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Two quicks capable of bowling faster than 145kph, one allrounder who gets up into the high 130s range, a spanking new mystery spinner who is yet to be decoded, and a world No. 2 legspinner with a killer googly. These are Sri Lanka’s frontline bowling stocks for this World Cup. They are so good, says coach Mickey Arthur, they could be “almost the ideal attack”.They were excellent against a Namibia side that Sri Lanka were expected to overpower, with Maheesh Theekshana (the mystery spinner) picking up three wickets, and Lahiru Kumara producing good overs at each stage of the innings. But Ireland, a more formidable outfit, will be a step up.Still, Arthur is excited, particularly by Dushmantha Chameera (who bowled one delivery at 149kph on Monday, and whose bouncers can be truly nasty) bowling in tandem with Kumara, who also comfortably breached 145kph. This may be the lowest-rated Sri Lanka outfit ever to arrive at a T20 World Cup. But they’ve also never had a quicker attack.”For us to have two bowlers of genuine quality bowling at 145kph – that makes a massive difference,” Arthur said. “We know that any team doesn’t like facing them. They’re genuine wicket-takers. Their skills have got better and better over the last couple of months. We’re really happy having them attack for us.Related

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“Dushmantha Chameera has gone to another level. He’s now genuinely world-class. To have those bowlers in our line-up gives us a good balance. Chamika [Karunaratne] brings a little bit of swing. And we’ve got our two spinners. It’s almost the ideal attack, if you like.”They will be tested by an Ireland batting order that seems to be finding its feet, but if they bowl second in Wednesday’s match, they will also have to contend with the dew. Across both World Cup venues so far, sides bowling second have struggled to keep the ball dry. Sri Lanka bowled first against Namibia for this very reason. But they are prepared if the toss goes the other way against Ireland, Arthur said.”We came out the night before the Namibia match and checked the amount of dew, and there was a fair amount. I don’t think it’s impossible to bowl if we have to bowl second. We’ve prepared that way – using wet balls, etc. We’ll be ready. Once the wicket cools down and gets a little bit of moisture on it, it just tends to come on a little bit nicer as well.”Sri Lanka will stick with the same top three, according to Arthur. They did not fire against Namibia, with each of Kusal Perera, Dinesh Chandimal, and Pathum Nissanka all getting out cheaply. While Perera has produced some good T20 performances, Chandimal and Nissanka are not highly rated hitters – their gifts favouring the Test format. Arthur sees no reason to change, though, with Perera dropping back into the top three following his latest injury layoff.”I’m pretty confident with Kusal Perera back at the top of the order now,” Arthur said. “He’s a world-class player, so to have him back there gives us a lot more solidity. I’m pretty sure he’s going to fire for us soon.”Pathum Nissanka is a work in progress. I’ve said numerous times that he’s the one young Sri Lanka batsman that I’ve seen in my time that is going to go on and genuinely become a world-class player for Sri Lanka. We’ll keep going with Pathum because we’re investing in him. That No. 3 position has been an Achilles heel for us, ever since we lost Kusal Mendis, Danushka Gunathilaka and Niroshan Dickwella, we’ve battled to find the right balance in our top five. I’m comfortable we can find that balance if we can nail down that No. 3 position.”

A compelling LV=Insurance County Championship contest is unfolding at Edgbaston where Hampshire closed the second day on 260 for 8 in their second innings, 233 ahead of Warwickshire.The home side had Hampshire 208 for eight, just 181 in front, but former Edgbaston favourite Keith Barker dug in with Brad Wheal to add an unbroken 52 up to stumps.After taking a five-for on the first day, Barker continued to impede his former team-mates’ title bid with an unbeaten 49 off 124 balls with power to add. Warwickshire will face an awkward chase in pursuit of a victory which would keep them top of the table.On a hot afternoon, Liam Norwell led the Bears’ bowling manfully with 4 for 64 while Danny Briggs wheeled away skilfully for 36-17-38-2 but their injury-hit attack was exposed as other bowlers, notably home debutant Chemar Holder, struggled for control.After the freak clatter of wickets on the first day, a good pitch was put into proper perspective on the second when wickets had to be much harder-earned. Trailing by 27 on first innings, Hampshire resumed on 41 without loss and took the score to 55 before Norwell made the breakthrough. The big-hearted paceman swung one in to win an lbw appeal against Joe Weatherley.Ian Holland and Tom Alsop added 54 before the Bears struck a double blow just before lunch. Holland edged Norwell to Rob Yates at slip to be out for 44 and then Briggs got one to lift at Nick Gubbins and Will Rhodes took a sharp catch at slip.Briggs bowled with great control after lunch and added the scalp of Alsop, adroitly stumped by Michael Burgess, before Norwell trapped Liam Dawson lbw.James Vince batted diligently for 48 off 67 balls with seven fours and it was a surprise when he perished carelessly, pulling Craig Miles to Matt Lamb at long leg. Four balls later, Miles hit the middle stump of James Fuller but the Bears were held up by the obdurate Felix Organ who went into tea unbeaten on 3 from 72 minutes and made 16 in exactly two hours before falling lbw to Norwell.Barker batted with great composure and Wheal supported him ably in the last hour to tilt this tight and intriguing match Hampshire’s way.

JP Duminy may not be able to keep his place in South Africa’s Test XI after the returning captain, Faf du Plessis, conceded Duminy was under pressure due to poor form. That observation is vastly different from the support du Plessis had offered in the recent past, often saying Duminy looked at his best in training and it was only a matter of time before he translated that into match-day performances.Now, after eight innings without crossing 40, du Plessis has been forced to admit Duminy is not doing enough. He made 15 and 2 in the first Test at Lord’s, with his dismissal on the stroke of tea on day four particularly culpable as South Africa slipped to a 221-run defeat.”JP will be the first guy to say he knows he needs to score runs for this team and it’s no different for anyone else,” du Plessis said. “He is desperate to do well as anyone in that position. You want to try and score runs every time you go out that. He knows at the end of the day that it’s about runs. He understands that if it has to come to a position where there is someone else that needs to be looked at… he will be the first to acknowledge [that]. He is a crucial part of our senior player group and he will always put the team interests above himself so yes, he will be the first to acknowledge that.”With du Plessis back in the squad after missing the first Test for the birth of his first child, one option would for him to slot straight back into the team in Duminy’s place but the captain said South Africa will consider a few other things. Kagiso Rabada is suspended from the Trent Bridge match for ICC code of conduct violations and South Africa may look at playing both allrounder Chris Morris and reserve quick Duanne Olivier to make up for his absence. In that case, Theunis de Bruyn would have to miss out, with du Plessis coming in for Duminy.”With losing KG – do you look at possibly playing a four-seam attack because you are losing quite a high-quality bowler? That’s means there would be a batsman that will miss out,” du Plessis said. “That’s one option.”Either way, du Plessis seemed to suggest that de Bruyn, who scored 48 in the first innings in what was just his second Test, has moved up the queue and possibly ahead of Duminy for the rest of this series. “You can look at someone like Theunis de Bruyn who has played pretty well this game – standing up at Lord’s and it’s only his second Test match. He was solid in that first innings. He played well,” du Plessis said.JP Duminy was twice dismissed cheaply at Lord’s•Getty Images

The form of the middle order was the only positive South Africa’s batting could take from the Lord’s Test after the top four let them down yet again. Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock and Vernon Philander all scored half-centuries and du Plessis would like to see one of them in particular go on to convert that into something bigger.”Temba has once again been consistent,” du Plessis said. “But now, something Temba needs to work on is making sure he converts those starts. He is playing brilliantly but he knows that fifties don’t win us matches. The difference between the two teams is that one guy scored 190. That changed the outcome of the game.”Bavuma has scored three fifties in his last four Tests but only has one hundred in his short career, against England in January 2016. Having to constantly bail the top order out may be a handbrake for him, however, and du Plessis stressed that the top two must come good. Dean Elgar got a start with a half-century in the first innings at Lord’s and du Plessis was confident Heino Kuhn, who was unconvincing on debut, will show his experience at some stage.”Heino Kuhn is not a young guy anymore but he is new to Test cricket,” du Plessis said. “I don’t think everything is supposed to be a fairytale where you just rock up and score two hundreds in your first game. Ask Dean. He got a pair in his first game. It’s about character and how you stand up to that. This will be good. It will make him stronger.”

ScorecardKeaton Jennings receives staunch support from the Durham faithful•Getty Images

A mere 69 balls is no evidence at all upon which to base any judgement about Durham’s prospects this season. All the same, the four supremely authoritative boundaries hit by Keaton Jennings on the third morning of this game made it quite clear what a loss he would have been had he chosen, like Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick, to further his career elsewhere.Jennings’ efforts may not be enough to save his side against a resurgent Nottinghamshire; Durham go into the final day with a lead of 58 and only three second-innings wickets in hand. But the accuracy of the opener’s attacking shots – a straight drive, a cover drive, a back cut and a clip through midwicket – and the precision of his defensive batting seem to have grown over the winter.Certainly his overall assurance was in clear contrast to the porous techniques of his two dismissed partners this damp Easter Sunday. Ryan Pringle was bowled by the 11th ball of the morning when he swished rather haplessly across the line to Jake Ball; nine overs later, Stuart Poynter lost his off stump to one from from Harry Gurney which swung back inside his forward push.Four balls after Poynter’s wicket fell the rain which had delayed the start of play for 85 minutes returned with renewed vigour and the dull confection of covers on the whole square – white, light green and beige – revealed the groundstaff’s pessimism. The small group of spectators who had braved a poor forecast had to be content with having seen 39 runs scored and a restatement of what they surely knew: that Jennings is comfortably their best batsman.However, the tasks facing Durham over the next two or three seasons will require more than the efforts of their finest cricketers, some of whom are likely to be playing international cricket of one sort or another in any case.Relegation and points deductions will, in their way, make demands on the whole county, not least their highly-regarded Academy and even the North East Premier League, whose leading clubs, Chester-le-Street and South Northumberland, regularly appear in national club knockout finals.When Paul Collingwood says that people in this area know how to fight, he is not talking about the leisure habits of well-lubricated, Novocastrian twenty-somethings strutting their stuff on The Bigg Market every Saturday night. Rather he is referring to the deep-seated inner resolve possessed by folk up here who manage to combine patriotism with a stubbornly independent spirit. Over the next five months, and for far longer, that resolve will be tested and tested again.On the final day of this game it may have to deal with an early defeat inflicted by a Nottinghamshire team unrecognisable from the dispirited bunch dispatched to the Second Division last September.Matches between relegated teams rarely promise to be meetings of the blissfully contented but Chris Read’s men have given every indication that they will treat this season in the second tier with unfussed determination. It is good to see them back to normal, although whether they will begin their season by notching successive wins now depends largely on their ability to remove Jennings early on the last day.

Rohit Sharma and Kedar Jadhav have been ruled out of the upcoming Deodhar Trophy due to injuries. Rohit suffered a minor knee injury and has been advised rest by the BCCI’s medical staff, while Jadhav is out due to a stomach ailment.Ruturaj Gaikwad, the Maharashtra opener, has replaced Rohit in the India Blue squad, while India Red have drafted in Hyderabad left-arm seamer CV Milind and Bengal wicketkeeper-batsman Shreevats Goswami.The injury is a setback in Rohit’s comeback trail after undergoing surgery to treat an injured thigh. He has missed the majority of India’s home season, having last turned out for them in the final ODI against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam.He returned after a four-month layoff when he was named in Mumbai’s squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He played his first competitive match in nearly five months against Andhra in Chennai. Bating at No. 4, he managed 16. He was out for 4 in his second game, against Goa, where he was promoted to open.Jadhav played an integral role in the Indian ODI team’s series triumph over England, topping the run charts with 232 runs in three matches, including a match-winning 120 in a chase of 351 in his hometown Pune. He carried his excellent one-day form into the recently-concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he was Maharashtra’s second-highest scorer with 375 runs at 53.57 and a strike rate of 136.36. He finished behind Gaikwad, Rohit’s replacement in India Blue.With Rohit, who was originally supposed to lead India Blue, ruled out, Harbhajan Singh will take over the captaincy of the team.

Canterbury defended 250 to seal their spot in the final of the Ford Trophy 2016-17. Wellington fell short of their target by 28 runs, but will get a second go at making the title bout on February 15 when they play Central Districts in the third-preliminary final. This is courtesy their top-of-the-table finish in the round-robin stage; the loser of the preliminary-final between Nos. 1 and 2 plays the winner of the preliminary-final between Nos. 3 and 4.Three wickets in an economic spell from fast bowler Matt Henry went a long way in ensuring Canterbury’s win. He claimed two of Wellington’s top three cheaply, before returning to end a feisty last-wicket stand between Brent Arnel and Hamish Bennett that had added 32 at over a run a ball. In between Henry’s strikes, several Wellington batsmen got starts but only Luke Ronchi managed to convert that into a half-century. Pacers Henry Shipley and Andrew Ellis were also incisive and economical, taking five wickets between them, to ensure Wellington never got away.Canterbury’s total was built around half-centuries from Chad Bowes and Todd Astle. They were wobbling at 10 for 2 after being inserted, but opener Bowes held the innings together with his 84. After he and Astle were out, another hiccup happened with two wickets in two balls (Ellis caught behind and Johnston run out in the 42nd over), but Cole McConchie ensured they did not slide with a swift, unbeaten 40. Canterbury were eventually bowled out with three balls to spare, most of the damage being done by the spin of Jeetan Patel and the new-ball pair of Arnel and Bennett. But their total of 250 proved more than enough in the end.Central Districts had only one win in their first six matches in this season’s Ford Trophy. They won their last two group games with bonus points and made the playoffs. Now they’ve won their first playoff, beating Northern Districts by 48 runs in New Plymouth, to be one step away from the final. They will need to beat Wellington – who lost only one match in the round-robin stage – on February 15, to have a shot at what had looked like a highly improbable title at one stage.Central Districts chose to bat and were propelled to 336 for 7 on the back of a maiden List A century from Tom Bruce and knocks of seventy-odd at the top and bottom of the order from George Worker and Kieran Noema-Barnett. Bruce and Noema-Barnett’s runs came particularly quickly; Bruce’s 100 came off 81 balls and included eight sixes, while Noema-Barnett’s 74 came off 49 balls. Amid the carnage, Northern Districts’ Scott Kuggeleijn and Ish Sodhi maintained economy rates under five, and shared four wickets between them.Northern Districts’ middle order made a decent fight of it, with three half-century partnerships in good time – going into the final 10, they needed 105 with six wickets in hand and two set batsmen at the crease. But then the bottom five managed only 16 runs among them to end the challenge. When they were bowled out for 288 in the 49th over, Kuggeleijn was left stranded on 85 off 52. Fast bowler Seth Rance and left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel were the most effective of the Central Districts bowlers, picking up three apiece in tidy spells.

John Hampshire, the former Yorkshire captain and England batsman who went on to become an international umpire, has died at the age of 76 after a long illness.Hampshire, who scored a century on his Test debut, against West Indies at Lord’s in 1969, played eight Tests and three ODIs for England, but will be best remembered as an integral member of the great Yorkshire side that dominated the County Championship in the 1960s.In a 23-year career that included spells with Derbyshire, Tasmania and, briefly, Leicestershire, Hampshire scored a total of 28,059 first-class runs at 34.55, including 43 hundreds – the vast majority of those coming during his 456 appearances for Yorkshire.He debuted for the club as a 20-year-old in 1961 and won the County Championship on five separate occasions, holding his own in a team packed with club legends including Geoff Boycott, Ray Illingworth, Fred Trueman and his first captain, Brian Close. An upright front-foot driver with a strong leg-side game, he was one of the most handsome batsmen of his time.”Initially Yorkshire might have been a difficult dressing room to feel at home in, but Brian Close was a tremendous captain,” Hampshire told ESPNcricinfo in one of his final interviews earlier this year.”He integrated everyone. Most of the guys, they wanted to do well because they wanted the side to do well. And they wanted other players to do well. There were some terrific rows, but they were cricket rows. They weren’t personal vendettas or anything like that. Closey was the ringleader a lot of the time, but as soon as they were finished it was, “Right, come on, we’ll have a drink.”Hampshire, like many in that side, could be an intimidating figure on first meeting, but once respect was won, hidden behind a serious exterior was a warm and self-deprecating humour.Just a year after the end of his playing career in 1984, he became a first-class umpire, and stood for the first time in a Test match at Old Trafford during the 1989 Ashes.Later that year, he and John Holder were invited by Pakistan’s captain, Imran Khan, to stand as neutral umpires during Pakistan’s home series against India, a move that helped pave the way for that to become the standard across all international matches. In total, Hampshire stood in 21 matches up until 2002, and finally retired from the county circuit in 2005.Andy Flower, coach of England Lions, was a prominent figure in the Zimbabwe side that was coached by Hampshire upon their entry to Test cricket in the early 1990s and maintained the friendship from that point.”He was very passionate about Zimbabwe cricket,” Flower told ESPNcricinfo. “He grew to love the country, and its cricket, and he was a very important part of our early years. He gave us a really good grounding in the basics of the game, which served us very well.”I last saw him at Lord’s during the summer. He was there as a guest of the ECB, and we had a couple of great chats during the day. Even though he was unwell, he was always such a strong and generous guy, so he’d still be smiling and giggling at himself.”It was always the right balance with John, between playing hard on the field, and relaxing and chatting off it. When he was coach and I was captain, he would often sit me down with Scotch or a good wine – he fancied himself as a connoisseur – and we’d talk about the game for hours.”In March 2016, Hampshire stepped up to the role of Yorkshire president, an appointment he described as being “the icing on the cake” of his career. To some extent, it was a final show of brotherhood by Yorkshire because his county career at Headingley had ended in disillusionment. In 1978, Hampshire famously was instrumental in a batting go-slow at Northampton in protest at a six-hour century by Geoffrey Boycott. It cost his side a bonus point and Boycott the captaincy. Hampshire replaced him but only for two seasons, before he departed for a simpler life at Derbyshire.”From a very humble beginning, getting trains, trams and buses to Headingley to practice in the winter in hope of getting a game for Yorkshire Seconds, to being president. I think it’s quite an achievement,” he said.”John epitomised everything that’s good about Yorkshire County Cricket Club,” said Steve Denison, Yorkshire’s chairman. “Brave, talented and with a heart of gold, he captained Yorkshire, scored a century at Lord’s on his Test debut and became a highly respected umpire after hanging up his playing whites.”Loved by players and members alike, John capped his wonderful life in Yorkshire cricket as our club president last year. On behalf of everyone involved with and connected to the Club, I would like to extend our most sincere condolences to John’s wife Alison and two sons Ian and Paul. He will be sorely missed by all at Headingley.”

Dhaka Division finished second in the NCL’s Tier-1 after their innings and 78-run win over Barisal Division at Sylhet International Stadium.When they batted first, 18-year old Dhaka batsman Saif Hassan became the youngest batsman in Bangladesh to score a double-hundred. His 204 was, however, not the highest score of the innings as Taibur Rahman reached 242 off 302 balls with 26 fours and a six. Saif’s 410-ball knock included 20 fours and a six, as Dhaka declared on 588 for 6.For Barisal, seamer Tawhidul Islam took 5 for 87 in 20.5 overs. The batsmen could not build on his good work though as they were bundled out for 189. Dhaka fast bowler Shahadat Hossain took four wickets to help enforce the follow-on. Barisal were bowled out on the fourth morning for 321 with Shahriar Nafees top scoring with 104 off 143 balls. Dewan Sabbir and Nazmul Islam took three wickets each.

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Maiden first-class centuries from Kuldeep Yadav and Saurabh Kumar lifted Uttar Pradesh to 481 against Baroda in Nasik. UP had been reduced to 207 for 7 on the opening day before an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 153 between Kuldeep and Saurabh took them to 360 for 7 at stumps. That partnership extended to 192 after play resumed, although the duo fell short of the record eighth-wicket stand for UP – 204 between Anand Shukla and Sagir Ahmed against Rajasthan in 1961-62.Sagar Mangalorkar, the right-arm pacer, broke through for Baroda, having Saurabh caught for 105. A run-out ended Kuldeep’s stay, after he had added 43 more for the ninth wicket with Imtiaz Ahmed. Kuldeep had made 117. Imtiaz further shored up UP by dominating a last-wicket partnership of 39 with Ankit Rajpoot and staying not out on 41. Managalorkar and Babashafi Pathan took three wickets each.Baroda lost five wickets in their reply, but Kedar Devdhar struck an unbeaten 120 to take them to 242 for 5. Devdhar and Aditya Waghmode put on 82 for the first wicket before Baroda lost wickets in a cluster. It took an unbroken 91-run sixth-wicket stand between Devdhar and Irfan Pathan (51*) to put the innings back on track. Medium-pacer Imtiaz Ahmed inflicted the bulk of the damage with three wickets. Baroda trail by 239 runs.At the Palam Ground in Delhi, Shreevats Goswami’s maiden double-century propelled Bengal to 475 for 9 before they declared against Madhya Pradesh.After Bengal were reduced to 88 for 4, Goswami and Abhimanyu Easwaran had put on 97 for the fifth wicket to take Bengal to 185 for 4 at stumps on a truncated first day.The duo could only add 17 more to that before Easwaran was trapped lbw by Chandrakant Sakure for 80. Goswami batted on and was helped by contributions from Pragyan Ojha (32), Veer Pratap Singh (24) and Sayan Ghosh (20*) as he stayed unbeaten on 225. Sakure finished with 3 for 105 and Puneet Datey took 4 for 105. MP lost Aditya Shrivastava for a first-ball duck before ending the day on 19 for 1, trailing by 456.Mayank Sidhana struck 115 while captain Gurkeerat Singh fell seven short of a century as Punjab put up 468 against Mumbai at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot. Mumbai lost early wickets in reply, and were reduced to 8 for 2 at stumps.The day had begun with Punjab on 216 for 4, with Gitansh Khera on 4 and Sidhana on 11. Khera fell for a patient 16 that came off 64 balls after which Sidhana and Gurkeerat came together for a sixth-wicket partnership of 178 that pushed the score past 400. But Punjab collapsed to lose their last five wickets for 34 runs.The slide began with Gurkeerat’s dismissal for 93, caught behind off Tushar Deshpande. Sidhana fell to the same bowler in his next over, and though Manpreet Gony scored 31, the lower order was dismissed quickly. Suryakumar Yadav took a career-best 4 for 47.Punjab used four bowlers for the 7.2 bowlers they sent down. Shreyas Iyer was dismissed for a second-ball duck and Armaan Jaffer was trapped lbw by right-arm medium-pacer Kamal Passi. Mumbai were behind by 460 runs with eight wickets in hand.Tamil Nadu captain Abhinav Mukund led a strong reply to Gujarat’s 307, but fell one run short of a century as TN ended the second day on 154 for 2 in Belgavi.Abhinav and Kaushik Gandhi offset the early loss of Laxmesha Suryaprakash, who was caught behind off Rush Kalaria for 6, with a second-wicket stand of 141. Kalaria struck for a second time, bowling Abhinav on 99 shortly before stumps. Gandhi remained not out on 43.Earlier, Gujarat had resumed their first innings on 267 for 7 with Axar Patel on 28 and Chintan Gaja on 2. Axar was the eighth man dismissed, for 44, before the innings ended with Gaja’s dismissal for 20. Left-arm medium-pacer T Natarajan took 3 for 86 for TN.

South Africa’s Test captaincy is not up for discussion and will return to AB de Villiers once he is match fit. De Villiers has been sidelined since July with an elbow injury and has been replaced by Faf du Plessis, who has yet to lose a match in his stand-in stint, but will have to hand the job back when de Villiers returns.”At the moment it’s clear to us that Faf is stand-in captain and AB is the current captain when he comes back, looking at his fitness and so on,” Linda Zondi, South Africa’s convener of selectors, said after the Hobart Test.Although the board and not the selection panel appointed the captain, Zondi said the directive is likely to be to give de Villiers his job back once he is back on the park. When de Villiers underwent surgery in late September, he was diagnosed as needing eight to ten weeks of recovery time which should put him on track to play the home series in Sri Lanka in December-January. De Villiers will not have had any game time since mid-July, when he turned out for the Barbados Tridents in the Caribbean Premier League.Zondi has not expressly said de Villiers will need to play some domestic cricket but has indicated that the panel would like him to have some game time. “We will be guided by the medical team in terms of where he is and in terms of match fitness,” Zondi said. “That’s important. He has been away for five months – a long time. For starters, he has to be match fit. We will take it from there.”Should de Villiers need to play some cricket, his only opportunity will come in the domestic T20 competition. There was some talk of de Villiers joining the squad ahead of the day-night Test in Adelaide, which is preceded by a two-day warm-up game in Melbourne, in a bid to put himself in contention for the pink ball Test but both coach Russell Domingo and stand-in captain du Plessis had brushed off such suggestions. To that end, de Villiers had not traveled to Australia yet, and it appears unlikely that he will.That would mean du Plessis has at least one more match in charge to add to a legacy against Australia that has already seen the team make history. Du Plessis led the ODI side to a first-ever 5-0 whitewash against Australia and a third successive Test series win in Australia. He has impressed with his skills as skipper and Zondi admitted the selectors were pleased with the way du Plessis had progressed.”We nominated Faf to be a stand-in captain and he has done a very good job,” Zondi said. “It was an easy process for us when the decision was made because he was already a T20 captain. So it was continuation. We are excited to have him as a leader.”It just gives us more options. And we have other guys. Like I said, Hashim Amla, who also brings that experience. We are quite excited about how Faf has shown leadership but we are not going to be carried away.”It may be surprising to hear Zondi mention Amla among the leaders, especially after he stepped down as captain earlier in the year. However, Amla is the most experienced batsman, and in the absence of Dale Steyn, the most experienced member of the squad overall, and although he has only contributed 48 runs across the two Tests, has been involved in team discussions and at the forefront of celebrations.