New Zealand Cricket today announced the 30 players included in the preliminary BLACKCAPS squad for the ICC Twenty20 Championship held in South Africa in September.

“Our players go into the competition with experience of two seasons of State Twenty20 cricket and international matches to draw from,” said selection manager Sir Richard Hadlee.

“Key BLACKCAPS players have been included, with the exception of Kyle Mills.

The selectors did not consider Kyle Mills after medical advice. He is not yet ready to return to playing, despite NZ having to actually use Andre Adams & even consider Tuffey. The fear is that if we recall him & break him "we'll have to actually play Tuffey or Adams at some stage & the Bangladeshis & Zimbabwaens will laugh at us." said Hadlee

The selectors have also given Daryl Tuffey, who was in the initial ICC World Cup squad to the amazement of everyone (especially Chris Martin), time to return to full fitness after his injury and work out what the three little bits of wood at the far end of dirt strip are for. Or even what the dirt strip is for.

"After the numerous injury problems he has had, the selectors would like to see Daryl Tuffey play something resembling cricket before being considered for the BLACKCAPS again,” Sir Richard added while weeping openly at the state of NZ bowling.

Jesse Ryder does not get in despite having threatened to "cry & cry & stomp his widdle foot" if his genius is not recognised. He is now considering going to Australia where he expects to take Ricky Ponting's number three slot.

Glenn Turner, a FluffyBunny, will also be on hand at the Emerging Players Tournament to fuck up as many of the squad as possible & just generally undermine things, Hamish Marshall & Craig Spearman were not available having fucked off to England following a heart to heart with Turner where he gave the sage advice "Fuck off to England, I did & now I'm a selector, christ they made me coach at one stage, fuck this "country or money" thing, its money baby".  Turner also denied being Luke McAlister's manager at the same time...

Lou Vincent has again professed to being "totally pumped" and looking forward to at least 2 games before his scheduled dropping. While How & J Marshall have been handed "Test Opener" badges in the hope that this will make them test openers, cause nothing else has worked, tho' a spell of 20/20 might help.

The squad is:

Andre Adams (State Auckland Aces)
Shane Bond (State Canterbury Wizards)
Neil Broom (State Otago Volts)
Grant Elliott (State Wellington Firebirds)
Stephen Fleming (State Wellington Firebirds)
James Franklin (State Wellington Firebirds)
Peter Fulton (State Canterbury Wizards)
Mark Gillespie (State Wellington Firebirds)
Chris Harris (State Canterbury Wizards)
Paul Hitchcock (State Auckland Aces)
Gareth Hopkins (State Auckland Aces)
Jamie How (State Central Stags)
James Marshall (State Northern Knights)
Chris Martin (State Auckland Aces)
Michael Mason (State Central Stags)
Brendon McCullum (State Otago Volts)
Nathan McCullum (State Otago Volts)
Peter McGlashan (State Northern Knights)
Craig McMillan (State Canterbury Wizards)
James McMillan (State Otago Volts)
Warren McSkimming (State Otago Volts)
Iain O'Brien (State Wellington Firebirds)
Jacob Oram (State Central Stags)
Jeetan Patel (State Wellington Firebirds)
Aaron Redmond (State Otago Volts)
Bradley Scott (State Otago Volts)
Scott Styris (State Auckland Aces)
Ross Taylor (State Central Stags)
Daniel Vettori (State Northern Knights)
Lou Vincent (State Auckland Aces)
Anyone else who can hold a bat and name at least three past test cricket greats from New Zealand.*

*This being a trick question of course.