Category Uncategorized

Mahela Jayawardene wants to make sure the allrounder “is completely in a position to come in and bowl”

Sruthi Ravindranath19-Apr-20210:55

Mahela Jayawardene: We don’t want to risk Hardik Pandya’s niggle

Hardik Pandya, who has a shoulder niggle, could be ready to bowl in the next few weeks, according to the Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene, but the team “don’t want to risk it” in the ongoing IPL till he recovers completely and feels comfortable enough.”We were obviously looking forward for him to be bowling this series as last season he was coming back from injury,” Jayawardene said in a press interaction. “But after the ODIs against England I believe he picked up a niggle. So that’s something we are nursing at the moment. We don’t want to risk it because it’s important that we make sure that he is completely in a position to come in and bowl.””Hopefully in the next few weeks, with work and all that, you might see him bowl. It’s not like we are deliberately trying not bowl him. We would love to have him bowling but as soon as the niggle cools off and he is comfortable we should be able to utilise that asset as well.”Related

• Hardik Pandya 'is bowling and it is a very good sign' – Suryakumar Yadav

• India need a little Pant-Pandya humpty in their ODI approach

• Zaheer expects Hardik to 'bowl very soon' for Mumbai Indians

• Kuldeep and Chahal demoted in BCCI contracts list

Pandya, who has not bowled much in the last couple of years mainly because of lower-back issues, played as a specialist batter during the 2020 IPL. He returned to bowling in the five T20Is against England in March, before which he had bowled just four overs during the second ODI against Australia in November 2020 – the first time he had bowled since the 2019 50-over World Cup. He bowled only in one of the three ODIs against England that followed the T20Is.Earlier, the franchise’s bowling coach Zaheer Khan had said that Pandya’s shoulder concern was “not worrisome”, adding that he would be bowling “very soon”. “He bowled in the India-England series, in the last ODI he bowled about nine overs, and that’s why in consultation with the physios, we had to take that approach,” Khan had said. “There was a little bit of a shoulder concern. I don’t think it’s worrisome, you will very soon see him bowl. For the timelines, you’ll have to ask the physio but in terms of Hardik the bowler coming in this tournament, we are very confident that he will be chipping in.”Pandya has continued to play as a specialist batter for the team this year as well, with Kieron Pollard being used as the sixth bowling option. He had said last year during the Australia tour that his long-term plan was to bowl mainly “in the important games” like “World Cups and “other crucial series”.

CA will meet with ICC CEO just before Christmas to discuss number of global tournaments over the next events’ cycle

Daniel Brettig04-Dec-2019Australia’s first Boxing Day Test with New Zealand in 32 years will take place in the wake of critical talks between Cricket Australia and the ICC, aimed at resolving an impasse over global events for the next international cycle.Financial woes among the majority of Full Member countries have caused them to be increasingly reliant upon cash distributions from ICC events, pushing the global body’s new chief executive Manu Sawhney to lobby for the return of an extra event in the next cycle so that there is a men’s tournament – either a Twenty20 World Cup, 50-over World Cup or shorter, Champions Trophy style 50-over competition – every year.New Zealand’s presence on Boxing Day will be poignant to the moment, for their finances stand as a signal example. Shifting ICC distributions have caused one of cricket’s smaller boards to return financial losses of NZD 1.3 million (USD 846,000 approx) for 2018-19 (as against a projected profit of NZD 1 million) after deficits of $3.5 million in 2018 and $9.3 million in 2017. The most recent loss was all the more troubling for the fact that the 2018-19 season featured an inbound India tour.However CA, the BCCI and the ECB, cricket’s three richest boards, have indicated their hesitance about placing the extra event in the next cycle, already crushed as it is by domestic Twenty20 tournaments and the advent of Test and ODI leagues. These reservations have been expressed by the BCCI’s leadership, the ECB’s chairman Colin Graves, and CA’s chairman Earl Eddings and chief executive Kevin Roberts.”We’ve got Manu Sawhney, the ICC CEO, coming out in a couple of weeks to work through it,” Eddings told ESPNcricinfo. “We’ve got a responsibility as one of the leading countries to make the ICC strong and the countries who are part of the ICC. But we’ve also got to balance that with our own requirements around bilateral cricket. One of the challenges we have is Australia relies more on bilateral cricket than the ICC, where for a lot of countries it is the other way round. So just trying to find the balance.”You’ve got more T20 competitions spreading around the world, you’ve got the burgeoning IPL and you’ve got our bilateral cricket. More importantly, what does that mean to the players and from a player welfare perspective. So you’ve got all these challenges to try to work through. I think there’s a solution there, I don’t know what it is yet, but we’ll keep talking to the ICC and other countries to find a way to one, maximise the opportunities for the ICC and its members but also look after the needs of bilateral cricket and most importantly protect the sanctity of Test cricket.”We’re working through it with the ICC at the moment, that’s why Manu’s coming down, let’s sit down and work out what the options are, put some of the minutiae around it, so people can make a more informed decision. The ICC in concept approved it, subject to making sure it doesn’t impact on bilateral cricket, where you play, how you play it, how you bid for it.”Eddings, who has operated on a relational and trust-building platform since becoming CA chairman in 2018, is conscious of the problems affecting other boards and has proposed, among other things, that the ICC and member countries adopt a four-year financial cycle to smooth out year-on-year financial distributions to reduce cashflow issues.”During the last cycle of ICC events, there was last year (2018) when they didn’t have an event, and that had massive implications for distributions back to all of the countries,” he said. “Where that isn’t a problem for Australia, it is for others. So we’re trying to make sure you’ve got that cycle with an event every year so there’s consistency of revenue. But the challenge we have is the number of days – compared to the previous cycle when they did have an event every year, the events themselves didn’t run that long, but now the events have got bigger.”So you’ve got a lot more ICC content to fit into a smaller calendar, with all the T20 leagues around the world. So that’s the challenge now, trying to squeeze too much content into too little time.”We’ve certainly made that recommendation [for a four-year cycle] to the ICC. We’ve got the same problem [as other Full Members] only on a smaller scale, some years we make a lot of money, other years we lose a lot of money, depending on who’s travelling and your media rights. You don’t want to be up and down with your cash flows, particularly back to [CA’s member] states who rely on your funding. So we smooth it out, we look at how much money we’ve made over the four-year cycle as opposed to an up and down cycle of year by year.”The talks with Sawhney are aimed at working towards a solution before there is any danger of the game again being split along financial lines, as occurred during the infamous “big three” takeover of the ICC by the boards of India, England and Australia in 2014-15.”Not yet, it’s still early days,” Eddings said when asked about any additional details around the proposed extra tournament. “Still got to work out its context, player welfare is really important – you can’t just keep putting in more games to play, I think it’s unfair – and still need to work out where it fits in the calendar. So as a concept it’s up there, but a lot of work has got to be done on what type of event it is, how it plays out. That’s all still a work in progress.”Most of the Test playing countries play in the same season, which makes it more challenging. You’ve got a lot more time in the northern summer, so a whole range of factors need to be considered. A lot of water’s going to go under the bridge before we get that far.”We’re a long way off – this [extra event] is post 2023, so we’ve got a number of years to work through it, but you can’t do one thing without the other. To be able to work on your future tours programme, you need to know where that fits in with an ICC schedule, so you can’t just look at an ICC schedule in isolation, just as you can’t look at a bilateral or future tours programme in isolation.”

Alastair Cook retired an England record-breaker in September but could be in line for even higher honours after being proposed for an early knighthood

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Nov-20181:10

What was it like when England last played a Test without Cook?

Arise, Sir Alastair? He was England’s hero in whites for more than a decade, a record-breaking run-scorer and distinguished former captain, but Alastair Cook could be in line for even higher honours after being proposed for an early knighthood.Cook retired from England duty in September, having amassed 12,472 Test runs and 33 hundreds – both records for England. In his final Test, against India at The Oval, he signed off with innings of 71 and 147 amid widespread acclaim for his impact on the game.Now the wheels have been set in motion that could one day see him knighted. Last month, a member of the House of Lords tabled a parliamentary question, “to ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to recomending Alastair Cook for knighthood”.Lord Tyrie has also written to the authorities in charge of the honours list, according to a report in the newspaper. “It is not just that Alastair Cook is unquestionably the best batsman England have produced in recent years but that he can make a massive contribution as an ambassador for cricket at home and abroad,” Tyrie said. “Nobody would be more deserving.”Ian Botham is currently the only living English cricketer in possession of a knighthood – although his was awarded for services to charity – while the likes of West Indians Garry Sobers and Viv Richards, and New Zealander Richard Hadlee have received the honour.The government has unsurprisingly remained tight-lipped about the possibility – but if 33-year-old Cook were to be singled out, it might raise an eyebrow in Yorkshire, where many believe Geoffrey Boycott is long overdue a knighthood for his services to the game as a player and commentator.

Team management’s decision to spread workload uniformly on the bowlers has helped, says India pacer

Alagappan Muthu in Nagpur30-Sep-2017In the last two years, it would seem that India have earmarked Umesh Yadav for long-form cricket. The 29-year old fast bowler has played 19 out of 24 Tests in this period, but only 21 of the 40 ODIs, and he might just prefer it that way.”The thing with ODIs is that there will always be games. I enjoy playing Tests more,” Umesh said at a press conference at his home ground in Nagpur. “You have time in a Test and there are situations and match simulations (in the preparations) to know how to respond to a situation. I like those challenges. I like that because it increases confidence and also makes a bowler more accurate. You know the line and length you need on a particular surface and you focus on that. I am more than happy to play as a Test bowler.”However, Umesh clarified that he was not quite ready to start picking and choosing formats. “Playing both Tests and ODIs is good and particularly for me, because I am at an age when the more cricket I play the better it is for me,” he said. “I don’t want to be at a stage where I am saying I don’t want to play this format or that, I want to keep going. I would love to play in all formats.”To a certain extent, India now have enough seamers of quality and variety that they can manage their workloads better without losing their potency as a team. At the start of the Bengaluru ODI, Australia captain Steven Smith rated Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar as the world’s best death bowlers in 50-overs cricket. And over the course of a long home season in 2016-17, Mohammed Shami and Umesh won praise from their own captain, who said they were among the top five quicks in Test cricket.Separating them to play the respective formats they are good at seems not only the logical choice, but also helps the players function at peak fitness. “I think it’s good for the fast bowlers,” Umesh said. “If you continuously play Test cricket, it’s lot of load for fast bowler. Playing in sub-continent conditions is very tough. Slow wicket, no pace and bounce for fast bowlers, you have to give your 100 per cent. It’s very hard for the fast bowlers to come to one-day cricket with the same intensity [immediately afterwards]. It is better you get some rest. It also helps you recover from small niggles. It’s a good concept as we get proper rest and look after ourselves properly.”Umesh also felt that fast bowlers could not afford to become full-fledged Test or one-day specialists because of their fitness needs. “If you are playing a lot of Test cricket, say 15-20 Tests in a year, then you have to decide what to do. Because you can’t otherwise say I only want to play Tests – there are fewer Tests in the year, so what will you do the rest of the time?”It is important for a player’s body to have match practice. We say it’s good to keep practicing and everything will be fine, but that’s not the case. Until you don’t play matches, your physical form is not ideal and you don’t have that match-situation awareness. When you’re bowling in a match, you have to use your whole body and you know what lines you have to bowl. In the nets you do practice but at that time, you don’t really understand where the ball is going and what a situation is. There’s a big difference between bowling to batsmen on your team and the opposition’s batsmen.”So if there is a situation where we are playing four Tests against a team and then there are ODIs, I prefer playing Tests first. The way my body responds and how fit I am, then I will say I am ready. But there is no such thing for me that I will play only Tests or only ODIs. If you don’t accept all the challenges in cricket, then what are you a fast bowler for?”

Somerset improved their chances of reaching the quarter finals of the Royal London Cup courtesy of a 33-run DLS victory over Glamorgan in Taunton

ECB Reporters Network24-Jul-2016
ScorecardPeter Trego top-scored with 80 for Somerset (file photo)•PA Photos

Somerset improved their chances of reaching the quarter finals of the Royal London Cup courtesy of a 33-run DLS victory over Glamorgan in Taunton. Peter Trego led the way with the bat, hitting 80 off 76 balls, before Roelof van der Merwe, Craig Overton and Lewis Gregory each took three wickets to guide Somerset to a third 50-over victory of the summer.Having been invited to bat first, Somerset made a decent start thanks to Johann Myburgh and captain Jim Allenby. The pair added 63 for the first wicket before the former holed out to David Lloyd off the bowling of Graham Wagg for 39.Undeterred by the loss of Myburgh, Allenby and Trego put Somerset on course for a healty total with 86 for the second wicket. Allenby passed 50 off 56 balls, with four fours, before running himself out for 53 at 149 for 2 in the 25th over. Trego continued to lead the way, reaching his half century off just 54 balls with four fours and one six. The veteran allrounder looked well on course for three figures when he picked out Michael Hogan at extra cover at 215 for 3.It might have been a significant turning point in the game. Eight runs later, Mahela Jayawardene was bowled by Hogan for 37 and in the 43rd over, Gregory and James Hildreth both departed, off the bowling of Australian seamer Hogan. Overton and Ryan Davies put on an unbeaten 42 for the eighth wicket to bolster Somerset’s total to 322 for 7.Just as Somerset had during the morning session, Glamorgan made a brisk start in reply. Lloyd and Jacques Rudolph looked well set, adding 67 inside 14 overs before the captain attempted a reverse sweep off van der Merwe. The South African could barely believe his misfortune as the ball ended up in the hands of James Hildreth at backward square.Will Bragg followed, attempting a similar shot, for 10, before Lloyd picked out Overton at deep square two runs later at 98 for 3 in the 18th over.With a sharp shower reducing the target by 10 off three fewer overs, teenager Aneurin Donald and Colin Ingram kept Glamorgan in the hunt with 69 for the fourth wicket. However, when Ingram chanced his arm against Overton, Myburgh took a straightforward catch on the cover boundary.Donald departed in the 31st over, brilliantly caught by Gregory on the rope, at deep midwicket and from that juncture, Glamorgan were always behind the required rate. Gregory the catcher became Gregory the wicket-taker when he snapped up Mark Wallace for 17, at 197 for 6 in the 36th over, and former Somerset allrounder Craig Meschede managed only 3 before he was stumped by Davies off the bowling of van der Merwe.Overton picked up the wicket of Wagg and though Andrew Salter hit 42 off 26 balls, with one four and three sixes, Glamorgan finished 34 runs short of their target.

Canada offspinner Nikhil Dutta, who has chosen to remain in the CPL with the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, has been replaced by Hiral Patel in the Canada squad for the ICC World T20 Qualifier

Peter Della Penna03-Jul-2015Canada offspinner Nikhil Dutta, who has chosen to remain in the Caribbean Premier League with the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, has been replaced by Hiral Patel in the squad for the ICC World T20 Qualifier beginning next week in Ireland and Scotland. Dutta’s absence is a big blow for Canada – he was their leading wicket-taker at the ICC Americas Division One T20 tournament in May with 12 wickets at an average of 9.41 and an economy rate of 4.91.Dutta is the second Associate player to drop out of the qualifier after obtaining a CPL contract, joining USA’s Steven Taylor. But while Taylor has been on the bench for all five games played by the Barbados Tridents, Dutta has played in the three games so far for the Patriots, taking two wickets at an economy rate of 8.18.

Changes to other squads

• Netherlands: Roelof van der Merwe, who made himself available for Netherlands last week, has been picked in place of 20-year-old seamer Vivian Kingma

• Namibia: Wicketkeeper-batsman Michau du Preez has replaced Zhivago Groenewald

Even though Cricket Canada received clearance from the ICC to replace Dutta with the hard-hitting Patel, Dutta may face obstacles regarding his involvement with the Patriots for the duration of the CPL season. According to ESPNcricinfo sources, the board has attempted to revoke Dutta’s ‘No Objection Certificate’ to play in the CPL after he stated his desire to keep playing for the Patriots rather than join the 15-man squad in Scotland, for which he was originally selected.ESPNcricinfo contacted Dutta in St Kitts on Thursday and he confirmed that he was facing opposition from his home board and his NOC could be revoked. “They have sent a mail saying my NOC has been revoked Tuesday night, even though they told me before coming here that I will have a choice whether to play CPL or go (to the) Qualifier,” Dutta said.ESPNcricinfo also reached out to the Canada board for comment on Thursday. A board official deferred comment on the matter to Cricket Canada president Vimal Hardat. “It was an internal decision after carefully going over the intent and deliberation from the player of not wanting to represent Canada even though Cricket Canada sent the players to the CPL camp,” Hardat responded in an email. “The purpose to send players was to not only showcase our talent pool to the CPL but also prepare players for the qualifiers. It was a hard decision that has been taken and we have replaced Nikhil Dutta with Hiral Patel.”Patel, 23, announced himself at the 2011 ICC World Cup by hitting an audacious half-century against Australia. However, he has struggled for form since then. He has not played for Canada since the 2013 ICC World T20 Qualifier in the UAE, where he played in five of eight matches and scored 61 runs at an average of 12.20 with a best of 18 and also took four wickets at 21.00.

A 15-over-per-day limit prevent Talha Jubair from trying for all ten wickets in an innings against Rangpur Division

Mohammad Isam01-Dec-2012Dhaka Metropolis medium-pacer Talha Jubair took the first eight wickets to fall in the National Cricket League match against Rangpur Division in Bogra, but he was prevented from trying for all ten because of a new rule implemented by the Bangladesh board to protect players from injury. From this season, a seamer is allowed to bowl a maximum of 15 overs per day in Bangladesh’s domestic first-class tournament.Jubair took eight wickets in an opening spell that lasted 13 overs and spanned the entire first session. His last wicket came in his 11th over, and he sought permission to bowl more overs but the match referee Hemayet Ahmed did not allow it after Rangpur turned down the request. Left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny took the remaining two wickets.”Pace bowlers this season have been asked to bowl no more than 15 overs per day,” said Hafiz Joarder, member secretary of BCB’s tournament committee. “The technical committee has made this recommendation before the NCL started, and our physician has also approved of it.”Many of our pace bowlers have had back and leg injuries in the past few seasons due to the hard grounds across the country. Not every outfield is like the one in Khulna or Mirpur.”Joarder said the BCB can enforce such a decree on the pace bowlers because it is a domestic tournament. “We can do it because it is being held domestically. We follow all the ICC rules and playing condition but we can include our own rules too.”Jubair’s 8 for 35 is the best bowling figures in an innings for a Bangladeshi seamer in first-class cricket, beating Al-Amin Hossain’s 7 for 37 from the 2011-12 season.

Ricky Ponting remains vital to the development of Australia’s Test side but cannot keep earning a place in the team based on his reputation, according to the coach Mickey Arthur

Brydon Coverdale20-Dec-2011Ricky Ponting remains vital to the development of Australia’s Test side but cannot keep earning a place in the team based on his reputation, according to the coach Mickey Arthur. As Australia’s batsmen began their batting camp in Melbourne on Tuesday ahead of the Boxing Day Test against India, the selectors were faced with some tough decisions over the make-up of the squad.The batting order was especially fluid, with questions over whether Shane Watson and Shaun Marsh would return from injury, whether Daniel Christian would be squeezed in as an allrounder, and whether the irresistible form of the opener Ed Cowan could be ignored. And while Ponting is expected to play at the MCG, Arthur said nobody was a certainty to take on the Indians.”I don’t think anybody is guaranteed a start,” Arthur said. “Ricky Ponting is really vital to where we want to take this team so we’re really hoping he finds his form and hopefully his form is just around the corner. We’ll discuss that again tonight and make sure we’ve got all our bases covered in terms of selection.”Following Australia’s loss in Hobart, their first defeat at the hands of New Zealand in 18 years, Arthur said he viewed Ponting and Michael Hussey, who are struggling for runs, as important men in the future of the side due to their middle-order experience. And while Arthur still believed they have roles to play, he said both men would need Test runs to continue justifying their selection.”I have backed Ricky Ponting like I’ve backed Mike Hussey for a period of time because I think they’re crucial for the development of the side,” Arthur said. “For our young guys to bat with guys like that is fantastic, but again they need to keep giving us ammunition.”They need to keep giving us performances. Nobody has got a privilege to play in the Australian cricket team. They are the type of characters that we want in our side, most definitely.”Ponting, who turned 37 on Monday, showed glimpses of his previous form when he made 62 in Johannesburg and 78 at the Gabba over the past month, but his dismissals in both innings at Bellerive Oval were clumsy. He walked across his stumps in the first innings and was lbw as he was caught in two minds, and in the second his attempted punch through the off side resulted in a loopy lob to cover.In his past 16 Tests, Ponting has averaged 27.48 and has not scored a century. Arthur said over the next two days at the batting camp in Melbourne, the plan for Ponting was to “free him up” ahead of a series against an Indian attack that could feature Ishant Sharma, the fast bowler who has dismissed Ponting six times from eight Tests.Arthur said while the batsmen would work against the moving ball at the batting camp – a weakness that was again exposed against New Zealand in Hobart – and would face bowling machines designed to replicate Ishant and Zaheer Khan, major technical overhauls were not on the agenda.”This is giving us the best opportunity for us to be in the best possible space for Boxing Day. That’s it,” he said. “We’re not reinventing the wheel in any way, we’re giving our batters the maximum opportunity to get themselves ready to play a Test match starting on Boxing Day. We feel there are one or two things we need to discuss.”We’re also going to have a look at India, we’re going to talk about their attack, talk about what we can expect from them and practice accordingly. It’s certainly no boot camp. It’s giving our batters an opportunity to get themselves into the best possible frame of mind for the 26th.”

England’s coach Andy Flower believes that the deathly slow surface that England encountered in their drawn three-day warm-up match against Victoria this week was the perfect reality check after the highs of the Adelaide Test, and has backed his pace bowle

Andrew Miller in Perth13-Dec-2010England’s coach Andy Flower believes that the deathly slow surface that England encountered in their drawn three-day warm-up match against Victoria this week was the perfect reality check after the highs of the Adelaide Test, and has backed his pace bowlers to take command of the livelier conditions that are anticipated at the WACA this week.England’s trip to Melbourne was billed as a three-way shoot-out between Chris Tremlett, Tim Bresnan and Ajmal Shahzad, all of whom were in with a shout of replacing Stuart Broad in the Test attack following his stomach injury. However, on a tacky and docile pitch that offered little to any types of bowling, the trio returned combined figures of 1 for 216 in 78 overs to leave the selection debate somewhat cloudy.Flower, however, insisted that the identity of Broad’s replacement was still clear in his mind, although he would – as ever – wait until the morning of the match to unveil his final XI. “We’ve just had a three-day game on a pitch nothing like the Perth pitch,” he said. “It was quite hard work for fast bowlers and spinners alike, but quite a good exercise in getting back to reality for our team. After the highs of Adelaide, it was a really good workout, and now we’ve got to come and prepare for different conditions in Perth.””It was a good thing for us,” he added. “The hard work they had to put in, the number of overs they had to put in against a good Victorian side, was the perfect workout prior to this game. They have three days between the end of that match and this Test match, and it was ideal for the team as a whole. Adelaide was an important moment in the series and it was very important for us to keep our feet firmly on the floor thereafter, and the Victoria game helped us do that.”While Flower believed that the MCG wicket would be an entirely different beast come the Boxing Day Test match, he was pretty confident that this week’s WACA surface would offer significantly more life, if not quite the devastating pace and carry with which it forged its reputation from the 1970s onwards.”We don’t want to pre-judge what it will be like,” said Flower. “It hasn’t got the pace of yesteryear, but we do know this season it’s got a little quicker than past few years, which is great. We talked about it here [with the curator] during the three-day game, and he was a little disappointed with that pitch – not quite as quick as he thought it might be – and he indicated he wanted it as quick and bouncy as possible for the Test match, which I think is really exciting for everyone. It gives everyone a good chance and certainly makes for exciting cricket and that’s why we’re here. We’re here to compete and it should be an interesting spectacle for everyone.If the onus is on Australia to prepare sporting pitches in order to force the two wins in three matches that they need to regain the Ashes, then the likelihood of result-orientated surfaces could also play into the hands of the English, who would back themselves to claim 20 more wickets in conditions that play to the strengths of their spin and seam attack.”It gives everyone a chance, but in Test cricket generally those are the types of wickets we want to play on,” said Flower. “We want something that makes it interesting to watch and also interesting to play in. Some of the bland pitches that we see these huge scores and deadly boring draws on are not good for Test cricket, so we do want pitches where it’s a fair contest between bat and ball and good action for the spectators to watch.”In the short term, the focus of many of England’s players will be on the wives and children who have flown into Perth for the start of the festive season, having been forced to stay at home during the initial agenda-setting month of the trip. Some players, notably Kevin Pietersen, were less enamoured with the decision than others, but Flower maintained that the right work-play balance had been struck for the squad.”It’s quite a tricky decision to make,” he said. “Players and families are adults, and they want to be free to make their own decisions about which country they travel to or the timings of those trips. For other people, the management, to make those decisions for them is a little galling, but those are tricky decisions to make. Someone has to make them and we try to get it as right and as fair as possible.”We planned this a long time ago and the players were fully informed so we had full discussions and communication about it,” he added. “You can’t get everyone agreeing to whatever dates you put in, but the players in the end did react very well to it. We’re here to win the Test series, we aren’t here for a family holiday, and I think everyone’s handled it just fine so far.”James Anderson, who flew home after the Adelaide Test to attend the birth of his daughter, has arrived back with the squad after spending 48 hours of the past week on a plane, which Flower reiterated wasn’t an ideal situation for such a key player. But, he added: “In competition, you can’t always get perfect preparation. There are all sorts of things that can go wrong. Illness, injury, sometimes travel disruptions, family issues. This is just one of those things you’ve got to deal with, a little bit of reality that he has to deal with. He’ll have the same amount of practice as the rest of the guys.”

Ricky Ponting has warned his side to be prepared for a Pakistan backlash in the second Test at the SCG following the one-sided result in the opening match

Peter English at the SCG02-Jan-2010Ricky Ponting has warned his side to be prepared for a Pakistan backlash in the second Test at the SCG following the one-sided result in the opening match. Ponting rated Australia’s bowling at the MCG during the 170-run win as the best of the past couple of years and has told his men to maintain the standard over the rest of the three-match series.”Teams are probably at their most dangerous when they’ve come off a heavy loss like last week,” Ponting said. “The challenge for us is to not get carried away with what we’ve done.”West Indies stood up to Australia in the final two games of the opening series of the local summer, but there were fewer concerns created by Pakistan at the MCG. However, Ponting is wary of their unpredictability as he plots a 2-0 series win before the final game in Hobart.”Pakistan, for as long as I can remember, can be as good as anybody going around and then an over, or a couple of overs, later, look as ordinary as anybody,” he aid. “That’s the nature of the way they play their cricket. That’s the unpredictability about them, we can’t afford to think that things will happen well for us again this week.”They’re already talking up the fact they think they can bounce back quickly. We know what to expect from them, we know they have some very talented players. Last week we had their measure, it’s up to us to make sure we start well again.”Ponting is still being hampered by an elbow problem suffered in the final Test against West Indies when he was hit by a Kemar Roach bouncer. When Chris Gayle said his side had unearthed a weakness against Ponting, the Australian captain basically challenged opposition bowlers to come after him.”I said that going into the last game and I got out playing a pull shot,” he said, having been caught at deep square leg in the second innings. “I’m more than happy for anybody to bowl there to me. I just need to play the shot a bit better than I did last week.”