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Michael Hussey shook off his fears over a short Test lead-up to register his sixth Test century and continue an impressive rebuild of Australia’s team after the loss of three greats. A torn hamstring suffered in the World Twenty20 limited Hussey’s preparation to a first-class game for Western Australia, but he was not hampered by his body or lack of play as he set up a massive total with Michael Clarke.”I was a little concerned,” Hussey said. “I’d done a lot of batting in the nets and had one game against Victoria, but nothing can really prepare you for a Test. I was quite relieved to score a hundred.”Hussey’s 245-run partnership with Clarke allowed Ricky Ponting to declare at 4 for 551 and ensured a smooth transition after the side lost Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer after its previous Test in January. Despite the strength of the position, Hussey was cautious about the state of game – “It’s just a start” – but was more confident about the prospects of improvement from the regenerating squad.”You can’t replace champions, but we’re still trying to raise the bar again and that comes down to the guys working collectively to raise their own games and our team to keep growing,” he said. “But it’s a lot different not having Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath around.”Hussey has quickly developed into a great international player and his 133 was the spine of the innings. On reaching three figures he waved to his family in the stands, where his daughter Molly, who was born prematurely in May, was attending her first Test. “I don’t think she’ll know too much about it,” he said, “hopefully she slept most of the day.”If she watched she would have seen her father excelling against one of the game’s greatest spinners. Hussey’s plan against Muttiah Muralitharan was to stay in the crease while Clarke was prepared to use his feet during his unbeaten 145. Clarke was picking the doosra “sometimes” – “I’m definitely not saying yes or I’ll get stumped next time” – and felt the duo did a good job against Muralitharan.”We played him pretty well,” he said. “I was looking for the ball to come out of his hand differently and trying to get to him on the full so it didn’t get a chance to spin.”A year ago Clarke was feeling his way back into the team and now he is entrenched after three centuries in his past five Tests. “I don’t think too much has changed, I still try to be as positive as I can,” he said. “My shot selection has probably improved and I’ve grown up a bit.”Australia’s day got better in the final 16 overs after Brett Lee struck twice, although Hussey warned things might not be as easy on day three. “The wicket has flattened out,” he said, “and we’re going to have to work hard to prise out the Sri Lankans.”

As fitness tests go, it was unconventional but effective. All week long, Ryan Sidebottom has been struggling to recover from the grade one hamstring tear that ruled him out of England’s final warm-up match in Dunedin, but with six deliveries in the nets at Hamilton’s Seddon Park, he confirmed that, come Wednesday morning, he’ll be ready to resume his new-ball role.Granted, the over was a sideshow as the target was the team’s security advisor, Reg Dickerson, who has been so under-employed on this sleepy trip that it was decided his own safety should be put on the line. But Sidebottom’s zip and swing were very much in evidence, as was his snarl of frustration when his prey avoided dismissal, as all doubts about his fitness were allayed.”I’m fighting fit and available for selection,” said Sidebottom. Earlier in the afternoon he had been put through an exhaustive series of shuttle runs by the team physio, Kirk Russell, and later returned to the nets for a proper work-out. “It’s a bit of relief because it’s a worry when you get injured, but I’m not getting on the plane home so I’m happy with that and I’m raring to go now.”The New Zealand series will be the culmination of a remarkable year for Sidebottom, who wasn’t even a blip on the international radar during the dying days of Duncan Fletcher’s England regime. But then last May came the new coach, Peter Moores, and within the month, he’d recalled from the wilderness a man whose only previous Test had come six years previously, at Lord’s in 2001.And for that, ironically, Sidebottom owes a debt of gratitude to Stephen Fleming, his captain at Nottinghamshire, who is now chief among his targets for the Test series. It was a phone call to Fleming from Moores’ deputy, Andy Flower, that set the chain of events in motion. “I had to give him an honest appraisal of Ryan’s bowling,” said Fleming, “and that killed me because I knew if I told them how good he was then he’d get taken away from us and he’d do bloody well for England. But I thought Ryan had been overlooked for too long.””He’s had some lovely words to say about me,” said Sidebottom after hearing of Fleming’s praise. “He’s a lovely bloke, a great character and a really nice man. For him to say those things about me is a great honour, and I’m looking forward to bowling at him. Hopefully I can knock him over.”New Zealand will be hoping that Fleming’s influence on Sidebottom is not too detrimental to their series prospects. “He’s a very positive captain, so I’m a lot more positive as well,” said Sidebottom. “He was always very attacking so that helped my bowling. He taught me to keep plugging away and never give up, because he always had the slips in so you had to bowl well and on the money more often than not. “So far, Fleming has been spot-on in his predictions. Sidebottom has been arguably England’s bowler of the year with 29 Test wickets at 32.27, and undoubtedly the unluckiest – innumerable chances have been missed off his bowling, not least by the former wicketkeeper Matt Prior, who has paid for his errors with his place in the side.The missed chances have been hard for Sidebottom to bear, especially on the pancake-flat decks at The Oval and Galle where he toiled lucklessly in consecutive series-deciders against India and Sri Lanka. “The lads keep going on about me having a bit of white-line fever, but aggression is part of my game,” said Sidebottom. “When I’m pumped up I’m bowling well. Sometimes go over the top and react too much so I know I’ve got to curb it a little bit, but sometimes you do get frustrated. You just have to get on with it, and keep bowling.”Happily for England, that is exactly what Sidebottom intends to do in the coming week. With England’s other injury concern, Paul Collingwood, also coming through practice unscathed, the team is taking shape nicely with one day of practice to come.

Why was the CLT20 culled and what is the most significant impact?
The CLT20 was cancelled because of the lack of viability from a broadcaster’s perspective. An IPL insider revealed that the tournament was worth almost a billion dollars over ten years but the broadcasters failed to recover even a tenth of that.The biggest impact following the cancellation of the CLT20 will be felt by non-Indian domestic teams, who have lost out on a three-way income stream. Non-Indian teams in the tournament received participation fees of US$500,000 per team, prize money and US$150,000 per player who chose to turn out for his IPL team instead of his domestic team, in the event that both qualified.”The CLT20 was a cash cow for international teams,” the source told ESPNcricinfo. “For a team like T&T, when a Samuel Badree or Dwayne Bravo is playing for other teams, the money they receive from them would change things immediately. The CLT20 was a game-changer for other teams around the world given the sheer amount of money.”

Impact on respective boards

BCCI
Of the three stakeholders – the BCCI, CA and CSA – the Indian board and its teams are the best off. The BCCI will receive US$190 million – more than half the $330 million settlement between the three boards and the broadcaster Star India – and the IPL teams will no longer have to spend thousands of dollars for retaining overseas players for the CLT20. “For Indian franchises, most of the amount would be spent towards retaining the services of a Pollard or de Villiers,” the source said.Cricket Australia
CA is the next biggest beneficiary. It will receive US$80 million following the closure of CLT20 and has a television rights deal to cushion it against other loss. Cricket Australia made somewhere in the region of US$25 million in each edition of the Champions League, and in the early seasons of the Big Bash League, it was this money that allowed the BBL project head Mike McKenna to say “domestic Twenty20 operations” were running at a profit.The broadcast networks, Channel Nine and Channel Ten, alleviated CA’s reliance on this revenue in 2013. The deal with Channel Ten for the BBL alone is worth $20 million per season, while Nine’s investment of $500 million over five years also strengthened the board’s position and the funds that could be doled out to the states and their BBL teams.Cricket South Africa
The South African board will receive US$60 million from the settlement but its franchises, who operate as separate companies to the national body, are concerned about their own affairs. CSA will split the participation fees of the two teams who took part in the tournament between all six of their franchises, who received R350,000 (US$28.778) a year.Several franchise CEOs described the funds coming in from CLT20 as “essential”, because the income-earning opportunities for South African franchises are limited. “The participation money from the CLT20 is worth more than we get in prize money for winning a domestic tournament,” Nabeal Dien, CEO of Cobras, said. For turning up in the CLT20, teams receive the equivalent of R2.4 million (US$200,000). In comparison, South Africa’s first-class competition carries a total prize money of R2 million (US 166,666).West Indies Cricket Board
The West Indies Cricket Board loses between $300,000 and 400,000 as a whole from the tournament being cancelled. A major portion, over 65% of the money they would earn from the CLT20 was channelled towards development in the territories with the remainder retained by the board.The WICB was also concerned about the impact on domestic teams. “It’s what funds the region will be devoid of, not the board. Everything does not just go in the WICB coffers as that money has to be shared,” Michael Muirhead, CEO of WICB said. “You can’t just say what money the board will be missing out on.” He estimated that the funds that “the region” would no longer be privy to could be around “a couple hundreds of thousands of US Dollars.”Sri Lanka Cricket
For Sri Lanka, where the board owns all the franchises, the effect will be felt at national level. The SLC received the US$500,000 participation fee plus the amounts from players retained by IPL franchises. Around 5% of this money went into operational costs, another 5% to the players and the remaining 90% into SLC coffers.

Never mind what Brian Lara, Ken Gordon, Bennett King and their assortment of public relations specialists and agents have said, it matters not one iota whether Bangladesh were easily brushed aside yesterday or if England are hammered tomorrow in the last of the Super Eights matches.The fact that West Indies rallied from 8 for 2 to reach 230 for 5 against Bangladesh is almost inconsequential, except that Ramnaresh Sarwan’s unbeaten 91 reinforced his value as a batsman to complement what should now be his inevitable appointment as captain for the tour of England.All of the references to these two matches being important in getting back on track and shifting the focus to the next campaign are just so much repetitive rubbish. Go back to almost every series, home or away, in recent years and the mindless mantra has been the same. The impression is always created that things will be better next time around and that instead of harping on the negatives and moaning about the latest debacle, we should cast our eyes optimistically to the next challenge.Well, baseless optimism and the absence of real accountability has brought us right where we are: used, abused and humiliated under the whip of the ICC and their minions in the Local Organising Committee’s (LOCs), bundled out of what was laughingly described as “our” World Cup even before the last two Super Eights matches, a fractured, underperforming team, a technical staff incapable of insisting on any sort of standard, and an administration preoccupied with all sorts of silver-tongued public relations foolishness in the midst of almost irreversible decay.Here is the evidence on the field: no Test series victory anywhere in the world for the last three years; not a single Test match win since June 2005, since which time the West Indies have played 15 Tests; elimination in the first phase of the 1999 and 2003 World Cups, while getting to the second stage of the current tournament has only exposed us to more embarrassing whippings than were experienced in those two previous events combined.The saving grace has been the Champions Trophy, where the West Indies were champions in 2004 and beaten finalists last year, which merely reinforces that we have the talent to succeed, but lack the wherewithal to triumph in the extended contests and over the long haul. This has been the modern story of West Indies cricket. And the media and the fans are to blame for it? Give me a break. The blame would be that the media are too superficial in the analysis of issues, while the fans are so very desperate for success and so very willing to forgive this lot that they cling hopefully to an unfounded belief that, sooner rather than later, every little thing will be alright.We have passed this way many times in the last decade, but once again, here is the chance to make a fundamental change. Those who talk a good game, but deliver practically nothing, should do the decent thing and step aside.In hesitating over such apparently drastic action, we should consider for a moment the frequent cautionary advice that things will only get worse if a wholesale house-cleaning is undertaken. Worse than this? You can’t be serious.I had spoken about how change for change’s sake since 1995 has made no difference. Now, though, we should consider real change: not replacing one for another of like mind, but installing personnel who will abide by a code of conduct, on the field and off it, that rewards performance, commitment and integrity and is not compromised by expediency and convenience when it comes to dealing with those – in the dressing room or the boardroom – who make a habit of stepping out of line.

Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene has said that if his country was to make any headway in the Twenty20 format, the Sri Lankan cricket authorities must plan out a proper structure for it domestically.”Twenty20 is something unique and provides a lot of challenges to cricketers,” said Jayawardene. “If we are to go forward we need to play more Twenty20 cricket domestically at a highly competitive level, not just clubs competing with each other day in and day out.”We have to look into getting the best players involved and have a high quality tournament,” he said. “Twenty20 is going to be a part of the international calendar, so we need to develop specialist players for this type of game.”Jayawardene said that with every game Sri Lanka played in the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, they learnt a lot.”Hopefully we should get a few more good cricketers coming through this system who will be really good Twenty20 players. Guys who are in the middle should be able to handle tough situations, not panic, be cool-headed and have confidence in what they are doing and bat according to situations. Bowlers with a lot of talent and variation who can adapt to different conditions will also come into play.Jayawardene stated that it was disappointing that his team won only one of their three matches in the Super Eights, against Bangladesh, but had words of praise for his bowlers.”We started off very well and we had our chances, but we made a few mistakes especially in the batting department. We never batted to our potential. We tried to do too many things which were not in our control,” he told the . “If we had stuck to our strengths and batted accordingly we probably would have given a better account of ourselves.”He praised his bowlers’ performance at the Twenty20 event. “The bowlers bowled really well throughout the tournament. Even without Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan] they put their hands up and performed really well. Credit should go to them.”Jayawardene was of the opinion that the ICC would not allow Twenty20 to replace the fifty-over game.”Twenty20 has been brought in to get in more crowds for the game. We need to strike a proper balance between Test cricket, one-day cricket and Twenty20. That’s the right way to go about it. The more we play Twenty20 the more we get kids involved. It’s obviously good for the game, but the real challenge for individual professional cricketers would be Test cricket and one-day cricket to test their capabilities.”Twenty20 cricket will develop individual skills. It will improve the one-day version just as one-day cricket improved Test cricket – run-scoring became faster, and Tests became more interesting and result oriented. I’m sure Twenty20 will have the same impact on one-day cricket as well.”

Paras Dogra’s unbeaten 97 got Himachal Pradesh to 259 and then Vishal Bhatia took four wickets to bowl out Jharkhand 30 runs short of target in Visakhapatnam.Half-centuries from Sandeep Sharma and Manoj Sharma laid the platform for Paras’ 104-ball innings which included six fours and two sixes. Paras and Manvinder Bisla added 53 for the fourth wicket but the middle order didn’t push home the advantage. The last six wickets fell for 65 runs. But in the end the target set by Himachal was more than enough.Ishank Jaggi (55) led Jharkhand’s chase along with Saurabh Tiwary (40) and the two added 72 together before Jaggi was caught and bowled by Sarandeep Singh. When Tiwary was caught behind off Bhatia, Jharkhand needed 138 off 131 balls to win. Bhatia then removed Amir Hashmi and Santosh Lal in two consecutive overs and Jharkhand required 102 off 83 balls with four wickets in hand. The last four only managed to add 71 more.In the second match in Visakhapatnam, Tamil Nadu scored a six-wicket win over Madhya Pradesh after they bowled them out for 189 and chased the target with more than eight overs left.Shadab Khan top scored for MP with 39 and his 53-run stand with Murtaza Ali was the only one of any significance in the innings. Tamil Nadu gave eight of their players a chance to bowl and C Ganapathy, R Ashwin and S Badrinath picked up two wickets each. L Balaji, returning to competitive cricket after one and a half years, took 1 for 31 in his 7.2 overs.Badrinath hit an unbeaten 79 and added 62 with S Vidyut to take Tamil Nadu to an easy win.

Scorecard
Points table

Mathew Inness retired in style by bowling Western Australia to a 222-run victory over Tasmania at the WACA. The Tigers began the day still 336 short of their target with seven wickets in hand, but any thoughts of a dashing chase ended when they lost 3 for 5 in five overs before lunch.Inness picked up two of those wickets, George Bailey caught behind for 33 and Tim Paine bowled for 5, and he finished the job by trapping Tim Macdonald lbw to secure the win. It capped off a remarkable year for Inness, who collected 4 for 44 to take his season tally to 40 wickets at 20.12. Only Doug Bollinger and Ashley Noffke had more prolific campaigns than Inness, who was overlooked for every match last summer.After Paine departed Tasmania were 6 for 161 and Luke Butterworth’s 79, which included four sixes, was the only bright spot as the defending champions ended their season in fourth place. Although Inness’ seven wickets were the most from any bowler during the game it was another retiree, Justin Langer, who was named Man of the Match for his first-innings 131.