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Mohammad Asif, the Pakistan fast bowler, has been released from jail after completing half of his one-year sentence for spot-fixing, his lawyers said. He was freed from Canterbury Prison in southeast England on Thursday morning.Asif, 29, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court in November 2011 of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments over deliberate no-balls bowled during the Lord’s Test between Pakistan and England in August 2010. He is still under a seven-year ban (the last two years of which are suspended) imposed by an ICC tribunal in February last year.His team-mates Salman Butt and Mohammad Amir were also found guilty. While Asif and Butt denied the charges against them in court Amir, who was released in February after serving half of a six-month sentence, pleaded guilty. Butt, who is currently serving a 30-month jail sentence, was banned for ten years (with five suspended), while Amir got five years.Mazhar Majeed, the agent who was accused of setting up the deal that was uncovered by a newspaper sting operation, was imprisoned for 32 months.

David Morgan, the man recently tasked with the latest review of English domestic cricket, has been appointed Glamorgan’s president for the next four years.Morgan, a former ICC president and former chairman of the ECB as well as Glamorgan, was unanimously voted in at the county’s AGM at the end of last month and will serve until the 2015 Ashes Test at Cardiff.He said: “I’m greatly honoured to serve Glamorgan as its president and will do all I can to help the chairman and other officers of the club in their quest for future success.”Club chairman Barry O’Brien said: “I was delighted when David accepted our invitation to be our president through to the Ashes Test in 2015. David is one of the world’s great cricket administrators and his continuing contribution to Glamorgan will be of enormous value”.

Australian domestic cricket’s honorary “Test match”, the Sheffield Shield final, will not be broadcast on television for the first time since 2007, due to cramped scheduling and the drain of resources created by the Twenty20 Big Bash League.Due to be fought between Queensland and Tasmania over five days from Friday, the competition decider has been jettisoned from the pay television broadcaster Fox Sports’ schedule as it juggles a vast array of football codes and the start of Australia’s ODI series in the West Indies.The logjam of matches is so intense that there was not even room for the final to be squeezed in via the digital multi-channelling option, which had already been reserved for other clashing sports.While the schedule cram is a primary reason for the final’s absence from television screens, the extra production costs of the BBL, expanded from six states to eight city-based teams this summer, is also understood to be a significant factor in Fox Sports’ decision.”More cricket was broadcast over the summer for the BBL and that chewed up a number of outside broadcasts,” a spokesman for Fox Sports told ESPNcricinfo.Instead of television coverage, the final will be webcast by Fox Sports, with two cameras to provide pictures from the Gabba while Brendon Julian and Mark Waugh anchor the coverage and provide commentary from the studio.”It’s a reasonable compromise, the match won’t be on TV sets but the webcast means it will be open to all viewers, not just Fox subscribers,” the spokesman said.The Shield final has had a chequered history as a television product, broadcast at various times by Channel Nine, the defunct Optus Vision pay television network and Fox Sports since 2008. Its status as the most important domestic match of the summer has been enhanced by the broadcasts, with most players recognising the chance to place their name in lights by performing in a broadcast fixture.In 2008, Phillip Hughes, Beau Casson and Peter Siddle all pushed ahead on the queue for Test places by performing strongly in the New South Wales versus Victoria final at the SCG, and all would earn a Baggy Green cap over the following 12 months. Last year the opening batsman Ed Cowan and teenaged fast bowler Pat Cummins both put in noteworthy final displays and were representing Australia before 2011 was out.Shield matches have been webcast by Cricket Australia and the state associations over the past two summers, though at the Gabba Queensland Cricket had cut a budgetary corner at the start of the season – in order to make more room for the Brisbane Heat BBL team – by removing their internal broadcast cameras for Shield games.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has made a request to all clubs playing in the first-class Premier League competition to prepare pitches with grass and consistent bounce for the ongoing 2011-12 season in order to encourage longer fast-bowling spells and avoid the frequent recurrence of injuries.Not a series or tour by the senior Sri Lankan team goes by without one or more fast bowlers returning home due to injury, thus upsetting the balance of the team and sometimes well-laid down plans to counter the opposition. This new development has been taking place in the past couple of years and it has prompted the cricket board to find a remedy.The result, according to SLC’s vice-president in charge of cricket, K Mathivanan, has been “very encouraging”.”We had to find a remedy to stop fast bowlers from getting injured constantly and our coaching unit, after a study, found that the preparation of pitches at domestic matches was part of the problem,” said Mathivanan.”When clubs prepare virtually grassless pitches it discourages the fast bowlers, and captains are reluctant to use them for longer spells. This has resulted in these fast bowlers becoming unfit to bowl even 20 overs a day at international level without breaking down.”Mathivanan said that SLC took a decision to request the clubs, especially the ones playing in the Premier League Tier ‘A’ to prepare pitches with pace and bounce to encourage fast bowlers to bowl longer spells.”I am happy to note that the majority of the clubs have got the message and have started preparing good tracks,” Mathivanan said.”We took this decision also with the 2015 World Cup in mind. We need to have our fast bowlers free from injury for the World Cup, which will be held in seamer-friendly and fast and bouncy pitches of Australia and New Zealand,” he said.Following the World Cup final last April, fast bowlers Nuwan Kulasekara, Dhammika Prasad, Nuwan Pradeep, Suranga Lakmal, Dilhara Fernando, Chanaka Welegedara and Shaminda Eranga have constantly been on the injury list.

The route from Chakwal in northern Pakistan to the UAE will mark the start of Awais Zia’s journey into international cricket. Called into Pakistan’s Twenty20 squad to play England, Zia is expected to bring some flair and power hitting to the top of the order – and the nerves are already mixing with excitement.”A new journey has started and I am a bit nervous,” Zia, who was travelling between Multan and his home village of Bhown, told ESPNcricinfo. “I used to believe that it’s not easy to be selected for the international team in Pakistan. It’s a long journey but ultimately all the hard work has paid off and now another chapter of my career has started. I am excited and privileged to hold his opportunity because I am the one who is selected from millions playing cricket in the country. “Although he made his first-class debut in 2007, it was only last season that Zia caught the Pakistan selectors’ attention, with a series of impressive, televised performances for Rawalpindi Rams in the Faysal Bank T20. Zia, 25, served further notice of his promise by scoring 353 runs – with two hundreds, off 44 and 52 balls respectively – at an average of more than 70 for Pakistan in the SAARC Twenty20 Cup, an Under-25s competition in the Maldives, towards the end of 2011. He was the Man of the Tournament.”I knew that the only way to catch the selectors’ attention was to make a big impact and T20 cricket served my purpose, mainly because matches are broadcast on television,” Zia said. “Obviously they are calling me a Twenty20 specialist, maybe because most of my T20 games I played in Pakistan were televised but not the first-class games. But that isn’t in my focus – I’ve been given a big platform to establish myself.”Zia said he had not talked with the selectors about his prospects but that the Rawalpindi coach Sabhi Azhar and team-mate Sohail Tanvir had been pushing him to take his chance.”I know what exactly I have to do now,” Zia said. “What I wanted was a single chance and I am terribly lucky to get a chance to play against a team like England. I am positive about it as I am young, energetic and have plenty of time to serve the country.”Zia, marked down as an explosive opener, hopes to “cross” Shahid Afridi in the field and combine fast scoring with the temperament to play longer innings. “I am not comparing myself to Afridi in powerful hitting as he is so good at it,” Zia said. “But my focus always is to play powerful and longer innings. I love to spend time on pitch and hit runs off every ball. I am fortunate to get a chance on pitches like in the UAE, and England are a top side to play against.”The Pakistan selectors have been searching for a long-term opener in the T20 side and they may have found their man in Zia.”This guy is confident with the bat,” selector Azhar Khan told ESPNcricinfo. “I am labelling him a T20 specialist. I know he’s got temperament for the big cricket as well but now he has to prove himself to see how far he can go. Selecting a young player is always tough and a risk, but we took a lot of time to select him. He was sent to Maldives for a tryout and he came up as the best batsman of the tournament so we had to pick him up.””The transition process in the team never stops, it’s an ongoing process but we don’t want to disturb the consistency of the team as well. We always look for a space to test players, as we are deprived from hosting international teams, and bilateral series, both at the top and the domestic level, are on hold. So most of our players remained untested.”

Kaustubh Pawar came out to bat at No. 3 yesterday and saw Mumbai lose half their side with 60 runs on the board. A day later, he calmly got forward to ease the final delivery of day two to the long-off boundary to take Mumbai to 346 for 7. It was Pawar’s 322nd delivery, many of which had beaten him. Some of them had him falling to the ground as he looked to avoid them. One of them even hit him on the helmet. But he battled through it all for almost eight hours to end unbeaten on 160 and put his side on top.Pawar, 21, defied a testing Madhya Pradesh attack in the pressure situation of a knockout game in his debut first-class season. More importantly, he did it despite struggling to find rhythm in his batting till he reached three figures. It was the kind of single-minded devotion to the cause that Mumbai needed, and coach Sulakshan Kulkarni hailed Pawar as the quintessential Mumbai batsman. “What is a Mumbai batsman? Someone who can play with that [defiant] attitude,” Kulkarni said. “Someone who can stand all day and make a hundred in 250 deliveries. Pawar is that kind of batsman.”Kulkarni said that Pawar’s presence was vital in a line-up that contains stroke-makers like Suryakumar Yadav and Wasim Jaffer. “The phase that the Mumbai team is currently in, we needed someone like him. We need someone who can hold one end up. There are a lot of stroke-makers in this team. But you also need a player in the Rahul Dravid mould. Kaustubh fits that role.”He has been given that role. Surya [Yadav] is the free bird of the side. He has the mandate to go out and play strokes. Kaustubh cannot do what Surya does, and vice versa.”Kulkarni also said that with the advent of the IPL, batsmen had started to play a lot of shots in the air. Having a batsman like Pawar who was able and willing to bat in the conventional way was a huge positive for Mumbai, he said. “If you observe, he hardly played a shot in the air.In these times, it is extremely difficult to find a batsman who plays shots along the ground. I can recall only one more name among the current lot who does that: Cheteshwar Pujara. It is extremely valuable to have such a player.”Pawar had had a discussion with his coach before the start of play today with Mumbai 122 runs behind and had assured him that he would not throw his wicket away. “I had told him to hang in there, and he had promised me that he will remain unbeaten at stumps today, which he did,” Kulkarni said.Pawar said his mandate was to tire the MP bowlers out which he was able to do successfully. “There was a little nervousness given the situation we were in. We knew that the first 30-45 minutes would be crucial. I and Hiken [Shah] were able to get through that period. They were bowling well initially but later got tired.”There was no weariness in Pawar’s demeanour though. As soon as he hit the last ball of the day for four, he walked back eagerly with a broad smile towards a grateful Mumbai dressing-room. A maiden double-hundred, which Pawar said he has never made in a “big match”, beckons.

India have left out Harbhajan Singh from the squad for the Test series in Australia, picking Pragyan Ojha and R Ashwin as the spinners in the 17-man group. Medium-pacer Praveen Kumar, who was part of the team in England, returns to the squad in place of legspinner Rahul Sharma, who was part of the squad for the ongoing Test series against West Indies but did not play a match.The squad comprised eight specialist batsmen, two wicketkeeper batsmen, five fast bowlers and two spinners. Wriddhiman Saha was named as reserve wicketkeeper, while Zaheer Khan, who is recovering from hamstring and ankle injuries, will join the team subject to match fitness.”Zaheer will play in a couple of Ranji Trophy matches. And once he is fully match-fit and everything is fine, he will join the side,” Kris Srikkanth, the chairman of India’s selectors, said. “He may also go with the team as by the time [the team leaves] he would have played a couple of matches.”MS Dhoni, the India captain, said that Zaheer testing his fitness in a Ranji game for Mumbai against Orissa would be beneficial for both the player and the team. “He [Zaheer] gives his 100%. But if you have to undergo rehab it has to be done really well,” Dhoni said. “We are hoping that he is 100% fit for the Australia series. Once he plays a first-class game that will help judge to some extent the way he feels.”Zaheer bowled to the Indian batsmen in the lead up to the third Test against West Indies at the Wankhede and Dhoni said he “looked quite fit.”Harbhajan’s omission was a result of left-arm spinner Ojha and offspinner Ashwin produced compelling performances in the Test series against West Indies. Ashwin was the series’ highest wicket-taker with 22 scalps at 22.90 apiece, while Ojha took 20 at 22.50. Ashwin also scored his maiden international century in the third Test at the Wankhede.”Unfortunately, we cannot help it [not picking Harbhajan] as the team selects itself,” Srikkanth said. “In Australia, you cannot have more than two spinners. Pragyan Ojha and Ashwin are doing an excellent job. Sometimes it becomes bad luck and sometimes people miss out. I’m sure everyone has their own time and space to come back.”Harbhajan had been dropped from the squad for the West Indies series after a poor performance in England, where he took only two wickets in two Tests before an abdominal-muscle injury forced him to return home. He failed to perform in the Ranji Trophy as well, managing only two wickets at an average of 102 in three matches as captain of Punjab. On India’s previous tour to Australia, in 2007-08, Harbhajan had a tally of eight wickets in three Tests at 61.25. He conceded over 100 runs in an innings three times in that series.Yuvraj Singh, who will miss the upcoming ODI series against West Indies because of a lung problem, and Suresh Raina, were also not in not in the team.”We have chosen a very balanced side. We have taken everything into account, including fitness and Australian conditions,” Srikkanth said. “If you ask me today whether this team can beat Australia in Australia, I would say I’m very confident. We should beat Australia in Australia in a Test series.”Our batsman are in form, our bowlers are in form. And now we have all kinds of bowlers. We have fast bowlers, medium-fast bowlers, we have swing bowlers, spinners – left-arm and offspin,” Srikkanth said. “So depending on the conditions there the team management will select the team on a match-to-match basis.”Squad: MS Dhoni (capt &wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Praveen Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha, Zaheer Khan (subject to fitness).

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsClarke endured a fiery spell from Dale Steyn, before counterattacking with a fluent hundred•AFP

Smart stats

• With the catch to dismiss Phil Hughes, Mark Boucher became the first wicketkeeper to reach the landmark of 500 catches. He now has 501 catches in 140 Tests to go with 22 stumpings. Click here for a detailed stats analysis.

• Michael Clarke’s century is his second in consecutive innings. It is the second time since 2008 that Clarke has managed two consecutive centuries.

• Clarke’s strike rate of 93.85 during his 114-ball 107 is his best for a 100-plus knock in Tests. His previous best was 82.31 during his 135 against England in Perth in 2006.

• With his 4 for 31, Dale Steyn took his wicket aggregate against Australia to 38 from seven Tests. He now has 38 wickets at 25.68 against them with two five-wicket hauls and one ten-wicket haul.

• The 103-run stand between Clarke and Shaun Marsh is the sixth century stand for the fourth wicket for Australia in Tests in South Africa. Clarke has been involved in two of the six century partnerships.

Australia’s captain Michael Clarke conjured an innings of the highest quality against a fiery South Africa attack, but he had too little help as the visitors limped to 214 for 8 on a rain-affected day one of the first Test at Newlands.Aided by an extremely lively pitch that had Graeme Smith sending Australia in to bat, Dale Steyn swung the ball menacingly at high pace and Vernon Philander seamed it extravagantly on debut, forcing Clarke to summon all his technical resources to cover for the loss of three early wickets.His first few balls aside, Clarke was fluency itself in conditions that made free strokeplay extremely risky, if not outright dangerous, yet such was the captain’s touch that he never seemed in undue haste despite reaching his hundred in a mere 108 balls. It was his second century in as many Test innings.As a counter-attacking performance Clarke’s recalled nothing less than Steve Waugh’s first-day century against England at Old Trafford in 1997, made on a seaming, swinging surface that would later deteriorate. There was enough uneven bounce on day one in Cape Town to suggest this strip might be of similar character.Shaun Marsh provided the only notable support with an obstinate 44 in a stand of 103, and Australia may already owe much to the pair, for many in the tourists’ dressing room could recall being razed for 98 on a similarly dicey MCG surface in the Boxing Day Ashes Test.Shane Watson was the first to go, Phillip Hughes’ dismissal gave Philander his first wicket and Mark Boucher his 500th catch in Test cricket, and Ricky Ponting was lbw to Steyn on referral the fourth ball after lunch. The lower order was similarly tender prey after Marsh and Clarke were parted on the stroke of tea.The hosts had included Philander’s muscular seam bowling at the expense of Lonwabo Tsotsobe, and recalled Jacques Rudolph for his first Test match since 2006, to open the batting with Smith.Australia were able to recall the fit-again Ryan Harris for Trent Copeland in the only change to the team that secured a 1-0 series win in Sri Lanka with a drawn third Test in Colombo.Having waited 305 days for a Test match, the hosts cooled their heels for another 1 hour, 45 minutes until play could begin due to rain, then another five while a sight screen problem – ludicrous at the start of a match – was addressed.Watson made a handful of bold decisions to leave deliveries that seamed back over his wicket, but had no chance in the fifth over against a Steyn offering that swung and seamed from middle and leg to turn him front on and draw an edge to second slip.Marsh’s first ball in a Test match in South Africa struck him a blow on the forearm, and next over Hughes snicked a well-pitched Philander delivery that seamed across him and was gleefully accepted by Boucher for his milestone snare.Having demonstrated a knack for shouldering arms intelligently in his first series, Marsh’s powers of self-denial were fully tested as the ball continued to deviate.At the other end Philander chanced a short ball to Ponting early and was soon regretting it as a soaring pull shot brought six runs behind square leg. Fuller deliveries were more inconvenient, and Morne Morkel’s introduction to the attack brought another level of discomfort to the batsmen, his 196cm frame generating bounce as well as movement.Marsh leant into one princely cover drive as the skies brightened in the final over of the session, but then had to call for the physio when struck an eye-watering blow amidships before lunch could be taken.Spectators had scarcely settled in their seats on resumption when Steyn whirred a delivery into Ponting’s pads, although confusion about whether the bat had struck ball or boot caused a somewhat muted appeal from the bowler. Graeme Smith called for the aid of technology, which found the ball going on to spread-eagle middle and leg, and Ponting departed for just eight. Clarke arrived at 40 for 3.Steyn was immediately testing out Clarke’s technique, physique and courage, touching 150kph and troubling his target more than once with the short ball as the captain declined to duck. But Clarke endured, helped by Marsh, and slowly the batsmen wrested some control as the bowlers lost a little of their earlier pep.A Clarke straight drive from Steyn was perhaps the shot of the session, but there were also some swivel pull strokes, meaty cuts and fleet-footed flicks to the legspin of the other local debutant Imran Tahir. Marsh eluded one concerted lbw appeal from Philander, but also found the sweetest of timing to flick the same bowler past midwicket near the tea interval.Marsh did not survive to the refreshments, pinned in front of middle by Steyn’s swerve in the last over before tea, and Michael Hussey was given enough idea of the struggle ahead in five balls to the break. He could not survive for long after it, touching a Morkel delivery that nipped sharply back at him, exposing the wicketkeeper and tail.Brad Haddin’s innings was reminiscent of late-period Rod Marsh: a few lusty swings, more plays and misses, and a damagingly swift exit, as Steyn’s swing exposed flat feet and firm hands for a slice into the gully.Mitchell Johnson offered a similar approach with a little more success, and was on hand when Clarke reached three figures with a drive off Jacques Kallis as glorious as any he had struck. Clarke let out a roar as the field was pierced, aware of how much these runs meant, to his team but also to his youthful captaincy – on innings of this sort are reputations built.Johnson and Harris departed to abortive hook shots as the clouds and rain brought an early finish, leaving Clarke to accept the deserved applause of the crowd while he pondered whether his team had made enough runs in the circumstances.

Shaun Marsh is confident that Australia will be well-prepared for the threat of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel after they faced a barrage of fast, hostile bowling in the tour match in Potchefstroom. The first Test at Newlands is unlikely to feature a pitch similar to the trampoline they encountered in their first innings of the warm-up match.The young fast bowler Marchant de Lange and Vernon Philander led a terrific bowling performance from South Africa A, as deliveries flew around the heads of Australia’s batsmen. Marsh was the victim of one such blow when he was struck on the helmet trying to duck Philander and it was that variable bounce that made it so tough, even for batsmen used to the WACA, like Marsh.”It’s good preparation for what you’re going to come up against in the first Test match,” Marsh said. “There are some fantastic bowlers in the change room and we’re going to be coming up against even better bowlers next week. It’s been a good challenge for us.”It’s just variable bounce, really. Some of the time you’re not sure whether it’s going to bounce or not, and you’ve just got to make sure you watch the ball hard. It’s a good challenge against their quicks. They’ve got some fantastic quicks coming through.”The most promising of those on the second day was de Lange, whose short run-up belies his speed and bounce. A former javelin thrower, he speared the ball into the turf and delivered a barrage of bouncers to Australia’s lower order, to finish with 5 for 66.”He’s a great prospect,” Marsh said of de Lange. “He’s very quick, he’s got steep bounce and I think he’s got a huge future in front of him.”Not that the surface could have been much friendlier for de Lange. Michael Hussey was also struck by a bouncer and Ricky Ponting copped a blow on the first day. One particular patch of turf at the north end was the culprit, as batsmen were surprised by the bounce if the ball hit at the wrong angle, while other deliveries kept low.”It’s been a little bit up and down, but it’s what we’ve had to play on,” Marsh said. “We can’t complain too much, we’ve just got to get out there and play on it and try and get as much as we possibly can out of it.”It played a lot better today. You could tell by the scores. It was a little bit tricky yesterday but it played a lot better today and I’m sure it’s going to play even better tomorrow.”All the same, 13 wickets fell on each day, and the match could well be over on Thursday if Australia can knock over South Africa’s tail early. The lead stood at 151 at stumps on the second day, and the Australians would be hoping for a chase of no more than 250.”It’s going to be a good challenge for us to face their attack again, chasing hopefully not too many more than what they’ve got now,” Marsh said. “It’ll be another good day for us to practice and get ourselves ready for the Test match.”

Match facts

New South Wales v Trinidad & Tobago, September 28
Start time 1600 (1030 GMT)Daren Ganga’s captaincy has won praise, but he needs to do more with the bat in Twenty20s•Global Cricket Ventures-BCCI

Big Picture

These two teams have a history. They met twice in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20, splitting two exciting games. Kieron Pollard first announced himself with an unbeaten, blistering 54 off 18 balls in Hyderabad that won Trinidad and Tobago the match and him a bumper IPL contract with Mumbai Indians. In the other game, the final, Brett Lee played a decisive cameo, grabbed two wickets and caught Pollard, who had begun to look threatening, in the deep to seal the title for New South Wales. Both those matchwinners, however, will be absent from tomorrow’s encounter due to their commitments with their IPL franchises but in a tournament that has provided much entertainment thus far, we can expect the teams to deliver another close one.T&T, despite the absence of Pollard, have won plenty of respect. They’ve earned their place in the main leg by coming through the qualifiers and gave the high profile Mumbai Indians a serious scare. In a chase where fortunes fluctuated wildly, Mumbai just about held their nerve in the final over to win off the final ball, but T&T had no business keeping the game so close after being bowled out for 98. While they bowled determinedly, their batsmen didn’t press on after getting starts. Likewise with NSW, who were soundly beaten by Cape Cobras in their first game. Nor could NSW’s bowlers make much of a fight in the wake of an onslaught from the Cobras openers. With little margin for a slip-up, the team will aim for a quick climb from the bottom of the points table.

Watch out for …

Daren Ganga is a man of strong words and an impressive captain. In fact, Ian Chappell thought he should lead West Indies after the way they performed in this tournament’s inaugural edition. But, of late, Ganga’s own form with the bat has been poor. He had a good first-class season in the Caribbean but in his last six Twenty20 innings he has scores of 0, 7, 1, 17 and 5.Steven Smith is a player of immense value in the shorter versions, especially Twenty20, with his all-round ability. He was left out of Australia’s Test series in Sri Lanka which would have been a setback, given his spirited batting, outstanding fielding and leg-spin are known to have the makings of a regular in the national side.

Team news

T&T underperformed big time with the bat, several of their players had an off day but it was an especially bad one for Denesh Ramdin. The former West Indies vice-captain is back in the national reckoning – he’s been picked for the Bangladesh tour and is a senior member of the T&T side – but will feel a bit of pressure after his duck and that missed run-out in the previous game. William Perkins is an attacking opener and a wicketkeeping option. T&T may not make any changes but their batsmen need to recover, and quickly.NSW went in with three spinners in their previous game, though Steve O’Keefe didn’t do much. If at all, they might make a change in their attack depending on the conditions.

Stats and trivia

• Kieron Pollard has struck the most sixes for T&T in Twenty20 matches, but next in line is opener Lendl Simmons with 22. The most fours, however, have been struck by William Perkins – 60.
• David Warner is the highest run-getter for NSW in Twenty20 cricket – 924 in 30 matches. The next best is 397 runs behind, but he has played 17 games less at a better average – Phil Hughes.

Quotes

“We have capable batsmen who can come up tomorrow and mean business. We are coming up against a different attack on a different surface. Hopefully when the opportunity presents itself, our batters can come up trumps.”
Denesh Ramdin is determined to fight back.