Australia win the toss and bat in 1st India ODI

Agencies
January 12, 2019

Sydney, Jan 12: Australia won the toss and chose to bat in the opening one-day international against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.

"The middle overs are key for us to improve on. Just playing spin well and keeping wickets in hand at the back end to load up," Australia skipper Aaron Finch said at the toss.

India captain Virat Kohli said: "We would have batted first as well but some of the players are inclined towards chasing.

"It's a brilliant wicket to play on, with the shorter boundary on one side. It's going to be an exciting chase."

Australia -- following their first-ever 2-1 home Test series defeat to India -- made a number of changes to their ODI team.

Alex Carey will open with skipper Aaron Finch, with veteran paceman Peter Siddle to play in his first ODI in more than eight years and Jason Behrendorff to make his ODI debut.

India went for two spinners with Ravi Jadeja returning to the side and Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik chosen in the middle order.

Hardik Pandya and Lokesh Rahul will be missing after they were sent home from the tour of Australia amid an investigation into comments made about women on a TV celebrity show.

In the last five ODIs at the SCG the average score is 327.

Australia have won three of their last 24 games since the end of January 2017 and are currently ranked sixth, while second-ranked India have only lost one of their last 11 ODIs.

Teams:

Australia: Aaron Finch (capt), Alex Carey, Shaun Marsh, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle, Jason Behrendorff.

India: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (capt), Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Sham, Khaleel Ahmed.

Umpires: Michael Gough (ENG), Paul Wilson (AUS)

TV Umpire: Richard Kettleborough (ENG)

Match Referee: Andy Pycroft (ZIM)

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News Network
April 27,2020

Lahore, Apr 27: Pakistan batsman Umar Akmal has been banned from all forms of cricket for three years for failing to report spot-fixing offers, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced Monday.

Umar, who turns 30 next month, pleaded guilty to not reporting the fixing offers which led to his provisional suspension on February 20 this year.

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News Network
March 13,2020

Mar 13: The start of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world's most lucrative cricket competition, has been postponed from March 29 until April 15 over the coronavirus, the Indian cricket board said Friday.

"The Board of Control for Cricket in India has decided to suspend IPL 2020 till 15th April 2020, as a precautionary measure against the ongoing Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation," the BCCI said in a statement.

The two-month Twenty20 competition is estimated to generate more than $11 billion for the Indian economy and involves cricket's top international stars.

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News Network
May 2,2020

Melbourne, May 2: After becoming the number one side in Test cricket, Australia's head coach Justin Langer has said that his team has won back the respect of the country.

Australia dethroned India from the top spot in Tests and now the Men in Blue are in the third place.

Langer came in as the coach of Australia after the 2018 ball-tampering scandal and it took him some time to get the side back to winning ways.

Ever since the return of David Warner and Steve Smith, Australia went on to become a commendable side and the results reflect that.

"We have got lots of work to do to become the team we want to be. But over the last couple of years, not only have we performed well on the field, we have performed well off it. We have earned some respect back from other teams around the world but also from Australia," Langer said in an official statement.

"When we started on this journey, there had been a lot of talk about Australia wanting to be No. 1 in the world in all three forms of the game.

We took a different approach. Not once did we talk about being No. 1 ranked in the world. We wanted to be No.1 in our values and process. That is what I am most proud of," he added.

In the latest ICC rankings update, that rates all matches played since May 2019 at 100 per cent and those of the previous two years at 50 per cent, Australia (116) have taken over from India as the top-ranked side in the ICC men's Test team rankings with New Zealand (115) remaining in second place.

India is now third with 114 points. With only two points separating them, this is the second closest the top three teams have been since the Test rankings were launched in 2003.

The closest for the top three teams were in January 2016, when India had led Australia and South Africa by a single point.

Australia has also moved to the top spot in the T20I rankings for the first time in the format.

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