Video: cameraman Joe Previtera falls from his segway at the MCG in front of 53,000 paying punters.
Australia v India: segway cameraman takes a fall in the slips at the MCG
India (214-3) v Australia (333) Sachin Tendulkar falls 27 runs short of his 100th international ton on the second day of first Test in Melbourne.
DURHAM’S hopes of claiming the County Championship were dented yesterday.
ENGLAND’S world beaters have done us proud this summer, as I predicted – just don’t call me Mystic Beefy.
NO wonder Sachin Tendulkar used to sneak out in false beard and dark glasses to avoid being mobbed in his home city of Mumbai.
Ian Bell has moved up to number three in the International Cricket Council Test rankings as well as the England batting order.
England vs India: Ian Bell climbs world rankings after prolific series
ANDREW STRAUSS: A really good series as captain, but an average one as a batsman. Must be run-hungry in January.
England player ratings vs India: Who shone in 4-0 whitewash?
LASITH MALINGA became the first bowler to take three one-day international hat-tricks as Sri Lanka beat Australia by four wickets in Colombo yesterday.
Lasith Malinga makes it hat-trick of hat-tricks for Sri Lanka
NERVELESS Graeme Swann spun England to a 4-0 series whitewash over India that confirms them as the world’s best team.
Graeme Swann leaves India in a spin as England complete series whitewash
Sachin Tendulkar fell agonisingly short of his 100th international century today as two wickets in two overs swung the final npower Test dramatically back England’s way.
Andrew Strauss signed off for five months with a warning to England’s whitewash heroes.
Andrew Strauss vows India whitewash is just the start for England as world number ones
Graeme Swann last night reaffirmed England’s commitment to a 4-0 whitewash and declared 3-0 would not satisfy him or his team-mates.
England should complete a series whitewash today, but only after coming through an epic contest yesterday as Rahul Dravid produced a stunning display.
Rahul Dravid’s stunning batting display in vain with England on course for series whitewash
KEVIN PIETERSEN and Ian Bell conducted a public flogging in South London using bats with brightly coloured grips as their tools of torture.
Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen in record-breaking form to batter India at The Oval
ENGLISH cricket’s bean counters are poised to put pen to paper on a new bumper sponsorship deal with sports-mad financial firm Investec.
England cricket secure £20million Investec Test sponsorship deal
England’s dominance has continued in the final Test – and only the weather may now save India from a 4-0 whitewash.
ENGLAND legend Graham Gooch hailed run-machine Alastair Cook and his incredible powers of concentration.
Graham Gooch backs England run machine Alistair Cook to smash his record
By DEAN WILSON
VICTORY in the final Test will give England their first sweep in a major series since 2004, when they recorded home victories over New Zealand (3-0) and West Indies (4-0).
England vs India 4th Test: Win would give first home sweep for 7 years
FORMER England batsman Ali Brown will retire at the end of the season.
ANDREW STRAUSS will lead his side into battle for the last time for five months today, and has made it clear to his players he wants to leave on a high note.
England vs India 4th Test: Andrew Strauss targeting whitewash
James Anderson bowled for half-an-hour during England’s net session this morning without apparent discomfort from his “minor” thigh injury.
England vs India 4th Test: James Anderson bowls in nets session
One of the hallmarks of bowlers in great sides is to defy the critics and show
that they know their areas from their elbows. Four weeks ago, calls for
Stuart Broad to be dropped by England were deafening.
Broad silences detractors after shaking off the enforcer tag
Ian Bell has moved up to number three in the International Cricket Council
Test rankings as well as the England batting order.
Durham must score a testing 321 to maintain their Championship challenge by winning this match but with the margins likely to be narrow in a tight race for the title they should curse their wastefulness whatever the outcome after failing to secure even one batting bonus point.
Former captain Ricky Ponting has rejected suggestions that Australia’s players under his leadership were “overpaid and lazy”, after a review into their decline from No 1 in the world in 2008 to their present ranking of fifth.
Cricket round-up: Ponting: Australia players are not ‘lazy and overpaid’
For a little while here yesterday it might have been that one of the three great England teams to beat the world would suffer a powerful, perhaps even exquisite, distraction. It could just have placed them, quite absurdly, in the margins of the climax of their extraordinary summer glory.
James Lawton: The boys of ’66, Jonny in 2003… now all hail Strauss’ men
Depleted Durham must have feared a long time in the field after Nottinghamshire chose to bat first on a pitch sited little more than a firm push from the boundary adjoining the Bridgford Road stand. Having been knocked off the top by Lancashire last week, the champions of 2008 and 2009 realistically have to win here to prevent their title chance slipping away.
With the verve and skill of proper champions, England swept India aside yesterday. It took an age for a chink in the door to appear but when, inevitably, it did, England charged through it gleefully and unstoppably.
There is nothing quite like blasting the opposition into submission with more than a day to spare – and England have done a fair bit of that on their journey to the top of the Test mountain. But patience can be a useful tool to have in the kitbag, too.
More games of patience will be needed to stay on top of the mountain
It’s official – and now they have a trophy to go with their title. But England had no sooner taken possession of the International Cricket Council Mace as the world’s No 1 Test team than captain Andrew Strauss started talking about aiming even higher.
England denied Sachin Tendulkar nine runs short of a unique place in cricket
history to kickstart today’s hectic surge to victory and a 4-0 npower series
whitewash of India at The Oval.
All-rounder Stuart Broad felt England’s pre-series planning was key to their
whitewash of India.
At 5pm yesterday, after an entire tour of single-handed resistance, “The Wall” was pierced. It did not take much to be convinced that with Rahul Dravid no more, India would come tumbling down.
‘The Wall’ finally falls to leave England on brink of series whitewash
The Good: Rahul Dravid
Something From The Weekend: Rahul Dravid; Fan trouble in Mexico; Voeckler no match for horse
Of all the dispiriting sights in this Test series, few should cause as much concern as Amit Mishra toiling away for 38 wicketless overs in England’s first innings at the Oval, a pitch taking spin from day one. The ineffective leg-spinner’s chief contribution to the series has been providing a linguistic quirk: when bowling alongside Ishant Sharma, the scoreboards have read “A Mishra” and “I Sharma”, the first instance of anagrams bowling in tandem at Test level.
Rajan’s Wrong ‘Un: Mishra’s struggles a bitter reminder of what India have lost
The pavilion clock showed a mere 5pm when Rahul Dravid finally left but that just seemed like a scratch mark against eternity.
James Lawton: With Dravid’s dismissal, the best of the Indian summer came to an end
Five is the shiniest button on my remote control. It’s rarely visited territory, the Albania of the terrestrial television world. Perhaps Norman Wisdom might have been able to find some good in it, or if only C B Fry, the “handsomest man in England”, was still bounding around these shores he could have been persuaded to take over the channel and damn well make something of it. But then as he turned down the throne of Albania he might equally have seen Channel Five as a leap too far, and this from a man who is supposed to have still been able to jump backwards on to a mantelpiece at the age of 70.
Robin Scott-Elliot: The Little Master perfectly caught by the cameras for Five
Tom Smith took four wickets for just seven runs as Lancashire’s bowlers needed only 55 minutes to wrap up their vital 98-run victory over Worcestershire in the County Championship at Blackpool on Saturday.
England have solved the Rahul Dravid problem for the final time in this
series. But the man who has stood in their way for hour upon hour has
already come up with a new challenge for the world’s No 1 team: try winning
in India.
Dravid throws down gauntlet: Can you beat us on our own pitches?
In a selection as surprising as it may prove indelicate, England yesterday announced that the Irishman Eoin Morgan will be their captain in a one-day international against Ireland next Thursday. It is one thing to poach another country’s player – albeit with their co-operation and understanding – but it is another then to ask him to orchestrate their downfall.
Even ‘The Wall’ no longer stands between England and the likelihood of a 4-0
npower series whitewash over India at The Oval tomorrow.
Cricketers, at least those with ambition, love to give the selectors a headache. Or so they say. What they really mean, of course, is that they would like to stake such a rock solid claim that no one with an ounce of common sense could possibly look in any other direction. Step forward Ian Bell
The hero of the hour at Trent Bridge, as he has been the hero of so many hours, was Rahul Dravid. Without his intervention, India’s tour of England may, at worst, have been abandoned and, at best, descended into endless acrimony which would have affected future relations between the two countries.
On the Front Foot: Teatime Bell was saved by calm authority of Dravid
The question is now being asked regularly. How good are this England team?To which the answer is “very good indeed” and “considerably better than their woeful opponents in this series”.
Lancashire are now strong favourites to win their first County Championship for 61 years after beating Worcestershire in Blackpool with Warwickshire’s challenge in dangerof falling apart.
The jeers were as loud as the cheers, and no less persistent. The cheers were for Ian Bell when he hit one more of his 23 boundaries on his way to – and then past – 200. The jeers were for the performance of India in the field.
It has taken the best part of three years but, finally, Kevin Pietersen looks
at peace with the world of cricket. And that, even more than the century he
took off India yesterday, is good news for England and their plan for
long-term domination.
Pietersen: ‘It would be nice to get the century record but it’s more about winning’
Another test match, another hundred for Ian Bell. Perfectly delightful it was too, like its three predecessors this summer and if anything on a higher artistic plane. He becomes better and better, the must-watch batsman of this generation.
Pietersen and Bell hit ‘daddy’ centuries, India hit rock bottom