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Zaheer Khan, India’s left-arm seamer who is currently recovering from injury, is unlikely to be fit for India’s first Test against South Africa, starting on March 26 in Chennai.India’s Test specialists are set to undergo routine fitness tests over the next few days but Zaheer isn’t part of the list, it’s learnt. Sources have indicated that it’s not clear yet if he would be available for any part of the series.”He is currently in South Africa,” board secretary Niranjan Shah told Cricinfo. “And we will know the status of the injury in a day or two.” Zaheer is currently undergoing rehabilitation at the Centre for Sports Medicine in Johannesburg.Zaheer injured his left heel on the eve of the Sydney Test in early January. It was the same injury that sustained during the third Test against Pakistan in Bangalore a month earlier.Meanwhile RP Singh, the other injured left-arm seamer, will undergo a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore on Friday and Saturday. He had injured his hamstring during the final Test in Adelaide and missed the entire CB Series. RP played a couple of Ranji one-day matches for Uttar Pradesh recently – taking two wickets in each and making good contributions with the bat too.Rahul Dravid was the other injury concern – having damaged his finger during the Adelaide Test – but is expected to be fit for selection. He skipped the South zone Ranji ODI tournament (because he was still in pain) but began training a couple of days ago. He is expected to play a couple of Deodhar Trophy matches for South Zone before the first Test against South Africa in Chennai.Meanwhile India’s Test specialists are set to undergo routine tests at the NCA over the next three days. This follows a BCCI policy to have periodic check-ups prior to all selections for players who have been out of action. VVS Laxman, Wasim Jaffer, Sourav Ganguly, Dravid, VRV Singh, Pankaj Singh and Anil Kumble haven’t been part of the side since the Adelaide Test and will need to go through the paces before their names are cleared for selection.They will undergo tests under Paul Chapman, the trainer at the NCA, Paul Close, the physiotherapist, and Dav Whatmore. The NCA will in turn forward the reports to the board on Saturday.The squad for the first Test will be picked on Sunday in Mumbai.

Uncertainty over the future of the Sheffield Shield final has been underlined by the announcement that only three of six states will have access to their prime venue for the competition decider in late March.Top-of-the-table Victoria have nominated Traeger Park in Alice Springs as their choice for the final rather than the unavailable MCG, while second-placed South Australia have plumped for Gilderol Stadium at Glenelg in place of Adelaide Oval.New South Wales are yet to confirm their choice of ground but are understood to have suggested Coffs Harbour, with Cricket Australia to review its appropriateness as a ground during the Blues’ forthcoming Shield fixture on the north coast.”Three of our six states are in positions where their regular season venues are unavailable, meaning they needed to nominate an alternative ground for Cricket Australia approval,” CA operations manager Sean Cary said.”A venue for New South Wales will be confirmed closer to the Final should they look likely to finish in top position. This Sheffield Shield season has been one of the most notable in its 123-year history, including hosting two games under day-night conditions as well as playing the first ever match overseas in Lincoln, New Zealand last week,” Cary added.Last October, the outgoing CA chairman Wally Edwards and the chief executive James Sutherland both expressed doubts about the future of the final, which is being squeezed by various fixture pressures such as the Big Bash League. Football’s insistence on taking possession of the MCG, Adelaide Oval and the SCG before the end of the Shield season is also affecting the issue – Victoria hosted Western Australia in Hobart last year.”The Shield final, over many years, has proved itself to be a bit of a non-event, to be honest,” Edwards said following CA’s AGM. “There probably have only been three or four good Shield finals.”The rest of them have been shockers, a bad advertisement for the game. I think it confuses the back end of our season. I think the best team should win in Shield cricket. If you play eight or ten games, that should sort it out.”Sutherland echoed Edwards’ views, noting how the expansion of the BBL was leaving fewer and fewer spare days in each season. “I think Wally is right. If you do look through history, the Shield finals have been absolutely dominated by the home team or a long draw,” Sutherland said.”I don’t think we should change it unless there was good reason to change that. But, at the same time, we are in a good position at the moment of having a burgeoning Twenty20 domestic competition that is in big demand.”At some stage in the future, we will be looking at ways in which we can expand that, whether that is expansion through number of matches or number of teams, of what have you. That might put pressure on other parts of our program.”

Andre Nel says he is very pleased to be away from international cricket and loves the opportunity he’s got to play the English county game. Back for two months with Essex, for whom he played in 2005, Nel – by his own admission a little ‘like a schoolboy’ – felt he had more than just his bowling services to offer the club.”I haven’t played domestically for almost two years in South Africa,” he told the ECB’s website. “But it’s very different to international cricket. The nice thing is that it’s not as intense. You can be more relaxed and you can have a bit more enjoyment rather than being positive and focused all the time. You can have a little bit more fun and you don’t have as much pressure on your game. It’s not as stressful as it is in international cricket.”Apart from bowling, Nel said he was keen on passing on tips to some of the youngsters in the side.”When I came over here two years ago the people were really friendly and welcoming. Ronnie Irani likes the way I play, being competitive. There’s a lot of excitement at Essex that there are several youngsters coming through who could take the club quite far.”The nice thing is that there are a lot of all-rounders and they’ve got a lot of skill,” he added. “They are a young bunch and that’s where you get your enjoyment. That is why I want to come back here as much as possible if they want me. I’m pretty lucky because I’m like a little schoolboy – quite naughty – in the changing rooms, so I fit in quite well. I get along with a lot of the youngsters because I’m quite young at heart. I hope I teach them something in a good way. If not, I’m doing something wrong.”Nel, 29, said that injuries to Essex had been tough on the other bowlers. “It’s been quite hard. The wickets have been flat,” he said. “I’m trying to give the guys energy when I bowl and help some of the younger guys, but on the flat wickets there isn’t a lot of back-up – although Danish [Kaneria] is unbelievable. But I’m certainly enjoying it and trying to take as many wickets as I can.”As for the opposition and Essex’s shot at the Division Two championship, Nel was, unsurprisingly, not lost for words. “When you play against the top sides, I think Essex will be up for it. We should do well because we’ve played good four-day cricket and we are keen to do well in the four-day competition,” he said. “I just go on the field and give it my all every time I play,” he added. “I think the biggest thing is that you can’t worry about it. You have got to do the basics and get them right first.”

Helen Watson, the New Zealand allrounder, has announced her retirement from cricket, ending her nine-year international career. Watson, 36, played 61 one-dayers, including winning the World Cup on home soil in 2000 and a rare Rose Bowl victory in 1999 in her debut series.In ODIs, she took 50 wickets at an average of 23.14 and an economy rate of 3.17, and made 568 runs. She also played eight international Twenty20s. At regional level, Watson represented Canterbury and Auckland, winning seven national titles.”I have gained immense satisfaction and enjoyment playing cricket at all levels,” said Watson, “with the pinnacle being my years playing for the White Ferns. The time is now right for me to hang up my boots and although I will no longer play the game there is no doubt that I will remain a keen supporter of cricket in the future.”I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported and encouraged me throughout my cricket career. It has been a fantastic journey.”Catherine Campbell, the women’s cricket manager of New Zealand Cricket, added: “Helen has made a terrific contribution to the White Ferns throughout her career. Her experience and talents will be missed and we wish her all the best in the future.”

Glamorgan 56 for 2 v Gloucestershire
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Only 24.3 overs were possible at Bristol where there was a delayed start and then a complete washout soon after lunch. Jon Lewis and Steve Kirby both took 1 for 13 in niggardly opening spells when the ball moved around off the seam. Lewis accounted for Gareth Rees, who was caught behind for 2, while Kirby removed Matthew Wood, well held low down at third slip by Grant Hodnett for 4. Glamorgan were then 15 for 2 but David Hemp and Mike Powell guided them through to the interval, and the rain returned for good three overs after the resumption.Warwickshire 128 for 4 (Bell 42) v Leicestershire
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There was a little more play at Edgbaston where Warwickshire made 128 for 4 in 50 overs against Leicestershire. Conditions were far from friendly for the batsmen, and they found the going hard under leaden skies and between three interruptions for showers. Dillon du Preez, signed as a Kolpak yesterday, got his Leicestershire career off to a flier, removing Darren Maddy’s off stump with his second ball as the batsman shouldered arms, and then having Ian Bell dropped at third slip off his seventh. Bell and Ian Westwood added 70 for the second wicket before Bell was trapped leg before half forward, and then Westwood became du Preez’s second victim – he finished with tight figures of 13-5-21-2 – care of a good catch at third slip soon after he had been struck on the jaw by a lifter. Michael Powell quickly followed, caught behind off James Allenby’s third ball, and Warwickshire were wobbling on 102 for 4. But Jonathan Trott and Tim Ambrose held firm until bad light ended play. Geoff Miller, England’s head selector, watched the day but with no fewer than ten South Africans on show, he cannot have learned too much.

Sydney Sixers’ senior pro Brad Haddin has called for a reinstatement of some form of the Champions League T20, on the day it was announced that the Big Bash League prize money was being bolstered through compensation funds for the cancellation of the tournament three years before its television contract expired.The BBL, due to commence on Thursday with a Sydney derby between Thunder and the Sixers, has had its stakes raised by the addition of an extra $600,000, up from $290,000 last summer, though the vast majority of this will go to the clubs rather than their players.In the latest episode of an ongoing haggle over money between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association, the board wanted any player prize increases to come out of the player payment pool already set aside for male contracted players, rather than the CLT20 compensation, a figure believed to be between $80 and $100 million.

Haddin bats for Lyon’s World T20 place

Nathan Lyon is the best spin bowler in Australia across all formats and should be allowed to demonstrate it at next year’s World Twenty20. That’s the view of Brad Haddin, who said Lyon did not have anything to prove to selectors in the game’s shorter formats despite his continued absence from the ODI and T20 squads.
“He’s the premiere spinner in Australia isn’t he?” Haddin said. “He’s been bowling outstanding for the last 18 months whether it be a white ball or a red ball, he just hasn’t had much opportunity to play with the white ball. But his form over all forms of cricket is outstanding.
“I don’t think Nathan has to do anything different to be honest, his bowling’s been exceptional for a long period now and every time he gets an opportunity with the white ball it’s no different. Just the way the schedules are hasn’t had much opportunity to play with the white ball, he was outstanding during the Matador Cup and he was great for the Sixers last year. I’m a bit biased, I think he’s the premiere spinner in Australia.”

While Haddin said he felt players were “pretty content” with present prize money levels, he urged CA to work at refashioning a global club T20 competition that provided added incentives for teams to perform in the BBL. “It’s disappointing that it’s not there,” Haddin said. “It’s a great tournament, and with the Sixers we are lucky that we have got a couple of really key Australian players who enjoy coming back for the tournament as well.”It’s a massive carrot; you can’t hide behind that fact, for state associations and Australian cricket as well. From a players’ point of view, and NSW Cricket and the Sixers, we’d like to see something go ahead. You can’t get past the fact it is an attractive tournament to play in. I hope they find something to replace it, because it’s a great carrot for not only international players but domestic players to get to play in a different country but also to play all around the world.”The CLT20 was founded as tournament jointly run by the boards of India, Australia and South Africa in 2008, and won a 10-year television deal worth $900 million with Star Sports off the back of the success of the inaugural IPL earlier that year. However it did not draw in the TV ratings or advertising revenue the broadcasters had hoped for, leading to a deal to conclude it ahead of the contract’s 2018 expiry.The proliferation of T20 leagues is a major undercurrent to the problems faced by the West Indies, something Haddin acknowledged by noting that most of the region’s best players would be turning out in the BBL this summer rather than the concurrent Test series. Haddin did not seem overly fussed by the decline of the West Indies Test team.”That’s their choice,” he said of the likes of Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and Dwayne Bravo. “If you want to see the best of the West Indies come to the Big Bash. We’ve got Andre Russell, I think he was player of the tournament in the IPL this year, so there are some talented West Indians out there, they just happen to be playing Big Bash and not Test cricket.”If the [Test matches] only go for two and a half days, there’s obviously days where there’ll be Big Bash scheduled, I think the concept of this tournament’s just been getting bigger and bigger every year. If the West Indies have been playing the way they have last Test – I think they’ll come out and show some fight in the next two – but it’s an opportunity for people to come and see some young cricketers and also some of the greats in the Big Bash.”Since his Test retirement, Haddin has tried his hand at several pursuits, and admitted he could now see himself carving out a career of several years as a T20 freelancer. “I’m pretty lucky I finished my Test career with no niggles and my body’s in good shape,” he said.”It’s a great opportunity to go and play Twenty20, you only have to prepare for one form of the game, and if someone’s bowling really fast I can stand outside leg and have a swing and say I was trying to move the game forward and not be scared!”This is the start of my campaign now to move forward and hopefully play all around the world. I’m just excited about the Big Bash, it’s going from strength to strength and getting bigger every year.”

On a day when the Nagpur surface for the third Test between India and South Africa was rated ‘poor’ by the ICC, and less than a week after Rahul Dravid delivered a stinging critique of pitches used in the Ranji Trophy, the first day of Tamil Nadu-Punjab game saw 21 wickets fall. Seventeen of them went to spinners, but TN coach M Sanjay blamed his side’s batting, and not the Dindigul pitch.Punjab were dismissed for 206 in 57 overs and Tamil Nadu were shot out for 68 in the 24th, their second-lowest total in Ranji Trophy history. While Sanjay admitted to the TNCA rolling out a turning track to strengthen Tamil Nadu’s chances of a knockout berth in a must-win game, he denied it was an underprepared pitch. “Basically we played too many shots too early thinking that the wicket is going to do [something],” Sanjay told ESPNcricinfo.”There is turn and bounce, it is a spinner-friendly wicket, but they have got 200 [206], so it’s not like it’s a bad wicket. I think it’s more in the mind than in the wicket.”The odd ball kept low, but it was prepared to be a turning track just like India are preparing wickets for home games. We had to because we need to have to six points.”So did the ploy backfire after Punjab took the chance to bat first? “The toss doesn’t matter at all on a wicket like this actually,” Sanjay insisted. “In fact, it might be better bowling first on a wicket like this because the bounce is there. We didn’t bowl too well also and we didn’t field well, missing three-four chances.”Sanjay said the concept of an ‘ideal’ surface – one that assists the seamers initially before flattening out and eventually crumbling on the last day to bring the spinners into play – however noble was largely impractical. “We have seen pitches all over India in the last few years; it doesn’t happen like that in reality.””I don’t think the curators really know to do that. Earlier they might have done it when the pitches were uncovered. But then they have standardised the preparation of pitches after experts were brought in from abroad and lot of scientific things went into it,” Sanjay said. “Anyway India is preparing turners. You have to know how to counter that with certain skills that are different from playing seam bowling but they are skills anyway.”Dravid had recently come down heavily on poor pitches in this season’s Ranji Trophy after several two- and three-day finishes. Sanjay felt it wasn’t fair to generalise like that, and stressed on the need for tighter technique to succeed on such tracks, something Ravi Shastri had advocated recently as well.”People are not understanding the differentiation. Because it’s getting over in two or three days they are clubbing underprepared wickets with prepared ones [where matches finish because of other factors],” he said. “The Nottingham pitch [in the Ashes], which got over in three days, wasn’t underprepared, for instance.”[For an] underprepared wicket, you don’t water it, roll it, you just leave it like that, and it takes its course. The ball rolls, one kicks up, that becomes dangerous. These wickets are not dangerous; the bounce is consistent but for the odd ball.”This generation, not just cricketers, doesn’t have patience and perseverance. In today’s game as well there were four or five soft dismissals. Other than R Sathish – he got a ball which literally rolled – and R Prasanna, who Harbhajan got out with a beauty, there were many soft dismissals: Dinesh Karthik out lbw deliberately padding; Abhinav [Mukund] top-edging a pull off a rank short ball; [B] Aparajith trying to sweep top-edged one; and Vijay Shankar being caught brilliantly on the line.”Dravid had spoken of the importance of looking beyond wins and develop cricketers for the international stage. While Sanjay agreed with this philosophy, he said the ground realities of the competition’s structure couldn’t be glossed over. “An outright [win] gets you double the points [as a first-innings lead]. The administration or the coach, team captain, especially when it comes to the last league game, are desperate for a win. You wouldn’t have seen so many such matches in the beginning.”It’s true that if you keep getting wickets like this, you won’t get runs and you will lose confidence. That’s true. But out of eight games, you will play two or three games maximum. Otherwise five games are on phenomenal pitches,” Sanjay said.

South Africa have been fined for their slow over-rate in the first Test against India in Chennai. Roshan Mahanama, the match referee, found the side was two overs short of its target after time allowances were taken in to consideration.On day three South Africa managed only 85 overs as India pushed to gain a first-innings lead. It was the day Virender Sehwag raced to the fastest Test triple-hundred, his second in 55 Tests.According to ICC Code of Conduct players are fined 5% of their match fees for every over lost while captain is fined double of that. Consequently South African players lost 10% of their match fees and Graeme Smith lost 20%. The team cannot appeal the fine.After a dull draw in the first Test the two sides now move on to Ahmedabad for the second one starting on April 3.

Western Australia are in danger of losing their star opening batsman Chris Rogers, who is meeting with the state’s officials to decide his future. Rogers is reportedly unhappy with his continued omission from the state’s one-day side, which he believes is limiting his chances of further international call-ups.He has attracted interest from South Australia and Queensland, while Tasmania’s captain Daniel Marsh also said the Tigers would love to have him. Rogers is speaking to the Western Australian Cricket Association’s chief executive Graeme Wood, the coach Tom Moody and the state match committee chairman Tom Hogan to assess his options.”There is no way we would like to see him go, he is a critical part of our future,” Moody told AAP. “He is highly regarded in this state, his record speaks for itself. Hopefully after those discussions with him he will be with us and looking forward.”Rogers, who holds a Cricket Australia contract, was named State Player of the Year in 2006-07 and made his Test debut at home in Perth this season. However, despite another solid Pura Cup season in which he made 744 runs at 43.76, Rogers is continually overlooked for limited-overs games and made only two FR Cup appearances this summer.A move to Adelaide would be a major coup for South Australia, whose top order has struggled severely since Darren Lehmann’s retirement. Queensland have also lost an experienced key batsman in Jimmy Maher, while Rogers could be a direct replacement for Tasmania’s departing opener Michael Di Venuto.Western Australia have also lost a top-order veteran with the retirement of Justin Langer, who was a regular one-day player for the state, and his absence might open a door for Rogers in the shorter format. Langer hopes whatever Rogers decides he does not let the matter drag on for too long.”It will be good for him to move on and the WACA to move on, whichever way he chooses to go,” Langer said. “If he wants to stay – and I would like to see him stay – then that is great, but if he decided he is not going to then he should make his decision.”

Zimbabwe have recruited Makhaya Ntini and Marvan Atapattu to be assistant coach and batting consultant respectively, according to a report published today on the Zimbabwe Cricket website. The report says Ntini has been given a two-year contract, while Atapattu has been roped in for the duration of Zimbabwe’s tour to Bangladesh starting from January 15.Ntini, 38, has played 101 Tests, 173 ODIs and 10 T20Is for South Africa over a period of 13 years. ZC says he will begin work from February 16, while former bowling coach Douglas Hondo has been reassigned to the Zimbabwe A team.Atapattu, a former Sri Lanka captain and coach, may succeed Andy Waller as Zimbabwe’s batting coach. Currently, he is only a consultant but his “contract will be reviewed after the Zimbabwe tour of Bangladesh, with a view to entering into a longer relationship,” the Zimbabwe Cricket report said.