Jack Hyams, the world’s most prolific club cricketer, will celebrate his impending 90th birthday with a pair of fixtures at the Clive Woodbridge Oval in Valencia, Spain, this weekend.

Hyams, who is Life President of the Barmy Army, enters his tenth decade on December 18, having amassed over 123,000 runs in all cricket, including 171 centuries. He has played ten matches so far this year for Billericay CC Veterans, while three years ago, he took part in five consecutive fixtures for Nomads CC on a tour of Spain, when the club was left short of players.

As a youth, Hyams was offered professional cricket and football terms but his father forbade him from taking that career path. Instead he waited until after the Second World War, when he played football for Bradford Park Avenue and took part in a memorable defeat of Arsenal in the FA Cup.

	Lily Allen is thrilled to secure Glen Chapple's autograph © Getty Images

After a 2.6 million-selling debut album, her own talk show and nominations for Grammy, BRIT and MTV awards, Lily Allen has finally received the recognition she wants as Lancashire made her an honorary member of the club.

Allen was granted membership in recognition of her national and international promotion of cricket and was also presented with a Lancashire team shirt and bat signed by stars such as Freddie Flintoff and Sajid Mahmood.

The musician catapulted into the cricketing mainstream during the 2009 Ashes when her twitter updates about the series earned her a call-up to the TMS box. She delighted traditionalists around the world by declaring her preference for Test cricket over the shorter formats at a time when Test cricket needed all the support it could muster.

From such heady heights it will be important for Allen not to get carried away with her success in a messy excess of ECB 40 League fixtures next summer.

	Flab-ulous: Shoaib Akhtar © Associated Press

Just as his chances of making the national team were getting slimmer, Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has undergone liposuction to remove excess fat from his body. The 34-year-old has not played a Test in more than two years, and the latest move is part of his efforts to end the fitness troubles and injury woes that have severely hampered his career.

"After the liposuction to trim down his weight, Shoaib will require at least three to four months to make a complete recovery and be available to play competitive cricket once again," Dr Waqar Ahmed, a sports medicine specialist, told Pakistan daily Dawn.

After the surgery Shoaib is going to be lighter in the pocket as well, since the PCB refused to foot his burgeoning medical bills. "He is a centrally contracted player and he is supposed to consult our medical panel and inform us before undergoing any medical treatment but he didn't do this before opting for the liposuction," a PCB official said.

Just days after an Auckland woman cricketer broke a world record for catching 33 tennis balls within a minute, the Guinness Book of Records had another cricket entry when Neville Wadia became the oldest player to hit a century in minor cricket. Wadia, at 63 years and 305 days, scored 105 for Waghodiya Road against Vrajdham Vadli Pariwar team at Siabaug Ground in Vadodara on March 28 this year. Eight months later, his feat was recognised in the coveted book. He isn’t stopping there. Wadia wishes to continue playing and also offer free coaching to youngsters. No country for old men? Not for Neville Wadia.

Move over Jonty. Auckland's Katie Perkins has entered the Guinness Book of Records for catching an astonishing 33 tennis balls within a minute, fired at 100 kmph. For good measure, the record she broke by ten balls was held by an Aussie, Anthony Kelly. Appearing on the television show NZ Smashes Guinness World Records, Perkins said, “Everyone wasn’t expecting me to break it and I did it for a bit of a laugh. But as soon as I did it, I was in the zone.” And now she's in the NZ emerging players' team - with a side career as a 'catching coach' in the offing?

Stephen Fleming may not be interested in coaching his nation's cricket team, but he hasn't been lost to New Zealand sport entirely. The former New Zealand batsman turned football motivator this week on the eve of the All Whites must-win World Cup qualifier against Bahrain. "[Fleming] just gave us wee things to make us try and relax, and told us to just try and think of it as another game, get on with the job," said Michael McGlinchey, the New Zealand mid-fielder. "Ryan Nelsen and the more experienced guys pitched in with their thoughts as well and it was nice to hear what sorts of things they have to say." Victory over Bahrain in Wellington on Saturday would propel New Zealand to the World Cup finals for the first time in 27 years.

Remember Jason Krejza? If you don’t, he’s a tall Australian offspinner who made his Test debut a year ago in Nagpur and took 12 for 358 against India. Krejza played another Test but has since been forgotten by most people, but not all.

There’s a group in Australia lobbying for Krejza’s return to the national team and they called for the public to observe 12 minutes silence on November 10, in remembrance of the Indian batsmen Krejza felled in 2008.

"[It's] to think about and reflect upon those 12 wickets, those glorious 12 wickets in Nagpur and to think about the impact Jason Krejza can make on the national side," group spokesman Ben McKay said. There’s a Facebook group too – “Concerned Tasmanians for Jason Krejza" – with 231 members at the last time of checking.

Kevin Pietersen and MCC have teamed to help this year’s BBC appeal for Children in Need. KP was recently unveiled as the new ‘Brylcreem boy’, in a deal worth nearly £2 million, and it seems he wants to extend his name to an even more worthy pursuit.

Pietersen is auctioning “a money can’t buy prize” that includes coaching in the MCC indoor school at Lord’s, a private tour of the ground and dressing rooms, lunch in the players’ dining room and signed memorabilia.

Let’s just hope Pietersen’s Achilles holds-up well enough to make prize day.

The ‘Pietersen prize’ goes under the hammer on Monday 16th on the ‘Things Money Can't Buy' auction on Terry Wogan's BBC Radio Two show.

	Ian Botham will don his trekking boots again next April © Getty Images

At 53, and with an appetite for the good life, a 900-mile trek should be beyond Ian Botham. But instead he’s unveiled plans for a 13th charity walk to begin April next year.

'Beefy's Great Forget Me Not Walk' will mark the 25th anniversary of his first trek in aid of leukaemia research as he walks length of Britain from Scotland's John O'Groats to England's Land's End.

"My walk in 2010 will be extra special for me," Botham said. “I never forget why I put myself through the pain and blisters. I won't stop until we beat childhood leukaemia.” When Botham set out for his first walk in 1985 only 20 percent of children with leukaemia survived. “We're up to about 90 percent survival now and that's remarkable."

Botham heads to South Africa on Wednesday for his commentary duties and has cemented a reputation for uncompromising barrages. This same unrelenting attitude has helped him raise some £10 million pounds for leukaemia research and he has no intention of stopping there.

	Duncan Fletcher: back in the box © Getty Images

That's right, Duncan Fletcher has put aside his ingrained loathing of the media and been persuaded out of his bubble, and will provide expert analysis during England's fixtures in his home town of Cape Town this winter. Having performed a consultancy role during South Africa's successful tour of Australia last year, he is ideally placed to provide insight from both camps.

Aside from a regular column in The Guardian, Fletcher has kept a low media profile since his no-holds-barred autobiography was released in 2007, although in the TMS box he will have a chance to team up with his former sidekick, Michael Vaughan, who was England's victorious captain when they last toured South Africa in 2004-05.

For his fans and former foes alike, there will be great nostalgic value in hearing Fletcher utter his favourite lines for one last time - not least "aww look ..." and "this is not the right forum ..." especially if Graeme Swann starts spinning England to victory.

For the last five years Eric Tindill, a double international for New Zealand at Test level in cricket and rugby, has been cricket’s oldest living Test player. And two days ago, Tindill went past England’s Frank MacKinnon, who lived 98 years and 324 days, to become the oldest Test cricketer ever.

A left-hand opening batsman and wicketkeeper, Tindill toured England with Curly Page's team in 1937. On the way home he had the distinction of catching Don Bradman off Jack Cowie's bowling – the only time Bradman played against a New Zealand side. The match, between New Zealand and South Australia, was played in Adelaide to help cover debts incurred in England. Cowie and Tindill were delighted with their prized wicket, but others reckoned they cost New Zealand Cricket a fortune. Bradman was dismissed for 11 in the opening over on a Saturday morning and thousands of spectators, queuing for entry, simply turned around and left. Tindill also umpired in Tests and was a Wellington and New Zealand selector.

Tindill was also an international rugby referee and is currently the oldest living All Black.

Andrew Strauss’s men aren’t the only England cricketers touring Africa this winter. Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB), a UK charity that aims to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS through teaching cricket, is sending two teams of volunteers out to Rwanda and Kenya.

CWB started in 2005 and works in partnership with the Cricket Associations in each country, the relevant British High Commissions and the ICC to ensure sustained development of cricket. They return having established successful projects in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Botswana over the last three years.

They just completed a two-week project in Botswana, where volunteers overcame the challenges of lost baggage; rain on the ‘mini-world cup’ tournament they organised; and the odd blown generator to teach a staggering 1311 kids the basics of cricket and train 57 coaches who receive ICC certificates.

With four of England’s top-six Test batsmen this winter likely to be African born, CWB are nurturing a crucial pool of talent for years to come.

"Some of the best specimens running around in cricket have the bodies of a Greek Adonis, but we can't get them on the park to bowl,” says Rixon, who feels bowlers are spending too much time pumping iron instead of running in at the nets. Walters agreed with Rixon that the training methods need to be reworked. Lawson, also a former Pakistan coach, rubbished suggestions of workload saying, "Brett Lee has hardly played any cricket for two years, so you wouldn't think that was from overuse. When I was coach of Pakistan we looked at every injury systematically and how our fitness people were dealing with it."

	Members of the Chinese women's team in Mohali © AFP

Among the packed crowd watching India play Australia at the PCA Stadium in Mohali on Monday was a group of highly excited young women getting their first taste of cricket in India. They were members of the Chinese national women’s cricket team, currently in India, training for the 2010 Asian Games where the sport will make its debut. Cricket is rarely shown on TV back in China but whatever they’d seen couldn’t have matched up to the noise and spectacle of a packed house. “We are used to watching rugby, badminton or gymnastics at home, but nothing is as big as cricket is here,” Zhou Haijie, an offpsinner, told The Indian Express. “Watching the game was very insightful,” Zhang Jing Jing said, “the Mexican waves in the stands were the most fun.” What hit them the most? The noise in the stadium after an Indian boundary. “It's so loud,” said offspinner Zhou Haijie. “I didn't know 35,000 people could make noise for a billion.”

Move over Bollywood, the IPL might soon be coming to a multiplex near you. The Twenty20 league had invited tenders for its theatrical telecast rights for matches beginning next season until 2019. The reserve price for the bid has been set at US$ 2 million per year. Going to a theatre to watch a Twenty20 game is all very well but hearing the commentators yell “That’s a DLF maximum” and “Citi moment of success” in Dolby Digital sound could get trying very quickly.