In their quest to be battle-ready for the upcoming Champions League Twenty20, Kolkata Knight Riders sent four of their players -- Yusuf Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Manvinder Bisla and Kuldeep Yadav -- to Bloemfontein, South Africa for 15 days of training camp that included cycling, running and mountaineering.
Pleased after yet another complete performance, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said he was happy to see that the team executed its plans to perfection on the ground.
Images from the World Cup 'Pool B' match between India and South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Having led India to three World Cup victories against Pakistan, former captain Mohammad Azharuddin feels the defending champions face no serious threat from their arch-rivals in the much-hyped encounter between the two sides in the cricket World Cup.
'He is one of the premier off-spinners in the world, but at the end of the day he is another bowler.'
It will be a different sort of challenge for Mahendra Singh Dhoni when he captains a new-look Indian cricket team against Zimbabwe in the first ODI of a short series starting in Harare on Saturday.
England start as the favourites but India have a golden chance to reverse the trend and get into gear just before the World Cup.
Virat Kohli slammed an unbeaten 90 before a collective effort by the Indian bowlers gave the visitors a resounding start in the Twenty20 series against Australia with a 37-run victory in the first match in Adelaide, on Tuesday.
Battered and bruised after four successive defeats, India will make a last-gasp effort to avoid the embarrassment of being whitewashed by an unrelenting Australia when the two sides clash in the fifth and final One-Day International in Sydney, on Saturday.
With all its ups and downs, 2015 is now concluding. And the New Year will bring new expectations to all of us. So tell us your expectations from 2016:
Images from the Asia Cup T20 cricket match between India and Pakistan on Saturday.
India's Team Director Ravi Shastri believes that the ODI tri-series we played prior to the World Cup was a sheer waste of time and energy
For India, who are considered as title contenders, a good showing in the Asia Cup will give them the much-needed boost going into the World T20.
Confident of a good showing in the Champions League Twenty20 and the domestic season ahead, all-rounder Yusuf Pathan has said there is enough time before the 2015 World Cup for him to prove his mettle and make a comeback into the Indian team.
Former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar, once a nemesis of many a top Indian batsman, is now ready to offer advice to his arch-rivals saying that Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron will be key to India's 2015 World Cup defence.
The series already in their pocket, India would aim for a clean sweep against the hosts and end the tour of Australia on a high when the two teams clash in the third and final Twenty20.
Debutant Hardik Pandya stellar performance in Tuesday's T20 International against Australia caught the attention of India supporters, and India's ODI skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the youngster can lend the side some much-needed stability if he performs consistently.
Virat Kohli's form may have taken a hit since dropping to number four in the batting order, but West Indian legend Sir Viv Richards feels the marauding cricketer should continue in the position if that is what the Indian team requires.
India's batsmen have gone about their job efficiently, posting big totals on the board but the bowlers have been ordinary at best, allowing the hosts to chase down those tall scores in each of the first three ODIs of the five-match series.
Rediff.com presents India's top impact players in 2017.
An inspired Pakistan hammered a blundering India by 180 runs to lift the ICC Champions Trophy, riding on a scintillating hundred from rookie opener Fakhar Zaman and a sensational bowling spell from Mohammad Amir.
'Ultimately the plan is to have 15 players who are fit and doing decently well, and according to the demands you can feature the best eleven that suits'
'...then Bangladesh would have been the world champions a long time ago!'
Clinical India notched up another resounding win to humble a hapless Sri Lankan side by six wickets and clinch the five-match series in the third One-Day International in Hyderabad.
Former India captain Bishan Singh Bedi expresses concern over the team's preparedness ahead of the upcoming World Cup.
Australian captain George Bailey is not surprised that India did not qualify for the tri-series final and said that concentrating on Test cricket before heading into the ODI event might have been the reason for their below-par showing.
India became the first team to qualify for the semi-finals of the ICC World Twenty20 after a thumping eight-wicket victory over Bangladesh in a Group 2 match, in Mirpur, on Friday. After restricting the hosts to 138 for 7, courtesy yet another dominating performance by the spinners, their batsmen hit up the required runs easily, with nine balls to spare.
South Africa has been perennial favourites but it hasn't helped them.
This past week, the Indian hockey team recorded a rare Test series win against world champions Australia. It was a significant achievement by the men in blue - hockey, not cricket - as it was for the first time in four years that India had beaten Australia.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's boys have eclipsed the India record by winning nine straight games in the World Cup, including four matches in the previous edition. Saturday's match against Zimbabwe provides them the opportunity.
Sachin Tendulkar cautioned the Indian cricket team to guard against complacency ahead of its World Cup game against South Africa, saying the Proteas are a far better fielding unit than Pakistan.
This is the first time India will play a bilateral series on Australian soil.
India came up with a clinical all-round display to beat Pakistan by seven wickets in a one-sided opening Super-10 league match of the ICC World Twenty20 in Mirpur on Friday.
Indian cricket's fortunes ebbed and flowed in 2015 with Virat Kohli successfully leading the national side in Tests and Mahendra Singh Dhoni appearing to be losing his midas touch, while in off the field drama Shashank Manohar returned as the president of Board of Control for Cricket in India.
India suffered its worst One-Day International series defeat in New Zealand, losing 0-4, after being trounced by 87 runs in the inconsequential fifth and final match in Wellington on Friday.
Prem Panicker, on the Rediff chat, delves on what went wrong for Team India and what to expect from Sunday's trans-Tasman World Cup final.
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