Pakistan in Semi-final of T20 World Cup 2009

Pakistan has qualified for the semi-final stage of T20 World Cup 2009. After the win of Pakistan against the Ireland on Monday confirmed their ticket for the further stage. This is the second time in second edition of T20 World Cup. Last time Pakistan had qualified to the finals and lost against the India. But this year India is already out the tournament.

On Monday, Pakistan beat Ireland by the margin of 39 runs. After the win Pakistan are spotted in the 1st position of the Group F with 4 points. In the other hand, Sri Lanka also have four points but their net run rate is less compared to Pakistan. New Zealand have 2-points which means that they have to win Sri Lanka to qualify for the semis with some greater margin.
Pakistan tam had loose its both warm-ups against the SA and IND before the tournament. It became more criticised after they lost against the England in the first match of the tournament. Lots of pressure on the team in the match against one of the low-ranked Netherlands. But they came well enough to beat Netherlands and had a journey to the Super 8s of ICC T20 World Cup 2009.
Some amount of pressure was released as they were on Super 8s. But here also they had to face defeat against the Sri Lanka in the first match. Now Pakistan needed both the matches on their hand to qualify for further. They did that against both the New Zealand and Ireland and spotted themselves i the semi-final of ICC World Twenty20 2009.
Pakistan bowling attack seemed to be doing excellent throughout the series whereas some little bit of up-downs in the Batting is also seen. Spinners are doing more better job in the middle order whereas pacer are providing fine start to the team's bowling attack. Umer Gul and Saeed Ajmal are two top-listed wicket-taker in ICC World Twenty20 2009. Whereas in batting captain Younis Khan and Kamran Akmal are at the top level from the Pakistan team.
Pakistan had to loose some of its fine player like Shoaib Akhtar and Sohail Tanvir before and during the tournament. But after the Tanvir's return, former ICL player Abdul Razzaq is back on the side and provided good all-round support till now in two matches played by him.
After its confirmation ticket to the semis, it is still undecided with whom they will play. Definitely it will be either South Africa, England or West Indies in the semi-final. Best of LUCK for the Pakistani team and Congratulations for what they achieved.

Dhoni apologetic over Team India's early exit from T20 World Cup

London, June 15 (ANI): Defending Champion Indian cricket' Captain M.S. Dhoni apologised to the countrymen over the team's defeat at the hands of England and having failed to defend the T20 World Cup at Lords.
He also admitted sending Ravindra Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj Singh in Sunday's match was not a right decision.
We are more disappointed (than you). We respect the emotions of our fans and the country. We gave our best and we say that with an open heart, we have nothing to hide, said Dhoni before media.
However, Dhoni said that the next Twenty20 world cup was coming again in nine months and we would have an opportunity of proving ourselves.
We failed in batting. If the opposition scores 153 and you cannot achieve that on a track like this, I don't think there can be any excuse. You just cannot explain that, Dhoni admitted.
On Sunday, Dhoni had sent Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj and himself but the young all-rounder consumed 35 balls for his 25 in the middle overs to put pressure on his batting partners, which ultimately led to India losing the match by three runs to crash out of the tournament.
Sometimes you don't know what would happen. We thought Jadeja could stabilise the innings as well as go after the bowling. He did try but somehow he always found the fielders. It was unfortunate it didn't work for us. We needed somebody to play percentage cricket at that stage.
Conceding that the team's batting was poor, Dhoni, however, defended his decision to include Jadeja in the playing eleven in place of Pragyan Ojha as well as his opting to field after winning the toss.
We lost simply because we did not bat well. I'm rather happy with the performance of the bowlers, he added.
It's not the end of road for us. We will prove a few points to West Indies. We also want to gain a consolation win over South Africa in the final game, Dhoni stated. (ANI)

‘Viru & I know what happened between us’ : Dhoni

LONDON: MS Dhoni almost let the cat out of the bag after India’s agonising exit from the World T20. Having earlier contradicted TOI’s reports ofa rift between him and Virender Sehwag and paraded the entire team in a show of unity, the captain was again asked on Sunday if any dressing-room ‘turbulence’ prompted the early ouster.

Dhoni, while preaching the virtues of keeping dressing-room altercations secret, finally hinted that a difference of opinion had, indeed, taken place. “It’s not like I am holding a bottle… and saying this is drink and drink it. It’s really upsetting before a tournament like this. If you have senior players like Sehwag and Rahul Dravid, you can walk up to them and say this is what happened. They are clever enough to understand what has happened,” said Dhoni, going around in circles.
“Even if there was a fight between me and Sehwag, we two are in the best position to know what happened. We know what’s happening between us and that really does not bother the team environment. The dressing room atmosphere was really great even though we lost quite a few games in this format.”
Surely, discord between two senior players might affect the rest of the team? “If you take it too seriously, more often than not you will not play well. My teammates help in that regard. We joke about the incidents and the pressure gets released. Hopefully, it won’t happen in future and there will be less pressure.”
By all accounts, looking at India’s performance, it appears as if the team did take the controversy seriously.

Fan’s condemn Dhoni’s captaincy

Flashback to September 26, 2007. Lakhs of cricket fanatics poured into the streets of Mumbai to welcome M S Dhoni and his team because they had conquered everything before them to lift the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa.
Cricket crazy India sat up till middle of the night yesterday in the hope that the cricketing gods will deliver again. That was not to be because ‘Mahi’ and his boys committed harakiri against England at the ‘Mecca’ of cricket, Lords.
Matches are won and lost in sports. But what hurt the fans most was the manner in which India surrendered in the games against West Indies and England.
Batsmen like Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina, who had electrified crowds during the Indian Premier League only days earlier, were exposed because rivals exploited their weakness against the short, rising balls.
“I watched the entire match hoping that some miracle will happen and India will win the game, but that was not to be. It is indeed disappointing that such a star-studded team could not make it to the semifinals,” said Samrat Paul, an executive in a multi-national company.
“I think India were done in by poor batting and captaincy. Some of the decisions Dhoni took were indeed baffling and it really cost us the match,” he said.
India’s Twenty20 World Cup campaign came to screeching halt last night after they suffered a heart-breaking three-run loss at the hands of England. They had earlier lost to West Indies in their first Super Eight clash last week. Some fans were extremely critical of Dhoni and said he has become over confident.
“Dhoni is no more the calm and composed captain. He has lost it and it was visible from his conduct with the media on Virender Sehwag’s injury. Over confidence was clearly visible on his face,” said Shweta Thakur, a student.
“He has made a number of captaincy errors during the tournament. I don’t see any reason to push back your in-form batsman (Yuvraj Singh) in the batting order in such a crucial match. He should have gone at number three position in place of Suresh Raina,” she added.
“Even dropping Pragyan Ojha was a wrong decision. Instead of him Ishant Sharma should have been dropped, he did very little in this tournament as well as in the IPL.” Ankush Tiwary, a software professional, feels the Indian captain should introspect his own performance in the Twenty20 World Cup.
“As captain, Dhoni failed to set examples, he was terribly out of touch. In yesterday’s match also, it was Yousuf Pathan who brought the match close and not Dhoni,” he said.

Cricket Fragmented In Uganda, Says Lara

West Indies Cricket legend Brian Charles Lara has said something should be done about the sport in Uganda because it’s very fragmented.“The Uganda Cricket Association must work so hard together with government to be able to attract many people in the sport and thus bring sponsors on board,” said Lara during a send-off dinner at Fang fang Restaurant on Friday.

Al Malik Motors headed by Malik Azhar organised the send-off dinner at which the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga and Sports Minister Charles Bakabbulindi all praised the former West Indies skipper. Lara who said Uganda can create their own stars stressed that better marketing techniques of the sport must be used in Uganda. Azahar, the MD Al Malik Motors thanked Lara for honouring the invite for the dinner and promised to help develop cricket.

Dhoni admits to batting failure

A dejected India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni held his batting colleagues responsible for the team’s aborted title defence in the Twenty20 World Cup and said there cannot be any excuse for their failure to chase down a modest victory target against England.
Chasing 154 against the hosts in the do-or-die Super Eight match, India eventually halted at 150 for five to crash out of title defence and Dhoni had no doubt that the batsmen let the team down.
“We failed in batting. If the opposition scores 153 and you cannot achieve that on a track like this, I don’t think there can be any excuse. You just cannot explain that,” Dhoni curtly said.
“We lost simply because we did not bat well. I am rather happy with the performance of the bowlers,” he added.
Dhoni, however, was candid enough to admit that England bowlers had bounced India out of the match, sending down short-pitch stuff quite consistently.
“They started really well. They looked aggressive and used the bouncers really well. All of a sudden our batsmen could not change their game plan. They used short deliveries very well — bouncers and slow bouncers. That really did the job for them,” he said.
On whether Yuvraj Singh should have batted up the order, Dhoni said, “He could have. But we thought (Ravindra) Jadeja will go in and stabilise the innings. Once me or Yuvi is out there, we can achieve a run rate like nine or 10 an over, since we have Yusuf Pathan and Harbhajan Singh down the order.
“I think more than that, we lost wickets at crucial time. First Jadeja got out and then unfortunately Yuvraj too got out. Those timings were crucial,” he added.
Asked if the team missed the injured Virender Sehwag since makeshift opener Rohit Sharma could not replicate his pool stage form in the Super Eights, Dhoni conceded it was difficult to replace the Delhi batsman.
“Sehwag is a kind of player you cannot really replace and we did miss him. But Rohit was doing the job for us and he scored in quite a few games. Of course with Sehwag there, the batting order looks different. We missed him because of injury and you cannot do much about that,” the Indian skipper said.
His English counterpart Paul Collingwood, meanwhile, was elated with the win and he disclosed that jeers from some Indian fans worked as extra motivation for his side.