Darren Gough, the former England fast bowler, has criticised England’s insistence that Steve Harmison must prove his fitness and form before securing a place on the plane to Sri Lanka.Harmison, who has been recovering from a back injury, wasn’t among the squad of 15 named yesterday for England’s three-Test tour of Sri Lanka. However, if he doesn’t have any adverse reaction to his brief stint at Lions in South Africa, he could yet join up with the team.This, however, does not sit well with Gough who feels Harmison is being treated unfairly.”Steve is such a vital bowler for England and he has proved time and time again how good he is,” Gough told the . “He brings something different to everyone else and he is a must for me in the England team.”He is a match winner and with (Matthew) Hoggard also coming back, England will go into Sri Lanka with a very good bowling line up, with everyone vying for a spot desperate to do well and win.”Harmison will travel to South Africa with England’s recently appointed bowling coach, Ottis Gibson – a man who Gough insists is key to “firing” up Harmison.”Ottis has already shown what influence he can have on the bowlers and I have no doubt he is the man to get Steve firing,” Gough said. “He has got all the qualifications, played at Test level and he knows what the international game is all about.”All I want is for Steve to come out firing on all cylinders. We want him running through brick walls for England and hopefully he will come out and prove to everyone how good he is because he is one of our best bowlers.”

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A four-wicket opening spell from the debutant Chris Swan set up a convincing win for Queensland, who secured a bonus point with one ball to spare against Western Australia. Craig Philipson’s 62 made sure of the Bulls’ victory after they had some early stumbles of their own in the chase of 145.The Warriors never really recovered from Swan’s initial damage; his four strikes and the run-out of Luke Ronchi sent the home side crashing to 5 for 31 from ten overs after Adam Voges chose to bat. Swan, 29, was not even listed to play until Ashley Noffke’s late withdrawal due to a groin injury.Swan found some early swing with his right-arm fast-medium bowling and began his starring role when his third ball had Justin Langer caught behind for 0. He followed up by removing Shaun Marsh and Luke Pomersbach – both of whom were fresh from Pura Cup centuries – cheaply and finished with 4 for 24 after trapping Matt Johnston lbw.Brad Hogg (33) helped the Warriors reach 144, although he could not rescue his side with the ball. The chase began poorly for Queensland – ducks to James Hopes and Clinton Perren had them 2 for 0 and the team’s first run came in the sixth over – but Philipson and Aaron Nye (31) put the reply back on course.When the innings had settled they launched a late run for the bonus point, although Steve Magoffin (3 for 29) tried to obstruct them by claiming both Philipson and Nye. Chris Simpson, in his first match as Queensland’s stand-in captain, added a quick 18 from eight balls at the end to help his side home with 61 balls remaining.

Former Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer’s stomach samples contained significant amounts of a deadly pesticide, the chief forensic officer at the government forensic laboratory in Kingston told the inquest into Woolmer’s death on Thursday.Fitzmore Coates said the toxicology analysis showed that there was 3.4 milligrams of cypermethrin per millilitre in Woolmer’s stomach sample. He also testified that there were traces of cypermethrin in the blood and urine samples, and in a straw-coloured liquid taken from his room at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel.”The final calculation of cypermethrin in the stomach content which I analysed would be significant. It could cause vomiting, diarrhea, nausea and death,” Coates told AFP. His testimony backed the findings of Ere Sheshiah, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Woolmer. Sheshiah had said that the cause of death was “asphyxia, associated with cypermethrin poisoning”.Woolmer was found unconscious in his room at the Pegasus Hotel in Jamaica on March 18, a day after Pakistan’s shock defeat to Ireland in the World Cup. The police had initially backed Sheshiah’s finding that Woolmer was murdered and released a statement to that effect. However, a review by three other pathologists – Nathaniel Cary, Michael Pollanen and Lorna Martin – said Woolmer died of natural causes, possibly due to a heart attack.As the investigation continued, toxicology tests could not conclude whether Woolmer was injected with a poison or not. Marcia Dunbar, a Jamaican forensic analyst, testified at the inquest that evidence of cypermethrin was found in blood and urine samples. Of three samples of blood taken from Woolmer, Dunbar said one tested positive for cypermethrin while the others did not, and no suitable explanation was given for this. She also said that one of the containers she received from the police containing the samples had been contaminated.John Slaughter, a British forensic expert, later told the inquest that he found no pesticide in the sample which was tested in his lab on May 4. He said the presence of cypermethrin could have been due to contamination at the government forensic laboratory in Kingston.However, Judith Mowatt, the director at the government forensic science laboratory, testified that she had received an email from Joe Marchesi, a crime scene manager at the metropolitan police in London, which stated that Slaughter had said the samples sent to his office were insufficient to conduct a thorough investigation. Mowatt, however, said she hadn’t discussed the issue of inadequate samples with Slaughter.”He [Marchesi] said there were concerns about the amount of samples available for them to work with,” Mowatt told the . “He indicated that there was enough stomach content but in regard to urine, blood and straw-coloured liquid there was not enough for a tox-screen.”On November 5, the coroner Patrick Murphy had asked for further tests to be carried out on samples taken from Woolmer’s body. The directive came on a request from Mark Shields, the Jamaica deputy commissioner of police, following discrepancies in the toxicology reports by forensic scientists from the Caribbean and the UK. Shields said more samples would be retrieved from the UK and the local forensic laboratory.

Phil Jaques hopes to be playing again in a fortnight, but he will be monitored by the Australia and New South Wales team doctors in case there are any complications with his bout of the mumps. Jaques is part of a large group of national players who are sick or injured – Michael Clarke is the latest addition after pulling out of the Pura Cup game against Victoria with a hamstring problem – and Trefor James, the Australia team doctor, said the opening batsman’s case was mild.”It can be more severe in adults but you can’t really predict,” James said in the Age. “You’ve just got to wait and see how severely it affects you. At the moment it is not too severe. He just feels very unwell and feverish.”New South Wales have a Pura Cup game in Brisbane on December 14 and Jaques, who scored two centuries in the series against Sri Lanka, wants to play in preparation for the Boxing Day Test. “But the complications you can get [from the illness] don’t always arise right at the start,” James said.Clarke has been hampered by his problem for a couple of weeks and will rest ahead of the Chappell-Hadlee Series, which starts on December 14, while Stuart MacGill is still waiting to decide whether he needs more surgery. MacGill has knee and hand problems, but is determined that they won’t lead to retirement.”I have only the best intentions for my future,” MacGill told Nine. “I’m not going to play until I’m convinced, and able to convince others, that I’m at the peak of my powers. I want to bowl like a million bucks every time I go on to the field.”MacGill said he was prepared to do “just about anything to get there”. “That includes surgery,” he said. “At the moment I can’t tell you if that’s the route I have to take.”

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Shitanshu Kotak and the Saurashtra tail stood between Uttar Pradesh and a place in the Ranji Trophy final for the second time in three years. Saurashtra’s bowlers had given the side an excellent chance of going through by bowling UP out for 100 in the second innings and setting up a target of 162 but the batsmen, continuing the match trend of rank bad batting, threw away the advantage to end the day needing another 69 with three wickets in hand.Saurashtra have an uphill task, given that the match has an average score of 13.73 per wicket so far, but Sandeep Jobanputra and Sandip Maniar, the batsmen to follow, have shown an aptitude to stick around with a specialist batsman – Jobanputra scored 17 in the first innings and shared a 34-run ninth-wicket stand with Rakesh Dhurv. In any case the current 30-run eighth-wicket partnership between Kotak and Kamlesh Makvana is the highest in the innings so far.The wicket here at the Moti Bagh Stadium had a covering of live grass and a firm surface but didn’t warrant such a meek batting display. Saurashtra, in their second innings, belied the feeling that they couldn’t play worse than in the first and never looked like putting up a fight once they lost Jaydev Shah, their best batsman in the first innings, in the second over. Kanaiya Vaghela followed two balls later in similar fashion, edging behind to Amir Khan.Sagar Jogiyani and Cheteshwar Pujara looked like building a partnership and took the score to 25 before Pujara tickled one down the leg side to give the Tyagi-Amir combine its third success. In the next over Bhuvneshwar Kumar got Jogiyani, who had looked comfortable. That brought together Kotak and Nikhil Rathore and, as another partnership looked like building, Praveen Kumar produced a legcutter to take Rathore’s edge. Praveen Gupta followed it up with a good low catch off his own bowling to dismiss Rakesh Dhurv.Kotak, meanwhile, had seen off the early jittery period and nudged and late-cut his way to 41 by stumps. He waited for the last moment before playing a shot – then too only if necessary – and when he did so it was with soft hands. By the time Kotak took them to beyond the first-innings deficit, they had lost six wickets and one more followed soon after but that brought in Makvana. UP, thinking they were closing in on the win, opted for the extra half hour but the bowlers were perhaps too tired and failed to have any impact. It turned into the most comfortable period of play for Saurashtra, who added 17 in that period.UP’s batting began early in the day, Saurashtra’s two overnight wickets lasting 16 minutes to concede a potentially crucial lead of 61. Though UP had a better start to their second innings – making Saurashtra wait 10 overs for the first wicket – they showed their over-reliance on Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif. After Rohit Prakash was adjudged lbw, Suresh Raina once again started in a confident manner before letting it away for just 25. He got off with a beautiful cover drive, down on one knee, off Vaghela. In Vaghela’s next over, Raina pulled him for a six and pushed him out of attack. That was followed by a straight hit for four. Spin, in the form of Dhurv, was welcomed by dancing down to hit two boundaries in the first over. Then against the run of the play, Raina missed Makvana’s first ball – a full toss – and was adjudged lbw.That triggered the collapse as the spinners bowled a controlled line and length and let the wicket and the batsmen do the rest. Amir Khan was done in by an arm ball from Dhurv that he was late to react to. Ravikant Shukla, who had batted well in the first innings, was caught on the back foot as another arm ball took his edge and made its way safely to Kotak at slip. Kaif got one from Makwana that didn’t break, bounced more and took the glove on the way to the ‘keeper who, after some juggling, hung on to it. With two balls to go to lunch, Piyush Chawla played a poor shot and turned Jobanputra – brought on only for the last over before lunch – to midwicket.Five overs after lunch Praveen Kumar, all at sea against Dhurv, was beaten comprehensively and was bowled. Bhuvneshwar Kumar followed his first-innings effort with another sensible innings for close to an hour, but Dhurv’s big break was too good for him and bowled him. Rahat Elahi, the specialist batsman brought in to replace Tanmay Srivastava and who came in to bat at No. 9, stayed back to one that kept low and was beaten to give Dhurv his fourth first-class five-wicket haul.

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