N. Zealand media irate after Pakistan thrashing

WELLINGTON: New Zealand media lashed the nation's "embarrassingly bad" cricket team Monday after Pakistan routed the Black Caps within three days in the first Test at Hamilton.

"New year - same old horror story," the back page of the New Zealand Herald declared, adding that Sunday's thumping 10-wicket defeat was a depressing start to a much-trumpeted new era under coach John Wright.

Wellington's Dominion Post also highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the former India coach and Black Caps captain Wright, who was appointed last month following one-day series losses in Bangladesh and India.

"It's a Wright shambles," the newspaper thundered, saying there was no excuse for New Zealand's capitulation at home against a depleted Pakistan team of "dubious quality".

Criticism focused on New Zealand's second innings batting, when the Black Caps crumbled to be all out for 110, losing four wickets for one run at one stage, to hand Pakistan a crushing victory.

"There's almost no need to belittle them, because the second innings batting figures do that all on their own," the Dominion Post said.

The Herald's chief sports writer David Leggat said the batmen lacked judgement and threw away their wickets.

"Some of the strokes were daft, others plain dumb.... New Zealand offered nothing. They simply rolled over," he wrote, describing the display as "embarrassingly bad".

Veteran cricket commentator Bryan Waddle questioned whether New Zealand could recover to salvage something from the two-Test series, which resumes in Wellington on Saturday.

"I've seen some depressing results in the past but mostly overseas not at home," he told Radio Sport. "There's not much time to restore the sense of pride and commitment (needed) to accept the challenge that this Pakistan side poses."

National news agency NZPA said Wright could take comfort in a creditable display by New Zealand's bowlers on a flat pitch but conceded it was difficult to find positives in such an overwhelming defeat.

Bell leads England to easy win over PM's XI

Ian Bell's sparkling tour Down Under continued on Monday as he scored an unbeaten century to guide England to a seven-wicket win over the Australian Prime Minister's XI in a one-day match.

Chasing 223 to win in the rain-affected match, Bell blasted 13 fours and a towering six as he reached 124 from just 102 balls. He also scored a century in the final Ashes Test last week, which England won to beat Australia 3-1.

The PM's XI traditionally gives fringe Australian players and promising youngsters a hit against a touring side. But while the home side batted well, their bowling attack appeared toothless in the face of the Bell onslaught.

Bell was given good support by Jonathan Trott (48) and Steve Davies (24), who helped England get away to a flying start at the top of the order.

PM's XI captain Tim Paine -- touted by some pundits as a future Australia captain -- had won the toss and chose to bat. But a rain squall delayed the start of play in Canberra.

When play did get underway, the umpires reduced the overs to 44 for each team.

Paine and new Test number three Usman Khawaja got the home side away to a steady start, seeing off opening bowlers Chris Woakes and Ajmal Shahzad with little trouble.

However the onset of spin spelled the end for Khawaja, who hit a simple return catch off an inside edge to James Tredwell on 22.

Paine (50) was next to go, trapped leg before by Tredwell's spin partner Michael Yardy, who removed promising all-rounder Alex Keath (15) in the same fashion.

Callum Ferguson and Daniel Christian then came together and scored briskly before Shahzad was brought back into the attack and bowled Ferguson for 39.

Tom Thornton (5) and Sam Miller (7) added little resistance until Shahzad had Christian caught by Kevin Pietersen for 53.

Some late hitting by veteran fast bowler Brett Lee allowed the PM's XI to post a competitive total of 254.

Yardy was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3-33 from his nine overs, while Shahzad claimed 3-61 and Woakes 2-63.

Bell and Davies came out blazing, scoring at more than eight runs an over until Davies miscued a drive and was caught by Ferguson at mid-on from the bowling of discarded Test spinner Xavier Doherty.

That brought fellow Sydney Ashes centurion Trott to the crease and he provided solid support to Bell, who continued to treat the bowling with contempt.

Pakistan, S Korea added to Champions Trophy teams

 

NEW DELHI: South Korea and Pakistan were on Friday handed wildcard entries for field hockey's Champions Trophy in India next year that will feature eight teams instead of six.

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) said the two Asian nations will join world champions Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and hosts India in the annual tournament.

South Korea are ranked sixth in the world, while Pakistan were rewarded for winning the Asian Games gold medal in Guangzhou, China last month, which earned them a direct entry to the 2012 London Olympics.

The dates and host city for the tournament, to be held in November-December next year, will be announced later, the world governing body said in a statement.

The Champions Trophy has been a six-nation event since its inception in 1978 but the FIH decided to add two more teams from next year.

The women's Champions Trophy will also feature eight teams with China and New Zealand joining Argentina, Germany, England, Australia, South Korea and host nation Netherlands, the FIH said.

Top seed Bartoli romps past Safina

HOBART: French top seed Marion Bartoli dropped only one game in dumping former world number one Dinara Safina out of the Hobart International on Monday.

Bartoli was in commanding form to put out the 2009 Australian Open runner-up, 6-0, 6-1 in one hour and 31 minutes in a night match.

"She (Safina) was a very tough opponent tonight. If you look at the rallies we played I think it was a really great match," the world number 16 said.

"Some days we are really tight and the result goes my way. The score could have much been much tougher and much tighter. 

"I think the crowd really enjoyed match. Both of us put on a great show and it was a great atmosphere." 

Two of the top three seeds were defeated in the first round, with second seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova retiring with a leg injury against American Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Bulgarian third seed Tsvetana Pironkova falling to Peng Shuai of China.

Bowyer denies leaders United victory

 

LONDON: Manchester United remained top of the Premier League but on goal difference alone after Lee Bowyer's late equaliser gave Birmingham a 1-1 draw at St Andrews on Tuesday.

It seemed as if Dimitar Berbatov's sublime goal in the 58th minute had wrapped up all three points for United but Bowyer salvaged a share of the spoils in controversial fashion a minute from time.

There was a suspicion of handball when Birmingham striker Nikola Zigic got to Roger Johnson's cross.

The ball then rebounded to Bowyer - whom United were convinced was offside - and he slid in to score a goal that ensured Birmingham, briefly in the relegation zone, climbed out of the bottom three.

Unsurprisingly, Birmingham manager Alex McLeish had no complaints about Bowyer's goal.

United, unbeaten in the league this season, needed nearly an hour to pierce Birmingham's defence before Berbatov started and finished a fine move that saw the Bulgaria striker score his 14th goal of the season.

By contrast, Wayne Rooney was left searching for his first goal in open play since March after yet another frustrating match for the England striker.

Earlier Mario Balotelli scored a hat-trick as second-placed Manchester City, now level on points with United, who have two games in hand, won 4-0 at home to Aston Villa.

Tottenham Hotspur displaced Premier League champions Chelsea in the top four after a 2-0 win at home to Newcastle.

England international Aaron Lennon's second-half goal broke the deadlock at White Hart Lane.

Then, for the second match in a row, Spurs were reduced to 10 men when Younes Kaboul was sent off in the 65th minute after his head needlessly made contact with Newcastle's Cheik Tiote.

But, as was the case in their win over Villa, Spurs scored a second goal when a man down with Wales midfielder Gareth Bale netting nine minutes from time.

Blackpool's fairytale first season in the Premier League continued with a 2-0 win away to Sunderland -- the Black Cats first home league defeat this season -- secured by striker DJ Campbell's second-half double.

At the other end of the table, Fulham climbed out of the bottom three after a 2-0 win away to Stoke City where defender Chris Baird scored twice for his first goals in four years.

It was only Fulham's third league success this season and their first away victory in the Premier League since August 2009.

Nikola Kalinic scored twice but was then sent off as Blackburn Rovers won 3-1 away to West Bromwich Albion.

West Ham remained in the drop zone after a 1-1 draw at home to Everton.

Tony Hibbert's 16th minute own-goal gave the Hammers the lead before Everton's Seamus Coleman levelled three minutes before half-time.

Chelsea, looking to bounce back from their 3-1 London derby defeat by Arsenal on Monday, face Bolton on Wednesday when the Gunners travel to Wigan and Liverpool take on Wolves.

Fears over readiness of India World Cup venues

 

 
  NEW DELHI: Just six weeks before the cricket World Cup, several venues including India's most famous stadium are chaotic scenes of cranes and rubble, raising fears they will not be ready in time.

The tournament, being held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from February 19, will attract huge crowds and worldwide television audiences drawn by the best international players competing in 49 matches.

But it threatens to be a replay of New Delhi's recent Commonwealth Games, which instead of marking the arrival of a new, modern India on the world stage became a national embarrassment of delays, shoddy works, and alleged corruption.

As the cricket clock ticks down, anxiety is growing over the preparedness of organisers, with a ten-million-dollar upgrade to the 80,000-seater Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata causing the biggest headache.

Amid the diggers, dust and bare concrete, hundreds of labourers wearing virtually no safety equipment are toiling day and night to finish off two new blocks of stands which are still covered in scaffolding.

Pillars rise out of the new stands awaiting roofs that have not been begun, while the club house is still under renovation, with many toilets broken or blocked. Old team photographs are covered in builders' dust.

Seats are not fitted in many tiers, the outer wall surrounding the venue has collapsed in sections, corporate boxes are far from complete, and parts of the stadium are still being dug up.

The ground -- one of the great pilgrimage sites of international cricket -- also has major security problems, with curious members of the public free to walk around it despite the risks of militant attacks in volatile South Asia.

The situation with the World Cup venues is similar to the preparations for the Commonwealth Games, which were undermined by delayed and scruffily finished venues after months of hurried work.

Mumbai's Wankhede stadium, where the final will be held, is another venue rushing to be ready on time after two years of renovations at a cost of 55 million dollars.

A report by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's governing body, leaked to the Deccan Herald newspaper last month named Wankhede, along with Eden Gardens, as not certain to meet a January 31 deadline for hand-over to the ICC.

The report said areas of concern include the floodlights' power supply, new glass that reflects into batsmen's eyes, the umpires' room put in the wrong place and unsuitable anti-doping facilities and medical rooms.

New Delhi's ground -- the Feroz Shah Kotla -- had a crisis in 2009 when a game against Sri Lanka was abandoned after the pitch was deemed too dangerous, but inspectors have since passed the surface following a complete re-lay.

Sri Lanka is confident that its two brand new stadiums -- one in Kandy costing nine million dollars and another in Hambantota costing 13.6 million dollars -- will cope with the rigours of World Cup cricket and large crowds despite being largely untested.

And in Bangladesh, which has never hosted a major sporting tournament before, officials have reassured excited fans that preparations are in full swing with 42 million dollars being spent sprucing up venues.

Tournament director Ratnakar Shetty said that all venues would be completed and tidied up in time for the first ball to be bowled.

The year 2010: Glimmers of hope

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and India’s Rohan Bopanna reached the US Open men’s doubles final in New York. The sixteenth seeded South Asian duo beat the Argentine pair of Eduardo Schwank and Horacio Zeballos 7-6 (7-5) and 6-4. This is the best grand-slam run yet for Qureshi and Bopanna, who at number 15 in the ATP doubles team rankings. The pair was also given the 2010 Grand Prix award of Peace and Sports, at the fourth International Forum of Peace and Sports, in Monaco. Qureshi, already the best player to represent Pakistan on the ATP circuit, has also reached the mixed doubles final at the US Open with his Czech partner Kveta Peschke. The 30-year-old from Lahore is being hailed as a hero in the country already as he continues breaking records at a time when Pakistan’s famous cricket team is going through a tumultuous period.

What could not be recovered from the crash site

Just the way you wouldn’t hand weapons to an untrained army, you wouldn’t hand cameras and a press pass to untrained media representatives. However, fact of the matter is that time and time again we are reminded that the latter has been taking place in Pakistan almost constantly.

A country expects its army to protect and defend them and similarly a country expects its media to responsibly broadcast news to them.

What we saw yesterday in the wake of an enormous national tragedy was not responsible reporting. We could not even wait a few hours before we started looking for suspects to pin the blame on. We couldn’t even wait to verify the death toll before reporting that there were 40 survivors. We couldn’t even let a day pass before inviting talk show guests to discuss conspiracy theories. And most of all, we couldn’t even focus on what the language we were using must sound like to a grief stricken nation.

Yes, 152 people died in the Margalla Hills. They perished. Their families are grieving. The rescue teams and media personnel who saw the crash site first hand must also be grieving. But we are a hasty nation. We want results, we want culprits named and we want to suck every emotion and thought out of your mind when we get a hold of you. And for all of that, we will tell you that the black box was found, even though headlines this morning state that is not the case. We can not play with people’s hopes and emotions – how do you even expect a nation to trust you?

Shoving the mic in the faces of crying relatives, the media asked “How do you feel?” How do you think they felt, respected colleagues? What was a reporter thinking when she boasted about running barefoot to be the first one to ‘break the news’ for her channel?

Later at night, news channels could have easily invited weather experts, CAA officials, air force pilots who fly in those areas, geologists to explain the terrain and possibility of survival, and impact experts – what we got instead were officials who discussed the possibility of planes being shot down near the no-go zone.

Anchors harassed Rehman Malik to explain what happened and how the tragedy took place. Why would you askRehman Malik this question? I understand he is a government official but he doesn’t even know how security lapses allow suicide bombs to go off everyday, so how would you expect him to explain the technicalities of a plane crash?!

Perhaps we have become used to covering terrorist attacks in the most blatant way possible but we could have shown some sensitivity here. Since there was nothing but debris to show on the screens, cameraman panned the tattered chequebooks and broken make-up kits of the crash victims. Yes, because if I had just been killed in a horrible accident, my family would definitely want to see my belongings scattered next to my remains.

The pilot of the “doomed flight” is not sitting at home with his family. Neither is he facing an investigation of the accident. He is among the dead too. He has a family too. He was not a terrorist who wanted to take a plane full of people down with him. But we didn’t consider that when we immediately starting pointing out his age, his fatigue and his medical conditions. Even if there was a problem or a mistake at his end, lets wait for CAA and Air Blue’s official statements and investigation results before brandishing him as the one responsible for the tragedy.

Hundreds and thousands of us have travelled this airline before and because of their safe landing, we are sitting in front of our computer screens today. Yet all of a sudden we are complaining on public forums about what terrible landings travellers of the air line have to face. Guess what angry people – tons of flights often have bad landings but you cannot use that excuse to justify what happened yesterday.

I believe we are a curious nation but I do not believe we are an insensitive one. The prayers, the tears and the shock yesterday proved we have emotions – television channels played with those emotions yesterday. They didn’t realise that a mother of a victim was in shock before asking her what her daughter was like in person. They didn’t realise that flashing “honeymoon couple dead” on their tickers, would not be any more hard-hitting that the deaths of all of those who were not on their honeymoon.

I expect illiterate people or unbothered citizens not to read this but the media can and should read this. What are you doing? I may be just a few years old in this field and I may not understand the implications of being in a media rat-race, but nothing can justify what we did yesterday. Instead of giving the nation the sensitive and true reports it needed, we gave them traumatizing visuals and crude commentary.

I have spoken out loud about media ethics before but never have I felt as embarrassed as I do today to be considered a part of this ‘industry’. If any one in a position of authority understands this, take action and train your team. It’ll be the best public service you could do for a nation of lost souls.

Couldn’t she just find a nice Indian boy?

Now the Shiv Sena has a problem with Indian tennilebrity Sania Mirza marrying Pakistan’s cricket captain Shoaib Malik. To quote the right-wing Hindu party’s octogenarian chief Bal Thackeray: “Had [Sania’s] heart been Indian, it wouldn’t have beaten for a Pakistani. If she wished to play for India, she should have chosen an Indian life partner.” No surprises there.

It kind of reminds me of a comedy sketch in BBC’s Brit-Asian show Goodness Gracious Me. An Indian boy decides to come out of the sandooqcha with his British boyfriend to his middle-class Indian parents. They drop hint after hint to the clueless parents, who keep missing the lobs like Maria Sharapova on clay, until the gay couple declare the full nature of their relationship. The parents forbid him from being gay. Desperate for his parents to accept him, the boy goes up to them and says: “Look, I’m still the same person.” The mother hisses to her son: “You couldn’t have found a nice Indian boy?”

Fine, the Shiv Sena hardly represents benign, traditional, passive-aggressive parents. The punchline, on the other hand is an ace. (No more sports metaphors I promise, not even the very tempting one about Sania playing for ‘love’.)

But the question really isn’t about Hindu nationalism, or it isn’t just. Certainly, the far-right party’s brickbats hurled the way of Shah Rukh Khan would suggest that the Shiv Sainaks have it in for Pakistan-lovin’ Indian Muslims. Here’s the catch: would the reaction have been the same if Mahendra Singh Dhoni decided to marry Naseem Hameed?

Let’s take Bollywood films as a rough social gauge. They would have us believe love conquers the most recalcitrant of parents and transcends societal norms. Poor and rich. South and North. Police officer and the mafia don’s baby girl. But when it comes to cross-border love, the wilting Pakistani girl melts into the arms of her Indian saviour. Take the 1991 film Henna starring Rishi Kapoor and Zeba Bakhtiar (the Kapoors even bagged a bland Pakistani actress for the role!): Kapoor lands across the border and charms a dewy-complexioned Kashmiri in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Cut to 2004, when Shah Rukh Khan stutters his way into the affections of the Pakistani Priety Zinta and carries off his bride 20 years late into the Indian sunset. Male chauvinism meets nationalistic chauvinism? I doubt if any if these films would’ve resonated with the Indian masses had the genders been reversed.

This also explains why the response on the Pakistani side has been so laudatory. “Parliamentarians hail Sania-Shoaib engagement” says one headline; the “FM felicitates Shoaib, Sania” says another. The latter goes on to quote Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureishi: “I would like to say mubarik to the couple…. This and other steps taken by civil society actually strengthens the hands of the Foreign Office.”

My favourite by far is the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) President Dilawar Abbas, breathlessly hoping Sania will play for Pakistan because “Asian women traditionally follow their husbands, which is why I’m hopeful that someday she would be inspired by Shoaib to play for Pakistan.” There you have it: traditional Asian brides following meekly in the footsteps of their consorts. I doubt if the mini-skirt wearing Mirza would be able to play for Pakistan, let alone want to.

In Dubai – where the couple plans to settle – Sania Mirza gets to keep her wardrobe and her passport; her identity doesn’t have to be consumed by her marriage. But when she’s checking in her wedding trousseau at the Dubai airport, she’ll find it hard to leave behind the baggage of history, nationalism, and gender.

U-Turns please, we’re Pakistani!

From lofty and very lonely heights, the foreign writer tries to decipher what went wrong with the game of cricket after the glorious days when the Imperial Sun used to shine all day from East to West. As the westerner purposefully sips on his mild cup of Twining’s Earl Gray tea with spice and cinnamon extract at a small cafe overlooking the grandiose Lord’s Cricket Ground, he racks his head as he struggles to understand the Pakistan Cricket board (PCB). How it is that the PCB could go ahead and ban all of their talented – albeit scoundrel – cricketers, then go ahead and completely reverse that decision, unbanning all previously banned cricketers along with their tainted reputations?

Of course, at some level he realises that the complexity of the issue is far beyond what his pasty-white civilised mind is capable of. And then all of a sudden – SNAP! He gets a great idea for a cricket satire piece (because everything we can’t understand we tend to satirise), and he diligently begins typing his piece for CricInfo. Originally titled ‘U-Turns Please, we’re Pakistani,’ the title was shortly thereafter changed to ‘U-Turns Please, we’re the PCB,’ after a couple of upset Pakistani commentators expressed how hurt they were at being stereotyped and how that might borderline at racism.

The article was a grand old laugh and Alan Tyers, that old boy, had written a fabulous piece but it was even more of a grand old laugh, because it displayed the utter lack of understanding of the inner workings of the Pakistani-mentality by the innocent Englishman. To his credit though, I thought the title ‘U-Turns Please, we’re Pakistani’ was completely apt, until CricInfo had to step in, much like the PCB, and reverse its original decision in favour of diluting the title in a disgusting cesspool of political correctness.

While he did get the inner complexity of the U-Turn phenomenon, what our British subject completely failed to grasp was that we’re Pakistani! Not only are we fond of spontaneous U-Turns, but we’re excessively drawn to double-U-Turns, W-Turns, viscous cuts, and killer swerves. We’re one dastardly nation, that finds it extremely inconvenient to play by the rules. We didn’t come up with traffic rules and certainly didn’t draw out the ‘Gentleman’s Guide to Cricketing Etiquette’ either. We conveniently inherited them from our gracious colonisers who came here all the way from the west, to try to teach us the fruits of civilisation.

However, if you just look at how we’ve adapted to the system of traffic as well as cricket, it is quite evident that we threw both the rule books in the bin and simply tried to figure things out as they made sense to us. So, just like ferocious overtaking from the left isn’t considered one of the deadly sins, rather an incredible talent on Pakistani asphalt, the ingenuity of cricketing innovations like reverse-swing and the deadly doosra (the one that spins the other way) only bare further witness to how the Pakistani way of thinking is simply ulta (the other way around).

Now I don’t blame Tyers, the poor chap, for he possesses what I would call a rather linear faculty of looking at things. Our non-linear, ulta way of thinking is something that’s simply, well, beyond him. Forgive me for using a cricketing analogy for explaining this rather non-communicable idea, but just how cricket itself had its not-so-modest beginnings as a ‘gentleman’s sport’ between the Lords and the commoners (whom do you think batted and who fielded?), cricket in the subcontinent had its beginnings in smelly narrow lanes and puddle-ridden inner-city gullies.

While in the gentleman’s variation of the sport, one had to use the powers of the intellect to out-wit the batsman into throwing away his wicket, the objective in street cricket is to hit the batsman as hard as you can in the ribs or the unmentionable parts, so that he doesn’t dare stand to face the next ripping delivery. Even in batting, where the gentleman would calmly wait and defend the ball with a straight bat, the unruly colonial subject would look to slog the well-flighted ball out of the ground with as cross a bat as possible.

This different approach to the sport is, no doubt, all due to our lateral-thinking abilities. And while test cricket may have been the original format of the game where a gentleman’s straight bat gets the reward of a well-played innings, the tide has since changed towards the likes of the T-20, where a ruthless cross-bat shot is the only thing that could help you win when six runs are needed from one ball. The high and lofty sport of cricket has no doubt suffered from the infamous phenomenon known as ‘reverse-colonisation,’ yet another reversal. Cricket is no longer about being gentlemanly or being honorable or a good sport. Cricket is now about being cut-throat to the bone, taunting and swearing at the batsman, distracting him with all sorts of cross-chatter in strange tongues which he fails to understand.

Back to where it began Pakistan Cricket

Has it really been only about 12 months since we were last in New Zealand? At the conclusion of the Twenty20 series which officially kicked off the six-week tour, it’s hard to deny a distinctive, surreal feeling about being back here.

Within the span of a year, we’ve been subjected to a lifetime of grief. So if there is any place to start burying the ghosts of our past it’s right here. New Zealand was effectively our gateway into hell last year and now we are back, perhaps to finally exit through that same gate from whence we entered.

The way I see it, this tour is important for two reasons: (i) to figure out our best combination for the World Cup, and (ii) the exorcism of our various demons before heading into that tournament.

In that light, our fortunes in the Test matches are fairly subordinate to those in the ODIs. In fact, I’d be tempted to refrain from attaching any relevance to the Test matches because of the pointlessness implicit in a two-Test series. In a test match, where the touring side needs at least one five-day game to come to grips with the format and its demands, it’s a joke having to decide a contest in the space of two Tests. As far as I’m concerned, a 1-0 loss in the tests wont matter a toss as long as we are able to get in some solid batting practice and allow our more inexperienced seamers to get some overs under their belt.

Whereas our last New Zealand tour was dominated by our bowling resources, it’s likely that our batting will define this visit. Our recent form would suggest we’re up to the challenge. By our standards, we had an excellentTest series against South Africa, albeit on docile pitches. However, it still takes discipline to maintain one’s wicket for a stretch of time and our batsmen have too often been serial culprits when it comes to losing focus. Which is why it was heartening to see our top order and, most commendably, Misbah and Azhar Ali stave off the South African attack for sustained passages of play. I look forward to seeing how the batting fares in the trickier conditions of Hamilton and Wellington and any confidence that Hafeez, Younis, Shafiq and Umar (if he plays the Tests) can extract from their test batting will be priceless when carried over to the ODIs.

Speaking of our batsmen, it was good to see Ahmed Shehzad in the Twenty20 squad and his sumptuous half-century in the final game (http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-pakistan-2010/engine/current/match/473920.html) was the highlight of the series for me. His performance may have propelled him into World Cup reckoning and hopefully he will be given a decent run in the six-game ODI part of the tour. With Umar Akmal keeping competently, I’d opt for slotting him in to open at the World Cup with Hafeez at the expense of Kamran.

The New Zealand team is vulnerable right now and their softness was on ample display during their meek capitulation in the final game. This is the same team that got the stuffing pummeled out of them by India and those wounds cannot possibly have healed. For all the cross-border rivalry, India may have presented to us the perfect antidote for our infected system. A couple of comprehensive performance against our traditional bunnies would put us in the perfect frame of mind going into the Word Cup. Forget Southee’s hat-trick and Guptill’s assault. Chalk those down to our habit of being slow out of the blocks. What matters is how fast we can catch up and a weakened New Zealand provides us the perfect opportunity to make up lost ground and more.

New Zealand have always been there when it mattered to give us a morale boosting victory when we need it. Their inevitable trouncing has been the one relative constant in Pakistan cricket and if there was ever a time for them to deliver, it’s now.

Match 2 World Cup 2011 Kenya v New Zealand at Chennai

Group A will play the second match of world cup 2011 at Chennai where Kenya will face New Zealand. Both the teams had not played much matches against each other but experts took New Zealand as the favorites for the match.

Kenya team though have good experience of playing in world cup still they don't have any real tournament apart from one where they manager to reach the super six. This team need a super coach from Australia or Pakistan and then perhaps team fortunes will change one day.

Count Down to Cricket World cup 99 days to go

Now its less than 100 day to go for the most competitive cricket event to stat. You can keep the watch tickling in the front of this blog. Now as its around three monts left for the event to start, you will definitely see more updated about world cup being posted at this ICC Cricket Blog.

ICC has also started the promotion of the event and first step in thei effort was to appoing the great cricketer Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar as the ambassador for 2011 Cricket World Cup. Sachin has been the souce of inspiration not only cricketers in India and abroad but to the sports person in other games as well. By playing this world cup Sachin will equal the record of Pakistan's Javen Maindad to play six world cup tournaments.

Match 3 world Cup - Sri Lanka Vs Canada

The third co-host of the ICC worlc cup 2011 wil l play there first match agains Canada on Feb 20th. For most of the cricket fans this is going to be a one sided match where Sri Lanka will have the advantage of home condition but Canadian fans can remain positive for the Canada cricket team as in cricket any team can beat the number one team on the given day.

It's stil not clear about who will be the 15 memebers representing Canada team however I am sure there will be some people from Indian/Asian roots in the team and they can prove to be the main reason for Canadas success in the tournament.

India vs Pakistan test match second day first

Hi all its was all Wasim Jaffer show at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, on 30 November 2007. India have won first test match from Pakistan already and inthe secong test India have score a huge score on day first. At stumps India was at 352/3 (84.3 overs) with Wasim Jaffer scoring 192 alone on day first. Hopefully he will score his double century tommorow. Saurav Ganguly is playing at 17 runs at his hoem ground, crwod must be expecting a lot from him. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar also score quick 82 runs in just 109 balls. Rahul dravid score half century. SO it was all Idnian batsmen day only Karthik was unlucky to got out at 1.

Here is the Indian scoreboard so far:

W Jaffer not out 192 255 32 0 75.29 

KD Karthik c Khan bTanvir 1 3 0 0 33.33 

R Dravid c Akmal bKaneria 50 118 7 0 42.37 

SR Tendulkar b Kaneria 82 109 12 0 75.22 

SC Ganguly not out 17 25 3 0 68.00 

Extras (b 4, lb 3, nb 3) 10 

Total (3 wickets; 84.3 overs) 352 (4.16 runs per over)

India Vs Sri Lanka Match Video Highlights

Finally India win the match by 3 runs. Below are the video highlights of the match. Click on the play button to watch the videos:

Live India Vs Afghanistan Twenty Twenty Match - T20 World Cup

New Zealand and West Indies made a winning start to the tournament, for New zealand it was a heard fight whic they somehow managed to win in the end with one ball to spare. For West Indies it was a easy win hopefully this win will boost there hopes and home advantage is the next big thing for the carribean team. 

Below are the final scores of both T20 world cup matches: 

New Zealand 139 for 8 (Ryder 42, Murali 2-25) beat Sri Lanka 135 for 6 (Jayawardene 81) by two wickets

West Indies 138 for 9 (Sammy 30, Dockrell 3-16) beat Ireland 68 (Sammy 3-8, Rampaul 3-17) by 70 runs

Today the third match of the tournament will be played between the winners of the First T20 world cup in 2007 and the debutants Afghanistan. Afghanistan team will be playing to mark up there place in world of cricket and in case they manage to cause a setback it would be good for a country whic in already in trouble for various reasons. 

I personaly wish Afghanistan makes it to next round of the tournament atleast, a new coutry needs such thing to boos cricket there. Wheather they win or not is a secondary thing Afghanistan team should play to give a real fight to the Indian team. Match should not be a single sided match. 

Catch up the live action within few hours. 

Another match will be played today between the defending champions Pakistan and Bangladesh.

T20 World Cup Match - Pakistan Vs Bangladesh

India wonthe match again debutant team Afghanistan, well for Afghanistan team I saw some good performance with both with bat and ball. In the batting Noor Ali scored a half century and he looked very confident from the first ball he faced. Also there was fifty runs partnership between Noor and Stanikzai. In bowling Zadran bowled a superb spell giving just 8 runs and took a wicket. Now he might by very happy with such a great bowling figures in his first match that too against worlds number one batting line up. 

Second match of the day will begin in new few minutes between Pakistan and Bangladesh at the same ground. Pakistan have won the toss and elected to bat first. 

Now see will they be able to post a high scre or this one will also be a low scroing match as previous three encounters.

T20 World Cup Match Today Live Score

Today is the day three of the ICC T20 World cup and two matches will be played. The match umber 5 and 6 of the twenty twenty cup tournament will be played among "India Vs South Africa" and "Pakistan Vs Australia".

Both India and Pakistan have won their first matches of the tournament, whereas Australia and South Africa will play the first match of the world cup T20. Both the two teams have still to prove that they are the best in this format of the cricket.

ICC awards - Sachin, Dhoni & Sehwag nominated

Dubai: India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, senior batsman Sachin Tendulkar and opener Virender Sehwag are among the eight cricketers who have been nominated for the October 6 ICC Awards 2010. Eight players from four teams have each been nominated in three different categories for the award which is scheduled to be held in Bangaluru later this year.

Besides the Indian players, Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis from South Africa, Shane Watson and Doug Bollinger from Australia and Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardena will feature prominently in the long-lists for the awards. In addition, there are nine players who are nominated in two distinct categories."The LG ICC Awards are an opportunity for the ICC and FICA to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable performances of the world's top players," said ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat."It is also a chance for followers of our great sport to reflect on some of the great cricketing feats they have witnessed over the past year. This will be the seventh time the awards have been handed out and picking the winners will not be an easy task for the voting academy," he said.

The seventh annual LG ICC Awards, presented in association with the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA), includes nine individual prizes and also features the selection of the Test and ODI Teams of the Year.Also there will be an award for the side that has adhered most to the Spirit of Cricket. For the first time, this year's awards feature a new category, the People's Choice Award, which will be chosen by cricket fans around the world who will get a chance to vote for their favourite player online from a short-list of five cricketers selected by the ICC selection panel.The long-lists of nominations were made by a five-man ICC selection panel chaired by former West Indies captain and current chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee Clive Lloyd.

The panel also includes former international players Angus Fraser of England, Matthew Hayden of Australia, Ravi Shastri of India and Zimbabwe's Duncan Fletcher.The LG ICC Awards ceremony is now in its seventh year and this year it will be held in Bengaluru, India. Previous ceremonies were held in London (2004), Sydney (2005), Mumbai (2006), Johannesburg (2007 and 2009), Dubai (2008).

ICC Cricket World Cup Opening Match - World Cup 2011

Feb 19, 2011 will be the day when the opening match of the ICC cricket world cup 2011 will be played between the two co-hosts India and Bangladesh at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, Bangladesh. Sri Lanka is the third hosting country, initially the other country Pakistan was also one of the co-hosts for the world cup but later ICC ruled out any possibility of world cup matches in Pakistan due to security concern, remember Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked by terrorists in Pakistan while they were on there way to the Stadium and many players had a narrow escape.

Coming back to the first match of the cricket world cup 2011 between India and Bangladesh. Both the teams are in Group B. England, West Indies, Ireland, Netherlands and South Africa are the other teams in the Group B.

India may seem to be the favorites for the world cup opener match however If you go by stats then the only world cup match played between India and Bangladesh was won by Bangladesh, also match in being played in Bangladesh thus the Bangla team can be a surprise package in the opening of the 2011 cricket world cup.

India Beat Bangladesh 2-0

As predicted Gautam Gambhir will not have any chance of chasing a bit target and hence will not be able to equal Sir Don Dradman's record of 6 consecutive centuries in test cricket. The best part of thhis test series was Zaheer Khan getting Man of the match and man of the series award. Its very rare to see a bowler getting this award on batting friendly picthes.

Injuries are what India have got along with the winners trophy. Yuvraj Singh will be out got the first test match againse South Africa. Other players who got injured are Sreesanth, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid. Let see will the injuries cause any trouble for the indian cricket team for the comming series against South Africa. You can check out the India - South Africa series match details.

Few wallpapers from the test series: