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Mark Cosgrove has been ruled out of South Australia’s FR Cup match against Victoria in Adelaide on Wednesday due to a hamstring injury. Cosgrove picked up the problem during the Sheffield Shield match this week and is expected to be available for the Redbacks’ next four-day game.South Australia have included the allrounder Matthew Weeks in their 12-man squad, while the wicketkeeper Tim Ludeman will make his FR Cup debut. Ludeman was given a chance in the Sheffield Shield due to Graham Manou’s call-up to the ODI side in India and impressed in his only innings, scoring 62.Victoria have left out Dirk Nannes for the 50-over clash, while Shane Harwood, Damien Wright and Aaron Finch have been included in the 12-man group having missed the Sheffield Shield game. It was a tough grind for the Bushrangers on the fourth day, when South Australia’s stand-in captain Daniel Harris batted all day to secure a draw.Wednesday’s match is the first FR Cup game of the season for Victoria, who started late due to their involvement in the Champions League Twenty20 in India. South Australia have begun the tournament with two losses and the coach Mark Sorell said the pressure was on for the Redbacks to lift before the season starts slipping away.”Our batting has probably missed the beat in a couple of those one-day games,” Sorell said. “We haven’t posted the totals that we probably should’ve. That makes it hard for your bowlers then, because [the opposition] batters aren’t attacking. Our batters know that when they get starts they’ve got to go on and post big scores.”South Australia squad Daniel Harris (capt), Tom Cooper, James Smith, Michael Klinger, Cameron Borgas, Daniel Christian, Aaron O’Brien, Tim Ludeman (wk), Matthew Weeks, Jake Haberfield, Shaun Tait, Peter George.Victoria squad Chris Rogers, Brad Hodge, Rob Quiney, David Hussey (capt), Aaron Finch, Andrew McDonald, Matthew Wade (wk), John Hastings, Damien Wright, Shane Harwood, Darren Pattinson, Bryce McGain.

Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson has said he will pepper the Indian batsmen with short deliveries when the teams meet in Centurion today for a crucial ICC Champions Trophy match which will decide their semi-final prospects.The Indian top order was caught short by short-pitched deliveries during their failed campaign in the World Twenty20 in England this June. That led to an unexpected recall to the ODI squad for Rahul Dravid, one of the most technically adept batsmen in the country against hostile bowling attacks.”The Indians are used to playing on wickets that don’t really bounce above knee height, so to get a few short ones up there hopefully unsettles them,” Johnson told the . ”Pretty much early on in someone’s innings, or if you find someone who really can’t play the short ball, you’ve probably got to bowl a few more at them.”Australia already have one foot in the top four while India, following their defeat against Pakistan, need to win tonight to stay in contention. Allrounder James Hopes said the fact that India are under greater pressure should give his team enough incentive to knock them off their perch.”They are one of the favourites to win the tournament I would assume, so we have been given the chance to put them out and we are looking forward to hopefully doing that,” Hopes said. “Now it comes down to one game to see whether we have to win on Wednesday (against Pakistan) to get into the semi-finals, or whether we can go straight through and put India out. It’s going to be a high-pressure game, it’s going to be good to play in.”Both teams entered the tournament on the back of series wins. Australia lashed England 6-1 after conceding the Ashes, while India warmed-up with a win in the Compaq Cup tri-series in Sri Lanka.

Ryan Sidebottom has been awarded a benefit season in 2010 after six years with Nottinghamshire. Sidebottom, 31, has played in 21 Tests for England and was a key member of Nottinghamshire’s County Championship winning side in 2005.”Being awarded a benefit year is a huge privilege,” said Sidebottom. “I’ve always felt at home at Trent Bridge and I’m looking forward to forming a committee and putting on events.”Nottinghamshire Chairman Peter Wright praised Sidebottom’s continued commitment to the club. “Ryan continues to demonstrate that he is a genuine force in world cricket and we are delighted that he is able to combine his international cricket with such a strong commitment to Notts.””He is an extremely talented player, a great ambassador for cricket and thoroughly deserving of a benefit season.”

Mahela Jayawardene’s success at the SSC has become a creature of habit. This is, after all, a man who has averaged 79. 58 with 2467 runs in his 22 Tests at the venue. When he missed a century in the first innings by eight runs, there was an air of inevitability that Jayawardene would get there in the second innings, seeing as Sri Lanka would definitely try and bat New Zealand out of this Test.Instead, Jayawardene put himself into the record books for a reason that left him bittersweet at the end of the day. Falling in the nineties again, and to the same bowler (Iain O’Brien) and with a similar shot, Jayawardene become just the fourth player – and first Asian – to make two nineties in a Test.”I have always wanted to put effort into spending time at the crease and at the end of the day, while two nineties are disappointing, I’ll take the runs,” Jayawardene said. “The first innings was more disappointing, though. If we had gone through and got a big score then probably we would have been in a much better situation.”Surely you jest, Mahela? The way New Zealand have batted all tour, Sri Lanka would have surely been comfortable with a first-innings score of 416. When he walked out in the second innings, it was with a determined stride and from the start you sensed he was checking in for a while. This is a batsman who, once settled, is unlikely to get out against such bowling and in such conditions.To the spinners, on a wearing track, Jayawardene’s preferred shots were off the back foot, going right back to hit the ball on top of the bounce either behind point or to square leg. He played several such shots off Daniel Vettori and Jeetan Patel. Against the seamers, there were wristy flicks and delicate dabs and copybook cover-drives. Until he poked at one from Iain O’Brien on 96, Jayawardene had batted with faultless assurance.”Whenever I go out it is to do well. Keeping consistency is something I’ve thrived on,” he said. “I wanted to get a hundred in the second innings but I got a peach of a delivery. You can’t always help it.”Jayawardene has been the center of Sri Lanka’s batting archipelago since the retirements of Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga, and has consistently proven himself a batsman with the temperament and the strokes for big scores. Since giving up the captaincy, Jayawardene said his approach had not changed. “I’ve always said I’ve taken captaincy and batting separately. My contribution is important but right now I don’t have captaincy responsibility. I am 32 and hopefully I have three or four years of my best time where I learn a lot and push myself harder.”Jayawardene’s efforts have put Sri Lanka into a winning position and its now just about wrapping things up. If Jayawardene’s role with the bat numbed New Zealand into submission, then the left-arm spinner Rangana Herath’s four wickets had the tourists puzzled. Herath, after being dropped for Ajantha Mendis in Galle, has continued his rich vein of form with seven wickets so far in the Test. Four came today in a spell in which Herath bowled better than Test cricket’s highest wicket-taker at the other end.”We’ve invested in Rangana for some time. He’s been our second best spinner for quite some time now before Ajantha came into the scene,” Jayawardene said. “He’s been around for a while and we’ve had belief in him. Now he’s put his hand up and said ‘I’m capable of handling that No. 1 spot once Murali leaves’. With the experience Rangana has, he will probably be our best spinner for some time.”

Michael Hussey hopes his career-saving century at The Oval will have a revitalising effect similar to that of Matthew Hayden’s corresponding innings four years ago. Like Hayden in 2005, Hussey entered the final match of the Ashes series in the midst of a desperately barren run-scoring drought, but managed a fighting 121 that will almost certainly secure his place in the Australian top-order for their next Test assignments against West Indies and Pakistan.Hayden’s scratchy, attritional century at the Oval in 2005 spared him the selectors’ axe and triggered the most prolific two-year period of his international career. In the 21 Tests that followed his innings of 138, Hayden scored 2,015 runs at 55.97 including eight centuries. Hussey, having now broken a century-less streak that had spanned 28 Test innings, is hopeful of a similar knock-on effect.”He’s one of the greats of all time and I don’t want to put myself in that sort of mould,” Hussey said. “He had a great run – I think he scored six hundreds in a row after that hundred at The Oval. So I certainly hope so, but who knows? This game is amazing. Sometimes you feel like you can do everything right and it just does not seem to go your way. But then, like yesterday, when maybe things aren’t quite in your favour it just seems to click in your favour. I certainly hope that can be a springboard forward.”Asked whether he felt he was batting to save his Test career on Sunday, Hussey added: “Maybe a little bit. You obviously like to be contributing to the team as often as possible, and obviously I haven’t been contributing as well as I would have liked to. For me, it felt like it was meant to be. I had a fair bit of luck along the way. Whereas throughout the whole series I felt like I’ve been batting quite well but it just hasn’t seemed to go right, but yesterday for some reason – lap of the gods, really – everything fell into place.”I think you definitely have doubts, for sure. I do know my game and I just wanted to be true to my game and true to my preparations and stick to what I know does work for me. You’ve just got to have belief in that. I’ve had a lot of support from people; good, close friends from around the world. The common message all the time was to stick to what you know, keep believing in yourself, you are good enough. That’s all you can really do.”As with Hayden’s innings in 2005, Hussey’s century could not prevent Australia surrendering the Ashes urn. The frailties of a rebuilding team were ruthlessly exposed by Stuart Broad in a spell of supreme quality fast bowling on Saturday, and the tourists, faced with a world record fourth innings run chase, never recovered.Hussey’s innings may well be remembered as much for its role in the run-out of Ricky Ponting as his personal tally ending, as it did, Australia’s slim hopes of an historic victory on Sunday. His underestimation of Flintoff’s throwing arm accounted for Ponting’s wicket, and when Michael Clarke fell to a bizarre run-out six deliveries later, the Ashes had all but changed hands.”Sometimes I think you just hit it, call and go and you think half way down, ‘Oh no, is that a bit too tight?’ Obviously it was,” he said. “At tea time I wanted to walk down towards the gardeners’ shed and not back towards the dressing room. I didn’t want to go back to the dressing room and certainly the England players were saying, ‘I bet you’re not looking forward to going back to the dressing room at tea time.’ It’s part of the game unfortunately. Michael Clarke’s was obviously a pretty unlucky run-out as well.”I was shattered, absolutely shattered. I was pretty emotional at the end of it all, sitting down there. The boys had gone onto the ground, I was taking my pads off in the dressing room and it was pretty hard to take.”Australia’s defeat at The Oval ensured their surrender of the No. 1 Test ranking for the first time since 2003. South Africa, Sri Lanka and India are now rated superior to Ricky Ponting’s side in the five-day format, and Hussey admitted the revised assessment was a fair one.He did, however, predict a rapid rise for Australia. “I think this team has got a lot of improvement to go,” he said. “I think in the cold light of day we’re probably not the best team in the world and we’ve got to be honest with that. We’re a pretty young team and we’ve lost a lot of great players. There’s so much improvement to come from this team. I think we’ll get a lot of strength out of this series. It’s been a really tight series, and we’ll learn a lot and get better and better. I think we’ve got the making of another great Australian team.”You learn that there’s critical moments in games and series and you need to be able to seize those moments. The Australian teams in the past have been able to identify those moments and win those critical moments. It’s experience. I’m sure guys like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn probably made those same errors early in their careers, but they would have learned from those.”Having briefly considered standing down from the limited overs formats, Hussey this week reaffirmed his desire to represent Australia in all three forms of the game. He will be called upon to play a leading role in the forthcoming ODI matches against Scotland and England, with senior players including Ricky Ponting and Brad Haddin homeward bound.”We’ve got to bounce back pretty quickly,” he said. “We’ve got the one-day series to concentrate on now. We need to take a deep breath first, because this has been the climax of the summer. We’ve got to quickly get over it. It’s probably a good thing that we can get straight back into the cricket.”

Former Pakistan spinner Iqbal Qasim has been appointed chairman of a new, restructured national selection commitee. Former Test cricketers Saleem Jaffer, Ijaz Ahmed, Azhar Khan and Mohammad Ilyas have also been appointed members. Two co-opted members, Asif Baloch and Farrukh Zaman, have also been included to make it a seven-member panel, but they will not have a vote on selection, and are only expected to provide input.As had been expected after the previous committee was disbanded, the board has streamlined the selection structure by making just the one committee responsible for all selections, senior and junior. All major regions in Pakistan have been represented; Zaman ostensibly looks after the NWFP region, Baloch after Balochistan and the rest over Sindh and Punjab.”The responsibility for them is to spot and nurture talent from the grassroots to the Test arena,” Wasim Bari, director HR and adminstration, told Cricinfo. “We have streamlined the process by making one committee responsible for all selections.”Qasim, who was a member of the selection committee until the 2007 World Cup, has been appointed in an honorary post. He is a senior employee with the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and it is believed that his role will not be a day-to-day one. As such, in a break from recent practice, he is an honorary head and will not be a full-time paid selector unlike the last two selection committees where the chairman and other members were all full-time, professional selectors. It is not clear yet, however, about the status of the members, though it is likely they will remain full-time paid professionals.There remains a sense of continuity, however, with the retention of Jaffer, who was part of the two previous selection committees, and Ilyas, who headed the last junior selection committee. Ijaz Ahmed is also a part of the existing board set-up, working at the National Cricket Academy.PCB chairman Ijaz Butt had earlier disbanded the national senior and junior selection committees after Abdul Qadir, then the chief selector, resigned from his post claiming he wasn’t allowed to carry out his duties. The new committee will be responsible for selection matters with effect from August 1, 2009.National Selection Committee: Iqbal Qasim (chairman), Saleem Jaffer , Ijaz Ahmed, Mohammad Ilyas, Azhar Khan (members), Asif Baloch, Farrukh Zaman (co-opted members).

Daniel Vettori captured the plight of New Zealand’s World Twenty20 campaign in a single line on the eve of their knockout Super Eights game against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge. He had said at the start of the tournament that New Zealand’s strength was in their top order and now “potentially three of those top four [batsmen] might not play one of our most important games” in the competition.Vettori was referring to the loss of Jesse Ryder from the entire tournament because of a groin problem, and the possible absences of Ross Taylor, who strained his hamstring, and Brendon McCullum, the latest addition to the casualty ward, from a game New Zealand must win to keep their semi-final hopes alive. McCullum sustained a broken bone and damaged ligament after a collision with Neil Broom off the last ball during the defeat to Pakistan. He hasn’t been ruled out of Tuesday’s game, though, and his team-mates are hoping that he responds well to an injection.”It’s another injury we desperately didn’t need,” Vettori said. “It’s not easy. We didn’t expect to call players in from outside the 15 and we didn’t expect to only pick from 11 in a couple of games.” If McCullum isn’t fit and Taylor is, then it will be a straight swap, but if both are unfit, it’s likely that Neil Broom will come into the XI and Martin Guptill will open the innings.New Zealand will be desperate for McCullum to play though, for more than the obvious reason that he is one of their most explosive batsmen. McCullum’s the only player with first-hand insight into the wiles of Sri Lankan offspinner Ajantha Mendis, his Kolkata Knight Riders team-mate in the IPL. None of the other New Zealand batsmen have faced Mendis before and how they handle his four overs could be one of the decisive factors of the game. Teams have struggled when facing Mendis for the first time: India were one of the first, during the Test tour of Sri Lanka in 2008, and Australia were the most recent, losing 3 for 20 to the spinner during their group match in the World Twenty20.”Brendon has been trying to offer as much insight as possible,” Vettori said. “He’s [Mendis] going to be an immensely difficult prospect along with Murali and Malinga as well. It’s a total package for them [Sri Lanka] in terms of their bowling line-up but Mendis is probably the newest one for us. We’re leaning on Brendon a lot for his experience of him in the IPL.”Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan need only the tiniest of openings to bury the opposition. They are capable of triggering a collapse at any stage, irrespective of how well set the batsmen are, but are at their most dangerous against new batsmen. “If we lose wickets through those middle stages then the new guys who haven’t seen them [Mendis and Murali] before are going to be put under a heap of pressure,” Vettori said. “So if we can be none or one down when they come on to bowl it’s going to make a massive difference.”And then there’s the threat posed by Lasith Malinga. His fast and deadly accurate yorkers have been almost impossible to get away during the final overs and he’s developed the knack of splaying the stumps with a slower full toss as well. Malinga’s also had success against New Zealand in the past, taking 20 wickets in four Tests against them and nine in six ODI innings. Vettori, though, said New Zealand had studied how players like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist succeeded against Malinga’s low unorthodox action and hoped his batsmen would be able to replicate the method tomorrow.”I think Australia took him for 36 runs in his four-over spell [in the group match],” Vettori said. “So there are options to get him away, there are ways of doing it. Like most of batting it becomes an individual thing and you have to tailor your game to what he’s doing.”New Zealand’s semi-final chances hinge on how they counter Sri Lanka’s potent bowling line-up – Vettori called Murali, Malinga and Mendis “three of the best Twenty20 bowlers in the world” – despite a depleted batting arsenal.

It has emerged that one of the recommendations of the recent ICC report into cricket in Zimbabwe was that there was a complete overhaul of the system of selection for the national team.The ICC task force, headed by West Indies board president Julian Hunte, said the national selection committee lacked the necessary experience to make informed decisions.At present, the four-man committee is led by Kenyon Zeal and includes Vumi Moyo, Steyn Kombai and Jackie Du Preez. Only Du Preez, who played Tests for South Africa in the 1960s, has any discernable cricketing pedigree.”The depth and relevance of the playing experience of these selectors was a concern,” the ICC report stated. “Only one of the selectors has played Test cricket while the other three have very little high profile cricket playing experience. [We] noted a distinct lack of awareness among stakeholders, including current players, of the composition and workings of the NSC.”There was also criticism of the way the captain is appointed. “The NSC members are permitted to make representations to the Cricket Committee but their input is not necessarily followed in the appointment of the national captain. The board chairman [Peter Chingoka] of ZC retains a right of veto on team selection.”While the selectors have not had a deep player pool to work with, there has been criticism of the way they have operated.Given that ZC appears to have taken on board many of the ICC’s recommendations, it is likely that there will be changes to the selection panel. Given it has indicated a desire to attract former players back into the game at all levels, it would seem sensible that the likes of Heath Streak, who still lives in Zimbabwe and has expressed a willingness to help, are drafted in as selectors. If the will is there, a highly experienced selection panel could easily be assembled.Furthermore, the board will need to remove the right of Chingoka or any other out-and -out administrator to interfere in any part of the selection process, including the choice of captain.

The ECB have rejected Middlesex’s call to have Sunday’s Friends Provident Trophy match against Somerset at Lord’s replayed, despite the on-field umpires admitting they made a mistake in in allowing Somerset, who won the game by five wickets, too many Powerplay overs.Middlesex scored 341 for 5 in their 50 overs, but Somerset’s target was reduced under Duckworth-Lewis regulations to 290 in 41 overs. That should have meant they had 16 Powerplay overs but the umpires permitted them 19.Vinny Codrington, Middlesex’s chief executive, said that during the extra overs, Somerset went from being behind the asking rate to being ahead of it. “It’s been accepted that this was an error by the umpires and we have requested for the match to be replayed,” he said. “We wish to stress that we are in no way blaming the umpires. We strongly believe in the authority of the umpires and are in no way questioning their integrity. We simply believe that they have made a technical rather than a cricketing error and have asked the ECB to consider this situation, the result of which could decide on our participation in the quarter finals.”The ECB, however, have rejected the request. “After consideration and following an approach from Middlesex, the England and Wales Cricket Board have decided to uphold the precedent that umpire errors cannot form the basis to declare a match null and void,” a statement read. “ECB has great sympathy for the position in which Middlesex has been placed but a replay cannot be ordered in these circumstances.”Middlesex’s fate in the competition now rests on tomorrow’s match between Warwickshire and Kent. If Warwickshire win, Middlesex will be out, whereas if Kent are victorious, the quarter-final placing will be decided on the net run-rates.

Chris Gayle has shrugged off criticism of his late arrival in England ahead of Wednesday’s first Test at Lord’s, and claims he is fully focussed on defending the Wisden Trophy after West Indies’ memorable series win in the Caribbean in March, despite having a mere 48 hours to switch from 20-over to five-day mode.After a 12-hour overnight flight from Johannesburg, Gayle landed in England at 6.45am on Monday morning, and linked up with his squad at Lord’s later that same day after resting at the team hotel for barely seven hours. His decision to stay back in South Africa and play one final IPL fixture for the Kolkata Knight Riders attracted raised eyebrows from his coach, John Dyson, but Gayle himself dismissed the controversy with typical insouciance.”I was due to come over on May 3, but since the practice game [against England Lions at Derby] finished then, I asked if I could stay,” Gayle said. “I got permission to play the IPL game on the 3rd, because it wasn’t a big gap in between. If I had come here then, practice would have been at 2pm so I don’t see much of a difference actually. I slept comfortably and I’m feeling fresh. What difference will a couple of hours do?”Gayle’s late arrival was greeted with surprise by his opposite number, Andrew Strauss, who has himself had to deal with late arrivals from the IPL in Kevin Pietersen, Ravi Bopara and Paul Collingwood, although by arriving back in the country on Friday, those three did at least have the weekend to overcome their jetlag.”What’s important is that Test cricket gets the attention it deserves, and that means that people prepare themselves properly for any Test they play,” said Strauss. “You don’t want Test cricket to be devalued in any way, shape or form. There’s a line there, and we certainly wouldn’t want our players to be arriving two days before a Test. From our point of view we’re trying to avoid going too far over that line”This is a problem that’s pretty unique to England,” added Strauss, “because we are the only team playing at this time of year. So the relationship between the ECB and IPL has to be a good one and a clear one. We don’t want a situation where international cricket is competing against the IPL. That would be unhealthy for the game, unhealthy for the IPL, and most of all, unhealthy for future of Test cricket.””That’s his point of view and you have to accept that,” said Gayle. “From my point of view we are all different, and it’s about who can be ready physically and mentally for a situation like this. We’ve flown long distances before, practiced for one day and gone straight into an international game. The challenge is always there, so whatever happened in the last couple of games we should try and forget. The real thing starts tomorrow.”Nevertheless, Gayle’s absence from West Indies’ preparations has been far from ideal. While his team-mates have struggled to acclimatise to the unique conditions of early-season England, losing by ten wickets up at Derby, the captain has been reduced to following their fortunes on the internet and preparing for the chilly weather by, as he put it, “wearing one shirt” during his IPL performances.”But we all knew this situation would happen,” he said, referring to the agreement to take part in the England tour which was only finalised back in November. “Our IPL players were available for the full tournament, but then this tour came up on us. We knew the situation and discussed it with the board members. They gave us permission to be back at a certain time and it’s nothing new.”There was debate about it which has been clarified and sorted out,” he said. “When I heard about the tour I scratched my head a bit, but realised it was another chance to represent West Indies, so there was no way I could avoid coming here to England. It’s an honour and a privilege to lead an entire nation.”Gayle led West Indies with pride in the Caribbean, scoring two centuries in the five Tests – the first to set up the decisive victory in Jamaica, the second to defend their 1-0 lead in the final match in Trinidad. But, despite having had some practice against the swinging ball during this season’s bowler-dominated IPL, he admitted that the conditions in England in May are unlike anything he could expect to encounter anywhere else in the world.”International cricket is totally different in these conditions and hopefully we can put up a good fight,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, even more challenging than back home but we are up for the situation. We are all aware of the conditions and expect these things. A few of the guys have played a lot of cricket over here, and a few others have played some league cricket. But the first day can determine the outcome of the Test. We need a good start and we can build on it.”The last time Gayle arrived in England at such short notice was ahead of the Tsunami Relief fixture at Lord’s in June 2005, when he was ushered straight off the plane and into the starting line-up, and duly struggled in an innings of 4 from 17 balls. Should he prove similarly scratchy this time around he will doubtless come in for criticism, although one man who sympathises with his situation is the former West Indies captain, Richie Richardson.”I don’t think it’s a problem, because the arrangement was already known,” Richardson told Cricinfo. “A lot of cricket is being played these days, and as long as the guys are in touch and good nick, then it’s no problem. Ideally you’d want everyone to be together as early as possible, but the most important thing is to get on with the job and get into the swing of things. Gayle is accustomed to playing with the guys, and I’m sure he’ll adapt quickly.”