Strauss leading the way

LONDON, July 16: England captain Andrew Strauss made the most of some poor Australia bowling with a century on the first day of the second Ashes Test here at Lord’s on Thursday.

England at tea were 255 for two with Strauss, who’d won the toss, exactly 100 not out on his Middlesex home ground and Kevin Pietersen unbeaten on 22 as the hosts pursued a first Test win over Australia at Lord’s in 75 years.

Strauss, together with fellow left-handed opener Alastair Cook (95), shared a record-breaking first-wicket stand of 196 before completing his 18th Test century and fourth at Lord's off 178 balls with 15 boundaries.

Mallya seeks salvation in Hungary after heartbreak in Germany

NURBURGRING: Taking positives, and not points, has been the recurring theme in Force India's F1 story so far but chairman Vijay Mallya still manages

It's just a shame that after such a great weekend performance we don't have any points to show for it. But that's motorsport, these incidents happen," Mallya said after the team's heart-wrenching German Grand Prix campaign.

"The next race is only in a couple of weeks so we'll refocus on that and try to finish the job in Hungary," he added.

Force India made all the right noise going into the German Grand Prix with both Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella posting top six times in Friday's practice sessions. Sutil sprang another surprise by gate crashing into Q3 and booking himself the seventh slot on the starting grid, his and the team's best position ever.

Sutil's fairytale home race, however, met a sad end. In a repeat of last year's Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen crashed with Adrian Sutil's VJM02 which, was exiting the pits after running a fairytale second, claiming the front wing and necessitating an emergency pit-stop that put paid to all point hopes.

Sutil was in tears after last year's Monaco mishap but the young German seemed to have matured this time as he took the setback in stride.

"We shouldn't be that disappointed with this result as we have had a good weekend and the next one will come very soon," Sutil said, putting behind the disappointment.

Recalling the accident, Sutil said, "When I went out of the pit lane I saw Kimi coming on the outside of the corner and I just tried to hold my line but he went to the outside and I touched him and lost part of my front wing.

"That's really when I thought the race was over for the points as I had to come back in," he said.

"Overall I think we've learnt a lot. It's the first time starting in the top 10 and it's a different race up there. It's been a good push for everyone in the team to get some more development so we can finally get some points," Sutil added.

Fisichella too was not overtly gloomy and sounded happy with the pace of the car.

"After the qualifying I had, I thought it would be a difficult race but I really enjoyed it and again got close to the points," said the Italian who finished 11th.

"I think we can be quite happy with this weekend, even if again we didn't get any points. We've taken a step forward and with some more developments coming through I think we could really have some more great races," he said.

SourceZ:TOI

2nd Test: England elect to bat against Australia

LONDON: England captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and chose to bat against Australia in the second Ashes Test at Lord's on Thursday.

England fast bowling all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who announced on Wednesday his intention to retire from Test cricket at the end of this series, was passed fit following a knee injury.

Star England batsman Kevin Pietersen also retained his place despite a longstanding Achilles injury.

England made one change to the side that drew the first Test at Cardiff last week with fast bowler Graham Onions replacing Monty Panesar despite the left-arm spinner's efforts part in a last-wicket stand at Sophia Gardens that denied Australia victory in the opening contest of a five-match series.

Durham quick Onions, who made his Test debut against the West Indies at Lord's earlier in the season, beat county colleague Stephen Harmison for a place in the team as an extra pace bowler.

Ashes-holders Australia were unchanged from the team that played in the first Test.

Australia have not lost a Test at Lord's since 1934.

Teams

England: Andrew Strauss (capt), Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior (wkt), Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, Graham Onions, James Anderson

Australia: Phillip Hughes, Simon Katich, Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Marcus North, Brad Haddin (wkt), Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Hauritz, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus

Umpires: Billy Doctrove (WIS) and Rudi Koertzen (RSA)

TV umpire: Nigel Llong (ENG)

Match referee: Jeff Crowe (NZL)

Soruce:TOI

Gambhir replaces Yousuf to become No. 1 Test batsman

DUBAI: Gautam Gambhir became the number one batsman, replacing Pakistani run-machine Mohammad Yousuf in the latest ICC Test Player rankings issued on Wednesday.

Incidentally, Gambhir reached the top when the ODI batting chart is also led by an Indian, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Yousuf, who had returned to the batting table last week in number one position after his century in the first Test at Galle, flopped in the second Test to drop to fifth position. Accordingly, Gambhir became the sixth India batsman to lead the batting table in this version of the game.

The 27-year-old left-handed opener is the first Indian batsman after former captain Rahul Dravid to top the batting chart. Dravid had briefly become the number-one batsman after hitting centuries in each innings (110 and 135) of the Kolkata Test against Pakistan in March 2005. Dravid had first achieved the top batting ranking in January 1999 and has been number-one for 36 Tests between 1999 and 2005.

Sachin Tendulkar is the other India batsman in the last 15 years who has topped the batting chart. He first led the table in November 1994 while last time he occupied the number-one position was in August 2002 after the Leeds Test against England. Overall, Tendulkar has been the number-one batsman for 125 Tests between 1994 and 2002.

The other India batsmen to have achieved number-one positions in their careers are Gundappa Viswanath (seven matches in 1975), Sunil Gavaskar (46 matches between 1978-80) and Dilip Vengsarkar (17 matches between 1987-88).

Pakistan captain Younis Khan was able to retain his second position in the Test batting rankings but fell nine points behind Gambhir who, without hitting a ball, has gone ahead of both the Pakistan batsmen for the first time in his 25-Test career in which he has scored 2,271 runs at an average of over 54.

Gambhir's 847 points is relatively low for a number-one position in modern times as usually a batsman nearer to the 900-point mark goes to the top, which reflects that he has benefited from some of the other top batsman being off their peaks.

With only 10 points separating Gambhir from third-placed Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka, the top order is expected to change again, of course depending how the Pakistan and Sri Lanka captains perform in the third and final Test which starts in Colombo from July 20.

The only big movers in the latest rankings are Pakistan opener Fawad Alam, who has entered the table in 52nd position after his 168 on his Test debut, and Bangladesh's Tamim Iqbal whose century in the second innings has helped him rocket 22 places to 62nd spot.

There is also a change at the top of the bowlers' chart for the first time in more than three years with Muttiah Muralitharan handing over the baton to South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn.

Steyn had briefly joined Muralitharan in number-one position after the second Test against India in Ahmedabad in April 2008. However, Steyn had failed to go top of the table on his own after a disappointing third Test in Kanpur.

For Muralitharan, it is the first time that he has dropped to second position since February 2006. This is because he missed both the Tests of the ongoing series due to injury and a player loses one per cent of his ratings for every match he misses.

Source:TOI

Soumyajit, Sathiyan in Indian squad for Asian Jr TT

New Delhi, July 16 (PTI) Promising paddler Soumyajit Ghosh and G Sathiyan have been included in the 16-member Indian squad for the 15th Asian Junior Table Tennis Championship to be held in Jaipur from July 22.

Both Soumyajit and Sathiyan will be competing alongside Raj Mondal and Harmeet Desai in junior (U-18) boys' category, while Ankita Das, Mallika Bhandarkar, Shreya Ghosh and Charvi Kavle will be vying for top honours in the junior girls' section.

In cadet (U-15) boys' category, India will be represented by Sandipan Dey, Rajeeb Sarkar, Abhishek Yadav and Utkarsh Gupta.

Mallika Bhandarkar, T R Rishiya, Camila Sil and Monika Batra will lead the hosts' challenge in the cadet girls' section.

Sunil Babras, V K Agrawal and Mantu Ghosh will accompany the team as coaches for the five-day tournament to be held at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

Bitter-sweet B'desh eye series victory over Windies

St George's (Grenada), July 16 (AFP) Bangladesh will carry bitter-sweet feelings into the second and final Test against the West Indies starting tomorrow at the Queen's Park Stadium Complex.

Bangladesh need only to draw to fulfill a long-held dream of their first Test series victory after they took a 1-0 lead with a 95-run victory in the opening Test at St Vincent.

But celebrations have been tempered following a knee injury to their new captain Mashrafe Mortaza which appears likely to sideline him for the match.

Mortaza fell clumsily on his right knee when bowling during the first Test, and spent the last two and a half days off the field.

He underwent a medical scan on Tuesday, and though the results of the test are not as bad as initially feared, the visitors do not want to risk long-term injury to their main fast bowler.

Flintoff on Queensland's radar for T20 Big Bash

Melbourne, July 16 (PTI) Andrew Flintoff's decision to quit Test cricket after the on-going Ashes series has brought him under the radar of Australian domestic side Queensland, which is eyeing to sign the English all-rounder for the December-January slated T20 Big Bash series.

Queensland Cricket chief Graham Dixon has admitted that they are seriously thinking of roping in Flintoff, who will end their search for a quality T20 player for the domestic event.

"For the last few months we've been talking to a well credentialed international player and we're down the track with that person but we haven't finalised things and are not expected to do so soon," Dixon said.

"He (Flintoff) is keen but obviously the challenge we have is the timing of his national commitments and our tournament. However, we have been down the track with Andrew Flintoff 12 months ago through Stuart Law," he added