2009-Twenty20- World Cup Groups announced

Defending champions India were placed in an easy group A alongside Bangladesh and Zimbabwe for the 2009 ICC Twenty20 cricket World Championships in England.The grouping for the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup was decided in a two-day ICC board meeting, which concluded on Wednesday.The early decision on the matter was taken on the request of hosts England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), who want to proceed with the venue event bidding process which would allow match tickets to go on sale at the earliest.
Since not enough matches have been played in the shortest format of the game to allow viable official rankings, the board decided to group teams on the basis of their finishing positions in the inaugural edition of the championship this year.
ODI World Champions Australia have been placed in group C along with Sri Lanka and West Indies.

The Groups:

Group A: India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe

Group B: Pakistan, England, Associate 1

Group C: Australia, Sri Lanka, West Indies

Group D: New Zealand, South Africa, Associate 2.

Shoaib Akhtar And Sanjay Dutt meeting ON Sunday:

Sanjay Dutt who had a bitter experiences this year has added another admirer to his fan’s kit . It is none other than the Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akthar of Pakistan team .Yes it is said that Shoaib Akhtar is a very big fan of “Munnabhai” and watches all his films. It is also said that the Public relation executive of Shoaib Akhtar is making all arrangements to the meeting of Akhtar and Sanjay.It is said that Shoaib will meet the star inYerwada jail and the Rawalpindi express wants to give a special gift to Sanjay and also the million prayers offered for him by the Pakistanis . If all goes well than the speedster will be meeting Sanjay on Sunday and may be under whole media coverage . So let us hope that he gets the permission and than all can witness the meeting of controversial cricket child with one and only Munnabhai

Sri Lankan Bowler Maharoof To Miss England Cricket Series:

HOBART, Australi — The beleaguered Sri Lankan tourists will be without seamer Farveez Maharoof for this month's home cricket series with England, skipper Mahela Jayawardene said Saturday.The former under-19 skipper suffered a left ankle injury while bowling on the opening day of the second Test here against Australia and sat out Saturday's second day's play.Jayawardene confirmed that the 23-year-old paceman will be out for up to five weeks and was definitely out of the series against England, which gets underway in Sri Lanka late this month.The Sri Lankans are under the pump against the rampant Australians, losing last week's first Brisbane Test by an innings and 40 runs and on the end of another massive Australian innings of 542 for five declared here on Saturday.Jayawardene had to make do with a threadbare strikeforce of just three bowlers and paid dearly.
Lasith Malinga finished with 1-156 off 35 overs, Dilhara Fernando 2-131 off 26 overs and Muttiah Muralitharan 1-140 from 46 overs."Farveez had a scan yesterday and he's got crush fracture in his ankle and it looks like he will be out of the England series," Jayawardene said Saturday."He'll be out for at least four to five weeks, it could be a bit more than that depending on how he will feel especially because he is a fast bowler and he needs to put his weight on that ankle."He'll be definitely out of the England Test series."

Australia's Gilchrist hits unprecedented 100th 6 in test cricket

HOBART, Australia: Adam Gilchrist became the first batsman to hit 100 sixes in test cricket, belting a ball from one of the game's premier bowlers out of the ground in typically swashbuckling style.Now he wants the ball back to keep as a memento.Last seen, it was rolling down a street adjoining Bellerive Oval, with some children chasing it.The 36-year-old Australian vice-captain hit consecutive sixes against Muttiah Muralitharan over mid-wicket late Saturday in the second test against Sri Lanka, the second one going right out of the stadium to notch 6 No. 100."We haven't got the ball back which is a bit frustrating," Gilchrist said. "I'm not a massive collector of memorabilia but I think there's probably a few little bits and pieces every cricketer has stashed away that means something to them."
Unlike baseball, where home run balls can remain in the hands of fans and can be worth a lot of money to the person who catches it, the cricket ball is supposed to be returned to the field before the game continues.If a ball is genuinely lost, a replacement with similar wear and tear is selected by umpires. After a cricket ball has been used for 90 overs, it usually goes to the player who achieved a significant milestone with it."That's a unique little item and I'd love to get it back," Gilchrist said. "There aren't many things that you do in life that you're the only person ever to have done. With that in mind it would be nice to have the ball that notched that 100."

Gilchrist was unbeaten on 67, including three 6s and seven boundaries — when Australia captain Ricky Ponting declared the innings closed at 542 for five, giving Sri Lanka 12 overs to bat before bad light stopped play on day two.It was his 130th test innings — but first in 10 months — in a career spanning 92 matches. His first six in test cricket was at the same venue, when he helped steer Australia to a comeback win over Pakistan in 1999.Nobody else has come close to Gilchrist's rate of clearing the boundaries in the test arena.West Indies great Brian Lara hit 88 sixes in his 131-test career, one more than New Zealander Chris Cairns notched in 62 tests.Viv Richards, another West Indies great who earned the nickname "the Masters Blaster," hit 84 sixes in his 121 test matches in the 1970s and 80s.Earlier in the week, Gilchrist was voted Australia's greatest limited-overs player. He has hit 141 sixes in 275 limited-overs internationals and has a batting strike rate of 96.66 per hundred balls in the shorter format.Gilchrist said he had only really thought about the 100 milestone when he hit Lasith Malinga for sixes earlier in his innings on Saturday."I went 'oh, that's right — it's coming up'... it came into my mindset a bit," he said. "The sixes at the end were very natural free-flowing shots, not trying to bludgeon the ball over the rope."Despite his reputation for big hitting, Gilchrist said he usually finds he hits more sixes when he's concentrating on trying to bat properly and not just slog the ball.And he knows a good shot as soon as he sees it."There is a nano-second, just a moment in time when you are the only person in the whole world who knows that you've hit it right in the middle," he said.