Selection of the two players to join the New Zealand team for the one-day series with Pakistan will be delayed, possibly until the middle of next week.New Zealand selector and manager of the NZ A team in India for the Buchi Babu tournament Ross Dykes has had to return home following the death of his brother. Dykes will rejoin the A team in India early next week and only after that will the selectors be able to make the announcement.That extra time could prove handy for potential wicket-keeper Chris Nevin who has still to produce an innings of substance in India.Selection committee chairman Sir Richard Hadlee told CricInfo today the impressive performances of players in India was only making the choice of the two players harder, but he welcomed that.”It’s definitely not a problem to us. That’s what we want. We are going to have to make some tough decisions.”In the meantime our player base is being extended,” he said.The players in India were on an edge knowing there was a chance of higher selection.”They have a tremendous incentive to perform well and their play is lifting as a result.”The tour to India had been most worthwhile as the side was playing some “pretty good opposition and they were being tested in a different environment,” Hadlee said.The batting in the top order with captain Matthew Bell, Matt Horne and Mark Richardson all having significant innings was of benefit before the Pakistan Test selection while the emergence of Shane Bond as a pace bowling option and the continued development of Lou Vincent were other significant factors on the tour.”Shane’s selection turned out to be a good decision. He has added more firepower and grunt to the attack and his effort when taking seven wickets in the semi-final was a magnificent performance.”He has given us another pace bowling option. He is arguably the fastest bowler around in New Zealand and while injury, and establishing a career in the police force, has inhibited his cricket in the past, he is now clearly focused and has a desire to play for New Zealand.”He has a good work ethic and has worked hard. He’s been given an opportunity and boy, has he cashed in on it,” he said.Bond adds to his appeal with his ability with the bat which is another factor for the selectors to consider when looking at their one-day options.”He’s featured in two crucial partnerships in the tournament so far,” Hadlee said.Vincent’s play was also encouraging.”He is an enormous talent and is starting to mature. There is still a wee way to go for him but he is very keen and lifts the side in the field. He has a lot of the qualities that we are seeking to promote in our players,” Hadlee said.Wary of the way that debilitating injuries cut into expectations of New Zealand’s performances last summer, Hadlee is not thinking any further ahead than the Pakistan tour.Some of the selection committee’s policies were starting to come to fruition but it was a case of wanting to get through the Pakistan series before thinking about the Australian series, and what it might mean for New Zealand with England deciding not to select Darren Gough and Alec Stewart for their Test side next year in New Zealand.His attitude was positive towards the new season and he was looking forward to New Zealand getting some results this year.The side was a competitive unit, capable of competing with most sides in the world, and beating most of them, but with increasing playing depth there was the chance that New Zealand was now in a position to get more results on the board, Hadlee said.

Worcestershire needed only 20 minutes on the last morning to wrap up a 112-run victory over Hampshire at New Road.The game only spilled into the final day because Alex Morris smashed 44 from 26 balls to wrecked Worcestershire’s ploy in claiming the extra half-an-hour last night.Play finished at 7.20pm with Hampshire hanging in the twilight at 186 for 8 but they added only eight runs today before their dismissal for 194 – the lowest total of the match.Andy Bichel applied the finishing touches for Worcestershire by taking the last two wickets for two runs in 17 balls for match figures of 8 for 126, not to mention from 113 runs in his two innings with the bat.Adrian Aymes got the score moving by bottom-edging Chris Liptrot for four, but Morris was out to a flying catch by wicketkeeper Steve Rhodes from the first ball of Bichel’s second over.Aymes, unbeaten with 28, and James Schofield then picked up two singles each before the last man was caught low down at first slip by Vikram Solanki.Bichel was the obvious candidate for man-of-the-match after another high-class all-round performance. The Australian has now taken 63 Championship wickets and scored 572 runs as an outstanding successor to Glenn McGrath.Worcestershire’s fourth win of the season is unlikely to lift them into contention for promotion, but Hampshire stay in the top three with every chance of returning to the top-flight if they can put this performance behind them.

The Victorian Bushrangers today named a full strength side to take on the Southern Redbacks next week in their opening match of the 2001/02 Pura Cup season. The match is scheduled to begin next Wednesday, October 17, at the Adelaide Oval.Chairman of Selectors, Shaun Graf, said the final eleven would be selected to suit the conditions in Adelaide. “We have plenty of variety within the twelve selected, so we’ll wait and have a look at the conditions in Adelaide next week”.Coming into the side from last Sunday’s ING Cup match are Captain Paul Reiffel, Mathew Inness, Colin Miller and Matthew Mott.The team for Sunday’s ING Cup match against the Southern Redbacks following the Pura Cup match, will be announced later this week.BUSHRANGERSPaul Reiffel (c), Matthew Elliott (vc), Jason Arnberger, Darren Berry, Damien Fleming, Ian Harvey, Brad Hodge, Mathew Inness, Michael Klinger, Colin Miller, Matthew Mott, Shane Warne.

Essex County Cricket Club has revealed their new main Sponsor for 2002-2004.Panacea Services Limited are a Technological Solutions company based in London and their six-figure sponsorship of the County has been agreed after several weeks of negotiations.Commercial Manager Dave Comley said: "We are delighted to welcome Panacea Services Limited on board to Essex County Cricket Club. It has been a pleasure negotiating and working with them and particularly with one of the partners, Anthony Bright. His love of cricket in general and Essex in particular bodes well for a good working relationship on both sides. The deal is a beneficial one for Essex and will mean `Panacea’ branding displayed on the County Championship shirt and the County sweater for at least the next two years with an option for extension after that time. They will be known as the Official Main Sponsor of Essex County Cricket Club."Dave Comley also acknowledged the previous Main Sponsor, Tiptree: – "Tiptree were exemplary sponsors and sincere thanks must go to them for their support of Essex for the past two seasons. I hope that we will continue to see Tiptree here in 2002 and beyond."

New Zealand gained one of the plums of world cricket, the staging of the 16-team ICC Under-19 World Cup event, more or less by popular acclaim.Speaking at the official launch today of the tournament to be staged in three New Zealand centres in January-February, Malcolm Gray, president of the International Cricket Council, said New Zealand’s standing in international organisation was very high.”We well remember the outstanding work New Zealand did when they co-hosted with Australia the 1992 World Cup,” said Gray.”Then when we were talking at ICC about the venue of the Under-19 event, people kept referring to the fantastic job New Zealand had done in staging the Women’s World Cup late last year.”Gray said that with 16 entries the Under-19 event represented the biggest international coverage for any ICC world contest. Included with the established Test-playing countries were Nepal, among the latest admitted to ICC membership, Canada, Namibia, Papua New Guinea, Scotland and Kenya.Gray said the introduction of new teams at international level was part of the ICC development plan, and would help the growth of the game in the newer countries.Martin Snedden, the New Zealand Cricket chief executive, said the cost of the tournament would come from the ICC funds made available by sponsorship, after Gray had raised a chuckle by saying he was meeting the tournament cost from his own pocket.Snedden also paid a compliment to Gray and his new ICC administration.”For a long period I think we thought the ICC was a reasonably ineffective organisation.”I have been to recent ICC meetings in London and Kuala Lumpur, and have been highly impressed by the dynamic leadership of Malcolm Gray, and his chief executive Malcolm Speed.”Snedden said NZC hoped to arrange television coverage of the semi-finals and final of the Under-19 event, and would also try to obtain cover of some earlier matches.Tournament details:Teams – Group A: India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Canada. Group B: Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Namibia, Zimbabwe. Group C: Pakistan, England, Nepal, Papua New Guinea. Group D: Australia, West Indies, Scotland, Kenya.Group matches will take place from January 19-25. The top two teams from each of the four groups will qualify for the Super League, to be played in two groups at Lincoln and Christchurch. The bottom two teams from each group will play in the Plate in two groups, at Auckland.Super League and Plate matches, January 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, February 1. Top two teams from each Super League group will qualify for the Super League semi-finals and the top two Plate teams qualify for the Plate semi-finals, these matches to be played at Lincoln February 3, 4, 6.The Plate final will be on February 8, and the World Cup final on February 9, both at Lincoln.

Hampshire’s newly formed Academy side will take its Southern Electric ECB Premier League bow against Sparsholt at the Rose Bowl on Saturday May 4.The county is fielding a team made up of fledgling contracted players and academy students in Division 2 of the Premier League next summer.County Second XI coach Tony Middleton is expected to captain the Academy XI, which faces three potentially stiff matches in the opening month of the season.After hosting Sparsholt, the Hampshire side travels to play Winchester KS at River Park, entertains newly promoted Rowledge, and then visits Lymington.All of the matches are 50-over affairs, starting at 1 o’clock.Admission to all home matches on the Nursery ground will be free.Hampshire CCC Academy XI fixtures for 2002

May 4 Sparsholt West End, SouthamptonMay 11 Winchester KS River Park, WinchesterMay 18 Rowledge West End, SouthamptonMay 25 Lymington Lymington Sports GroundJune 1 Easton & Martyr Worthy West End, SouthamptonJune 8 Hungerford War Memorial Ground, HungerfordJune 15 Old Tauntonians & Romsey West End, SouthamptonJune 22 United Services US Sports Ground, PortsmouthJune 29 Trojans West End, SouthamptonJuly 6 Sparsholt Locks Lane, SparsholtJuly 13 Winchester KS West End, SouthamptonJuly 20 Rowledge Rowledge Sports GroundJuly 27 Lymington West End, SouthamptonAugust 3 Easton & Martyr Worthy Cockets Mead, RowledgeAugust 10 Hungerford West End, SouthamptonAugust 17 Old Tauntonians & Romsey Romsey Sports CentreAugust 24 United Services West End, SouthamptonAugust 31 Trojans Stoneham Lane, Eastleigh

It’s great to see the Bangladesh side here in New Zealand. The main reason it’s great is that the game at international level is growing.And that can only be good for the International Cricket Council’s plan to aggressively globalise cricket.Bangladesh has some 130 million people living in the country so it will only be a few years I’m sure until they produce some attacking stroke makers and wily spinners that we see from their neighbours India and Pakistan.Every nation has to begin somewhere so the results in this early stage of their development are not important, it is the exposure to top level cricket in as many countries that they can play in that should be the focus.This exposure will make the current crop of players better cricketers who in turn put back effort in the system to make the young players of tomorrow better cricketers.This Test will be important for us also as personally I need to get more overs under my belt after my long lay-off.I have read some people saying was I injured in Perth and why didn’t I bowl my quota of overs?I always wanted to bowl but it is Flem’s [captain Stephen Fleming] decision who will bowl.During that Test series my rhythm was not quite there even though I was trying like anything.During the last Test, Flem chose Shane Bond and Chris Martin to bowl ahead of me because he believed they were the best to do that job at that given time.This is what a team is all about, and this team is one of the best I have ever been involved in.It will be great to see Bond get a bag of wickets under his belt this series to get confidence at this level and to see Lou Vincent continue his great start.The amount of rain that Hamilton has experienced prior to the Test tomorrow has been enormous. This has meant the preparation of the wicket has been delayed so I am not really sure what the pitch will do.This has been traditionally the best cricket wicket in New Zealand but may be a little slower than normal.I read somewhere recently that this is the first time in 40 Tests that the CLEAR Black Caps have played back-to-back Tests with the same team.Now that is amazing!These situations were brought about mainly through injury and the odd selection change but when I heard that I couldn’t believe it.Any successful sports team or individual strives for consistency so when each time you take the field, to have the same people performing makes things easier for the captain as he can get his patterns sorted out.Let’s hope we can string a few more together!

With the start of the West Indies first-class season just two weeks away, the West Indies Cricket Board will be conducting two match referee seminars in the coming weeks.”The WICB is making an attempt to upgrade the knowledge and skills of all the regional match referees prior to the start of our domestic season, so that things will flow smoothly,” said Michael Hall, chief operations officer of the WICB.The first of the two seminars will be for match referees from Jamaica, Leeward Islands, St. Lucia and Dominica will take place at the Cortsland Hotel in St. John’s, Antigua, on Sunday, January 13th.The second seminar is scheduled for Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and will involve participants from Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, Grenada and St. Vincent & the Grenadines.Neither a date nor a venue for the second seminar has been finalised, but it will be completed prior to the opening day of this year’s Busta Cricket Series that begins on January 25.Jackie Hendriks, the former Jamaica captain and West Indies wicketkeeper/batsman, who is now an International Cricket Council match referee, will conduct the two seminars.Some of the topics with which Hendriks will deal are the ICC Playing Conditions, new rules and regulations and the role of the match referee.

The Zimbabwe cricket team are back after what Saddam Hussain might have called their historic victories in Sri Lanka. `Licking their wounds’ is what some may call it, but no tour can surely be so bad that good points cannot be found.One of them is that Trevor Gripper has probably established himself as Zimbabwe’s opening batsman, for the time being, at least. His 167 runs at an average of 27.83 was the best for the side, although he did have the benefit of settling in at the crease before Muttiah Muralitharan came on to bowl. His 83 in the Third Test was also Zimbabwe’s best score of the series, and followed his century against Bangladesh. An interview with Trevor on the tour is included in this issue. Otherwise it was a quiet week.The team now have about two weeks’ rest before they depart for India, where they play two Test matches (strangely at the same venues, Delhi and Nagpur, as last season, although India have at least ten to choose from) and five more one-day internationals. Anything will be easier than Sri Lanka, even India, where Zimbabwe have at least managed to draw a Test match and win a one-day international against the home side.They will have the memories of Andy Flower’s wonderful batting last time round to encourage them, and also the pitches should be easier. Unless there has been a change in policy, Indian pitches are generally very placid, although naturally taking spin, and runs should not be so difficult to come by as they were in Sri Lanka. Although they will have to face Harbhajan Singh, who did not play against them last time they were in India. Hopefully also their batting will be more experienced than in Sri Lanka, if Alistair Campbell is picked and feels he still has a message to get across to the selectors. May we now hope that he will be so stung by his omission that he will now start scoring the runs of which he is capable in Test cricket?Below we include the latest tables for the UCBSA Bowl competition, Pool B, which includes Zimbabwe, courtesy of Andrew Samson. Zimbabwe are well placed in both competitions, but the players need to be aware that they cannot always rely on declarations to get them home in the three-day game. This weekend they tackle Easterns in Benoni.

UCB Bowl Tables 2001/02as at 24 January 2002Pool BThree-day P W L D Bat Bowl PtsZIMBABWE BOARD XI 3 2 0 1 9.38 6 35.38Northerns B 4 1 0 3 13.86 8 31.86KwaZulu-Natal B 3 1 0 2 7.32 10 27.32Easterns B 3 1 0 2 5.74 7 22.74North West B 4 0 1 3 12.08 9 21.08Gauteng B 3 0 2 1 9.52 9 18.52Border B 4 0 2 2 5.16 11 16.16Points deducted for slow over-rates:NoneBonusOne-day P W L Tied NR Pts Pts NRRBorder B 4 2 1 0 1 1 11 -0.10ZIMBABWE BOARD XI 3 2 0 0 1 0 10 0.55Easterns B 3 2 1 0 0 1 9 0.67Northerns B 4 1 1 0 2 0 8 0.38North West B 4 1 2 0 1 0 6 -0.17Gauteng B 3 1 2 0 0 0 4 -0.31KwaZulu-Natal B 3 0 2 0 1 0 2 -1.01Supplied by Andrew SamsonOfficial Statistician of the United Cricket Board of South Africa

Geoff Marsh, the Zimbabwe cricket coach, believes that the team is getting its act together despite the embarrassing defeats in Sri Lanka. He talks to CricInfo about his four months in charge and the tours ahead:”I think the performances in Bangladesh were very good. That was a good promise for the team. We were obviously disappointing in Sri Lanka. The boys came away from their disappointing one-day performance but it was a tough series to come up against Murali – everyone knows what a great bowler he is. It was hard work.It was a disappointing performance, and if you look at the whole team the guys will be disappointed with some of their performances, no doubt about that. I think everyone would be honest and say they would have liked to score more runs but it was tough. The wickets were turning square and Murali took 30 wickets in the series. But from the coach’s point of view the guys never stopped working and it was just one of those things.One pleasing thing for myself was that the boys worked very hard right to the end, fighting right to the last ball in a Test match. But we were up against a good team and we couldn’t quite get it right. Hopefully we can take the positives out of that tour and I hope all the players learnt from the experience so we can get to India in a good frame of mind and improve on our performance.There have been problems with the opening partnerships. We had Trevor Gripper and Stuart Carlisle making a record stand against Sri Lanka in the last Test and hopefully that partnership will blossom in India.It’s always important to get a good start. That’s the key. In Sri Lanka Andy Flower was always coming in with the score at 20 or 30 for three. He had pressure of not only being number one in the world but also of getting the team back and getting runs on the board.In the final Test it was very disappointing that after putting more than 150 for the first wicket and being 230 for five overnight we were all out for 236 and then dismissed for less than 80 in the second innings. But if you actually saw Murali bowling that day, that’s what he is capable of doing. For three days in that match the guys were doing very well and hanging in there, but then Murali bowled that spell and it set the team back. We went into that day really keen to have a good fourth day and get ourselves into a winning position. Unfortunately Murali bowled too well that day and we were unable to build on the overnight score.After the tours of Sharjah, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, I thought Heath Streak’s performance was very good. Travis Friend showed improvement, as did Trevor Gripper. The most important thing now is to get consistency from all the players. If we manage that, we will be very competitive.After the three months that we have been away I am happy with the couple of changes that have been made to the team for India. Obviously bringing Alistair Campbell back in the team was good. We all know that he is a very experienced player whp has been in terrific form in the A team and hopefully he can bring that form into our team.At the end of the day we need all our batsmen to raise the bar and improve on their performance because if you don’t get enough runs on the board then obviously you don’t give your bowlers a chance. That’s what our goal will be when we get to India.There has been the need for a specialist spinner and Raymond Price has come into the team, which is good. Grant Flower bowled very well for us in Sri Lanka. We have Trevor Gripper who can roll his arm over but atthe end of the day it will be very helpful if all the bowlers do their job in India.You know India is a good place for swing and seam bowling so I think we have our bowling for the tour pretty balanced. I also hope that the guys have learnt a lot playing against Murali. He is the benchmark, isn’t he? He is the best spinner you can play against and I’m sure when we get to India our batsmen will be a lot more positive and take what they learnt in Sri Lanka into that series.We will not be worried about having to play just one warm-up match in India because we have just come from Sri Lanka where they have similar conditions. Players are now used to having just a couple of net sessions, one warm-up match and go straight into the one-day and Test matches.Every team in the world struggles to play well away from home and when I was coach of Australia it was our goal to improve on our away performance. That’s something that the guys here have spoken about and something that we will address before the series starts inIndia.Those players who have been dropped from the first team should go back and play cricket. It’s important that those players who get left out of the first team can go back on to the domestic scene and play for Zimbabwe A, and prove to the selectors that they want to return. That’s why it’s important to have more threeor four-day cricket because not everyone can make the A team. Players like Gary Brent, Mluleki Nkala and HenryOlonga need threeor four-day cricket so that they can go out there and perform, get themselves back in good nick and put themselves back in contention for first-team places.Personally I would want to see a lot more threeand four-day cricket played over a long period of time. I think that it’s very important for the development of young players. At the moment I think there are only five three-day matches on the domestic scene every season, but hopefully we can get ten games a season. This gives players an opportunity to go out there and make big scores and bowlers can bowl long spells.”