Super Kings secure big win in run-fest

Chennai Super Kings 242 for 6 (Raina 90, McCullum 49, Jadeja 40*) beat Dolphins 188 (Chetty 38, Mohit 4-41, Bravo 2-17) by 54 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

A stunning 43-ball 90 from Suresh Raina was the cornerstone of Chennai Super Kings' 54-run win over Dolphins in Bangalore but the contest, at least for the early part of the Dolphins chase, was far more closely matched than the eventual victory margin suggested.

Dolphins captain Morne van Wyk had opted to bowl and said his decision had been influenced by the reputation the Chinnaswamy Stadium had for aiding sides batting second. For 20 overs of Super Kings' innings, however, van Wyk could only watch from behind the stumps as Raina, Brendon McCullum, Faf du Plessis and Ravindra Jadeja plundered runs at will, powering Super Kings to 242 for 6.

The Dolphins response was equally explosive at the start. Van Wyk and Cameron Delport raised the side's 50 in 15 balls. By the end of the Powerplay, Dolphins had raced to 85 for 2, bettering the CLT20 record set by Super Kings earlier in the day. As is typical in big chases, the breakthroughs came when the Dolphins batsmen kept playing for the big shots, but they were also left to rue a poor decision from umpire K Srinath, who adjudged Van Wyk lbw when a ball from R Ashwin had pitched several inches outside leg stump. The dismissal came in an over where the Dolphins captain had smacked two fours and a six off the bowler.

After van Wyk was dismissed, Dolphins' hopes rested on Delport who swung and swiped his way to a nine-ball 34. All but two of the deliveries he faced had raced to the boundary and his bustling innings had threatened to play out the same way as Andre Russell's a few days ago before Mohit Sharma ended it with a slower ball.

After Delport was out, the pressure of keeping pace with a spiraling asking rate was squarely on Cody Chetty. He tried with a gamely 37 off 28 balls but his dismissal gave Super Kings an opening to stifle the scoring rate for a couple of overs and the bowlers responded. The target left Dolphins with no room for quiet overs and when those did come, especially during Bravo's tight spell filled with variations of slower balls, whatever little hope they had left slipped away quickly.

In sharp contrast, unburdened by a target hanging over them, the Super Kings innings motored along at top speed. MS Dhoni had some concerns at the toss about how the track would behave due to the presence of a few patches but there was little to worry about for Super Kings once they began. After Dwayne Smith fell early to the left-arm spin of Keshav Maharaj, Raina and McCullum set about dismantling the Dolphins attack, matching each other almost stroke for stroke during a relentless 91-run stand that came off 45 balls.

The Dolphin pacers, including Kyle Abbott, had few answers to the fearsome shots McCullum unleashed either side of the wicket, harking back in some ways to the whirlwind century he played during the first game of the Indian Premier League.

The pair led Super Kings to the second-best Powerplay score of the season, smashing 70 in the first six overs. Raina got off the mark with a four and after that, kept carving out sixes effortlessly. The scoring rate barely suffered a hiccup when McCullum was out for 49 - caught at deep midwicket off a mis-timed shot - as Raina took over the lead role. He marched to a fifty off 27 balls and in a third-wicket partnership of 65 with du Plessis, contributed 53 runs.

The gaps between the landmarks showed how effectively Super Kings had negated the Dolphins attack as the side progressed to 50 to 100 and 150 in 25, 28 and 26 balls, respectively. Sixty-four of Raina's 90 runs came in boundaries and by the time his top edge settled in Delport's hands at point, Raina had become the first Indian batsman to move past 5000 runs in T20s and was one short of 200 sixes in the format.

Dolphins' relief over quick wickets at the end was also short-lived as Jadeja smashed 40 off 14 balls to produce a big flourish. Abbott came back and bowled a couple of quiet overs but by then the total had swelled to 242, equalling the tournament record set by Otago Volts last season.

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Spinners stretch Knight Riders' streak to 11

          Kolkata Knight Riders 153 for 6 (Gambhir 60, Uthappa 46) beat Lahore Lions 151 for 7 (Shehzad 59, Akmal 40, Narine 3-9) by four wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Kolkata Knight Riders' four-wicket victory over Lahore Lions followed the template that

This match was blighted by abysmal fielding. The number of catches put down, stumpings missed and regulation stops messed up was astonishing. Narine, though, turned in another world-class performance that underlined his reputation as the best in the Twenty20 business, and 19-year-old chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav added to the buzz about him with a stirring effort to stifle Lions.

Lions' best phase of the game was the opening Powerplay, when Ahmed Shehzad struck some big hits down the ground to push the score to 47 for 0. This despite Narine bowling a maiden in the fifth over. A stunning direct hit from Andre Russell broke the opening stand in the seventh over, by when the wicketkeeper Manvinder Bisla had already mucked up two straightforward stumpings.

The Knight Riders' spinners took charge in the middle overs, with Kuldeep showing solid control for a wrist-spinner, getting his stock ball to turn plenty and using the wrong 'un to confuse the batsmen. Mohammad Hafeez spent much of his short innings trying to heave the ball to midwicket before he became Kuldeep's first victim, holing out for 9.

When Shehzad found Uthappa at long-off in the 13th over to finish on a chancy 59, Lions' top-heavy batting was in trouble, especially with three Narine overs to come. The trepidation of the lesser lights in the batting line-up was obvious when they faced Narine: Saad Nasim missed his first ball and edged his second to short cover, Umar Siddiq lasted one more before being done in by the quicker one, and Asif Raza was bowled first ball. Narine nearly had a hat-trick, but Wahab Riaz had his boot back in the crease before Bisla could break the stumps.

Umar Akmal was still there, though, and he clobbered Piyush Chawla and Pat Cummins to lift Lions past 150.

Gautam Gambhir and Uthappa, aided by some comically inept fielding, put on a century stand to set Knight Riders on course for victory. They were coasting for a large part of the chase before a slew of wickets towards the end briefly made things tight, only for Suryakumar Yadav to finish it off with a five-ball 14.

has largely been the basis of their 11-game winning run: bowl first to allow Sunil Narine and the other spinners to smother the opposition, before Robin Uthappa and the rest of the top order click to set up the chase of a lightweight target.

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Kings XI show batting depth in victory

          Kings XI Punjab 146 for 5 (Maxwell 43, Perera 35*, Bailey 34*) beat Hobart Hurricanes 144 for 6 (Birt 28, Wells 28, Perera 2-17) by five wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

The loss of Mitchell Johnson to a rib injury had left Kings XI Punjab's bowling looking a little suspect ahead of their Champions T20 opener, but it proved a bit of a blessing in disguise for them, with his replacement playing a crucial hand in an five-wicket win over Hobart Hurricanes.

With the four-foreigner limit leaving no room for him in Kings XI's star-studded line-up, Thisara Perera didn't play a single game for them during their 2014 IPL campaign. With Johnson's absence giving him an opportunity, Perera grabbed it, taking two wickets in a three-over spell in which he conceded less than a run a ball before coming in to bat in a thorny situation and scoring an unbeaten 20-ball 35 that steered Kings XI to a win with 14 balls remaining.

The margin of victory looked fairly wide in the end, but it could have gone either way when Kings XI were 51 for 4 in the eighth over, chasing 147. This, though, was where the quality and depth of their batting came to the fore, with Glenn Maxwell playing strokes that belied a two-paced pitch on his way to a 25-ball 43 and George Bailey showing a cool head that his Big Bash League franchise could have done with during their innings, in putting on an unbroken 69 with Perera.

During the IPL, Kings XI had won six out of seven matches batting second, and had chased three 190-plus targets successfully. But on a greenish Mohali pitch where the back-of-a-length ball behaved a touch unpredictably - moving sideways when new, stopping on the batsmen later on, and often bouncing more than expected - their top order were quickly in trouble. Virender Sehwag's first-ball dismissal owed more to his impetuosity than to the conditions, but Wriddhiman Saha, David Miller and Manan Vohra were all discomfited by the extra bounce, and ended up skying catches to mid-on or mid-off while going hard at length balls.

Under these circumstances, Maxwell's innings showcased his rare talent, as he somehow found ways to slap the seamers inside-out or loft them back over their heads, while also playing one of his trademark reverse-sweeps against the legspinner Cameron Boyce.

It was an over from Boyce that reversed the momentum of the game back towards Kings XI, immediately after Maxwell had edged Evan Gulbis to the keeper. Perera found the third-man boundary via a streaky edge before hitting Boyce back over his head for six. Bailey then found the gap between deep midwicket and long-on when Boyce dropped his last ball short - 18 came off that over, and it left Kings XI needing 50 off 48.

Bailey and Perera kept their heads, attacked the loose balls - which for Perera was mostly whatever he could swing over the arc between midwicket and long-on - and the win, when it was achieved, came with time and wickets to spare, Bailey clouting Gulbis for successive fours in the 18th over.

Hurricanes' innings, after they had been sent in to bat, lacked a sustained period when the batsmen were on top of the bowlers. Ben Dunk and Aiden Blizzard, the two left-handers in their top three, struggled for timing early on and got themselves out just as they were beginning to look comfortable. Perera dismissed both of them, and both times the extra bounce caused them to mishit length or back-of-a-length balls, to deep and short cover respectively.

At 78 for 4 in the 13th over, Hurricanes seemed to be going nowhere when Jonathan Wells joined Travis Birt. They proceeded to add 52, with the left-handed Birt flourishing while hitting the legspinner Karanveer Singh with the spin and the right-handed Wells cutting and driving fluently through the off side. Just when the partnership was threatening to take Hurricanes to a biggish total, however, Wells ran himself out, and Kings XI tightened the screws once again, conceding only 14 runs off the last 14 balls of the innings.

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Root century sets up consolation victory

England 294 for 7 (Root 113, Buttler 49) beat India 253 (Jadeja 87, Rayudu 53, Stokes 3-47) by 41 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

An all-too familiar tale was seemingly unfolding at Headingley as England's batsmen were again finding spin an unsolvable puzzle in the middle overs. The dot-ball torture most affected Eoin Morgan, who scored 2 off 19 R Ashwin deliveries before being stumped to leave England at 117 for 4 after 29 overs. Another 220-odd target for India's batsmen to chase down as they stifled yawns?

Joe Root and Jos Buttler erased that scenario with a vigorous century stand, England's first of the series. Buttler fell on 49 to the sort of comical run-out that goes viral as a gif, but Root sped to his second ODI century, in front of a delighted home crowd. That rousing partnership and some lower-order swinging took England to 294, leaving India with their stiffest challenge of the series.

India's batsmen weren't up to the task, as recognisable elements from the Test series re-appeared. The opening stand didn't last long, James Anderson had Virat Kohli nibbling to slip, Moeen Ali made important breakthroughs, and MS Dhoni had too much to do. All of which led to England winning their first ODI since late May.

The match began slipping away from India during England's batting Powerplay, when Root and Buttler walloped boundary after boundary to pillage 55 in five overs. Root made a far bigger overall score, but Buttler's impact was huge. He began the mayhem in the Powerplay, cashing in against the recalled Umesh Yadav with a crunching four over mid-off followed by a fortuitous top edge over third man for six. Scoring against pace is fine, but what about spin? When Ashwin dropped short two overs later, Buttler bludgeoned him over square leg for four, and then to cow corner for six.

Thirty-nine runs had come off the first three Powerplay overs, the chokehold applied by the spinners had came off, and the hitherto watchful Root also started reeling off big hits. Suddenly 300 wasn't looking like a far-fetched target, particularly given India's long-standing troubles with death bowling.

Buttler had set up a grandstand finish to the innings but he fell in the 43rd over, after blindly setting off for a run even though the ball had barely dribbled past the wicketkeeper. Root then took apart Ravindra Jadeja, as 17 runs came off the 45th over, with the slog-sweep that earned him plenty of runs also bringing up his century. The boos which Moeen complained about were replaced by celebratory shouts of "Rooooot", as the local boy shrugged off a lean summer in the ODIs.

Ben Stokes swung a few sixes, Yadav's propensity for leaking runs resurfaced and though Mohammed Shami set down some perfect yorkers, England finished close to 300.

That score seemed unlikely after Alex Hales' failure, Alastair Cook again making a sluggish 40-odd, and Moeen's promotion not working out. Only 49 runs came between the 16th and 30th over, Morgan's range of sweeps and reverse-sweeps weren't working, and India's fielders were diving around in the circle to cut off any easy runs.

Unlike his captain though, Root didn't give it away after getting a start. There were controlled pulls early on, and two stunning straight drives off Bhuvneshwar Kumar, as he began with a mix of boundaries and defence. A direct hit from Jadeja at point could have ended his innings in the 16th over with Root on 23. After that he concentrated on the ones and twos - hitting just one boundary in the next 20 overs - before cashing in towards the end.

India's chase spluttered in the first over itself. Ajinkya Rahane had spoken of how he had sleepless nights after a "silly mistake" cost his wicket in the second ODI; he will toss and turn tonight as well after lazily slicing a wide delivery to point in the first over to fall for a duck.

Kohli is at his best when faced with a tall chase, and after a disastrous tour, there were hopes he would provide a glimpse of his talent but his search for a half-century extended as he was caught at slip for 13. Shikhar Dhawan swiped Moeen for a big six but was bowled later in the over attempting the same shot.

Ambati Rayudu collected his second half-century in three innings, but he holed out to mid-on soon after. Suresh Raina had already become another of Moeen's victims, and when Dhoni slapped a short and wide Steven Finn delivery straight to cover in the 37th over, India's already slender chances were virtually over. The wicket was the luck Finn deserved after both Raina and Rayudu had been put down in one of his earlier overs.

Ravindra Jadeja re-enacted his famous Rajput celebration from Lord's as he picked up a half-century, but there was no real threat of him preventing an England victory. The win will be scant consolation though after a wretched limited-overs home season, with England still having plenty to work out as the World Cup approaches.

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India are No.1 ranked ODI side

Zimbabwe's win coupled with England's losses propel India to the top.

India have risen to No. 1 in the ODI rankings, while Australia toppled to fourth place after their defeat to Zimbabwe on Sunday.

Elton Chigumbura lifting his No. 10-ranked team to only their second success against Australia - the first in 31 years - has meant South Africa and Sri Lanka have leapfrogged the free-falling Australia, who were joint-No. 1 with India ahead of that match. India had equalled Australia's points tally following their victoryat Trent Bridge, in the third ODI against England on August 30.

However, the situation at the top remains quite fluid. India will retain their place at No. 1 if they beat England in the remaining two matches of the Royal London ODI series and Australia beat South Africa at least once over the coming week - either on Tuesday or, if they make the final, on Saturday. South Africa will move to the top if they win their two remaining league games and the subsequent final, even if India win the fourth and fifth ODIs.

Australia, too, have a chance at reclaiming No. 1 if they beat South Africa in their remaining league stage game and again in the final. Concurrently, though, India would have to lose at least one of their two ODIs to England.

India had been the No. 1 side when they visited New Zealand in January, but lost the top rank after failing to win a match there.

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Rahane hundred caps crushing win

4th ODI in Birmingham: Ajinkya Rahane struck his maiden one-day hundred and Shikhar Dhawan finished on 97 not out as India raced to a nine-wicket win with almost 30 overs to spare.

Rahane Maiden Century

India 212 for 1 (Rahane 106, Dhawan 97*) beat England 206 (Moeen 67, Shami 3-28, Bhuvneshwar 2-14) by nine wickets

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

As India marched to one their most comprehensive victories against England, a third no-contest in as many matches giving them the series, about the only similarity between the teams was the blue of their shirts. India, the reigning world champions in this format, will need little introduction as one of the favourites for the 2015 World Cup in six months' time. England are struggling to find an XI to compete at home, let along challenge in Australia and New Zealand.

MS Dhoni has captained with an easy panache since the return to limited-overs cricket and he again marshalled an impressive display after inserting England on a fresh morning in Birmingham. This was Dhoni's 91st victory as India ODI captain, breaking the record of Mohammad Azharuddin. Only one batsman had him momentarily ruffled, as Moeen Ali produced the first England half-century of the series, but it was a bit like a fart competing with thunder, to borrow Graham Gooch's phrase.

Having been set a modest target, India's batsmen set about exposing it as indecent. Ajinkya Rahanemade his maiden ODI hundred during a stand of 183 with Shikhar Dhawan, a record opening partnership for India in England. Dhawan's unbeaten 97 was his first fifty of the tour, a flurry of blows helping to end the contest with almost 20 overs remaining.

Although the pitch flattened out, England's attack was made to look horribly blunt. India's openers tip-toed through the first four overs, scoring the same number of runs, before Rahane struck four sumptuous fours off James Anderson; Dhawan rattled three more from Chris Woakes' first over, taking them to 57 from ten. It was a clear case of the fours being with India.

And the sixes, too, both openers reaching their half-centuries by clearing the ropes. They hit four apiece, the most dismissive a front-foot pull from Rahane off Steven Finn. The sight of England's fastest bowler being treated so disdainfully by India's most diminutive batsman was one of a number of instructive passages. The video analysis will make painful viewing for Alastair Cook and Peter Moores.

If England were to take anything from their display, it would have been Moeen's batting. Moeen was brought in for his fifth ODI to fill the allrounder slot, with England keen for a more thorough examination of his credentials as a limited-overs spinner ahead of the World Cup. He proceeded to bat with greater dash and security than any of his team-mates during an innings of 67 off 50 balls.

After Joe Root departed attempting a reverse sweep that might have made Mike Gatting wince to leave England five down, Moeen struck the ball with a languid intensity, hitting three sixes - the only sixes of the innings. Such was his dominance, albeit brief in the context of the match, that Moeen clouted 43 out of a 50-run stand with Jos Buttler, nominally England's power hitter. His efforts lifted England to the bare respectability of 200 but the target scarcely gave much opportunity for his bowling to impress.

It was debatable whether India had found a new way to win or England a new way to lose. This time, the glissando of wickets came at the top and bottom of the innings, as England ended the Powerplay on 25 for 3 and then lost 4 for 12 in the final five overs. In between, India's spinners largely remained a lurking threat, although the way R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina threw a blanket over the middle overs was proof that England had not suddenly discovered their pipe and slippers when it came to playing slow bowling.

Root has struggled to transfer his puckish energy into one-day cricket this summer but he at least did a job in repelling India's early broadside during an 80-run stand with Eoin Morgan. The pair managed to see off ten overs of spin before Morgan, having narrowly flicked wide of leg slip, picked out Suresh Raina in that position for a simple catch to give Jadeja his 32nd wicket against England - a tally he would increase to 33 in 17 ODIs.

England's approach tends to revolve around the proverbial best-laid plans but things went awry even before the toss, as they were forced to bring in Gary Ballance for Ian Bell, who was hit on the toe in the nets. Bell was later revealed to have a "small fracture" and will be assessed before the final ODI, at Headingley on Friday. That enforced change was the third from the XI at Trent Bridge, with Moeen and Harry Gurney also coming in for Ben Stokes and James Tredwell.

India, meanwhile, included the debutant Dhawal Kulkarni, who kissed the ball before his first delivery in international cricket, only to see it treated rather more roughly by Alex Hales spanking a half-volley for four. That was about as encouraging as it got, as England stumbled, bleary-eyed in the Birmingham sunshine.

India's fielders were certainly in the wide awake club, Raina and Rahane setting a fine example as Cook managed just a single from his first 15 balls, repeatedly thwarted trying to hit through the off side. After opening partnerships of 54 and 82, England this time lost Cook and Hales in the fifth over, as Bhuvneshwar Kumar located the moisture in the pitch that his captain had spied at the toss. In the previous two matches, this had been the one area where India had allowed England some respite.

The breakthrough did not require any outstanding India out-cricket, however, as Bhuvneshwar snaked his first ball to Hales past the inside edge and on to the stumps. It was a femme fatale of a delivery, curving back in seductively and leaving Hales dumbstruck as he looked for his favoured cover drive. Bhuvneshwar had already bowled 12 deliveries at Cook without conceding a run and he gilded his figures further by picking up the England captain, Raina intercepting a thick-edged chop at gully to end another laboured stay at the crease.

After Dhoni's travails in the Tests, both as captain and wicketkeeper, the extent of his comfort in limited-overs cricket was displayed by an instinctive, near run-out of Root, deflecting the ball with one glove down on to stumps behind him. Such was the hold he currently exerts over England, he could get away without asking Bhuvneshwar (8-3-14-2) to bowl a second spell. The batsmen then ran amok in approved style. It was fitting that such an assured display confirmed him as India's most successful ODI captain.

ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Tendulkar touches 50 at Centurion

 He was in a foreign land. At least a land that has stayed the most foreign to India even after their resurgence away from home. They started chanting "Sachin, Sachin" from the time he guided one past short third man to move to 88. There were whites, there were blacks, there were browns at the grass banks of SuperSport Park, and all they wanted was for Sachin Tendulkar's 50th Test hundred to come in front of them.

It was difficult to not let that affect you, but Tendulkar was in a different sphere. He was trying to save a game, trying to kill time, trying to run through the deficit. He took his time to get to 89, and South Africa tried to cut out boundary-scoring areas. A forward short leg came in, Morne Morkel bowled bouncers, around the helmet area, and into the ribs.

 Tendulkar kept ducking, the lower ones he kept keeping out; if he was nervous, he wasn't showing it. Against Paul Harris, who has somehow managed to be India's nemesis, he hit a straight six to send the crowd into frenzy again.

The chants started again. When at 97, he faced another flurry of bouncers. One of them went for five wides. Ten deliveries he spent on 97. Then came Dale Steyn. He got an inside-edge past midwicket to move to 99. Then he squirted one between cover and extra cover, celebrating as he ran the 100th run. Not extravagantly. The helmet came off, the back arched a bit, and he looked up to the skies. 

Not sure he noticed, but there were clouds headed towards the ground. He had a chat with MS Dhoni, with whom he had added 160 priceless runs. He then raised the bat to the dressing room for a brief second, then to the crowd for a little while longer, and went back to business. There was a Test to be saved. This was not the time to get carried away. 

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India reduced to 136-9 by South Africa quicks

CENTURION: South Africa's fast bowlers made up for lost time as they ripped through the Indian batting line-up on a rain-shortened first day of the first Test at SuperSport Park on Thursday. 

Scorecard 

Morne Morkel took four wickets and Dale Steyn three as India crashed to 136 for nine after being sent in on a green, damp pitch. 

Only Sachin Tendulkar, who made an elegant 36 off 34 balls, looked at ease as Steyn and Morkel confirmed their credentials as the world's most lethal new ball pair as they scythed through the side ranked number one in Test cricket. 

Steyn started the slide early when he had Virender Sehwag caught at third man for nought. He followed up with two superb, full, late-swinging deliveries to get rid of VVS Laxman and Tendulkar after the pair had mounted a mini-recovery after India had slumped to 27 for three. 

Laxman and Tendulkar put on 39 before Laxman and Tendulkar fell in successive overs from Steyn, sandwiched by the wicket of Suresh Raini, who lasted only three balls before edging Jacques Kallis to third slip. 

The tall Morkel took four for 20 in 12.1 hostile overs, including the wickets of Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid in successive overs. He also dismissed tailenders Ishant Sharma and Sree Sreesanth before bad light ended play. Dravid was his 100th victim in his 29th Test. 

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, hitting out as he was forced to bat with the tail, finished the day on 33 not out. 

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Dravid becomes third highest Test run-getter

CENTURION: Rahul Dravid on Thursday overtook former West Indian captain Brain Lara as the third highest run-getter in the history of Test cricket when he reached 11 in the first of the three-match series against South Africa. 

Coming into the match needing 11 runs to surpass Lara's 11,953 in the all-time run-getter's list, Dravid reached the milestone with a double, clipping Dale Steyn off the back foot towards the square-leg region at the SuperSport Park. 

Dravid, who has an average of 53.31 before this Test, achieved the feat in his 148th match. 

His teammate and Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar leads the chart with 14,3666 runs from 175 Tests, followed by Australian captain Ricky Ponting, who till date has scored 12,332 runs from 151 matches. 

Dravid is also just one short of becoming the first cricketer to take 200 catches in Test.

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Pathan powers India to win

Yusuf Pathan's maiden ODI century gave India their fourth straight win over New Zealand in a high-scoring affair in Bangalore.

Pathan finished on 122 not out as India chased down a target of 316 with seven balls to spare for a five-wicket triumph.

He shared an unbroken sixth-wicket partnership of 133 with Saurabh Tiwary (37no), who clinched the victory in style with a six off Nathan McCullum.

India lead the five-match series 4-0 and have the chance to complete a whitewash in Chennai on Friday.

Trouble

Pathan had walked out to the middle with India in trouble on 108-4 in the 20th over, left-arm paceman Andy McKay and off-spinner McCullum having taken two wickets each for the tourists.

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India crush New Zealand by 9 wickets, clinch series

Gautam Gambhir celebrates his century

Indian team led by Gautam Gambhir displayed a splendid performance and managed to beat New Zealand  in a 9-wicket win in the third ODI and seal the five-match ODI series 3-0 at Vadodara today.

Earlier, James Franklin led New Zealand's revival with a fighting unbeaten half-century as the visitors recovered from a poor start to post 224 for 9.

Down 0-2 and faced with a must-win situation, the visitors made a shocking start by losing their openers within the first five overs and were struggling at 106 for seven before Franklin (72 not out) and Nathan McCullum repaired the innings with a stand of 94.

The left-handed Franklin batted sensibly after coming in at 49 for 4 in the 16th over even as continued to tumble from the the other end.

He top-scored for the Black Caps with the help of five fours and one six in 108 balls while McCullum made 43 in 53 balls with four fours.

Their eighth-wicket stand off 107 balls took the score to 200 after the Kiwis had lost half their side for 77.
Apart from the eighth wicket pair, only opener Martin Guptill (12) and Scott Styris (22) reached the double figures in a largely uninspiring display put up by the Kiwis after they were asked to bat first by the hosts.
For India, Zaheer Khan (2/31), Yusuf Pathan (2/37 and R Ashwin (2/49) shared six wickets among them while Munaf Patel chipped in with one scalp.

The pitch for the match was a major surprise at a venue that normally provides flat tracks. There was a lot of bounce for the pace bowlers and bounce and turn for the spinners.

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Strauss and Cook reignite contest

England 260 and 1 for 309 (Cook 132*, Strauss 110, Trott 54*) lead Australia 481 by 88 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

If Australia needed any convincing about England's resilience they were given a day-long example as Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook hit magnificent centuries to give the visitors a golden chance to save the opening Test in Brisbane. The openers added 188 and when Strauss departed for 110, the challenge was taken up by Jonathan Trott, who helped Cook put on a further 121 for the second wicket. Cook ended unbeaten on 132 and England held a lead of 88 when bad light closed in. 

While few expected England to fold in a heap - they rarely do these days - even fewer would have expected a stumps score of 1 for 309. However, inspired by their captain the tourists set about showing they'd learnt the lessons from their poor first innings and gave Australia a day of toil in the field to match what England had suffered on Saturday. There is still time for the home side to force something on the final day, but nothing in their bowling in this innings has suggested they have the firepower to succeed.

Strauss's 19th Test hundred, and fourth against Australia, arrived from 184 balls when he late cut Xavier Doherty and his aggression against spin was a key part of the innings. He knew England couldn't block their way to safety, and often used his feet to advance and loft down the ground. Strauss's century celebration was unusually emotional; it hadn't been the easiest start to the series after his first-morning failure and this was another example of England's spirit. The stage was set for him to make it a massive hundred, following Hussey's lead, but he was beaten in flight by Marcus North and couldn't regain his ground, stumped by Brad Haddin.

  

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Virat Kohli inspires India to victory over New Zealand

Virat Kohli struck his third limited overs century as India secured a 40-run victory over New Zealand in the first one-day international in Guhawati.

Kohli scored 105 in 104 balls, ably assisted by Yuvraj Singh (42), as India were dismissed for 276, with Andy McKay taking 4-62 for the tourists.
New Zealand's innings began slowly but Ross Taylor injected impetus with 66.
But his team-mates could not provide sufficient support as India took a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.
India's victory margin would have been wider had Nathan McCullum (35) and Kyle Mills (32) not staged an ninth-wicket rally.
Mills joined McCullum at the wicket with the score at 169-8 as the pair mounted an entertaining 71-run ninth-wicket stand before both men were dismissed in successive deliveries in the 46th over as India wrapped up victory.
The hosts, led by stand-in skipper Gautam Gambhir, gave wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha, in for the rested Mahendra Singh Dhoni, his one-day debut, as they were put into bat by New Zealand, temporarily captained by Taylor.
Gambhir (38) and Murali Vijay (29) wasted good starts but Kohli, batting at three, took control of the middle orders to notch his second successive one-day century following on from his 118 against Australia at Visakhapatnam last month.
"It feels good. I had a kind of a lean patch in Sri Lanka recently, the team-mates and coach backed me. I would like to thank them," said the 22-year-old.
"I try to probably stop myself if I feel like playing a big shot and enjoy the singles."

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India crush New Zealand to win Test series

India finally underlined their status as the world's top ranked Test nation when they crushed New Zealand by a huge margin of an innings and 198 runs to win the three-match series, on day four of the third and final Test at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium in Jamtha, Nagpur on Tuesday.

New Zealand were bowled out for 175 in 51.2 overs in their second innings to lose with nearly five sessions left in the match.

This is India's third largest victory margin in terms of an innings victory, after the innings and 239 runs victory against Bangladesh in May 2007 and the innings and 219 runs win over Australia in March 1998.

Ishant Sharma claimed two wickets in a row to finish off things in style when he bowled Tim Southee (31) and Chris Martin to wrap up a comprehensive victory for the hosts. The Indian spinners also made most of the conditions with Harbhajan Singh taking three for 56 in 19 overs, Pragyan Ojha claiming two for 67 and Suresh Raina taking two quick wickets (2 for 1).

India had declared their first innings on a mammoth 566 for eight after New Zealand were bundled out for 193, to take a huge first innings lead of 373 runs.

Harbhajan SinghRahul Dravid played a patient knock of 191 to set up India's huge score, while captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (98) fell agonizingly short of his hundred put Indian in complete control of the series decider.

Dravid's marathon knock stretched 573 minutes as he hit 21 boundaries in 396 balls, before he holed out at long-on off part-time spinner Kane Williamson. Dhoni and Dravid played a huge role in stretching India's lead as the duo added 193 runs in 54.3 overs for the sixth wicket. Dhoni, who was struggling with cramps, was caught and bowled by Daniel Vettori for 98, laced with 12 fours and a six in his 156-ball knock.

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