CLT20 set to have team from Pakistan

The Champions League Twenty20 is set to have a team from Pakistan for the first time. The BCCI has said it will recommend to the tournament's governing council, which is scheduled to meet on May 28, that it had no objection to a team from Pakistan participating.

The decision was taken at the BCCI's working committee meeting in Chennai today, where it was also decided to distribute approx $13m to ex-Indian players, set up a BCCI anti-corruption unit, and set up matches between IPL teams and Associate/Affiliate countries.

Srinivasan said the matter of Pakistan's participation in the CLT20 had already come up in the tournament's governing council. "The Working Committee has decided to invite a team from Pakistan to play in Champions League Twenty20 to be held in October," Srinivasan said after the working committee meeting. "CLT20 is owned by BCCI, Cricket Australia, and Cricket South Africa. So we will recommend to the Governing Council that the BCCI has no objection and is prepared to invite a Pakistan team in the Champions League.

"CLT20 will be played in India. As far as inviting a Pakistani team is concerned, it will be done by the Governing Council. The BCCI will make the recommendation to the Governing Council which will decide on the matter. This matter came up in the Governing Council of the Champions League. There was discussion around the composition of the tournament this year and on the number of teams and who will be invited. A feeling was expressed that a team from Pakistan could be invited."

The PCB had been pushing for the inclusion of sides from Pakistan, the only major Test-playing nation to not have had teams in either the qualifiers or the main round of the tournament since its inception in 2009.

Rajiv Shukla, the BCCI vice-president and a minister in the Indian federal government, said there was no interference or green signal from the government. "Though PCB were asking us from the last three years, we did not consider that," Shukla said. "But now we felt it was good time to invite them and have acceded to the PCB request."

It is understood that it was Srinivasan who proposed the matter during the discussion. Everyone felt that the political climate was conducive for a team from Pakistan to come and play and the working committee members accepted the proposal unanimously.

The Champions League is played between domestic T20 winners from various countries. Sialkot Stallions are the current Pakistan domestic T20 champions. The Sialkot Regional Cricket Association had requested the PCB last month to make efforts to enable the participation of Sialkot in the Champions League. The PCB, in turn, had said that Sialkot's participation was dependent on the restoration of bilateral ties between India and Pakistan.

Sialkot were invited to the inaugural edition of the tournament towards the end of 2008, but it was postponed after the terror attacks in Mumbai in November that year. The fall-out of those attacks strained the political relationship between India and Pakistan, and consequently, the cricketing one between the BCCI and the PCB.

Pakistan players are currently excluded from the Indian Premier League as well. Shukla, also the IPL chairman, had said last month that their participation was also dependent on the resumption of India-Pakistan cricket ties.

Read More

Chennai Super Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by 4 wickets in an important Indian Premier League (IPL) match

 
JAIPUR: Chennai Super Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by 4 wickets in an important Indian Premier League (IPL) match played here at Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Thursday.
Chasing 127-run target, Chennai lost wickets at regular intervals and looked in trouble before Anirudha Srikkanth (18 not out) and Albie Morkel (18 not out) changed the gear for the visitors.
Both the batsmen smashed two sixes and a four each and played identical six deliveries as the duo helped the defending champions achieved the modest target with 11 balls to spare.

Read More

Indian Premier League, 2012 / Points table

Latest Point Table

Teams	Mat	Won	Lost	Tied	N/R	Pts	Net RR	For	Against
Kolkata Knight Riders	12	8	3	0	1	17	+0.600	1561/205.1	1480/211.1
Delhi Daredevils	11	8	3	0	0	16	+0.880	1579/189.5	1567/210.4
Mumbai Indians	12	7	5	0	0	14	-0.198	1687/234.5	1715/232.2
Royal Challengers Bangalore	12	6	5	0	1	13	-0.223	1790/216.2	1868/219.5
Rajasthan Royals	12	6	6	0	0	12	+0.265	1932/236.0	1859/234.4
Kings XI Punjab	12	6	6	0	0	12	-0.309	1796/237.0	1860/235.5
Chennai Super Kings	12	5	6	0	1	11	+0.013	1710/220.0	1623/209.1
Pune Warriors	13	4	9	0	0	8	-0.238	1956/259.2	1945/250.0
Deccan Chargers	12	2	9	0	1	5	-0.621	1675/220.0	1769/214.5

Read More

Gayle does it again for Bangalore

It wasn't the easiest of pitches to bat on at the Wankhede Stadium, and Mumbai Indians possess the most potent bowling attack in the competition, but none of that mattered to Chris Gayle as he swung sixes on his way to the orange cap, 500 runs in the tournament and an unbeaten 82 that propelled Royal Challengers Bangalore to the fourth spot.

Victories for Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab on Tuesday and Royal Challengers' win today has tightened the table again, with only three points separating the five teams in the middle.

Mumbai's batting has rarely been at its best this season, and continued to struggle today. The Royal Challengers bowling has had some off days this year, but turned in one of their more impressive performances as Vinay Kumar's double-strike in the second over and Muttiah Muralitharan's two wickets off successive deliveries later in the innings limited Mumbai to 141.

With the ball nipping around, it seemed a competitive score, particularly given the strength of Mumbai's bowling. Gayle and Tillakaratne Dilshan watchfully played out the main threat, Lasith Malinga, and focussed their energy on scoring plenty off the rest.

As he has been all season, Gayle was relatively cautious early on. Mumbai had two gilt-edged chances to dismiss him within the Powerplays: first, in the second over when a direct hit would have caught him well short, and then in the sixth over when Dwayne Smith put down a skier at cover. That potentially game-changing drop rounded off a horror outing for Smith, who also flopped with the bat a mere three days after his final-over heroics against Chennai Super Kings.

Dilshan was dismissed in the ninth over, and the asking rate began to climb towards nine, but it only took Gayle three deliveries to transform the match. Pragyan Ojha gifted him two friendly full tosses on leg stump which were contemptuously dispatched over the leg side; the second of those had been a no-ball as well, and Gayle dismissed the extra delivery for another six, over long-off for a change. That 22-run over brought the required rate closer to seven. Mumbai were never in the game after that as Virat Kohli found some form and helped Gayle finish it off with two overs to spare.

It hadn't begun well either for Mumbai with Zaheer Khan and Vinay troubling their top order. James Franklin upper cut a catch to third man, and Rohit Sharma was plumb lbw later in Vinay's over as Mumbai stuttered to 5 for 2 - the lowest score in the IPL after four overs.

Sachin Tendulkar then survived a close call for lbw, and was again reprieved when a Kohli throw from backward point was wide. Mumbai finally got some momentum in the sixth over as Tendulkar struck three successive boundaries - the first off the bat in the innings. Just as Mumbai were getting some stability, 21-year-old seamer Harshal Patel dismissed Tendulkar getting him to top-edge a pull.

The signing of Smith and the return of Kieron Pollard made the Mumbai batting seem more solid, and when Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik added 44 quick runs, the stage seemed set for a late onslaught from the two West Indians. Murali, though, removed both the well-set Karthik and Smith in the 16th over, seemingly denting Mumbai's recovery. Harbhajan, however, swung a couple of boundaries off Zaheer and Pollard powered two sixes in the final over from Vinay to lift Mumbai, but not to a total that was beyond Gayle's

Read More

Pakistan vs Australia series in Srilanka closed to T20 WC

Australia wants Pak ODI series closer to T20 WC

Cricket Australia has asked the Pakistan
Cricket Board to schedule the limited overs
series between the two countries closer to
the ICC T20 World Cup this year in Sri Lanka.

Series will be held in Sri Lanka

Read More

Pakistan Team Squad for Srilanka Tour

Pakistan captain Misbah retires from international Twenty20s, Hafeez to take over as captain in format

Pakistan's Test squad for series against Sri Lanka:
M Hafeez, T Umar, A Ali, Y Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq (Captain), Faisal Iqbal, Ayub Dogar, Afaq Raheem, Adnan Akmal, U Gul, S Ajmal, Abdur Rehman, Mohammad Sami, Junaid Khan, A Cheema.

Pakistan's ODI Squad for series against Sri Lanka:
M Hafeez, Nasir Jamshed, Y Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq (Captain), U Akmal, Sarfaraz Ahmad, Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Rahat Ali, Saeed Ajmal, Abdur Rehman, Mohammad Sami, Asad Shafiq, Aizaz Cheema, Azhar Ali, Haris Sohail , Imran Farhat.

Pakistan's squad for Twenty20 against Sri Lanka:
Mohammad Hafeez (Captain), Khalid Latif, Ahmad Shahzad, Nasir Jamshed, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Shakeel Ansar (Wicket keeper), Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Raza Hassan, Saeed Ajmal, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Sami, Hammad Azam.

Read More

Pakistan's Misbah steps down as Twenty20 captain

Misbah-ul-Haq has stepped down* as Pakistan's Twenty20 captain. PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf, speaking at the same press conference, said that 

Mohammad Hafeez will take over as captain from Misbah.

Misbah had captained Pakistan in eight games. His last Twenty20 assignment was the three-match series against England in the UAE in February, which England won 2-1.

Read More