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Ish Sodhi will fly straight to the UK after New Zealand’s ongoing tour of the Caribbean after signing a deal with Welsh Fire in the Hundred as a replacement for Adam Zampa, who is one of the four Australians set to return home from the tournament ahead of their ODI series against Zimbabwe.Sodhi’s arrival date is unconfirmed but he is unlikely to be available for Fire’s next game, against Southern Brave on Monday, which starts less than 24 hours after New Zealand’s third ODI against West Indies. As a result, he is likely to debut next Wednesday, against London Spirit at Lord’s.Zampa, who took four wickets in four games, and Glenn Maxwell, who made 116 runs in four innings for Spirit, have already made their final appearances of the season, while Marcus Stoinis and Sean Abbott will play their final games for Southern Brave and Manchester Originals respectively on Thursday night at the Ageas Bowl.Josh Little, the Ireland left-arm seamer, will replace Abbott at Originals, while his compatriot Paul Stirling had previously been confirmed as Stoinis’ replacement at Brave. Josh Inglis, the wicket-keeper batter, will deputise for Maxwell at Spirit.Related

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Brave have also announced that Sonny Baker, the 19-year-old Somerset seamer, will be an injury replacement for Tymal Mills. Baker has missed most of the 2022 season through injury but has taken nine wickets in three Royal London Cup games. If selected, he would become the first player to make his T20 debut in the Hundred.Beuran Hendricks, the South African left-arm seamer, has also signed as a short-term replacement for Craig Overton, who has not been released by England after picking up a niggle while playing for the Lions. Brave have only had three out of a permitted four overseas options in their squad so far this season after opting to replace Finn Allen with James Fuller, so Hendricks becomes their back-up option.Elsewhere, Oval Invincibles have confirmed that Peter Hatzoglou, Perth Scorchers’ BBL-winning legspinner, will replace Sunil Narine for their final two group games – and the play-offs, should they qualify – with Narine leaving for the CPL after their game against Birmingham Phoenix on Tuesday.

Keaton Jennings, the Lancashire and England opener, has called for the structure of the English season to be improved but has opposed the idea put forward by Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review that county cricketers need to play less or that the number of Championship matches should be reduced from 14.On Saturday, Jennings will lead out Lancashire against Kent in the Royal London Cup final at Trent Bridge at the end of a week in which the Emirates Old Trafford side have had no game. That works well as regards preparation for a white-ball match but it also means that in the 53 days from July 29 to September 19, Dane Vilas’ team will have played just one four-day game.Related

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Other counties can point to similar eccentricities, not all of them caused by the Hundred, and Jennings’ comments come at the end of a week in which Somerset’s board told the ECB that the current schedule is “unacceptable”.”In my opinion you can keep the 14 County Championship games and that’s only what Ben Stokes said on social media a few weeks ago,” said Jennings. “But you can factor in breaks, so that you can play three four-day games and then have a break from the Championship. I think my view is representative and it certainly echoes what the England captain said.”I think 14 games is a good amount and the cricket we play is of good quality, but the problem comes when you have a week off at the start of April and then another at the start of September. Including the Royal London Final, we play 13 days in September whereas in April we were playing 12 in 17.”

Australia captain Meg Lanning will miss the WBBL with Melbourne Stars as she continues her indefinite break from the game.Lanning stepped away following Australia’s Commonwealth Games gold-medal success in Birmingham and it remains unclear when, or if, she will return.”The club respects her decision and asks that her privacy continue to be respected,” a Stars statement said.Stars will need to find a new captain for their WBBL campaign which starts on October 15 against Brisbane Heat. Earlier this year Lanning had handed over the captaincy of Victoria to Sophie Molineux.With Lanning now ruled out of the WBBL it also increases the prospects of Australia needing a new captain for their tour of India in mid-December.When Shelley Nitschke was confirmed as the new permanent head coach last week she said that conversations about Lanning’s future had not yet taken place.”When the time is right we’ll have those conversations about whether she is back in December or whenever it might be,” she said.Previous vice-captain Rachael Haynes has retired from international and state cricket which means a new leadership team may need to come together but Nitschke was confident in the potential of the squad.”There are a good group of emerging leaders in our team that are going to have opportunities to stick their hands up,” Nitschke said. “We don’t have a designated leadership group but there are people amongst the team and group that are leaders on and off the field. Some girls lead in their states. They all have different strengths.”Lanning was named Australian captain when she was 21 and over the last few years has led the team to unprecedented success with the T20 and ODI World Cup titles, Commonwealth Games gold and multiple Ashes victories. She has also maintained her form as one of the leading batters in the world, averaging 53.53 in ODIs and 36.48 in T20Is.

In an unprecedented development, the BCCI has sacked the entire senior men’s selection committee led by former India fast bowler Chetan Sharma. The board sent out a media release on Friday evening stating it was inviting fresh applications for the positions of the five national selectors, setting November 28 as the deadline for applications.This is the first major decision taken by the BCCI administration headed by the former India allrounder Roger Binny, who was elected unopposed as board president in October.Related

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ESPNcricinfo has learned that the four national selectors – Sunil Joshi, Harvinder Singh, Debasis Mohanty and Sharma – who are currently watching the ongoing the Vijay Hazare Trophy games at various venues around India – had not received any communication from BCCI on the development.Although no specific details were provided in the media statement – there was no mention of the selection panel being reconstituted – the BCCI probably took the step as part of its early review of India’s performances at successive T20 World Cups – exiting at the group stage in 2021 and losing in the semi-finals in 2022.Since late 2021, the Sharma-led selection panel was reduced to four members after Abey Kuruvilla, the former Mumbai and India fast bowler, completed the maximum tenure of five years. While Kuruvilla moved on to the role of BCCI general manager (cricket development), the board did not appoint his replacement on the selection panel.It was in October, mid-way into the 2022 T20 World Cup, that the selectors announced India squads for the limited-overs series in New Zealand, which is now ongoing, and also the Bangladesh tour in December. It raised eyebrows since it was an unusual move for selectors to announce squads for two separate tours at the same time.Barring Mohanty, who is on the verge of finishing his term (he was also a national junior selector), the remaining three selectors had only served half – two years – of their four-year tenures.Technically, Sharma and the other selectors can reapply for the posts. The qualification criteria for applicants is that they must have played at least seven Tests or 30 first-class matches, or 10 ODI and 20 first-class matches; they should have retired from the game at least five years ago; and they cannot have already served for five years as a member of any of the BCCI’s cricket committees.The BCCI also listed the major job duties and responsibilities for the selection panel as follows:

• Select the best possible team in a fair and transparent manner.
• Plan and prepare a strong bench strength for the senior men’s national team.
• Attend team meetings as and when required.
• Travel to watch domestic and international matches.
• Prepare and provide evaluation reports of the respective team performances to the apex council of BCCI on a quarterly basis.
• Address the media on team selection as and when instructed by BCCI.
• Appoint captain for the team in each format.
• Adhere to the rules and regulation of BCCI.

Australia allrounder Cameron Green has revealed he is “touch and go” for the first Test in India following finger surgery but he has allayed any doubts over his bowling availability in the IPL.Green broke his right index finger during the Boxing Day Test against South Africa in Melbourne. He was able to bat in Australia’s first innings with the fracture and made an unbeaten half-century but was ruled out of the Sydney Test after requiring surgery to repair the fracture.Related

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Speaking on SEN WA in Perth on Wednesday night, Green revealed his recovery timeline will be tight ahead of Australia’s first Test of a four-match series against India in Nagpur starting on February 9.”I think me and Starcy [Mitchell Starc] are maybe touch and go for that first one but obviously we’ll give ourselves the best chance,” Green said.”[It’s] going well. Had successful surgery in Sydney and the surgeon is really happy with how it went. I think he did Tim Paine’s successful surgery so it fills me with a lot of confidence.”The rehab is having two weeks of time, then two weeks to start running and get the shoulder and back moving just to double-check they haven’t frozen over. Then probably at the four-week mark I’ll try and hold a ball and see how that works. Try and hold a cricket bat and see how it feels. At the moment [the finger] feels really good, pain-free, so that gives me a bit of confidence in four weeks time that it will be all good. We meet [as a team] over in Sydney for the Allan Border Medal [ceremony], then we leave the next day to go to India.”Starc is also recovering from a left hand middle-finger tendon injury that also occurred in the Melbourne Test and ruled him out of Sydney.The Allan Border Medal ceremony will be held on January 30. The plan for Australia’s Test squad was to have an optional three-day training camp ahead of the India tour in Sydney to coincide with the event. The squad will then travel to India and have seven days of centre-wicket practice before the first Test with no warm-up game.That leaves Green with roughly ten days between holding a ball and bat for the first time and playing in the first Test in India, with two days lost to travel.Green is set for a monster stint in India as he is likely to remain after the completion of the Test series to play in the IPL following Mumbai Indians’ major purchase at the IPL auction.There had been written correspondence sent to the IPL franchises on December 23 prior to the IPL auction stating that Green would be unavailable to bowl for four weeks following the conclusion of the fourth Test on March 13.But Green was unaware of where that correspondence originated, stating that it was incorrect and that he would be available to bowl for Mumbai Indians from the start of the IPL.”No, that’s not correct,” Green said.”I’ve heard about this for quite a while now. I don’t know where it’s come from. We’ve spoken to the selectors.”I’ve heard that I’m 100% available for both skill sets in the IPL at the start, so yeah, I’m not too sure where that’s come from.”Obviously my first priority is the Test series that’s beforehand, getting myself right for the first Test.”Green was excited to be joining Mumbai Indians alongside three fellow West Australians in Tim David, Jhye Richardson and Jason Behrendorff.”It’s awesome,” Green said.”The Mumbai Indians feels a bit more like home than Australia. There’s more people from WA playing in the Mumbai Indians than there are in the Australian team. I think it’s the ideal situation that I hoped for to be in a really good team with great players around you and a great captain and a great coach and a great franchise, but obviously, having those four guys from WA is awesome.”