Mahendra Singh Dhoni #1, Again

Mahendra Singh Dhoni retained his top spot in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship Batting Rankings. Yuvraj Singh is the only other Indian batsman to be featured in the top ten list.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni with rating points of 779 leads the pack of ODI batsman, followed by Australia's Michael Hussey. Hussey trails Dhoni by just 3 points. Australians have three players in the top ten, followed by two each from India and West Indies, and one player each from South Africa, England and Pakistan.

Top Ten ODI Batmen
The top ten list is as follows:

1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
2. Michael Hussey (Australia)
3. Graeme Smith (South Africa)
4. Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies)
5. Chris Gayle (West Indies)
6. Yuvraj Singh (India)
7. Ricky Ponting (Australia)
8. Kevin Pietersen (England)
9. Mohammad Yousuf (Pakistan)
10. Andrew Symonds (Australia)

Other Indians in the Top 100 ODI Batsmen list
The other Indian players to be featured in the top-100 list is as follows:

12. Sachin Tendulkar
21. Virender Sehwag
23. Gautam Gambhir
39. Suresh Raina
40. Rahul Dravid
64. Robin Uthappa
73. Rohit Sharma
85. Irfan Pathan
98. Virat Kohli

For the complete list, please refer to Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings

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Asia Cup 2008: Will the Indian team sparkle?

Yet another cricket tournament! Yes, the ninth edition of the Asia Cup is about to commence today with two day-night matches. Pakistan will take on Hong Kong in a Group B match while Bangladesh meets United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Group A.

Sri Lanka is featured in the Group A along with Bangladesh and UAE. India is the third team in Group B along with Pakistan and Hong Kong. The three teams will meet each other once in group matches and the top two teams from each group will progress to the next stage. The four teams will again meet each other once, with the top two teams qualifying for the finals to be played on 6th July 2008.

The Indians had so far won the Asia cup four times; Sri Lanka lifted it thrice and Pakistan once. India’s last triumph was 13 years back in the year 1995. The tournament has a history that dates back to 1984 when the first tournament was launched in UAE.

India plays Hong Kong tomorrow in a day-night encounter. Interesting news is that Dhoni will bat up the order. I would prefer Dhoni to come in at No. 5, with Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh occupying the No.3 and No. 4 slots. Gambhir and Sehwag would open the batting. Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma and Piyush Chawla are certain to be in the bowling line-up. That leaves a slot for a batsman, an all-rounder and a bowler. I would love to have Yusuf Pathan as an all-rounder and Manpreet Gony to fill the bowler slot. The last batsman slot should go either to Robin Uthappa or Suresh Raina. I am happy with the approach of both these batsmen. The only problem is that both these batsmen get good starts, but do not go on to make a big score.

A good performance from Dhoni’s men could light up the tournament, which otherwise looks to be a dull encounter.

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Kings XI Punjab gets closer to a semi-final spot

Kings XI Punjab defeated Mumbai Indians by a solitary run, in one of the most exciting matches played in the Indian Premier League. Such tense, intensely fought matches would increase the spectators’ interest in the Twenty20 format.

Marsh and Pomersbach sizzle
Sachin Tendulkar won the toss and decided to bowl first. It looked like a good decision when Shaun Pollock removed James Hopes in just the third delivery of the match. But, the Mumbai Indians had to wait until the 15th over for the second wicket. During this period, the Australians Shaun Marsh and Luke Pomersbach played some exciting cricket. They put together an emphatic partnership that yielded 133 runs in just 86 deliveries. Shaun Marsh was dismissed for 81 runs from 56 deliveries, but Luke Pomersbach continued and remained unbeaten on 79 from 50 deliveries. Kings XI Punjab completed the innings with a challenging total of 189 for 4.

So Near, Yet So Far
Mumbai Indians started the chase in a splendid fashion. Sree Santh helped the scoreboard by starting off with three wide deliveries. Runs started to flow from the bat of Sanath Jayasuriya. When he was dismissed by Sree Santh, Mumbai Indians were off to a flying start with 36 runs on the board from just 16 deliveries. Dwayne Smith came in at No. 3 and continued from Jayasuriya left. With Tendulkar too getting into the act, this pair put on 45 runs from 35 deliveries. Smith’s departure did not change the way the Mumbai Indians were progressing. Nayar came in next and continued attacking the bowling. The third wicket partnership was worth 46 runs from just 28 deliveries.

By the end of 16 overs, the Mumbai Indians were comfortably placed at 156 for 3. With Sachin batting fluently and Robin Uthappa for company, 34 runs from the last 4 overs should have been an easy target. But, the next two overs changed it all. Sachin Tendulkar was run out in the 17th over and Yuvraj Singh accounted for Shaun Pollock and Robin Uthappa in the 18th over. But, the drama was not over yet. With 19 runs required off the last over bowled by VRV Singh, Chritnis hit a six off a no-ball and a four off the next delivery. 8 runs required from 5 deliveries. What followed? Three run-outs in five deliveries and the Mumbai Indians fell short of the target by just one run.

Sachin, Why?
Since the match went so close, several questions were raised about Sachin Tendulkar’s captaincy. Why did he choose Nehra to bowl the last over while Shaun Pollock had still one over left? Why did he not give Jayasuriya a chance to bowl? In fact, Yuvraj Singh picked two wickets for 12 runs in two overs. Mumbai Indians lost a match which they should have won comfortably in the end.

Where do we go from here?
That ends the six-match winning streak of the Mumbai Indians. Punjab, now, has 16 points and is very close to securing a semi-final spot. We will discuss about the match between Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings and Dravid’s Bangalore Royal Challengers in the next article.

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India registers a facile win against the host

India vs West Indies, ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 - Warm up match #2
Date: 09 Mar 2007

Catches : 3 / Stumpings : 0
Batting: Did not bat

The West Indies were cleaned by the Indian bowlers for just 85 runs, with Munaf Patel having an extraordinary spell of 6-2-10-4. Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik finished off the match in less than 20 overs. Sehwag once again missed the opportunity by not scoring any runs.

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