Cricket: Kevin Pietersen Joins Surrey

Longtime England batsman Kevin Pietersen was released from the cricket team on Tuesday and has now joined Surrey for the rest of the county season.

Geoff Miller, the national selector of the England and Wales Cricket Board stated that Pietersen will be omitted from the upcoming Twenty20 international friendlies against Pakistan stating that Pietersen needs to get more cricket under his belt before the winter season.

Miller went on to say that Pietersen will have plenty of time during the rest of the county season to get prepared for the winter. ‘Kevin will be able to work on his game and get more time in the middle. He is a world class player. This way he can work on his batting and get back to the level of play that he has shown throughout his career’ stated Miller.

Pietersen was named the most valuable player of the Twently20 World Cup tournament earlier this year and had stated previously that he was done playing for the summer.

Pietersen, who made his debut with England back in 2004, went on to say that he was disappointed for being cut from the England side but would do everything that he could to get back to the squad. ‘I have no issue with the selectors omitting me from the team. Now I can work on my game and get ready for the winter’ stated Pietersen.

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Cricket Match For Flood Relief: Pakistan vs. England

England and Pakistan, one of the most popular teams for online sportsbook betting, are hoping to raise funds for the victims of devastating flooding in Pakistan with an exhibition cricket match.

An estimated 14 million people have been left homeless and 1.600 killed by floods in south and northwest Pakistan.

The Pakistani cricket team will also be taking part in a one-day international tour of England before the match.

The Pakistani Cricket Board (PCB) issued a statement saying that the exhibition will be between the Pakistani XI and an International XI team. The International XI team will feature cricket stars from various countries, the PCB said.

According to the PCB statement, “PCB is working on a proposal along with the England and Wales Cricket Board to organise an exhibition cricket match for the benefit of the millions of Pakistanis affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan.”

Many families have been displaced by what are being called Pakistan’s worst floods in history. For this reason the proceeds from the exhibition match will be put toward the rehabilitation of those families that have been affected by the floods.

This is not the first time that Pakistan and England have competed in order to raise funds for natural disaster victims. In 2005, Pakistan and England held several cricket and golf matches in order to benefit earthquake victims while England was touring.

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Harbhajan: SSC pitch is lifeless

In the second Test between India and Sri Lanka at the SSC, Harbhajan Singh has hit out at the benign nature of pitch laid out. During the Test in which several batting records were broken, bowlers from both sides struggled to make an impression.

He said, “You just can’t have one-sided contests where the batsmen dominate. The seamers run in and bowl their hearts out and get nothing out of it. There should be some purchase on the first two days. Later on, if the spinners bowl well, they should get bounce, if not turn. People say Test cricket is dying. It is because of such one-sided contests. If you look at series in Australia and England, they get a lot of results because they produce good wickets, wickets that are true. That’s the way it should be everywhere.”

With the sides clashing in nine Tests, 26 ODIs and four Twenty20s since July 2008, there has been a glut of India-Sri Lanka encounters recently. Harbhajan hinted that players from both camps were bored of the frequent fixtures between the sides, although he said he didn’t mind playing against any team.

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Cricket – Champions League Twenty20 gets new broadcast deal

When the Champions League Twenty20 cricket competition gets underway in September, cricket fans in the UK and Europe will be able to follow all the action.

Eurosport announced this week it has signed an exclusive three-year deal to broadcast the Champions League Twenty20 in the UK and Europe.

This follows a highly successful inaugural broadcast of the competition by Eurosport last year, and the new agreement includes rights to broadcast the tournament on-air and online, with featured matches appearing exclusively on the Eurosport Player, the channel’s online subscription player service.

David Kerr, director of British Eurosport, said: “As a new, emerging international tournament the Champions League Twenty20 fits perfectly with British Eurosport’s portfolio of events.

Eurosport struck the deal with Asia’s biggest sports content provider, ESPN STAR Sports.

The 2010 edition features the top T20 teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and the West Indies, all playing for a multi-million dollar prize fund.

It all gets started in South Africa Sept 10 to 26 and features 23 matches.

Some participating teams include the Chennai Super Kings (DLF Indian Premier League – India), the Royal Challengers Bangalore (DLF Indian Premier League – India), the Victorian Bushrangers (KFC Twenty20 Big Bash – Australia), the South Australian Redbacks (KFC Twenty20 Big Bash – Australia), the Highveld Lions (Standard Bank Pro 20 Series – South Africa), and the Central Stags (HRV Cup Twenty20 – New Zealand).

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Cricket and the “Other” World Cup

The 2011 Cricket World Cup is approaching. This event that will take place next February will be the 10th of its kind. The event will take place in South Asia in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The tournament will field fourteen different teams playing 49 matches. These teams will include teams that have full memberships in the ICC and also other teams that qualified.

The teams that have full membership that will participate in the tournament are Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, and Zimbabwe.

The qualifying tournament took place in South Africa to see which other teams would fill the open positions and place in the Cricket World Cup. Sports betting favorite, Ireland won the qualifying event over Canada in the final. This allowed both of these teams to qualify. The other two teams that qualified from the tournament were the teams from the Netherlands and Kenya.

The tournament will be broken up into two groups, Group A and Group B. Each group will take part in a round robin tournament. Groups A and B will advance the top four teams from each group to a traditional single elimination tournament. The single elimination portion of the tournament will have three rounds. The final round will take place in Mumbai on April 2nd, 2011.

The winning team will collect a prize of 10 million dollars for their victory. This amount of money is 6 million more than the prize was previously decided to be. On April 20, 2010 the International Cricket Council decided to up the stakes for the winners, changing the prize to its current 10 million dollar status.

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Match fixing allegations in Cricket

The England and Wales cricket board have released some disturbing news for sports fans everywhere. Two separate individuals that play in the league have been offered money by bookmakers in order to give an unfair advantage to the bookmakers in making profits on their games.

This bribery to players is often called “match-fixing.” Any time that reports of corruption come forth it is difficult to swallow for fans of the sport. Not only are the fans troubled however, but the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption unit chief also seems to be disturbed by this news.

In response to these issues in the game of cricket, the International Cricket Council has been trying to make a “workable protocol that allows players to come forward with confidence.” The International Cricket council has taken a stand that they will not take this news lightly. It seems that they intend on dealing with the cases that have come forth in as strict of a manner as they can manage. This is in hopes to detour others from trying to make similar deals with players to fix games in their league.

After receiving this news of possible corruption, the ICC is now investigating past events in the cricket league that produced rather suspicious results in terms of betting.

The ICC will need to get things squared away soon. Fans and gamblers alike will not have interest in taking part in a game that is full of corruption. This could be a big blow for cricket in this area if things are not quickly controlled.

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2011 Cricket World Cup Is Shaping Up

February 19, 2011 the first match in the 2011 Cricket World Cup will take place. This event will be the tenth Cricket World Cup which will be hosted by three South Asian countries including India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. This will mark the first time Bangladesh has co-hosted this event.

The Cricket World Cup will use the One Day International format. This will involve fourteen national teams who will be participating in the February and March cup. The tournament will be round robin and knockout. The teams presently consist of ten full members. Each of these members automatically qualify. The remaining four teams each had too qualify for the tournament. The qualifications were held in South Africa. The associate teams will be Ireland, Canada, Netherlands, and Kenya.

The full-members for the competition include Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, and Zimbabwe. Earlier this month the mascot for the tournament was announced. This event took place in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It unveiled a happy-go-lucky elephant.

All of the buzz behind the 2011 Cricket World Cup has brought about a bidding war for broadcasting rights. The International Cricket Council sold the rights, for $2 billion, to ESPN Star Sports. The event will be broadcast around the world in more than 200 countries.?

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Cricket- India Premier League

The Indian Premier league is a cricket league that consists 20 consecutive cricket competitions. This league was started by an organization called the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India initiated the development of this league in order to organize cricket events into a standardized organization similar to the professional teams found in other sporting events. The organization of cricket teams into a league of this nature, would provide a professional sporting opportunity for highly talented cricket practitioners.

The Indian Premier league is an organization that consists of eight competitive teams of highly trained cricket players. The players on these teams are almost the most talented cricket players in the world, with teams being composed of players from many different nations. Each team is a franchise with different owners for each of the eight teams.

The first official season for the Indian Premier league started on April 18, 2008. The 20 game tournaments are formatted in a round robin fashion in which teams can be knocked out of competition by other teams. The first season of play lasted for approximately 40 days with 58 games being played. The Rajasthan Royals emerged as the first league champions.

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Most disgraceful moment in the history of cricket

Underarm incident
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Indian Cricket Goes Through Constant Ups and Down

Indian cricket is very popular in sub continent. There are few countries in sub continent that are involved in cricket. Indian team is considered a balanced and powerful one to compete with any strong team of the world. People are crazy and very passionate about cricket in India. Indian cricket team has always been very strong. It got its name registered in cricket history by giving innumerable records. Indian cricket team has given many world-class batsmen, bowlers who created history. In India, if it to be said that people talk cricket, read cricket, sleep cricket and walk cricket, it will not be wrong.

Indian cricket has been under tremendous pressures till now. This makes Indian cricket player tense and disturbed. We happened to see that pressures on international ground. We lost some almost winning matches due to pressures. Indian cricket has never been free from controversies. Even some controversies overshadowed world cricket. Controversies have been responsible placing ups and down in Indian cricket.

Indian cricket has been influencing from media, politician and of course of their fans. These elements have stunned Indian cricket time to time. Players, coaches and selectors had to face fans aggressions. This caused them to feel agony. That led government to increase Security and safety of Indian cricket team. indian cricket is governed by BCCI and BCCI is richest board of cricket world. It lured politician and industrialist to join board. That created tussle between board’s members. It became a big issue of discussion for cricket fans. Former president of BCCI Dalmiya had to resign for bungling of fund of cricket board. Now current president is Shard Pawar.

There have been foreigner coaches for Indian cricket. John Wright was first foreign coach of the Indian team and he is from New Zealand. Greg Chappell is the current coach of Indian team. Unfortunately no one is spared in Indian cricket Sourav gangly had to go out after breaking out skirmish between him. That led to change Indian captain few years back. There can be taken few names that rose to controversy. Those ugly affairs dented the Indian cricket team.

There is a very interesting part of Indian cricket is influence of media. The impact of Media over Indian cricket has been very powerful. Tiny issues or any controversy could not be sneaked away from eyes of media. Whether the matter is of off the field or on the field, media extensively covered the issues. Media influenced selection committee and the bating line up of Indian cricket team. Media captured all issues of Indian cricket with utmost priority. There is not only negative aspect that media offered but also there has been a very encouraging role of media. Indian cricket acquired highly esteemed status in India due to media’s extensive coverage. This caused great popularity of cricket in India.

Indian cricket manage to get corers of rupees due to ad business. Every player gets a chance to make money through ads. Sachin Tendulkar, M.S.Dhoni, V.Sehwag are ads star who seem busy in signing up ads. Indian cricket has achieved big commercial deal with ad companies. That has promoted celebrity image of cricketers. Sometimes, cricketer has to pay price for it in form of criticism if they fail to perform up to the mark.

The positive aspect about Indian cricket team is that after sustaining immense pressures and ups down it achieved a lot in bringing name and fame to Indian cricket.

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