Daily Sports News

West Indies came on top of their game with excellent exhibition of both bowling and bating. West Indies surely came with a plan and the same was executed with precision. The Aussie camp again looked short of ideas, especially when it came to bowling to Chris Gayle and Andre Fletcher. Australia lost the game by seven wickets with 25 balls to spare.

West Indies captain Chris Gayle was hitting Aussie bowlers with ease and in the course of the match hit the longest six in the tournament when he sent to ball 105 meters out of the stadium on to the adjacent road. During the match Gayle hit three sixes of the bowling of Brett Lee, two of the bowling of David Hussy and one of the bowling of Michael Clarke. He also hit six boundaries in his innings, scoring 88 of just 50 deliveries.

He was well supported by his opening partner Andre Fletcher who scored 53 of just 32 deliveries. One can judge the devastation by just looking at the economy rate of the Aussie Leading bowler, Lee ended the match with 1/56 in his four over’s and at an economy rate of 14.

Australia is placed in the ‘group of death’ which has Sri Lanka apart from West Indies. If the Ponting’s men have to keep their dream alive of capturing the ICC world twenty20 Trophy which is the only championship that has eluded them, then they have to beat the Lankans in there next game on Monday.

To make maters worst, Ponting himself got out on a duck apart from Shane Watson who started the Aussie bating with a duck. The other worry for the Punter is his deputy Michael Clarke who got out after just scoring 2 runs. Ponting with face a formidably challenge when they go out against Sri Lanka, the team which has Jaysuriya…

Chris Gayle was declared Man-of-the-Match for his vicious knock of 88 runs of 50 balls.

Match Summary (West Indies Won by 7 Wickets)
Australia – 169/7 in 20 Overs
D.Warner- 63 M.Hussey –28*
J.Taylor– 4-0-33-2 D.Bravo- 4-0-31-2
West Indies – 172/3 in 15.5 Overs
C.Gayle- 88 A. Fletcher –53
M.Johnson – 3.5-0-36-2 Brett Lee- 4-0-56-1

T20 is a known to throw surprises and as the pundits of the game have said that the shorter the game, the more the chances of an upset and it happened with the underdogs Netherlands beating England in the opening match of the T20 World Cup on Friday at the Lords.

The English gods were to against their own team with the match starting late due to rain and then it was the toss, Paul Collingwood lost the toss and the English team was sent to bat. England got a dream start to the game with Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright providing a 102 run stand for the first wicket. Once Bopara was out in the 12th over after scoring an impressive 46 of 34 balls the English team fell and could just manage to score 162 runs in the 20 overs. Luke Wright scored an impressive 71 of 49 deliveries. Owais Shah, Eoin Morgan and Paul Collingwood were disappointing and were out in just a single digit.

The misery for the English did not end with there batting, but continued in there bowling too. Missed run outs, dropped catches and some exhibition of lousy fielding made sure that the English were digging their own grave. Netherlands got to off to a disastrous start and lost both their openers in the first four over’s with just a score of 23 runs.  Tom de Grooth kept the Dutch hopes alive with an excellent innings and scored a magnificent 40 of just 30 deliveries. Peter Borren contributed with 30 runs of 25 deliveries and it was left to Ryan ten Doeschate to finish for the Dutch. The match was decided on the last delivery of the match and Stuart Broad gifted the Dutch a victory with an over throws. In the same over he all missed a run out and also dropped a catch.

English batsman’s failed to exploit the final over’s as they could just manage to score 60 runs of the last 52 balls and that is where I think England lost the game. Tom de Grooth was given the Man-of-the-Match for his dazzling display with bat that made sure Netherlands had an unforgettable win against home side.

The most smashing and deadly batsman of Australian Team, Andrew Symonds is no more in Cricket Australia (at least for the t20 World Cup). This was the shocking news for all the Cricket fans of the world when read on the front page headlines.

Andrew Symonds is a total versatile personality. He is one of the best record holders of Australia and the worst record holder for the discipline and manner records. Since four to five years he is continuously in and out of the team. You must not have forgotten these incidents:

• The drinking issue before a match against Bangladesh which cost him too dear and was sent back from the 2005 Australian Tour to England.
• The world famous issue of abusing language and racism with Harbhajan Singh in the Perth Test.
• The 2008 Bangladesh Series, when he was sent back as he preferred Fishing rather than attending the compulsory Team meeting.
• November 2008, when he was found drunk with the members of the Australian rugby league side and the controversial incident of Hotel in Brisbane.
• January 2009, when he used some problematic language for the Kiwis Wicket Keeper batsman Brendon McCullum in a radio interview.
• Recently, just 2 days back he found guilty of alcoholic issues and other disciplinary violation. The team management sent him back to Australia and he is out from the T20 World Cup, England.

All these and many more incidents show that Symonds actually is a nick name of Controversies. He was continuously in and out since four years. Even though the entire team backed him up in the entire incidence and brought him back in the team, he made disappointed to them all the time.

The person who stood beside him in all the problems and backed him falling against the whole Cricketing nations, the Captain Ricky Ponting also said with a very low voice that, “Symonds has let the team down.”

He is a wonderful stroke player and the whole world was eager to see the blasting batting of Symonds after he performed tremendously in the recent IPL T20. He was the champ even in the finals for the Deccan Chargers whom he joined in later half of IPL. He was the real Key player to lead his team from the last position in 2008 to the top position in 2009.

Ricky is not the only person who is let down, the former Australian bowler, Geoff Lawson utters in an interview to BBC Radio 5 Live, “Nobody’s perfect, but he’s been given lots of opportunities and there’s a limit to how many mistakes you can make in the context of professional sport.

“There was lots of criticism anyway that he wasn’t playing well enough to be selected for the tour.

“I don’t think he’ll play international cricket again.”

The last sentence can really be a hurting statement for all his fans, but even the Cricket Australia Chief James Sutherland seemed to be of the same opinion last night.

“In isolation the breaches are not serious, but in the scheme of history, they are enough to be the final straw. We will take the offer of a Cricket Australia contract we made to him off the table and reconsider our decision over the coming days,” he said.

“In the last 24-48 hours he has broken a number of team rules.

“In the context of commitments Andrew has made to his team-mates and to Cricket Australia in the last six months, it’s the last straw. Unfortunately, it’s a constant balancing act and it’s just tipped too far.”

Thus Sutherland indicated that the last incident may prove the dead end for the glorious Cricketing career of Andrew Symonds.

Ricky Ponting was also found upset with the incident when he addressed the press conference soon after the removal.

“Andrew is very disappointed and understandably upset. I’m disappointed in Andrew and I’m disappointed for Andrew. I’m quite sad about it.”

“We’re a little disappointed with the events of the last 24 hours and losing one of the best Twenty20 players in the world is disappointing, but he broke a number of commitments that he made to himself and the team. They were not commitments forced upon him by us. He’s let himself down and the team down.

But we’re moving on and preparing as well as we can for Saturday’s game.

“It throws the balance of the side a bit and we’re going to have to re-jig it a bit, but we’ve got the flexibility in the squad to do that.” he added.

The Queenslander has a marvelous record of Cricket and people used to say that he could see the ball much faster than the speed of the ball. He was the player who could swing the ball wherever he wanted to loaf. He was a key member of Australian Cricket team as he is having a nice record of bowling also. He was a partnership breaker for his team.

Symonds, was born in Birmingham, England but in the very childhood was taken to Australia. He has played 26 Tests, 198 one-day internationals and 14 Twenty20 matches for Australia.

He has 1,462 Test runs at an average of 40.61, with a best score of 162 not out and taken 24 wickets at 37.33, with a best return of 3-50in his pocket.

In the 50-over format of the game, he has scored 5,088 runs at 39.75 with a top score of 156. His 133 wickets have come at 37.25 apiece with 5-18 his best showing.

In Twenty20 internationals he has smashed 337 runs off 199 balls with his average of 48.14 bolstered by his highest score of 85 not out. He has taken just eight wickets in his 14 games at 34.62.

Thus, he has a great career and everyone believed that he will bounce back heavily after the come back in the team.

But, the incidents happened were quite unlucky. He attended a dinner at a London hotel on Wednesday night with the rest of the squad but was absent from training at The Oval on Thursday, then caught for the alcoholic consumption.

The 25-year-old Cameron White will replace Symonds, he has an experience of seven Twenty20 internationals, scoring a total of 152 runs with a highest score of 40 not out.

Cricket Australia has already approached ICC about the replacement and most probably White will replace Symonds.

Australia start their World Twenty20 campaign against West Indies at The Oval on Saturday.

An Excellent opening stand of 140 between Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gahbir made sure that the defending champions India scored a decisive nine wickets win over traditional rivals Pakistan in the ICC World T20 World Cup warm up game at The Oval on Wednesday.

Pakistan had a bad start and were 45 for four, with some great bowling and fielding performances by the Indians. First to go was Shahzaib Hasan was bowled by Praveen Kumar on the fifth ball of the first over. Kamran Akmal was next to go with an excellent run out by Suresh Raina with a direct under arm hit on the stumps. Ahmed Shehzad tried to hit Sharma over midwicket by was take by the extra bounce and gave an easy catch to Raina at cover when his score was 25. Next to go for a duck was Shahid Afridi as he went for the big slog and tried to hit it over the straight but gave away a thick edge which MSD did not miss and dived on his right to take an amazing catch. Next to go was Shoaib Malik who was caught by MSD of the bowling of Pragyan Ojha. Younis Khan tried to reverse sweep Harbhajan, but the spinner read it well and bowled on the leg side making it easy for MSD to stump him. Misbah-ul-Haq was the highest scorer of the Pakistani innings and remained not out at 37 along with Arafat on 25. Pakistan could only score 158 for 6 in there 20 over’s. In the bowling front the best effort came from Ishant Sharma, who bowled 3-1-11-1(O-M-R-W).

India came back strongly in reply of the Pakistani score with an amazing knock by Rohit Sharma, who scored 80 runs of 53 balls and was well supported by Gautam Gambhir who remained not out till the end. MSD and Gautam won the match in 17 overs with just loss of one wicket. There were just two sixes in the entire match and were hit by Rohit Sharma.

Also an important thing to note is that although Pakistan has a much better record against India but it has never been able to defeat India in a world cup match. This India continued its 100% winning at the World Cup.

India wasted the excellent start if got in the warm up match against New Zealand and ended up getting defeated by just 9 runs. Rohit Sharma was asked to open the innings and showed his class with a 36 run knock. His batting caliber could be judged when he his Iain O’Brien for 18 runs is his second over for two massive sixes and a four. Other major contributors in the Indian chase were Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja scoring 45 and 41 runs respectively.

The blow to the Indian batting came when Kiwi captain Daniel Vettori struck twice in his first over with wickets of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. There was some joy in the Indian camp when Raina who played some excellent shots with great running between the wickets. It was surely not India’s day as they could not reach the 171 target even though Jadeja tried his best.

To everyone’s surprise, the bowler in question over his performance in the concluded IPL, Ishant Sharma showed character and took four wickets. He bowled Jesse Ryder for 2 run making sure that Ryder’s poor form from IPL continued in England too. He also dismissed the Kiwi danger man McCullum. Ishant Sharma in the later part of the Indian bowling dismissed Jacob Oram and Styris. The other wickets were taken by Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh in the form of Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor.

James Franklin scored 27 not out off 10 balls and on-course also hit RP Singh for two successive sixes which were followed by a four. This over in the end part of the Indian bowling certainly pushed the kiwi score. Though India lost the match but certainly it provided the team to make necessary changes to its tournament strategy.

MSD in a post game interview said that the last two over’s of the Indian bowling where they conceded 31 runs were the main reason for the loss. India also missed the services of ace batsmen like Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag. Yuvi was down with food poisoning and Viru missed the game due to a shoulder injury, but they are expected to be fit when the tournament starts. India is now going to play Pakistan in its next warm-up match on 5th June 2009.

Schedule for ICC Twenty20 Cricket World Cup 2009

With just a miniscule 44 days in hand, IPL and Cricket South Africa has successfully managed to conjugate a spell bounding experience that was a treat to all the senses.

Akon, gyrated and lip-synched to his famous track ‘Smackdown’. He kept the audiences on their feet with his foot-tapping tunes and constant contact with the audience. In his third track, Akon went vocal for about 20% of the performance time. Post the Akon performance; one just got hypnotized by the tantalizing drum performances by skilled hands that effortlessly fused the Indian classic ‘..raghupati raghave raja ram..’ with mesmeric Afro background scores, that left every Indian humbled to the core.

Great troupe performances by dancers in African and space age attire and Indian dancers in new age attire who belonged to the renowned Shamak Davak gang.Adding magic to the moment were mammoth helium air balloons with artistically performing trapeze artists suspended in mid-air at ceiling level of the oval shaped stadium. The ongoing spectacle involved Technicolor light, sound and laser shows featuring humongous balloon displays with acrobats performing skilled acts. The fresh entry to the show was the competition among 10 gorgeous locals for the South Africa Bollywood beauty pageant. The winner of the pageant, Dune, received the crown from Akon. Akon wooed Dune with the song ‘u r so beautiful’.

The current reigning Bollywood queen Katrina performed live to the pulsating global hit ‘Jai ho’ along with countless Afro-Indian dancers and Shamak Davar troupe in the background. Live fire show performances to the throbbing music and beating drums were truly the icing of the cake. Amazing drummers providing syntillating back scores to the people having rotating fire circles in their hands and head. Drummers were beating with fire sticks on their drums and people rotating concentric fire circles. People carrying sticks of live fireworks in their hands, were constantly swaying them in circular motions.

Eddie grant, the singer par excellence was the next to perform to retro Afro tunes which truly reflected the spirit of South Africa. He sang in the Jamaican way the infamous tune ‘Give me hope joana’. IPL and Cricket South Africa have come with the novel initiative to donate part of its funds to the help educate and treat fund with constant and regular donations. Shaimak Davar sang ‘Vande Mataram’ solo initially and later fused tunes with Eddie Grant. Listening to this Afro-INDO Fusion, Katrina could not help but shake a leg with Akon or join in the singing. It was a visual extravaganza with the performers swaying the Indian Flag and the mid-air hot air spectacle of women acrobats.

The finale was an enthralling pyrotechnic show with display of about 1500 fireworks displays in all vibrant colours, forms and shapes lighting up the Johannesburg skyline.

The closing ceremony of the DLF IPL 2009 was chock-a-block with lots of entertainment, Akon, drumbeats, South African Bollywood beauty pageant and Phoenix fire dancers all culminating to make a life long impression. Winners ‘The Deccan Chargers’ took the grand trophy, cheque and the spoils. The Deccan Chargers and The Royal Challengers who were coincidently the second last and last teams in the last year, have significantly improved their performance by making it to the finals. But, it was eventually the Deccan Chargers who held their nerve in a tight situation to emerge winners. President of Republic of SA, Mr. Bindra, were among the heavy weights present at the presentation ceremony.

DLF IPL Final Highlight