CRICKET - Sub-continent politics clean-bowl Northern's chances

Six Indian players will warm up for their test series against New Zealand by making appearances in this week's State Championship matches but don't expect to see any of them in Whangarei.
It appears Northern Districts and Auckland are both tainted with the ICL brush and their match, starting at Cobham Oval on Friday, will not feature any of the tourists.
While giants like Rahul Dravid will play for Canterbury against Central Districts and VVS Laxman for Otago against Wellington, appearing in ND's match against Auckland is ... er, no one.
Following on from last Friday's embarrassing last-minute withdrawal of Sachin Tendulkar and Dinesh Karthik from the curtainraiser Twenty20 match in Wellington, because of ND's "overseas" player Hamish Marshall's former involvement in the ICL, Indian management and New Zealand Cricket have thrashed out an agreement that will suit everyone - except ND and Auckland fans, perhaps.
The line from New Zealand Cricket is that both sides have players with ICL "links" - Auckland's Darryl Tuffy also played in the league - but more importantly, both sides have overseas players, making them unable to host Indian players.
Northern Districts chief executive David Cooper said they never considered leaving Marshall out of the match so an Indian player could slot into his place.
"We wouldn't do that, Hamish is an international player but because of his desire to ply his trade in the UK, he's not playing for the Black Caps at the moment.
"We consider him to be of an equal to at least four of the six Indian players and we weren't guaranteed who we would get so our preference was to retain Hamish within our ranks as our overseas player," Cooper said.
Only one overseas player was allowed per team and Northern was committed to Marshall. Cooper said that the decision not to have the Indian test players appearing at Cobham Oval was not related to the ICL but more to do with the State Championship playing regulations.
He said the withdrawal of Tendulkar and Karthik from Friday's game was unfortunate but, given the climate at present, unavoidable.
"From Hamish's perspective, he's no longer an ICL player, but that's something that has only just changed in the last few months (Marshall's contract expired in November), and in the politics of India that was considered unacceptable for two of their players to play in the same game."
Northern Districts arrive in Whangarei today for a camp before Friday's match, while the Auckland side will drive up on Thursday morning.