India crash out of ICC Champions trophy

Australia’s 2 wicket win over Pakistan ensured that India was not going to the semi final of the ICC Champions Trophy. This bring us to the question that did India really deserve its place in the semi final line up. The way the Indians have approached this competition they never looked like they would win the cup. M.S.Dhoni who had lady luck smiling on him for a long time now needs to do some serious thinking. His laid back attitude during this tournament along with some bad team selection has been the bane of Team India. This along with some extremely bad bowling performances from most of the bowlers proved costly for them.

India faced the first blow when Zaheer Khan and Virendra Sehwag got injuries and adding to that list was the injury to Yuvraj Singh. The writing was clear on the wall that it would need some extra ordinary performances from the Indians if they were to be winners. But the bowling attack barring Ashish Nehra looked toothless in the absence of Zaheer Khan. First Pakistan and then Australia plundered them for runs and had it not been for the rains the Australians were also looking to post a 300 plus score like Pakistan. But read this in the final match against the West Indies Dhoni turned over his arm and got a wicket too!!!! Sorry to say this does not look like a no.1 team.

Abhishek Nayar who was the only one who posted a good score in the warm up match was ignored. The question is why was he made to play the warm up match if he was not going to be selected initially. Wouldn’t it make sense to give practice to someone who was going to be in the playing eleven? Or were they over confident from their victory in Sri Lanka.

Well now Autralia play a resurgent England team on Friday and Pakistan take on the Kiwis on Saturday. May the better team win.

The Crashgate scandal- who is responsible?

Everyone by now must be aware of the Crashgate scandal being associated with Formula1. It all started last year at the Singapore Grand Prix when Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed his car on purpose to benefit teammate Fernando Alonso. No one was aware of this till Nelson Piquet Jr. was shown the door at Renault and he decided to spill the beans. The result was that Flavio Briatore was handed a life ban from motor racing, Pat Symonds was handed a five year ban and Renault were handed a two year suspended ban. However the most suprising part is that the person who crashed his car was given an immunity since he spilled the beans.

This raises a few questions: If a person commits  murder along with his accomplish should he also not be held guilty and penalized with some form of punishment even if he agrees to spill the beans. This is exactly what has not happended in this case. Piquet Jr. crashed his car but he escaped punishment because he named Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds as the guys who told him to crash.

Secondly there are many counter accusations going on between the guys associated with this crash. Piquet Jr. says Briatore and Symonds planned the crash and instructed him where to crash his car. Pat Symonds says it was Piquet Jr. who came up to them with this idea of crashing his car so that Alonso could benefit from it. So the fact of the matter is one of them is not telling the complete truth.

Whatever it is, it has brought Formula1 once again in news. Flavio Briatore will definately appeal against this ban because he stands to lose most from it as he is not only banned from managing a team but also the team drivers and that too in all forms of motor racing. As for Nelson Piquet Jr. his career is definately going nowhere because none of the teams will want to be associated with him for the time being.

Let just hope we dont have any such suprises this year after the Singapore Grand Prix.

SA,PAK register win

South Africa beat New Zealand by 5 wickets to keep their hope alive in the Chamions Trophy.
In another match last night Pakistan scraped through a second string West Indian side.

Sri Lanka upset SA

Sri Lanka defeated South Africa in the first match of the Champions Trophy. South Africa won the toss and chose to field but were immediately put under pressure by the Lankan batsman. T.Dilshan top scored with 106. SA never looked like they would chase a target of 320 to win. Ajanta Mendis bowled exceptionally well and the South Africans never looked comfortable against him.

For complete score click the link below

http://www.cricinfo.com/iccct2009/engine/current/match/415273.htm

NZ trash India in warm up match

India recieved a wake up call in their only warm up match against the Kiwis before the start of Champions trophy. Chasing a huge total of 301 runs India never looked like winning the match and lost by 103 runs.

The pace bowling in abscence of Zaheer Khan looks weak and India have to come up with a solution immediately else even a score of 300 plus wont be enough to contain the opposition. Abhishek Nayar looks promising and warrants a place in the final eleven especially after his performance yesterday(41 runs,36 balls).

India play Pakistan at the Centurion on 26th September.

Read the full news story at http://www.cricinfo.com/iccct2009/content/current/story/425807.html

Herschelle Gibbs doubtful starter for ICC Champions Trophy 2009

South Africa suffered a serious setback just days before the commencement of the Champions trophy with Herschelle Gibbs picking a rib injury during a practice match with West Indies.

Although official announcement is awaited but sources inform that he may miss the opening match.

The host play Sri Lanka in the opening day night match at Centurion.

Read the full news story at http://www.cricinfo.com/iccct2009/content/story/425623.html

History of ICC Champions Trophy

The ICC Champions Trophy started out as a knockout tournament in 1998 and was called as Mini World Cup. In 2002 it was renamed as Champions Trophy with the format being revised to round robin. Of the previous five Champions Trophy finals held West Indies have featured three times - once as winners(2004) and twice as runner up(1998,2006).The 2006 version can be best remembered for the ugly incident involving Ricky Ponting and Sharad Pawar

Year	Winner	Runner	Venue	Format
1998	South Africa	West Indies	Dhaka, Bangladesh	Knockout
2000	New Zealand	India	Nairobi, Kenya	Knockout
2002	India and Sri Lanka                   (Rain )		Sri Lanka	Round Robin
2004	West Indies	England	England	Round Robin
2006	Australia	West Indies	India	Round Robin

ICC Champions Trophy Schedule 2009

The sixth ICC Champions Trophy will begin from 22nd September- 5th October. Orignally it was scheduled to be held in Pakistan last year but it has been rescheduled to South Africa this year because of security concerns.Wanderers( Johannesburg) and Centurion are the venues where the matches are scheduled to be played.

GROUP A

Team	P	W	L	T	NR	NRR	Points
Australia	3	2	0	0	1	+0.510	5
India	3	1	1	0	1	+0.290	3
Pakistan	3	2	1	0	0	+0.999	4
West Indies	3	0	3	0	0	-1.537	0

GROUP B

Team	P	W	L	T	NR	NRR	Points
New Zealand	3	2	1	0	0	+0.782	4
Sri Lanka	3	1	2	0	0	-0.085	2
England	3	2	1	0	0	-0.487	4
South Africa	3	1	2	0	0	-0.177	2

Date	Time (GMT)	Match Details	Venue
September 22	12:30	South Africa v Sri Lanka, 1st Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)
September 23	12:30	Pakistan v West Indies, 2nd Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg (D/N)
September 24	07:30	South Africa v New Zealand, 3rd Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion
September 25	12:30	England v Sri Lanka, 4th Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg (D/N)
September 26	07:30	Australia v West Indies, 5th Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg
September 26	12:30	India v Pakistan, 6th Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)
September 27	07:30	New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 7th Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg
September 27	12:30	South Africa v England, 8th Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)
September 28	12:30	Australia v India, 9th Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)
September 29	12:30	England v New Zealand, 10th Match, Group B, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg (D/N)
September 30	07:30	Australia v Pakistan, 11th Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion
September 30	12:30	India v West Indies, 12th Match, Group A, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg (D/N)
October 2009
Date	Time (GMT)	Match Details	Venue
October 02	12:30	A1 v B2, 1st Semi-Final, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)
October 03	12:30	B1 v A2, 2nd Semi-Final, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Johannesburg (D/N)
October 05	12:30	Final, ICC Champions Trophy 2009	Centurion (D/N)

Television Coverage

• Supersport (live) – South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe
• Star Cricket (live) – India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia
• ESPN (live) – India
• DD National (live) – India (only India matches)
• GEO Super (live) – Pakistan
• Pakistan Television Corporation (live) – Pakistan
• Bangladesh Television (live) – Bangladesh
• Eurosport (pay per view) – Europe
• Sky Sports (live) – United Kingdom and Ireland
• Fox Sports (live) – Australia
• Sky Sport (live) – New Zealand
• Caribbean Media Corporation (live) – Caribbean

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Teams:
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Australia: Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Clarke, Nathan Bracken, Callum Ferguson, Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Mike Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine (wk), Peter Siddle, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White.



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England: Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Joe Denly, Eoin Morgan, Graham Onions, Matt Prior (wk), Adil Rashid, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Luke Wright.



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



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New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (capt), Shane Bond, Neil Broom, Ian Butler, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott, Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins (wk), Brendon McCullum (wk), Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Jeetan Patel, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey.



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Pakistan: Younus Khan (capt), Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal (wk), Umar Gul, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Rao Iftikhar, Saeed Ajmal.



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South Africa: Graeme Smith (capt), Johan Botha, Hashim Amla, Mark Boucher (wk), AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Albie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Wayne Parnell, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Roelof van der Merwe.



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Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Angelo Mathews, Chamara Kapugedera, Thilina Kandamby, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Thushara, Nuwan Kulasekara, Dammika Prasad, Lasith Malinga



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West Indies: Floyd Reifer (capt), David Bernard, Tino Best, Royston Crandon, Travis Dowlin, Andre Fletcher, Kevin McClean, Nikita Miller, Kieran Powell, Dale Richards, Kemar Roach, Darren Sammy, Devon Smith, Gavin Tonge, Chadwick Walton (wk).

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