Centurion: Australia qualified for the Champions Trophy semi-finals with a thrilling two-wicket win over Pakistan Wednesday at SuperSport Park thanks to a last-ball bye.
The defending champions, having won the toss and restricted Pakistan to 205-6 off 50 overs, appeared to be coasting home with 140 runs on the board, seven wickets in hand and almost 19 overs left.
But as the Pakistani bowlers came alive, wickets tumbled and Australia entered the final over needing five runs to win a match transformed into a thriller after being tedious to watch for so long.
and some inspired fielding to reach 206-8 in the best match so far of the tournament.
Man-of-the-match Michael Hussey top scored with 64 and Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson took two wickets each for the Australians, who face England on Friday in the first semi-final.
Pakistan were never comfortable on a seam-friendly wicket and openers Kamran Akmal and Shahid Afridi compiled only 30 when the partnership was terminated on an overcast day.
Afridi was forced to play a pull off Mitchell Johnson and James Hopes covered ground quickly to take the catch as Pakistan struggled to match the form that reaped 302 runs against India last weekend.
Kamran also paid dearly for attempting a pull off Watson and the ball took a bottom edge into leg stump to leave Pakistan 75-2 approaching the 20-over mark.
It was lacklustre fare from teams who could meet again in the final with barely a murmur from the small crowd who braved cool conditions to watch the action.
Johannesburg: Indian skipper MS Dhoni elected to field against the West Indies in the last Group A game of the Champions Trophy at the New Wanderers stadium on Wednesday.
India received a huge blow just before the start of the game with Sachin Tendulkar ruled out of the must-win game due to food poisoning. Dinesh Karthik came in place of the opener while Ishant Sharma made way for Mumbai all-rounder Abhishek Nayar.
India's fate lies in the hand of arch-rivals Pakistan who have to win the ongoing game against Australia at Centurion to keep India alive in the tournament.
Teams:
India: MS Dhoni (capt), Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Ashish Nehra, RP Singh.
West Indies: Andre Fletcher, Kieran Powell, Devon Smith, Royston Crandon, Travis Dowlin, Flyod Reifer (capt), David Bernard, Darren Sammy, Nikita Miller, Kemar Roach, Gavin Tonge.
London: Raj Singh Dungarpur was an "uncompromising devotee" of Indian cricket responsible for launching batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar, British newspaper Times said in a tribute to the former BCCI president, who passed away a couple of weeks ago.
In an obituary, The Times described Dungarpur as "cricketer, selector, president of the Cricket Club of India and manager in 1986 of one of the most successful Indian sides to tour England."
"Dungarpur was an uncompromising devotee of Indian cricket, credited with launching the international career of Sachin Tendulkar and championing the captaincy skills of Mohammad Azharuddin.
Dungarpur was chairman of the Indian selectors when Tendulkar was chosen to play in his first Test in 1989.
"Few would have considered allowing anyone to play at the highest level at such a young age. At Dungarpur's request Tendulkar appeared first against Pakistan," it said.
"A purist and connoisseur whose idealism led him to look askance at moves to change the game - by introducing the quickfire Twenty20 version, for instance - he served as a selector, a coach and a player."
In 1986, Dungarpur was manager of one of the most successful Indian sides ever to tour England, winning a three-Test series 2-0. He was twice a member of India's national selection committee, in the second instance as chairman.
Johannesburg: In a major setback to India's final bid to manage an entry into the semifinals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2009, master batsman Sachin Tendulkar has been ruled out of the crucial match on Wednesday due to food poisoning.
India need to beat West Indies with a big enough margin at the New Wanderers to book a berth in the semifinals, subject to Pakistan's win over Australia in the ongoing match at SuperSport Park in Centurion.
I do want to say a huge thankyou to everyone for the wonderful and heartfelt input though. I loved everything you had to say. It all made complete sense. Yes, babies bring their own bread - I love that proverb too, but so far they do not appear to be bringing their own plane tickets, which is an issue for us!
I do think my hormones are playing a large part in this incessant broodiness. That coupled with the sadness with which I view Lucy desperate to leave her babyhood. Perhaps when she gets a little older, and stops being so stinking cute I will be able to wean myself from the idea.
Nothing is as effective as a whining toddler when it comes to contraception after all. Besides as LK pointed out, a tad sarcastically, in order to have a third child we would actually have to do the hibbity-dibbity, and had I really thought this through?
Every silver lining has a cloud....
There is also a mad scientist part of me that just wants to see what my future kids would be like. Anna has my wariness, my bookishness and Lance's, well, hair, whereas Lucy has Lance's athleticism, his daredevil nature, and well, my lady parts. That's it. When you look at the Duggars you see every combination of the two parents, every personality trait, every physiological nuance. Plus I was thinking last night, as you do, that with 18 kids, statistically shouldn't at least one of them be gay, and how on earth's that going to work? I think rather than having 19 kids, it would be easier to just use this website.
I've told myself that we'll leave it for a year to mull over. No rash moves here! I think we both realize that adding a third would likely mean moving away from SB, which would likely mean a change in countries, which would require an economic miracle for us to be able to get out of our money pit. Nothing makes this debate seem minor compared to the discussion of whether to continue living in Santa Barbara or move back to the UK.
In the meantime I'm buying lottery tickets.
Today I was driving in a heavy amount of traffic and as I started getting worked up over the rudeness of people and how dangerous cell phone users are..I remembered that I have the things I need and that Heavenly Father is with me so I took a nice deep breath and everything looked so much more calm and beautiful. I'm still training my mind to think as a child of God.