Suspended Pakistan Trio to Return Home

The three Pakistani players at the centre of the spot-fixing scandal will return home within the next 48 hours Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik has said. The imminent return of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir does not, however, mean they are cleared from the ongoing criminal investigation: the government of Pakistan, Malik said, will provide a written assurance that the players be made available if needed for further investigations.

 

"We have spoken to Scotland Yard, and the [Pakistan] high commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, has also been in talks with them and they have agreed that the players can return to Pakistan," Malik told ESPNcricinfo.

A source close to the negotiations said the Pakistan team was waiting for a final green signal from Scotland Yard. "There are 30 per cent chances of them going on Friday and 70 per cent on Saturday," the source said. All three, the source added, would travel back together.

 

The trio were provisionally suspended by the ICC last Thursday and were quizzed by police the next day for their alleged role in bowling deliberate no-balls during the fourth Test at Lord's between England and Pakistan; an undercover sting operation by the tabloid News of the World apparently revealed that they had done so at the behest of Mazhar Majeed, an agent to the players. Majeed was arrested but released on bail while the players had their mobile phones confiscated. No charges have been pressed against them yet.

 

The development comes on the same day the PCB chief revealed that Wahab Riaz, the left-arm fast bowler, will be the fourth player to be interviewed by the police in relation to the scandal. Ijaz Butt sounded confident in his press conference at Gaddafi Stadium earlier that the three players would return to Pakistan soon and though he indicated that the criminal case against them might not be as strong, he did not say they would be cleared. The PCB's legal advisor Taffazul Rizvi confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that investigations will continue.

 

The players also have to respond to the suspension notices served to them by the ICC for which they have one more week left. That investigation and process is separate to whatever conclusion police officials reach.

PCB chairman hooted by cricket fans at airport in Lahore

Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Ijaz Butt was on Wednesday hooted and jeered by angry fans when the veteran administrator landed in the country for the first time since the spot-fixing scandal shocked the world cricket. As soon as Butt came out of the airport terminal, fans raised slogan against him and shouted 'Shame Shame', expressing their anger over the alleged betting scam which hit the image of the country globally.

Butt, who was in London since the expose, was his usual secretive and defensive self, refusing to give out any new details on the ongoing investigations into the scandal involving Test captain Salman Butt and pace bowlers Mohammad Aamir and Muhammed Asif.

But he did say that if any player is found guilty of fixing matches, he would be dealt with severely.

"Right now the PCB can't take any action against the players because the ICC anti-corruption unit is carrying out an inquiry into this matter. But if any player is found guilty he will not be spared," he said.

"Even the police interrogated them for nine hours but let them go without pressing any charges. So we are also waiting for the ICC and Scotland Yard to come up with their findings into this matter," he added.

Butt said the PCB had filed detailed replies to the charge-sheets issued to the players by the ICC but the world governing body wanted the players to respond themselves.

"We had given the ICC a detailed reply to the charge-sheets sent to the players but the ICC said the players themselves must answer the charge-sheet," he said.

Butt was evasive when asked about reports that the ICC was also investigating the Sydney Test between Pakistan and Australia.

"I think we shouldn't be talking about such old issues we need to focus on this current problem and hope it is resolved soon," he added.

ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2009 Super8 Fixtures

ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2009 ournament is progressing and now its time for the Super 8 matches.

Check out the fixtures/schedules for the Super 8 stage. Check out which team is playiing with whom.

Click on the image to enlarge if you can't see it properly.

Enjoy the ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2009.

Zaheer leads India to easy win

India Vs Ireland ( ICC World Twenty20 2009 ) - Indian seamer Zaheer Khan took four for 19 to set up a comfortable eight-wicket victory over Ireland in the final group match of the Twenty20 World Cup on Wednesday.

Both teams had already qualified for the second round of the tournament.

Left-arm swing bowler Zaheer helped restrict Ireland to just 112 for eight after the match was was reduced to 18-overs a side following a rain delay.

Man-of-the-match Zaheer was well supported by spinner Pragyan Ojha, who completed figures of two for 18 from four overs.

Rohit Sharma (52 not out) and Gautam Gambhir (37) put on 77 for the first wicket for defending champions India who reached 113 for two with 15 deliveries remaining under the Trent Bridge floodlights.

Jayasuriya Back in Form

Sri Lanka Vs West Indies ( ICC World Twenty20 2009 ) - Sanath Jayasuriya's47-ball 81 and his century stand for the first wicket with Tillakaratne Dilshan propelled Sri Lanka to a 15-run win over the West Indies in an inconsequential Twenty20 World Cup Group C match here today.

With both the sides making it to the Super Eight stage, the match had no bearing on their future in the tournament but Sri Lanka still began in the right earnest.

Put into bat, the Lankans got off to a solid start as openers Jayasuriya and Dilshan (74 off 47 balls) laid the foundation for a huge total before medium-pacer Lendl Simmons (4-19) managed to pull things back a little for the West Indies.

Chasing 193 for victory, West Indies managed 177 for five with Dwayne Bravo (51), Ramnaresh Sarwan (28 not out) and Lendl Simmons (27) shining with the bat even though it was not enough in the end.

West Indies started in a whirlwind fashion as openers Andre Fletcher (13) and Simmons put on 38 runs inside four overs before the former's leg stump was uprooted by a slower full toss from Lasith Malinga.

Undeterred, Simmons carried on, hitting back-to-back fours off Muttiah Muralitharan but his all-round show was brought to an end by the wily off-spinner as the batsman perished at first slip.

Bad Time But Not Affect Ashes confidence: Ponting

Sri Lanka became the second team to beat Australia in three days with a six-wicket triumph at Trent Bridge and Ponting's side have now lost 13 of their 23 Twenty20 clashes.

They must now start preparing for a five-Test series against England starting in Cardiff on July 8.

"It's my job to make sure we get over this pretty quickly and start focusing on the red balls and white clothing over the next couple of months," Ponting told reporters.

"I certainly won't be focusing on the negative stuff that has happened over the last couple of days.

"It's about looking at the positives we have created with our test team over the last few months. I like to think that none of this will linger around.

"Being in England there is no better place to be as the excitement and atmosphere at the start of an Ashes is going to be tremendous and if we can get caught up in that there won't be any negatives hanging around from the last few days."

UNEXPECTED PRACTICE

The Australians' next match is on June 24 against Sussex, so they have 15 days, based mainly in Leicester, to prepare and Ponting said the practice time may yet be an advantage.

"I guess it can't hinder us to have more time with the red balls out and preparing for the longer form of the game, while England play Twenty20 for at least another week so maybe that is one thing we can take from our time at Leicester," Ponting said.

"I've never been a big believer in taking one series to another, particularly when it's different forms of the game. We have a vast changeover of players coming over for the Ashes and when they get here we will build on from the very good stuff we did in South Africa."

Despite his attempts to put a positive spin on Australia's elimination from cricket's premier 20-over event, Ponting did not try to hide from his team's vulnerabilities in that format of the game.

"I would love to be able to tell you what's going wrong as that's five international Twenty20 games we have lost in a row and that's a worrying trend for our team," he added. "We've got some thinking to do there's no doubt about that.

"We will have a chat about where our Twenty20 cricket is at tonight and then we have got to move on from it pretty quickly because we've got some test matches just around the corner and our test team has been our shining light recently."

Australia knocked out of ICC WT20

Sri Lanka Vs Australia ( ICC World Twenty20 2009 ) - Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakara and T.Dilshan played an important role in run chase against Australia to achieve the target of 160 runs with one over to spare and beat them by six wickets. For the first time Australia faces so much early exit from the tournament in a decade.

The win for Sri Lanka confirm their and West Indies berth in the Super Eight Stage.

Chasing the target of 160 runs for victory Sri Lanka got off to flying start with the help of in-form T.Dilshan (53 runs of 32 balls) despite loosing opener Sanath Jayasurya (2 runs of 7 balls) in the third over of an inning. Dilshan and K.Sangakara (55 runs of 42 balls) put on a valuable partnership 62 runs of just 42 deliveries to make the run chase comfortable for other batsman to follow.

However once Dilshan got out Australia did manage to get the match closer to the end overs but in the end it was captain cool Sangakara and Jehan Mubarak (21 runs of 12 balls) achieved the target with an over remaining.

Earlier Australian after put into bat got off to disastrous start loosing opener David Warner in the very first over. However R. Ponting (25 runs of 15 balls) and Shane Watson (22 runs of 21 balls) tried hard to put Australian inning back on track but once spinner introduced into attack they were struggled and kept loosing wickets at regular intervals.

At one stage they were struggling to get pass 150 run mark but thank to M.Johnson (28 runs of 13 balls) and David Hussey (28 runs of 22 balls) innings as they both collected 65 runs in the last five overs of Australian inning.

Kumara Sangakar was declared Man-of-the-Match for his superb unbeaten knock of 55 runs of 42 balls.

Ireland Into Super Eight By beating Bangladesh

Ireland Vs Bangladesh ( ICC World Twenty20 2009 ) – Ireland beat Bangladesh by 6 wickets to enter Super Eight.

Ireland played an exceptional cricket on a day when require to make it to the Super Eight of ICC world twenty20. They have beaten test playing nation Bangladesh quite convincingly by 6 wickets.

The hungrier side was always going to come up tops and Ireland took a massive stride by keeping a reckless Bangladesh to 137. Bangladesh batted with the freedom of a team that believed they were already in the next stage and paid the price, stumbling after a shaky start.

Thanks to M.Mortza quick fire 33 runs of 16 balls that gave some respectability to Bangladesh.
Ireland didn’t got-off to good start but the O’Brien brothers make it possible for their team by playing some good cricket with bat. First it was N. O’Brien who smashed 40 runs of 25 balls and then K. O’Brien finished the game with blistering 39 runs of just 17 balls.

N. O’Brien was declared Man-of-the-Match for his quick fire 40 runs of 25 balls.

Ireland plays India at Trent Bridge on Wednesday in a Group A match but both teams have now advanced.

Captain MS Dhoni Vice Captain Sehwag and Media

Nottingham (ICC T20 WC, 2009): Team India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Friday dismissed media reports about the reported rift between him and Virender Sehwag.

Dhoni, who was slated to address a press conference on the eve of their opening match against Bangladesh in the World Twenty20 Championship, only read out a statement on the entire team's behalf which spoke about the harmony and unity among the team members.

His brief statement primarily dealt with media reports in India about the alleged rift between Sehwag and him and he firmly squashed it. However, he did not take any questions.

Dhoni's comments on Thursday on Sehwag's injuries and a reply "May be you should ask his physio to issue a press release" lent itself to media speculation of a rift between the two.

"This message is for the people of India and for Indian cricket fans worldwide and comes from the whole team," the statement read out by Dhoni on Friday said.

"Recent reports in the Indian media of a rift between myself and Sehwag amounts to nothing but false and irresponsible media reporting," it said.

Confident Team India set off to retain T20 crown

Despite concerns about pace spearhead Zaheer Khan's fitness and about the players' fatigue factor looming large, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Friday optimistic about India's chances of retaining the T20 World Cup in England.

"We have a very balanced side, very strong in batting. We bat right down to 8 or 9. This is not to say we lack in bowling. We have a strong bowling attack too," he told a press conference in Mumbai before departing with teammates for London by a Friday noon flight.

"We have some outstanding talents in our team and we need to focus on playing to our potential without worrying about the result. We have to give 100 per cent and hopefully we can defend the title," he said about the team's prospects in the tournament starting June 5.

Dhoni In Presentation Ceremony ICC World Cup Twenty20 Final

Dhoni In Presentation Ceremony ICC World Cup Twenty20 Final Talking about the expereince of ICC WORLD CUP T20

How he and his boys make the history

ICC World Twenty20 2009 - Match Schedule

ICC World Twenty20 2009 - Match Schedule

Based on groupings as follows:

Group Matches:

Super Eight - Groups

GROUP E	GROUP F
A1	B1
B2	A2
C1	C2
D2	D1

The top two ranked teams in each group are seeded 1 and 2. They will retain this seeding for the Super Eights stage, irrespective of whether they finish first or second in their group, unless they are knocked out by team 3 in their group. In this instance, team 3 replaces the position of the team they knock out.

For example, if Bangladesh wins Group A and India comes second, for the purposes of the Super Eights, India will still be A1 and Bangladesh will be A2. If for example, Ireland qualifies instead of India, Ireland will become A1.

This formula provides spectators with certainty as to the location of team matches.

Semi Finals & Final