The former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken admitted in the High Court yesterday that he was "guilty" of "sharp-editing" a letter to the Cabinet Secretary about a stay at the Paris Ritz Hotel owned by Mohamed Al Fayed.

The late Brian Johnston - patrician cricket commentator and lover of home-made cakes supplied by a devoted listening public - once described the Test Match Special commentary style as the outpourings of a group of friends who had come along to watch the cricket and enjoy themselves.

Dominic Cork is hoping to launch his comeback in the next couple of weeks after undergoing intensive treatment for a troublesome groin injury.

English cricket's chairman of selectors is named today. Derek Pringle reports

New Zealand 124 & 191 England 383 England win by innings and 68 runs: SECOND TEST: England's trouncing of New Zealand by an innings and 68 runs takes embattled tourists into welcome territory

SECOND TEST: Caddick strives for recognition but Silverwood is ruled out as New Zealand look to turn defiance into attack

Derek Pringle studies the double life of England's singular success on tour

Cricket

The name is the same, but not the game. Liam Botham may be a chip off the old block but he is still his own man. There was no way that he could have emulated the feats of his father, former England Test cricket all-rounder Ian Botham, who singlehandedly, and in one bound, won the Ashes when Liam was just four years old, in 1981.

Allan Lamb, the former England batsman, is being targeted by Sri Lanka to run their international sides.

The former Australian coach Bob Simpson has hit out at the standard of English cricket and cited Ian Botham as one of the components in its decline.

Simon O'Hagan selects a side to look back in anguish

Research into how juries reach their verdicts was last night demanded by Lord Donaldson, the former Master of the Rolls, following the failure of Ian Botham and Allan Lamb's libel action against Imran Khan and the acquittal at a trial in Liverpool of four women accused of criminal damage after an attack on a British Aerospace Hawk jet.

Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain, "lashed out" at Ian Botham because he was horrified by the publicity given to his own confession of ball-tampering, the High Court was told yesterday.