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Wasim Bari, Pakistan’s interim chairman of selectors, has said the batsman Imran Nazir would have been an automatic choice for the ICC World Twenty20 in England had he been a selector at the time the squad was being picked. Nazir joined the Pakistan exodus from the rebel ICL to make himself available for national selection - his ICL team-mate Abdul Razzaq got the nod - but missed out.

Angelo Mathews who made a name for himself playing for Sri Lanka in the ICC World Twenty20, has said his intentions of shaping into a genuine allrounder motivated him to focus more on his bowling. Mathews capped a run-heavy domestic season with a call-up to the Test squad - for the first time in his career - in the series against Pakistan and is now eyeing the third seamer’s slot in Galle, the venue of the first Test.

“Kumar Sangakkara wants me to improve on my bowling and if I play I could be the first-change bowler,” Mathews told Cricinfo. “[Chaminda] Vaas has been helping me a lot.”

Sunil Gavsakar has joined the debate over the IPL by saying young players should aim for the India cap instead of being lured by the riches of the league. Various influential cricket figures, including India’s coach Gary Kirsten, have warned against the rising importance of the IPL in world cricket.

“Today, parents are encouraging their children to take up cricket as a career option because of the IPL and the amount of money it provides. But the worrying factor is far too many youngsters see IPL as the be all and end all,” Gavaskar, a member of the IPL’s governing council, said while delivering the Dilip Sardesai Memorial Lecture in Mumbai.

There is very little that Australia captain Ricky Ponting has failed to achieve in his distinguished career, either as an individual player or as a leader.

There is, however, one major achievement that has eluded him - captaining his country to an Ashes series win in England.

Ponting will get the chance to rectify that over the next few months and he cannot hide his excitement.

“It’s something very dear to my heart,” he recently told reporters in Australia.

Ponting is undoubtedly one of the greatest batsmen to have played the game and could well finish up as the leading run-scorer of all time when he finally retires.

Sri Lanka has stepped up security for the visiting Pakistan team and slapped new restrictions at match venues, officials said on Wednesday.

Fireworks, musical bands, glass bottles, tin cans, sharp objects, laser pointers and mirrors have all been banned from the grounds where the matches are slated to be played.

“Other than national flags of Sri Lanka and Pakistan, no banners, posters and discriminating slogans will be allowed,” Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said.

The series comes about a month after Sri Lanka ended a bloody, four-decade ethnic war against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad warned the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday that any experimentation with Test cricket will prove to be counter-productive.

Responding to reports that ICC president David Morgan has floated the idea of having four-day Tests, Miandad feared that such steps would achieve little other than ruining the traditional format of the game.

“To have four-day Tests played with coloured balls and under floodlights will be the sort of experimentation which Test cricket doesn’t need,” said Miandad, regarded among the greatest batsmen of all time.

Runako Morton the West Indies opener, has impressed in the two ODIs against India in Kingston and has attributed his performance to his positive outlook. Morton followed up a fluent 51-ball 42 in the series opener, which the hosts lost by 20 runs while chasing 340, with an unbeaten 85, guiding his team to a comprehensive series-levelling win. Morton was not included in the West Indies squad for the ICC World Twenty20, but had no trouble settling into form against India.

England captain Andrew Strauss has issued a stern warning to Andrew Flintoff after the allrounder was disciplined for missing the team bus during a trip to the World War I trenches in Ypres. Strauss said he would be strong enough to drop Flintoff from England’s Ashes team.

“Fred is always under pressure when he comes back and I feel for him in that respect,” Strauss said. “He’s obviously a big player for us and there’s this circus that goes on around him. He was very aware he had stuffed up, he took it on the chin and apologised to everyone concerned. It was a very sincere apology and we move on.”

Former title-holders Scotland host Canada as this season’s ICC Intercontinental Cup gets underway in Aberdeen.

Scotland have made eight changes to the squad that toured England for the ICC World Twenty20, leaving Gavin Hamilton out of the four-day fixture with Gordon Drummond appointed captain. The wicketkeeper Colin Smith has retired and Kyle Coetzer, Dewald Nel, Navdeep Poonia, Glenn Rogers, Craig Wright and John Blain also miss out. They have been replaced in the 12-man squad by wicketkeeper Simon Smith, left-handed batsman Qasim Sheikh, wrist-spinner Moneeb Iqbal and an uncapped 19-year-old allrounder, Ewan Chalmers.

Mahela Jayawardene has said Sri Lanka’s home series against Pakistan from Saturday will be a bigger challenge for him after giving up the team’s captaincy early this year because he now wants to push himself “to the limit” as a batsman. Jayawardene has discussed his new role with Kumar Sangakkara, his successor, and will focus on holding Sri Lanka’s batting together and improve its disappointing home record against Pakistan.

The former Sri Lanka captain admitted that leading a subcontinent team, with all the passion involved, was not an easy job and hoped to emulate the manner in which Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have managed the transition after giving up the captain’s role to contribute better as batsmen for India.