Story England in India 2008-***Indians off to a Steady Start***

[saladguy]

England need a miracle now! At least KP is still there!

 

[shantanu_rooney]

England bowled out as Superstars Win Easily​

England needed 98 runs in the last 10 overs which was always gonna be difficult but it was never impossible in T20 cricket. England still had skipper Kevin Pietersen at the crease. Sulieman Benn who had been very impressive was given the ball. Samit Patell just got an edge and the ball went all the way for four of the first ball of Benn's third over. Patel played some senisble cricket by giving Pietersen the strike. But Pietersen must really have cursed Patel for giving him the strike because next ball Benn got Pietersen bowled. Similar to the dismissal of Collingwood, Pietersen too was beaten for the spin and got clean bowled. With Pietersen's wicket England's hope of winning the match ended. Luke Wright who had nothing to so far in this series came in to ball when England were in deep deep trouble. Emrit continued his spell from the Pavilion end. Patel and Wright put on a 5 runs partnership before Emrit saw the back of Luke Wright. Emrit pitched fuller and tempted Wright to drive. Wright played a lofted drive straight to the hands of Darren Powell standing at covers. Emrit got his second wicket and Wright departed for a huge duck.

Graeme Swann who is also handy with the bat came in to replace Wright. Swann looked comfortable playing Emrit and Benn both. Patel and Swann kept the score board ticking with ones and twos. No risk of going for the boundaries was taken by the two batsman. This match was almost over and it had just become a formality for the English players now. Benn finished his brilliant spell with the figures of 44 for 22. Chris Gayle bought himself into the attack. And the bowling change did strike. Swann failed to read the turn on the ball and ball came in and hit the leg stump. Swann had to walk back for just 4 runs before his name. All Gayle touched today was turning into gold. Gayle too was very economical as he went for just 3 runs.

Gayle decided to bring Darren Powell his strike bowler back into the attack and finish this game of. Patel took the single of the first ball and gave Stuart Broad who is turning into a bowling allrounder these days the strike. Broad just touched the ball towards mid wicket and decided to take a single. But poor communication between the two batsman resulted in Broad's run out. Broad was very angry with his partner and failed there was clear single in it. Harmison the last man came to bat. Powell bowled a brilliant yorker to get rid of Steve Harmison which mean Superstars have bowled England out for just 97 runs and have won the game quite comfortably. There were lots of celebration going all over the ground. The fans and the players are delighted with this victory. This game has really brought a lot of fortune to many young West Indian cricketers and this the moment which they would never forget.

D.Lloyd: BOWLED HIM!!! Superstars have won 20m USD. England are all out for just 97 runs after a promising start they lost very quick wickets. Superstars deserved the victory as they performed brilliantly throught this series. We have Nasser Hussain down on the ground and he has Sulieman Benn the hero of the match with him.

: Suliemaan outstanding performance and how is the feeling at the moment?

: First of all I would like to thank God for giving me such an golden oppurtunity and helping me to grab it with both the hands. I am very happy at the moment I cant still believe we beat England so easily.

: You would be getting 1m USD, what would you do with those?

: I would give that money to my family and use as much as possible for my small brother's illness treatment.

: Congrats again!! Go and enjpy the moment.

: Thanks a lot.

: Back to the commentary box, David.

David Lloyd: Brilliant scenes at the Antigua, Superstar player celebrating and they were indeed deserved champions today. This is surely the biggest moment for West Indian cricket. So here the confirmation Stanford Superstars have beaten England by 76 runs to win 20million USD as prize money. Stay Tuned because when we come back we would be heading for the big presentation ceremony.

 

[JD10]

Oh dear me

 

[Dr. Pepper]

Brilliant win for Stanford. Completely deserved it. England were awful though. Completely beaten in all aspects. Tragic story for Suliemen Benn, he deserves the money.

 

[saladguy]

Awesome win for Superstars! England really do suck!!!!

 

[surendar]

That Ben in real life also, will turn out as a new star bowler for Windies.. I have never seen a good long term spinner for Windies really.. All i can remember is, Hooper and Gayle as star spinners in Windies cricket I have watched. Jimmy may be little close..

Nice presentation as usual Shan

 

[shefellover93]

Well done Shantu, first stroy to be completed in a while (I know you are going to continue) the updates have been as regular as any other story and the presentation was excellent!!!

 

[Pakistani Army]

Poor effort from England. They should have watched previous videos of Benn bowling in the previous years of the Stanford Twenty20 and tried to counteract it. However, that was not the case.

Fantastic use of the scorecards Shantanu. Marvelous story! :hpraise

 

[Karachi Xpress]

Really good bowling by Benn. Really bad game for England. They really need to work hard on their batting!

Nice stuff! Nice scorecards! KUTGW!!

 

[shantanu_rooney]

Presentation Ceremony with Nasser Hussain​

: Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the final presentation ceremony of Stanford Super Series. With me to do the honours I have the founder of this Twenty 20 series Sir Allen Stanford. We today witnessed some great cricket played by just one side. Stanford Superstars completely outplayed England in all departments to win the huge amount of USD 20million. First of all I would like to call upon the losing captain Kevin Pietersen

Kevin tough luck today and nothing was going your way today.

: Yeah we lost the toss on a really good batting wicket and then we didn't get the right start with the ball which we were expecting and then the opening wicket partnership really took the game away from us. Still 174 was a chaseable but we didn't get the same opening partnership which we got in the last two matches. And then Benn came on and we lost wickets at regular intervals.

: Was leaving Jimmy Anderson out of the starting XI the wrong decision at the end?

: Well we had to take the risk of playing an extra player sometime and really speaking the pitch was really good for the spinners but our spinners didn't exploit the pitch as we expected.

: So 20million USD is gone and a very important tour of India coming so what do you think of that tour?

: We have to forget this defeat. We will be leaving for England tomorrow and in tow days time we will be leaving England for India. We need to concentrate and practice on the basis of the game and also plan strategy against some Indian players. Well India played brilliantly against the Aussies in their recent home series so its now gonna be easy against Indian side under new aggressive skipper in form of Dhoni. So we all are excited for the Indian challenge.

: Thanks Kevin and good Luck.

: Thanks Nasser.

: Now to announce the Stanford Player of the tournament who will be receiving a cheque of USD 10,000 from Sir Allen Stanford and also a new car. The player is chosen by the commentators and the on field umpires and he is also today Man of the Match. He is Chris Gayle who scored a total of 167 runs in three matches at an average of 55.67 including 2 half centuries and a wicket.

Chris, this has been a brilliant tournament for the Superstars and how is the feeling at the moment?

: Thanks, well we all are very happy at the moment. We played some brilliant cricket today and outplayed completely sidle like England. Everyone contributed equally to this victory and so its all because of the boys that we are here today.

: So now you can say hard work has indeed paid of.

: The hard work done by all of us in that 6 weeks of training camp before the start of the series has really paid of today and we are proud that we have reached our goal.

: Now your team gonna get USD 20million so what have you decided to do with those?

: Its a dream for each player to play in such a tournament and win million dollar and that's come true. many of the players in the team have come from poor background and this prize money would be really helpful for them and also some will be used for the development of West Indies cricket.

: Chris I am not gonna make you stand here any longer as now you and go there and receive the winning trophy and cheque of USD 20million from Sir Allen Stanford. And again congratulation Chris and Good Luck.

: Yeah and thanks.

Stanford SuperStars Celebrations

: Beautiful scenes going behind me over here. That's all from presentation ceremony and now lets go back to David Gower who is in the studio.

David Gower: Thanks Nasser, really beautiful scenes from Antigua now its time to say good bye to all of you and we had some exciting Twenty 20 action in this 10 days of Stanford Series and we wish to see you soon. But before going here are the results of the Super Selector and the winner would be receiving a prize of vcash 50,000. The runner up will get 25,000 and third place 10,000 vcash.

1)bladescape:- 1138 pts
2)Karachi Xpress:- 942
3)Ayub95:- 884
4)topshotta:- 878
5)Navin:- 877
6)treva:- 813
7)Dr Pepper:- 789

Congrats to the top three. And that's all live coverage from Sky Sports on the Stanford Series. Good-Bye

 

[navin-boss]

Nice presentation there Shan..Superstars are really lucky!!And are you going to continue with the India tour?

 

[surendar]

They really deserve 20 million USD because WestIndies is one of the nations where I believe people work so hard for the money even in cricket.. not like our Indian cricketers who gets plenty from other sources like Advertisements.

Keep up the fantastic works

 

[navin-boss]

They really deserve 20 million USD because WestIndies is one of the nations where I believe people work so hard for the money even in cricket.. not like our Indian cricketers who gets plenty from other sources like Advertisements.

Keep up the fantastic works

hehe..lol..Thats true.

 

[Highlander999]

Top stuff Shantanu. You actually got a series done which is an achievment in itself but you also always maintained a high quality throughout.

Really will be interesting to see where you take this now

 

[shantanu_rooney]

Airtel ODI Series 2008/09

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The Big Preview​

Cricket's top two teams will renew their rivalry again this winter when both go head to head in India. India on road of becoming the best team in the world after winning the Twenty 20 World Cup and beating Australia in Australia in the Commonwealth Bank Series 2008 will face Australia's arch rivals England at home. England under new skipper Kevin Pietersen have been brilliant in the limited over cricket would love to continue their run. This series is surelly gonna be entertaining for all cricket loving fans from India, England and also from across the world. Hundreds of England fans have arrived in England to watch their side battle against one of the best sides in modern cricket.

History
*England and India faced each other in 1974 for the first time in limited overs cricket.
*Since then they have played each other 65 times with England winning 30 matches and India winning 33 matches.
*England won the first ever limited over match played between these two sides by 4 wickets at Leeds.
*Last ODI series between these two teams was played in England(2007) when England won the series 4-3.
*Last ODI series played in India was way back in 2002 when England came back from behind to draw level the series 3-3.

Recent Form
*India are in good form as they defeated the Sri Lankans 3-2 in Sri Lanka after losing the Asia Cup.
*England coming to India after a thrashing by Stanford Superstars after they thrashed South Africa in the Natwest Series 4-0 at home.

Fixtures
India vs England @ Rajkot
India vs England @ Indore
India vs England @ Kanpur
India vs England @ Bangalore(D/N)
India vs England @ Cuttack(D/N)
India vs England @ Guwahati
India vs England @ Delhi(D/N)

Telecasting Rights: NEO Cricket and Sky Sports
After a huge success in the Border-Gavaskar Series and also the Stanford Super Series. Neo Cricket and Sky Sports both have bagged the rights for the upcoming Airtel ODI Series. Neo Cricket and Sky Sports were in race along with ESPN Star and DD Sports. SKY Sports and NEO Cricket promises to bring more innovative technologies with all new style presentation and new commentary team with the best commentators.

Squads:
New Indian selectors have decided to go with their young Indian squad to face the English team. Just a new name in the squad is of the right handed Tamil Nadu opener Murali Vijay who was impressive against the Aussies in the final test in Nagpur has been selected. While Amit Mishra who also was impressive against Aussies is been dropped for Piyush Chawla and Robin Uthappa who was the highest run getter in the Challenger Series 2008 has not been considered.

1)MS Dhoni(c)(wk)
2)Virender Sehwag(vc)
3)Sachin Tendulkar
4)Gautam Gambhir
5)Yuvraj Singh
6)Virat Kohli
7)Rohit Sharma
8)Murali Vijay
9)Piyush Chawla
10)Harbhajan Singh
11)Zaheer Khan
12)Ishant Sharma
13)Praveen Kumar
14)Subramanium Badrinath
15)Suresh Raina
16)RP Singh​

i: We have a good squad and we are in good form and also the team is confident after the recent win over the Aussies at home. We don't underestimate the England team as they have some good players like Pietersen and Flintoff who alone can change the course of the game. So if we play good cricket then we can win this series.

While on the other hand England have made some drastically changes in their side that played in the Stanford Super Series in West Indies. Graeme Swann, Luke Wright, and Alastair Cook have been dropped from the side due to their poor form. While Monty Panesar left arm spinner of Indian origin gets a call back for the One Team. Andrew Strauss who impressed the selectors during the Stanford Series has also earned an recall while Yorkshire all rounder Tim Bresnan is also named in squad.

1)Kevin Pietersen(c)
2)Matt Prior(wk)
3)Ian Bell
4)James Anderson
5)Andrew Flintoff
6)Paul Collingwood
7)Andrew Staruss
8)Samit Patel
9)Owais Shah
10)Monty panesar
11)Stuart Broad
12)Tim Bresnan
13)Steve Harmison
14)Ravinder Bopara
15)Chris Tremlett
16)Ryan Sidebottom​

: this gonna be a terrific but very tough ODI series for us. Indians are very good at home and they have improved a lot under new skipper Dhoni. They play for aggressively these days. Their strength lies in their batting and of course in Tendulkar who is legend of the game. We need to keep the Stanford loss behind and concentrate on the upcoming cricket matches.