THE ENGLAND and Wales Cricket Board last night appointed a new captain and coach. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher, both recent favourites for the respective jobs, will not work in tandem until the current season is finished, when Fletcher will be released by his current employers, Glamorgan. Fletcher, a Zimbabwean, will be the first foreign coach, and Madras- born Hussain is the first player of Asian extraction to captain England. After a World Cup that saw fanatical and vocal support for India and Pakistan, his appointment can only be a positive step in attracting the untapped talent those communities can offer. Educated at Forest school in Essex, Hussain, now 31, has played 39 Tests for England and was vice-captain to both Michael Atherton and Alec Stewart, the man he replaces.A passionate cricketer, Hussain's desire to succeed at all costs has not always sat well with authority, and in the past he has been punished on more than one occasion by Essex for speaking out of turn.

Fletcher, who replaces the outgoing David Lloyd, captained Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup, recording a surprise win over Australia.It could be a dream ticket providing their eyes meet somewhere between Harare and Chelmsford.Full report, page 32. ISRAELI WARPLANES last night rocketed a Beirut power station and hit a Hizbollah guerrilla base in Baalbek in north-eastern Lebanon. Seven Lebanese and two Israelis were reported killed in the attacks. Israel also bombed a bridge linking southern Lebanon to the north. Beirut was plunged into darkness as flames and smoke rose from the Jamhour power station, close to the Defence Ministry compound south-east of the capital Baalbek is in an area under de facto Syrian army control. The raids marked a dangerous escalation of the low-intensity war Israel and the pro-Iranian Hizbollah have been waging for 14 years in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah hit back with Katyusha rocket attacks on Kiryat Shmonah and Nahariya at the eastern and western ends respectively of the Israel border. Two homes were hit in Kiryat Shmonah, and Israeli television reported casualties.A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said that the Beirut attack, the first on the Lebanese capital for three years, was in retaliation for a barrage of more than 25 Katyusha rockets fired by Hizbollah on Israeli towns and villages along the Galilee border earlier yesterday.

Four Israeli civilians and one soldier were wounded and at least one house was wrecked. Thousands of families took refuge in shelters.The spokesman said that Israel could no longer act with restraint in the face of "continuous provocations" by the Shia militia. These attacks, he added, were in "blatant violation" of the qualified truce that ended Israel's 1996 "Grapes of Wrath" offensive in southern Lebanon.By hitting Beirut, the Israelis were serving notice on Lebanon and Syria that they could not exploit Hizbollah with impunity to further their diplomatic ends.. THE post of director-general of the BBC was advertised in April, but the race to become Sir John Birt's successor began months before.

Some date its beginning to May 1998 when Greg Dyke shaved off his beard after 20 years. Others date it to when Mr Dyke was seen having breakfast with his old friend Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of the BBC governors, at a London hotel in January. Certainly by mid-January, when Sir John invited the media to his annual drinks party, the only subject on everyone's lips was the battle for succession and the air was heavy with the crackle of prospective internal candidates eager to impress journalists.Campaign managers were appointed who made sure that whenever their candidate made a pronouncement it was as widely disseminated as possible.But it was also the campaign managers, rather than the candidates themselves, who leaked salacious gossip about rivals' drinking habits, drug-taking or disorganised working methods.One candidate was supposedly a secret drinker while perhaps as many as two were supposedly about to be revealed as cocaine addicts by the News of the World.But two weeks after the job was advertised and while head-hunters were interviewing prospective candidates the campaign entered a new phase when The Times unearthed an old story about Mr Dyke, who always was front- runner, donating pounds 50,000 to the Labour Party.Mr Dyke's backing for the party in power sparked a political controversy, with the Tories insisting he could not be appointed.The focus of the race moved to those working for and against Mr Dyke. The Times produced members of the great and the good who opposed Mr Dyke because they believed he would strip the BBC of its political impartiality.Others, many who had worked with Mr Dyke at London Weekend Television in the Eighties, lined up to support him. In what now appears to have been a serious political miscalculation, William Hague, Conservative Party leader, joined The Times' campaign and came out publicly against the Pearson TV chairman.Mr Hague's opposition to Mr Dyke was broadcast in The Times, which ran a front-page story under a now-unfortunate headline: "Hague to `veto' Dyke's bid for BBC job."The Tory leader told the newspaper that it would be "totally unacceptable for anyone who has so substantially and recently supported a political party and even helped to fund the leadership campaign of a party leader to be appointed director-general of the BBC."At the time, Tory officials believed Mr Hague's public intervention had effectively vetoed Mr Dyke.Sir Christopher assured Mr Hague that the appointment would be impartial and free of political pressure "whatever the source".The list was whittled by a panel of governors from 13 candidates to five: Mr Dyke, Alan Yentob, director of BBC Television, Tony Hall, chief executive of BBC News, Mark Byford, head of BBC World Service and Richard Eyre, chief executive of ITV.The Times stepped up its campaign, and other newspapers voiced varying degrees of opposition to the idea of Mr Dyke as DG. It emerged that a group of as many as five governors were also opposed.By the weekend Mr Yentob, the leading internal candidate was out of the race and the whole process, the longest in the BBC's history, was moving towards farce.This week as the BBC presented its annual report to Parliament, the chairman of the Media Select Committee, Gerald Kaufman, was threatening to investigate the selection procedures of the BBC.But on Wednesday night, after the presentation of the annual report to the press, the governors went to dinner together in London. They came to the decision by a small majority.Tory sources said last night that Mr Hague accepted the governors' decision and would approach his talks with Mr Dyke in a constructive way.However, senior Tories said privately that the party would be "watching the BBC like hawks" once Mr Dyke succeeded Sir John Birt.

"I think the row will help us get a fairer crack of the whip, because he will have to bend over backwards to help us."But Labour sources said Mr Hague's move had backfired and was another example of his poor judgement. "Relations will be frosty and the Tories could suffer," said a Labour MP "Greg Dyke will not feel intimated by Hague He will be his own man.". THE RUMOUR mill at the BBC is already in full throttle over who will do well under Greg Dyke, and who is likely to suffer. The BBC Television boss Alan Yentob is expected to be a key beneficiary of the Dyke appointment. The two men have met in recent weeks to discuss how they might run the corporation as a "dream team".