Posts Tagged ‘cricket’

Colombo: After a relatively long break, India set out a gruelling cricket season at this point Friday with a tri-series clash in opposition to New Zealand, fully aware with the aim of a clean sweep in the dumpy chain would become them the digit single ODI team in the humankind.

The tag of the digit of team will be the key goal in favor of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men who need to win both their league matches and the final to complete the feat.

The BCCI Corporate Trophy provided the Indian players a possibility to shrug inedible the corrode following a six-week break even though the fitness of the players were assessed all through the off-season.

The Indians are raring to cause back against the meadow and coach Gary Kirsten has already drawn up a road atlas in favor of the team.

“We take part in hardheaded our targets as to could you repeat that? We take part in to complete in the subsequently eight months. Certainly, single of them is to suit the superlative team in the humankind. We are course with the aim of way and we are very excited on the way with the aim of we take part in left roughly our topic to cause to with the aim of status,” Kirsten thought.

“We know with the aim of if we keep on with as challenging as we organize in vocabulary of our training and how we hardheaded our sights in favor of games, we take part in the superlative likelihood of feat near. We keep on with with the aim of quest to be the superlative in the humankind,” he thought.

If India win the two league matches and in that case the final, they will earn two rating points which is a sufficient amount to fall over South Africa who are at present on top of the board.

While the Indians appear to be quite assertive, it will be a do-or-die battle in favor of the Kiwis who were thrashed by the hosts in the opening match. A defeat in opposition to India will dash their hopes of a tie up in the final.

But the Black Caps, who take part in been strengthened by the return of selected of their ICL players like Shane stick and Daryl Tuffey, are a unsafe one-day team and are quite proficient of spiraling the board on at all fancied team on their daylight.

India would be lacking aggressive opening Virender Sehwag who has been ruled unfashionable for the reason that of a shoulder surgery but return of veteran Rahul Dravid lends firmness to the middle-order.

Now the absence of Sehwag, left-handed Gautam Gambhir is likely to initiate with the seasoned Sachin Tendulkar.

The Indians take part in brood all rounder Abhishek Nayar in their ranks and it remains to be seen whether the team management decides to break him a possibility to bear out his worth.

The way Sri Lankan pace battery of Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malings and Thilan Thushara peformed in the elementary match Indians would be tempted to take the part of three pacers.

Both Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra are likely to take the part of due to the spin-friendly nature of Sri Lanka wickets but near is stiff competition in the pace sphere.

Left-armer Ashish Nehra looks really as he had made a safe comeback to the team in the manner of four years in the carry on chain in opposition to the West Indies in July and it would be a take aback if he is omitted from the final line-up.

Probably Praveen Kumar will sit unfashionable as as his achievement hinges much on swing which he is suspect to cause from the tracks at this point and Ishant Sharma and RP Singh would start favourite.

The lanky Sharma has been struggling in favor of quite selected but the team management is likely to persist with him.

The Kiwis will take part in to sort their lacking consistency batting if they take part in to keep alive their likelihood.

They rely much on the exploits of Brendon McCullum, Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor and they will take part in to fire to save their team from blushes as they take part in already lost the Test chain to Sri Lanka.

Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills are the other two players India will take part in to look unfashionable in favor of.

Return of Shane stick to the state fold has bolstered Kiwi pace sphere and he along with Tuffey and Daniel Vettori can become life challenging in favor of the Indians.

Teams (From):

India: MS Dhoni (C), Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Praveen Kumar and Amit Mishra.

New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (C), Shane stick,Neil Broom, Ian Butler, permit Elliott, Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Daryl Tuffey, Jeetan Patel, Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor.

Match starts by the side of 2.30 pm IST.

Johannesburg: There are trends developing in world cricket that are of concern to the future of the game, including in India, Indian coach Gary Kirsten said here, saying India has to decide its priorities in terms of Test cricket and other forms of the game, like T20.

Kirsten was speaking on Saturday at a gathering here organised by the Indian mission here for local and visiting captains of business and industry who had attended the Doing Business with India Conference.

“It’s quite interesting that we’ve got a Twenty20 World Cup in April next year in the West Indies and India don’t play one T20 game until that tournament starts.

“What should be happening is that we should be going on tour and playing six T20 games and one or two 50-over games. I think that’s going to happen – it’s just a matter of time.

Kirsten said he believed that 50-over games were “here to stay”.

On Test cricket, Kirsten said: “The worrying side that I’m seeing is that a guy like Andrew Flintoff as a high profile cricketer has now made the decision to leave Test cricket because he feels that he can get more longevity out of his body and earn a much more money by moving away from Test cricket and playing one-day cricket and Twenty over cricket.

“He’s perfectly right in his decision. Why not?

“The one area that is concerning me about where Test cricket is going is that if you are going to be paying substantially more to play IPL as opposed to playing a Test match for their country, it’s a natural progression that the guys are then going to say ‘I’m not interested in bowling 25 overs in a day when I can bowl four over a six-day period and earn three times as much.’”

Kirsten said the “bottom line” was that every country needed to look at Test cricket and say how important it was to them.

“India plays six Tests this year. Is that sufficient or are there other priorities? I don’t know.”

“We do need to look at the economics, but if we are going to keep Test cricket going like we wanted to, we need to sort out the priorities of Test cricket and (whether it) stands above anything else (like) T20 cricket.”

Colombo: Spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has been named in Sri Lanka’s one-day international squad for their five-match series against Pakistan starting next week after recovering from a knee injury.

Muralitharan, 37, the highest wicket-taker in ODI history, missed the three-match test series with a tendon injury and will team up with Ajantha Mendis and recalled leg spinner Malinga Bandara in a 15-man squad that includes three spinners.

Veteran seamer Chaminda Vaas, who retired from test cricket on Friday, was overlooked but the selectors recalled Lasith Malinga to the ODI squad for the first time since February 2008.

Uncapped left-armer Isuru Udana, a member of the World Twenty20 team that lost in last month’s final against Pakistan in England, was included in the ODI squad for the first time.

Middle order batsman Thilan Samaraweera, previously considered a test match specialist, has been drafted in to bolster a middle order that has struggled in the last 12 months.

Opener Upul Tharanga has also been recalled as a replacement for Tillakaratne Dilshan, who fractured his right index finger in the third Test against Pakistan.

Squad: Kumar Sangakkara (Capt), Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera, Thilina Kandamby, Angelo Mathews, Isuru Udana, Ajantha Mendis, Lasith Malinga, Thilan Thushara, Nuwan Kulasekera, Malinga Bandara.

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Colombo: Temperatures have been rising in the island capital these days and you could see a few of Sri Lanka’s bowlers getting hot under the collar as well at the Sinhalese Sports Club.

Dropped catches, missed stumpings and even a lucky break didn’t help their cause on day three of this third Test that Sri Lanka might have felt at one stage they would be batting before the close.

Such shoddy efforts though have wrenched what chances Sri Lanka have had of making it a 3-0 success – after all, with the scorecard at 67 for four, and big names sitting with their feet up, you would fancy your chances.

Not that Pakistan, recipients of such careless fielding profligacy are complaining. They have an overall lead in the third Test of 366 runs with two days of play left and at 300 for five in their second innings will be looking to have Sri Lanka chase a 450-plus target sometime later on Thursday.

Shoaib Malik, as an example, gave a stumping chance to Kumar Sangakkara in his 90s after having narrowly escaped being caught in the gully earlier in his innings. But he went on at last to achieve his second Test century in a so far 26-match career. That it came from six when he hammered Rangana Herath high and wide explains how he was batting.

Elegant and neat and with smart foot and handwork, he has so far batted sensibly throughout his innings of 186 balls to reach an undefeated 106 at the close. His six off Herath was his second if the innings and has so far seen him share this partnership of 114 with Kamran Akmal, undefeated on 60.

The wicketkeeper too has survived a chance offered when trying to lift the ball over the covers but we had Thilan Samaraweera spilling a straightforward chance that had spectators bowing their head as if they had taken the catch.

It is the second century partnership of the innings which Shoaib has been involved: the first being 119 with Misbah-ul-Haq, whose innings of 65 helped the revival and saw Sri Lanka rue their fielding efforts which you wouldn’t find in a friendly Sunday social game. Sure such things happen, but they were clumsy.

If before Shoaib joined Misbah the batting was circumspect, the last session of the day underlined a certain urgency, as the runrate reached more than four an over.

There has been a lot of criticism around the batting skills of Shoaib, who for a time was captain, but since handing over to Younis Khan has also struggled to put big innings together that had been expected of the 27-year-old. With Misbah he looked at ease and on more than one occasion two-stepped Herath.

There was a lot of powerful stroke play from Shoaib and Misbah and this continued in the partnership with Akram and led to an entertaining 132 runs in the last session of the day, in which 31 overs were bowled. It was here where Sri Lanka lost the plot and with Tillekeratne Dilshan ruled out with a fractured finger, it meant that Sangakkara had to take over the gloves for the first time in the series.

Initially the Misbah-Shoaib partnership was one of consolidation as the middle-order pairing needed to put a solid performance together and no one in the Pakistan camp can feel miffed over the runrate at the time. The side was in early trouble and an overall lead that was hardly inspiring. But their efforts paid off and as days two and three are normally the best days for batting, what there has been displays how patience and tight technique can work from strokeplayers as these.

Danish Kaneria, hauled up before match referee Alan Hurst over his use of bad language at Angelo Mathews was fined and cautioned and this took a little gilt off his five-wickets on Tuesday. Some things are best left unsaid.

Karachi: Pakistan on Wednesday left out Shoaib Akhtar from the 30-man preliminary squad for this year’s Champions Trophy after the controversial paceman failed to prove his fitness last week.

The 33-year-old was also omitted from a 16-man one-day squad for a five-match series against Sri Lanka starting next week.

Akhtar was withdrawn from the World Twenty20 squad after coming down with “genital warts” and failed to pass a fitness test conducted last week.

But another controversial fast bowler, Mohammad Asif, was included as his one-year ban expires on September 22, the start of the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

The ban was imposed after the 26-year-old failed a dope test in the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League last year.

Asif will be eligible to play in Pakistan’s opening match against the West Indies on September 23.

The biennial Champions Trophy will be held in South Africa from September 22 to October 5, having been moved out of Pakistan over security fears.

The top eight countries — Australia, England, South Africa, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand — are due to take part in the Trophy, which was first held in 1998.

Pakistan’s preliminary squads will be trimmed to 15 next month.

Probables for Champions Trophy: Younis Khan (capt), Salman Butt, Nasir Jamshed, Khalid Latif, Azhar Ali, Imran Nazir, Mohammad Yousuf, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umar Amin, Umer Akmal, Sheharyar Ghani, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Rana Naveed, Yasir Arafat, Fawad Alam, Kamran Akmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamir, Abdul Rauf, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Talha, Sohail Tanveer, Rao Iftikhar, Wahab Riaz, Saeed Ajmal, Abdul Rehman, Mohammad Hafeez.