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Daniel Vettori has been rested for New Zealand’s first Test against Sri Lanka, which starts at Napier on April 4. He has been replaced by Kyle Mills in the 12-man squad.Vettori had complained of a sore back after taking a heavy workload during the Test series against Australia, and the selectors hoped that and extra week’s rest would help Vettori get back to peak fitness in time for the second Test which starts on April 11 at Wellington. Mills has played just two Tests so far, against England at Nottingham in 2004 and against Australia at Brisbane earlier this season, and his stats do not look impressive – his only wicket has cost him 130 runs.New Zealand have been struggling with injuries almost throughout this season. Scott Styris is recovering from knee surgery while Jacob Oram and Ian Butler are battling back from long-standing back problems. Chris Harris underwent shoulder surgery after injuring himself in the VB Series in February, Daryl Tuffey has a bicep strain and Michael Papps has undergone an operation on his finger.Squad
Craig Cumming, James Marshall, Stephen Fleming (capt), Hamish Marshall, Nathan Astle, Lou Vincent, Brendon McCullum, Iain O’Brien, Kyle Mills, Paul Wiseman, James Franklin, Chris Martin.

Scorecard

The weather gods tried to upset play on the second day at Lord’s, but Middlesex scrapped and clawed their way back into the reckoning against Glamorgan. With Tim Murtagh prising out three quick wickets before the close, Glamorgan hobbled to stumps trailing by 223 runs.Murtagh bowled seven lively overs unchanged from the Nursery End in perfect late-afternoon sunshine, finding one to hold its line on Matthew Wood, whose feet were planted. Glamorgan were 0 for 1 and in spite of the seemingly perfect batting conditions, Murtagh and Chris Silverwood were moving the ball prodigously. After clipping two neat fours David Hemp was bowled through the gate by a cracking off-cutter which jarred down the slope, and Gareth Rees – who was earlier struck a nasty blow between the knees – poked tentatively at one which held its line on the off stump.Mike Powell – Glamorgan’s dogfighter – was the first Glamorgan batsman to move his feet noticably and benefitted accordingly, on-driving Murtagh for four past mid-on to alleviate the drought Middlesex’s bowlers had imposed. Together with Jamie Dalrymple, making his Glamorgan debut against his former team-mates, the pair guided their side to relative safety in the dying light.That Murtagh and Silverwood were able to impose such pressure with the ball was down to Middlesex’s gritty determination with the bat. Only ten, turgid overs were possible in between the morning rain but after lunch, Murtagh in particular showed composure and class in his brief but valuable 22. The inconsistent David Harrison was cover-driven for four, and he followed it up with the day’s most elegant off drive to nudge Middlesex past 250.Still, as impressive as Murtagh’s brief innings was, Middlesex were most indebted to David Nash, who resumed on 53. Orthodox is not an adjective often used to describe Middlesex’s wicketkeeper but today, in difficult seaming conditions, he was just that. Using the crease well, he nudged Harrison repeatedly through the leg side and twice back-cut Ryan Watkins – whose energy was admirable, if not so his line and length – for delicate fours, albeit with the impish charm that befits wicketkeeper-batsmen.Nash received good support from Gareth Berg, a Kolpak-qualified South African making his Championship debut, with whom he put on 61 for the sixth wicket. Berg was confident off the back foot, flaying Watkins through extra cover before pulling him through midwicket, but Robert Croft out-thought him on 33 when he bat-padded a cleverly-flighted delivery. Silverwood added a swift and agricultural 16, but Nash was last-man out four short of a deserved hundred when he wellied Alex Wharf to short square-leg. Nevertheless, 308 represented somewhat of a recovery from yesterday’s 198 for 5.As the light drew in Powell survived a very confident appeal for lbw from Steven Finn, Middlesex’s immensely promising 6ft 8in fast bowler, but Glamorgan were spared further loss. Not since 1954 have Glamorgan celebrated a win at Lord’s, and they face an uphill haul if they are to end that 54-year drought over the final two days.

Another Chennai Test, another Australia collapse. Those who were here three years ago could tell you that it wasn’t Harbhajan Singh’s 15 wickets or Sachin Tendulkar’s century that won India the series. No, it was Steve Waugh’s hand. When the man renowned for his steely temperament decided to play catch with a Harbhajan delivery that was spinning back towards the stumps, Australia were 340 for 3, and on course to give India a hiding to end all hidings. Matthew Hayden was at his intimidating best at the other end, and Waugh himself had seldom been troubled during his innings.But that momentary lapse of reason left the door ajar for Harbhajan, and a little over an hour later, Australia had subsided to 391 all out. The world champions don’t do anything by halves, and when they lose the plot, it can make the average B-grade Bollywood pot-boiler look coherent. At Kolkata a week earlier, with VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid having played the innings of their lives, Australia were handily placed to salvage a draw on the final day, going to tea at 161 for 3, with the Hayden-Waugh combination occupying the crease.But once Waugh was caught in the close-in cordon by Hemang Badani, the last seven batsmen were loathe to make the scorers work unduly hard, adding only 46 more before subsiding to 212 all out. This penchant for stunning collapses hasn’t been restricted to matches in India either. In the series opener at Brisbane last year, Australia went from 268 for 2 to 323 all out. And in the Adelaide match, where they lost despite piling up an imposing 556 in the first innings, the last five second-innings wickets added just 13.Of course, only a foolish punter would write off Australia’s chances here. In Sri Lanka a few months ago, they conceded first-innings leads of 161 and 91 in the first two Tests, storming back to win both despite a certain Muttiah Muralitharan being in opposition. But the stumble from 189 for 2 to 235 today certainly gives India hope. Like the boxer who strives incessantly for a knockout despite being way ahead of points, Australia remain suspect to the sucker punch, and Anil Kumble’s haymaker certainly laid them out cold.

Allen Stanford and his 20/20 board of directors have invited thewinners of the World Twenty20 in Johannesburg to play a one-off,$5million, match at Stanford’s ground in Antigua. The game ispencilled in for June 29 against a Super Star Team selected from theplayers taking part in the 2008 Stanford 20/20.”Since this is the first World Twenty20 and that is the format of ourtournament we felt it was fitting to have this team come and play ourSuper Star team next year,” said Stanford. “It will be the perfectculmination of our 2008 Stanford 20/20 programme [which takes place inJanuary and February 2008].”Because Stanford can’t invite a Full Member of ICC to play in thematch, the official invite will come from the West Indies Board. “Mr Hunte [thePresident of WICB] will actually be making the invitation on behalf ofStanford 20/20,” Stanford told Cricinfo during an event in Johannesburg. “We are going to invite the winner to come to Antigua for one night and play one game for $5m, winner takes all.”However, if India wins at the Wanderers it may not take up the offeras it has said it is unwilling to enter into a private event. Stanford has therefore made a contingency plan. “If the winner of this game chooses not come we are going to ask Australia as a back-up.”But this match has only come about as a compromise after Stanford’sinitial plan for a quadrangular event – involving Sri Lanka, India,Australia and South Africa – was scuppered by the TV deal between ICCand ESPN-Star.”What we wanted to do was invite Sri Lanka, India, Australia and SouthAfrica to come down and play on Friday, Saturday and Wednesday, and then you come out with a winner who then plays our Super Stars the following Saturday,” explained Stanford. “I called it 20/20 for 20 – $20million dollars for the winner. But because EPSN-Star are locked into this big contract with ICC it eliminated me getting fourteams.”We needed to get their permission and had a meeting scheduled here inJohannesburg with them, but they didn’t show up. Now I think it isgoing to be too big an issue to get ready for this year, because ourtournament starts in January so we optedfor this one-off game. We wanted the four-team play-off but there is alot of bureaucracy.”Stanford is in Johannesburg with nine of his board members includingJoel Garner, Michael Holding, Viv Richards and Desmond Haynes.Although the meeting with ESPN-Star fell through, they met withMalcolm Speed and ICC members in what Stanford called “constructivemeetings” although the feeling between the two is still strained.

James Anderson has been chosen in England A’s tour to West Indies which starts in February. Anderson missed out on the full England trip to India, but gets the chance to impress again when he heads to the Caribbean with a 15-man party which will be captained by Worcestershire’s Vikram Solanki.Ian Blackwell is in the squad, too, but he could yet head to India if Ashley Giles doesn’t recover from hip surgery in time. Giles underwent an operation in December, but is taking longer to rehabilitate than had been expected. So Blackwell will be on standby for Giles, after he missed out on the third spinner’s place to Monty Panesar.Also in the frame was Alex Loudon, who has the consolation of a West Indies trip, as does fellow Pakistan tourist, Kabir Ali. Alex Wharf, who has a handful of England caps, has been given another chance, too, while the rest of the party come from the Academy.England A squad Vikram Solanki (capt), Kabir Ali, James Anderson, Gareth Batty, Ian Blackwell, Rikki Clarke, Alastair Cook, Jamie Dalrymple, Ed Joyce, Alex Loudon, Sajid Mahmood, Chris Read, Owais Shah, Alex Wharf, Michael Yardy

England’s cricketers believe they have been used as “political pawns”, after the latest – and presumably decisive – twist to the never-ending Zimbabwe saga.Nineteen months on from a near-identical situation, on the eve of the 2003 World Cup, the players have once again found themselves holed up in a South African hotel, awaiting orders from the England & Wales Cricket Board, after the Zimbabwe performed a spectacular U-turn over the issue of its ban on 13 members of the British media.While the journalists’ ban was being enforced, there seemed no way that the tour could proceed, and for the first time since the saga began, even the ICC seemed sympathetic towards England’s plight. But by lifting the ban at lunchtime on Thursday, the Zimbabwe government whipped away England’s get-out clause, and left them once again facing a hefty fine for failing to comply with the Future Tours Agreement.”From the players’ perspective, the last 24 hours have been extremely disappointing and saddened the players for a number of reasons,” said Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, in a press conference in Johannesburg. “It’s naive to say that sport and politics don’t mix, but you are able to draw a line in the sand and say you should not cross that particular line, and using players as political pawns is unacceptable.”Friday’s first one-day international in Harare has been cancelled, and the players are understandably keen that it should not be rescheduled for a later date. “[They] have acted in a proper manner throughout by supporting the ECB in a very difficult position,” added Bevan. “The players have also asked the ECB to re-consider the issue of replaying the match that has been cancelled tomorrow.”It is particularly disappointing for the players that an issue that has been ticking away for a year and a half should remain unresolved even on eve of the first match, and Bevan was keen to stress that the decision to tour was in no way indicative of the players’ moral stances.”Deciding to tour Zimbabwe does not condone the issues that are going on in the country,” he said. “We have discussed on many occasions whether this tour should take place.

Already down 2-0 in the seven-match series, England need to turn the momentum around quickly, else the second half of the series could be reduced to a time for experiments and trying out new talent. India hold the whip at the moment, but they would do well to remember that one season back they were 2-0 up in an ODI series at home against Pakistan, and then went on to lose four in a row.Though England lost at Delhi and Faridabad, they have by no means been outclassed – in both matches, they held the whip for significant portions, and could have been 2-0 up with better application and some luck. Paul Collingwood said as much in a chat with the media before the game: “We are not down and out yet. There were passages of play when we dominated during the series. Really, we have got to transform that into a win in the game on Monday,” he said. “I think it is probably the mental side of it rather than anything else. We have got the skills and personnel. We have to take that a little bit further and elevate it.”Despite the results, India’s performance, especially their batting, has hardly been convincing – at Delhi they lost their top five for 80, while they slumped from 61 without loss to 92 for 5 at Faridabad. Rahul Dravid, though, sought to play down the batting concerns, and instead chose to concentrate on the superb comeback in the second match. “The top order performed well against Sri Lanka, South Africa and Pakistan. Overall I am happy with the batting in the one-dayers,” Dravid emphasised. “I agree there could have been a few more runs from the top order especially in the last two games where we could have done better. “[But] the last game was won by two batsmen [Suresh Raina, who made an unbeaten 81 and Mahendra Dhoni, who made 38].”A major concern has been the form of Virender Sehwag, who has only managed three fifties from his last 30 ODIs. However, Dravid indicated that the think-tank would keep their faith in the Sehwag-Gautam Gambhir duo at the top of the order. “We have got good starts though we would have liked them to have carried on. But this is a seven-match series and hopefully they would do so in the remaining games.”The pitches at both Delhi and Faridabad made run-scoring a difficult proposition, but Dravid indicated that batsmen will have more reason to look forward to the one at Goa. “It looks a good cricket wicket. It looks firm. It seems to be a better wicket than the one in the last game. I can’t say what will be a good score on this wicket but it probably looks to be a 250-plus score wicket.”What won’t please either side, especially England, is the hot and humid conditions at Goa. “It is a big challenge, the humidity, for both batsmen and bowlers,” Dravid said. “We need to make sure we stay hydrated.” Collingwood echoed those sentiments: “The key is the humidity. It is very hot and I think it is going to be a cauldron out there. We have to be careful about dehydration. We have played in Sri Lanka which is close to these conditions. We have experienced this before and it should not be an issue.”The heartening news for India is that Munaf Patel has recovered from a bruised heel and is available for selection. India might opt to play him in place of Sreesanth, who has gone for 79 in 11.5 overs in the first two games.India (from) Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (capt), Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Venugopala Rao, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ramesh Powar, Sreesanth, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel.England (from) Matt Prior, Andrew Strauss, Vikram Solanki, Owais Shah, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff (capt), Paul Collingwood, Geraint Jones (wk), Ian Blackwell, Liam Plunkett, Kabir Ali, James Anderson, Matthew Hoggard, Gareth Batty, Sajid Mahmood.

Dav Whatmore, Bangladesh’s coach, hopes his players won’t be overawed at the presence of India’s cricketers when both sides meet in their opening match of the World Cup.”Most of them are superstars but I would be very upset if our cricketers were to get overawed by it. Once you enter the field, you are equals,” he was quoted as saying to . “We would like to keep our focus despite who the person is – after all he has got two arms and legs.”Whatmore, 55, expressed his disappointment at the ‘minnow’ label tagged to Bangladesh, a side that has beaten Australia, India and Sri Lanka. “I would like to know what’s the meaning of minnows is in [the] Oxford Dictionary. We have secured important triumphs. But yes we are ninth in order so in that sense the other big teams are ahead of us. India is one of them and they are the first one we have to contend with.”I don’t remember when it was last when we played India; I think it was back in 2004. Given the geographical proximity, I would have thought we played more often.”Habibul Bashar, the Bangladeshi captain, echoed Whatmore’s concerns. “We have done well in recent past but then we never played a big team in year 2006. As we play against India, we realize they have a number of superstars. We have none. But we want to play as a unit with significant contributions coming from each and everyone rather than a couple of individuals.”Both coach and captain felt Bangladesh’s warm-up win over New Zealand was down to an all-round effort and expected more of the same from their players. Whatmore felt Tamim Iqbal, the rookie opener, would come good – “It will be a bit of a baptism by fire for him but I think he will acquit himself well” – while Bashar was wary of the left-arm variety in his spin department. “All our spinners, be it frontline Mohammad Rafique and Abdur Razzak or Saqibul Hasan, are left-arm spinners. We don’t have variety and I would have loved to have an offspinner. But they are the best spinners we have.”

The gloves are off in the battle for control of Zimbabwe Cricket, and it seems almost anything goes, with both sides in the dispute accusing the other of dirty tricks, and the newspapers clearly taking sides in the battle.Earlier this week, Macsood Ebrahim, the chairman of Masvingo and the head of national selection, told of how the ZC board was forcing pro-board loyalists into key positions in his province in a bid to oust him.On Wednesday, Ebrahim reported that Lazarus Zizhou, who had been suspended by the board in 2004, had arrived at Masvingo and said he was taking over as general manager under orders from Ozias Bvute, the controversial ZC managing director.Less than 24 hours later, Zizhou’s name was all over the newspapers, claiming that he had been racially abused by Ebrahim. “Macsood stormed into my office and threatened to remove me,” Zizhou told the Independent yesterday. “He called me a black c*** after I refused to produce my letter of appointment as he was demanding. I could not cooperate with him because he has no power to do so since he was booted out by the province.”While pro-board newspapers have claimed that Ebrahim has been ousted by his own province, that is disputed by many inside Masvingo.The timing of Zizhou’s allegation was suspicious, and while Ebrahim is not stranger to controversy himself, he has been at the heart of Zimbabwe’s attempts to push for racial quotas in the national side which made the claims all the more surprising.Today, Ebrahim’s supporters in Masvingo rallied behind him and issued a letter suggesting that, in front of five witnesses, Zizhou actually abused Ebrahim.How ZC deals with this remains to be seen. It is already under fire for not taking any action over allegations of racial threats made by Mashonaland chairman Cyprian Mandenge and provincial selector Bruce Makovah when they stopped a match in Harare. Last week, further serious allegations were made to the board over the conduct of Themba Mliswa, the chairman of the newly-created Mashonaland West province.There appears to be a concerted attempt to oust certain provincial chairmen following a meeting which produced a dossier asking ZC many probing questions and demanding an Extraordinary General Meeting. Aside from Ebrahim, Alan Walsh, the chairman of Manicaland, was reported dismissed after a fractious meeting, but again this is disputed by provincial officials.

Ian Bradshaw hasn’t ruled out a West Indian World Cup victory, despite a run of three Super Eights defeats on the trot for the hosts. The West Indies need to beat South Africa on April 10 to stay in the tournament and, as Bradshaw put it, would need to be “near perfect” to become the first host nation to lift the trophy.”It is pretty straightforward for us from here on in – we have to try and win each game and win as convincingly as possible,” Bradshaw, 32, told Reuters. “Now we must improve each and every aspect of our game and leave nothing to chance. We have to play near perfect games from here on in.”If we work hard we can get out from the Super Eights then we are confident that we can play two good games, in the semi-final and the final, to win the Cup. We still have dreams of lifting the cup on the 28th, it is not beyond us but first and foremost we have to take care of these three games.”The West Indies have been criticised by many quarters, not least former players and the local media, and Bradshaw said it had not gone unseen by the team. “You are conscious of it. Family, friends and the fans are disappointed because they are looking for more from the team and we ourselves are really disappointed because we started well and just fell off in the last three games, which were unfortunately critical games for us.”That has put us in the situation where we have to win the last three games and have other results turn our way. It means getting the runs on the board, bowling tight and taking wickets and having the energy in the field.”Bradshaw has played just two of West Indies’ six games so far, but said he looked at the game against South Africa as if he were a certainty.