Sports Briefing

The Ittefaq daily reported that unofficial instructions had been sent out in major cities to suspend classes for the Bangladesh-New Zealand Group B match which will be telecast live.

Most schools and colleges were almost deserted during the opening World Cup match between England and Sri Lanka on Friday, sources said.

The Protham Alo daily said fans in Pirojpur, angered by a long power blackout on Sunday, staged street protests and warned power personnel they would be publicly stripped if there was a repeat.

Local officials immediately urged their bosses to ensure uninterrupted power from the national grid to save them from humiliation, the paper said.

No earpiece

LEICESTER: Coach Bob Woolmer, whose experiment with earpiece on the field was plugged out at Hove on Saturday, wants to wire the whole South African team for sound.

“Given a choice, I would see all 11 players wearing them,” Woolmer was quoted in media reports as saying.

South Africa will not appeal against the ban on the use of radio earpieces, put into operation for a while during their opening match against India, but they intend to use them at home next season and then present a case for legalising them to ICC.

They are also not to press ICC for permission to use it for their next World Cup game against Sri Lanka at Northamptonshire on Wednesday.

Quiz for visa

COLOMBO: Sri Lankans applying for British visas to watch the World Cup tournament have to undergo a cricket quiz as part of the screening process, British High Commission officials said.

They said the questions, which include the countries taking part, venues and other matters related to the tournament, were to ascertain whether applicants were bona fide cricket fans.

Some 600 Sri Lankans had applied for visas by last week and there had been only 25 rejections, the officials said.

Waugh warns

WORCESTER: Australian captain Steve Waugh said crowd pitch invasions were damaging the World Cup and reiterated his warning that a player will soon be seriously injured.

Waugh was speaking after his team had beaten Scotland by six wickets in their opening match at Worcester’s leafy New Road Ground, deep in rural middle England.

The noisy 5,200 crowd had been well-behaved but two male streakers — allowed to parade their wares unchallenged for three minutes — and a post-match invasion which saw several players mobbed left Waugh worried for his safety.

India bowler short

LEICESTER: India has some wonderful batsmen but it is a bowler or two short to win the World Cup, says Imran Khan, former Pakistan captain.

Relying on Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly to bowl also may by putting too much of a burden on the two outstanding batsmen, said Imran, who led his country to Cup victory in 1992 in Australia.

Column watch

GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA: Australian players writing newspaper columns during the World Cup are to have their articles vetted.

The move follows the row over a piece by Shane Warne in last week’s London Times when he said the sport would be better off without Sri Lanka’s World Cup captain Arjuna Ranatunga because of his on-field behaviour.

Warne was swiftly reprimanded, fined and handed a suspended two game-ban.

Australian cricket board chief executive Malcolm Speed said after a board meeting: “Shane and the other players who are writing columns have been directed to provide a hard copy of any proposed article to the team manager and if he’s not happy with it, it would be rejected.”

Tamils peeved

CANBERRA: Tamils based in Australia have condemned Sri Lanka cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga as a racist following his reaction to Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne’s scathing attack on him in a British newspaper column.

Warne was fined and put on a suspended two-match ban by the International Cricket Council for “bringing the game into disrepute” in a column in Friday’s The Times newspaper.

But Tamils, whose community has been fighting for independence in Sri Lanka for almost two decades, say Ranatunga’s reaction was racist.

Scot scourge

ARBROATH, SCOTLAND: The mother of the Scottish cricket captain George Salmond has slammed the BBC for failing Scottish fans with its live television broadcast of Sunday’s matches.

After less than two hours of play in Scotland’s World Cup debut against Australia at Worcester, the BBC switched its broadcast to Bristol for a match between Pakistan and the West Indies and later to a golf tournament.

Christine Salmond, who chose to stay at home and watch the game on television with her sick husband, said she didn’t see any of her son’s innings — a well-played 31 against the highly experienced Australians.

“I will never forgive…the BBC,” she said. “They didn’t show a single minute of George’s innings.”