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Middlesex have announced that Shaun Udal will deputise for the injured Ed Smith for the remainder of the season. Ed Joyce has led the side in the absence of Smith for most of the summer, skippering them to their inaugural Twenty20 Cup title in July, but he has held talks with his paymasters to discuss his long-term future at the club.”It’s a huge honour. We have a lot to play for during the remainder of the season, and we will be fully focused on winning our remaining fixtures,” Udal told the club’s website.Vinny Codrington, Middlesex’s chief executive, added: “In addition to Shaun’s appointment, we are pleased to report that Ed Joyce had a meeting with Ian Lovett, the club chairman, and myself, where Ed wished for more time to consider his long-term future, but stated that he is totally committed to helping the club for the remainder of the year. Following the meeting, Ed has our full support.”Middlesex’s triumph in the Twenty20 Cup – which also handed them entry into the inaugural Champions League – appeared to mark a watershed in the club’s fortunes, but it has masked other problems. They have struggled in the Championship (two wins in 13 matches), where they lurk in the bottom half of Division Two, and are second from bottom in the Pro40.Joyce’s decision to relinquish the captaincy owes much to his wavering form, and it has yet to be confirmed whether he will stay at the club. In addition, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, has approached Dawid Malan, who has been Middlesex’s find of the season. Nick Compton, meanwhile, has been linked to Somerset.In better news, however, Owais Shah committed his long-term future to Middlesex, while Angus Fraser and Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, are on the short-list for the newly-created position of managing director.In a statement, the club reiterated that “Toby Radford [the coach] has the full confidence and support of the players and the committee”.

The highs…

Levelling the series in 2003

The reins were passed over by an emotional Nasser Hussain to Vaughanin 2003, but his tenure began poorly with a thumping innings defeat atLord’s against South Africa. However, England’s new captain showed anearly indication of the steeliness that would eventually characterisehis style of leadership, as England bounced back at Trent Bridge tolevel the series with six wickets from James Kirtley. South Africaagain stole the lead at Headingley but they couldn’t finish Englandoff at The Oval. With Alec Stewart retiring, Marcus Trescothickcracking 219 and Graham Thorpe making a riveting comeback hundredafter his marriage breakdown, in levellingthe series at 2-2 Vaughan had begun to show that he had thecredentials to lead England to greater success. Gone was theunquenchable show of passion that Hussain showed; in came a calm,apparently laid-back but ferociously competitive new leader inVaughan, and England ended their summer on a surprising high.

Beating West Indies away

The Caribbean had been an impregnable fortress for England captains,but the old world order was utterly reversed. England didn’t sneak awin here and there; Vaughan’s side dominated them throughout, but forthe small matter of Brian Lara nudging 400 all on his own. Vaughan hada young team bristling with ability and fearlessness, with a bowlingattack who were brilliantly coached by Troy Cooley. Steve Harmison’scareer zenith of 7 for 12 propelled England to a 10-wicket win inJamaica, bowling with all the venom of one of West Indies’ greats,while Matthew Hoggard grew in confidence and Andrew Flintoff became somuch more than a useful change bowler. West Indies’ fortress cametumbling down at Bridgetown. Vaughan had a four-man pace attack andaggressive, fearless batsmen – the winning nucleus that formed part oftheir Ashes-winning team of 2005.

A golden summer

It wasn’t just the fact England broke a record that was set in 1885-88and 1928-29. 2004 was a summer of unforgettable attraction, ofattacking batting and skilful bowling and a confidence in their gamethat English cricket had lacked for so long. England won seven Testson the trot and 10 in 11 matches. Eight batsmen totalled 13 centuries.Harmison, so impressive in the West Indies a few months previously,was consistently venomous and a genuine spearhead for Vaughan. For ateam once allergic to winning, England had forgotten how to lose.Andrew Strauss cracked a hundred on debut against New Zealand andbatted with an authority belying his total inexperience. But it wasthe growing maturity of Flintoff that changed Vaughan’s team frommerely challenging sides into walloping them. A brutal 167 sunk theWest Indies at Edgbaston, and Vaughan began to shake his head inpart-disbelief part-excitement at the cricketer he had the fortune ofcaptaining. England were utterly in sync; Vaughan translated his silkybatting into equally elegant leadership.

Beating South Africa away

After an unforgettable summer, England, with one eye on the Ashes thatwould follow, took on South Africa in their backyard. Strauss, whomade his debut in the preceding summer, continued his prolific scoringand cracked 126 and 94 as England won the first Test at PortElizabeth. But South Africa fought back with Shaun Pollock and NickyBoje bowling them out to level the series at Cape Town. This Englandside, however, had courage and belief: Strauss registered his thirdhundred of the series and Hoggard’s memorable 7 for 61 enabledEngland to take a lead at Johannesburg. It was their 12th win in tenmonths and their first at The Wanderers in 48 years.

England regain the Ashes

The 2005 Ashes was hyped like no other. Here was a team mentally readyto take on Australia, equipped with a brace of quality fast bowlersand led with ferocious determination by Vaughan. It began predictablyenough with a hammering at Lord’s, but the early signs in the firstTest were that England wouldn’t die wondering. Harmison rattled JustinLanger and cut Ricky Ponting’s face during his 5 for 43, and Englandimmediately bounced back at Edgbaston in a spectacle that lit up thesummer. Sneaking home by two runs, England were led by a man unafraidof taking Australia on head-to-head, with seemingly the entire countryroaring them on. Vaughan’s 166 at Old Trafford nearly gave England a series lead, but that would have to wait until Trent Bridge where Ashley Giles and Hoggard nudged England over the line. England held off Australia at The Oval, and Vaughan found cricketing nirvana tobecome the first captain to win an Ashes series since Mike Gatting in1986-87.

The lows…

The most famous knee in the land

Along with his wry grin and dry humour in adversity, injuries were ever-present for Vaughan throughout his tenure, but never more so than after the 2005 Ashes. He missed the first Test against Pakistan later that year before he was ruled out for the entire 2006 season. His absence generated an increasing uncertainty over his future which manifested itself in England’s decline in form, not to mention their floundering panic in finding a replacement skipper. Marcus Trescothick was tried in Pakistan. Then Strauss was given a go the following season in place of Flintoff, the preferred choice of the management but he too was ruled out with injury. None of Vaughan’s replacements could match his authority and natural propensity as a leader of men. And though he eventually returned, England were roundly beaten at home by India before losing to Sri Lanka in their back yard. Another home series defeat to South Africa in 2008 was a loss too far.

Ashes absence

If the hype to the 2005 Ashes was spirited, the return match 18 months later was arguably even greater. Tickets were sold out months in advance and Australia, chastened after their 2005 humiliation, were a side ravenous for revenge. Vaughan was no less desperate to ensure the urn wasn’t handed back submissively, as though England had been its temporary babysitters, but in fact that was exactly what happened. Vaughan’s dodgy knee ruled him out of the contest in June, some four-and-a-half months before the kick-off, and although he and the ECB made occasional hopeful noises of a shock return, he was never likely to make it. He watched Flintoff become the latest in a long line of England captains to wear that painful, forlorn face of exhaustion and humiliation, as Australia cracked a 5-0 whipping of rare savagery. Not even Vaughan could have prevented the flogging, but to witness Flintoff’s drop in form and slip from grace was to realise England’s golden era had come to an end. “In eight years in the England team, that was as low as I have ever seen players feel,” Vaughan said when he briefly returned in the following one-day series. He might as well have been talking of himself.

India’s Indian summer

With winning comes expectation: the expectance from a passionate country of supporters, from the players themselves but mostly it is generated by the captain himself. Vaughan expected to beat India in 2007, but this was the beginning of the end. He had resigned from the one-day captaincy after England’s horrific World Cup, but to lose a Test series at home? That was a far greater pain. A country renowned for its swing bowlers were outswung by an Indian left-armer, but the cause of defeat lay in England’s own misguided belief that all would be well. Somehow, they’d win. The fiasco of the England players scattering jelly beans on the pitch upset Zaheer Khan, yet it was evidence of a growing unease in the England camp that they were no longer winning as expected. It was India’s first series win in England since 1986, but this didn’t kick Vaughan and co from their complacency as quickly as hoped.

Was it all really worth it?

Following their defeat in Sri Lanka, England’s demise continued in New Zealand. They won the series, but only after losing the first Test by 189 runs with a performance of tragicomedy proportions. New Zealand set them 300 to win in the fourth innings and they folded meekly to 110 all out in 55 overs of abject, awful batting. It was disappointing to say the least, but the form was depressingly consistent in terms of what England’s batsmen had produced since the 2005 Ashes. Only a couple of months earlier, they had collapsed to 81 in Galle – an insipid, 1990s performance. In fact, England were beginning to resemble a crock of Nineties Nearlies all too frequently, and though Vaughan’s batting had shone in patches since his return from knee surgery, he too was failing with the bat. Were the three knee operations really worth all this, far greater, pain?

One too far

And the walls came tumbling down. The similarities between Vaughan’s departure and that of his predecessor, Hussain, are unbearably canny. It was five years ago almost to the day that Hussain handed over the reins. Like Vaughan, he had been at the mercy of Graeme Smith: not merely as an opposing captain, but as a batting, battling captain. On both occasions, two heavy innings from Smith have forced England’s captains out of a job, which says rather more about South Africa’s leader than it does about England’s. Nevertheless, this was one series too far for Vaughan. He managed 240 runs in his last six Tests as captain – the last 40 of which were scraped together in three Tests against South Africa, as Dale Steyn repeatedly sent shock waves through a worried nation when he bowled England’s captain with straight yorkers. His team were lost; the selections (Darren Pattinson being the most acute example) awry. South Africa clouted them at Headingley and were too powerful and unflinching at Edgbaston, winning their first series in England since 1965. Never before had Vaughan looked so beaten, so tired. A man of principle, this was the right time to go for himself, if not necessarily for his team. Then again, replacing a country’s most successful captain is not a mantle anyone can really prepare for.

Almost three years late, the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association has finally elected a new board, paving the way for the overdue Cricket Kenya elections.The NPCA saga has blighted Kenyan cricket for several years with a virtually dysfunctional board failing to holding meetings or produce accounts. The failure to implement a new constitution, as agreed back in 2005, led to a postponement in national elections. The new NPCA executive now has 60 days to put their house in order.Bipin Vora won the vote to become the new chairman by 29-19, while other officials appointed include: Nilesh Lakhani (vice-chairman), John Moyi (secretary), Harshes Patel (assistant secretary), Kalpesh Solanki (treasurer), Shashikant Sanghani (assistant treasurer), Shahid Bwibo (fixtures secretary), and Michael Kibe (assistant fixtures secretary). The committee is completed by Rajesh Patel, Seiffudin Maloo, Oduor Ambala and Sheikh Najani.Rumours that former KCA chairman Sharad Ghai would mount a comeback bid amounted to nothing. He did not even attend the meeting.

The current method adopted for verifying the age of cricketers has come under scrutiny from the ICC’s medical council, which met in Dubai recently to discuss a variety of issues that impact the performance of an athlete.The topic of cricketers’ legitimate age has long been debated, especially in the subcontinent, with India and Pakistan doing exceedingly well in age-group tournaments like the Under-19 World Cup.At the moment a player’s age is determined by using X-rays, a method the five-member panel thought was absolutely unscientific. “Presently X-rays of the growing ends of the bone or the dental X-rays are used to determine the player’s age which was unanimously turned down by the committee. The margin of error can be as much as one or two years”, Dr Anant Joshi, the Indian representative, told Cricinfo.The alternative, the committee recommended, was to go by verification of authentic papers like the passport, date of birth certificate and any other relevant papers at every possible instance. Joshi, who is also the BCCI’s medical consultant, said discrepancies could take place using this method, too, but it was a much better procedure.The other major concern the committee discussed was the drug-testing methods in the subcontinent. “Drug-testing methods at least in the subcontinent are not to the mark and we don’t have any WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] approved testing procedures in place,” Joshi said. “India doesn’t have a facility which is as organised as it should be.”In addition to discussing the revisions – the ICC’s members will need to make to their anti-doping codes in light of the new WADA code which comes into effect from January 2009 – the committee recommended that further consideration should be given to cricket’s current testing strategies outside of major ICC events.The recently-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) drew up an anti-doping code based on the WADA code. But the fact that the IPL was a domestic competition and the BCCI has no anti-doping law in place, it meant the testing sanctions would be irrelevant if a player would’ve tested positive.”[In] any event that is approved by the ICC [it] will be mandatory to carry out random doping tests,” Joshi said. “If the ICC wants WADA approval then they will have to enforce drug testing as part of the process.” According to Joshi setting up a drug testing facility according the WADA standards is “extremely expensive” but he said New Delhi “might have a drug testing facility soon”.The packed international schedule has prompted the ICC to become more stringent, trying to maintain world standards with regard to player testing. The nandrolone issue surrounding Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, during the previous Champions Trophy, only highlighted the importance of addressing the problem.The medical panel felt the best way to start educating people and laying down rules was to begin at the grassroots. “For the testing procedures to be enforced at the world level without telling the grass-root player the implications of the taking a particular drug or a test is wrong because if he isn’t aware he could be caught and disqualified for no fault of his.”It might not be an intentional abuse of the drug; it might be instead an accidental abuse as his doctor might not have known that particular drug shouldn’t have been prescribed. So we felt the need to educate players and cricket bodies starting at the grass-root level.”The committee was chaired Dr Peter Harcourt, a prominent expert in sports medicine, and also included Dr Nick Peirce, Dr Akshai Mansingh, andCraig Ranson [a physiotherapist].

Nathan Hauritz has not given up hope of playing for Australia and adding to the one Test cap he earned in 2004. Hauritz has moved states and remodelled his action since taking five wickets against India in Mumbai and is preparing for another season with New South Wales.”The burn and desire is there, so strong,” Hauritz told the Sydney Morning Herald. “The dream is to get back there and play for Australia again.” Beau Casson, Hauritz’s state team-mate, has been promoted to the Test team and if he gets more international opportunities it will open the door for Hauritz to try to impress for the Blues.After his Test he was cut from the national team and later in the season was dropped by Queensland, which eventually led to his move south. “I went back to first-class cricket and thought: ‘I’m a Test player, I should be able to get these blokes out.’ My focus was all wrong.”How quickly it was taken away from me, being part of the Test set-up, it was a massive reality check for me. Not that I took it for granted, but I was happy with my action and the way things were going.”After struggling for wickets he worked out he needed to alter his technique. “Coming to New South Wales, you get to speak to a lot of guys and it changed it for me,” he said. “At Queensland it felt like I was just petering out.”The thing I realised was that you can only control the controllable – your own form. If you are doing everything you can, then whether the selectors pick you or not is up to them, but at least you know you could not have done any more.”

Canterbury have made no changes to their side for the latest State Championship match against Northern Districts starting at Rangiora on Thursday.The State Wizards team convincingly disposed of Otago and will be looking to continue their impressive start in this second match before their international players leave the side for the remainder of the summer.After dismissing Otago for 209 in the first innings, Canterbury went on to compile a massive 393 in reply. Otago could only muster 183 in their second innings, resulting in a resounding win to Canterbury by an innings and one run.Wizards coach Michael Sharpe was pleased with the successful start to the season and is confident it will continue into the next match.”The guys were fizzing after the win and are keen to emulate their performance against the Northern Knights.”Due to a nagging side strain, Wade Cornelius was not considered for re-selection. Warren Wisneski was again unavailable due to the delayed arrival of his second child.The State Canterbury Wizards team to play the State Northern Knights from December 5-8 at Dudley Park, Rangiora is: Gary Stead (captain), Nathan Astle, Shane Bond, Chris Cairns, Brendon Donkers, Andrew Ellis, Chris Harris, Gareth Hopkins, Chris Martin, Craig McMillan, Michael Papps, Paul Wiseman.

Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore refused to panic after his side’s crushing innings defeat at the hands of South Africa on Sunday.Sri Lanka lost by an innings and 64 runs inside three days, their seventh defeat in 12 matches against the South Africans.But Whatmore tried his hardest to look on the bright side: "There is no point in getting too emotional about this defeat. There were some real positives and we have to put South Africa under more pressure next time.""We bowled them out for 386 despite all the extras and Ruchira (Perera) being forced out of the attack. With a little bit more effort in the batting department in the first innings, we could have been in a position to put pressure on them in the second innings – batting got harder and harder as the match progressed."Sanath Jayasuriya defended his brave decision to bat first on a lively pitchthat offered the South African seamers plenty of movement on day one."I have no regrets," said Jayasuriya. "I thought we had a good opportunity when we won the toss but we failed to score the runs that we had expected."He couldn’t hide his frustration with his wayward bowlers: "The bowling was very disappointing. We bowled on both sides of the wicket. All the South African bowlers bowled in the right areas."South Africa skipper Shaun Pollock was delighted with his team’s performance, their fourth consecutive Test victory."We got on top very early and kept up the momentum," said Pollock. "We had alittle bit of a hiccup in the middle of the order, with a few loose shots,but Jacques (Kallis) came through for us.""They were always on the back foot after we got that lead and wickets often fall quickly when a side is under pressure like that."Our bowling was very good, especially on the day when we kept up the pressure after being a little bit unlucky in the morning. You have to be disciplined in the bowling department to win Test matches and that was an area we had identified for improvement."Pollock said he would have bowled first if he had won the toss: "We were always going to bowl first after we picked five fast bowlers – that was our game plan. There was some assistance on the first day."Man of the match Jacques Kallis, who took three crucial middle order wickets on the first afternoon and then scored a painstaking five-hour 75, believed his partnerships with Mark Boucher and Pollock were crucial."It wasn’t one of my prettiest innings but it was one of those days that we had to graft. The partnerships with Bouch and Polly were crucial, taking the game away from them – we didn’t want to bat last on that wicket."