Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said it works in the team's favour not to be mentioned as favourites because the players will be able to operate under the radar and there will not be too much attention given to them.
Rookie India pacer Sudeep Tyagi wants to forget Ferozeshah Kotla pitch fiasco in his debut match against Sri Lanka and eyeing some impressive performance in the forthcoming tour of Bangladesh.
The top twenty batsmen and bowlers in 2011, after the Chittagong Test between Bangladesh and West Indies.
Hashim Amla's 13th One-day International century and a clinical performance in the field carried South Africa to a comfortable 75 run victory in the opener of their three-match series against Sri Lanka on Sunday.
The Ferozeshah Kotla stood disgraced on Sunday after the fifth and final India-Sri Lanka ODI was abandoned following visiting captain Kumar Sangakkara's refusal to play on a dangerous pitch, raising the possibility of the venue being banned for a minimum of one year.
Rain threatens to disrupt the first day's play when Sri Lanka and India face-off in the opening Test at Galle on Wednesday.
Daniel Vettori became second New Zealander (after Richard Hadlee) and 24th bowler overall to take 300 wickets in Test cricket, when he dismissed Kumar Sangakkara's on the first day of second and final Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo on Wednesday. More remarkably, Vettori is the first left-arm spinner to accomplish the feat.
The Sri Lanka team was fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during its six-wicket defeat to India in the second Twenty20 International in Mohali on Saturday. Jeff Crowe of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees imposed the fines after Kumar Sangakkara's side was ruled to be two overs short of its target at the end of the match when time allowances were taken into consideration.
The biggest positive for Sri Lanka since the crushing defeat to India in the second Test could perhaps be the unavailability of Gautam Gambhir for the third Test, in Mumbai, beginning on Wednesday. The left-hander hit back-to-back centuries in the first two Tests of the series but was forced to opt out of the third because of his sister's wedding.
Former England skipper Ian Botham believes Alastair Cook's decision to relinquish the captaincy could see him surpass legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's record as the all-time leading Test run-scorer.
'Mystery' spinner Ajantha Mendis went into the second Test against India with a reputation to protect, but was stripped off his cloak of enigma after 19 futile overs.
Sri Lanka has put more distance between it and England following its 2-0 series victory over Pakistan, which concluded with a draw in the third Test in Colombo on Friday. Kumar Sangakkara's side, which remains in fourth position, gained three ratings points and moved to 111, stretching its lead over fifth-placed England to 10 points and bringing it within just six of India, which currently occupies third position on the Reliance Mobile ICC Test Championship table.
England captain Alastair Cook is all set to break India's legendary batsman Sachin's Tendulkar's record by becoming the youngest batsman in the history of the game to score 10,000 Test runs. Cook is just 36 runs shy of reaching the milestone and once he gets there, he will also become the first English batsman to reach the feat. Cook will be targeting the mark in England's first Test against Sri Lanka at Headingley on Thursday. Tendulkar's 10,000th Test run came against Pakistan in Kolkata in March 2005, a little more than a month before his 32nd birthday. Cook meanwhile, turned 31 on Christmas Day last year, meaning if he scores the 36 runs required in the opening Test against the visiting Sri Lankans, he would have reached the 10,000 barrier five months younger than India's batting legend.
Pakistan Punjab governor Salmaan Tahseer, Governor of Pakistan's Punjab province on Tuesday, said the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Lahore was similar to the Mumbai's 26/11 attack. Four Pakistan players -- Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana -- were injured after armed gunmen attacked the team bus and hurled grenades as they made their way to the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore to take part in the second Test.
Sri Lanka have named three uncapped players in their 15-man squad for the first Test against Pakistan on July 4.
England captain Alastair Cook will be eyeing a place in history when his side's three-Test series with Sri Lanka begins in Leeds on May 19. Cook boasts 9,964 runs and is just 36 runs short of completing 10,000 runs in Test cricket. More notably, the 31-year old can eclipse master blaster Sachin Tendulkar's record of being the youngest to reach the 10,000-run feat. Tendulkar's 10,000th Test run came against Pakistan in Kolkata in March 2005, a little more than a month before his 32nd birthday. Cook meanwhile, turned 31 on Christmas Day last year, meaning if he scores the 36 runs required in the opening Test against the visiting Sri Lankans at Headingley, he would have reached the 10,000 barrier five months younger than India's batting legend. While Cook looks likely to become the youngest man to 10,000 Test runs, he won't be the fastest to reach the milestone in terms of innings played.
Sri Lanka has been fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during its 38-run defeat against New Zealand in the ICC Champions Trophy match at the Wanderers.
Tillakeratne Dilshan and Ajantha Mendis led Sri Lanka to a 55-run win over hosts South Africa as the opening match of the Champions Trophy was decided by the Duckworth-Lewis scoring method on Tuesday.
Tillakaratne Dilshan's blistering century was instrumental in Sri Lanka kicking-off their campaign in the ICC Champions Trophy on a winning note at the Centurion on Tuesday. The dashing opener scored 106 off 92 deliveries as Sri Lanka beat No 1-ranked South Africa by 55 runs in a rain-affected opening Group B match.
India's bowlers have been leaking runs in the last few matches and Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara is looking to exploit that weakness in the tri-series final in Mirpur, Bangladesh, on Wednesday.
The winning momentum back after their three successive wins, India would seek to maintain their supremacy over Sri Lanka and start the season on a positive note when they take on the islanders in the final of the cricket tri-series in Mirpur on Wednesday.
Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara is happy to make a winning start to the cricket tri-series after beating Bangladesh but a hamstring injury to their star performer Tillakaratne Dilshan has the left him worried.
Indian opener Gautam Gambhir capped a memorable 2009 by ending the year as the No 1 Test batsman in the ICC rankings issued on Thursday.
Mahela Jayawardene scored four streaky runs in his last Test, as Pakistan's bowlers dismantled Sri Lanka's first innings on the opening day of the second and final match, in Colombo, on Thursday.
Images from the first One-Day International between India and Sri Lanka in Rajkot, on Tuesday.
Kohli promoting Pandya ahead of Dhoni is an indication that the skipper is looking to use his former captain more as an accumulator -- in Javed Miandad mould who would rotate strike, frustrate bowlers and launch a furious counter-attack after getting his eye in.
India became the number one team in the ICC Test rankings after they spanked Sri Lanka by an innings and 24 runs in the third and final Test to clinch the three-match series 2-0.
If Sri Lanka win the third and final Test in Mumbai, they will not only break the jinx that has seen them go winless in 20 Tests against India, but also end the series on level terms, with some pride restored.
Images from Day 3 in the second Test between India and Sri Lanka in Kanpur on Thursday.
The Indian captain, who has scored 544 runs in his eight innings this series, is 11th in the list of best ever in terms of rating points, just one adrift of a group of four -- Gary Sobers, Clyde Walcott, Vivian Richards and Kumar Sangakkara.
Sri Lanka Cricket's selection committee chairman Aravinda de Silva stood by his panel and took full responsibility for making last-minute changes to the team for the ICC World Twenty20. "All decisions were taken in the best interest of the team and we take responsibility," de Silva, the hero of Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup win, said. He replaced the committee headed by Kapila Wijegoonawardana. Wijegoonawardana's committee was sacked by the Sports Ministry just a few days before the team departed. De Silva's committee, which also included Kumar Sangakkara, made changes to the squad picked by the previous committee. Sri Lanka fared poorly and failed to make it to the semifinals in a woeful defence of their title won in 2014.
Sri Lanka were 183 for three at the close on the fourth day of the third and final Test against Pakistan needing another 309 runs for victory.
Sri Lanka face a selection dilemma over their wicketkeeper as they gear-up for a tough three-Test series against Pakistan starting in Galle on Saturday. With regular wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene out with a fractured finger, Sangakarra now faces the choice of captaining the side, batting at number three and also keeping wicket, an exhausting prospect in Sri Lanka's hot and humid climate.
Mahela Jayawardene, batting with three stitches in his left hand, ignored the pain to complete his 32nd Test hundred and put Sri Lanka firmly in the driving seat in the second Test against Pakistan in Dubai on Thursday.
Pakistan skipper Younis Khan has jumped six places to become the number one ranked Test batsman after his mammoth 313 in the drawn first Test against Sri Lanka. Younis, who became only the third Pakistan player to score a Test triple hundred on Tuesday, overtook West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul at the top of the International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings, released on Thursday.
Rohit Sharma is set to play at number three in the first Test against Sri Lanka beginning on Wednesday but Sunil Gavaskar feels India captain Virat Kohli should bat at the crucial position.
Indian players failed to make a mark as Australians and South Africans swept the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Annual Awards with Steve Smith clinching the coveted trophies of Cricketer of the Year and the Test Cricketer of the Year.
As India and Sri Lanka get set to duel in the make-shift ODI series, starting Sunday, Rajneesh Gupta gives us a look at how both teams stand in One-dayers.
Muttiah Muralitharan swapped spin wizardry for batting fireworks, smashing 33 runs from 16 balls to guide Sri Lanka to a two-wicket win over Bangladesh in the tri-series final on Friday.
Yuvraj Singh's sensational second hat-trick of the tournament, coupled with Irfan Pathan's twin blow in the last over, handed Kings XI Punjab a one-run victory over Deccan Chargers in the Indian Premier League on Sunday and kept their hopes of advancing to the semi-finals alive. Put into bat, Punjab put up a modest 134 for seven that was built largely around Kumar Sangakkara's 43-ball 56, and then rode on Yuvraj's hat-trick to restrict Hyderabad to 133 for eight.
