Australia fast bowler Peter Siddle has claimed that it would be a little bit daunting at first to walk out onto the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) for the fourth and final Test against India, as it is the same ground where Phillip Hughes was struck by the deadly bouncer.
A resolute Ravichandran Ashwin and a hamstrung Hanuma Vihari battled pain and a hostile Australian bowling attack while displaying the largely extinct art of Test-saving batsmanship to snatch a remarkable draw for India in the third Test, after Rishabh Pant raised visions of an improbable victory, at the Sydney Cricket Ground, on Monday.
Australia gelled superbly during last year's triumph in the United Arab Emirates and 14 of that 15-man squad will bid for back-to-back titles
'Siraj, leader of the attack in his first Test series and he has led from the front.'
Phillip Hughes' death after being hit by a bouncer has left Ian Chappell shocked like most of the cricket world and the former Australian captain feels his country's pacers would find it tough to use the short-pitched delivery in the upcoming Test series against India.
David Warner's 12th one-day international hundred and brisk fifties from Glenn Maxwell and Travis Head set up Australia for an 86-run win over Pakistan in the fourth match on Sunday as the hosts secured an unassailable 3-1 lead in the series.
With two confident teams going head-to-head in a blockbuster World Cup semi-final on Thursday, it could be the tiniest mis-judgement, the smallest detail that decides whether Australia or India emerge triumphant.
The third and final match of the upcoming Twenty20 series between India and Australia will turn pink to support the McGrath Foundation after rain washed out a large part of the annual Pink Test in Sydney.
Pandya said he was happy to bat wherever the team need him.
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.
Former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott has slammed skipper Eoin Morgan, terming him a player who lacks cleverness while facing top-class bowlers of the World.
South Africa stormed into the semi-finals of the World Cup on Wednesday and nobody was more pleased than their Pakistan-born spinner Imran Tahir, who claimed 4-26 to mow down Sri Lanka's middle order in the quarter-final match at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
It was a frustrating day for the loyal crowd of 16,180 but perhaps more so for the home team, whose chances of forcing a result were progressively eroded.
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India will take on Australia in the second ODI of the tri-series, also involving England, on January 18, after Cricket Australia decided to swap the first two matches to give appropriate recovery time to the Indian players following the rescheduling of the four-Test series.
The three new selectors will be part of the panel led by Sunil Joshi.
The last time Team India won an ICC World Cup was in 2011 in India. It was a 50-over ODI format that was won under the astute leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
England captain Alastair Cook and Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews also joined in to pay their respects to Phillip Hughes.
Australia captain Steve Smith brushed off concerns about his fitness on the eve of the fifth and final Ashes Test against England on Wednesday before Mitchell Starc's return to spearhead the pace attack was confirmed as the only change to his team.
As the tournament gets to the business end here's a chance to predict the winner. Listed below are the eight quarter-finalists. Pick four who you think will make the semi-finals.
Cricket Australia XI were 356/6 in 102 overs at stumps in response to India's 358 all out at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday. More than the runs scored by CA XI, it was Shaw's ankle injury which gave India major grief as he was ruled out of the first Test in Adelaide starting December 6.
The highlight of Jadeja's performance, however, was his rocket throw which ended Steve Smith's stellar knock of 131.
Kohli, who has had an inconsistent series so far with scores of 5, 100 not out, 7, 11, and 3 in his last five innings, has amassed just 126 runs at an average of 31.50.
Australia coach Darren Lehmann believes the Sydney Cricket Ground pitch will produce a high-scoring World Cup semi-final against India on Thursday.
Head has dominated the batting chart with 409 runs in the first three Tests with two hundreds and a fifty, and former Australia captain Chappell believes his simplicity and aggression are behind his success as a Test batter.
The opener was struck twice on the helmet, once while batting on day one and then again while fielding at short leg on day three, when he was taken from the field.
Virat Kohli hit a second successive unbeaten half century. Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav also reached the 50-mark
Indian batters, with the exception of Yashasvi Jaiswal (84), faltered yet again to lose the match by 184 runs and trail 1-2 in the five-match series.
Usman Khawaja's fairytale comeback has presented Australia with a selection headache, and captain Pat Cummins conceded it would be hard to drop the in-form batsman from the fifth and final Ashes test against England in Hobart next week.
Pakistan mentor Matthew Hayden is backing struggling captain Babar Azam to produce something special in the knockout stages of the Twenty20 World Cup, starting in Wednesday's semi-final against New Zealand.
India batsman Cheteshwar Pujara says the dismissal of wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant was the turnaround moment on Saturday, the third day of the ongoing third Test against Australia, at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Australian skipper Steven Smith was a happy man with a dominating scoreline to the team's credit but did not forget to praise the good performance of the visitors.
Australia captain Tim Paine's efforts to distract Ravichandran Ashwin on the fifth and final day of the third Test in Sydney on Monday failed terribly as the India off-spinner gave him a befitting reply.
AB de Villiers smashed West Indies bowlers from pillar to post for the quickest 150 in one-day internationals on Friday but the South African skipper said only hard work earns a batsman the right to dominate in such a fashion.
Pucovski was ruled out after suffering a concussion in the first warm-up game between Australia A and India A.
Cricket scoreboards around the world carried tributes to Australian batsman Phillip Hughes on Friday, while condolence messages flooded social media as the sporting world reacted to an untimely death not experienced since Ayrton Senna's in 1994.
Cricket Australia has commissioned an independent review into the cause and circumstances of last year's death of Test batsman Phillip Hughes in a bid to prevent anything similar happening in the future.
Virat Kohli's breezy 85 went in vain as Australia prevailed by 12 runs in the final Twenty20 International to avoid a series whitewash
With Virat Kohli getting out after scoring just one run against Australia in Thursday's World Cup semi-final at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Twitter community erupted with jokes and jibes against his girlfriend, Anushka Sharma.
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).
South Africa captain AB de Villiers's batting blitzkriegs in the last two months have been so good that even his own team mates are in awe of them, fast bowler Dale Steyn said on Friday.
