Tri-series: Sri Lanka win toss, elect to bowl

SYDNEY: Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene won the toss and elected to bowl against Australia in the third match of the ODI tri-series here today.

Australia have not made any change to the side that beat India in their previous match.

For Sri Lanka, Sachithra Senanayake has replaced Thisara Perera.

Sri Lanka: Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Sachithra Senanayake, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Dhammika Prasad, Lahiru Thirimanne

Australia: Michael Clarke (c), David Warner, Matthew Wade, Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey, David Hussey, Dan Christian, Ryan Harris, Mitchell Starc, Clint McKay, Xavier Doherty. AGENCIES

Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 11 runs

Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 11 runs in the in group ‘A’ match of the World Cup, playing on R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo. Following the target of 278 host side can just score 266 runs. Shining once again Afridi took 4 wickets. Misbah-ul-Haq scored unbeatable 83 runs.

Pakistan won the toss and decided to bat first. Both openers Ahmed Shehzad and Muhammad Hafeez were looking confident but on the total of 28, Shehzad went back to pavilion after scoring 13 runs, Sangakkara took his catch behind the wicket on the ball of Perera. New batsman Kamran Akmal played sensiable cricket along with Hafeez and added 48 runs in the second wicket partnership. In 14^th over Hafeez turned back on 31. On the total of 105, three wicket of Pakistan fell when Kamran Akmal wanted to hit a six to Herath coming out from the crease but he couldn’t play the ball and Sangakkara made not mistake in stumping.

Middle-order Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq countiuned to move the score responsibly and pick their side’s total to 213, on this spot Younis gave the catch to Jayawardene, Herath was the bowler, he scored 72 runs on 76 balls. Umar Akmal goes after adding his 10 runs to his team’s total. Boom Boom Afridi scored 16 runs on 12 balls with the help of 3 boundaries. At the end of limited number of overs the final score of green shirts was 277/7. Misbah-ul-Haq was unbeatable on 83. Rangana Herath picks 2 wickets.

Following the target, the host side took a slow but confident start. The first wicket of Eye-Landers fell on 76 when Upul Tharanga went back to pavilion after scoring 33 runs. After the gap of 12 runs Tillakaratne Dilshan bowled out by Afridi, he scored 41 runs. The danger man Mahila Jayawardene was taken by Shoaib Akhtar on just 1 run. Thailan Samaravera scored a single run. After losing 4 wickets on 96 runs Captain Kumar Sangakkara played a sensiable innings along with Chamara Silva and added 74 runs in the fifth wicket partnership. The innings of captain ended when he was one less then his fifty.

On the other end Chamara Silva continued to struggle, but his resistance finished on 57 runs. Angelo Mathews bowled out by Afridi after scoring 8.  At the end of specified number of overs the final score of Sri Lankan team was 266/9.

Shahid Afridi, who picks 5 wickets in the first match, once again giving his best performance got 4 wickets. Shoaib Akhtar was the second prominent bowler with 2 wickets.

Sehwag leads India fightback in final test

COLOMBO: Virender Sehwag led India”s bold reply to Sri Lanka”s first innings of 425 with an unbeaten 97 on the second day of the third and final test on Wednesday.

Sehwag cracked 17 fours, 11 of them off left-arm pacer Chanaka Welegadara, as India reached 180 for two. Sachin Tendulkar, making a record 169th test appearance, is unbeaten on 40.

Earlier, Thilan Samaraweera eased to a 12th test hundred and was unbeaten on 137 when Sri Lanka”s final wicket fell.

Lasith Malinga gave Sri Lanka the breakthrough in the 11th over when Murali Vijay lofted an easy catch to mid-on with his score on 14.

Angelo Mathews then got rid of Rahul Dravid for 23 trapping him leg before, but in his next over he put down a hot return catch offered by Sehwag with his score on 52. Sehwag and Tendulkar have so far added 88 for the third wicket.

Samaraweera had reached his century in the final over before lunch, moving from 99 to 104 courtesy of an overthrow as he pushed the ball for a single to square leg but the return to the bowler”s end ricocheted off the stumps and sped to the boundary.

Sri Lanka lost their last four wickets for 44 runs after lunch with Ishant Sharma ending the innings with the wickets of Ajantha Mendis and Chanaka Welagedara.

Sri Lanka lead the series 1-0.

Much at stake for India in second Test

MUMBAI: India will have to lift their game by many notches when they take on Sri Lanka in the second cricket Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) here Monday.

Sri Lanka are 1-0 up in the three-Test series after their 10-wicket victory against India at Galle. But Sri Lanka would be without strike bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga, who took 15 wickets in between them at Galle.

While Murali played his last Test at Galle, Malinga is out with a stiff knee.

Mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis, who tormented the Indian batsmen in 2008, is likely to replace Murali. Mendis have not been successful against India after that series, but he is in good form and took six wickets in the warm-up match.

Malinga is likely to be replaced by paceman Dilhara Fernando.

The absence of Murali and Malinga will give India an edge, but the visitors will have to put up a much-improved show if they are to level the series and also save their number one position in Test rankings.

”If we lose the No.1 ranking, we will try to get it back. We just have to play well and the rankings will take care of itself,” Dhoni said.

The Indian bowling was hardly convincing at Galle. Ishant Sharma was far from his best and with Zaheer Khan out with an injury, India”s fast bowling is lacking someone who can take wickets with the new ball. Abhimanyu Mithun was impressive in his debut Test and with the wicket at SSC looking to help seamers in the beginning, the India will count on the young pacer to make a mark.

The Indian think-tank could as well play three pacers and one spinner which means that Munaf Patel, who has been recalled for the series, may get a chance. In that case, Pragyan Ojha will have to sit out.

In the spin department, Harbhajan Singh will have to share more responsibility. The off-spinner, who was recovering from a bout of flu in the first Test, looked out of sorts at Galle.

The batsmen, too, will have to pull up their socks.

Also, Gautam Gambhir has a niggle in the knee and the team management would have to take a final call on him.

The home team would look to keep the pressure on India and maintain their six match winning streak at SSC where they have not a lost a Test in six years.

”We are focused on winning the series. We have bowlers who are looking for a chance to make a mark for themselves. This is their opportunity,” Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said.

Butt open to suggestions as England loom

LEEDS: Pakistan”s novice captain Salman Butt is happy for his players to keep offering him advice during their forthcoming series against England if it helps to build a united team.

Butt, in his first match as captain, led Pakistan to a three-wicket second Test win against Australia at Headingley here on Saturday — a victory that ended a record run of 13 straight Test defeats at the hands of the Aussies stretching back 15 years.

While Pakistan were in the field, several players could be seen wanting a word with their new skipper and, while some captains might see that as a challenge to their authority, 25-year-old opening batsman Butt was delighted.

“Being humans we are never happy, when you have advice you never want it and when you do want it you say ”nobody comes and gives it to me”,” Butt said.

“I”m very lucky. The best thing they (the players) are doing is they are reading the game, they are in the game.

“It”s not that I take all the advice, but it”s important for me that every player is in the game and thinking about the game.

“If I”m open to every man, even a youngster playing his first game, then that will mean he will believe in me. So to build a team, I think this is a very important thing to do.”

Pakistan just did enough to reach their victory target of 180 against Australia here at Headingley on Saturday, although they lost seven wickets before they were able to square a two-match series at 1-1.

Only a week earlier, Australia had thrashed Pakistan by 150 runs at Lord”s, a defeat that prompted Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi to quit Test cricket.

But teenager Mohammad Aamer, well supported by fellow seamers Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul, took advantage of overcast conditions at Headingley for a match.

Mani slams PCB over security ”delay”

LEEDS: A Pakistani who was once world cricket”s top administrator has accused the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) of dragging its feet in the bid to restore international matches to the country.

Pakistan became a no-go area for cricket”s leading nations after an armed attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in March last year killed eight people, as well as injuring seven Sri Lankan players and their assistant coach.

But Ehsan Mani, a Pakistani who was president of the International Cricket Council (ICC) from 2003 to 2006, said the PCB”s failure to submit a report on the attack meant the necessary first step for restoring the confidence of the world cricket community in Pakistan had still to be taken.

“The PCB has yet to submit a report on the Lahore attacks to the ICC, and unless and until they do so teams will continue to refuse to tour Pakistan,” Mani told media.

“By not submitting the report, the PCB has not been able to form a strategy with the ICC and until the member boards analyse that report they will continue to hesitate when it comes to touring Pakistan,” said Mani, an accountant who was born in Pakistan but has long since settled in England.

Pakistan was due to stage matches in next year”s World Cup. But the attack on the Sri Lanka bus saw the tournament restricted to the three remaining Asian Test nations of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Even before the Lahore incident, the likes of Australia repeatedly refused to tour Pakistan, where thousands have died in a decade of conflict.

The security situation led Pakistan to play its recent ”home” series against Australia, which ended with a three-wicket second Test win for Pakistan at Headingley on Saturday, in England.

Sri Lanka bat against India in second Test

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara won the toss and elected to bat in the second cricket Test against India at the Sinhalese Sports Club on Monday.

India, trailing 1-0 in the three-match series, suffered twin blows when opener Gautam Gambhir and middle-order batsman Yuvraj were ruled out of the key match.

Gambhir has a knee injury, while Yuvraj developed high fever overnight.

The duo will be replaced by left-hand batsman Suresh Raina, making his Test debut after playing 98 one-day internationals, and opener Murali Vijay.

Sri Lanka changed the entire frontline bowling attack that won them the first Test in Galle on 10 wickets.

With Muttiah Muralitharan now retired and fast bowler Lasith Malinga injured, Sri Lanka replaced them with spinner Ajantha Fernando and Dilhara Fernando.

Also out were left-arm spinner Rangana Herath and seamer Chanaka Welegedara. Their places went to debutant off-spinner Suraj Randiv and fast bowler Dammika Prasad.
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Venkatsai Laxman, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ishant Sharma.

Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Tharanga Paranavitana, Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Angelo Mathews, Prasanna Jayawardene, Ajantha Mendis, Dilhara Fernando, Suraj Randiv, Dammika Prasad.

Sri Lanka outclass India by 10 wickets

GALLE: World bowling record-holder Muttiah Muralitharan retired with 800 Test wickets on Thursday as Sri Lanka thumped India by 10 wickets in their first match.

The off-spinner had last man Pragyan Ojha caught at slip by Mahela Jayawardene to reach the landmark and terminate India”s second innings in the post-lunch seesion of the final day”s play.

India, who were made to follow on 244 runs behind, were bowled out for 338 in their second knock, leaving Sri Lanka a modest target of 95 runs in the opening match of the three-Test series.

The hosts cruised home without losing a wicket as Tharanga Paranavitana followed his first-innings century with 23 not out and Tillakaratne Dilshan smashed an unbeaten 68 off 47 balls.

Dilshan signalled the emphatic win by lofting off-spinner Harbhajan Singh over long-on for six.

Muralitharan, 38, who has taken more Test (800) and one-day (515) wickets than any bowler in history, remains open to playing limited-overs games.

He claimed 5-63 in the first innings of his final appearance and 3-128 in the second to set up the hosts” victory at the Galle International Stadium.

The spinner needed 23 overs to move from 799 to 800 following a doughty rearguard action by India, whose last three wickets added 141 runs after being 197-7 at one stage.

Venkatsai Laxman led the fightback with a defiant 69, adding 49 for the eighth wicket with debutant Abhimanyu Mithun and 68 for the ninth with Ishant Sharma.

India had added five runs to their overnight total of 181-5 when fast bowler Lasith Malinga bowled skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni with a toe-crushing yorker to claim his fourth wicket in the innings.

Muralitharan, who dismissed Yuvraj Singh off the last ball on Wednesday, trapped Harbhajan Singh leg-before in the day”s fourth over to move to 799 wickets.

Mithun helped himself to five boundaries in his 25 when he became Malinga”s fifth victim in the innings to make India 246-8.

Laxman was run out by a direct throw from Angelo Mathews, but Sharma hung on for 106 deliveries to hit a career-best 31 not out.

India, the top-ranked Test side, have not won a Test series in Sri Lanka since 1993.

The action now shifts to Colombo where the second Test starts at the Sinhalese sports club on July 26, followed by the third at the P. Sara Oval on August 3.

Sri Lanka bat against India in first Test

GALLE: Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara won the toss and elected to bat in the first Test against India at the Galle International Stadium on Sunday.

The match marks the final Test appearance for world bowling record holder Muttiah Muralitharan, who needs eight more scalps to reach the 800-wicket mark.

The start was delayed by 30 minutes due to a wet outfield caused by heavy overnight rain. Bad weather has been forecast on all five days of the Test.

India awarded a Test cap to 20-year-old Abhimanyu Mithun, who will partner Ishant Sharma in the absence of the injured duo Zaheer Khan and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth.

Sri Lanka went in with two seamers in Lasith Malinga and Chanaka Welegedara, and brought in Rangana Herath to share spin duties with Muralitharan.

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Venkatsai Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ishant Sharma. 12th man: Murali Vijay.

Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Tharanga Paranavitana, Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Angelo Mathews, Prasanna Jayawardene, Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan, Rangana Herath, Chanaka Welegedara. 12th man: Suraj Randiv.

Umpires: Daryl Harper (AUS) and Rod Tucker (AUS)

TV umpire: Tyronne Wijewardene (SRI)

Match referee: Andy Pycroft (ZIM)

India thrash Sri Lanka to win Asia Cup title

DAMBULLA, Sri Lanka, June 24, 2010 (AFP) – India”s pace battery led by Ashish Nehra demolished Sri Lanka to help their team win the Asia Cup with a comfortable 81-run win on Thursday.

Dinesh Karthik top-scored with 66 as India made 268-6 after electing to bat in the day-night final, before the defending champions and hosts were shot out for 187.

India, who last won the region”s premier one-day prize in 1994, denied Sri Lanka a hat-trick of titles following their victories in 2004 and 2008.

Nehra claimed four wickets, including two in one over, as Sri Lanka were reduced to 51-5 by the 16th over before being bundled out in the 45th over.

India never looked back after hard-hitting opener Tillakaratne Dilshan was dismissed off the fifth delivery, holing out to mid-on off seamer Praveen Kumar.

Kumar, who made use of windy conditions to swing the ball, bowled an unchanged opening spell of nine overs in which he conceded just 29 runs.

Fellow seamer Zaheer Khan bowled Upul Tharanga, before Nehra wrecked havoc by having Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews caught behind in the 14th over.

Nehra also removed Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara for 17, but Thilina Kandamby (31) and Chamara Kapugedara (55 not out) delayed the end.

Nehra”s 4-40 was supported by Zaheer”s 2-36 and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja”s 2-29.

Karthik, who replaced the injured Virender Sehwag, hit nine boundaries to lead India”s batting at the Rangiri stadium in Dambulla.

Karthik put on 62 for the second wicket with Virat Kohli (28) and 46 for the third with skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (38).

Rohit Sharma propped up with the middle-order with a fluent 41, before Jadeja boosted the score with an unbeaten 25.

Kandamby, who had failed to take a wicket with his leg-spin in 32 previous one-dayers, stunned India”s top order with the dismissals of Karthik and Dhoni.

Sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga finished with 2-57, while Nuwan Kulasekara claimed 1-44.

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