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For a long time Trent Copeland’s lack of pace was held against him. Australia’s captain Michael Clarke now believes this very quality can aid the tourists in their pursuit of pressure and wickets against Sri Lanka in the first Test in Galle from Wednesday.Clarke and Greg Chappell, the selector on duty, have often spoken of “combinations” as they seek to establish the best XI with which to trouble the Sri Lankans. Copeland appeared an unlikely addition to the Test team when he departed from Sydney, considered behind at least Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle in the order of preference.But a match haul of 6 for 61 from 28 overs against Sri Lanka Board XI at P Sara Oval, while Siddle went wicketless and Johnson was rested, has all but vaulted Copeland into the team for Galle, and Clarke said the seamer’s tightness and lesser velocity would ideally complement the faster men.”It is very important, because what it allows you to do is build pressure from one end and attack a little bit more from the other,” Clarke said. “It’s a huge string to his bow to be honest and I think for the team, and I say this with the ultimate respect, it’s nearly like his lack of pace could be a really good thing for us.”He just nibbles and just wobbles the ball enough [so] that it doesn’t come onto the bat like Sidds, Ryano and Mitch, who are bowling 140kmh, [and] kiss the wicket and come on quite quick. There’s just enough nibble there; in this game, the attack we had, he complemented it very well I thought.”In February, Chappell had suggested there were players in the Sheffield Shield, who felt Copeland “might struggle to back it up this year” for New South Wales, a reference to the fact that few bowlers of medium pace can keep asking questions of opponents without being brazenly attacked. However Copeland’s lines have not wavered, proving that bounce and movement, as much as speed, are the keys to troubling good batsmen.”He did his thing, nothing more, nothing less,” Clarke said. “He managed to find the edge a few times, which is really nice, and as a captain it feels comforting to set fields to that type of bowling.”He got a few of the players out, who are going to be playing in the first Test, so that obviously helps. And I like that he hasn’t come in and tried to do too much. He’s done what he’s been doing for NSW for the last few years now. I think that takes courage, as a first-class player, when you come into the Australian team to not try and do anything different.”Difference was a more prominent theme as Clarke observed his slow bowlers Michael Beer and Nathan Lyon. Clarke spent considerable time shuffling his fields as he developed ways to attack and defend with two spinners he is not overly familiar with, and said he and the selectors had to decide which qualities they preferred.”They’re completely different bowlers,” Clarke said. “Lyon probably bowls with a lot more loop and gets a lot more shape. Beer bowls a bit faster and gets it into the wicket, so they’ve both got strengths. I thought Beery bowled really well when it started to spin a bit, especially to the left hander.”He could throw it into the rough and as we saw, a few balls went through the gate. I’m impressed with both of them. As a combination they’re very good together because they’re two completely different bowlers. If we have to pick one it’s going to be a tough selection.”Though Beer and Lyon were patchy in their performances and though Copeland, Harris and Johnson would all appear to have enough quality and adaptability to ask questions on Sri Lankan pitches, Clarke refused to rule out playing two spinners in Galle.”No way, I think it was good for both of them to play this game,” Clarke said. “I thought they bowled really well as a combination. You’ve just got to see the conditions, I think that’s probably the fairest way.”I need to see what the pitch is like and we the selectors need to work out what’s our best XI to try and win the game. That’s what is important to me – my goal is not to come here and have three draws. We are here to win the series so we’ve got to pick the best eleven players to win the game.”

Greg Chappell will remain on tour as Australia’s selector on duty ahead of the three Tests against Sri Lanka after discussions with James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive.Sutherland and Chappell cleared whatever shades of grey remained between them in Colombo on Tuesday to confirm that CA’s national talent manager would remain as the selector on tour in a caretaker capacity, despite being stripped of the role for the future as part of the restructures brought on by the Argus review.”Greg’s staying, Greg’s selector on duty and he’ll stay until whatever time we see appropriate,” Sutherland said before departing Colombo after the briefest of visits. “The approach we normally take with selector on duty is once we get into the Test series then we just see how things go and what’s needed on the ground here. Greg will be selector on duty through the Test series.”We just talked through the circumstances and he’s completely understanding of that and he’s an employee of CA and he fully understands, he’s absolutely committed to CA and he understands that’s in the best interests as well, and he’ll be fine.”Having spoken to the assembled Australian team on tour, including all coaches and support staff, Sutherland said none of his discussions indicated that Chappell would seek to leave the national talent manager’s role now it had been re-defined.”Absolutely no discussion about that, Greg is national talent manager and I’m on public record saying I can’t think of anyone in the world who is better credentialled than Greg Chappell to do the job,” Sutherland said.”I came over here just to have a chat to everyone, and what I see is a group of absolutely dead-set professionals, who are very focused on what they need to do in the immediate term to help the Australian cricket team win the current Test series. I don’t see there’s any distraction that we need to have any concerns about.”Michael Clarke, the Australian captain, had said after the final ODI against Sri Lanka that he was happy to take responsibility for selection, alongside the coach Tim Nielsen – himself unlikely to keep his job much longer – if Chappell chose to fly home.”I’m not bothered either way,” Clarke said. “If Greg stays fantastic, if Greg has to go back then obviously the coach and the captain are now selectors, we’ll have the communication with the selectors back home like there normally is, so either way I’m not really fussed to be honest.”The head of cricket operations, Michael Brown, himself moved to one side as one of the recommendations of the review, was in Colombo to manage the announcement of the findings and has been seen in animated conversation with Ricky Ponting and the former Sri Lanka coach Tom Moody, among others.Jamie Cox, the only remaining member of the selection panel who has not been given an immediate verdict on his future, had indicated that Chappell would stay on in Sri Lanka, as neither Cox nor the departing chairman, Andrew Hilditch, were intent on joining the tour in a caretaker capacity.Hilditch released a statement on the day of the review’s publication, indicating that his time as a member of the selection panel was effectively at an end.The elevation of the captain to an official selection position is only the subtlest of changes from the accepted norms of Australian cricket. Mark Taylor once described the dynamic between himself and the selectors to the then England captain Mike Atherton: “I don’t officially sit in on selection, but by and large they’ll let me take who I want.”Similarly, Clarke did not feel any great qualms about holding the role and talking to players about their inclusion or otherwise.”I understand what comes with it, but I think in regards to the players, they know the captain has some sort of input in the XI that take the field anyway,” he said. “Not in all decisions but he gets to at least voice his opinion. Being a selector will be quite similar, I don’t make or break the decision, I have my vote, and if I get outvoted, it doesn’t go that way.”The players understand the captain has always had somewhat of a say, obviously now being an official selector you’ll have a bit more of a say, but for me it’s about getting the best XI players we possibly can onto that field and we play our best cricket, it’s as simple as that. None of the decisions I make will ever be personal, it’ll be all about what’s best for the team and I’ve tried to do that from day one.”That process, in Test cricket at least, begins when Clarke speaks to Nielsen and Chappell about how to approach the warm-up match, balancing his prospective Test XI against those younger players, like the spin bowler Nathan Lyon, who he must get a decent sight of.”It’s a tough one, you can go one of two ways, either you can pick your Test team, or close to your Test team, and play that to try to get a bit of momentum as a team,” Clarke said, “but then you’ve also got to monitor where guys are at, the guys who’ve played all five one-dayers, and work out if you know your Test XI.”It is pretty important that we make that decision, I’d like to give the guys as much notice as possible and I believe we’ve got to do whatever’s right to get us 100% ready, day one of that Test match.”

West Indies Players’ Association (WIPA) has said two of its directors, Dave Kissoon and Michael Hall, will lead its negotiations with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) starting on Monday in Trinidad. The two bodies have had a long-standing dispute over player rights and remuneration and are trying to agree on revisions to the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which was signed in 2006 to provide a path to resolving the conflict. The current CBA, which governs the relationship between the WICB and WIPA, expires in September.Dinanath Ramnarine, the president and chief executive of WIPA, has usually been the face of the players’ body in its dealings with the WICB so far, but the board is reluctant to deal with him. The WICB accused Ramnarine of “unprofessional behaviour” during a meeting in June arranged to resolve the problem over Chris Gayle’s non-selection during the home season.”We want to aid the negotiation process and foster free discourse among the parties,” Ramnarine said. “We have appointed two independent and impartial leaders to head our team – Dave Kissoon and Michael Hall. We have done so with the hope that the WICB will also reciprocate and remove any existing barriers to successful negotiations.”Kisson is an attorney who has previously represented WIPA, and Hall is a former chief cricket operations officer of the WICB and the World Cup.

Mike Hesson, the former Otago Volts and New Zealand A coach, has been appointed the new coach of the Kenyan team for a two-year term. Hesson, 36, will fill the position vacated by Eldine Baptiste, who had stepped down after Kenya’s poor 2011 World Cup campaign.Cricket Kenya had conducted a performance review after the World Cup and chief executive Tom Sears had said there would be an extensive recruitment process to find a new coach. The result of that search was Hesson, who has been involved with coaching in Otago since 1996.Kenya lost all six group matches during the World Cup and a complete shake-up of the team followed, with captain Jimmy Kamande being sacked and several senior players missing out on central contracts, in addition to Baptiste’s resignation. They then lost six out of nine matches in the ICC Africa Region Division One Twenty20, albeit with a very young side.Hesson joins Kenya after a six-year spell as coach of Otago Volts, during which the team won the State Shield, the domestic 50-over competition in 2007-08 and the State Twenty20 in 2008-09. Hesson also coached New Zealand A, the New Zealand Emerging Players squad and spent time with Gloucestershire as an assistant coach.His first assignment with Kenya will be to prepare the side for the upcoming Intercontinental Cup matches against United Arab Emirates that start on July 25 in Nairobi. Kenya will play UAE in two one-day matches and a four-day game.”Mike has an excellent record of developing players and successful teams, and throughout the selection process [he] demonstrated a real desire and clear vision to take our national team forward,” Sears said. “As well as being a highly-skilled technical coach, he is an excellent communicator, something crucial to the role.”Hesson said he was attracted to the job by the clear drive Cricket Kenya had to revive the national team after recent disappointments. “Having spoken with Cricket Kenya’s key stakeholders during the selection process I was stimulated by the passion shown to drive Kenyan cricket forward. I am very much looking forward to this exciting new opportunity and working with the undoubted talent there is within Kenya.”

There was a peculiar atmosphere at the Rose Bowl on the eve of the third Test against Sri Lanka. The unfamiliarity of the venue contributed to a strange sense of detachment, as indeed did the persistent drizzle that limited the team’s practice and left players and journalists alike milling around in the pavilion foyer. For all the history that will be made on Thursday when England inaugurates its tenth Test venue, it was hard to escape the feeling that the summer had reached a hiatus – a calm before the Indian storm that is looming next month.No doubt the England team would wish to view this challenge differently, because as they’ve discovered to their cost in the past, any such notion tends to be corrosive, especially against opponents as traditionally under-estimated as Sri Lanka. After all, England have not beaten them in a Test series for the best part of a decade, and five years ago they came a cropper at the exact same stage of their three-match series, squandering a 1-0 lead as Muttiah Muralitharan tore through them at Trent Bridge.Nevertheless, as England welcome back their attack leader James Anderson after a side strain curtailed his game in Cardiff, Sri Lanka are facing up to the loss of their captain and leading run-scorer Tillakaratne Dilshan – with Kumar Sangakkara’s reluctant return to the helm adding a frisson of political intrigue to their preparations. They aren’t exactly a team in crisis just yet, but England have encountered happier tourists in recent years.From Andrew Strauss’s point of view, however, England are five days and 20 wickets from wrapping up a 2-0 series win, and nothing that has happened or been spoken since the end of the Lord’s Test need deflect them from their singular purpose – especially at a venue that has never before hosted a five-day contest, and will therefore involve a certain element of the unknown.”All our language throughout this series has been to not look too far ahead and not beyond each Test match,” said Strauss. “We come here with a good chance of finishing this series off on a high and winning 2-0, but Sri Lanka have shown enough in the first two games to show they are not a pushover by any means.”We’re going to have to work hard and both sets of players will have to adapt to the conditions here, which we’re not entirely sure how they are going to be,” he added. “In one sense home advantage of knowing the wicket here is slightly negated, so we’re going to have to work hard and earn the right to get on top.”Anderson’s impending return leaves England with a dilemma of sorts, given that one of the three pacemen who under-performed in the draw at Lord’s will have to make way in the starting XI. With 25 wickets in his last five Tests, Chris Tremlett’s position is secure for now, but neither Steven Finn nor Stuart Broad has anything like the same sort of job security.”It is always a tricky decision,” said Strauss. “I thought in the last game at Lord’s all our bowlers bowled some good spells at times, and some less good ones as well. We have to look at the wicket in the morning and decide what the best attack will be for this game, but this is a good position to be in. Even though we weren’t at our best at Lord’s, we had some good spells.”The probable man for the chop is Finn, who recovered from a shaky start to pick up four wickets in Sri Lanka’s first innings at Lord’s, but Broad’s recent Test form is the cause of some concern for the England management. A succession of injuries limited his participation in both the Ashes and the World Cup, and so far this series he has managed six wickets at 48.00, at a loose economy rate of 3.52.”We always want our bowlers to be taking wickets so from that point of view it is a concern, but he’s done a lot of good things,” said Strauss. “He’s gone past the bat a lot and the fact is we’ve got a good squad of bowlers and they’re all being pushed hard to make sure they keep performing.”The challenge for Stuart is to keep improving, but you also have to realise with bowlers that sometimes one guy will get the wickets, but the other bowls better. You have to look beyond how many wickets they’ve got, you have to look at how many balls they get in the right area.”The other man with a point to prove right now is the captain himself. Kevin Pietersen’s confident 72 at Lord’s alleviated the pressure on his position at No. 4, but with scores of 20, 4 and 0 in his three innings of the series to date, Strauss is aware that his own form is now under some scrutiny – especially after he was extracted by the left-armer Chanaka Welegedara in both his innings in the second Test.”I’m not sure it is right that someone is always under the spotlight, but that is the fact of it,” Strauss admitted. “I was frustrated with my returns at Lord’s, but it is the nature of the beast as an opening batsman. Sometimes you get a couple of good balls early.”But I’m very comfortable with my own game and I’m very comfortable with us as a batting unit, with six out of seven being in great fettle in the first two Tests. But now it is my turn to come to the party, there is no doubt about that.”Strauss’s batting form as England captain was exceptional in his first few outings, as he recorded four scores of 142 or more in eight Tests, including a matchwinning 161 against Australia at Lord’s in 2009. But since that innings he has reached a century on just one occasion in 33 attempts, despite passing fifty 11 times.”You can over-think these things a bit, but it is right I’ve scored a lot of fifties and not turned them into hundreds and that is something I’m determined to change,” he said. “[My conversion rate] has been one of my strengths and I need to find it again. As an opening batsman if you can get big hundreds then it sets the side up pretty well and that is the challenge for me.”But you’re never going to have all seven batsmen firing at the same time. That’s unrealistic,” he added. “I’ve just got to make are that I do everything I can to get back in the runs and get a hundred. This is Test cricket and there are hundreds of guys in county cricket who want your job, so you have to do everything you can to be successful.”

ScorecardDerbyshire’s hopes of tightening their grip on their County Championship match against Surrey at Derby were frustrated by rain.No play was possible on the second day after steady rain throughout the morning and afternoon left the umpires with no choice but to send the players home midway through the afternoon.There was no prospect of any cricket following the downpours in Derby and with no sign of any improvement, Michael Gough and Trevor Jesty bowed to the inevitable at 3pm.At least the forecast is better for the third day when Derbyshire will resume in a healthy position on 375 for 7, with a good chance of taking maximum batting points for the second game running.

Big Picture

The Delhi Daredevils are dealing with a cliche – the “point to be proved.” Or maybe that should be a theory to put to the test. Delhi’s IPL formula rests on the belief that Twenty20 is not won on stardom or even high-quality skills. It depends simply on men who can seize not merely the day, but moments and use their individual abilities to short bursts of impact. The reshuffling of players in the auction left the two-time semi-finalists minus not only their big names but also Delhi’s own “catchment area” first-class stalwarts. What Delhi are now left with then is a motley crew of outsiders and allrounders. What they are led by, however, is the one man who represents both Delhi-ness and daredevilry, captain Virender Sehwag. What Delhi would want to work to their advantage is having more than bits-and-pieces options in the many ‘bits-and-pieces’ men on their payroll.

Key players

Don’t stop the press, (or the tuk-tuk), but Delhi’s campaign will begin – but hope it won’t end – with Sehwag. All that talk about batting 50 overs in the World Cup, has now turned into quick Viru-style bites: 20 overs and off ya go. The Sehwag-David Warner partnership would want to be the platform-setter for the middle order that has veteran battlers like Venugopal Rao and Sridharan Sriram to follow.

Big name in

Morne Morkel with his pace, height, and now close familiarity with Indian conditions, having had a little wander around India during the World Cup. With quality all-round Indian talent being in short supply, the choice of Irfan Pathan, new and improved, leaner and fitter, could become Delhi’s trump card.

Big name out

Not merely one but several: Gautam Gambhir, Tillakaratne Dilshan, AB deVilliers, Daniel Vettori, Paul Collingwood and Dirk Nannes. Delhi’s auction plans were built around the argument that they would only retain – read spend money on – players who could win them at least half a dozen games on their own. Given that IPL teams can only feature four overseas players in an XI, that pretty much cleaned Delhi’s cupboard of the stars.

Below the radar

If Delhi have to find a Daredevil from their largely unheralded cast, it would have to come from one of the Twenty20 specialists they have signed on from overseas. Not big names, but the team hopes big impact, from Aussies liked Aaron Finch and James Hopes, and South African Robert Frylinck. Keep an eye out for two local teenagers, 17-year-old batsman Unmukt Chand and 18-year-old left-arm spinner Vikas Mishra.

Last three seasons

Delhi have been one of the most consistent teams in the IPL. They have evaded the wild swings of fortune that made the Rajasthan Royals’ the first season’s celebration men, or kept the Kolkata Knight Riders in the news or gave the Deccan Chargers their Season 2 fairy-tale. They made the semi-finals in the first two seasons, and were beaten for a spot in the 2010 semis by Deccan Chargers on net run-rate. With an unstarry cast, other than Sehwag and Warner, maybe this is the year that Delhi could finally go full stretch.

Scorecard
Holland, conquerors of Yorkshire and Derbyshire in their first two ClydesdaleBank 40 games this season, went within two runs of making it a remarkable treblebefore Middlesex clung to their 100% record at Lord’s.The Dutch appeared to be out of the game when Middlesex, put in to bat on apitch with an invitingly short boundary on the grandstand side, set them atarget of 287 but they almost got there in an incredible finish.Wesley Barresi and Tom Cooper got them going with a second-wicket partnershipof 44 in six overs and Cooper put on 126 in 16 overs with Tom de Grooth for thefourth and an unbroken 66 with Mudassar Bukhari.In the end, Bukhari needed three off the last ball from Tim Murtagh to win thegame but he hit it straight to cover and managed only a single. Cooper was leftunbeaten on 126 off 100 balls with 13 fours and a six, while Bukhari finished on36 off 18 balls.Middlesex were full of confidence after winning their first three championshipmatches as well as their opening 40-over game and it showed as Scott Newman andDawid Malan led the way with an opening partnership of 120 in 19 overs.Newman, playing with great freedom, hit 73 off 66 balls including 14 foursbefore he pulled Michael Swart to square leg and Malan had accelerated to 90 off85 balls with eight fours and a six when he was caught on the midwicket boundaryoff Pieter Seelaar.Paul Stirling had joined Malan in a second-wicket stand of 88 in 11 overs, theyoung Irishman improvising impishly to make 45 off 39 balls with six fours untilShane Mott had him brilliantly caught by Cooper, who had taken over thewicketkeeping gloves from Barresi when he damaged a finger taking a wide fromBerend Westdijk.Gareth Berg and Tom Scollay both went cheaply but Neil Dexter and Ollie Raynerpicked up 29 from the last two overs, with Rayner hitting the last three ballsfor four, to lift Middlesex to an imposing total of 286 for five.It looked like being too tall an order for the Dutch but Middlesex had reckonedwithout Cooper, De Grooth – who made 58 off 50 balls with four fours and a six -and Bukhari and were forced to come through a grandstand finish.

Lalit Modi, the former IPL chairman, has filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court against the earlier order given by the court that allowed the BCCI’s disciplinary committee to continue investigating charges against him. Modi had challenged the existence of the committee in an earlier petition, claiming it had been improperly constituted, but on March 4 Justice SJ Kathawala dismissed the application and criticised Modi for trying to delay the proceedings. The hearings were due to restart today.”We had sought for stay on the DC [disciplinary committee] enquiry pending disposal of the appeal,” Mehmood Abdi, Modi’s lawyer, told . “We would now request with BCCI to postpone the enquiry till the High Court decides on our appeal.”On Monday, a two-person division bench made up of Justices Ranjana Desai and RG Ketkar heard arguments from Modi’s counsel, Ram Jethmalani, and BCCI’s counsel, Rafiq Dada. A further round of hearings were scheduled for today.Modi has repeatedly challenged the composition of the committee, particularly objecting to the presence of current IPL chairman Chirayu Amin and BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley on grounds of bias against him. His case was rejected by the Bombay High Court but the Supreme Court told the board and Modi in October to come to a compromise on the issue. However, the two sides failed to do so.

After seeing their world-beating game-plan improved on by England,Australia are now looking to their Ashes dominators to provide a way outthis mess. For more than a decade Australia were the leaders in planningand innovation, but over the past couple of years they have gone intofreefall.England’s 3-1 Ashes victory, their first Down Under since 1986-87, hasprovided Australia with another fierce reality check after a batch of themin 2010. “I think 100% we have to learn from what England did thisseries,” Clarke said. “Their performance, not only with bat and ball, butin the field, was outstanding for a five-Test series. There’s a greatstarting point to be able to turn up every day for five Tests, to performas well as they did.”Clarke was in the unfortunate position of being in charge when the trophywas handed over, having replaced the injured Ricky Ponting for the finalTest. He may have the job full-time if the selectors decide Ponting’s timeis up before the next tour of Sri Lanka in August, although Clarke loyallypledged his support to the official leader.If Clarke takes over at least he knows what his side needs to do tosucceed against the best teams. “It takes a lot of discipline, a lot ofplanning before the series,” he said. “The [England] bowlers have executedtheir plans outstandingly against our batters and their batters havecashed in when we haven’t bowled in the right areas. We do need to look athow England have played in this series and take a lot of notes from that.”The overall campaign was a poor one for Clarke, who performed so stronglyin the 2006-07 and 2009 Ashes campaigns. Clarke, who managed only 193 runsat 21.44, said it felt like the lowest point of his career.”Unfortunately I’ve lost a few Ashes series now and they’re all prettybad,” he said. “But being the vice-captain of the Australian team, andhaving such a disappointing series with the bat, it probably is [theworst].”Clarke, 29, has retired from Twenty20s to focus on improving his impact inthe longer forms of the game, but he was asked whether he should hold hisfive-day spot for the Sri Lanka trip. “I would like to, I really hope so,”he said. “Throughout this series I’ve played well in a couple of innings,but I couldn’t go out and make a big score.”If he had the series over again he would have practised more against tall,fast bowlers before the first Test in Brisbane. He spent the early stagesof the series being targeted by short-pitched deliveries when he wasovercoming a back injury, and was unable to find any fluency.Australia’s lead-up included one-day games against Sri Lanka and a coupleof domestic fixtures, while England were fine-tuning from the moment theirhome summer ended. They were better in all disciplines exceptwicketkeeping, where Brad Haddin and Matt Prior were evenly matched.James Sutherland, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, dismissed anycriticism of the schedule having an influence on the result. “To point thefinger at the preparation and suggest that was responsible for us losingthe series 3-1 is rubbish,” he said. “We actually played more Test cricketthan England did in the two or three months leading into the Ashesseries.”Clarke was hurt by the standard of the side’s fielding and said thebowlers needed more patience and discipline. “That’s what England havedone throughout this series,” he said, before offering his attack somesympathy.”I feel a bit for the bowlers, because I know they’ve copped a lot ofcriticism throughout this series, but I think we as batters have to take alot of responsibility as well,” he said. “If you can put 400 runs on theboard, as England have shown, your bowlers generally bowl a lot betterthan what we have. Putting 100, 200, 250 on the board and expecting thebowlers to get them out for that sort of target, I think we’re asking ahell of a lot.”