Pakistan cricket team captain Younus Khan has confidently predicted victory for his resurgent team after they defeated favourites South Africa by seven runs in a nail-biting semi-final. All-rounder Shahid Afridi played a crucial role in the Pakistan’s victory by scoring 56 runs and taking 2-16 with his leg-spinners.
Jubliant Younus Khan said:
One more game and this World Cup is ours. In the big games we do well and now I think we will win this. We can take our chances and we can win the World Cup.
We are slow starters, we arrived late, didn’t have a lot of practice sessions so there was no pressure on us. Suddenly we are in a good position. Afridi is always a match-winner for us. Today he was batting three and he turned it on for Pakistan, it’s all about his commitment but also about our teamwork.
The last time time we went to Zimbabwe - in 2005 - there was almost fury over us going. The Green Party were signing petitions and bringing Henry Olongo over here to speak about how wrong touring would be, and a lot of people just didn't want us to go. Our chief executive, Martin Snedden, was effectively forced to take a pro-tour stance because of the financial penalties that New Zealand Cricket would have suffered if we didn't tour.
We were trying to work through that while also being mindful of being consistent - because there were other countries that we play cricket against that didn't have fantastic human rights records, either. I think it was important to take that into account - the need for even-handedness. The ICC rules insisted we couldn't renege on our touring commitments on any grounds other than safety and security.
You can see the logic in this. There's a decent argument that if you start drifting away from that position, you'll end up with a very dysfunctional playing programme and make sides vulnerable to every sort of political movement possible. Teams would be pulling out of tours regularly, depending on international relationships at the time. There'd be tit-for-tat reprisals. Chaos.
Having said that, Zimbabwe is in a terrible state, and I'm not sure what the right answer is in terms of our sporting contacts. You can argue that we should be isolating them in order to show our disapproval of Robert Mugabe's regime, and that to continue sporting contact is, by implication, endorsing and condoning the current administration. You could, but from where I stand that's an exceptionally political and theoretical point of view.
On the other hand, there's a claim that we should continue to have sporting contacts with Zimbabwe, because to do so would effectively help to keep their national cricket team in existence and afford some opportunity for the local people, as well as keeping at least one channel of communication open with the free world.
NEW DELHI - Former Australia cricket coach, John Buchanan has accused the Indian media of taking his comments on former and current Indian cricketers out of context.
He also said that he bore no malice towards anyone.
In his just released book ‘The Future of Cricket: The Rise of Twenty20′, Buchanan has taken a swipe at Sunil Gavaskar, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Mark Ramprakash, Shoaib Akhtar, Kevin Pietersen and Vijay Mallya.
“People would have to read the entire book to understand its meaning,” he said.
While talking of the IPL franchisee meet in Goa before the second season of the T-20 league, Buchanan refers to an incident where his suggestion of allowing more international players to play in the IPL was referred to the IPL technical committee, which is headed by Gavaskar.
To this, Buchanan writes, “What this means is that any ideas that affect the way T20 might be played are referred to a committee chaired by a person who is blinkered by bias and tradition.”(ANI)
Brian, I hesitate to ask this,' I said, 'and I do so with all due respect. But, Brian, ask it I must. Brian, taking into account your run of low scores against England in this series and form of late that is possibly below the standards you expect of yourself… [by this time I was choking back the tears]... Brian, are you at all concerned that your great talent may be... on the wane?'
Three days later, West Indies declared their first innings closed at 751 for five. Lara was not out 400, the highest Test score ever made. He had batted for 778 minutes, faced 582 balls, hit 43 fours and four sixes and it was all my fault.
More memories? I won’t mention the first time I met Brian, when we were team-mates in a charity match as Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire in the early Nineties, when he got a duck and I scored 50, because that would be showing off. Get in.
And I certainly won't mention the time a Scottish colleague of mine, himself an occasional left-hander, attempted to demonstrate a flaw he had spotted in Lara's technique by moving back and across and promptly passing out blind drunk at The Pelican Bar, Port-of-Spain.
When discussing the claims of batsmen such as WG Grace, Don Bradman, George Headley and Jack Hobbs, Graeme Pollock, Viv Richards, Javed Miandad and others to the title of the greatest batsman of all time, the rivalry between Lara and Sachin Tendulkar for the best of recent times always crops up.
At the obvious risk of upsetting about a billion Indians, my own view, for what it is worth, is that while Tendulkar is and has been, indisputably, a truly great batsman, Lara played more truly great innings, when they really mattered, and I was privileged to watch my idea of the best of them all, in the third Test of the 1999 series against Australia at Kensington Oval, Barbados.
When West Indies were bowled out for 51 in the first innings of the first Test in Trinidad, Lara took most of the blame and when, the night before the start of the second Test in Jamaica, he was spotted in Kingston’s loudest nightclub, many commentators took great delight in pointing out it was called The Asylum.
Even after his double-hundred there had helped win the match and draw the four-match series 1-1, a proportion of the Barbados crowd booed when, on the penultimate evening of the third Test, Lara failed to appear as scheduled and a nightwatchman walked out instead.
Twenty-four hours later however, they were all cheering and cheering a match-winning innings kissed by genius, 153 not out.
That day Lara was too good for Australia and possibly too good for words. And to me, despite that early-morning phone call, that just about sums him up
Australian cricket team captain Ricky Ponting looks on the fourth day of the fourth and final test cricket match between India and Australia in Nagpur. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
Australia's batting is all that stands between India and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a farcical fourth day of the final cricket test in Nagpur.
The Australians are 0-13 chasing a highly unlikely 382 for victory today.
The target might have been far smaller had captain Ricky Ponting risked a ban for slow over rates by persisting with his pace bowlers after tea yesterday to support debutant spinner Jason Krejza.
Seemingly more worried about a ban than the second most prestigious trophy available to Australia in tests after the Ashes, Ponting used Cameron White, Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke for 12 overs that gave up 47 easy runs to Mahendra Dhoni (55) and Harbhajan Singh (52).
"I don't think for one second that Ricky hasn't pressed for the win," coach Tim Nielsen said in the captain's defence.
"It's easy to sit up in the commentary box or anywhere in the ground and poke fire at the captain because of the decisions he's making out there.
"At the end of the day he's got the responsibility to bowl the overs he has to bowl, there's no way India can come here tomorrow and bowl 20 overs because they feel we're going well - there's a responsibility for both teams, all teams to make sure they bowl the 90 overs required in the spirit of the game."
Krejza, in particular, deserved a better fate after conjuring two wonderful deliveries to claim his ninth and 10th wickets of a memorable match.
His match haul of 12-358 stands as the equal third best test debut of alltime, but also the second most runs conceded by a bowler in a test.
Pakistan cricket team captain Younus Khan has confidently predicted victory for his resurgent team after they defeated favourites South Africa by seven runs in a nail-biting semi-final. All-rounder Shahid Afridi played a crucial role in the Pakistan’s victory by scoring 56 runs and taking 2-16 with his leg-spinners.
