Agents Signed Up To Promote ICC WT20 Hospitality

The promotion of hospitality packages for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 West Indies 2010 has been pushed up a notch as the official hospitality programme has now signed up additional agents in to promote the sale of these exclusive products.

Great Vacations (Jamaica), Carib Travel (Saint Lucia) and The Travel Centre (Trinidad and Tobago) are three new additions to the Caribbean sales team, each of which has experience in hospitality sales during ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

Approaching the key markets of India and South Africa are Twenty First Century Media and One Stop Sports and Entertainment, respectively while completing the line up are two Australian agents, the renowned and experienced Platinum Pass and the ticketing giant Ticketek.

All sales agents will be promoting and selling two types of hospitality, the Century Dining package and the Beyond the Boundary Suite package.

Both will be competitively priced – significantly cheaper than comparative packages for the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007. Prices and package inclusions, as well as a list of all official hospitality sales agents, are available by visiting www.windiescrickethospitality.com or by following the ‘hospitality link’ at www.icc-cricket.yahoo.net.

Cricket World Player Of The Week - Stafanie Taylor

West Indian all-rounder Stafanie Taylor has been named as the Cricket World® Player Of The Week after she starred in her side's One-Day International and Twenty20 matches against South Africa Women last week.

In game one in Paarl, Taylor's career-best ODI score of 108 not out helped steer her side to a five-wicket win which put them 1-0 up in the series.

Although they went on to lose the series 2-1, Taylor scored 221 runs in the series, also adding a half-century, which came when the sides returned to Paarl for the third game.

Her off-spin bowling accounted for three wickets and then in the opening Twenty20 International, won by her side in Paarl, she scored 21 in ten balls to set her side up for another victory.

Other contenders for the weekly award were South Africans Mignon du Preez and Alicia Smith and a special mention is warranted by Stephen Cook, who scored 390 for the Lions against the Warriors in the SuperSport Series in South Africa.

Newman moves to Middlesex

Opener Scott Newman has switched over to Middlesex after being released by Surrey a year ahead of the expiry of his contract by mutual consent. His Middlesex move comes after a nine-year spell at Surrey, where he began his professional career in 2002.

Newman, 29, played 90 of his 100 first-class matches for Surrey, scoring 6404 runs at 42.69 with 14 centuries. Among the highlights of his Surrey stay was a Championship match against Glamorgan in 2005, when he become the county's first batsman to make a century and a double-century in the same game.

Middlesex have offered a three-year deal to Newman as they look to bolster an inexperienced batting line-up. The county struggled in 2009 as their three senior batsmen - Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook and Owais Shah - were busy with international commitments for much of the season.

"In Scott Newman, Middlesex have secured the services of a well-respected and vastly experienced county professional," Vinny Codrington, the Middlesex chief executive, said. "He ... is the type of player that would have made a huge difference for us last season. We're ... looking forward to him adding some invaluable experience and seniority to the top of our batting line-up."

Newman was thrilled at joining Middlesex after a tough season, the second half of which he spent on loan at Nottinghamshire. "I am delighted to have signed a permanent contract with Middlesex, which will see me playing cricket here for at least the next three seasons," he said. "I am relishing the opportunity of establishing my place within the Middlesex side and to playing some regular first-team cricket."

Harbhajan is shaping up as an extra batsman

I felt like laughing when the news channels were going ga-ga on the Indian lower order (actually, make that just Harbhajan & Praveen) nearly dragging India to an improbable win yesterday .The reality was that India were pathetic in batting, bowling, running and fielding for almost 90% of the game. Hauritz had 1/15 from 7 overs at one stage!

While Praveen Kumar has, in the last dozen times he has batted, given absolutely no reason to believe that he is ever capable of anything more than a fluke edge down to third-man while aiming to smack the ball over mid-wicket, Harbhajan has been reasonably consistent with bat against Australia, in tests and ODIs. So it wasn't too much of a surprise yesterday that he did well with bat. I still remember that stunning six he hit over point off Brett Lee during the 2003 World Cup league game against Australia, coming in at 6 down for less than 100.

Then again, his bowling analysis of 1/57 wasn't too surprising either, considering that before this game, he had conceded over 100 runs per wicket since Jan 2006 against Australia, at home.

So the solution must be to include Harbhajan as the extra batsman, who bowls some part-time off-spin, against Australia. That would lend a lot more balance, and India could then pick Amit Mishra as the spinner. So the batting line-up should be: Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Dhoni, Raina, Harbhajan, Praveen, Mishra, Nehra & Ishant.

I was hoping that Australia's quicks, and spinners, would bounce out India's middle-order, which would trigger frantic phone calls to Rahul Dravid's mobile phone. In any case, when he would have been recalled, sources in the BCCI would have told the media that they'd only rested him so he could spend an extra week with his family.

The scary bit about yesterday's batting order was that Ashish Nehra was actually at #10, which is frankly out of sync with his ability (batting & mental), and at least 2 places above what his normal batting position should be. Given Nehra averaged nearly 4 times more at #11 compared with #10 before yesterday's game, you have to question the team management's faith in Ashish ahead of Ishant.