World T20 India: Sreesanth fined 25 per cent of match fee for ICC Code of Conduct breach

South Africa (espnstar.com) – India player Shanthakumaran Sreesanth has been fined 25 per cent of his match fee for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct during his side’s semi-final against Australia in the ICC World Twenty20 South Africa 2007 at Kingsmead on Saturday.

The India team has also been fined for maintaining a slow over-rate after falling one over short of its requirement when time allowances were taken into consideration.

Sreesanth pleaded guilty to a Level 1 offence in a hearing convened by Emirates Elite Panel ICC Match Referee Chris Broad after play concluded in Durban.

The player accepted he breached clause 1.5 of the ICC Code of Conduct which relates to excessive appealing following a delivery he bowled to Matthew Hayden during the fourth over of Australia’s innings.

Explaining his decision, Mr Broad said: “When appealing for a decision a player has to realize he only needs to ask the question once and not over and over again, especially after the umpire has already turned down the appeal.

“Sreesanth was out of order and the incident set a poor example for the millions of people watching either at the venue or on television.

“It was a point he accepted by pleading guilty and, given the fact he has already made regular appearances in Code of Conduct hearings over the past 12 months, he can consider himself fortunate not to be facing a heavier punishment.

“One pleasing aspect of the hearing was that the India captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, accepted his role in the conduct of his players and, as such, I am sure he will remind Sreesanth of his responsibilities to himself, his team and the game in future.

“In addition to the fine levied, I also warned Sreesanth about his conduct going forward and if he continues to breach the Code of Conduct he can expect more severe penalties to come his way.”

India’s slow-over rate saw the team one over short of completing its allocation after time allowances were taken into consideration. That failing saw the players docked five per cent of their match fees with Dhoni, as captain, fined double that amount, a 10 per cent punishment.

Level 1 breaches of the ICC Code of Conduct carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand up to a maximum punishment of 50 per cent of a player’s match fee.

A player does not have a right of appeal in the case of Level 1 offences.

The charges were brought by on-field umpires Mark Benson and Asad Rauf, third official Billy Doctrove and Tony Hill, the fourth umpire.

Present at the hearing, in addition to Sreesanth, the four umpires and the match referee were India manager Sunil Dev and captain Dhoni.

Video evidence was available but was not required as the player pleaded guilty to the offence.

The full ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Officials can be found here:

The ICC World Twenty20 South Africa 2007 involves 27 matches at three venues – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – over 14 days with the final between India and Pakistan set to take place in Johannesburg on Monday (24 September).

Gilchrist: The loss has hurt our pride

Australia stand in skipper Adam Gilchrist Saturday said the semifinal loss against India in the World Twenty20 Championship had hurt their pride.

“Any loss hurts your pride. It’s annoying and frustrating,” said Gilchrist after his side went down by 15 runs at Durban.

“It’s disappointing to lose any championship. We’ve experienced it and we’ve learnt from it. We need to analyse it and come back,” he said.

Gilchrist said the Aussies were just about to start their season and would “need to get our skill level up”. They next travel to India for a seven-match ODI series that starts on September 29. They will also be playing the hosts in a one-off Twenty20 game.

The Aussie keeper was of the view that Twenty20 would “play a big part in world cricket” and it would be “interesting to see how the one-off games pan out”.

Asked to pick a winner between India and Pakistan, both of whom beat Australia in this tournament, Gilchrist opted to sit on the fence. “Both Pakistan and India are playing very well, I can’t predict a winner.”

About Yuvraj Singh, Gilchrist said he was playing with “great confidence and without any fear”.

The opener said he thought that captaincy did not drain him in this version.

“It moves quickly, but you need to think on your feet. And you need bits of good fortune in this game a bit more,” he said.

World T20: Malik looks for repeat of history as Pakistan reach final

CAPE TOWN, (AFP) Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik said his team would be seeking to repeat history after they cruised to a six-wicket win in their World Twenty20 semi-final against New Zealand at Newlands on Saturday.

“In 1992 Pakistan won the World Cup in the holy month of Ramadan after beating New Zealand in the semi-final,” said Malik. The current tournament is also being played during Ramadan and Malik said his players were confident they could achieve victory in Monday’s final in Johannesburg.

“We are playing like a team,” said Malik, who felt Pakistan were always in control against the Kiwis.

Fast bowler Umar Gul took three for 15 in four overs as Pakistan restricted New Zealand to 143 for eight before opening batsman Imran Nazir hit a dashing 59 to lead Pakistan to victory with seven balls to spare.

Gul produced a high-quality display of accurate and hostile bowling as New Zealand were unable to capitalise on a promising start after winning the toss and deciding to bat.

“Pakistan bowled and fielded pretty well,” said New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori. “We got ourselves into a bit of a mire and couldn’t get any momentum going.”

For New Zealand it was yet another stumble at the semi-final stage of a world tournament. “We need to find a way, first to get back into a semi-final and then to get over that hurdle,” said Vettori.

Ross Taylor was New Zealand’s top scorer with 37 not out off 23 balls, including 17 off the last over, bowled by Mohammad Asif.

Rain interrupted New Zealand’s innings when they were 44 for no wicket after 6.2 overs, with Lou Vincent on 25 and Brendon McCullum on 16.

But Vincent was out for 28 nine balls after the resumption, superbly caught and bowled when he hammered a straight drive against left-arm spinner Fawad Alam.

New Zealand’s innings never regained its earlier momentum, with Gul, who started bowling in the 12th over, keeping the pressure on the batsmen.

Gul took two wickets in his second over, dismissing Scott Styris and Peter Fulton, and had Jacob Oram caught behind in his third over.

Taylor was involved in two mix-ups which led to the run-outs of captain Daniel Vettori and Shane Bond, who both sacrificed themselves so that Taylor could continue batting.

Alam, 21, the leading run-scorer and wicket-taker in Pakistan’s domestic 20-overs competition, took two for 29 in his second Twenty20 international appearance.

Mohammad Hafeez and Imran Nazir batted aggressively to put on 60 for Pakistan’s first wicket before Hafeez was leg before to Scott Styris off the first ball of the eighth over.

Despite needing a runner because of a groin strain, Nazir went for his shots to hit 59 off 41 balls with five sixes and three fours.

Vettori said that although New Zealand had allowed Nazir to have a runner, he felt the player had moved freely both at the crease and when he ran on to celebrate Pakistan’s win. “It’s not the way we play the game,” he said.

Nazir’s dismissal by off-spinner Jeetan Patel was quickly followed by those of Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi.

But Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq ensured Pakistan would play in the final with an unbeaten stand of 36. Malik finished the match with a six off Patel.

Will Twenty20 wreck cricket?

With a cocktail of energy, adrenalin and high TRPs, the World Twenty20 is already a success. Commentators and cricket buffs are labelling it the future. There is a certitude here that was absent, for instance, when predictions for the one-day format were made at the 1975 Prudential Cup.

Yet, Twenty20 is not a standard innovation – if any innovation can be called standard in the first place – that will merely expand the market for cricket. In both its time of arrival and in the plans the ICC has for it, Twenty20 could be the monster that gobbles up the competition.

The first ODI was played in 1971 but the limited-overs game, with coloured clothing, white balls and the rest of the razzmatazz, came into its own in the 1980s. A century after the first Test, cricket was ready for a new format. Especially in the subcontinent, where the dull predictability of Test matches on dead wickets – does anybody remember a one-season wonder called Taslim Arif hitting 210 against Dennis Lillee in 1980? – made the shorter game seem exciting and endorsement-friendly.

One-day cricket didn’t eat into Test cricket; it simply filled up vast empty spaces in the calendar. The number of Test matches played today as opposed to in, say, 1987, has not gone down. It’s just that the time between Tests has been packed with a glut of 50-over matches.

Twenty20 is a different animal. If it is to become the third international – and the word is used literally, to mean matches between countries or full members of the ICC – version of cricket, it will inexorably end up cannibalising the senior formats. No year has 500 days. No year has enough time for a full complement of Test, ODI and Twenty20 matches.

In the 1980s Test cricket was seen as a sunset industry, and so ODIs were welcomed. In 2007 the situation is decidedly different. In important markets – the Indian subcontinent, Australia – ODI cricket is still a lucrative business. As such, officials are wary of Twenty20 and want to control its growth. To use an analogy, a cabal of VCD manufacturers has been given the job of developing a business plan for DVDs.

This dilemma is best exemplified at the BCCI. It has, expectedly, influenced the ICC as well. What, then, do the gnomes of cricket have in mind?

World T20: India down Australia, meet Pakistan in final

DURBAN (AFP) – India stunned favourites Australia by 15 runs at Durban on Saturday to set up a mouth-watering final against Pakistan in the Twenty20 world championships.

Yuvraj Singh smashed 70 off 30 balls as India, electing to take first strike at the jam-packed Kingsmead, made a challenging 188-5 and then restricted Australia to 173-7 in a rousing semi-final.

Australia, needing 27 off the last 12 balls, were kept down to five runs in the 19th over bowled by left-arm seamer Rudra Pratap Singh and six runs in Joginder Sharma’s last over.

Sharma, who was hammered for 31 runs in his first two overs, was gambled for the final over by Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and came good with two wickets at the end.

Opener Matthew Hayden hit 62 off 47 balls and Andrew Symonds scored a 26-ball 43 during a rollicking third wicket stand of 66 that came off just 37 deliveries.

Australia, coasting at 134-2 by the 15th over, lost five wickets for 39 runs to hand India a famous win before some 19,000 delirious South African fans waving the Indian flag.

Seamer Shanthakumaran Sreesanth shone with the ball taking 2-12 off his four overs. Irfan Pathan and Sharma also claimed two wickets each.

The final at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Monday will be the first major title clash between India and Pakistan since the limited-overs world championship of cricket in Melbourne in 1985.

“I think there were certain crucial moments in the game that India played better than us and deserved to win,” said Australian captain Adam Gilchrist, standing in for the injured Ricky Ponting.

“This game shows that if you have runs on the board you can put the other team under pressure and India did it very well tonight.”

Dhoni said his team was delighted to prove critics wrong.

“I think everyone said Australia were the favourites and I am glad we proved them wrong,” the Indian captain said.

“Once we posted a reasonable total, I knew we could win even when Hayden and Symonds were scoring so heavily.

“I just told Joginder before the final over to bowl as if he was bowling in a domestic match and not a world championship semi-final.

“I told him that you have faced such situations in domestic matches and done well, so there was no reason why you can’t do it again. God bless him, it worked out well.”

Left-handed Yuvraj, who smashed England fast bowler Stuart Broad for six sixes in a over on Wednesday, hit five sixes and as many boundaries to boost India’s total.

Dhoni chipped in with 36 off 18 balls as India plundered 128 runs in the final 10 overs after a slow start.

Yuvraj and Robin Uthappa (34) hammered 84 for the third wicket off just 40 deliveries after India had plodded to 41-2 by the eighth over.

Yuvraj walked in after openers Virender Sehwag (nine) and Gautam Gambhir (24) had fallen against the tight Australian seam bowling.

Yuvraj took charge immediately, slamming the first delivery he faced from Stuart Clark for six over square-leg.

Symonds’ first over, the 11th of the innings, produced 19 runs as Yuvraj helped himself to a six and four and Uthappa pulled a short ball for six.

Yuvraj brought up his half-century off 20 balls by lofting Clark for his fourth six and Uthappa celebrated his partner’s feat by smashing two consecutive sixes off Mitchell Johnson.

Yuvraj shows the way, India in final

Aussies lose by 15 runs after Yuvraj’s 30-ball 70 & longest sixDurban, September 22:Yuvraj Singh can never fake it; the pain, in these cases, can come and go in a matter of 48 hours. And thankfully, the Indian vice-captain, back after missing a game due to an elbow injury, remained in sublime touch to help India reach 188/5 in 20 overs — a total that was to prove too much for the mighty Australians, who fell 15 runs short.

India now take on Pakistan — they beat New Zealand in the other semi-final — in the Twenty20 World Cup final on Monday, an astonishing turnaround for both teams after their first-round exits from the World Cup in West Indies just six months ago.

Today, after Yuvraj’s blitz, the Indian bowlers, led by Sreesanth — 4-0-12-2 — didn’t let the Aussies off the hook. As skipper MS Dhoni said after the match: “It was a team effort in the end.”

But then, it was all set up in the first place by Man of the Match Yuvraj Singh.

Once again, after that six-pack over last week, it was the left-hander blazing away at the front — right through his 30-ball 70, he never looked in any sort of discomfort. Just five dot balls, five fours and five sixes in that innings. In fact, Yuvraj passed the elbow test very early, in the second ball he faced — pulling the one off Stuart Clark over the mid-wicket with a perfect rock-back on the backfoot.

His most spectacular six was the second one — off Brett Lee — that he flicked off his legs towards square-leg which was deposited on the fourth row from the top, travelling a distance of 119m to be the longest hit of the tournament so far. The fun had just started. The run-deluge started in the 11th over of the Indian innings when Andrew Symonds was brought into the attack. Symonds’ first over went for 19 runs as Yuvraj hit him twice over and Uthappa got his turn once.

With third-man and fine-leg both up and a packed Aussie boundary ring on the leg-side to stop the flurry of shots, Yuvraj went over the cover fielder, twice, to get eight runs from similar-looking shots off Stuart Clark.

Yuvraj reached his 50 from just 20 balls with an array of shots, also dabbling with luck in little blips, when the ball fell just short of Michael Clarke and Matthew Hayden. But his style of mixing elegance with power-hitting made a sumptuous supper at the packed 18,399-sized Kingsmead crowd.

The energy rubbed off on Uthappa at the other end as he carted Mitchell Johnson for two consecutive sixes — the first over long-off and then just over mid-wicket, but the enterprising third-wicket partnership of 84 runs in 30 balls was left mangled in a moment of indecisiveness and confusion as Uthappa was stranded near Yuvraj at the non-striker’s end when a direct throw from Symonds hit the stumps direct.

Next man Mahendra Singh Dhoni was always straining to hit hard, and straight, to carry on the attack with equal zest as India got big chunks of runs between the 14th and 16th overs, with blocks of 21, 14, 14 as Symonds came in for more punishment at the hands of the Indian skipper.

Yuvraj, meanwhile, made his exit and Dhoni took over for his 36 off 18 balls. He hit his first six over long-on and then twisted on his axis for a next-ball four at fine-leg while new man Rohit Sharma came to the party with a plundering six over long-on in the 19th over.

Another block of 18 runs preceded a 13 from the 18th over as India finally managed a late onslaught after a limping and cautious start that Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag.

• Yuvraj Singh made the highest individual score in Twenty20 cricket for India by scoring 70 off 30 balls, with five fours and an equal number of sixes in the second semi-final against Australia at Kingsmead, Durban on Saturday. Virender Sehwag, who scored 68 off 52 balls against England at the same ground on September 19, held the previous record

• Yuvraj also scored the second fastest fifty in Twenty20 cricket by completing 50 off 20 balls with three fours and four sixes during his knock. Bangladesh’s Mohammed Ashraful also got his fifty off 20 during his 61-run knock against West Indies at Johannesburg on September 13

SCOREBOARD

India: G Gambhir c Hodge b Johnson 24, V Sehwag c Gilchrist b Johnson 9, R Uthappa run out 34, Yuvraj Singh c Hussey b Clarke 70, MS Dhoni run out 36, R Sharma not out 8, I Pathan not out 0

Extras (lb-6, w-1) 7, Total (5 wkts, 20 overs) 188

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-41, 3-125, 4-155, 5-184

Bowling: Lee 4-0-25-0; Bracken 4-0-38-0; Clark 4-0-38-0; Johnson 4-0-31-2; Symonds 3-0-37-0; Clarke 1-0-13-1