Galle has built a reputation as a spinners' paradise but Australia captain Steve Smith hopes there will be substantial reverse swing at the venue as his top-ranked team bid for a series-levelling win against Sri Lanka in the second test. Sri Lanka inflicted a 106-run defeat on the touring side at Pallekele last week in the opening match of the three-test series with the spinners taking 18 out of 20 Australian wickets to fall.
Rabada, the number one ranked Test bowler, could still play if he succeeds in his appeal against an International Cricket Council (ICC) decision to award him three demerit points for his reaction to dismissing Steve Smith in the second Test.
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin surged to the top of the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for Test Bowlers after a superb outing in the first Test against the West Indies in Antigua which the visiting side won by an innings and 92 runs.
South Africa captain AB de Villiers's batting blitzkriegs in the last two months have been so good that even his own team mates are in awe of them, fast bowler Dale Steyn said on Friday.
Ishant Sharma is another pacer that ranks high in the South Africa fast bowler's praise list.
Philander's partnership with Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel has earned the trio the label as the most-balanced and penetrating attack in world cricket.
Out of favour South African all-rounder Albie Morkel says India's hammering of the Proteas at the MCG demonstrated that the defending champions are capable of blowing any team away in the World Cup and big-ticket ICC events bring out the best in them.
AB de Villiers' masterly 85 in his 100th test could not gloss over South Africa's spin frailty as India took charge of the second Test after dominating the opening day at Bengaluru's M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday.
South Africa captain A B de Villiers on Saturday said his side is not too worried about the problems that India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin could pose during their ICC Cricket World Cup match in Melbourne, on Sunday.
50 overs cricket is a batsman's game, or so the conventional wisdom goes. But the Champions Trophy is being played in England, which means a different ball game :)
South Africa set New Zealand a daunting target of 298 runs in 43 overs.
David Miller and J P Duminy scored centuries as South Africa overcame a real challenge from Zimbabwe to record a 62-run victory in their opening World Cup Pool B game in Hamilton on Sunday.
Having represented Pakistan in five cricket World Cup campaigns, legendary pacer Wasim Akram feels that it will be a challenge for sub-continent bowlers to perform in this edition of the 50-over showpiece event in Australian and New Zealand.
South Africa won their first game at the World Cup, beating Afghanistan by nine wickets (DLS). Imran Tahir finished with figures of 4 for 29, the best figures by a spinner in the tournament so
India lead South Africa by five points and need to win two matches in order to stop falling behind the Proteas.
Vernon Philander is enjoying being "mentor" in the twilight of his career and wants more of his contemporaries to give back to the game instead of looking for "greener pastures".
The famed Indian batting line-up crashed for a lowly 135 to lose the first Test by 72 runs in Newlands on Monday.
Jacques Kallis marked the end of his Test career with an emotive farewell century on Sunday to give South Africa a chance of victory over India going into the last day of their brief two-match series.
Australia scrambled over the line for a two-wicket victory in the fifth one-day international against South Africa on Sunday to move back to the top of the world rankings less than three months before the World Cup.
Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav played all their 14 league games.
Cheteshwar Pujara was the highest-ranked Indian batsman despite dropping a rung to eighth while R Ashwin held on to his eighth position in the bowlers' chart of the ICC Test rankings.
South Africa survived a batting collapse precipitated by a hat-trick from spinner Prosper Utseya to beat Zimbabwe by 61 runs in the third match of the triangular series on Friday.
An upbeat Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to carry on their winning momentum to book a berth in the play-offs when they take on an equally-keen Royal Challengers Bangalore in a crucial IPL match at Uppal, in Hyderabad, on Friday.
Players with the maximum work load in 2015.
Kumar Sangakkara remained unbeaten after a sparkling half-century as Sri Lanka responded well to the challenge of scoring 370 runs in four sessions in order to win the first Test against South Africa on Saturday.
Riding on his stupendous performance in the series against South Africa, India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, on Thursday, rose to a career-high first in the International Cricket Council's Test rankings for bowlers.
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum called him 'The King' but Kane Williamson swatted aside the praise after his record-breaking century capped a five-wicket victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka.
Former New Zealand fast bowler Geoff Allott says the national team's performance in the World Cup has brought the 'lost fans' back to the game.
The calm, assured manner in which New Zealand chased down South Africa's imposing total on Tuesday to advance to their first cricket World Cup final is a hallmark of a team that has developed into a cohesive unit over the last two years.
Spectators at the Sydney Cricket Ground were repeatedly treated to the sight of leg-spinner Imran Tahir throwing his head back, screaming with joy and pumping his arms before setting off on an uncoordinated run across the outfield on Wednesday as South Africa thrashed Sri Lanka by nine wickets in the first quarter-final at the World Cup.
Pakistan skipper Misbah ul Haq, who is often blamed for his slow approach to game, showed that he can be an attacking skipper when situation demands. In the crucial game against South Africa, the 40-year-old was seen adopting a carefree approach, which helped the sub-continent nation stun the one of the pre-tournament favourites by 29 runs.
A hostile trio of Pakistan left-arm fast bowlers took full advantage of a pitch freshened by rain to hand pre-tournament favourites South Africa their second defeat in the ICC World Cup.
India's Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin thrived on a spinners' paradise in Mohali, bamboozling South Africa's batsmen in the first Test to secure a 108-run victory with more than two days to spare on Saturday.
Cheteshwar Pujara's unbeaten 63 gave India a firm hold on the opening Test against South Africa after off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin picked up his 13th five-wicket haul to restrict the touring side to 184 on the second day on Friday.
Looking forward to the challenge of facing Dale Steyn in the upcoming four-match Test series against South Africa, Indian opener Lokesh Rahul has said playing the speedster in the longer format is a "different ballgame" as one has to counter the late movement he gets.
South Africa routed Australia for 85 and then weathered a batting crisis of their own before pushing to a lead of 86 runs after a bowler-dominated opening day of the second Test in Hobart on Saturday.
South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis described Kagiso Rabada's performance as "phenomenal" after the young paceman helped turn a parlous situation on day two of the first Test against Australia into a thumping 177-run victory on Monday. The tourists had done well to get to 242 all out after being 5-81 on day one but were looking down the barrel of a heavy defeat when Australia raced to 158 without loss on day two. Matters got worse when, having finally broken the opening partnership, South Africa's pace spearhead Dale Steyn was forced off the field with a shoulder fracture that ruled him out of the series.
Kagiso Rabada claimed five wickets as South Africa crushed Australia by a huge margin of 177 runs, to win the first Test against Australia, on Day 5 in Perth, on Monday.
The 'helicopter shot' has disappeared, the boundaries are not flowing from his bat and the whisper is now growing louder that Mahendra Singh Dhoni is no more the middle-order finisher.
Among the Indians, while Robin Uthappa was bought by Rajasthan Royals for 3 crore, Test specialists Cheteshwar Pujara and Hanuma Vihari went unsold.
