England on course to reclaim second spot in ICC Test rating

Dubai, May 31 (PTI): England's stunning victory against Sri Lanka in the first Test in Cardiff has kept it on course to reclaim second position on the ICC Test Championship table for the first time in more than three years.

Although the Test Championship table will be updated only at the end of the series, a 3-0 series win will put England one ratings point ahead of South Africa. England last occupied the second position in November 2007.

England players Chris Tremlett, Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell, who engineered the stunning an innings and 14 runs victory over Sri Lanka, also achieved their career-best rankings in the list released today.

Swann, who bagged 4-16 in the second innings to finish with figures of 7-94, has strengthened his second position on the ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers, which is still headed by Dale Steyn of South Africa.

Tremlett, who claimed 4-40 in the second innings to earn match figures of 5-121, has gained seven places and is now on a career-best ranking of 27th.

Among the Test batsmen, man of the match Jonathan Trott, who scored 203, has moved up one place to join former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara in third position.

Ian Bell was also rewarded for his innings of 103 not out with a jump of three places to the 18th position for the first time in his career.

Skipper Alastair Cook also earned 15 ratings points for his innings of 133 which has put him on 818 ratings points and just 38 points behind the pair of Trott and Sangakkara.

Sri Lanka opener Tharanga Paranavithana and wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardena moved up one place to 44th spot and six places to 51st position respectively.

Chennai paint the town yellow

 Dhoni becomes first captain to win the IPL twice, Bangalore fall 58 runs short in the final.

Chennai: A clinical Chennai Super Kings clinched their second Indian Premier League title in a row with a 58-run thrashing of Royal Challengers Bangalore in a lop-sided final on Saturday.

IPL-4: Set Max rakes in the moolah, but advertisers not happy with eyeballs

Mumbai, May 27:

As IPL- 4 wraps up, the official broadcaster Set Max is expected to rake in revenues in excess of Rs 1,000 crore.

But not all advertisers and their media buying agencies are sure about getting adequate eyeballs this season. The country's largest media agency Group M with the some of the biggest clients like Vodafone and L'Oreal is going to get cautious next season.

“The IPL ratings have been below expectations. The average ratings have fallen 15-20 per cent and the CPRP (cost per rating point) was higher than last year. We have to be slightly cautious now and will have to evaluate 2012 IPL keeping in mind the lack of eyeballs this season,” says Mr R. Gowthaman, Managing Director, Mindshare (belonging to Group M).

However, Set Max managed to rake in revenues on the back of factors like inflation and more number of teams and matches this season.

As Mr Sidharth Parashar, National Trading Head, Maxus Global, says: “Inflation ensured that ad rates were higher this season and more number of matches led to greater revenues.''

Ad rates hovered around Rs 4-5 lakh and almost doubled for the knock-out matches. There were almost 70 advertisers this season. While big spenders like HUL and Videocon stayed away, new advertisers like Lenovo and Reliance Digital TV started advertising during the play-off stages.

SET Max too is willing to admit the drop in viewership this season and would look at ways to rectify it going forward.

Mr Rohit Gupta, President, Multi Screen Media (the owners of SET Max channel), says, “It has been mixed bag in terms of ratings this season. While there was reach, the total time spent on the matches was less and we are looking at ways to correct it. But IPL is still holding on to its position of being the No. 1 property. “The last four games have already been sold at Rs 15 lakh per 10 second and there have been new advertisers like L'Oreal, Cadbury, Tata Motor's Nano and Asian Paints. People are still coming in to watch the games and we have crossed last season's viewership of 143 million and reached 155 million till last week''.

Presenting sponsor Vodafone was the biggest advertiser this season bagging 210 seconds for every game of the IPL.

“Yes, expectations from IPL-4 were higher and there was a bit of fatigue but towards the end viewership did pick up. Vodafone had a single sustained message right through the World Cup and the IPL and it was about announcing its 3G services and new data services through the super zoos for the past four months,'' said Mr Kapil Arora, Senior Vice-President, Brand and Country Head for Team Vodafone at O&M.

Big spender LG Electronics simply used IPL-4 to advertise its latest 3D televisions, a category where sales had st

Gambhir, Yuvraj, Tendulkar out of West Indies tour

Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh were on Friday left out of India’s entire tour of the West Indies as the national selectors announced the 16-member squad for the Test series next month.

Tamil Nadu opener Abhinav Mukund was the lone new face in the squad announced by the BCCI Secretary N. Srinivasan after a marathon meeting of the selection committee here.

The young Suresh Raina was named captain of the ODI series after original choice Gambhir was ruled out for the entire tour because of a shoulder injury. Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh would be Raina’s deputy.

Yuvraj was also unavailable for the entire trip as he is suffering from an upper respiratory infection with a small patch of pneumonitis in the left lung.

“Gautam Gambhir will be unavailable for the full tour of the West Indies, on account of his shoulder injury. Yuvraj Singh will also be unavailable for the full tour. He is suffering from an upper respiratory infection, with a small patch of pneumonitis in the left lung,” the BCCI said in a statement.

Tendulkar, who was not part of the ODI team, requested that he be allowed to spend time with his family.

“He will therefore not play the Test series. However, he will be available for the full tour of England, that follows,” the BCCI said.

Shikhar Dhawan and Manoj Tiwary have been named as the replacements for Gambhir and Yuvraj, for the Twenty20 and ODI series starting June 4.

The squad (Test series): M S Dhoni (Captain), V V S Laxman (Vice Captain), M Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, S Sreesanth, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel.

Live: Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers

Gayle falls for 89 as Bangalore set sights on a massive total in a must-win match.

Super Kings hit by whirlwind Gayle

Sun, 22 May 2011 - IP Bangalore vs IP Chennai, IPL 2011, 69th Match - Bulletin

Bangalore, May 22, 2011 (AFP) Chris Gayle smashed an unbeaten 75 as Royal Challengers Bangalore topped the points table with an eight-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League on Sunday.

The West Indies opener hit six sixes in his 50-ball knock as Bangalore surpassed Chennai's total of 128-8 with two overs to spare in their last league match of the Twenty20 tournament.

Gayle, who added 80 for the second wicket with Virat Kohli (31), finished the match when he hit spinner Suresh Raina for 11 runs off the last three balls of the 18th over.

Bangalore (19 points), Chennai (18), Kolkata (16) and Mumbai (16) have already qualified for the play-offs. They are followed by Punjab (14), Rajasthan (13), Deccan (12), Kochi (12), Pune (nine) and Delhi (nine).

Chennai skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit six sixes in his explosive 40-ball 70 not out but received little support from the other end, the highest stand of the innings being 42 for the fifth wicket.

Chennai made a poor start after being put in to bat as they lost four wickets for 22 runs in the opening six overs, with left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan dismissing Australian Michael Hussey and Raina in successive overs.

Hussey could make just four runs before inside-edging a Zaheer devliery on to the stumps while Raina was caught by Kohli at point.

New Zealand left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori put more pressure on Chennai when he removed Subramaniam Badrinath and West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo to eventually finish with 2-15 off four overs.

Brief scores:

Chennai Super Kings 128-8 in 20 overs (MS Dhoni 70 not out, W. Saha 22; D. Vettori 2-15, Zaheer Khan 2-19, S. Aravind 2-20) lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore 129-2 in 18 overs (C. Gayle 75 not out, V. Kohli 31) by eight wickets.