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An aggressive lower order batsman and a great fast-medium bowler, once considered to be the likely successor of Ian Botham, former England cricketer Chris Lewis was found guilty by the Corydon Crown Court for allegedly trying to smuggle about 4.4 kilos of cocaine into the country.

He was stopped last year in December at the Gatwick airport by the UK border agency official. During the routine checking of the flights it was discovered that Lewis was in possession of a Puma sports bag that contained pure cocaine dissolved in fruit tins. Although he claimed to have no knowledge of the contents of the bag and of the fact that cocaine could be dissolved he along with Chad Kirnon a 27 year old former basketball player of Carnegie Street, who was travelling with him were promptly arrested. The drugs found in Lewis’s possession had a street value of about 200000 pounds.

This 41 year old player who appeared in 32 test cricket matches and 53 ODI’s from 1990 to 1998 was denied bail and finally convicted of the charges levelled against him. Judge Nicolas Ainley adjourned the sentencing that was to be awarded to Lewis and asked the jurors involved in this case to continue pondering over Kirnon’s case. Lewis continued to deny the charges and claimed to no nothing about the entire incident but overwhelming circumstantial evidence proved to be the final nail in his conviction.

It is a pity to see a talented player like Chris Lewis who might have been among England’s cricketing legends go to waste.

Accredited with many remarkable performances, Andrew Flintoff a member of the Lancashire County Cricket Club as well as the Chennai Super Kings was injured during one of the IPL matches. Injuries are quite common in a rigorous game and it came as no surprise that the 31 year old player had injured himself. According to reports he suffered a torn cartilage in his knee. His present state indicates that he would have to be operated on and would definitely not be playing for England in their upcoming matches.

The Indian Franchise had to spend 1.5 million dollars to procure Flintoff. This trade turned out to be quite a disaster as he was able to take only 2 wickets and score 62 runs from a total of three appearances. His knee injury forced him to retire early and head back home. The only cricket he will be playing in the mean time is Cricket Wii. Flintoff came under some criticism due to the fact that his present unfit condition will prevent him from being a part of the English squad that is all set to face Australia in the upcoming Ashes. He defended himself saying, “There was always going to be people commenting about it. But it wasn’t one incident that did it. It was a gradual thing that had built up over time. I would have been playing for Lancashire had it not been Chennai in the IPL, so this would have happened.”

Currently in a rehab Flintoff would be completely fit to play the Twenty20 World Cup in June. Hopefully by then he would not only have recovered but also moved to the top of his game.

After getting re-elected as the Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Giles Clarke has emphasised the need of appointing an independent advisor for guiding and helping in deciding the sponsorship deals in future. This is the fall out of Giles Clarke, Chief executive David Collier and ECB coming under tremendous firing for their association with Stanford after the outbreak of Sir Allen Stanford disgraced financial scandal involving the $8bn alleged fraud.

There has been a lot of criticism on the strength of “due diligence” focusing only on ability of payment rather than considering other factor in case of the Stanford deals. Clarke confessing that these procedures needed a serious re-thinking and said involvement of independent consultants and audit team members who also work independently has become imperative.

He further added that not only for cricket but for sports in general this was a major issue which had to be tackled in a more professional manner. Checks and balances at various levels have to be made taking into account a larger perspective in this increasingly complex world.

However he said this did not require any re-structuring of ECB but only appointment of independent entity was required who could act as advisors on all the issues relating to the national teams (including the optimum utilisation of the team), sponsorship deals, and protecting the image of the sporting events in general. Already English cricket has lost a major sponsor in the form of Vodafone, with products like the Vodafone V830i slider mobile phone, as early as December of 2008. It appears that the aftermath of the Stanford association may continue to haunt Clarke and as a result of this one can definitely expect many events and decisions to come in the near future that may bring change to the cricket in England.

The England Cricket Board has confirmed that Tim Ambrose will replace Matt Prior as wicketkeeper on Thursday when England goes to play the fourth Test Match in Barbados against West Indies. This decision has followed the decision of Matt Prior to go back home after on the birth of his first child who has arrived earlier than was anticipated.

Prior had earlier decided to let go the final test match in Trinidad which is scheduled to start on 6th of March but will now come back in good time for the test. Prior’s decision to come back from the tour has given rise to a debate on the professional and personal issues. Central contracts with players do have paternity leave provisions which will also apply in cases of touring contracts. Huge Morris, England Cricket Board’s managing director said that they already had a contingency plan for the test match at Trinidad, but there are also provisions in place for special set of circumstances under which in the past also permission have been granted to players to be present with their wives and Matt Prior’s permission is within the provisions.

However the contingency provisions cover the desire of attendance at the time of birth which is not applicable in this case as Prior’s departure is after the safe arrival of the baby. So questions are being raised that with Andrew Flintoff’s absence due to hip injury and England at a crucial stage requiring a win in both of the other two test matches left for winning the series, Prior could have postponed his return for 10th March when he there will be 10 days available for the One-day series to begin. Still, we understand Prior’s desire to be with his newborn baby and we know that the BT baby monitor 150 obviously doesn’t work across countries, so it is good for Prior to be with his child. Anyhow Prior’s departure is Tim Ambrose’s arrival who had earlier replaced Prior a year ago in New Zealand, but lost it back as his batting which was a key for his promotion fell apart last summer. Therefore let us see whether he can make a real come back at a time when England really needs it.

The “England and Wales Cricket Board” has finally decided to ratify Giles Clarke as Chairman for next couple of years. The former chairman of Somerset, Giles Clarke was under tremendous fire for his alleged association with Sir Allen Stanford, Texan billionaire after the latter was charged by the US authorities for financial fraud.

Fifty five year old Clarke faced continuous calls to step down from the post of Chairman, but showed tremendous determination and boldly faced the opposition. He tried to justify his position as regards to the fiasco of the five year agreement of ECB with Stanford.

With this ratification, Giles Clarke will hold the office of the Chairman till October 2011. This was done by the 41 member team of ECB consisting of 21 county boards, 18 First- Class counties, The Minor Counties Cricket Association and the MCC.

Lord Marland from Odstock who was the single rival for this post also withdrew even before the close of the election as he was badly trailing in the election race. The timing of withdrawal proved to be very lucky for Clarke as the Stanford revelations became public only after Lord Marland had withdrawn from the election race. No cricket coach or players have really expressed their frustration with the Stanford cricket scandal, but it is clear Clarke has to reestablish his lost reputation caused due to the embarrassment surrounding Stanford deal, which has to now be called off. The deal was executed to compensate the earnings of the leading players of England for non-participation in the Indian Premier League due to International commitments. This has resulted in a humiliation for the ECB, Giles Clarke and David Collier the Chief Executive of ECB.

The disappointment on the face of Andrew Strauss, captain of England cricket team was quite apparent when he admitted that failing to defeat West Indies in the third Test match by the slightest of margins was not less than a feeling of getting defeated. He further added that when one is so close in winning the match and cannot overcome the final hurdle, it becomes very difficult to accept the result and you get a feeling as if you have lost the match.

The England team could not succeed in breaking the final partnership of Fidel Edwards and Daren Powell of the West Indies. In spite of the fact that they had about 34 minutes of play time to take the final wicket for winning the match, they were forced to accept the match as a Draw just after the clock struck 6 pm on the “Antigua Recreation Ground” and the gloom on the evening of Thursday set on the English players as they walked back to their dressing room with the feeling that it was just not their day with Lady Luck being on the sides of the West Indies. The final result would even be unexpected if one were playing International Cricket Captain 2007 on the PC, however, for the West Indies to draw with England so closely in real life is truly impressive. However he also mentioned that once you get over the emotions, and look back in a positive perspective you find that you played some outstanding cricket. He further hoped that the momentum has been shifted away from the home team in the series and if they keep on improving, they are sure to win the series.

The final day of the test match started with England requiring seven wickets and gave a victory target of 503 runs to the West Indies. For over seventy five minutes wet weather held up the play and possibility of victory did not look good as Guyanese and Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul kept on up to the 37th over of the day but Stuart Broads success in breaking the fourth-wicket partnership and after tea some continuous successes were just short of getting a victory in the match.

He also admitted that winning a test match is tough and with the wicket not deteriorating as expected on the final day, he did not hold the bowlers responsible for this draw and remarked that it was a day when events did not go their way.

It is a time to rethink and for introspection by the England cricket authorities on the possible repercussions and the future plans of English cricket after the allegations of fraud on Sir Allen Stanford have come to light. The authorities are still wondering on how and why this infiltration into the game of cricket happened.

England and Wales Cricket Boards’ chairman Giles Clark is under a lot of pressure from various factions of society. After his confession that it was a mistake of the ECB to have links with the Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, he has been facing a lot of calls asking for his resignation. Stanford was responsible for organising and funding the Stanford 20/20 Cricket league in the West Indies, as well as for constructing the cricket grounds for the league in Antigua. Stanford is a major benefactor for West Indian cricket, giving teams equipment, like the Adidas Twenty 2 Yds Lite mens cricket shoes, funding stadiums and organising matches. Lord Marland who had tried for the Chairmanship of ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) but could not succeed mentioned that it was sheer humiliation for ECB on the issue of a proposal of joint venture with Stanford for a Twenty20 tournament to be organised after their futile attempts with Australia, India and Africa. Similar statements have also come from the chairman of “Leicestershire County Cricket Club” Mr. Neil Davidson.

ECB chairman Giles Clark had earlier confirmed that the talks over the possibility with Mr. Stanford for a joint venture tournament had been halted. Further after the US “Securities and Exchange Commission” has filed charges against Allen Stanford and other individual including his company, the ECB and West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) have also halted various other proposals under consideration on other tournaments.

However Mr. Giles Clark is expected to come out with an argument that due diligence was carried out regarding investigating Stanford‘s ability to honour his pledges to pay up the money, although this has not been made clear whether the investigation of the source of the money was carried out or not.

On the fourth day of play at the St. John’s, Antigua a test match between England and the West Indies, Andrew Flintoff had suffered an injury to his right hip, which forced him to have an anti-inflammatory injection on Wednesday. The next day saw him still suffering where he just managed three over with difficulty.

The English team has a target of 503 runs to win to make the series 1-1, but without the assistance of Andrew Flintoff. As a gesture of goodwill and appreciation to Andrew, English fast bowler Steve Harmison requested team mates to put in that extra effort and achieve victory for all rounder Andrew Flintoff.

Steve Harmison further added that all knew the pain that he was going through and it would be nice if victory was achieved for him even though he has not carried up the bowling line up. He needed the other lads to do their stuff and collect those seven wickets. Bowling under illness is not easy, it takes courage and shows character of a person to go out on the field and perform for his mates. England has to take out seven pins with the help of their bowling team on day 5. The Cricket team is confident that they can do it, although the two big guns Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul are still at crease. The idea will be to send one of them back to the pavilion early in the morning which in turn will apply pressure on the others as they come along.

The second day began where the first day left off, England had a fantastic game with Paul Collingwood making his eight test hundred to add to a massive total of 566 for eight wickets.

The day saw Collingwood making a total 113 runs whilst his team mates also helped in the mounting total. Kevin Pietersen who came in from the previous day made 51 runs, Stuart Broad made 44, Matt Prior securing 39 runs and Graeme Swann who was not out with 20 runs to his credit.

West Indies saw Jerome Taylor taking two wickets for 73 runs in his bowling spell of 28 over. Fidel Edwards managed to acquire two wickets giving away 75 runs from his 26 overs that he bowled. Finally the last wicket taker that caused some damage to the British was Ryan Hinds who also got two great wickets of his 22.2 over spell while giving away 86 runs.

West Indies came in to bat after the declaration with Chris Gayle and the Indies captain Devon Smith as openers. Gayle began his excellent cricketing taking his score to 30 before he was caught at mid-off.

So at the end of day two at St. John’s we saw England declaring at 566 for eight with Paul Collingwood earning his eight Test hundred and the West Indies team while making a slow start managed to reach 55 runs for the one wicket of Chris Gayle. West Indies legends Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards will probably not be pleased with Windies performance, although at least this time around the Antigua stadium field was in better condition.

I am completely glued to the on-going Test series between England and their hosts West Indies. And reasons for this are far and varied. Being a fan of the English cricket team I was excitedly looking forward to this tour and was hoping for a lot of positive happenings especially after England’s disastrous tour of India and the KP-Moores fiasco.

And I must tell you the experience so far has been very interesting and surprising. To add to the 1st Test’s unexpected results, the 2nd Test at Antigua is turning out to be far more interesting from the word go. The match was to be played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. But the turn of events within the first ten balls was very shameful as Sir Richards also pointed out, “This is like an arrow in my heart. I’m ashamed.”

Still wondering what went wrong? Well, as it turned out, the run-ups on the heavily sanded outfield were just too dangerous for the fast bowlers. After ten bowls were bowled, the bowlers had to stop. And within a couple of hours it was decided that match will restart the next day at the Antigua Recreation Ground. Must be another record of sorts I think.

As for the poor grounds men, they started digging up a trench so as to lay a new turf which could hopefully be prepared for the next day’s match. I appreciate their efforts but the administrators have now become a laughing stock. The grounds men could clearly use some professional equipment like the Husqvarna LT151 lawn tractor, as well as show some more professionalism with doing their job. And lots of people are feeling sorry for the sorry state of affairs at the Antigua Cricket Association.

The West Indian legend Sir Richards was very upset at what happened there. A cursory look at some of the phrases and words he used would help you get the clear picture. He used words like, ‘ashamed,’ ‘not a rural match,’ ‘not a curried goat match,’ ‘dropped the ball big time,’ ‘appalled,’ etc.

I can really feel for his anguish at the whole ‘fiasco’ (as Julian Hunte, president of West Indies Cricket Board called it) and I know there are millions of cricket fans all around the world who also feel the same way.