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SAN ANTONIO (AP)—Boston Celtics center Jermaine O’Neal(notes) will play for the first time since January against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night.

The Spurs are also welcoming back Tim Duncan(notes) and Manu Ginobili(notes). Both were expected to be in the lineup after their injuries played a part in the NBA-leading Spurs’ season-worst four-game skid.

O’Neal had surgery on his left knee Feb. 4 and has played in only 17 games this season. Coach Doc Rivers wasn’t expecting much since O’Neal hasn’t played in nearly three months.

Duncan missed all four Spurs losses after spraining his left ankle last week. Ginobili sat out Monday’s loss against Portland because of a left quad contusion.

SYDNEY (AP)—Michael Clarke has been named Australia’s 43rd test cricket captain, replacing Ricky Ponting who stepped down Tuesday after a nine-year reign. Clarke’s appointment as test and one-day captain was announced at a news conference Wednesday along with the appointment of allrounder Shane Watson as vice-captain. Cameron White will continue to captain the Australian Twenty20 team, with Watson as his deputy. Cricket Australia chairman Jack Clarke said Michael Clarke had proven to be an excellent captain when standing in for Ponting, notably during Australia’s recent 6-1 Commonwealth Bank Series win against England. Clarke, 29, will first lead Australia on its short tour to Bangladesh next month. “Michael has shown himself to be excellent with his on-field tactics when heading the national side,” Jack Clarke said. “To captain your country is a great honor and responsibility and I congratulate Michael and wish him the best in what will be an exciting and challenging time.” Michael Clarke said he was looking forward to the opportunity to lead the Australian team, which he will captain for the first time on next month’s short tour to Bangladesh. “It is a great honor to be appointed captain of Australia, but at the same time, a great surprise as I wasn’t expecting Ricky Ponting to stand down,” he said. “I have always respected those who have come before me in this role and humbled to think of my name being mentioned alongside theirs.” Ponting endorsed Clarke as his successor while announcing his retirement. Watson, 29, said he was looking forward to the added responsibility and working closely with Clarke. “Playing cricket for Australia has been a great honor for me and to now be appointed vice-captain is really exciting,” Watson said. “I look forward to doing what I can to help and support Michael Clarke in the test and ODI teams, and Cameron White with the Twenty20 group. “There are challenges ahead but also opportunity and I look forward to being part of the leadership group as we work together to grasp that opportunity.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP)—A seven-day disabled list for concussions wouldn’t have done Aaron Hill(notes) much good when the Toronto Blue Jays second baseman missed the final four months of 2008 with the injury. That didn’t stop him from saying the move, and several other guidelines instituted by Major League Baseball on Tuesday, was another positive sign the sport is doing more and more to address concussions. MLB and the players’ union announced a new set of protocols that take effect on opening day to deal with concussions, including the creation of the new seven-day disabled list that should give team doctors and the injured players more flexibility to address head injuries. “I think it’s good they’re paying more attention to these things because they’re seeing the long-term effects concussions can have on players,” Hill said before the Blue Jays played an exhibition game against Baltimore. “Not just baseball, but all sports. So, it’s a good thing they’re looking into it.” It’s the latest in a series of moves by professional sports leagues to address an injury that doctors, players and executives are only beginning to fully understand. The NFL started imposing heavy fines and threatening suspensions for hits that were deemed illegal or dangerous last season. And NHL officials earlier this month recommended tighter enforcement of boarding and charging penalties in an effort to reduce concussions. The joint statement from MLB and the union establishes mandatory baseline testing for all players and umpires and new steps for evaluating players who may have suffered the injury and for having them return to action. The new disabled list is in addition to the 15- and 60-day DLs that already exist. Any player needing more than 14 days to recover will automatically be transferred to the 15-day disabled list. “It really is comporting our disabled lists with the reality of management of concussions,” MLB senior vice president of labor Dan Halem said. Each team will also have to designate a specialist who deals with mild brain injuries to evaluate players and umpires when needed and be required send its medical reports to Dr. Gary Green, MLB’s medical director, for approval before the injured player is cleared to return to the field. “This policy, which reflects the collective expertise of many of the foremost authorities in the field, will benefit players, umpires and clubs alike, and I am proud of the spirit of cooperation that has led us to this result,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. It’s a topic that has been on baseball’s radar for more than two years, Halem said. With players such as Hill, Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau(notes) and New York Mets outfielder Jason Bay(notes) missing huge chunks of games because of concussions in the last few seasons, baseball officials formed a committee to examine the issue this winter. “The one thing you don’t want to do is put someone in position the day after or two days later all of a sudden by saying, ‘Are you feeling OK?”’ Morneau said. “The worst thing you can do with a concussion is rush back to play. You’re diagnosed and you have a week and if it clears up like most people hope it does and they usually do, with most people it’s short-term, that’s the best-case scenario.” The committee was chaired by Dr. Alex Valadka, MLB’s consultant on mild traumatic brain injuries and the chief of adult neurosciences and neurosurgery at the Seton Brain and Spine Institute in Austin, Texas. It included Green, head athletic trainers from the Twins, Brewers and Indians, team doctors from the Pirates, Indians and White Sox, and Tony Clark(notes), the union’s director of player relations. Halem said that several medical experts on the committee recommended the seven-day DL as a way to address one of the most fundamental challenges to evaluating players with concussions. He said medical research has shown that the average concussion—not the more serious ones suffered by Morneau, Bay and Hill, of course—clears within five to seven days. “The problem that baseball had with the 15-day disabled list was that the clubs were reluctant to put a player on it for 15 days if he could be back in seven days,” Halem said. “So some players who maybe should have been on the disabled list probably weren’t.” Committee member Rick McWane, head athletic trainer for the Twins, said one of the goals was to take the onus off the player. “You try to take as much off the player as possible, to try to be a hero, to try to shake it off,” McWane said. “That’s just not acceptable.” The committee met at the winter meetings in December and held numerous conference calls before finishing their proposal. It was submitted to Selig, who approved it, and then sent to the players’ union before it was put into effect. “Player safety is a major concern of the collective bargaining parties, and these new protocols and procedures should enhance our ongoing efforts to protect the health of players and umpires,” MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner said in a statement. New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi welcomed the new list, saying it will give the team and the player more options in the event of a concussion. “I like it,” Girardi said. “Sometimes that two or three days, or four or five, where a guy can’t play really can put you in a hole when you don’t want to sit him down 15 days. So, I think it’s great.” Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon wondered if a player really could recover from a concussion in seven days and said he would love to use the shorter DL for “little tweener injuries.” “I like the idea of the seven-day DL for that little thing that’s bothering somebody that permits you to stay at full strength and not hurt somebody else in the process,” he said. But baseball officials are adamant that this list is for concussions only, and they are taking steps to prevent abuse of the system. McWane said the team will have to submit a report to Green with as much detail as possible, including any available video of when the injury occurred, to prove that the player does have a concussion and not, say, a pulled hamstring. “I think it takes some getting used to because what you don’t want to have anyone do is manipulate the rule,” Atlanta Braves GM Frank Wren said. “I think this winter we finally got comfortable with the fact that it is necessary and we’re not going to manipulate it. No one is going to try to manipulate it. If a guy has a concussion, he has a concussion.” AP Sports Writers David Ginsburg in Baltimore and Charles Odum in Atlanta, and AP freelance writers Mark Didtler in Tampa, Fla., Amy Jinkner-Lloyd in Atlanta and Maureen Mullen in Fort Myers, Fla., contributed to this report.

By Rex Gowar

BUENOS AIRES, March 28 (Reuters) - Paraguay put their Copa America credentials on the line against the United States in Nashville on Tuesday after coach Gerardo Martino’s scathing assessment of their performance in a 3-1 defeat to Mexico.

“This is what happens when you sit on your laurels,” Martino, whose team made the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time last year, said after Saturday’s defeat.

Paraguay, whose traditional strengths lie in defence, succumbed to three first-half goals—two by striker Javier Hernandez—in Oakland in one of a spate of friendlies in a busy end-of-March programme for national teams from the Americas.

“If we remain satisfied with having been among the top eight (teams) in the world, things will surely go the way they did today (Saturday), but if we use it as a platform to keep progressing we’ll do better,” Martino told reporters.

“We have only one more commitment before the Copa America. If we don’t leave (Oakland) worried it’s because we haven’t made a good analysis of the match (against Mexico).”

At the Copa America in Argentina in July, Paraguay will be in the same group as holders Brazil, who put two successive defeats behind them to beat Scotland 2-0 in London on Sunday. Both goals came from teenage sensation Neymar.

The U.S., overwhelmed by Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the first half of their friendly in New Jersey on Saturday, scrambled an equaliser from a set piece.

The 1-1 draw will encourage them in their preparations to wrest the Concacaf Gold Cup from rivals Mexico on home soil in June.

Argentina move on to San Jose to play Costa Rica at their new Chinese-built stadium on Tuesday, while Mexico, who have won both their matches under coach Jose Manuel de la Torre, meet Venezuela in San Diego. Venezuela beat Jamaica 2-0 in Montego Bay on Friday.

CHINESE GIFT

Costa Rica, having led by two goals, were held 2-2 by China in a friendly to inaugurate the $100 million stadium in San Jose, a gift from the Chinese government in recognition of the central American country’s decision five years ago to break off diplomatic relations with Taipei in favour of ties with Beijing.

Chile, following a 1-1 draw away to Portugal in Aveiro on coach Claudio Borghi’s debut, face Colombia in The Hague on Tuesday. Colombia go into the match on the back of a 2-0 win over South American neighbours Ecuador in Madrid.

In a Dutch double-header in The Hague, Ecuador meet Peru.

World Cup semi-finalists Uruguay, who fell to a surprise 2-0 defeat to Estonia—albeit it in unfamiliar freezing conditions in Tallinn—meet Ireland in Dublin on Tuesday.

Honduras, who played at their second World Cup last year and were crowned central American champions in January, were beaten 4-0 by South Korea in Seoul.

The Hondurans have a chance to make amends with a match away to China in Wuhan on Tuesday.

Panama, who hosted January’s Copa Centroamericana, in which Honduras beat Costa Rica in the final, overcame Bolivia 2-0 with goals from Colombia-based pair Gabriel Gomez and Luis Renteria on Friday.

The Bolivians continue their central American tour with a match against Guatemala in Mazatenango onMonday, while Panama are away to Caribbean lightweights Cuba in Havana on Tuesday.