‘We will play them on the beaches’

Published September 28, 2006

SYDNEY, Sept 27: The Poms will be hopeless because ‘they haven't got any beaches’ while West Indians are set to dominate because they are brought up on beach cricket.

A generation after he last played serious cricket, fast bowling legend Dennis Lillee is about to lock horns again with Australia's two greatest cricket rivals.

But instead of being in Barbados or Birmingham, contest will be on sands of Scarborough, Coolangatta in Queensland and Maroubra in Sydney where an international beach cricket triseries will be played this summer.

Lillee will be part of an Australian team captained by Allan Border against Graham Gooch's England and a team of West Indian superstars led by Courtney Walsh.

The matches will feature some of cricket's greatest ever bowlers, including Ambrose and Garner.

The matches are scheduled for Gold Coast (Jan 20-21), Scarborough (Jan 26-27) and Sydney (Feb 3-4).

The rules have been based on indoor cricket though one-handed catches, a staple of beach cricket, will be heavily weighted in scoring process.

The beach teams will be:

Australia: Allan Border (captain), Damien Fleming, Kim Hughes, Dean Jones, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Mark Waugh.

England: Graham Gooch (captain), Darren Gough, Graeme Hick, Adam Hollioake, Allan Lamb, Robin Smith, Mark Ramprakash.

West Indies: Courtney Walsh (captain), Jimmy Adams, Curtly Ambrose, Joel Garner, Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, Phil Simmons.—Agencies