There are two new season-long Fantasy cricket games for you to enter on Cricinfo.

Fantasy County Championship
It's that time of year again when the English domestic season comes to the fore. There's a massive choice for you to build your squad across divisions 1 and 2 of the County Championship. You've 20 transfers for the season. Scoring starts with the first round of matches - enter by 29th April (early entrants have unlimited transfers until then).

Fantasy IPL
The Indian Premier League has assembled some of the best players in the world for this first Twenty20 tournament. There are also prizes to be won - enter before the first game on April 18th.

Click here to register and enter your Fantasy Cricket team

http://fantasy.cricinfo.com

You can now enter Cricinfo's new Fantasy cricket game for the CB Series between Australia, India and Sri Lanka. There's a great selection of prizes to be won - including digital camera, ipods and a PSP.

To play Fantasy cricket, you need to be a Cricinfo registered user. You can enter two teams per game, and you can also invite your friends to compete in your own private league.

Click here to register and enter your team

You can now enter new Fantasy cricket games for the following series:-

- Australia v India (Prize game - Tests only)
- South Africa v West Indies (ODIs and Tests)
- New Zealand v Bangladesh (Tests and ODIs)

There are new multi-stage games for these tours, with separate transfer limits for the Test and ODI stages of each tour.

To play Fantasy cricket, you need to be a Cricinfo registered user. You can enter two teams per game, and you can also invite your friends to compete in your own private league.

Click here to register and enter your team

Geoffrey Boycott has a fearsome reputation for straight talking and now Cricinfo readers have the fantastic opportunity to question the man himself.

Ever wished you could ask him a question about a knotty matter of batting technique? Or about your team's chances in their next big series? Now you can. Every fortnight on Cricinfo Talk Geoffrey will answer the most interesting queries Cricinfo readers put to him.

Click here to listen and to send in your questions.

After the huge success of the ICC World Twenty20 fantasy cricket we will be continuing the fantastic free-to-enter game to cover the upcoming India v Australia and Sri Lanka v England one-day international series.

Fantasy players have to use a $1,000,000 budget smartly in order to pick the right players and transfer them at the right time, in order to gain maximum points during the two series.

As before, you can also create a league and invite your friends to a mini-competition amongst yourselves. And you can monitor suqads from both series from the same page.

Click here to register your teams now.

Cricinfo fantasy cricket is back again for the ICC World Twenty20 tournament. And this time, it’s free to play.

Fantasy players have to use a $1,000,000 budget smartly in order to pick the right players and transfer them at the right time, in order to gain maximum points during the tournament.

As before, you can also create a league and invite your friends to a mini-competition amongst yourselves.

Click here to register your team now.

And don’t worry, if you're uncertain about injuries, you can change your fantasy cricket team as many times as you like prior to the first match on September 11th.

Cricinfo fantasy cricket is back again for the ICC World Twenty20 tournament. And this time, it’s free to play.

Fantasy players have to use a $1,000,000 budget smartly in order to pick the right players and transfer them at the right time, in order to gain maximum points during the tournament.

As before, you can also create a league and invite your friends to a mini-competition amongst yourselves.

Click here to register your team now.

And don’t worry, if you're uncertain about injuries, you can change your fantasy cricket team as many times as you like prior to the first match on September 11th.

Today we see the launch of two new versions of our popular cricket game, Slogout!

Click here to play Slogout! - Cricinfo's desktop cricket game

In Just Slogout!, the challenge is to score as many runs as possible from your allocated overs. There is no opposition target, but a range of new daily and all-time leaderboards and an enhanced "My Slogout" feature to help you keep track of your performances.

Slogout! Classic is a revised version of the popular game, where you chase down the opposition's total. We've added a few more challenging deliveries too - so getting to that total won't be as easy as before!

ESPN expands its global on-line business through the acquisition of Cricinfo – the world’s largest cricket website

LONDON – ESPN and The Wisden Group today announced that they had agreed to terms for ESPN’s acquisition of Cricinfo, the world’s leading cricket website.

“Growing our business in the on-line world is vital for us to serve sports fans," said Russell Wolff, managing director of ESPN International. “Cricinfo is a tremendous property with a great fan base and it will be a strong addition to ESPN.”

Lynne Frank, managing director of ESPN, Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Cricket has a huge worldwide following and Cricinfo has created a great product for cricket fans everywhere. The acquisition complements our growing online business and underlines the fact that ESPN is committed to serving a diverse fan base. We are delighted that Cricinfo has joined the ESPN family.”

The acquisition of Cricinfo enhances ESPN’s on-line portfolio, which includes ESPN.com - the U.S.’s premier online sports destination; ESPNdeportes.com - the number one Spanish-language sports website among Spanish-preferred fans in the U.S. and ESPNsoccernet.com - the world’s leading English-language football website.

Cricket lends itself perfectly to online coverage: the length of matches and the statistics-rich nature of the game combine to drive high global usage and build loyalty.

Wisden Group director Mark Getty, said: “Cricinfo has developed into a significant cricket brand in its own right, combining huge global popularity with strong commercial success. ESPN is a major sports broadcaster and international rights holder and will provide the perfect environment for Cricinfo to further realise its enormous potential. The Wisden Group will continue to focus on its Hawk-Eye sports technology business in cricket, tennis and a growing range of other sports.”

And Tom Gleeson, Managing Director of Cricinfo, added, “We have had a strong working relationship with ESPN for a number of years and we know how successful they are in providing innovative online sports content. We look forward to working with the ESPN team and drawing on its expertise in sports marketing and digital media.”

ESPN’s digital media initiatives combine to deliver an industry-leading combination of live and on-demand sports events; up-to-the-minute sports news and information; scores, statistics and analysis; extensive on-demand and downloadable video and audio programming; fantasy sports, and video games across Web, mobile and other non-linear platforms.

ESPN Digital media properties are leading sports destinations: online- (ESPN.com); mobile (wireless Web sports site mobile.espn.com); radio ( the most listened-to online sports radio destination ESPNRadio.com); the leading English-language Soccer news and information site (ESPNsoccernet.com); leading fantasy games that are played by millions of fans each year; one of the most successful premium content services on the Web (ESPN Insider); the most downloaded sports content on the iTunes Store, and a one-of-a-kind in-game content integration platform appearing in many of the most popular sports video games.

Ends

About ESPN

ESPN, Inc. is the world’s leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring a portfolio of over 50 multimedia sports assets. The company is comprised of six U.S. television networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, ESPNU), ESPN and ESPN2 HD simulcast services, ESPN Regional Television, ESPN International (networks, syndication, radio, web sites), ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Enterprises, ESPN Zones (sports-themed restaurants), and other growing new businesses including ESPN360 (Broadband), Mobile ESPN, ESPN on Demand, ESPN Interactive and ESPN PPV. Based in Bristol, Ct., ESPN is 80 percent owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds a 20 percent interest in ESPN.

About Cricinfo

Cricinfo is the world's leading cricket website, ranked number one in all of its major markets. The site was founded in 1993, and its continuing success is built on the combination of live ball-by-ball coverage of all Test and one-day international matches, news and features written by some of the world's best cricket writers, and in-depth statistics on every one of the 3,000 international and 45,000 first class cricketers to have played the game.
Cricinfo now reaches more than seven million users every month. The site's reach, authority and brand recognition is unrivalled in the online cricket world. And Cricinfo now reaches beyond the Internet - so that fans can get Cricinfo content on mobile applications and on some of the world's leading internet portals.

About The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified worldwide media and entertainment enterprise with four main business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company, had annual revenues of nearly $34 billion in its most recent fiscal year, and a market capitalization of approximately $71 billion as of May 24, 2007.

Pad up and play Slogout! - Cricinfo's new online cricket game.

Click here to play Slogout!

- Choose your team, your opponent, and off you go. It's all a question of timing with the simple arrow key controls.

- Claim your place on the leaderboard alongside more than 20,000 players worldwide

- Master your shots all round the ground - and try a few sneaky slogs and sweeps using the down arrow.

Want to find an old scorecard from a Test or ODI? Cricinfo's new match search facility will help you do just that. It's the easiest way to explore the vast Cricinfo Archive. Currently Match search is limited to international matches.

Click here and try it now or use the Cricinfo search box and view your results in "results in matches" above the photos.

Match search tips: Search for matches by using team names or abbreviations, match types and titles, ground name, dates, seasons, years, series and tournament names. eg: australia sl odi, ashes 2005, centenary test march 1977, ind pak sharjah final, lord's test, women's world cup final, west indies brisbane 1960/61, headingley 1981

Cricinfo is now supplying live scores to google, so google users in key cricket markets can now get live scores as they search.

The score of the current match will come up at the top of your search results if you search on various key cricket and world cup related terms.

Additionally, you can add a live scores gadget to your personalised google homepage. You can find the gadget here.

Click here for google cricket gadgets

Cricinfo has recently launched the Cricinfo Toolbar. Available for both IE and Mozilla, the toolbar gives you instant access to key Cricinfo pages - wherever you are on the web.

Download the toolbar here

You can also download a handy excel document that will help you follow the progress of the tournament. Enter the results and the tracker will automatically work out placings in the group tables and those all-important Super 8s.

Download the World Cup Tracker here

The Cricinfo World XI Fantasy League is now open for entries. Our latest Fantasy Cricket competition is based on performances at the forthcoming Cricket World Cup. There are £10,000 worth of prizes to be won, including a trip to Sri Lanka to watch England and £1,000 in cash.

Click here to register your team

If you're uncertain about injuries, don't worry, as you can change your fantasy cricket team as many times as you like prior to the first match on 13th March.

Readers around the world can now subscribe to Cricinfo Magazine through a new instant download service. The new electronic subscription is available from zinio.com for just $20 for 15 issues.

Click here for Cricinfo Magazine on Zinio

We have revamped Cricinfo's World Cup pages with a new look. We hope you like it!

Cricinfo's Cricket World Cup 2007 site

This new layout is a new direction for Cricinfo, and will allow us to showcase even more of the great coverage that we'll be providing throughout the 2007 event.

You can also now enter our World XI Fantasy League, with £10,000 in prizes to be won, including a trip to watch England in Sri Lanka this winter.

Cricinfo World XI Fantasy League

Cricinfo MEDIA RELEASE
London, 15 January 2007

Cricinfo races to record figures despite England’s Ashes woes

The culmination of England’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash proved to be compulsive viewing for users of cricinfo.com, who made it a record week for the world’s largest cricket website when more than 12 million visits were recorded.

During the week that saw Freddie Flintoff’s team slump to a fifth straight loss in the Sydney Test and South Africa come from behind to seal a series win against India, almost three million people around the world – and around the clock - logged on to cricinfo.com to follow the dramatic news.

The seven days covering Sunday 31 December to Saturday 6 January smashed all records for the number of individual fans (unique users) visiting the site. Best-ever figures were also recorded for the frequency of visits and the number of pages viewed:

cricinfo.com 31 December – 6 January

· page views: 69,193, 393

· visits: 12, 234, 427

· unique users: 2,957,834

In addition to the final Ashes Test and the third South Africa v India Test in Cape Town, the fourth New Zealand v Sri Lanka ODI at Auckland contributed to the huge global interest in cricket during the week.

Enormous though the statistics are, Cricinfo experts predicts that even this high point will be surpassed during the site’s coverage of the ICC Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean during March and April.

Ends

You can now download free cricket wallpapers and screensavers at Cricinfo Photos+

Click here for Cricinfo Photos+
Click here for free cricket wallpapers and screensavers

There is also now a listing of all our popular match and series galleries

Click here to visit the Galleries homepage

After the close of play on every day of the Ashes, you can now watch a daily Cricinfo Ashes video report. This forms part of Cricinfo's comprehensive Ashes coverage, which also includes an audio comment piece from Ian Chappell.

Ashes Video Report
Cricinfo Ashes 2006/07 homepage

Conflict in Aussie camp and declining bowlers offer Ashes hope to England, says Nasser Hussain

Former England skipper Nasser Hussain believes that conflict in the Australian camp and a decline in the potency of the home side’s bowlers are two factors which offer encouragement to England’s prospects in the Ashes series.

Writing in the December issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine, Hussain says: “There is definitely conflict in the Australian camp between Buchanan and Warne and certain other players who just don’t have much time for Buchanan’s theories.

Uncertainty over the make up of the bowling attack is another potential bonus for England, according to Hussain. “For the first time in a long while, Australia are not certain about the make-up of their bowling line-up. They don’t have the luxury of a settled and proven four-man attack that has served them so well for years.

“The McGrath-Warne axis is the greatest bowling partnership of all time and although still formidable, there are signs of decline there too. England will feel that if they can get through McGrath’s new-ball spell and the occasional wonderful spell from Warne there will be runs to be had elsewhere. Stuart MacGill is likely to play at least a couple of Tests and while he is an excellent leg-spinner, he does bowl the odd bad delivery. England definitely have the batsmen to score heavily on good pitches.”

For England to be successful, Hussain says that Steve Harmison has to achieve his potential as one of the best bowlers in world cricket, rather than settle for mediocrity: “On his day Steve Harmison can be the best bowler in the world. He has exactly what it takes to be successful in Australia: height, pace and bounce. And the Australians fear him. But what I would want from him is consistency.

“The issue for Steve is about not settling for mediocrity: he has got to strive to be the best. He has to perform not in one Test in five but in three or four in five. After he took 11 wickets at Old Trafford this summer I would have wanted him to work doubly hard, to make even more sacrifices so that he became not just the best in England, but the best in the world. I don’t know if he has been making those sacrifices. Steve is a rhythm bowler – he has to go to the nets and bowl for an hour every day of his life. Every day. “

Dear Readers,

Al Gore became the subject of a million jokes for allegedly taking credit for inventing the Internet, but I will take my chance by pointing out that Cricinfo has been maintaining the most frequently updated and the most widely read blog in the world since 1996. Of course, no one called it a blog then, or calls it a blog now, but Cricinfo's ball-by-ball commentary is nothing if not a collection of dated posts.

That said, it took us quite a while to get on to the more commonly known form of blogging. Our first blog, Amit Varma¹s 23 Yards, didn¹t even use blogging software. But since converting our popular feature, The Best of the Web, to a blog you now know as The Surfer, we can claim to be part of the world of blogging.

Blogging has been the single-most important development in the world of publishing in recent years, but the most popular notion about blogs is also a slight misconception. Blogs are much more than personal online journals; we have approached it more as a technology that has given us the flexibility to experiment with different forms. We have used as a publishing tool for a filter blog like The Surfer, for Tour Diaries and for group discussions on Wicket to Wicket. And of course, for writer-driven blogs like Tim de Lisle¹s Ashes Buzz and Kamran Abbasi¹s Pak Spin.

The launch of our blogging section is a significant milestone for us. It¹s been in the making for while and it marks our wholehearted commitment to blogs. The page will continue to evolve as we expand our range and experiment with new formats. In the present form, it has three sections. The Surfer, which is meant to ensure that to read all that is worth reading on cricket on the web, you need look no further than Cricinfo, takes up the left-hand column. The top half of the middle column will showcase the best current posts, and the bottom half will list all the current blogs on the site.

With Cricinfo Select, we take a long-pending and vital step towards incorporating your views on issues that matters to you. We have used your feedback on the site before, but though Cricinfo Select, we are institutionalising a feedback-publishing mechanism. Every day, we will put up a few pieces from Cricinfo in this blog for discussion. Of course, we will moderate the comments for abuse and bad language, and will follow a zero-tolerance policy towards anything remotely libellous. For further reading, click here. Kamran's views on comments are not very different from ours.

This is as much your site as it is ours. We welcome your participation and look forward to an enriching experience, both for you and us.

Sambit Bal

Cricinfo has introduced a great new service called Desktop Alerts that will deliver wicket alerts, score updates and breaking news from around the world, direct to your desktop. Better still it’s completely free, with no subscription or call charges to pay, and requires no specialist IT knowledge to download and install.

The Desktop Alert service is ideal for media users as it operates continually, even when you’re working in other programmes. The service can be personalised to receive selected news from a menu of international and first-class cricket covering all Test playing countries. It’s the most comprehensive free alert service the sport has ever enjoyed.

How to install Cricinfo Desktop Alerts
Simply paste the following link into your browser to take you direct to the downloadable software:

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PRODUCTS/ALERTS/install_cricinfo_desktop_alerts.exe

Alternatively, follow the three steps below:

1. Go to www.cricinfo.com/alerts

2. Click “free download”

3. Follow the instructions to install the application on your computer, which will normally take 2-3 minutes to complete

As well as cricket news from cricinfo.com you can add RSS feeds from other favourite sites to the application. This means that you can receive all your personal news and entertainment through a single desktop icon.

The new Desktop Alert service is now available. If you need advice to download and install the software please e-mail: customer_support@cricinfo.com.

We are proud to announce the launch of the new-look Cricinfo Games site, bringing you the very best selection of cricket games on the web. From features on our exciting new Fantasy game to the low-down on the very best cricket games for your PC or console, you’ll find it all at Cricinfo Games.

Games currently featured on the site include the fantastic Cricinfo Fantasy League which is currently entering the ODI phase, with great prizes still to be won. Click here to enter a team today.

Entries are now open for the all-new Cricinfo Fantasy League.

There are £10,000 worth of prizes to be won including £5,000 and a hospitality suite at Lord's. Simply pick your combined India v England side for the forthcoming Test and ODI series. But watch out - you've only a limited amount to "spend" on player salaries!

As well as traditional Fantasy scoring, you can score bonus points with our innovative Groundzone scores - you nominate a player - he scores you extra points if he scores runs in particular parts of the pitch.

Register now for your chance to win - entries for the main competition close on March 1st, but you can enter later on in the series and still win a selection of great prizes.

We are pleased to announce that we have three new columns on Cricinfo. The first sees the return of Tim de Lisle, the founder editor of wisden.com, former editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, and champion of the short column, who will write a column every other Tuesday that is, appropriately, a multiple of short columns.

Each Thursday The Lowdown will profile the best of the up-and-coming players from across the globe, and on Tuesdays the Cricinfo XI will pick sometimes topical, sometimes abstract XIs from ancient to modern.

Cricinfo will be providing extensive coverage of the /Under-19 World Cup, which gets underway on February 4 in Colombo. Andrew McGlashan will be on hand to provide an eye-witness report on one match each day, as well providing colour articles, interviews, and a daily tour diary. He will be complemented by our local team, headed by Charlie Austin, who will report on another game and round-up the best of the other action.

You can now download a Cricinfo version of the Yahoo! toolbar.

http://www.cricinfo.com/toolbar

This great new tool allows you direct access to key Cricinfo pages - such as live scores, news and statsguru - direct from your toolbar wherever you are on the web.

You can also access a host of Yahoo! features, such as Anti-Spy, email and MyWeb.

Cricinfo will be pulling out all the stops over the next six weeks to provide the most complete internet coverage of any series ever.

Cricinfo's trademark ball-by-ball scorecards and renowned text commentary will be delivered in his own inimitable style by award-winning writer (and text commentary specialist) Anand Vasu.

Up to the minute news updates and features will be overseen by Cricinfo editor Sambit Bal and delivered by correspondents on tour with the team: Pakistan correspondent Osman Samiuddin is in Lahore for the first Test alongside Indian counterpart Siddhartha Vaidyanathan. The editorial teams in Mumbai and London will deliver comprehensive news, features and analysis, while statistician S. Rajesh will contribute daily stats and landmarks throughout the series.

Live audio commentary will be available via Cricinfo Radio. Subscribers who sign up to the unofficial commentary by the end of the first day's play can listen to the Test and One-Day series for the discounted price of $9.99. Audio match reports will also be available at the end of each day's play.

Former Indian captain Ravi Shastri is on the team for Cricinfo's new Mobile service. Users in India can listen to Ravi's audio reports throughout the day's play by clicking here or get on-demand score updates by texting 'ckt' to 6365. Users outside India can get wicket alerts and updates via Crictxt.

Partners Willow.tv have recently announced that they will be providing live streaming video worldwide. The stream will also be re-broadcast at 10am pst the next day.

Cricinfo's Pakistan v India series site is the page to bookmark for the ultimate in internet coverage.

Cricinfo's Chief Executive Tom Gleeson is confident that records will be broken.

"We expect record audiences for this series. We've made a lot of positive changes since the last series, both in terms of editorial coverage and enhanced products and services. The site is also faster than ever, and we are confident of big audiences if the series is as competitive and exciting as everyone around the world expects."

Cricinfo.com, the world's largest single sport website, is venturing into print with the launch of Cricinfo Magazine. The monthly title will hit the newsstands in the first week of January.

Though the magazine will be primarily aimed at an Indian readership - both in India and overseas - it will have a strong international flavour and will feature some of the world's finest cricket writers. It will be be published by Infomedia India, an established publisher of special-interest magazines and business directories, under a license agreement with the Wisden Group.

The first issue will comprise 124-pages, with a 32-page preview supplement on the eagerly-anticipated India-Pakistan series. In the cover features, Rahul Dravid, the India captain, shares his vision for Indian cricket, while Greg Chappell, the national coach, talks about his innovative coaching methods.

Other key features include an in-depth look at fast bowling down the years, an examination of Pakistan's growth as a team, interviews with Ian Healy and Chaminda Vaas, and Virender Sehwag's flashback to one of his classic innings.

For subscriptions in India click here

For subscriptions outside India click here

The new magazine will be edited by Sambit Bal and compiled by the same experienced editorial team that produced Wisden Asia Cricket. While retaining the core values of its acclaimed predecessor, Cricinfo Magazine will contain more pages and additional features. Regular contributors will include Harsha Bhogle and Sanjay Manjrekar and the first issue also features articles by Peter Roebuck, Mukul Kesavan and Gideon Haigh.

Tom Gleeson, the CEO of the Wisden Group, said the magazine was a logical extension of the Cricinfo brand. "Cricinfo.com is the world's largest publisher of cricket news, scores and analysis on the Internet. It makes perfect sense for us, in partnership with Infomedia, to bring the brand to the magazine stand.

"Cricinfo Magazine will share the values that have made the website so successful, but it will also enable us to showcase the finest cricket writing and photography in the best possible format."

Prakash Iyer, the CEO of Infomedia India, said: "Cricket is India's number one passion, and given that there is no specialist magazine of real quality in India catering for cricket lovers, we are looking to fill the void with Cricinfo Magazine.

"The world's largest and most passionate cricket audience deserves a truly world-class magazine. We will ensure that Cricinfo Magazine becomes the Indian fan's can't-put-down-companion."

The new title will be available on annual subscription to fans of the Indian game around the world. Full details of global subscription rates will be available on Cricinfo.com from the beginning of January.

Special subscription offer for Cricinfo readers:

The first 200 subscribers will receive a copy of the Cricinfo Diary 2006, an elegant, hardbound volume that will help you keep track of the year ahead even as it celebrates more than a century of cricket history.

If you would like any more information about the magazine, please e-mail subs@cricinfomagazine.com

Cricinfo has made its first big play in the mobile content space by teaming up with Dhruva Interactive, a leading gaming company in India, to develop java games and applications for mobile users across the world.

The first of the products from this exciting new alliance, a mobile application that provides live scores in a graphic animation format, will be launched globally during the India-Pakistan ODI series early 2006.

Watch this space for more details on this path-breaking new app. Other products in the pipeline include java games and a mobile statistics application.

In another significant move, Ravi Shastri has been signed up to be Cricinfo’s voice on the mobile platform. An interactive match analysis audio product, On the Front Foot with Ravi Shastri, was launched during the recently concluded India-South Africa ODI series. Shastri will provide live match analysis exclusively for Cricinfo mobile on all India matches this season.

Welcome to Cricinfo's latest blog, What's New on Cricinfo. Here we will bring you all the news on any developments on the world's leading cricket website, including site enhancements, details of the latest columns special offers, new products in Cricshop and much more besides. Just use the categories on the right to search easily and quickly through the various entries.

Keep an eye on What's New on Cricinfo to ensure that you never miss out on the best that Cricinfo has to offer.