Victoria’s fast-bowling stocks have been bolstered with the recalls of Shane Harwood and Dirk Nannes for the Pura Cup match against the leaders New South Wales on Friday. The Blues hold a two-point advantage over the Bushrangers after four games, but the home team won the FR Cup match at the MCG on Wednesday night.”It’s a top-of-the-table clash and the Blues have obviously got some big names, but if you try to play the reputations, you’re already dead in the water,” Victoria’s Andrew McDonald said. “We’ve had some good wins of late so that gives us some confidence and hopefully we can put it together in this clash.”Harwood and Nannes, who took 3 for 28 on Wednesday, come in for Cameron White, the captain who has a broken foot, and Clint McKay, who has an ankle injury. Brad Hodge will lead the side again in White’s absence.New South Wales have been hit by the withdrawal of Phil Jaques, who has the mumps, while Brett Lee will miss the match to rest. Michael Clarke is also in some doubt due to hamstring soreness.Victoria squad Michael Klinger, Robert Quiney, Brad Hodge (capt), David Hussey, Nick Jewell, Andrew McDonald, Matthew Wade (wk), Gerard Denton, Shane Harwood, Allan Wise, Bryce McGain, Dirk Nannes.New South Wales squad Phillip Hughes, Peter Forrest, Simon Katich (capt), Michael Clarke, Dominic Thornely, Brad Haddin (wk), Grant Lambert, Matthew Nicholson, Nathan Bracken, Beau Casson, Stuart Clark, Doug Bollinger.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will ignore ignore players’ past status and award new central contracts based purely on “commitment and importance to the team cause”. The contracts, according to Nasim Ashraf, chairman PCB, will be based on a formula devised by the board last year that awards performance over seniority and status.”We intend to make the central contracts fiercely competitive and a player will have to earn his place in the list regardless of his past status,” Ashraf told . “We will ignore star value and award the contracts purely on the basis of a player’s commitment and importance to the team cause.”The national selection committee has recommended 30 players for the contracts but the PCB will trim the list to 22 players before presenting it to the governing board which is set to meet on January 25.The central contracts, together with a host of other issues, were discussed in a meeting chaired by Ashraf and attended by a number of senior officials, including Talat Ali, the team’s manager, national selectors and several academy coaches.”The main purpose of the meetings was to find ways to improve team spirit and unity among our players. Everybody was convinced that we cannot improve our performance without having completely disciplined players in the national team,” Ashraf said.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s captain in the limited-over formats, has urged his team-mates to respect the international guidelines for on-field behaviour in the wake of the Harbhajan Singh-Andrew Symonds controversy. He said there would be some allowance for “chit-chat” between players as long as there was nothing untoward being uttered.”Whoever the players are, they know the international guidelines that are set out to be followed,” he said, when asked about the importance of player behaviour in the forthcoming limited-over games. “Each and every player should respect it. It is the responsibility of an individual more than their skipper to know the limitations and to know where they stand.”It was reported that the Australian players were unhappy over Harbhajan’s reprieve, given that he had been handed a three-match ban in the first hearing. Dhoni would also remember the World Twenty20 match in Durban last year, a match that marked the start of the fractious relationship between the two sides.”We don’t really care about whatever has happened so far,” he said a day before the Twenty20 international in Melbourne. “It’s a fresh start and we’re going to play some good cricket. There’s always chit-chat going on between the players. If nothingcontroversial is said, I think both the teams will be happy with it. We can’t just shut up and play. It’s cricket and you’ve got to do lots of things with the bat and the ball and there should be chit-chat out on the ground.”Dhoni preferred that contentious catches be referred to the third umpire, a procedure which was used in the final two Tests of the series. Before the first Test in Melbourne, Anil Kumble and Ricky Ponting had agreed to take the fielders word but reviewed the pact after the controversial Sydney Test. “I believe in referring it to the third umpire,” Dhoni said. “A fielder can mislead so it’s important that it’s referred to the third umpire.”Was he expecting a hostile reception from a crowd that’s expected to be close to 90,000? “If they are not on the field it does not really matter,” he said. “We don’t care whether we receive a hostile reception or not. In Eden Gardens there are 100,000 spectators, in Kochi there are 80,000 spectators. Still, this is a huge ground and playing in front of such numbers would be exciting.”

Queensland have looked back in their bid to move off the foot of the Pura Cup table by picking the batsman Martin Love after his lengthy comeback from knee surgery. Rather than blooding a new player in the final three games, the Bulls, who have not won in seven attempts this season, have recalled Love, 33, in place of another veteran in Clint Perren for the match against Western Australia from Monday.Love, the state’s leading run-scorer, made 0 and 10 against the Warriors in November and re-proved his fitness with 187 for the Queensland Academy of Sport. He will be joined in the squad by Shane Watson, who has recovered from another hamstring injury. Watson will not bowl in the match to help his fragile body.Aaron Nye has been dropped and Scott Brant, the Gold Coast swing bowler, has come into the squad. The game will be Michael Kasprowicz’s final first-class appearance for the Bulls after his decision to retire.Adam Voges, who was in the national squad last week, will miss the contest for Western Australia with a slight hamstring injury. However, Marcus North, the captain, has regained fitness from a degenerative knee problem and will lead the Warriors, who are in third spot, 12 points behind the leaders New South Wales and Victoria.Queensland squad Ryan Broad, Jimmy Maher (capt), Greg Moller, Martin Love, Shane Watson, Chris Simpson, Chris Hartley (wk), Ashley Noffke, Michael Kasprowicz, Daniel Doran, Scott Brant, Grant Sullivan.Western Australia squad Justin Langer, Chris Rogers, Marcus North (capt), Shaun Marsh, Luke Pomersbach, Luke Ronchi (wk), Liam Davis, Aaron Heal, Brett Dorey, Ben Edmondson, Mathew Inness, Steve Magoffin.

The Indian one-day team returned from the CB Series in Australia to a rousing reception at the Delhi airport, where they were greeted by hundreds of fans and received by officials of the Indian board and the Delhi and District Cricket Association.After a hard-fought series, where they won the finals 2-0, the team reached Mumbai in the morning and took a chartered flight to Delhi for a function at Feroz Shah Kotla. They were joined there by two members of the World Cup-winning under-19 side – Virat Kohli, the captain and Pradeep Sangwan – who play for Delhi.Speaking at the function, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the team captain, praised his side, which became the first Indian team to win a triangular one-day series in Australia. The series was played out amid some controversy and Dhoni made special mention of the team’s behaviour: “The conduct of my team on and off the field is responsible for our victory.”Sachin Tendulkar, who played match-winning knocks in both the finals, told news channel CNN-IBN that the team hadn’t been distracted by the controversies – which originated in the Sydney Test – during the tour. “Plenty of things happened on the field, but we were focussed on the cricket.”Rohit Sharma, who made a vital 66 in the first final, echoed Tendulkar’s sentiments. “We tried to enjoy our cricket as much as possible,” he said. “All the controversies motivated us.” The BCCI had initially planned an open-top bus parade from the airport, similar to the welcome the team had received after winning the World Twenty20, but decided against it later. “The players have been in Australia for more than two-and-a-half months and will also be tired after the two flights,” BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla told PTI. “That’s why we have not made any elaborate arrangements as the players will be eager to go home.”A reward of Rs 10 crore (US$2.5 million) had already been announced for the team.

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