India win

India beat Australia by five wickets to win their third match in the survivor series. India moved to the top spot while Australians were pushed to second in the league table. This win can be contributed to the spirited bowling performance by the Indian Pace factory. Ishanth Sharma picked up four wickets and the rest of the pacers shared two wickets each. Regarding batting, Sachin got out after making 43 runs. Rest of the wickets fell cheaply. Dhoni and Rohit managed to stay at the crease till the end to guide India to a historic five wicket win.

Should Sachin follow Gilchrist's footsteps?

This is the poll conducted by Yahoo. Gilchrist has retired at the right time. He has retired when he is still in peak of his career, that too after breaking the world record for most number of dismissals by a wicket-keeper. Critics felt that Sachin should do the same. But what people felt is entirely different. Only 17% of the people felt that Sachin should follow Gilchrist. Nearly 70% felt that Sachin should continue and play his cricket. That's my wish too..

Chelsea Vs Liverpool

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez has all but ruled Fernando Torres out of Sunday's Barclays Premier League trip to Chelsea, despite the player's belief he would be fit to play. The 23-year-old lasted just 23 minutes of Spain's 1-0 friendly victory over France last night, asking to be substituted after suffering a hamstring problem. Benitez said on the club's official website, www.liverpoolfc.tv: "The news we have on Torres is that it is a hamstring injury. I need to talk to the doctor but I think he will miss this game. Normally it is a week when a player goes off like this. It is a big problem for us."

Torres revealed he had requested to be substituted last night and he had been confident of being fit for the trip to Stamford Bridge. "I preferred not to risk it. I demanded the change," he said. "I will have medical tests but I intend to play on Sunday against Chelsea." The loss of the club's top scorer would be a major blow for Benitez, who is already without Daniel Agger, Andriy Voronin, Alvaro Arbeloa, Fabio Aurelio and the suspended Xabi Alonso. On top of this, Javier Mascherano will not arrive back at Melwood until tomorrow, with Argentina playing a friendly against Guatemala later today.

Benitez said: "We have lost Torres and Mascherano is not back until tomorrow.

"I don't think it (the international friendly situation) is fair. I think Mascherano will be okay for Sunday but we will have to see."

IPL stars

Now that we know who owns the IPL teams, it is time to find out just who will grab the big name players and how much of a hole will the big names burn in the pockets of their franchise owners.

The tournament runs for a month and a half and CNN-IBN has learnt that the teams will have to fork out quite a handy sum to get these big name players.

Iconic players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahuld Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Sourav Ganguly will cost at least 400,000 US dollars each, that's about 1.6 crore rupees for each year. MS Dhoni will cost about the same.

Anil Kumble may not play the shorter version of the game for India anymore but whoever snaps him up will have to pay a neat 250,000 dollars. Harbhajan Singh will cost the same. Irfan Pathan will be cheaper but only by 75,000 dollars.

Surprisingly, Kumble may be more expensive for a team to acquire than the stars of India's Twenty20 world cup winning team.

Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag will cost at least 200,000 dollars each, that's about 80 lakh rupees.

But that still leaves one question unanswered. While some players like Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Yuvraj have to play for their home franchises, who wants the others?

M S Dhoni, sources say, is being wooed by both Shah Rukh Khan for his Kolkata team and Mukesh Ambani for his Mumbai team. Robin Uthappa is on the radar of Vijay Mallaya's Bangalore team and Deccan Chronicle's Hyderabad team. And Preity Zinta is keen on getting Sreesanth to play for Mohali. Not surprisingly, the franchise owners aren't revealing their plans.

Vijay Rekhi, MD, United Spirits says: "We have already made a tentative list which has been about broadly. But that's a wish list, you know. Ultimately we have to decide after the availability of the players is known to us. "

Teams will have about 3.3 million dollars each to buy these players. The auction will take place sometime in the third week of February.

Courtesy : Yahoo news

Rain plays spoilsport

The second one day international between India and Sri Lanka was washed out due to incessant rains. The play ended at the half way mark with Srilankans yet to bat. Earlier in the day Indians had a solid start, courtesy Viru and Sachin. But when both of them fell in quick succession, Indians were reeling at 84 for 4. Yuvi failed yet again. He managed to score only 2 runs and got out in the first over of Murali. Rohit Sharma was declared out by Rudi Koertzen. I still dunno the reason behind that. Sharma was fined some percent of his match fee for showing dissent. The Indian skipper stepped in and steadied the ship along with Gautham Gambhir. They fend off the pressure and started scoring at ease in the slog overs. They amassed 184 runs for the fifth wicket partnership. Gambhir completed his third ODI ton and Dhoni was unbeaten on 88 runs, India ended at 267 for 4 in 50 overs. There was yet another milestone waiting for the little master and he crossed it in style. This time he became the first man to cross 16000 runs in ODIs. No one is anywhere near him. Jayasurya, the second highest run getter is still 4000 runs behind. Undoubtedly, he is a master class.

Sania opts out of Bangalore open

Sania Mirza announced that she will not be participating in the upcoming Bangalore open. She told the reporters that she has decided to quit because of the controversies surrounding her. She added that if she participated in this open, she will be introduced to some controversies or other, so she opted out of it. She made a stunning revelation that she even considered quitting tennis due to these controversies but decided against that.

Arsenal on regains top spot

Manchester United salvaged a draw against TottenHam Hotspurs. A late goal by Carlos Tevez saved Man U from a grim defeat. Spurs were in a sublime form and were all set to win. They opened the scoring at the early first half with a strike from Berbatov. Tottenham also missed several chances to extend their lead. Carlos Tevez tapped in a free kick at 93rd minute to give one point for United. In some other game Chelsea were held to a one all draw by Pompey. Liverpool won 3 - 0 against Sunderland. Arsenal is now two points ahead of Man U with 60 points. Chelsea are 6 points behind the title leaders with 54 points.

Arsenal secures a win

Arsenal proved that they are the best side in the EPL by being the first tam to win at Eastlands at this season. They beat Man City 3 - 1 to snatch a temporary lead. Manchester United was supposed to start well but they were down 0 - 1 within few minutes of the start. Arsenal's win was due to Adebayor's brace and Edurado's scissors kick. Arsenal led 2 - 1 at the half time and they were the dominating team throughout the match. Even though Man City managed to put some pressure, Arsenal did fend off by their natural game play. Eventually the better team won in the end