Sport Today

OZ

Hayden
Gilchrist
Ponting
Clarke
Hodge
Hussey
Jaques
Hogg
Watson
Clark
McGrath
Johnson
Bracken
Lee
Tait

Hodge and Tait to sneak in on the back of last night's performance,
Jaques to be the bolter. Hilfenhaus to miss out, Watson to come in for
Symonds.

NZ

Vincent
Fleming
Taylor
Fulton
Styris
Ryder
Oram
McCullum
Patel
Vettori
Franklin
Bond
Gillespie
Mills (if still injured, Adams I guess)
Mason

Adams, Marshall bros, McMillan thankfully all miss out

Do you really think Tait won't be called for all those wides in the
World Cup? I think after 30 balls (one over) the umpires will be getting
a little tired.

Let's see ... the first-choice XI in the last month has been Hayden,
Gilchrist, Ponting, Clarke, Symonds, Hussey, White, Lee, Clark,
Bracken, McGrath, so I would say that 10 of those guys will go.
Symonds will not recover in time.  Watson will be inserted and the
loss of Symonds' spin option means that Hogg is also a certainty.
Only one fast bowler is needed on the bench, so that will be Johnson.
Haddin must be a strong possibility to provide Gilchrist with respite,
even though he has not been seen in green all summer, and the final
spot (a backup batsman) looks like it belongs to Hodge since the
selectors' repeated selection of him shows they are not interested in
Jaques or any other contenders (Cosgrove, for example) at this time.
The only question mark in my mind is Hayden, in spite of his hundred
in this tournament, because he still looks laboured at the crease and
if Watson plays he might be tried as an opener again.  Deletion of
Hayden would bring Jaques into contention, but to delete Hayden after
playing him in 10 games in the CB Series would be against normal CA
behaviour.

So, I predict -

Hayden
Gilchrist
Haddin
Ponting
Clarke
Hodge
Watson
Hussey
White
Hogg
Lee
Clark
Johnson
Bracken
McGrath

Bear in mind that the selection of teams for the Chappell-Hadlee
Series will probably closely match the World Cup squad selections for
both AUS and NZL, so stay tuned.

--

JPD