Pakistan's Rana Naved-ul-Hasan will miss the first Test against England at Lord's after his coach Bob Woolmer confirmed that he wasn't ready to submit the player to a proposed fitness test at Canterbury. He reasoned that though Rana showed encouraging

Andrew Strauss has been appointed as England's captain for the first Test against Pakistan at Lord's next week. Strauss, who led the one-day side to a 5-0 drubbing in the recent series against Sri Lanka, is not, however, a long-term appointment. He is

Four wickets for Danish Kaneria and a fine hundred from Shoaib Malik helped Pakistan brush aside Leicestershire in the first warm-up match of their tour of England. Leicestershire were dismissed for just 191 in their second innings

Andrew Flintoff has handed England a boost by saying it may not be too long before he is back in action. But he hasn't played since the final Test against Sri Lanka when he suffered a reoccurrence of his ankle problem, has yet to start

The supposed weak spot in Pakistan's batting line-up showed no signs of fragility on the second day against Leicestershire as their two openers, Imran Farhat and Salman Butt, put on a splendid 145 opening partnership

Whether or not Rana Naved-ul-Hasan will play any part in the forthcoming Test series against England will finally hinge on his performance in a full fitness test next week, according to Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach. "The situation with Rana is that

The news that Michael Vaughan will, almost certainly, be unavailable for the Ashes this winter has dented England's defence of the urn markedly. But before the Ashes, there is the small matter of facing Pakistan for a four-Test series and in the next

Identifying the increasing workload on cricketers as one of the biggest challenges for cricket administrators, Ehsan Mani, the outgoing ICC president, has pointed to a lack communication between boards eager to fill gaps in the Future Tours Programmes