West Indies-Australia Tests to clash with IPL

Australia will tour West Indies for a full series in March and April next year. The Tests coincide with the first half of the fifth IPL season and may result in some players missing out for their respective franchises. Shane Watson, Michael Hussey, David Warner, Ryan Harris and Brad Haddin are among those in the current Test squad who are contracted with IPL teams.

The tour kicks off with a five-match ODI series on March 16, the games shared between St Vincent and St Lucia. The teams then play two Twenty20 internationals followed by a three-day warm-up match involving the visitors. The three-Test series begins on April 11, a week after the start of the IPL, and ends on April 27. Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana will host the three Tests.

The ODI series clashes with the Sheffield Shield final in Australia, which is scheduled between March 16-20.

Roebuck committed suicide, say police

Peter Roebuck was questioned in his room by police
about an alleged sexual assault - reports

Peter Roebuck fell to his death from his Cape Town hotel room while being questioned by police about an alleged sexual assault, it has been reported. A police statement said the circumstances surrounding Roebuck's suicide were being investigated.

Western Cape provincial police spokesperson Frederick van Wyk was quoted by Reuters as saying that "a cricket commentator committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor of his hotel." He died on impact.

A report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Roebuck's employers, said he was questioned in his room at the Southern Sun Hotel by a Cape Town detective and a uniformed police officer from the sexual crimes unit from around 9 pm.

Roebuck, who the report said was agitated, asked a fellow cricket journalist for help. ''Can you come down to my room quickly? I've got a problem,'' he said. He asked for help to find a lawyer and for contact to be made with the students he helped to house in Pietermaritzburg, near Durban.

Minutes later, the Herald reported, Roebuck fell to his death from a window. It is believed only the uniformed officer was in the room. Paramedics rushed to the hotel but Roebuck was pronounced dead.

Police established a crime scene and took personal items from the room, including a laptop.

Colonel Vishnu Naidoo of the South African Police Services, told ESPNcricinfo that they suspect no foul play and that it was a suicide. He said there would be an inquest, after which the SAPS would make a statement; he said he expected that to be "next month".

In 2001 Roebuck received a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to common assault for caning three young South African cricketers he had been coaching. ''Obviously I misjudged the mood and that was my mistake and my responsibility, and I accept that,'' he'd said at the time.

Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel to join selection panel

Andy Bichel retired from first-class cricket in 2009

Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel have been chosen as the two part-time members of the reconfigured Cricket Australia national selection panel. Their appointments leave that of the new head coach as the only role still to be filled ahead of the home summer.

Marsh, 64, and Bichel, 41, will bring sharp eyes and widespread respect to their roles as selectors focused on domestic cricket, on a panel led by the national selector John Inverarity and the Australia captain Michael Clarke. The national coach, yet to be named, will also be a selector.

As a relatively recent retiree from the game, Bichel brings a fresher outlook and also the perspective of a pace bowler to the panel, widely considered to be lacking in a diversity of viewpoints last summer when it was comprised of former top order batsmen in the chairman Andrew Hilditch, Jamie Cox, Greg Chappell and David Boon.

He has also taken a range of coaching positions since his exit from the game as a bowler, coaching Papua New Guinea and also serving as Chennai's bowling coach in the IPL.

"I'm looking forward to making a real contribution to game I love," Bichel said. "Over the last 20 years of international, state and county cricket, I've developed knowledge of the game that will assist me in this role. I've stayed close to the game and have been bowling coach to the Chennai Super Kings recently and have seen a lot of developing Australian talent perform in that competition.

"I'm really looking forward to working with John, Rod, Michael, Cameron and the incoming head coach as we continue to take Australian cricket in the right direction. I think over the last little period we've been on the right pathway and we'll be looking to identify the talent that will allow Australia to rise back up the rankings."

Marsh's inclusion on the panel in a part-time capacity is a logical conclusion to discussions with CA that began in mid-year, as he expressed a willingness to take part in the regeneration of the national team.

In addition to his long tenure behind the stumps for Australia, Marsh was much acclaimed for his work at the Cricket Academy in the 1990s, and also oversaw England's revival as a force in world cricket leading up to the 2005 Ashes series. He has since held positions with South Australia and also the ICC global academy in Dubai.

"I'm excited to be back working for Cricket Australia," Marsh said. "It's been a decade since I last worked for CA. Certainly, the most rewarding time I ever had was working with CA at the Academy in Adelaide. This is an important role and I'm looking forward to watching young Australian cricketers develop and to our established cricketers continuing to improve."

Importantly, Marsh and Inverarity have a strong and long-lasting cricketing association that dates back to the West Australian state teams of the 1970s.

Inverarity was Marsh's predecessor as captain of the state during a highly successful era, and will again serve as the senior man four decades later on a panel that will need to make plenty of strong decisions over the next few summers, starting with the composition of the team for the first Test against New Zealand at the Gabba from December 1-5.

Inverarity is due to start his new role as national selector on November 14. His first act will be to fly to South Africa.

Blues pressing for outright

South Australia 1 for 59 and 266 (Cooper 98, Klinger 49, Katich 3-29) v New South Wales 6 for 474 declared

New South Wales were pressing for outright points against South Australia having enforced the follow-on when rain brought another early finish on day three of the Sheffield Shield match at Bankstown Oval in Sydney.

The Redbacks were bowled out for 266 on day three, as Tom Cooper's stroke-laden 98 was not accompanied by enough support on a pitch that had started to deteriorate.

Simon Katich was again a stand-out for NSW with the ball, claiming 3-29 while the rest of the wickets were shared by the rest. Josh Hazlewood bowled well to return 2-21 from 11 overs,

Falling 208 short of the home side's total, SA were sent in again and reached 1 for 59 when rain brought the early close, Ben Dougall completing a nondescript debut when he was out for 14 to the bowling of Mitchell Starc.

Team management failed Amir, says mentor

	Asif Bajwa: "It's a challenge to remove a stigma, as our society is very cruel, but I believe he [Mohammad Amir] will be back." © Associated Press

Mohamamd Amir was a victim of Pakistan's cricketing culture and, specifically, the team management that failed to protect him, his mentor Asif Bajwa has said. Bajwa runs an academy in Rawalpindi that became Amir's second home from the age of 11, where he would live for long stretches with Bajwa looking after him.

"It was the team management's responsibility to take care of him," Bajwa told ESPNcricinfo. "They should have taken a strict stance but the culture is very lenient and unprofessional. Why couldn't they shut out those elements that tempted our cricketers?

"I brought up him up but he was distracted only after entering the international arena, where he didn't find the right people around him. They [the PCB] wanted a cricketer to represent Pakistan - we gave them one. But now who is responsible? Who is to be blame? He was a player with extraordinary cricketing skills but he was very naïve ... the board should have taken care of the other elements."

Bajwa said he had been in contact with Amir during the spot-fixing trial. "My interaction with Amir until Wednesday was very emotional, he sounded helpless and insisted that he wanted one more chance - everyone deserves a second chance. He apologised to me, and I promised him that I'd help him to eventually return to the game. It's a challenge for me to rebuild his reputation, but I will be doing that. It's a challenge to remove a stigma, as our society is very cruel, but I believe he will be back."

On Thursday, Amir was sentenced to six months in a young offenders' detention centre for his role in the spot-fixing case; the rules suggest he can be out in three months' time on good behaviour. His former team-mates Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, and their agent Mazhar Majeed, were sent to jail for terms ranging from a year to 32 months.

In his remarks while handing out the sentence, Justice Cooke noted Amir's background - he comes from a village near Islamabad where his father was a watchman in a government school. Compared to his fellow convicts, he was found to be unsophisticated, uneducated and impressionable.

"An 18-year-old from a poverty-stricken village background, very different to your own privileged one, who, whilst a very talented bowler, would be inclined to do what his senior players and particularly his captain told him, especially when told there was money in it for him and this was part of the common culture. For an impressionable youngster, not long in the team to stand out against the blandishments of his captain would have been hard," the judge said.