2008 Twenty20 Champions League Fixtures

 
Wednesday, December 3rd 2008
Middlesex Crusaders vs Victoria Bushrangers Group A 16:00 Mumbai

Rajasthan Royals vs Nashua Dolphins Group B  20:00 Bangalore 
 
 
Thursday, December 4th 2008
Sialkot Stallions  vs Rambal Warriors Group B 16:00 Bangalore

Chennai Super Kings vs Victoria Bushrangers Group A  20:00 Mumbia 

 
Friday, December 5th 2008 
Middlesex Crusaders vs Nashua Titans Group A 16:00 Chennai

Rajasthan Royals vs Sialkot Stallions Group B  20:00 Mumbai
 
 
Saturday, December 6th 2008
Rambal Warriors vs Nashua Dolphins Group B 12:00 Bangalore

Victoria Bushrangers vs Nashua Titans Group A 16:00 Chennai

Chennai Super Kings vs Middlesex Crusaders Group A 20:00 Chennai
 
 
Sunday, December 7th 2008
Nashua Dolphins vs Sialkot Stallions Group B  12:00 Bangalore

Rajasthan Royals vs Rambal Warriors Group B  16:00 Bangalore

Chennai Super Kings vs Nashua Titans Group A  20:00 Chennai

 
Monday, December 8th 2008 (Semi Final 1)
B1 V A2  20:00 Bangalore

 
Tuesday, December 9th 2008 (Semi Final 2)
A1 V B2    20:00 Chennai
 
 
Wednesday, December 10th 2008 (FINAL)
TBA vs TBA   20:00 Chennai

http://cricket.expressindia.com/news/Indian-success-more-to-do-with-luck-than-skill-Ponting/387297/

Melbourne, November 18:: Blissfully unaware of the series bashing that awaited him in India, Australian captain Ricky Ponting considered Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men better-suited for Twenty20 cricket rather than Tests after their World Cup triumph in South Africa.
Recalling the success of Indian team in the Twenty20 World Cup, Ponting wrote in his book 'Captain's Diary 2008' that Dhoni was a "classic example" of a player who could damage the opposition in the shortest version, which offers little scope for a batsman to showcase his technique.

"Teams that are outclassed in five-day matches and even 50-over games are much more competitive in Twenty20. India offer a good example of this. The shorter the format of the game the more dangerous they become," Ponting said.

"Some of their batsmen -- Yuvraj Singh and M S Dhoni are classic examples -- can hurt you more in shorter games, because their is less opportunity to find ways of picking apart their techniques," he while adding that "Form in Twenty20 really doesn't count for all that much".

Having said so, Ponting also dismissed India's successful journey to the T20 world title, attributing it to more luck and little skills.

"I am not as cynical about the game as I once was, but some negatives still nag at me. There is so much luck involved in this shortened form of the game; it's not always going to be the best team that wins. I guess that's true of all sport but it seems to be accentuated here... Little wonder, then, that the tournament has been unpredictable, with many locals stunned that previously unbeaten South Africa was eliminated so comfortably by India," he said.

Dhoni, however, went on to prove Ponting wrong as he led India to a thumping 2-0 win in the recent four-Test series. The Tasmanian right-hander said he wondered why Dhoni had complained against him about sledging during the a one-dayer in Kochi last year.

"After the game, at the captain's media conference, MS Dhoni revealed that he had complained to the umpires about what he called 'harsh' language that I and some other Australian players had reputedly used on the field. I really don't know where he was coming from. The umpires didn't have a problem, match referee Chris Broad didn't have a problem and I wonder whether Dhoni was trying to somehow square the ledger after the controversy that engulfed S Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh in Kochi."

Ponting said Dhoni's behaviour was rather strange as Broad had lauded his team's approach towards the game.

"I actually sat on the plane right behind Chris Broad, and he made a point of turning around and congratulating me for the way out team approached the game".

http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-cnbc-tv18-1626370.html

LLROUNDER Andrew Symonds says his excessive drinking was one of the reasons for his rapid fall from grace and the Australian cricket team.
Symonds, set to be included in Australia's starting XI for Thursday's first Test against New Zealand at the Gabba, has exposed some of the background to the infamous "Gone Fishing" affair which saw him sent home from Darwin in disgrace.

        * Australia v ACA All Stars in pictures


Symonds told how he had "turned bad" and started drinking excessively after last summer's controversial Monkeygate affair during which he felt he had not been supported by Cricket Australia.

    Our cricket section


"At times I was drinking too much and I wasn't a good bloke to be around," Symonds said on Channel 9.

        * Andrew Symonds in pictures


"I had turned bad, I think, with the build-up of the whole of last summer and the things that had unfolded.

"I wasn't in a great place.

 "Looking back now, it probably happened at the right time that I got sent home and told to straighten myself out.

"I feel much better within myself.

"Even if I don't come back and play great cricket, I know I have done something that will improve what I need to be as a person."

The dreadlocked allrounder, strongly tipped to be chosen ahead of fellow Queensland allrounder Shane Watson or spinner Jason Krejza this week, has become the latest high-profile Australian sportsperson to admit to excessive drinking.

It is not the first time Symonds has had a problem with alcohol.

His infamous night on the booze in Cardiff during the 2005 one-day series in England almost cost him his Australian contract.

This time it cost him his baggy green cap for the Indian tour and it is believed advice on sensible alcohol consumption was one of the planks of his Cricket Australia-ordered rehabilitation program.

Queensland teammates say Symonds has still enjoyed an occasional beer this season but has sworn to drink responsibly and make cricket preparation his No. 1 priority.

Symonds's axing from the national side also shattered his once great friendship with former best mate and Australian vice-captain Michael Clarke.

He said he did not show Clarke enough respect - an apparent reference to an argument the pair had in a bar in the West Indies this year.

"I did something silly with him one night and I suppose I was a bit disrespectful to him," he said.

"That relationship is still alive, but to be perfectly honest it is not what it was.

"We are both making efforts to get it back to where it was because that's a friendship I don't want to lose."

Clarke, the captain during the Bangladesh series in Darwin, was one of the men who sent Symonds home and regular skipper Ricky Ponting backed the move.

"Things had to change for him (Symonds) to get back and stay in our side," Ponting said yesterday.

The push to play Symonds in this week's first Test has become a landslide and the debate has divided the cricket community.

Although Symonds showed glimpses of his best form in Friday's Twenty20 exhibition match in Brisbane, he has barely scored a run for Queensland in domestic cricket this season.

Project player Watson has been a Test allrounder seven years in the making and advanced his prospects during the Indian tour, on which he was arguably Australia's best bowler.

Watson has not established himself in the No.6 batting position - averaging in the mid-20s in India - but many former Test stars still believe he has done enough to be selected.

Wicketkeeping great Adam Gilchrist and former Test opener Michael Slater insist they cannot find a place for Symonds in their side for the first Test.

"I can't see how you can get him in there," Gilchrist said.

"I am all about rewarding performance and Watson has taken his opportunity."

Slater added: "I am seeing Watson staying in the side from his performances in India."

 

Live and let play - the Bond script cricket needs

By JOHN DYBVIG - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 16 November 2008

Bond. James Bond. That simple introduction instantly sends chills down your spine and conjures up all kinds of excitement and adventure. The same holds true for the cricketing Bond - when Shane Bond has the ball in hand facing those cocky Australians I tune in to watch and so do thousands of other people.

But, because those boneheads on the New Zealand Cricket board have totally kowtowed to the International Cricket Council - who in turn kowtowed to their money-masters in India - nobody gets to see the marvellous Shane Bond in action. Nobody, that is, except a few Indians who watch the outcasts of the Indian Cricket League.

For newcomers to this saga, the powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) devised and sanctioned the Indian Premier League. At the same time, the rival ICL was set up but the BCCI refused to sanction that competition, therefore making it a "rebel" outfit, which meant anyone who played in it found himself at loggerheads with world cricket and was effectively banned.

Bond's big mistake was in trusting his board, thinking them honourable men when they gave him a clearance to play, but of course they buckled at the first sign of pressure from the Indians and banned Bond, along with Lou Vincent, Craig McMillan, Hamish Marshall, Chris Cairns and a bunch of other Kiwis.

Bond is a stand-up guy who wanted to secure his financial future for his family by playing for the Delhi Giants. Wow, what a bastard he turned out to be - well, that's the view of New Zealand Cricket, who threw him under the bus. Oh sure, they came up with all sorts of justifiable excuses to hide behind their cowardice: it's the rules, they said, it's the ICC regulations.

Don't make me laugh, it's all about control, power, greed: the foundations of international cricket these days - the players are merely the meat in the money sandwich.

And I just love this courageous stand from Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori: "While we would love to have him, the team's probably moved on from that. It has been a long time now."

Since when have the mighty Black Caps "moved on" from having quality players on their team?

In case you've forgotten, Dan, your powerhouse team didn't exactly streamroll their way through Bangladesh - in other words, dude, you're not terribly good. Whether or not the team has "moved on" they could use a player of Bond's ability.

Bond has had more success against Australia than any other Kiwi pace bowler in the past 20 years - so let him play.

And don't tell me New Zealand Cricket is powerless against the might of India. Hell, the New Zealand government stood up to the might of the United States of America when it came to nuclear warships. If you don't let the nation watch Bond skittle the Aussies you leave me with no alternative but to boycott curry. And I love a good curry.

When I first came to these lovely, lonely isles in the South Pacific I was fascinated by an Ichabod Crane lookalike who ripped batters to shreds, screaming, "Howwwwwzat!" That's because even an American cricketing moron like me could plainly see that Richard Hadlee had oodles of talent even if I didn't quite understand what that talent was all about.

Imagine his career cut short because a foreign power dictated what NZC must do. As is usually the case when politics enters the arena, it's the fans who end up getting shafted.

I'll never forget what numbskulls the rugby boys were when they dropped Wayne "Buck" Shelford. What a waste.

Not picking Shane Bond to appease a group of wealthy individuals is also a waste not only for the Black Caps but for the New Zealand public.

I'll leave the last word to Bond: "I'm available, I haven't retired. I would love to be playing for New Zealand, especially against Australia; you love to test yourself against the best."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4762756a2201.html


 

CHARACTER AND DESTINY

- In cricket, what you do determines who you are 

Mukul Kesavan
 
 
Sourav Ganguly’s retirement is a good time to reflect on the way in which so much cricket-writing is based on the odd premise that character is destiny. Since cricket-writing is a minor form even within sports-writing, it isn’t surprising that it borrows ideas from older, more substantial, genres such as the novel. The realist novel proceeds on this premise, and a great deal of its time is spent teasing out character because that elusive thing is seen as the springboard for the action of fiction. Who you are determines what you do.

Cricket-writers have appropriated this idea and run with it. In cricket-writing this idea has been elaborated: not only does character determine performance, it also dictates where a player will be placed in cricket’s pantheon, its hall of fame. Character determines outcomes; further, particular kinds of character, dictate (or ought to dictate) particular sorts of outcomes. So flamboyant batsmen, however good, do less well in the character stakes than more formally organized, ‘solid’ players. They are likely to be indiscreet in the matter of shot selection, prone to untimely dismissal, less committed to the team interest. Their performances, their careers, turn on the axis of narcissism, of selfishness.

You can see this in the consensus about Brian Lara. It’s hard to dispute his greatness but despite a dazzling career, studded with heroic rearguard performances in the cause of a team in steep decline, lurking in assessments of his achievement there is always the suggestion that magnificent though he was, he was selfish. It isn’t just cricket-writers who are keen on character, players are too. Ponting explicitly accused Lara of selfishness when he scored his record-breaking quadruple century; Lara, according to Ponting, was someone who put personal landmarks ahead of team results, something that Ponting in particular and Australian players in general never did. This selfishness, in turn, is used to explain Lara’s inability to translate individual genius into team success. And this is as it should be: in the world of cricket-writing, the fundamentally unsound must finally fail.

The careers of Indian cricket’s unidentical twins, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, illustrate cricket-writing’s love affair with ‘character’ as also the term’s uselessness as a way of understanding the game. By the time Ganguly retired, he and Dravid had been fixtures in the Indian team for a dozen years. They made their debuts together in England in 1996 and, unlike the current crop of batting hopefuls, at once became indispensable.

But Ganguly’s character had been the subject of gossip years before 1996, ever since he toured Australia in 1991-92 with the Indian team without playing a Test. Ganguly’s alleged sense of entitlement, his unwillingness to fetch and carry, his poor attitude, his lack of proper deference had become legend by the time he scored his debut century. And the legend endured: right through his career, he was seen as a gifted but incomplete player whose idiosyncratic and flawed technique mirrored a flawed character. This legend was amplified by angry Western journalists like Malcolm Conn and Michael Henderson, made anxious by India’s growing clout in the game, as well as by players-turned-commentators like Ian Chappell.

Dravid, on the other hand, was universally admired because his character, like his batting technique, was sound. If Ganguly was insolent, difficult, mercurial, provocative and flawed, Dravid was well-bred, consistent, a good sport and true. He was the Wall, the team man who gave everything to the cause of the side, a safe slip field, a player who became better as he matured, growing from being a fine defensive batsman into a great one. He was loved when he played a season of county cricket in Kent, in sharp contrast to Ganguly, who seemed to have been loathed during his time in Lancashire.

Had the cricket-writer’s thesis about the relationship between character and destiny been correct, Dravid would have been perfect captaincy material. He was sober, unselfish, intelligent, secure in his ability as a player and sound. Ganguly should have been a disaster as a leader, simply because he was none of these things. He wasn’t as good a player and, on top of that, he was spoilt by privilege, he was a politician networked with the cricket establishment, he was devious and he was the opposite of sound, he was flash.

The trouble is, the emphasis on ‘character’ produces boring fiction and bad cricket-writing. Ganguly turned out to be the most successful captain India has ever had. India beat the Australians at home in 2001 and won cricket matches abroad more frequently than they had ever done before. What’s more, the team won these matches with brio and flair, and Gang...