Arthur backs Hussey

Updated at: 0122 PST,  Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Western Australian coach Mickey Arthur says Michael Hussey shouldn't be the player under pressure to move on after Australia's underwhelming summer.Thirty-five-year-old Hussey was one of the few stars for Australia in the 3-1 Ashes defeat, but that hasn't stopped his position coming under scrutiny after a serious hamstring injury kept him out of the World Cup squad.In the Ashes, Hussey was Australia's highest run-scorer with 570 at 63.33, a figure made even more remarkable by the fact he didn't score well in the last two Tests.He is also the world's No.4 One-Day International batsman according to the latest ICC rankings released on Monday evening.Hussey will get a chance to test his hamstring when Western Australia take on Queensland in Thursday's Sheffield Shield clash, along with Shaun Marsh, another hamstring victim who's also been named in the WA side.Arthur believes the man known as Mr Cricket will soon demonstrate to all that there's plenty of life left in the old dog."After the summer he's had ... he certainly wouldn't be the one that I'd be putting under pressure at the moment," Arthur said on Tuesday morning in Perth."There's absolutely no doubt he's got a lot of cricket left in him, no doubt.""I do think that it probably is time to change for Australia, I do think that they are going to get to a situation where they probably need to blood some younger players.""If they're serious about going and winning the 2013 Ashes, there's no doubt about that.""But with all the young players that you have, you need some experience to guide them.""If you haven't got that experience through the middle, those young guys are going to get put under some serious pressure."Arthur was coaching South Africa during the 2008-09 summer, when the Proteas defeated Australia 2-1, the coach remembering former Australian opener Matthew Hayden being put under extreme pressure to retire at the time after a run of poor form.But Arthur doesn't believe Hussey should simply go quietly in order to avoid such a situation happening again."(Some) players are of the opinion that if I'm good enough I should be playing and if you don't want me drop me," Arthur said."It's certainly not a bad way to do it because if you're performing well then you're putting the selectors under some serious pressure you know.""If you retire, you almost make the selector's decision a lot easier.""(But) guys know exactly where they're at in their career, they know what their hunger for the game is, they're in the best positions to make that decision.""Huss's hunger for the game is still as it was I think when he was an 18-year-old, so I wouldn't say Huss is certainly anywhere near retirement at the moment."Arthur said he wasn't certain under what ICC provision Australia could take Hussey to the World Cup after he was replaced in the initial squad, but said if he did come in to replace the injured Doug Bollinger he would be fit to fire."Huss will be ready," Arthur declared. "He'll be ready to go if he gets an opportunity and he certainly won't let anybody down."

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Australia deny ICC probe

Updated at: 0122 PST,  Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Australian officials have laughed off suggestions that the team is under investigation by the ICC for slow batting against Zimbabwe.Australia won the match easily but openers Shane Watson and Brad Haddin struggled to put runs on the board during the first 15 overs in the Group A game at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad.The pair put on 28 runs in 11 overs and 53 in the first 15 when two of the three power-plays were used."The slow rate of scoring in the first two overs was scrutinised by the ICC anti-corruption and security unit," Indianexpress.com website said in a report from the national wire service, Press Trust of India."Sources aware of developments said the ICC ACSU (Anti-Corruption Security Unit) had carried out a quiet review of the match after questions were raised over the slow start taken by Watson and Haddin.""With the spectre of spot-fixing now looming over international cricket following the bans on three Pakistani players for spot-fixing last year on the England tour, sources said the ICC ACSU was keeping a vigilant eye on all matches in the World Cup and the slow start by the Australian openers caught their attention."Australia coach Tim Nielsen said after the Zimbabwe match he saw nothing wrong in the openers' slow approach."I thought they played well in game one. Everyone had this perception that they went slowly. But if Zimbabwe were going to be competitive against us, they needed to take early wickets with their spinners. We're playing the way we think is the right way to play," Nielsen said.On Tuesday, Haddin and team manager Steve Bernard described the claims as 'ludicrous'."It's quite a laughable story. It's a joke," Haddin told reporters during a net session at the SSC in Colombo."We just got off the mark a bit slowly.""It's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my life … that a team could be none for five after two overs and that's suspicious?" Bernard said."I think it's the silliest thing I've heard this week, and I've heard a lot of silly things since I've been here.""At the start of any campaign, on a fresh track that the guys weren't used to, it took a bit of time (to adjust), but 260-odd was a pretty good score."

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Pakistan trio lodge appeals

Updated at: 1623 PST,  Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Pakistan trio Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir have filed appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against bans for spot-fixing.Butt was banned for 10 years, with five of them suspended, after being found guilty of corruption by an International Cricket Council tribunal.Mohammad Asif was handed a seven-year ban, with two of them suspended, while Amir was banned for five years.All three men have denied wrongdoing in a Test match against England.The players were accused of spot-fixing in the fourth Test at Lord's in August 2010.They were banned after newspaper The News of the World reported no balls were bowled at specific points in England's innings after a payment was made to a businessman.Former captain Butt said in a statement: "This is to confirm that today my legal team served a statement of appeal."Amir's lawyer Shahid Karim said he filed his client's appeal on Friday."The process is now to set to motion, we have challenged the judgment of the tribunal on various grounds," Karim said.A CAS statement read: "The Court of Arbitration for Sport has registered the appeals filed by Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt against the International Cricket Council (ICC) Anti-Corruption Tribunal's decision.""The cases will be handled in accordance with the procedural rules set out in the code of sports-related arbitration.""The parties will first exchange written submissions and will then be heard at a hearing, the date of which will be fixed at a later stage.""The CAS will not comment any further on these matters until a panel of arbitrators has been constituted and a procedural calendar established."In a separate development, the players are due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on March 17 to face charges of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat.

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Bell's LBW review explained

Updated at: 1623 PST,  Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Here's an explanation of how the Decision Review System (DRS) worked in the case of the leg-before appeal against Ian Bell on 27 February in the game between India and England at Bengaluru. * The greater the distance between point of impact and the stumps and the shorter the distance between point of pitching and the point of impact, the more difficult it is for the technology to provide an accurate projection.* For this reason the playing conditions provide that in the case of a not out lbw decision where the distance between point of impact and the stumps is greater than 250 cm and/or the distance between point of pitching and point of impact with the pad is less than 40cm (as will be indicated in the Hawkeye graphics and with the attached being an example), the umpires are not obliged to follow the normal rules for using Hawkeye to determine whether the batsman is out or not and shall have a discretion in determining whether or not to overturn their original not out decision.* In exercising this discretion they are required, in consultation with the third umpire, to take into account normal cricketing principles for determining lbw decisions.
What are these normal cricket principles?
These are a combination of factors:* The distance between point of pitching and point of impact (the shorter this distance, the more difficult it is to be certain that the ball will go onto hit the stumps and thus the more unlikely it will be that the umpire will change his not out decision).* The distance from point of impact to the stumps (the greater this distance, the more unlikely it will be that the umpire will change his decision)* Where the ball is predicted to hit the stumps (the further this point from the centre of middle stump, the more unlikely it will be that the umpire will change his decision).But it is a combination of the above factors that must be taken into account by the umpire in consultation with the third umpire.E.g. If the batsman double steps and gets hit on the pad 4 metre down the wicket, the umpire will not change his not out decision even if the ball is predicted to be hitting the middle of middle stump, especially if there was only a short distance between the points of pitching and impact on the pad.There have been two instances in ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 where a not out leg-before decision has been reviewed by the fielding side where the point of impact was more than 2.5 metres from the stumps. In both these cases:

* the distance from point of pitching to point of impact was approximately the same
* the distance between point of impact and the stumps was just over 2.5 metres
* The ball was predicted to hit the stumps slap bang between off and middle stump about 3/4 of the way up.

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