Pallekele, (AFP): Ajantha Mendis became the first bowler to bag six wickets in a Twenty20 international as Sri Lanka clinched the series 2-0 against Australia with an eight-run win in the second match on Monday.

The unorthodox spinner finished with 6-16 off four overs as Australia lost their way after an explosive start provided by Shane Watson, who hammered a 24-ball 57 with five sixes and six fours.

Australia, who lost the first match by 35 runs, were eventually restricted to 149-9, after the hosts made 157 at the Pallekele International Stadium.

Sri Lanka were indebted to opener Mahela Jayawardene (86 off 63 balls) for posting a competitive total before Mendis ended Australia’s early flourish. ‘ Angelo Mathews also caught the eye for Sri Lanka with his key role in David Warner’s dismissal off Mendis as he held a superb catch in the deep, but was about to step over the boundary line before relaying the ball to Jayawardene.

Watson dominated a 71-run stand for the opening wicket with Warner, but his dismissal in the sixth over triggered a collapse which saw Australia lose four wickets in the space of four runs.

Sri Lanka were earlier strongly placed at 121-3 after 14 overs before paceman John Hastings rallied his team to eventually finish with 3-14 off four tight overs.

Fast bowler Brett Lee was the other main wicket-taker with 3-39, including two wickets in the last over. Jayawardene dominated Australia’s attack with exciting strokeplay, smashing one six and 12 fours in his sixth half-century in Twenty20 internationals.

He survived on 82 when he was caught off a Lee full-toss in the last over, but it was ruled a no-ball as it was above the waist. He fell in the same over, caught in the deep going for a big shot.

Sri Lanka, electing to bat after winning the toss, lost skipper Tillakaratne Dilshan in the third over before being steadied by Jayawardene.

Dilshan, who hit an unbeaten century in the opening match, contributed just four runs this time before being trapped leg-before by Lee. Jayawardene then added 43 for the second wicket with Dinesh Chandimal (13) and 46 for the fourth with Kumar Sangakkara, who made a 16-ball 24.

courtesy:-http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.yahoonews.com/mendis-makes-t20-history-sri-lanka-win-20110808/

London, Aug 7 (IANS) England batsman Eoin Morgan Sunday blamed umpire Asad Rauf for his teammate Ian Bell’s bizarre run out during the Trent Bridge Test against India.

Morgan was at the non-striker’s end when Bell left his crease thinking it to be tea. It was Morgan’s clip off the leg for three but Bell thought it to be a boundary and joined his teammate to leave for pavilion. The Indians clipped the bails and appealed for a run out much to the shock of English batsmen.

It was only when the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni withdrew the appeal that the goodwill was restored between the two sides.

Morgan said Rauf, who never announces the end of an over like others, only ‘gestured’ when he asked about the ball, convincing him that it was tea.

‘I wasn’t really worried until I walked off and Belly told me they’d taken the bails off,’ he was quoted as saying in The Daily Telegraph.

‘I said ‘Is it four?’. And Asad (Rauf, the umpire) nodded his head. No, he didn’t nod his head. He sort of gestured. So I just turned round and walked off presuming the ball was dead,’ Morgan said.

‘It was a weird one really because Asad at the end of the over doesn’t actually call ‘over’; he never does. He just gestures to the bowler,’ he said.

Bell and Morgan were met at the boundary’s edge by Tim Robinson, the reserve umpire.

‘Tim just told us to hold on,’ says Morgan, ‘because they were checking to see if it had gone for four and what action they were going to take because the bails had been taken off.’

Morgan said it was a long wait at the dressing room before they were told the Indians retracted their appeal.

‘In the dressing room, we didn’t really know what was going on,’ Morgan said. ‘We were just waiting around to see what happened.’

‘The bell went and we still hadn’t heard anything. Billy Bowden (the television umpire) came up to our dressing room three times during the interval to say they hadn’t retracted their appeal.’

‘Literally two minutes before Matt (Prior) and I were about to go out, the message came through that Belly was still in

courtesy:-http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.indiaabroad.com/raufs-quirk-behind-bells-bizarre-run-out-morgan-20110807/

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Former India players are united in their belief that Virender Sehwag’s return from injury will stabilise the team’s fragile batting order and lift morale in the remaining two tests against a dominant England.

The dashing opener has been sidelined since undergoing shoulder surgery in May, keeping the 32-year-old out of the tour of the West Indies and India’s first two tests against England.

India, 2-0 down in the four-match series, had looked nothing like the world’s number one-ranked team in the Lord’s and Trent Bridge tests but that could change with the return of the explosive right-hander, according to Anshuman Gaekwad.

“It is almost going to be like a new series. To have Sehwag and (Gautam) Gambhir back… It will give a lot of confidence to the team,” the former India international and coach told Reuters.

Sehwag’s opening partner Gambhir injured his elbow while fielding at Lord’s and missed the 319-run defeat at Trent Bridge but is likely to return to the starting lineup for the third test beginning on Aug. 10 at Edgbaston in Birmingham.

The injuries to the top order forced India to tinker with the batting lineup, placing Rahul Dravid in a makeshift opener’s role and Vangipurappu Laxman up the order at number three.

“In a test match, it is of utmost necessity to have a good start. Their return will be a big relief for the captain and the team,” emphasised the former India opener, who played 40 test matches from 1975-85.

Sehwag has 22 hundreds in 87 test appearances but it his strike rate of almost 82 runs per 100 deliveries that make him one of the most intimidating batsmen in cricket.

Former captain Ajit Wadekar said Sehwag’s return would ease the pressure on India’s “Big Three” — Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Laxman.

“Sehwag coming back itself is enough to boost the morale of the team. We never had a solid opening partnership in the series,” Wadekar, the former chief of national selectors, said by phone.

“If our openers do their bit, batsmen down the order will start gaining in confidence.”

MATCH PRACTICE

Sehwag’s audacious strokeplay might be the ideal counter-attacking ploy the team needed to recover from the heavy defeats and avoid a two-clear test series defeat that would enable England to leapfrog India at the top of the rankings.

“The opposition bowlers also get disheartened by Sehwag’s presence,” the 70-year old Wadekar said.

India will play a two-day tour game against Northamptonshire starting on Friday and it will be Sehwag’s only chance to acclimatise himself to the conditions before the third test starts on Aug. 10.

“I don’t know how much practice he will get. He has been out for so long after the injury. Hope he acclimatises quickly with the conditions there,” Wadekar, who led India to series victories in West Indies and England in 1971, said.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly also doubted whether Sehwag had enough time to get match fit.

“It has to be seen whether the dynamic opener has had enough cricket or whether the Northants game is enough to get him ready for Birmingham,” Ganguly wrote in a column which was published in the Hindustan Times on Thursday.

Courtesy:-http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.reuters.com/india-expects-great-things-from-sehwags-return-20110804/