Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts
Australia's World Cup squad will get on a plane on Wednesday with injuries a concern, but the coach Tim Nielsen hopes the selectors don't risk sending too many unfit men to defend the title. Ricky Ponting (finger), Michael Hussey (hamstring) and Nathan Hauritz (shoulder) have all been racing to prove their fitness for the tournament, while some of their potential replacements are also struggling, including Xavier Doherty (back) and Shaun Marsh (hamstring).
The squad heads to India this week and their first practice match is on Sunday against India in Bangalore, eight days before their opening game of the tournament proper, against Zimbabwe. Hussey said on the weekend that he would find it difficult to be fully fit for the first couple of outings, while Hauritz, who dislocated his shoulder during the recent ODIs against England, was bowling in the nets last week and said he had no doubt he would be fit for the World Cup.
But while Australia might be able to carry one injured player at the start of the tournament, it's risky to allow too many men to board the plane at less than 100% fitness. Nielsen said he believed the squad could not take such a chance with the World Cup on the line.
"I can't afford to have two, three or four guys that we're uncertain about," Nielsen said. "It means we've only got 11 fit ready to go at the start. That's the quandary we face. What is the role the players who are injured play? Do we have back-up for that position? If we have an injury to somebody in the team at the moment is the injured person the next cab off the rank or the only possible replacement or do we have other options? All those things will be thrown into the mix."
One positive is the progress being made by Ponting, who missed the Sydney Test after aggravating his broken finger during the Boxing Day Test. Ponting had surgery on the little finger on his left hand after the Melbourne game, and by the time the World Cup opener arrives it will have had nearly seven weeks of recovery time.
"Ricky had another bat on Friday afternoon in Sydney and went well so that's a positive for us," Nielsen said. "He seems to be getting better every day. He's probably at least where we would like him to be."
The spin position shapes up as one of the more serious issues, with Steven Smith also battling a hip muscle injury, along with the problems that are troubling Hauritz and Doherty. Smith's injury shouldn't be a major concern, though the more serious situation with Hauritz, added to the likelihood that Hussey won't be fit for the start of the World Cup, leaves the selectors with some headaches.
"At the moment Hussey and Hauritz are in the squad - they're the first cabs off the rank," Nielsen said. "If we're going to replace them we're going to have to rule them out of the tournament full stop. That's the first question we're going to have to answer. Are they going to take any part in the tournament in a timeframe that's going to work for us?
"Once we make that decision then it's, okay, if we are going to replace them, is the replacement ready to go straight away or are we better off taking the named player and they might be ready at the same time? All those different things that come into the equation."
Australia have two warm-up games before the World Cup begins in earnest, and they have six pool matches before finding out if they have progressed to the next round. Australia are in a group with Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya.
Hot Spot will not be part of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) that will be used during the2011 ICC World Cup, reducing the system to its basic requirements: a ball-tracker (in this case Hawk-Eye), a super slow-mo camera and a 'clear' stump microphone.In October 2010, the ICC had announced that the Hot Spot cameras would be used in the semi-finals and final of the World Cup, to be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from Feb 19 to April 2. An ICC spokesman, however, confirmed to ESPNcricinfo on Saturday that, "the supplier of the Hot Spot technology advised that it was not willing to supply its cameras for the tournament so, accordingly, they will not be used at any stage in the tournament. The use of these cameras is not a minimum requirement for the DRS."
While the Hot Spot cameras are not a minimum requirement of the UDRS, they are thought to provide among the most accurate images of the contact between ball and bat, or pad, using infrared thermal imaging. The owners of the Hot Spot technology, Melbourne based BBG Sport, were unwilling to comment on their decision.
The Hot Spot infrared cameras form part of military hardware used in jetfighters, tanks and warships, and they fall under the category of restricted equipment which needs a temporary export licence from the Australian Defence Department whenever they are taken out of the country. Part of that licence includes the return of the cameras to Australia within a seven-day period after the end of the event in which they are being used.
The cameras were first brought into India during the 2009 Champions League Twenty20 event. It is possible that the logistical hurdle of moving the cameras, which are both expensive and sensitive security equipment, in and out of Sri Lanka and India could have led to the decision. India remains the only country in cricket that has not accepted the UDRS. Ironically, the only part of UDRS technology basket that is considered by the Indians to be the most trustworthy is the Hot Spot camera.
Ryan McLaren is determined to rise to even greater heights on South Africa's tour of the Caribbean after taking 5 for 19 in the first Twenty20 against West Indies. McLaren returned the second-best figures in Twenty20 international history as he bowled South Africa to a 13-run victory in Antigua. "It's a good way to start off the tour having practised indoors and not outdoors for the last few weeks," McLaren said after the match. "But it's only the first day, and there's plenty more cricket to come, so hopefully, I can better this performance. We all know the nature of T20 cricket - the bowler is always up against it.
"You can take five wickets one day, and the next day, take a thumping, but I enjoyed it. It was not an easy day for the batters, and you had to graft pretty hard. Playing shots was not easy, and there was a strong wind, so there were a lot of things you had to take into consideration.
"It was obviously nice to start with a win. This was the most important thing for us. We have worked really hard over the last few days here in Antigua, had a few discussions, the energy has been good around the team, and a lot of new faces have come in. We want to have a good tour of the Caribbean, so success in this match was very important to getting us off on the right foot."
The series could be important for the confidence of both teams after they failed to reach the semi-finals of the World Twenty20. The two Twenty20s are followed by five ODIs and three Tests and the West Indies captain Chris Gayle said there was plenty of room for improvement from his men.
"It was a disappointing start for us," Gayle said. "We wanted to put our dismal performance in the T20 World Cup behind us, but this was not the best way to do it, and was not the best start to the series.
"We still have a match on Thursday, so we have to pick ourselves up. This is no time for pointing fingers. We have a lot of corrections to make out there, and we have to return to the drawing board to try and get the best out of the players."
Champions League Twenty20 2010
A
| ||
Related Links Stats : Click Here | ||
South Africa will host the next Champions League Twenty20, to run from September 10 to 26, the tournament's organisers have announced. The tournament chairman Lalit Modi confirmed the decision, following a board meeting in Mumbai where it was formally agreed to accept Cricket South Africa's invitation to stage the event. However Modi, under immense scrutiny over the ongoing IPL mess, was not present at that meeting, which took place at the BCCI headquarters on Saturday.
"South Africa is considered an ideal CLT20 host after successfully staging the Indian Premier League and ICC World Twenty20 tournaments in recent years, as well as the strong support shown for its domestic Pro20 Series competition," said Modi via a press release.
The venues and competing teams for the second edition of the Champions League will be announced in the near future, said the tournament management.
The first edition of the tournament was held in India last year. South Africa had hosted the IPL in 2009, after the tournament was moved out of India as it clashed with the country's general elections.
The decision puts to rest the speculation that surrounded the Champions League earlier this year. In February, CSA had announced that South Africa had been finalised as the venue for the tournament, only for Modi to quickly clarify - via Twitter - that the statement was inaccurate. Despite the dates for this season's edition having been announced much earlier, there had been press releases from CSA and the Champions League itself stating that, like in 2009, 12 teams will take part from seven full member countries, including England.
Gerald Majola, the CSA chief, had confirmed the news to Cricinfo earlier in the day while Dean Kino, head of the league's Governing Council, had on Friday stated that a decision regarding the appropriate participating countries was taken each year as policy.
The Champions League features the best domestic Twenty20 teams from across the world and is run by by the boards of India, Australia and South Africa with its governing council comprising representatives from each board. Other countries participate in the tournament by invitation, but Pakistan and Bangladesh are the only two Test-playing countries with no presence in the tournament. Pakistan had sent a representative in the first edition of the tournament, which was cancelled in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008. As ties worsened between India and Pakistan and their cricket boards in the aftermath, the PCB was not eventually extended an invitation to the first tournament and since then it has stated that it will not send a team this year after Pakistan players were not included at the IPL auction in January.
The dates of this year's Champions League clash with the end of England's county season, which finishes on September 16. At the same time, England and Pakistan will be contesting an ODI series that runs until September 22.
Video Post
