England's hopes of making a game out of their encounter against South Africa would have been raised after they easily bettered Pakistan in their previous game, but the result spoke more about Pakistan's inadequacies than the hosts' own cricket.
South Africa trounced England by seven wickets after having restricted to barely a dozen runs more than 100, getting to the target with much gas in the tank to spare.
Jacques Kallis reinvention as a T20 batsman augurs well for the team, but England's over-reliance on Kevin Pietersen means that the Australian team would be hoping to target the South African-born batsman.
Augurs well for the Ashes, a more even contest in the offing!
Oooh, M.S.Dhoni wins that title without much ado! The dude was at his rasping best in the latest press conference that was called up as he first refused to take questions on Virender Sehwag's possible injury and when questioned about media leakages regarding the same, shot back asking whether he was being accused of doing that!
Within minutes of saying that he had no right to comment on player injuries, and the manager - whoever he was - commenting on how the captain had no way of knowing about player injuries, the BCCI announced that Sehwag was coming back and Dinesh Karthik will be a replacement. What drama!
Clearly, something is not right within the dressing room, and even outside it! After the show of solidarity in the previous press conference, where the entire team had walked out and Dhoni had read out a written statement, the relations between the captain and the media seemed to have worsened.
This seems to be a final straw for many!
While it is not sure what the gravity of the Kevin Pietersen injury is, it has been said that he may need to play through the world's premier test match series with pain-killers and this cannot be good news for the hosts.
Pietersen has been diagnosed with having a back injury, but has not been able to treat it yet, with a calendar that is full of cricket. He is currently featuring in the ICC World T20 and had played in the West Indies series before this, which had been preceded by the IPL.
Immediately after the ICC World T20, England will play hosts to Australia for the Ashes.
On the other hand, Andrew Flintoff who had to cut short his IPL visit due to another injury and did not feature in the West Indies series or the ICC World T20 has begun bowling off his full run-up, but it is not sure whether he will be able to regain his full fitness before the start of the series.
Flintoff had been instrumental in Australia's defeat in the 2005 Ashes.
The India-Pakistan warm-up game is in progress and it can be called anything but a friendly! The crowds have been in raptures for one reason or the other, and apart from the lack of a third umpire, the game looks like the two teams are contesting the finals of a world cup!
I shall be back to post the match review after the game is done, just thought of putting this introductory note here. I will be reviewing all the games in the ICC World T20 of 2009. Hope to get a lot of feedback from you guys!
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