Australia: Cricket Australia have announced the return of the traditional one-day international tri-series for next summer, with the host nation taking on India and Sri Lanka.

The governing body announced its fixtures for the 2011/12 international summer today and they include two Tests against New Zealand, four against India, two Twenty20s and then the 12-match Commonwealth Bank Series of one-day internationals.

The tri-series was played for more than 20 years before being replaced four years ago. The season kicks off with the first Test against New Zealand at the Gabba from December 1 with the second match to follow at the Bellerive Oval from December 9-13.

The four-Test series against India will be played at the MCG (December 26-30), the SCG (January 3-7), the WACA Ground (January 13-17) and Adelaide Oval (January 24-28) before the Twenty20s against India at the ANZ Stadium (February 1) and the MCG (February 3).

The Commonwealth Bank Series begins at the MCG from February 5 and takes in a pair of matches in Perth, at least three in Adelaide including the second final – and third if required, three in Brisbane and two each in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart.

“Fans will certainly have plenty of variety this summer,” said CA chief executive James Sutherland.

“ICC Cricket World Cup winners India are also the number one ranked Test team in the world at the moment,” he said. “Sri Lanka have also been in great form as we saw in the World Cup, while we know New Zealand are always a formidable opponent as they do well when playing Australia.”

“With the beginning of the ICC World Test Championship we know that every Test win is vital and the Australian team will be keen to start the home season positively against New Zealand,” he added.

Trinidad: If Day 3 of the India vs West Indies series was anything to go by, a strong Indian performance in the Casure up on top-ranked Australia in the 50-over version with a strong performance in the Caribbean. With Mahendra Singh Dhoni being rested for the ODIs, stand-in captain Suresh Raina will certainly be hoping for an improvement on his current position at 32 in the batting log.

Virat Kohli, in eighth position, is the highest-ranked India player in ODIs and in the absence of Gautam Gambhir (in 12th position), Virender Sehwag (in 13th) and Yuvraj Singh (in 17th), Kohli can put some more daylight between himself and his colleagues.With no Chris Gayle or Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the West Indies squad, at least for the first two matches of the series, the highest-ranked home batsman will be Ramnaresh Sarwan, in 38th place.

India also holds the advantage in the bowling. Experienced off-spinner Harbhajan Singh (17th position) is the highest-ranked bowler from either team in this series and the only one in the top 20.

London: Sri Lanka started in a brilliant fashion at Lords yesterday, picking up three wickets, but since then, it has all been England. Cook and Bell consolidated and the middle order contributed well.

Both Cook and Morgan fell short of their centuries but the last session of the day was the most productive. 177/2 in 36 overs in the final session. England well and truly on top, having reached 342/6. Lakmal was the highest wicket-taker with 3, but apart from the first hour, it wasn’t a great day for the bowlers.

Sri Lanka need to finish off the line up quickly or else this game can go well out of their reach. Alastair Cook couldn’t quite make it three consecutive Test hundreds, falling for 96, and Eoin Morgan departed for a confident 79, but Matt Prior was unbeaten at the close on 73.

The real shift in momentum occurred while Morgan added 101 in 20 overs with Prior during the long final session as Sri Lanka started flagging.

At Stumps Day 1

England 342/6 (in 88 overs) (First innings; Alastair Cook 96, Eoin Morgan 79, Suranga Lakmal 79/3)

London : Four days after being demolished for 82, Sri Lanka showed commendable spirit on the opening morning at Lords, with three early wickets, having put England into bat. The home side reached lunch at 75 for 3.

In Cardiff, it had taken Sri Lanka 96.3 overs to get three wickets, but here they had them in 7.5 and England were rocking on 22 for 3.

Tillakaratne Dilshan’s decision to bowl first smacked of a captain who didn’t want to expose his batsmen to England’s tall pace attack.

At Lunch Day 1

England: 75/3 (24.0 overs) (First innings; Alaistair Cook 32*, RAS Lakmal 38/2)

Team Lineup

England: 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Ian Bell, 6 Eoin Morgan, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Chris Tremlett, 11 Steven Finn

Sri Lanka: 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan (capt), 2 Tharanga Paranavitana, 3 Kumar Sangakkara , 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), 7 Farveez Maharoof, 8 Rangana Herath, 9 Dilhara Fernando, 10 Chanaka Welegedara, 11 Suranga Lakmal

It was a Thursday afternoon and the crowd was packed at Sardar Patel Stadium, backing their team in the numbers. Australian Captain Ricky Ponting won the match and elected to bat, probably due to the dry pitch and India’s history of chasing targets. India had brought Raina into the side to strengthen their middle order in place of Yusuf Pathan.

Australian batsmen Haddin and Watson began the proceedings. It was a watchful start. Each team seemed to have done their homework. Ashwin, who had played well in the previous game, was brought in early into the attack. The faith of the captain on him paid off when he took the first wicket, of Watson. Watson attempted to play an offensive stroke, misjudged the ball, which went on to hit his off stump.

Ponting, who had scored only 100 runs in his past 5 innings, walked in next. Haddin, Ponting having spent time on the pitch, was looking quite comfortable and provided Ponting time to settle in. They built a moderate partnership and were starting to look dangerous at 100/1 by the end of the 20th over, when Yuvraj Singh got back in action once again, this time with the ball. He took Haddin’s wicket and the runs dried up post that.

Indian spinners then made the Australian batsmen toil for their runs. Also, the fall of wicket at regular intervals kept breaking any momentum being built.

The highlight of the match was Ricky Ponting, who looked like a man on a mission. He silenced his critics with his gameplay, finely crafting 104 of 113 balls. This helped Australia get to a reasonable total of 260. Among the Indian bowlers Singh, Ashwin and Khan took two wickets each. Zaheer Khan became second leading wicket taker in the tournament with this game.

It was a fifty-fifty situation when the next innings began, with Tendulkar and Sehwag walking in to the crease. The atmosphere was electrifying, with the crowds roaring to the shots played by the batsmen. Australia was up to its old tricks again, using the short ball against the Indian batsmen. And the tricks paid dividends too, with Sehwag getting caught while trying to pull a bouncer. The little master took responsibility on his shoulders to ride his team through built a partnership with Gambhir. Gambhir looked shaky initially but soon gained confidence.

The match seemed to be tilting in India’s favour, when Tait bowled a smooth delivery tricking Tendulkar, who nicked it on its way to the keeper. Tendulkar, however, had done some damage till thenand also reached 18,000 runs and 94th ODI half-century in the process. Post Tendulkar’s dismissal, Kohli and Gambhir continued the momentum, with Kohli playing a cameo innings of 24 runs.

A number of partnerships in the middle order helped India take control of the game And it was not until the freak run-out of Gambhir that the match turned back in favour of the Aussies. Ricky Ponting used all the tricks in his bag to build pressure on the Indians and Lee dismissed MS Dhoni next, bringing the Indians down to 5. Was this the beginning of another collapse?

With still 70 runs left to get and 12 overs in hand for India, it could have been anyone’s game at that point of time And it was uptoYuvraj Singh and Raina to set things straight for their team. Yuvraj was back for his side as he had been in earlier matches in the tournament. He went on to score his 3rd half-century of the tournament. Raina too showed that the selectors had made the right choice by selecting him. Both the batsmen played a number of splendid shots without taking many risks. No Australian bowler was able to pose a serious challenge to the the two beyond a period of time. Australia seemed gravely in need of another Shane Warne.

Yuvraj finally wrapped things up for India, booking a place for his team in the semi-finals against Pakistan on Wednesday, March 30 2011. The Men in blue were jubilant about defeating Australia- a kind of retribution against the defeats they have suffered at the hands of Australia prior.

Match Summary:

India 261(Y.Singh 57, Tendulkar 53, D Hussey 1-19) by 5wickets beat Australia 260 (Ponting 104, Haddin 53, Y.Singh 2-44) .

Man of the Match: Yuvraj Singh

With the abandonment of Sunday’s ODI, the second in the three-match series, Australia returned home without winning a single game in their tour of India. They had lost the two-match Test series 0-2 before the ODI series. The last time they experienced something similar in India was on their tour in 2008-09 where they drew the tour game and lost the Tests 0-2.

The first ODI in Kochi was also washed out in similar circumstances. It was an unfortunate result for the locals who had turned up at the stadium. The series was effectively reduced to a solitary game in Visakhapatnam on October 20, where India beat Australia by five wickets.

Umpires Billy Bowden and Amish Saheba made two inspections of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium ground at 11 am and 12:15 pm before deciding to abandon the match because of the wet conditions in the outfield that persisted despite the sun shining brightly. In between these two inspections rival skippers Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Michael Clarke also came out to go around the outfield and were seen having a long discussion with the umpires.

The wicket looked in perfect condition but the seepage of rain water through the covers left the outfield damp and slippery.

The match was later called off without a ball being bowled, thus making it the second time it has happened at this venue.

Chasing a steep target of 290, India got off to a disastrous start by losing debutant Shikhar Dhawan in the very first over for a second ball duck when he was clean bowled by Australian pace bowler Clint McKay.

Fellow opener Murali Vijay soon followed him back to the pavilion when he edged a McKay delivery to wicket-keeper Tim Paine. Vijay was looking solid, but poor shot selection led to his downfall for 15 from 18 balls.

However, Virat Kohli (118 runs off 121 balls) altered the entire complexion of the match with a flawless century as he shared two crucial partnerships with Yuvraj Singh (58 runs off 87 balls) and Suresh Raina (71 runs off 47 balls) to put India on course for a magnificent win.

After missing the Test series against Australia, Yuvraj answered his critics in style by hitting a classy 58 off 87 balls which included five boundaries.

Young Suresh Raina again proved his mettle by finishing things off with a brilliant knock of 71 for just 47 balls. He thrashed the bowlers all over the ground and hit nine boundaries and one huge six in his innings.

Loss of Kohli and skipper MS Dhoni in quick succession created some panic for a while, however Raina steadied the nerves. Raina, along with Saurabh Tiwary, helped India win the match by five wickets and take an unassailable 1-0 lead in three match series.

Earlier, Australia too had started slowly before they consolidated, courtesy a fine 144-run partnership between Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, to 205 for 3 from 45 overs, before exploding in the death overs. Stand-in skipper Michael Clarke returned to form with his fifth century to help Australia post a challenging 289 for three.

The opening duo of Shaun Marsh (0) and Tim Paine (9) was evicted by Ashish Nehra, but Clarke (111 not out from 138 balls with 7 fours and 1 six) and Hussey (69) steadied the ship, putting on 144 runs together.

Some impressive batting by vice-captain Cameron White (89 from 49 balls with 6 fours and six overboundaries) spurred the Aussie scoring as they scored 49 runs in the five overs of batting powerplay between 43rd and 47th overs.

Both White and Clarke were in a rampaging mood. Nehra, who had an impressive first spell of 4-1-3-2 had his figures destroyed towards the end as he returned with 57 runs from his 10 overs.

The Australians scored 114 in the last 10 overs, something that speaks highly of Clarke’s innings that had the shades of recovery and then dominance. Put into bat, Australia were clearly under pressure as the opening duo of Marsh and Paine was dismissed early by Nehra in an impressive first spell.

The experienced duo of the new-look Australia side, Skipper Clarke and Hussey did the repair work, building their innings brick by brick. In the end, Cameron White’s big hitting helped Australia in reaching a fighting total of 289.

Match report
India 292 for 5 (Kohli 118, Raina 71*, Yuvraj 58) beat Australia 289 for 3 (Clarke 111*, White 89*, Hussey 69) by five wickets

Hair had called Muralitharan for chucking during the 1995 Boxing Day Test at the MCG and though the Lankan feels that the controversial umpire made a mistake by doing that, Murali has decided to put all those ill feelings behind him.

“I have forgiven (him) and forgotten. I had been very upset with him, but I have let it go. People do make mistakes and I think he made a mistake. My action has been cleared,” Murali was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph. “But I’m not going to look at the past anymore. What I really didn’t like was the comments Howard made (in 2004). That was why I didn’t come on the next tour here. From someone in his position, that was worse than anything the crowd said.”

Murali, who will be in Australia next month for what would be his farewell tour to the country, recalled the torrid time he had while dealing with taunts from the crowd Down Under.

“It has been a bit difficult here for me sometimes but mainly it has just been one or two people in the crowd saying some things,” said the spinner, who has managed to take 800 Test wickets. “That is part of the game and as a sportsman, you just have to accept that some people just don’t like you.”

VVS, who has been the Australian nemesis for the past decade, played a ‘Very Very Special’ innings and almost singlehandedly covered India’s run chase of 216.

Sachin Tendulkar (38) and Zaheer Khan (10) started the innings in a positive manner. Rather than trying to defend in the first hour, both were keen on playing their shots. While Tendulkar struck some well-timed boundaries off Nathan Hauritz, Zaheer ran a couple and a few singles to keep the scoreboard moving.

Zaheer hung around for half an hour and it looked like the nightwatchman’s vigil would allow MS Dhoni and Laxman ease into the 216-run chase. But Michael Clarke took an easy catch off Hauritz to dismiss him in the slip.

Then came Laxman and the manner in which he started, it never looked like he was suffering from back spasms and unbearable pain for the last couple of days. He announced his arrival with back-to-back boundaries off Hauritz; first a cover drive and then a back-foot punch through the extra cover. The best one came with the back-foot punch off Bollinger which was hit with minimum fuss.

With Tendulkar for company, the duo added 43 runs in only 6.1 overs and it looked like India was in cruise mode for a while. Tendulkar’s 38-run knock in 64 balls included five hits to the boundary. He was the man who carried Indian hopes of victory. It seemed he wanted to silence the critics who have questioned his ability to finish off matches in the fourth innings of a Test match.

However, just before the first drinks break of the morning session, Tendulkar tried an ambitious upper-cut off Bollinger delivery that rose but didn’t get the required elevation and Mike Hussey took a smart catch at gully.

Tendulkar’s wicket was exactly the tonic Aussies needed to spur themselves on.
The visitors absolutely pounced on to the opening and went on a wicket-taking spree, running out Dhoni (2) in a suicidal attempt by the Indian skipper for a single. He was found short of Ben Hilfenhaus’ throw into Tim Paine’s gloves, who removed the bails in quick time.

Harbhajan Singh also didn’t last long, gloving a Bollinger short ball to Ricky Ponting at second slip.

But the turning point on day five came when Ishant Sharma strode in at the fall of Harbhajan’s wicket. The long-legged pacer not only buckled down but also put on 81 runs for the ninth-wicket along with Laxman, hitting a few plucky fours in the match-winning partnership.

India needed under 15 when Ishant fell but it was a day that Pragyan Ojha would like to remember forever. He fought a few nervy overs but to his credit, stayed put with Laxman. The Aussies conceded a boundary off an overthrow when Indian needed six. And with two needed, a delivery down Ojha’s leg stump was all that the left-armer needed to give him two leg-byes that took India to a historic win.

Team India now lead by 1-0 against Australia in the Gavaskar-Border trophy 2010. The second and final test between two countries will start from October 9 in Bengaluru.

Match score

India 405 (Tendulkar 98, Raina 86, Johnson 5-64) and 216 for 9 (Laxman 73*, Hilfenhaus 4-57, Bollinger 3-32) beat Australia 428 (Watson 126, Paine 92, Zaheer 5-94) and 192 (Watson 56, Ishant 3-34, Zaheer 3-43) by 1 wicket

“If truth, honesty and common sense had prevailed, then there would have been a punishment for the player,” Symonds said, speaking to Harsha Bhogle on ESPNcricinfo’s Opening Up. “It would have been dealt with, and it would have set a precedent for the future. But I don’t think it has done that.”

Harbhajan had an altercation with Symonds on the third day of the Test, during which he allegedly called Symonds a “monkey”. Harbhajan was handed a three-match ban, which was later overturned on appeal.

The BCCI, Symonds alleged, had flexed its muscles to get Harbhajan off, and he and his team-mates “were made to look idiots” when the ban was reversed. “I think Cricket Australia was intimidated by the Indian Cricket Board,” the Aussie player revealed.

“The thing, I think, that was grinding on me the most was the lying. Because the allegation was that this hadn’t happened, and it had. Then the lies started, and then it became political. The captain (Ricky Ponting) was made to look like a fool, and that should have never happened, and the other players too.”

Harbhajan’s appeal was presided over by Justice John Hansen, a former New Zealand High Court judge, who said there was insufficient evidence for a racism charge to stick. The offence was changed to a Level 2.8 one according to the ICC’s Code of Conduct – abuse and insult not amounting to racism – to which Harbhajan pleaded guilty and was fined 50% of his match fees. Two days later, the ICC admit the judge hadn’t been given enough material, especially on Harbhajan’s past offences, and apologised for the punishment, which many considered not severe enough for a repeat offender.

Symonds said Australia’s case wasn’t presented well. “It was really like a courtroom slugfest in the end. And I think the way our side was put across, it wasn’t as accurate as it needed to be. We probably missed a couple of points, which in the end cost our side dearly,” he said.

Symonds said he was angry at first and then completely disillusioned. He also felt humiliated because his teammates had been dragged into it. “If it had been just me, then I would have just kept going forward,” he said. “I was with these blokes day after day, and there were people still writing about it in the paper. You think about their wives, their mothers and fathers, that sort of thing. I think it was, as I said, something that was handled poorly.”

Symonds, who effectively retired from international cricket last year after his Cricket Australia contract was cancelled following a string of disciplinary breaches, said of his decision to quit, “I woke up one day and I thought, ‘You know what – this isn’t originally what I was enjoying’.”