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Shane Bond will miss this month’s Chappell-Hadlee Series after his recovery from an abdominal tear has taken longer than expected. New Zealand are set to maintain the same 14-man one-day squad which narrowly lost the one-dayers to South Africa, the national selector Richard Hadlee told the . James Franklin remains out following knee surgery.Bond, the fast bowler, will also be unavailable for Bangladesh’s visit in January, all of which he finds “frustrating”. He picked up the problem in November, during New Zealand’s injury-hit tour of South Africa where they won one match out of seven. They lost both Tests, the Twenty20, the one-day series 2-1 and even the warm-up.He said it was exhausting to come back from yet another injury and feared for his future in the game should he keep picking up problems. “It’s worn me down,” he told on Tuesday. “I’ve spent a lot of time rehab-ing. There are a lot things I want to achieve and to be realistic, I can’t expect cricket to keep supporting me if I am going to continue to get injured, so it’s frustrating.”He is now aiming to recover for England’s visit in February and March, when they will play five one-dayers and three Tests. In his absence, Kyle Mills has filled in well and impressed Hadlee. “Mills has been outstanding,” he told the . “With Bond out, he has stepped up magnificently.” Mills was named Man of the Series in South Africa for his nine wickets at 11.33.He will now lead the attack for New Zealand’s defence of the Chappell-Hadlee title in Australia after their 3-0 cleansweep last season. The first of the three one-dayers is at the Adelaide Oval on December 14.* Iain O’Brien was also included in the squad.Squad Lou Vincent, Jamie How, Mathew Sinclair, Ross Taylor, Scott Styris, Brendon McCullum (wk), Gareth Hopkins, Iain O’Brien, Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori (capt), Kyle Mills, Mark Gillespie, Jeetan Patel, Michael Mason, Chris Martin.

On Friday, the Zimbabwe selectors will name the team to take on England in five one-day internationals. Steven Price takes a closer look at some players who should make it to the 15-man squad based on perfomances in the Faithwear one-day competition Tatenda Taibu The Zimbabwe skipper scored an unbeaten 121 against Matabeleland in the first match but he is leading a troubled Mashonaland side and that has adversely affected his performances. He has scored only 17 runs in the last two matches but is a class act and should do better.Mark Vermeulen The Matabeleland top-order batsman has finally got his head right and has led by example with scores of 75 against Mashonaland, 91 against Manicaland and 105 against Namibia, giving him an average of 90.33. His form on the international scene had plunged alarmingly and it is good to see him scoring runs. Christopher Mpofu The tall Matabeleland pace bowler has been magnificent in the three matches for his province. He picked up 6 for 42 against Mashonaland in the first game and never looked back – his tally now stands at 11 in the competition. He is surely putting into practice the tips he got from Damien Fleming at the Commonwealth Bank for Excellence in Brisbane where he was attached for a month. Gavin Ewing He only played two Tests for Zimbabwe before the crisis broke out and should be given a chance in the shorter version of the game. He scored 56 not out against Mashonaland, his batting average stands at 93.00, and he has proved effective with his offspin which has gained him five wickets. He can make the team as an allrounder.Brendan Taylor He is part of a troubled Mashonaland side and that has seen him score 66 runs with a high score 52 but is certainly capable of doing better.Kuda Samunderu The youngster has been in good form, from the first game when he scored 43 against Matabeleland, he has an average of 37.00 in the three matches.Stuart Matsikenyeri He has been the outstanding batsman for Manicaland with an average of 69.50 and a high of 80 not out – hopefully he can transform that onto the international scene.Vusumuzi Sibanda In great form for his province with a high score of 64, he is the best in a team of average players with a batting avarage of 45.50. He is another player who has failed to replicate form for his province onto the international scene.Other players who have an outside chance of being picked are the Matabeleland top order trio of Tinashe Hove, Terrence Duffin and Wisdom Siziba and the Midlands bowling trio of Ian Nicholson, Innocent Chinyoka and Hillary Matanga.

The South African cricketer Lorrie Wilmot, who played 147 matches in a first-class career that spanned 28 years, has died in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, after apparently taking his own life.Wilmot, who was described by friends and colleagues as larger-than-life, was one of the lost generation of South African cricketers, denied the chance to play Test cricket by the country’s sporting isolation during the Apartheid era. He was selected to tour England in 1970, but when that trip was cancelled for political reasons, he never got another chance.With no international honours to compete for, Wilmot threw himself into provincial cricket throughout the 1960s and ’70s. He went on to captain Eastern Province and also played for Border. David Emslie, the chief executive of Eastern Province Cricket, grew up with Wilmot in the village of Salem near Grahamstown. “I’ve known him all my life,” he said. “He was a hugely respected cricketer and a larger-than-life character.” He was also renowned as one of the biggest hitters in the game, and once belted the Kiwi offspinner John Sparling for a six that carried some 120 metres.But Wilmot’s life after cricket had been an unhappy one, and in March 2003 he was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl. Mali Govender, a police spokesperson for the Grahamstown area, said it appeared that Wilmot had shot himself. His body was reportedly found by a neighbour, with a suicide note nearby, and though an inquest will be conducted, no foul play was suspected. Wilmot was thought to have been alone at the time of his death.He scored 7687 runs at 32.02 in his long career, with 12 centuries and a highest score of 222 not out.

Tim May, chief executive of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA), has distanced himself from comments made by Ian Smith, the association’s legal advisor.Smith was quoted in The Guardian as warning that the players are set to pass a vote of no confidence in the ICC. “People are increasingly seriously asking why aren’t we walking away,” Smith said. “The competence of the administrators is being called into question at a policy level. We believe that because the players are better organised and that talent has been radically revalued by the Indian leagues it’s time to look at whether the players can do a better job than the current policy makers.”But May moved quickly to clarify that Smith’s views were not those of FICA. “Ian’s comments represent his personal view on the matter and do not represent FICA’s position at this time. This is not to say, however, that FICA does not have concerns with the governance structure of the ICC.”After the World Cup last year, which was widely considered to have been poorly administered, FICA issued a poll in which 56% of players who took part expressed a lack of confidence in the ICC. “FICA stated its concerns with the governance structure of the ICC at that time and called upon the ICC to review its governance structure, to determine whether its current structure is the most appropriate for an international sport,” May said. “FICA’s position in regard to this issue has not changed.”May added that FICA was undertaking another survey with the results expected at the end of next month. “We will then communicate any relevant matters that relate directly to ICC, direct with the ICC.”

Australia 323 for 8 (Hayden 87, Lehmann 67) beat Zimbabwe 184 (Taylor 65, Lehmann 4-7) by 139 runs, and lead three-match series 2-0
Scorecard

It was never expected that any of the matches between Australia and the team supposedly representing Zimbabwe would be competitive: the only questionswere how much the Aussies would win by, and whether the Zimbabweans could avoid total humiliation in this second match at Harare. The answer to the first question was 139 runs, and to the second, yes … until the last 35 minutes, anyway.Tatenda Taibu put Australia in after winning the toss, and the main feature of their total of 323 for 8 was a third-wicket partnership of 137 between the two left-handers, Matthew Hayden and Darren Lehmann. Adam Gilchrist – another left-hander – made 20 of the opening stand of 26 after surviving an uncomfortable first over from Douglas Hondo, during which he edged a boundary that would have been a regulation catch to a third slip. He was caught off a no-ball on 18, but then skyed a catch off Hondo.Michael Clarke, promoted to No. 3, played some attractive drives before he played over a full-length delivery from Tinashe Panyangara and lost his leg stump. Australia were 43 for 2 in the eighth over and, incredibly, Hayden had only 2 off 14 balls.He was now joined by Lehmann. For a while both concentrated on the ones andtwos, but as their partnership developed the boundaries began to flow, although both found timing difficult at times. Hayden quickly followed Lehmann to his fifty, taking 72 balls against 57. They went into the sixties neck and neck, but then Lehmann tried an extravagant drive against Stuart Matsikenyeri and was bowled for 67 (180 for 3).Hayden weighed in with some powerful leg-side strokes, but he tried it once too often against Tawanda Mupariwa, holing out on the boundary for 87. In tighter circumstances it would be termed a soft dismissal, but again it was clear the Australians were not treating these matches seriously, as was the holding-back of Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn in the batting order. Martyn only entered at the fall of the fifth wicket, and Ponting at the sixth.The later batsmen batted with an abandon that would hardly be tolerated againststronger opposition, and wickets continued to fall, including one to the specialist batsman Brendan Taylor, bowling his gentle offbreaks. The one batsman to cash in was Jason Gillespie, whose unbeaten 33 was his best in one-day internationals.As usual Stuart Matsikenyeri tried to give Zimbabwe a brisk start, scoring27 of the opening stand of 48 before being caught at first slip offGlenn McGrath in the 15th over. A scoring rate of just above three an overwas useless for a victory attempt, but good enough as a face-saving exercise.Predictably Taylor got little chance in this innings to show the favouritefront-foot drives that he had displayed on Tuesday, but he battled on,working the runs when he could. Vusi Sibanda had a torrid time early on, but settled in to play some handsome strokes. However, as so often, he got out when set, driving Michael Kasprowicz straight to extra cover after making 23.

Mark Vermeulen, specialising in the lofted drive, scored 25 off as many balls,while Taylor nudged and dabbed his way along, adjusting his game with great maturity and skill. Finally he got a rare delivery pitched up to him, from Gillespie, and drove it sweetly to the boundary just to the on side of straight to reach his third successive one-day fifty. It took him 82 balls.Zimbabwe were 163 for 2 in the 36th over, but then Taylor swung a catch to long leg to depart for an admirable 65. Geoff Boycott frequently urges batsmen to add two wickets to the total to get a realistic assessment of their team’s position, but when Zimbabwe are batting you need to add rather more wickets than that. Just 21 runs later, the entire team was dismissed as, like lemmings, their batsmen plunged over the cliff, while Hondo was unable to bat after suffering a bad blow in the face while bowling his final over.Only Alester Maregwede kept his head, scoring 18 of those final 21 runs ingood style, ignoring the suicides at the other end. Lehmann enjoyed his gift of four wickets for seven runs, which when added to his earlier half-century earned him the Man of the Match award. All in all it was a pathetic end to what had otherwise been a doughty struggle by a greatly outclassed team – but it only went to stress that this match does not warrant official international status.

The Caribbean islands might resort to floating hotels to cope with the influx of tourists during the 2007 Cricket World Cup. West Indies – winners of the first two editions in 1975 and 1979 – have never hosted cricket’s showpiece event before, and there have been fears in some quarters that the infrastructure on the islands will be stretched beyond its limit.But an Agence France Presse report quoted Teddy Griffith, the West Indies Cricket Board president, as saying that at least a few among the eight venues chosen might opt for wave-splashed accommodation options. He said, “There is the possibility, maybe the probability, of using some floating hotels.”Griffith was anxious to add, however, that the idea didn’t necessarily mean that fans would have to shell out a small fortune for rooms aboard huge cruise liners.The tournament is expected to do wonders for the economies of the region, with the hosts’ share of the gross revenues expected to be around US$100million. The tournament will feature 16 teams, and 51 matches over almost two months.

To all intents and purposes, the first Test ended at 12.55 this afternoon, as Harbhajan Singh holed out to Glenn McGrath on the fine-leg boundary, cueing an spasm of celebration from the Australian fielders. But symbolically at least, the curtain of this match was lowered moments before tea yesterday, when Shane Warne rolled into bowl and pinned VVS Laxman lbw with a perfect first-ball flipper.At that moment, a Bangalore crowd that had been waiting in vain for a Kolkata-esque miracle was forced to wake up and smell the cordite. And more pertinently, so too were the stadium authorities. As the teams trooped off for tea, the rowdy eastern section of the ground was enveloped in a cascading mesh of nylon nets, which stretched from the roof of the stands to the top of the security fencing. First and foremost, they were to prevent any irate fans lobbing brickbats onto the field, but the symbolism was potent.Unsurprisingly, the curtains were still drawn as the fifth morning dawned. More astonishing, however, was that there should still be any crowd still lurking behind them. But Indians are a resilient bunch – more resilient, perhaps, than the impression sometimes given by their batsmen. And so, with a Sunday morning to kill, and with the homeboy, Rahul Dravid, still in situ, there was sufficient reason for despair to be put on the backburner.The Chinnaswammy Stadium is nothing if not varied. It takes at least a fortnight to get to grips with the pavilion, press and hospitality part of the ground – a rabbit warren of interconnecting floors, passages and random pot-plants, where one wrong turn through a partially-bolted door can land you up in the middle of the players’ lounge, or at the top of an interminable flight of dusty outside stairs. The cheap seats, on the other hand, offer no such fripperies. A thin, single-file gateway leads to a large (and largely unused) courtyard, and then, after a couple of quick steps down a tunnel, you emerge onto a vast concrete terrace.If the stadium authorities were expecting trouble, then it was surely not from this section of the ground. Perched beneath the netting were rows upon rows of orderly, unassuming cricket fans, almost all of whom were sporting freebie cardboard sun-visors that made them look as menacing as a colony of toucans. A chap selling sachets of filter water (no bottles allowed in here) wandered up and down the stands, while towards the top of the terrace, a squad of beige-suited police officers sat dozily in the shade, twiddling their lathis and playing with their mobile phones.”We are well-behaved!” insisted Sanjeev, a Bangalore computer technician (what else?), who pointed out that, apart from anything else, they didn’t have anything to fling at the players: “not even chairs!” He had been to watch all five days, but had still not given up the ghost – not even when, just as we were speaking, Michael Kasprowicz struck to remove Dravid for 60.A disgruntled groan muttered its way along the terrace, but with India’s new darling, Irfan Pathan, spanking all before him, there was still plenty for the stands to celebrate, as a hundred cardboard cut-outs of Sachin and Sourav danced a merry jig with every boundary. There was even cause for an impromptu Mexican Wave, as a hawk (or was it a kite, a falcon, an eagle or even a vulture – where’s Simon Barnes when you need him?) swooped along the netting for a fly-past.That was as close as any of the spectators were coming to giving the Australians the bird. On the field, however, it was a very different story, with Warne in particular coming in for some fearful tap. Some keen-eyed observers (though maybe not the hawks) had noticed that, when Warne took the field this morning, he was wearing some rather snazzy new red-toed bowling boots – surely not an endorsement waiting to happen for the soon-to-be world-record holder?If that was the case, then Pathan and Harbhajan soon made him pay for his hubris, belting him out of the attack at close to four runs an over. Harbhajan, in particular, enjoyed the onslaught immensely, and could be seen tapping his bat in congratulation, after bringing up Warne’s century with a massive biff over midwicket.Of course, the resistance could never last, although try telling that to the fans. They continued to believe, even as the No. 11, Zaheer Khan, was flinching McGrath to the fine-leg boundary. And belief is half the battle won. There was enough bottle in the Indian performance today to suggest this series is not over yet.Andrew Miller is assistant editor of Wisden Cricinfo.

After their short and soggy one-day international series against Sri Lanka, England now turn their attention to the three-Test series, starting at Galle on December 2.However, after the last two ODIs were wiped out by the bad weather, Duncan Fletcher has warned that the squad are under-prepared for the Tests. And with only one three-day match against a Sri Lanka Cricket President’s XI on Wednesday before the first Test, Fletcher is understandably concerned about England’s lack of match practice.”We want the Test-playing guys to get a good three-day game and the practice in, so there is concern that the rain could leave us a little unprepared,” said Fletcher. “Our plan for this week’s game was going to be to leave out Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick, but because of the weather Michael now wants to reconsider that.”The specialist Test players – Nasser Hussain, Graham Thorpe, Mark Butcher, Geraint Jones, Matthew Hoggard and Robert Croft – arrived in Sri Lanka three days ago and have been practising on their own. All apart from Jones are expected to play in the warm-up match, with Croft, in particular, eager to prove his worth and fight Ashley Giles and Gareth Batty for a place in the Test side.”He has come out here and joined the squad with the other spinners,” Fletcher said, “obviously the other two have got the inside rail at the moment and we will have to make an assessment after the three-day game.”The good news for England is that James Anderson is now walking without crutches and there is a slim possibility he may now be in contention for Galle.

Sachin Tendulkar, whose absence contributed in no small measure to India’s utterly limp display in the ICC Champions Trophy, could be back in action within a fortnight. Dr Anant Joshi, the surgeon who examined him on his return to India earlier this week, told Press Trust of India that the best-case scenario could even see Tendulkar back in time to be part of the squad for the second Test, which starts in Chennai on October 14.”Optimistically speaking, he would be able to play cricket in two weeks’ time,” said Joshi. “In a worst case scenario it may take even two months.”Tendulkar has been sidelined with tennis elbow, and hasn’t played since the Asia Cup in July. Both Joshi and Andrew Leipus, the team physiotherapist, will be monitoring his progress over the next couple of weeks.Ice and heat packs have been used as part of the treatment, in addition to massage of the affected area. And while in England, Tendulkar also tried shock therapy, a course of treatment which has been effective in other cases.Though there are many volunteers to treat India’s talisman, Joshi reckoned that rest and relaxation was the best way forward. Tendulkar himself is eager to get back in the fray, and was even exploring the idea of playing for Mumbai against Australia in a few days time.That is highly unlikely, but the Mumbai Cricket Association are keeping their options open. Ratnakar Shetty, the MCA joint secretary, told , “A slot has been kept open in case Tendulkar is able to play.”

Rod Marsh, the former England selector and Australia wicketkeeper, believes Ricky Ponting’s side should have made changes after the first Test and subsequent decisions were “reactive”. Marsh, the ECB Academy coach, said in the that young players should have been picked early in the series because of their fearlessness.”Bringing Tait in for this game was reactive, not proactive, and after Lord’s they should have got him in,” Marsh said. “You could see that things weren’t right there. Even though Australia won, it was more because England played badly.”Marsh said the best way to get a team back on track was to include fresh faces. “When things aren’t going well you have to bring youth in because the youngsters have a complete lack of fear,” he said.Other problems highlighted by Marsh, who will return to Adelaide at the end of the series, were the lack of an allrounder and a four-man attack. “The key difference between the teams has been England’s ability to play five specialist bowlers,” he said. “Australia have only got four to choose from, which is a policy they have had for a number of years. That is fine when you are playing teams that aren’t that good. But when you are getting a hiding, then it’s hard to compete.”