Chris Gayle to lead Stanford Superstars

St John’s: West Indies captain Chris Gayle was named skipper of the Stanford Superstars who will face England in the $20-million Stanford Twenty20 on November 1.
The left-handed opening batsman will have Antigua and Barbuda captain Sylvester Joseph as his deputy.

THE SQUAD: Chris Gayle (captain), Sylvester Joseph (vice captain), Lionel Baker, Sulieman Benn, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Lennox Cush, Travis Dowlin, Rayad Emrit, Andre Fletcher, Chad Hampson, Lindon James (wicketkeeper), Dave Mohammed, Kieron Pollard, Daren Powell, Darren Sammy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Jerome Taylor

Warne’s admission

London: Former Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne has admitted that he used to have late night drinking binges to battle his personal problems during the 2005 Ashes which Australia lost after 16 years.

Warne’s marriage with Simone was breaking up at that time, and he found himself in a lewd text message scandal and was alleged to having affairs with several women. He said he would stay awake till 3am in the morning sipping away drink after drink trying to forget the personal issues after returning from the ground.

Shoaib’s advice

Karachi: Controversial paceman Shoaib Akhtar believes that the solution to Pakistan’s cricketing woes lies in hosting a successful Pakistan Premier League and insisted playing at a neutral venue was of no help.

“I don’t think the solution to revive our dying cricket is to play at neutral or off-shore venues. I would say that we must organise the PPL as soon as possible,” Shoaib said.

CSA move

Durban: Cricket South Africa (CSA) has decided to constitute itself into a special company to benefit from the country’s amended tax laws that allow benefits for sporting bodies with “credible development programmes”.

SLC deal

Colombo: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will next week send a team of officials to finalise a $40 million deal with the Indian Premier League (IPL) Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge has said.

“More benefits are to be gained by our cricketers and the country by participating in the IPL matches. Therefore, we are sending a team of officials to India next week to finalise the deal,” he said.

Arjuna view

Karachi: Sri Lanka Cricket chief Arjuna Ranatunga has urged the ICC to take a firm stand against teams refusing to honour the commitments of the Future Tour Programmes on security grounds.