New Zealand in Australia

New Zealand have made two changes for the third and deciding Test against Australia starting at the WACA on Friday.
The out of form Mathew Bell and injured Daryl Tuffey have been replaced by Lou Vincent and Chris Martin respectively. The Kiwis said they were excited about still being in the series and a felt that a superlative performance could even result in an upset win
New Zealand:
Stephen Fleming (captain), Mark Richardson, Lou Vincent, Mathew Sinclair, Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns, Adam Parore, Daniel Vettori, Chris Martin, Shane Bond.

West Indies in Sri Lanka

The third Test between West Indies and Sri Lanka begins in Colombo today with Sri Lanka looking to complete a 3-0 sweep. Interestingly this will be the first clean sweep by the Sri Lankans since their induction to the Test arena in 1982.
Their star bowler Muthiah Muralitharan is just one 10-wicket haul away from surpassing New Zealand fast bowler Richard Hadlee's world record of nine 10-wicket hauls in Tests.
The two teams are:
Sri Lanka (from):
Sanath Jayasuriya (capt), Marvan Atapattu, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Russel Arnold, Hashan Tillakaratne, Thilan Samaraweeera, Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Niroshan Bandaratilleke, Nuwan Zoysa, Charitha Buddika, Upul Chandana, Suresh Perera.

West Indies (from):
Carl Hooper (capt), Brian Lara, Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Marlon Samuels, Ridley Jacobs, Wavell Hinds, Leon Garrick, Neil McGarrell, Dinanath Ramnarine, Colin Stuart, Mervyn Dillon, Marlon Black, Pedro Collins.

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Windies skipper Carl Hooper has urged his batsmen to try and take up his star batsman Brian Lara's technique of handling the spin bowling in Sri Lanka.
Murali has been the nemesis for the tourists in all the games so far. Hooper added that the young West Indians had been completely surprised by the amount of spin Muralitharan extracted on pitches in Sri Lanka.

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The touring West Indians have made two changes to the squad that is to take part in the triangular series in Sri Lanka beginning on December 8.
All rounder Ryan Hinds and medium fast bowler Corey Collymore will join the team. Zimbabwe is the third team to take part in the triangular series.

Miscellaneous

After watching the rather miserable performance of the Indian bowling in South Africa barring Srinath, the Indian selection committee chose to completely revamp the bowling department.
The full team for the Tests is as follows:
Sourav Ganguly (Bengal) (capt), Rahul Dravid (Karnataka), Shiv Sundar Das (Orissa), Connor Williams (Baroda), Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai), VVS Laxman (Hyderabad), Virender Sehwag (Delhi), Deep Dasgupta (Bengal), Anil Kumble (Karnataka), Harbhajan Singh (Punjab), Sarandeep Singh (Delhi), Sanjay Bangar (Railways), Iqbal Siddiqui (Maharashtra), Tinu Yohannan (Kerala).

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Former Indian captain Dilip Vengsarkar has called for the axing of VVS Laxman to prove to the others in the team that no one could take his selection for granted.
After his mammoth effort at Kolkata that turned the series against the Australians upside down, Laxman's batting has been characterized by pretty little knocks of short durations.
Vengsarkar in a newspaper column said that Laxman had developed a casual attitude that was not good for the team.

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The confusion in the Mohali Test is not restricted to the Virendra Shewag issue. Yesterday Pepsi carried advertisements in most national dailies for ticket sales in conjunction with the Punjab Cricket Association calling the series the "Pepsi Test Series".
Almost at the same time Hero Honda came out with a release that said that they had wrested the rights for the series from Pepsi and that the two teams would now be playing for the "Hero Cup"

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Considering all that has happened in the past couple of weeks sources have it that the BCCI is all set to finally appoint the much talked about media manager.
Amrit Mathur an IAS officer who works for the Sports Authority of India is a hot candidate for the important post.
Mathur will function from Delhi where the BCCI plans to set up a liaison office to permit the easier negations with the government of official matters. The head office will remain at Mumbai.

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Pakistan Cricket Board director Brigadier Munawwar Rana sent his fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar a strict written warning for his misbehavior in Sharjah recently.
Akhtar had verbally abused Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene after the later had hit him for a six. Akhtar however had the better of the batsman a few balls later and let loose a string of verbal volleys as he walked back to the stadium.
The PCB chairman Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia passed the matter to a disciplinary committee, which subsequently issued the warning letter to Akhtar.

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England will send a 14 member women's team to India for a one Test and five one-day match tour of India. The tour begins on January 6. Sussex's Clare Connor will lead England.
The Test will be played at Mumbai while the one-dayers will be at Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata.

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