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Middlesex County Cricket Club has announced that the Middlesex Crusaders will play next season as The Panthers. Vinny Codrington, Middlesex chief executive, confirmed that the club had received "one or two" complaints from Muslim and Jewish communities concerned that the name was a reference to the medieval Christian crusades against other faiths. He said some people found the name "rather upsetting" but denied that the change was being made for reasons of political correctness. He added: "For example, one of our former presidents was Jewish and he didn't particularly like the name, although he just got on with it. "We...

MELBOURNE: It is possible that cricket, a game venerated all over the Commonwealth, is older than currently thought. In fact, Jesus may have played the game (or a similar bat-and-ball combination) as a child, according to an ancient Armenian manuscript. Long before the English launched cricket some 300 years ago, similar games were being played as early as the 8th century in the Punjab region, Derek Birley writes in his Social History of English Cricket. But an Armenian scholar says there is good reason to believe that similar games were played in the Middle East long before that time. Dr...

IN the blink of an eye, India has gone from faith, prudence and chastity to ... Brittany, Courtney and Tiffani. On Sunday, a team of Washington Redskins cheerleaders landed in Bangalore to help create India’s first cheerleading squad. According to the Redskins’ Web site, the cheerleaders will “conduct a national audition of Indian women.” The aim of the exercise is to set up a squad of indigenous pompom wielders for the Bangalore Royal Challengers, one of eight teams that will play in the Indian Premier League, a rich new Indian cricket league. “Cheerleading is a unique American spirit and the...

Since when did monkey become a bad word? Gautam Sheth Bhajji’s alleged slur of calling Symmo a ‘big monkey’ is no big deal if we look in the past what other Aussie players have uttered. Gautam Sheth brings to your notice the not so famous words from down under. Hard-hitting headlines like “Umpires give Oz 2-0 lead”, “Team India: c Benson b Bucknor,” “Umpires beat India” have ruled the roost in Indian media after dim-witted umpiring errors from Jamaican Steve Bucknor and English Mark Benson. But what has become the point of controversy is the word ‘big monkey’ which apparently...

'Bitter' Australia-India Test leaves sour taste: media 6 hours ago SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian and Indian media Monday panned the umpires for their performance in the crucial Sydney Test, urging the skippers to pull their teams into line after bitter rows over racism and sportsmanship. Tensions boiled over in the aftermath of the hard-fought match between Australia and India, with Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh banned by the International Cricket Council for three Tests for racially abusing Andrew Symonds, while Kumble accused Australia of unsporting behaviour. The match, which ended Sunday, will be remembered for the bitter disputes rather than Australia's...

Muslims should be proud to support England's cricket team, says first Islamic MinisterBy JANE MERRICK - More by this author » Last updated at 00:29am on 28th December 2007  Muslims living in England should be proud to support the national cricket team and should celebrate the country they belong to, Britain's first Muslim Minister said last night.  Shahid Malik issued a call to the Islamic community to embrace, not reject, Englishness as part of their identity. The International Development Minister said he did not endorse the "cricket test" proposed by former Tory Cabinet Minister Norman Tebbit. But he said...

The tactic that tore apart an empire Murray Hedgcock | December 08, 2007 BODYLINE, three-quarters of a century on, is a scar on the body of Australia - long since healed but a distinctive, identifying mark. And like an old war wound, it may occasionally throb or tingle. It is Old Australia that is still scarred: of today's country of 21million people (it had fewer than 7million in 1932), one in four trace their origin outside the Commonwealth and find little meaning in cricket. And young Australia, whether or not British by background, is much more interested in today and...

Pakistan's Imran Khan on hunger strike: spokesman 4 hours ago ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistani cricket hero Imran Khan began a hunger strike Monday in the prison where he was sent last week for protesting against emergency rule, his spokesman told AFP. He said Khan, who now heads his own opposition party, wanted restoration of the constitution and reinstatement of judges sacked when Persident Pervez Musharraf imposed the emergency just over two weeks ago. "Imran Khan has gone on hunger strike for an indefinite period," spokesman Saifullah Niazi said. "He is demanding the restoration of the judiciary and restoration of the...

Four Indian cricket fans have been charged for allegedly racially abusing Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds by making monkey gestures, police say. The four fans were evicted from a one-day international match in Mumbai (Bombay) on Wednesday. Symonds is the only mixed race player in the Australian side, having made his international debut in 1998. He frequently clashed with Indian players during the one-day series, which Australia won 4-2. Cricket officials say that photographs of fans making offensive gestures to Symonds as he came in to bat have been handed over to police. Police say that the four fans, including a...

Outrage in India over Pak skipper's Muslim remark Published on Tuesday , September 25, 2007 at 18:19 in Sports section New Delhi: Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik's statement at the ICC World Twenty20 award ceremony after the final has sparked off controversy and outrage among viewers who were glued to their television sets on Monday. In the midst of celebrations in the Indian camp, what ruffled feathers was Malik's comment, which was not seen by many as being in good taste. At the award ceremony, Malik thanked Muslims all over for their support to the team on a day when two...

Pakistan reacts to defeat with anger Minutes after Shoaib Malik's team lost the Twenty20 World Cup final to India in Johannesburg, angry Pakistani cricket lovers burnt effigies of Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi to vent their anger. In yet another incident that revealed that people in Pakistan can be very unforgiving when it comes to conceding defeat against India, the incident occurred at a stadium in Lahore [Images] where the Asian Football Confederation tournament was being played. In Karachi too, mobs gathered to raise slogans against the Pakistani players, particularly Afridi and Younis. "What the hell! This is the second...

CANBERRA, Australia - Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday the Australian government has banned the country's cricket team from touring Zimbabwe in September because he does not want to support the regime of a "grubby dictator." Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television that his foreign minister has written to the organization of Cricket Australia calling off the tour for the World-Cup champions. "We don't do this lightly, but we are convinced that for the tour to go ahead, there would be an enormous propaganda boost to the Mugabe regime," he said of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. "The Mugabe regime is...

England may be heading for an ignominious defeat in the second Test against India today, but there is only one issue on the minds of cricketing fans across the country - the great jelly bean mystery. Sticky wicket: Zaheer Khan points out the alleged jelly beans to umpire Ian Howell on Sunday evening An already sour contest between two giants of the Test arena at Trent Bridge in Nottingham was ignited after the tiny nugget of confectionery appeared at the short leg fielding position - infuriating India's tail-end batsman Zaheer Khan and sparking an extraordinary bat-waving bust-up. Just why the...

TORONTO (CP) — A Muslim journalist beaten with a cricket bat outside a Toronto-area home fears for his life after facing repeated death threats apparently because someone has deemed his writing to be anti-Islam. Jawaad Faizi, a columnist for the weekly Urdu-language Pakistan Post based in New York, suffered cuts and bruises in the attack, which has alarmed his wife and three children and drew the condemnation Thursday of free-press advocates. “I’m really very, very scared,” Faizi said in an interview on Thursday. “I’m scared especially for my kids.” The Pakistan Post, North America’s largest Urdu-language newspaper with an office...

THE Federal Government will meet cricket authorities to try to prevent the national team from touring Zimbabwe. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, will discuss the issue with Cricket Australia after the team returns from the World Cup in the West Indies. There are growing calls for Australia to boycott the tour in September as the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, becomes an international pariah. Mr Mugabe has been condemned for presiding over increasing political and economic turmoil, including state-sanctioned violence against opposition leaders. Australia are scheduled to play three one-day internationals in the country. Mr Downer warned that a tour...

Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas has sought the advice of a team of Scotland Yard detectives, who were expected to arrive in the island between last night and this morning, to assist with the Bob Woolmer murder investigation. A senior officer of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) who confirmed the information said the commissioner made the request through the Ministry of National Security. "We have invited four senior Scotland Yard detectives to come and look at what we have done so far and to see if we are on the right track. We are making the investigations as transparent as possible,"...

A MATCH-fixer said to have connections with an al-Qaeda fundraiser was last night linked to the murder of Bob Woolmer. The Pakistan-based bookie was the man turfed out of the coach’s room after a blazing row, sources claimed. They said the man, who disappeared after 58-year-old Bob’s killing, is an associate of Dawood Ibrahim, one of the world’s most feared gangsters who has terrorist links. Ibrahim is wanted over al-Qaeda funding and a series of bomb attacks which left 250 dead in Bombay in 1993

The other day Pakistan's Gen. Musharraf took time off from his hectic schedule of trying to survive assassination attempts to pay tribute to someone who, alas, had been less successful at dodging killers: A week ago, during the cricket World Cup, Bob Woolmer, the coach of the Pakistani national cricket team, was murdered in the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, in what Scotland Yard's lead investigator called "extraordinary and evil circumstances." "This nation will always remember him for the joys he brought into the lives of millions of Pakistanis," said Gen. Musharraf, awarding Woolmer posthumously the Star of Excellence. "The...

MUSHARRAF CAUGHT IN A STICKY WICKET March 25, 2007 BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist The other day Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf took time off from his hectic schedule of trying to survive assassination attempts to pay tribute to someone who, alas, had been less successful at dodging the attentions of his killers: A week ago, during the cricket World Cup, Bob Woolmer, the coach of the Pakistani national cricket team, was murdered in the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, in what Mark Shields (not the American TV pundit but the veteran Scotland Yard man leading the police investigation) called ?extraordinary...

Pakistan in turmoil over Woolmer murder By Derek Pringle in Gros Islet, St Lucia Last Updated: 10:57am GMT 23/03/2007 In urdu, Pakistan means "Land of the Pure," not a description you readily attach to the country's cricket team, who have long courted controversy. Yet the murder of their coach, Bob Woolmer, is the most shocking association yet for a team who have found themselves near to the scene of many of the major cricketing scandals of the past 15 years. Jamaican police last night launched a murder investigation after announcing that Woolmer, 58, had been strangled in his hotel room...