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India leveled the three match Test series 1-1 in Galle on Sunday after beating Sri Lanka by 170 runs in the second cricket test. Earlier, team India was defeated by Srilanka by a mammoth total of 239 runs in the first test match at SCG ground in Colombo. On Sunday in second test, Indian team performed very well in Galle setting a hard target of 307 runs but the Sri Lankans collapsed for 136.

Harbhajan, Sehwag and Gambhir deserves of being the responsible factor behind this victory. Harbhajan Singh returned a match haul of 10 wickets, four in the second innings, for 153 runs while Virender Sehwag once again shown his magical batting and hit an unbeaten double century in the first innings and a half-century in the second to pave the way to victory ground. Sehwag fell against the Srilankan strike bowler Chaminda Vass when India’s total was 90 in second inning. Sehwag and Gambhir partnership was the backbone of India’s victory. Out of India’s total of 598 (329, 269) the duo scored 381 runs, more than half scored by other batsmen.

Sri Lanka bundled India for 269 in the second innings. India was bowled out for 329 runs in their first innings and restricted the Sri Lankans for 292 in their first innings.

In the first inning, Kumble and Harbhajan dismissed nine batsmen of the opponent team. Only Warnapura (66), Sangakkara (68) and Jayawardene (86) stayed for long durations on the crease and played crucial innings for their team. But even they couldn’t cross India’s total of forst inning.

In the second inning, after dismissal of Sehwag and Gambhir, Dravid and Tendulkar were on the crease and they took the team’s total to 200 for two. However, both these batsmen returned to pavilion, only few minutes before the end of the Day-3 play.

On fourth day, Ganguly and Laxman began the morning session but after adding 21 runs to the score, Laxman was trapped before wicket by Mendis. The other players were soon dismissed and India managed 269 runs in the second innings and gave a target of 307 to Srilanka.

Sri Lanka was slow in second inning. Score was 37 at lose of four. Samaraweera and Dilshan provided some resistance to the innings and took team’s total past 100. At the Srilankan score of 113, Ishant Sharma dismissed Dilshan and provided the crucial breakthrough. The entire Srilankan team returned to pavilion by scoring 136 runs. Harbhajan finished with four wickets in the second innings as Sri Lanka was all out on 48 overs.

The third Test will start in Colombo on Aug. 8.

Tags: cricket match, Harbhajan, India, Sehwag, Sri Lanka, Test Match

Today was the first day of play between India and South Africa at Ahmadabad. While first test match played at Chennai was a dull draw, while the second match became quite interesting because of the superb bowling display by the African team.

When Anil Kumble won the toss and elected to bat first at Motera, spectators were became too happy. They thought that they can be able to see the firing batting by the likes of Sehwag, Ganguly and Laxman. Also players like Dravid popularly known as the wall and Jaffer were there who can provide stability to the Indian inning.

All dream went away when Team India losth the early wicket of Jaffer and then the flow came off. Within 20 overs India became all out for a small score of 76.

Sachin was unfit for today’s match and in place of him Team India has choosen Irfan Pathan. With his inclusion Team India was equipped with five specialist bowlers in the team. Batting line up was not looking so bad.

Irfan Pathan became the highest run scorer in the Indian inning, he made 21 not out. While Dhoni became the second highest scorer after making 14.

From South Africa’s side Steyn took five wickets with Ntini dismissing three wickets and Morkel took two wickets. Watch the complete proceedings of the first day of Second test in Ahmadabad.

Tags: cricket match, India, Live Score, Second Test, South Africa, Test Match

There is one more stroke to World Champion’s pride today in Melbourne when Australian team couldn’t even touch an easy target of 222 runs put forth by Sri Lanka as all Aussies are out after making only 208 runs. Like this, Sri Lanka gave a magnificent defeat to Australia by 13 runs in the last match of CB series today on 29th February.

Australia was good at start and both the openers were playing carefully. Gillchrist made 83 runs from 50 balls. He was out by Kulkesra. Second opener, Hopes also played well and gave 28 runs but was out by Murlidharan. That time it seemed that Australia would defeat SriLanka easily. But there was turning point in the game. Sri Lankan bowlers snatched 5 wickets one by one.

Sri Lanka’s captain Jayewardene won the toss and decided to bat first. But his decision seemed wrong as Australian pacers didn’t allow them to play openly. First four wickets of Sri Lanka were soon down. Jayewardene’s 50 and Dilshan’s 62 run contribution led Sri Lanka to reach the goal of 222 runs. Other than these two players, C. Silva’s 35 run play was also said to be fine.

Although the match result is not going to effect on finals as Australia is already secured its position to fight with India in finals but this match was said as a trailor of Australian players to finals and they proved to be zero in it.

Tags: Australia, cricket match, ODI Match, Score, Sri Lanka, Team India

Everyone seems to blame the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar for India’s failure against Australian the CB series .from Captain Dhoni to Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar are now upset with the repeatedly cheap performance of Sachin in the matches.

“Another problem that India have these days when they bat second on a good pitch, is that their most experienced batsman, who bats at such an influential position in the batting order, becomes almost redundant,” Manjrekar wrote in his column for the Times of India.

Tendulakar have just managed to get a low average of 18.28 in last seven matches with 128 runs only. Compared to his earlier achievements in the last 51 one-day internationals with around an average of 62.1 in 24 innings when he bats first is very weak. When he bats second, it was 26.00 in 27 innings.

Manjrekar believes that Tendulkar seems to let the team down the most when chasing big targets.

Manjerkar is surprised as well as shocked as no one is talking about Sachin’s poor performance.

Has he really exhausted his potential??

Tags: Australia, cricket match, India, latest updates, Live Cricket, Live score card, Live Updates, Sachin, Sri Lanka

India lost the match against Australia on 24 Feb. in CB series and the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni directly criticized the senior batsman for the narrow defeat by 18 runs only.

Dhoni said, “I am quite happy for the bowlers. They bore their responsibility well. I just hope that the top order could have contributed a little bit more to the total.”

Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag did not give any significant contribution to the team on Sunday and were out one by one easily by the Australian ballers.

Dhoni said, “As for the selfless batting by young batters, we need 16 like them, not those who go for individual 50s and 100s. You need characters in the side.”

“Gambhir and Uthappa played really well; Gambhir worked the ball around and hit clean shots. His running between the wickets was also noticeable.”

Dhoni is happy for selfless efforts of his young players but was utterly disappointed with the poor showing of the top order batsman of India. Dhoni didn’t found anything wrong in his cautious playing when facing such a big target put by Australia.

“It was a very good effort. First from our bowlers who kept Australia down to 320 which we thought was gettable. The part-timers bowled very well and kept the pressure off regular bowlers,” Dhoni said.

“We always had the game in control. We relaxed a little bit after we got their four early wickets.

Dhoni set the poor performance of senoir batsman as the major reason for India falling short by just 18 runs while chasing the huge target of 318 runs.

Also Dhoni gave some indications to change the batting order in the next match on Tuesday.

“In any case, we would like to seal the match against Sri Lanka and not leave it to the last game between Australia and Sri Lanka. Next game is very important for us.” Dhoni said as he looked ahead for Tuesday’s must win match.

Tags: Australia, cricket match, India, latest updates, Live Cricket, Live score card, Live Updates, Sri Lanka