KARACHI, 14 March 2007 — Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf has refused to be photographed for a special World Cup campaign launched by a major sponsor of the team and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The cellular company Mobilink is running a big campaign with members of the Pakistan team for the World Cup with Yousuf conspicious by his absence.
A spokesman for the company which has a contract with the board and players said Yousuf had declined to be photographed.
“We photographed the entire team but Mohammad Yousuf requested not to be photographed for his personal reasons,” Omar Manzoor told Reuters yesterday.
Yousuf, who converted to Islam from Christianity two years back, has become a staunch Muslim, growing a beard and following Islamic teachings.
“It is a personal decision of Yousuf and we can’t interfere in someone’s religious beliefs,” said Saleem Altaf, board director, cricket operations.
England Join iPod Revolution
• In Gros Islet, St. Lucia, England’s cricket team are using an extra player to give them the edge in the World Cup — an MP3 player.
Coaching staff have started loading bowling actions on to players’ handheld iPod electrical gadgets so they can analyze both their own and opposition techniques.
The dull Caribbean wickets mean England’s usual swing and seam attack must come up with new ways of getting batsmen out, such as bowling slower balls and off-cutters. England bowler Liam Plunkett has been glued to the tiny iPod screen as he tries to learn some tips ahead of their opening Group C clash with New Zealand on Friday.
“I have to practice the next few days but it will be right for Friday,” he told reporters yesterday. “My swing has been taken away from me.”
Gayle Is World Cup’s
First Victim
•In Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies opener Chris Gayle was the first wicket to fall at the 2007 World Cup when he was dismissed off the second ball of the third over against Pakistan. Gayle edged Umar Gul to wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal for just two with the total on seven at Sabina Park here.
New batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan was then dropped first ball by Younis Khan in the slips also off Gul.
Cummins Returns After 15
Years for Second World Cup
•In Gros Islet, St Lucia, paceman Anderson Cummins will become only the second man to play for two teams in the World Cup if he turns out for Canada against Kenya today.
The 40-year-old Barbadian-born fast bowler featured for the West Indies in the 1992 tournament and thought his chances of appearing in another World Cup had long gone.
But after moving to Canada in 1996, he became involved in local cricket there and worked his way on to the national team for this year’s showpiece, allowing him to return to the Caribbean where he is hoping to spring some surprises.
“We recognize that playing to our potential can get us a place in the second round,” he said last week.
Kepler Wessels played for Australia in the 1983 tournament before captaining his native South Africa in the 1992 event after they were readmitted to international sport following the end of apartheid.
Graeme Hick, who played for England in the 1992 edition, was in the Zimbabwe squad for the 1983 Cup but was not picked for any matches.
Cummins is also one of only five players to feature in a squad at the 1992 and 2007 World Cups. He joins illustrious company with Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Inzamam ul-Haq the other names.
Fast bowler Cummins played five Tests for West Indies between 1993 and 1994 and amassed 63 one-day caps, the last of which came in a day/night match against Australia in Melbourne in 1995.
However, he is probably best remembered for a game he was not selected for.
In the Barbados Test against South Africa in 1992, the Proteas’ first back in the international arena, West Indies picked Kenny Benjamin ahead of him leading to uproar among his native Kensington Oval crowd.
Many boycotted the match and a sign reading “No Cummins, No Goings” has entered Caribbean cricket folklore.
Cummins, two months from his 41st birthday, is a long way from the player he was in 1992 but he is eager to prove he deserves his place in history.
MCC Graduates Set for
World Cup Role
•In London, it may not seem as if there is much of a link between Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the owners of London’s Lord’s Cricket Ground, and the ninth Cricket World Cup.
But six players who’ve come through MCC’s longstanding Young Cricketers scheme will be representing five different countries at the sport’s showpiece event in the Caribbean.
Those who’ve followed a similar path to that trodden by such cricket greats as the late Denis Compton and Ian Botham to make it to the West Indies are England wicket-keeper Paul Nixon, New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor, the Irish duo of Will Porterfield and Kevin O’Brien, the Netherlands’s Daan van Bunge and Bermuda’s Steve Outeridge.
MCC head coach Clive Radley, the former Middlesex and England batsman who is in charge of the Young Cricketers program, said the presence of six players at the World Cup was a sign of the scheme’s enduring relevance.
“It’s very pleasing for MCC to see these guys representing their countries at the World Cup.
“The Young Cricketers program exists to pick up promising players who haven’t yet caught the eye of the (English) county academies.
World Cup Teams Skip Immigration and Escape Media Scrum
•In Frigate Bay, St Kitts, secrecy and tight security cloaked the arrival of four World Cup Group A squads in St. Kitts.
Champions Australians, top-ranked South Africans and minnows Scotland and the Netherlands all touched down on the small eastern Caribbean island on one flight at 1930 local time (2330 GMT).
The players were whisked off the airport runway in buses and, without passing through immigration, ferried to their hotel.
Staff at the hotel where all the squads are staying, the St Kitts Marriott Resort, refused to give waiting reporters any details on their famous guests’ arrangements.
“We’re operating on a need-to-know basis, that’s all I can say,” was all that security guard Bevern Huggins would tell Reuters.
‘No Blindfolds’ “To be honest, we weren’t quite sure where we were being taken to or where we going,” South African manager Mickey Arthur told reporters later.
“But there were no blindfolds and no secret passwords either.” Other guests at the hotel watched with bemused bewilderment as the players and their partners swept into the complex.
“I know nothing about cricket, but I’m pleased that I’m bolting out of here in two days’ time,” Alex Spoov of Miami, Florida, told Reuters.
Fellow guest Brian Simons of Fort Myers, Florida, thought the added security amounted to overkill.
“You probably need more security at a Nascar race, where the crowd gets pretty rough and rowdy, than you need to take care of this,” Simons told Reuters.
“Cricket is an elitist, genteel game, isn’t it?”
