The merit of the toss has been debated as a need to reduce home advantage that often results in host nations rolling out pitches doctored to favour their players in what tends to end up as one-sided encounters.
Pietersen said in his stirring address, which focussed on highlighting the relevance of Test cricket.
Australia's pace sensation Mitchell Johnson will reportedly compete with teammate David Warner as the country's most valuable Twenty20 player at next month's Indian Premier League player auction following a successful return to the elite ranks of international cricket.
The 44-year-old Ponting will work with Australia's batsmen for the May 30-July 14 tournament, with current batting coach Graeme Hick preparing the side for the Ashes tour in England, starting in August.
Aaron Finch's team and its entourage of support staff sat down in a circle on the field, with each member taking turns to talk about the side's run in the tournament
20 years ago this week, India and Australia played one of the greatest Test matches in cricket history. Sreehari Nair relives the sound and the fury of that unforgettable game at the Eden Gardens.
Former Australian batsman Mark Waugh has called for the scrapping of leg byes from all forms of cricket, saying the batting side shouldn't be awarded runs for missing the ball. The 54-year-old World Cup winner said the drafter of the rule "was a pretty ordinary batsman."
It has taken India 10 years to finish a Test in 3 days.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that the youngest entrant in the illustrious 10,000 Test run club, Alastair Cook can challenge batting legend Sachin Tendulkar's all-time Test run record. Cook became the first England cricketer to cross the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket, and the youngest overall, beating Tendulkar's record by five months by reaching the milestone at the age of 31 years and five months. Tendulkar -- Test cricket's most prolific batsman with 15921 runs -- was 31 years, 10 months 20 days old when he scored his 10,000th run in 2005. "Well the big advantage that England always has is that they are always playing a minimum of 11-12 Test matches on an average in a year. In 11-12 Test matches even if you score 50 runs per Test match you are getting about 500 runs every year," Gavaskar said.
Captain Alastair Cook savoured a special moment in his glittering career after becoming the first England cricketer to reach 10,000 Test runs during the second Test against Sri Lanka in Durham.
Terming India's prospects as very strong in the 2015 World Cup, former Australia captain Allan Border opined that Team India do have the "skills to match the best sides in the world but they will certainly have to have more "attitude" and "self belief" to make a mark in Australia and New Zealand.
Mitchell Swepson - in just his second ever T20I - took the big wicket of Virat Kohli
Former speed merchant Brett Lee reckons Australia's pace trio would hold the key during the year-end home Test series against India and is keen to figure out how much the kookaburra ball swings without saliva Down Under.
A look at how India have fared in their World Cup opening games.
Memorable moments from Shane Warne's glittering career.
Shaken by the match-fixing scandal, Indian cricket was going through a turbulent time at the start of the 21st century when Sourav Ganguly took charge of the team.
It is widely considered the greatest comeback in Test history.
Pace bowler Jamie Overton earned his maiden international call-up as he joined his twin Craig in the England squad for the third Test against New Zealand, starting at Headingley at Leeds from June 23.
Alex Carey has yet to play a Test match. Indeed, he has played many fewer matches with a red ball than he has with white and made his name in the T20 Big Bash League. But the 27-year-old left-hander is proving to be mature, adaptable and dependable for side.
Australian great Glenn McGrath says the handling of the 'homework gate' saga during the team's tour of India earlier this year was "pretty poor" and felt it "all blew up" in the middle of the 0-4 Test series drubbing.
Australia's three World Cup-winning captains are unified in their belief that under-fire skipper Michael Clarke is the right man to lead the team to a potential fifth tournament victory next March.
The studies that put Virat Kohli as the top brand now do not have Rohit Sharma in the Top 10. That will change quickly if he delivers the T20 World Cup next year or the ODI championship the year after.
Justin Langer was the foundation rock upon which Australia erected towering piles of runs during a golden era of success.
The shell-shocked hosts have a week to regroup before they again engage an Australian touring party which made Virat Kohli and his team of world-beaters look quite ordinary in a 333-run first test rout inside three days.
Did Virat Kohli deserve to be replaced as India's ODI captain? Rajneesh Gupta presents all the numbers.
Factbox on the fifth Ashes Test match between Australia and England, which starts on Thursday:
'With his passing comes the end of Indian cricket history.'
The former Australian captain said Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif must be fined heavily if they are proven guilty of using banned drugs.
Here are the statistical highlights from the third day's play of the fifth and final cricket Test between India and England in Chennai.
A guitar-strumming rocker when not keeping wickets, Australia's Peter Nevill will hope to hit the right note when he makes his surprise Test debut against England in the second Ashes match on Thursday.
Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq steadied the Pakistan second innings with an unbroken 113-run stand after their team appeared to be heading for a heavy defeat by losing three quick wickets in the second Test against Sri Lanka in Dubai on Friday.
Rajneesh Gupta presents the numbers from Day 4 of the first Test.
'...according to me Australia should have gone to India earlier. The preparation was not up to the mark at all. If you couldn't go to India, you should have gone to the UAE at least to prepare for a tour like this.'
The morning after an unexpected loss, the subdued conversation is always about would India have won had...
Being told not to return home as "losers" by their country's sports minister merely reflects the passionate desire of all South Africans for a maiden World Cup triumph, captain AB de Villiers said on Saturday.
'From 1989 when I started playing there would be at least 25 world class bowlers. But someone I didn't enjoy batting against was Hansie Cronje. For some reason I got out and over a period of time I realised that I am better off being at the non-striker's end'
Australia's Steven Smith has become the second youngest batsman after India's Sachin Tendulkar to achieve the number-one ranking in the Reliance ICC Player Rankings for Test Batsmen following stellar batting in the Kingston Test, which Australia won by 277 runs to win the series 2-0.
Sachin Tendulkar has no doubts in his mind that Dean Jones would have been one of the "most sought after batsmen" if he were to be part of the T20 generation and called him a player well ahead of his time.
Matthew Hayden feels the tourists do not seem to believe that they can win away from home.
Australian batsman Steven Smith became the second-fastest batsman to register 24 centuries in the Test format.
