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India’s Corporate Affairs minister Salman Khurshid has said the government has so far not uncovered any “serious” non-compliance issues the IPL franchises may have allegedly committed under the Companies Act 1956.”I have no reports from the Registrar of Companies and I don’t think there is anything serious on the compliance issue. If there was something serious, then I would have been the first person to know it,” Khurshid told the .However, the Registrar of Companies is yet to submit its final report on the matter, so Khurshid could not definitively rule out any violations. The ministry is also waiting for the enforcement directorate’s report on the IPL, though that investigation has a limited mandate, according to Khurshid.The minister also said that if there turned out to be minor infractions of the Companies Act that did not amount to criminal offences, then the errant teams would be given the opportunity to correct those mistakes.Khurshid’s comments are in contrast to statements made by the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on finance, Yashwant Sinha, who said the teams were guilty of violating the Companies Act. The committee recently questioned senior bureaucrats over the delay in the investigation of the source of funds for IPL teams, with Sinha asking why “the agencies [had] failed to gather information on the source of funds used for bidding for franchises.”The government began investigating the IPL after its suspended chairman Lalit Modi questioned the shareholding pattern of the Kochi franchise on Twitter. The ensuing furore led to the resignation of Shashi Tharoor as minister of state for External Affairs and the suspension of Modi from the BCCI. Since then the corporate affairs ministry has been gathering details from IPL team owners about their ownership structure and funding arrangements.

The manner and nature of Pakistan’s squad selection for this summer’s tour to England has come under fire from members of the selection committee itself, who are unhappy with the Twenty20 and Test squad, claiming they weren’t consulted over the composition.The squads were announced on Sunday by the board after a meeting between chairman of selectors Mohsin Khan, coach Waqar Younis, manager Yawar Saeed and captain Shahid Afridi in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, where the Asia Cup is underway. Cricinfo understands that the remaining selectors in Pakistan were not involved or consulted at all in the choices.A couple of key inclusions in particular – the recall of Yasir Hameed and Wahab Riaz and the overlooking of Younis Khan and Mohammad Sami – seem to have irked the selectors who are thought to have been against the decisions had they been consulted. The snub from the chief selector has led at least one of the selectors to ponder handing in his resignation.One of the selectors claims he wasn’t contacted until just before the announcement was made and that too only to be asked about the statistics of a player under consideration. The chief selector, it is claimed, wasn’t prepared enough in the first place to make the selections. Mohsin, still in Sri Lanka, has not spoken to the media yet about the squad.The squads’ composition has also been criticised for lacking experience, particularly in the batting; the overlooking of Younis is a case in point. Banned indefinitely in the aftermath of the Australia tour, Younis was one of several players whose punishments were subsequently overturned on appeal.But over the last couple of weeks the sense has emerged that the board will not let him back in unless he apologises for what they deem to be his mistakes, as the other returnees have done. Ijaz Butt, chairman of the board, said last week that Younis’s return would require clearance from the board, an issue that wasn’t deemed to be an issue at all with Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and the Akmal brothers.”I feel Younis has been victimised,” Iqbal Qasim, the former chief selector who resigned from the post in February after the Australia tour, said. “He fought his case and was outspoken against the treatment and was dropped.”The absence of Younis and Mohammad Yousuf – who retired from international cricket in protest at his indefinite ban – from the 17-man Test squad robs an already fragile batting side of their two most experienced and successful Test batsman. The pair have scored nearly 30% of Pakistan’s Test runs since October 2004 and almost half their Test hundreds.Even with the pair Pakistan have crossed 300 in a Test innings only 11 times in their last 30 attempts. Now the most experienced batsman in the middle order in their absence is Malik, who has played 29 Tests without fully cementing his spot in the side and is not a certain Test starter in any case. Imran Farhat, with 33 Tests, is the most experienced specialist batsman in the squad.Javed Miandad, director general and regular critic of the board, was also left asking questions about the selection and the manner of it. “An England tour is always a difficult one and we’re playing good teams,” he told . “The conditions are such that you need experience because even they will be troubled, so new, inexperienced players also struggle. In the middle order there is no one to play a Test match innings. One or two experienced guys were necessary for the balance of the side, but apparently even the selectors here didn’t know about the team.”Miandad said he would brief the patron of the PCB, President Asif Ali Zardari, on the matter. “The president is a cricket lover, he encouraged me to take up the job in the PCB for the betterment of the game,” he said. “He must know what’s wrong in the PCB.”Former captain Rashid Latif said that, along with Younis, Sami, Faisal Iqbal and Khurram Manzoor also deserved a place in the squad. “I respect the selection but four players – Younis, Sami, Iqbal and Manzoor – deserved places in the team,” said Latif.

Jack Clarke, Cricket Australia’s chairman, will be more cautious in his dealings with India following its role in dismissing John Howard as the ICC’s vice-presidential candidate in Singapore. Australia has developed an increasingly strong relationship with the BCCI, including developing the Champions League Twenty20, but the board was part of the group that blocked Howard’s passage.A frustrated Clarke said India wasn’t the only country to oppose the joint recommendation of Australia and New Zealand at the meetings in Singapore over the past two days. However, the decision by the ICC’s board to request another candidate has altered the environment.”You hope it doesn’t affect your relationship but it obviously puts a block there for a while and makes you wary, I suppose,” he said. “But we have to deal with all the member countries of the ICC … We’ll have a board meeting in October and there’s no point not rolling up.”Zimbabwe and South Africa were the original opponents to Howard’s nomination, raising their protests outside an ICC meeting in Dubai in April, but a group of six members signed a letter on Tuesday night expressing their desire to veto the recommendation. The list didn’t include Zimbabwe, but India’s strength allowed them to bring Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on board, highlighting a return to the days when the Asian and African countries voted en-masse.Despite seeing Howard “knocked off” by the alliance, Clarke refused to say the enormous power of the bloc was unhealthy for the future of the game. “In any business model where a company has 75% of the income it is not an ideal model, but that’s not India’s fault they do that,” he said. “With distributions that go to all the countries, [India] earn it and distribute it evenly among nine of the Test-playing countries and the Associates.”It is a powerful bloc, it’s a reality of life. But you’ve also got to remember that until 1992 Australia and England had a power of veto [in ICC meetings].”There is a strong feeling that if India had supported Howard he would have had no problems in becoming the deputy to Sharad Pawar, the incoming ICC president. “I can’t speculate about that,” Clarke said. “I’ve been on the board for 18 months, been to seven meetings, I think the bloc vote that was once there before my time doesn’t exist at the same level.”A BCCI source told AFP there was “nothing personal against Howard”. “But we do accept the argument that only a man with previous experience in cricket administration should head the ICC. Howard was not involved with Cricket Australia at any time.”

Match Facts

Thursday, May 13, St Lucia
Start time 1130 (1530 GMT)Angelo Matthews was Sri Lanka’s man of the match against India and his allround threat could unsettle England•AFP

The Big Picture

While England have not made the final of a ICC global tournament since 2004 Sri Lanka have been beaten finalists in both last year’s World Twenty20 and the 2007 World Cup.Yet ahead of the match it’s England who are the more bullish having topped their Super Eights group with three comfortable wins. They are on the verge of fulfilling their transformation that began after losing 5-1 to Australia last summer. Gone is the stuttering top order hoping to ‘keep wickets in hand’ and in its place is a fearless line-up led by two dashing hitters at the top and followed by the classiest middle-order pair of the tournament, Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan.Sri Lanka, on the other hand, looked unsteady to begin with but have found increasingly assurance as the tournament went on. Mahela Jayewardene’s graceful striking has completely carried Sri Lanka’s batting – his 292 runs are more than anyone else in the tournament and over double the next highest Sri Lankan tally of 123 from Kumar Sangakkara – but they showed they could perform without him when they beat India. Nevertheless how England’s nagging fast-medium attack fare against Jayewardene could well determine the outcome of the game.

Form guide (most recent first)

Sri Lanka WLWWL
England WWWNL

Watch out for…

Craig Kieswetter has fizzed without quite exploding yet in this tournament. But on the slow pitch his Michael Clarke-like twinkle-toed approach could see England off to a lightning start.Suraj Randiv has stepped into the place vacated by Murali’s injury and, with Ajantha Mendis’ mysteries all but revealed, he has become Sri Lanka’s leading spin weapon. They may be tempted to open the bowling with him after seeing Michael Lumb’s dismissal to Johan Botha when South Africa adopted the same tactic.

Team news

Kevin Pietersen returns just in time after seeing the birth of his first child and will replace Ravi Bopara. Throughout the tournament Ryan Sidebottom has looked set to miss out for England’s supposed attack-leader, James Anderson, but the selectors have refused to change.England (probable) 1 Michael Lumb, 2 Craig Kieswetter, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Luke Wright, 7 Tim Bresnan, 8 Graeme Swann, 9 Michael Yardy, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 Ryan Sidebottom.Sri Lanka have been far less settled through the tournament so far. Mendis missed out against India but could return for an England side less used to him.Sri Lanka (probable) 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Mahela Jayawardene, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt, wk), 4 Dinesh Chandimal, 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Sanath Jayasuriya, 7 Chamara Kapugedera, 8 Suraj Randiv, 9 Ajantha Mendis, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Chanaka Welegedera.

Pitch and conditions

England may have adapted well to the conditions against New Zealand in their last game, but the slow and low surface in St Lucia will suit Sri Lanka. Their batsmen proved a touch shy of the pace and bounce in Barbados but will be much more comfortable here.

Stats and trivia

• Sri Lanka won the only T20 encounter these two sides have played before. Way back in 2006 at Southampton, in a game where Tim Bresnan, England’s best bowler this tournament, made his T20 debut.
  

  Quotes

  “Life is not exactly a hardship at the minute, you know?”
  Tim Bresnan keeps things in perspective.”We would love him to play. He’s a top quality spinner, and England have probably played him once.”
  Kumar Sangakkara would love to play his mystery spinner, but won’t quite confirm he will.

The fast bowler Ryan Harris will replace the injured Brett Lee in Australia’s 15-man squad for the ICC World Twenty20, the ICC has confirmed. Lee suffered a muscle strain in his right forearm while bowling during the warm-up game against Zimbabwe in St Lucia.”During yesterday’s game against Zimbabwe, Brett developed increasing right elbow pain and by the time he completed his final over the pain was significant,” Alex Kountouris, Australia’s physio, said. “At the conclusion of the innings it was obvious Brett had sustained an injury to one of the forearm muscles near the elbow and this was confirmed by a subsequent MRI scan.”Due to the condensed nature of this tournament Brett will not recover in time to take any further part and has therefore been withdrawn from the squad. This is not a recurrence of the elbow injury that recently required surgery but a new injury that will require specialist opinion upon his return to Australia.”Harris and the left-armer Doug Bollinger were the front-runners to replace Lee and the selectors preferred Harris, who had a very successful summer against Pakistan at home and later in New Zealand. Harris had a successful tournament for Deccan Chargers in the IPL this year, when he took 14 wickets in 12 games at 16.64 runs.”While it is obviously disappointing for Brett, this gives Ryan Harris a wonderful opportunity,” Andrew Hilditch, Australia’s chairman of selectors, said. “Ryan was very close to selection in the initial 15-man squad. He has been in excellent form for Australia in one-day and Test formats and during his recent stint at the IPL.”

The IPL governing council will conduct a fresh hearing into the case regarding Ravindra Jadeja, the Rajasthan Royals allrounder who was banned for the 2010 season of the league for allegedly violating the player guidelines, on March 25 in Mumbai. The hearing is being held after appeals from Jadeja and the two franchises involved, Rajasthan and Mumbai Indians, and will be chaired by Arun Jaitley, an eminent lawyer and head of the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association.”The IPL governing council has taken a decision to hear Ravindra Jadeja’s plea and will also listen to representations from the two franchises involved, namely the Rajasthan Royals and the Mumbai Indians,” Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said. Arun Jaitley will at the behest of the IPL governing council chair the hearing and arrive at a final decision on Ravindra Jadeja and the same shall be binding on all parties concerned.”The governing council had earlier banned Jadeja for one year on instructions from Shashank Manohar, the BCCI president, because he failed to sign the renewal contract with Rajasthan for the ongoing season and allegedly attempted to negotiate a new contract with Mumbai.

Otago and Central Districts kept up the push for a spot in the finals by squeezing out tight wins in the seventh round. Both sides are now tied on 26 points, ten behind leaders Northern Districts and six ahead of fourth-placed Canterbury.Central Districts’ wicketkeeper Bevan Griggs starred in their cliffhanger against Canterbury, slamming an unbeaten 51-ball 53 to power them to a one-wicket victory in New Plymouth with just two balls to spare. Adam Milne, the 17-year-old medium-pacer, had a debut to remember, holding his nerve to hit the winnings runs. The match looked to be heading for a draw after Mathew Sinclair fell for 76, leaving CD the big ask of 139 runs off the final 22 overs with six wickets in hand, but Griggs’ enterprising innings steered them to an improbable win.It had already been a topsy-turvy match, with Canterbury fighting back strongly from a first-innings deficit of 191 runs. They seemed to be hurtling to defeat when they slid to 94 for 4 in the second innings but a double-century from Shanan Stewart and 178 for Kruger van Wyk – the pair were involved in an unbroken 379-run sixth-wicket stand- propelled Canterbury to 551 for 5 dec, which ultimately didn’t prove enough to prevent defeat.Left-arm-spinner Nick Beard was Otago’s hero in their 24-run victory over Auckland at the University Oval, picking a career-best 6 for 107 to spark a late collapse – Auckland losing their final five wickets for 39 runs to stumble to defeat from a winning position. A 149-run opening stand between Jeet Raval and Tim McIntosh and a string of 30 from the middle-order took them to 294 for 5, only 66 away from victory, before Beard removed both set batsmen – Aaron Kitchen and Colin de Grandhomme – to snatch an unexpected win with five overs remaining.Otago had been in control for much of the match, after captain Craig Cummings’ 102 and an 86 from Sam Wells guided them to 387 in the first innings. McIntosh was among the runs in the first-innings as well, making 81, with Reece Young cracking an 80 before Auckland declared towards the end of the third day, despite being 149 behind. Otago motored along at nearly six an over in the second innings, Greg Todd’s 47-ball 66 being the highlight, before they declared on 208 to set Auckland a target of 358.

Nobody in their right minds expected this Test series to be competitive, despite the undoubted strides that Bangladesh have made in recent months, but the chasm that opened up on the first day at Chittagong was thoroughly and abjectly depressing.All tour long, Bangladesh have talked a good talk and they even fought a good fight during the one-dayers, never more impressively than during the second match at Dhaka, when only a super-focussed Eoin Morgan stood between them and an historic result. But today every ounce of bravado deserted them – with the ball, in the field, but most crucially of all, in the demeanours of the two most combative characters in their camp.Jamie Siddons and Shakib Al Hasan have been up and at England since the very start of the tour. It was Siddons who declared that his team intended to “bite England on the bum” after their decision to give Andrew Strauss a sabbatical, and while Shakib has let his cricket do most of the talking, he hasn’t been afraid to sound off when prompted, such as his declaration after Dhaka that Bangladesh were more interested in taking on the big guns of one-day cricket, rather than fret about England’s mediocre middle-rankers.It’s been refreshing, to be honest, to hear the small fry talking big, even when what they’ve been saying hasn’t quite stacked up in the final analysis. After all, confidence begets confidence, as Kevin Pietersen knows only too well. But today Bangladesh’s words and deeds were completely polarised by the reality that slipped in between them, and nothing reeked more of surrender than their decision to pack their team with spinners, and then bowl first on a shirt-front.”We thought we knew a bit about the Chittagong wicket, and we thought that it would spin on day one, and get flatter and flatter like it has in the past,” said Siddons. “In hindsight it was probably a bad decision.” But seeing as England had taken their gift-horse at face value and clattered along to 374 for 3 at the close, hindsight wasn’t really the most pressing of their problems.Of far greater importance would have been a bit of foresight, a bit of conventional wisdom, and a nod to the small matters of pride and body language – all of these factors surely demanded that Bangladesh front up and play the game according to Siddons’ often-mentioned “team rules”. As they showed at times during the one-dayers, the team has the ability to bat calmly and assuredly against an England attack that, in the coach’s own words, had not penetrated them to any great effect. By doing so, they could have set a platform for their spinners to attack.Of course that policy could easily have gone wrong – it goes without saying, this is Bangladesh and they have a record of L55, W3. But at least by doing so, they might have spared themselves the “what ifs”. Instead, the impression was of a team that had pulled its punches (just as they did in this same city when England last visited six years ago) and Siddons looked like the public the face of a broken dressing-room when he fronted up on behalf of his players in the post-match press conference.On the one hand Siddons blamed the pitch for failing to meet his ambitious expectations – and while it is true that, back in January, India were skittled here for 243 after being asked to bat first (with Shakib claiming 5 for 62), the X-factor in that performance had been Virender Sehwag’s dismissal of Bangladesh as “ordinary” and the righteous indignation that his comments had fuelled.There was no such whiff of cordite in the air today, only the vaguest ripple of interest in a disappointingly sparse crowd, and the team reacted to the atmosphere accordingly, with Shakib’s own return a mute 21-2-80-0. That said, it was hardly necessary for Siddons to trot out quite such a list of disclaimers afterwards, as he managed to shrug every ounce of blame onto the shoulders of the boys he professes to be nurturing.His fast bowlers, he said, “had let the team down”; his left-arm-spinning captain, he said, had been the one who wanted to bowl first (“and I’ll be supportive of [him]”), and suddenly his “world-class” four-man spin attack had been downgraded to “two genuine spinners and two part-time offies”. As support acts go, it was about as comforting as Duncan Fletcher’s declaration that he “wasn’t the only selector” on England’s disastrous Ashes campaign in 2006-07, except in Siddons’ case he didn’t bother to couch his criticisms in code.”Our strength is our spin, so it didn’t matter whether we bowled first or second,” he added, incongruously. “Our quicks weren’t going to be the answer on that pitch, and won’t be throughout the game, they won’t play a massive part.” A statement which begs the question, did they even try to exploit the moisture in the first half-an-hour, or wasn’t that even taken into consideration?”We’ve probably put ourselves out of the game, which we tend to do a lot on the first day or the first session of a game, unless we bowl terrifically in the morning, and even then we’ll have to bat the house down,” Siddons concluded. “I expect them to make somewhere around 500, and that’s if we bowl well. It’s been a difficult day, and only one team can win.”In all honesty, only one team has ever been likely to win this match and this series from the moment the tour began. But as Siddons himself has declared at length all month, his tenure is not about victories, it’s about making visible signs of progress. Today, however, Bangladesh were in full retreat before the match referee had retrieved his coin.

Ravindra Jadeja, who was banned from the IPL 2010 season for allegedly trying to negotiate a contract outside of Rajasthan Royals, has received support from Niranjan Shah, the IPL vice-president. Shah, also the president of the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA), whom Jadeja represents in domestic tournaments, said he would request the IPL’s governing council to consider the case.”We are hoping that everything will be fine in the coming days and Jadeja will be able to take part in the IPL3 for his franchise,” Shah was quoted as saying in the . “We will see if his ban can be reduced to a couple of matches and not for the entire tournament.”Earlier, Jadeja had pleaded his innocence saying that he had sought prior approval from the BCCI, before deciding to negotiate with other franchises. In his letter to the BCCI, reportedly written two weeks before Saturday’s ban, Jadeja said his contract with Rajasthan had expired on December 31, 2009 and that they did not give him any indications they were going to renew his contract.”It is my understanding that my contract with Rajasthan Royals has expired and they have not at any stage offered me a renewal for Season 2010,” Jadeja said in the letter. “In addition, I have never refused until this day to sign such a contract. Hence, I believe I am free to sign a contract with any franchisee.”

Papua New Guinea edged a low-scoring affair in Napier, keeping Afghanistan to 143 in their attempt to chase a target of 174 and securing their place in the semi-finals of the Plate Championship. PNG limped to the end of their 50 overs with one wicket remaining, with the wicketkeeper Steven Eno hitting an unbeaten 55 from No. 9. Eno put on 42 for the last wicket with Timothy Mou and that alliance proved devastating in the end result.Aftab Alam, taking the new ball for Afghanistan, wrecked PNG’s top and middle orders with a splendid 6 for 33. From 32 for 6 they were revived briefly by Sese Bau who made 43 from 78 balls, but suffered further blows to reel at 100 for 8. Then Eno, sensibly, added valuable with runs Mou, who made 27 from 51 balls.Raymond Haoda then took over with the new ball, snuffing out Afghanistan. They never recovered from 40 for 5, and Khushal Rasooli was run out for 48, the innings folded. John Reva chipped in with three wickets.Bangladesh qualified for the semi-finals of the Plate Championship after their quarter-final against Hong Kong in Napier. Chasing 157, they won by four wickets with a few handy contributions scattered across the innings. Hong Kong had been dismissed for 156 in 49 overs with Shaker Ahmed taking 4 for 26. Nizakat Khan’s unbeaten 56 was a sizeable contribution to Hong Kong’s poor total.