ST KITTS: CRICKET - Brad Hodge presents his case for a permanent place in the Australia team and underlines the strength of the World Cup squad

Brad Hodge presented his case for a permanent place in the Australia team and underlined the strength of the World Cup squad with a maiden one-day international century against the Netherlands on Sunday (March 19). The quick-footed Hodge, who scored 97 and 99 not out against New Zealand this year, scored 123 with seven sixes in Australia's 358 for five. Champions Australia won the Group A match by 229 runs. "The games that had been played so far, the slower bowler have provide a little bit , well a few head aces for the batsmen, you know the teams that are in the test playing nations have kept teams down to reasonable scours of 250 or just under 250 and you know it just shows that the slower bowlers are doing alright," Hodge told reporters on Monday (March 19) in Basseterre, St Kitts. If, as expected, Andrew Symonds is fit for Saturday's final group match against South Africa, Hodge may not now be the man to make way for the all-rounder. "Yeah look it is going to be very interesting whether Andrew Symonds comes back in the South African game or if they, whether they rest him for another week or so, so that's going to have a huge bearing on how they are going to select the team or there are going to be some selection issues , I think so, hopefully I am going to be one of those who does not miss it out," he said. Hodge said the decision about the team to play the biggest match of the first round was out of his hands. "Oh!, this is a big game for us (South Africa), big game for us, very important game for us but you know I just want to produce the goods when the time counts, so hopefully I produce it on Saturday and carry it through to the super eight." said Hodge who perplexed all the Dutch batsmen with his left-arm wrist spin.

ITN Source | March 21, 2007

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