Tweakers are grinners

Shane Warne is delighted by the performance of spinners in the ongoing World T20

Shane Warne is delighted by the performance of spinners in the ongoing World T20

Shane Warne, the man who knows his cricketing onions better than most, considers India and South Africa the strongest teams overall among those now battling for the Twenty20 World Cup.

And he rates Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Dimitri Mascarenhas and Andrew Symonds (but surprisingly not West Indian Chris Gayle) among the biggest hitters in T20 cricket.

Commiserating with the Australian team for its shock exit from the tournament, Shane Warne writes in his newspaper column for a London newspaper that very few of them have experience of the abbreviated form of the game.

Sri Lanka's Ajantha Mendis celebrates the wicket during their ICC World Twenty20 match at Trent Bridge on Monday. Mendis took three wickets. PIC/AP

The world's greatest leg-break and googly bowler writes: "I know from my experience with Rajasthan Royals that it takes a few contests to learn to feel situations and get into Twenty20 momentum".

Saying how pleased he is to see the influence of spin in the competition, Warne suggests that Australia should have played Nathan Hauritz against the West Indies.

"A lot of the teams are using two specialist bowlers, even England," Warne writes, " and it was Ajantha Mendis who started to peg back Australia on Monday.

"I find it quite funny to hear of fast and medium-fast bowlers working on variety, mixing up their pace and lengths and so on. That's great, but isn't it what spin bowlers have been doing since the game began, with disguise, angles, flight, degrees of turn and so on.

"I raised a few eyebrows in my column before the IPL last year by predicting that bowlers would be key to success. Twenty20 was supposedly designed to be a batsman's game, with balls flying to all parts. But one of the most basic principles holds true, that the best way to contain a batsman is to take wickets."
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Meanwhile, county team, Derbyshire, have offered to play Australia in a one-day game at Derby next week to help the Australians, unceremoniously dumped out of the competition by the West Indies and Sri Lanka, gain match practice ahead of their Ashes series build-up against Sussex on June 24.

"From a cricketing point of view, it would suit us nicely," John Morris, Derbyshire head of cricket, said in the context of the opportunity for his team to play top-class opposition.
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To add to his woes, Ricky Ponting has been handed down a fine of 10 per cent of his match fee for Australia's slow over rate in the match against Sri Lanka.

It is a repeat of the fine imposed on him when he forfeited 75 per cent of his match fee at the 2005 Ashes Test in Nottingham for dissent shown after he was run out by Gary Pratt.
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Pakistan's Kamran Akmal became the first wicket-keeper in any form of the game since India's Kiran More (against the West Indies in a Test) to stump four batsmen in an inning.

Akmal claimed four victims A. Kervezee, Ryan. ten Doeschate, D. Van Bunge and D Nannes in Tuesday's match against the Netherlands.

The dashing, diminutive wicketkeeper-batsman has 14 stumpings in 19 Twenty20 internationals.u00a0
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Australian-born Dirk Nannes, who played for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, bowled at more than 93 mph, the fastest recorded in this year's competition, while conceding only 10 runs in his first two overs against Pakistan on Tuesday (he finished with figures of 4-0-26-0).u00a0
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After yesterday's concluding Group match against Ireland yesterday which India won by 8 wickets, the defending champions head Group A with 4 points (run rate +1.227). Ireland (2 points, run rate -0.162), finished second, ahead of Bangladesh (0 points, RR -0.996).

England (2 points, RR - 1.18) head Group B on superior run rate ahead of Pakistan (2 points, RR - 0.85) and Holland (2 points, RR - 2.03).

Sri Lanka head Group C (4 points, RR - 0.63) while the West Indies are second (2 points, RR - 0.72). Australiau00a0 finished at the bottom of the table with zero points (RR -1.33).

In Group D, South Africa have 4 points (RR - 3.27), ahead of New Zealand 2 points (RR - 0.31) and Scotland (0 points, RR - 5.28).

The first two teams in each group go forward to the Super Eights stage of the competition, which starts at Trent Bridge today, with South Africa playing Ireland and Pakistan taking on New Zealand.

India will play the West Indies at Lord's tomorrow, England on Sunday and South Africa on Tuesday for a place in the semi-finals.