Michael Clarke has been added to Australia’s first Test squad as cover for Shane Watson after the allrounder picked up a hamstring injury. Watson is still to be assessed by Alex Kountouri, the Cricket Australia physiotherapist, but the selectors indicated they would not replace him with another allrounder if Watson is ruled out of the Ashes opener.Watson strained his right hamstring while bowling in a domestic one-day game in Perth on Friday and was expected to arrive in Brisbane later on Saturday. Cricket Australia said it did not expect to know the severity of Watson’s injury until Sunday. Clarke’s inclusion indicates the selectors may opt for the extra batsman to bolster the batting line-up.However, Watson has not given up hope of winning his fourth Test cap next week: “We just have to see how it continues to be over the next couple of days,” he said after arriving in Brisbane. “I’ll be doing everything I can to be ready for Thursday, but we’ll see what happens.”Playing an extra batsman could also decide the bowling combination, with Stuart Clark, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson in the fray. If Australia plays only four bowlers instead of the five Watson’s inclusion would allow, the selectors might decide to choose someone who can deliver a number of steady overs, a fact that may favour Clark over Tait and Johnson.Clarke, 25, played all five Ashes Tests last year, and scored 335 runs at 37.22. He lost his place in the Test team during the last Australian summer and regained it in Bangladesh in April, although he failed to seal his spot with scores of 19, 9 and 23 not out. Clarke looked in good touch against England for New South Wales in Sydney a week ago, when he made 50 and 68.

A small amount of general public tickets for the first three days of Melbourne’s Boxing Day Test will go on sale from 9am on Wednesday. Cricket Australia said the extra 6000 seats were mainly AFL members’ seats that were being “put back into circulation”.The announcement means 235 tickets for day one will be up for grabs, as well as 2334 places for day two and 3507 spots for day three. There are still about 17,000 seats available for the fourth day but tickets for day five will not go on sale until the match is on.The new allocation means Victorian cricket fans have one last chance to secure a place to potentially see their home-ground hero Shane Warne become the first man to take 700 Test wickets. The 6000 extra tickets will be on sale through Ticketmaster.

Gloucestershire have announced that the Australian batsman Marcus North will deputise for Hamish Marshall at the start of next season.The county expects Marshall to be with the New Zealand squad at the World Cup in the West Indies until the end of April after he was chosen in the touring party for the CB Series.The coach Mark Alleyne said: “I am extremely pleased that a player of his calibre and pedigree is joining us.”North is averaging more than 60 for Western Australia in the current season and has previously played for Lancashire, Durham and Derbyshire.He has also been a member of the Australia A side, bowls tidy off-spin, and will join the Pakistani seamer Umar Gul at Bristol.

Marlon Samuels has been included in West Indies’ 15-man World Cup squad despite the ICC’s investigations into his links with an alleged bookie. The selectors have also sprung one surprise with Kieron Pollard, the 19-year-old Trinidad allrounder, beating off more experienced names for the final place.Much of the squad had been set in stone, but Pollard has kept out the likes of Darren Sammy and Runako Morton, while Rayad Emrit who played in the recent series against India didn’t even make the reserve list.Lendl Simmons has taken the final batting slot while Ian Bradshaw, Daren Powell, Corey Collymore and Jerome Taylor are the four pacemen, leaving Fidel Edwards on the sidelines.West Indies open the World Cup against Pakistan, in Jamaica, on March 13.West Indies squad Brian Lara (capt), Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Dwayne Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Ian Bradshaw, Corey Collymore, Jerome Taylor, Denesh Ramdin, Devon Smith, Lendl Simmons, Daren Powell, Kieron Pollard

While players like Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Glenn McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya prepare for their last World Cup, Kieron Pollard, the 19-year old West Indian allrounder and Tamin Iqbal, the 17-year old Bangladesh batsman will look to carve out similar careers. The two are the youngest players in their respective sides.Pollard’s call-up to the West Indies 15-man World Cup squad was a surprise as he is yet to play a Test or a one-day international and has only six first class matches under his belt.But his lack of experience hasn’t dampened his ambition and he has his sights set on starting the World Cup opener against Pakistan at Sabina Park on March 13. “My first goal at the tournament is to make the final eleven, and if I achieve that in the first game, I want to perform at my best, in whatever situation I go into,” Pollard told AFP. “I make goals in the short term and when I achieve them I make another one.”Pollard made 14 in the West Indies’ warm-up win over Kenya on March 5 and is keen to get among the runs. “A couple of 50s or even a hundred according to the situation,” he said. In the seven one-day games he played for Trinidad and Tobago this season, Pollard scored 261 runs at 43.50. At a Twenty/20 match in 2006 in Antigua, he hit 83 off 38 balls before making a century against Barbados in the West Indies domestic championship.Iqbal, who won’t be 18 until March 20, already has four ODIs under his belt but is feeling his way gently with a modest 57 runs in his four innings. He announced himself at the end of 2005 when he hit 112 from just 71 balls to help Bangladesh to victory in an Under-19 international against England.In Bangladesh’s warm-up match against New Zealand Iqbal smashed a 48-ball 46 facing up to New Zealand fast bowlers Shane Bond and James Franklin. “I was not facing the name. I was facing the ball,” said Iqbal. “I came to the World Cup with my mind made up. I told myself I have to be strong and brave. I just have to play my natural game and do what I know I can do.”Bangladesh also won their second warm-up game against Scotland and Habibul Bashar, the Bangladesh captain, said that players like Iqbal and Mashrafe Mortaza, the right-arm fast-medium bowler, will be the key to Bangladesh’s World Cup campaign.”Before we came here for the World Cup nobody gave us a chance,” said Bashar. “That’s fine for people to say, but we are looking at getting to the second round. With Tamin and Mortaza playing so well, this is a great boost for the World Cup. Their contributions were brilliant.”West Indies play India in their last warm-up match today at the Trelawny Stadium in Jamaica and play their first match of the World Cup on March 13 at Sabina Park. Bangladesh will play their first match against India on March 17 at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trindidad.

Australia’s World Cup fast bowler Stuart Clark has signed a two-month deal with Hampshire, meaning he will team up with Shane Warne at The Rose Bowl.Hampshire’s move for Clark, which was spearheaded by Warne as the club captain, had been on the cards since the Ashes, but his late call-up to the World Cup squad has resulted in him starting a couple of weeks later than originally planned.”I am extremely grateful that such a great club as Hampshire would consider offering me the opportunity to join their club and allow me the chance of making a contribution towards the team’s success for this season,” said Clark. “This is a once in a lifetime chance for me and with the added benefit to also play cricket with such a cricketing legend and personal friend as Shane Warne making my time at Hampshire very exciting.”Clark, who came into the World Cup outfit for Brett Lee, will certainly enjoy the surfaces at The Rose Bowl which, although they have flattened out in recent seasons, still offer quality seam bowlers plenty of encouragement. This is Clark’s second stint in the counties after he played for Middlesex in 2005.

England’s players have been fined for their slow over-rate during the seven-wicket defeat to Australia in Antigua on Sunday. Mike Procter, the ICC match referee, found the team to be two overs short at the scheduled finish after taking into account all the delays and stoppages.According to the ICC Code of Conduct, the players are fined 5% for every over they fail to bowl in the allotted time while the captain is slapped with twice the amount. Michael Vaughan was docked 20% of his match fee while the rest of the side was handed a 10% penalty.Australia lost only three wickets as they chased down the target of 248 in 47.2 overs. England’s next game is a must-win affair against Bangladesh on Wednesday.

Australia women are without a coach after Mark Sorell announced he was leaving to coach the South Australia men’s squad. Sorell, who held the role for two years after taking over from Steve Jenkin, helped to oversee victory at the women’s quadrangular and all four one-day series.Thoughts will now turn to his successor. Cathryn Fitzpatrick has already acknowledged her interest in the England vacancy, after Richard Bates resigned from the role last month, but it would be no surprise if she applied for this role, as this would mean coaching her fellow Australians with whom she has enjoyed so much success.Indeed, were she offered both jobs then the Australia role may be more attractive to her, as it is in her home country and she has already gained extensive coaching experience with their Centre of Excellence.Lisa Keightley would also make a strong candidate. Another Australian, the batsman Keightley was appointed coach of New South Wales women in 2005, becoming the first full-time female appointed by the NSW board. She had previously worked as their female high-performance coordinator.

The former Lancashire allrounder Peter Marner has died after a short illness. He was 71.Marner was the youngest player to represent the county, making his debut against Sussex in August 1952 at 16 years and five months. He was also the first person to win a limited-overs Man-of-the-Match award, and the first two score a hundred, when he made 121 and took 3 for 49 in a Gillette Cup preliminary round tie against Leicestershire in May 1963. In 1965 he moved to Leicestershire, retiring in 1970.A thick-set and powerful middle-order right-hand batsman, he scored over 17,513 first-class runs at 28.33 with 18 hundreds. An accurate seam bowler, just over medium pace, he took 360 wickets and 379 catches, many of those in the slips where be built his reputation as a fine fielder. One of the hardest hitters of the ball in the game, he was a pugnacious batsman scoring quickly in all forms of cricket.Marner was an allrounder sportsman. He played rugby union for Oldham at 16 and went on to represent the Army while on National Service, during which time he also played cricket for the Combined Services.

Cathryn Fitzpatrick has been given her first permanent coaching position, taking the reins of Victoria Spirit for 2007-08. Fitzpatrick, who retired as a player after the quadrangular series in India in February and March, will become the first woman to coach the Victoria women’s team.Her appointment comes less than a fortnight after her former Australia team-mate, Lisa Keightley, also ended the male-dominated run of senior coaches for the Australia women’s squad. Fitzpatrick was briefly the national side’s stand-in coach until Keightley was given the job.Fitzpatrick, who quit the game after playing 13 Tests and 109 one-day internationals, has spent the last two years as a scholarship coach at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. There, she worked with both the Australian men’s and women’s sides as well as several Victorian youth squads.”I feel that my time at the Centre of Excellence has given me the platform I need to coach at a senior level,” Fitzpatrick said. “I have received terrific mentoring from the likes of Tim Nielsen, Jamie Siddons and Brian McFadyen.”The loss of several senior players – including herself – from the Victoria Spirit lineup means Fitzpatrick will be guiding a young side next season. Victoria lost the 2006-07 WNCL finals to New South Wales. “We will have a relatively young squad but that is exciting as it will provide opportunity for players at the top level, not just in the one-day format but also the new Twenty20 fixtures,” Fitzpatrick said.Fitzpatrick was Victoria’s most-capped player with 103 appearances, took a record 198 state wickets and was the world’s most successful bowler in ODIs, with 180 victims. She takes over from Ken Davis, who coached Victoria Spirit from 2002-03 until last season.