Royal Challengers Bangalore will look to outgun title-contenders, Gujarat Lions in a must-win Indian Premier League clash.
Delhi Daredevils produced an all-round effort and defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets to jump to the third spot in the ongoing Indian Premier League.
With India being outplayed in the Twenty20s, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will face added pressure to perform and lead India from the front against a formidable South African unit in the five-match ODI cricket series starting in Kanpur on Sunday.
India's limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the job of a finisher is one of the toughest and it is difficult to find a 'complete' player who is adept at batting in lower order and take the team through when the chips are down.
Comprehensively outplayed by South Africa in both the T20 internationals of the just-concluded three-match series, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said that he does not want a lot of grass cover for the upcoming five-match ODI series, beginning October 11 in Kanpur.
Talented Mumbai batsman Shreyas Iyer with an attacking 138 stole the show on the final day on Friday as the team's Ranji Trophy Group 'C' match against Tamil Nadu petered out to a draw at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy BKC in Mumbai.
Unbeaten in all the three games they have played so far in the tournament, Gujarat Lions would look to continue with their impressive winning run when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL match in Rajkot on Thursday. The Lions have been in red-hot form in their debut season with convincing wins in all the three games and they would seek to maintain a clean slate tomorrow at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium. The home side will also be bolstered by the return of all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja who did not play in the Lion's seven-wicket thrashing of defending champions Mumbai Indians in Mumbai due to his wedding.
Senior off-spinner Harbhajan Singh feels captain Virat Kohli and chief coach Anil Kumble have got a chance to usher in a new era where Indian cricket teams will not require 'rank turners' to win matches as the long-used tactic is beginning to boomerang on the side.
India will go for the kill against a determined England in the Garden City, setting the stage for a tantalising series-deciding third and final Twenty20 International in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
A near-perfect series for Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
Sanju Samson smashed 72 off 56 balls as Kerala completed a five wicket win over Punjab to cruise into the quarterfinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, in Kochi, on Saturday.
India have won six ODI series on the trot. New Zealand have never won an ODI series in India.
A resurgent Delhi Daredevils will look to build a winning momentum.
Hoping to end their 10-match losing streak in the IPL cricket tournament, Delhi Daredevils will look to turn their fortunes around on home turf when they take on an upbeat Rajasthan Royals at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
'Batting against spin bowling you need to have your own individual plan. You can't go into a match saying, "Oh, this wicket is going to spin this much".'
As far as Bangladesh were concerned, there was nothing worth mentioning except for a fifty each from captain Mushfiqur Rahim (59) and Shakib Al Hasan (52), the latter emerging as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) on account of his all-round showing in the series as he also claimed six wickets with his left-arm spin.
The third ODI between India and Bangladesh was called off after heavy showers rendered the ground unfit for play in Mirpur on Thursday.
Splendid bowling by Stuart Binny and Mohit Sharma helped India beat Bangladesh by 47 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis method, in a rain-curtailed second One-day International, and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series, in Mirpur, on Tuesday.
Karun Nair kept Delhi Daredevils' slender hopes of qualifying for the play-offs alive with a 59-ball unbeaten 83 that guided them to a six-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad in Friday's Indian Premier League match, at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh stadium in Raipur, that went down to the wire.
A clinical performance by the Sunrisers Hyderabad top-order ensured a seven-wicket victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore which kept them in the hunt for the Play-offs in the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League in Uppal on Tuesday.
India would be aiming for a clean-sweep to dent England's confidence a bit more in the third and final One-Day International, their final ODI outing before the ICC Champions Trophy in less than five months, in Kolkata, on Sunday.
Yuvraj Singh has emerged as the costliest cricketer in the IPL 8 players' auction, bought for a record Rs 16 crore (USD 2.57 million approx) by Delhi Daredevils.
Karnataka completed a historic treble at domestic level by emerging champions in the Vijay Hazare Trophy with a four-wicket win over Railways in yet another low-scoring affair at Eden Gardens on Sunday.
A summary of the day's play in the Ranji Trophy matches.
India opener Lokesh Rahul says the thumping 278-run victory over Sri Lanka in the second Test will help the players regain confidence going into the third and final Test of the series, starting in Colombo on Friday.
India recovered to 234 for five at stumps on Day One of the third Test against the West Indies, courtesy an unbeaten 108-run stand between Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha.
A clutch of Indian stars led by India and Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli are either sidelined or ruled out of this edition of the tournament, lessening the wow factor of the IPL.
"Extremely satisfied" with his maiden Test double hundred, India skipper Virat Kohli says the feat has helped him wipe off the memories of his disappointing debut tour to the Caribbean in 2011 when he had struggled with the bat.
Indian spin troika of Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra kept their stranglehold on the inexperienced West Indies Board President's XI to bowl them out for a paltry 180 on the first day of the final warm-up game in Basseterre (St Kitts).
Riding on right arm leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal's five-wicket haul, Karnataka beat Uttar Pradesh by 92 runs to enter into the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Saturday.
Unchallenged by Sri Lanka so far, India would look to keep the foot on the pedal in their pursuit for a series whitewash when the two teams face off in the fourth and penultimate cricket One-dayer at Eden Gardens on Thursday.
Rookie seamer Ishwar Pandey was named in India's Test and ODI squads for the tour of New Zealand. Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead the team on the tour, which starts with the first One-Day International in Napier on January 19, 2014.
India survived a scare before managing to draw the first Test against England, who gained the psychological advantage after enjoying the upper-hand for the better part of the five days, in Rajkot, on Sunday.
Rajasthan suffered the ignominy of being bowled out for a paltry 35 against Railways in a Central Zone leg match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, in Nagpur, on Tuesday. Railways needed just 5.3 overs, losing a solitary wicket, to hit up the required runs.
Powered by in-form, inspirational leader in Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers Bangalore would look to inch closer to a maiden Indian Premier League title triumph when they take on table-toppers Gujarat Lions in the Qualifier I, in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
'When I was dropped from the team, I think in June-July, I was out for nearly six months. At the start of the Ranji Trophy season I got three matches in Rajkot, and luck also favoured us with the wickets offering turn'
The series already in their pocket and the number one ranking cemented, a dominant India go into the third Test against New Zealand in Indore on Saturday, aiming yet another clean sweep of a Test rubber at home. The hosts had blanked Australia 4-0 in 2012-13 and the West Indies in the next season. They nearly repeated the feat against South Africa last year and this impressive history in recent past makes India favourites in the first-ever Test being hosted by this city which has a long tradition in the game.
Gautam Gambhir lived a charmed life but the famous grit was displayed in abundance on way to an unbeaten 92, his final knock in competitive cricket guiding Delhi to 190 for one.
Images from Day 1 of the third Test between India and South Africa in Nagpur, on Wednesday.
'You can have an extra batsman in the middle order, a player like Suresh Raina gets more dangerous at 3, so when Rohit (Sharma) is not around as an opener, I can anytime step up because it provides more balance'
