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Australia’s wicketkeeper, Brad Haddin, has confirmed his retirement from Twenty20 internationals, a move he hopes will allow him to focus more on Test and ODI cricket. Haddin, who turns 34 next month, has followed the lead of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke, both of whom have given up the shortest format over the past two years.The move will allow Tim Paine to take a permanent place in Australia’s Twenty20 side, although he might not be available for the next two matches against South Africa in October. Paine is recovering from a broken finger and if he is not fit by the time the squad departs, the Victoria gloveman Matthew Wade would be in line to make his international debut.Haddin played 25 Twenty20s for Australia, mostly batting in the middle to lower order despite being a one-day international opener during much of that time. He averaged 18 and did not make a half-century, but he did have the honour of being the country’s fourth captain in the format, when he led the side against New Zealand and Pakistan in 2009.He will continue to play domestic Twenty20, having been named captain of the Sydney Sixers in the new Big Bash League to be played this summer. Haddin, who had a disappointing Test tour of Sri Lanka with a highest score of 35 in the three Tests, said he hoped his decision would allow him to prolong his Test and ODI career.”I thoroughly enjoy Twenty20 cricket and have taken great pride from playing all three forms of the game for Australia,” Haddin said. “However I feel the time is now right for me to concentrate on Test and ODI cricket.”This decision has been made to prolong my effectiveness in these formats and provide me further time to prepare for the demands of ODI and Test cricket. I remain extremely determined to play cricket for Australia and believe this decision will help achieve this.”I remain committed and very excited by my role as captain of the Sydney Sixers in the KFC Big Bash League and also with the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League but look forward to the periods of downtime throughout the international season this decision will create.”

Rahul Dravid has made a comeback into India’s limited-overs plans, after two years out of the side. The injured Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh are the notable omissions in the squad for the five-match ODI series and the only Twenty20 international against England.Dravid, who has over 10,000 runs in the ODI format, was a regular in the Indian side for most of the last decade. He was dropped from the team following a poor home series against Australia in 2007, but was recalled to bolster an inexperienced line-up in the lead-up to the Champions Trophy in 2009. His second coming lasted only six matches, and he was axed again following India’s early exit in that tournament in South Africa. He didn’t figure in India’s successful World Cup, but has had a good run in Tests since, including three centuries in five matches.Yuvraj and Harbhajan both picked up injuries in India’s crushing defeat in the second Test at Trent Bridge, ruling them out of action for four and three weeks respectively. Chief selector Kris Srikkanth confirmed that the senior duo was left out on fitness grounds, addressing speculation that Harbhajan may have been dropped.Harbhajan has been dogged by poor form since the World Cup, both in the West Indies and in England, before contracting an abdominal strain at Trent Bridge. He managed only six wickets in four ODIs in the West Indies, and was overshadowed by legspinner Amit Mishra. Harbhajan’s form dipped further in the Tests that followed, as he picked up five wickets in the first two Tests, though there was an improvement in the third Test in Antigua, where he returned match figures of 6 for 101. He has struggled for impact in England, picking up a wicket apiece in the first two Tests.Yuvraj hasn’t played an ODI for India since winning the Man-of-the-Tournament award at the World Cup. He missed the West Indies tour with a lung infection, but scored a half-century on his return to the national side at Trent Bridge before enduring a fractured finger on his left hand in the second innings. Yuvraj’s other World Cup-winning team-mates, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, made their ODI comebacks.Sreesanth, who returned to the Test side for England after missing out on the West Indies tour, was left out again, while R Vinay Kumar kept his ODI spot as the back-up seamer. Zaheer Khan, as expected, returned to the one-day scheme of things after sitting out of the West Indies tour. Ashish Nehra, who picked up an injury that kept him out of the World Cup final, remains on the sidelines.Parthiv Patel, who opened the batting and kept wicket in MS Dhoni’s absence in the West Indies, also retained his place as the second-choice limited-overs wicketkeeper. But there was no place for allrounder Yusuf Pathan, who had a poor World Cup and failed in the West Indies. Manoj Tiwary, Shikhar Dhawan and S Badrinath, who toured the Caribbean in the absence of the regular batsmen, missed out this time.Squad: MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag (vice-capt), Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Parthiv Patel (wk), Amit Mishra, R Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar

Twilight Sheffield Shield matches will be tried again this summer as part of the push towards night Test cricket, in an Australian domestic schedule heavily influenced by the expansion of the Twenty20 Big Bash League.Night Shield cricket was first experimented with in 1994 but the administrative desire to take Test cricket into the night has driven a return to the gambit, which will take place in a handful of matches played in the states that take part in daylight saving adjustments to local time.Shield and limited-overs matches have been heavily weighted towards the first part of the season, with each state having to play six of 10 regular first-class fixtures by the first week of December.This imbalance has been imposed in order to allow the BBL to operate without any crossover with the demands of the state associations between December 17 and January 28, as numerous players leave their states to play elsewhere for the manufactured city-based teams unveiled for the T20 competition.Australia’s players will face the hurdle of having to choose between the polar extremes of Test matches or T20 throughout the show-piece home series against India.The jump between formats will open plenty of questions in terms of tactical adjustments and physical conditioning should the selectors decide to make changes to the team that will face India, as seems likely.A more positive outcome of the schedule is that domestic aspirants for Test selection will get a significant chance to press their claims ahead of the series against New Zealand and India.Matches will be played in a handful of regional centres also, with Queensland to host a one-day fixture in Mackay while New South Wales play in Canberra.The domestic limited-overs competition has been reduced in size in another concession to T20, as each team will play eight preliminary matches rather than 10.Fixtures will revert to 50 overs after last summer’s experiment with a split-innings format, but other playing conditions will be more experimental in nature.Bowlers will be allowed to bowl a maximum of 13 overs rather than the traditional 10, and the batting Powerplay will have to be taken between overs 16 and 40, a change soon to be implemented in international limited overs matches.Also announced is the schedule for the hotly-debated Futures League second tier competition, which reverts to four-day matches with no over restrictions.The number of players allowed over the age of 23 has also been doubled from three to six, allowing young cricketers a better chance to learn from more experienced teammates.

ScorecardSri Lanka A face a huge final-day run chase after being set 463 by Leicestershire although started briskly to reach 71 for 1 despite losing a wicket to the first ball of their second innings.Leicestershire built their lead at a steady pace with useful contributions throughout the order. Greg Smith hit 67 and took his second-wicket stand with James Taylor to 102 before Sri Lanka staged a mini fightback.Four wickets fell for 37, including two to offspinner Sachithra Senanayake, but Leicestershire’s advantage was always substantial. It was further extended by Wayne White (57) and Tom New (62) as they added 129 in 28 overs to take the game away from the visitors.Sri Lanka didn’t get the solid start they needed to the chase as Malinda Warnapura was caught behind first ball off Nadeem Malik but Lahiru Thirimanne, who was part of the recent Test side that toured England, and Bhanuka Rajapaksascore freely during a truncated final session.

Scorecard
No play was possible on the first day of the County Championship match between leaders Durham and Yorkshire at Chester-le-Street because of rain.It was a mixed blessing for both teams as the delay gave them some rest after travelling from Friends Life t20 matches last night, although neither will welcome the prospect of a draw.With five wins from eight games, Durham are 17 points clear at the top, while Yorkshire have not won since the opening match at Worcestershire and lie seventh with 62 points. A week after his 37th birthday Durham’s Dale Benkenstein needs 148 runs to break the county’s record first-class tally.Former captain Jon Lewis, now the second team coach, totalled 7,854 runs in 262 innings from the 1997-2006 seasons, while Benkenstein has scored 7,707 in 171 innings. He has hit four centuries and four half-centuries in 12 knocks this season in the County Championship, in which he has scored 856 runs at 77.72.While Yorkshire await Tim Bresnan’s return to full fitness, Durham are able to reunite Steve Harmison and Graham Onions for the first time since August 2009. They also have Liam Plunkett available for his first championship action since the win at Headingley in April.

ScorecardPhil Mustard’s hundred heaped the pain on Worcestershire’s bowlers before the Durham attack took control•Getty Images

Steve Harmison took his first County Championship wickets for nine months as Durham set Worcestershire a mammoth task at New Road.Re-emerging after an early-season injury, the 32-year-old former England fast bowler put the Division One strugglers in trouble with a return of 3 for 29 in 11 overs. With 19-year-old substitute Ben Raine holding two catches, Worcestershire ended the second day on 105 for 5 – still 333 short of the 438 required to avoid the follow-on.Harmison, out for a month with a broken arm, warmed up with 5 for 22 in a second-team match against Warwickshire. And he quickly had Worcestershire on the ropes on his return to the county side, dismissing both openers in the space of eight balls.Raine picked up a low chance when Matt Pardoe (11) clipped Harmison off his legs and James Cameron (18) was unfortunate to get a ball which nipped off a length and looped off the bat for a simple catch to Callum Thorp. Ruel Brathwaite then found some movement to bowl Vikram Solanki for 10 and Raine reacted brilliantly to pull down another chance when Alexei Kervezee (one) cut Ben Stokes to cover.Moeen Ali and Adrian Shankar, the latter unbeaten with 10 from 60 balls, put up some resistance but Moeen was caught down the leg side by Phil Mustard for 46 as soon as Harmison rejoined the attack.Captain Mustard earlier became Durham’s third century-maker before declaring on 587 for 7 following earlier hundreds from Gordon Muchall (175) and Ian Blackwell (134). Muchall and Blackwell’s partnership of 247 – a fifth-wicket record for the county – ended early on the second morning but Mustard’s 101 from 139 balls meant Worcestershire needed to reach their highest score in almost a year just to make Durham bat again.Although the northerners established a near-impregnable position with a mountain of runs, there was always a suspicion that the pitch held something for the better bowlers. The problem for Worcestershire was their reliance on the new-ball pair, Damien Wright and Alan Richardson. While they bowled 69 overs for 206 runs, the supporting seamers were considerably more expensive.Wright flattened Blackwell’s off-stump in the second over of the day but Muchall extended his innings by almost an hour, adding 23 runs before he was caught at slip when Richard Jones replaced Richardson. However, Mustard was well set by then and with Scott Borthwick he shared in a partnership of 154 for the seventh wicket.Mustard eventually fell to Moeen’s off-spin, giving Solanki his fourth slip catch of the innings, but Borthwick stayed unbeaten with 67 – one short of his career best – and Thorp (22 not out) hit two sixes prior to the declaration.

ScorecardAlan Richardson made important breakthroughs for Worcestershire to ensure Nottinghamshire couldn’t take control•Getty Images

Nottinghamshire wobbled, steadied themselves and wobbled again here, the consequence of which is that Worcestershire may begin their second innings with a lead they probably did not expect after Samit Patel had appeared to be heading for a score with the kind of substance he needs to register repeatedly to keep England interested in his personal battle of the bulge.As the 26-year-old knows only too well, England coach Andy Flower is concerned with more than simply weight of runs in assessing where Patel sits now among potential candidates for a middle-order position. Only when he can guarantee his stamina until the last over in the field on a steamy day in the sub-continent will Patel end the doubts over his fitness for international cricket, and his failure to make the cut for England’s World Cup squad confirmed that he has not yet reached that point.After learning how to resist fast food and crisps more frequently than before, Patel claims now to be in measurably better shape to add to the 11 one-day international appearances he made in 2008. Nobody at Trent Bridge is saying how much better, in terms of tape measures and scales, but if he can supplement the century he made in Nottinghamshire’s opening match against Hampshire with a few more before the summer begins in earnest, Flower is likely to ask for evidence.Patel should have had a hundred here after playing almost without error for three and a half hours here, sensibly overcoming his often calamitous habit of trying to force the pace too early and settling into an innings rich in attractive strokeplay that was notable for shot selection as well as shot quality. He dutifully left alone most of the good balls that came his way but did not waste many opportunities to score.Given that Nottinghamshire had been three down for 64 before he got off the mark, and with a new partner at the other end, it was precisely what his team needed to avert an all-too-familiar top-order collapse, which made it all the more frustrating that he could not push it through to the conclusion it deserved.On 81, with 15 boundaries scored, he had the measure of all of the bowlers – with the exception, perhaps, of Daryl Mitchell, who bowled his medium pace on a tricky length and managed to hit him on the elbow – and clearly fancied his chances when Mitchell belatedly turned to the off spin of Moeen Ali. Yet it was Ali who had the last laugh when Patel advanced down the pitch, eyes wide, with the deep midwicket boundary in his sights. A moment later, the ball was safely in the hands of the midwicket fielder instead.In this way an innings notable for fulsome driving and wristy leg-side play ended rather tamely, with an error that might have drawn more sympathy for a batsman missing out had it not come immediately after two wickets in two balls from the medium pace of Gareth Andrew.Trapping Steven Mullany in front of the stumps and then drawing Chris Read into an edge to the wicketkeeper, Andrew had seriously undermined a strong Nottinghamshire recovery, putting the onus on Patel to take stock a moment and ensure that a good position was not wasted.Patel had shared a 102-run partnership with Adam Voges and another of 93 with Steven Mullaney but the departure of Andre Adams for a typically breezy 10 called time on the day with Worcestershire still 24 in front.Earlier, recovered from the groin injury that limited his participation against Yorkshire last week, Adams had completed his third five-wicket haul in as many innings at Trent Bridge so far this season, bowling last man Matt Mason off an inside edge.But Worcestershire’s innings had been carried forward by Matt Pardoe and Damien Wright, the former furthering the impression of a composed young batsman with a bright future by stretching his second half-century in only three matches to 74 before a mistimed clip to midwicket allowed Alex Hales to atone for his dropped catches on day one. Wright hit 10 fours in his 65 before Patel beat him in the flight.Nottinghamshire reverted to Neil Edwards at the top of their batting order, returning Paul Franks to No. 8. In tandem with Mark Wagh, Edwards contributed nicely to a 60-run partnership but after he was caught behind off Alan Richardson. Nottinghamshire quickly lost Mark Wagh, bowled by Mason with his eyes still watering from a painful blow below the belt, and Hales perished first ball to a fine late awayswinger from Richardson, who would later end a bright innings from Voges when the Australian failed to get forward to one that swung in.

Sourav Ganguly, the former India captain, has been signed by Pune Warriors as a replacement for Ashish Nehra, who was ruled out for the remainder of the 2011 season with a finger injury. Ganguly’s contract is for a period of one year and is an IPL lifeline to the batsman after he went unsold at the player auction in January, where his base price was $400,000.Ganguly will be vice-captain to Yuvraj Singh and is likely to join the Pune squad ahead of their match against Mumbai Indians at the DY Patil Stadium on May 4.”We were waiting for Ashish Nehra’s fitness report and ultimately the report came yesterday,” Abhijit Sarkar, Pune’s team director, told PTI. “I was already in talks with Ganguly and we decided that the amount of experience that Sourav has in cricket will no doubt help the team. So we finalised Ganguly last night.”He is playing in IPL not for money but to prove a point. Our team think-tank felt that Sourav Ganguly is the best possible option available so we went for him. He has been a fighter and a master of comebacks. We are very much confident that he will prove his worth.”Ganguly played for Kolkata Knight Riders in the first three seasons of the IPL and led the team in two of them, while Brendon McCullum was captain for the other. Kolkata fared poorly in those years and are the only franchise not to make the semi-finals. Kolkata did not bid for Ganguly in January despite his name coming up for sale twice, as they revamped their squad entirely, and the batsman later refused a mentoring role with the franchise.Pune Warriors are bottom of the ten-team league at present, having lost six consecutive matches after winning their first two. Ganguly has an average IPL record – 1031 runs at an average of 28 and strike-rate of 110 – and could strengthen an under-performing and short batting order.

Match Facts

March 17, Chennai
Start time 2.30pm (0900 GMT)Stretched to the limit: James Anderson could pay the price for his poor form in the tournament to date•Associated Press

The Big Picture

“Did I entertain you?” was the poignant sign-off that Brian Lara uttered at Barbados four years ago, after his final international appearance had ended with a cruel run-out and a one-wicket defeat at the hands of England in the 2007 World Cup. The same question – and the same affirmative answer – would undoubtedly apply to England’s chaotic campaigners this time around. Then as now, the players in question are braced for a humiliating early exit from the grandest of global tournaments, but given the treats they’ve served up so far, there’s no doubt they’ll be missed if they fail to scrape into the knock-out stages.After five cliffhangers in five contests, the permutations are simple. Anything less than a victory, and England are gone, eliminated in embarrassing fashion for the fifth World Cup in succession. Even if they do rally themselves for one last push towards qualification, it might yet be a futile gesture, with Bangladesh and West Indies in a position to squeeze England back down to fifth spot if they can both win their final fixtures against South Africa and India respectively. It’s an “arse-nipper”, as Graeme Swann succinctly put it earlier this week. But England being England, they wouldn’t settle for anything less.However this make-or-break fixture pans out, England are sure to be recalled as the story of this World Cup, for without them what would the point of this first month have been? While the big guns in Group A have chugged effortlessly to the last four, Group B has been a thrill-a-minute with three of the four qualifiers still to be decided. That is thanks almost entirely to the fluctuating standards of an England squad that has forgotten how to close out a contest – no matter what the calibre of opposition may be. Mental exhaustion is clearly a factor, but the adrenaline of impending elimination may aid them in their bid for survival.After their miserable stop-over in Chittagong, the squad has limped back to Chennai, the scene of their finest performance of the tournament to date, even if the finesse was limited to the final 16 overs of their effort in the field. A two-paced and spin-friendly wicket enabled England’s bowlers to tap into some long-forgotten knowhow from their Ashes victory in Australia, although their batsmen had already steered them into familiarly choppy waters in being bowled out for 171 in 45.4 overs.Quite what West Indies will make of such maverick opposition is anyone’s guess. With ferocious hitters such as Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard in their ranks, allied to the more conventional class of Darren Bravo, they are more than capable of shredding a bowling attack that has slipped onto auto-pilot all too frequently. Meanwhile the pace of Kemar Roach and the competitiveness of Sulieman Benn provide an edge with the ball that cannot be underestimated, as Bangladesh among others can testify.A fortnight ago in Dhaka, West Indies routed Bangladesh for 58, one match before those same Bangladeshi batsmen put the skids under England’s campaign with a thrilling two-wicket victory in Chittagong. Likewise, the same South African outfit that crumbled to a six-run defeat against England put West Indies firmly in their place in their opening match of the group stage, with AB de Villiers’ century easing them to a seven-wicket win.If England have lost the games they were expected to win, and vice versa, West Indies have taken a much more sedate route towards the quarter-finals. They are not there yet by any means, and could face an anxious final game against India if they don’t come up with the goods in this contest. But come 2.30pm on Thursday, it’ll be time to board the rollercoaster once again. Given what we’ve seen from West Indies’ opponents so far in the competition, this one promises to be emotional.

Form guide

(completed matches, most recent first)

West Indies WWWLL
England LWLTW

Watch out for…

Against South Africa last week, Chennai provided a surface that Graeme Swann would wish to roll up and lug with him around the subcontinent (although the number of internal flights might persuade him to dump it somewhere in transit …) With sharp turn and vicious bounce, it was Swann’s spell that sowed the first seeds of doubt in South Africa’s hitherto serene progress, and though he picked up the solitary wicket of Graeme Smith, his efforts emboldened every other member of the attack. The scenario was markedly different against Bangladesh in Chittagong, however, when the dew-sodden surface denied him what he felt were his just rewards, and led to a 10% fine for an audible outburst. With more floodlights in prospect, he might hope to get through his stint in the first innings.Kieron Pollard has a career average of 21.87 in 36 ODIs, figures which scarcely do justice to the hype he has attracted in his short career, particularly in the Twenty20 format. But in a nip-and-tuck contest against Ireland last week, he unfurled his full repertoire in a savage and game-changing onslaught. His 94 from 55 balls included a ballistic tempo-change in the Batting Powerplay, a facet of the game that England have consistently failed to exploit. If England’s bowlers fail to nail their lengths – and who knows what length works for a man with such a keen eye? – he is capable of ending their campaign in a matter of overs.

Team news

Injuries were England’s biggest problem in the early stages of the tournament, but now it is illness that is undermining their preparations. Andrew Strauss and Graeme Swann both missed training on Tuesday, although they are expected to be fit, while attention now turns to Ajmal Shahzad, who bowled three jaffas and a lot of dross against Bangladesh, but nevertheless looked their most potent source of wickets. If he is deemed unfit, then James Anderson could earn a reprieve after reports in the press had suggested he was set for the axe. Chris Tremlett’s suspect temperament held up well in extreme circumstances in the Ashes, but this would be quite a cauldron for his maiden outing of the campaign.England (possible) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Matt Prior (wk), 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Ian Bell, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Ravi Bopara, 7 Tim Bresnan, 8 Paul Collingwood, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Ajmal Shahzad/James Anderson, 11 Chris Tremlett.Chris Gayle missed the Ireland victory with an abdominal strain but he is expected to reclaim his place at the top of the order. Nikita Miller is the first-choice spin twin for Sulieman Benn, although the success of Imran Tahir in the England game has tempted Darren Sammy to consider a wristy of his own. “It’s food for thought,” said Sammy, “whether we should play [Devendra] Bishoo tomorrow.”West Indies (possible) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Devon Smith, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Darren Sammy (capt), 8 Devon Thomas (wk), 9 Nikita Miller, 10 Sulieman Benn, 11 Kemar Roach..

Strauss anticipates another low turner, which may yet influence the selection of an extra spinner, although neither Michael Yardy nor James Tredwell are treated with much confidence at present.

Stats and trivia

• England and West Indies have faced each other on five previous occasions in World Cup history, although West Indies’ only victory came in their first encounter, in the 1979 final at Lord’s.
• The teams have faced each other on three previous occasions in India – in the 1987 World Cup, in the 1989 Nehru Cup, and in the 2006 Champions Trophy. England have won two of those three encounters.For a full stats analysis, click here.

Quotes

“West Indies haven’t been put under real pressure other than the South Africa game and the challenge for us is to put them under pressure right from ball one and see how they respond.”
Andrew Strauss believes England are more battle-hardened than their opponents”If there is dew just get the towel and wipe the ball. Simple.”Darren Sammy makes light of the problems that afflicted England against Bangladesh