BPL yet to pay 54 players

Fifty-four players, including six foreigners, who played the first season of the Bangladesh Premier League are still without full payments from the six franchises, more than seven months after the tournament concluded. Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh (CWAB), the players' representative body in the country, has put together the updated list of unpaid BPL cricketers and this is the first time any such list has been published.

The unpaid foreign players are Kieron Pollard, Azhar Mahmood, Alexei Kervezee and Darren Stevens (Dhaka Gladiators), Niall O'Brien and Herschelle Gibbs (Khulna Royal Bengals) and Muttiah Muralitharan (Chittagong Kings). Gibbs told ESPNcricinfo: "I have not been paid the full amount." But the South Africa batsman didn't disclose what percentage of payment he was still owed by the Khulna franchise. A source close to Muttiah Muralitharan has confirmed that he hasn't received 75% of his full payment, which amounts to $75,000.

On the list there are 48 Bangladesh cricketers who haven't been paid fully, of which five were icon players. Tamim Iqbal, the Chittagong Kings' icon player for the inaugural season, had said earlier this week that he hadn't received any payments.

CWAB general secretary Debabrata Paul said that their updated list was the result of a second survey completed a week ago, and a number of players have been completely remunerated between their first survey (conducted three months after the BPL ended) and the latest one.

"BPL had outlined their players' payment system, which stated that the final payment would be made a maximum of 20 days after the completion of the tournament," Paul said. "But when we conducted our first survey, we asked every local player, except one. We carried out the last survey a week ago and found out that there were players who got paid fully. But still, 48 local players remain unpaid. We have sent letters to the BCB but still this situation persists.

"I would also ask the players to be aware of their rights. If they open up about how much they are owed, it becomes easier for CWAB to fight on their behalf."

Chittagong Kings have the least number of unpaid players (seven); Dhaka Gladiators have the most with eleven. Duronto Rajshahi and Khulna Royal Bengals have ten each on the list, Sylhet Royals and Barisal Burners have eight apiece. The franchises from Sylhet, Rajshahi and Barisal have completed payments to all their foreign players but have been lax with the locals. Most players have said that they have regularly tried to contact team owners regarding the outstanding payments of late, but received vague responses.

Last week BPL chairman Gazi Ashraf Hossain had said that franchises that do not clear all their dues to players by October 20 will be re-auctioned on November 9.

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Bangladesh need to focus on Tests - BCB president

Nazmul Hassan, the new Bangladesh Cricket Board president, has identified improvement in national team's Test performance and spreading the game better in the country as the challenges for Bangladesh cricket. Hassan was appointed as the replacement to AHM Mustafa Kamal who was confirmed the vice president of the ICC, ending his three-year tenure as the BCB president.

"We are weak in the longer version of the game. We are good in the shorter formats," Hassan said. "We have to focus on how we can do better in the longer version. We have to further popularise the game in the country and bring out cricketers from remote areas. This is going to be my biggest challenge."

Hassan, however, said that the onus of the improvement in the performance would lie with the players and the board will do its best to facilitate the change.

"We win some and we lose some but it [Test cricket performance] has nothing to do with the success or shortcomings of the board president," he said.

Hassan was selected according to the existing constitution, which states that the board president will be a government nominee. The board has submitted its amended constitution to the National Sports Council (NSC) for approval and one of the major amendments is that the president will be elected and not picked by the government. NSC, the sports regulatory body is yet to pass the amendment.

Hassan has said he is in favour of allowing the cricketers to become automatic councilors of the cricket board. He also said he prefers an election would be a better way to become the BCB president.

"I am always in favour of elections, it is better than being appointed. The person who is deemed fit by the people should be president.

"Cricketers Welfare Association of Bangladesh will participate in the BCB elections. If you ask me if cricketers should be part of the cricket board, I would say they should have more voting rights."

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USACA official seeks colleague's suspension

USA Cricket Association (USACA) treasurer John Thickett has asked president Gladstone Dainty and the board to consider suspending executive secretary Kenwyn Williams and investigate his role in a protracted and angry exchange with journalists and stakeholders on the official USACA Facebook page. Dainty, according to emails obtained by ESPNcricinfo, has asked other board members to give their input on the issue before making a decision, and at least one other senior official - vice-president Michael Gale - has criticised Williams' actions.

In his response, Williams argued that his outbursts on the Facebook page have been positive for USACA because it has resulted in increased traffic and visitors to the page.

The matter relates to an article that referred to a widening rift between Williams and other members of the board over a press release issued earlier this month. The article - by this reporter - was posted on USACA's Facebook page, which is managed by Williams, with a preface calling it an example of "unethical journalistic bias". The resulting thread resulted in heated exchanges between Williams - commenting under the USACA name - and other readers.

It prompted emails from Thickett and others critical of Willams' actions. "I have received communications from several USACA Board members and cricket stakeholders regarding USACA postings on USACA's Facebook account operated by Williams," Thickett wrote in an email on Wednesday afternoon. "They don't believe the USACA postings reflect the views of USACA and are in fact denigrating to various individuals, organisations and USACA. I am requesting you as president to consider suspending Williams from his role as executive secretary pending an investigation of the postings and a review and decision by the Board."

In his email, Gale pointed to the commercial opportunities that could be put at risk. "We are at a very sensitive time with the development of cricket in the US," Gale wrote, a reference to USACA's partnership with New Zealand Cricket to form a professional domestic Twenty20 league next summer as part of Cricket Holdings America. "The need to build one community that shares goals and objectives has been put very much at the front of the group in the last 12 to 15 months. It is essential that we continue to drive forward in a positive, collaborative and agreed manner. The types of communications we are seeing from Mr Williams directly impede our collective abilities to do that both in the US and with our partners at a more global level."

Email responses made by Williams back to the board allege that his family has been threatened and "is now secured by police officers" in New Jersey, where he lives. He also made the statement that the Facebook thread has resulted in increased visitors to the page. USACA's Facebook page had been "liked" by 200 people on October 13 and that number has grown to 300 by October 18.

"We are at a place where we have never been before," Williams wrote. "The Facebook feed and the Twitter feed will keep growing. Maybe Michael [Gale] can explain what trending on Twitter means! Instead of looking at the negative, look at the positive marketing position the brand USACA has attained. By the way this is no defence by me. I am actually indifferent as to your decision. This board has disrespected me on several levels already and has a history of making excuses to suspend its members."

The USACA website remained silent on the issue till Thursday afternoon, when a message was posted on its front page in an attempt to restore order.

"USACA wants to make it clear that the postings on a Facebook site purporting to represent USACA are neither representative of the board and organisation, nor should this Facebook site, comments and use of the official USACA logo be seen as USACA's official Facebook presence," said the message on usaca.org. "We are in the process of investigating how this site is being managed. Until this is resolved please do not reference any Facebook or Twitter site as sanctioned USACA content and opinions."

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Bond back in black as bowling coach

Beset by injuries and straddling the start of the Twenty20 era, Shane Bond's New Zealand career was all too brief. The lessons of it are not to be lost however, after Bond signed on to replace Damien Wright as the national team's bowling coach.

Having retired from the game a little more than two years ago, Bond has spent the intervening time studying up as a coach, and will now bring his combination of recent experience, empathy and a reputation as one of the most feared pace bowlers of the past decade to help add a greater edge to New Zealand's bowling stocks.

He has a significant task ahead of him, with New Zealand facing tours of Sri Lanka and South Africa before a meeting with England at home. These battles against higher ranked sides brought eh best out of Bond as a bowler, but he must now contend with them as a mentor.

"Playing for New Zealand was the highlight of my career from a professional point of view and I thought that once I finished I'd have something to offer," Bond said in Auckland. "The last couple of years have been about preparing myself to perhaps have the opportunity to take this role, and I'm just rapt that I got it.

"I'm pretty clear on what I want to do and it's just a matter of getting some buy-in from those guys. I think there's a respect there between myself and the players, I certainly won't go in with a dictator's point of view, and I think it's just working alongside those guys and getting the best out of them."

Bond outlined his coaching philosophy as a matter of challenging the players under his watch to get the best out of themselves. He also hoped to usher New Zealand's bowlers into an era of greater consistency, despite the challenges of constantly shifting between three formats.

"I've always been someone who's been organised and professional, and it is just getting the best out of players," he said. "I understand that it is their careers and they will have a way they want to get about their work. As a coach it is just about challenging those ideas and pushing the guys along so they can reach their potential.

"If you look at the players we've got, they've got the skills, and it's not always about bowling fast. It's just about being more consistent, not just within a game but game by game. I think we see good performances, game to game the guys turn up and really do well, but what we want is to see that on a consistent level. As a coach it's about getting a consistent performance, not only over a game, but a series and beyond.

"There's challenges because you jump from format to format so fast, so preparation before tours is going to be important to give the guys the information they need to lead into each tour. Then it's up to myself and them to implement some training stuff so when they hit the tour they're ready to go. That's the way it's been for a long time, and most of the adjustments are mental."

The matter of injury management is something Bond grew all too familiar with during his time as an international bowler, and he said he would now put those years of pain and frustration to use in advising the bowlers under his care.

"I spent the last couple of years working with guys like Hamish Bennett and Matt Henry who are rebuilding from similar injuries to what I've had," Bond said. "I understand the challenges in and around injuries, not only from a physical point of view but the psychological impacts that can have as well.

"There's a lot of experiences I'll pull in from playing that I'll use, but there's also the last couple of years to reflect on things perhaps I should have done differently as a player, and things from different coaches."

Happy to admit that spin bowling is not an area he can offer a great deal of wisdom about, Bond said he would incorporate other voices to help develop the skills of slow bowlers as well as fast.

"You've got to acknowledge that's definitely not my area of expertise, so I've got no problem whether it be pace or spin incorporating other coaches into the mix to give the guys a different voice," he said. "You can't be everything for everyone, there's going to be players in the team who already have coaches they like to work with. Part of my vision will be incorporating other coaches, giving guys different voices to listen to and let them take what they want to."

Bond's first assignment will be in Sri Lanka, in which he said he would seek to familiarise himself with the players while also setting benchmarks for the standards of training he wanted to see.

"I think it's just challenging the guys around practice to take that form into matches," Bond said. "Testing those skills under pressure at training. It is going to take a little bit of time to incorporate that stuff, it's not a matter of me just coming and imposing everything I want to do in the first tour, it'll be balanced, there'll be time to get to know the players."

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Advice avalanche sent Lyon spinning

Entering a second summer as Australia's No. 1 spinner, Nathan Lyon has revealed his struggles to deal with the avalanche of bowling advice fired his way across the first 12 months of his time in the Test team.

One of the side-effects of Lyon's rapid rise from obscurity to the national team was that many glimpsed his bowling for the first time in Test matches. A return of 42 wickets at 27.83 from 13 Tests suggests Lyon had a decent enough idea of how to bowl but everyone, it seemed, had an opinion on how he might do better.

During the summer Lyon was incredulous to find himself being called by strangers advising him of how to gain better results against India's batsmen. Then, amid a difficult Australia A tour of England on which Lyon's bowling became "muddled" in the words of the national selector John Inverarity, it is believed he was even offered technical suggestions by Mitchell Johnson.

Having shown signs in the recent Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania of a return to the tantalising loop, curve and spin that first won him a national spot, Lyon said he was now very careful about who he listened to, keeping the counsel of a small group including the South Australia coach Darren Berry and the spin coaches Craig Howard and John Davison.

"It's been pretty difficult to be honest with you," Lyon told ESPNcricinfo. "To come into the thing and no-one say anything at the start, then come seven Tests you have people ringing you up and stuff. I've been fortunate to have Darren Berry and Craig Howard and John Davison on my side, and having that close unit together, really being able to work with each other.

"We've got that little group there where we all trust each other and are on the same page heading in the right direction. Everyone has their own opinion and stuff, but I've really tried to block that out and just worry about working with the people I really trust and know where my game is at and where I need to get to. I just rely on Darren Berry, Craig Howard and John Davison now really."

Inverarity was concerned by what he saw of Lyon in England, where he was outdone by the Victorian left-arm spinner Jon Holland. However the national selectors are determined to persist with Lyon, given the significant role he played a critical junctures of the past year, not least in Sri Lanka, the West Indies and also South Africa, where he took vital wickets in both innings of the epic Johannesburg Test.

"We hold Nathan in very high regard, he's a bowler with a lovely action, he gets drop and bounce and turn," Inverarity said. "For six months he got a bit muddled and he didn't bowl well on the A tour, and he didn't bowl well in Brisbane [against Queensland]. But in Adelaide he bowled much better.

"On the first day of the Shield game against Tasmania he bowled 30 overs, 0 for 90 in round figures. He got [Mark] Cosgrove dropped at mid-on, chest-high. He had [Alex] Doolan mistiming one to point and dropped, he had [Ricky] Ponting missed stumping. So he's got 3 for 50 let's say, and he might've picked up another couple. You can't do much more than deceive someone in flight and they hit it chest high to mid-on."

The ebb and flow of Lyon's rhythm is something the Australian hierarchy is prepared to roll with for a time, aware that Test matches account for exactly half of his 26 first-class appearances to date. Inverarity offered parallels with the young fast bowler James Pattinson, who has shown himself to be a bowler of great destructive capability at his peak, but one of rather more modest results when rhythm and swing prove elusive.

"You'll often see with fast bowlers it can often be little technical things … with Nathan he had a lovely rhythm and good drop and bounce and turn," Inverarity said. "For whatever reason he lost it, lost his rhythm, and he got frustrated and then I think he was running in to bowl and he was thinking about where his front arm was and he was falling short. He's practised now and is concentrating on where he's landing it.

"James Pattinson last December bowled superbly, and in Brisbane last week he bowled fast, he swung it, was accurate, he was terrific. In the West Indies and England he was not the same bowler, he was very ordinary. He lost pace and rhythm and was ordinary. So these things happen, particularly with young bowlers."

Irrespective of where his advice is coming from, Lyon knows he must keep improving so as to grow into a more senior member of Australia's bowling attack. It will help that he has a battery of high class fast bowlers around him, plus a captain in Michael Clarke who has the right sense of how best to use spin as an attacking weapon.

"Personal results always help, but we've really got a solid bowling group at the moment," Lyon said. "We've got quality fast bowlers, probably the best in the world at the moment, and it's really good working closely with Michael Clarke, he's fantastic and just being able to know my role has been a massive help over the last 12 months.

"Being able to play in 13 Tests and being involved in 14 Tests was unbelievable. I'm pretty grateful for all the opportunities I've had, but I really need to grab the ones that come my way this summer and really try to move forward, keep trying to improve and keep trying to win games of cricket for Australia."

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PCB to appoint batting coach

The Pakistan Cricket Board has decided to appoint a full-time batting coach and has advertised for the post on its website. The role of batting coach is currently being handled by the head coach, Dav Whatmore, with the coaching staff also including Julien Fountain (fielding) and Mohammad Akram (bowling).

The advertisement calls for candidates with at least Level III coaching accreditation, and at least five years' experience working with top cricketers. The deadline for applying is November 4.

Pakistan cricket teams have generally had plenty of quality bowling options to depend on, and the batting has been seen as the weaker department. The idea of having a batting coach has been circulating for last three years, but it didn't get the PCB's approval till now.

After the exit of Ijaz Butt as PCB chairman last year, his successor, Zaka Ashraf, planned to recruit a specialist coaching panel covering batting, bowling and fielding but ended up appointing Whatmore with the additional responsibilities of batting coach. The decision to hire a separate batting coach has been taken this week after a detailed review of Pakistan's performance at the World Twenty20, where the team reached the semi-final only to lose to Sri Lanka by 16 runs while chasing a target of 140.

Pakistan's next assignment is the tour of India, to plasy a series of three ODI and two Twenty20s, followed by the South Africa tour that begins next February.

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Pietersen decision looms over Cook

Alastair Cook provided the strongest hint yet that Kevin Pietersen is close to a return to the England side, stating that the time had come to "draw a line in the sand for the sake of English cricket."

Pietersen has not played for England since the second Test of the series against South Africa. After it emerged that he had exchanged "provocative" messages with members of the South Africa touring party, he was omitted from the side for the third Test and then left out of the squad that tried in vain to defend the World Twenty20 and the squad for the Test tour of India.

Pietersen's chances of being added to that tour squad seem to be increasing by the day. He met Cook in Oxford on Tuesday during a flying visit from South Africa and, while all involved are guarded to the point of paranoia about the details - at one stage Cook declined to answer whether he and Pietersen had met for coffee or a meal - it does seem that the "reintegration" process that the ECB claimed that Pietersen had embarked upon with his England colleagues is progressing.

"The process is well on the way," Cook said. "Clearly it has to be behind closed doors, but the meetings are going on and hopefully the best result will come from them.

"We do need to draw a line in the sand at some stage for the sake of English cricket. We need to move forward as a team. We've got an amazing 18 months ahead of us and we need to move together."

Cook admitted that time was running out ahead of the England team's departure for a pre-tour training camp in Dubai - they leave on October 25 - but reiterated the view that the process could not be hurried.

"It is more than a rubber-stamping exercise," he said. "It's a very important decision that we've got to get right for the sake of the England side moving forward. And it's got to be thorough so we can move on in the right way. It's important we don't rush this process so we can get the best result. We want all our world-class players playing for England. You need your world-class players to win games of cricket. You want to be able to pick from the best players you can."

Cook was talking at the launch of the ICC Champions Trophy 2013 which will be held in June next year at The Oval, Cardiff and Edgbaston. Whatever England's travails in other forms of the game, their ODI form in 2012 has been good and Cook knows that Pietersen's return will give his side a decent opportunity to win a global ODI trophy for the first time. Playing at home, in English conditions and with recent changes to ODI playing regulations - such as the use of two new balls - should all be to England's advantage.

While Cook, who as a relative newcomer to England's limited-overs team has never played in a senior global event, is the first to accept that England's position at the top of the ODI rankings should be taken with a pinch of salt, he feels their recent form shows strong evidence of improvement.

England are unbeaten in their last eight ODI series in England and have won seven of them. They also achieved their best ever sequence of ODI results in 2012 with 10 victories in a row extending from the series against Pakistan in the UAE and incorporating victories against West Indies and Australia.

"The ranking for us as an ODI side are not that important," Cook said. "We don't feel like we're the No.1 side. We've a huge amount of work to do. The consistency in our play has to improve. What's important is that we keep trying to improve.

"I think we won 10 games in a row. That's showed we're heading in the right direction, but we've still got a lot of work to do as a side. We've guys who have played 10 or 15 ODIs and when you compare that to teams who have played 200 games, it shows the inexperience we have. We need to keep developing as players and as a squad.

"But we've got a fantastic home record. In these conditions, we've a good chance and the Champions Trophy will give us a really good indication of how we perform in a tournament. We want to win. When we play the Champions Trophy we won't be looking at the World Cup. We won't be picking players for 2015. We'll be picking players to win the Champions Trophy."

The 2013 version will be the last staging of the Champions Trophy. The ICC, reasoning that only one global trophy was required for each format of the game, will instead introduce a World Test Championship from 2017 alongside the World Cup and the World T20.

To help the 2013 event maintain momentum and intensity, it will last only 18 days and comprise just the top eight ODI teams. Tickets prices have been sensibly capped - the top price for the final at Edgbaston is a relatively modest £60 - to reflect the difficult economic climate and the fact that the Ashes later in the English summer may well remain the priority of UK spectators.

However, the ICC and ECB expressed optimism that the ethnic diversity of the UK population should help ensure full houses for the majority of the matches. The ECB will also host the inaugural World Test Championship and the Women's World Cup in 2017 and the World Cup in 2019.

See the best eight teams in one-day international cricket take part in the ICC Champions Trophy in June 2013 - tickets for The Oval, Cardiff and Edgbaston are on sale on 5 November at icc-cricket.com (pre-registration open now)

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ICC fighting 'war' against corruption - Richardson

Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, has conceded that the recent sting operation by India TV involving six umpires from the sub-continent, who allegedly were willing to divulge information and even give favourable decisions in exchange for monetary profits, is a prime example of how far the tentacles of corruption have reached in cricket.

Richardson, who became chief executive on July 1, said cricket was confronting a "war" against corruption and the ICC was aware that the bookmakers were now targeting domestic Twenty20 leagues as a result of a tightening of security and education of international players by the anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU).

"It is everybody now unfortunately: everybody is susceptible, the curators, the groundsmen," Richardson said at the unveiling of the ICC Champions Trophy, which will be hosted in England in the summer of 2013. "At international level, whether it is a bilateral series or whether it is an ICC event, the attention to that aspect of the world game is at the same level every time we walk out onto the field so to speak.

"So it won't be any less, it won't be any more than normal. But the bottom line is, it is a bit of a war we are fighting and our anti-corruption unit has their work cut out to make sure the players are kept away from temptation and that we end up with a corruption-free event."

On October 8, India TV, a privately-owned Indian television channel, exposed details of the sting operation, which was carried out by undercover reporters. Nadir Shah (Bangladesh), Nadeem Ghauri and Anis Siddiqui (Pakistan), and Sagara Gallage, Maurice Winston Zilwa and Gamini Dissanayake (Sri Lanka) were the six umpires named in the sting. Shah was the only one who met the reporters in person in Delhi, while the rest carried out the interactions via Skype. Though all the umpires denied any wrongdoing on their part, their respective boards decided to suspend them pending investigations.

Richardson said although the ICC was not empowered like the police to arrest anyone, the ACSU had been strengthened recently to make it more effective and install the required mechanism to arrest corrupt elements to breach barriers.

"The plan of attack is obviously we have got an anti-corruption unit whose resources have been increased in recent times," Richardson told ESPNcricinfo in an extensive interview. "So they have got more personnel working there, they have got more money allocated to do their job, their databases have been upgraded. What has happened is because the international players are well educated now and know the risks, displacement has occurred and the bookies are now targeting domestic leagues.

"So to counter that we made sure that every full-member country has its own anti-corruption unit in place and its own anti-corruption code so that what we are doing at the international level can be mirrored at the domestic level. And in doing so we have increased the total resources available (to fight corruption)."

In the past, it has been suggested that the ICC could run an undercover operation of its own in an effort to stamp out corruption. However, Richardson defended the ACSU, saying it had acquired more teeth and was much more pro-active protecting the game, players and officials from corrupt elements.

"The strategy of the anti-corruption unit has been prevention," he said. "And this is borne out of the fact that they are not a police force. They have quite restricted investigatory powers themselves. So if that is the case, then the focus has been to try and prevent. In other words, let us gather intelligence, let us know who the crooked bookmakers are, let us keep them away from players, when they come near the players, let us warn the players from stay away. And only if they ignore the warnings then try and nail them (players).

"In a way, the criticism has been 'how come you have never caught anybody?' But actually it is bit like a good lawyer; he keeps you out of the court. He does not wait for you to get to the court and then catches you. Obviously in some case the ACSU have not prevented everything and sting operations have exposed things."

Full interview with Dave Richardson to be published on Friday, October 19.

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Khatun to captain Bangladesh in Women's T20 Asia Cup

Salma Khatun leads the Bangladesh Twenty20 squad in the upcoming Women's Twenty20 Asia Cup, which starts October 24 in Guangzhou, China. In a largely unchanged squad from the series against South Africa in September, allrounder Panna Ghosh and Shamima Sultana have been included.

Bangladesh, who couldn't qualify for the recently concluded Women's World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, played South Africa at home and participated in the Ireland tri-series in August this year.

They play three group matches before the knockouts, in a tournament that features China, Thailand, Nepal and Hong Kong besides the four subcontinent nations. The matches will be played at the Guanggong International Cricket Stadium in Guangzhou, the venue for the 2010 Asian Games.

Squad: Salma Khatun (captain), Shukhtara Rahman (vice-captain), Sharmin Akhter, Rumana Ahmed, Farzana Haque, Jahanara Alam, Lata Mondal, Nuzhat Tasnia, Khadija Tul Kubra, Ritu Moni, Sanjida Islam, Lily Bishwash, Tazia Akhter, Panna Ghosh, Shamima Sultana

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Young quicks mastermind demolition

Although Brad Haddin was named Man of the Match after Sydney Sixers' thrashing of Yorkshire at Newlands on Tuesday afternoon, the demolition was inspired by their gang of young quicks. Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood combined to take 6 for 44 in 12 overs, with Hazlewood proving miserly in giving away just nine runs in his spell.

"The beauty with the group we've got at the moment is they're all so different, and if they get it right they're definitely hard to score off in this form of the game," Haddin said. "They all bowl well together. There are no egos with them, they're happy to bowl when they're asked to. We've got a good crop there."

Haddin was particularly effusive in his praise for the 21-year-old Hazlewood, who drew extra lift and carry off the pitch from the start of his spell to keep Yorkshire's batsmen on the back foot. "I thought Josh was outstanding," he said. "The big fella was very hard to play out there today, with the lengths he's hitting."

Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale admitted that Hazlewood had adjusted very quickly to what he thought was a slightly green, spongy wicket. "Hazlewood came on and he adapted straight away, hit the pitch hard back of a length," he said. "I thought the pitch was a bit spongy. It was quite hard to pick up the pace of the pitch early on, and he exploited that."

Haddin, on the other hand, insisted that the pitch had very little to do with his bowlers' success. "It was a very good wicket today. These fast bowlers make the wicket look a lot different to other teams. Everything's got to go to our bowlers, they did a very good job to put us in the position we got into today."

That position hadn't looked too healthy when Starc's radar went awry and he leaked 13 runs from his first over. Yorkshire will have seen a lot of Starc, who was their overseas player this season, and Gale suggested he would have been a welcome addition to their squad for this tournament.

"His first over went for 13 and I thought we were going to take him down," Gale said. "He's a great lad, a great talent and he should've been at the top of his run bowling for us today, not them."

Gale also tipped Starc, who made his Test debut against New Zealand at the Gabba last December but has only nailed down a permanent spot in Australia's limited-overs sides, for major honours in the future. "He's one to look out for in the future. It wouldn't surprise me if he goes all the way to be a world No.1 bowler in the short and the long formats of the game."

Hazlewood played a solitary ODI aged just 19, while Starc and Cummins have shared the new ball for Australia in a handful of Twenty20 Internationals. They're all tall and quick, but ply their trade in subtly different ways and could well form the backbone of a potent Test attack in years to come. That is, if they're all fit at the same time.

"It's very exciting," Hazlewood said. "We had a little joke about it, that we're all fit at the same time. It hadn't happened yet, but it's good now that we're all together and we're all fit and firing. This is only the second game I've played with Cummo [Cummins]. With all three of us in the same team, it was pretty good fun."

Haddin was quick to draw the focus from potential future Test pairings to the task at hand in this tournament. He was happy enough that the order had not come from Cricket Australia to rest any of his young quicks or, even worse, to get on a plane back to Australia as Shane Watson has been told to do.

"I hadn't even thought about that. We might have to turn our phones off," Haddin joked. "I think we'd know by now. But I'm not resting the quicks. They can rest tomorrow.

"It's obviously a very good attack, and they all complement each other very well. What we've got to remember with these guys is that they're still very young, and they've got a lot of cricket left in them. At the moment, they just want to learn. They want to keep getting better. These guys are challenging each other at training, and trying to get better and better."

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