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A number of counties face starting the 2008 season without their high-profile overseas players after it was revealed that anyone who has signed with the breakaway Indian Cricket League is unlikely to be given the necessary clearance to play by their own boards.Any non-English player needs a “no objection certificate” (NOC) from their home board before being allowed to play in England, and it is believed that several, including New Zealand Cricket and the Pakistan Cricket Board, are refusing to issue them. It comes as the leading boards adopt a hard line towards unauthorised tournaments.Shane Bond, who signed with the ICL last November, in effect had his career ended by NZC as a result, but earlier this month he signed for Hampshire for the 2008 season. However, without the NOC he will not be allowed to play.Cricinfo has learnt that Rana Naved-ul-Hasan has already been declined an NOC and it seems likely that others, such as Mushtaq Ahmed, will also be left out in the cold.”We’re about to start the season and suddenly some counties will have to reconsider deals struck some time ago,” Paul Millman, Kent’s chief executive, told The Daily Telegraph. “It would have been good if a line could have been drawn, and any agreements made in good faith before that left alone. I don’t think you should abandon contracts on a whim. But this is a complex situation.”Kolpak players, who do not need NOCs to play domestic cricket, will not be affected.

Ricky Ponting says Australia will carry their momentum into Sunday’s game against India in Melbourne after his side demolished Sri Lanka by 128 runs at the SCG. India are coming off two wash-outs in Brisbane, whereas Australia enjoyed using a two-paced pitch on Friday.With further low bounce expected at the MCG, Ponting hopes his men will have the edge. “We’ve got a full game of cricket and a really good, comprehensive win,” Ponting said after the Sydney success, which put them on top of the CB Series table.”We’re probably going to get similar types of conditions in Melbourne as well. The wicket all year down there hasn’t offered much pace and bounce either, so what we’ve got out of this game we can take down there and hopefully adapt to their attack and adapt to their batting line-up.”Nathan Bracken collected five wickets in Sydney, switching from a three-over new-ball spell of swing to useful cutters later in the innings. Ponting was especially pleased with the variety in his bowling arsenal with Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Brad Hogg all chipping in with important breakthroughs.”We’ve got a really good mix and balance with our bowling attack in both forms of the game right now,” he said. “Our one-day attack the last couple of years has been very solid.”India will be desperate to get a full match in at the MCG following their rain-affected Gabba clashes and Ponting said the visitors had shown glimpses of their potential. “They played pretty well up in Brisbane the other night with the bat,” he said of India’s effort in posting 267 against Sri Lanka.”But certainly our bowlers controlled them in Brisbane a few days before that. Hopefully we can just take a bit of momentum out of this game down to Melbourne on Sunday.”

Several players from South Africa and Pakistan, who featured in the Under-19 World Cup last month in Malaysia, are part of academy sides to tour Bangladesh in April for the Grameenphone Academy Cup.Fast bowlers Matthew Arnold and Reeza Hendricks along with wicketkeeper Bradley Barnes, who were part of the squad that reached the World Cup final, are part of South Africa’s academy squad scheduled to reach Bangladesh on Tuesday.Pakistan’s Under-19 captain Imad Wasim, along with Adil Raza, Ahmed Shehzad and Ali Asad, has been included in the academy squad which will arrive in Bangladesh on April 14. Batsman Khurram Manzoor, who made his international debut against Zimbabwe last month, is also part of the squad.South Africa squad
Matthew Arnold, Sammy-Joe Avontuur, Bradley Barnes, Richard das Neves, CJ de Villiers, Reeza Hendricks, Rushdi Jappie, Mondli Mahlombe, Mafinki Serame, Mthokozisi Shezi, Abdul Temoor, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Dane Vilas, Neil WagnerPakistan squad
Khalid Latif (capt), Khurram Manzoor, Raheel Majeed, Asad Shafiq, Ali Asad, Ahmed Shehzad, Azhar Ali, Anwar Ali, Adil Raza, Mohammad Aamer, Azharullah, Imad Wasim, Naeem Anjum (wk), Yasir ShahReplacements for the four-day matches: Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Fawad Alam

Trevor Bayliss, Sri Lanka’s coach, has termed the first Test between Sri Lanka and England an evenly-poised affair at the end of the second day and said that either of the teams can win the contest if they play well from now till the end of the match.”We obviously didn’t have a great day yesterday. But I thought we fought hard and got ourselves back into the game today,” Bayliss said.”On a wicket that suits spin bowling, we knew if we could keep England down to areasonable total even if they passed us, we can hopefully match them in our secondinnings as chasing 180 to 200 in the final innings will turn out to be a tough job.”Bayliss expressed disappointment that Muttiah Muralitharan could notbreak Shane Warne’s world record of 708 Test wickets before play was called off for the day due to rain.”It was a bit disappointing for everyone watching and I am sure for him as well. Hewould have liked to have got it out of the way today. But all along our focus hasbeen on the team’s performance. Everyone knows it that Murali will take thosewickets somewhere in one Test or another.”Bayliss, however, did express his disappointment at Sri Lanka’s failure to post big first-innings totals.”They [the Sri Lankan batsmen] do a lot of hard work and it’s not from lack of trying, that’s for sure. We were here early this morning working on the batting and we are hopeful that in thenext two Test matches we can turn that around in the first innings.”We are going through a little bit of a transitional period with the team. There are a number of inexperienced and younger players in the team trying to learn the firstclass game of cricket in the international arena. In that case they are not going tobe as consistent as we might like it to be. Hopefully, with the experience of playingteams like Australia and England, some of these guys will step up to the mark prettyquickly.”Questioned on the impending retirement of Sanath Jayasuriya, Bayliss said: “Hehasn’t said anything to us at this stage. Obviously he is getting close, exactly howclose we are not very sure.”

Kenya’s allrounder Thomas Odoyo was named as the winner of the inaugural Associate ODI Player of the Year at the ICC Awards ceremony in Johannesburg.In 19 ODIs during the voting period, including two for Africa XI against Asia XI at the Afro-Asia Cup in India, Odoyo took 27 wickets with his right-arm medium pace at an average of 24.25, including three four-wicket hauls. In that time he also scored 488 runs at an average of 48.80 and with a brisk strike-rate of 85.61 runs per hundred balls.His efforts were instrumental in securing victory for Kenya at the inaugural ICC World Cricket League Division One in Nairobi last February and he also represented his country at the World Cup in the West Indies in March.Competition for this award was stiff and Odoyo narrowly beat off the challenge of other short-listed candidates, fellow Kenyan Steve Tikolo, Netherlands allrounder Ryan ten Doeschate and Canada wicketkeeper-batsman Ashish Bagai.Accepting his award, Odoyo said: “It is a great honour for me. It’s the first time for an Associate player to win an ICC Award so I am truly delighted. When we [Kenya] played in the first ICC World Cricket League I really played well and helped my team to win the competition. Hopefully this will encourage more guys in Kenya to play the game and that can only be a good thing. It is a great day for me.”The Associate ODI Player of the Year Award serves to recognise and reward the efforts in ODIs of an outstanding cricketer from the six countries outside the ICC Full Members – Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands and Scotland. Each of the six countries was invited to nominate players and an initial 18-strong list of nominees for this award was the result.

Stephen Fleming, the former New Zealand captain, has denied that he is on the verge of retiring after rumours began circulating during the second Test against Bangladesh in Wellington.Fleming stepped down from the one-day captaincy following the World Cup and subsequently lost the Test job to Daniel Vettori. However, he has retained his position in the Test team – hitting 87 against Bangladesh in Wellington – and was surprised to hear talk of him walking away from the international game.”Unless it has come from [Glenn] Turner or [Richard] Hadlee or [Dion] Nash or [John Bracewell], then it’s not the case,” he said after the Test.Fleming is now focussed on preparing for the visit of England, who arrive later this month for a tour that includes two Twenty20 internationals, five ODIs and three Tests. “I’m working hard on a couple of things batting-wise with that in mind. I’ve got three weeks now to work away at domestic level.”His 87 against Bangladesh was another example of Fleming failing to convert into three figures, something he has managed only nine times in 108 Tests. “It’s the story of my career really. The plan was to put that one into the Don Neely scoreboard, the next one into the scaffolding, and a single for the hundred.”It’s a short boundary with the wind behind me and I should be able to execute that better. My execution twice was poor. I could have sat on it and just played the percentages and got there.”Whenever Fleming does decide his time is over at the top level he admits that his lack of hundreds will be a disappointment. “That’s probably one of the regrets I’ll have with my 43 fifties – there are a lot where I look for the positive option and just don’t execute, or get carried away, get impatient.”

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