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A disappointed Stuart Clark will use the off-season to work on his one-day bowling after failing to make the 15-man World Cup squad. Clark was omitted on Tuesday in what Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of selectors, said was “as hard a decision as you could make”.Shaun Tait, who played his first two one-day internationals during the CB Series, was preferred for his extreme pace – he clocked 160kph during his second game – and an ability to bowl bouncers and yorkers to unsettle the batsmen. Despite leading the wicket list in the Ashes and taking ten in six CB Series games, Clark was overlooked because of a predictable armoury and an expensive strike-rate.”I am very disappointed but understand why the selectors have not selected me,” Clark said in the Daily Telegraph. “It just means I am going to have to work on my game in the next six months so that I can place myself in the best possible position to be selected in the future. I wish the boys the very best defending and bringing home the World Cup for Australia.”Tait told The Advertiser he would try to “shake up” the batsmen in the Caribbean. “It’s the same attitude Brett Lee has,” Tait said. “You have one or two bowlers who can run in and stir the pot a bit with the new ball. I suppose I add something different, which was probably the attraction.”Brad Hodge, whose unbeaten 99 was the highlight of his CB Series, earned a spot in the squad at the expense of his Victoria team-mate Cameron White. White scored quickly when he had opportunities, but he was unable to make an impact with the ball and was replaced as the allrounder when Shane Watson returned. If Andrew Symonds fails to regain fitness after an arm injury White is likely to be the replacement.”I feel extremely disappointed for Whitey, naturally,” Hodge said in the Herald Sun. “I suppose he can look at me as a mate and an example of a path to take. I know exactly how he feels right now, but he’s young enough and certainly good enough to achieve what he wants in the long run.”Brad Haddin, the back-up wicketkeeper, said he had tried to keep a low profile when being talked about as a World Cup contender. “I’ve just been concentrating on playing well for New South Wales, and hoping my stats would warrant the selectors taking a close look,” he said in The Australian. “I’m ecstatic about it.” The squad leaves for the Caribbean at the end of the month and will play two warm-up games in St Vincent before the opening match against Scotland on March 14.

Irfan Pathan, the Indian allrounder, will after all travel to the West Indies for the World Cup, Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, confirmed in Ahmedabad today. Vengsarkar, along with two other national selectors, watched Pathan’s performance for West Zone in their Deodhar Trophy match against Central Zone.”There are no alterations in the 15-member World Cup squad,” Vengsarkar told reporters. Under pressure to prove his form and fitness for the World Cup, Pathan conceded 48 off his 8.4 overs and took two late wickets.Vengsarkar reasoned that it was too early to gauge Pathan’s fitness on the basis of just one match. Pathan was part of the original 15-member squad but the selectors sprung a surprise when they warned that Pathan’s selection wasn’t guaranteed if his fitness wasn’t upto scratch.”Irfan has not played for the last one month and needs to bowl more” Vengsarkar said. “There is not much time left for the World Cup and Pathan will be bowling in the nets and will also be playing in the warm-up matches before the World Cup begins.”

ScorecardNew Zealand suffered their first defeat of tournament as they failed to chase down 234 against Australia, falling 49 runs short in Chennai. Australia’s attack produced a team effort with Kirsten Pike claiming key middle-order wickets as they also earned a vital bonus point in their push for the final.The Kiwi batting had led them to victories in their first three matches, but this time came unstuck once Sarah Andrews removed both openers and Haidee Tiffin was run out by Cathryn Fitzpatrick. Rebecca Rolls and Sara McGlashan added 45 for the fourth wicket, but Rolls was caught behind off Pike just as she was looking dangerous. McGlashan and Aimee Mason then both fell with the score on 121 and Australia went for the kill.Lisa Sthalekar, who top-scored with 45 in Australia’s innings, said: “We had to win today to stay in the game and getting the bonus point means we are starting to get things right a bit. Where we still have to improve is the fielding. It has been dropping off a bit. I didn’t think 232 was a good enough score though in the end it proved to be much too many runs.”She praised New Zealand and said they are the best side on show. “Their bowlers have been really effective, it was fortunate for us that Sarah Tsukigawa was injured for this game,” she added. “Bowlers bring the fielders into the game by bowling right. New Zealand bowlers get their line and length right. And their batsmen have firepower. They are big girls who can easily go over the boundary.”New Zealand had made regular inroads into Australia’s batting, taking wickets each time a stand threatened to develop. However, the lower order scored at a decent rate with Fitzpatrick, Jodie Purves and Andrews hitting at more than a run-a-ball.Tiffen said missed chances cost her team: “We bowled well in the start but dropped catches and that let the Australian batsmen build partnerships. The score was not so high bit we just kept losing wickets and didn’t form any partnerships. The batsmen who have been doing well didn’t this time.”The tournament looks good. In international cricket you want the games to be challenging. You want to be tested in every aspect of the game and we want to go into the final winning the rest of the matches.”

Pakistan are being “kept in the dark” by the Jamaican Police regarding the murder of their coach Bob Woolmer according to Pervez Mir, their media manager.Mir insisted that the “visibly disturbed” players were not being kept in the loop on the investigation. “We assisted in whatever way they [the Jamaican police] wanted, but we need an official statement from their office to notify us officially as to the causes of Mr Woolmer’s death,” Mir told AFP during Pakistan’s stopover in London on their way home. “We heard on television that he was murdered, but we’ve not been officially told and we need to know the reasons for his death.”He said that Pakistan were ready to assist the police and that he had left a message for Mark Shields, Jamaica’s deputy commissioner of police, “because my chairman [Nasim Ashraf] wants to know, my board wants to know, what’s going on as far as the investigation is concerned and what the Jamaican police are doing to catch the killers of Mr Woolmer.”Rumours of the involvement of match-fixing in Woolmer’s death have been doing the rounds but Mir sought to play them down. “When a man has been murdered, to divert a murder inquiry into a match-fixing inquiry, that’s not fair, because we have to find the killers, then we will know what’s happened. To bring up the murky world of match-fixing, I think it’s not the right thing and not the right time.”Ashraf also strongly denied the possibility of any match-fixing links. “I am absolutely convinced, I have no information or proof that there is any corruption in Pakistani cricket at all,” Ashraf told . “There is no idea or anything of that nature to suggest that there is any corruption involved or any match-fixing linked to the Pakistani cricket team.”This has been a terrible ordeal, the boys have been through terrible stress. No one could have imagined that in a gentleman’s came like cricket things like murder could happen so it’s been a tremendous shock for all of us. We have been the victims of this dastardly crime – our boys have been through hell – so it’s vital that whoever is responsible is brought to book. Our boys are on their way home to be with their families – you can imagine what their families have been going through.”

Former captain Rameez Raja backed the appointment of young Shoaib Malik as Pakistan’s captain but stressed that he needs a strong system and support from all corners to succeed.Malik, on Thursday, became the 25th man to captain Pakistan after Inzamam-il-Haq had decided to resign following a dreadful World Cup campaign that saw them crash out in the group stages.”On one side it is a good decision because he is gutsy and a team player but he can be emotional and temperamental because he has not been tested at the top level so he needs a strong system for support,” Raja told AFP.”I am a bit guarded as well, it’s young leadership but it can only be good if you strengthen the system which must assure the young talent is not taken hostage by senior players,” he added.Malik’s selection at the helm came about after Inzamam’s deputy of two years, Younis Khan, turned down the board’s offer to take on the team’s captaincy and other senior players like Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Razzak and Shahid Afridi were over-looked for various reasons.”It is a right decision because every team is now looking four years ahead to give it a refreshing look and for me it is a chance worth taking and its now up to Malik to show his capabilities,” said Raja.Malik’s first assignment as captain will be in next month’s Abu Dhabi series against Sri Lanka which starts on May 9. The team for that tournament will be announced by the recently-appointed selection committee on May 6.

Brian Lara, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and “more big names to follow” are being linked to a breakaway Twenty20 competition taking place in India this October, according to the latest issue of Spin magazine. There is expected to be a formal announcement on the same on May 14.Both McGrath, the former Australia fast bowler and Lara, West Indies’ former captain, announced their retirement from cricket after last month’s World Cup. Warne retired from international cricket earlier this year following Australia’s 5-0 trouncing of England in the Ashes, but it appears the trio’s playing days are not quite finished.The series, called the Indian Cricket League (ICL) was announced in April by Subhash Chandra, who heads Essel Group – the owners of Zee TV who will broadcast the tournament, though it is only now that names as high-profile (and retired) as Warne are being mentioned. Equally, confirmation of the players’ involvement has yet to be made from their respective agents.The tournament is rumoured to take place mere weeks after the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in September, held in South Africa.

The Indian board has re-started the process of searching for a national coach, according to a report in . The national daily reported that three new candidates had applied for the job following Graham Ford’s refusal, on June 11, to be the next Indian coach.The report says John Dyson, the former Sri Lanka coach, Terry Oliver, the Queensland coach, and Dave Nosworthy, the Canterbury coach, have sent in their applications to the BCCI.Oliver, who had also applied for the Sri Lanka job only to lose out to Trevor Bayliss, told the newspaper that though he was comfortable where he was he also had more ambitions. Nosworthy, currently coaching New Zealand A for the Emerging Players tournament in Australia in July, applied for the job through his agent and said that if there was anything more to do with the job, his agent would handle it. “Dave is doing well with Canterbury but he is open to international jobs,” his agent, Paul Carrick, was quoted as saying.The newspaper also lists names of those who have expressed no interest in coaching India. Steve Rixon, the former New Zealand coach who turned down the offer to coach Pakistan, said he was not going to pitch for anything. “I do not want to be in a situation where there are five of us,” Rixon said. Martyn Moxon and Mark Greatbatch, the directors of cricket at Yorkshire and Warwickshire respectively, said they were happy where they were coaching.

It is an impasse as perplexing in its origin as it is in its current outcome. At issue now is the inability of the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players’ Association to reach an agreement in the terms of the contract offered to the cricketers. Its genesis, however, has more to do with corporate telecom giants hurling boulders at each other whilst the naive ship, the WICB, and its hapless passengers, the players’ association, try to float through the barrage.The telecom rivals, Cable & Wireless – a former sponsor of the West Indian side – and Digicel – the new sponsor – are engaged in bitter turf battles that have nothing to do with cricket, but which have certainly forced the rigid stances of the two parties.Earlier this month the Barbados Fair Trading Commission said that Cable & Wireless had “abused its position in the wholesale international voice telephony market, by engaging in the practice of price squeezing to the harm of its downstream competitors”, and ordered Cable & Wireless to refund Digicel. Cable & Wireless promptly appealed the decision, also seeking a stay until the hearing of the appeal.Digicel entered the regional market in 2001, and operates in seven countries, with its headquarters in Jamaica. It has aggressively pursued market share, with promotional offers and sponsorships of major sports like cricket, football and the Special Olympics. In July 2004, Digicel signed a five-year US$20million sponsorship deal with the WICB in London, becoming the official sponsors for the Test and one-day teams, event sponsors for all home and away Tests and ODIs played by West Indies (a first for the board, since Cable & Wireless only sponsored home matches), and the official mobile and communications provider for the WICB.Two months earlier Cable & Wireless had signed up to become one of the official sponsors of the World Cup in 2007. The company had re-directed its strategic positioning after its US$10million offer over three years did not find as much favour as Digicel’s US$20million promise. As an official sponsor of the World Cup, Cable & Wireless assured itself of continued regional presence in cricket. Following its individual endorsement contract with Brian Lara in 2003, it signed Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Omari Banks, Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul and Dwayne Smith.Generally, while a sponsorship contract like Digicel’s covers the team, unless there are specific terms, it does not include individuals, who have the right to negotiate their own terms for use of their personal image and intellectual property. That is why in advertising, for example, players would be shown in groups of four or more, with no obvious predominance of any one player.A few weeks ago, during negotiations over retainer contracts, the WICB offered to buy out any contracts the players had which would be in conflict with their new sponsorship, and WIPA had not objected. But that offer has been replaced by one, according to WIPA, that seeks to have the players end their contracts for free or face non-selection.The WICB has now found itself in a curious position. Obviously there was no support from Digicel for the board’s initial offer of a buyout. But by insisting that the players break their individual contracts, which had been signed with the WICB’s knowledge, it is also placing itself at odds with one of its official sponsors for the World Cup. The ongoing impasse could also force the ICC to ask questions about the manner in which the World Cup will be organised, and might even make it look at an alternate venue. The Cable & Wireless contract is with the CWC WI 2007 Inc., the organising body of the World Cup, but that is a fully owned subsidiary of the WICB, and the contract for hosting the World Cup lies between the WICB and the ICC.WIPA issued a statement refusing to end their personal deals, saying that this constituted a restriction of the players’ rights to practice their trade. “WIPA’s position is that the board wants to unilaterally assume indefinite ownership of the players’ endorsement rights and is effectively threatening to ban them from working (participating in the tour) if the players do not immediately concede.” The WICB responded by saying that it “has never sought to assume ownership of the individual rights of the players or requested them to forego these rights.” Also, while the WICB may be contemplating compiling a substitute team, they should consider that the WIPA represents under-19, first-class and international players, the bulk of their possibilities.The question is this: has the WICB sold rights to Digicel that it cannot deliver? What exactly is included in the Digicel package is anybody’s guess. And while the arguments go on about the principles involved, there might yet be another twist in the tale. Since Digicel has signed a contract that is not restricted to home matches, and has an all-year effect, the players still individually contracted to Cable & Wireless might find themselves restricted by clauses which ask them to limit their performance of these contracts to time periods surrounding matches. So, if it is normal to ask that they hold off for two weeks say, before and after a sponsored event, they might find that Digicel’s year-round presence could make it difficult for them to fulfil their individual contracts.

New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond has been made a “staggering” offer by the Indian Cricket League, the has reported. However, Bond has refused to comment on whether he has been approached. The ICL already has several international batsmen on its roster but no renowned bowlers.The said the ICL had approached Stephen Fleming, Chris Harris, Chris Cairns and Nathan Astle, besides Bond, and had five other targets.Former captain Martin Crowe told the paper that getting a lower pay compared to cricketers in other countries was “a reality of playing in New Zealand”. “There’s two ways of looking at it. You either have a desire to play for your country, or you look at it [the ICL] as an opportunity to get a retirement package going.”Regarding Fleming, who was reported to have been offered around $440,000, Crowe said, “I took it he gave up the one-day international captaincy to focus the rest of his career on Test cricket. I hope that’s still the case.”The New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association manager Heath Mills urged the ICC to support the ICL but New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan said the board would decide on its stance on the ICL next week.

New Zealand’s preferred Twenty20 line-up appears far from settled after they abandoned plans to bat Jacob Oram at No. 3 and hand Gareth Hopkins the wicketkeeping duties. A disappointing pair of warm-up matches over the weekend forced a rethink from the coach John Bracewell, who last week said their practice matches would “simulate closely” the format they would use in the ICC World Twenty20.Their opening game is against Kenya this evening (New Zealand time) and Bracewell has now decided Brendon McCullum can handle the glovework as well as opening the batting. “This gives us tremendous firepower right through the middle order with Dan Vettori probably coming in at No. 8,” Bracewell told .Bracewell had initially said Hopkins’ ability as a “death-hitting” specialist would make him a valuable lower-order player. However, he failed to score in their warm-up loss to West Indies and made 6 late in the innings against Australia.There were also plans to use the left-handed Oram at No. 3 to break up New Zealand’s string of right-handers but he was almost knocked out by a Brett Lee bouncer on Saturday. He fell for 4 and was rested the next day against West Indies.Peter Fulton, who came in at first-drop on Sunday and made 51 from 43 balls, will stay in that position. “By putting him up to No. 3 means we can take some pressure off Jake [Oram],” Bracewell said.