Injury woes continued for the experienced Australian pace bowler Brett Lee ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup hampering his hopes of making an international comeback with the tournament. Lee sustained a muscle strain in his right forearm during a warm-up match held in St. Lucia on Tuesday in which Australia suffered a shocking one-run defeat at the hands of the Zimbabwe side. Lee, who took one wicket in the spell of four overs giving 13 runs, experienced pain in his bowling arm during the match. According to the Cricket Australia spokesman, Lee’s latest injury is a muscle strain on the inner side of the elbow of the right arm and the problem is not a reoccurrence of the elbow injury for which he had undergone a surgery recently. The 33-year old pacer has been struggling with a series of injury problems in the past. In the last one year, he had suffered from ankle and foot injuries and was out of the Australian side since October 2009 due to an elbow injury. Further, a fracture in the thumb of his right hand forced Lee to end his IPL 2010 stint after playing just four matches for his team, Kings XI Punjab. The injury came as a major setback for Lee who had called up his retirement from Test cricket in February this year in order to extend his career successfully in the shorter formats of the game. Ryan Harris has been named as the replacement player for Brett Lee in the 15- member Australian squad for the World Cup following the permission by the International Cricket Council’s technical committee to the effect. The right-arm medium pacer had been in outstanding form in all the three formats of the game with successful series against Pakistan and New Zealand, followed by the excellent performance at the IPL. Earlier, it was expected that either Doug Bollinger or Ryan Harris were to replace Brett Lee for the tournament as both the bowlers had performed impressively during the Indian Premier League for their respective teams. However, it was Harris who got the ticket to the Caribbean owing to his being in form and also holding experience in representing Australia twice in Twenty20 matches, one each against West … [Read more...]
India wins ICC twenty20 cricket world cup
India wins first twenty20 cricket world cup by defeating Pakistan at Wanderers cricket stadium in South Africa. It is another unforgettable match after their league encounter between arch-rivals. Young Indian cricketers held their nerves in the crucial moments to clinch the inaugural 20-20 cricket world cup. India won the only world cup in 1983 under the inspirational leadership of Kapil Dev. Mahendra Singh Dhoni led the young team with an unparallel maturity. Image courtesy: Andhra Jyothy Major of significance of this win is it is due to collective team work without any coach. Dhoni marshaled these young boys and ideally utilized their aggressiveness for greater glory. Absence of seniors is the major reason for this collectiveness and lack of politics. Congrats for BCCI for selecting these young cricketers for such a major tournament. Man of the tournament: Shahid Afridi. Man of the match: Irfan Pathan. Irfan pathan took three crucial wickets by giving just 16 runs and turn the match India’s way. Coach and captain should groom this talented all-rounder if India wants to win more matches. Most crucial moment of the final: Imran Nazir ran out due to a wonderful fielding effort by Robin Uthappa. Not only catches but run outs also win matches. Unforgettable match: It is difficult to forget this match from memory for a long long time. Fortunes fluctuated between both teams and Misbah-Ul-Haq once again foundered in the crucial moment. He failed to repeat the heroics of Javed Miandad against India in Sharjah. His pre-initiated moment to hit that shot and Joginder intelligent bowling took world cup away from Pakistan. I can’t understand why he tried that shot when Pakistan just needed 5 runs from 4 balls. But Misbah-Ul-Haq is undoubtedly future Injamam-Ul-Haq. Crucial moments of the twenty20 final:1. Gautam Gambhir half century when India lost wickets successively.2. Robin Sharma’s 30 runs in the end.3. Imran Nazir run out- Pakistan lost world cup with this run out.4. Irfan Pathan’s 2 wickets in a single over including Shahid Afridi.5. Misbah-Ul-Haq’s 3 sixers … [Read more...]
