Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Champions trophy’s prize money-$4 million

The prize money of the 2009 edition of the Champions Trophy has been increased to $4 million from the near $1 million it was in the previous version in 2006 when it was hosted by India. The tournament was supposed to be held in Pakistan in 2008, but was postponed due to the security situation there and relocated to South Africa.
Johannesburg and Centurion will host all the 15 games to be played in the tournament, thus reducing the player-travel time, and hence fatigue.

There are eight countries which will feature in the tournament, unlike in the 2006 edition when there had been ten. The earlier format had seen the top six countries get a direct entry into the tournament, where as the remaining four, namely, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh having to play out a round-robin qualifying. West Indies and Sri Lanka qualified for the main tournament. Australia is the defending champion, having won the final at Brabourne stadium last time by beating West Indies.

This time around, there are only eight countries playing the tournament, and will be divided into two groups of four teams each. Each group will have its own round-robin league and the top two sides from each group will advance to the semi-finals and the winners of the semis will feature in the finale to be played on the 5th of October.

Group A consists of India, Pakistan, West Indies and defending champions, Australia. The other group has Sri Lanka, England and New Zealand along with the hosts, South Africa.

 

Sachin vs Sehwag

 

Sachin, the prodigy of Indian Cricket, is till date ruling the hearts crickets fans all over world.
On the other hand, Sehwag, a raw talent, audacity personified and very much resembling Sachin in stature, for whom Sachin is
the idol.
Looking at sehwag today, one remember how devastating Sachin was in his early 20's.
Today you see a matured, calmed down Sachin, who rather than dictating terms, prefers to mould himself according to the situation.
The Sachin of old, would not worry of his back, elbow or little finger, all of which finds a place in Sachin's mind, while he is
batting today.
Sehwag is a fearless warrior. He goes out there to not struggle, but battle.
He dominates from the word go. He prefers demoralising the opposition to such an extent that even after he departs, the impact
is visible on other batsmen too.
Sehwag is the most experienced among the young brigade of Indian batsmen, but still all of them look upto Sachin, as not only
their idol but a torch bearer.
All of the young guns, including Sehwag respect Sachin, to no limits.
Sachin on the other hand has carved out a different niche for himself into this team of supremely talented cricketers like Sehwag,
Yuvraj, MSD.
Times of changed, now Sachin no more is the one who is responsible for an onslaught on the opposition bowlers.
That is take care by Sehwag, where as an even more important role awaits for Sachin, that of an anchor.
Both Sachin and Sehwag, have their own place in the Indian team, but today Sehwag is more potent a batsmen as compared to Sachin.
Sehwag has more chances of winning a match today for India.
On the other hand, one can rely on Sachin to save a match, or get the team out of a corner when wickets fall in a heap.
Sehwag fears no bowler, no pitch/conditions and plays according to his wish.
At times, he falters and lacks the same consistency but is a match winner to the core.
IF Sehwag stays for a long, its spells dooms day for the opposition.
Sehwag is surprisingly, is very superior test batsmen, as compared to the other young batters.
The likes of Yuvraj Singh still struggle to make it to the final 11 of a test team, but Sehwag has special way to play in tests.
He takes calculated risks, and more often then not, they pay off. The 2 triple tons by him are a testimony to it. None else apart
from him has managed to cross the 300 mark, not even Sachin Tendulkar.
So in today's context Sehwag might be a more potent, valuable batsmen to the team as compared to Sachin.
But the mere weight of more than 30,000 international runs, more than 80 international centuries, more than 2 decades of cricket,
still makes Sachin the best India could ever have, will ever have.
The second best test player the world will ever see batting and by far the best limited overs batsman in the history of the game.
Sachin sits at the top, while Sehwag is fast catching up, and has a long way to go.

Andrew Flintoff’s good bye to test cricket

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One of England’s best all-rounders of all times and certainly the best at the current moment, Andrew Flintoff, has decided to hang his boots from international test match cricket. However, he has said that he will continue playing in the other formats of the game; the ODIs and the T20Is. He has announced that the last four games in the Ashes will be his final swansong, and that he will play through pain if necessary.
Flintoff’s decision comes a couple of days after he was diagnosed with another problem with the knee because of which he was deemed to undergo a fitness test for the second Ashes test match at Lord’s. This was in continuation to his previous injuries to his ankle and to the same knee, which had seen him feature in only three games of the Indian Premier League and miss the ICC World T20 competition. He had also been ruled out of the test series against West Indies, but had regained the fitness for the Ashes.

However, even as England battled to save the game, Flintoff felt recurring pain on the same knee and had to take injections for soreness and swelling. In the press conference, he said that he took this (four ankle operations and a knee surgery) as a signal from his body to stop playing the longer format of the game.

His captain, Andrew Strauss was obviously disappointed, but he also said that he expected the move to come in sooner than later. He praised the Lancastrian by saying that Flintoff has had a very positive effect on English cricket as a whole and the statistics do not paint the whole picture.

 

It was true that Flintoff had been going through quite a lot in terms of his fitness and the five-day format. 

Clearly, this is a worrying trend in which there will be an increasing number of cricketers wanting to take the cricket’s VRS and get into the various leagues full time, thus depriving the international cricket of stars; something that the fans look forward to.

Hayden To Open Cricket Academy In Chennai

Matthew Lawrence Hayden

 

Former Australia opener, and current Chennai Super Kings batsman, Matthew Hayden, has planned to begin work on setting up an academy in Chennai and may enlist the help of Rahul Dravid and Stephen Fleming in doing so. Hayden has had a very good record in the country, while he averages 83.75 in test matches in Chennai including a double century.
Hayden said that it was his intention to try and give back to the city where he first made a comeback and practiced playing spin bowling on tracks that assisted spin bowlers in 2000-01.

He also said that the academy would not focus on cricket alone, but also have education as a part of the exercise too. The reason for this, he said, was that not all aspirants went on to become cricketers, and needed to have something to depend upon.

Hayden added that the reason why he would want to work with Dravid was that he could identify his values and hence the chance of a partnership. He said that he had had a chat with Dravid during the 2009 edition of the IPL and would love to have Dravid with him. He also drew inspiration from former Australian captain, Steve Waugh, who had been involved in charity projects in India and had been an inspiration for him.

Waugh has adopted the charity institute Udayan and has worked for the benefit of the children in the institute. Hayden said that he would like to do something similar for Chennai like what Waugh had done in Kolkata.

USA To Start With Their Own IPL-Like Version

 

The USA Cricket Association (USACA) has announced that it will soon launch an IPL-like professional cricket league and has begun work to outline the that very plan. It has been reported that the USACA will be looking for partners to enable it to launch the tournament.
The USACA has appointed Nigel Rushman, Chairman of Rushmans ,to serve as commercial advisor to USACA, or in other words as the sports management firm to manage the whole thing. Rushmans is a UK-based firm have been associated with some of the major cricketing events as well, like the 2007 World Cup of cricket.

According to a media list on the website of Rushmans, the USACA is looking for partners to get corporate sponsorships, development and management of cricketing events in the USA, implementing an IPL-like professional league, negotiating TV and radio rights, and even developing and managing a cricket website for the tournament and a social networking medium to get the fans going as well.

The USA has been tipped as one of the most viable markets to spread cricket, what with the kind of Asian expat population in that country. Earlier there had been talks of Lalit Modi, the chairman of the IPL to host a parallel and a smaller IPL in the USA, but with the US coming out with their own version of the tournament, it remains to be seen whether any such dreams will work out.