Lahore, Oct 31 : Geoff Lawson believes his sacking as the Pakistan cricket coach had nothing to do with his performance but was influenced by political changes in the country and the change in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) set-up.

The former Australian bowler will return home on Friday after just over a year as coach of the national team.

The PCB cleared his financial dues with a final payment of 80,000 dollar, which included a bonus for guiding the national team into the final of the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa last year.

Lawson had refused to leave until the PCB cleared all his payments and this was done on Monday by the board, the Daily Times reported.

Lahore, Oct 31 : The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is confident of getting all its stadiums ready to host the home series against India in January and February.

The board has decided to spend Rs. 800 million on refurbishing all five venues for the tour, which includes three Tests, five ODIs and a Twenty20.

Salim Altaf, the PCB’s director general, is confident the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium will be ready in time to host the second Test and third one-dayer.

The venue was dropped from the Champions Trophy as the renovation work wasn’t complete and the ICC wasn’t convinced about the security situation there.

The tournament was eventually postponed due to security concerns, the Daily Times reported.

Wednesday night’s 11:00 p.m. half-hour campaign ad special on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart featuring Democratic presidential candidate – Barack Obama, pulled in its biggest audience averaging 3.6-million viewers, managed to beat its own 8th October record by 600,000 viewers, when Michelle Obama appeared on the show.  

Karachi, Oct 31 : England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have formally invited Pakistan to play a test series in 2010 and negotiations will be held soon, a senior official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said on Thursday.

Saleem Altaf, Director General of the board, said they had received a formal proposal from the ECB to play three Tests, five One-day Internationals and a Twenty20 match on the bilateral tour.

“We will be holding negotiations soon with the ECB to sort out financial arrangements but obviously we are very keen to go ahead with the series,” Altaf said.

Ankara - Turkey has revised upwards its inflation estimates for 2008, with Central Bank Governor Durmus Yilmaz saying recent falls in the Turkish lira amid the global economic crisis had contributed to the rise in inflation.

Speaking in Ankara, Yilmaz said inflation was expected to rise to 11.1 per cent by the end of 2008, an increase of 0.5 percent from mid- year forecasts, and a full 7.1 percentage points higher than the government's initial inflation target for 2008 of 4 per cent.

Yilmaz told reporters that the recent slide in the value of the lira had increased inflationary pressures.

West Hollywood neighborhood may be famously liberal, but when Chad Michael Morrisette, a professional window display designer dressed a mannequin to resemble Sarah Palin, the US Republican vice-presidential candidate, complete with trademark glasses and beehive hairstyle and, hung the effigy by the neck from the eaves of his home for Halloween, it proved too much for even the most liberal of its residents, and the subsequent growing frenzy of protestors and media attention forced him to remove it quickly.