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Middlesex have re-signed Brendon McCullum for this season’s NatWest T20 Blast campaign.McCullum, who made six appearances for Middlesex last season, will re-join in early July and be available for nine of Middlesex’s South Group matches.Middlesex’s use of Lord’s for T20 is limited. Two of McCullum’s appearances this term will be home matches under the floodlights at Lord’s on Thursday nights, against London rivals Surrey on July 13, and against Essex a fortnight later, with a capacity crowd anticipated on both occasions.McCullum will also feature in two of Middlesex home outground matches, against Somerset at Uxbridge and against Kent at Richmond.Middlesex are one of two counties to have taken advantage of the new condensed midsummer format by bringing in Dan Vettori, the former New Zealand spinner, as a specialist T20 coach; Derbyshire have followed a similar route with the appointment of another Kiwi, John Wright.Middlesex’s managing director of cricket, Angus Fraser, said: “We are naturally delighted to have Brendon back to play for Middlesex in this season’s NatWest T20 Blast.”Brendon had a hugely positive influence on the club in 2016 and I’m sure he will have a similar impact this summer.”Middlesex’s improved Twenty20 form last season saw them reach the quarter-final before going down to Northants at Northampton.

One by one, Bangladesh’s touring party walked to the centre of the Basin Reserve. First, it was chief selector Minhajul Abedin and BCB’s cricket operations chairman Akram Khan. Then a second and third group went with players and coaching staff. Any batting line-up will have concerns about a green pitch but for Bangladesh, that concern is mixed with a lack of confidence in overseas conditions and the pressure of extending their recent good form at home.For a team that doesn’t travel much outside its own surroundings to play Tests, the challenge seems magnified, especially for the batsmen. The sight of a lush, green pitch can be disconcerting but the visitors can take heart from the numbers. In the last three Tests at the Basin Reserve, teams have scored in excess of 500 three times, raking up the scores in the second and third innings of the match. The highest first-innings score in the last three matches has been 221.Bangladesh’s concern, therefore, should be more about strategy than the pitch: bowl first if they win the toss, and then bat as long as possible to make use of a flatter surface.Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim, therefore, has laid down the marker for his batting line-up: to bring their overall consistency of home matches to an away Test match.”Our target would be to bring the home consistency to away Tests,” Mushfiqur said. “It is time that we prove ourselves in overseas conditions. The batsmen have to take the biggest challenge. Some of them like Tamim, Shakib and Mahmudullah have done well in Tests here in the past.”But now we need a collective effort from the batsmen, which we failed to do in the ODIs and T20s. We are capable, so this is our opportunity to do it. Our main challenge will be for the batsmen to set up the Test match for the bowlers. We have to put up a good enough total for the bowlers to defend.”Seven members of the Bangladesh Test squad have never played in this format abroad, including talented youngsters like Sabbir Rahman, Taskin Ahmed and Mehedi Hasan. There will be fewer expectations on the youngsters with most of the focus on the seniors in the batting line-up, Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur.Mushfiqur’s technical strength will be important in dealing with seaming conditions while Tamim has the experience of playing for the Wellington Firebirds in the domestic T20 tournament. Much will also depend on how Imrul Kayes, Mahmudullah and Shakib Al Hasan stand up to New Zealand’s pace attack.Mushfiqur said he had advised his young pace attack to target the top of off stump instead of being too focused on the available pace and bounce.”Bowlers do get excited by extra bounce but the best ball here, like any other pitch, is one that targets the top of off stump,” Mushfiqur said. “We have tried to pass on this message to our bowlers and also told them that even a top batsman needs one ball to get out. The bowlers have to work hard here because New Zealand know how to handle these conditions.”When you know as a group that you can take 20 wickets, it gives a bit of satisfaction. But we are playing in a different condition and we haven’t played an away Test in a very long time. The pace bowlers have to take over the attacking role that the spinners have in home Tests. I believe that our pace bowlers have the ability to take 20 wickets if they bowl at their best.”Mushfiqur also said that younger players, like offspinner Mehedi Hasan and seamer Mustafizur Rahman, should not be subject to unrealistic expectations. Mehedi took 19 wickets in his debut Test series against England in October, picking up the Man-of-the-Series award. Mustafizur, who has been rested for the first Test, was recently named the ICC’s Emerging Player of the Year.”I would request all to keep realistic expectations about Mustafizur or Mehedi Hasan,” he said. “These conditions are new for them so sometimes even someone like Mehedi gets confused. But I feel he is a smart operator, which enabled him to come to the senior team so quickly. Here, he will learn how to switch his roles with the fast bowlers becoming the attacking options.”

What did the Supreme Court do on Monday?
The court removed BCCI president Anurag Thakur and board secretary Ajay Shirke from their positions. The Lodha Committee had observed constantly that both Thakur and Shirke were playing an “obstructionist” role and impeding the implementation of the recommendations despite the court approving them on July 18 last year.Who is in charge of the BCCI at this moment?
The court said the most senior vice-president at BCCI who meets the eligibility criteria set by the Lodha Committee will be the interim president. The joint secretary Amitabh Choudhury will take over as secretary, provided he meets the eligibility criteria. Before they assume their new positions, though, both would need to give an undertaking that they would abide by the July 18 court judgement, which had approved most of the Lodha Committee recommendations.What happens next?
The court has asked amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium and Fali S Nariman to nominate members to a panel of administrators that would supervise the BCCI before a new set of office bearers takes over once the Lodha recommendations are put in place.Who runs the BCCI for the next month?
The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri is in charge of the daily operations.Will this impact cricket?
Unlikely. The BCCI has raised no concern about domestic cricket operations so far. As for international cricket, India host England for a limited-overs series starting January 15. The court has already approved all finances for the England series.Can the BCCI appeal?
The BCCI can file a curative petition against the January 2 order. But the board’s attempts to challenge the court orders over the last one year have failed.

Pakistan are “comfortable” with their selection of Sohail Khan for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, despite Mickey Arthur’s comments during the first Test in Brisbane that he had doubts about the bowler’s endurance levels.Pakistan made one change to their XI from Brisbane, picking Sohail in place of Rahat Ali. That may have come as a surprise to those who heard Arthur’s comments on radio during the first Test, made, incidentally, in defense of the pace attack selected for that game.”Sohail Khan comes in and swings it right arm, but I’ve got a doubt about Sohail’s comebackability,” Arthur had said at the time. “If he has got to bowl, his first spell’s very good, his second spell’s okay, his third spell is tough and then you just don’t get anything more. That puts a lot of pressure on our other units.”Sohail’s ability to return after his first and second spells has been in question since he made his Test return to Pakistan on the tour to England this year. Though he picked two five-fors in consecutive Tests, he often struggled to make an impact in his later spells and in the second innings.That would seem to be borne out by his career stats: 21 of his 24 Test wickets have come in the first fielding innings, while he averages 123 per wicket in the second innings.On Pakistan’s tour to New Zealand, however, he put together a couple of long spells and ended up bowling more overs – 70 – in the two Tests than any bowler on either side, bar Tim Southee.Pakistan decided to go with Sohail’s potential impact with the new ball over Imran Khan’s sturdier, more energetic presence. Arthur said Sohail had made an impression during training since they arrived in Melbourne – Sohail missed the first day with an upset stomach – but stopped short of u-turning on his earlier assessment.”He has bowled beautifully,” Arthur said. “He has trained exceptionally, that’s all I can say. I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately, he has lost seven-eight kilos, he’s the first guy in the gym at six in the morning. He does his training, he bowls two-three spells in the nets every day. He has been excellent and I sort of doff my cap to him because he has been outstanding, almost been a model professional for us over the last month or so.”Time will tell though. He knows exactly what the concerns are around him. We’re comfortable we have picked what we think is the best attack. It just gives us a little bit more balance. He has swung the ball nicely. He’s a right-armer. On this wicket you don’t want to give too many areas for Nathan Lyon to bowl so we wanted to keep one right-armer to attack.”Speaking to later, Arthur pointed to the many positives in selecting Sohail. “Sohail Khan’s ability has never been in doubt. He swings the ball and bowls at a good pace. He is a very, very fine bowler.”And what I said in the interview was a fact – that we have concerns around him coming back – but there are so many positives about him. He swings the ball at a good pace and he is a real trier. So I am comfortable that he has done everything we wanted him to do and the proof of the pudding is going to be in how he performs.”

James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, has denied the game down under is in need of another comprehensive review of its operations, structures and philosophies despite what he called a “very significant fall from grace” dating back to the start of the Sri Lanka tour in July.On the day Rod Marsh resigned as selection chairman in the wake of the Test team’s fifth consecutive heavy defeat and second in a row at home, Sutherland stated in the face of questions about his own future that “it’s my responsibility to lead the people to turn this around”.He admitted that the team’s preparation for the summer had to be re-examined, as did succession planning around the retirements that followed the 2015 Ashes. But Sutherland also stressed his belief that the game overall was in far better shape than it had been in 2011, and denied that he and CA had been too commercially focused at the expense of the national team’s progress.That year, the review of the game led by the former BHP chairman Don Argus brought in a raft of changes to Cricket Australia, and Sutherland maintained its principles and outcome had been sound in the face of criticism from the likes of the former captain Ian Chappell.”I don’t think there needs to be another review,” Sutherland said. “I think [the Argus review] provides a pretty good blueprint or at least a strong reference point for us to have a look at where we’ve come from and where we are now.”Some of the issues or challenges are short term in and around the existing team and others are perhaps more long term as we look through the cricketing challenges that we have both internationally but also domestically.”I think that proper process in terms of management tells me that you need to look very closely at your strategy first and what you’re trying to do. You then look at the structure to support that strategy and then you look at the people. This is clearly an opportunity for us to have a closer look.”We’re pretty clear on strategy – we want our teams to be No.1 in the world, men and women in all forms of the game. We need to need to have a look to make sure that we’ve got the right structures to support that and obviously people come after that.”During the Hobart Test, Sutherland had defended the team’s preparation, but now changed tack. “Preparation is something that we’ll definitely have a closer look at,” he said. “The South Africans from memory had one [two-day] pink ball match and one short two-day red-ball match when they came into Australia.”The discussions we had with team performance and the team itself as to what was the ideal preparation, given the circumstances of playing the one-day series in South Africa beforehand. What we arrived at was the Shield cricket that we played. We knew that was a difficult situation with the Test series starting as early as it did and I said in that [ABC Radio] interview there’s nothing ideal and nothing perfect about preparation.”Preparation is not just about the team, it’s actually about the individual. We had that conversation with team management yesterday to try and understand which players we feel did not have the right preparation coming into the series. And the answer to that was very much around those players that were managing injuries were the ones that were most challenged by it.”Asked whether there was any scope for the Australian team and the coach Darren Lehmann to have more input regarding scheduling, Sutherland reflected that he was as much at the mercy of bilateral requirements as the team were. CA are leading a push to change the structure of international cricket to take on league structures and also reduce the overall volume of matches played.”There are things about the schedule that I would like to change but they’re very difficult to change,” he said. “It’s not just from a team performance perspective it’s also about our obligations to deliver content, to our grounds, to our state associations, to media partners and others. On balance we work through that and make decisions on what we think is best.”It may or may not be an issue in terms of the Australian team getting bowled out for [85] in the first innings of a Hobart Test match. No-one can tell me or guarantee that is actually the case because there are plenty of summers gone by where we’ve had a similar preparation to the season and done well. But we haven’t this time and that gives cause for us to challenge ourselves on how we prepare our players.”Plenty of the spotlight has fallen on the Sheffield Shield competition, once the envy of the world but now increasingly marginalised by the growth of the Twenty20 Big Bash League at the heart of the summer. “It’s hard to measure but clearly there is quite a lot of discussion around whether it still is or not,” Sutherland said when asked whether it remained the game’s pre-eminent domestic competition.”I don’t think it’s a matter so much of comparison, it’s a matter of whether Shield cricket is performing the role that Australian cricket needs it to right now. I think that’s part of a discussion that we need to have internally, in regard to how Shield cricket is supported, where it fits in the schedule and the role that it plays in producing Australian Test cricketers in the future.”

Match facts

Thursday, October 20, 2016
Start time 1330 local (0800 GMT)2:33

Kumble backs Rahane to open

Big picture

In a normal Indian season, this ODI would have been played on Wednesday and not Thursday, but it has been postponed to accommodate the festival of . This is festival season in India; the Kolkata Test was advanced to avoid a clash with Durga Puja and Diwali, one of the biggest pan-Indian festivals, takes place during the ODI series.For India, the festivities seem to have extended to the field – they have beaten New Zealand in all four matches of the tour, the Dharamsala ODI being the latest. But it is easier to recover from a loss in ODIs than it is in Tests, even a comprehensive one.One defeat doesn’t make New Zealand, the World Cup runners-up, an ordinary team, nor will one win make India’s ODI issues go away but there are enough trends to bother one and please the other. Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor haven’t joined the festivities, whereas Virat Kohli’s unbeaten fifty showed he had no trouble putting aside a nine-month gap between ODIs.Excluding Zimbabwe, New Zealand last beat an international side in March in the World T20. These are the kind of things that begin to stack up; never mind the difficult conditions they have played in or the injuries. India will want to stretch that streak to leave New Zealand needing to win every game to win this series.

Form guide

India WWWWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
New Zealand LWLWWMartin Guptill hasn’t been in form for New Zealand•BCCI

In the spotlight

Ross Taylor‘s miserable tour continued in Dharamsala where he got out first ball, poking at an outswinger. With 89 runs in seven innings, it will take a lot of mental strength from him to turn this tour around.This series is a great opportunity for Ajinkya Rahane to establish himself in the ODI XI beyond all doubt. KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan are injured, but when they are back, wasted starts such as the 33 in the first game could hurt Rahane’s prospects.

Team news

Suresh Raina has been ruled out of the second ODI too with viral fever, which should mean another chance for Kedar Jadhav. Hardik Pandya, after three wickets and the Man-of-the-Match award on debut, should get another go with the new ball.India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Manish Pandey, 5 MS Dhoni (capt. & wk), 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Umesh YadavAfter resting for the first ODI, Matt Henry is ready to return to the XI. If it is a normal ODI pitch, Ish Sodhi should be the one making way for him.New Zealand (probable): 1 Tom Latham, 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Kane Williamson (capt.), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Corey Anderson, 6 Luke Ronchi (wk), 7 James Neesham, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Doug Bracewell, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Matt Henry

Pitch and conditions

The Dharamsala pitch, which offered assistance to quicks early on, should be an aberration. With winter setting in, dew can be an issue so expect the side winning the toss to chase.

Stats and trivia

• MS Dhoni is 61 short of becoming the fifth Indian to 9000 ODI runs.
• Luke Ronchi is third on the list of New Zealand wicketkeepers with most dismissals – 90
• Guptill needs another 144 runs to reach 5000 ODI runs. Only four New Zealand batsmen have done it

Quotes

“Everyone’s determined to make amends, and there are areas to we can make adjustments in. We’ll be good and ready to go.”
“I love coming to this ground… It’s a confidence booster. But we’re not banking on our records at Kotla. Numbers are nice to look at, but I think statistics is not how we approach every game, We go out there to win.”

Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal sustained a fracture on the little finger of his left hand while fielding at team practice in Mirpur on Saturday. An X-ray on Sunday confirmed the nature of the injury.BCB’s chief physician Debashish Chowdhury said that Tamim is likely to be ruled out for two to three weeks, which means that he could be uncertain for selection for the ODIs against Afghanistan, if they go ahead in September.”He has fractured his finger during catching practice,” Chowdhury said. “The good thing is that the fracture did not spread and is in one place. We are hopeful for him to recover within two to three weeks.”Tamim was taking part in a training session ahead of Bangladesh’s home series against England. He is likely to be fit by the time it starts, in October.

Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland has stressed the need to view proposed changes to the structure of international cricket in their entirety, after the BCCI expressed its opposition to the concept of two-tier Test cricket.ICC chief executive David Richardson has advocated what he calls a “proper competition structure” for Test cricket, which could see a top division of the seven highest-ranked Test nations and a lower division including the sides ranked eight to ten, as well as new Test teams from the Associate nations.The concept was discussed at the ICC’s annual conference in Edinburgh in June, along with other potential changes to the structure of international cricket. However, the boards of both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh expressed their opposition to two-tier Test cricket, a stance that has now been backed by BCCI president Anurag Thakur.”In the two-tier system, they will lose out on a lot, including revenue and the opportunity to play against top teams,” Thakur said of lower-ranked Test sides. “We don’t want that to happen. We want to work in the best interests of world cricket and that is why our team plays against all the countries.”However, Sutherland said nothing under the new proposal would prevent top teams such as India playing against the lower-ranked sides in bilateral contests, and the overall raft of proposed changes would add greater context to international cricket.”I saw the headlines about that and I saw some comment that that was about India wanting to play against the other countries,” Sutherland told ESPNcricinfo. “Well, frankly there’s nothing that I’m aware of that stops India from playing against whoever they want to.”But creating some sort of structure around Test cricket is one small part of what’s a number of different components to a major review of the structure and format of international bilateral cricket, something that we believe is really important to ensure the sustainable future of international cricket.”Whether there are two divisions is one small component. There’s a whole lot of other things about what the financial model looks like, how teams that may be in the second division are protected and supported to ensure they’re given the best financial backing and other opportunities to bounce back from the second division.”But we’re only talking about Test cricket there. That’s one small component of the whole package or raft of things that includes T20 league, one-day league, and competition that adds context and structure to international cricket, and hopefully makes it more sustainable as a fan proposition, which is ultimately the most important thing.”Sutherland said it was too early to speculate about the future of proposed ICC changes, despite the apparent opposition expressed by Thakur last week.”We’ll have discussions about that in time,” Sutherland said. “It’s hard to gather exactly what people are thinking from headlines or limited media reports. Until you actually get with people and understand what they’re thinking it’s very difficult to rationalise and probably inappropriate to make too much comment.”

The BCB has said that Bangladesh’s strength and conditioning coach Mario Villavarayan will not be joining the preliminary squad’s training camp along with the rest of the foreign coaching staff at the start of August.Villavarayan was supposed to kick off training on July 20, but has cited “personal reasons” for his delayed return to Dhaka. The Bangladesh players will start the camp under trainer Iftekharul Islam.”All the staff will be arriving in Dhaka towards the end of this month or at the start of August,” BCB CEO Nizamuddin Chowdhury told ESPNcricinfo. “Mario [Villavarayan] has said that he has personal issues and he is expected to join soon.”Following the July 1 Dhaka attack, Nizamuddin said that the BCB will provide additional security to BCB’s foreign staff. “We will provide the foreign staff with additional security in line with the government directive towards sensitive people and places,” he said.Meanwhile, Brett Harrop, BCB’s physiotherapist at the cricket development department, has resigned due to “family reasons”.

ScorecardJordan Clark came out firing after the last rain delay to secure victory•PA Photos

Jordan Clark smashed an unbeaten 31 off 12 balls as Lancashire’s stuttering start to the defence of their Natwest T20 blast title got back on track with a rain-affected victory over Leicestershire at a sodden Old Trafford.Clark and Jos Buttler hit 35 runs off 11 balls to clinch the game with five deliveries to spare, after Lancashire were set a revised Duckworth Lewis target of 74 to win off seven overs in reply to Leicetershire’s 131 for 3 off 14 overs.Leicestershire openers Mark Cosgrove and Mark Pettini had initially put on 63 for the first wicket in just 6.5 overs after being put into bat by Steven Croft whose Lancashire side struggled with a wet ball and a soaking out field.On a humid night in Manchester, a heavy shower just as the players took the field caused a delay of 75 minutes before Cosgrove and Pettini took an instant liking for Neil Wagner’s bowling with the New Zealander going for 40 runs off his three overs.Pettini was the first to fall for 23 when he managed to scoop a delivery from Arron Lilley onto his helmet with Buttler diving athletically to catch the rebound.Umar Akmal joined Cosgrove at the crease and the Pakistani hit a quick fire 17 off 15 balls including a huge six off Lilley before he was bowled by Croft.Cosgrove, who finished unbeaten on 63, continued to lead a charmed life and he took full advantage of dropped catches by Croft, Karl Brown and Wagner to help take Leicestershire to a competitive total with Cameron Delport also unbeaten on six after Kevin O’Brien was caught in the deep by Lilley off Jordan Clark for 12.Only eight balls of the Lancashire reply were possible before the rain came again with the score 11 without loss and a further delay left the hosts requiring 63 more runs off 5.4 overs.Clark smashed Ben Raine’s first ball after the resumption for six and together with Alviro Petersen the opening pair put on 42 off 4.2 overs before the South African slapped a square cut straight to Tom Wells at point for 23.Two boundaries from Buttler left Lancashire requiring 23 to win off 12 balls before 20 runs off Clint McKay’s penultimate over saw the home side reach the target with five balls to spare as Clark hoisted a huge six over square leg to win the game and register Lancashire’s second win of the competition.