The Cricket Board today reiterated its stand on the Harbhajan Singh ban issue and threatened to call of the remainder of the tour of Australia unless the alleged racial abuse charge against the Indian off spinner was withdrawn in the two-day appeals hearing starting tomorrow.
“Our stand remains the same as was the case earlier. We want the racial slur (against Harbhajan Singh) to be lifted. Otherwise the BCCI will recall the team from Australia,” said its Vice-President Lalit Modi today.

Earlier in the day, Harbhajan’s counsel V R Manohar made it clear that the Indian camp would oppose any “fishy” evidence that might be used against the off spinner to scuttle his defence during the two-day hearing.

ICC-appointed commissioner John Hansen, while laying down the procedure for the hearing, said “additional evidence” like transcript available from the stump microphone, could be admissible in the hearing scheduled to begin tomorrow in Adelaide.

The Indians, however, are against the idea.

“Anything which is legal and for the purpose of doing justice, we ourselves will co-operate. But if something fishy is done in the guise of doing justice we will object,” Manohar said.

Manohar was also confident that the present evidence was enough to save the troubled off-spinner.

New virtual rankings for ICC umpires has been prepared and released by cricket viewers just few hours ago, not the ranking for best umpiring but for the worst umpiring and the top place was taken the umpires at Australia v India, 2nd Test, umpires. The India - Australia second test ended today with Australia winning the match and leading the series with 2-0. From the very start of the match, the worst umpiring has been seen clearly. In first innings, Symonds, Australian player, got out by the Indian players thrice, but the umpire decision was NOT OUT, which was actually a clear OUT and this incident happened to be the turning point of the game. Later, in the press meet Symonds, himself accepted that he was OUT couple of times and said thanks to the Umpire for his poor decision, which helped him to score and save his crying team at a score from 123/6 to 463/10.

:: Picture Description : Sourav Ganguly departs after some doubt over whether his catch carried to Michael Clarke, Australia v India, 2nd Test, Sydney, 5th day, January 6, 2008

In second innings, it is even worst, the worst is not the word. India with a target of 333 to win in 72 overs, started to play their game. All on sudden, Dravid has been given OUT by the umpire for caught behind by Gilchrist, which was a NOT OUT. And, later for Ganguly, the umpire gave OUT, which is also a not out. Actually, the ball caught by Clark,Australian player, was grounded by him. Ganguly doubted his dismissal and approached umpire and now starts the worst umpire story. Umpire went and asked to Ricky Ponting, Australian skipper, whether it is out or not??. The conversation between umpire and Ponting has been recorded by camera man on ground. Seeing that scene on TV, everyone is shocked, the commentators were also shocked to see this worst thing and commented just like this, “22 good players and 2 worst umpires”. The Australian players are also responsible for this, they were appealing too much which also made umpires to give bad decision, even Ricky Ponting has grounded one catch and appealed to umpire. It was also well criticised by the commentators as, the cheap game from Australian players.

:: Picture Description :Brett Lee appeals against Rahul Dravid, Australia v India, 2nd Test, Sydney, 5th day, January 6, 2008

Will ICC look into this issue????

India failed against Australia in the first test of 3mobile Test Series held in Melbourne. The first test came to an end on the fourth day itself, the main reason for this, is the worst performance of Indian batsmen batting. Top order Indian batsmen were not at their best. In the first innings they scored just 196 runs and in second innings even worst they scored only 161. Ganguly is the top scorer from the Indian side with 83 runs and Sachin in second position with 77 runs. Ganguly played both the innings at his best, it is to remembered that he made double century in Home against Pakistan. Aussies were also sad after the poor performance of Ricky Ponting, Captain of Australia. Ponting scored 4 and 3 runs in first and second innings respectively. Indian bowling attack was excellent under the captaincy of Kumble, but still not enough. They have to prepare well before the second test against Aussies on 2nd January 2008.

I feel proud to say that, I’m from Chennai, this time since Chennai Superstars has won the first ICL trophy held at Chandigarh. Chennai superstars beat all their rivals very easily. As their tag line say anything is possible they proved that anything is possible with the low profile team with few international players. The team includes few high profile players from Tamil Nadu and couple of International players. From the very beginning they were winning every matches against their rival. They won three matches in a row and started to see a dip after that. It disappointed me a little, but the Superstars has proved once again that anything is possible with their grand victory. Obviously its being the First ICL trophy held and Chennai Superstars has become the first ever team to win the ICL Trophy.

I suggest chennai citizens to spend some time and watch this trailer below. The trailer is superb and reflects the current trend of kollywood. Nice clip to watch!

The most awaited test series of the year, the clash between the titans. The 50-50 world champions and 20-20 world champions are going to fight in the another battle called Test match. Match started in early morning around 4 Am at Melbourne and now in second tea break after lunch, Australia - 212/3. Hayden has once again repeated his power against India by unbeaten 121*. In Indian side Anil Kumble took 2 wickets and Zaheer Khan took 1 wicket. Not to say anything now, the match has started strongly and 4 more days to go to decide the fate of the first test match.

As early as now, the 2010 World Cup fever has already started. In a year-long poll conducted among South Africans in the site not the 2010 logo, 75 percent of the voters do not like the official 2010 FIFA World Cup logo.

Many designers feel the logo is way below standard. Instead of complaining, they created a site and invited other designers to create their own version of the World Cup logo and let the public decide which unofficial logo is more appropriate through online voting.

Although this contest is not sanctioned by the FIFA, many designers created more attractive logos reflecting the South African culture. They intend to submit poster and mascot designs to FIFA, hoping it will be considered. This creative way of showing discontent has opened opportunities to many aspiring designers since their logo designs are exposed to more than 300,000 online visitors.