Friends Provident T20 final August 14 2010, Rosebowl

Hampshire 173 for 5 (McKenzie 52, Ervine 44*) beat Somerset 173 for 6 (Kieswetter 71) by losing fewer wickets.

In an exciting day of 20-20 Cricket, Hampshire beat Somerset to become champions of the Friends Provident Trophy T20, 2010. In a rain affected day at Southampton, First Semifinal was played between Essex and Hampshire, which Hampshire won by 6 wickets, Pakistan allrounder Abdul Razzak top scoring with 44. With showers on and off, I was thinking that we are not going to get any more games. Luckily ground staff worked hard to drain the ground, and heavy cloud cover moved away. So second semifinal was on in which Somerset beat Nottinghamshire by 3 runs in D/L method. Somerset made 182 /5 in 20 overs powerd by big hitting KA Pollard and JC Buttler. Wet conditions made bowling difficult. Notts were going great with David Hussey and Samit Patel scoring at will, Murali Karthik was at the receiving end giving away 28 runs in his 3 overs. Notts reached 111/3 at the end of 12th over. First ball of the next over saw a great catch by Pollard at the boundary , which turned to be a match winning one. Everyone thought Samit Patel's big hit was going over the rope for a six, when tall Pollard timed his jump perfectly to catch it. Rain started again and after 13 overs Noots were 117/4, D/L Par score being 121. With no more play possible , Somerset was declared winners.

Rain stopped after a while and stage was set for the big final. Trescothick winning the toss for Somerset and elected to bat first. They scored 173/6 in 20 overs, Kieswetter scored 71 of 54 balls after a slow, struggling start. Pollard was badly hit by a Dominic Cork bouncer in the last over, and was taken to hospital.

At one stage Hampshire looked like winning comfortably, but they made it so close in the end , and nearly lost it. Hampshire scored 173/5 in 20 overs, and won by virtue of loosing fewer wickets.

Hampshire required 2 runs from the last ball , ( tie without losing a wicket will also make them winners ) Dan Christian facing the final ball, had to call for a runner as he pulled his muscle in the previous run. Z de Bruyn bowled 5 short pitched balls, in which Hampshire batsmen were running for byes in 3 occasions. Wicket keeper Kieswetter missed the stumps every time , and now he decided to come up to the stumps for the final ball. Ball looked straight in real time and struck on the pads of Christian, Somerset boys were disappointed as umpire turned down their very strong appeal. Batsmen took a leg bye and scores were leveled. Replays showed ball was going down and kissing outer side of leg stump, I will say it was a very good decision, you cant give those out.

The funny thing was Christian forgot he has runner, and he himself ran for the legbye. Which means striker with a runner out of his ground and he would have been run out if somerset fielders remove the bail at strikers end. They didn't realized the opportunity, even batsmen were not aware of it as Christian didnt make ant effort to go back to strikers end. May be players not aware of the rule!. Umpires knew exactly what was happening , they were waiting for few seconds. Still Somerset players were not aware of the opportunity, and didn't even threw the ball to wicket keeper. A great chance missed and Hampshire emerged winners of 2010 Friend Provident Trophy. South African Neil McKenzie was adjudged man of the match for his 39 balls 52. Score card


Cross posted at http://crickettvonline.blogspot.com/

South Africa in India 2010

Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh have been ruled out while Karnataka’s new pace sensation Abhimanyu Mithun and Bengal wicketkeeper Wridhiman Saha get their maiden call-up to the Indian squad for the first Test against South Africa beginning Feb 6 in Nagpur.

Dravid, who fractured his jaw after being hit by a lethal Shahadat Hossain bouncer in the second Test against Bangladesh, has been advised three-week rest.

Yuvraj, who was out midway through the Dhaka Test with a ligament injury on his left wrist, has also been rested.

Tamil Nadu batsmen Subramaniam Badrinath and Murali Vijay have benifitted from their absence. Vijay has been retained while Badrinath recalled in the 15-member squad announced by national selectors on Thursday.

Also, fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, who flew back home from Bangladesh

after sustaining a hamstring injury in the first Test, has been left out.

Karnataka pacer Mithun, who made a sensational first class debut this season with a hat-trick and a match haul of 11 wickets against Uttar Pradesh in Ranji Trophy, has been drafted in the squad.

Mithun continued with his stellar form to finish with 47 wickets (23.23 avg) in nine Ranji Trophy matches, and together with another fast bowler R.Vinay Kumar (46 wickets, avg 19.69) was instrumental in taking Karnataka to the finals where they lost to Mumbai.

Bengal wicket-keeper Saha was selected ahead of Dinesh Karthik, who was part of the team in Bangladesh series.

The team for the two-day Board President’s XI match against South Africa at Nagpur from Feb 2 was also announced. Rohit Sharma has been named as the captain of the side.

Test squad:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain and wicket-keeper), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir Murali Vijay, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, S. Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan

Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Sudeep Tyagi, Pragyan Ojha, Abhimanyu Mithun, Wridhiman Saha

Board President’s XI team:

Rohit Sharma (captain), Abhinav Mukund, Parthiv Patel (wicket-keeper), Ajinkya Rahane,

Manish Pandey, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhishek Nayar, Piyush Chawla, R. Ashwin, Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun, Shikhar Dhawan, Umesh Yadav, Manpreet Gony.

Source: Manoramaonline

Somanath Chatterjee Eying for Presidential Chair

Taste of power make every human being forget the ideologies. The british educated barrister forgot all his past years and was highly reluctant to give up his comforts as the speaker of parliment of world's largest democracy. Or is there any other big offers for him. I got a strong feeling that his dreams are much bigger. It is not a crime t0 dream the pressidential post and congress might have given him some hopes. If communists are going behind power then what about others. It is becoming more and more clear that ideologies good for teaching , not to practise.