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.

Trinidad: Without key senior players, even a second-string India will be hard to stop for the struggling West Indies when the two sides meet in a T20 match today.

India are without seniors such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and their regular skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but they can still turn the tables on the West Indians whom they have never beaten in a Twenty20 match before.

West Indies have two of the most economical medium-pacers in skipper Darren Sammy and Ravi Rampaul but the Oval pitch appears to have been made more for India’s taste.

India has three top spinners in Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin and Amit Mishra to take advantage of the surface while West Indies have only young leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo who could do likewise.

India have twice faced West Indies in Twenty20 internationals, first during the 2009 Twenty20 World Championships, when they lost by seven wickets at Lords, and then  West Indies repeated the result in the second encounter, again during the Twenty20 World Cup.

Team Lineup

West Indies: Darren Sammy (capt), Christopher Barnewell, Devendra Bishoo, Darren Bravo, Andre Fletcher, Danza Hyatt, Ashley Nurse, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Marlon Samuels, Krishmar Santokie, Lendl Simmons

India: Suresh Raina (capt), Harbhajan Singh (vice-capt), S Badrinath, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Vinay Kumar, Ishant Sharma, R Ashwin, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Munaf Patel

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

Pakistan: A legal firm acting on behalf of Shahid Afridi has sent the Pakistan Cricket Board a letter to resolve the ongoing dispute between the two parties, sparked by his removal from the ODI captaincy, and his subsequent announcement of a “conditional” retirement.

“The letter has gone into some depth in explaining the history of Afridi as a player, his contributions to Pakistan cricket and his global standing as a player. The Hampshire issue has also been raised, the player’s manager, Umran Khan, said, though he refused to reveal the name of the legal firm.

Afridi has been summoned to appear before a three-man disciplinary committee formed by the PCB on June 8 in Lahore, to face charges that he has breached two clauses of the code of conduct, with his retirement announcement and subsequent criticism of the board. Afridi, in his first response to the show-cause notice, accepted that his comments were a violation of the code but Khan clarified that no apology had been made. “He accepted the violations, he did not offer an apology,” Khan said. He did confirm that Afridi would be appearing before the committee.

Afridi has appealed directly to Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, who is also patron of PCB. On Thursday, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, also tweeted he would try to resolve the dispute, and it is believed that pressure has been applied from his quarters on the board to do just that.

A handful of parliamentarians have expressed their anger at the handling of the situation. On Thursday, the sports ministry had been asked by the offices of the Prime Minister and President to submit an independent report on the dispute within a week.

New Delhi: He has always been an exemplary captain. And now, after leading the Indian cricket team to an incredible World Cup victory after 2 and a half decades of chasing the elusive cup, skipper MS Dhoni has become an iconic figure in India. The under-30 leader makes a firm mark in the history of Indian Cricket as he becomes the subject of a management curriculum. At IFIM Business School in Bangalore, Dhoni’s case study has been made a part of the mandatory paper on leadership skills.

“Having a dream and performing it, there is a lot of difference. And here is a young man who played cricket, and cricket is a game that needs a lot of strategy – there is a huge amount of competition. There is a lot of coolness that is needed and he showed that on the field. For the students they could identify (with) that immediately,” said Madhumita Chatterjee, professor and chairperson of IFIM Business School. “Students are excited and eager to learn how to shine under intense pressure by studying Dhoni’s case.”

Students of IFIM Business School felt Dhoni would be the perfect example of a young leader because he had the belief in himself and in his team and for growth that was the finest and the most encouraging approach.

Yet another feather in the cap of the almost revered Indian cricket skipper. He is no more limited to the boundaries of the cricket ground.

Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh, who had earlier earned 15 per cent more than the highest-paid player in their respective teams for the ‘iconic’ status, are also in the same bracket as Dhoni. Harbhajan Singh is the other player in the same category.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has named around 65 Indian players in the first phase, who will go under the hammer in the auction, scheduled for January 8 and 9 next year. The BCCI has split the group in five categories of base price — Rs 1.84 crore, Rs 1.38 crore, Rs 92 lakh, Rs 46 lakh and Rs 23 lakh respectively. While the lowest base price for the inaugural IPL auction was Rs 45,73,000, the minimum for IPL-IV is Rs 23 lakh.

Sourav Ganguly, who, too, earned more for being an icon player, has been kept in the third category of Rs 92 lakh along with speedster Ishant Sharma.

According to BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan, however, players can approach the IPL governing council in case they want to be placed in some category other than specified. “A player can ask for another group within the five categories,” Srinivasan said.

Wriddhiman Saha, Manoj Tiwary, Ashok Dinda, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajit Agarkar, who have represented the Kolkata Knight Riders, are some of the players in the fourth bracket (Rs 46 lakh).

List of players up for auction:-

Andhra: Yelakka Venugopal Rao; Assam: Sridharan Sriram Baroda: Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Ambati Rayudu, Munaf Patel.

Bengal: Sourav Ganguly, Manoj Tiwary, Wriddhiman Saha, Ashok Dinda.

Delhi: Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma.

Gujarat: Parthiv Patel, Siddharth Trivedi Haryana: Joginder Sharma, Amit Mishra.

Hyderabad: VVS Laxman, T Suman, Pragyan Ojha.

Jharkhand: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Saurabh Tiwary.

Karnataka: Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Manish Pandey, Abhimanyu Mithun, R Vinay Kumar, Robin Uthappa.

Kerala: S Sreesanth.

Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Wasim Jaffer, Abhishek Raut, Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar, Ramesh Powar.

Madhya Pradesh: Naman Ojha.

Punjab: Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Manpreet Gony, VRV Singh.

Railways: Murali Kartik Rajasthan: Pankaj Singh.

Saurahstra: Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteshwar Pujara.

Tamil Nadu: Dinesh Karthik, S Badrinath, R Sathish, R Ashwin, M Vijay, L Balaji.

Uttar Pradesh: Mohammed Kaif, Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, Sudeep Tyagi, Piyush Chawla, Rudra Pratap Singh.

Vidarbha: Umesh Yadav.

Karthik may have been at the rough end of the stick of an umpiring decision in the final but his performance throughout the competition has been anything but flattering. In five matches, Karthik scored 33 runs at an average of 6.60, with a highest score of 14.

Jadeja did not have much to celebrate about either. He ended up with 37 runs in three innings and his bowling was also not spectacular in the tournament. He just had three wickets to his name at an average of 39.33 and an economy rate of over five runs per over.

One also wonders whether batsman Saurabh Tiwary and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin were taken to Sri Lanka as just tourists. Both are promising youngsters in their own right and certainly deserved at least one outing in the centre.

It was all about the Virender Sehwag show as far as India were concerned and it’s scary to consider what might have happened had Sehwag not fired. He was by far India’s top performer among batsmen with 268 runs at an impressive average of 67. Skipper Dhoni was a distant second with 140 runs at an average of 35.

Another bitter pill to swallow for the Indians is the fact their top order has been totally and completely exposed by the absence of Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir. Those two not being there in the line up proved to be too much for Team India to deal with.

What about the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) that was rejected by India before the start of the Test series against Sri Lanka? The Indians were at the receiving end of some horrendous umpiring decisions in the tri-series competition. Not opting for the system might come back to haunt India since there is a possibility of it being used in the 2011 World Cup.

Besides the Indian players, Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis from South Africa, Shane Watson and Doug Bollinger from Australia and Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene will feature prominently in the long-lists for the awards.

The nominations, which recognise cricketing achievement for the period between 24 August 2009 and 10 August 2010, were made by a five-man selection panel chaired by Clive Lloyd, chairman of the ICC cricket committee. The panel also includes former international players Angus Fraser, Matthew Hayden, Ravi Shastri and Duncan Fletcher.

This year’s awards comprise nine individual prizes and three team awards and includes, for the first time, a “People’s Choice Award” that will be decided by cricket fans around the world who will get a chance to vote for their favourite player online from a short-list of five cricketers selected by the ICC selection panel.

“The LG ICC Awards are an opportunity for the ICC and FICA to acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable performances of the world’s top players,” said ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat. “It is also a chance for followers of our great sport to reflect on some of the great cricketing feats they have witnessed over the past year. This will be the seventh time the awards have been handed out and picking the winners will not be an easy task for the voting academy.”

The LG ICC Awards ceremony is now in its seventh year and this year it will be held in Bengaluru, India. Previous ceremonies were held in London (2004), Sydney (2005), Mumbai (2006), Johannesburg (2007 and 2009), and Dubai (2008).

Dhoni, who had started the tournament in third place trailing number-one ranked Michael Hussey of Australia by eight ratings points, scored 38 not out against Bangladesh and 56 against Pakistan.

These match-winning efforts, combined with Hussey’s batting failure with the bat against Ireland in Dublin last week, has helped the India captain jump two places to regain top spot while the Australian left-hander has been pushed down two places to third.

India’s successive victories in the Asia Cup also ensured that it returns to number two position in the ICC ODI Championship.

With India to face Sri Lanka in its last group stage match on Tuesday before meeting again in the final on Thursday, Dhoni’s side can afford to lose one match without conceding its second place.

However, if India loses both those matches, it will drop to 118 ratings points, which will give South Africa possession of number two spot. Sri Lanka, in that scenario, would rise to 111 ratings points.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan leapfrogged India’s batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar into fourth spot while India opener Gautam Gambhir has rocketed seven places to 17th spot after scores of 82 and 83 in the first two matches of Asia Cup.

In the ICC Player Rankings for ODI bowlers, Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal has lifted four places to 14th spot while India’s pace and spin combination of Praveen Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja have also made upward movements.

Praveen has jumped seven places to occupy 20th position while Jadeja has vaulted 12 places to sit in 21st position.