Board of Control for Cricket in India on Sunday announced Rs 25 lakh for each member of the Indian cricket team after Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men became the world number one Test side beating Sri Lanka in Mumbai.

Board President Shashank Manohar announced at the BCCI awards function in Mumbai that each support staff and selection committee members will get Rs 10 lakh.

“We have decided to give each Indian cricket team member Rs 25 lakh for becoming the number one in ICC Test rankings. Each of the support staff and selection committee members will be given Rs 10 lakh,” Manohar said.

source: HT

Mumbai: Sri Lankans were struggling at 84 for one at lunch on the Day four of third and Final Test against India here at Brabourne stadium.

Harbhajan been bowling really well and has got the breakthrough. Paranavitana, who was looking so good, is gone. It was a loopy flighted delivery around the off stump and Paranavitana edged his attempted cover drive to first slip.

NT Paranavitana c Dravid b Harbhajan Singh 53 (94m 81b 7×4 0×6) SR: 65.43

By lunch, having put aside the spitting deliveries, the two had added 55 runs and more importantly played out 22.1 overs.

source: cricinfo

A first innings lead in the vicinity of 150 runs would put Sri Lanka in firm control of the first Test against India, reckons explosive Lankan opener Tillakaratne Dilshan.

Dilshan’s fluent 112 was the cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s reply to India’s first innings total of 426 and the visitors finished day two at a strong 275 for three.

At stumps, Mahela Jayawardene was batting on 36 in company of Thilan Samaraweera (45).

Dilshan said the immediate target now was to reach the 400-mark and then press for a lead of around 150 runs, which would put them in the driver’s seat.

“Mahela and Thilan need to bat out the first session and the ball will start turning towards the end and a lead of around 150 will give us an edge,” he said.

“The main target we have is to bat longer and get closer to 400 and see how it goes from there. We have to good spinners and if we get that lead we can control things,” Dilshan said.

On his own game, the right-hander said moving up to the opener’s slot had done a world of good to him.

source: indiatoday

Ahmedabad: India were bowled out for 426 runs in their first innings against Sri Lanka on Day 2 of the first Test here at Sardar Patel Stadium.

India today played just 14.5 overs and added 41 runs in the total. Rahul Dravid was the first man who got out today without adding any run to his total.

Dravid was bowled out for 177 runs by left hand pacer Welegedara. Harbhajan and Zaheer played some good shot and took India past 400 hundred. Zaheer was adjudged LBW on a delivery that was missing leg stump. He made 12 valuable runs for the side.

Harbhajan made 22 runs. He was bowled by Murlitharan. Ishant was the last man to depart. He was stumped by wicketkeeper P Jayawardene.

Welegedara claimed four wickets while Murli took three for 97. Dhammika Prasad managed two wickets. Left arm spinner Herath took one wicket.

source: indiatimes

Mohali: Sachin Tendulkar, who is two weeks short of completing his two decades in international cricket, will be chasing the personal milestone of 17,000 ODI runs when he pads up in the fourth One-Day International against Australia here on Monday.

The batting maestro is 47 short of achieving the feat. The batting friendly track at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) Stadium here might turn out to be the lucky strip for Tendulkar, who has not been in best of form in the series so far, having scored 50 runs in the three matches.

It would be Tendulkar’s second ODI outing here.

The PCA Stadium occupies a special place in Tendulkar’s heart since it is the same venue where in October last year against Australia, he surpassed West Indian Brian Lara as the highest Test run scorer and also became the first cricketer to score 12,000 Test runs. Only a small crowd had turned up to witness that slice of history.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had also felicitated Tendulkar.

BCCI secretary N.Srinivasan said that no celebration has been planned this time around but for sure a sell-out crowd will be cheering for Tendulkar.

Tributes have started pouring in from teammates and opposition captain Ricky Ponting.

source: samaylive

1st ODI between India and Australia will begin in Vadodara on Sunday the 25th of October 2009.

Match start time is 0900 local time (03.30GMT).

Australia recently won ICC Champions trophy 2009 in south africa which is a 50 over format. This conveys the message that they are in a good form. While on the other hand, india is still suffering from injuries with Yuvraaj missing 1st ODI. And latest in the team is the captain himself, Dhoni got injured on a Munaf delivery.

Pitch and conditions: The Vadodara pitch is expected to be a good batting track. But since the match is a day one and the early start at 900 am it will tempt a team to field first. The last 5 matches in this stadium have been won by the teams batting second.

The Probable teams are as follows:

India: 1 Sachin Tendulkar, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 MS Dhoni (capt/wk), 5 Suresh Raina, 6 Virat Kohli, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Ishant Sharma/Amit Mishra, 10 Praveen Kumar, 11 Munaf Patel

Australia 1 Shane Watson, 2 Tim Paine (wk), 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Shaun Marsh, 5 Michael Hussey, 6 Cameron White, 7 James Hopes, 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Nathan Hauritz 10 Brett Lee, 11 Doug Bollinger.

source: ibibo

Fiery Ross Taylor struck 65 runs in 38 balls, as Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Delhi Daredevils by 8 wickets in their Champions League Super Eight match at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

» Full Story on cricket.yahoo.com

SOMERSET won by 1 wicket
20-20 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad, IND, 10 Oct 2009

Somerset won the toss & elected to field

Somerset have defeated the Deccan Chargers by 1 wicket, winning narrowly on the final ball of the day. This was undoubtedly the closest match in the Champions League so far. Chasing 154, Somerset started off well but lost wickets in clusters. They lost three wickets for nine runs at one point and then lost three more wickets for 14 runs after a brief partnership. The Deccan Chargers used as many as nine bowlers as Gilchrist tried to mix around his options. Edwards let him down as he was banned for bowling two beamers. The winning partnership, for Somerset, came in the form of Hildreth (25) and Thomas (30) who put on a 50-run eighth-wicket stand. Two wickets by Styris in the final over gave the Chargers a slight glimmer of hope, but Thomas held his nerve to hit two sensational boundaries under immense pressure. It was touch and go and it all depended on which team held their nerve better. Today, that team was Somerset who begin with a win. Alfonso Thomas is named Man of the Match for his all-round performance. He opened the bowling and ended with respectable figures of 25-2 and he then single-handedly took his team home with an unbeaten 30 runs, which included four boundaries and one six. That’s all we have for you today, folks.

more info: http://cricket.yahoo.com

Johannesburg: Australian vice-captain Michael Clarke has been ruled out of Australia first Champions Trophy clash on Saturday against West Indies following recurring back problems that continue to trouble the batsman.

Clarke has been struggling with the back pain for many years and has been managing the injury through the taxing international schedule that the Australians have.

“At the moment he is a day by day proposition for us. He is improving, but with the whole tournament in mind we are taking a conservative approach and he won’t be playing against the West Indies,” The Age quoted Tim Nielsen, Australian coach, as saying.

“Ideally, he will be right to go for the second match of the series,” he added.

Nielsen further said that Australians have been playing cricket regularly, so there won’t be any question of him being out of match practice for Australia’s remaining group games against India on Monday and Pakistan on Wednesday.

“He’s played a lot of cricket in the last three or four months, it’s not like he’s coming off a break, so a couple of bats will probably be enough for him to get back in the swing,” Nielsen said.

“It’s just a matter of getting his back to a stage where he can function normally and we’re not concerned if he does have to dive for a ball that he could injure it and hurt it badly enough that he could miss the remainder of the series,” he added.

Clarke most recently struggled with back problems at the end of the Australian summer, but had recovered in time to play in the first Test against South Africa in February.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting says his team will not be taking Saturday’s ICC Champions Trophy encounter against the West Indies lightly despite the Caribbean side fielding a weakened line-up.

Australia begin their defence of the title with a rematch of the 2006 final but due to a contractual dispute between the West Indies board and its leading players, an unfamiliar team will be lining up against Ponting’s men.

“We all know the contractual issues the West Indies have been having but although their strongest team is not here, they will be as dangerous as they always are,” Ponting told reporters on Wednesday.

“They are naturally very attacking and flamboyant and, with One-day cricket being the way it is, we will give them the respect they deserve.”

Australia have had a packed year of cricket, including Test series against South Africa and England as well as a host of One-dayers and the World Twenty20, but Ponting insists the team remains focused on performing well at the ICC Champions Trophy.

“This is not just another tournament, it’s the second-biggest One-day event we play in, and post-Ashes it was all about making sure that we could produce our best cricket in these two weeks,” he said.

“We’ve managed to keep in really good shape, both mentally and technically, and we just need to acclimatise to being at (altitude) here. But having played a lot of cricket recently is a positive and we’re in as good shape as anyone.

England edged Australia 2-1 in the Ashes series but Ponting was buoyed by his team’s subsequent 6-1 thrashing of the hosts in the One-dayers.

“The mood in the squad the last few weeks has been particularly good. Even though we lost the Ashes, we gave it our best shot and it was a special series to be part of,” he added.

“And there’s no doubt we enjoyed the last couple of weeks because we’ve been winning well.”