Raina's impressive 120 in Sri Lanka showed his mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper and when he approached a major individual landmark he underlined his temperament. The left-hander was positive and batted with decisive footwork.

The southpaw's batsmanship stems from a balanced and upright stance. He has an elaborate back-lift and uses it to impart more power and weight behind his strokes. Over the years, he has also worked on straightening his back-swing. Raina is a buzzing left-hander but there have been question marks on his handling of the short-pitched deliveries from the quicks. Fernando did probe him with a few bouncers, but Raina swiftly got out of the harm's way. But then, it would be premature to arrive at a verdict on Raina's ability against short-pitched bowling from his display on this surface. Bigger tests await him on juicy tracks against hostile pacemen.

To think of an Indian Team without Sachin Tendulkar create shivers to many of the Indian supporters. A generation has grown watching him part of the team that brought India to number one position in the cricket world. The cricketers of India over the last two decades owe a lot to this gentleman, as without him cricket would have never become a wealthier game for the players. If Suresh Raina is making millions in cricket it is because of Tendulkar who made the game popular by attracting millions to the TV set with his spectacular innings over the years.

Sachin Tendulkar, foe the nth time came to India’s rescue and reached his double-century in Sri Lanka. The commitment and dedication showed by players is exceptional. He was into the ninth hour of his innings and had been on the field for the whole match, except for perhaps one session. His ageing body had a few visits from the physio.

Indian Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was full of praise for VVS Laxman, calling him "very, very special", after the latter's sublime century helped India win the third Test and level the three-match series against Sri Lanka. Laxman played a painful but elegant knock scoring an unbeaten century to propel India to a five wicket win over Sri Lanka and draw the series 1-1. 

"He (Laxman) proved today why he is called very, very special," Dhoni said. "He always comes up with innings that have a huge bearing on the game. It was very important for him to score runs as the team needed it most to level the series. I think it is a very special innings. Hopefully, he plays plenty more innings like this for us.  "I think the way he batted he paced his innings really well. He was struggling a bit with back spasm but still he wanted to go on without a runner. But after lunch there was a time when he had to go for a runner.

Under fire for the appalling state of preparedness ahead of the Commonwealth Games, Sports Minister MS Gill chose humour to take on the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. With just 55 days left for the games, Gill said there was no alternative but to host them with success. Answering questions on the incomplete stadia, the Sports Minister said, "What is there to examine? Nothing is ready," adding, "if a baraat is coming we will welcome them with fanfare.  Have faith in India.  India will get there." 

Referring to the findings of the Central Vigilance Commission and CAG, he said the agencies must speed up action and "catch whoever is (responsible)" he said, "We will write to the highest authorities to catch the culprits. Will look into everything and bring it before the country," the minister said as the Parliament discussed the Commonwealth Games and the Opposition demanded an explanation for various irregularities.

Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi brushed aside BCCI's refusal of a 100 crore donation towards hosting of the Games, saying the OC would not crash following Cricket Board's snub. The Indian Cricket Board rejected OC's request at its Working Committee meeting in Mumbai. "OC is not going to crash by BCCI's refusal," he retorted.
Kalmadi said he thought the BCCI would be interested in supporting Olympic sports since cricket was a "prime sport" in the country.

"Cricket is prime sport in the country. I thought BCCI would want to support Olympic sport and so I wrote a letter to them. It was one of 100 letters written to different bodies and agencies. Ours is a revenue neutral Games. So we have to see the commercial aspect also," he explained when asked why he wrote the letter to BCCI at the first instance.

Taking eight wickets in the last Test after announcing his retirement is a memorable feat. Among the batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar did it scoring a century playing for World XI after announcing his retirement. Even the great Don failed in his last test. Muthiah Muralitharan, the smiling assassin, did it in great style, reaching to 800 wickets in his last test against India in Galle.

It was Hansie Cronje facing Muralitharan for the first time in 1992 said “he is a bowler with a different and interesting action”. Murali is great learner as early in his career hidden in the shadows; he studied the conditions and batting styles and techniques and began to understand how the game was far tougher than your first-class game. Being such a student, he understood the value of bowling long spells he led the attack against South Africa at SSC in 2006 taking 10 wickets bowling a long spell of 82.2 overs.

Saina Nehwal, the Indian Badminton Queen, after her recent successes, is looking forward to winning more tournaments and not focus on rankings. The shuttler is currently World No. 3. Saina Nehwal, who had a dream run, winning three international titles including the Singapore Open and the Indonesian Open Super Series titles in the last three weeks, says that she can become the World No. 1, but the focus right now has to be on winning tournaments and not on rankings.

The 20-year-old star player was accorded a touching reception on arrival at the Rajiv Gandhi Airport and drove from there in an open top, flower-decked jeep in the company of her sister, Pullela Gopi Chand and BAI official Punnaiah Choudhary. Saina said that it is definitely a nice feeling to be ranked World No. 3 but it also means lot of hard work and that there is a need to keep improving. “Yes, I am aware that I will be the most studied player now.

Former Australian Prime Minister and Cricket Australia’s and New Zealand’s representative John Howard’s appointment was rejected by six of the ICC's ten full members, thought to consist of the subcontinent boards of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as South Africa and the West Indies. Zimbabwe is said to have provided the most vocal opposition privately and led the movement and, though they didn't sign the letter that brought matters to such a head, they are believed to have played a prominent part in the decision. 

The rejection is a big blow to the Cricket Boards of Australia, New Zealand and England with no reason given officially for the rejection. Support for John Howard's appointment to the vice-presidency of the ICC fell away "significantly" in the last week with at least a couple of the boards, which eventually opposed the move, changing their stance in that time.

2010 Airtel Champions League Twenty20 Match Schedule

The 2010 Champions League Twenty20 will see two groups of five teams each competing in a round-robin format, with the top two sides from each group going through to the semi finals. The set-up is a departure from the 2009 edition, which had four groups of three teams, with the two teams from each group advancing to another league stage which determined the semi-finalists. Despite the change, the tournament features the same number of matches - 23 - as last year. The matches have been evenly distributed across four venues, with each stadium hosting at least five games. 

The Mumbai Indians open the event on September 10th against the South African side Lions at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, which also hosts the final on September 26. Mumbai and Lions are part of Group B, along with South Australia, Royal Challengers Bangalore and a team from the West Indies that will be determined in late July.

India go to Sri Lanka next month to play three Tests and a triangular series involving New Zealand. Australia then tour India to play two Tests and three one-dayers during the month of October. New Zealand then tour India to play three Tests the next month before the team flies to South Africa in December for a full tour that ends less than a month before the World Cup.

The national selection committee, which met here on Saturday, decided to recall Yuvraj Singh for the three-Test series in Sri Lanka. Fitness, more than form, was seen as the reason behind the move as he hadn't been in droppable form in international cricket. The drop was seen as a necessary wake-up call for him. Captain MS Dhoni, however, is a big fan of Yuvraj's talent, and could have insisted that he be recalled. The selectors perhaps thought that the necessary message had been delivered.

With India gearing up for a busy season ahead, Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten need to address a few issues besides the visible pitfalls of average fitness and lukewarm fielding. Remove the contributions of Dhoni, Gambhir and Karthik and you end up with a batting vacuum. Suresh Raina (82 runs) and Virat Kohli (67) in the Asia Cup flattered to deceive and these are men who are supposed to put more pressure on an out-of-form Yuvraj Singh. 

Another increasing worry is the fitness woes that have plagued Sehwag, who pulled a hamstring in the latest tournament to add to the shoulder injury that ruled him out of the ICC World Twenty20. In the months ahead, Sachin Tendulkar, with a burning desire to wrest the World Cup, will add lustre to the batting, but the younger lot need to show that they belong at the highest level amidst strife and jangling nerves.

It was a welcome breather for M.S. Dhoni and his men as they scripted a title triumph in a tourist town of rolling hills and verdant views. The last few months have been a downward spiral as the Indians crashed out of the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies and then a pro-youth team slumped in Zimbabwe. 

The victory in the Asia Cup final, on the back of a steady batting performance and incisive seam bowling, will surely offer some relief to a bunch of embattled men. An Indian triumph against Bangladesh seemed set in stone and the team did well to hold its nerve in a humdinger against Pakistan. 

Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni got engaged to his school-time friend Sakshi Singh Rawat at a hotel in Dehradun. "Dhoni and his school friend Sakshi got engaged at hotel Bhagirath in Dehradun," a close family friend said. “Besides, the family members of Dhoni, a few close friends of the cricketer were present during the engagement ceremony," he added.

28-year-old Dhoni and Rawat had been school friends at DAV, Shamily in Ranchi. "Their fathers worked together in MECON, and the Rawats moved to Dehradun after retirement," the friend said. Asked whether any date for marriage has been fixed, he said, "Not yet, maybe after the Australian series.''

Viswanathan Anand, FIDE World Chess Champion, returned to Chennai to a tumultuous welcome at the Anna International Terminal. The bustle and din there gave way to scenes of spontaneous celebrations as airport personnel and passengers joined the well-wishers in according the four-time World Champion a warm welcome. Among the first to greet the champion were his parents, Susheela and Viswanathan.

Anand retained the World Chess Championship on May 11, defeating Topalov by a score of 6.5-5.5 in Sofia. The decisive win came in the 12th game of the match. Making light of a loss in the first game that came on the back of a 40-hour bus journey to Sofia that was occasioned by the cancellation of air traffic all over Europe, Anand raced to a one-point lead at the end of the fourth round. Though Topalov stretched Anand all the way to the 12th game, the Indian triumphed with black pieces in the final encounter to defend his title.

Indian cricket became the victim of political slanging when BCCI refused top send a team to the Asian Games later this year. The sixteenth edition of the Asian Games are to be held in Guangzhou, China, later this year and will be the first to feature cricket among its various disciplines, albeit in the Twenty20 format.  The Congress MP from Pune, Suresh Kalmadi took pot-shots at NCP president Sharad Pawar, without naming him and the Board of Control for Cricket in India for not sending a team to the Asian Games. Kalmadi said, “The BCCI has conveyed its decision of not sending Team India for the Asian Games. This was expected of the BCCI. Yeh to hona hi tha.

“Cricket in India is commercialised and since there is no big prize money involved, I am not surprised at all at the BCCI’s decision,” Kalmadi said. Referring to the last Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia, Kalmadi said, “The BCCI had sent a B-team to Malaysia.

The Sahara Group outbid telecom giants Bharti Airtel to retain the title sponsorship rights of the Indian men's cricket team till the end of 2013. This could fetch BCCI upto Rs 558 crore. The Subrato Roy-headed industrial conglomerate will pay Rs 3.34 crore (A$835k) per international match to have their logo displayed on the Team India jersey.
 
"Sahara India Financial Corporation has been awarded the Indian team (Seniors) Title Sponsorship Rights, for the period 1 July 2010 to 31 December 2013," BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan said in a statement. "The BCCI will be paid Rs. 3.34 crore per Test/ODI/T20 International during this period," the statement added.

Cricket in India has become a highly successful commercial venture. The value of IPL, which started only there years ago, is now more than US$4 billion. As like any other commercial entity BCCI should start thinking about having separate teams for Tests and Twenty-20s. The game is vastly different and the viewers are far apart. While many Test cricket fans will continue to watch the Twenty-20 games it is not true the other way. 

Cricket Australia has started thinking on those lines for a totally different reason. The Aussie Test players are simply not able to adapt to the shorter version. Two of their biggest stars of Test cricket, who are also the Captain and his deputy, have become a failure in the Twenty-20 games which forced Ponting to pull out of the version a year back after IPL dumped him in controversial circumstances. Michael Clarke’s batting failure recently at the World 20-20 tournament will definitely cost his place in the next series.

Gary Kirsten, India's coach, has come down hard on some of the Indian players' "fitness and commitment" after his side failed to win a single game in the Super Eights of the World Twenty20, a repeat performance from last year. 

Before addressing the team and handing them a dressing-down in the West Indies, Kirsten had a one-on-one interaction with senior players - MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra. It is reliably learnt that Kirsten told the group he was angry to see that even he - a 42-year-old - was fitter than some of the players. Yuvraj and Rohit Sharma got special mention with regards to fitness, the sources said. Kirsten demanded better fitness from the players and gave them one month to show results on that front.
 Kirsten also said in the meeting that the players seemed content with the No. 1 ranking in Tests and the No. 2 in ODIs, and were not committed to the team cause in the World Twenty20.

The performance of India's youngsters on the Zimbabwe tour is a worrying sign for country's cricketing future. With the senior players being rested for the series in Zimbabwe, the youngsters had a perfect chance to put their hand up and not just repay the selectors' faith but also prove their ability and technique to play at the international level.

India succumbed to their second defeat against Zimbabwe in the tri-series and the manner of the loss is just as worrying as the defeat itself. India managed just 194 off 50 overs and the hosts chased it down comfortably to win by seven wickets. The team headed to the African nation with a lot of promise. A new look, young Indian team expected to take the responsibility of taking Indian cricket forward in the near future.