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New Zealand and Pakistan have managed something special over the last week and a half – a bilateral one-day series that does not want for context

The Preview by Alagappan Muthu18-Dec-2014Match factsFriday, December 19, 2014
Start time 1500 local (11 GMT)1:02

Pakistan and NZ set for decider

Big pictureNew Zealand and Pakistan have managed something special over the last week and a half – a bilateral one-day series that does not want for context.Throughout this tour, both teams have been in a see-saw battle that is yet to have a winner. The Test series was drawn. So was the T20 series. The ODI series stands at 2-2 with one match to play because of a riveting showdown in Abu Dhabi. In some ways, Wednesday’s ODI summarised the tour so far: one team got the upper hand, then the other picked itself up and fought back vigorously.Key individuals have also stepped up. Shahid Afridi has shown an awareness of how match-changing a 30- or 40-ball stay from him can be. Kane Williamson has developed the kind of consistency that adjectives can’t catch up to. Sarfraz Ahmed has been fearless and calculating. And for a bowler who regularly touches the 150kph-mark, Adam Milne’s accuracy has been striking.New Zealand’s ability to adapt to the UAE conditions has been matched by Pakistan’s doggedness and whatever happens on Friday, the gains from this series is likely to stand both teams in good stead for the upcoming World Cup, and perhaps beyond.Form guide(most recent first, completed matches only)
Pakistan LWLWL
New Zealand WLWLLIn the spotlightIt should not have taken an injury to accommodate Umar Akmal into Pakistan’s XI. A player with over 100 matches to his name should be able to command a regular place in the side, but it shows that he is still considered a gamble. And some of his dismissals corroborate that. He did well in Abu Dhabi and would need to build on that if he wants to compete for a middle-order position, especially when it is likely that that Sohaib Maqsood and Misbah-ul-Haq might slot back in once they regain fitness.Martin Guptill is tall, strong and a typically stand-and-deliver batsman whose game is built around power. The only problem is that he tends to have some starting troubles. New Zealand have struggled to find a settled opening combination, so much that their regular captain Brendon McCullum is mulling a move to the top of the order. Should Guptill devise a way to increase his consistency, New Zealand might just have one of the most explosive opening pairs in the World Cup.Team newsShahid Afridi has thrived as Pakistan captain•AFPThe experiment with Nasir Jamshed as opener did not yield a good result and also forced Mohammad Hafeez to occupy an unfamiliar batting position. Pakistan might go back to the Hafeez-Ahmed Shehzad combine at the top and either use Jamshed in the middle order or bring back Asad Shafiq.Pakistan (probable) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Younis Khan, 4 Asad Shafiq/ Nasir Jamshed, 5 Haris Sohail, 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 8 Shahid Afridi (capt), 9 Sohail Tanvir, 10 Anwar Ali, 11 Mohammad IrfanDaniel Vettori left the UAE on the eve of the final ODI for his brother’s wedding, which opens up a spot for Nathan McCullum.New Zealand (probable) 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Dean Brownlie, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Tom Latham, 6 Corey Anderson, 7 Luke Ronchi (wk), 8 Nathan McCullum, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Adam Milne 11 Mitchell McClenaghanPitch and conditionsAbu Dhabi tends to be a slow but flat track and batting first has been a marked advantage.Stats & trivia Shahid Afridi has a strike-rate of 165.51 with the bat and an economy rate of 4.22 with the ball in this series – the best among both teams Mitchell McClenaghan, with 55 wickets from 27 matches – is the only bowler from either side to be among the top-10 wicket-takers in the last two years. Mohammad Irfan with 52 is 11thQuotes”This series is for us to utilise and get the clear picture who are the final 15 [players for the World Cup] and besides that win this series.”
“Last night, once again, in quite foreign conditions, he showed how clever he is and then at the end how destructive he can be”

Russell Domingo suggested that there is unlikely to be any experimentation in the South African line-up in their final group game against Zimbabwe

Liam Brickhill in Harare03-Sep-20142:03

‘We will be having our strongest team’ – Domingo

South Africa are virtually assured of a place in the final of the Zimbabwean tri-series on Saturday, but their coach Russell Domingo suggested that there is unlikely to be any experimentation in the South African line-up in their final group game against Zimbabwe.”It’s an important game, and a couple of the guys have been rested like Dale [Steyn] and Morne [Morkel], who have only played two games in the last three or four weeks, so I don’t think it’s that important for them to rest,” Domingo said. “And I think they will be having a couple of weeks off after this tournament. AB [de Villiers] also had one or two games off, so I think we’ll be pretty much as close to our strongest team tomorrow.”The hosts have just four points to South Africa’s nine, and with a net run rate of -1.665 Zimbabwe would need an improbably large victory on Thursday to even come close to threatening South Africa’s standing on the points table. Of far more concern to South Africa will be their death bowling and their lengthy tail, which will include both Aaron Phangiso and Imran Tahir, with Morkel promoted to No. 9.Both of these factors were exposed in their 62-run defeat to Australia on Tuesday. “We didn’t play as well as we would have hoped to [against Australia],” admitted Domingo. “With the ball at the back end I didn’t think we executed our plans well enough, and then I think our team at the moment with a little bit of a long tail is set up to have wickets in hand. With 15 overs left we were five or six wickets down, which is too many wickets down. Those are the areas that we really got wrong.”Mitchell Marsh played an outstanding innings yesterday. He hit the ball magnificently well and he’s a very difficult guy to bowl to, particularly when you’re defending one short boundary on the on side. He’s got to take a lot of credit, he batted really well, but the Australian batting line-up set the game up for him in those last 10 overs. With the way batting is going at the moment, I think wickets up front is the most important thing, that you can limit the damage at the back end of the innings.”Conditions in Zimbabwe, with pitches generally playing slow and low and aiding spinners, have necessitated South Africa’s inclusion of both Phangiso and Tahir. With both men likely to play in the final, there will be added pressure on South Africa’s middle order to provide the ballast to their innings, whether early wickets fall or not. While Faf du Plessis has scored two centuries in the tri-series, neither Hashim Amla nor Quinton de Kock have really fired and JP Duminy is averaging 25.50 while David Miller has scraped together just three runs in two innings.”Going to the World Cup in Australia it’s probably not going to be such a big thing, playing two spinners, but under these conditions two spinners seems to be a good option,” suggested Domingo. “It does lengthen our tail quite a bit but that just gives our top order a bit more responsibility to perform.”

Former international umpire Darrell Hair has said the ICC’s crackdown on bowlers with suspect actions has come 20 years too late

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Oct-2014Former international umpire Darrell Hair has said the ICC’s crackdown on bowlers with suspect actions has come 20 years too late, and that the weakness of umpires over time to do anything about the issue has helped created a “generation of chuckers.” Hair was the first umpire to call former Sri Lankan offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan for chucking during a Boxing Day Test in Melbourne in 1995.”Whatever they’re doing now, they’re doing 20 years too late,” Hair told . “They had a chance in 1995 to clean things up and it’s taken them 19 years to finally come back and say they want chuckers out of the game. I can’t believe that Saeed Ajmal has been able to bowl as long as he has, and they say he is bending his arm by 45 degrees [the legal limit is 15 degrees] or something. Well, every man and his dog would have known that.”I suppose what it does show is the general weakness of the umpires over time to do anything about it.”After Hair called Murali for chucking in December 1995, the spinner had his action cleared the following summer, but was once again called by Australian umpire Ross Emerson during an ODI between England and Sri Lanka in Adelaide in 1999.”All I was doing at any time was just doing my job and I think I did it to the best of my ability,” Hair said. “The fact was that no other ICC umpires were willing to have a go. Ross Emerson was very adamant about his thoughts about chuckers but they soon put him into the background.”I suppose I was lucky I had a few games under my belt so they didn’t want to target me, but they certainly got him out of the way fairly swiftly. It’ll be interesting to see how many umpires are brave enough to get involved in it. I said it in the late ’90s that if something wasn’t done about it you’d have a generation of chuckers on your hands and now you have.”Since July 2014, ICC match officials reported Sri Lanka’s Sachithra Senanayake, Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal, New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, Zimbabwe’s Prosper Utseya and Bangladesh’s Sohag Gazi for suspect actions and all of them were banned from bowling in international cricket after undergoing tests. Sunil Narine, Mohammad Hafeez, Adnan Rasool, Suryakumar Yadav and Prenelan Subrayen were also reported for suspect actions in the Champions League T20. While all of these bowlers are finger spinners, Bangladesh’s Al-Amin Hossain was the only medium-pacer reported, during Bangladesh’s tour of West Indies in September.The drive against illegal actions intensified after an ICC Cricket Committee meeting in June. “The game had reached a tipping point on this issue, when many groups within the game felt that there were too many bowlers with suspect actions operating in international cricket,” ICC general manager of cricket operations, Geoff Allardice, told Fairfax Media. “The most prominent of these groups was the ICC Cricket Committee at its meeting in June, when it observed the ICC’s reporting and testing procedures were not adequately scrutinising these bowlers. They weren’t the only ones talking about this issue, as similar views had been expressed by teams, players, umpires, referees and administrators.”Since that time the umpires have felt more confident to report their concerns with certain bowlers, and their concerns have been supported by the results of the testing of these reported bowlers.”

It’s become a batsman’s game they say but the MCC have no plans yet to change the Law on the size of bats

Alex Winter16-Jul-2014It has become a batsman’s game they say but the MCC have no plans yet to change the Law on the size of bats.The MCC World Cricket Committee debated the impact of modern bats and, despite mixed views, concluded that a Law change was not yet necessary because the balance between bat and ball has yet to tip sufficiently far enough in favour of the batsman.It is often commented upon how the thickness of modern bats and the sizes of edges have transformed the game, with batsmen now able to hit the ball further, more consistently and often without remotely finding the middle.This was investigated by Imperial College London, who were commissioned by the MCC to conduct a study into the size of cricket bats through the ages.The report compared by a 1905 Gray Nicholls Ranjit bat the 1980 Powerspot and three more modern versions. It demonstrated that modern bats have bigger sweet spots, with much larger edges, and that the ball goes further when hit closer to the edge.In the five bats tested, the size of the sweet spot varied from only 80mm to 215mm in the middle and 60mm to 165mm for a thick edge. Not only was the 1905 bat was the least effective and the most modern bats possess the largest ‘middle’, there had been a measurable improvement since 2009.A scrutiny of ODIs since 1979 by Imperial also revealed the boundary count, and especially sixes, has increased dramatically.The cricket committee assessed the findings of the report and debated the consequences, such as the benefit of a greater number of boundaries for television viewers against the fairness for bowlers of more apparent mis-hits finding the rope.Consensus could not be found and it was decided to retain the current Law on the size of bats, contained in Appendix E of the Laws of Cricket, which only limit the length of the bat to 38 inches and the width to 4 ¼ inches.But it was noted that boundaries should be pushed out as far as is possible under heath and safety regulations to prevent batsmen gaining further advantage.

Lack of interest from Indian broadcasters could result in the three-match ODI series between India and Bangladesh that starts from June 15 not being available on televisions in India, the has reported

ESPNcricinfo staff12-Jun-2014Lack of interest from Indian broadcasters could result in the three-match ODI series between India and Bangladesh that starts from June 15 not being available on television in India, the has reported. Bangladesh’s Gazi TV, which owns the rights for cricket in Bangladesh, had approached Star Sports and Sony Six.Star Sports reportedly made an offer of less than a million dollars (Rs 5 crore) for the three matches, which was deemed too little by the host broadcaster. Sony Six, on the other hand, didn’t show interest owing to a busy football World Cup schedule.”Star has offered a less than million dollars for three matches. That is too less in comparison to the cost of the rights,” Salahuddin Chowdhury, CFO and head of operations of Gazi Group, told . “Because of the BCCI’s problems with Neo and Ten, we can’t sell the rights to them. Unless, something dramatic happens over the next two days, I cannot assure you that the matches will be telecast in India.””There would be a lot of overlapping time between the World Cup matches and ODIs,” Prasanna Krishnan, the chief executive of Sony Six, told the . “We’ve a planned a few pre-match shows for the World Cup and we could not have spared our channel for cricket.”India has chosen to rest MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja for the series.

The top brass of the BCCI is likely to meet MS Dhoni and Duncan Fletcher to discuss India’s overseas performances which have been consistently on the decline in the last three years

Nagraj Gollapudi21-Feb-2014The top brass of the BCCI is likely to meet MS Dhoni and Duncan Fletcher to discuss India’s overseas performances which have been consistently on the decline in the last three years. It is understood that the BCCI is concerned, but is not at all thinking about replacing the pair whose positions have come under the scanner once again after the 1-0 Test defeat in New Zealand.”We want to take stock of the situation,” a BCCI insider told ESPNcricinfo. “We want to know what is going wrong. We would like to know from them what is required to improve.” According to this official, despite the public criticism of the roles of Dhoni and Fletcher in the past week, the BCCI still retained the confidence in the combination which started work formally from India’s tour of England in 2011.Since then India have lost every overseas tour. India suffered 4-0 whitewashes in England followed by Australia, lost 1-0 to South Africa last December and the series against New Zealand by a similar margin recently. Fletcher’s overseas record says 10 defeats in 15 matches while Dhoni has lost nine out of the 14 Tests he has led India in overseas, since Fletcher’s appointment.Fletcher’s contract is up for renewal from April 1 and there has been speculation in sections of media about his future. A media report on Friday suggested the BCCI had contacted former England coach Andy Flower. However, the BCCI official denied the report and called it mere speculation.The overseas defeats have triggered a wide-ranging debate including some scathing remarks from two recent former India captains: Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.  “Our reputation has been tarnished, but Dhoni needs help,” Ganguly told TV channel . “I don’t know what Duncan Fletcher is doing. The approach needs to be right, and Fletcher needs to help Dhoni. He has clearly struggled and he needs to be more involved. He needs to plan better and the selectors have to assess and get the right squad.”Joe Dawes, India’s bowling coach, was also pulled up by Ganguly who felt that the Queenslander’s working style was not entirely convincing. “I saw Allan Donald in South Africa, walking around the boundary line, talking to his bowlers. But I don’t see Joe Dawes doing that.”If Ganguly was severe on the coaches, Dravid felt Dhoni had grown defensive in his approach abroad. “I think he’s got to realise this very quickly, that if he wants to win Test matches abroad, he’s got to risk it all,” Dravid told ESPNcricinfo reviewing the New Zealand Test series. “He’s got to take that chance that he’s going to have to lose some Test matches. The only way you can win abroad is to take a few risks, take a few gambles.”

The boycott by Nepal’s national cricketers has been called off after the constitution of an advisory committee that would work in tandem with the Cricket Association of Nepal

Rachna Shetty17-Apr-2014The boycott by Nepal’s national cricketers has been called off after the constitution of an advisory committee that would work in tandem with the Cricket Association of Nepal. The decision to form the planning and monitoring committee was taken on Wednesday night at a meeting between the board and the players facilitated by Nepal’s sports ministry and sports council. The committee will have five members – a representative each from CAN, the sports ministry and the sports council, along with the captain and the coach, Pubudu Dassanayake.”The committee will plan the development of cricket, make suggestions to CAN and then monitor the progress of these plans,” Ashok Nath Pyakuryal, the secretary of CAN, told ESPNcricinfo. “They will look at suggesting ways to develop cricket, restructure domestic cricket in the country and once their recommendations have been submitted to the board, the sports ministry and the sports council will supervise the implementation of these suggestions.”Pyakuryal also said that the other major demands made by the players at the time of the boycott – related to payment of dues and medical aid to allrounder Prithu Baskota – had already been resolved.The advisory committee was seen as a middle ground in the negotiations as the board, considered to be the highest cricket administrative authority in Nepal, could not be dissolved under the existing laws of the country.Nepal captain Paras Khadka, who had earlier stated the boycott was prompted by a need for better accountability in the administration, said he was excited that players had been given a say within the system.”It’s the first time for players to be involved in the decision-making process and it’s a great initiative,” Khadka said. “It will help us create a base for the future and help the next generation of cricketers. The committee will meet regularly and will also be looking at the overall aspects of the game, including administration and finance.”Khadka also expressed hope that the cricketers would soon have a contract system, which would also benefit the regional players, and that the board would appoint full-time professionals, like a CEO, over the next year.Nepal’s national cricketers had decided to boycott the national one-day tournament, which began on April 9 and was meant to be a selection trial for the Asian Cricket Council’s Premier League tournament, scheduled to begin on May 1. The deadline for submitting the squad was April 10 but Pyakuryal said CAN had sought an extension and would select a squad for the tournament soon.

ESPNcricinfo previews the final one-day international between Australia and England at the Adelaide Oval

The Preview by Daniel Brettig25-Jan-2014Match factsJanuary 26, 2014, Adelaide
Start time 1350 (0320GMT)The Big pictureWitnesses to the celebrations that followed the 1987 World Cup Final tell of their delight at watching years of worry and wrinkles disappear from the glowing face of Australia’s captain Allan Border as he was hoisted on the shoulders of Craig McDermott and Dean Jones in the aftermath of victory. While a lone ODI win is nothing by comparison, the effect the Perth result had on England seemed similarly transformative. Certainly Alastair Cook was suddenly speaking a lot more positively about the team, cricket and life itself having finally led his men to a win, albeit over a weakened Australian side.Now, having spent most of the summer toying with England, the hosts have a far chirpier and enthusiastic opponent for the final match of the series at Adelaide Oval, played on Australia Day. They will be fortified by the returns of the captain Michael Clarke and the allrounder Shane Watson, a pair of inclusions that will also add some incentive to England’s quest for a promising end to a wretched tour. Having beaten Australia at the WACA Ground, they would dearly like to repeat the trick against a stronger home line-up in Adelaide, on a pitch that will offer little in the way of pace or lateral movement.For the first time this summer, the Australia must find a way to regain the momentum they had previously ridden across all eight previous encounters, a tidal wave of confidence and accomplishment that was hinted at during the ODIs in England and India but which truly began during the first Test in Brisbane. There was a profligacy about Australia’s bowling in Perth that suggested a slight loss of focus, and it is the most pressing concern for the coach Darren Lehmann ahead of this fixture.Form guide(Completed matches, most recent first)
Australia LWWWL
England WLLLLWatch out forThe only member of Australia’s bowling attack to excel at the WACA Ground, Glenn Maxwell is developing his offspin in a handy and timely manner. But it is his livewire batting that has brought Maxwell most of his career advancement to date, and he continues to wrestle with the competing instincts to attack or build. His overeager dismissal in Perth drew sharp criticism from Lehmann, who made the rare step of deliberately criticising his player in public. Given the array of strokes he possesses, and the power with which he can play them, it will take only the merest hint of better “course management” to have Maxwell frightening the life out of England’s bowlers in Adelaide, and those in the series beyond.Ben Stokes has often been at the centre of what little good cricket England have produced this summer•AFPNot unlike Darren Gough on the 1994-95 Ashes tour, Ben Stokes has been the ebullient centre of what little good cricket England have played this summer. So it was altogether fitting that he dominated the match that finally brought victory for Cook’s team, his improvement in the No. 3 position after a halting first attempt in Sydney proving just as vital as his four wickets. As England’s “find of the tour”, Stokes will keenly want to finish off on a note of foreboding for any Australians thinking of crossing him again in 2015.Team newsMichael Clarke and Shane Watson are back in Australia’s squad for Adelaide, meaning Steve Smith and Daniel Christian are the two men expected to make way. Clint McKay is a likely inclusion in place of Mitchell Johnson, who has stayed home in Perth, while Xavier Doherty can also expect a recall.Australia 1 Aaron Finch, 2 Shaun Marsh, 3 Shane Watson, 4 Michael Clarke (capt), 5 George Bailey, 6 Glenn Maxwell, 7 Matthew Wade (wk), 8 James Faulkner, 9 Clint McKay, 10 Nathan Coulter-Nile, 11 Xavier Doherty.Having finally won an international match on tour, England can be expected to try to maintain their new-found confidence with an unchanged team.England (possible) 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Ian Bell, 3 Ben Stokes, 4 Gary Ballance, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Ravi Bopara, 7 Jos Buttler (wk), 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Chris Jordan, 11 James Tredwell.Pitch and conditionsAdelaide’s drop-in pitch should be brimful of runs though it will lack the pace of Perth. The forecast temperature for Australia Day is a dry, dusty 35 degrees.Stats and trivia A victory for England would move the tourists up to third in the ODI rankings behind the other members of the “big three”, India and Australia, surpassing South Africa Australia have hosted England four times in ODIs on Australia Day in Adelaide, winning three times. England were the victors on the most recent occasion however, in 2011.Quotes”He (Maxwell) is a great young kid, and he realises his mistake last night. He owned up to that and he realises he’s got to get better. He’s an all-rounder but he’s batting in the top six, so you’d say he’s a batting all-rounder. But he’s got to show the responsibility of that (role) at six. We know he’s got that excitement and that flair and we love that about him, but we want him to understand the game better.”
“We always took the positive option, which in these conditions I think you have to do. There’s always a bit of risk with that but you have to be good enough as a top-order batsman to make those shots.”

Andrew Strauss, whose alliance with Andy Flower was at the heart of England’s success, has insisted he remains the best coach available and that he should not be made a scapegoat for a humiliating Ashes series.

David Hopps29-Dec-2013Andrew Strauss, whose alliance with Andy Flower was at the heart of England’s success, has insisted he remains the best coach available and that he should not be made a scapegoat for a humiliating Ashes series.Flower’s role has been brought into question after England’s eight-wicket defeat at the MCG left them facing the possibility of a whitewash if they lose in Sydney. The last time that happened, seven years ago, Duncan Fletcher clung on as coach for a disastrous World Cup challenge before resigning three months later. Strauss, whose retirement has coincided with England’s steady decline, remains convinced that England should do everything to convince Flower to remain.”Andy Flower is one of the great coaches in world cricket,” Strauss told . If he is not the man to take England forward I don’t know who is.”The only question is whether he has the hunger and the energy to continue in the job. He is not a guy to give up easily. He will be hurting as much as anybody.”That is the territory you enter at 4-0 down. You get scapegoated.”Darren Lehmann, the Australian coach whose adventurous and aggressive style has left England in a state of tactical confusion, also give strong support to his vanquished opponent.”It is a very stressful job, but he is a very good coach and he has a done a fantastic job for England over a period of time,” Lehmann said. “I am sure he will come up with solutions.”We regard their structure very highly and we may have copied it in some shape or form.”

Simon Jones, the former England seamer, is going to pursue a career as a T20 freelance after announcing his retirement from first-class and List A cricket from the end of the season

Alan Gardner12-Sep-2013Simon Jones, the former England seamer, is going to pursue a career as a T20 freelance after announcing his retirement from first-class and List A cricket from the end of the season. He is expected to play for Glamorgan in the Yorkshire Bank 40 final on September 21 and will then focus on securing potentially lucrative contracts to play in T20 competitions around the world.Jones is coming to the end of a two-year deal with Glamorgan but will discuss a potential T20 contract with the county’s incoming chief executive, Hugh Morris, in the close season. Injuries have blighted Jones’ career since he became an Ashes winner in 2005 but the 34-year-old is not quite ready to follow his former England team-mate Matthew Hoggard into full retirement just yet.”If I get the gigs I want to get I won’t be resting much,” Jones said. “T20 is the option that we’re looking at and I’m excited at the prospect of playing in different tournaments if I can. Getting back on the park is something I’ve worked for a long time and for me to carry on playing it’s the obvious choice, to go down that route, as the likes of Shaun Tait have done.”There’s a lot of opportunities out there but you’ve got to get a gig. I’m looking forward to the challenge and hopefully I get the opportunities I feel I deserve, because I still feel I have a lot to offer the game.”Jones will certainly be the first Welshman to take the path of the T20 itinerant. Andrew Flintoff, another of Jones’s 2005 team-mates, planned to end his career that way, before injury had the final word, and while Tait, the former Australia bowler, is among several one-time internationals – such as New Zealand’s Scott Styris and Jacob Oram – to play just the shortest format, few England-qualified players have seriously entertained the idea.The choice may seem a little surprising, given that Jones only made his senior debut in the format in 2008 and managed one T20 appearance for Glamorgan in 2013. His T20 record comprises 43 wickets at 21.46, with an economy of 7.43.”It’s giving me the opportunity to play for another couple of years,” Jones said of his decision. “I still feel good in my body, I still feel good in my mind and I still feel I’ve got the skills and the pace to perform at the highest level. We’ll see what happens.”Despite plans to play Championship cricket this year, Jones has only featured in Glamorgan’s limited-overs teams, missing the early part of the season due to continued problems with his knee. But he hopes to end on a high with victory at Lord’s a week on Saturday and could still be turning out in Cardiff next summer.”If Glamorgan do want to keep me for the T20 I’d be delighted to stay but if they don’t I’m going to pursue other options,” he said. “I’ve had some niggles this year, which have happened in the gym. Glamorgan have a settled team in the four-day stuff and I wasn’t quite going to get in there. It has been a frustrating season but this will hopefully be another chapter in my cricketing career.”Glamorgan’s head of elite performance, Matthew Mott, who will be leaving the county at the end of the season, added: “Simon has shown great character and determination to keep pushing himself despite his time out of the game at Glamorgan. We wish him well in his endeavours to concentrate on T20 and thank him for his contribution both on and off the field.”It is a smart and well-thought out decision and I am sure that a number teams around the world will be keen on him given his increased availability for T20 competitions. He is still in great shape and has the passion to keep playing and bowling quick for a few more years to come. Hopefully he can sign off his one-day career with Glamorgan in a winning team at Lord’s.”Simon Jones was speaking ahead of the Yorkshire Bank 40 final at Lord’s on Saturday September 21. Tickets are available from tickets.lords.org