Australia dumped Mitchell Johnson from their Twenty20 side for their upcoming South Africa tour after the paceman endured a poor tour in Sri Lanka.
The 29-year-old Queenslander was expensive in Australia’s 2-0 series loss to Sri Lanka and his struggles continued in the one-day and Test series wins that followed.
“Mitchell has struggled in this format of the game to date,” Andrew Hilditch, the outgoing chairman of selectors said in a statement yesterday. “Most Twenty20 internationals have been at the start of tours and Mitchell has not always been at his best in these matches.”
“Obviously Mitchell has a great skill set for Twenty20 cricket and we are sure he will put a lot of pressure on us to pick him in the future in the Twenty20 team,” the statement added.
Johnson’s omission means a recall for Doug Bollinger, who will join Brett Lee, James Pattinson and teenager Pat Cummins in the 14-man squad’s pace quartet for the two Twenty20 matches in South Africa next month.
Cummins, an 18-year-old and the youngest ever Australia player to be handed a central contract, had also forced his way into the one-day side after John Hastings was ruled out by injury.
Brad Haddin’s retirement from Twenty20 last week and an injury to stand-in Tim Paine paved the way for a promotion for Victoria State wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade in the Cameron White-captained Twenty20 squad.
Mitchell Marsh, a 19-year-old all-rounder, had also been included after a solid tour for Australia in Zimbabwe, Hilditch said.
Johnson has retained his place in the Michael Clarke-led one-day squad, which will play a three-match series after the Twenty20 matches, meaning he will likely be in the frame for the following two-match Test series despite his form slump.
The swing bowler took 16 wickets at an average of 25 in Australia’s 2-1 victory over hosts South Africa in the 2009 Test series and interim coach Troy Cooley said getting the erratic bowler back into the groove was a top priority.
“I will be picking up quite quickly with [bowling coach] Craig McDermott and [Test captain] Michael Clarke on what transpired over there [in Sri Lanka] ... and make sure Mitchell Johnson is up and running,” Cooley said on Tuesday.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier