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Three overseas players are targeting a future in New Zealand after pledging their future to the country. Grant Elliott and Kruger van Wyk, from South Africa, and Alun Evans formally of Glamorgan, have committed to undertake the residency qualification so they are no longer overseas players.Under new terms in New Zealand domestic cricket none of the player pool money set aside for major associations can be spent on overseas cricketers. The players must either gain residency or be paid from outside the pool.Under ICC rules a player must have spent at least 183 days in the country for three years before they qualify. However Richard Reid, the Canterbury chief executive, told the that players were not trying to work around the payment rules.”This is a guy [van Wyk], and Grant Elliott at Wellington is another, who are like a lot of South Africans looking to move their lives here.”The agreement we have with the CPA [New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association] is that we will look favourably at these guys who have committed to New Zealand.””From Canterbury’s point of view, we needed a wicketkeeper. Michael Papps wants to open the batting for New Zealand and asking him to keep wickets for 120 overs a game wasn’t going to help him achieve that.”Evans, 31, has never been able to nail down a regular spot in the Glamorgan side and would now have to play as an overseas player if he returned to county cricket.Roger Twose is the most notable player to switch his allegiance to New Zealand after he left Warwickshire and made his international debut in 1995. He formed a useful career, playing 16 Test and 87 one-day internationals.New Zealand domestic cricket has attracted a number of overseas players including Matthew Maynard, who is now an England coach, and in more recent years Ben Smith, Jonathan Trott and Min Patel.

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum has said the “romance” of signing off at home played a major role in his decision to quit all international formats at the end of the forthcoming Test series against Australia, in February. McCullum’s Test retirement has been talked about for some time, but he was expected to travel to the World T20 in India, in March and April.A Dunedin native originally, McCullum’s last international game will be the second Test against Australia in Christchurch – the city in which he and his family now live.”I think there’s something pretty romantic about finishing playing cricket in front of New Zealand crowds and in New Zealand grounds,” McCullum said. “Also we’ll be playing in Christchurch and Wellington – two of the most amazing grounds.”The Basin Reserve has the history and means a lot to New Zealanders. And Christchurch is now my established home. There’s a little bit of romance there. That was certainly the focus for me. I can steel myself for another couple of battles – ones which I look forward to.”McCullum has played through back problems for some time, but suggested the prospect of spending more time with family was a more significant factor in his decision. “My body has been sore for a while, but that’s just international sport. That’s not it. In the end the time has come and you’ve got to move on.”There’s a few things I’ve got on the go – a matter of three kids to deal with. Maybe I’ll put some time and effort back into them after selfishly chasing my dreams for the last decade or so.”New Zealand experienced a substantial resurgence in the years of McCullum’s captaincy, most recently matching their record streak for undefeated home Tests – 13. The team also had its most successful Test year in 2014, when they won five Tests, and reached the final of the World Cup in March.”This is definitely the best team that I’ve been involved in,” McCullum said. “We’ve got some outstanding players. We’ve got some freakish players as well. We’ve had a great home record. If you can be bloody tough to beat at home and you seek success away from home – then you start climbing up the rankings. That’s what we’ve done in the last couple of years.”I guess it’s up to other people to decide what sort of state you’ve left the team in. Hopefully I’ve left it in a better position than when I took it over.”New Zealand have also been known to espouse a team culture of sportsmanship and magnanimity during his years at the helm. McCullum credited the support his team enjoyed during this year’s World Cup partly to their improved public image.”The last 12 months or so, I’ve felt cricket is in a lot stronger place in people’s minds now than what it was a while ago. There’s a real feel-good factor from the fans and a real care about our team in how we go about our work. I think they look throughout the line up and the see not just good cricketers, but good kiwi blokes as well. That’s always nice to see from a fans’ perspective.”The World Cup just captivated New Zealand. The playing numbers and the support we’ve been able to build up because of the way we played in the World Cup should see some great crowds for us this summer. That’s exciting.”McCullum stopped short of endorsing Kane Williamson for the Test captaincy, but spoke effusively about Williamson’s virtues as a batsman. Mike Hesson, the New Zealand coach, said Williamson’s appointment as captain for the World T20 campaign was the “only [captaincy] decision we need to make” at present, but Williamson appears the frontrunner to take the reins in the longer format also, assuming he wants the role.Williamson was occasionally seen setting fields during the recent Test series against Sri Lanka, and had also taken on greater responsibility in facing media, in that series.”Kane’s taken over in the past and he’s done a great job,” McCullum said. “I know he’s looking forward to the challenge of the T20 world cup.”He’s a genius. He’s going to hate me saying that. He’s no. 1 in the world – and there’s a lot of people in the world that pick up a bat and a pair of gloves. He’s right at the top. He’s a consummate professional, a champion feller, and he’s only 25. He’s going to be one of the best players the game’s ever seen in my opinion.”

Dale Steyn and Brett Lee, who won the Man-of-the-Series awards in the recent clean sweeps for South Africa and Australia, have broken into the top five in the ICC player rankings for Test bowlers.Steyn dismantled the New Zealand batsmen with 20 wickets in two Tests, and has skyrocketed to third place in the list – he was ranked 28th before the start of the series. Lee is two places behind him in fifth, having finished with 16 wickets in the two Tests Australia played against Sri Lanka.Steyn’s team-mate Jacques Kallis is now one point away from Lee’s compatriot Ricky Ponting at the top of the list for Test batsmen. Kallis followed up his three hundreds in four innings against Pakistan with two more in three innings against New Zealand.The other mover in the top ten Test batsmen is Kumar Sangakkara, who jumped to third place – ahead of Mohammad Yousuf – on the back of his 57 and 192 in the second Test against Australia.

Stephen Fleming feels a policy to keep senior players uncertain of their places in the New Zealand side led to the retirements of Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns, reported the Sunday Star Times, quoting from Astle’s biography that will be released on Monday.”Fleming made it clear he was deeply dubious about the philosophy of keeping senior players uneasy, which he felt contributed to the demise of Cairns and Astle,” said Phil Gifford, a journalist who helped Astle write the book. Cairns retired in early 2006 months after having been left out of the side to tour South Africa while Astle retired in January 2007.In an extract from the book, Fleming said, “The emotional strain that was put on Nathan and Chris Cairns was never measured. These guys were working under unbelievable pressure to perform during a game with the axe hanging over them. I’ve always wondered, looking back at it, whether that time forced the retirement of Chris and then the retirement of Nathan.”Gifford also said that Fleming and Astle were concerned about the influence wielded by New Zealand’s high performance manager Ric Charlesworth. “The man Fleming and Nathan had issues with, at least as much as [coach] John Bracewell, was Ric Charlesworth,” Gifford said. “I got the impression Charlesworth had a reputation as the Darth Vader of New Zealand cricket, a man whose opinions, the players felt, held enormous sway with John Bracewell and New Zealand Cricket management in general.”Astle had been dropped from the one-day squad for the last two games of the series against Sri Lanka in late 2005, immediately after he had played a series-winning knock. He had then been told that his exclusion was part of New Zealand’s long-term planning.”At the heart of the Astle retirement was what happened when Nathan was dropped,” Gifford said. “He says that from the time he was dropped, and the mish-mash of reasons he was given, he was always struggling to stay enthused.”His approach, explained by himself and coaches, was that he played his best with a clear mind and no distractions. The Charlesworth era saw him show some good form but it was ultimately short-sighted, because it drove him out of the game.”Nathan’s well known for not having temper tantrums, and the tragedy for him and the team is that, while he was slowly burning at what was being done to him, John and everyone else in New Zealand Cricket took so long to realise he was being pushed out the door by them, not being re-energised and enthused.”Just why John read it so wrong is a complete mystery to me. Now the dust has settled the whole thing feels to me like an experiment in man management that could hardly have gone more wrong.”

Cricket Scotland’s competitions committee has docked RH Corstorphine 16 points after the club breached two rules of the Lloyds TSB Scotland League.First, RH Corstorphine registered Pallav Kumar before the start of this season as an amateur player despite the fact that he had been paid to play cricket within the past three years at Durham during 2004, thus breaching Rule 8(e). Kumar has played nine games in the league before the committee on June 14 granted him permission to play as an amateur player for the rest of the season. Secondly, on seven occasions this season, the club has fielded more than the allowed maximum of four non-Scottish-qualified players, in breach of Rule 8(b).One point will be deducted for each game in which Kumar played prior to his being granted permission to play as an amateur. In applying this sanction, the committee has taken into account the fact that Kumar has not played as a paid player since 2004 and has accepted that the club did not deliberately breach this rule but had failed to carry out the necessary checks prior to registering Kumar.For breach of Rule 8(b), one point will be deducted for each player over the allowed limit, such deduction to apply to each game in which the offence was committed. In this case, there were seven games in which the limit was exceeded by one player and therefore seven points will be deducted. The committee accept that the club did not intend to breach this rule but had made an honest error, and have taken this into account when applying this sanction.

Conventional wisdom says the fourth one-day international at Old Trafford was one India would rather forget; it was a scrap India had got on top of by creeping under the skin of the opposition, and losing from there would have brought a sense of hopelessness. Yet it was also a game they can take a lot of heart from.For one hour in the field – the first period of the run-chase – India displayed more positives than they had over several hours in earlier games. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, their best effort on the field in a long while – throwing punches fearlessly, catching eagerly and mouthing off with abandon. Their ground fielding was only marginally better than earlier but the buzz was unmistakable. Led by Yuvraj Singh and Dinesh Karthik, the younger players took it upon themselves to pump up the volume and inject the side with much-needed energy.One moment, when Kevin Pietersen was new to the crease, summed up the high-voltage approach. Rahul Dravid, after a chat with the umpires, asked Yuvraj, at point, to cool off; Karthik, standing at cover, immediately came to his rescue and shot off an explanation. Nothing, not even their captain, was going to shut them up.Dravid too was more energised than in recent days. The modest total of 212 forced him to set attacking fields right through England’s innings and crucially Dravid did not hesitate to put men around the bat, providing the spinners all the support they could ask for.It was, as Nasser Hussain in the commentary box reiterated several times, the aggression India have been missing. They hardly landed up at Southampton and Edgbaston and even the victory at Bristol came with a sense of fatigue. Old Trafford may have thrown up an alternative path: with three matches to go, and the series almost out of their reach, India could transfer their aggression to the bat as well. Their batting, Bristol excepted, has been jaded and there cannot be a better time to start expressing themselves freely.”We came to 212 with some good contributions lower down the order from Zaheer [Khan] and Piyush [Chawla],” Dravid after Thursday’s match. “In the end, though, I thought we should have scrapped a lot harder and got to 240. That was certainly gettable.” A lower-order scrap would have got them there but what about a top-order breaking free of the shackles?

The line-up may still need tinkering – Karthik at No. 3 does not seem to be the answer – but it is the mindset that needs to change. India are approaching these games as if they are Tests, getting into their stride and building innings, but caution can only take you so far. That approach worked well in the Test series, gradually grinding out the opposition, but the one-day game demands a more proactive approach.Lively young men such as Karthik and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have pottered around at the crease. They are facing good bowlers on home turf but doing very little to rattle them. Up against a predominantly back-of-a-length attack they are finding it tough to break the shackles. Yuvraj’s clean-striking has been the most refreshing sight and he needs to be rewarded with a push up the order. Keeping him at No. 5 is only adding to his burden. It is this younger batch that will carry India through the next few years and into the next World Cup. Four or five of the current team will not be around for the event and it is up to the rest to form the nucleus of a side for the future. India are currently in no-man’s land, neither winning games nor building for the future, and run the risk of sliding further.It is time for the next generation to be thrown in the deep and told to back their aggressive instincts. The series might be decided in Headingley but India need to look at this as the start of a new chapter.

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Cathryn Fitzpatrick starred with a six-wicket haul including a hat-trick as Victoria Spirit levelled the best-of-three finals series with a comfortable win over New South Wales Breakers at Melbourne. Rachael Haynes dominated the Victoria chase with an unbeaten 83 as the Spirit easily overhauled the Breakers’ 144 in 43.2 overs.Fitzpatrick, who finished with the stunning figures of 6 for 22 from ten overs, ended the New South Wales innings with four wickets from five balls in the 49th over. She began by having Michelle Goszko caught in the deep for 24 and two deliveries later began the hat-trick when Sarah Aley was trapped lbw. Fitzpatrick bowled Julie Hayes and Rene Farrell each for a first-ball 0 to complete the late demolition.The visitors had been unable to build big partnerships after winning the toss and despite Leah Poulton’s 39 and 36 from Sarah Andrews, their 144 was always going to be tough to defend. Haynes, the opener, showed her class with her second half-century of the season to carry the Spirit home.The Breakers clinched a tight one-wicket victory in the first final on Friday and the series will go to the deciding third match at Melbourne’s Central Reserve on Sunday.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board has confirmed that Habibul Bashar will lead the side until the end of the World Cup next April.”We believe Bashar can lead the team well in the coming World Cup,” a senior board official told Reuters. Bashar said that he was happy with the board’s decision and that it would help him chalk out the plans for the World Cup.The announcement followed a meeting of the BCB in Dhaka at which a number of other issues were addressed.At the forefront of these was confirmation of the tour of Zimbabwe in December. The BCB said that they would play seven ODIs. The tentative schedule was for two matches to take place at Bogra, one at Khulna, two at Chittagong, two at Dhaka and a Twenty20 match, also at Dhaka. Mahmudur Rahman, the BCB’s CEO, said: “The venues at Dhaka have not been finalised but in all probability there could be one match at Mirpur and one at Fatullah.”The board also confirmed a previous resolution taken by the working committee condemning the incident in which a number of journalists were injured at Chittagong during the second Test between Bangladesh and Australia in April 2006.

Former West Indies fast bowler Courtney Walsh and renowned American fielding guru Mike Young have signed on to be a part of the coaching staff at the ICC Americas selection combine to be held at Indianapolis World Sports Park in September.”I’m really excited by this opportunity to help identify and work with some of the best talent in the Americas,” Walsh said in an ICC press release. “It’s great that the ICC and the WICB are working together on this initiative that can only help cricket develop in the region.”Applications for players who are eligible to play for countries within the ICC Americas region were due to close on Friday, but the deadline has been extended an additional week through to July 24. Up to 100 players from around the region will be invited to phase one of the combine from September 18, as they compete for spots in a regional squad to participate in the WICB 50-over domestic tournament next January.A select group of players from phase one will then be invited back to phase two from September 24, where they will join pre-selected players based on performances from the ICC Americas championship in May, and the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier currently taking place in Ireland and Scotland. After the conclusion of phase two, a final squad will be chosen and top-performing players may also receive invitations to trial for teams in the 2016 Caribbean Premier League.Walsh is currently a WICB selector and bowling coach for the Jamaica Tallawahs. In 2011, he served as tour manager for the West Indies U-19 team in Florida where they swept the USA U-19 team in a four-match 50-over series. Young, a Chicago native, has been a specialist fielding coach serving on and off with Australia for the last 14 years, including at the 2015 World Cup.

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Leading the Punjab attack in just his fifth first-class game, Love Ablish, the medium-pacer, ran through the Gujarat batting line-up on the first day at Mohali. Vindicating his captain’s decision to field first, Ablash removed both the openers inside the first 12 overs and had Andhra struggling at 18 for 2. He returned to break the promising partnership between Niraj Patel and Bhavik Thaker before cleaning up the tail with two more scalps. Thaker was the only Gujarat batsman to pass 30, striking 13 fours on his way to a battling 85. The Punjab openers ended the day on a confident 24 for no loss.
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For the second match in a row, Anirudh Singh, the left-handed batsman, led Hyderabad’s charge, steering them to 246 for 5 at the end of the opening day at Jaipur. Anirudh shared vital stands with Ambati Rayudu, who smashed eight fours during his 85-ball 62, and Arjun Yadav, who gritted out 35. Anirudh fell minutes before stumps, 13 short of his hundred, as Rajasthan clawed their way back into the contest. Mohammad Aslam, the left-arm spinner, snapped up three wickets after a marathon 26 overs and helped Rajasthan stay in the contest.
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Connor Williams’s battling unbeaten 146 – the 12th century of his first-class career- steered Baroda to a comfortable 267 for 5 at the end of the first day’s play at Rajkot. Saurashtra’s decision to field first, on their homeground, backfired as Williams and Jacob Martin, the Baroda captain, put on 143 for the fourth-wicket stand. Williams’s knock took 289 deliveries as the Saurashtra bowlers, led by the medium-pacer Sandeep Jobanputra, kept a tight leash on the run rate. Martin too couldn’t break away, taking 131 balls for his 64, managing 11 fours in the process.
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Half-centuries by Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and Amitava Chakraborty rounded off a good opening day for Bengal, ending at 226 for 2 in their second-round match against Mumbai at Kolkata. Opener Chakraborty made a patient 81 off 232 balls, almost batting through the day, while Jhunjhunwala’s 87 was equally sedate, coming off 213 balls. After Bengal chose to bat first, Chakraborty and Arindam Das laid the foundation with a 71-run opening stand before Das was trapped in front by Swapnil Hazare. Chakraborty and Jhunjhunwala then added 130, frustrating the bowlers for another 56 overs, before Nilesh Kulkarni managed the breakthrough, taking a return catch to dismiss Chakraborty.
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Continuing his good form this season, Aakash Chopra, the former India opener, eased to an unbeaten 128 as Delhi ended at 257 for 6 against Uttar Pradesh at the Feroz Shah Kotla. Chopra, who missed out on selection for the Indian Test squad for South Africa, shared useful stands with Virat Kohli and Rajat Bhatia for the fourth and fifth wicket respectively, after seamer Praveen Kumar snared two wickets in quick succession. Kumar gave little away in his 25 overs, conceding just 53 runs and picking up four wickets. He struck a vital blow towards the end, trapping Vijay Dahiya – the centurion from the previous match – leg before.
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M Vijay, playing only his second first-class match, scored an undefeated 97 as Tamil Nadu ended on a strong position at 260 for 4 against Andhra at Chennai. Vijay, in his maiden appearance in his home ground, mixed caution with aggression in his 262-ball knock, scoring nine fours and a six. Captain S Badrinath, fresh from his 136 against Delhi, added 146 with Vijay before being done in by the Prasad duo – caught wicketkeeper MSK Prasad off Chandramouli Prasad – for 69.