Pakistan-born Usman Khawaja gets Indian visa for Champions league.

SYDNEY: Australian batsman Usman Khawaja was on Wednesday issued an Indian visa for next month’s Twenty20 Champions League tournament, following a brief delay allegedly related to his birth in Pakistan.
Cricket New South Wales said Khawaja was cleared to travel to India by the High Commission in Sydney early on Wednesday, after a “stoppage” the 24-year-old player had claimed was due to his country of birth.
“We are delighted that this has been settled and we thank the Indian Consul-General, Mr Amit Dasgupta, for his prompt attention in resolving the matter,” said Cricket NSW chairman Harry Harinath.
Khawaja is on the 20-man long list to represent NSW at the Twenty20 event and cricket officials said he could now join the squad if he is among the final 15 selected later this week.
The Champions League T20 is scheduled in India from September 23 through October 9.
The left-hander vented his anger about the delay to his visa on the social media site Twitter Tuesday, calling on Indian visa officials to “sort their issues out”.
“Refusing to let me travel to India as an Australian, because I wasn’t born here. Wow,” Khawaja wrote.
In an exchange with his Portuguese-born New South Wales team-mate Moises Henriques, Khawaja said it “wasn’t that I wasn’t born here but where I was, brother”.
Khawaja, the first Muslim to wear the baggy green for Australia and also a qualified pilot, made his Test debut for Australia in the fifth match of the Ashes series in Sydney in January and signed with Derbyshire later that month.

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How Cricket Started "Travia"

How it All Started
Cricket has been traced to shepherds in England who started playing the early forms of cricket sometime in the 17th century. The first laws of cricket were written in 1774. Since then they have been changed on numerous occasions. Pretty much everything has changed since then. The early cricket bats were long curved pieces of wood resembling a thick hockey stick. The stumps consisted of two wickets and one bail in between. The only law of the game that has remained constant is the length of the pitch at 22 yards.

Speaking of the stumps, initially the afore-mentioned shepherds would bat in-front of a tree stump, hence the term “stumps”. As the game progressed it was at times played in front of a wicket-gate – which led to the term “wickets”.
Early bowlers would bowl the ball underarm – and cricket records tell stories of great underarm lob bowlers. Overarm bowling was initially illegal. It was introduced to cricket by a Kent cricketer, John Willes. He actually learnt it from his sister, Christina Willes who found her skirt was getting in the way when she tried to bowl underarm!

In 1868 an Englishman called Charles Lawrence based in Australia put together a team of aborigines and took them to England. This was the first ever Australian tour to England, and each player wore a cap of a different colour so that the spectators could identify them. The team played 47 matches against a number of local teams of which they won 14, lost 14 and drew the rest. Apart from playing cricket the aborigines showcased a number of unique sports including the backwards race, boomerang throwing and cricket ball dodging.

There are 10 ways in which a batsman can get out in cricket: Caught, Bowled, Leg Before Wicket, Run Out, Stumped, Handling the ball, Obstructing the field, Hit the ball twice, Hit Wicket, Timed out.

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Aussies begin Sri Lanka tour with Twenty20 clash

KANDY, Sri Lanka: Australia open their campaign in Sri Lanka with two Twenty20 Internationals on Saturday (today) and Monday which could set the tone for the rest of the tour.
Seasoned Australian fast bowler Brett Lee said he felt the Twenty20 games were the right way to start the seven-week tour, which also features five One-day Internationals and three Tests.
“I think it builds the hype,” the 34-year-old said. “If you were to have it towards the end after a Test series, it probably would not work as well.
“I think the way a tour should be run is that you start with the Twenty20s, then the one-dayers and then the Test matches.
“It just flows in beautifully into the longer form of the game.”
Australia, once the masters of the game, will look to rebuild their battered reputation during the tour after falling to fifth place in the Test rankings, one behind Sri Lanka.
The Aussies, winners of four World Cup titles, were knocked out in the quarter-finals of the last edition played in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh earlier this year.
Australia’s Twenty20 captain Cameron White will return home after Monday since he is not part of either the one-day or Test squad that will be led by Michael Clarke.
The Twenty20 games will be played under floodlights at the Pallekele International Stadium, a new facility near the hill town of Kandy built for the World Cup.
Sri Lanka, led by hard-hitting opener Tillakaratne Dilshan, will miss the now retired off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga, who is injured.
But all-rounder Angelo Mathews, the team’s new vice-captain, was hopeful the bowling attack would look sharp even without the spearheads.
“Lasith and Murali are exceptional people and I think that while we have got talent, nobody can replace them,” he said. “But there are good youngsters coming up.”
Australia and Sri Lanka have so far played four Twenty20 matches, with each team winning two.
Squads: Australia (from): Cameron White (captain), Shane Watson, David Warner, Brad Haddin, Shaun Marsh, David Hussey, Aaron Finch, Steven Smith, Steve O’Keefe, John Hastings, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, James Pattinson.
Sri Lanka (from): Tillakaratne Dilshan (captain), Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Jeevan Mendis, Dilruwan Perera, Thisara Perera, Dhammika Prasad, Suranga Lakmal, Ajantha Mendis, Nuwan Kulasekara, Suraj Randiv, Rangana Herath, Chamara Silva, Shaminda Eranga.

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schedule of 1st Corporate T20 Night Tournament

GROUP A	GROUP B
PIA NBP Omer Associates Sayid Paper Mills	HBL WAPDA Port Qasim KESC

1ST CORPORATE T20 NIGHT TOURNAMENT
Sr. No	Match			Day	Date	Time	Status	Venue	Result
1	PIA	vs	NBP	Saturday	August 6, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
2	HBL	vs	Port Qasim	Sunday	August 7, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
3	Omer Associates	vs	Sayid Paper Mills	Monday	August 8, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
4	WAPDA	vs	KESC	Tuesday	August 9, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
5	NBP	vs	Sayid Paper Mills	Wednesday	August 10, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
6	HBL	vs	KESC	Thursday	August 11, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
7	PIA	vs	Sayid Paper Mills	Friday	August 12, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
8	WAPDA	vs	Port Qasim	Saturday	August 13, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
9	NBP	vs	Omer Associates	Sunday	August 14, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
10	HBL	vs	WAPDA	Monday	August 15, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
11	PIA	vs	Omer Associates	Tuesday	August 16, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
12	Port Qasim	vs	KESC	Wednesday	August 17, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
13	1st Semi-Final			Thursday	August 18, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
14	2nd Semi-Final			Friday	August 19, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)
15	FINAL			Saturday	August 20, 2011	10:00 PM		DHA Sports Club (Moin Khan Academy)

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Zimbabwe make solid start to Test return

Zimbabwe make solid start to Test return

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HARARE: Zimbabwe marked their return from a six-year exile by racking up an impressive 264 for two against Bangladesh on the first day of a one-off Test at the Harare Sports Club on Thursday. All four of Zimbabwe’s top batsmen made runs with Hamilton Masakadza finishing the day unbeaten on 88 with seven fours and a six as he closes in on a second Test century. Masakadza made his first century 10 years ago on his debut at the age of 17, scoring 119 against the West Indies on this same ground. New skipper Brendan Taylor was also undefeated on Thursday, having made a steady 40 off 108 balls. Debutant opener Tinotenda Mawoyo made 43 while Vusi Sibanda smashed 78, with seven fours and one six, as the two put on 102 for the first wicket. “I cannot compliment our guys enough, said Taylor. “The way the openers stuck it out and the platform of Hamilton and myself in the final session was perfect — you cannot ask more than that. Tomorrow we must stay focussed.” After losing the toss, and being put into bat on a greenish wicket by Bangladesh captain Shakib al Hassan, Zimbabwe constructed a foundation for what could be a winning score. Zimbabwe’s batsmen mixed caution with aggression, allowing few chances especially after a scare in the second over of the day when Sibanda was very nearly run out. Bangladesh, already defeated by a Zimbabwe XI in a three-day tour match at the weekend, looked shell-shocked by the day’s end. Only 21-year-old medium-pacer Rubel Hossain got wickets and finished with two for 58 off 18 overs. Mawoyo was the first to fall, caught by Mahmudullah at deep backward point with Sibanda the second to go, midway through the afternoon session, when he edged a short ball to wicketkeeper Mushfiqur Rahim. Despite the return of Test cricket, the match only attracted fewer than 1 000 people.

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Clarke excited by new blood

SYDNEY: Australian Test captain Michael Clarke said on Thursday he was excited by the new blood in his squad to face Sri Lanka this month.
Four uncapped players have been included in the 15-strong line-up for the three-Test tour, including pacemen Trent Copeland and James Pattinson, spinner Nathan Lyon and batsman Shaun Marsh.
South Australian offspinner Lyon was picked after just four first-class games, with the 23-year-old impressing on the just-completed Australia A tour of Zimbabwe.
Clarke has yet to meet him but they have spoken on the phone.
“He’s got an opportunity to grab it with both hands and, by all reports, I’m pretty confident he’ll do that, so he’s certainly got a lot of talent,” Clarke said as he prepared leave for Colombo.
“Now it’s about giving him a go and seeing how he handles playing cricket for Australia.”
Clarke is leading the team in his first Test series as full-time captain on the tour from August 6 to September 20, which also includes two Twenty20 matches and five one-dayers.
“I love the fact we’ve got some new fresh faces that are excited and itching for their opportunity. I think that’s a great thing to have around the group,” he said.
“But the facts are we have to have some success, we have to play good cricket, we have to improve from our recent results throughout the last Australian summer.
“We need to get better, and we know that as players, and I can guarantee we’re working as hard as I’ve ever worked in my career, so hopefully we can turn that around sooner rather than later.”
Australia head into the Test series fifth in the world rankings, one place below Sri Lanka.
“I really hope we can turn things around straight away. I think it is going to take time for us to work our way back up the rankings,” Clarke added.
The Test series opens in Galle from August 31 with following Tests in Kandy from September 8 and Colombo from September 16.

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Gavaskar slams ‘schoolboys’ Indian team.

NEW DELHI: Batting great Sunil Gavaskar on Thursday blamed poor technique for India’s dismal show in the Test series in England, saying the tourists looked like a “schoolboys team”.
“India were totally outplayed by England in the second Test so much so that it looked like a contest between a professional team and a schoolboys team,” the former opener wrote in the Hindu newspaper.
“The batting has failed to get to 300 in four innings and the bowling in both Tests has faded away after a bright beginning.”
India trail 2-0 in the four-Test series following a 196-run defeat in the first match at Lord’s and a 319-run loss in the second at Trent Bridge.
Drawn games in the last two matches will enable England to dethrone Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Indians as the top-ranked Test team.
“India’s lower order is just not technically good enough, and if a player knows he is technically struggling then mentally too he stops fighting,” wrote Gavaskar, the first batsman to score 10,000 Test runs.
“Not that the top order has shown any great technique, especially the youngsters who plunder millions of runs on Indian pitches getting onto the front foot and then suddenly find that when it comes to overseas pitches and the quicker bowlers, they just don’t know how to play off the back foot.”
Rahul Dravid has looked the best Indian batsman on the tour with two hundreds, while Venkatsai Laxman has made two half-centuries and Sachin Tendulkar one.
“The guys scoring the runs are those who have honed their technique on the longer version of the game,” Gavaskar wrote.
“Those others who are destroyers of bowling where the ball does not come above the waist are finding how tough Test cricket is.”

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Harbhajan and Yuvraj ruled out of England series

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday suffered a twin blow when Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh were ruled out of the remaining two Tests of the four-match series against England due to injuries.
Off-spinner Harbhajan and all-rounder Yuvraj, who suffered the injuries during the second Test at Trent Bridge, were replaced with middle-order batsman Virat Kohli and left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha.
“Yuvraj has fractured his left index finger and Harbhajan has a Grade I abdominal muscle strain,” Indian cricket board secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement.
“While Yuvraj’s injury may take around four weeks to recover, Harbhajan is likely to recover in three weeks’ time.
“The selection committee has picked Virat Kohli and Pragyan Ojha as their replacements. Both players will join the Indian team at the earliest.”
The third Test starts in Edgbaston on August 10 and the last match at the Oval on August 18.
Harbhajan, struggling on the tour, took just two wickets in the opening two matches while Yuvraj, who scored a half-century in the first innings of the second Test, was struck on the finger while batting in the second innings.
The double blow came at a time when India were sweating over the fitness of ace paceman Zaheer Khan, who bowled just 13.3 overs in the first innings of the opening Test at Lord’s before suffering a hamstring injury.
He was ruled out of the second Test.
Hard-hitting Indian opener Virender Sehwag, recovering from a shoulder injury, also missed the opening two matches but was set to join the squad on Wednesday for the remaining two Tests.
Opener Gautam Gambhir, forced to miss the second Test due to an elbow injury, is expected to return for the third match.
India, trailing 2-0 in the ongoing series following their defeats in the first two Tests, will cede their Test number one status to England if they lose the third match.
Ojha, who played his last Test against New Zealand at home in 2010, has so far bagged 42 wickets in 11 matches while Kohli has scored 76 runs in three Tests. India will also play a one-off Twenty20 match and five One-day Internationals after the Test series.

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Former Sri Lanka captain Gamini Goonasena dies at 80

Gamini Goonesena, the former Sri Lanka captain and allrounder who also played for Cambridge University and Nottinghamshire, has died at the age of 80 in Canberra.

Goonesena played for Sri Lanka in the country's pre-Test era and captained them against India in the unofficial Test played at the P Sara Oval in 1956. He captured seven wickets for 69 with his leg-spin and top-scored for his side with 48. His legspinning counterpart Subash Gupte took 6 for 64 in that drawn game.

In a career spanning 194 first-class matches Goonesena scored 5751 runs (average of 21.53) and captured 674 wickets (average of 24.37). He also held 108 catches.

Goonasena studied at the Royal College, Colombo, and played in the annual Royal-Thomian encounter. Following his retirement from competitive cricket, he was appointed Sri Lanka's representative at the ICC and subsequently managed the Test side on a tour of India in 1982. He also worked as a Test match commentator before retiring in 2004 and settling down in Australia.

Goonesena is best remembered for his contribution as an an allrounder for Cambridge University, a team he represented between 1954 and 1957. He became the first Asian to captain the university in 1957 and scored 211 against arch-rivals Oxford at Lord's - it remains the highest score by a Cambridge player in the annual university fixture. He also took four wickets for 40 in the second innings to beat Oxford by an innings and 86 runs.

Goonesena played for Nottinghamshire from 1953 to 1964 and also in seven consecutive games for Gentlemen v Players between 1954 and 1958, a record for an overseas player.

Goonesena first represented Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) against Pakistan in 1950 and went on to play for international sides led by Joe Lister and EW Swanton and toured the West Indies twice. He also played for New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield between 1961 and 1964, while employed with the Ceylon Tea Board in Australia.

Bertie Wijesinghe, the oldest living Sri Lanka cricketer who played with Goonesena, said, "It's a pity that Gamini was lost to Sri Lanka cricket and could not spend time at home to coach and inspire the younger generation with his vast knowledge of the game. "I've never known a cricketer apart from the late FC de Saram who was so clean about the game. He was an outstanding bowler and his record at Cambridge speaks for itself."

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Afridi rues squashed plans for rebuilding team

KARACHI: Four months after guiding Pakistan into the World Cup semifinals, Shahid Afridi finds himself away from international cricket following a bitter fall-out with the country’s cricket chiefs.
But his status as a ‘retired’ cricketer at the age of 31 when Afridi is at the peak of his international career doesn’t really bother him. What troubles him more is the fact that his dispute with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has “ruined all plans that were aimed at raising a strong national team for the future”.
Afridi said on Monday that together with other senior players including Misbah-ul-Haq — the current Pakistan captain — he had chalked out post-World Cup plans to put the national team on the right track.
Speaking to reporters here at a local hotel on the sidelines of a promotional event, Afridi also made it clear that he wasn’t responsible for Pakistan’s losses in their last two One-day Internationals against the West Indies early this summer.
“Our team has been hit hard by this controversy,” said the star allrounder. “All of us including Misbah (ul Haq) and (Mohammad) Hafeez sat down and devised strategies for the team. We made a lot of planning for future but it was all ruined because of what happened afterwards,” he said.
Afridi, one of the most feared allrounders in international cricket, retired after falling out with the PCB in the aftermath of the ODI series against West Indies last May.
After the series which Pakistan won 3-2, Afridi hinted at disharmony within the national team management. Irked by his comments, the PCB opted to replace him as Pakistan captain. In response, Afridi announced his retirement and declared that he will never play under the current PCB set-up because it didn’t treat players with due respect.
Later, the PCB suspended his central contract and revoked all NOCs granted to the player to play professional cricket abroad. Afridi sued the Board which agreed to restore his NOC following an out-of-court settlement last month. Afridi was fined Rs4.5 million for several breaches of discipline.
Just when it seemed that the dispute was over, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt reignited the controversy by blaming Afridi for the defeats against West Indies in the last two ODIs during a TV interview last month. But Afridi has rejected Butt’s claims.
“Everybody knows after the tour report was filed by the team manager as to who was involved in team selection. I was not even involved in selection because I walked away from team meetings to mark my protest and the coach and manager picked the playing elevens (for the last two ODIs),” said Afridi.
“I was a hero for them after World Cup and suddenly I became zero,” he lamented.
Afridi made it clear that he won’t take a u-turn on his decision to stay away from international cricket till the time the Ijaz Butt-led set-up was running the sport in Pakistan.
“Pakistan is my identity and my country is always been my first priority. I will definitely return if people want me to return but I can’t play with hypocrites around who are very dangerous people.
“I am not the man who takes u-turns and I will wait for thing to become better before making a comeback.”
Afridi hailed national selectors for blooding youngsters in the national team for the upcoming tour of Zimbabwe but was quick to add that they should have shown more faith in a number of rookies who have been sidelined without being given a fair chance.
“It is good to include youngsters,” he said before adding: “But players like Ahmed Shahzad, Hammad Azam and Usman Salahuddin who have shown potential should get more chances. The policy to give insufficient chance to youngsters is not understandable.”
Afridi will be leaving for England on Wednesday (tomorrow) to feature in Hampshire’s Friends Life t20 quarterfinal against Somerset at The Rose Bowl on August 7. He will return home on August 8 and will play in a few local events to be held during the holy month of Ramadan.
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Shahid Afridi... ‘I was a hero for them after World Cup and suddenly I became zero’ 

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