Australia defeated West Indies and won the series by 2-0

Australia defeated West Indies in second test by 177 runs and won the series by 2-0. Australia won the first test in Hobart by inning and 212 runs. West Indies got out at 282 runs in second inning of the second test at Tuesday.

Celebration after series win.

Before this, Australia declared his second inning at 179 runs after loss of three wicket and took a lead of 459 runs. More concerning, West Indies bowlers could take only six wickets in the match and allowed Smith’s men to pile on 551 runs in the first innings.

West Indies scored 146 runs for loss of four wickets up to tea session. For the sixth wicket, Captain Jason Holder and former captain Dinesh Ram din had a partnership of 100 runs, , but all-rounder Mitchell Marsh broke the partnership with some fiery pace bowling and took 4-61 to complete the triumph.

Due to sudden fall of last 4 wickets, West Indies lost the match before 1.3 overs of the game.  West Indies batsmen battled hard in sublime conditions but were bowled out for 282 in the penultimate over of the day.

Even though Darren Bravo and opener Rajendra Chandrika batted doggedly after lunch, there was no stopping the Australian pacers as Peter Sidle, Mitch Marsh and James Pattinson got into the act.

Holder scored 68 runs in 86 balls and Ram din scored 59 runs in 90 balls, which is the best score in last two years for him. Spinner Leon was declared as the Man of the Match who took 7 wickets. All-rounder Michel Marsh took four wickets for 61 runs in second inning.

Bravo (21 off 61) batted stoically for over 22 overs before falling victim to a peach by Sidle – caught behind by Peter Neville.

Carlos, who scored 59 runs in first inning, got out at the delivery of Leon. Marsh send Captain Holder back to pavilion who was caught out at mid-off by Hazelwood.

Hazelwood had Darren Bravo caught behind for 12 on the first ball of the last over before lunch, but a TV replay showed the bowler had over-stepped his crease.

After dismissing Roach, pace man James Pattinson ran in from long leg to complete a fine catch after Jerome Taylor slogged Marsh high into the sky, and the Australians celebrated finishing their work a day early.

The no-ball was the third to deny Australia wickets in the match, with James Pattinson reprieving fellow pace man Carlos Brathwaite twice on day three, allowing the Barbadian to score 59 on debut.

Smith scored 70 runs and became the highest scorer of the year in test cricket. He has scored 1474 runs in this year with an average of 73.70. England’s batsmen Joe Rout is at second position who scored 1372 runs this year.

Having beaten New Zealand 2-0 at the start of the home summer, Australia captain Steve Smith celebrated his second series win in charge following the retirement of Michael Clarke.

“We probably let ourselves down a little bit, obviously with the no-balls,” he told reporters after winning the game.

“I don’t think we dropped our level, it was a tough wicket to take wickets on. You really had to grind it out and work extremely hard,” he further added.

“We got the job done.”

West Indies captain Jason Holder, who top-scored for his side with a defiant 68, said the loss “hurt” but he was comforted by his team’s improvement from Hobart, where they were thrashed by an innings and 212 runs and roundly condemned for a perceived lack of effort.

“We probably showed a lot more belief when we went into bat,” Holder told reporters after losing the match.

“Obviously our bowlers still need to be a lot more disciplined,” he further added.

Real Madrid Out Of the Kings Cup

Game Disciplinary committee of Spain has taken a very strict action against Real Madrid team for allowing to play Denis Cheryshev in a game and hence Real Madrid team is now out of the Kings Cup Tournament to be played.

Denis Cheryshev is facing a ban of one match and was supposed to not play the match played in the beginning of this month. But Real Madrid selected Denis in the team squad in the beginning of this month and allowed him to play the match and Denis also scored a very first goal in the match, which was won by Real Madrid by 3-1.

Disciplinary committee of Spain rejected the appeal of Real and finally took a decision to throw out the Real Madrid of the Kings Cup. Apart from this decision, Disciplinary committee of Spain also ordered club to submit a fine of six thousand Euro due to above offence.

On the other hand, Argentina star striker Lionel Messi, who play for the best football club of Spain, took part in the practice session for the club after getting his recovery from his injury. Barcelona has to play his next match against Real Betis at Wednesday.

According to the news agency AFE, Messy did not participate in the practice session of the club at Sunday. He has been awarded this year by the award of best football player of the world. In order to participate in the award function, Messy was in Dubai at Sunday.

Messy will play his 500th match against Bettis. Barcelona is at the top position of the league with 35 numbers, while Atletico Madrid is at second position of the league. Real Madrid has got the third position in the group.

Manchester United coach refused to resign

English Premier Club Manchester United coach Louis van Gaal stated on Tuesday that he is not going to resign from his present post of club in spite of the fact that the team under his guidance is unable to get a single match winner knock from the last eight matches played by Manchester United.

Manchester United coach Louis van Gaal

In a match of United Premier League, which was played between Manchester united and Chelsea, none of the team could score a single goal due to which match got drawn and once again Manchester united could not get their first win in the last eight matches played by them.

With this draw match, Manchester United is at the sixth position of the United Premier League. Before this, Louis van’s team was unable to qualify for pre quarter final of the European Champions League.

On behalf of coach of Manchester United, news channel BBC wrote “When players are performing such under huge pressure, it is not possible to even think about resignation from the coach post of Manchester United.

The last few days has been proved to be very tough for the Netherland’s star Louis van. Due to the various predictions about his position in his team for the past few days in media, he left a press conference in between the discussion and did not answered the questions asked by reporters.

His team got an unexpected loss against stoke city by 2-0, after which various questions and predictions about position of Louis van in Manchester United team came forward in media.

Now, it will be very interesting to see whether how much time he takes to have a positive improvement in the performance level of the players of his team because his team could not get evan a single match win in the last eight matches played. 

Louis Van will be searching for a come back win for his team with the help of which he can get a solid answer for all the questions and prediction about his ability to guide his team in the past few days of his career.

Gautam Gambhir refused to shake hands with Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Former Indian opener star batsman Gautam Gambhir refused to shake hands with present Indian Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni after winning a match in Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament by 99 run, which clearly indicated that both has few hesitations for each other.

The live video of this incident got viral very quickly over the internet as it is an incident which indicates a lot of hidden misconceptions and issues of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni with few senior players of team India during the golden era of Indian cricket, during which team India won its second World Cup title in 2011.

Gambhir and Dhoni were good friends till the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and even Dhoni had declared Gautam as one of the best attacking opener batsman of India. Gautam played a tremendous inning in the final match of ICC World Cup Tournament against Srilanka, which was played at Wankhede stadium. With the help of that marvelous inning played by Gambhir, team India got a stable start and scored a good total against attacking pace unit of Srilanka.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni also played a marvelous inning in that final match and was declared as the Man of the match, but many Indian supporters stated that it was Gambhir who came and gave a fluent start for Indian inning to get a good total. Many others examples are there of the contribution of Gambhir towards various series wins of team India at Indian ground as well as in abroad countries where pitches are more favorable for fast bowlers.

After ICC World Cup 2011, priorities of Indian captain got changed and MS Dhoni started preferring youngsters over seniors and he justified his decisions about selection of youngsters in team India after giving a press conference statement in which he clearly stated about his plan of creating a new team India for world cup 2015 tournament.

His relationship with the other senior players of team like Sehwag, Gambhir and others turned cold. Sehwag, Gautam and many other senior players got out of the team and this lead to generation of  various controversial statements about MS Dhoni in media regarding team selection and preference given to youngsters over senior players.

Controversies of MS Dhoni with his former best friend Yuvraj Singh has also become a part of the periodic floating news in Indian media. Yuvraj’s father clearly gave a statement that MS Dhoni is completely responsible for the fact that many Indian senior players are out of the Indian cricket team.

But Yuvraj refused to accept the facts stated by his father about Dhoni in India and stated that he is still a good friend of MS Dhoni and he has a massive respect for present Indian captain. Now, Yuvraj is back in T-20 squad for upcoming T-20 World Cup Tournament and it will be very interesting to see whether how both players deal with each other along with all these controversies.

Above incident of ignorance of MS Dhoni by Gautam Gambhir has clearly indicated that relationship status of Dhoni with all other senior players, who are out from the team is not much great and obviously it is all due to the fact that Dhoni preferred new talented youngsters over other senior players of the team, who were out of their form at the time when they were not selected for the Indian team.

On the other hand, Virender Sehwag, who has recently called time on his international cricket career, has backed under-fire skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to stay on as India's limited overs captain till the next World Cup.                                                                      

Replying to queries about Dhoni, Sehwag said: "He should continue as captain till the next World Cup. If he does so, he can leave behind a good World Cup team.

 "And if he retires...you can imagine, even now when Dhoni is there, people have to think about who should bat at 5th, 6th and 7th position", said Sehwag."If Dhoni is not there, the 5th, 6th and 7th slots will become absolutely free and you cannot expect somebody to finish the match properly."

The explosive opener dismissed reports that it was Dhoni who was behind the decision to drop him from the Indian team. Asked if he believed Dhoni had a hand in dropping him from the team, the former India batsman told 'India TV' show 'Aap ki Adalat': "I don't think Dhoni would have done this. He is a nice man at heart. We senior players respect him, and when he first took over as captain, all senior players played under him, gave him guidance and nice suggestions, which he implemented during his captaincy and our team won in T20, ODIs and Test matches."

On whether he had tiffs with Dhoni, Sehwag said: "I don't think any such thing happened. It was all media speculations that Sehwag and Dhoni are at loggerheads. We stay in a hotel together and play matches, I don't think such things occurred.

It is obvious that all these controversies have added a blank spot at the tremendous career of MS Dhoni, who has won two world cup title in two different format of cricket and various other ICC Tournaments like Champions trophy and all.

Delhi’s cricketer Gautam Gambhir has taken the media on his radar for above news of not shaking hands after a match win in Vijay Hajare Tournament and tweeted few statements regarding various predictions of relation between MS Dhoni and Gambhir.

The news and videos regarding not shaking hands with each other after match were trending in the media and now, Gautam tried to clarify his stand for this particular issue at twitter. Gautam tweeted:

“This handshake made more news than the one between Pak PM Nawaz Sharif & Narendra Modi. Grow up media. “

Delhi’s captain Gautam Gambhir also presented a photo in which both players are shaking hands with each other, which proves above report of media to be totally rumor.

Gautam shaking hands with MS Dhoni.

In his tweet, he clearly mentioned “This handshake was more famous than the handshake between Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi. When this media will grow up?? Before publishing anything, facts must be well analyzed before publication”.

In another tweet, he wrote “For my electronic media friends, here is that photo in which we are shaking our hands after match win.”

Compton, Taylor dig England out of trouble on Day 1

With the help of  three wickets tone from South African pacer Steyn, South Africa made a great start In the first test match between England and South Africa at Kingsmead in Durban, on Saturday.

James Taylor (right) discussing few words with team mate Nick Compton. 

South African captain Hashim Amla might have hoped a little bit of help for bowlers from the wicket when he won the toss and sent England in to bat in overcast conditions. Initial phase of the game proved Amla’s decision to be correct when English team lost his three crucial wickets just at a total of 49 runs in 18 overs.

Steyn dismissed Alastair Cook and Alex Hales, the England openers, very early to the start of the game and hence it led the England’s first inning instability as they lost their two more wickets on the same day and England could have only a small total of 179 runs with a loss of four crucial wickets.

Steyn did not concede a run in the 3.1 overs he bowled before lunch. Off-spinner Dane Piedt took the wicket of Joe Root for 24 with his first ball of the match.

After rain delayed the start, only 27 minutes of cricket was possible before rain brought an early lunch, while there was a 22-minute rain break during an extended afternoons play.

Steyn, who had not played any cricket since suffering a groin injury on the first day of a series in India on November 5, found his rhythm almost immediately and had skipper Cook caught at second slip by Elgar for a duck off the fifth ball of his second over of the game.

James Taylor and Nick Compton compiled gritty half-centuries which lead English team to a total of 179 for four after the end of the game of first day at Durban.

Both these batsmen fought very well against the pace attack of South African pacers and hence restricted any further fall of wickets as both batsmen got a huge partnership of 125 runs for the fourth wicket.

This partnership of 125 runs for fourth wicket lead the England total score to 179 runs after the end of the game of first day. In the 64th over of the game of day 1, Steyn once again got the valuable wicket of James Taylor, who was caught by De Villiers. Dale 

Steyn broke this partnership to bring back the South Africans into the game.

James Taylor and Nick Compton dug England out of trouble on a rain-hit first day of the first Test against South Africa after having half centuries for each, but Taylor got out by Steyn at the end of the day. Nick Compton is still on the field with his marvelous inning in which he has added 63 after facing 179 deliveries, which also include 4 boundaries.

England’s first inning total is now very much dependent upon this tremendous inning played by Nick Compton. Nick would like to bat more on the second day of the game and English team would like to have a good total of at least 350 runs over this ground. We hope to have a good fight between bat and ball on the second day of the game.