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At 9.30pm tonight, England’s cricketers depart from Heathrow Airport to embark on the biggest challenge of their sporting lives – the Ashes series in Australia. Already, their ignominious exit from the Champions Trophy has been consigned to the dustbin of history, as Andrew Flintoff and his squad prepare to focus on the five Test matches that could make or break their reputations.”It’s going to be incredible,” Flintoff told The Sun on the eve of his side’s departure. “Our win last summer was the first time I’d experienced The Ashes and it was an amazing, emotional roller-coaster. But this series it is likely to be even bigger and tougher because we’re in Australia. It’s a fantastic prospect for everyone on the trip.”Flintoff was England’s leviathan in last summer’s epic triumph, scoring 402 runs and taking 24 wickets to secure the narrowest of 2-1 victories. He is now the captain of the side as well, taking over where Michael Vaughan left off, and is relishing the challenge of leading the team out at Brisbane on the morning of November 23, a date that has been etched on his brain for months.”I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what it will be like leading out England in those matches. There’ll be all the attention, all the spotlight, all the rivalry and all the history. Of course I’ve thought about it — and it gives me a tingle. I’m chomping at the bit to get started.”It has been a race against time to get Flintoff fit for this tour, after his 2006 season was disrupted by a long-standing ankle problem that required further surgery. But he had a decent work-out during England’s Champions Trophy campaign, spending some time out in the middle in the final match against West Indies and bowling five decent, if rusty, overs to boot.Even so, he will remember only too well his traumatic experience on the last Ashes tour in 2002-03, when he arrived unfit after undergoing a hernia operation, and was forced to fly home without playing a single Test. “It was a pretty miserable time for me,” he conceded. “But I’m fortunate to have another chance and I’m going to relish that rather than thinking what might have been.”I’m not one for making big statements or predictions but we’re going down there in a confident frame of mind. We’ll have to play well to succeed, probably even better than we did in 2005. But we have lads who can perform at the highest level. I believe we have a good chance.”England arrive in Sydney, via Hong Kong, on Sunday afternoon, where they will enter into a maelstrom of publicity as the Australian public gear themselves up for a massive contest. “I don’t know if the series can be as good as the one last year,” said Flintoff, “but one thing I know is, it will be very tough and competitive.”England open their tour with a one-day game against an Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Canberra on 10 November, followed by three-day games against New South Wales and South Australia.

The office of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 has expressed disappointment with the situation which has seen cement shortages across the Caribbean affecting preparation for the tournament. Don Lockerbie, the venue development director for the tournament, said the Caribbean was “let down” by the cement industry and called for something to be done immediately to `rebuild the situation’.”The Cricket World Cup office is very seriously monitoring the situation and we have made demands to the Local Organising Committees as to the nature and seriousness,” Lockerbie said. “We are aware of the shortages – there were shortages in nearly every territory. I am personally quite surprised that the industry could let down the region, when in the region of (US) $300 million has been invested in this project. The stadium development for the tournament deals with cement and blocks should have been a major one on everyone’s agenda.”Lockerbie said that the Cricket World Cup has called for reports from all the nine countries – with 13 stadiums, which will be hosting matches. He said Jamaica and Guyana have been the worst hit, but other countries also faced difficulties.The other countries hosting matches are Barbados, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.Lockerbie said the situation was especially worrying as the senior assessors from the ICC will be touring the venues at the end of April to determine readiness.”Here we are, one month before the ICC’s tour, and the time where I wanted to see the greatest progress, is now hampered by an industry we needed the greatest help from. It’s a major let down,” Lockerbie said.”At this point it’s not unsolvable, we are far enough along and we hope the tournament is important enough that the Cricket World Cup project and the stadium development will be given priority, but this is an annoyance.”

Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium will not be hosting any of the matches of the Indian Premier League after the league and Reliance Industries, owners of the city franchise, found unacceptable the conditions imposed by the Cricket Club of India (CCI), to whom the stadium belongs.The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) had enquired whether the CCI could stage matches at the Brabourne; the CCI’s executive committee decided to offer the ground but not the clubhouse and the club members’ children’s enclosure.These conditions were unacceptable to both the IPL and Reliance Industries Limited, the owners of the Mumbai franchise, since the agreement between the franchise and the IPL states that 80% of all categories of seating must be available to the franchise, and the remaining 20% to the concerned local association, in this case MCA, the BCCI, and the IPL.”If the [club] members are not able to watch the match, we won’t have it. It’s an inherent right of the CCI member to watch the match and not pay for it and this is mentioned in the by-laws of the club,” Raj Singh Dungarpur, the CCI president and former BCCI president, said. Hosting future international matches, he said, would not, however, be an issue.”There is no confrontation between us, our issue is that just the staging authority wouldn’t be able to watch the match and that’s not right. There is no misunderstanding and we will continue to host matches for the board [BCCI].”The move puts the MCA in a quandary, since the local associations are responsible for finalising the stadiums for the eight city-based franchises of the IPL. Mumbai is slated to host a total of ten matches, including the seven home games of the Mumbai Indians, and more importantly the semi-finals and final of the inaugural edition. The Brabourne Stadium had been tipped to host the semi-finals and final.However, with it being ruled out, the options left are the DY Patil Stadium and the Wankhede Stadium; renovation work scheduled for the latter may now have to be postponed till the end of the IPL.

ScorecardSussex chipped away at Sri Lanka A’s first innings score of 225 on the second drizzly day at Hove, with Richard Montgomerie notching a solid 52.Resuming on 39, Montgomerie bought up his fifty but shortly after was trapped leg-before by Gayan Wijekoon, the left-armer, who was economical during his 11 overs in conceding 25 runs.Michael Yardy was still there, however, nudging and chivvying Sussex past 150 while sharing in a useful third-wicket stand of 50 with Luke Wright. While Yardy was distinctly pedestrian in his anchor-like 46, Wright took the aggressive route and clobbered five fours in his 36 before Kaushal Lokuarachchi trapped him lbw.Lokuarachchi, the 25-year-old legspinner, then removed Michael Thornley shortly before the rain curtailed the day’s play. With more rain forecast, and the match entering its third and final day tomorrow, there seems little chance of a result.

Bermuda travelled to Africa for the Intercontinental Cup finals in a confident and optimistic mood, but they will return home deflated after a semi-final defeat by Ireland and losses to Namibia in two highly unsatisfactory one-dayers.The form book suggested that Kenya would be too strong for Bermuda, themselves something of a surprise package in the finals, and so it proved, although Bermuda’s batting came through with flying colours. The problem was the bowling, although on shirt-front pitches bowling Kenya out twice was never going to be easy, and a skewed points system meant Bermuda were up against it from the moment they lost the toss.After going out of the competition, Bermuda played two one-dayers against Namibia, but there was a climate of hostility throughout, and this spilled over in the second game when Gus Logie, the coach, withdrew his side from the field in protest at three successive bouncers aimed at tailender Kevin Hurdle by Kola Burger.The sides clashed during the ICC Trophy in Ireland in July, and the anger was quick to resurface. Both coaches took swipes at the other. Logie accused the Namibians of dangerous play and said that they were sore over failing to qualify for the World Cup, while Andy Waller, his opposite number, said Bermuda were cry babies who did not deserve to their own spot at the event.The first game on Thursday had already been tarnished after accusations by the Bermuda players that they had been racially abused by the Namibians, and the umpires were forced to step in. It was much the same on Saturday.But the scene grew almost farcical when Burger peppered the No. 10 Hurdle with bouncers, even though Bermuda were staring at inevitable defeat. The first was called a wide by Roger Dill, Bermuda’s umpire, and the second as a no-ball. Dill then warned Burger for intimidatory bowling. When Burger quite deliberately sent down another short-pitched ball, Logie had had enough and called the batsmen off. As they milled around, a number of players could clearly be seen arguing and one unnamed Namibian player had to be restrained by his team-mates. The post-match press conference was lively.”We are in the World Cup, they are not and that is their problem,” said Logie, who was obviously livid. “If they have a point to prove and think they can prove it by bowling like that against our No. 11 batsman then I am not just going to stand by and watch. I did call them off and I did it for their own safety. This is a practice match and I am not going to put my players at risk.”Waller was equally blunt. “It is just not acceptable for this type of match and I’m not happy about it. You’d expect a bit more from a team who are meant to be preparing for a World Cup. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years in cricket.”And then, warming to his task, he slammed the Bermuda side and warned them that they better be ready for more of the same. “I can’t see why they are getting upset at that sort of bowling … this is a guy bowling at 130 kmh, and teams in the World Cup are going to be going a lot faster than that. If they can’t handle this, they are really going to struggle. There was some talk about sledging and some complaints from some of their guys but, again, they have to be able to handle that. It’s a part of cricket and it is something they are going to have to deal with if they are going to play in international matches.”By this time, Waller was in overdrive, and he had a swipe at Bermuda’s fitness.”I just don’t think these guys look like they are prepared to compete at this level. You only have to look at these guys to see they are not yet ready to cope with the demands of this level of cricket … they have a lot more work to do on the fitness front.”The Bermuda Cricket Board backed Logie’s decision and added that there would be a full investigation. The Namibian Cricket Board declined to comment until it had all the facts in front of it.