Two-time former champions and the most consistent team of the season, Chennai Super Kings will lock horns with late bloomers Mumbai Indians in a high-voltage Indian Premier League summit clash in Kolkata, bringing the 47-day T20 extravaganza to a relatively controversy-free end.
Left disappointed after their Group A match of the Champions League Twenty20 was washed off without a single ball being bowled against Lahore Lions, Chennai Super Kings would be looking to shut out Perth Scorchers on Saturday to book their last-four spot.
After a jittery start, Chennai Super Kings will look for a turnaround to get their campaign back on track when they take on South African team Nashua Dolphins in a Group A match of Champions League T20 in Bangalore on Monday.
Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 45 runs in their opening match of the Indian Premier League.
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.
Before the selectors meet to finalise the squad, you can take on their role and pick 15 players you feel can deliver the World T20 Cup to India.
Table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to quickly bounce back from the disappointing loss against Delhi Daredevils and seal their place in the play-off when they take on a resurgent Kings XI Punjab in an IPL clash in Mohali on Sunday. Knowing that there is scramble among top teams for the playoff berth and holding on to top position is not an easy task, SRH will have to put the loss against Delhi behind and look to put up an all-round performance on Sunday. What has made this game at the I S Bindra PCA stadium even more important for Hyderabad is the fact that Punjab, which has struggled through the tournament, has suddenly started turning over a leaf under their new captain Murali Vijay, whose appointment was made mid-way. The Punjab outfit, which is lying at the seventh place with four wins from 11 outings, pulled off a comprehensive seven-wicket victory against Mumbai Indians at Visakhapatnam on Friday night.
Stung by the suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals from the Indian Premier League, the Board of Control for Cricket in India's top officials are working out a contingency plan to ensure that the high-profile league remains an eight-team affair.
Paceman Bhuvaneshwar Kumar followed up his team's superb collective batting effort with a four-wicket haul as India Blue lifted the NKP Salve Challenger Series Trophy with a convincing 50-run victory over Delhi in the final.
The New Zealand team administration has received a pat on the back from the Kiwi media for their bold team selection in the opening match of the World T20 opening match against India on Tuesday.
The superb build-up run has made India the clear favourites for an unprecedented second World Twenty20 title but the in-form hosts will have to guard against complacency when they take on a spirited New Zealand in their campaign-opener in Nagpur on Tuesday.
Half-way through the eighth edition of the Indian Premier League, the cash-rich Twenty20 tournament has witnessed some top quality catches. Rediff.com takes a look at some memorable ones.
Half-way through the eighth edition of the Indian Premier League, the cash-rich Twenty20 tournament has witnessed some top quality catches. Rediff.com takes a look at some memorable ones.
Mumbai Indians will have their task cut out when they lock horns with Chennai Super Kings.
Delhi team management's lack of communication with the establishment again came into the fore on Sunday when Feroze Shah Kotla curator Venkat Sundaram accused skipper Gautam Gambhir of "interfering into his job" ahead of their Ranji Trophy final group league encounter against Karnataka on Monday.
Depleted by the absence of high-profile names, Indian Premier League 2014 champions Kolkata Knight Riders have a tough task on hand when they lock horns with formidable Chennai Super Kings in the opening Group 'A' match of the Champions League T20, in Hyderabad, on Wednesday.
Brothers Krunal and Hardik Pandya excelled with the bat and ball respectively as Baroda crushed Punjab by 75 runs in a Vijay Hazare Trophy Group A match.
A look at the top 10 tweets from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
India registered a resounding victory in the T20 series-opener against Australia, and following their clinical performance Sunil Gavaskar feels the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side will start as favourites at the upcoming World Twenty20 at home.
India might have been thoroughly outplayed in the ODI series in Australia, but former Australia batsman Dean Jones said the visitors will do much better in the three T20 Internationals as they have a balanced side, which was missing in the One-dayers.
David Warner played a captain's knock, smashing an unbeaten 90 runs off 59 balls to power the Sunrisers Hyderabad to a 7-wicket convincing victory against defending champions Mumbai Indians on Monday. Chasing a modest 143-run target, the Sunrisers chased the target with 15 balls to spare in Hyderabad. The Sunrisers have recorded their first points in the points table of IPL 9, while MI have now lost three out of their last four games.
India's limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, along with his teammates Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and Ravichandran Ashwin, among others, will be up for grabs for the two new IPL teams in the draft to be held in Mumbai.
England gave themselves a much-needed boost by beating Dhoni's India A side in their first warm-up match ahead of the limited overs series.
India will look for another colossal victory and inch closer to the semi-finals when they square off against an embattled Bangladesh.
The win at Edgbaston was not the first time an Indian team had vanquished Pakistan in an ICC competition. Rajneesh Gupta surveys the landscape of India-Pakistan encounters in ICC contests.
The perfect buildup and distinct home advantage certainly gives India an edge heading into the World Twenty20 Championship but captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his team cannot afford to take things for granted given the format's fickle nature. India blanked Australia in their own backyard, beat Sri Lanka at home before capturing the Asia Cup in Bangladesh. In the course of these triumphs, Dhoni's men lost just one game making it the near-perfect build-up campaign for the team which won the inaugural Championship back in 2007. "I think we are running on sixth gear. Technology has gone into the eighth gear but the kind of stuff we are doing on the field is adequate for any level of game. "We have to see the focus should be on from the very first ball. I think everything is set, there're not anymore gears to operate on. I am really quite happy with the progress," Dhoni said at the pre-tournament news conference where the main draw matches will start on March 15. India will be up against New Zealand in their opening match in Nagpur on March 15. "Let's not say it's happening in India so it belongs to us. Especially in the shorter formats, the difference becomes smaller and smaller. Every team has a chance, if we play to our potential and execute our plans then we definitely have a chance."
It will be a battle of tactics as a formidable Chennai Super Kings, led by the wily Mahendra Singh Dhoni, square off against a confident Royal Challengers Bangalore under an aggressive Virat Kohli in the second qualifier of the Indian Premier League, in Ranchi on Friday.
And having watched the last 13 home Tests, I hope Virat and his team really has the potential to win anywhere - in or outside India, writes former India captain Sourav Ganguly.
The youngest president of the Indian cricket board in India in independent India, Anurag Thakur has taken over the reins of the world's richest cricketing body at a time it is fighting an existential battle against a complete restructuring recommended by the Supreme Court.
Sachin Tendulkar's claims of Greg Chappell being a dictatorial coach seem to have opened a Pandora's box with his then teammate and senior off-spinner Harbhajan Singh saying that some players in the side provided "selective misinformation" to the Australian in a phase which "temporarily destroyed Indian cricket".
351 cricketers -- 230 Indians and 131 foreigners -- will go under the hammer in Saturday's IPL players' auction.
Notwithstanding Mumbai Indians' poor start in this IPL season, Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming is wary of the home team's capabilities and insists that the visitors, who are unbeaten so far, have not lowered their guard for Friday's game.
He along with Sunrisers' bowling coach and spin legend Muthiah Muralitharan were seen engaging in an intense planning from the dug-out when Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers were batting in full-flow at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday. Sunrisers batting coach VVS Laxman may be disappointed with his team's defeat in the first game of IPL 9, but the legendary Indian batsman had special praise for U-19 star and RCB finisher Sarfaraz Khan. Laxman also feels that it was Sarfaraz, who took the game away from them, when the 'enormously talented' Mustafizur Rahman had pulled it back by dismissing AB and Watson in quick succession. Here is what Laxman had to say after the match.
The legend of Virat Kohli reached gigantic proportions as the reigning superstar of Indian cricket virtually made the World Twenty20 a one-man show.
Bangladesh all-rounder Mahmdullah finished as the MVP in the recently-concluded Asia Cup T20 tournament ahead of compatriot Sabbir Rahman, who was named as the man of the series. Purnendu Maji and Srinivas Bhogle present the latest edition of the MVP rankings.
'We will have to try and give batting to players, who have not batted so far but people who are batting close to 6, 7 or 8, they will have to play big shots because that is going to be certainly be very important for us' 'It's something that will always trouble us till we are certain that these are the set of bowlers who will bowl in death for us'
Sri Lanka defeated India by five wickets in the first Twenty20 international cricket match to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series, in Pune on Tuesday. Chasing a modest target of 102 runs set by India, Lankan skipper Dinesh Chandimal led from the front scoring 35 runs off as many balls, while Milinda Sriwardana's unbeaten 21 runs off 14 balls ensured a comparatively young visiting squad secured a morale-boosting victory.
In opting for an extra spinner, says Harish Kotian/Rediff.com, India have picked a batsman less.
'Dhoni may be hoping that luck stays with him for a couple of months more.' 'He may want to step down on a triumphant note, holding aloft the World T20 trophy on April 3.'
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