Dhoni-Got to win it for Sachin

With a little over 2 weeks to go for the most awaited Cricketing carnival in the world, Indian skipper Dhoni and his band of merry men are high on hopes. Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir appeared observant at a promo here in Delhi yesterday.

And captain man Dhoni had something to tell to his teammates – take the “pressure” of playing in the backyard as additional responsibility and privilege and consistency is bound to be rewarded in the end. Dhoni reminded his players of their chief goal they have this time- we need to win the World Cup for Sachin Tendulkar.

Dhoni is only the third player after Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan to express this desire as this is the last Cricket world Cup Master Blaster will be playing.

Dhoni is assured of the rapport the players share in the dressing room and said the team stands a great likelihood of clinching the cup if they perform to their potential.

ICC World Cup 2011 Finale in India

Cricket-crazy nation India is all set to host the 10^th ICC World Cup 2011 along with neighboring countries Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Scheduled to be played between February to early April 2011, the biggest cricket carnival in every four years, will see fourteen national teams vie for the coveted cup. Terror threats had earlier forced ICC to pull out Pakistan from the

list of host countries in the sub-continent.Bangladesh will be hosting the tournament opener on 19^th February at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur along with eight other matches, while Sri Lanka gets to host a dozen matches. India, on the other hand, will be hosting the largest number of the World Cup Matches to be played in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata Nagpur, New Delhi and Mohali.

Cricket happy India gets to host a whopping 29 matches out of the proposed 49 including the most awaited grand finale at Wankhede, Mumbai. Mumbai is also ICC headquarters for the entire series.

Kapil Dev: India’s got the edge

Kapil Dev, who brought home the WC Trophy for the first and the only time until now in 1983, said on Friday that with a prominent batsmen line which includes Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh, India is sure contender for the tenth Cricket World Cup 2011 to be hosted in the Indian subcontinent starting 19 February. And with an irresolute bowling the team becomes even more depended on the batsmen. Dev also mentioned about the “pressure” from the media when the team plays on its homeland and thus the team members need to steer clear of any obvious strain.

As per Dev, the definite runners for the World Cup 2011 include England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Australia and South Africa with India being his clear favorite.

Meanwhile, the 28 years old no-nonsense hard-hitting batsman and the in-form off spinner Yusuf Pathan also maintained that the team needs to avoided being affected due to the immense stress of expectations.

Sree Santh vents on Facebook & Twitter

Sree Santh’s exclusion from the upcoming World Cup 2011 has left the greatest left-arm fast bowler of all times and Pakistan’s most well-known skipper, Wasim Akram, surprised. Having bowled pretty well in the current matches particularly recently against South Africa, Sree Santh also pulled out several important wickets in the Tests and with his improved approach Sree Santh should not have been missed remarked Akram.

Veteran Indian batsman Sourav Ganguly was also taken aback by the BCCI’s decision to skip pacer Sree Santh in the World Cup 2011 Squad in spite of his form and performance. Terming it a substantial gamble, Dada raised concerns in case Dhoni was hurt around the WC matches. Ganguly played his last World Cup in the Caribbean in 2007.

Thousands of fans have emphasized with the cricketer who expressed his disappointment even with comments on his Facebook and Twitter on not having being selected for the World Cup slated to be played in the Subcontinent in the coming months. Sree Santh tweeted on 17 January he is “very Heart broken…but its lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself. Jai mata di.”

TSD powers in partners the official & exclusive Website of Sree Santh.

India features in the Group-B in the World Cup which also includes Bangladesh, England, South Africa, West Indies, Ireland and The Netherlands.

India is playing the World Cup inaugural match against Bangladesh in Mirpur on February 19.

"Ishant needs to learn from mistakes"

Ishant Sharma needs to learn from mistakes and not repeat them said former Indian batsman turned commentator and television compère, Sanjay Manjrekar in an interview Saturday last week.

Manjrekar went on to say, “Ishant has not quite gone to the next level. When we saw him first, he seemed like a world-beater. However, for some reasons he has fallen away…and his bowling is not that potent.”

The batsman known for his less notable career performances was all praises for bowler Sree Santh on the other hand, for his attacking bowling despite a lot of velocity & rebound in the match series against host team, South Africa.

TSD powers the official website of Ishant Sharma IshantWorld.com as also his official Facebook & Twitter profile.

India beat New Zealand 4th ODI | 4-0

India hunted down the Kiwis 315/7 to win the fourth ODI consecutively, in Bangalore, getting a 4-0 advantage in the five match series even as New Zealand succumbed to their 10th straight loss in one day international cricket.

Irfan Pathan seized three crucial wickets while also scoring his first-ever one-day international century 123 out of 96balls. Together with Saurabh Tiwary the duo took the team to reach the target with seven balls remaining, sharing a terrific partnership of 133 runs. The match saw the highest successful run chase in the city. James Franklin played remarkably in the first half hitting an awesome 98 from 69 balls to make New Zealand build a score of 315/7.

India vs New Zealand | 3-0

In the second ODI at Jaipur on Dec 1, stand-in captain Gambhir and Sree Santh led India to victory. Gambhir’s ton (138 off 116 balls) helped produce a big score of 259 runs even with seven overs to spare.

Gautam Gambhir smacked a second successive century (126 not out) at the third ODI at Vadodara on Dec 4 hammering New Zealand by nine wickets to take an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the five-match series. Virat Kohli hit an impressive 63 runs with six overs.

Having stamped three out of the five match series, an upbeatndian side will take on the Kiwis in a rather relaxed way on the fourth ODI at the M. Chinaswamy stadium at Bengaluru on Tuesday tomorrow.