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The combination of India and Champions Trophy has been a nightmare for Australia twice in the past, but Ricky Ponting and co. finally ended that jinx, thrashing India by six wickets to emphatically move into the semi-finals of the tournament. A target of 250 should have tested them even on a good batting strip, but their openers got them off to a frenetic start, while Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn ensured there would be no hiccups, both getting to fluent half-centuries as Australia ended the contest with 26 deliveries to spare. India, meanwhile, followed Sri Lanka and Pakistan in exiting the tournament, making it the first time since the 1975 World Cup that no team from the subcontinent has made it to the semi-finals of a major one-day championship.

Australia didn’t have a lot going for them at the start - they lost the toss, had to field first on a pitch which was quite different from the one on which Pakistan were demolished by South Africa’s pace attack, and then had to battle through an early onslaught from Virender Sehwag, another batsman who rediscovered his touch. Sehwag’s 65 and a superbly controlled 52 from Rahul Dravid put India on course for a challenging total, but Australia then took over, pulling it back towards the end with regular wickets. India finished about 20 runs short of the score they would have expected after the start, and then Australia never allowed India a sniff in the field, shutting them out of the contest with some destructive strokeplay in the first 15 overs.

Teams have struggled to bat under lights at Mohali, but the Australians waded into the listless Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel from the start. Taking full advantage of the half-volleys and short balls that were on offer, Adam Gilchrist - who had earlier become the first wicketkeeper…

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Also see Champions Trophy, 2006 

Mitchell Johnson: “I want to try to get around that 150. I’m always trying to bowl quick” © Getty Images

First it was Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar in Malaysia. Then it was Kevin Pietersen and figures of 3 for 40 in a fine performance against England on Saturday. Now Mitchell Johnson has re-set his sights on bowling at 150kph as his promising international career develops quickly.

Talk of Johnson gaining the third fast-bowling spot for the first Ashes Test has gained more momentum after he surprised Pietersen with his pace and then out-thought him during the six-wicket win at Jaipur. Johnson’s figures in his eighth ODI backed up his 4 for 11 in Malaysia last month and he said he was growing in confidence with every match.

As Australia prepared to leave for Mohali, where they will play India on Saturday and aim for a spot in the Champions Trophy semi-finals, Johnson also spoke about his plan for Pietersen, which involved a short ball that struck the bat handle followed by a full one angled across the batsman.

“That one probably zipped through a bit more,” he told AAP. “My plan to him was to get a short one in early and then try to get that nick early. From the footage that I’ve seen, he likes to get forward early. Maybe Andrew Flintoff as well. Shane Watson got him out trying to play the pull shot and got him on the forearm as well, trying to get forward. Maybe that’s a pretty good option with those guys.”

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Damien Martyn: a classy innings to seal England’s fate © Getty images

The pundits had been anticipating a firecracker of a contest to celebrate Diwali, but England’s batsmen and bowlers contrived instead to produce yet another damp squib, as Australia secured an emphatic six-wicket victory in the unofficial Ashes curtain-raiser at Jaipur. In a game full of sub-plots and psychological by-plays, Australia’s greater determination won the day, as they recovered from shaky starts in both innings to win by a margin even more emphatic than the scoreline would suggest.

It was Australia’s young guns, Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson, who stole the show with the ball, grabbing three wickets apiece as England capitulated dismally from 83 for 0 to 169 all out. And then, having lost three early wickets in reply, it was over to the old stager, Damien Martyn, on his 35th birthday, who steadied Australia’s run-chase with a classy and confident 78 that included another filleting of Steve Harmison’s bowling figures. Mike Hussey piloted his team home with an unbeaten 32, as England looked like becoming the first major nation to be eliminated from the ICC Champions Trophy.

It was a typically listless one-day display from England, although in the early exchanges of the innings it looked as though a real contest was on the cards. Ian Bell and Andrew Strauss established an excellent platform for their team with a coolly compiled opening stand, a partnership that included a premeditated assault on Glenn McGrath, who looked sluggish when he entered the attack as first-change, and whose demeanour was not improved when Martyn of all people dropped an absolute sitter at mid-off to reprieve Bell on 23.

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Former Australian captain Steve Waugh has said the International Cricket Council should make Pakistan’s dope-tainted pace duo of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif “pay heavily” if they were proven guilty of using banned drugs.

The pace duo were pulled out of the Champions Trophy in India after they tested positive for banned steroid nandrolone.

“It’s not really associated with cricket but you can’t be too naive to suggest that it wouldn’t happen. Obviously it’s here. Players know the rules and its very strict guidelines and you’ve got to work within those,” Waugh said.

“If you step outside of it then you’ve got to pay the consequences. So I think if they’ve done the wrong thing, they’ll certainly pay pretty heavily for it,” he was quoted as saying by an Australian portal ABC.

Matthew Hayden, Australian Test opener, echoed Waugh’s views. He said the ICC should get tough and send a clear message that drugs were not acceptable in cricket.

“We are very proud of having a clean sport that does its best to maintain the standards so that we pass onto the youngsters a clear message that drugs in our game aren’t acceptable,” he said.

Mark Taylor, another former Australian captain, said Akhtar and Asif had to be dealt with appropriately.

“It’s certainly disappointing for cricket and obviously disappointing for the two gentlemen involved,” he said.

“People like Shoaib Akhtar bring a lot of people to the game but they do have a role to play in the game with what we’re trying to teach our youngsters with what they should and shouldn’t do in sport.

“Obviously (drugs) aren’t a part of sport so they have to be dealt with appropriately.”

Australia will target England skipper Andrew Flintoff when he bats at number three in Saturday’s Champions Trophy match, captain Ricky Ponting said.

“Absolutely,” he told reporters on Friday. “Whenever you’ve that kind of a player up the order, the opposition is thinking the longer he bats, the better for them.”

Flintoff has promoted himself up the order to boost the scoring in the early overs when field restrictions are in place. The move backfired in England’s opening defeat by India when Flintoff was out for a duck.

“Our thinking is if we can have a crack and get him early with the new ball, then that will leave them a bit thin with the power hitters down the ring, which is where he can do a lot of damage,” said Ponting.

“I guess he has always been a middle order batsman and probably hasn’t played enough of the new white ball. Hopefully we can get him out early. All our bowlers are looking forward to that challenge.”

Australia also lost their opening game, West Indies pulling off a 10-run victory in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Ponting denied his side faced extra pressure due to the defeat or because of the hype surrounding the forthcoming Ashes series.

“We’re worried about the one-day game at the moment,” he said. “Test cricket, it is still one month, perhaps even before we start thinking about it.”

India celebrate the largest Hindu festival of Diwali or “Festival of Lights” on Saturday and a packed stadium is expected. The losing team is likely to be eliminated from the tournament.

Also see Champions Trophy, 2006.

Hello old friend: Steve Waugh, Allan Border and Mark Taylor get their hands back on the Ashes

The Ashes urn arrived in Australia for only the second time in 123 years this morning under tight security ahead of the summer’s battle for its ownership. The antique and fragile trophy landed in Sydney in a special carrying case, strapped into a business-class airline seat and handcuffed to the wrist of its curator.

“It’s just the symbol of what cricket’s all about, the great rivalry between Australia and England,” Allan Border, who was on hand to meet the special visitor from London, said. The ten-centimetre wooden trophy is kept at Lord’s and has only returned to Australia twice since it was given to a visiting English captain as a joke during the 1882-83 tour.

“This is an extremely rare opportunity to see the original urn,” the Museum of Sydney’s Beth Hise said. “I can’t see it ever coming back … not in the foreseeable future,” she said. The urn is reportedly insured for a “seven-figure sum” and will tour Australian museums over the next 14 weeks.

The trophy flew in on a Virgin Atlantic flight from London, reportedly with its own ticket made out in the name of “Urn, Ashes, Mr,” guarded by a coterie of security and curators who will take care of its every need during its Antipodean adventure. Only in 1988 has the urn been displayed in Australia and it rarely leaves the Lord’s museum.

Also see The Ashes, 2006.

Adam Gilchrist, one of central figures in the Australian cricket team, and child sponsor with World Vision (an organisation involved in poverty eradication), emphasised on the need for sportspersons to get involved with projects making a positive impact on community development.

“Sport is one of the world’s most powerful tools. We, sportspersons, can make a difference to lives of people less fortunate than us.”

He is the sponsor of an eight-year-old child, Mangesh, living with mother and two brothers in a slum area of Mumbai called Marol, as part of World Vision programme.

Launching World Vision India on Monday at the Taj, Gilchrist informed about his plans to visit Mangesh at home to get first-hand impression of the impact on `child a sponsor’ project on the child, family and community.

Awareness needed

Gilchrist pointed to the necessity for awareness among players about dangers of drugs in the wake of pace bolers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif testing positive for nandrolene. He was responding to a query about the latest development in Pakistan cricket, following an internal drug test by the PCB.

Gilchrist said: “Banned substances have been around in sport and in cricket, for a long time.

It is for the players to be aware about it and keep away. We in Australia are following the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) guidelines.”

Responding to question whether drug use in cricket was common knowledge, in the light of incidents in the past featuring Shane Warne and now involving the two Pakistan bowlers sent back from the Champions Trophy 2006, the Aussie said: “I feel the Pakistan players may have taken it (banned substances) by mistake. We have been through this before, losing Shane Warne before the World Cup, but did not allow the incident to pull us down.” Warne had been sent back from the 2003 World Cup after blood samples revealed presence of hydrochlorothiazide and amiloride, both diuretics normally used to aid temporary weight loss but also masking agents for performance-enhancing drugs.

Australia went on to win cricket’s premier event. The leg-spinner served out a one-year ban.

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting on Tuesday said the doping episode involving Pakistani pacemem Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif had come as a big surprise to his team and recalled how they had come out well from a similar scandal four years ago to win the World Cup.

“We have all been surprised and a bit shocked to know about the allegations. We don’t know much about it. It’s a PCB matter and they have to get to the bottom of this. We have to play tomorrow and that’s all we are focussing on,” he said on the eve of the match against West Indies.

Having gone through a similar scandal involving champion leg-spinner Shane Warne in 2003, Ponting said his squad did well to recover from the mighty blow.

“It was obviously pretty hard for us at that time. We had a team meeting once we found out about Shane’s incident. We decided to get everything out in the open and talk about it as much as we could that night itself so that it didn’t continue the next day into our cricket,” Ponting said.

Like the Pakistan Cricket Board had done prior to this edition’s Champions Trophy, the Australian Board had also tested all its players at home before the World Cup, which resulted in Warne’s positive dope test for a diuretic.

Model batsman: Kevin Pietersen

Ricky Ponting has given Kevin Pietersen a huge boost on the eve of the Ashes by saying he could be the game’s next superstar. Ponting, who is not known for pumping up the opposition, made the claim in his upcoming Captain’s Diary and also said Pietersen was in a group of batsmen alongside Virender Sehwag and Adam Gilchrist who “play without fear”.

“In my view the biggest danger man could be Pietersen, who might even develop into the next superstar of world cricket,” Ponting wrote. “Potentially he’s that good.

“Pietersen is the one who is a standout at the moment. His technique, although it looks a bit different, has stood up very well at international level.”

Pietersen made his Test debut in the 2005 Ashes and was a constant threat as he compiled 473 runs at 52.55. He finished the series with 158 at The Oval, which was an innings that shut the door on Australia’s chances of levelling the contest. Ponting will have another close-up view of Pietersen on Saturday when the teams play in the Champions Trophy in Jaipur.

Also see The Ashes, 2006.

After a series of insipid matches, the Champions Trophy has well and truly come to life, as Pakistan’s stunning victory on Tuesday was followed by an inspired performance by West Indies, who pulled the rug from under the Australians’ feet, sending them spiralling to a ten-run defeat in a pulsating contest. On a Brabourne Stadium pitch that lasted the course much better than its predecessors, West Indies rode on fine performances from Runako Morton (90 not out) and Brian Lara (71) to post 234 for 6, and then restricted Australia to 224 for 9 despite a magnificent and measured 92 from Adam Gilchrist, with Jerome Taylor providing the icing on the cake by becoming the first West Indian to take a hat-trick in ODIs.

From the start, the West Indians showed an intensity that indicated just how keen they were to erase the bad memories of their humiliation against Sri Lanka. Morton and Lara set it up in the afternoon with crucial knocks, while the entire team displayed a desperation that has rarely been in West Indian cricket of late. Chris Gayle, usually one of the most laidback cricketers, epitomised that aggression, going at Michael Clarke with a fierce verbal blast even when West Indies seemed out of the contest. They never let up in the field, and when the 101-run partnership between Gilchrist and Clarke finally ended, the West Indians closed in on their victims like champions.

Australia will feel they should have sealed this one, but the rot started when Gilchrist was involved in a mix-up after a superbly constructed 92. At that stage Australia needed 53 in 50 balls, and with Clarke going strong, they were still favourites. Bravo then chipped in, delivering his famous slower ball to perfection and forcing a return catch out of Clarke (206 for 6). The target was now 29 in 23 balls, but a certain Michael Hussey was still around. That’s when Taylor decided to stamp his authority on the contest. Coming back for a spell in the 48th over, he bowled it fast and straight: Hussey, already frustrated by his inability to get the spinners away, swatted at one and lost his stumps. Next ball, Brett Lee was trapped plumb in front by a fast indipper to end the over. Bravo bowled the 49th, before Taylor returned for the last over and shattered Brad Hogg’s leg stump as he shaped to play to leg. The hat-trick had been sealed, and so had - effectively - the match.

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Injuries and a lack of depth may result in England surrendering the Ashes which they won after a gap of 18 years last summer, former Australian captain Steve Waugh has predicted.

“Australia has the edge for the Ashes. They’re playing in Australia, they’re fairly confident and have been preparing for quite a while now,” Waugh said about the much anticipated series Down Under later this year.

“And, if you’re the best in the world and you lose, you want to win and get back to where you were.” He said that England were plagued by injuries and lacked depth in their ranks unlike the Australians.

“England’s strength in depth isn’t as deep as Australia’s and you need good back-up. Vaughan still has serious doubts about his knee and getting it right is crucial,” the Aussie legend was quoted as saying in London by ‘Herald Sun’.

Waugh was in the British capital for promoting his autobiography ‘Out of My Comfort Zone’.

He said England could not carry forward the momentum of their Ashes triumph in the subcontinent where it lost the Test series 2-0 to Pakistan and drew 1-1 with India.

“Pakistan was a let-down for England and the problem was they weren’t over what happened against Australia last year. The players’ profiles increased and, with the euphoria that went with success, they found it difficult.” Waugh also cast doubts over the feasibility of appointing Andrew Flintoff as a permanent skipper.

“Andrew Flintoff did very well as stand-in captain, but I don’t know whether it’s a long-term option as it would be too great a workload for him.”

See also Ashes, 2006.

Andrew Symonds smashed an unbeaten century to help Australia score a 67-run victory over Bangladesh in the second One-day international here on Wednesday.

The Queenslander’s 103 not out helped the tourists set a tough 251-run target for Bangladesh on a pitch not conducive for strokeplay and the home side were bowled out for 183 in reply.

Captain Habibul Bashar (70) batted well for but could not help prevent the world champions from taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. The 3rd and final one-dayer will be played here on Friday.

Symonds, who came in at the fall of three quick wickets, added 140 for the fourth wicket with Michael Clarke (54) to help the tourists total 250-5. Symonds, who began cautiously, opened up later to smash six fours and two sixes in his fifth hundred in 145 matches.

Clarke was content to nudge the ball for singles during his 18th half-century, hitting just two fours off 90 balls before he was caught by Alok Kapali in the covers off spinner Mohamad Rafique. (more…)

Australia are now heading in the right direction towards reclaiming the Ashes urn when they take on England on home turf later this year, according to captain Ricky Ponting.

Ponting said his team had been playing good quality cricket and had addressed the right areas since their Ashes debacle last season.

“Our Test cricket can’t be faulted, really, since the last Ashes Test match,” he said.

“Everything we have done has been very, very good quality. The areas that we needed to address, I think — after England we have addressed”, he was quoted as saying in ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ on Saturday.

“We have certainly turned a number of things around and we are heading in the right direction. It is great to see Jason (Gillespie) and Michael Kasprowicz back and bowling well and Brett (Lee) in career-best form,” he said.

Ponting also heaped praise on opener Matthew Hayden and middle order batsman Michael Hussey for their performances.

“Matty Hayden is in as good a form as he has ever been. I feel like my game is going really well at the moment, Michael Hussey has barely put a foot wrong, so there are lots of great signs for us come Ashes time.

“I will be very confident going in knowing we have a very good settled line-up and a bunch of guys who are going to do everything they can to try to win the Ashes back,” he said. (more…)

After being on the brink of an embarrassing defeat in the first test, Australia will have a point to prove in the second, Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore warned on Saturday.

Australia needed an unbeaten century from skipper Ricky Ponting to grind out a three-wicket win over Bangladesh in the first test in Fatullah.

“I think the second test is going to be probably harder than the first test,” Whatmore said in a news conference.

“Because the first test gave them a bit of a scare, they are going to come back very hard. It will be the biggest test for us.”

Bangladesh have won only one of their 43 test matches since 2000, that victory coming over a depleted Zimbabwe side.

The Bangladeshis also lost their first two tests against Australia in 2003 by an innings.

But Bangladesh skipper Habibul Bashar said the first test would have given his team confidence to face Australia in Chittagong on Sunday.

“We will take to the field with more confidence riding on the achievements of the first test,” Bashar said.

Bashar added that while Australia were undoubtedly flagging after their tour of South Africa, Bangladesh had also had a tough schedule.

“We are also pretty tired playing Sri Lanka and Kenya in February and March,” he said.

See also Australia vs Bangladesh, 2006.

In the end, the scorebooks will record that on April 13, 2006 Australia beat Bangladesh by three wickets at Fatullah. But that does little to showcase a thrilling match in which Bangladesh were the dominant side for the better part. On a frenetic fifth afternoon - a day this match was not even supposed to go into - Ricky Ponting’s awesome 118 not out sealed a great win but the battle was much, much harder than it seemed.

Those who have followed this match knew that another classic twist was always around the corner as Ponting marched into the nineties. Brett Lee was dimissed for a vital 29 by Mashrafe Mortaza - rewarding his captain’s decision to take the new ball - and then Ponting was given a slice of luck that had Bangladesh going into lunch shaking their heads. Shahadat Hossain banged one short, Ponting swiveled into his favourite shot, the ball spiralled high to deep backward square leg where Mortaza dived and dropped a swirling chance. A push through covers for four off Mortaza brought Ponting his sensational hundred and the bowler walked back to his mark knowing that he had dropped the match.

A flurry of boundaries after the interval took Australia to within three runs of victory and all but sealed the affair, but still Bangladesh refused to cave in. Shahadat sent down three bouncers in a row to Ponting, one of which struck him square in the helmet. Bowler stared down batsman, words were exchanged, and in the end the match concluded in the same in-your-face aggression that had played out for four days. (more…)