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Warwickshire players, Graham Wagg and Jim Troughton, will not fly to Australia on Sunday 13 October with the remainder of the National Academy squad due to injury.Wagg has a stress fracture of the back and Troughton has stress fractures inthe fibula bones of both legs. Whilst both players will attend the NationalAcademy programme introduction at Loughborough next week, neither willtravel to Adelaide before Christmas. They will re-habilitate with Warwickshire CCC.They will undergo medicals in December and it is hoped both will be able tojoin the Academy squad in Adelaide in early January next year.No replacements will be made for this initial training phase of the programme.

Following recent press speculation, Essex is now in a position to confirm that it has secured the services of Australian test star Mark Waugh to take over from Andy Flower in September when he leaves for the ICC Trophy competition in Sri Lanka. Essex Chief Executive David East commented:”We are delighted that Mark will be returning to us. Andy Flower has done afantastic job this summer and will be greatly missed in September, but withMark supporting our push for promotion in the last four games of the seasonwe have high hopes of success.”Waugh joins Essex on 9th September to prepare for the Championship matchstarting against Durham at Riverside on 11th September, having completed a short tour in the UK promoting his new book. He has previously played for the Club in 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1995, and currently averages just under 60 in first class cricket for Essex.Mark Waugh commented:”I am really looking forward to my return to Essex. I have always enjoyedplaying for the Club and I hope that I can help them achieve promotion inboth league competitions this season.”

Central Zone made a strong start in the Bangladesh Cricket League, trouncing North Zone by an innings and 70 runs in Chittagong.Central Zone’s top three – Mohammad Mithun, Mizanur Rahman and Soumya Sarkar – all struck hundreds as they racked up 563 for 3. Mithun top scored with 176 off 257 balls with 21 fours and two sixes, while Mizanur struck the same number of fours, and three sixes in his 162 off 243 balls. The opening pair added 327 runs, with Mizanur now involved in three 300-plus opening stands in the last four years.Soumya struck 104 not out off 148 balls with ten fours and a six, before Salman Hossain and Mosaddek Hossain struck fifties to take them past the 550-mark.Trailing by 344 runs, North Zone were bowled out for 274 in the second innings, with captain Marshall Ayub top scoring with 101. For Central Zone, left-arm spinner Hasan Murad took 6 for 74.Up north in Rajshahi, South Zone beat East Zone by eight wickets.A brace of five-wicket hauls from offspinner Mahedi Hasan and left-arm spinner Nasum Ahmed helped South Zone bowl out East Zone for 260 in the first innings.Zakir Hasan then made 158 off 276 balls with 19 fours and two sixes. He added 128 runs for the fourth wicket with Anamul Haque who made 88, before his 104-run ninth wicket stand with Nasum, who chipped in with 59 batting at No. 10.Offspinners Nayeem Hasan, Anamul Haque and Mohammad Ashraul took three wickets each, but East Zone couldn’t force the issue with the bat in their second innings. They were bowled out for 257, with Afif Hossain’s 86 their top score.Offspinner Nahidul Islam took four wickets, while Nasum and Mahedi added two each to their match haul. South Zone later took 21.3 overs to knock over the 89-run fourth innings target.

Eleven wickets – seven of them belonging to the visitors – fell on the fourth day of the Galle Test between Sri Lanka and the West Indies as the hosts inched closer towards victory. Sri Lanka’s spinners Ramesh Mendis and Lasith Embuldeniya ran through the West Indies batting line-up to leave them reeling at 52 for 6 at stumps. They need a further 296 runs to win with just four wickets in hand.Much like in the first innings, it was the loopy offspin of Mendis that did much of the damage, as he accounted for four more West Indies wickets to take his match tally to seven. Embuldeniya grabbed two meanwhile. Sri Lanka’s spinners have so far been responsible for 15 of the 16 in this match.Chief among the visitors’ problems has been their inability to pick the straighter one that goes on with the arm. Sri Lanka spin coach Piyal Wijetunge had spoken of the lack of control shown by his spinners after the end of play on the third day; he would have been much happier with their showing the following day.Each of Shai Hope, Roston Chase, Kyle Mayers and Jason Holder was done in with the Sri Lanka spinners’ straighter variant, with Mendis accounting for three of them. Aside from Mayers, who left one from Mendis that darted in to trap him plumb in front of the middle stump, the other three were all castled one way or the other.The speed and nature of the collapse – they were 18 for 6 in 13 overs – was in sharp contrast to the ease with which Sri Lanka’s batters played West Indies’ spinners earlier.Both Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews notched up half-centuries and shared a 123-run stand off 150 balls to help Sri Lanka set a target of 348.Karunaratne once more top-scored for Sri Lanka with a 104-ball 83, in what was his sixth straight 50-plus score in Tests – he has crossed 50 seven times this year in seven Tests, and gone on to reach three figures five times, including a career-best 244 against Bangladesh in Pallekele in April. He, however, fell short of making back-to-back centuries in this Test, edging a cut off Rahkeem Cornwall that looped to first slip via the keeper’s gloves. Dhananjaya de Silva was the only other wicket to fall after lunch, when he offered a return catch to Jomel Warrican.Angelo Mathews and Dimuth Karunaratne shared a 123-run stand•AFP/Getty Images

Warrican and Cornwall ended the innings with two wickets apiece, and West Indies now need to complete a record chase – the highest total successfully chased in Galle was the 268 Sri Lanka ran down against New Zealand in 2019 – or bat out a day, though rain is expected.Sri Lanka’s declaration followed a slog sweep for six by Mathews, who remained unbeaten on 69 off 84 deliveries.Karunaratne, in particular, looked in good nick, growing in confidence after a circumspect start against some tight bowling from the spinners. Mathews, at the other end, also looked comfortable, a late cut past the backward point the highlight of his innings.West Indies might have had more wickets had it not been for some uncertain decision making. After an ill-advised early review against Karunaratne – he was rapped on the pads outside off stump not offering a stroke, but replays confirmed the ball was missing the stumps by a considerable margin – West Indies became extremely hesitant to use DRS.This hurt them on two occasions. The first was a missed Oshada sweep that brought about a fervent appeal from wicketkeeper Joshua Da Silva. The review remained unused, only for replays to show that Oshada may have got the faintest of touches.Related

• No control, no problem: Karunaratne conjures his own luck

While that didn’t prove too costly, the next one very well might. Cornwall hit Karunaratne on the pads, but none of the West Indies players seemed confident enough to challenge the umpire’s assertion that the ball had pitched outside leg. No review again, only for replays to show that the ball had indeed pitched in line and likely would have hit off stump.Had those dismissals – the Karunaratne one, in particular – gone in favour of the visitors, things might have been different. But as it stands, only rain or an unlikely rearguard stand in the way of a Sri Lanka win.Earlier in the morning, it took just over 15 minutes for Sri Lanka to claim the final West Indies wicket and secure a healthy first-innings lead. Following a rain-delayed start, Sri Lanka picked up the second new ball first thing and went on the offensive against Da Silva and Gabriel with the spin duo of Lasith Embuldeniya and Praveen Jayawickrama.Of the two, Jayawickrama looked the more likely to pick up the last wicket, having beaten the outside edge of both batters numerous times, and he was rewarded in the end. Gabriel was trapped lbw after being caught flush on the toe by one that was well tossed up. Jayawickrama finished with the best figures of the innings: 4 for 40.

An unbeaten 83 by Avishka Fernando and an assured bowling performance spearheaded by Lahiru Kumara saw Sri Lanka clinch a 19-run win over Oman.In the first of two T20s the sides will play ahead of the T20 World Cup, Oman put Sri Lanka in to bat after winning the toss. They got off to a perfect start, reducing Sri Lanka to 21 for 3 inside five overs. Fayyaz Butt removed Dinesh Chandimal and Kamindu Mendis for golden ducks, before Kaleemullah put paid to Pathum Nissanka’s innings. A brief resurrection followed, but when Bhanuka Rajapaksa fell, Sri Lanka were wobbling at 51 for 4.But from thereon, Sri Lanka began to assume control. They wouldn’t lose another wicket for the rest of the innings, with captain Dasun Shanaka – who smashed 51 off 24 – and Fernando plundering 112 off the final 56 balls. Oman struggled to find a response to the onslaught, Butt and Mohammad Nadeem leaking 84 in their combined eight overs. When Sri Lanka finished with 162, they found themselves on much more secure footing than they had been for much of the innings.Oman were never really in the chase. Much like Sri Lanka, they lost a clump of early wickets, Nuwan Pradeep and Kumara accounting for six of them as Oman slumped to 23 for four. Rearguards from the lower middle order did arrive, but they only served to make the scorecard look closer than the game really was, Oman focused on avoiding a massive defeat than really looking to run the target down. Mohammad Nadeem, Ayaan Khan and Sandeep Goud guided them through the middle overs before Naseem Khushi in the lower order really cut loose.He smacked 40 off 22, two fours and four sixes along the way, to take Oman past 140. However, with the asking rate much too high, the intensity may well have seeped out of the game. He would be dismissed off the final ball of the game, which made official a victory for a Sri Lanka side who will feel they have another couple of levels they can raise their game to.

A flare-up in the dressing room immediately after the Champions Trophy final may have been the last act of Anil Kumble’s tumultuous final weeks as India coach. According to insiders, Kumble, who stepped down as coach on Tuesday, gave a “dressing-down” to one of his players at The Oval on Sunday, moments after Pakistan had completed a 180-run win to seal the title.Debriefings are part of the coach’s job and it was natural for Kumble to have been disappointed after the crushing defeat. But a BCCI official said his timing was not right.”After the final he gave a big dressing-down to the player,” the official said. “There is a time for everything. Team has just lost. They are down. You come and [give the dressing down].”Kumble was unavailable to comment on developments since Tuesday.The morning after the final, when Kumble met the BCCI top brass, he was told of the reservations the players, including captain Virat Kohli, had with regards to his approach. In his parting note, which he released on Twitter on Tuesday, Kumble said it was the first time he had been told of these differences. Yet, others in the know insist that the relationship between Kohli and Kumble had become dysfunctional over the last few months.On Tuesday, when the India squad left for the Caribbean to play a limited-overs series against West Indies, Kumble stayed back in London to participate in the ICC’s chief executives committee meeting, where he sat as chairman of the cricket committee. Although Kumble’s year-long contract ended with the Champions Trophy, the BCCI had given him an extension until the end of the West Indies series.”Kumble had accepted to travel to the West Indies, but that was subject to resolving the differences,” the BCCI official said. The BCCI had even booked a room in his name in the team hotel in Trinidad, where India start the five-match ODI series on June 23. Kumble was meant to land on Thursday.Kumble had been recommended by the BCCI’s three-man cricket advisory panel comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. Despite not having any formal coaching experience, the CAC felt Kumble had the right credentials for the job, and offered it to him ahead of candidates such as Ravi Shastri, who had been the India team director for two years.Before the Champions Trophy, the BCCI decided to invite fresh applications instead of extending Kumble’s contract. The job was advertised the day India landed in England (May 25) to start their Champions Trophy campaign. Asked if he agreed with the BCCI’s decision, Kohli simply said the BCCI was following its usual processes. Later on, during the tournament, he denied any rift within the team, saying there were “no issues whatsoever”. BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary, meanwhile, said the friction between coach and players was solely in the “realms of imagination” of the media.According to one of its officials, the BCCI had booked a room in the team hotel for Anil Kumble in Trinidad, where India start their five-match ODI series against West Indies•Getty Images

Only six applicants put forward their resume, one of them being Kumble himself. The CAC informed the BCCI that Kumble remained the frontrunner as his track record as coach had no blemish. The CAC was then asked to patch up the differences between Kumble and Kohli. Although the CAC met Kohli, it did not meet with Kumble.In his meeting with the BCCI on Tuesday, Kumble said that since the CAC did not want to meet him he could not have been doing anything wrong. “Anil just did not budge,” the BCCI official said. “He said the CAC met Virat and did not meet me [Kumble], so I am the guy who is right.”Kumble has never been shy of expressing his opinion, but the official said the last word in the dressing room has always belonged to the captain. Kumble, according to the official, was trying to “overstep” and that caused problems. “In the cricket construct it is the captain who takes the credit and the flak. Everybody else plays the supporting role. But Kumble wanted due credit.”It is understood “multiple meetings” took place during the Champions Trophy to attempt to repair the relationship, but Kohli’s opinion had not changed when he met the BCCI separately on Monday. “There is no cricketing difference between the two. It has been a personality clash.”Kumble and Kohli not wanting to reach out to each other to mend their differences may have widened the chasm between the pair over the past few months, culminating in the former opting to leave the job. The board official felt Kumble, being the senior, could have tried a little harder to reach out to Kohli. The official said being a prominent personality himself and having been in cricket for a long time, Kumble could have drawn on that experience to “handle personalities” in the dressing room.In his statement, Kumble said he had made clear the distinction between the roles of coach and captain. “I was informed for the first time yesterday by the BCCI that the captain had reservations with my ‘style’ and about my continuing as the head coach,” he said. “I was surprised since I had always respected the role boundaries between captain and coach.”

Australia’s sport minister, Greg Hunt, has revealed the Federal Government would be prepared to step in and provide “good officers” for mediation between Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers’ Association should the current pay dispute continue to spiral.Following the refusal of CA’s chairman David Peever to grant the ACA’s request for independent mediation, and further attempts by the team performance manager Pat Howard to deal directly with the players, Hunt said that the government was hesitant about being too interventionist about contract disputes in professional sport. However, he indicated there was scope to act as a mediator if the dispute looked likely to threaten the home Ashes summer.”If it got to a last-minute situation, I suspect that we would offer to provide good officers brokering between the parties, but there’s six months between now and the Ashes,” Hunt told ABC’s . “It would be unthinkable that in the end we wouldn’t have a full team.”I do not see either the players or the administration returning to the late ’70s where we had a second rate team. The players love playing for Australia, Cricket Australia knows this is not just fundamental to sport, it is part of our national identity. I’m very confident they will reach an agreement.”What I don’t want to do across all sports is try to step in and be a mediator in a contract dispute. If there were a fundamental threat at an appropriate time we would offer to work with them, but all the advice I have is that with six months to travel, the Ashes will be proceeding with a full Australian team and on Boxing Day you’ll have Steve Smith, David Warner and the rest of the team out there.””This is a pay dispute between a very well-resourced organisation and very highly paid players. They’ll work it out” – Greg Hunt, Australia’s minister for sport•AFP

Among other areas of expansion, CA has recently grown its government relations division drastically, from a single staffer based in Melbourne to one in each state, all reporting in to the head office at Jolimont. The ACA, too, have enlisted the help of political experience in the pay dispute, retaining the services of the former Labor government minister and longtime union leader Greg Combet.Asked whether he was comfortable with Combet’s involvement, Hunt spoke warmly of his former political opponent. “I’m completely relaxed about it,” Hunt said. “I actually know Greg Combet well, whilst we’ve disagreed on different things in the past, I think he’s fundamentally a person of good sense and integrity.”In assessing how he thought the dispute would play out, Hunt pointed out that CA was “very well-resourced” and the players “very highly paid”. The board has been citing the need to better fund grassroots facilities around the country as a reason for breaking up the players’ fixed revenue percentage model that has existed as the basis for pay agreements for the past 20 years.”This is a pay dispute between a very well-resourced organisation and very highly paid players,” Hunt said. “They’ll work it out.”The current MOU between the players and CA expires at the end of June, with an Australia A tour of South Africa, a Test tour of Bangladesh and an ODI tour of India all scheduled to take place between that date and the start of the Ashes series. CA has stressed that players will be unemployed should no agreement be reached by June 30.

Former Hyderabad wicketkeeper Ibrahim Khaleel and former Windward Islands legspinning allrounder Camilus Alexander are in line to make their debuts for USA next month after being included in a 14-man squad for ICC WCL Division Three in Uganda.Khaleel, 34, and Alexander, 35, are two of three uncapped players in the squad with left-arm spinner Nosthush Kenjige also coming into the squad. One other change was made from the squad that won WCL Division Four in November as left-arm spinning allrounder Mrunal Patel, who last played for USA at the 2015 World T20 Qualifier in Ireland, has been recalled. Batsmen Abdullah Syed and Ravi Timbawala and left-arm spinners Danial Ahmed and Prashanth Nair are the four players dropped.

USA squad

Steven Taylor (capt), Camilus Alexander, Timroy Allen, Alex Amsterdam, Fahad Babar, Akeem Dodson (wk), Elmore Hutchinson, Nosthush Kenjige, Ibrahim Khaleel (wk), Ali Khan, Mrunal Patel, Timil Patel, Jessy Singh, Nicholas Standford

Khaleel’s eligibility for Division Three was touch and go because he did not meet the ICC’s four-year residency requirement for non-citizen players classified as nationals, despite officially having “green card” permanent resident status in the USA, because he had spent too much time out of the country during his final season with Hyderabad in 2014-15. However, he obtained his USA citizenship and passport on April 14, removing him from the four-year category and making him fully eligible.Alexander moved to Atlanta from Grenada in 2012 and qualifies as a four-year resident. Alexander earned his spot after he excelled with the bat at a pair of USA national team camps in Houston in March and April when he was in a head-to-head competition with former Sri Lanka first-class batsman Roy Silva. Both Khaleel and Alexander are expected to fill key middle-order batting positions, something coach Pubudu Dassanayake had identified as a problem area that needed to be addressed when selecting a squad for Division Three.”We feel these players will boost the squad’s batting depth and also its flexibility, with additional spin bowling options,” said Ricardo Powell, USA national selection chairman. “We wish the selected players and coaching staff all the best for their preparation and a successful event.”Ibrahim Khaleel will add first-class experience to USA’s squad•Peter Della Penna

While Khaleel and Alexander have lengthy resumes in first-class cricket prior to being picked for this tour, Kenjige’s expected debut provides a bit of intrigue. The 26-year-old took eight wickets in three trial games during the first Houston squad camp in March. That included a five-wicket haul in which he claimed the wickets of USA captain Steven Taylor as well as fellow squad members Nicholas Standford, Akeem Dodson and Khaleel.Though he was born in Alabama, Kenjige played most of his developmental cricket in Karnataka before resettling in New York in 2016, where he first caught the attention of selectors at an ICC Americas regional combine last June. He is expected to be a significant upgrade over Ahmed, who took 1 for 135 in 32 overs across five games at WCL Division Four in November, and is also a superb fielder.One other player whose availability had been in question was batsman Alex Amsterdam, who led USA’s scoring at Division Four with 213 runs at 53.25. According to several team sources, the middle-order batsman was struggling to get time off work for Division Three after spending a month in Barbados earlier this year playing for the ICC Americas squad at the WICB Regional Super50. Amsterdam did not come to the initial USA camp in March and was not among the original 18 names invited to a further selection camp in Houston in April, owing to time off work, but was a late addition to the April camp and will be touring Uganda.USA will have a weeklong camp in Los Angeles beginning on May 6 to kick off their final preparations for Division Three. They are then scheduled to land in South Africa on May 16 for a pre-tournament camp and warm-up matches at North West University in Potchefstroom before arriving in Uganda on May 21. Their first match at WCL Division Three is against Oman on May 23. USA will also be competing with Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and the hosts for a top-two finish to secure promotion to WCL Division Two.

New Zealand have conceded that they will not be able to exploit any home advantage in the ongoing Test series against South Africa, because that would be playing into the opposition’s hands. As a result, the green, grassy surfaces that become New Zealand’s preference over the last few summers – particularly against subcontinent sides – have been tamed and slower surfaces are being prepared instead, much to South Africa’s surprise.”We haven’t played on wickets like this in New Zealand before. I don’t know if it’s a genuine tactic from New Zealand or if it’s just how the wickets have changed,” Faf du Plessis said. “All the times we’ve been playing here, wickets have been green and over the last two years, New Zealand wickets have been pretty similar to the look of our wickets with seam and swing and then when the sun comes out you can score some nice runs. Conditions have surprised us.”In particular, the amount of turn has caught South Africa, who packed their squad with six seam options for the trip, off guard. “Coming to New Zealand our plan was normally we don’t need two spinners in these conditions but obviously conditions have changed a lot and now we think New Zealand will prepare conditions for spin,” du Plessis said.For that reason, South Africa are contemplating adding to their spin contingent, which only includes one specialist, Keshav Maharaj, for the third Test at Seddon Park. One of Tabraiz Shamsi, Dane Piedt or even Imran Tahir, who has not played a Test since the tour of India in 2015, may be called up to join the group, depending on how things go at the Basin Reserve this week. Wellington is likely to be the place with the most bounce and carry, but that’s not saying much because locals still predict it will be relatively flat by South African standards.New Zealand may also specifically ask for less grass, as New Zealand coach Mike Hesson confirmed they did for the fourth one-dayer in Hamilton. Apart from that, he maintained they are not making any special requests and leaving it up to the weather to dictate conditions. “You don’t get quick pitches in New Zealand generally at this time of year. Our one-day pitches normally have a bit more pace and I think that’s just due to the amount of rain we have had,” Hesson said. “But I don’t think ideally we want to play South Africa on a seamer-friendly surface and it’s also not like we want to play on surfaces that are barren, because there is reverse swing and that’s something South Africa are exceptionally good at. The first innings here [in Dunedin] when we were going quite nicely, reverse swing definitely played a role.”Despite scoring rates being slow in the first Test, Kane Williamson gave the Dunedin pitch and it’s new groundsman, Mike Davies, a pass mark. “I thought he did a very good job. It was on the slower side, which is to be expected. We all saw it shaping up to have an exciting finish so looking at those things, it was a good cricket wicket,” Williamson had said.Like Hesson, Williamson is also not putting too fine a point on conditions, and is concentrating on the quality of the contest instead. “In some countries it’s [home advantage] probably more relevant than others. A number of the South African players are very experienced and have played here before and the characteristics of the ground in this part of the world don’t change too drastically,” he said. “But playing at home, you play here more than anyone else. There’s a natural thing where you are a little bit more comfortable but we have pretty fair playing fields and I think it’s a good recipe for good cricket.”So how then, do New Zealand plan on making the fact that they are at home work for them? “I don’t think you do. You just try and play better cricket,” Hesson said.

Match facts

March 16-20, 2017
Start time 0930 local (0400 GMT)3:50

Chappell: Will be quite a turnaround if Australia pick Maxwell

Big Picture

Is a week a long time in cricket? Not really. Not unless the match is being played on Venus, where a day lasts for nearly eight Earth months and a week would thus drag on for almost five of our years. Probably explains why day-night cricket has never taken off there. Nevertheless, so much has happened since the Bengaluru Test that if it has not been an abnormally long week, it has certainly felt like one.First, there was the fallout from the DRS drama, where in a self-described “brain fade”, Steven Smith looked to Australia’s dressing room for advice on whether to ask for a review while batting. Virat Kohli claimed it was not the first time in the match the Australians had done so. Game on. Well, not literally, because by then the game was over. But you get the idea.If Smith’s actions and Kohli’s comments had fanned the flames of an international incident, the ICC tried its best to douse them the next day by declaring that it would lay no charges against either man. The ICC’s extinguisher was broken. A day later, the BCCI made a complaint to the ICC about Smith’s actions. But within hours, that complaint had been withdrawn, and the BCCI and Cricket Australia had released a joint statement to the effect that all parties would move on. Case closed. Or was it? Yes, it was. Really? Yes, probably. For now, at least.Meanwhile, Australia sent allrounder Mitchell Marsh home. Not because his contributions of 4, 31, 0 and 13, and five overs of medium-pace had been of little consequence, though they had. Marsh was despatched back to Australia due to a shoulder injury that he had been carrying all summer and which affected his bowling. In the words of team physio David Beakley, Marsh “couldn’t function at the level required”. Physically, that is.Mitchell Starc was on a plane home shortly afterwards due to a stress fracture in his right foot. Australia had lost the man who scythed through Sri Lanka in a losing squad last year, and who had made key breakthroughs in both Pune and Bengaluru. It also makes this the first Test since Chester-le-Street on the 2013 Ashes tour that Australia will enter without a single Mitchell – unless legspinner Mitch Swepson is called on to fill the quota.And so Australia’s squad gained Marcus Stoinis, an allrounder averaging 17 with the bat this Sheffield Shield season, and Pat Cummins, a fast bowler of immense talent who has just completed his first Sheffield Shield game for nearly six years. They are gut picks from Australia’s selectors, who are hoping for no indigestion.While all this was happening, India had cause to celebrate when Ravindra Jadeja moved up the Test bowling rankings to join his spinning team-mate R Ashwin – the two men now share the title of No.1 bowler in the world. India have also lost a player from their squad, though it is the injured allrounder Hardik Pandya, who has not played in this series in any case. And they are likely to regain opener M Vijay, who missed the Bengaluru Test due to a shoulder injury.And all of this is without even mentioning the usual speculation over the pitch for the next Test. The Pune pitch was rated “poor” by the ICC, and Bengaluru was “below average”. There were claims that Kohli would be allowed to choose which Ranchi surface would be used, though the curator SB Singh later rubbished those suggestions. Photographs of the pitch circulated on Twitter with various disparaging comments from Australian observers, and a report in the claimed that one Australian called it the most “ridiculous” looking pitch he had seen. Perhaps they thought they were on Venus after all, though they won’t expect this match to drag on.Whatever the case, the week of waiting is over, and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is potentially up for grabs in Ranchi. Should Australia win the Test, they retain the trophy; if India win, it will be decided in Dharamsala. So, finally, can we have some cricket please?

Form guide

India: WLWWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
Australia: LWWWW
Pat Cummins, tearaway quick: remember him?•AFP

In the spotlight

Virat Kohli has led his team with gusto in this series and their fightback in Bengaluru was admirable. But the one thing Kohli has failed to do so far is make a decent score himself. His batting contributions in this series read: 0, 13, 12 and 15. But this is, after all, a man who has scored four Test double-centuries in the past year alone, so the worrying thing for Australia is that this means there is only room for improvement – and a lot of it.More than five years after he debuted as a fresh-faced 18-year-old in Johannesburg and won Man-of-the-Match honours, Pat Cummins appears almost certain to add a second Test to his record. Cummins has still only played nine first-class matches in his entire injury-ravaged career, but has been rushed to India after getting through a Sheffield Shield match last week in which he took eight wickets. He is viewed as a potential match-winner and thus seems set to play ahead of Jackson Bird in what could be a trophy-deciding game. It is a gamble, but one whose pay-off could be significant.

Team news

India have said M Vijay is fit to play, having missed the second Test with a shoulder injury.* He did not bat for as long as his top-order colleagues in the nets in the two days leading up to the match, but if he does play will become the 29th Indian to feature in 50 Tests. If the pitch looks likely to assist spin in an exaggerated manner, India could bring in Jayant Yadav as a third spinner, possibly at the expense of Karun Nair.India (possible) 1 KL Rahul, 2 M Vijay, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (capt), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Karun Nair/Jayant Yadav, 7 Wriddiman Saha (wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Ravindra Jadeja, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Umesh Yadav.Cummins for Starc looks likely, but it remains a mystery who Australia’s selectors will tap to take Mitchell Marsh’s place at No.6. Stoinis? Glenn Maxwell? Usman Khawaja? Ashton Agar? They are all feasible options, and the answer might not be known until the morning of the match.Australia (probable) 1 David Warner, 2 Matt Renshaw, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Shaun Marsh, 5 Peter Handscomb, 6 Glenn Maxwell/Marcus Stoinis/Usman Khawaja/Ashton Agar, 7 Matthew Wade (wk), 8 Steve O’Keefe, 9 Pat Cummins, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Josh Hazlewood.

Pitch and conditions

The Ranchi pitch has been the subject of much debate over the past few days. The unusually dark colour of the pitch has puzzled the players, with Smith saying it looked like “rolled mud”. He expected it to hold up through the course of the first day and break up thereafter, and did not think it would offer a great deal of bounce.The weather is expected to be warm and dry through the Test match, with afternoon temperatures in the 28-31C range.

Stats and trivia

• This will be Australia’s 800th Test
• Ranchi will become the 26th Test venue in India
• Steven Smith needs 76 more runs to reach 5000 in Tests
• Such has been the turnover in players since Cummins’ Test debut in 2011 that it is likely Nathan Lyon will be his only remaining team-mate from that match – unless Khawaja is also brought in

Quotes

“I think so far, throughout this series, our batters have played their spinners better than their batters have played our spinners. So if it’s a game of spin versus batters, and the quicks aren’t in there quite as much, I certainly think it brings us to an even playing field.”
“It has been a very long season for us. Last two games to go, which we want to finish on a positive note. The break [after the Bengaluru Test] was timely for us as a side because we played for so long. We played non-stop. I’m sure everyone enjoyed the break and I’m sure the focus is back on this match and the next match.”
*10.30GMT, March 15: The preview was updated after the teams’ pressers on the match eve