Colombo, September 26
The doubts regarding Virender Sehwag's thumb injury were put to rest as the swashbuckling opener batted for about half-an-hour in the nets today ahead of India's Super Eight encounter of the World T20 against Australia on Friday.

Sehwag, who didn't bat at the nets yesterday, was intent personified today as he raced into the nets when his teammates were dumping kit bags at the P Sara Oval dressing room.

Sehwag first entered the spinners' net and lofted Piyush Chawla repeatedly over the long-off. There weren't any signs of discomfort during his 25-minute stint at the nets. For the Indian team, most of the batsmen were tested against short-pitched deliveries by their bowlers as well as by the net bowlers.

Right from Sehwag, Gambhir to Raina everyone was seen perfecting the horizontal bat shots. "The Indian coach was telling us to hit the deck consistently and try to get it up at the ribs. At times, we were told to bowl yorkers," Anjana, one of the net bowlers informed. With Sehwag's comeback, there are clear indications that India will go back to their 'seven-batsman, four-bowlers' theory and either Lakshmipathy Balaji or Zaheer Khan will get the axe as Ravichandran Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan are automatic choices for this match.

While Zaheer has been in disappointing form for the past couple of months, Balaji has just made a comeback and bowling first-up against the destructive players such as Shane Watson and David Warner will be like throwing him at the deep end of the pool. — PTI

Colombo, September 26
Michael Hussey has enormous respect for Virender Sehwag and insisted that the 'Nawab of Najafgarh' can "never be out of form", but at the same time hoped that Virat Kohli has a bad day in office when Australia take on India in their Super Eights match on Friday.

“I would never say that Virender Sehwag is out of form. He can miss out a couple of times but we all know that every time he misses out he is closer to the next big one. Normally, when he scores big runs, he scores them quickly so I will never say Sehwag is out of form," Hussey senior told mediapersons at the end of practice at the P Sara Oval ground.

On Kohli's splendid run in international cricket, Hussey said: "Yeah I am not exactly sure what our plans are but even if I know I am not going to reveal them. He is obviously at a purple patch in the manner that he is playing. Every batsman tends to miss out on some stage and I hope that he is going to miss out (against us)."

When there is Australia, the topic of Harbhajan Singh can't be far behind, but Hussey feels the Aussies are far better equipped than the Englishmen to tackle the off-spinner. “Of, course he (Harbhajan) is going to strengthen the team. He is a class act and has been that for a long period of time. He is someone that we respect but when you play Twenty20, you got to be aggressive as well and try and put him under pressure," he said.

"He did a fantastic job the other night but I think we can play better than the English team," Hussey said of Harbhajan, who demolished England with figures of 4-12 in the final group match. India versus Australia has always been tense games and Hussey knows that the upcoming one won't be any different. "That first game is massive. We are coming to a very important stage of the tournament and probably that first game (against India) is very crucial.

“If we can get to a winning start then it puts us in a good position and gives us a good chance of making it to the semi-final," the left-hander said. The team management knows that Indian spinners will be bowling the bulk of 20 overs and so they are gearing up for the challenge.

"I do suspect that they (India) will bowl a fair bit of spin to us if not just the frontline spinners, may be the part-timers will also bowl at us. Guys like Yuvraj, Raina and Rohit Sharma can bowl a bit. Even Sehwag can bowl. So we have to adapt very quickly to whoever they are going to bring on. It can be a tough challenge," Hussey said.

Hussey, who has been a key member of the Chennai Super Kings set-up, admitted that IPL has helped him. “It does help in getting a better knowledge. Seeing how those guys prepare and play, seeing their strengths and weakness.” — PTI

Colombo, September 26
The current Australian team is a shadow of the all-conquering squads of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the absence of men like Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, the aura has indeed diminished. And Australia in the T20 format is laughably pedestrian, seen as just one of the teams, ranked below even Ireland.

However, they do have one player who can be a giant in this format of the game. Shane Watson is ranked No. 3 in the ICC T20 batting rankings, below Brandam McCullum and Chris Gayle. And his form in the first round of the tournament has justified his ranking.

“We have been very inconsistent since the last T20 World Cup and in the end ranking really does show that how inconsistent we have been,” Watson recently told this correspondent. “But we do know and the opposition also knows that we do have a lot of match-winners in the team. If we are at our best, we are going to be extremely dangerous. In the end, when you are in a tournament like this, rankings do go out of the window and what matters is what we bring to our game every time we take on a new team.”

Team India too knows that Watson can be very dangerous in this format. He can turn the match around either with the bat or the ball. In the two matches so far, he has got five wickets and has also played important innings of 51 and 41*. A batting strike rate of above 150 and an economy rate of just above 7 runs per over make him a prized asset. Indians do remember the difference he made to the Shane Warne’s Rajashthan Royals triumph in the first edition of the IPL.

A member of Australia’s 2007 World Cup winning team in the 50-over format, Watson is determined to be part of another World Cup winning side.

“Last time we were finalists, we can be do better this time around. We came very close to winning then. It can be a very open tournament. Hopefully, the Australian team can be at our best all through the tournament,” says the 31 year old opener.

Watson has become a household name in India thanks to his consistent performances in the IPL. But he realizes that international T20 tournaments, especially this premier tournament, is a different ball game indeed.

“T20 cricket in general is a little different in international cricket if you compare it with Tests or ODIs since all the international T20 games are a sort of warm-up just before a Test or ODI series. In the end, the World cup becomes the most important tournament,” says the Australian. And he has shown that he is capable of rising to the greater challenge.

Come Friday, India would hope that the genial Watson would either have an off day or the law of averages would catch up with him!

The writer is a journalist with CNN-IBN-7

Pallekele, September 26
West Indian captain Darren Sammy admitted off-spinner Sunil Narine will be his trump card to exploit England's weakness against slow bowlers in the Super Eights match here on Thursday.

England crashed to their heaviest T20 defeat of 90 runs in their first round match against India, with off-spinner Harbhajan grabbing 4-12.

And that prompted Sammy to raise more hopes with Narine. "Sunil is our trump card, he's done well for us in that format, hopefully he could have a big impact on the English batting line-up," said Sammy of the 24-year-old spinner who has made a big impact at Twenty20 level. Besides Narine, West Indies have the option of bringing in leg-spinner Samuel Badree to add to the guile of Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels, who can also bowl handy spin.

"We'll definitely look to bowl spin against them, but we have quality seam bowlers upfront also. We have Badree who is another spinner in the line-up so hopefully we will bowl well against England and have a good game," said Sammy.

The top eight teams compete in the Super Eights round beginning with the group one clashes between hosts Lanka and New Zealand, followed by England and the West Indies. Pakistan play South Africa while India meet Australia in group two in Colombo on Friday. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-final with the final on October 7. Sammy said the West Indies -- who have not won a major event since winning the ICC Champions trophy in 2004 -- have the self-belief to finally win a trophy. "The biggest strength for us is the belief in the dressing room that we could win this tournament and we left home thinking that. We have quality in the dressing room, it's up to us to go out and display that quality out there," said Sammy.

England skipper Broad admitted the West Indies team posed a challenge. “We've played against the West Indies this summer, we know they are a dangerous side and they had success in Twenty20 format but we are focused for the match," said Broad. — Agencies

Kandy, September 26
Sri Lanka could turn to uncapped teenager Akila Dananjaya if spinner Ajantha Mendis fails to recover from injury in time for the World Twenty20 Super Eight game against New Zealand at Pallekele on Thursday.

“He's certainly very close to playing," Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford said. “He was probably going to play against South Africa and then the game got reduced and there was the chance he would've been bowling with a wet ball." Ford said the 18-year-old Dananjaya, who bowls four varieties of spin, could be a useful weapon. "He's got a lot of variations with good control and it's going to take any batsman who hasn't seen him a bit of time to work out what he does," said Ford. Mendis strained his side a week ago. MRI scans showed he had a slight tear in his left side.

New Zealand captain Ross Taylor expects spin to play a part. "With two games tomorrow, the wicket could deteriorate and take a bit of turn for the second game,” he said. — PTI

Colombo, September 26
Riding on their huge win over England in the group stages of the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, India jumped four places to claim the third position in the Reliance ICC T20 Championship table, which was released today. India spanked England which propelled Dhoni's men to 116 rating points.

The crushing defeat meant England slipped a position to second spot with 124 ratings points. South Africa head into the Super Eight stage as the number-one ranked team.

Meanwhile, Suresh Raina is the lone Indian to feature in the top 10 list for the T20 player rankings for batsmen. Even though Raina dropped two places in the recently-released chart, the left-hander still occupied the fifth position with 730 points in his kitty. Gautam Gambhir is 13th (up by three places). New Zealand's wicket-keeper batsman Brendon McCullum retained his number-one batting spot with Chris Gayle in second place. McCullum's knock of 123 against Bangladesh, the highest in the history of Twenty20 International cricket to date, also helped him achieve a career-best rating of 849.

Shane Watson jumped four places to a career-high third position. Watson, who won successive Player of the Match awards against Ireland and West Indies, also garnered his career-best rating of 758. The batsmen from Asia have made the most impressive movements in the batting table ahead of the Super Eight stage.

Kumar Sangakkara broke back into the top 10 and now sits in eighth position (up by three places). Others to make upward movements are Virat Kohli in 19th (up by 10 places), Rohit Sharma in 26th (up by 12 places), Nasir Jamshed in 32nd (up by 51 places), Shakib Al Hasan in 37th (up by 29 places) and Imran Nazir in 43rd (up by 42 places). — PTI