Fleming expected to be left out

It is expected that Stephen Fleming's name will be missing when the 14-man squad for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September is read out soon, writes Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald.

While his probable absence could be put down to routine matters of wanting to blood younger players in this all-action form of the game, says Cleaver, it will fuel conspiracies he will retire from international cricket to take up a contract with the embryonic Indian Cricket League.

With Fleming getting quality match play in England, not being particularly mobile in the field, or one of the game's great sloggers, his spot could be taken by one of the new breed of cricketers the selectors have been eyeing over the past 12 months. At the top of that list is understood to be Wellington's Grant Elliott.

In the same publication, Cleaver also traces Auckland spinner Tim Lythe's remarkable move to relaunch his career after a cancer scare. To rid his body of the bone cancer he was diagnosed with in 1999, doctors sawed off half his left thigh bone, replacing it with a titanium rod and replaced his knee with a complex prosthesis. What was supposed to last ten years lasted six as Lythe returned to his first-class career.

Read on here.