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Flintoff and Harmison in World team

13/10/2005

England stars Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison will both probably play for the World team in the six-day Super Series Test against Australia, which begins tomorrow in Sydney.

Both sides have named 12 players for the game, with the biggest surprise being the exclusion of Shoaib Aktar, the Rawalpindi Express, from the World team.

Commenting on Aktar's exclusion, World captain Graeme Smith of South Africa said: "It's got nothing to do with his weight, or anything like that, we've just left him out.

"We felt that he wouldn't fit into the 11 or 12 that we wanted to pick so that's why we've left him out."

One of either Rahul Dravid or Jacques Kallis will be left out of the World team, in order to provide room for enough specialist bowlers.

Harmison and Flintoff will probably be joined in the bowling attack by Shaun Pollock and two specialist spinners, Daniel Vettori and Muttiah Muralithan.

Australia have also named two spinners, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill.

The modern Test game rarely provides an opportunity for four specialist spinners to play in the same game, but the six-day format, combined with the quality of the slow bowlers, has allowed for that eventuality in Sydney.

All-rounder Shane Watson is also in the Australian team, with Brad Hodge named as 12th man.

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