A selection of musings from around the cricket World Cup.
Indian fans are all set to dominate the Sydney Cricket Ground.
A selection of musings from around the cricket World Cup
Australia will play their first Test series in Sri Lanka in more than five years, with a three-match series beginning on July 26 in Kandy. The Australians will embark on a two-month tour of the island nation from July 11, playing three Tests, five ODIs and two T20 Internationals. Steve Smith's side leapfrogged India in February to finish the latest 12-month period in first spot on the ICC Test Championship table, while Sri Lanka have dropped to seventh place after a disappointing year following the retirements of legendary batting duo Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena. Only three members of the Australian side that beat the Black Caps in their most recent Test series - Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle and Usman Khawaja - have experienced Test cricket in Sri Lanka.
Legendary India players Sunil Gavaskar and VVS Laxman were of the view that making the showpiece event a 14-team affair with the inclusion of the likes of Afghanistan and Scotland would significantly diminish the level of competition in the league stage.
George Bailey stepped down as Australia's Twenty20 captain on Sunday, saying that he wants to focus on his Test career.
Former Australian batsman Michael Hussey warned teams against underestimating India after their 0-2 loss in the Tests series.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Suspended spinner Saeed Ajmal is doing everything to correct his action but it is an "uphill task" for him to make it to the Pakistan team for the World Cup, says PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan.
Greg Chappell said the defending champions cannot be written off as one of the strong contenders for the World Cup.
Coach Darren Lehmann gave Australia a mark of '7.5' out of 10 for a year in which they won the World Cup but lost the Ashes, the series most prized by home fans.
Australia will resist the temptation to tinker with their team on tour against West Indies and plan to field their best 11 in a bid to sweep the two-Test series and build momentum for the Ashes, selector Rod Marsh has said.
Australia have drawn inspiration from former World Cup-winning captain Steve Waugh in how to handle big-match pressure ahead of Friday's quarter-final against Pakistan.
Check out the images from the second semi-final between Australia and India at the ICC World Cup at the Sydney Cricket, on Thursday.
Australia coach Darren Lehmann believes the Sydney Cricket Ground pitch will produce a high-scoring World Cup semi-final against India on Thursday.
Australia's new Test captain Steve Smith is excited about the prospect of playing India on a lively Gabba pitch in the second cricket Test starting on Wednesday and said he wants his team to drive the advantage to go up 2-0 in the four-match series.
Describing David Warner as "generous and giving", Australia's stand-in cricket captain George Bailey downplayed the opener's bar-room brawl with England batsman Joe Root, calling it a "minor" incident but "disappointing" nonetheless.
Flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi will be replaced as Pakistan's T20 captain after the World T20 in India, PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan announced on Monday, while hinting his days as a player were also numbered. PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan told reporters in Lahore on his return from Kolkata on Monday that the board and Afridi had a understanding that he would retire after the World Cup. "He is captain till the World Cup under this understanding and he has said he will retire after the event. Even if he changes his mind and wants to carry on we will have to see whether he can be picked as a player or not," Khan said.
Australian business magnate Don Argus, who penned the landmark review of Australian cricket in 2011, has warned the team and its selectors that they must not be fooled into thinking the job is done despite the Ashes hosts revival.
Images from the World Cup Pool A match between Australia and Sri Lanka at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Watson used to take flak for his inability to convert half centuries to centuries but recently his problem has been progressing from scores in the 20s and 30s.
Rajneesgh Gupta salutes Captain Cool.
Australia cricketer Phillip Hughes remains in an induced coma after undergoing emergency surgery on Tuesday when he was struck in the head by a bouncer, a devastating blow that experts likened to the trauma experienced by car crash victims.
In a three part series, Rajneesh Gupta highlights all the important numbers from Cricket World Cup held between 1975 to 2015.
Zafar Gohar and Amad Butt put on 63 runs for the unfinished eighth wicket as Pakistan defeated England by three wickets in a low-scoring but nerve-racking thriller to reach its fifth ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup final, at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, on Monday.
Publicly labelled 'soft' by former Test bowler Shane Warne only a few months ago, paceman Mitchell Starc has come of age.
'This WC will heavily rely on openers as they have to set the tone'
Mitali Raj made cricketing history last week.
England and the West Indies advanced to the quarter-finals of the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2014 following comfortable victories in their decisive Group C and D matches on Tuesday. England overcame Sunday's heart-breaking loss to Sri Lanka by bouncing back to defeat New Zealand by 115 runs at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, while 2004 runners-up West Indies beat Canada by 63 runs at Abu Dhabi Oval 1.
Australian batsman David Warner was "stood down" from the Champions Trophy group A match against New Zealand for being allegedly involved in a physical altercation with an England player, believed to be Joe Root.
Virat Kohli may have scored a match-winning century against Pakistan in their opening game of the World Cup, but ask former Australian fast bowling great Brett Lee and he would tell you that the Indian ace should try and curb his natural affinity for aggressive strokeplay.
Supremely versatile and unique, Ravindra Jadeja is now an indispensable part of the Indian Test set-up.
'India have got a great side and have great momentum going.'
Rajneesh Gupta breaks down all the facts and figures from the recent India vs Australia ODI series.
They are determined to recapture the number one spot in the ICC ODI rankings but Australia skipper George Bailey said it would be "silly" to assume that the visitors would be able to thrash India by the requisite 6-1 margin in the seven-match series starting in Pune.
Prime witness to one of the biggest controversies that rocked Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar has finally spoken about the anger and sense of betrayal he felt during the 'Monkeygate scandal' in Australia, revealing that he took the lead in threatening a boycott of the tour at the peak of the furore.
Sri Lanka and South Africa progressed to the quarter-finals of the ICC Under 19 World Cup after recording contrasting victories in Dubai.
The love-hate relationship between Australia and India has added extra spice to Thursday's World Cup semi-final at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).
From Rohit Sharma's record breaking double century in One-Day Internationals, the team's never-ending woes in overseas Tests, to the controversy surrounding Board of Control for Cricket in India's president-in-exile Narayanswami Srinivasan over the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal, Indian cricket had the good, bad and ugly in equal measure in 2014.
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