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Cricket: BCCI diktat IPL teams
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has on Tuesday asked all the 10 IPL franchise not to sign any domestic players for IPL-4.

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1,342 cricket teams in fray for Himachal’s T-20 league
The second edition of the Jaypee Twenty20 ‘Mahasangram’, a local version of Twenty20 league and billed as the world’s largest cricket tournament, began in Himachal Pradesh Monday, an organiser said here.

Read more on Calcutta News

ACL championship battle pits teams from Iran, South Korea
Asia is a fast-moving place and the Asian Champions League is a fast-growing competition. The tournament has come a long way since 1967, when Israel’s Hapoel Tel Aviv reigned. It has also come a long way since the format was revamped in 2003 to resemble its European big brother. There has been the occasional hiccup along the way, but the increase in prize money from $4 million in 2008 to $20 …

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South Africa tours India to play 3 Test Cricket Matches from 26th March to 15th April.

Both teams are coming from successful overseas tours. South Africa just finished their tour of Bangladesh where they won all the test and ODI matches and even moved past the world champions Australia as the best ranked ODI side. Even though India lost the test series 2-1 in Australia they won the Commonwealth Bank ODI Series beating Australia in the finals 2-0. Both teams are equal strong but the home environment will give India a small advantage.

A Brief History

In 1991, nearly 22 years after being isolated from the international fold due to apartheid, South Africa arrived in India for a three-match one-day series. And in 1992 India had the privilege of being the first international side to play a Test in South Africa since 1970. Here are the past series and results.

1991-92 in India – India won the ODI series 2-1

1992-93 in South Africa – South Africa won the Test and ODI series 1-0 and 5-2

1996-97 in India – India won the Test series 2-1

1996-97 in South Africa – South Africa won the Test series 2-0

1999-00 in India – South Africa won the Test series 2-0. India won the ODI series 3-2

2001-02 in South Africa – South Africa won the Test series 1-0

2004-05 in India – India won the Test series 1-0

2005-06 in India – ODI Series drawn 2-2

2006-07 in South Africa – Africa won the Test series 2-1. South Africa won the ODI series 4-0. India won the only Twenty20 international.

Here is the schedule for this series

1st Test – 26th to 30th March 2008 – MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

2nd Test – 3rd to 7th April 2008 – Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad

3rd Test – 11th to 15th April 2008 – Green Park, Kanpur

The Teams

Both sides got many experienced as well as young talented players.

Indian Team – Anil Kumble (Captain), MS Dhoni (Vice-captain/wicket keeper), Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Wasim Jaffer, Murali Kartik, VVS Laxman, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Virender Sehwag, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh

South African Team – Graeme Smith (Captain), Ashwell Prince (Vice-captain), Hashim Amla, Mark Boucher(Wicket keeper), AB de Villiers, Jean-Paul Duminy, Paul Harris, Jacques Kallis, Neil McKenzie, Morne Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn, Monde Zondeki

Watch the Matches Live

As the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry of India decided not to term this test series a “event of a national importance”, the first match will not be aired on Doordarshan (DD), nor on All India Radio (AIR), leaving several hundred million fans without access to the game. The fates of the other two matches are also uncertain. Most probably they also will not be aired for the general public.

Asia rules Imagine Cup; three U.S. teams bring home awards
It was all Asia at the 2010 Imagine Cup on Thursday. Students from Thailand, Taiwan, China and the Phillipines all won first place in their categories for creating software that aims to solve world problems. No teams from the United States placed in the main …

Read more on seattlepi.com

Cricket South Africa has named its final 15-man squad for the ICC World T20 to be played in England in June. The squad consists in the main of the players who won the two Pro20 Internationals against Australia earlier in 2009 and contains no new caps.

Selection chief Mike Procter said that our cricket is entering an exciting period, We are top of the ODI rankings but have never won a major trophy and this presents the opportunity to do so in a limited-overs format. The players are all in good form and it is particularly pleasing to have so many quality all-rounders at our disposal. As always there are a couple of unlucky players and that emphasises the excellent competition we have for places. Form in the Pro20 domestic competition was a key factor in our selection process and it was encouraging to note how high the standard of our domestic cricket is at the moment.

South Africa Twenty20 International Team:

Graeme Smith (Cape Cobras, captain)
Johan Botha (Warriors, vice-captain)
Yusuf Abdulla (Dolphins)
Mark Boucher (Warriors)
AB de Villiers (Titans)
JP Duminy (Cape Cobras)
Herschelle Gibbs (Cape Cobras)
Jacques Kallis (Warriors)
Albie Morkel (Titans)
Morne Morkel (Titans)
Justin Ontong (Cape Cobras)
Wayne Parnell (Warriors)
Robbie Peterson (Cape Cobras)
Dale Steyn (Titans)
Roelof van der Merwe (Titans).

Meanwhile India has rewarded Rudra Pratap Singh and Pragyan Ojha for their recent good form by including them in its 15-man squad to defend the World Twenty20 title. Left-arm samer Singh, who last donned India colours against England in November 2008, was recalled after picking 12 wickets from six games in the ongoing Indian Premier League in South Africa.

Ojha, a left-arm spinner, is the second-most successful Indian bowler in the IPL after his Deccan Chargers teammate Singh, with 10 wickets in six matches.

Singh grabbed 12 wickets in the inaugural Twenty20 Worlds in South Africa in 2007 – one less than leading taker Umar Gul of Pakistan – to fashion India’s spectacular title-winning campaign.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team will also be bolstered by the inclusion of pace spearheads Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, who both missed the World championships two years ago.

The selectors retained nine members of the winning squad, leaving out seamers Ajit Agarkar, Joginder Sharma and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, batsmen Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthick, and spinner Piyush Chawla.

Veteran batsman Sachin Tendulkar, the world’s leading run-getter in both Test and 50-overs-a-side cricket, has made himself unavailable for Twenty20 internationals despite leading Mumbai Indians in the IPL.

India has a good Twenty20 record, with eight wins in 13 matches so far but since beating Pakistan in the 2007 final in Johannesburg the Indians have lost three of their five matches, including both games on the recent tour of New Zealand.

India are drawn with Ireland and Bangladesh in the preliminary round of the 2009 tournamen, to be played in London and Nottingham over June 5-21.

Indian Twenty20 International Team:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain)
Virender Sehwag (vice-captain)
Gautam Gambhir
Suresh Raina
Yuvraj Singh
Yusuf Pathan
Rohit Sharma
Harbhajan Singh
Zaheer Khan
Ishant Sharma
Praveen Kumar
Rudra Pratap Singh
Ravindra Jadeja
Pragyan Ojha
Irfan Pathan.

Coach: Gary Kirsten (South Africa).

my picks are
EUROPE (13) Netherlands, Italy, Serbia, France, England, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, Poland, Croatia

AFRICA (5 +host) South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon

ASIA (4 or 5) Australia, Japan, South Korea, Iran
OCEANIA (1 or none) New Zealand

SOUTH AMERICA (4 or 5) Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay
NORTH AMERICA (3 or 4) USA, Costa Rica, Honduras
egypt would be my 5th arican team

ICC mulls increasing World T20 teams
Calcutta: The International Cricket Council (ICC) Thursday said, in a media release, that it may consider increasing the number of participating teams in the World Twenty20 while reducing the number in the 50-over World Cup.

Read more on The Telegraph

europe(13)
england,france,italy
germany,spain,czhech republic
sweden,scotland,turkey
greece,portugal,ukraine
holland
asia(4.5)
japan,south korea
australia,bahrain
saudi arabia
aceania(0.5):none
africa(5+1):south africa,tunisia,cameroon
ivory coast,nigeria,ghana
north america(3.5):
usa,mexico,cost rica
south america(4.5):
brazil,argentina,paraguay,
colombia,uruguay.
ecuador in south america ,
u little ass hole