on the back of television rights deals with Sky and in Asia.

But while the centre has become rich, the counties are facing massive debts and the decline in participation at grassroots level sparks major fears for the sport’s future.

Counties' support grows for Big Bash-style T20 franchise tournament

Grounds are bigger in Australia but the problem facing the counties is that the major Test grounds only fill up for high-profile local derby fixtures.

The creation of a 10-team tournament based at the category A grounds is seen by some as an answer to the financial problems hanging over the domestic game.

Eight years ago the ECB rejected a franchise Twenty20 competition proposed by Keith Bradshaw, then the chief executive of the MCC, and Surrey’s former chairman Dave Stewart. The plan, authored by Hampshire, Surrey, Lancashire and the MCC, warned that “there is an opportunity for one further major T20 tournament globally. Launching that tournament in England represents a once in a generation chance”.

But it was met by fierce opposition from the non-Test match ground counties and the ECB rejected it in favour of a 20-team EPL tournament that was to include an Allen Stanford all-stars team but never got off the ground. The counties feared losing their influence, despite the promise of being shareholders in the new tournament, and the ECB was in thrall to its Texan benefactor.

ECB chairman Colin Graves is undertaking a top-to-bottom' review of English cricket

Now opposition in the shires is beginning to fall away as counties realise they have to work together to protect their futures and the new ECB leadership is more open to the concept of franchises than the previous one.

“It is absolutely crucial to us in this country, if we want to get more people into the game to watch and play, that we have a tournament on the scale of the IPL, the Big Bash and the CPL,” Chris Grant, the chairman of Derbyshire told the Derby Evening Telegraph.

“T20 is a major provider of revenue and my big fear is that if we don’t establish an EPL as the 18 first-class counties, some entrepreneur in the Kerry Packer mould will see the opportunity and take it from us.

“Derbyshire members naturally get nervous when people talk about franchises because they don’t want the Test-match counties getting all the benefit of it but I don’t see it that way.

“I believe we could establish an English Premier League with franchises where all 18 first-class counties would be shareholders.

“Of course, you would want to play the games at a Trent Bridge or an Edgbaston because they are the grounds that are big enough to stage them but the franchises would pay a rental to play there and, apart from that, all the counties would share in the benefits.”

Surrey chairman Richard Thompson is currently in Australia looking at what his county can learn from the Big Bash and Graves has already commissioned his own research.

The Natwest T20 Blast was relaunched based on matches being played on Friday nights across the majority of the summer, something demanded by the counties.“Even if we had the money, it is hard to attract the likes of Chris Gayle at the moment to spend basically the whole summer in Derby just to play one game a week,” said Grant.

“That’s just not practical but we need the biggest names like Gayle to play here. We have to give the kids some heroes by giving them the opportunity to come and watch the biggest names in the game in an EPL.

“We have to get away from this tribal mentality. High-profile global sponsors would be very interested in getting involved and as long as the benefits are felt by all 18 counties, that has got to be good for the game. This is a great opportunity waiting to be grasped, in my view.”

Peter Moores says decision to axe Alastair Cook gives England better chance of winning World Cup

Peter Moores shifted in his chair when asked why he changed his mind about backing Alastair Cook as England’s one-day captain but is adamant the decision to sack him has given the team a better chance of winning the World Cup.

Moores, speaking at Heathrow before the squad's flight to Australia, said Cook was given “every opportunity” to bat his way into the World Cup squad but described the decision to remove him so close to the tournament as a brave move.

Cook was sacked in December 48 hours after the team returned from Sri Lanka where Moores had said in his final press conference that “for me, I think Alastair’s the right man to move us to the World Cup.” But Moores acknowledged at the time the decision had to be ratified by the selection panel and when they met to pick the squad for the World Cup, Cook’s form cost him his job.

“It was a tough one on Alastair but we can look back and say Alastair had every opportunity to get himself on the plane to go there and committed totally to that,” said Moores.

“I said at the end of that trip it [Cook’s position] had to be reviewed. You go into any selection meeting with an open mind. We landed in England, we had time to reflect and decide. With Mick, Angus Fraser and James Whitaker we threw it all around and we came to the conclusion our best team was to move now, give ourselves more aggressive options at top of the order and to get 15 blokes we wanted on the plane. Alastair did not quite make it. It was a tough decision but one we made.

“It was a brave decision to change it and it felt like the right decision to move so we moved as a set of selectors and I’m comfortable with that.”

Cook’s replacement, Eoin Morgan, is facing his own problems with form but he will be given the chance to build the team he wants as England put the management of the one-day team in the hands of a one-day specialist.

“Eoin has been close to decisions anyway because Alastair is close to Eoin and he’s got a good cricket brain,” said Moores. “It will be exciting to work with Eoin and I think he’ll bring a lot to the team. I think he’ll be a straight-forward captain which will be a good thing for us and have a strong desire to go out there and show not only what he can do but also the team.

“Anybody who watched us bat in Sri Lanka will have seen us play a different style. We scored at a quicker rate in most games. We promoted Moeen Ali at the top of the order, who played a very aggressive brand of cricket. We have got two bowlers in the top five [Ali and Root] which has not happened much before so we tried to create flexibility. We moved our game. We did not always execute it as we wanted to but I think that change in mindset has happened. With Eoin he will drive that really hard. He plays his cricket like that. He is aggressive, wants to look for positive opportunities and I think that is something everybody from the coaches to playing staff will embrace.”

England arrive in Australia on Thursday and play their first match against an Australia Capital Territories XI on Sunday before their opening match in the tri-series against Australia in Sydney on Jan 16. England play a minimum of four matches against Australia and India before the final of the tri-series in Perth on Feb 1, two weeks before the start of the World Cup.

Opposition grows to Giles Clarke's bid for ECB presidency

Giles Clarke is fighting for his future in cricket administration as opposition grows over his new role at the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The Telegraph understands intense lobbying is continuing, both by Clarke’s supporters and opponents, over plans to make him the first president of the ECB in a reshuffle in which Colin Graves will become board chairman.

A meeting of county chairmen will discuss the move next week with Clarke’s appointment far from certain due to opposition from a section of county chairmen who believe it is time for a complete fresh start.

Clarke’s eight-year tenure as chairman is likely to end in March with Graves, the chairman of Yorkshire who made his fortune from the Costcutter supermarket chain, expected to be elected unopposed.

The term of office for the new president, which will be an appointed role rather than elected, will be thrashed out at next week’s meeting along with the job’s responsibilities.

The president will be expected to represent the ECB at the International Cricket Council, where Clarke has built a formidable power base over the past eight years. He chairs the ICC’s finance committee and was instrumental, along with the chairmen of the Australian and Indian boards, in the recent reshaping of the ICC which handed more power to the sport’s three most affluent countries, a deal that will bring more money to the English game.

Insiders believe that allowing Clarke to take the ICC role will free Graves to concentrate on the problems facing the ECB, which include declining participation, growing debts at counties and the recent performances of the England team.

Clarke is likely to muster enough support to have his new position rubber stamped but only if it is clear Graves has a free hand to run affairs at the ECB.

The ECB announced on Thursday that it had agreed with Sky a two-year extension to its broadcast deal until 2019. Sky will pay an extra £30-40?million over the two years.

Graves is poised for a five-year term and negotiating the board’s next rights deal post 2019 will be his major challenge. A revised domestic Twenty20 tournament will be shaped by the nature of that next television deal.

Counties have recently been applying pressure on the ECB for highlights from the NatWest T20 Blast to be shown on free-to-air television but doing so risks the board’s relationship with its major investor.

Production costs are estimated at £20,000 per match so it is hard to see a terrestrial broadcaster clearing space in the schedule for a NatWest T20 Blast that runs for more than three months, far longer than the Big Bash in Australia which is the source of such envy among counties.

It is likely Sky would prefer a shorter, snappier Twenty20 competition here but the counties want volume of matches to guarantee income. They fear a shorter window would be vulnerable to poor weather.

The revamping of the NatWest T20 Blast will be debated over the coming months once Graves takes office along with new chief executive Tom Harrison, who is due to start at the ECB next month.

Sky’s press release confirming the new deal on Thursday pressed home the benefits English cricket has earned from its rights deals which stand at around £150?million “invested to help strengthen the game, by improving international, first-class and local facilities”.

But the ECB was jolted last year when its own research discovered an alarming drop in participation and counties feel the lack of cricket on free-to-air television is taking its toll.

Yorkshire’s chief executive, Mark Arthur, last week echoed the views of Richard Gould, his counterpart at Surrey, in pushing for some form of cricket to be shown free to air.

“I’m very keen for cricket to return to free-to-air TV and I would urge everyone at the ECB to do their very best to find a way of getting it back on terrestrial in some form,” he told the Yorkshire Post. “I think it’s fundamental to the development of cricket in this country, and there is a general consensus among the county chief executives. Ever since 2005, when cricket came off terrestrial television, we’ve seen a decline in participation levels in the game despite a very successful England set-up.”

Kevin Pietersen: Eoin Morgan would love to pick me for England's World Cup squad

Kevin Pietersen has said the England one-day captain Eoin Morgan would “love to” pick him in the World Cup squad.

Pietersen, speaking to Ricky Ponting while commentating live on Australian television, revealed he is enjoying cricket once again after a “nightmare” 2014 and restated his ambition to play for England.

“'I don't know why I'm not playing for England,” said Pietersen. “I know the current England captain (Morgan) would love me in the side.”

Pietersen turned the question on Ponting by asking him if he would choose him in the England side. “You would be in England's best XI,” he said, explaining Australia’s World Cup winning teams were a blend of youth and experience.

Morgan spoke out to defend Pietersen in November last year and if given a free hand in selection it is likely he would want his old friend in the team.

But when he took over from Cook in December Morgan was told there is no way back for Pietersen, at least not while Paul Downton and Peter Moores are running the England team.

“I think it is unbelievable in a way, because certainly he could still be playing cricket for England quite easily,” Morgan said about Pietersen in November. “It is sad in a way to think that probably the best cricketer I have ever played with is not playing [internationally] any more.

“A guy I have had huge respect for, for a very long time and learnt a huge amount from isn’t playing probably as much as he should be. But it is tournaments like the Big Bash that will benefit from that and I think everybody will see a different side to Kevin than they normally would.”

When he announced Morgan as Cook’s replacement, Downton reiterated that he would not be allowed to pick his friend.

“We parted company with Kevin in January because throughout the ECB management, from the dressing room up to the board, it was felt that it was the right decision to go in a slightly different direction. If anything more bridges have been burnt by Kevin’s book. There is no interest from our point of view in going backwards,” he said.

Pietersen has rediscovered his love for cricket playing for the Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash and pointed to the example of Kumar Sangakkara, who has just enjoyed his best year in Test cricket at the age of 38. Pietersen is 34. ”I am batting as well as I ever have right now,” he told Ponting.

England continue their preparations for the one-day tri-series against Australia and India when they play the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra on Wednesday.

India's Supreme Court clears ICC chairman N Srinivasan of a cover up in the IPL fixing case

India’s Supreme Court has cleared ICC chairman N Srinivasan of a cover up in the IPL fixing case but has delivered a damning verdict on running of the world’s richest and most powerful cricket board.

In what has been hailed as a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court delivered a 130 page verdict on its investigation into the 2013 IPL fixing case and ruled that the BCCI is blighted by conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency.

It has ruled that Srinivasan cannot stand for re-election as BCCI president while he runs the Chennai Super Kings IPL franchise and has set up an independent three member panel headed by the chief justice of India to review and improve the governance of the board.

The Supreme Court agreed this morning that Srinivisan’s son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappanwas guilty of betting on IPL matches and was a team official at the Chennai Super Kings. When the scandal first broke and was investigated by a BCCI appointed panel, Srinivasan stated that his son-in-law was an “enthusiast” and not a team official. But the Supreme Court threw that out today. It also ruled that Raj Kundra, an owner of the Rajasthan Royals team, was also involved in betting in a scandal that was first exposed by the Indian media 18 months ago.

If the Supreme Court had found Srinivasan culpable in a cover up his position at the ICC would have been untenable. But it stated: “Srinivasan had deep rooted interest in CSK matches, his behaviour raises suspicion but isn't proof.”

The court ordered that new BCCI elections must take place in six weeks’ time and Srinivasan can only stand for re-election as president if he gives up his stake in CSK.

The court will also decide on the future of CSK and the Rajasthan Royals. Both franchises could be thrown out of the IPL for breaking rules on corruption.

“The Supreme Court gave a very important verdict which describes what the public functions of BCCI are,” said Justice Mukul Mugdal, who led the inquiry. “The Supreme Court judgement has far reaching consequences.”

The Supreme Court ruled that the BCCI despite being a private body it is subject to the laws of India and must be made more transparent. “Power to punish the guilty vests with the BCCI but in the current context it cannot be left to the BCCI to appoint credible legal minds,” it said. “Amendments to be recommended by newly appointed Committee on BCCI elections, sports fraud, conflict of interest.”

Srinivasan has already been elected chairman of the ICC.

Alastair Cook's World Cup dream hangs in the balance

Alastair Cook arrived back in England on Wednesday with his dream of captaining England at the World Cup looking increasingly in jeopardy.

Support for Cook as England’s one-day captain has been steadfast at the top of English cricket during his troubled year, but he is likely to find that has shifted this week when the selectors sit down to debate his position on Friday.

The England and Wales Cricket Board will announce the World Cup squad at 11am on Saturday with the question over the captain’s future set to dominate the selection meeting.

Cook opened the door for his own removal in the aftermath of another crushing defeat in Colombo on Tuesday when he admitted that he could “have no complaints” if he was sacked, an indication he was expecting the worst and would go quietly. He also stated that he saw a “lot of potential” in this team and was keen to carry on in the job despite the incessant calls for his removal. But he but looked as weary by the end of the series in Sri Lanka as he has at any point in the past 12 months.

The selectors have backed Cook more than once in one-day cricket and he has to hope they believe his current form is just an extended trough and that he has not been worked out by bowlers. But this time the selectors have to weigh up whether or not picking him for the World Cup will overburden him as he faces up to the biggest batting crisis of his career in a year when England will be tested by the world’s best attacks.

Since the middle of the tour to New Zealand in 2013 when Brendon McCullum said that he was a “genius” second only to Donald Bradman, Cook’s batting has been in freefall. In 66 innings since, Cook has averaged 30 in all forms of cricket with just one century as other team’s copied McCullum’s tactic of bowling full outside off stump and cutting off his favourite scoring areas, square on both sides of the wicket.

There will be no respite in 2015. The England summer starts with a series against the two men who started this process, New Zealand’s Tim Southee and Trent Boult, before Cook faces Australia’s pacemen, then Pakistan in the UAE where England lost 3-0 last time, before four Tests in South Africa against the best attack in the world. A break now from one-day cricket would free Cook to work on his batting.

New ECB chairman Colin Graves: Terrestrial TV does not want cricket

“We have got to do something and not just do it the old fashioned way of looking at what the ECB wants. Cricket still has a place in the hearts of the public but we have to work hard so everybody likes to watch it and play it.”

One of his priorities will be to look at Twenty20 cricket which has grown stale in England while leagues such as the Big Bash and the IPL have flourished. The possibility of a second Twenty20 league, probably based around 10 major cities, is sure to be looked at.

“We have something that works only so far and can be better,” he said. “We have lost our way a bit in Twenty20. We have to look at that and other ways and means and ask if we can do a second T20 [competition]. I don’t know. That is why I want to look at the schedule we have and ask how can we do it better?

“You look at the Big Bash and see the crowds they are attracting and it is great but when you look at the figures they are losing money on it but we will look at everything.”

A Big Bash-style T20 in England could be on the cards. Source: Getty Images

Graves says he has not made any promises to the counties but will make more money available by streamlining the ECB and maximising income but has a warning for those running failing businesses.

“I don’t want counties living on the edge. At the end of the day I have to get more money down to the counties, more money into the game so we can run the game more efficiently. We have to try and help them sort things out. We will do that but they have to make sure they are running a business properly and not wasting money. It is their own money on the basis that they own the ECB as stakeholders but it is not going to be free money. We want it invested in the game to make it better.”

Clarke made more than £500m from signing two exclusive rights deals with Sky but Graves’ own chief executive at Yorkshire, Mark Arthur, earlier this month joined a growing band of county officials who believe the sport needs to return some content to terrestrial television to attract new support.

“Everybody is right and it would be nice to have some cricket on terrestrial television but the problem we have got is terrestrial television does not want cricket, it certainly does not want Test cricket,” said Graves. “I would love to get cricket on terrestrial television in one format or another but at the same time I want to work with Sky. They have been fantastic for cricket. We have to get best of all worlds but if you have terrestrial broadcasters that don’t want cricket then what can you do?”

For the time being the England team will be left to grow under Peter Moores but underperformance will not be tolerated by Graves who labelled his Yorkshire players publicly as “disgraceful” when they were relegated in 2011. They responded by winning the championship in 2014.

Graves says England must look forward and improve. Source: Getty Images

“England fell off track last year, got hammered 5-0 in Australia and everybody was doom and gloom. The issues out of that were not positive so we have got to rebuild what we have got. It is not broken by far but what we have to do is look forward and ask how we can do it better.”

Uniquely for an ECB chairman, Graves will solely concentrate on ECB business with Clarke representing the board at the ICC in his new role of president.

But Graves is clear who is in charge in England. “He will have nothing to do with the management or executive [of the ECB] and he will have nothing to do with the counties. He will be the ICC representative for the ECB. That is his job, his terms of reference. I can work with Giles. He can work with me. We have mutual respect for each other.”

Constitutional change at the ECB will see chairmen in future serving a maximum of two terms of office (Clarke did three) of four years each. Graves’s first term will be five years to avoid an election clashing with the 2019 World Cup. It gives him a great opportunity to make his mark.

“It gives me a chance to get the job done, get in place what we want to change and establish the ECB for the next 10 to 15 years.”

Big Bash on agenda as Colin Graves takes ECB reins

Colin Graves is poised for a five-year term as the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board when sweeping changes to the running of the game in this country are proposed next week.

A two-day meeting of the 18 county chairmen at a hotel in Northamptonshire starting on Monday will discuss proposals for Graves to replace Giles Clarke as chairman and for the term of office to be extended from three years to five in order to give him time to implement change.

The agenda is also likely to include discussions around the potential for a Twenty20 competition along the lines of the Big Bash in Australia, the selling of cricket content to a free-to-air broadcaster, how much to keep behind a paywall and a cost-cutting review of the ECB’s operations. “I hope it will be a healthy debate and I would not rule anything in or anything out,” one source said.

As revealed by Telegraph Sport, a new role for Clarke will be proposed which will see him become the ECB’s first president, with the responsibility of representing the board at the International Cricket Council. If the proposals are approved by the county chairmen next week, they will then be formally put to a vote at the ECB annual meeting in March.

The succession of Graves, the multi-millionaire chairman of Yorkshire, follows months of lobbying to try to avoid a potentially bitter election battle with Clarke.

A deal suits both sides. For Graves, being elected unopposed enables him to take office without having made promises to win votes. For Clarke, it means he can fulfil his ambition of becoming the next chairman of the ICC. Losing an election would have cost him his place at the ICC table and ended his time in cricket and there has been a growing sense in the last few months he would have lost a vote with change needed.

Clarke’s role will be decided by the board, which allows them a degree of control over how he represents them at the ICC. Splitting the job is also seen as a way of ensuring Graves can concentrate on the challenges facing the game in this country. Participation figures are down, counties remain in debt and the England team have endured a bad 12 months.

It is likely that counties will be told to get their houses in order financially, with the ECB warning they will not continue to bale out strugglers.

The five-year term enables Graves to plan until 2020, a key cut-off point. Over the next five years England will host a World Cup, Champions Trophy, two Ashes and an India tour – their most lucrative fixture list ever. After that, the calendar will be less attractive, meaning problems have to be addressed now. Ninety per cent of the ECB income relies on one source, its broadcast deal with Sky, and it is felt that has to change.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

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