Top 4 ODI teams to start test match on 26th December

On 26th December, The top 4 ODI cricket teams will be starting to play test match :-) It will be India playing Australia at Melbourne, Australia. This will be the first test match of the series which will be played between both teams. On the other hand, Srilanka will be playing  South Africa at Durban, South Africa and this will be the second test match of the series played between them.

I can better say it's MS Dhoni vs Michael Clarke's boys in IND-AUS series and Tillakaratne Dilshan vs Graeme Smith's boys in SL-SA series.

For IND-AUS, it will be a 4 test match series. This will be the first test match between them.

For SL-SA, it's a 3 test match series. Already, one match has been completed. South Africa won the match by an innings and 81 runs. SA is leading SL by 1-0.

People to be watched out in both the series are Vernon Philander, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, Mahela Jayawardena, Kumar Sangakarra, Angelo Mathews, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey, James Pattinson, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.

ICC World Cup 2011 updates: Day 16 Match 1

Today its the 16th day of the cricket's biggest event ICC World Cup 2011. On this day 2 matches are being played. First match is between South Africa and England at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, India. England won the toss and they chose to bat first.

Andrew Strauss failed to score even a single run and was duck out playing only 3 deliveries. Even Kevin Pietersen got out in the first over itself. Ian Bell came in to bat and he was back to pavilion scoring only 5 runs. At this point of time, England were 15 for the loss of 3 wickets. Ravi Bopara came to bat and partnered with Jonathan Trott to put up a partnership of 99 runs.  Ravi Bopara scored 60 runs and Jonathan Trott scored 52 runs. This helped England to come out of the worst situation and gained some confidence. South Africa after breaking this partnership, easily managed to remove all the remaining wickets. England counld not sustain the bowling attack and finally surrendered scoring a total of 171 runs in 45.4 overs (ENG - 171/10, 45.4 over). Imran Tahir took 4 wickets and Dale Steyn took 3 wickets.

South Africa needed only 172 runs to win the match. Hashim Amla and the skipper Graeme Smith opened the batting innings. They both started off well and made a strong position. Their partnership was 63 runs before Graeme Smith gave asimple catch to Matt Prior bowled by Graeme Swann. After this break, England started to gave some pressure, Stuart Broad came back strongly and managed to remove Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis. AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis started to build up some partnership that helped South Africans to score some good runs. But this did not last long, James Anderson came in and took 2 crucial wickets at crucial stages. South Africa scored only 3 runs loosing 4 wickets quickly. After this, Stuart Broad cleared the lower order and did the job for England. South Africa were all out scoring only 165 runs in 47.4 overs (SA - 165/10, 47.4 over). Stuart Broad took 4 wickets.

England won the match by 6 runs. Man of the match was Ravi Bopara.

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ICC World Cup 2011 updates: Day 13 Match 1

Ahhh!!!! Thursday was the 13th day of the ICC World Cup 2011. On this day 2 matches were played, the first match played between South Africa and Netherlands at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, India. The toss went into the favor of Netherlands and they let the South Africans to bat first.

Hashim Amla and Graeme Smith opened the batting innings for RSA. They started off pretty decently and put up a partnership of 51 runs in 12.5 over. First man to get out was the skipper Graeme Smith where he was bowled out by Bernard Loots. It was not a big day for Jacques Kallis as he departed scoring only 2 runs. After the second fall, AB de Villiers came in to bat and partnered with Hashim Amla to put up a partnership of 221 runs. Hashim Amla scored 113 runs in 130 balls and AB de Villiers scored 134 runs in just 98 deliveries that included 13 fours and 4 sixes. After the fall of the both, JP Duminy came in and just quick fired to score a total of 40 runs in just 15 deliveries that included 2 fours and 4 sixes with a strike rate of 266.67 runs per ball. In 50 overs, RSA managed to score a total of 351 runs with the loss of 5 wickets (RSA - 351/5, 50 over). Ryan ten Doeschate took 3 wickets for Netherlands.

Netherlands needed 352 runs to win the match. As in the case of Ireland and England match, this match will not have that much hope as they were facing the most dominant team in the world. For the first 5 overs, Netherlands somehow managed to put up some runs without loosing any wickets. But after this they started to loose wickets and kept on loosing in regular intervals. Their asking rate kept on increasing and the South Africans looked dominant. By 34.5 overs, south Africans managed to remove all the wickets of Netherlands to end up their total score to 120 runs (NED - 120/10, 34.5 over). Imran Tahir took 3 wickets.

South Africa won the match by 231 runs. Man of the match was AB de Villiers for his magnificent century.

South Africa won the match against West Indies in the 2nd ODI

Hi friends, good morning to all of you. Yesterday night i had posted only the first innings of South Africa. South Africa had scored 300 runs loosing 5 wickets. West Indies went down to chase the score with openers Chris Gayle & Dale Richards opening the batting innings for their side.

West Indies gave a slow start where their asking rate was above the current run rate. Chris Gayle got out when he had scored only 26 runs & Ramnaresh Sarwan went back to pavillion as he had got retired out. Their was one good partnership which was between Kieron Pollard & Dwayne Bravo. After this they were loosing wickets in a very regular fashion. Ramnaresh Sarwan was back when West Indies lost their 7th wicket & hopes were almost gone. But he played just one delivery & got out. There a quick fire from Darren Sammy who scored 58 runs from just 24 deliveries which included 2 fours & 6 sixes. Again West Indies hopes were high , but this did not happen as they lost their last 3 wickets in run outs only. This was unwanted loss for West Indies, in 48.1 overs they scored 283 runs & lost all 10 wickets. Darren Sammy was not out scoring 58 runs.

Hence, South Africa won the 2nd ODI match by 17 runs. 3rd ODI will be played on 28th of May.