Abdul Razzaq given clearance to join KKR

The Pakistan Cricket Board gave its go-ahead to all-rounder Abdul Razzaq to sign a contract with the Kolkata Knight Riders for the 3rd edition of the IPL.

Razzaq had met Ejaz Butt to inform him about the offer he has received from the Shahrukh Khan-owned IPL franchise and seek his agreement to play for Kolkata Knight Riders.

After the meeting the PCB chairman permitted the cricketer to join the KKR team.

Razzaq, who quit the rebel Indian Cricket League earlier this year, has made his comeback to the Pakistan side during the Twenty20 World Cup in England, this June and also played an ODI series against Sri Lanka last month.

The 29-year-old right-hand batsman was all delighted to receive the PCB's permission to join the IPL.

"It is great news for me and I'm now looking forward to giving my best for the Kolkata Knight Riders," Razzaq said.

Ricky Ponting retires from International Twenty20

Aussie captain Ricky Ponting today announced his retirement from International T20.

Ponting, who will prolong to remain the captain of the Test and ODI sides, stepped away from the International T20 format in an effort to continue his playing career.

Addressing the media, Shipper Ponting said: "After much thought and careful consideration I have advised Cricket Australia of my decision to retire from international T20 cricket."

"I have also spoken to Andrew Hilditch, Tim Nielsen and Michael Clarke and I feel this decision provides me the opportunity to continue my Australian Test and one-day career, an opportunity I am really determined about."

"As I said after the 5th Test in London, I am hoping to continue playing Test cricket for as long as possible and retiring from the T20 format gives me the best chance of doing this."

"I will now have set periods of rest throughout the Australian summer and while touring which I feel will be very favorable," Ponting said.

"While I will no longer be available for Australian T20 cricket, I look forward to playing with Tasmania's KFC Big Bash team where possible and to satisfying my contract with the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League," he added.

CA Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said: "We are very supportive of the decision Ricky has made and understanding of the reasons behind it."

"Needless to say he will be a big loss to the T20 side but it does present opportunities for the other players and leaders within Australian cricket to gain further experience."

"While we have not seen much of Ricky in Australia's T20 matches in recent times, his innings in the first ever Twenty20 International against New Zealand at Auckland was probably the best innings I have ever seen in the T20 form of the game."

A formal decision concerning Ponting's replacement as captain of the T20 side will be made later in the year.

Disciplined Kiwis clinch a thriller win in T20

Jacob Oram and Daniel Vettori shared 5 wickets as New Zealand came from behind to stun Sri Lanka by three runs in a T20 international here on Wednesday.

The tourists, controlled to 141-8, hit back to keep the World Twenty20 finalists down to 138-9 in an anxious finish at the Premadasa stadium.

Jacob Oram finished with 3-33 and captain Vettori took 2-11 as Sri Lanka lost seven wickets for 71 runs after Tillakaratne Dilshan's brilliant 57 off 28 had boosted them to 67-2 in the seventh over.

Jacob Oram, bowling the final over with Sri Lanka needs nine runs with three wickets in hand, dismissed Malinda Bandara & Nuwan Kulasekara off the first two balls and allowed just five runs in the over.

Ian Butler, who did not play in the previous Test series which Sri Lanka swept 2-0, took 2-29 including the main wicket of Dilshan, who was snapped up a point by Ryder.

The second T20 match will be played at the same venue on Friday before New Zealand join India and Sri Lanka in a limited-over tri-series starting here on September 8.

New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond, returning to official cricket after two years, was plundered for four consecutive boundaries by Dilshan in his first over.

Bond, who broke links with the unauthorised Indian Cricket League to be qualified for New Zealand again, finished with 0-27 in his four overs.

New Zealand's innings rotated around Ross Taylor's 60 off 45 balls after Vettori won the toss and elected to bat on the slow wicket.

Taylor hit five fours and one six in his third T20 half-century, but the Kiwis lost five wickets for 19 runs after they had reached 117-3 in the 17th over.

Taylor brought up New Zealand's 100 in the 15th over with a boundary off Sanath Jayasuriya, and celebrated the landmark by pulling the next delivery over mid-wicket for six.

Man of the Match: Daniel Vettori

Lalit Modi expects IPL franchisees to break even

Even as contradictory reports come in regarding the profits or losses made by various IPL franchisees, the IPL Chairman & commissioner Lalit Modi has said it is also early to talk of losses since the numbers for the 2nd edition that was held in South Africa have yet to be worked out.

In an conference to the Hindustan Times, Modi said, "It's too soon to say that the franchisees are making losses yet. Unless we give them the numbers, how can they say that they have incurred losses?"

Modi was also positive about the franchisees making profits soon, and even said some of them would have done so this year itself.

"This year most of them will break even. They say they won't, by their estimated calculations. Then they definitely will in a three-four year period. In any case, we have certain them that we will cover them for this in the first few years."

Modi also protected the pricing of $250 million for a new team in the 2011 season against accusations that it was impractical, saying "It's definitely most realistic, and in fact, will be in the $250 to $300 million range."

Twenty20 has rendered ODI irrelevant: Warne

T20 has rendered one-day cricket inappropriate and the 50-over format should be done away with, according to spin great Shane Warne.

"I'll say it again; one-day cricket should go. It has evolved into T20," said the Australian star, asserting the game would be better off with just two formats.

"Cricket only wants two forms of the game. Something needs to be done about scheduling: it's been going on for too long," Warne wrote in his column for 'Herald Sun'.

The leg-spinner, who led Rajasthan Royals to a legend triumph in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League, remains a halt supporter of the T20 format and believes one-dayers simply has no business in the international calendar.

Shane Warne was equally critical of Australia's post-Ashes schedule which pits them against the same English side for a 7-match ODI series.

"Unfortunately, Australia now plays a series of ludicrous limited-overs matches against England, and then more one-dayers in South Africa & India, before the next Test in Brisbane in November.

"It is a joke that any international team has to play 7 ODIs after a 5-Test series against the same team," Warne said.

"There are only 9 Tests between now and the next Ashes series in Australia at the end of next year, but a ridiculous number of one-day cricket in the same era," he added.

Richard Hadlee says T20 could destroy Test cricket

One of the great all-rounders the game has known, and indubitably New Zealand's greatest ever player, Sir Richard Hadlee has made a strong request to the game's rulers: Don't let down our game.

Hadlee added his voice to the rising concerns of Twenty20 cricket via-a-via the traditional Test matches.

Heaving match schedules, the growth of Twenty20 and the vast financial lures for players from the IPL demand firm controls being put in place by the International Cricket Council, he says.

Hadlee was not induced that the game's ruling body had the forethought and vision to put aside monetary gains for the overall benefit of the game.

"We are in serious danger of having the decision makers betraying the game of cricket," said Hadlee.

"Everything evolves and things keep changing, but this is a revolution within the game of cricket.

"It's new, profitable, successful and brings in massive money. The danger is overload, that you have too much of it, and it swamps other forms of the game and compromises them.

"If one format of the game like Twenty20 eats the game as much as it is doing now - and potentially in the future - it is destroying the game of cricket as a total concept."

"The IPL is franchise cricket, it's club cricket, it is not international cricket. We are two years into it and you can see potentially that there will be more and more of it. It will consume the game. Once it has gone too far and people have grown bored with it, it will have destroyed test cricket and probably 50-over cricket," he said.

Coincidentally, Hadlee's comments came just a day after Shane Warne had advocated scrapping ODIs, and providing a window for the IPL.

Four new places announced for IPL III

Four new places and a third place play-off match will be launched in the III Indian Premier League which will get happening in Hyderabad on 12-3-2010 with a game between IPL II 2009 winners Deccan Chargers and the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The final of the 45-day Twenty20 cricket league, which showed a huge success in its first two editions in India and South Africa, would be held on April 25, IPL Chairman Lalit Modi declared after a meeting of its Governing Council at Mumbai.

IPL III will have four supplementary match staging centres - Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala - and will also stage one extra match, the 60th, for the third place play-off, Modi said.

"The playing pane remains the same, 45 days", Modi mentioned, before adding that the Governing Council also decided to include two more franchisees in IPL IV to be held in 2011.

"There would be 94 games in all with each franchisee playing 18, instead of 14 preliminary phase games. But the pane would remain more or less the same," Modi said.