CRICKET

PAKISTAN WORLD CUP SQUAD

PCB announces 15-man World Cup squad 

 

Openers: Shehzad and Muhamamd Hafeez

Middle Order: Misbah (Captain), Younis Khan, Harris Sohail, Umar Akmal and Shoaib Maqsood

Pacers: Muhammad Irfan, Junaid Khan , Wahab Riaz, Sohail Khan and Ehsan Adil

Spinners: Afridi and Yasir Shah

Keeper: Sarfraz Ahmed

ICC World Cup 2015 schedule

 

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 will be the 11th ICC Cricket World Cup,^[1] scheduled to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from 14 February to 29 March 2015. 49 matches will be played in 14 venues with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney while New Zealand hosts 23 games in seven cities, including Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson and Wellington.^[2] The final match of the tournament will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It will be one of the world's largest international sports tournaments, with 14 competing teams and more than 400 accredited players and officials taking part in it.^[3]
The hosting rights were awarded at the same time as those of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, which Australia and New Zealand had originally bid to host, and the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, which was awarded to England.^[4] The 2011 tournament was awarded to the four Asian Test cricket playing countries, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, in a 10 to 3 vote (Pakistan later lost the co-hosting rights due to a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team). The International Cricket Council were sufficiently impressed with the trans-Tasman bid that it was decided to award the next World Cup to Australia and New Zealand.^[5][6] This is the second time that the tournament will be held in Australia and New Zealand, with the first being the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar has been named as the 2015 Cricket World Cup Ambassador by the ICC for the second time, after 2011 Cricket World Cup where he was the ambassador. ^[7]
India are the defending champions, having won the tournament in 2011 when it was held in the Indian subcontinent, defeating Sri Lanka in the finals by 6 wickets. Tickets for the Pool B match between India and Pakistan scheduled on 15 February 2015, were reportedly sold out within 12 minutes.^[8]

 

CRICKET NEWS

India pick three spinners for World Cup

MUMBAI: India’s selectors on Tuesday chose three frontline spinners to help Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men defend the World Cup title in Australia and New Zealand from next month.

Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was joined by left-armers Ravindra Jadeja and young Akshar Patel in a 15-man squad announced in Mumbai for the showpiece event from February 14 to March 29.

Jadeja was selected despite being treated for a shoulder injury that forced him out of the ongoing Test series in Australia. Patel, 20, has claimed 14 wickets in nine one-day internationals so far.

“Jadeja is doing wonderfully well in his recovery process and we are hopeful he will be fit in 10 days time,” Indian cricket board secretary Sanjay Patel told reporters.

The squad includes just four players — Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Ashwin — who were part of the winning team in 2011.

The selectors ignored Yuvraj Singh, the man of the tournament in 2011, who was not in the preliminary 30-man squad, but came into reckoning with centuries in three consecutive first-class matches.

Teams are allowed to select players from outside their preliminary pool, but the 33-year-old Singh’s absence from the one-day team over the past year due to poor form went against him.

The nucleus of the squad is the same which helped India win the Champions Trophy one-day tournament in England in 2013.

Dhoni’s men begin their campaign with a mouth-watering clash against arch-rivals Pakistan in Adelaide on February 15.

Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Akshar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Stuart Binny.

Coach: Duncan Fletcher.