Cricket: Cork to undergo wrist operation

DOMINIC CORK yesterday announced three new signings at Derbyshire - as well as revealing that he is to undergo surgery. The Derbyshire captain is to have a bone removed from his right wrist to clear up an injury which has troubled him for the last two years. Cork is confident he will be ready for the start of next season.

"The wrist has been causing me problems for a while and I've had four or five cortisone injections into the joint," Cork said. "There's four months before the start of next season so I decided this was the time to have the operation."

Derbyshire have lost five players in the last two months, including Phil DeFreitas, but yesterday Rob Bailey left Northamptonshire after 20 seasons to move to Derbyshire on a three-year contract.

The opener Mathew Dowman has arrived from Nottinghamshire on a two-year deal while the Somerset wicketkeeper-batsman Luke Sutton has also signed a two year contract. Derbyshire are in negotiations with the Warwickshire seamer Tim Munton, who is also wanted by other counties including Surrey.

Northamptonshire have signed the 25-year-old pace bowler Michael Strong from Sussex on a two-year contract.

The Indian Test squad arrived in Sydney yesterday defending themselves against an attack from one of their leading officials. Jaywant Lele, secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said India had no chance of beating Australia in their forthcoming three-match Test series.

"The wickets there will not help the Indians at all," he said. "There is so much bounce. Besides Sachin [Tendulkar], [Rahul] Dravid and [Saurav] Ganguly there is no one else who can bat there."

The Indian coach, Kapil Dev, hit back. "I have a lot of confidence in my team," Kapil said. "I don't think [Lele] can say that, but if he has that's his opinion and we can't change anybody's opinion. I have a team that has a talent and we can only talk about it at the end of the series."