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England’s bowlers won’t have problems repeating their Ashes success in this year’s series in Australia, bowling guru Troy Cooley said on Monday.

But Cooley, who has begun work as Australia’s fast bowling coach after three years developing England’s pacemen, said it might be a different story for England’s batsmen in the Ashes series, getting underway in November.

Cooley, who was credited with perfecting the art of reverse swing with England’s pace attack of Steve Harmison, Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff during last year’s Ashes series in England, said Australian conditions won’t be a problem for England’s seamers. “They (England) have got some nasty fasties. They’ve got bounce and things like that,” Cooley told reporters in Brisbane on Monday. “They’ll work very hard to make sure they are ready to come across here and play.”

Akshay Gaikwad lost his father, a sepoy with the Mahar Regiment, to an insurgency attack in Nagaland, just a week after his first birthday on July 21, 1995. It’s nearly 11 years now, Akshay does not remember his father’s face but wants to fight for India, on the cricket pitch.

Till a few years ago, deep inside Maharashtra’s Satara district, Gaikwad Jr’s dream would have remained just that. Today, nobody can dare dismiss it. Not after Irfan Pathan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Munaf Patel … Vadodara, Ranchi, Ghaziabad, Bharuch.

England cricket team’s captain Michael Vaughan will have to wait a while longer before making his comeback from injury. Vaughan has not played since being forced home from the tour of India in February by a persistent knee problem. But there had been reports suggesting that having resumed training with Yorkshire, he would play in the County Championship clash with Kent at Canterbury starting on Wednesday.

“Not so,” said Yorkshire’s Director of Cricket David Byas. “Michael won’t be playing. There has been talk of him coming back this week but that’s absolute eye-wash,” Byas said. “Quite when he’s going to be back, I’m not sure – I can only say he’s making progress.”

Monty Panesar, the first Sikh to play cricket for England, has said he never imagined that his first Test wicket would be master batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

“It (getting Tendulkar out) was beyond my imagination – I never dreamed of taking his wicket as my first Test wicket,” the spinner said.

The Northamptonshire left-armer was drafted into the touring side to India after Ashley Giles was unable to make the trip due to injury.

“Playing against the Indians and interacting with them was a good learning experience,” Panesar said.

Sri Lankan cricket team’s coach Tom Moody was in relaxed mood on Tuesday despite coming under fire from newly appointed chief selector Asantha de Mel just days before the first Test against England here at Lord’s.

“I’ve lodged nothing,” said Moody, denying reports coming out of Sri Lanka that he’d made an official complaint.

De Mel branded the Australian “more of a strategist” than a coach and said the former international all-rounder had not done enough to help individual players with specific technical problems. He also told AFP in Colombo that veteran batsman Sanath Jayasuriya had been forced to retire although he blamed his predecessor, Lalith Kaluperama for the former Sri Lanka captain’s exit.

The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said its finances were on a good wicket after clinching commercial sponsorships for the sale of television rights and ongoing tournaments.

Net profits for 2005 were 356.97 million rupees (35 million dollars) compared to a loss of 321.53 million rupees (32 million dollars) in the previous year. The governing body of the island’s most profitable and popular sport saw its total income jump to 881.78 million rupees (88 million dollars) from 280.09 million rupees (28 million dollars) in 2004. “Nearly 80 percent of our revenues came from selling television rights,” the SLC Finance Manager Upali Seneviratne said.

Pakistan will play a total of 54 Tests and between 117 and 143 One-day Internationals (ODIs) between 2006 and the first half of 2012 according to the new Future Tours Programme (FTP) released by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Surprisingly, despite all the complaints about players being exposed to international cricket for most part of 2008 and 2009 Pakistan will play just eight Tests and 16 to 22 one-dayers.

In 2008 after hosting Australia in January-February, Pakistan then organise the ICC Champions Trophy in September the same year and then host India for three Tests and five ODIs from December onwards the same year.

The absence of injured Sachin Tendulkar from India’s squad will be a big loss for spectators in the Caribbean as the team arrives in the region for a series of five matches, West Indies captain Brian Lara said.

“I think it is unfortunate because we are all entertainers. The public would have loved to see Sachin,” Lara said as his team trained on Thursday in preparation for its final two matches in its current series against Zimbabwe.

“He’s going to be here for the World Cup hopefully, but any opportunity to see him would have been great for the public,” Lara added.

India’s explosive opening batsman Virender Sehwag says he is ready to rein in his free-swinging style and take on a more responsible role for the sake of the team.

The 27-year-old Delhi player believes that would provide a platform for India’s talented crop of newcomers to improve further ahead of next year’s World Cup.

“I’m a senior member and vice captain so I have to just change my batting style,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“Sometimes the team demands I should bat until 25 or 30 overs, sometimes they want me to bat the way I (usually) do,” he said. “Definitely, I will adapt to the situation quickly now.

Pressure. pressure. hmm, let me think. For a guy who talks the same way he bats straight and hard, it was a difficult question to answer. The word that most cricketers dread is alien to Mahendra Singh Dhoni. And after much thought, finally comes out with a single-liner: ‘Will to succeed when conditions are adverse.’

At present, everything is going right for the Jharkhand cricketer in India, the success on the cricket field is directly proportional to the number of commercial opportunities and Sunday morning was yet another opportunity. Dhoni was signed up by NDTV for a period of one year during which he will be a part of special programmes, interviews and views aired on the channel.