Australia captain Michael Clarke expects to play in the three-day tour match in Barbados as he continues to manage his hamstring injury.
Clarke hasn’t played since injuring his right hamstring during Australia’s second one-day final against Sri Lanka in Adelaide last month, missing the five-match one-day series against the West Indies in the Caribbean.
The right-handed batsman had to pass a fitness test before being cleared to travel to the Caribbean for a three-Test series against the Windies but says he will play in the three-day game unless his hamstring flares up in training on Sunday.
‘The hamstring is coming along well,’ Clarke said on his Twitter account.
‘If all goes well at training tomorrow i will be playing in our tour game starting Monday.’
Clarke added he was excited about his Indian Premier League deal with the Pune Warriors but his focus right now was on helping Australia play some ‘great Test cricket’.
The format for the tour game is unknown at the moment but it’s believed Australia will be keen to give as many members of its 16-man squad a chance to feature in the match.
Monday’s game from the 3Ws Oval in Bridgetown begins at 10am (0000 Tuesday AEST).
The West Indies are likely to have several of their best players including Chris Gayle and young spin bowler Sunil Narine unavailable for the upcoming three-Test series against Australia due to their commitments with the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Ricky Ponting said he believes cricket must come to grips with players choosing domestic Twenty20 competitions over Tests.
Gayle’s international exile has continued due to his IPL contract commitments while Narine, the Windies’ most effective bowler in the five-match one-day series last month, is expected to choose a $US700,000 ($A672,000) IPL deal over the Tests.
But Ponting feels that scenario is unavoidable with players earning far more in T20 competitions than they would playing for their countries.
‘You can understand the players that are opting out of international cricket to go and play IPL,’ he told AAP.
‘New Zealand’s a good case study there, they just don’t schedule any international cricket when the IPL’s on for the simple reason they would have lost most of their players to IPL and been left with next to nothing.
‘I think there’s something to be learned there.
‘A West Indies side without Chris Gayle in it is pretty hard to cop but that’s the modern game and it’ll probably happen more and more with the amount of money that’s being spent in those Twenty20 comps around the world.’
Ponting only played one season of IPL cricket in 2008 and says he decided not to return to prolong his career at the international level.
But he says he has no issue with Michael Clarke signing on with Pune Warriors for the latter stages of this year’s IPL.
‘I’m sure he would have weighed up everything before he’d even have considered playing in the IPL,’ he said.
‘It’s a personal decision for him, doesn’t really matter what everyone else thinks about it. He’s just got to work out what’s best for him and his body as far as his cricket is concerned over the next few years.’
(Source http://www.skynews.com.au/sport/article.aspx?id=735476&vId=)
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