Some punters made a small fortune out of Bangladesh's victory against Pakistan in the World Cup.

The betting house William Hill had given odds of 50:1 against a Bangladesh win. Several Bangladeshi fans, who had placed bets more out of loyalty than out of a gamble for money, made a little fortune. A bet of one pound brought back 50 pounds, plus the original one pound.

But there was no heavy betting on Bangladesh, at least not with the major betting houses, William Hill and Ladbroke's. A spokeswoman at William Hill told IANS that some bets had been placed on Bangladesh, but these were ``not significant''.

England on 1-day binge

In what would appear to be a panic reaction to the defeat by India which put them out of the World Cup Super Six, England are now set to embark on a massive expansion of their one-day cricket plans.

For that there will be no more of England zealously guarding their own type of schedule, which too is treated as part of sometradition. In fact, England will now cadge for invitations to play anywhere, under any conditions.

As David Graveney, chairman of selectors put it, ``If there is a tournament to be played, then we must make sure we are there...we have to make sure we get invitations. Sharjah is easy to get to and Sri Lanka and the subcontinent are not prohibitive.''

All this is said to be in preparation for the next World Cup, which will be played in South Africa four years hence. The idea is to get English players as battle tough in the one-day event as, say, the Indians and Pakistanis.

B'desh coach blues

Cricket administrators in Bangladesh are yet to decide on the coach to replace Gordon Greenidge. The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Secretary General Ashraful Huq has denied press reports that Bangladesh were looking to offer the coaching job to Pakistan's legendary batsman Javed Miandad.Huq told the Bangladeshi media in London that the Board was not considering anybody at present as new coach. ``I have notgiven it a serious thought because I have other things on my hand,'' he said.

``We would not like to rush and repeat the same Gordon Greenidge experience. Our season starts in October and we have plenty of time. We will make a careful selection to get the right person,'' Huq said.

Media reports had quoted an unnamed BCB official who described Miandad as a `shrewd' cricketer and said that Bangladesh would be happy if he accepted the position of coach.

Run Inzy run

The Pakistani cricket team management has finally woken up to the dangers of Inzamamul Haq's rather slothful approach to running between wickets. The team held a special training session in running for the burly batsman, the leading run-getter for Pakistan in the qualifying rounds of the World Cup, NNI news agency reported. The session was all about ways to improve his running between the wickets. Haq has shown a suicidal tendency to change his mind about running often after calling his partner. In the last match against Bangladesh Haqor `Inzy' called Anwar and promptly sent him back when Anwar was already half way down the pitch, giving Bangaldeshi fielders enough time to remove the stumps.

Pakistan lost nine batsmen through run outs in the qualifiers with Inzamam being the main culprit. Coach Mushtaq Muhammad, trainer Richard Pybus and captain Wasim Akram supervised the session in which all the batsmen practised running between the wickets in a proper match field setting.

Eight-second security

With the Super six matches having begun, the number of security men has gone up. On an average, the number of security men deployed at each ground is 400, up from 350 in the earlier games. Ground officials said they estimated they could get protection to all players within eight seconds. This measure follows protest from various teams about lack of security on the grounds. At one point of the tournament, Australians had even threatened to walk out, given the indifference of the management towards lack of security.