Sunday was a bad day for India who opted to bat first and finally lost the show to the touring team Australia in the 6th ODI of the Hero Honda Cup. With this victory, Australia has clinched the seven match series by 4-2.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat first in the heavy weather conditions and the side suffered since the beginning as they lost the top batting order. They never got the time to recover and hence fell flat to the World Champions.

India managed to make 170 in 48 overs while the Australians chased down the target in 41.5 overs losing just 4 wickets.

From Australian side, Shane Watson (49), Ricky Ponting (25), Cameron White (25) helped for a good base while the match was completed by Michael Hussey (35 not out) and Adam Voges (23 not out).

Previously, India who opted to bat first were slumped to 27/5 in 9 overs and even a hundred looked far for the team.

Fortunately, Ravindra Jadeja (57) and Praveen Kumar (54 not out) pushed the score to 170 before they coiled.

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India came close to victory against Australia in the first One-Day International but lost to the Champions by just 4 runs, with victory coming only in the final over.

It was Harbhajan Singh (49 from 31 balls) and Praveen Kumar (40 from 32 balls – not out) who took the match a long way with their 84-run stand off 57 deliveries.

Even captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni conceded that his team lost the plot well before Harbhajan and Kumar staged a fightback. He felt the match was lost in the five overs of batting Powerplay – which was taken at the start of the 35th over – when three wickets fell while scoring just 32 runs.

“We lost four wickets in the Powerplay and I think that was the turning point. We lost three wickets in the Poweplay without cashing in too much, but thanks to Bhajji and Praveen they took the game close. I think we lost too many wickets in the Powerplay,”Dhoni said, reflecting on the defeat at the IPCL stadium in Vadodara on Sunday.

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Australia has clinched the ICC Champions Trophy by winning over New Zealand by 6 wickets at the Supersport Park in Centurion.

New Zealand who opted to bat first, scored 200 runs from 50 overs losing 9 wickets. While the Aussies were successful in achieving the target with 4.4 overs remaining.

Though Australia lost Paine and Ponting in the beginning, the opener Shane Watson (105 not out) and White (62) played wonderful shots.

After White was bowled by Mills, Hussey (11) joined Watson but were unable to hold on the partnership due to Mills’ excellent bowling.

It was Hopes and Watson who finished the match with 206/4 from 45.2 overs.

Shane Watson was declared man of the match and Ricky Ponting was declared player of the series.

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Australian Captain Ricky Ponting retired fron Twenty20 Internationals. Still he will be available for the One Day Internationals and test matches.

Ponting said that “I’m really passionate and committed to being the best player that I can be for Australia for as long as possible.”

“Over the last couple of years I’ve found it increasing difficult to play all three forms of the game at the level that I want to play them.”

“Looking at international Twenty20 cricket, I’ve looked at the program for the next couple of years. In the next 12 months alone, I’ve looked at having probably an extra four weeks off which will give me an opportunity to get away and just make sure that I’m ready to go for both the Test matches and the one-day cricket we have in that period.”

He added that “I want to be as fresh as I possibly can for every one-day game or Test I play for the rest of my career and I think having the extra few weeks at home will give me a better chance to do that.”

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Australian team has been knocked down from the number one slot to the fourth position in the ICC Test rankings after losing the Ashes series to England. They are placed behind India.

Australia lost the fifth and crucial Test on Sunday by a comprehensive 197 runs. This tragedy cost Ricky Ponting’s men eight ratings points and they are now number four behind India.

This is for the first time since the current method of ranking was introduced in May 2003 that the world champions have been toppled from the top.

South Africa benefitted the most by the Aussie slump becoming the new number ones, followed by Sri Lanka. England stayed fifth but gained six ratings points and are now just 11 points behind Australia.

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England team regained the Ashes on the wonderful match at the Oval. England scored 332 and 373 for 9 declared while Australia 160 and 348 (Hussey 121, Ponting 66, Swann 4-120). This 197 runs victory came to the England team on the fourth day of the fifth test played between the two countries. Stuart Board was declared the man of the match for his 5 wickets in the first innings of the final test. England have won the Ashes by 2-1.

Ricky Ponting is the second Australian Captain after Billy Murdoch in 1890 to be incharge for losing the Ashes tour. This has knocked Australia down the ICC test rankings.

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The England and Wales Cricket Board said on Wednesday said that England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff is to retire from Test cricket at the end of the Ashes series against Australia because of persistent injury problems. The 31-year-old will continue to make himself available for one-day and Twenty20 fixtures, an ECB statement said.

“My body has told me it’s time to stop. Since 2005 I’ve had two years when I’ve done nothing but rehab from one injury or another,” Flintoff said.

“It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I think this last problem I’ve had with my knee has confirmed to me that the time is now right.”

Flintoff’s participation in the second Test at Lord’s, which starts on Thursday, remains in doubt after he suffered his latest injury in the first Test, when he bowled 35 overs. The Lancashire all-rounder had surgery for a torn meniscus in April, cutting short his time in the Indian Premier League.

The news is a big blow to England as Flintoff is not only a key strike bowler and destructive batsman but a huge personality who lifts his team-mates and the crowd.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting said on Wednesday he thought it had been a risk using Flintoff as one of only three seamers in Cardiff but added: “He showed the galvanizing effect he can have on the second afternoon (in Cardiff), when his spell after lunch really got the crowd going.”

Flintoff made his England debut in 1998 and has played 76 Tests and 141 One-Day Internationals. He averages 31.69 in Tests and has taken 219 wickets.

Hugely popular with fans for his whole-hearted approach and winning personality, he was a key member of the 2005 Ashes-winning side.

However, his career has been blighted by injury and he has missed more than 20 Tests over the last three years. He had four separate operations on his ankle between 2005 and 2007 and has problems with his hip, groin, shoulder and back.

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Scoreboard:

England 1st innings

AJ Strauss c Clarke b Johnson 30

AN Cook c Hussey b Hilfenhaus 10

RS Bopara c Hughes b Johnson 35

KP Pietersen c Katich b Hauritz 69

PD Collingwood c Haddin b Hilfenhaus 64

MJ Prior b Siddle 56

A Flintoff b Siddle 37

JM Anderson c Hussey b Hauritz 26

SCJ Broad b Johnson 19

GP Swann not out 47

MS Panesar c Ponting b Hauritz 4

Extras (b 13, lb 11, w 2, nb 12) 38

Total (all out; 106.5 overs) 435

Fall of wickets: 1-21, 2-67, 3-90, 4-228, 5-241, 6-327, 7-329, 8-355, 9-423, 10-435

Bowling:MG Johnson:22-2-87-3-3.95,BW Hilfenhaus:27-5-77-2-2.85,PM Siddle:27-3-121-2-4.48,NM Hauritz:23.5-1-95-3-3.98,MJ Clarke:5-0-20-0-4.00,SM Katich:2-0-11-0-5.50

Australia 1st innings

PJ Hughes c Prior b Flintoff 36

SM Katich lbw b Anderson 122

RT Ponting b Panesar 150

MEK Hussey c Prior b Anderson 3

MJ Clarke c Prior b Broad 83

MJ North not out 125

BJ Haddin c Bopara b Collingwood 121

Extras (b 9, lb 14, w 4, nb 7) 34

Total (6 wickets dec; 181 overs) 674

Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-299, 3-325, 4-331, 5-474, 6-674

Bowling:JM Anderson:32-6-110-2-3.43,SCJ Broad:32-6-129-1-4.03,GP Swann:38-8-131-0-3.44,A Flintoff:35-3-128-1-3.65,MS Panesar:35-4-115-1-3.28,PD Collingwood:9-0-38-1-4.22

England 2nd innings

AJ Strauss c Haddin b Hauritz 17

AN Cook lbw b Johnson 6

RS Bopara lbw b Hilfenhaus 1

KP Pietersen b Hilfenhaus 8

PD Collingwood c Hussey b Siddle 74

MJ Prior c Clarke b Hauritz 14

A Flintoff c Ponting b Johnson 26

SCJ Broad lbw b Hauritz 14

GP Swann lbw b Hilfenhaus 31

JM Anderson not out 21

MS Panesar not out 7

Extras (b 9, lb 9, w 4, nb 11) 33

Total (9 wickets; 105 overs) 252

Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-17, 3-31, 4-46, 5-70, 6-127, 7-159, 8-221, 9-233

Bowling:MG Johnson:22-4-44-2-2.00,BW Hilfenhaus:15-3-47-3-3.13,PM Siddle:18-2-51-1-2.83,NM Hauritz:37-12-63-3-1.70,MJ Clarke:3-0-8-0-2.66,MJ North:7-4-14-0-2.00,SM Katich:3-0-7-0-2.33

Series 5-match series level 0-0

Player of the match: RT Ponting (Australia)

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Simon Katich scored his maiden Ashes hundred and Australia captain Ricky Ponting also reached three figures to keep England at bay on the second day of the first Ashes Test on Thursday.

Australia, at stumps at Sophia Gardens, were 249 for one in reply to England’s first innings 435, a deficit of 186.

Left-handed opener Katich, dropped early in his innings, was 104 not out and Ponting 100 not out, with their unbroken stand worth 189.

Katich, who has been at the crease for nearly five hours, became the first cricketer to score a Test hundred in Wales when he pulled Andrew Flintoff to post his eighth century at this level off 214 balls with eight fours.

Ponting, who by contrast was compiling his 38th Test hundred, followed him to the landmark with a single off the penultimate ball of the day, also from Flintoff, to bring up a century in 155 balls with eight fours.

During the course of his innings Ponting joined Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and former Australia captain Allan Border as the only batsmen to have made more than 11,000 Test runs.

Flintoff, who produced a ferocious burst when introduced into the attack after lunch that saw him remove opener and Ashes debutant Phillip Hughes. Flintoff immediately tested the 20-year-old left-hander from around the wicket in a bid to cramp the batsman for room.

The pace bowler then saw Katich, on 10, drive the ball low and hard back at him only for Flintoff, in his follow through, to drop the difficult caught and bowled chance.

Hughes, who favours the offside, had made 28 runs off 30 balls before lunch.

But it was a different story after the break with the 20-year-old only managing eight off 24 in the face of some fiery bowling from Flintoff, playing his first Test of the season following a knee injury.

Hughes was eventually out for 36 when he inside edged Flintoff, the hero of England’s 2005 Ashes series win, and wicket-keeper Matt Prior held a good, low diving catch.

Off-spinner Graeme Swann reeled off five consecutive maidens on a pitch taking turn but Australia’s second-wicket duo were rarely troubled by him or left-arm spinner Monty Panesar.

However, Swann was convinced he had Katich lbw for 56 with a ball that pitched in line and spun past the batsman’s defences.

Ponting produced a chanceless display, driving and pulling in typically authoritative fashion as he scored his eighth Test century against England.

Swann, coming in at no. 9, made 47 not out and, together with James Anderson (26), had shared in a valuable ninth-wicket stand of 68 in just 53 balls before lunch.

Swann struck rival off-spinner Nathan Hauritz for three fours in a row, the last a cheeky reverse sweep that took England past 400 after they’d resumed on 336 for seven with all of their specialist batsmen out.

But he was left just short of his second Test fifty when last man Panesar edged Hauritz to Ponting in the slips.

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Team Australia under the Captain Ricky Ponting is set to leave their ICC World T20 2009 after their early exit from the tournament.

Australia lasted just four days in the tournament, only Scotland and Bangladesh exited earlier, losing first to West Indies by seven wickets and then by six to Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge on Monday night.

After the half-centuries posted by Tillekeratne Dilshan (53) and Kumar Sangakkara (55 not out) that helped the Sri Lanka go through to the Super Eights, Ponting said that they had moved in with high expectations.

The job was done with six balls to spare, after Ajantha Mendis (3-20) had helped to restrict Australia to only 159 for nine.

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