CRICKET RSS WORLD

BEST NEWCOMER (INDIAN): No prizes for guessing this one. Manish Pandey with his sensational batting for Bangalore beats the rest.(AFP Photo)

Adam Gilchrist: One of the highest scorers in this IPL, his strike-rate, and a slight matter of wicketkeeping to boot.

Deccan Chargers skipper Adam Gilchrist accepts the IPL winners trophy. (AP Photo)

Katrina Kaif performs with singer Akon. (AP Photo)

Sachin Tendulkar at an event organised by Canon India awarding photographers under the theme 'Streets of Mumbai'. (PTI Photo)

The Indian team poses for the official photograph. (AP Photo)

Javed Miandad recently alleged that IPL games, often decided off the last ball this season, were being fixed. Now you can find out of yourself, if you’re an ace mathematician that is.

Professor David Forrest, a renowned gambling researcher, believes it is possible to calculate whether or not match result has been influenced by cheating players and corrupt officials. He and his colleagues came up with a complex formula, which takes into account how many years of competition an athlete has left, the probability of their being caught, their current wealth and the potential damage to their reputation. "An industry estimate is that on a weekend of Premier League football, half a billion dollars is wagered, most of that from Asia,” Forrest was quoted as saying in the Manchester Evening News. “Even more money is spent on cricket, with a billion dollars of bets each day on a Test match."

The likelihood of a match being “fixed” is higher in matches where teams have nothing to play for, Forrest said. All the more reason then, to closely examine the trend of dead rubbers yielding favourable results for weaker team.

He might not have played a game in the IPL, but Glenn McGrath will be remembered forever in his home town of Narromine. McGrath will be the subject of a life-size bronze statue that is certain to attract interest from local birds, who will be keen to drop in on the fast bowler known as ‘Pigeon’.

The Sun-Herald reports the work will cost more than A$70,000 and will be unveiled next month. McGrath grew up in the western New South Wales town before heading to Sydney and turning into one of the game’s greatest bowlers. His reputation didn’t impress Delhi, who didn’t call on him at all in South Africa.

There were two overs to go in Derbyshire’s innings during their Twenty20 Cup match against Durham. Stuart Law was batting on 32 and the need for acceleration prompted him to change his weapon. He switched the conventional bat he’d been using for the Mongoose – a bat with a short blade, long handle, 20% more power and 15% more speed – which is supposedly tailor-made for shredding bowlers.

“You need to get used to it,” Law said, cautioning those who may have been rushing to improve their strike-rates. “The greater bat-speed means you’re more inclined to go through early with the stroke — which is a good thing in a way.” In the end Law scored only ten runs with the Mongoose but six of those came via a monstrous hit over midwicket. Are ball manufacturers already working on the Cobra to level the playing field?

For pre-game and mid-innings entertainment at the World Twenty20 how about some cricket pop? Songs like ‘Meeting Mr Miandad’, ‘Test Match Special’ and ‘Jiggery Pokery’ would be a refreshing change from Bollywood remixes and billboard hits from two years ago.

Neil Hannon, songwriter for the band Divine Comedy, and Thomas Walsh, from Pugwash, have collaborated on a concept album called The Duckworth Lewis Method which they call “possibly the least necessary album of recent years”.

Jiggery Pokery, a song inspired by Shane Warne’s first ball of the Ashes, could probably be played just after the national anthems at the start of this year’s England-Australia series. And you can sing along as well:

Jiggery pokery, trickery chokery, how did he open me up
Robbery! Muggery! Aussie skull-duggery! Out for a buggering duck.
What a delivery I might as well have been Holding a child's balloon
Jiggery pokery who is this nobody Making me look a buffoon?"

In March 1986, Graham Gooch’s 129* off 117 balls just got England over the line in what was reduced to a 37-over ODI against West Indies. Earlier in the tour, they had recorded their other victory by winning a four-day game against Jamaica. They lost the five Tests and the other two ODIs by massive margins, as well as four-day games against the Windward Islands and Barbados, and weren’t exactly impressive in the four-day games against the Leewards or Trinidad.

What we have just witnessed was as one-sided as the slaughters to which England were subjected twenty-odd years ago.

A few months ago I wrote a piece that questioned the role of the coach, especially in relation to John Dyson and the West Indies when they cocked up the Duckworth Lewis formula in that ODI a few months ago.

Last night, against my better instincts (yet again), I stayed up to watch the West Indies chase a challenging 329 target set by England at Edgbaston. I never really expected them to win but I figured that the chase would be short and entertaining with players like Gayle, Bravo, Sarwan, Chanderpaul etc playing like millionaires in pursuit of a 6+ rpo target on a good pitch. After all, commonsense would dictate that they had no choice but to play shots and keep playing shots until the very end. I figured they might be bowled out for 220 in the 35th over, well worth sacrificing a few hours of sleep to watch some dazzling strokeplay.

From Gareth Flusk, South Africa

God, from not liking the tournament at all and now having to endure a gluttonous six-week period in my own country. Never have I been less inclined to watch cricket. The semi-naked, flashing-light, loud-music brand of cricket has just shown how truly rank the South African fan is. All they want is to swill beer, get a front row seat and see if they can get a look under a dancer's skirt. That vantage point also grants you the chance to hurl abuse at your favourite international player. In all of this kerfuffle with your mates, if you have seen any of the cricket, it's simply unforgivable.

Last night, the chairman said that this is will bring more people to cricket. This rot is not promoting the game at all. It promotes the IPL for the IPL. One day internationals and Test matches will still pull the same crowds. The beautiful blonde causcasian most-non-Indian-looking girl doesn't want to go to a Test match, as there is no chance of being spotted by "Miss Bollywood" scouts. The traditional format will still see chaps sit in the stands explaining it to their really interested girlfriends, whilst actually watching.

If fans around the world are to determine that Twenty20 is the future, then great. But simply know that Modi's minions are exploiting the men around the world for their drunken, leery nature and the females in the pursuit of being the next big thing. The IPL is so attractive to the crowds because the psychology fits in perfectly with their ADHD nature. Modern spectators simply have this need to constantly to move around, be distracted by various random activities and not concentrate on the reason they entered the stadium. A little known fact is that Ritalin is banned within a 10 km radius of the stadiums. (As well as that this tournament is not under ICC Match fixing scrutiny; Modi deemed it too expensive at 7 million pounds - never mind that the IPL is worth approximately 8 billions dollars).

In two short years and 12 very long weeks, we have successfully produced a generation of "I want all the glory for as little effort as possible" cricketers. Can't wait to see what happens when we have the proposed two IPL's per year. Ouch.

LONDON (Reuters) - England crushed West Indies by 58 runs in the third and final one-day international at Edgbaston on Tuesday to clinch the series 2-0.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A dispute with Pakistan over 2011 one-day World Cup games needs to be resolved as soon as possible, International Cricket Council (ICC) president David Morgan said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has been ruled out of the World Twenty20 after failing to recover in time from knee surgery, the England and Wales Cricket Board said on Wednesday.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia are still waiting on a reply from England about their request to field an extra player in their first two Ashes tour matches.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Champions League Twenty20 tournament will not be recognised as part of the official calendar as the event being launched this October is played among domestic teams, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has said.

CHENNAI (Reuters) - Batting great Sachin Tendulkar believes India will retain the Twenty20 World Cup next month, saying skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team were the world's best in the most explosive form of the game.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The International Cricket Council (ICC) says it wants to keep a check on the number of international Twenty20 ties despite the game's increasing appeal.

CHENNAI (Reuters) - Prolific opener Gautam Gambhir has warned against complacency ahead of India's defence of their World Twenty20 crown in England next month.

KARACHI (Reuters) - The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) lifted bans on batsman Mohammad Yousuf and allrounder Abdul Razzaq on Friday after their resignations from the unauthorized Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Cricket Australia has announced the 2009-10 International Program that will see the hosts take on the West Indies and Pakistan in summer that includes six Tests, 10 one-day internationals and three Twenty20s.

Australian all-rounder Ashley Noffke has admitted his enforced spell on the sidelines this winter was a blessing in disguise - in identifying that he was suffering from skin cancer.

England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff faces a race to prove his fitness for this year's Ashes series after he was ruled out of the ICC World Twenty20 on Wednesday.

As Stuart Clark prepares for the Ashes he urges support of his Cricket Cares charity, Cystic Fibrosis NSW, through 65 Roses Day this Friday 29 May

Australian captain Ricky Ponting remains the most marketable sportsperson in the country according to a leading sports research consultancy.

Mike Hussey believes Australia is in for a 'huge challenge' when it tackles a revitalised England in the battle for the Ashes.

Mike Hussey expects Andrew Flintoff to be fit and firing on all cylinders by the time the battle for the Ashes gets under way in early July at the Swalec Stadium in Cardiff.

The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars take on the New Zealand White Ferns in three warm-up matches at Allan Border Field prior to the women’s World Twenty20 Cup in England.

The three founder members of the Champions League Twenty20 have given the go-ahead to the inaugural tournament.

As we speak, we are in the concluding stages of our camp here at the Grand Hyatt in Mt Coolum and I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you all a bit of an insight into exactly what goes on in a camp of this sort!

Manish Pandey, who became the first Indian to hit a century in the IPL in South Africa, said he was indebted to Rahul Dravid for motivating him on and off the field.

Anil Kumble assured doubting thomases about the survival of Test cricket in the wake of onslaught of the immensely popular Twenty20 cricket and its most potent brand - the IPL.

Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha is now waiting to shine in India colours if given a chance in the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 to be held in England from June 5-21.

England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has been ruled out of the World Twenty20 after failing to recover in time from knee surgery. The 31-year-old, who missed the Test and one-day series against West Indies after his latest bout of surgery, is replaced in England's squad by Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid, who has yet to play a senior international match.

Why is it that a team led by an Australian has gone on to become champion these two years, despite so many Indian captains being in the fray?

Contradicting Indian Premier League (IPL) Commissioner Lalit Modi's claims, the ICC has made it clear that the Champions League Twenty20 was not part of its Future Tours Programme (FTP).