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A batting line-up that includes Ross Taylor, Jesse Ryder, Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, and the inexperienced but talented Kane Williamson ought not to be pushovers. No one is sure, though, after the debacle in Bangladesh.Will the change in format to Test cricket help New Zealand cope better against India? Daniel Vettori thinks so. There will be no run-rate pressure, they can ease themselves in and not have to try to attack the spinners. Mark Greatbatch, the coach, perhaps best presented New Zealand’s likely approach: he is hoping that his team can hang in long enough and wait for India to make mistakes.”Cricket is a funny game. If you compete with a team for long enough, something cracks,” Greatbatch said. “It’s either you or the other team. That’s the challenge for us – to compete with India for a long period of time. Into the fourth day, fifth day, if we are still with them, they are human; they make mistakes like anyone else.”It makes immense sense and the fate of the series could depend on it. Greatbatch, though, was a touch concerned by the lack of Test practice.”I was saying earlier that we haven’t played Test cricket since March against Australia in New Zealand. We really miss playing more Test matches.” They will be starting the first Test without any warm-ups and though nearly everyone in the camp has said that it’s an unfortunate event but something out of their control.Greatbatch is hoping that the Bangladesh debacle will act as inspiration for his players. “It’s pretty tough. I don’t like losing; we don’t like losing, it’s very tough indeed. And obviously, when you perform badly, home is not so good as far as the media and the public go, and you expect that. But we have got an opportunity to go head to head with a very good side to get some brownie points back.”At the end of the day, India has got world-class players, a lot of experience. But youth is an amazing thing, I feel. We have got some good experience but we have got some good youth coming through. That is an opportunity for them to show their high skill level, and some of them have got very high skill levels.”Greatbatch has said a few harsh things since Bangladesh that have made the headlines: “They played like d****s,” and “I am happy to take two draws [in India]”. That was in the immediate aftermath of the Bangladesh fiasco. What does he think now? What went wrong there and what has he told his players?”I don’t think I have to tell them much, to be honest. They have got to play better; there is no doubt about that. Their skills have to better; the mind has to be better. The training the last couple of days has been exceptional. We have got a couple of more days. At the end of the day, the determination to do better is from within and I think you will see a better performance from this New Zealand side.”Not that New Zealand’s top-order woes are of recent vintage. Adam Parore, the former New Zealand wicketkeeper-batsman, put it best when he recently said, “I can tell you that the allrounders and bowlers have long been sick and tired of having to carry the team over the years.”Greatbatch, though, is hopeful that Bangladesh would prove to be an aberration. “The challenge against Harbhajan, Ojha and Mishra is going to be there, but some of our guys have been playing a lot in the subcontinent and we feel we are getting better there, bar Bangladesh. We are trying hard to work out how to play those guys on these surfaces. We performed well under par and we got fried for our standards. There is a real determination to start well here on Thursday.”

The long-running battle between Younis Khan and the Pakistan board has finally been resolved, after a meeting between the former captain and Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman. Younis, a former Pakistan captain, was cleared for selection almost immediately and picked in the limited-overs squad for the series against South Africa in the UAE later this month.The meeting took place early on Wednesday and board officials familiar with the meeting told ESPNcricinfo that all outstanding issues were resolved amicably. A resolution had been on the cards since the board sent a letter to Younis asking him to meet the chairman. Younis responded positively, telling reporters in Lahore he was keen to meet and play again for Pakistan.At a press conference later in the day in Karachi Mohsin Khan, chief selector, announced that Younis had joined the training camp in Lahore. “The chairman [PCB] has given clearance this afternoon to Younis Khan and that is good news,” Mohsin told reporters. “I discussed with the selection committee and we picked him straight away. He is fit, playing top-class cricket.”There was some confusion, however, over whether Younis had also been inducted into the Test squad. “For now he is in the limited-overs squad,” Mohsin said. “We will see his progress over the ODIs and then make a decision for the Tests after that.” Over in Lahore though, at almost the same time, Intikhab Alam, the team manager, indicated to reporters that Younis was back in the Test side as well.Younis’ return has also been hastened by the pullout from the ODI squad of Mohammad Yousuf. Yousuf has not been training over the last two days at the camp at Gaddafi Stadium and has a grade 2 abductor muscle tear. Mohsin said he is likely to be out for 2-3 weeks, though added that Younis would have been selected even if Yousuf was available.Younis was one of four players the board either banned or decided would not be selected for an indefinite period in the aftermath of a disastrous tour of Australia in 2009-10. Three others were fined heavily.Alongside five others, Younis appealed against the punishment to a one-man appelate tribunal. Shoaib Malik, the Akmal brothers and Shahid Afridi had their fines reduced and bans lifted soon after, while Rana Naved ul Hasan had his one-year ban lifted recently. Yousuf didn’t appeal, announcing his retirement instead, though he was asked by the board to return for the England tour, his punishment apparently waived away.Younis’ case, however, had stalled. The tribunal “set aside his order” and referred it back to the board, as it did with the others. The other players then apologised to the board and accepted their mistakes, clearing the way for their return. Younis refused to do so, insisting through his lawyer that he had done nothing to apologise for and had instead maintained that he wanted to clear his name fully of the charges laid against him.The board released a statement with few details, referring only to the meeting and that the matter now “stands closed.”Over the last few weeks the board and chairman in particular had come under severe pressure from a clutch of former cricketers as well as the national assembly’s standing committee on sports to bring Younis back into the fold.

Sachin Tendulkar, the Mumbai Indians captain, has expressed his disappointment at the prospect of his team being broken up ahead of the IPL player auction in November. Tendulkar said the Mumbai franchise had worked hard to build its team and it was “tough to accept” that the composition had to change.”I feel it is about building teams, not breaking teams,” Tendulkar said. “We have really worked hard to build this team and have got together brilliantly. In the third year we held a couple of camps, which had nothing to do with cricket. It was just about getting together and building team spirit.”Right from the management and the owners, Mr and Mrs Ambani, they have all put in a lot of effort along with the players, and then you realise that the team has to change. It’s tough to accept that.”The Mumbai Indians were the first IPL side to be eliminated from the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa and have probably played their last competitive game together. Under the new IPL regulations, each of the eight franchises that participated in the 2010 season can retain up to four players, only three of whom can be Indians. All the other international capped players, as well as those who have played 75% of their side’s IPL matches in 2010, will be part of the auction.”I don’t know, it’s not my job to figure what’s right or wrong, but I feel if a player is happy to play for a particular team, it’s good he stays with that team,” Tendulkar said, when asked if he was happy with the retention formula. “There’s some sort of identity with that team. We have a huge following now and it’s also an attachment with a particular team.”Rahul Dravid, the Royal Challengers Bangalore batsman, however, has offered a different point of view. He said that since two new franchises – Pune and Kochi – had been added to the IPL, increasing the number of teams to ten, the majority of the players had to go into the auction. “One has to understand that two more teams are entering the IPL,” Dravid said last week, “and the beauty of the IPL is that it’s very competitive, anyone can win.”We don’t want to end up in a situation like in the Premiership [English Premier League] where only three or four teams can win the tournament. It’s an even playing field. I like the concept of everyone having a chance to do well as it raises the level of the tournament. It raises the interest levels also.”

Titans fast bowler CJ de Villiers has been drafted into the South Africa A squad in Sri Lanka as a replacement for Cobras seamer Francois Plaatjies.Plaatjies had undergone groin surgery during the off season but was unable to continue bowling in a warm-up game against Sri Lanka Development XI.”It is hard luck on Plaatjies who is an outstanding talent but has been badly hit by injuries recently,” CSA selection convener Andrew Hudson said. “At the same time we have every confidence in de Villiers who did well on the successful Emerging Tour of Australia earlier this month.”South Africa A take on Pakistan A in a tri-series game in Colombo on Tuesday.

The Pakistan team management in England has decided against calling up a replacement bowler for the injured Umar Gul, who suffered a hamstring injury during the second Test against the hosts at Edgbaston.”We have two back up pace bowlers, Tanvir Ahmed and Wahab Riaz in the touring squad and either one of them can replace Gul for the remaining Tests,” team manager Yawar Saeed told .Both Ahmed and Riaz have been with the team since the start of the tour. The Pakistan touring squad presently includes 17 players.”The tour selectors will decide who will play but for now we are not asking for a replacement as Gul is also due to have another scan on August 18,” Saeed said.It would be known after the scan whether Gul can recover in time for the two Twenty20 and five one-day internationals against England next month.”Presently, he has been advised rest for up to three weeks but we will know the correct position next week on how much more time his recovery will take,” he added.Gul is said to have ruptured a muscle in his thigh while bowling in England’s first innings, although he batted freely, albeit with a runner, during Pakistan’s second innings. Gul had also missed the ICC World Twenty20 and Asia Cup earlier this year due to injury.Meanwhile, chief selector Mohsin Khan and limited-overs captain Shahid Afridi are due to fly to England during the third Test to finalise the limited-overs squad.

Michael Hussey believes Pakistan’s batting depth will be seriously tested in the absence of Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan for the upcoming series against Australia. However, Hussey is wary of an “outstanding” attack that is likely to determine the fortunes of the side six months after they lost 3-0 in Australia.Younis did not play in that series but has been one of their most reliable Test players in the past couple of years. Both he and Yousuf, the captain during the visit to Australia, average over 50 in Test cricket and in their absence, the only member of the top six who averages above 40 is Umar Akmal, who has played only six Tests.”I think their depth is going to be tested,” Hussey said. “You take Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf out of that team and you’re losing two outstanding, classy players. That’s going to be a big loss, particularly in the Test match arena. It’s going to be very hard to find those runs that those guys consistently score in Test match cricket.”But their bowling attack looks outstanding. They’re very well balanced and they cover all bases very well. Run-making for us is going to be tough, but hopefully if we can bowl well and keep them under pressure, I’m hoping we can bowl them out for less runs than us.”Although Pakistan might enter the series with some confidence left over from their two Twenty20 victories in Birmingham, history is against them, as they haven’t beaten Australia in a Test since November 1995. During the most recent series in Australia, Salman Butt was the only Pakistan player to score a Test century, and only he and Umar Akmal averaged above 30.For the Australians, five men posted hundreds and averaged 50-plus including Hussey, whose 134 in Sydney helped Australia to a famous victory from what seemed an unwinnable position. He enters Tuesday’s Lord’s Test in fine form, having cruised to a century in the warm-up game in Derby, but he knows the challenge will be far greater against Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif, Umar Gul and Danish Kaneria.”I feel like I’m seeing the ball well, but it doesn’t really matter in a practice game,” he said. “I’d give all those runs back for a hundred at Lord’s in a Test match, that’s for sure. The Pakistanis have an excellent attack, it’s going to be a lot better than the attack we faced up in Derby. It’s going to be a huge challenge.”At 35, Hussey is one of the old men in an unusually inexperienced Australian squad . Five of the 14 members are yet to make their Test debut, although Steven Smith and Tim Paine will wear the baggy green for the first time at Lord’s. Hussey said the youth in the group helped create genuine excitement ahead of a rare neutral Test.”In our team we’ve got a great mix,” he said. “All the guys love playing for Australia and you can really see it in their faces. Even Ricky Ponting at the moment, I think he’s loving being captain of the team at the moment. It’s a new team, it’s fresh, he wants to have an input on how these young guys develop as cricketers and there’s a real enthusiasm around the team.”

Andrew Strauss insists there is still plenty of room for improvement from England in the final ODI at Lord’s as they search for a 4-1 series victory. The loss at The Oval on Wednesday ruined their chances of a clean-sweep and although Strauss maintains there is nothing to be gained from the series ahead of the Ashes, he does believe every win is important less than a year from a World Cup.England will consider making changes for Saturday’s game, with the possibility that players might be rested ahead of Bangladesh’s tour. But Strauss doesn’t want to risk Australia finishing the series with a pair of victories, after England’s powerful start gave them a realistic chance of completing a whitewash.”Having pretty much dominated the first three games, we don’t want the series to finish 3-2,” Strauss said. “It would not be the sort of way to finish the series we would have anticipated at 3-0 up. But we’ve got to play better than we did at The Oval, there’s no doubt about that, and look back to what we’ve done well over those first three games and make sure we repeat it.”We’ve had one hundred in the series, so you always want your top order to get hundreds, there’s no doubt about that. That’s an area we’ve identified that we can improve. As a batting unit I think we can probably play better than we have done. The bowling has been pretty good, the fielding his been pretty good, but there’s still room for improvement in both of those disciplines as well.”One man England would love to see lift is Kevin Pietersen, who has shown promise during the series without making use of his starts. Pietersen has now gone 16 ODIs without a half-century, stretching back to the tour of India in November 2008, and Strauss said that while such a lean patch was unexpected, he had no concerns over Pietersen’s form.”You expect him to score runs consistently and he has done so much in the past,” Strauss said. “What I would say is he has contributed in a lot of those one-day internationals without getting fifties. He’s still the player that opposition teams fear the most in our side. If you see him playing in the nets, you know there’s absolutely no reason to believe he’s not going to go out and get a hundred tomorrow. We’ve got no concerns with him.”While victory for England would cap off an outstanding series, Australia will consider it a minor triumph if they come from 3-0 down to end up with a 3-2 scoreline. There have been some real positives for the visitors over the past two games, including the form of the pace trio of Shaun Tait, Doug Bollinger and Ryan Harris.The Australians are also keen to take some momentum into their Twenty20s against Pakistan, which begin two days after the Lord’s ODI. The coach Tim Nielsen said the group was in better spirits after the 78-run win at The Oval.”We feel a bit better about ourselves,” Nielsen said. “We were probably building to that game throughout the first three. It would be nice to finish 3-2. If we do that, we know we’ve played well tomorrow and it’s probably a pretty fair reflection of the series.”

Going into the Asia Cup, India’s biggest worry is the bowling. The country’s fast bowling stocks have rarely been healthier than a couple of years ago when a new generation of quicks fuelled the hopes of Indian fans. Cut to the present, the form and confidence of that bunch has waned and the attack is being led by 30-somethings Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, both of whom were an integral part of the bowling as far back as the 2003 World Cup.The first-choice trio of Zaheer, Nehra and Praveen Kumar are back for the Asia Cup, but the search for quality back-up for them has proved fruitless so far. Ishant, Sreesanth and RP Singh have struggled for consistency, while each of the half-dozen seamers who have been tried over the past six months have proved to be works in progress, with only Ashok Dinda making it to Sri Lanka.MS Dhoni has backed the talent scouting. “We have plenty of options, but we don’t have too many experienced fast bowlers,” he said, “and its better if the youngsters are given a chance because all of a sudden, if your experienced bowlers like Zaheer Khan or Ashish Nehra get injured you should have someone as a back-up for a high-pressure tournament like the World Cup.”The spin bowling is likely to prove crucial in Dambulla, and it is headed by India’s most successful bowler in Sri Lanka, Harbhajan Singh, whose last performance in the country was a match-turning five-wicket haul in the final of the Compaq Cup in 2009. However, as with the fast bowling, the hunt continues for reliable support performers.Ravindra Jadeja currently seems to be on the inside track for the second spinner’s spot. He may have had a year to forget as far as Twenty20s are concerned – being banned from the IPL and following it up with a horror World Twenty20 in the Caribbean – but he has proved to be a canny bowler in one-dayers, as his career economy-rate of 4.90 testifies.It is Jadeja’s unfussy batting that gives him an edge over the other contenders for the fifth bowler’s slot. It may lack the overdrive needed in the high-scoring one-dayers that are the norm in the subcontinent, but can prove effective in Dambulla where scoring is usually less frenetic.The two other spinners in the squad had reasonable tours of Zimbabwe – left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha who returned after more than a year out of the one-day side and offspinner R Ashwin, getting his first international games – but will probably spend time on the bench before getting another chance.India have an ordinary record in multi-team tournaments over the past decade, having won three titles and shared two in 27 one-day competitions. To improve on that they’ll need the returning big guns of their batting – Dhoni, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir – to fire.”It’s good the seniors got a break,” coach Gary Kirsten said after the team’s practice session on Tuesday evening. “I’m happy with the way the Twenty20 games went in Zimbabwe, and I’m looking forward to the tournament. This is a new beginning before the World Cup.”More than the seniors, the focus is likely to be on the three batsmen who jetted into Sri Lanka on Tuesday after completing the Twenty20s in Zimbabwe. Suresh Raina captained the youngsters there, while Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were the best Indian batsmen in the one-dayers. All three could well be fighting for one spot when Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh return to the side, which makes the Asia Cup vital to their chances of staying in the XI as the World Cup approaches.

In sunny conditions on Friday, England’s bowlers toiled for the best part of two sessions and managed just one wicket between them; 24 hours later, with grey skies camped overhead, they slotted back into command with five for 65 in 28.5 overs. And had the light held up for as little as half an hour longer, they might well have had time to enforce the follow-on as well, given how dicey survival was proving against the new ball. It’s an easy game when you get on a roll.And yet, the manner in which England regrouped couldn’t fully atone for their failings in the first half of the Bangladesh innings. At least, that was James Anderson’s verdict as he reflected on a day in which he claimed two important wickets, but was once again upstaged by a man on home debut who showed just how it should be done. Steven Finn’s nerveless excellence was the catalyst for the comeback, and his fast-bowling colleagues are aware of the debt they owe him.”He was brilliant today, and last night he was fantastic too,” said Anderson. “He’s got a cool head, he knows exactly what he’s trying to do – he’s very impressive. In the past Stuart Broad’s been useful as well – he has a bit of height and bounce and is looking to be quite aggressive. Bres [Tim Bresnan] and I are trying to swing it – and with him being more aggressive at the batsman, it works quite well.”Both Anderson and Bresnan produced a succession of unplayable deliveries in the course of their truncated day’s work – with Anderson’s outswinger to Jahurul Islam being the pick of the bunch. But for sheer, sustained, six-ball-an-over menace, neither could compete with the lanky line-and-length being pinged down from the Pavilion End.Finn’s finest delivery was his new-ball nipbacker to bowl Mushfiqur Rahim in the gloaming. The pace, subtle movement, and bail-trimming accuracy was reminiscent of the great Glenn McGrath, who lorded it over Lord’s on three consecutive visits in 1997, 2001 and 2005, and finished with his name on the honours board on each and every occasion. With overnight figures of 4 for 75, Finn is now odds-on to take his place on the wall as well.When asked if Finn reminded him of McGrath, Anderson opted for a comparison slightly closer to home, and chose the man who is currently director of cricket at Finn’s county, Middlesex. “I actually said to him he reminded me of Angus Fraser, but slightly quicker. But it’s the same principle [as McGrath], a very strong action and a lot of straight lines and hits the deck hard.”If Anderson seemed ill at ease in singing the praises of his new team-mate, then it merely underlined the sudden precariousness of his position. Having missed the tour of Bangladesh through injury, Anderson then sat on the sidelines throughout the World Twenty20 – a harsh snub, maybe, but one that was amply justified in hindsight. After leading the attack in 2009, he’s become just another squad bowler a year later, and he knows he needs to raise his game to reclaim his top-dog status.”Last night we spoke as a group, the three bowlers and the two Andys [Flower and Strauss], just discussing what we needed to do to improve,” he said. “It was pretty obvious – and we all knew – that we didn’t bowl very well yesterday. We were just missing something. For me, maybe even Bres, who’s not bowled a great deal in the longer form of the game recently, it’s just a bit of rustiness.”We improved on yesterday but were still not quite there,” he added. “From a personal point of view, I felt like I’m bowling a bit too short. We did make good use of the conditions, but I think we can still improve further, and certainly today I should have bowled a bit fuller. Yesterday we weren’t very accurate or consistent. Today we were a little bit better but can still be more so.”In terms of the match situation, England are now right back in control, despite having lost more than two sessions to the rain. The likelihood of enforcing the follow-on is back on the agenda, with England unlikely to waste time batting again if they can possibly avoid it. “We’ve only got 70 runs to play with, so we’ve got to bowl really well in the morning and hope for a full day’s play,” said Anderson.For Junaid Siddique, who top-scored for Bangladesh with a well-crafted 58 before falling to a flyer from Finn, the goal of batting out for a draw is still very much the team’s aim. “It might be a little bit difficult but I think we can play,” he said. “There were a lot of balls we could have easily left. We are improving day by day and we will see on the next day what happens. Let’s see tomorrow, and see how many runs we can get and if we can save the follow-on.”

Teams travelling to the World Twenty20 in West Indies have been able to revert to their original plans following the lifting of airspace restrictions over the UK and most of Europe.The ICC Board had endorsed a set of contingency plans to ensure that all players, team management, match officials, support staff and television crews and equipment can reach the Caribbean in time for the World Twenty20 in case the disruption had continued throughout this week.The most relieved team will be England who could have faced a journey over land and sea to Dubai in order to catch a charter flight to West Indies, but will now be able to depart London on Sunday.Ireland, Zimbabwe and the host team West Indies are in the Caribbean already, but the board heard arrangements were made so that seven of the remaining eight affected men’s teams – New Zealand are travelling via the United States – could be airlifted direct to the West Indies from Dubai with the aid of ICC partners, Emirates.”I’m delighted to say that the teams will now fly to the West Indies as originally scheduled,” said Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive. “I want to thank both Emirates and the ICC executive for working so hard to ensure that we had a back-up plan to transport teams to the Caribbean.One of those teams is Afghanistan, whose World Twenty20 squad has been grounded in Dubai because of the closure of airports across Europe have missed their warm-up matches in Trinidad and Tobago but are now expected to arrive in the next couple of days.An ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland had forced the closure of airspace over the UK and much of Europe since Thursday, resulting in the cancellation of thousands of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded. Afghanistan are pooled with India and South Africa in Group C of the ICC World Twenty20, which begins on April 30.