Champions League to begin on December 3

The inaugural Champions League Twenty20 will be played between December 3 and 10, instead of October, the organisers – the boards of India, Australia and South Africa – have announced. To accommodate the change, the first Test between Australia and South Africa in Perth has been pushed back from December 12 to December 17.

The eight-team tournament was initially scheduled to begin on September 29, the reserve day of the Champions Trophy, but the ICC was unhappy with its timing, given its close proximity to the Champions Trophy. It asked the three founding members of the Champions League to rethink, and they said they would revert in seven days.

It was expected last week that the dates would be postponed to early December, between England’s two-Test and seven-ODI tour of India.

No other international fixtures have been scheduled on those dates, allowing all players to participate. The tournament has been sandwiched between the India’s seventh one-dayer against England and the first Test in Ahmedabad, which start a day before and after the tournament respectively.

“We are happy that we were able to find a window during the first week of December for the inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20,” Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said. “There was a gap in between the one-day internationals and Tests [in India] against the touring England squad, which will enable both the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings (the IPL finalists) to regroup and focus on the inaugural edition of the Champions League Twenty20.”

Gerald Majola and James Sutherland, the chief executives of the South African and Australian boards respectively, said they had consulted the players, players’ associations and the Western Australian Cricket Association (WACA) – the hosts of the Perth Test – before deciding the dates.

“We were pleased with the WACA reaction that the new playing dates offer local fans, including corporate groups wanting to entertain at the cricket, good dates for pre-Christmas Test match enjoyment, and we also took feedback from players that the changes could be accommodated without compromising what will be a defacto World Test Cricket Championship bout between Australian and South Africa during December and January,” Sutherland said.

Majola told Cricinfo that the organisers have “conveyed the new dates to the ICC and they are fine with it.” The venues and commercial partnership details will be finalised in the coming weeks.

The Champions Twenty 20 League comprises the Twenty20 domestic finalists from India , Australia and South Africa, Pakistan’s winner Sialkot and England’s champion Middlesex. The competition was announced on July 30, with a total prize money of US$ 6 million which will be shared between all teams.

Handling Mendis is up to the individual – Dhoni

Hardly 15 minutes after Mahendra Singh Dhoni arrived at the team hotel in Colombo with his fellow one-day recruits, had he faced a barrage of questions. No surprise that most of them focused around the man who snatched almost half of the Indian wickets in the Test series, Ajantha Mendis.

“I’ll just ask Mahela [Jayawardene] if he will lend Mendis for a couple of practice sessions. If not, then…,” Dhoni said with a laugh when asked how India could tackle Mendis. “But seriously, we will have to deal with it in a personal way. We can watch 1000 videos of what he does, but it is up to the individual to play him on the turf. It depends on your frame of mind.”

India’s ODI squad includes two uncapped players, Tamil Nadu’s S Badrinath and Delhi’s Virat Kohli, the victorious Under-19 captain. Sachin Tendulkar will not play the five-ODIs after sustaining an injury to his left elbow during the third Test in Colombo. Dhoni admitted that was a major blow, but put faith in the younger players. “It’s not just his contribution with bat and the ball, but he comes up with brilliant suggestions and advice on the field. The impact he has in the dressing room is great.

“But cricket goes on. The youngsters will have to prove they are good enough. Whenever this scenario has happened in Indian cricket, somebody has accepted responsibility. Sri Lanka is one of the toughest places to play cricket. You don’t often get loads of runs when batting. It can be crucial.”

In the Tests India’s batsmen failed to put up good scores, failing to cross 330, and that cost them the series. Dhoni, however, said it was important for the batsmen to back themselves to score briskly, despite the setbacks.

“There are a few things that we need to assess,” said Dhoni. “I’ve always been saying that confidence shouldn’t go up and down with the performance. You have to stay positive always.”

India’s recent record in the subcontinent includes losses in the finals of the Kitply and Asia Cup, which Dhoni termed as “crucial games”, and he hoped to rectify that trend. The ODI specialists had two days of practice at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, which Dhoni said was “up to the mark”, and he noted a lot of energy in the side.

Jayawardene, Dhoni’s counterpart, was understandably optimistic about the ODIs, having defeated India in the Asia Cup and the Test series. “It is always a different game and we have different game plans [for handling India],” he said. “It’s a young side, and we are grooming a young group of guys to take over. We are looking to the little things well as individuals – that’s been our emphasis and I think that’s what has contributed to our improvement over that period.”

Picking up 26 wickets is no mean achievement for a bowler, but when Mendis and Murali operate in tandem is when they’re so difficult. After a long time, Murali has a genuine match-winning spinning partner, and Jayawardene felt it was quite a relief for a captain to have such an option. “We now have good attacking options,” he said. “Murali has got the support he requires and also there is support for [Chaminda] Vaas. We have the likes of Lasith Malinga and Dilhara Fernando. For us it’s always a team and it does not matter what Ajantha Mendis does.”

Sri Lanka will welcome back their prolific one-day opener, Sanath Jayasuriya, but Jayawardene was not sure about who would partner him. Sri Lanka’s 15-man squad includes eight batsmen, so they have choices between Malinda Warnapura, Mahela Udawatte, and Kumar Sangakkara to open. Jayawardene said Warnapura’s success in the Tests – he scored 243 runs at 60.75, with a hundred in the first Test at the SSC, and two fifties – gave Sri Lanka a viable option, but Sangakkara’s success in the Asia Cup could see him opening with Jayasuriya.

“The way everyone’s talking about Ajantha,” Jayawardene said, “he might take ten wickets even before going on.” The venue for the first two ODIs is Dambulla, a notoriously low-scoring venue which favours spin, so India will need to be on their best guard against Sri Lanka’s two spinners.

Olympic sports be given priority: Bindra

NEW DELHI: Olympic sports should be given priority to make India a sporting nation, said the country’s first Olympic individual gold medalist Abhinav Bindra on Thursday after a meeting with President Pratibha Patil.

Emerging from a 20-minute meeting with the President, Bindra, attired in the Indian Olympic contingent uniform of sky blue blazer and black trouser, said he was overwhelmed at the reception given to him on his return from Beijing.

“I am extremely happy. I am overwhelmed at the response received here,” he told reporters.

The 25-year-old shooter said the President told him that she was excited about his feat in the Olympics.

“She was overwhelmed, very excited. She was very kind and gracious,” Bindra, flanked by parents AS Bindra and Babli and Sports Minister MS Gill, said.

“India is proud of your achievement. Each and every children of the country is happy over your feat”, Patil told Bindra, giving a pat on his cheek.

Bindra’s composure in the tense final at the shooting range impressed the President who wanted to know the secret behind it.

With the flicker of a smile, Bindra said, “I just wanted to perform till the end. Winning or losing was not in my mind”.

The President enquired about Bindra’s backpain, which had at one stage threatened to cut short his career, and AS Bindra told her that his son “is much better now”.

Patil also presented him a plaque of the Rashtrapati Bhawan and a table clock.

Venus, Federer crash out of singles

BEIJING: On a day of upsets, number seven seed Venus Williams, one of the favourites for Olympic singles gold, was dumped out of the quarter-finals on Thursday by unseeded Chinese player Li Na.

Li, ranked 42nd in the world, beat Williams, the seven-time Grand Slam winner who won singles and doubles gold in the 2000 Games in Sydney, 7-5, 7-5.

Venus’s defeat followed sister Serena’s three-set loss to Elena Dementieva.

Earlier, top seed Roger Federer was sent crashing out of the Olympic tennis quarter-finals 6-4, 7-6 (7/2) by US number one James Blake on Thursday.

Federer was broken when serving for the first set and crushed in the second-set tie-break, suffering his first defeat to Blake in nine meetings and ending his bid for a first Olympic medal.

It was Federer’s third defeat in six matches since losing his five-year Wimbledon crown. He was beaten by Gilles Simon in Canada and then fell to Ivo Karlovic in Cincinnati.

The Swiss will be supplanted by French Open and Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal on Monday after a record four-and-a-half years as number one.

Blake now faces either Paul-Henri Mathieu of France or Fernando Gonzalez, the Chilean 12th seed, for a place in the final.