Yuvraj stars as India finish second

Oh West Indies, they have done it again. For the second match in a row they had a chase all wrapped up but some desperate inspiration from Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh and some mindless cricket from the batsmen who followed Devon Smith ensured that West Indies remained without a win over a Test side other than Bangladesh since June 2009. With Smith playing as well as he has ever played, West Indies almost mocked India for the first 27 overs, getting...

Zimbabwe's World Cup ends with big win

Zimbabwe's spinners completed the job started by their batsmen, sharing seven wickets as Kenya crumbled for 147 in pursuit of 308. This match was the last in the tournament for both teams, and with little but pride to play for, Kenya captain Jimmy Kamande had urged his team to give Steve Tikolo, playing his final game for his country, a fitting send off. It was not to be, however, as half-centuries from Tatenda Taibu, Vusi Sibanda and Craig Ervine...

Battle for second place in Group B

The Big Picture No wonder India play so much cricket without seeming to overly mind it. When MS Dhoni walks out for the toss for this game, it will have been more than a week since they last played in the World Cup. The off days for the Indian team, however, have been days of plenty of buzz and activity for the Indian cricketing public and media. Dhoni has suddenly gone from being Midas to moron for getting Ashish Nehra to bowl the final over; Yusuf...

Pakistan end Australia's run to finish top

Pakistan were the last team to overcome Australia at a World Cup and it was they who brought Ricky Ponting's 34-match unbeaten run to an end with a four-wicket victory in Colombo to secure top spot in Group A. An impressive display in the field laid the foundations as the reigning champions were bundled out for 176 on a difficult surface, their lowest total in a World Cup since 1992, and despite a mighty effort from Brett Lee Pakistan were guided...

Co-hosts spar in curtain raiser

Match FactsFebruary 19, MirpurStart time 14:30 local time (08:30 GMT)Big PictureEvents unfolding in Port of Spain four years ago culminated in euphoria on one side of the Bengal border, and gloom on the other. With every dance down the wicket from Tamim Iqbal, little-fancied Bangladesh landed another blow in a series of blows that would eventually eliminate India, wearied by the weight of expectation and a discordant dressing room, from the first...

Beautiful Bangladesh - School of life

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World Cup searches for certainty

Once every four years, cricket meets to do some ironing. Over creases and conflicts, differences and discords and it tries to set out its most perfectly coordinated wardrobe for its disparate, argumentative global audience. For a sport where a day's play can last 24 hours - the toss held in Napier and the last ball bowled in Kingston - the World Cup actually shrinks planet cricket and tries to flatten it out. Once every four years, the Cup brings...

Sreesanth replaces injured Praveen

Praveen Kumar, the India fast bowler, has been ruled out of the World Cup due to an injured elbow and will be replaced by Sreesanth. The decision comes a day after Praveen underwent a fitness test at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore to gauge whether he had recovered from the injury sustained before the start of the one-day series in South Africa last month.Praveen, 24 had been sent back immediately from South Africa as a precautionary measure...

Morgan to miss World Cup with fractured finger

Eoin Morgan, England's star one-day batsman, has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a broken middle finger on his left hand, and Ravi Bopara has been brought into the squad in his place. England's coach Andy Flower announced the news at a press conference at Heathrow Airport on England's return from Australia, and confirmed that Morgan would undergo surgery that would keep him out of the entire tournament."His [Morgan's] finger needs to be operated...

Sohail Tanvir out of the World Cup

Sohail Tanvir, the left-arm seamer, has been ruled out of Pakistan's World Cup campaign after failing to complete a full rehabilitation from surgery for a knee problem that has dogged him for two years. He will be replaced by the promising young left-arm fast bowler Junaid Khan.A PCB medical panel, after looking into a management report, said that though "the recovery from a knee operation was good, during the [New Zealand] tour it was observed that...

Afridi named World Cup captain - report

Shahid Afridi has reportedly been named captain of Pakistan's World Cup squad, according to Associated Press. The decision ends weeks of uncertainty over who will lead the side in the global tournament starting later this month.Pakistan were the only side of the 14 participating teams that hadn't named their captain when the World Cup squads were announced in January, fuelling debate over whether Misbah-ul-Haq, the Test captain,...

Sehwag 'fully fit' for World Cup

Virender Sehwag, India's vice-captain for the World Cup, has said that he is "fully fit" for the tournament that begins on February 19. Sehwag missed India's five-match one-day series following the Tests in South Africa to attend to a shoulder injury, but says his recovery is well on track. "I was feeling some pain in my shoulder," Sehwag told Indian news channel CNN-IBN. "So [I thought it was] better to quit the South Africa one-dayers. I didn't...

Bangalore to host India-England game

The ICC has confirmed the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore as the venue for the India-England World Cup game that was originally supposed to be held in Kolkata. There was no change in the date of the match - it will be held on February 27. "This decision now clarifies and gives us certainty over the fixture," ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said. "We can now work with our various partners and stakeholders to make sure that the match - along with...

Cricket World Cup 2011 Teams, Groups, Players, Schedule

The 2011 edition of the World Cup will be played in the Indian sub-continent from February 19. There are 14 teams involved in the competition and they are distributed into two groups of seven each with the round-robin in each group deciding which four going ahead into the quarter-finals. Full Schedule Squads with Players Profile There will be 49 matches in the tournament and one can see all the World Cup 2011 games live on ESPN and Star...

Mashrafe Mortaza not in World Cup squad

Mashrafe Mortaza, the Bangladesh allrounder, has not been included in the 15-man squad for the World Cup. Mortaza had injured his right knee while playing club cricket in Dhaka in December and was striving to recover in time for the tournament. He had begun bowling off a short run-up during net sessions in the last few days but the selectors decided against including him in the campaign. Shakib Al Hasan was named captain of the squad and Tamim Iqbal...

Kenya a mix of the old and the new

Kenya have announced their 15-man squad for next month's World Cup and it is a combination of youth and experience under newly-appointed captain Jimmy Kamande. The announcement was more of a rubber-stamping exercise than a surprise, given it is the same group who are currently preparing for the tournament with matches in India. Steve Tikolo, the 41-year-old allrounder who led his country to the semi-finals in 2003, will be taking part in his fifth...

Tanvir Ahmed, Mohammad Yousuf left out of World Cup

Pakistan's selectors have displayed an unusual consistency in their ODI squad, retaining all players bar one involved in the New Zealand ODIs for their World Cup campaign. Fast bowler Tanvir Ahmed, who is part of the 16-man ODI squad in New Zealand, is the unlucky one, missing out. In opting for continuity, the selectors have not picked the veteran Mohammad Yousuf, indicating that his career is all but over. And as had been widely expected, they...

Ireland pick Ed Joyce for World Cup

Ed Joyce, the former England batsman who also plays for Sussex, has been picked in the 15-man Ireland squad for the 2011 World Cup. Ireland, led by batsman William Porterfield, have also selected allrounder Alex Cusack and seamer Boyd Rankin, players who didn't feature in their last ODI assignment, a lost series against Zimbabwe in September. Rankin, who was Ireland's leading wicket-taker in the 2007 World Cup, has recovered from a stress fracture...

Lee and Tait win World Cup berths

Australia will risk both Brett Lee and Shaun Tait at the World Cup after they were chosen in the 15-man squad for the trophy defence beginning in India next month. Peter Siddle and Xavier Doherty were not included while John Hastings, the Victoria allrounder, was named along with the injured duo of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey. Hussey picked up a serious hamstring tear in Sunday's ODI win over England, while Ponting is recovering from surgery...

No Rohit Sharma in World Cup squad

The exclusion of middle-order batsman Rohit Sharma was the surprise in India's 15-man World Cup squad announced in Chennai. The other bone of contention had been the second specialist spinner's slot, and the selectors have picked both offspinner R Ashwin and legspinner Piyush Chawla, ahead of left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha. Most of the other names in the squad were along expected lines. India's major concern ahead of the team selection was the injuries...

ICC World Cup 2011: Zimbabwe 15 men squad for WC 2011

Harare: All-rounder Sean Ervine has been recalled to the Zimbabwe squad for ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 after a gap of six years. Ervine last played for Zimbabwe in an international game in 2004. In the interim Ervine has played domestic cricket in Australia for Western Australia. He currently plays for Hampshire in the English county cricket. Ervine joins younger brother Craig in the final 15-man squad named on Wednesday by the Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) selection panel. Batsman Vusimuzi Sibanda has been named one of the five non-travelling reserves. WC...

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011: WC theme song is for masses: composers

Dubai: With little more than a month to go for the ICC Cricket World Cup, the official song -- De Ghumaa Ke -- is already making a big impact in the sub-continent and the composers of the number Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy said they created it keeping in mind every section of the society. As popular and critically acclaimed music directors of Bollywood, the trio has created an upbeat song, with versions in Hindi, Bangla and Sinhalese that will feature widely in the build-up to and during the tournament to be hosted jointly by India, Bangladesh and...

ICC World Cup 2011 Sri Lanka 15 Men Squad: Jayasuriya, Vaas not in WC squad

Colombo: Sri Lanka's selectors have been unable to find a place for veterans Sanath Jayasuriya or Chaminda Vaas in the 2011 World Cup squad. Announced late on Friday afternoon, the side is a predictable one led by Kumar Sangakkara minus Suraj Randiv, who at one stage was looked on as the leading spinner in the squad. Now he has been replaced by Ajantha Mendis with Muttiah Muralitharan in the fifteen names approved by the local Minister of Sport. As Sri Lanka will play the bulk of their games on the island, with the one exception that against New...

Bangladesh World Cup 2011 team gets new sponsors

Dhaka: The Beximco Group has replaced Grameenphone as the official sponsors of Bangladesh's cricket team for the forthcoming World Cup. Grameenphone, a joint venture between Norway-based Telenor and Grameen Bank's sister concern Grameen Telecom Corporation, is out because of a conflict of interest with the International Cricket Council (ICC) sponsor Reliance Communications, an Indian mobile operator. In keeping with the ICC rules, no team is allowed to take a sponsor in any of their events that is conflicting with its commercial partners. Beximco,...

Bangladesh reduce preliminary WC squad to 23

Bangladesh have reduced their preliminary 30-man squad for the World Cup to 23. Nazimuddin, Shamsur Rahman, Sahagir Hossain, Mithun Ali, Nasir Hossain, Shuvogoto Chowdhury and Enamul Haque Jr are the players who have been left out. The remaining 23 players will be of a preparatory camp that begins on January 9 at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium in Mirpur. All 14 teams participating in the tournament have to announce their final fifteen before January 19. Preliminary Squad: Shakib Al Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza, Tamim Iqbal, Mohammad Ashraful, Imrul Kayes,...