Elliott allowed to leave Victoria

Matthew Elliott has been cleared to play for South Australia next season after a Cricket Australia grievance tribunal ruled in his favour over a move from Victoria. Elliott, currently playing county cricket with Glamorgan, had applied for the switch last month so he could take up a playing and coaching role with South Australia, but Victoria tried to stop him.

Harvey Jolly, the operations manager of the South Australian Cricket Association, was delighted with the outcome. "We believe he can bring to us some excellent skills and he believes the direction South Australia is taking is exciting," he said. "He brings batting skills, some terrific mentoring skills. We have a youthful upper-order batting line-up and with Lehmann, Blewett and Elliott, that gives a great deal of support to our young, up-and-coming batsmen."

The loss of Elliott is a massive blow to Victoria, who only managed fourth position in the 2004-05 Pura Cup and also failed to make the final of the ING one-day tournament. However, Elliott had a relatively poor season scoring 585 runs in 10 Pura Cup matches at 30.78. He lost his Cricket Australia contract when the new batch was awarded last month.

Elliott is the first of Victoria's high-profile players to move during the off-season and he may not be the last. New South Wales are in discussions with Brad Hodge's agent while Jonathan Moss also wants to move back to Sydney for family reasons.