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ScorecardPakistan allrounder Shahid Afridi was on song again as Hampshire surged to the top of the Friends Life t20 South Group with a 35-run win over Sussex at the Rose Bowl.Afridi opened the innings and hit 29 off 17 balls as Hampshire mustered 126 for 8 in their 20 overs, then took three quick wickets as Sussex collapsed from a position of authority.At one stage Sussex looked to be coasting at 52 for 1 in the seventh over, needing only another 75, but then collapsed against Afridi and Imran Tahir, the Pakistan-born South Africa spinner. Champions Hampshire seized on the breakthrough when Afridi had Lou Vincent caught in the deep at 52 and the rest followed, offering minimal resistance.Sussex lost their last nine wickets for 39 as Hampshire raced to their seventh win in 10 fixtures, placing them two points clear of nearest challengers Somerset and Sussex.When Hampshire batted they struggled against the spin of Monty Panesar and Ollie Rayner, with Afridi’s innings, which included two fours and two sixes, making him top scorer. Umar Gul and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan also took two wickets each at the death as Hampshire struggled to put a decent score together.Their cause looked lost despite Sussex losing opener Chris Nash at 20 but it all changed when Afridi came on to bowl. In his first over he dismissed Vincent and Luke Wright and Sussex never recovered.Murray Goodwin went in the next over to a catch at the wicket off Tahir and Sussex could find no way out of their spiral. Afridi bowled Ben Brown in his next over, then Danny Briggs got rid of Rayner to make Sussex a perilous 65 for 6.Tahir continued the Sussex destruction by dismissing Naved-ul-Hasan and Gul in the space of three deliveries in the 14th over and the match was over as a contest.Chris Liddle and Andy Hodd kept flickering Sussex hopes alive with a stand of 18 for the ninth wicket but Dominic Cork came on for the 18th over and wrapped up the innings by sending back Liddle to a smart catch by Briggs and Panesar first ball to have Sussex all out for 91.Hampshire’s victory came with 13 balls to spare as Afridi finished with figures of three for 10 from three overs. Tahir took 3 for 13 from his four-over allotment.

ScorecardIreland wicketkeeper Niall O’Brien hit a superb 121 as Northamptonshire eased to their fourth successive CB40 victory at the Rose Bowl where they demolished Hampshire by seven wickets.O’Brien smashed 10 fours and three sixes on his way to a competition-best score to enable Northamptonshire to surpass their 201 victory target with 31 balls to spare in a one-sided contest.Hampshire, choosing to bat first, could only muster an inadequate 200 for nine from their 40 overs in which James Vince was top scorer with a durable 58. Vince figured in a stand of 79 for the second wicket with Benny Howell but once they had gone resistance was only spasmodic.Liam Dawson made a plucky 41 which included a six off Lee Daggett in the penultimate over but it never looked like being enough. Daggett proved to be the most successful of the Northamptonshire bowlers with 2 for 38 and there were two wickets each also for Andrew Hall and Jack Brooks.Northamptonshire did not make the most of impressive starts when they began their response losing Rob Newton to a caught-and-bowled by Dimitri Mascarenhas at 23, but the match soon slipped away from Hampshire.Stephen Peters was content to play a minor role as O’Brien took the attack to Hampshire in a blaze of exciting strokes. Peters was leg before to Dawson at 102 but Alex Wakely stayed with O’Brien as a further 85 was added in 14 overs for the third wicket.O’Brien departed in the 33rd over with only 14 runs required when he was bowled by Simon Jones going for another aggressive shot. Wakely and David Sales knocked off the remaining runs within the next two overs to leave Hampshire with a dismal record, in contrast to that of their opponents, of a solitary win from their first four matches in the competition.Little went right for the Hampshire attack although Mascarenhas, back after almost a year out with an ankle injury, was rewarded with the wicket of Newton from eight overs which cost him 40 runs. But there was nothing he could do to stop O’Brien, the 29-year-old from Dublin, whose previous best in the competition was 95.

The Irish Government has offered its support to Cricket Ireland as they consider how to respond to the ICC vote to make the 2015 World Cup a 10-team tournament consisting of only the Test nations.The decision, which was announced on April 4, and closed the door on anyone outside the main 10 nations competing at a World Cup until 2019, sparked fury among Irish cricket as players expressed their anger over Twitter while the chief executive, Warren Deutrom, called it a “dark day for the sport.”Cricket Ireland, in consultation with the other 94 Associate and Affiliate nations, are considering all their options to try and overturn the decision and the Irish Sport’s Minister, Leo Varadkar, said the Government would offer their backing.”I fully support the efforts of Cricket Ireland and the other non-Test countries to persuade the ICC Board to reverse their decision,” he told a reception held to ironically mark Ireland’s success at the recent World Cup. “And I want you to know that my offices are available to assist the Associate nations in their campaign to have this decision reversed, in any way that you see fit.”Non-Test nations such as Ireland have played a major part in World Cups, not just by their talent and skill, but also by their commitment, passion and love of the game,” he said. “It is difficult to see how the best interests of the game can be served by not allowing countries such as Ireland a chance to compete at the highest level. This ‘closed shop’ approach cannot be good for the game, and appears to fly in the face of the sacred values that cricket has espoused for so long – namely fair play, sportsmanship and camaraderie.”Cricket Ireland want to pursue all other options before opting for the legal route which could be costly and damaging. It is even unclear what legal challenges are open to them, but if they wanted to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport it is understood they have a three-week window from the date the decision was made. Such a short timeframe makes that an unlikely option.On Sunday it is the board’s AGM which was meant to be a celebration of what Ireland achieved at the World Cup, but will now become a further inquest into the ICC’s recent decision and no doubt there will be more strong calls for action.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAhmed Shehzad’s century was sedate, but it got the job done for Pakistan•AFP

Unlike the island on which this match was played – St Lucia – the cricket was not arresting at the Beausejour Stadium. The stands were sparsely populated, the outfield patchy and the West Indian batsmen once again failed to combat Pakistan’s spinners, their ineptness at reading variations making the contest a mismatch. Pursuing a middling target, Pakistan’s only fault was their crawl in the first half of their chase, raising fleeting hopes of a competitive finish. Ahmed Shehzad prevented any such thing, his century securing a seven-wicket victory and a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.For the briefest of whiles West Indies, spurred by Lendl Simmons, were making a more spirited effort in this game compared to their struggle in the first. Simmons, however, had no support as his team-mates either flickered and perished, or struggled to rotate the strike. Pakistan stacked up dot balls as Simmons looked on, and his dismissal for 51 was the beginning of the unraveling of the West Indian challenge. Eight of their first nine batsmen made it to double figures, but only three got past 20.Pakistan’s first break was a fortunate one. Devon Smith was struck on the pad outside off stump by Hafeez while playing off the back foot but umpire Asoka de Silva thought otherwise. While Simmons was batting with Darren Bravo, though, the signs were promising for West Indies. They were 53 for 1 after the mandatory Powerplay.Ajmal had bowled without deserved reward in the first one-dayer. He had teased and beaten Darren Bravo in that game. There was none of that today. Ajmal pitched his first ball just outside leg and spun it across the left-hander. Darren Bravo attempted to cut, and edged to first slip.Marlon Samuels then dragged West Indies into the mire. The run-rate plummeted after he entered, as only 14 runs came off the bowling Powerplay. Simmons tried to counter by launching Shahid Afridi out of the ground over midwicket and then charging and hitting Junaid Khan for a straight six. Samuels, however, had scored only 3 off 36 and Simmons felt the need to attack some more. Soon after reaching his half-century, Simmons drove Afridi to short cover, where Umar Akmal parried the ball above his head and caught the rebound.It became imperative that Samuels improve his strike-rate but he became Hammad Azam’s first ODI wicket, bowled for 29 off 74 balls. Of the threatening batsmen, only Dwayne Bravo remained, but he soon perished to Wahab Riaz, charging and slogging a wide ball towards deep cover. West Indies eventually reached 220, though at Dwayne Bravo’s dismissal – 148 for 6 in the 34th over – it didn’t look like they’d last 50 overs.Pakistan reached the target with only 12 balls to spare but they were never in any realistic strife. Shehzad and Mohammad Hafeez took their time, seeing of the Kemar Roach threat and settling in at leisure against the rest of the West Indian attack. The outcome was an uneventful passage of play that lacked shots and appeals but had an abundance of defence.Roach hustled with the new ball, beating the bat several times and providing no space for stroke play. West Indies could have done with a similar bowler at the other end, but Jerome Taylor was in India, making his IPL 2011 debut for Pune Warriors. Instead they had Darren Sammy, who was flicked and cut for consecutive boundaries in his first over by Shehzad. Sammy wasn’t loose, but he just didn’t have the weapons to threaten batsmen with.Pakistan had scored only 35 after the mandatory Powerplay and Hafeez soon raised the pace, jumping out in the 13th over to cart Sammy over long-on and pulling the next ball for four. The next boundary came only in the 31st.Legspinners Devendra Bishoo and Anthony Martin, who was making his debut, pulled Pakistan’s run-rate back. Bishoo even provided the breakthrough, inducing Hafeez to cut in the air to point, and snapped the opening stand on 66 in the 19th over.Shehzad didn’t waste his start, though, and continued anchoring Pakistan’s innings. He got to his fifty off 94 balls and his century off 143. Only after he was dismissed in the 46th over did the asking-rate inch over a run a ball. Misbah-ul-Haq and Umar Akmal then struck a flurry of boundaries to secure the victory.

Derbyshire have announced £187,037 loss for 2010.The club said a change to ECB’s performance-related payments and the impact of the football World Cup last summer were big factors in the outcome.It is the first time the club has recorded a loss since 2005 but that has been tempered by the £300,000 ECB grant they will receive in 2011. Don Amott, the Derbyshire chairman, said: “With the World Cup swamping our FP t20 campaign and new fee payment regulations, 2010 has been a difficult year.”The club have been developing their county home ground in the last few years and the cash from the ECB will go towards continuing that work. “This ECB grant is a timely boost and rich reward for the hard work and vision it took from all concerned to bring the improvements to the ground to fruition,” said Amott. “It certainly puts the 2010 figures into perspective and, crucially, we didn’t borrow money in order to make the necessary improvements happen.”Derbyshire are one of the smaller clubs on the County circuit but have signed Australian batsman Usman Khawaja for the first half of the upcoming season and New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill for the remainder.Meanwhile, Bob Taylor’s two-year term as Derbyshire president has come to a close and Derek Morgan will be formally elected to the office at the forthcoming AGM on March 30. Morgan is Derbyshire’s most-capped player in first-class cricket having represented the county in 540 matches between 1950 and 1969.

As the IPL gears up for the mammoth two-day auction over the weekend, there are rumblings of dissatisfaction among five of its franchises regarding the rules governing players who will not be part of the auction – the “uncapped” Indians, who form the base of any IPL squad. The problem stems from a rule change in December that, the franchises believe, has tilted the balance in favour of the wealthier and influential teams in the competition, a charge the IPL denies.The players who come under this rule include Manish Pandey, the IPL’s first Indian centurion, former India under-19 captain Ambati Rayadu and Ranji Trophy performers Sidharth Trivedi, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and R Satish.In September 2010, it was decided that domestic players who had played 75% of their teams’ matches in IPL 3 would be part of the auction, along with their senior colleagues and overseas players. In November, however, the IPL governing council received a list of suggestions from Mumbai Indians, which included the contentious issue of retaining uncapped players and not putting them in the auction. It was confirmed by an IPL governing council member that, after some deliberation, the league had finally altered the original conditions set for uncapped players and, following a council meeting, formally changed the rule in December. The new rule removed uncapped players from the auction and allowed franchises to sign players of their choice through a three-way agreement involving player, franchise and the IPL. In late December, franchises were instructed to not approach the uncapped players until notified to do so by the Board.The issue has raised the alarm among some franchises who, in mails to the IPL, said they believed the new rules would leave the uncapped player ‘market’ open to under-the-table deals. “It is a simple problem, the quality of uncapped domestic players is limited,” a franchise insider said, “these are rules that are just encouraging illegality.”The squad rules state that franchises can sign a minimum of 20 Indians and no more than 10 foreign players. That’s 200 Indian players who need to be on board. The auction list features only 48 Indians while seven others have been retained by their franchises, leaving 145 players who have to be signed up by the franchises from the list of uncapped players. That’s what sparked fear among some franchises, who believe players like Pandey and Rayudu will be most sought after and thus open to being offered unofficial ‘perks’ of signing up with a particular franchise.In their mails seeking a change in the rules about uncapped India players, the franchises had offered the IPL several solutions: to either put the uncapped players into the auction (with the excess amount outside their salary slab being given to the BCCI) or to have franchises make a bid for them and draw lots to decide who gets the most sought-after player or restrict the players to their catchment areas. All options were turned down.The system is fair, BCCI president Shashank Manohar told ESPNcricinfo. “Those [uncapped] players can only be taken after the auction. Before the auction nobody can enter an agreement with the uncapped players. It will have to be a tripartite agreement between the player, the franchise and the board.”The decision to keep the cricketers who had not represented India out of the auction was, Manohar said, logistical given the large numbers involved. “We can’t put all the uncapped players in the auction because that would mean having more than 1000 players in the auction”. The most sought after players Manohar said, “can be approached by everyone.”Manohar, whose term as BCCI chief ends in September 2011 after which N Srinivasan – the owner of the Chennai franchise – will take over, said the unbalanced supply-demand equation among the uncapped players was not an issue. “There would be seven to eight capped players in every team, and the balance remaining is 10-11 players. So that is how it would work. According to me, nobody would pay huge amounts to uncapped players. Which capped player would be paid a large sum? Everyone is a capped player … Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, they are also capped players. Even Abhishek Nayar has become a capped player.”The IPL chief executive, Sundar Raman, told ESPNcricinfo that the argument that it was only the wealthier clubs who would be able to promise more and that too outside the system was, “not valid.” Raman said, “All uncapped players have been out of the auction even in the past. They get a fixed fee of Rs 30, 20 or 10 lakhs and the contract process is managed by BCCI.”The system, Manohar said, could not benefit any franchise on the basis of either money or influence. “Finally it depends on how much money you have at the end of the auction. Mumbai and Chennai have lost half their purse due to the retention rule. At the bidding process they are going to face problems. Because a total of $9m is for everyone, capped, uncapped, everyone.” The pressures on players from the bigger franchises would mean little he said, “because likewise others can also approach them.” He said the BCCI would look into any complaints about illegality in the signing process.Members of the franchises who had protested about the auction rules were not willing to speak on record, while others like Kochi, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals had spent the last few months caught in legal disputes with the BCCI. A King’s XI Punjab spokesman told EPSNcricinfo said his team had not raised the issue of uncapped players because, “we did not belong in the IPL at the time. Right now we are happy to live with whatever is there. We cannot possibly comment on who can or who can’t be in the auction.” He also confirmed that the franchise had paid up all their dues to their players.

Windward Islands beat Jamaica by 17 runs at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, but both teams went through to the semi-finals since Jamaica still had a better net run-rate than Guyana and Somerset. Windwards completed their third win after electing to bat and scoring 165, a total that proved a few too many to chase for Jamaica. Windwards’ openers got them off to a brisk start, and then Devon Smith and Keddy Lesporis got half-centuries in quick time. Smith remained unbeaten on 58 off 39 balls. Seamer Krishmar Santokie took three wickets for Jamaica while David Bernard was their most economical bowler, giving away just 20 runs in his four overs.Jamaica lost a couple of early wickets in their chase, and left-arm spinner Gary Mathurin, who was used as an opening bowler by Windwards, stifled their innings, as he bowled a miserly spell of four overs for just nine runs with one wicket. Marlon Samuels and Wavell Hinds resurrected Jamaica’s innings, both getting half-centuries, but they couldn’t score fast enough and ended up falling well short of the target.

In the first match, Somerset had comfortably beaten Combined Campuses and Colleges. Somerest chose to bat, reached 165 and then restricted CCC to 123 in a dominant performance. Nick Compton and James Hildreth did the bulk of the scoring for Somerset, putting together a 90-run partnership for the second wicket. Hildreth stayed unbeaten on 69, and Craig Meschede played a cameo at the end, hammering 26 off 11 balls.CCC were never in the chase, as they lost wickets at regular intervals. Seamer Steve Kirby did the early damage for Somerset, and finished with figures of 3 for 26, and then left-arm spinner George Dockrell put the choke on in the middle overs, taking 2 for 15 in his four overs.

Ian Bell is confident that one bad day will not be allowed to derail England’s Ashes campaign, after the tide turned dramatically on the second day at the WACA following a brilliant six-wicket haul for the man of the moment, Mitchell Johnson. By the close, Australia had built themselves a healthy 200-run lead, having reached 3 for 119 in their second innings, but Bell, who top-scored for England with 53, remained confident that there could yet be another twist to the narrative.”The guys were disappointed today, but we knew that was going to happen at some stage,” he said. “In a five-Test series you’re going to have bad days, and today was a bad day for us. We’re going to go back [to the hotel] tonight, recover and come back fighting tomorrow, which is what this team has done really well over the past 18 months. I’m sure Andy Flower and Straussy will be thinking about what we need to deliver tomorrow, and the bowlers will come out firing.”In their last two innings of the series, at Brisbane and at Adelaide, England had amassed vast totals of 1 for 517 and 5 for 620, a pair of performances that had left Australia bereft of options, with Johnson so out of sorts that he was dropped for the first time in his career for the second Test. But a brief spell out of the limelight, and a return to a happy hunting ground at the WACA, transformed the dynamics of the series, with Australia now favourites to square the contest at 1-1 going into the finale at Melbourne and Sydney.Bell, however, admitted that Johnson’s excellence had caught England on the hop after a series of poor Ashes performances in the previous 18 months, and challenged him to prove that there’s more to his game than one exceptional spell. “Credit to Mitch, he swung the ball and had that control,” said Bell. “He bowls inswing at good pace, that’s going to be difficult to face, and he went at two an over which is very good bowling at the highest level.”Maybe it took us a bit by surprise that Mitch got it swinging because he didn’t do it at Brisbane, but that’s not an excuse to be honest,” he added. “We know he’s capable of doing it. He had a fantastic day and we have to come back and deal with it a lot better. But it’s one innings, and it’ll be the same again for Mitch. He’s got to back it up in the second innings. For us we’ll concentrate on what we need to do, and they can do what they need to do.”Johnson himself admitted that the breeze at the WACA was a big part of his success, with the Fremantle Doctor aiding the inswinger that proved so deadly to so many of England’s batsmen, and Bell believed that he and his team-mates would be better prepared when it came to their second innings.”From knowing John Inverarity [former Warwickshire and WA coach] for years, swing is a massive part here because of the breeze, so we’ve got to recognise that and come back better,” he said. “But it’s one Test here at the WACA. I don’t know what the MCG does, or the SCG. But it’s one innings of bowling. As a batting unit we’ve got to come out and bat a lot better than we did first innings.”Having been so careful to avoid tempting fate in this series, Bell was adamant that complacency hadn’t been a factor in England’s downfall, although he did concede that they had started the day fully expecting to take command of the match. “I certainly don’t think we went home last night thinking we were going to win,” he said, “but we were certainly excited about what today had to offer, scoring big runs which we have done through the series.”It’s disappointing looking back that we haven’t batted as well as we could have done, but there’s still a lot to play for,” he added. “If we can come back tomorrow morning and take some early wickets it’s set up to be a fantastic Test match.”It’s an Ashes test, and both teams are desperate to win,” he said. “We know our record at the WACA [one win in eleven attempts] and we’re desperate to make a bit of history here. The guys are pumped up about that, and we’ve played some good cricket here since we’ve been out here. But Australia came back hard as we knew they would at some point in the series, and credit to them for that. They really needed it today and they delivered. For us we’ve got to do the same tomorrow.”Johnson, who rated his performance at the best of his career to date, called on his batsmen to bat out the whole of the second day, in preparation for a big victory push on days four and five. “We need to go out there in the second innings and do it again,” he said. “There’s a long way to go. This wicket is different to what it’s been in the past. It’s a bit more like a really good Gabba wicket. It’s quickened up, it’s got that really nice bounce in it, and hopefully it’s going to favour us.”

England have confirmed that their first-choice bowling attack will travel to Brisbane early to prepare for the first Test and therefore miss the final tour match against Australia A in Hobart. James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn and Graeme Swann will leave the main squad on Wednesday and head to Queensland to being their acclimatisation for the opening Ashes encounter.The four bowlers have played in both warm-up games to date against Western Australia and South Australia. Their workload and success has been sufficient for the management to opt for the plan of allowing them extra days in the tropical climate of Brisbane instead the more temperate Tasmania. There had been a suggestion that the rain-hit final day in Adelaide, which allowed England just 20.5 overs in the field second time around, might force a change of plans.”The reasoning is that conditions in Hobart are very different to the ones in Brisbane, and we want to give that group of bowlers a little head start,” Andy Flower, the England coach, said. “They are going three days earlier than the rest of us, and it will also give an opportunity to the other group of bowlers to put their names forward and perform well against Australia A.”Swann has enjoyed the most success with two four-wicket hauls, but the pace bowlers have all shown glimpses of top form during the two matches. Broad began the tour with two wickets in his first over against Western Australia, while Anderson has been consistent and allayed any concerns about the rib fracture he suffered during the training camp in Germany.Finn was the least convincing of the quicks in Perth but has gradually improved during his two outings and came out with impressive reports from Adelaide last week. The management will also be cautious about over-bowling Finn who is still very new to international cricket having played eight Tests.”Obviously, conditions can be quite different up in Brisbane – so we’re getting a bit of a head start and three or four days extra up there,” Broad said. “We’ve had two fantastic games as a bowling group together. Now it’s all about preparation for that first Test match – and I see going up to Brisbane early as a great opportunity to get used to conditions.”The decision to release the main attack, who will travel with the bowling coach David Saker, means England’s back-up players will get a chance to shine against Australia A. Chris Tremlett, Tim Bresnan, Ajmal Shahzad and Monty Panesar will form the bowling group for the four-day game. With an intense schedule of five Tests in six weeks it is highly likely that the reserve pacemen will be needed at some point.”They haven’t had a chance in the middle yet, so they should be desperate to get out there and prove themselves,” Flower said. “Without a doubt, I would say, one or two of those guys are going to be playing Test cricket in the next couple of months – you don’t have situations where the same bowling attack, or certainly not very often, play five Tests in a row.”So it’s a very real situation, an opportunity for them to put their names forward and also an opportunity for them to get bowling into them in preparation for just maybe playing in the first Test.”It is also expected that Eoin Morgan, the spare batsman in the squad, will get his first outing of the tour probably at the expense of Paul Collingwood who hit 94 against South Australia.

Match Facts

Wednesday, October 20, Visakhapatnam
Start time 14:30 (09:00 GMT)Can Ravindra Jadeja cement his ODI spot with good performances?•AFP

The Big Picture

This is the series for lesser-known players to make a name for themselves and grab a permanent spot in the one-day team, that is, if the weather would allow them. The first ODI was washed out and it’s very humid in Visakhapatnam, but showers have only been forecast for Thursday, the day after the match. If the dark clouds can stay away on the match day, however, youngsters like R Ashwin, Mitchell Starc and Ravindra Jadeja will breathe easy.The continuing presence of Jadeja in the playing XI has baffled many an Indian fan. Here are his stats: A bowling average of 41.55 and a batting average of 31.47 at a strike rate of 76.97. He hasn’t sparkled with the bat or the ball with any consistency; the best (only?) thing going for him is his economy rate in ODIs: 4.84. MS Dhoni has pointed out what he thinks Jadeja should do: “For a player like him, it is very important to contribute with the bat and ball. He has to do a bit more with the bat.”His bowling has increasingly been backed by his captain: he has bowled his full quota of 10 overs nine times and seven of those occasions have come in 2010. His direct competition until recently was Yusuf Pathan: Yusuf’s strike rate is over 100 but he averages just 22.11. His bowling average is 40.66, slightly better than Jadeja, but his economy rate of 5.75 is almost a run higher.Is R Ashwin the man, then, to replace Jadeja? Ashwin is a much better bowler than Jadeja, and has a lower economy rate when you compare their performances in domestic circuit. In more than half of those matches, Ashwin had yet to use his new tools, like the carom ball; he is a more complete bowler now. Jadeja’s batting is better than Ashwin’s, but he lacks the skills to demolish a good attack. So it will come to what the team management needs from the player who fills that spot: is it a bowler who can bat a bit or batsman who can bowl? Ashwin fulfills the first requirement while Jadeja hasn’t quite managed to fill the second. Both will play in this series and the one against New Zealand, which should help the selectors to decide between them, or perhaps even go back to Yusuf, for the World Cup.Australia too have a few youngsters in the squad and one of them, Mitchell Starc, might get his chance tomorrow as Doug Bollinger is a doubtful starter. “Obviously I’d love him [Bollinger] to play both these one-dayers but I think we also need to be smart with what we’ve got coming up,” Michael Clarke said today. If Bollinger doesn’t play, Starc might make his debut. Those who have followed his career rate him very highly. He has a pre-release load-up like Mitchell Johnson but gets more bounce. He even has a first-class fifty. The experts reckon he is a bit raw now but is likely to put up a stiff fight to his more established team-mates in a year’s time.This series also will reveal the position of Shaun Marsh in the team. Will he play as an opener? If not, he will have to fight with the talented Callum Ferguson for a spot in the middle-order.

Form guide

(most recent first)
India LWLWL
Australia WWLLL

Watch out for…

David Warner is yet to learn how to construct a long innings. “Due to the volume of twenty20 cricket I have played over the past year, being able to actually play myself in and build an innings is something I am not all that used to,” he wrote recently. These two games offer him an opportunity to do it in on the international stage. We know he has the power-packed shots; does he have the skill to build an innings? We shall soon find out.Ashish Nehra ‘s confidence is his strength. He was in the wilderness for more than two years but every time you met him, he would say it was just matter of getting fit and he would be back into the Indian team. To him, it was never a question about his skill; it was just his body that was playing truant. Ever since his return he has been Dhoni’s go-to man under pressure. It’s Nehra who bowls in the batting Powerplay, its Nehra who bowls in the end overs and its Nehra who often has to take the wicket with the new ball too. It would be very interesting to see how he fares against his nemesis – Australia.

Team news

Shikhar Dhawan will make his ODI debut and Dhoni has already said that Saurabh Tiwary is likely to get one game in this series.India (probable): 1 M Vijay, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Virat Kohli/Rohit Sharma, 6 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Praveen Kumar, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 Munaf Patel.Doug Bollinger is yet to fully recover from the abdominal strain that ruled him out of the Bangalore Test. He bowled for the first time in the training today and his fitness will be assessed on the morning of the match before they make a call. Fast bowler Mitchell Starc is likely to make his debut in case Bollinger misses out.Australia (probable) 1 David Warner, 2 Tim Paine (wk), 3 Michael Clarke (capt), 4 Shaun Marsh/Callum Ferguson, 5 Michael Hussey, 6 Cameron White, 7 Steve Smith, 8 James Hopes, 9 Nathan Hauritz, 10 Clint McKay, 11 Doug Bollinger/Mitchell Starc.

Pitch and conditions

It’s currently prickly hot with high humidity indicating that rain might be just around the corner.

Stats and trivia

• The beautiful stadium, located on the National Highway 5, has hosted just two ODIs. This is where MS Dhoni announced himself with a violent 123-ball 148 against Pakistan. Sri Lanka’s Chamara Silva is the only other centurion on this ground.
• Nehra averages a very respectable 30.54 in ODIs, but it would be an understatement to say that he has struggled against Australia. In 12 games against them, he has an average of 51.75 and an economy rate of 6.14.
• Cameron White’s stats get better against India. He averages about 36 with the bat but against India it jumps to 42.16 from seven games. His strike rate against India is 84.61 which is higher than his career strike rate and he has also hit eight sixes – about 22% of his total sixes – against India.
• India have a poor record of chasing against Australia: They have lost 34 games and won only 17 while batting second against them.
  

  Quotes

  “We’ve still managed to enjoy it, to be honest. Plenty of time in the gym together but now we’re keen to get back on the cricket field. One benefit of not playing too much cricket is a lot of guys have been able to do their fitness work”
  
  .”It will be a big learning curve for all youngsters. It’s very important to live in the present… Small and basic things that needs to be done correctly to make a mark at the big level. I won’t put extra pressure on them.”
  .