Tendulkar No.8 in ODIs

Calcutta: India captain Mah endra Singh Dhoni retained his top spot among batsmen in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI rankings issued on Wednesday, says A Staff Reporter. Dhoni and Graeme Smith are at the second and third positions respectively.
Dhoni’s teammate Sachin Tendulkar is the other Indian in the top 10 list at the eighth spot with 724 rating points.

Teams: 1.Australia, 2.South Africa, 3.England, 4. New Zealand 5.India, 6.Pakistan, 7.Sri Lanka, 8.West Indies, 9. Bangladesh, 10. Ireland.
Batsmen: 1. M.S. Dhoni (Ind), 2. Mike Hussey(Aus), 3. Graeme Smith (SA), 4.Ricky Ponting (Aus), 5.Mohd Yousuf (Pak), 6. S.Chanderpaul (WI), 7. Kevin Pietersen (Eng), 8. Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), 9.Andrew Symonds (Aus)10. Matthew Hayden (Aus)
Bowlers: 1.Nathan Bracken (Aus), 2. Daniel Vettori (NZ), 3. Mitchell Johnson (Aus), 4. Kyle Mills (NZ), 5.Stuart Broad (Eng) 6.M. Muralidharan (SL) 7.Chaminda Vaas (SL) 8. Andrew Flintoff (Eng) 9. Jacob Oram (NZ) 10.Brett Lee (Aus).
Allrounders: 1.Jacob Oram (NZ) 2.Andrew Flintoff (Eng) 3.Shoaib Malik (Pak) 4. Shahid Afridi (Pak) 5.Chris Gayle (WI).

World Cup

Calcutta: Australia’s women’s cricketers helped launch the ICC Women’s World Cup 2009 at a special function in Sydney Wednesday, says A Staff Reporter. They were joined by ICC president David Morgan, CA chairman Jack Clarke and players from India, England and New Zealand to launch the tournament that will be played from 7-22 March.

Golden band

Calcutta: Jhulan Goswami, who won the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year Award in 2007, is on top of the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Women’s Ranking for bowlers and will wear a golden armband to signify her number-one ranking in bowlers’ list, says A Staff Reporter.

Heroes win

Gurgaon: Hyderabad Heroes beat Ahmedabad Rockets by 3 runs in the ICL Twenty20 Championship here on Wednesday.
BRIEF SCORES: Hyderabad Heroes 166/6 (S. Binny 48, R. Patel 2/21) vs Ahmedabad Rockets 163/3 (M. Goodwin 59, C. Harris 2/18) Hyderabad Heroes won by 3 runs.

Monty unlikely

London: Monty Panesar’s plans to play club cricket in Sri Lanka has hit a roadblock owing to a pay dispute. The spinner was slated to be in Sri Lanka next month to play for Bloomfield in the domestic tournament but negotiations between the club and ECB has broken down.

Shuttlers out

New Delhi: Arvind Bhatt, P. Kashyap and Aditi Mutatkar fell by the wayside as Indian shuttlers made a disappointing start in their French Super Series campaign in Paris on Wednesday.

Fifa award

Zurich: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi head the race to be named Fifa’s World Player of the Year.