India is at the top in ODI

India has regained its No.1 spot in ODI rankings after South Africa’s lost its initial match against Sri Lanka in Champions Trophy at Super Sport Park on Tuesday.

Australia went down to England by four wickets in the final ODI of the seven match series in Durham. As a result, Australia fell to third spot again with South Africa retaining the number- two spot in the recent ICC ODI rankings. But now again after its defeat to Sri Lanka, South Africa has once again gone back to number 3 and Australia got its second position.

Now South Africa is at the third position with 123 points and India is just a few points ahead of both the teams. But everything will be clear as the quest for the Champions Trophy advances in South Africa.

IPL loses Rajasthan Royals

Earlier IPL star Shane Warne says that he’s disappointed after his Rajasthan Royals were knocked out of the Indian Premier League on Wednesday.

The defending IPL champs lost by four wickets to Kolkata at Kings-mead, meaning they cannot make this year’s semi-finals.

“It’s really disappointing but we were just not good enough the whole tournament,” Warne, the Royals captain, said.

Laxmi Shukla hit an unbeaten 48 while South African Charl Langeveldt took three wickets to lead Kolkata to victory with three balls to spare. After a disciplined fielding performance to restrict Rajasthan to 9-101, Kolkata stammered in reply at 6-45 and it seemed as though Rajasthan would surely enter the semis.

But man-of-the-match Shukla cracked three boundaries and two sixes in 46 balls, and shared a match-winning unbeaten stand of 57 with Ajit Agarkar, who was 13 not out.

In the day’s other game, Chennai Super Kings successfully defended 9-116 to beat Kings XI Punjab by 24 runs and join league-leading Delhi Daredevils in Friday’s semi-finals.

Super King’s captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni loaded praise on Sri Lankan spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan after his man of the match display.

The Sri Lankan off-spinner finished with 2-8 off four overs.

“I think Muralitharan put pressure on the opposition nicely. They just wanted to play him through because the target was not big and I think that was a mistake,” said Dhoni.

“Because on this kind of track, even the best of spinners, you want to put pressure on them.”

Muralitharan was excellently backed by off-spinners Suresh Raina (2-17) and Ravichandran Ashwin (2-13). The trio conceded only 38 runs off 12 overs.

Australian paceman Brett Lee had an impact preventing the Chennai batsmen from scoring freely, conceding only 16 in his four overs.

Chennai added 40 for the opening wicket off just 4.5 overs through India’s Parthiv Patel (32) and Australian George Bailey (15), but lost their way after the openers’ dismissals. Raina was the other main scorer with 20.

29 Matches of 2011 Cricket World Cup to be played in India

The International Cricket Council has proclaimed that India will host 29 matches out of the 49 matches, including one semi-final and the final, in the 2011 World Cup. Sri Lanka will stage 12 matches and the other 8 matches will be held in Bangladesh. This was certain at a meeting of the tournament’s organising committee in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Bangladesh will stage the opening ceremony on February 18, followed by the opening match on February 19.

The matches will be held across 13 venues.

The ICC also declared to shift the Cricket World Cup Secretariat from Lahore to Mumbai.

Meanwhile, BCCI chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the Managing Director of the 2011 World Cup.

Deccan beat Bangalore

Hyderabad 184/6 (20.0 overs) RR: 9.2					1st Innings
Batting	Status	R	B	4s	6s	S/R
Adam Gilchrist (C) (W)	c Virat Kohli b Kevin Pietersen	71	45	6	5	157.78
Herschelle Gibbs	lbw b Praveen Kumar	13	7	1	1	185.71
VVS Laxman	c Dale Steyn b Jesse Ryder	5	10	0	0	50.00
Rohit Sharma	c Kevin Pietersen b Dale Steyn	52	30	1	5	173.33
Scott Styris	c Praveen Kumar b Kevin Pietersen	14	8	0	1	175.00
Venugopal Rao	run out (Karan Sharma)	9	13	0	0	69.23
Dwaraka Ravi Teja	not out	8	5	1	0	160.00
Fidel Edwards	not out	3	2	0	0	150.00
Harmeet Singh
RP Singh
Pragyan Ojha
(b: 0, lb: 8, wd: 1, nb: 0, penalty: 0) extras: 9		184
Did not bat: Harmeet Singh, RP Singh, Pragyan Ojha Fall of Wickets (Hyderabad) 1-46 Herschelle Gibbs (3.5 ov), 2-66 VVS Laxman (7.1 ov), 3-127 Adam Gilchrist (13.1 ov), 4-147 Scott Styris (15.3 ov), 5-172 Rohit Sharma (18.2 ov), 6-174 Venugopal Rao (19 ov) Bowling (Bangalore) Bowler O M R W NB WD E/R Praveen Kumar 4 0 37 1 0 0 9.25 Dale Steyn 3 0 21 1 0 0 7.00 Jacques Kallis 2 0 19 0 0 0 9.50 Anil Kumble 4 0 39 0 0 0 9.75 Jesse Ryder 3 0 29 1 0 1 9.67 Kevin Pietersen 4 0 31 2 0 0 7.75 Bangalore 160/8 (20.0 overs) RR: 8 2nd Innings Batting Status R B 4s 6s S/R Jesse Ryder b Fidel Edwards 0 1 0 0 Robin Uthappa (W) c Dwaraka Ravi Teja b Scott Styris 12 19 1 0 63.16 Jacques Kallis c Rohit Sharma b RP Singh 15 14 3 0 107.14 Kevin Pietersen (C) st Adam Gilchrist b Pragyan Ojha 11 15 1 0 73.33 Rahul Dravid c Venugopal Rao b Scott Styris 48 27 5 2 177.78 Virat Kohli c Herschelle Gibbs b RP Singh 50 32 7 0 156.25 Rajesh Bishnoi run out (Adam Gilchrist) 1 2 0 0 50.00 Karan Sharma c Adam Gilchrist b Scott Styris 1 3 0 0 33.33 Praveen Kumar not out 14 6 0 2 233.33 Anil Kumble not out 1 1 0 0 100.00 Dale Steyn (b: 0, lb: 1, wd: 6, nb: 0, penalty: 0) extras: 7 160 Did not bat: Dale Steyn Fall of Wickets (Bangalore) 1-0 Jesse Ryder (0.1 ov), 2-19 Jacques Kallis (3.5 ov), 3-38 Robin Uthappa (7.2 ov), 4-62 Kevin Pietersen (10.3 ov), 5-115 Rahul Dravid (15.4 ov), 6-123 Rajesh Bishnoi (16.3 ov), 7-134 Karan Sharma (17.4 ov), 8-158 Virat Kohli (19.4 ov) Bowling (Hyderabad) Bowler O M R W NB WD E/R Fidel Edwards 4 0 39 1 0 1 9.75 RP Singh 4 0 17 2 0 0 4.25 Harmeet Singh 4 0 44 0 0 4 11.00 Pragyan Ojha 4 0 27 1 0 0 6.75 Scott Styris 4 0 32 3 0 1 8.00 Powerplay: 1-6