Before leaving for the Emerald Island, Dhoni spoke to reporters hoping that the ODIs would bring in a different result for the Indian team. The five match series starts on August 18.
“It is a different side. We hope to do better,” Dhoni told reporters after winding up a two-day skill orientation and conditioning camp at the National Cricket Academy.

Dhoni gave the Test series a miss to rest after non stop cricket last year disagreed that experienced players should be more accountable than other members of the team in the Tests.

“You cannot ask a Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman or Anil Kumble to prove their credentials,” Dhoni said.

In a surprising interview, Saheba got his few seconds of fame, when he told the newspaper that Sreesanth had been abusive through out the match, and not many of his Indian team mates liked him too much. The BCCI has taken strong exception to these comments and asked him to explain the same.

Which is only right. A contracted umpire has no business to be talking about what a player does, to the newspapers, let alone talk about what his team mates think about him. An umpire should be known and conspicuous by his absence from being in news. Hope Saheba’s realised that, the hard way.

Now while one would not have raised such an issue with some of the other cricketers, the point here is that Uthappa is a class played straight down the wicket. His walking down shot, or his straight drives have resulted in many boundaries for the team. What took the cake was his propensity with scooping the ball over the short fine leg position, when there was a conventional fine-leg in place, resulting in nothing more than singles.

One hopes, that Uthappa realizes his strengths, and does not get over obsessed with this shot.

The scoreboard suffered from some dysfunctional disease, and the benches were a pain-in-the-you-know-what as they always had.

Incidentally the Mumbai Indians lost, and as if to portray the frustration – and wrongly so – the RC cheergirls from USA, got some bottles thrown at by some rotten people.

All in all, we all hope that there would be a time in the future, one can talk of some delight associated with viewing at Wankhede. At least before the World Cup 2011 final.

Taking a dig at the ageing stars in the Indian side, former Australian opener Geoff Marsh has said that the tourists’ batting line-up will struggle to stand up to the home pacers.

Predicting that India would not win a single Test in the series, Marsh said the visiting team would find it difficult to post big totals and take 20 wickets. “They won’t win a Test. They won’t make enough runs and they won’t take 20 wickets in a match.”

“While India has some very good players, they are getting on. I’d like to think it will be a competitive series but at their age they will struggle against our quicks,” Marsh, who played his debut and farewell Tests against India, was quoted as saying in The Sunday Mail.

Hair had filed a case against ICC earlier this February for being dropped from the elite panel of umpires over his handling of the fourth Test between England and Pakistan last August.

“Darrel Hair withdraws unconditionally his allegation of racial discrimination against the ICC board members and staff,”said the Australian umpire’s lawyer Robert Griffith.The ICC will meet to discuss the results of his rehabilitation and decide whether he can return to elite umpiring and if so,on what terms. “Hair has undertaken to work with ICC management in accordance with the rehabilitation programme over next six months,”Griffith said.

ICC president Ray Mali welcomed the development, saying,”we are pleased the issue has been resolved .We had no option but to defend these serious allegations.”

Former Indian Test cricketer turned television commentator Maninder Singh was arrested on Tuesday night for possessing cocaine and has confessed during interrogation that he was in the habit of taking drugs.

Maninder has been booked under Sections 20, 21 and 27 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for possession, sale, purchase and consumption of drugs.

He will be produced before a Delhi court on Wednesday.

Maninder also confessed that Nigerian, Sayam Siddiqui, who was also arrested at Singh’s residence, provided him with cocaine. He said that he took to drugs due to family issues.

Darren Lehmann

Derek Pringle

The duo believe the ICC must move beyond parochialism and mistrust that forced the introduction of “neutral” umpires, who were responsible for the farcical finish to last week’s World Cup final.

Lehmann, the Australian Cricketers Association president, said the gaffe could have been avoided if Simon Taufel, the ICC’s umpire of the year for the past three seasons, had officiated the final between Australia and Sri Lanka.

Taufel was not considered for the final because he is an Australian and the ICC uses neutral umpires in ODIs.

Taken from indiatimes

Because of India’s disappointing performance in the world cup, no Indian was considered by Viv Richards in his world cup 2007 dream team.

Richards` all star team comprises:

Matthew Hayden (Aus), Kumar Sangakkara (SL) Ricky Ponting (Captain) (Aus), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Mahela Jayawardene (SL), Herschelle Gibbs (SA), Scott Styris (NZ), Shaun Tait (Aus), Shane Bond (NZ), Glenn McGrath (Aus), Muttiah Muralitharan (SL).

Reserves: Jacques Kallis (SA), Adam Gilchrist (Aus), Sanath Jayasuriya (Sl), Boyd Rankin (Ireland)

Richards did not consider Lara or Tendulkar because of the disappointing performance of India and West Indies in the world cup.

Ian Chappell, who recently received a lot of criticism for saying that Sachin should retire, has come out with another of his views. He feels that great batsmen like Brian Lara, Shane Warne and Glen McGrath announced retirement at the right time and at the right stage – they were not struggling for form and retired with pride – they retired even though they had a lot of cricket left in them.

Unlike them, Sachin has been struggling to find form is still fighting for his place in the team. Ian said that great batsmen or great bowlers should not be seen struggling towards the autumn of their career.

He said that Sachin is playing for the wrong reasons and it is now Sachin’s call to decide upon his future.