Now for the bad news. Temperamental Ryder has been ruled out and fined for breaking a chair after being dismissed during a 38-run Champions Trophy victory over Sri Lanka on Sunday. An International Cricket Council (ICC) statement said the opening batsman who made 74 runs in a 50-over total of 315-7 struck and broke a chair with his bat when walking to the pavilion.

Batting first, the Kiwis scored a whopping 315/7 — riding on a 125-run opening stand between Jesse Ryder and Brendon McCullum which put together 125 runs in 20 overs for the first wicket.
Later additions from Martin Guptill, skipper Daniel Vettori and a six-ball blast for 18 by Kyle Mills pushed the total well past the 300 mark, in reply to which Sri Lanka were bowled for 277 in the 47th over.

Sri Lanka did manage a flier with Tillekaratne Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya racing to 66 in the eighth over before being separated. No one other than Jayawardena and Kulasekara stayed at the wicket for any significant length of time, which contributed to their defeat.
New Zealand 315 (Ryder 74) bt Sri Lanka 277 (Jayawardena 77; Mills 3/69).

The newspaper reported that there was a chapter titled “Does sex increase performance?” It further added, “Yes it does, so go ahead and indulge,” and went on to put forth and importance of sex on the players’ performance on the field. It interestingly suggested to go solo if the player was without any partner.

The dossier has also stressed on the importance of showcasing aggression on the field. This new development will surely see interesting comments from rival captains and players in other teams. Watch this space for more!

The hosts started well when their pacer Dale Steyn removed Sanath Jayasuriya cheaply, but that was the one of the few good things they did right on the field. Mahela and Dilshan batted beautifully, mixing caution with aggression and the hold which the hosts had in the game vanished off swiftly. Dilshan made 106 while Mahela was solid in his 77. The other contributors were Sangakkara who made 54 and Samraweera made 37.

One of the biggest blunders which Graeme Smith did was choosing Wayne Parnell over Makhaya Ntini which was a shocker. While he might have removed Mahela and Thilan Samaraweera, he went off for one too many. On a wicket which required common sense to be used in abundance, the South Africans were falling short. South Africa appeared to the cuts, ferocious pulls, quick singles taken by the Sri Lankan batsmen helped them to surge ahead and they ended their innings with 319 for 8 and Dilshan continued to impress everyone who has hailed him as the newest batting baron on any wicket. While he played his natural game throughout, what was impressive about his batting was his application and his aggression which yielded him yet another hundred that was going to go on a winning cause.

The areas for concern for South Africa are as follows:

1. Will Herschelle Gibbs be fit enough for the next match?

2. Makhaya Ntini MUST replace Parnell and right away.

The hosts will need to pull up their socks to hit back or else they will continue to remain ‘Chokers!’

Only a dramatic reversal in form can stop Pakistan from cruising past the Windies. The Pakistanis will know that this will the only easy match in the group as the other two teams are India and Australia, both ODI heavyweights in their own right. West Indies board was forced to send a strong string side following a contract row between the players and their cricket board.

Pakistan have tougher assignments ahead as they clash with arch-rivals India and world champions Australia in the next two matches. The top two teams will be advancing into the last four stage of the tournament.

Speaking to the media about the first match, Pakistan skipper Younis Khan had said, “The West Indies have always been my favourite team and I’d love to compete against a full-strength side.”

However, the first match of Pakistan will have a lot of focus on whether they indeed select disgraced pacer Mohammad Asif or not. The team management has been tightlipped about the lanky pacer and will be announcing their playing eleven only moments before the toss on Wednesday.

Even as the suspense over Asif’s inclusion in the side remains, it will be interesting to see the performance of West Indies after they lost to Bangladesh in July and have been literally mocked at in this tournament. Their captain Reifer in an interview recently had said, “I want the people in the Caribbean to know that this is a West Indies team that is dedicated to the West Indies cricket. This is not a second-string team.” Brave words indeed!

The team which won the 2004 edition in England and made it to the finals in the next will have to play out of their skins (quite literally) in order to make a mark.

Pakistan (from): Younus Khan (capt), Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umer Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Rana Naved-ul Hasan, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Asif, Rao Iftikhar, Saeed Ajmal

West Indies: Floyd Reifer (capt), Darren Sammy, David Bernard, Tino Best, Royston Crandon, Travis Dowlin, Andre Fletcher, Nikita Miller, Kevin McLean, Kieran Powell, Dale Richards, Kemar Roach, Devon Smith, Gavin Tonge, Chadwick Walton

One of the greatest weapons for a team to succeed in any format of the game is to have a solid top-start and England after the retirement of Marcus Trescothick have lacked one. They tried with Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Owais Shah but met with reasonable success only.

Plus England lack the firepower in their bowlers to consistent rattle the opposition batsman and that can be dangerous for a side that ‘dreams’ of going over the top.
With Andrew Strauss doing everything humanly possible to salvage some pride (Is there anything left), it will take a lot of effort from the Englishmen to stitch together a strong order and put together the missing pieces in order to face the strong Sri Lankan in their first match at the Champions Trophy.

England have never won any major one-day tournament and they came closest to in 2004 when they lost West Indies in the final of the Champions Trophy — not to mention their World Cup ODI final appearances thrice and losing all the three.
England’s side for the 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was the best they ever had. At the top, they had Graham Gooch and Alec Stewart (who doubled up as a keeper too) and then had Robin Smith, Allan Lamb, Neil Fairbrother and with the middle-order having the legendary Ian Botham. Also, they had bowlers such as Chris Lewis, Derek Pringle who were more than handful on the bouncy pitches in Australia.
Over the years, there have been many Englishmen but the most noteworthy of them have been Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff — both having the ability to change matches single-handedly. Needless to say, they both will be missed on conditions which favour them the most.
The current English line-up offers no surprises whatsoever for the spectators and it will be interesting to see if they manage to surprise Lanka in their opener.

Since the training camp started on Saturday, Miandad has  focused on holding special sessions with groups of players and  on Sunday he spent his time concentrating on Misbah-ul-Haq,  young Umar Akmal and Shoaib Malik.

One method has been to make the batsmen play on a bouncy  pitch with reduced width forcing them to play straight and avoid square on shots.
Another method has been to get them to negotiate with extra bounce by making them short pitched balls which come off a concrete slab at fast pace thrown by Miandad.

“These are scoring strokes in the South African conditions specially in the Champions Trophy if they are played with care. As long as the rate of success is more then failure these shots are very productive in scoring runs,” the former master batsman told a Indian news agency.

Pakistan is grouped with West Indies, India and Australia in the Champions Trophy qualifying stage that begins from  September 22.
“We have a very strong pace attack and we are blessed with pace bowling talent so why not use it effectively to our  strength,” Miandad said.

The Pakistan squad for the eight nation tournament includes pace bowlers, Muhammad Asif, Umar Gul, Rao Iftikhar, Rana Naved and Muhammad Aamer and Miandad says all these  bowlers carry plenty of pace and the ability to bounce out batsmen.