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Northern Districts’ fast bowler Ian Butler has been rushed into the CLEAR Black Caps for Wednesday’s first One-Day International against England at Jade Stadium.Butler, who turned 20 in November, has been called in to take the place of speedster Shane Bond who has been forced out for the remainder of the season with a suspected stress fracture of his left ankle.Butler made his first-class debut this year and has played three State Championship games and two State Shield (New Zealand’s domestic one-day competition) games. He also played for Northern Districts in the two one-day matches against England on Friday and Saturday.Butler said there was a silence on the telephone after selection chairman Sir Richard Hadlee contacted him today.”I was about to go to the driving range but there was no chance after that,” he said.Butler was catching a plane from Auckland to Christchurch tonight where he will make himself known to all the other members of the side who, apart from his Northern Districts team-mates Daniel Vettori and Daryl Tuffey, and his New Zealand Under-19 team-mate from last year, Brendon McCullum, have still to meet him.Butler said the ND pace attack of Joseph Yovich, Tuffey and Simon Doull worked well together and they passed on tips and advice to him regularly.Butler was confident he wouldn’t be too nervous on Jade Stadium as he felt he didn’t bowl too badly against England for ND.Hadlee said the selectors were taking a big punt but added that if Butler did half as well as Bond had done then they would be very happy.Hadlee said the loss of Bond was a devastating blow to Bond and to the team.”When we have just got a tremendous resource and asset to lose him like that is a great blow. So now we have got to try and groom somebody else to do that role,” he said.He said the selectors were unanimous in giving Butler a try in a bid to keep the pace option as part of New Zealand’s attacking arsenal during the England series. Butler will be instructed to bowl flat out.Hadlee also pointed to the history in New Zealand of taking a punt on faster bowlers as had happened to him, to Gary Bartlett, Bruce Taylor and his brother Dayle Hadlee.”If somebody has got something a little bit different, and special, it gives an advantage over somebody else and that is often influential in making the final call,” Hadlee said.”If we are looking down the track at the World Cup and potentially as a young Test bowler of the future as well, sometimes you have got to take a bit of a punt on a player.”This is probably the biggest call we have made in my time as a selector.”Hadlee said he had not seen a lot of him bowling although he did see him last year at Under-19 level when ND played Otago and he bowled very quickly and took four wickets in his first four overs as well as giving McCullum “a bit of a hurry up.””So there were signs going back last year. The other selectors have been around the ground domestically this year and when you talk to coaches they are our eyes and ears anyway.”The information is positive but still, it is a huge call,” he said.Bond first felt the ankle two weeks ago in Australia and it was thought he was only suffering bruising. However, he bowled in the last of the VB Series finals in pain and upon coming back to New Zealand had the ankle looked at and the stress fracture was revealed today.Hadlee said the one-day game had changed and quicker bowlers were now being used not only for the short-pitched delivery.”The way the law is used quick bowlers have got a more important role to play so you are looking for specialist fast bowlers, in fact, if anything, the all-rounder who bowls at 120kph and bats a bit off the front foot is going to find it difficult now to survive in the one-day game,” he said.ND coach Bruce Blair had advised Hadlee that Butler’s lines were the best of the quick bowlers in the ND side.Hadlee said there would be some comment about how Butler had leap-frogged other players like James Franklin and Chris Drum to name two.”But this guy Butler has pace whereas the others don’t have that. They have other skills. Let’s just see what happens,” he said.

New Zealand will play its limited overs tri-series games in Australia next summer in one block in the New Year meaning the home domestic series is unlikely to see any international one-day players.The Victoria Bitter Series was announced yesterday and starts on January 11 with New Zealand playing Australia in Melbourne.That will follow New Zealand’s expected home one-day series with Bangladesh and a warm-up game in Australia before the VB series.While the New Zealand domestic season programme has still to be announced, it is unlikely to allow the country’s top players to be included.New Zealand is touring Australia for the Test match leg of the tour before Christmas and has two Tests against Bangladesh on either side of Christmas.Meanwhile, New Zealand has not yet received an invitation to take part in the Hong Kong Sixes tournament in November this year.The tournament will be played on November 10-11 after being off the international scene for four years.Eight top international countries will be taking part, although the final eight have yet to be named.While New Zealand’s leading Test players will be in Australia, several one-day specialists may be available for selection if, as is expected, an invitation is issued to New Zealand during the International Cricket Council’s meeting next week.Meanwhile, New Zealand has agreed to play an Australian Country XI during what would have been a seven day break in its VB programme. The match will be played at Bowral, the home of the Sir Donald Bradman Museum.

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has been dealt a setback for today’s FA Cup quarter-final clash against Manchester City as injury news emerges.

The Lowdown: Saints looking to bounce back…

Following an impressive five-game unbeaten run in the Premier League stretching from late January to late February, the Saints and Hasenhuttl have been brought back down to earth after three consecutive top-flight losses (Transfermarkt).

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Defeats away to Aston Villa and at home to Newcastle and Watford haven’t exactly got Southampton off to a great start this month, but those results could be swiftly forgotten if they pull off an FA Cup upset today.

The Saints take on Premier League champions and current frontrunners Man City at St Mary’s as they look to build upon their impressive 3-1 win over West Ham in the last round.

While most of Hasenhuttl’s squad are now available for selection, the 54-year-old will be without defender Lyanco and goalkeeper Alex McCarty, with the former’s absence in particular coming as a setback.

The Latest: Hasenhuttl dealt Lyanco setback…

As relayed by Daily Echo reporter Alfie House, the Brazilian will miss today’s crunch encounter with Pep Guardiola’s side, with Lyanco having still not recovered from injury.

He tweeted: “#SaintsFC have only two players out for #MCFC, Alex McCarthy and Lyanco. Everyone else is in training and available for selection.”

The Verdict: Bad news

Hasenhuttl will want the 25-year-old back in action as soon as possible for the final Premier League run-in, mainly to boost his options in defence and provide more strength in depth.

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Called an ‘incredible’ player by journalist Josh Stewart, Southampton’s manager has held no shortage of praise for Lyanco this term. Professing his ‘love’ for the defender recently, the Austrian also drew attention to the player’s character and how it fits perfectly at Southampton.

Clearly rated quite highly by those inside and outside St Mary’s, it appears that he still isn’t available, and Hasenhuttl won’t be pleased that he has to do without him again today.

In other news: ‘It is true’…Southampton backed by close source as they now eye 29 y/o ‘star’, find out more here

Greg Shipperd, the Victoria coach, will take up an assignment with the Delhi Daredevils, the Delhi-based IPL franchise, which also appointed TA Sekar, the chief coach at the MRF Pace Academy, to be in charge of it’s cricket operations.Meanwhile, the GMR Group, the owners of the franchise, said that Virender Sehwag will lead the side in case their request to the IPL governing council to grant him ‘icon’ status, which means that he will not be available for tomorrow’s player auction, is accepted.”Though it has not been finalised, he would lead the team if our request is considered,” B Vanchi, a senior director of GRM Group, said at a press conference organised at the Ferozshah Kotla, where the Delhi-based team kick off their IPL campaign when they take on their Jaipur counterparts on April 19.Meanwhile, Sekar said that one of his first tasks would be to get the Delhi Ranji trio of Mithun Manhas, Rajat Bhatia and Shikhar Dhawan, on board, adding, “In the mandatory under-22 category, we have identified Viraat Kohli, Pradeep Sangwan and Tanmay Srivastava of UP [Uttar Pradesh]”.

Ricky Ponting: “The earlier we can have Watson back the better” © AFP

Ricky Ponting is eager to have the injury-prone Shane Watson back in his side at the World Cup because he is so important to the balance of the team. Watson, 25, sustained a calf strain during Australia’s thrashing of Bangladesh and will miss the game against England.The initial prognosis was that Watson would be available for the April 20 clash against New Zealand in Grenada, which would be Australia’s final fixture before the semi-finals should they qualify. But Ponting said he hadn’t given up hope of Watson being fit to face Sri Lanka four days earlier.”The earlier we can have him back the better,” Ponting said. “If we get him back for the Sri Lanka game that would be great but we’ll just keep our fingers crossed and hope he keeps coming along well. Originally everyone was hoping he’d be back for the New Zealand game. He’s getting around okay now.”His program has been not to do anything at all, not for this first week and let it heal as much as he can. He’s been doing all his rehab, four or five times a day and he’s had lots of physio.”James Hopes is on standby back in Australia but Ponting is hopeful Watson will be able to recover after a “horrible run of injuries”. “Maybe he has to have a good look and all of our staff have a good look at the way he’s training, his weight program and his training programs and everything like that and give him a more resilient body,” he said.”He’s an extremely talented player and any team round the world is looking for an allrounder that can give you what he can give you in both forms of the game, so let’s hope his body can stand up a bit better because I think he’s got a very bright future. The great shame about it being someone like Shane is that he works harder than anybody else on his body and at the moment he’s having a bad run.”

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: wants support from fans when the going isn’t smooth © Getty Images

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian wicketkeeper, said the Indian team was not receiving the kind of support sportspersons needed, especially when they were going through a bad phase.Dhoni refused to elaborate but hinted at the boorish crowd behaviour in the Test match against England at Mumbai last week.”We are not getting the support we want from our fans, particularly when things are not going well for us. I can understand if we are playing abroad, the support is going to be less for us there. When we are playing in India, we expect good support for us. It helps if you back us strongly,” Dhoni said at a function to felicitate him in Delhi.”I don’t want to be specific but you know what happened in Mumbai and here [in the first one-dayer in Delhi],” he added.Dhoni got out to a rash shot in India’s second innings in Mumbai as the hosts capitulated to a 212-run defeat but said he would not change his style of batting, though. “No, I won’t. I would say I should have batted like I did in the first innings,” when he scored a responsible 118-ball 64 that helped India recover from 142 for 5 to post 279.Asked if the team’s collective failure and his shot selection on the last day at Mumbai resulted in his slow batting in the first one-dayer at Feroz Shah Kotla, Dhoni replied in the negative. “It was just that Harbhajan was playing well and I had played only 20-30 balls,” he said. “There should not be an impression that if I am a strokemaker I have to play my strokes. If somebody is playing shots, I can go slow. Even the ball I got out, I was trying to keep it to the ground. That’s why I actually got out.”So, how does one keep playing his shots when the situation demands a bit of caution? “I cannot exactly put it in words. I cannot say what happens when you are under pressure. It cannot be easily explained.”

Graham Thorpe prepares for his 100th Test © Getty Images

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Against Bangladesh at Chester-le-Street on Friday, Graham Thorpe is set to join one of cricket’s most exclusive clubs, when he becomes the eighth England cricketer to play in 100 Tests. The occasion will be marked by a presentation before the start of play, which will be attended by five of his fellow centurions – Alec Stewart, David Gower, Michael Atherton, Geoff Boycott and Ian Botham – and which may well help to confer some sense of grandeur on an event that promises to be another damp squib, if Bangladesh’s efforts in the Lord’s Test are anything to go by.Thorpe, however, has already been in the news this week, and not because of the excitement surrounding this landmark. His announcement, on the eve of the Lord’s Test, that he had signed a contract to play and coach in New South Wales this winter, effectively served notice of his impending international retirement, and called into question his commitment to the cause ahead of this summer’s Ashes.But Thorpe is nothing if not resilient, and after enduring countless ups and downs in the course of his 12-year international career, is all set for one final push for glory this summer. “I want to play in as many matches as I can,” he told reporters in Durham, “and to do that I have to stay fit and I have to keep playing well. But I think I’ve known that ever since I came back from South Africa last winter – if I don’t play well or I fall over in a heap I won’t get picked.”In the first Test at Lord’s, Thorpe made a chanceless 42 not out to keep the vultures at bay for another game, but he is well aware of the scrutiny that his New South Wales appointment has created, not least in the corridors of the England & Wales Cricket Board, where David Graveney, the chief of selectors, expressed his “disappointment” at Thorpe’s news. But, Thorpe added, he had no regrets about his decision.”I heard Grav’s comments and I understand what he means by the timing, but there was nothing untoward about that and I wasn’t holding anything back,” he insisted. “I can go back to my hotel room, look myself in the mirror and know I’ve done nothing wrong.”I don’t think I could have handled things any differently,” he added, having gone public on the news the very day that NSW confirmed the offer. “I don’t think it’s a huge surprise to anyone that I have been trying to plan something for the winter, because they may not have even taken me away this winter anyway.”Although the pressure is undoubtedly on, Thorpe has proved on countless occasions that he is equal to it. He demonstrated that with a century on debut against the Australians in 1993, and every one of his 16 Test centuries has been a nuggetty tribute to one of the greatest English batsmen of the post-war era. It is only in the latter part of his career, however, that his true ability has shone through, and much of that success has been fostered under the watchful guidance of Duncan Fletcher.”My first 40 to 45 Tests were quite tough,” Thorpe explained. “We were in a different set-up with a lot of player insecurities and before central contracts when the team was very inconsistent. But during the last four or five years under Duncan there has been a curve which has gone steadily upwards. Hopefully that will continue rising over the next two or three years.”Thorpe has played in just one Ashes Test in the past three series, due to a combination of injury and a much-publicised marital breakdown, but victory this summer would be Thorpe’s crowning achievement. Failing that, however, he has some fond memories to take Down Under with him, not least his achievements on the subcontinent in 2000-01, when his batting was central to back-to-back series wins against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.”The achievement in winning in Asia a few years ago was probably the best I have been involved in with a team,” said Thorpe, who scored a century at Lahore that included a solitary boundary, hit the winning runs in the thrilling twilight run-chase in Karachi, and went on to produce a pair of unbeaten gems to steal an amazing series at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club later that winter. “The conditions were not natural to us so to win those series in Pakistan and Sri Lanka was something special.”The conditions on those tours were as unfamiliar to England as a damp Chester-le-Street will be to the Bangladeshis and so, for the time being, the focus returns to the task at hand, and the need for England to despatch their current opponents as clinically as possible. It is impossible, however, not to have one eye on the bigger picture this summer.

Another of Canterbury’s warm-up games for the forthcoming New Zealand domestic season will be played in Timaru on Sunday against South Canterbury. The match will start at 11am.The Canterbury team is: Michael Papps (captain), David Kelly, Andrew Robertson, Aaron Redmond, Andrew Ellis, Ian Robertson, Steve Cunis, Warren Wisneski, Paul Rugg, Leighton Burtt, Adam Chambers.

Pathetic Otago batting resulted in Central Districts achieving a win by 425 runs – the fourth highest victory by a runs margin in New Zealand cricket history at Alexandra’s Molyneux Park today.Not since Otago were beaten by Wellington by 446 runs in 1926/27 have the southerners been hammered in such a way.Otago were set an unlikely, and improbable, target of 507 to win by Central Districts, but distinguished themselves by being dismissed for an equally unlikely, and improbable, 81. However, they will have to live with the stigma associated with such a thrashing.This on a pitch which had seen CD score 444/8 in their second innings.CD resumed their innings today 296 runs ahead of Otago and it was always most likely that the only winner of the game was going to be CD, but that did not excuse the Otago response to the target set.Mathew Sinclair continued his good form in the game by producing the match-winning batting difference with yet another of his centuries that has gone beyond the 150 mark. He scored 161 in 330 minutes while facing 267 balls. He hit 17 fours and a six. After coming to the wicket when the score was nine, he departed 299 runs later having done a superb job.He featured in partnerships of 129 with Ben Smith (57) for the third wicket and 101 with Glen Sulzberger (40) for the fourth wicket.Peter McGlashan (65) and Bevan Griggs (35) added 88 for the sixth wicket while bowlers Michael Mason and Brent Hefford took advantage of the chance to boost their batting averages by being unbeaten on 23 and 18 respectively when the declaration was made.Kerry Walmsley was unable to complete nine overs in the innings and the pressure shifted to other members of the side. He suffered a side and back injury and is likely to be out of the next two games. The other key front-line bowlers James McMillan and David Sewell went wicketless. Nathan Morland sent down 36 overs to take three for 124.CD would never have believed that the game would be over in less than 30 overs after Otago started their chase. But from the loss of Robbie Lawson’s wicket for four, the procession began.It was lolly scramble time for the CD attack. Hefford picked up four for 17 from seven overs, Andrew Schwass two for 18 from 9.1, Mason one for eight from five, and Lance Hamilton one for 31 from eight. They may play for another decade but they may never find wickets as easy to get as they were today.Chris Gaffaney was the only player to stand defiant. He scored 37 in 75 minutes of batting, the next highest score was nine to Simon Beare.

The North Zone Vijay Merchant (Under-16) tournament encounter at theFeroz Shah Kotla ground involving Delhi and Punjab meandered to a drawon Monday. Delhi notched up five points since they secured the firstinnings lead and Punjab took home three.Opting to bat on the opening day, Punjab piled up 281. The score beinghelped along the way by a handsome batting display by their batsmen.Taking away no credit from the others, including the opener K Goel (50off 151 balls, 7 fours), Vipul Sharma was the top scorer with a 54(121 minutes, 109 balls, 6 fours). K Rawat was the most successfullbowler for Delhi with figures of 5 for 57.In reply, Delhi took a 116 run lead, K Rawat giving the needed propfor the innings with a sedate 99. With the Delhi scorecard reading 265for 8, Kuldeep Rawat and Abhinav Bali (66) came togather for a 132 runninth wicket partnership. Kuldeep was the last batsman to bedismissed. Kuldeep during his 290 minute stay at the crease faced 271balls and hit 12 fours. Punjab in the 14 overs that the received onthe final day scored 54 runs while losing opener Rahul Arora (31).