All posts by csb10.top

IS Bindra: “Twenty20 is the nearest cricket can come to baseball in terms of time, excitement and even glamour.”•Getty Images

The ICC has advised cricket officials in America to install an IPL model to capitalise on the Twenty20 boom and generate funds for the game’s grassroot development in the USA, IS Bindra, the ICC’s principal advisor, said. The ICC told United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) to set up such a league “as fast as they can” during a meeting in January that was attended by Bindra and Haroon Lorgat, the ICC chief executive.”We suggested during that meeting that they organise a Twenty20 league based on the successful IPL model,” Bindra told Cricinfo. “Like IPL, they should look at private ownership for teams, each of which can have a mix of foreign and local players. Initially, to get the league going, they can have more foreign players in a playing XI, more than the four allowed in an IPL team. Then, as the league picks up interest, they can look at increasing the local element.”Bindra, who has been specifically tasked by the ICC to develop cricket in the US, said he would pursue the idea with USACA officials during a meeting in Dubai on May 17 and 18. “What we are looking at is a top class event that will be fully backed by the ICC and will have some top international players,” he said. “As we see it, many international players, except those from England, are usually free from May to September. This space could be utilised.”When asked about the American Premier League (APL), an unofficial private venture which unveiled its plans in March, Bindra said a successful official model was always the best response. “I feel that regulation is not the only way to curb unapproved ventures. You need to have a successful alternative, too, like how the BCCI developed its Premier League as a viable model (to the ICL).” The APL is being organised by Jay Mir, a businessman who signed up Sir Richard Hadlee as consultant and former players like Inzamam-ul-Haq and Graeme Hick for a six-team league to be staged in October in New York City.Bindra said that a “large market” for cricket exists in the US – with its immigrant Indian, Pakistani and West Indian population – that has not been fully utilised. “There have been some ad-hoc attempts to organise some leagues and events in the US, but none of them happened on an official platform and were poorly planned efforts,” he said. “Now, we have a Twenty20 boom worldwide and we need to capitalise on that. Twenty20 is the nearest cricket can come to baseball in terms of time, excitement and even glamour. It’s the closest cricket can come to having an American flavour and we have to move in now.”Official cricket in the US has largely been a stop-start affair with the local governing body rendered ineffective since the early 1990s due to large-scale infighting. The USACA was twice suspended by the ICC for its dysfunctional administration and readmitted into the official fold only last year after elections were held.Bindra said that the USACA, which is headed by Gladstone Dainty, a businessman, is now on the track to stability, especially with the recent appointment of Don Lockerbie, COO and venue development director of the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, as its chief executive. “The time is right now to plan the big step forward,” Bindra said.

Match facts

May 10, 2009
Start time 16.45 (14.45 GMT, 20.15 IST)

Big Picture

Brendon McCullum is still due for a big innings and the IPL will only be richer if he strikes gold•Associated Press

The tournament’s most impressive side takes on the weakest at the Wanderers tomorrow. Delhi Daredevils are heavily favoured to go all the way while Kolkata Knight Riders have been rooted to the bottom of the table almost since the start. Following their defeat to Chennai, Delhi notched up two consecutive victories and, given their trouncing of Kolkata in their previous encounter last week, look good for a third. That will ensure they reclaim their position at the top from Chennai. They are currently on 12 points from eight games with two games in hand over their challengers.With seven defeats, Kolkata are virtually out of the tournament, barring the rather unlikely event of a five-match winning streak from here on. Effectively, Kolkata will be playing for pride.

Form guide (completed matches, most recent first)

Delhi – WWLWL
The top order looked uncharacteristically scratchy against Mumbai Indians but it didn’t matter in the end as they were chasing a modest 117. Their stand-in captain, Gautam Gambhir, is yet to find the fluency of his stupendous form last year. Delhi’s bowling set up their most recent victory and the most striking feature was the fact that they conceded just two boundaries in the first ten overs of Mumbai’s innings.Kolkata – LLLLL
The only positive Kolkata took out of their previous game was the performance of their top order. Morne van Wyk led their efforts with 74 while Brendon McCullum made a refreshing 35. But their bowlers failed to put any pressure on Delhi and the fielding was shoddy.

Watch out for

Brendon McCullum: The Kolkata captain has had a lot on his plate, aside from his own ordinary form, with 85 from eight games. He made a sound start against Delhi, smashing three sixes. Though he failed to carry on after making a start, one could sense he was turning the corner. Perhaps the hopeless scenario with his team will allow him to bat with less pressure and the IPL will only be richer if he strikes gold.

Teams

Virender Sehwag’s availability is still in doubt and if he sits out again, David Warner will retain his place. Glenn McGrath must have set the bench on fire already but it seems his best chance of getting a game depends if they want to give Dirk Nannes a rest.Delhi Daredevils (probable) 1 Virender Sehwag/ David Warner, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Mithun Manhas, 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Ashish Nehra, 10 Pradeep Sangwan, 11 Dirk Nannes/Glenn McGrathThe calls for Mashrafe Mortaza’s inclusion have only got stronger, at least going by feedback received by Cricinfo. But with three overseas players virtually picking themselves, Mortaza’s only realistic chance of getting a game is as a replacement for Moises Henriques, though the allrounder didn’t do too badly with the bat in his last game, scoring 30 off 24 balls. David Hussey has been cleared by Cricket Australia to play but if he comes in, Brad Hodge may have to make way.Kolkata Knight Riders (probable) 1 Morne van Vyk (wk), 2 Brendon McCullum (capt), 3 Brad Hodge/David Hussey, 4 Sourav Ganguly, 5 Wriddhiman Saha, 6 Moises Henriques/Mashrafe Mortaza, 7 Laxmi Ratan Shukla, 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Murali Kartik, 10 Ashok Dinda, 11 Ishant Sharma

Stats and trivia

Morne van Vyk has the highest average (83.50) in the tournament for a batsman who has played four innings or more.McCullum has hit three fours and five sixes in eight games. In one game alone, he managed 10 fours and 13 sixes and that was during his whirlwind 158 in Bangalore. That’s a lot of catching up to do.

Head-to-head

The current head to head stands at 1-1. Shoaib Akhtar stole the attention at the Eden Gardens but the return match in Delhi was washed out. Delhi evened the score with a nine-wicket win in Durban.

The record-holding umpire Steve Bucknor has bowed out of Test cricketwith an appeal of his own: leave the decision-making in the hands ofthe on-field officials. Bucknor, 62, completed his 128th and finalTest on Sunday, when South Africa wrapped up an innings defeat againstAustralia in Cape Town.The three-Test series was the first time Bucknor had been involved inthe player referral system and there were plenty of tight calls thatthe TV umpires were asked to officiate on over the past month. Bucknorsaid he had no qualms about experimenting with the system but feltit should be the standing umpires, not the players, who send decisionsupstairs for review.”We know when the decisions are tough and marginal – we know,” Bucknorsaid. “I believe that we are the ones who should be going up there tosay, ‘third umpire, have a look at this, it is marginal’, because …when a team has used its two referrals, that is when they have failedtwice, they have no more.”So the umpires still can make mistakes and these mistakes could becostly. I have nothing against the experiments but we know when thedecisions are tight. And rather than having a team not capitalising… because they have used all their referrals, I hope that later onit should be the umpires asking rather than the players.”Bucknor said it was a surprising and joyful moment when he walked onto the field for what would turn out to be his final session of Testcricket and received a guard of honour from both teams. As he lingeredon the Newlands ground after South Africa’s victory late in the day,the realisation began to kick in that it was the end of a 20-year Testcareer.”There was a sense of sadness walking around the field because I knewthat that was the last time setting foot on a Test field,” Bucknorsaid. “But not necessarily coming here this morning. I came here thismorning, I came to work and I was prepared to work today and tomorrow.When it was over, that’s when the sadness came in, to know thatthere’s not going to be any more.”After the South Africans won the game with ten minutes to spare on thefourth day, Bucknor knelt on the pitch and offered a prayer. It was atouching moment that highlighted the humility of Bucknor, a devoutChristian who reads from the Bible each morning.”I was giving thanks,” he said. “I’m a believer and I said ‘thank-youLord, you have taken me through, and it all seems to have gone well’.”No umpire has stood in more Tests than Bucknor and it will take sometime to catch up to him; the next on the list is Rudi Koertzen, who with 99Tests to his name needs to stand in a further 30 matches to passBucknor. The final international appearances for Bucknor will beduring the ODIs between West Indies and England in Barbados thisFriday and Sunday.

A three-day break between hard-fought Test matches is the ultimatetest of endurance for young cricketers and Australia have plenty ofthose. Men like Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle and Phillip Hughes aremore accustomed to the longer lay-offs separating four-day domesticgames and on a fast, bouncy Durban pitch their stamina will beseriously examined when the second Test begins on Friday.Adding to the difficulty is that Siddle and Hilfenhaus both leftJohannesburg with minor injuries – Siddle had a problem with his leftfoot and Hilfenhaus with his back. Both men bowled in the Kingsmeadnets on Thursday and neither appeared seriously troubled but thechallenge of surviving for five days of Test cricket will require notonly physical but also mental toughness.”It’s not (Sheffield) Shield where you’ve got a couple of weeks break betweengames,” the captain Ricky Ponting said. “It’s all back on you againand you can’t get carried away with what you did last week or thinkthe game’s going to be easy and think it’s going to flow on becauseit’s not like that. They’re the things we are going toaddress with those guys.”One thing we do know about the South Africans is they’ll be verywell-planned. We know that they’ll be ready for us so it’s about thoseguys now taking the next step as well and lifting their own games andmaking sure that last week wasn’t just a one-off performance for them.One Test match doesn’t mean a series, it doesn’t mean a career.”However, a win in Durban would mean the series for Australia and itwould mean a superb start to the careers of several of Australia’snewest players. South Africa’s coach Mickey Arthur has spokenof how his men will attack Australia’s young opener Hughes and themore experienced first-class player Marcus North having learnt moreabout their styles in Johannesburg.North and Hughes both starred with the bat on debut at the Wandererswhile their fellow debutant Hilfenhaus and the inexperienced Testplayers Siddle and Andrew McDonald made important contributions withthe ball. South Africa’s captain Graeme Smith was disappointed withhow little pressure his men applied on Australia’s new faces and he ishoping his team can turn the young Australians’ tour into anup-and-down trip.”I think it’s something that we can exploit,” Smith said. “The onlyway we can exploit that is if we play to our potential. If we reallyare disciplined we can create a lot of pressure on them. That’s somethingwe never really did in Johannesburg, we maybe did it in short bursts but weweren’t able to sustain it for the period that we did in Australiaand last year.”That was a bit frustrating from our perspective because we know we’recapable of that. Sustaining that pressure on them from ball one righttill the end is the only way you’re going to really see ifthey can handle it or not. If we allow them to play the way they know,then they’re just going to go about it and probably not have thefear.”South Africa are hoping to have a more complete attack than inJohannesburg, where Jacques Kallis battled a back injury and wasrestricted to bowling 13 overs for the match. Smith said he wasexpecting a strong contribution from Kallis in Durban.”He’s progressed really nicely,” Smith said. “I’m pretty comfortable.Yesterday he came through his 20 or 30 balls in the nets very well andhe’s made it through a day of batting so I’m pretty comfortable withwhere he is and I think he’ll get through the Test match fine.”Australia would also like to call on one of their star batsmen forsome overs at Kingsmead, where they are unlikely to use a specialistspinner. Michael Clarke’s back problem meant he was unable to bowl inJohannesburg but Ponting said there was no way he would be able tokeep Clarke away from the bowling crease any longer.”Pup (Clarke) was keen to have a bowl during the last Test match actually,”Ponting said. “I had to tell him not to, just to cool his heels therefor a while. We’ve got some match-ups that we think Michael Clarkewill work well against. We’ll keep those to ourselves but you mightsee him have a bowl in this game at some stage. He’ll certainly be fitenough now.”The main question for Australia is whether that last statement appliesto every member of their side. A young and inexperienced team thatdeserved praise for Monday’s victory is about to be given its hardesttest yet.

A hint of Gordon
Sulieman Benn had a fine game. Not content with taking plenty of wickets he then showed he is no pushover with the bat, in a valuable stand with Brendan Nash. One shot, early on the fourth morning, stood out when he effortlessly flicked Stuart Broad over the square-leg boundary for six. The way he played it, on one leg with rapid bat speed, had more than hint of Gordon Greenidge about it and it got the home supporters jumping.A breakthrough in every sense
Broad needed a haul to settle himself into Test cricket. In his 10 previous Tests he’d never managed more than three wickets in an innings, so it was a key moment for him when he had Benn taken at point off a loose drive. Broad is a work-in-progress, but England are keen to see him develop as swiftly as possible because he brings extra skills to the side with his batting and fielding. With four scalps under his belt he then got his first ‘statistical’ haul when Nash was caught behind, and his first five-fer was in the bag.TV pictures, human error
Another day, another controversial moment for the TV umpire. Daryl Harper will be quite happy to vacate his seat after this Test. This time the issue was that there was evidence that Tony Hill – yes, sadly it was him again – had made an error in giving Daren Powell out, caught down the leg side. Replays showed daylight between bat and ball, yet Harper decided there wasn’t enough evidence to overrule Hill. The consensus around the ground was he hadn’t hit it and the debate rumbles on.In, out, in
West Indies wanted early wickets and the tone was set when Alastair Cook pushed lazily at a full ball from Jerome Taylor. Devon Smith, though, at second slip did his best to drop it, parrying the ball to his right before lunging after it and grabbing the second attempt. He did remarkably well to hold himself together and West Indies set off on what would be the first of many celebration sprints.Pure Caribbean
Jerome Taylor will never forget this day, and he may never bowl a better ball than the late, full outswinger that castled Kevin Pietersen. It was his first delivery after lunch, but there was no thought of a loosener. The ball began on a path to middle and Pietersen shaped to whip it through midwicket. But then, at the last minute, it straightened and beat his closing face to send the off stump cartwheeling back towards the wicketkeeper. It was the type of dismissal that lit up the Caribbean during the 1980s and West Indies were finding a new generation of heroes.Light relief
The Barmy Army resorted to singing Monty Python’s , the old staple of many an England collapse, and one moment of small relief came when Andrew Flintoff thumped Sulieman Benn for a boundary in the 28th over. Such had been England’s struggle that it was the first four of the innings, however it was laced with the forlornness that had enveloped much of the visitors’ effort.Party time
It’s been a decent few months for Chris Gayle; a million-dollar winner in the Stanford tournament and now this memorable victory. He enjoyed himself a little too much at Sabina Park five years ago, but this time he is perfectly entitled to let his hair down. “I went into the party stand and got into a bit of trouble,” he said. “But I’ll be going over there today.” After his efforts over the four days of this Test no one will begrudge him.

England’s Test series in South Africa at the end of the year will feature four Tests instead of the anticipated five, after an agreement was reached between the ECB and Cricket South Africa to relieve the fixture congestion that is building up for the two teams next year.The tour will now consist of two Twenty20 internationals in Johannesburg and Centurion, followed by five ODIs and four Tests at Centurion, Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. England will arrive in the country on November 7, and fly home on January 19.”We are grateful to colleagues and friends in South Africa who have worked with us to provide what we believe is an exciting and well-balanced tour,” said Hugh Morris, the ECB’s director of England cricket. “It makes good sense to start with the ODIs given the schedule of cricket that we have in September, October and November 2009.”The decision to drop a Test match for scheduling reasons will undoubtedly cause ructions, especially in light of the recent decision to allow England’s players a three-week window to play in the IPL in April and May. Paul Collingwood who, barring injury, would expect to be involved in all forms of the game from now until the end of that tour, yesterday told reporters in St Kitts that players have no right to moan about their workload in their current financially lucrative climate.England’s next 12 months, however, will include home-and-away series against West Indies, possible stints with the IPL, the ICC World Twenty20 and the Ashes, as well as a host of one-day events including the rescheduled Champions Trophy that had been meant to take place in Pakistan last September. Logistically, something had to give.Nevertheless, as CSA’s general manager Brian Basson pointed out, by breaking from the standard practice of holding the ODIs after the Test series, the itinerary makes best use of the time constraints, and ensures that the marquee event – the Test series – will remain in its rightful position at the height of the South African summer.”The format of the tour itinerary depicts a departure from the norm,” said Basson, “but given the rigid constraints of the Future Tours Programme, it was necessary to do so in order to distribute all of the Pro20 and ODI matches at all Test venues during appropriate time slots, whilst simultaneously retaining the traditional peak holiday periods for the scheduling of Test matches.”Further advantages of the format are that the ICC Champions Trophy precedes the England tour, and the Proteas tour to India scheduled at the conclusion of the tour will commence with the staging of Test matches.”Morris was sure that the agreed itinerary would suit all parties. “The four Test matches are scheduled for iconic grounds of South Africa,” he said, “and I am sure that thousands of England supporters will be looking forward to spending their Christmas and New Year holidays following the team.”The four Tests will begin on December 16 in Centurion, followed by the traditional Boxing Day Test in Durban, which has been reinstated after the 2007 match against West Indies was held at Port Elizabeth.The New Year Test is once again scheduled for Cape Town, although the match is due to start a day later than usual, on January 3, to allow a longer recovery period between matches. The series will then be concluded at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on January 14-18.

Mumbai 19 for 0 trail Himachal Pradesh 250 (Sarandeep Singh 75, Mannu 61, Nayar 6-45) by 231 runs
Scorecard

Abhishek Nayar starred with a six-wicket haul to bowl out Himachal Pradesh (HP) for a below-par 250 after the opening day’s play in Ahmedabad. HP were strangled by Nayar’s triple-strike late in the first session before a rearguard from Ajay Mannu and Sarandeep Singh extricated them from a precarious 74 for 5. However, on a slow, unresponsive track, Mumbai hold all the aces and can be expected to take a handy first-innings lead.After being sent in, HP’s openers provided a solid start, reaching 50 without loss before Nayar struck; his wicket-to-wicket line paid off as he claimed two lbw victims. Dhawal Kulkarni too got into the act with a double-strike to further jolt HP before Sarandeep and Mannu started the repair job. The pair’s 101-run partnership lent some respectability to the total but another slide started when off-spinner Ramesh Powar got rid of Mannu. Nayar returned to get rid of Sarandeep and ran through the tail to finish with career-best figures.Uttar Pradesh 242 for 6 (Raina 93, Parvinder Singh 53*) v Gujarat
Scorecard
Suresh Raina hit 93 to push Uttar Pradesh to 242 for 6 after being put into bat by Gujarat in Vadodara. However, Gujarat will be happy with the end-of-the-day situation as UP were sitting pretty at 108 for 1 at one stage.After the early loss of the in-form Tanmay Srivastava, Raina combined with the opener Shivakant Shukla to take UP to a healthy position. However, the run-outs of Shukla and Mohammad Kaif hampered their progress. Raina, who has a solitary fifty this season, hit 12 fours and four sixes in a 172-ball stay, but fell to Ashraf Makda to leave UP in more trouble at 160 for 4. Parvinder Singh then scored a patient unbeaten fifty to ensure Gujarat didn’t run away with the game.Medium-pacer Siddharth Trivedi and off-spinner Mukund Parmar didn’t do much damage but Makda chipped in with two wickets to keep Gujarat in the hunt.
ScorecardRavindra Jadeja continued his magnificent form to restrict Karnataka and help Saurashtra gain the upper hand on the opening day of their quarter-final clash. In a marathon 30-over spell of accurate and incisive left-arm spin Jadeja bagged his fourth five-for of the season which included three wickets in seven balls to overshadow Robin Uthappa’s brilliant century. At stumps R Vinay Kumar remained unbeaten on 22 after partnering Sunil Joshi in a 40-run eighth-wicket stand that frustrated Saurashtra. Read full report here.
Scorecard
Manoj Tiwary hit an attractive century to propel Bengal to 292 for 5 on a flat track at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. Tiwary stitched together a 127-run partnership with Dibyendu Chakrabarty to lift Bengal from 131 for 4 towards a position of relative strength. However, on a batting beauty Bengal need at least 400 to put Tamil Nadu under pressure. Read full report here.

Top officials associated with the Champions Twenty20 League will discuss on Friday whether the postponed tournament can be held in early 2009, but the prospects of the inaugural edition being squeezed in a packed international schedule “look dim”.The event, originally due to take place from December 3-10 in India, was put off after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Subsequent discussions among the BCCI, Cricket South Africa and Cricket Australia – the three founding partners – focused on identifying a possible window in January or February with India remaining the hosts.However, the home and away series between Australia and South Africa, and the concurrent domestic Twenty20 competitions in those countries, have made it virtually impossible to obtain a window. Apparently, those games are locked in and local broadcasters are not keen on a schedule-revision at this stage.The other hitch is that the BCCI is yet to get a final word from the Indian government on the team’s tour of Pakistan, starting January 4. Although the tour looks highly unlikely, given the current political climate in both countries, the absence of a formal decision has meant that there are now too many variables surrounding the Champions League.In such a scenario, the one possible solution is to push back the tournament’s ten-year cycle by a year and hold the inaugural edition in October 2009, during the dates that were identified for the second season. It is understood that there is a provision for such an adjustment in the organisers’ arrangement with ESPN-Star Sports (ESS), the broadcasters, though it would mean teams would have to qualify afresh for the tournament.While officials associated with the tournament insist the final picture will emerge only after the teleconference, an official from one of the participating teams admitted that that he saw “very little hope” of the tournament being held in January or February.There is US$6 million on offer during the tournament for participating teams, which includes the domestic Twenty20 finalists from India, South Africa and Australia. Middlesex and Sialkot Stallions, the domestic Twenty20 champions from England and Pakistan, were the other teams invited to participate in the first edition. The eight teams were also assured of a participation fee of US$250,000.

ScorecardAfter a first day when 16 wickets fell, Himachal Pradesh took the honours in Rohtak on the second, bowling out Haryana for 98 in the first innings and ending the day at 185 for 4 – a lead of 200. Vikramjeet Malik, the right-arm medium bowler, who took five wickets on the first day, finished with figures of 6 for 43, while Ashok Thakur and Sarandeep Singh took two wickets each. Only four Haryana batsmen reached double figures, with Nitin Saini top-scoring with 20.Himachal Pradesh put on a better show with the bat in their second innings, with Paras Dogra, who was not out on 61, getting involved in two half-century partnerships, adding 65 for the fourth wicket with Bhavin Thakkar, and an unbeaten 51 for the fifth with Mukesh Sharma.
ScorecardKerala came back strongly on day two in Palakkad to restrict Goa to 460 after they finished on 328 for 3 the previous day. They were then rescued by an unbeaten stand of 89 for the third wicket between Vasudevan Jagdeesh and Sreekumar Nair, after losing two early wickets, to end at 107 for 2 at stumps.Goa began well, with Swapnil Asnodkar, who top-scored with 191, and Ajay Ratra, who made 131, adding 60 more runs to their overnight partnership of 193. But Sony Cheruvathur, broke the partnership, and took a further four wickets in the day, to finish with figures of 6 for 96, as Goa lost seven wickets for 72 runs.
ScorecardA 132-run stand between Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Devendra Bundela for the third wicket helped Madhya Pradesh consolidate their dominant position in Indore on the second day, after they had bowled out Vidarbha for 217 on the first.Kanitkar and Bundela came together with the score on 92, and hit 21 fours between them. However, they both fell to Harshal Shitoot, the offspinner, within a space of five runs. Vidarbha may feel they have just about weakened the advantage held by Madhya Pradesh, taking one more wicket, that of Brijesh Tomar for 26, before the end of the day’s play, as the hosts were 299 for 5 at stumps, a lead of 82.
ScorecardTripura were on top at the end of the second day in Delhi after bowling out Services for 138 to gain a lead of 85. The Tripura bowlers made frequent inroads, preventing any partnership from exceeding 25 runs. Just three Services batsmen reached double-figures, with Tahir Khan top-scoring with 52. Abhijit was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3 for 16, and was ably assisted by spinners Jayanta Debnath and Tushar Saha, who took two wickets each. Tripura, in their second innings, faced just one over, without losing a wicket.Earlier, Tripura managed to add just 17 runs to their overnight score of 206 for 7, as Rakesh Kumar and Shuvra Karmakar took the three remaining scalps, to finish with five wickets each.

Australia’s reserve opener Phil Jaques was due to leave the tour of India onFriday after succumbing to a long-standing back problem. Jaques, whopartnered Matthew Hayden throughout the 2007-08 season, was overlooked for thefirst Test in Bangalore when the selectors preferred Simon Katich.Jaques is the second squad member to make an early departure following Bryce McGain’sreturn with a shoulder problem before the first Test. Andrew Hilditch, thechairman of selectors, said a decision would be made over the next fewdays on whether to send for a replacement.Brad Hodge, a regular tourist with Australia, has started the domesticseason with two centuries for Victoria while David Hussey and Shaun Marshwill also be considered. If Australia’s bowlers perform poorly in thesecond Test in Mohali the selectors may consider parachuting AndrewSymonds back into the side to provide an extra spin option. However, aSymonds comeback is dependent on factors other than form following hissuspension from the team before the Bangladesh contest.Alex Kountouris, the team physiotherapist, said Jaques would see aspecialist after landing in Australia. “Phil has had a long-standingproblem with his lower back that has been manageable up until now,” hesaid. “The point has come where the injury is significantly limiting hisability to play.”