The Australian fast bowler Brett Lee has been ruled out of the remaining matches on the ongoing ODI series against India. Lee will fly back home because of an elbow injury.

He is also likely to miss the home test series against West Indies.

Lee was unable to complete his quota of overs on the first ODI in Vadodara and this elbow problem kept him out of the second ODI in Nagpur. The injury is the latest setback for Lee who also missed the Ashes in England due to fitness problems.

James Hopes willnot be playing the third ODi as he is suffering from hamstring strain. Now with Lee joining him, it is likely to be a major setback for the Aussies.

Also Tim Paine, the Australian wicket keeper who broke his finger during the second ODI will be replaced by Graham Manou, who is expected to reach Delhi for the third ODI.

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After India its now Australia’s turn with injuries ruining the team. James Hopes is ruled out of the second match and there is also a question of availability of Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson.

Hopes suffered a hamstring strain during the first match in Vadodara, while Mitchell Johnson left the field with a left ankle problem while Lee complaining of a sore elbow.

Australia already lost their key players Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Nathan Bracken to injuries before the tour began. Also some players who were playing for New South Wales arrived at Vadodara some 12 hours before the match after the Champions League Twenty20.

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The Delhi Feroz Shah Kotla saw Diamond Eagles and New South Wales (NSW) take on each other on Friday. Simon Katich hit a fantastic 53, while Stuart Clark took 3 wickets to guide New South Wales to a 53-run win in the second match of the Champions League.

Ryan McLaren (40 not out) and Adrian McLaren (11) were the only ones to register double figures for the Eagles as NSW restricted them to 91/9 in the allotted 20 overs.

For NSW, Stuart Clark picked up three wickets, giving away just 12 runs from his four overs, while Moises Henriques picked up two wickets.

Brett Lee and Nathan Hauritz also made their presence felt in the wicket list, scalping a victim each.

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At last the finals have arrived and New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori has pulled a hamstring injury and is not playing in the finals at the Supersport Park in Centurion. He is replaced by Jeetan Patel. Brendon McCullum is leading the Kiwi’s. Australia have gone unchanged.

After winning toss, New Zealand opted to bat first and are suffering as Australia have been taking wickets steadily. The current skipper of Kiwi’s McCullum was dismissed with no run.

Redmond (26) and Guptill (40) managed to bring the score to 66 in the 19th over when they lost Redmond and within the next few overs Guptill was bowled by Hauritz and thus shaking the top batting order.

Neil Broom (37) and James Franklin (33) tried to make up but missed it.

With just 5 overs remaining, the Kiwis are struggling with just 2 more wickets.

Nathan Hauritz has taken 3 wickets and Brett Lee with 2. Siddle and Johnson have got 1 wicket each.

The unavailability of Vettori is very much seen as he has been good with both bat and ball through out the tournament.

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India had one win, one wash out and one loss and they are out of the Champions Trophy. They started the tournament with the No.1 ranking but have ended up with a messy performance. Against Pakistan, neither batting nor bowling was excellent. Australia were well on their way to post a target close to 300 when skies started pouring. The performance was good against West Indies. It happened when the game between Pakistan and Australia was goint on. India would have had a good chance if only Australia hadn’t shown a nail-biting last ball victory.

Has India performed better in the tournament? Dhoni said “It is tough for me to decide if we were good in the tournament because we were off the boil only in one game. Even when we were chasing 300-odd runs against Pakistan if we had capitalised on the start we got, we could have won the game. That was our off game. The second game was washed out and the third one we won. It is really difficult to say if this performance was bad. I was much more disappointed about the World T20 performance as we were really off the mark.”

Dhoni also added that the team missed bowling all-rounder who can contribute with bat and even ball at the time of need. “One of the reasons the Australian side is good is because they can play up to six specialist bowlers and they can all bat. If you look at Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee, they can all bat and contribute a bit. I have always said we need to find a seam up bowler who can contribute with the bat because it always gives you the option of playing two spinners. At times, when you play five bowlers and six batsmen it is a worry because in day and night games chasing can become a problem if you lose early wickets. In this tournament we were forced to play with five bowlers and not all of them could bat.”

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Mumbai Indians kept their IPL hopes alive with a commanding eight-wicket victory over Kings XI Punjab on Tuesday.

Chasing a total of 120, Mumbai Indians reached the target in just 16.2 overs with Dwayne Bravo blasting an unbeaten 70 off 59 balls and Sachin Tendulkar contributing an unbeaten 41.

The victory brought Mumbai Indians back into the semi-final contention, as they jumped two spots to fourth place in the IPL standings with 11 points from 11 matches.

Kings XI Punjab’s chances of finishing among the top four now looks bleak as they are down to seventh place with 10 points and three matches in hand.

It was a must-win situation for both teams, and Mumbai Indians came out with all guns blazing to steal the show.

Mumbai’s promotion of Dwayne Bravo worked wonders as the West Indian ripped apart the bowlers with clean strikes. He struck seven fours and three sixes.

Brett Lee took out Sanath Jayasuriya before Bravo cut loose in Sreesanth’s only over, which cost 21 runs with two sixes and two fours. Bravo continued in the same vein through the innings.

Piyush Chawla got the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane, but Tendulkar batted around Bravo to see the team through.

Mumbai Indians captain Sachin Tendulkar played the spin card to perfection to restrict Kings XI to 119-9. His plan was carried out by off-spinners Harbhajan Singh (1-9) and JP Duminy (2-15), who bowled intelligently to bring the downfall of Kings XI batting line-up that had seven left-handers.

Opener Sunny Sohal played a lone hand in Punjab’s innings with a breezy 43 off 23 balls that included three sixes and five fours.

Punjab lost two quick wickets at the top with Simon Katich and Irfan Pathan being dismissed for ducks. Sunny Sohal counter-attacked to bring Punjab back on the track.

Harbhajan came into the attack and soon got the prized wicket of Kumar Sangakkara. Tendulkar quickly tried his options and used as many as eight bowlers to keep Punjab guessing.

Duminy removed dangerous Yuvraj Singh and Ajinkya Rahane. Punjab batsmen were guilty of sloppy running between the wickets with as many as four players, including Sohal, being run-out. It was Karan Goel’s 20 that helped Punjab cross the 100-run mark.

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Two buoyant sides, boasting some of the best stroke players in contemporary cricket, will clash head on when Kings XI Punjab take on Mumbai Indians in a potential humdinger in the Indian Premier League on Wednesday.

After the rain god stopped stalking them, Kings XI under Yuvraj Singh have managed to put their campaign back on track with back-to-back victories over Bangalore Royal Challengers and defending champions Rajasthan Royals.

The wins lifted the pall of gloom that had descended on the Kings XI camp following their defeats against Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders in two rain-marred ties.

In contrast, the Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai Indians got off to a perfect start with a victory over last year’s finalist Chennai Super Kings before sharing points with Rajasthan Royals from their washed out outing.

Tendulkar and his men tasted their first defeat against the all-conquering Deccan Chargers in their third tie but shrugged off the setback with a thumping 92-run win against the Knight Riders on Monday.

Tendulkar himself has led from the front with his consistent display at the top, in company of the ageless Sanath Jayasuriya. The senior batsmen have forged a lethal pair at the top and while the Knight Riders were at the receiving end of their onslaught on Monday, it could be any other side on Wednesday.

JP Duminy didn’t convert the start on Monday but the exciting Protea youngster is unlikely to squander another chance to impress the home crowd.

Abhishek Nayar and even Harbhajan Singh have the ability to land a few lusty blows, which means Tendulkar is not short on gunpowder.

Their bowling looks equally formidable with Lasith Malinga and Zaheer Khan forging a fearsome pair.

Dwayne Bravo has also chipped in while Abhishek Nayar, Jayasuriya and Tendulkar himself can prove quite a handful with their part-time bowling.

In contrast, Kings XI batting line-up has been inconsistent with Yuvraj’s own reputation as one of the deadliest batsmen in this format in tatters.

Rather, Kumar Sangakkara’s has been a reassuring presence in the middle and it was the Lankan’s unbeaten half-century that paved way to the side’s victory against Rajasthan Royals.

Irfan Pathan has also done justice to his all-rounder’s reputation, shining both with the bat and ball.

Even though the absence of Brett Lee and S Sreesanth depleted the Mohali-based outfit’s bowling resources, their late recruit Yousuf Abdulla has been among the wickets while Pathan’s impressive form also helped their cause.

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It’s tempting to say that every T20 match is a clash among equals. Both Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab had lost in semifinals last year.

Each losing match hurts, but losing in the semifinals probably hurts more because you are not counted among the elites who make the finals despite being better than the masses. That way, these teams would have this extra urge to go one step further this year.

Even in the unpredictable scheme of things, the Daredevils possess something that set them apart. In Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir they have two openers who have tormented every attack they have faced in the last year in every form of the game.

Having said that and taken note of the fact that the Kings XI attack looks a little weak with Brett Lee injured out, every team facing the Daredevils would like to believe that it’s a one-ball game for batsmen. Irrespective of the destruction one may cause, one good ball, bad shot, good catch or a run out can quickly change things.

Then again, the Daredevils are not all about openers. There is meat in the middle in the form of De Villiers and Paul Collingwood apart from Australian opener David Warner who may have to come in after the openers. How they choose the four foreigners is to be seen though and their bowling looks slightly thin apart from Glenn McGrath.

The Kings XI too have a strong batting line-up with Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Yuvraj Singh being the prominent ones. Their biggest concern should be the absence of Shaun Marsh and the lack of big Indian names in batting. It’s likely that three of their four foreigners will be batsmen, which may leave the attack a little weakened.

After assessing the pros and cons, the Daredevils appear to be holding a slender edge nonetheless. Then again, since it is T20 where nothing is certain until it has happened, we maintain that the match starts on an even keel.

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Cricket Australia has refused to allow fast bowler Shaun Tait to play in the Indian Premier League because of fitness concerns.

The 26-year-old was due to play for Shane Warne’s Rajasthan Royals, the defending champions, in Saturday’s first game against Bangalore.

But Australian officials were concerned he had not recovered from a hamstring injury sustained two months ago.

“He’s still working through the rehab programme,” spokesman Peter Young said.

Tait is the latest in a series of Australians to withdraw from the lucrative tournament, which is being staged in South Africa this year because of security concerns.

Shane Watson, IPL Player of the Season last year, will instead be part of Australia’s squad for a series against Pakistan in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, along with fellow all-rounder Andrew Symonds.

Brett Lee, meanwhile, is recovering from injury and skipper Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey have decided to rest ahead of this summer’s ICC World Twenty 20 and Ashes series in England.

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The Indian Premier League may bring unforseen riches to the world’s top cricketers, but not everyone has fallen for the lure of the lucre.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting and senior pro Michael Hussey opted out of the IPL’s second season starting in South Africa on Saturday to rest tired limbs after a back-breaking schedule.

Two other Australians, Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson, did not even put themselves up for auction, saying they wanted to concentrate on their international careers.

Expensive players are not guaranteed their entire riches as the England duo of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff have found out.

Both went for record sums of 1.55 million dollars each at this year’s auction, but England’s home series against the West Indies in May has shortened their IPL participation to the first two weeks.

Players are paid on a pro-rata basis and two other England stars, Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah, will also be similarly affected.

Collingwood and Shah were picked up by the Delhi Daredevils team for identical amounts of 275,000 dollars each.

West Indian captain Chris Gayle, who commands 800,000 dollars from the Kolkata Knight Riders, and team-mate Fidel Edwards, a new signee with the Deccan Chargers for 150,000 dollars, will also be available for two weeks.

Australian controversial all-rounder Andrew Symonds, bought by the Deccan Chargers for 1.35 million last year, will now be available for only the last two weeks of the IPL.

Brett Lee, a 900,000-dollar signee with Kings XI Punjab, may not even play at all as the Australian medical staff monitors his recovery from ankle and foot injury ahead of the Ashes.

Australian Shane Watson, who was the IPL’s player of the tournament last year, is also out till May 7 due to his inclusion for the Pakistan series.

“I think Shane will miss the first nine games and be available for the last five and hopefully the finals,” said Shane Warne, his Rajasthan Royals captain.

The biggest losers are the Pakistani cricketers who were thrown out of the IPL this year after Islamabad denied them permission to travel to India for the tournament following growing tensions between the two countries.

The players’ appeal to allow them to return to the IPL since the tournament had been shifted to South Africa was rejected by tournament organisers.

It deprives Warne’s champion team of the services of left-arm seamer Sohail Tanvir, the highest wicket-taker last year with 22 wickets.

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