Bell to Endure England Contract Delay

Ian Bell will have to wait until next month to discover whether he is to be awarded a contract by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The 19-year-old Warwickshire batsman, who was flown to New Zealand last month as cover for the injured Mark Butcher, was the one new name expected to be on a list due to be announced this week. But a last-minute effort by the selectors to persuade the board that the number of players contracted exclusively to England should be increased from the current 12 to 15 and perhaps beyond, in line with other countries such as Australia, means that final selection will be put on hold until after a meeting of the new international teams management group, chaired by Brian Bolus, due to take place around the end of the month.

Instead 11 contracts will be announced tomorrow, for all those who played in the final Test in Auckland last week, minus Mark Ramprakash but with the inclusion of Darren Gough.

At the very least it leaves the selectors to argue over one batting place - Ramprakash or Bell - and the future of the all-rounder Craig White, whose bowling has fallen off but who scored his maiden Test hundred during the winter. "We are," said one ECB figure yesterday, "trying to fit a quart into a pint pot."

It is expected that the chairman of selectors David Graveney, along with the England captain Nasser Hussain and the coach Duncan Fletcher, will make representations to the board at the meeting, arguing that it would be preferable for the squad to be chosen from a decent-size pool of contracted players.

If only 12 were to be contracted, the selectors would be hamstrung. In essence they would be required to select the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka in mid-May, and at this stage they would not wish to be bound by that decision.

Contracted players may be left out for reasons of tactics (it is unlikely that Ashley Giles will play in the opening Test at Lord's), fitness (White and Matthew Hoggard missed the start of last season) or form.

It had been hoped to have much of this sorted out by now. Graveney was in New Zealand recently with the express purpose of holding talks with Hussain and Fletcher, but the death of Ben Hollioake made it inappropriate that they should convene such a meeting and Fletcher is now on holiday at his home in South Africa, not to return until the end of the month.

</B> Angus Fraser, the Middlesex captain and former England bowler, is about to retire. He is expected to play the Benson & Hedges zonal games before leaving in early May to take up a job in the media.

Fraser, 36, has taken 879 first-class wickets at 27.40. Andrew Strauss, back from a winter with the academy in Adelaide, is expected to succeed him as Middlesex captain.

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