ICC Champions Trophy: Rain Ruins Australia's Run Chase vs Bangladesh

June 6, 2017

Jun 6: Australia face a make or break Champions Trophy showdown with England after their Group A clash against Bangladesh was abandoned due to rain on Monday.Run

Steve Smith's side were chasing 183 to beat Bangladesh at The Oval when persistent drizzle forced the players from the field.

Having scored 83-1 from 16 overs, Australia only needed to play for four more overs to be eligible to win via the Duckworth-Lewis rule for rain-affected games.

Instead, Smith and his team-mates were reduced to anxiously looking at weather updates and peering upwards for any sign of a break in the slate grey sky.

Unfortunately for Australia, who bowled out Bangladesh for 182, the rain became heavier and the match was called off at 2019 GMT.

Australia will be cursing their luck as they were also frustrated by bad weather when their opening group fixture against New Zealand was abandoned, although on that occasion they were in a less commanding position.

With England, who won their opener against Bangladesh, due to play New Zealand in the next Group A fixture, two-time champions Australia will have to beat the hosts in Birmingham on June 10 to qualify for the semi-finals.

"It's a little bit frustrating not to get a result in," Smith said.

"Of course I didn't want to go off. I was happy to keep batting through the rain.

"The umpires are there to make a decision. To be fair it was raining reasonably hard when we did come off.

"The groundsmen, they perhaps could have shown a bit more urgency being a big tournament. But they did the best job they could."

Tamim Iqbal's 95 was the highlight for Bangladesh, who are winless and face New Zealand in their final group tie.

Despite Iqbal's best efforts, Mitchell Starc's spell of four wickets in nine balls ensured Australia had the upper hand before the rain arrived.

Aware that ominous clouds were gusting in, Australia needed to get off to a fast start to have a chance of winning on the D/L rule if the required 20 overs were bowled.

Aaron Finch and David Warner both crushed a pair of fours as Australia raced to 37-0 in six overs.

Warner was especially aggressive, pulling one tame delivery from Mashrafe Mortaza off his hip and away to the fence in a flash.

Rubel Hossain briefly stemmed the tide when the Bangladesh seamer dismissed Finch lbw with an inswinger the opener couldn't handle as he played across his pads.

When Warner's total reached 37 he had passed 4,000 runs in one-day internationals.

Only South Africa's Hashim Amla and West Indies legend Viv Richards hit that milestone quicker than Warner's 93 innings.

After the rain began to pour, Australia briefly had hope when the covers were taken off and the umpires announced play would start at 1930 GMT.

But instead the rain returned before the game could restart and Australia's hopes of victory were washed away.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

New Delhi, Jan 16: Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Thursday dropped from the BCCI's list of centrally contracted players, raising fresh doubts on the future of the former India captain who has not played since the World Cup semifinal loss to New Zealand last year.

The BCCI announced the central contracts for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni was in the A category, which fetches a player Rs 5 crore, until last year.

Skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma and top pacer Jasprit Bumrah were retained in the highest A+ bracket of Rs 7 crore.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Atlanta, Jan 9: Top tennis stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams will be playing an exhibition match to raise funds for Australia's bushfire relief.

Apart from these three, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas have also confirmed their availability for the match, CNN reported.

The match will be played on January 15 at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena. The Australian Open Rally for Relief will be donating the proceedings from the ticket sales to the bushfire relief efforts.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova had also announced on Wednesday that she had left 10 signed pairs of her tennis shoes in her Brisbane hotel that members of the public could buy with a donation to the Australian Red Cross.

"Brisbane, I have signed ten pairs of my tennis shoes, left them at the @BrisbaneTennis
desk at the Westin Hotel, alongside a donation envelope for fire rescue efforts.They're yours to keep,we just ask you to donate AUD 300 a pair. All money going directly to Red Cross," Sharapova tweeted.

Earlier, former Australian spinner Shane Warne on Monday had announced to auction his Baggy Green cap to raise funds for victims of devastating bushfires in Australia.

Taking to Twitter, Warne made the announcement and posted a statement.

"The horrific bushfires in Australia have left us all in disbelief. The impact these devastating fires are having on so many people is unthinkable and has touched us all. Lives have been lost, homes have been destroyed and over 500 million animals have died too," Warne wrote.

"Everyone is in this together and we continue to find ways to contribute and help on a daily basis. This has led me to auction my beloved baggy green cap (350) that I wore throughout my Test career," he added.

Warne joined a growing list of cricketers to raise money for the bushfire victims. Australian players Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell and D'Arcy Short have already announced that they will donate AUD 250 each for every six they hit in the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) to support bushfire victims.

Athletes from other sports too joined the movement as tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic decided to donate 25,000 dollars each for Australia's bushfire relief fund.

Wildfires have been raging across Australia for months, killing 23 people, burning about 6 million hectares (23,000 square miles) of bushland and killing a billion animals.

Naval and air rescue operations were launched on Friday as mass evacuations of towns at risk of being engulfed by flames got underway.b

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Agencies
January 25,2020

Headingley, Jan 25: England have become the first team in the world to score 500,000 runs in Test cricket. They achieved the feat during the ongoing fourth and final Test against South Africa being played at The Wanderers.

On Friday - the opening day of the Test match -- England captain Joe Root's single through the covers took the Three Lions to a landmark 500,000 run-mark in the longest format of the game. They achieved the feat in their 1022nd Test match.

Australia comes second in the list, with 432,706 runs in 830 Tests. India, meanwhile, are third, with 273,518 runs in 540 Tests, followed by West Indies (270,441 runs in 545 Tests).

In the third Test played at St George's Park in Port Elizabeth, England had become the first team to play 500 Test matches on foreign soil. Australia are the second team to play the most away Test with 404 matches they have played so far.

India have played 268 Tests on foreign soil in which they have won 51, lost 113 and 104 have ended in a draw.

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