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Jackson Bird and Chadd Sayers have been included as specialist seam bowling role players in Australia’s Test squad for the tour of New Zealand next month.In an assignment that can earn Steven Smith’s men the No. 1 Test ranking, Bird and Sayers have been included as pace support for Josh Hazlewood, James Pattinson and Peter Siddle, in expectation of well grassed and seaming pitches. Steve O’Keefe and Scott Boland were dropped from the 14-man squad for Australia’s most recent Test — the rain-marred draw in Sydney against West Indies — to make room for Bird and Sayers.Bird played his most recent Test for Australia in Durham on the 2013 Ashes tour, while Sayers has never played for the national team. However he has turned out for Australia A, including on the tour of the British Isles that preceded the Ashes three years ago. The selection chairman Rod Marsh said Sayers had been in the frame for some time, excepting time out last season due to injury that also cruelled his chances of making the 2015 Ashes tour.”Chadd’s got a terrific record in Sheffield Shield cricket, he was injured most of last summer but he started well again this summer,” Marsh said. “The season before he was rewarded with A team status in the side that went to England and did very well there. And it’s a matter of horses for courses, we think the conditions in New Zealand will suit Chadd as much as anyone. He’s a good bowler under conditions that nibble around a little bit, and we’re very happy for him to be chosen.”Even last summer when he played earlier in [2014] against India A at Allan Border Field you remember that game where it appeared thousands of runs were scored. Chadd bowled a lot of overs and got five-for and his figures outshone any other bowler. He can bowl, he thoroughly deserves his selection.”Under normal New Zealand conditions I think you have to bowl line and length, you’ve got to be patient. It’s something we haven’t always been good at, but we’ll have to get good at it if we want to win this series.”As for the contention that the selection of Bird and Sayers was a deviation from the “pace is power” mantra adopted by the coach and selector Darren Lehmann, Marsh demurred. “I haven’t deviated from anything, because what I always thought is you pick the best bowlers for those conditions,” he said. “To me speed is not everything … there’s no point bowling 150kph if you bowl half volleys and wides. Good bowling is good bowling, you pick your best bowlers. I don’t care what speed they bowl, as long as they bowl beautifully.”The batting line-up arrived as expected following a strong showing by Australia’s top order at home this summer. Mitchell Marsh remains the selectors’ allrounder of choice. “I’m not totally surprised but I’m very happy,” Marsh said of how the batting line-up had settled. “That’s the bottom line, they’ve done exceptionally well. Make hay while the sun shines. Their confidence is obviously up and it’ll need to be up, because New Zealand are a very, very good cricket team.”Australia’s most recent Test tour of New Zealand was in 2010. Of that touring party only Smith, who was then a young and uncapped project player, will be making the trip again. I don’t know what we’re going to get in New Zealand, but if you just look at the pitch they played on in the World Cup game in Auckland that did a bit,” Marsh said. “And the Sri Lankan series those did a bit, so you’re assuming they’re going to do a little bit.”It’s exciting at the moment because if we win in New Zealand we could well go to No. 1, if we play decent T20 cricket we could well go to No. 1 there, and I think we’re that far ahead in one day cricket on the ratings it could be that we could get to No. 1 in all three forms.”Australia squad: Steven Smith (capt), David Warner, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Chadd Sayers, Jackson Bird.

Sheldon Jackson smashed a second hundred in two days as Saurashtra romped to a 10-wicket win over Goa in Rajkot. Jackson, who had scored 111 in his side’s tournament opener on Friday, struck an unbeaten 150 off 106 balls, with 22 fours and four sixes, as Saurashtra chased down a target of 200 in 26.3 overs, without losing a wicket. Avi Barot, their other opener, finished unbeaten on 49 off 56 balls.Sent in to bat, Goa were bowled out for a below-par 199, with Sagun Kamat scoring 95 (141b, 8×4) but no one else making a substantial contribution beyond Swapnil Asnodkar’s 30 and Reagan Pinto’s 29. Medium-pacer Saurya Sanandiya was Saurashtra’s most successful bowler with three wickets, while Ravindra Jadeja had figures of two for 31 from his ten overs.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsStephan Baard struck a 26-ball 39*•ICC/Sportsfile

Persistent rain forced the match between Namibia and Nepal to be abandoned after only 7.4 overs of play in Bready in the World T20 Qualifier. The start to the game was delayed to the weather and the match was first reduced to 17 overs a side. The weather relented for a brief period as Namibia, who were inserted in to bat before the interruption, kicked into gear immediately.Stephan Baard and Gerrie Synman hit five fours and two sixes together and added 36 runs in 29 balls before Synman was caught off the bowling of Paras Khadka. Baard and Raymond van Schoor took Namibia to 54 for 1 in seven overs as rain forced another break in play. They managed to get on for another four balls, but unrelenting rain finally forced the game to be called off.

Greg Maybury, a promising 14-year-old swing bowler, has become the second young Bermuda player to enrol at Oakham School near Peterborough in England, and is to further his cricketing career by attending a University Centre of Cricketing Excellence (UCCE).”I am really looking for to this challenge,” Maybury told . “They [Oakham] have great coaches with good philosophies and excellent facilities. I can only get better in the sport as well as in academics, so there is no better place to do these two than in England.”Like Stefan Kelly, who joined Oakham in 2003 and is now studying for his A-Levels, Maybury’s further education in England is sponsored by the Bank of Bermuda Foundation, and he was given financial support by the government last week who pledged $4,000 to aid his training and development.”I would like to thank the Bank of Bermuda and the Bermuda Cricket Board for giving me this opportunity and I want to tell players behind me that there are great opportunities out there for them and they can succeed and do even better then me,” he said. “There is no pressure from the expectations placed on me. I am looking forward to the challenge and the experience I will gain from this exposure.”I can end up at one of the UCCEs and continue to be a professional cricketer or succeed in the office, whichever I chose.”

Mohammad Yousuf’s lawyer, Tafuzzal Rizvi, has moved an application against the Indian Cricket League (ICL), saying his client had returned the money paid to him before backing out of a contract and signing with the officially-sanctioned Indian Premier League (IPL).In the application, Rizvi, who represented Yousuf at an arbitration hearing in Mumbai on January 24, insisted that there was “no contract” with the ICL as the money was “received back by the ICL without any objection”.Based on the application, the arbitrator has issued notices to the ICL, asking their legal team to appear before him on February 20 to provide their response.Meanwhile, a PCB media release, while elaborating on the details of this case, says Yousuf’s name will be included in the IPL bidding process on February 8, which is open to its eight city-based franchises.

Scorecard

St Vincent and the Grenadines made a meal of the target set by Trinidad & Tobago and handed them a 59-run win and a spot in the semi-finals of the Stanford 20/20.Dwayne Bravo plundered 62 off 34 balls and added 86 with William Perkins (56) to revive the T&T innings following a poor start. T&T had scored 55 for 3 in the first ten overs. By the 15th – with Bravo and Perkins on the offensive – 55 more were added without the loss of any wicket. Bravo hit a six and two fours off Romel Currency’s first over that went for 18 runs. But the T&T batsmen’s urgency to score runs was evident though ill-advised with four of the seven wickets falling to run-outs. Keon Peters was St Vincent’s most successful bowler, removing Perkins and Bravo in successive overs.St Vincent’s chase was checked right from the second ball when opener Miles Bascombe was caught off Mervyn Dillon for a duck. It hit further snags on the way and at the end of the first ten overs St Vincent were 37 for 6.Legspinner Samuel Badree dried up the runs, conceding only nine from his four overs, and took two wickets off successive deliveries. Deighton Butler was St Vincent’s top scorer with an unbeaten 33.On February 15 T&T will play the winner of the match between Barbados and Grenada to fight for a spot in the final.

Kumar Sangakkara attributed his double century to an excellent team effort as Sanath Jayasuriya hinted to pile on more agony on Pakistan when play resumes the third day Friday.”It’s a team game. It’s give and take. If the batsmen at the other end hadn’t stayed there, I would have never scored a double century. I think in the end it was a nice team effort,” Sangakkara said in a post-match conference Thursday.Jayasuriya, while praising the knock of Sangakkara, ruled out declaration prospects. “I don’t think we will declare. Three days are still left in the game and I think we should just try to play normal. We have been positive in our approach and would like to keep things that way.” “It’s still a long way to go in the Test.”While the Sri Lankans were happy to attend the press conference, the Pakistanis preferred to keep themselves away from the media. It’s very normal in the Pakistan camp to escape the scribes when the performance is not up to expectations.Jayasuriya felt his bowlers made better use of the conditions on the first day than the Pakistanis on the second. “We bowled to a plan and exploited the conditions while on the second day, the batters batted better than the Pakistanis. “I think the Pakistanis bowled at both sides of the wicket, but we batted really well.”

Global news and photograph agencies will carry out their threat to boycott coverage of the Indian Premier League because of the restrictions on the distribution of photographs. Agencies are prohibited from providing photographs of the Twenty20 tournament to cricket-specific websites.The News Media Coalition (NMC), the umbrella body that comprises global news and photograph agencies Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Getty Images, called the restrictions “discriminatory”.”It is discriminatory for the accreditation terms to prohibit international news agencies from being able to serve a specific group of users, such as cricket websites,” the NMC said in a statement. “The interests of the IPL are protected by the fact that its accreditation terms limit news content generated by the news agencies to be used for editorial purposes only. The NMC calls upon the IPL to remove remaining obstacles in the way of full editorial coverage of the tournament.”The Editors Guild of India also called for the withdrawal of “unacceptable conditions” while the Press Trust of India, India’s leading news agency, had said it would cover the event “under protest”.The tournament’s initial media guidelines which, among other constraints, gave the IPL the right to use all pictures taken at its grounds for free and without restrictions, had met with severe criticism from media bodies. The IPL then removed some of the limitations imposed but news agencies, stand-alone cricket websites and news channels were still unhappy. News channels dropped their boycott threat after their two main issues – accreditation and access to match footage – were resolved.

Chris Read, the Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper, has said he will take the ECB to court if his involvement in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) proves to bring an end to his England career.Read last played for England in the fifth Test against Australia, in Sydney, last January before being shunted out by Paul Nixon, Matt Prior and now Tim Ambrose. He took part in the inaugural ICL event last December but since then the ECB have started to take a hard line against players who appear in the ICL.Read’s county future isn’t in doubt but he would face a one-year ban if he appeared in further ICL tournaments. The ECB have said there won’t be retrospective action against players who have taken part in the ICL, so Read’s England chances appear to back in his hands despite earlier suggestions that selectors would take into account the league.”I don’t feel I am banned from international cricket,” Read told the latest edition of . “I haven’t spoken to anyone at the ECB for the best part of 13 months so I am not sure. I made a commitment to play in the ICL before any statement was made by the ECB.”And he admits that the legal path would be one to consider if his international hopes have been ended by the ICL. “That would be the natural course to take. I signed my ICL contract in good faith before the ECB had an official policy.”Read believes that as an out-of-contract county player he was free to choose how to fill his winter. Nottinghamshire do not provide 12-month deals for their players so he was a free agent at the time of the ICL last November.”The ICL was employment for me in the winter. I am a cricketer so I went out to play cricket, it looked competitive and it looked fun and that’s why I signed up,” he added.”I would like to play more cricket for the ICL but it is hard to commit because I still have England aspirations. If I am banned from playing international cricket, or unofficially banned, then I would be very disappointed and find that pretty harsh. By performing well with Nottinghamshire I hope I can still be in the frame.”

Match facts

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Start time 16.00 (local), 10.30 (GMT)

The Big Picture

The top-of-the-table Kolkata Knight Riders have made a rousing start to their IPL campaign, but they will face a stiff challenge from the Chennai Super Kings, who, like them, are unbeaten after two rounds of matches. The feature match of the weekend assumes added significance as both teams stand to lose out on their trans-Tasman recruits at the end of the month as commitments to their respective national teams bring their Indian sojourn to an end.

Watch out for …

… another highly productive day for the batsmen. Kolkata’s thrust will be led by Brendon McCullum, who will want to wrest the ‘orange cap’ – worn by the highest cumulative run-scorer in the tournament, from Kumar Sangakkara. Ricky Ponting is yet to fire, and his probable duel with Muttiah Muralitharan will be one to watch. Ishant Sharma has lived up to his US$950,000 billing but he faces his first real test against a formidable batting line-up. Chennai’s captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, will be keen to match the batting exploits of his peers. Matthew Hayden, after his masterly 81 against the Mumbai Indians, is another potential match-winner.

Team news

This will be Kolkata’s penultimate match where they can use the services of McCullum and Ponting, but David Hussey will stay on as he is not part of Australia’s Test squad. While Kolkata have the option of using Umar Gul, the Pakistan seamer, Mohammad Hafeez’s all-round abilities may ensure he retains his place.Kolkata: 1 Sourav Ganguly (capt) 2 Brendon McCullum 3 Ricky Ponting 4 David Hussey 5 Mohammad Hafeez 6 Laxmi Ratan Shukla 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk)8 Ajit Agarkar 9 Ashok Dinda 10 Murali Kartik 11 Ishant SharmaMichael Hussey and Hayden, along with Ponting, will leave India on May 1 for a preparatory camp ahead of the West Indies series. Chennai’s batsmen have clicked in both matches, but their bowlers have been on the expensive side. P Amarnath, the right-arm seamer, was taken for a record 57 runs in his four overs by Mumbai, and he may be benched in favour of the offspinner, R Ashwin.Chennai: (probable)1 Parthiv Patel 2 Matthew Hayden 3 Michael Hussey 4 Suresh Raina 5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt and wk) 6 Jacob Oram 7 S Badrinath 8 Joginder Sharma 9 R Ashwin 10 Manpreet Gony 11 Muttiah Muralitharan