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Eddie Leie strode in like a man high on life. There was a cheery hello to a largely empty room. There were a few seconds of hyperactive mic testing. And then there was an engaging conversation, not a press conference. One during which he admitted, “All I know is that I’ll pay money to play in the IPL.”The statement was clearly meant as a joke, but the enthusiasm the 28-year old legspinner had for playing as much cricket as possible could not be hidden.”I watch a lot of IPL,” he said. “I recently played in the Caribbean Premier League in West Indies and I think I did okay there. But I’m not thinking that far ahead. If it happens, I’ll be happy. But for me, my focus at the moment is honestly on the game against India A tomorrow, if I get selected, and doing well. Honestly, if you take care of your performance, everything takes care of itself. So the IPL is not on my mind.”

Manish Pandey bowled despite illegal action

Manish Pandey, who is presently on the BCCI’s list of players with an illegal action, ended up bowling in the match against Australia A on Friday.
The on-field umpires Anil Dandekar and Nand Kishore caught on to the mistake soon after he completed his first over and asked India A captain Unmukt Chand to take him off.
Pandey, a part-time medium-pacer, was called when he had bowled for Karnataka in a Ranji Trophy game against Madhya Pradesh in January. His primary role is that of a batsman, though, but if he wants to add to the 193.3 overs he has bowled in eight years of domestic cricket, he will need a clean chit from the BCCI suspect action committee first.

Leie holds the record for the best figures – 3 for 16 – for a South African on T20 debut. So it should be no surprise that he has been persisted with for their next T20 assignment against New Zealand. Perhaps if he does well in the A-team tri-series currently underway in Chennai, he might come back to India for the World T20 in March.But, according to Leie, he is quite a way down the pecking order. “I’m not even the best spinner in the country, to be honest. We’ve got Imran Tahir, great spinner. Aaron Phangiso, great spinner. We’ve got Robin Peterson. So I don’t even think I’m first line for selection. For me, I just need to do well tomorrow so as to get one up in the series and go to the final. Not what the senior team does. That’s out of my control.”All he plans to do is work on his game, with a little help from YouTube.”I relied mostly on the videos of legspinners around the world – Danish Kaneria, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, my favourite, Mushtaq Ahmed, from back in the day,” he said. “So I try to learn as much as I can from them. My action might be a bit similar to most of them, with the arm coming from the top.”That isn’t the extent of his unconventional upbringing in cricket. Even the decision to become a legspinner was a fine story. An eight-year-old Leie was playing mini-cricket, a venture designed to bring more kids into the game in South Africa, when he was asked to go run an errand. Along the way, he figured out he had a nifty little talent.”With mini-cricket, everyone gets a chance to bowl, everyone gets a chance to keep, everyone gets a chance to bat. You rotate. So I was running in and just bowling and one day I got sent to the shops by my mother. But I was reluctant on going. So [on the way] I started playing with stones, just flicking like this [mimics the release of a legspinner]. Obviously, it was a gravel road and it kept on doing that [mimics the stone’s deviation] and when I went practice after that, I started getting a few wickets at training. So I just stuck to that.”

Australia captain Steven Smith and New Zealand fast bowler Trent Boult have been included in both the ICC’s Test and ODI teams of the year.Alastair Cook, who led England to a 3-2 Ashes victory during the summer, was named the Test captain of the year. South Africa’s AB de Villiers was selected as the ODI captain, having scored the format’s fastest fifty and hundred during the qualification period from September 18, 2014 to September 13 2015. The teams were chosen by a specially appointed selection panel, chaired by the ICC’s cricket committee chairman Anil Kumble.Smith was one of three Australia players to make the Test team, along with opener David Warner and fast bowler Josh Hazlewood. Pakistan were the other team to have three representatives in the Test side, with Yasir Shah, the leading wicket-taker in the qualification period, Younis Khan and wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed all rewarded for their consistent performances. Stuart Broad, who was the most successful bowler in the Ashes with 21 wickets, was included in the Test XI for the fifth time since 2009. So was his countryman Joe Root.Kane Williamson found a place in the Test team, but was surprisingly left out of the ODI side, despite being the leading run-scorer in the concerned period. The other major surprises in the Test side were the omissions of Azhar Ali, who had four hundreds and five fifties from 10 matches, and R Ashwin, who could only find a place in the squad as the 12th man.Mustafizur Rahman became the first Bangladesh cricketer to be included in the ICC’s ODI team of the year, thanks to a barnstorming 11 wickets in his first two matches. He along with Boult, Mohammed Shami and Mitchell Starc, the Player of the Tournament during the 2015 World Cup, made up the ODI team’s pace attack, while Imran Tahir was selected as the sole spinner. Kumar Sangakkara, who recently retired from international cricket, was picked as the ODI team’s wicketkeeper, marking the fourth time he made the side.”I would like to congratulate all the players for their selection in the Test and ODI teams of the year,” Kumble said. “It is an achievement for each of them to be proud of and a recognition for their good performances in the qualifying period.”Testament to the quality of cricket played is the calibre of players to have missed out on selection. While selecting these squads, the selectors considered various combinations and took into account several factors in overall performances. Congratulations to all of the players on their selections.”Test team of the year: David Warner, Alastair Cook (captain), Kane Williamson, Younis Khan, Steven Smith, Joe Root, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Stuart Broad, Trent Boult, Yasir Shah, Josh Hazlewood, R Ashwin (12th man)ODI team of the year: Tillakaratne Dilshan, Hashim Amla, Kumar Sangakkara (wk), AB de Villiers (capt), Steven Smith, Ross Taylor, Trent Boult, Mohammed Shami, Mitchell Starc, Mustafizur Rahman, Imran Tahir, Joe Root (12th man)

“.” (Fine leg and long-on are on the boundary, third man is in the circle.) With this imaginary field in place, Irfan Pathan ran in to bowl to Yuvraj Singh in the Indian team’s net session at the Supersport Park in Centurion. With one more day in hand before embarking on their World Twenty20 campaign, the Indians chose this venue – a 45-minute drive from Johannesburg – to have a hit before flying to Durban later in the day. The Indians’ lack of experience (only one international) in this format is a major handicap, but there was every attempt in this short net session to practice specific skills in the limited time available before their first match on Thursday.For the type of field set, Irfan’s delivery wasn’t a bad one – it was full and just outside off – and Yuvraj’s attempt to scoop it over third man failed miserably. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was more successful, though, and there was plenty of applause from his team-mates when he cleverly guided one from Pathan over the slips.After the nets, Pathan spoke of the need to “think on one’s feet” – a term that has been, and will be, used plenty of times throughout the next two weeks. In the ODIs, the Indians have occasionally given the impression of lacking flexibility; the first match against Scotland might give them some room to breathe, but thereafter the tests will get significantly tougher. And to Pathan it didn’t matter that this was supposed to be a fun tournament: “It might be fun for the crowds, but not for us. We have to enjoy the game, but it’s very important that we perform well.”To be fair to the Indians, there was enough purpose in their two-hour session to suggest they were taking the tournament seriously. While most of the players were busy in the three net pitches next to one another, Dinesh Karthik was getting some individual attention from Gregory King, the team’s trainer. He kept lobbing underarm balls, and Karthik played a million one-handed straight-drives, with the right hand gripping the bat and the left hanging loose. After a proper practice session, he returned to a smaller net area to repeat the bottom-hand drill.With Robin Uthappa, King had something else in mind. With the pitches here likely to offer bounce, Uthappa – who is likely to open the batting – had a long session practising the pull as King carefully aimed deliveries around the shoulder and head. (“I don’t want them bouncing over the head”.)With a line-up that includes Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Uthappa, Yuvraj, Dhoni and Karthik, the batting is in reasonably good hands, but the bowling is a greater worry, and the fielding the greatest. In both areas, there wasn’t much to suggest any relief, with Ajit Agarkar continuing to spray it wide of the off stump. RP Singh fired in some good yorkers, but Sreesanth – who had an injury scare earlier in the day when he bruised a finger while fielding – slid it down leg, and then, when he got the direction right, overstepped the popping crease, which was quickly spotted by Venkatesh Prasad, the bowling coach. The penalty: a free hit off the next ball, which was delivered from about two feet behind the return crease. Pathan stressed on the importance of keeping it simple: “We should try variations only when the batsmen are getting after us,” he said, but in this format of the game he should expect that scenario more often than not.Before the batting and bowling sessions was the cursory fielding and running-between-the-wicket drills, and there was little urgency in either. The team has six new faces, and while most of them are better fielders than the players they have replaced, it is tough to see fielding bail India out when the going gets tough.The Indians have another practice session in hand before their first game against Scotland on Thursday, and while the Scots might test them a bit, the real battle will begin on Friday, when they have the small matter of taking on Pakistan.

Mehrab Hossain jnr, the allrounder, has been picked in Bangladesh’s 18-member preliminary squad for the Champions Trophy to be played in India this October and November. He is the only new face in the squad. Shahriar Nafees, the 20-year-old opening batsman, has been named as the vice-captain and is being groomed to take over from Habibul Bashar in the future.Hossain, currently captaining the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) Academy team in its tour of Pakistan, visited Zimbabwe as part of the Bangladesh A squad in June this year and his performances in both the convinced the selectors to pick him the squad for the Champions Trophy.”He is basically an opener who can also bat in the middle-order. But if he finally gets the nod he will definitely be considered as an opener,” Faruque Ahmed, the chairman of the selection panel told Dhaka-based . “The last two years’ performance of the young batsman in different levels gave us the impression that he can represent the senior side for long.”Hossain scored centuries in both innings in the second ‘Test’ at Mutare, a match that Bangladesh was lucky to escape with a draw when bad light prevented Zimbabwe A from making the 28 runs they needed for victory. Hossain averaged 59.40 for the three-match series. In the five one-day games that followed, he got one fifty and was a fairly economical bowler conceding 31 runs in a wicketless ten-over spell in the fourth ODI.”We believe that he is a very good player for the longer-version game but that doesn’t mean he is not good enough for the shorter-version,” Faruque continued. “We have lot of hard-hitting batsmen in the squad but we felt that we need a player like Mehrab who has the ability to play the anchor role in the top-order.”Faruque said that getting the right pair in the opening slot would solve many of the side’s problems. Though Javed Omar, the out-of-form opener, has been included in the squad, it is likely that that the selectors are looking to replace him with fresher faces. Faruque simply said that they are looking for a proper [opening] combination before the World Cup.Habibul Bashar, Bangladesh’s captain, was also been included in the squad though he is currently recovering from a fractured thumb. Bashar himself was unsure whether he needed surgery on the metacarpal of his left hand. “If it [surgery] is needed, the Champions Trophy is over for me. I will meet with a local doctor tomorrow but I need a week to settle the issue. What I desperately want is to play the tournament. This is really a worrying factor for us because he is not only an important batsman in the middle-order but also the captain of the team,” said Faruque. “We will wait till the last moment.”In Bashar’s absence Khaled Mashud had led Bangladesh on the tour of Kenya but he was overlooked for the vice-captaincy for the Champions Trophy. Nafees’ appointment came as a surprise but Mashud said that it was the right step because Bangladesh had to groom someone to take over after Bashar.”I was not upset because I believe that the time has come to groom someone for the future, otherwise it would be a big problem for our team,” said Mashud. “But we should keep faith with someone for a while before taking any decision.”Bashar too echoed the sentiment. “I think it is a good choice because he has the cricketing brain to become a leader in future. Yes, he is too young but the reality is the young guys between 20 to 25 are dominating the national team, that’s why there was no way other than to choose a youngster for the job. But my only desire is that we should give him time before taking any negative decision”The BCB also announced a seven-member squad for the Asian Super Sixes Challenge to be held in Karachi from September 13 to 18. Nazmus Sadat, the left-hand opener, is the only new face in this squad.Preliminary squad – Habibul Bashar, Shahriar Nafees, Rajin Saleh, Javed Omar, Aftab Ahmed, Mohammad Ashraful, Khaled Mashud, Alok Kapali, Tushar Imran, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammad Rafique, Mashrafee Bin Mortaza, Syed Rasel, Shahadat Hossain, Farhad Reza, Abdur Razzak, Sakib Al Hasan and Mehrab HossainSuper Sixes squad – Mohammad Rafique, Mashrafee Bin Mortuza, Aftab Ahmed, Manjarul Islam, Sakib Al Hasan, Farhad Reza and Nazmus Sadat

Scorecard

Australia warmed up for the fourth Test by dismissing Northamtonshire for just 169, on day two of their tour match, before allowing Simon Katich to make some useful runs ahead of the fourth Test on Thursday. Shaun Tait, who replaced Jason Gillespie and who is fighting for a Test place with Mike Kasprowicz, bowled with menace and took the first two wickets of the day, to improve his hopes of inclusion at Trent Bridge.Tait was expensive, conceding 52 runs from his 14 overs, but his pace was too much for Tim Roberts. He struck the opener on the head with a brutal ball, which drew blood and caused Roberts to retire hurt for 18. Tait then removed Usman Afzaal, shortly followed by Northants’ captain David Sales for a duck, perishing to a yorker. Kasprowicz, meanwhile, only picked up a single wicket, that of Riki Wessels. Wickets continued to tumble, with Glenn McGrath back to his metonomic best, taking three for 24 from 11 overs, and Northants were grateful for a battling innings by Ben Phillips, who remained unbeaten on 37.Phillips, like Roberts, was struck on the head – this time by McGrath – and he too retired hurt, albeit briefly. He struck a clutch of boundaries on his return to the crease but, despite his brave innings, he ran out of partners and his side were bundled out in just 50 overs for 169. The encouraging display of Tait was tempered, however, when he was forced off the field after being struck just below the knee in his follow-through, by Phillips.Australia promoted Simon Katich to open the innings, and they cruised to their hundred at 4 runs per over. Katich’s top score, in his last four Test innings, is 17, so his knock of 63 today was a welcome relief to the left-hander. He fell to Jason Brown, but Justin Langer continued his good form with an undefeated 86, in a partnership worth 114 runs with Damien Martyn, as Australia ended on 226 for two.

Salman Butt, the young left-handed batsman, and Shahid Afridi, the mercurial allrounder, have been included in Pakistan’s squad for the Videocon Cup and the ICC Champions Trophy. Afridi replaces Danish Kaneria, the legspinner, while Butt comes in for the out-of-sorts Imran Nazir.”Basically these 14 players will play in both tournaments because we want to give continuity to the captain and coach. The squad has been finalized after consulting both of them,” Wasim Bari, the chairman of selectors, is reported as saying in The News.Both Afridi and Butt are making comebacks to the Pakistan team. Afridi was dropped after playing in four of the five one-day internationals against India in March, while Butt last year played for Pakistan against Bangladesh in Multan but has since been in the Pakistan A team.Squad Yasir Hameed, Imran Farhat, Salman Butt, Yousuf Youhana, Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Younis Khan, Moin Khan (wk), Shoaib Malik, Abdur Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Shabbir Ahmed, Naved-ul-Hasan.

Channel 4 have successfully arranged for an early start to the semi-finals of the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy. Both matches will now start at 10.15am, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the situation in the first Test against Zimbabwe at Lord’s, when live transmission was cut on the dot of 6 o’clock.Gloucestershire’s match against Derbyshire will be broadcast live from Bristol on Thursday, August 7, with Worcestershire’s home tie against Lancashire following two days later. Reserve days have been allocated for both matches to avoid, if possible, the use of the Duckworth/Lewis system to engineer a result.Speaking after the Lord’s Test, Tim Lamb, the chief executive of the ECB, had expressed his disappointment at Channel 4’s failure to provide full coverage, and had raised the possibility of an earlier start to England Test matches, which have already been brought forward to 10.45am this year.”We are seriously considering [Channel 4’s] requirements and we will be discussing a 10.30am start as of from next year,” said Lamb. “It is very disappointing when we don’t see the end of play live on TV, but we are talking to Channel 4 in an atmosphere of cooperation and consultation. We understand the constraints they are working under in terms of scheduling, particularly when they are trying to attract that important early evening 18 to 34-year-old audience.”Thursday, August 7 Gloucestershire v Derbyshire at Bristol
Saturday, August 9 Worcestershire v Lancashire at WorcesterBoth matches begin at 10.15am

South Africa plodded through the fourth day of the Bulawayo Test againstZimbabwe to finish with 300 on the board for the loss of just two wickets.A toothless attack on a placid pitch was met by ponderous batting, andalthough South Africa’s first four batsmen all scored fifties, they stillfinished the day 119 runs behind Zimbabwe in a match almost certainly doomedto be the dullest of draws.It was a day without pressure for either side: Zimbabwe’s bowlers wereunable to exert any real pressure on the South African batsmen, who in turnwere content to take things as they came rather than attempt to pressurizethe home side.Heath Streak’s tactics at the start of play were open to question, as hechose to begin with the seamers of himself and Travis Friend. Streak oncurrent form is no longer a great bowler, and on this benign pitch both werepredictably innocuous.Herschelle Gibbs and Gary Kirsten appearedcompletely at ease and had certainly played themselves in well by the timeStreak finally resorted to left-arm spinner Raymond Price at one end. Withthe ball often turning sharply, many felt there should have been spin fromat least one end from the start.Gibbs ran to his fifty, off 91 balls, with three boundaries in an over offthe wayward Friend, together with four leg-byes. This finally persuadedStreak to resort to Paul Strang, whom many had considered to be his trumpcard, for the 20th over of the day.With his second ball Strang made agallant effort to catch a ferocious straight drive by Gibbs and damaged afinger so badly that he had to leave the field, unable to grip the ball.Fortunately it was no more than badly bruised and he returned to the fieldjust before lunch.Gibbs brought up the hundred for South Africa with a drive for six offPrice; he was scoring at about twice the rate of his partner. The pairadded 117 before Gibbs (74) played forward to a turning ball from Price andedged a catch to the keeper. To his credit, he walked without waiting forthe umpire’s decision.Kirsten batted with such skill and apparent ease that it came as a surprisewhen he was dismissed for 65 after lunch. He moved down the pitch to Pricewho, perhaps seeing him coming, tossed the ball wider and Andy Flower easilystumped him. South Africa were 162 for two.The scoring rate slowed to about two an over as Neil McKenzie joined Kallis.Strang was unable to bowl much with his sore finger, and Price kept thebatsmen wary with the occasional dangerous ball. Throughout the match itwas clear that the older the ball became, the harder it was for the batsmento score.Kallis reached a rather laborious fifty off 158 balls shortly after tea,immediately after the token target to save the follow-on had been reached.McKenzie was a little faster, but there appeared to be no effort to win thematch, which was still possible for South Africa had they scored quickly andput Zimbabwe in again in the hope that they would collapse – as Australiawould probably have done.Long dull spells were broken by occasional quality strokes, and both batsmenwere unbeaten by the close, Kallis with 81 and McKenzie 74. Perhaps a tokenattempt will be made to liven up the match on the final day, but it seemsthat everybody has by now understandably lost interest.

Match facts

Sunday, August 16, 2015
Start time 1400 local (1200 GMT)South Africa will make a late call on the availability of regular captain Faf du Plessis, who is suffering from a knee injury•AFP

Big Picture

The takeaways from this series, for both South Africa and New Zealand, are not what they planned, but they can’t do much when even the best laid plans go awry. However, that may not be a bad thing in the lead to the World T20, as adaptability and spontaneity will be the key on the big stage.South Africa planned on using AB de Villiers in a new role as opener and keeper, with Hashim Amla as his partner. They could not do that because de Villiers had to captain thanks to an injury to Faf du Plessis. If du Plessis does not recover in time, de Villiers will still not be able to do that, and Morne van Wyk will get another chance to stake a claim for the World T20 spot.New Zealand banked on their youngsters to steal the show after having rested senior players. Instead, it was their old hands, Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson, that produced the most authoritative performances in the first match with the rest barely pulling their weight. That could change more easily than South Africa’s situation, especially as the likes of Colin Munro and Tom Latham were reminded that they need to do more if New Zealand are to compete the way they wanted to.In the end, this series may not be about putting plans in place but learning what to do when they fall apart.

Form guide

(last five completed games, most recent first)South Africa WWWWL
New Zealand LWLWL

In the spotlight

Rilee Rossouw seems to be stealing David Miller’s thunder as a finisher in the batting line-up with Miller finding limited opportunities to score big runs in recent times. He last scored an international half-century nine ODI innings ago in South Africa’s World Cup opening game against Zimbabwe in February and has never scored a T20 fifty for South Africa. Miller will want an opportunity to prove he still comands a place in the shortest format.Grant Elliott did not prove to be the same nemesis for South Africa in the first T20 as he was during the World Cup semi-final but that won’t be the only reason he will want to perform better in the second game. New Zealand need some muscle from their middle order and Elliott has been known to provide that in the past. As one of the senior players in a young squad, Elliot will want to assume some responsibility as New Zealand seek to level the series.

Team news

South Africa will make a late call on the availability of regular captain du Plessis, who is suffering from a knee tendon injury. De Villiers was optimistic du Plessis will be fit for the match, which will then see a shuffling of the batting order with de Villiers moving up to open and taking the gloves while van Wyk sits out. South Africa are unlikely to make any other changes unless they want to give legspinner Eddie Leie an opportunity ahead of Aaron Phangiso, who took 2 for 29 in the first T20I.South Africa: 1 Morne van Wyk (wk)/AB de Villiers (wk), 2 Hashim Amla, 3 AB de Villiers (capt)/Faf du Plessis (capt), 4 Rilee Rossouw, 5 David Miller, 6 Farhaan Behardien, 7 David Wiese, 8 Kyle Abbott, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Aaron Phangiso/Eddie LeieNew Zealand are looking for more from their middle order which could mean a place for James Neesham in the starting XI, perhaps at the expense of Munro or Latham. Their attack performed well in Durban so Matt Henry and Ben Wheeler could remain confined to the bench.New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Kane Williamson (capt), 3 George Worker, 4 Colin Munro, 5 Grant Elliot, 6 Luke Ronchi (wk), 7 Tom Latham, 8 Nathan McCullum, 9 Doug Bracewell, 10 Adam Milne, 11 Mitchell McClenaghan

Pitch and conditions

The effects of winter are expected to be more noticeable in Centurion than they were in Durban, with the grass likely to show the most signs of the season. The Highveld grass generally dries up over winter which could mean a less lush outfield than normal and a pitch that could lack some life. A warm afternoon is expected under cloudless skies, with temperatures set to touch 28 degrees.

Stats and trivia

• South Africa scored their highest T20 total in Centurion six years ago when they posted 241 for 6 against England in November 2009. AB de Villiers is the only member of the current squad who played in that game.
• The last time New Zealand lost a two-match T20 series was in June 2012, when they were beaten in West Indies. They have since played four two match T20 series, winning two and drawing two.

Quotes

“It was a great month off at home. I was a little bit worried going into the first game, having not hit a ball for a month but I prepared really well for this series in training.”I was happy with the energy in the field. The boys stuck at it and tried really hard.”

The refusal of Rod Marsh, the former Australia wicketkeeper, to sign a cricket bat which already carried Chris Cairns’ autograph was an early sign that players had been “warned off” him by the ICC, the jury at Southwark Crown Court heard today.The crown prosecutor, Sasha Wass, QC, cited that incident during her cross-examination of Andrew Fitch-Holland, Cairns’ former attorney and co-defendant, who is the final witness to be called in the four-week trial.”Rod Marsh said I’m not having anything to do with Mr Cairns, he wouldn’t sign a cricket bat,” Wass said to Fitch-Holland.Rumours about Cairns’ involvement in match-fixing had circulated ever since he was removed from the Indian Cricket League in October 2008, under the pretext of an injury.Following Marsh’s action, Fitch-Holland had asked the ICC whether it had any evidence that Cairns was a match-fixer. It turned out that the governing body was not investigating him as the ICL was an unsanctioned tournament.”It seemed that someone was saying something, because of the Rod Marsh incident, and we just thought ‘this can’t be allowed to continue’,” Fitch-Holland told the court.”I took that to be confirmation from the ICC that they weren’t sniffing around Chris,” he added.Marsh’s snub had occurred in 2009, one year before Lalit Modi, the founder of the Indian Premier League, had tweeted about Cairns’ alleged activities, an event which formed the basis of Cairns’ successful libel action against Modi in 2012.Cairns, who denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice, stands accused of having lied under oath to secure that court victory. Fitch-Holland denies one count of perverting the course of justice, after allegedly persuading Lou Vincent, Cairns’ former team-mate, to provide a false witness statement.Wass wanted to know if Fitch-Holland knew any reason why Modi would make a false accusation against Cairns.”I assumed at the time he had misspoken, and he would correct it,” Fitch-Holland said.At the libel trial in 2012, Cairns confirmed that he had “had it out” with Marsh over a drink at his house following the bat-signing incident.Fitch-Holland, whom Ms Wass tried to paint as a “cricket groupie”, admitted to having been “very pissed off” with Cairns in an email exchange in April 2013 following a lengthy delay in payment for his role as “lead adviser” during the legal action.During a heated cross-examination, which involved an intervention from the judge, Fitch-Holland was also asked about an incident in which he had told a group, including Chris Harris: “Oh, he’s guilty, Cairnsy’s guilty”.”I’m not for one second suggesting that Chris Harris is lying, and you know perfectly well that I’m not,” Fitch-Holland told Ms Wass.”It cannot have been about match-fixing, because quite simply that was not in my mind.”Fitch-Holland is expected to continue giving evidence on Tuesday.