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Indian bowlers would find it more difficult than the batsmen to make the switch from the longest to the shortest format of the game, according to Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

“It’s (switch) difficult. But if you see we had been scoring at five-an-over in the last Test we played (at Mumbai). I don’t think it would be too difficult for some of the batsmen, especially Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir,” Dhoni said ahead of the first Twenty20 international against Sri Lanka.

“They actually bat in the same way. Just that they are a bit over-aggressive in T20 format, you can say,” he said

Though the bowlers need to roll their arm for only four overs, an enormous effort is involved to do so in the T20 format as the batsmen would go after them from ball one, especially on Indian pitches, he said.

“Most of our players are positive players, looking for strokes and runs. I don’t think you need to change your game too much. Of course a few others need to change according to the requirements.”

“Considering we are playing in India, it would be a bit different for the bowlers, as the batsmen would go after them from the very first ball. It looks to be a small game, just four overs, but the amount of effort that’s needed, that’s what it is all about” he explained.

Dhoni said his team will look to win both the T20 matches.

“We will try our best, it’s a very different format. We have to be up to the mark in everything. It’s important to be right on target. We will try and win both the two T20 games (against Lanka),” he said.

The second match is at Mohali on December 12.

Dhoni hoped to keep it a 100 per cent win record for India at this new venue after having won the Test against Australia last year and again the ODI against the same opponents two months ago.

“We hope to have a 100 per cent strike rate at Nagpur. It will be good for Nagpur and India,” he quipped.

Dhoni felt the wicket looked to be good for stroke playing but also cautioned the quick manner in which things fall apart for a batting side when they are on the look-out for quick runs in T20 games.

“Looks like a good track. It’s a late evening start. We may see dew come into effect. But by the time dew comes in the game may be over. It won’t be that big a factor.”

“Overall it will be good for batting, but in T20 its very tough to predict. All of a sudden you look to go aggressive and lose quite a few wickets at quick intervals and you are not able to get big runs”, he pointed out.

Dhoni said that the two newcomers in the Indian team, Ashok Dinda of Bengal and R Ashwin of Tamil Nadu are bound to benefit by having a close look at what an international game is about by sharing the dressing room.

Virender Sehwag, recuperating from a shoulder surgery, was shaping well for the Champions Trophy, according to Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who said the dashing opener may however not be ready for the tri-series in Sri Lanka in early September. He is improving every day. He is putting in a lot of effort to get ready for Champions Trophy , Dhoni said. 

Indian cricket team Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his deputy Yuvraj Singh retained the top two slots in batsmen’s list, while Team India managed to cling on to second position in the ICC ODI Rankings issued on Monday. Dhoni held on to his numero uno status with 828 rating points while left-handed Yuvraj, who had managed his career best ranking last month, had 784 points in his kitty. The Indian duo are followed by Australia’s Mike Hussey (767), West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul (759) and his skipper Chris Gayle (756) in the list. Virender Sehwag (seventh), Sachin Tendulkar (14th) and Gautam Gambhir (17th) stuck to their respective positions. Meanwhile, South Africa remained on top of ODI Championships table, followed by India and Australia at second and third. Among the bowlers, injured left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan continued to be the only Indian in top 20 at 16th. Sri Lankan Nuwan Kulasekara tops the bowlers’ list.

ICC Champions Trophy will give Dhoni’s team the chance to take over as number-one ODI side in the world

Australia slips to third position and England jumps two spots to fourth as New Zealand drops to fifth and Pakistan sixth following annual update

Shakib Al Hasan goes to third position in bowling rankings as Kumar Sangakkara returns to top 10 batsmen

India has moved up to second place on the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table following the annual update.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team has jumped ahead of Australia and is now just one ratings point behind number-one-ranked South Africa after the adjustment.

The annual update is carried out to ensure the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table continues to reflect recent form with older results being discarded.

The table reflects all ODIs between the teams represented on the table that took place since 1 August two years ago. All matches played until the start of next August will be added to this table, so by then the ratings will be based on three years of results and, over those three years, matches played in the most recent year will carry most weight.

Next August the first year of results will be dropped and this pattern is repeated each August, with the oldest of the three years of results removed to be gradually replaced with results of matches played over the following 12 months.

Thus, once a year, the rankings change overnight without any new ODIs necessarily being played. India’s rise in this year’s update reflects its outstanding record during the past 12 months and also the dropping of a much poorer set of results in the year ending July 2007.

England has fared well as a result of the update as it rises two places from sixth to fourth spot in the latest team rankings. As a consequence, New Zealand falls from fourth to fifth position with Pakistan dropping to sixth spot after losing the first two of the ongoing ODI series in Sri Lanka.

Indeed, if Younus Khan’s team loses the next ODI in Dambulla on Monday, it will fall below Sri Lanka into seventh spot albeit with an immediate chance to retake sixth place in the fourth and fifth ODIs of the series.

Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara has returned to the top 10 of the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen after helping his side to victory in the first and second ODIs of the current series against Pakistan.

The news is not so good for Mohammad Yousuf of Pakistan who slips two places to 15th position while his team-mate Shoaib Malik and Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya also lose ground to joint-19th spot.

Their loss is India’s and New Zealand’s gain, however, as Gautam Gambhir and Ross Taylor both move up to joint-17th position in the latest rankings.

The batting list is still headed by the Indian duo of Dhoni in first place and Yuvraj Singh in second position. Australia’s Michael Hussey is currently third.

Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan continues his rise up the rankings and has gained two more places to third in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers. Shakib has benefited from the fact that Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralidaran has slipped two spots in the latest rankings and now sits in fifth position.

The other main mover in the top 20 of the bowling list is Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, who drops three places to 12th position after the first matches of the ongoing series in Sri Lanka.

Afridi’s woes also extend to the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders as the 29-year-old slips one place to fourth with Shakib still the man in possession of number-one position.

New Zealand’s Jacob Oram benefits from Afridi’s slip, moving up two places to third position. Afridi’s team-mate Shoaib Malik has dropped out of the top five, slipping four places to seventh spot in the all-rounders’ list. Australia’s James Hopes moves into fifth position as a consequence.

Having decided to support its players on the World Anti-Doping Agencys contentious whereabouts clause, the BCCI has now told the ICC that any negotiations on the issue would be between ICC and WADA, and not with BCCI. Indias top cricketers have refused to accept the international clause requiring sportspersons to disclose their whereabouts in advance.
Board president Shashank Manohar refused to be drawn into stating whether India was once again gearing up for a clash with the sports parent body. However, as much as Manohar sought to bring peaceful negotiations to the table, it remains clear that BCCI is treading a path which no other member board of ICC was openly willing to take.
It is not just the Indian players who are apprehensive about WADAs out-of-competition testing clause. Players from other countries too felt equally insecure before signing up. However , it is only the Indian cricketers who have openly spoken about the subject.
We believe the clause with regard to whereabouts of cricketers is unreasonable for three reasons. First, some (Indian) cricketers have security cover, and when you have such cover, you cannot disclose your whereabouts to a third person. Second, the privacy of individuals cannot be invaded. Third, the Indian constitution guarantees every citizen his privacy, Manohar said after BCCIs working committee meeting on Sunday where five senior cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh were present along with ICC officials.
Manohar subsequently also provided a solution to the deadlock in the meeting, certainly the players point of view, when he added: We can appreciate players being tested even when they are not playing. But if ICC or WADA want to test the players, they can inform the board which will get the players at the required location within 24 hours. This is our suggestion.
A couple of things Manohar said might not find many takers in the international sporting community. He referred to some Indian cricketers having security cover because of which their whereabouts were difficult to divulge. But the biggest names in world sport, like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Lance Armstrong, too have agreed to the same WADA norms. They have done so despite being as apprehensive about it as Indias superstar cricketers.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies was declared Player of the year at the ICC awards ceremony held in Dubai. Another maverick pacer Dale Steyn of the SouthAfrica was named Test player of the year. While the hard hitting M.S.Dhoni won the ODI player of the year award.

Of the Pakistanis Mohammad Yousaf was one of the nominees for the ODI player of the year , while umpire Aleem Dar was nominee for the best umpire.

Here is the list of awards won by player in different categories.

Cricketer of the Year
Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Test Player of the Year
Dale Steyn

ODI Player of the Year
Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Emerging Player of the Year
Ajantha Mendis

Associate Player of the Year
Ryan ten Doeschate

Twenty20 International Performance of the Year
Yuvraj Singh

Women’s Player of the Year
Charlotte Edwards

Spirit of Cricket
Sri Lanka

Umpire of the Year
Simon Taufel

ICC Test Team of the Year Graeme Smith (SA, capt), Virender Sehwag (Ind), Mahela Jayawardena (SL), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Jacques Kallis (SA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL, wk), Brett Lee (Aus), Ryan Sidebottom (Eng), Dale Steyn (SA), Muttiah Muralitharan (SL). 12th man: Stuart Clark (Aus).

ICC ODI Team of the Year Hershelle Gibbs (SA), Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Ricky Ponting (Aus, capt), Younis Khan (Pak), Andrew Symonds (Aus), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind, wk), Farveez Maharoof (SL), Daniel Vettori (NZ), Brett Lee (Aus), Mitchell Johnson (Aus), Nathan Bracken (Aus). 12th man: Salman Butt (Pak)

Gautam Gambhir became the number one batsman , replacing Pakistani  Mohammad Yousuf in the latest ICC Test Player ranking.
Gambhir achieved the top when the ODI batting chart is also led by a Indian, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Yousuf, who had returned to the batting table last week as the number one batsmen after his century in the first Test at Galle, failured in the second Test to drop to fifth position.
Accordingly, Gambhir became the sixth India batsman to lead the batting table in this version of the game.
The 27-year-old left-handed opener is the first Indian batsman after former captain Rahul Dravid to top the batting chart. Dravid had briefly become the No. 1 batsman in March 2005.
Dravid had first achieved the top batting ranking in January 1999 and has been number one for 36 Tests between 1999 and 2005.

Gautam Gambhir became the number one batsman, replacing Pakistani run-machine Mohammad Yousuf in the latest ICC Test Player rankings issued on Wednesday.
Incidentally, Gambhir reached the top when the ODI batting chart is also led by an Indian, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Yousuf, who had returned to the batting table last week in number one position after his century in the first Test at Galle, flopped in the second Test to drop to fifth position. Accordingly, Gambhir became the sixth India batsman to lead the batting table in this version of the game.
The 27-year-old left-handed opener is the first Indian batsman after former captain Rahul Dravid to top the batting chart. Dravid had briefly become the number-one batsman after hitting centuries in each innings (110 and 135) of the Kolkata Test against Pakistan in March 2005. Dravid had first achieved the top batting ranking in January 1999 and has been number-one for 36 Tests between 1999 and 2005.
Sachin Tendulkar is the other India batsman in the last 15 years who has topped the batting chart. He first led the table in November 1994 while last time he occupied the number-one position was in August 2002 after the Leeds Test against England. Overall, Tendulkar has been the number-one batsman for 125 Tests between 1994 and 2002.
The other India batsmen to have achieved number-one positions in their careers are Gundappa Viswanath (seven matches in 1975), Sunil Gavaskar (46 matches between 1978-80) and Dilip Vengsarkar (17 matches between 1987-88).
Pakistan captain Younis Khan was able to retain his second position in the Test batting rankings but fell nine points behind Gambhir who, without hitting a ball, has gone ahead of both the Pakistan batsmen for the first time in his 25-Test career in which he has scored 2,271 runs at an average of over 54.
Gambhir’s 847 points is relatively low for a number-one position in modern times as usually a batsman nearer to the 900-point mark goes to the top, which reflects that he has benefited from some of the other top batsman being off their peaks.
With only 10 points separating Gambhir from third-placed Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka, the top order is expected to change again, of course depending how the Pakistan and Sri Lanka captains perform in the third and final Test which starts in Colombo from July 20.
The only big movers in the latest rankings are Pakistan opener Fawad Alam, who has entered the table in 52nd position after his 168 on his Test debut, and Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal whose century in the second innings has helped him rocket 22 places to 62nd spot.
There is also a change at the top of the bowlers’ chart for the first time in more than three years with Muttiah Muralitharan handing over the baton to South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn.
Steyn had briefly joined Muralitharan in number-one position after the second Test against India in Ahmedabad in April 2008. However, Steyn had failed to go top of the table on his own after a disappointing third Test in Kanpur.

For Muralitharan, it is the first time that he has dropped to second position since February 2006. This is because he missed both the Tests of the ongoing series due to injury and a player loses one per cent of his ratings for every match he misses.

MUMBAI -Rahul Dravid stands to make it to the one-day squad after two years as the cricket selectors Monday included him among the 30 probables for September’s Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Dravid, whose last ODI was in October 2007 against Australia in Nagpur, was out of the one-day squad after his form hunch but saved his place in the Test side.

Rahul Dravid

 The selection committee that met in Chennai felt that Dravid’s presence will strengthen the middle-order that is exposed to short-pitched delivery as it was proved in the World Twenty20 and the ODI series in the West Indies.

His selection among the probables for the Champions Trophy comes after he performed well during the Indian Premier League (IPL) also in South Africa, where he scored 271 runs from 13 matches at a strike rate of 115.81 for runners-up Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Virender Sehwag and Suresh Raina, who are convalescing from injuries, were selected alongside Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan, who were rested for the ODI series in the West Indies.

Youngters like Ajinkya Rahane, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni and Wriddhiman Saha were also selected amnong the probables.

Probables squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Munaf Patel, R Ashwin, M Vijay, Amit Mishra, Ajinkya Rahane, Dhawal Kulkarni, Subramaniam Badrinath, Ashish Nehra, Virat Kohli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar Singh, Wridhiman Saha, and Pankaj Singh.

St. Lucia (Gros Islet): India won the One-day international cricket series against West Indies 2-1 after the fourth and the final match was rinsed out by rain at Beausejour Stadium here Sunday.
The Indian team which was under fire back home after their World Twenty20 debacle in England brought some cheers, winning their fifth ODI series on trot and their first in Caribbean soil after seven years.

India led the closely fought series 2-1 going into the final match Sunday. But early morning rain delayed the start and forced the match being reduced to 49-overs-per side.

Put into bat, West Indies skipper Chris Gayle was dismissed for a two-ball duck, caught behind off Ishant Sharma (1-17).

Ramnaresh Sarwan (12) and Runako Morton (12) took the hosts to 27-1 in 7.4 overs when play was halted by a downpour.

Although the rainfall later ceased, there was too much water in the outfield for play to resume. After over two hours of waiting, the game was called off by umpires Clyde Duncan and Nigel Llong.

India won the first ODI at Kingston by 20 runs but not before West Indies came close to chasing the 340-run target.

The home team made a strong comeback in the second ODI, winning by eight-wickets.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has been in good form in the tournament, led the side from the front in the tense third ODI for a six wicket victory.