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If evidence was needed that the genuine concern for the depressed state of West Indies cricket extends far beyond the Caribbean, it is to be presently found in the heart of London.Last Wednesday night, two Nobel Prize laureates, a knighted musical lyricist and a famed storyteller declared their long-lasting devotion to its special legacy, bemoaned its decline and yearned for its revival.Such adoration was confirmed two nights earlier by a host of outstanding past players at a separate function paying homage to Sir Garfield Sobers, the allrounder who, more than any other, typifies its unique qualities.Such an occasion is to be repeated on Monday night when Brian Lara, the most recent in the long lineage of great West Indian batsmen, is similarly honoured. No doubt the current plight that lingered throughout Lara’s career, in spite of his phenomenal list of records, will also interest those in attendance. Some of Lara’s contemporaries such as Shane Warne, Sachin Tendulkar, Courtney Walsh and Michael Vaughan are expected to attend.The Sobers’s event, attended by more than 700 guests and which your columnist was privileged to host, was put on by cricket’s renowned charity organisation, the Lord’s Taverners.It featured video highlights of the phenomenal left-hander’s long career, from his Test debut at the age of 17, through to his unbeaten 150 in the final Test at Lord’s in 1973.Sir Everton Weekes, specially brought over for the occasion, and Trevor Bailey, both now 82, reminisced on stage about Sobers’s debut Test when the England allrounder Bailey was his first wicket.Ted Dexter and Tom Graveney, two of England’s finest batsmen when Sobers was at his peak with bat and ball, followed, with Clive Lloyd, whose debut Test innings was in a matchwinning partnership with the incomparable left-hander, and Sir Michael Stoute, the Barbadian who has been England’s leading race horse trainer for several years, filling the lower order.Stoute, who recalled watching Sobers’s first Division One club hundred in Barbados for Police against Wanderers as a boy, could speak with authority on Sobers’s love of and interest in horses.Sobers himself rounded off the evening, to a standing ovation, with his own riveting revelations, but the general conversation was as much on the days of plenty as on the present drought and the necessity to ensure that the present decline is arrested and turned around.Especially after their difficult summer, when the consensus is that it is the weakest team to tour England since the first in 1928, the repeated theme around the tables was that world cricket needs West Indies to be strong.

Human nature being what it is, those who suffered so repeatedly at the hands of the great players and the great teams of the past might now be expected to chortle in delight at the shabby state of their successors. Yet there was little gloating or condescension, just the hope that the flickering flame that has illuminated the game for so long would burn brightly again.So it has been wherever the game has taken me in recent times. As Mike Gatting, who endured more from the West Indies than most, put it, football would be similarly the poorer without the brilliance of Brazil at its best. There is a certain comparable flamboyance between the two.The appropriate venue for Wednesday’s affair, also a Lord’s Taverners show, and Monday’s, is the famous Long Room at the game’s spiritual home, Lord’s.It is there that an exhibition marking Lara’s phenomenal, and recently ended career, has also been mounted in the museum since the start of the present season to continue through to December.In reality, it is nothing less than a shrine to Lara, according to Adam Chadwick, the museum’s curator, a “celebration of his career” with themed displays that explore different aspects of his life, both in and out of cricket.The highlights on Wednesday in the Long Room across the walkway were the readings, and their admissions to their cricket fanaticism, of Harold Pinter, the renowned British playwright, and his St Lucian counterpart, Derek Walcott, of Sir Tim Rice, who penned the musical lyrics of Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar among a host of others, and Paul Keens-Douglas, the Caribbean’s most popular raconteur.The proceedings were introduced before the gathered 250, in their evening suits and fine dresses, by calypsonian, Tobago Crusoe, with his rendition of Lord Beginner’s “Cricket, Lovely Cricket”, the theme for the evening.The virtuosity of the masters of the written and spoken word followed to embellish the glory of West Indies cricket.Pinter, now a frail 77, read from some of his own work and spoke passionately about the triumphant 1950 West Indies team, of Frank Worrell’s grace and the “butchery” of Weekes, seated in the front row a few feet away from him, and Clyde Walcott and of the mystery of Ramadhin and Valentine.Derek Walcott, who dashed directly from Heathrow Airport after a flight from an engagement in Berlin to be at Lord’s, read a piece, based on the recent Test series. He had written it specifically for the occasion.Using the analogy of a fight between the warriors of the West Indies and the lions for England – who, indeed, play under the crest of three lions – Walcott intoned: “On every field in the islands dust hides the sun. And the bodies fall except Chanderpaul who tires the lions, and if one warrior can do this, where were his band of brothers who once whitened the flag of St George to a bloody cross?”Victory is sweet; we have known this, but greater than victory, perhaps, is the beauty of defeat, the beauty of the great boxer going down, the killer of bulls gored on the sand, the loss that wears down every innings to zero, nothing is sadder than an unlucky streak, nothing is nobler than an unlucky hero. Our enemies are beautiful, the lions, but we are not weak.”Even while the lingering crisis is compounded by its embarrassing, widely publicised internal disputes of the past few weeks, the longing for the West Indies to return to their former glory is unmistakably sincere.The excitement that followed their exciting victory in the opening Twenty20 International at the Oval on Thursday was even reflected in the usually unforgiving British press.”We at last saw West Indies cricket in all its former glory-expansive and, at times, completely unorthodox strokeplay delivered with a style and panache so Caribbean,” wrote Paul Newman, cricket correspondent of the .It was merely a 20-overs an innings knockabout but it was the kind of play that Harold Pinter, Derek Walcott and millions in every corner of cricket’s empire have yearned for.Those who have dragged the game down to its present level, administrators and players alike, would have benefited from being at the Hilton and at Lord’s over the past few days. If they had been, they might have fully appreciated the legacy with which they have been entrusted.

The move of Beau Casson, the left-arm wrist spinner, from Western Australia to New South Wales is under threat after Cricket Australia set a grievance tribunal hearing for May 29. The Western Australian Cricket Association was unhappy to see their No. 1 first-class spinner leave despite desperate attempts to keep him, and lodged a report relating to Cricket New South Wales’ dealings for the transfer.A Cricket Australia spokesman said rule four of the 2005-09 Memorandum of Understanding said: “A state association must not (and must ensure that its constituent clubs do not) hold discussions with a CA contracted player or state contracted player who is bound to another state association concerning the possible transfer of that player without first informing the player’s home state association.”Casson announced on May 8 he was leaving the Warriors in the hope of getting a start with the Blues, whose slow-bowling stocks already include Stuart MacGill, Jason Krejza and Steve O’Keefe, while Nathan Hauritz will arrive in Sydney during the off-season. The hearing will take place at Cricket Australia’s office in Melbourne and be heard by Ron Beazley, the Cricket Australia code of behaviour commissioner, Steven Skala, a Cricket Australia representative, and John McMullan, the Australian Cricketers’ Association’s representative.

Paul Wiseman has been to India twice before. Finally, on his third visit, the results are beginning to come through. On a chaotic day where India’s batsmen threw their bats at everything in pursuit of quick runs Wiseman helped himself to four wickets. Excerpts from a post-play press conference:About his four wickets in the second innings
Of course, it feels great, although I would have felta lot better if I hadn’t dropped a catch off DanielVettori’s bowling. But yes, I did get probably thefour best batsmen of spin bowling in the world, sothat felt good. They were in an attacking mood, andthat always gives the bowler a chance.On New Zealand’s strategy for the final day
We’ll have to take it as it comes, by the ball. We’llreassess the situation at lunch, and if we’ve had aflyer in the first session, maybe we’ll have a shot atthe target. But it is a tough ask.On the wicket’s role in the final day’s play
The pitch already has some bounce in it. In fact, Ithink it is better for the spinners than peopleoriginally thought. There’s no prolific turn, butthere is some bounce. Daniel got a few to bouncetoday, and I expect it will turn even more tomorrow.India have two world-class quality spinners with them,so it’s definitely going to be tough.On his strategy against Sachin Tendulkar
I just tried to bowl as slowly as possible. The wicketwas already slow, and that made the batsmen reach forthe ball and hit it. A few stopped on the batsmen too,and with Sachin, he was on the ball early. But he hadto score quickly at the time too.On the mood in the New Zealand camp
The mood’s actually pretty good. We would have takenthis position if it were offered to us at thebeginning of the day, I think. It could have goneworse, and we could have had to follow on.

The ICC has announced that the winner of the India-Pakistan series, to be decided in the fifth one-dayer on March 24, will be ranked higher than the other in the ICC ODI championship table.At present, Pakistan is ranked fifth with 107 points, and India and England are just behind on 106 points. If India win the series, they will climb to fifth, with 107 points, and Pakistan will go down to 106. If Pakistan win, they will go to 108, with India slipping to 105. If the series – and the final match, of course – is tied, then the status quo will be maintained. Australia, of course, head the table, with a mammoth 135 points.Meanwhile, South Africa will stay in second spot in the Test rankings even if they lose the third match to New Zealand. However, their rating of 113 points will drop to 108, and they will be just two points ahead of New Zealand, who will jump to third position. If South Africa win, though, they will remain comfortably placed at No. 2 with 112 points, while New Zealand will only be on 101.Australia’s victory against Sri Lanka at Kandy ensured that they would maintain a healthy lead over the rest of the field regardless of the outcome of the third Test. Even a defeat in Colombo would leave them with 125 points, as many as they had when they started the series, while a win would boost the tally to 127.

Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore believes the confidence gained from his sides’s nail-biting win against West Indies will pave the way for a Sri Lanka win against South Africa.The match is another must-win game for both teams. If Sri Lanka win they will top Group ‘B’ and qualify for the Super Sixes knocking South Africa out of the competition.If Sri Lanka lose, they can still qualify provided they have a better net run rate than New Zealand with whom they will be fighting for third place.Whatmore said that his team can still qualify even if they don’t win tomorrow’s match. “But that’s not our first objective,” he said.”We had a terrific match a couple of days ago at Newlands and it’s given a lot of confidence to our guys. It was a tough and a tight match. It’s always nice to win the tough ones. If any team has to do well in the World Cup, it needs to play big games like this. We are very confident,” said Whatmore.”It is a very important game for both sides. The only thing that I am concerned with is having our team continuing to play some fairly good cricket. That will be the case tomorrow night,” he said.Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya said that his side no longer had to worry about the bouncy pitches.”We have been playing well and won most our games in South Africa. Tomorrow is just another international game and we have just to go and play it like we did the other day,” said Jayasuriya.He said that although South Africa had a better record against Sri Lanka it was all in the past. “It’s a new game tomorrow,” said Jayasuriya.He said that it was important to bat first on this pitch because of the difficulties faced by the side batting second so far in the tournament.Jayasuriya said that it was rather unusual for the Kingsmead pitch to have so much of grass on it. If that is the case, it will certainly favour the South African seam attack.Jayasuriya concern is his middle-order batting which he said would make a come back at any moment.

There were angry shouts from spectators as Warwickshire’s CricInfoChampionship Division Two game against Derbyshire lapsed into frustration and bloody-mindedness before ending in a draw, which served neither county’s best interests.Derbyshire needed victory to ease their plight at the bottom of the table and Warwickshire to improve their chance of promotion but the loss of 75 minutes of play at the start of the day effectively ruined the chance of a positive outcome.Derbyshire, 165-runs ahead overnight and with eight wickets standing, needed to make runs quickly to get the arithmetic right for an equitable declaration but Warwickshire frustrated this hope with defensive fields and the outcome was an attritional day.”We might have been able to come up with something if Warwickshire had played ball a bit but as soon as we started getting after the bowling they put two sweepers on,” commented Derbyshire’s cricket manager Colin Wells.Warwickshire could reasonably argue that the loss of in-form batsman Dominic Ostler, ruled out for the rest of the season with an elbow injury, limited their scope for contriving a result but there was precious little sympathy for either team from spectators.When drinks were taken in mid-afternoon one man yelled: “Get on with the game you bloody loafers” and there were more jeers when the game ended with Derbyshire declaring at 435-5, a lead of 396.Graeme Welch added an innings of 64 – his best for Derbyshire – to figures of 5-53 against his former county and Luke Sutton also took full advantage of an assortment of occasional bowlers to score 110 not out, his maiden first-class century.

Sajid Mahmood has told the BBC that he believes it is only a matter of time before England players put the Indian Premier League ahead of representing their country.”A lot of people on the circuit are saying the IPL is the way forward,” Mahmood said. “My aim is and always has been to play for England, but if you’re not getting in the side the IPL is a big carrot.”He said that two IPL franchises had approached him but, so far, he had rejected their overtures as he still has ambitions to play more for England. “That’s the reason why I got into cricket in the first place and the desire is still burning brightly. I’m only 26, I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me in the game, and it would be great to spend those years representing my country and taking wickets … [but] if things don’t work out, the IPL is a massive draw. There’s a hell of a lot of money on offer out there and a cricketer’s career is a short one.”There’s not much I or anyone can really do at the moment, though, with the way things are. My aim is by the end of this year, three-quarters into the season, to be back in the England side. If not then I can start having a chat and see about looking at my options.”Mahmood’s comments come a day after Ravi Bopara said that he had turned down IPL offers. Last month, Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, sent a clear message that players would not be allowed to join the IPL if it impinged on the English season, but that stance appears to becoming increasingly isolated and risks causing a showdown between players and board.”If players can go out there, benefit financially as well as test themselves against the top players in the world, they can come back better for it,” Mahmood told the BBC. “It’s only three or four weeks out of the season.”