The Victorious winning India T20 vs. Australia

India 2 for 135 (Gambhir 56*) beat Australia 131 (Finch 36, Praveen 2-21) by eight wickets

From fervently opposing T20s in 2006 to being asked to stop the T20 overkill, the irony the BCCI finds itself in is blatant.

India finally broke all the way through for their first win of the tour thanks to a dazzling display in the field. Ravindra Jadeja provide the spark - and did no harm to his probability in Saturday's IPL auction - with a pair of run-outs as Australia's batsmen were constricted by intense pressure from the fielders, and were dismiss in the 20th over for 131.

From being World Champs in 2007 to No. 7 in the T20 rankings, the slide has been alarming. In a format where the better team is not always definite a victory, India has won a little more than 50 per cent of their matches till date.

In 33 matches as well as the Melbourne T20 on Friday, India have won 17 and lost 14. Not figures that reflect brightness, but absolutely more than average.

However, if we put their performances post the 2007 T20 triumph into standpoint, the bald patches become ever more visible, In 24 matches since, they have a win percentage of less than 50, including the ouster from the group stages of the 2009 and 2010 edition of the T20 World Cup in England and West Indies in that order.

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England clutch into lead as wickets fall over

England 104 for 6 (Strauss 41*, Rehman 3-23) lead Pakistan 99 (Shafiq 45, Broad 4-36) by 5 runs

PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf has assured that temporary coach Mohsin Khan will not be left "jobless" even if the board decides to replace him.

"We are thankful for his giving and we always praise his good work. Even if we make a decision to replace him as coach he will not be left jobless, as we will utilize his expertise in other assignments," Ashraf told the 'Express' from Dubai.

Mohsin apparently avoided meeting Ashraf in Dubai, as he was unhappy with reports about the board wanting to put back him with Australian Dav Whatmore after the current series against England.

The newspaper reported that Mohsin it appears that was upset with the board for the way it was treating him and had avoided meeting the chairman while he had a communication with the players in the stadium.

Mohsin also didn't be present at the official dinner hosted by the PCB chief for the national team, the report said.

Ashraf, however, deprived of Mohsin had any grievances with the board over the coaching issue.

"I don't think he is distress with us. He didn't come to the dinner because he was not feeling well and had informed us about this. As it is, any decision about who should be the coach is completely up to the board chairman," he said.

The former Test opener has guided Pakistan to series win over Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and England in the last four months and is upset that in spite of his results the governing body has been negotiating with what more, who is scheduled to reach Lahore later this month to apparently sign an agreement with the PCB.

The chairman, meanwhile, established that he had a one-to-one meeting with captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, in Dubai in which the senior player informed him about the problems faced by the players and also request him to increase salaries of players in the new central contracts.

"Misbah convey some issues to me which I have certain will be looked into when I get back to Pakistan. He also request that the board should give increments to the players which we will look into before presentation the central contracts," Ashraf added.

The PCB, due to its financial condition, has not given any increments to players for the last few years and Ashraf said any decision on giving cash bonuses to the team for winning the Test series against England would also be taken after the series.

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Updated Cricket News - Suresh Raina counting on improvement in the ODIs

Dissatisfied to see the Test side being demolish by a revitalized Australia, Indian middle-order batsman, Suresh Raina is counting on varying his team’s fortunes in forthcoming ODI series Down Under.

In another one sided concern away from home, the Men in Blue were dishonored by a 4-0 margin, on the lines of the same script which saw them capitulating against England, six months back. Back then Raina feature in the Test series but was left out after his technique next to bounce, came under scrutiny.

However, the ODI format offers release for the World Cup winners and the left-hander is keen to put on a good show to make certain that his side quickly recovers from extraordinary criticism.

“The one-dayers and Twenty20 games will go in a different way to how the Tests went. Hopefully we will give you positive results. In the World Cup we beat Australia in the quarter-final and optimistically we will do well against Australia again," said Raina.

Changes have been made to the squad which sees Test specialists such as Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Wriddhiman Saha and Pragyan Ojha jetting back home, making way for the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar and Raina, to take the added task of humanizing their away form.

The team will first battle the hosts in two T20s before featuring in the triangular series against Australia and Sri Lanka. While the Indians have been inspiring in the limited over front in new times, their successes have mainly come on their own backyard.

Their last away performance next to the English side resulted on a winless note but the flamboyant middle-order batsman has strained the importance of the series for the younger group, gearing to take substantial experience, which in turn will help them get ready for the 2015 World Cup, staged Down Under.

“There are a lot of youngsters who have come from India. They have played good first-class cricket and done very well at home. I played three four domestic matches and got a double century," he said. “We will play 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and the same youngsters would advantage a great deal.”

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Cricket news: Squads announce for Pepsi ICC WCL Division 5

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today announce the 14-man squads for the six teams scheduled to compete in the upcoming Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 5 (WCL Div. 5) which will be held in Singapore from 18 to 25 February.

Six teams will compete for the opportunity to finish in the top two of the event and ultimately gain encouragement to the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 4 which will be held later in the year.

The teams, Argentina, Bahrain, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Malaysia and hosts Singapore will play across three venues - Kallang Cricket Ground, Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) and the Indian Association Ground (IA) - which also played host to the Pepsi ICC WCL Division 6 in 2009.

Former Australia opener Trevor Chappell returns as Singapore coach during the tournament, Chappell previously coached the side in September 2009.

Former Sri Lanka batsman Roy Dias will be seen taking charge of Malaysia during the tournament. Dias, who was earlier coach of Nepal and Oman, is now the new Director of Coaching at the Malaysia Cricket Association and will be performing the role of head coach during the tournament.

The full squads are as follows:


Squads

Argentina: Esteban MacDermott (captain), Grant Dugmore, Martin Siri, Pablo Ferguson, Gary Savage, Tomas Francis, Hernan Williams, Matias Paterlini, Pablo Ryan, Lucas Paterlini, Alejandro Tissera, Agustin Husain, Hernan Fennell, Lautaro Musiani

Bahrain: Yaser Sadeq (captain), Naeem Amin, Tahir Dar, Shehzad Ahmed, Adil Hanif, Mirza Ashraf Yaqoob, Zafar Zaheer, Halal Abbasi, Rizwan Baig, Qamar Saeed, Anasim Khan, Adnan Butt, Mirza Azeem Ul Haque, Fahad Sadeq

Cayman Islands: Abali Hoilett (captain), Steve Gordon, Ryan Bovell, Ainsley Hall, Alistair Ifill, Conroy Wright, Kevin Bazil, Zachary McLaughlin, Omar Willis, Troy Taylor, Ramon Sealy, Marlon Bryan, Pearson Best, Kervin Ebanks


Guernsey: Stuart Le Prevost (captain), Gary Rich, Jamie Nussbaumer, William Peatfield, Jeremy Frith, Tom Kimber, Stuart Bisson, Tim Duke, David Hooper, Tim Ravenscroft, Matthew Renouf, Ben Ferbrache, Ross Kneller, GH Smit

Malaysia: Suresh Navaratnam (captain), Rakesh Madhavan, Hammad Khan, Hassan Ghulam Muhammad, Ahmad Faiz Noor, Suhan Alagaratnam, Shukri Abdul Rahim, Ezrafiq Aziz, Rashid Ahad, Shafiq Mohd Sharif, Mohd Anwar Arudin, Suharril Fetri Shuib, Shahrulnizam Yusof, Hiran Ralalage

Singapore: Saad Khan (captain), Chethan Suryawanshi, Chaminda Kumarage, Anish Param, Buddhika Mendis, Kshitij Baliram Shinde, Dharmichand Mulewa, Shoib Abdul Razzak, Pramodh Raja, Amjad Mahboob, Narender Reddy, Munish Arora, Abjiraj Rajdeep Singh, Christopher Janik

The full schedule for the Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 5 is as follows:

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today announce the 14-man squads for the six teams scheduled to compete in the upcoming Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 5 (WCL Div. 5) which will be held in Singapore from 18 to 25 February.

Six teams will compete for the opportunity to finish in the top two of the event and ultimately gain encouragement to the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 4 which will be held later in the year.

The teams, Argentina, Bahrain, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Malaysia and hosts Singapore will play across three venues - Kallang Cricket Ground, Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) and the Indian Association Ground (IA) - which also played host to the Pepsi ICC WCL Division 6 in 2009.

Former Australia opener Trevor Chappell returns as Singapore coach during the tournament, Chappell previously coached the side in September 2009.

Former Sri Lanka batsman Roy Dias will be seen taking charge of Malaysia during the tournament. Dias, who was earlier coach of Nepal and Oman, is now the new Director of Coaching at the Malaysia Cricket Association and will be performing the role of head coach during the tournament.

The full squads are as follows:

Squads

Argentina: Esteban MacDermott (captain), Grant Dugmore, Martin Siri, Pablo Ferguson, Gary Savage, Tomas Francis, Hernan Williams, Matias Paterlini, Pablo Ryan, Lucas Paterlini, Alejandro Tissera, Agustin Husain, Hernan Fennell, Lautaro Musiani

Bahrain: Yaser Sadeq (captain), Naeem Amin, Tahir Dar, Shehzad Ahmed, Adil Hanif, Mirza Ashraf Yaqoob, Zafar Zaheer, Halal Abbasi, Rizwan Baig, Qamar Saeed, Anasim Khan, Adnan Butt, Mirza Azeem Ul Haque, Fahad Sadeq

Cayman Islands: Abali Hoilett (captain), Steve Gordon, Ryan Bovell, Ainsley Hall, Alistair Ifill, Conroy Wright, Kevin Bazil, Zachary McLaughlin, Omar Willis, Troy Taylor, Ramon Sealy, Marlon Bryan, Pearson Best, Kervin Ebanks

Guernsey: Stuart Le Prevost (captain), Gary Rich, Jamie Nussbaumer, William Peatfield, Jeremy Frith, Tom Kimber, Stuart Bisson, Tim Duke, David Hooper, Tim Ravenscroft, Matthew Renouf, Ben Ferbrache, Ross Kneller, GH Smit

Malaysia: Suresh Navaratnam (captain), Rakesh Madhavan, Hammad Khan, Hassan Ghulam Muhammad, Ahmad Faiz Noor, Suhan Alagaratnam, Shukri Abdul Rahim, Ezrafiq Aziz, Rashid Ahad, Shafiq Mohd Sharif, Mohd Anwar Arudin, Suharril Fetri Shuib, Shahrulnizam Yusof, Hiran Ralalage

Singapore: Saad Khan (captain), Chethan Suryawanshi, Chaminda Kumarage, Anish Param, Buddhika Mendis, Kshitij Baliram Shinde, Dharmichand Mulewa, Shoib Abdul Razzak, Pramodh Raja, Amjad Mahboob, Narender Reddy, Munish Arora, Abjiraj Rajdeep Singh, Christopher Janik

The full schedule for the Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 5 is as follows:

Fixtures

17 Feb - Team Practices

18 Feb - Singapore v Cayman Islands (Kallang), Guernsey v Bahrain (SCC), Argentina v Malaysia (IA)

19 Feb - Argentina v Bahrain (Kallang), Malaysia v Cayman Islands (SCC), Singapore v Guernsey (IA)

20 Feb - Rest/Reserve Day

21 Feb - Malaysia v Singapore (Kallang), Argentina v Guernsey (SCC), Cayman Islands v Bahrain (IA)

22 Feb - Guernsey v Malaysia (Kallang), Bahrain v Singapore (SCC), Argentina v Cayman Islands (IA)

23 Feb - Rest/Reserve Day

24 Feb - Cayman Islands v Guernsey (Kallang), Argentina v Singapore (SCC), Bahrain v Malaysia (IA)

25 Feb - Final (Kallang), Third/Fourth play-off (SCC), Fifth/Sixth play-off (IA)

17 Feb - Team Practices

18 Feb - Singapore v Cayman Islands (Kallang), Guernsey v Bahrain (SCC), Argentina v Malaysia (IA)

19 Feb - Argentina v Bahrain (Kallang), Malaysia v Cayman Islands (SCC), Singapore v Guernsey (IA)

20 Feb - Rest/Reserve Day

21 Feb - Malaysia v Singapore (Kallang), Argentina v Guernsey (SCC), Cayman Islands v Bahrain (IA)

22 Feb - Guernsey v Malaysia (Kallang), Bahrain v Singapore (SCC), Argentina v Cayman Islands (IA)

23 Feb - Rest/Reserve Day

24 Feb - Cayman Islands v Guernsey (Kallang), Argentina v Singapore (SCC), Bahrain v Malaysia (IA)

25 Feb - Final (Kallang), Third/Fourth play-off (SCC), Fifth/Sixth play-off (IA)

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