No proof against Gurunath, Kundra, says BCCI probe panel

KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: Exactly 58 days after he "stepped aside" as BCCI president, the decks have been cleared for N Srinivasan's return to the helm of the richest cricket body in the world.

A report submitted by a two-member panel that probed allegations of betting and spot-fixing against Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, India Cements Ltd (owner of Chennai Super Kings) and Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd (owner of Rajasthan Royals), found no direct evidence of wrongdoing on the part of any party. The panel consisted of two former judges of the Tamil Nadu high court, Jayaram Chouta and R Balasubramanian.

Mumbai Indians snaps Chennai Super Kings’ 7-match winning streak

Mumbai Indians on Sunday snapped Chennai Super Kings’ seven-match winning streak with a crushing 60-run victory in a lop-sided Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) match in Mumbai.

Electing to bat, Mumbai scored 139 for five with captain Rohit Sharma top-scoring with a 30-ball 39 not out and then shot out Chennai for just 79 in 15.2 overs at Wankhede Stadium to halt the visiting team’s dream run in the tournament.

Pragyan Ojha (3/11) and Mitchell Johnson (3/27) shared six wickets among them while Lasith Malinga grabbed two wickets for just six runs. Harbhajan Singh and IPL debutant Pawan Suyal chipped in with a wicket each to help Mumbai put brakes on Chennai juggernaut in IPL 6.

Miller, Mandeep pull off thrilling win for Kings XI

Luke Wright went from hero to villain in the space of 100 minutes. His cameo of 34 off 10 balls helped Pune Warriors post 185, but in the face of an assault from David Miller and sensible support from Mandeep Singh, Wright blinked and failed to defend 15 in the last over. Miller finished it off with two lethal sixes, but don't forget how Mandeep kept running back to the danger end to keep Miller on strike.

Both stayed unbeaten, Miller on 80 off 41 and Mandeep on 77 off 58. Mandeep's was the first fifty for any Kings XI Punjab batsman this IPL.

Inspired Warriors pull off huge CSK upset

They keep saying you have got to do the basics right, more so in Twenty20. They lie. On Monday night in Chennai, Pune Warriors did most of the basics wrong against the much-fancied Chennai Super Kings, but still won by a huge margin.

While batting only two of the seven Warriors batsmen went at a strike-rate of more than 112.5, and one of them faced 18 dots out of 45. They wasted a flying start - their best in all IPLs - with a muddle in the middle, Mitchell Marsh holed out into the deep and didn't even cross over, Manish Pandey slogged when he should have handed over the strike to Steven Smith, T Suman dropped a sitter that would have reduced Chennai Super Kings to 2 for 2, and they were consistently on the worse side of minor fielding errors.

Finch, Uthappa end Pune's losing streak

When Pune Warriors stumbled to 99 for 9 after choosing to bat against Kings XI Punjab and crashed to their 11th successive defeat, their captain Angelo Mathews said his batsmen needed to sort their "intent and attitude" towards the first six overs. Warriors had made 24 for 2 in the first six overs that evening. Four days later, Robin Uthappa and Aaron Finch blasted them to 64 for 1 in the same period, and Warriors made short work of the target of 146 set by Rajasthan Royals to break the longest losing streak in the IPL.

Super Kings demolish listless Kings XI

The abbreviated nature of Twenty20 is supposed to bridge the gulf in quality between sides, but there was no hiding the vast difference between the weakest batting line-up in the tournament, and perhaps the strongest one. After being sent in, Kings XI Punjab lost all ten wickets; Chennai Super Kings chased down 139 without losing any in an embarrassingly one-sided contest in Mohali.

Karthik and Rohit crush Daredevils

Dinesh Karthik's explosive innings blindsided Delhi Daredevils and turned Mumbai Indians' horrific start into the first 200-plus total of the season, one large enough to secure a 44-run win in their first home game. Rohit Sharma gave Karthik support at the start of their 132-run partnership, before turning it on himself at the end to help his team secure their second victory in three games.

Rajasthan Royals roll over Kolkata Knight Riders

JAIPUR: The unpredictability of the T20 format was once again in focus as cricket's lesser-known mortals slayed fancied faces at Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Monday.
Rahul Shukla is hardly known, Siddharth Trivedi is over the hill and Kevin Cooper is yet to make a name for himself.

Yet, when they checkmate players like Jacques Kallis, Gautam Gambhir and Eoin Morgan, the format surely must take some of the credit.

Sunrisers clinch Super Over victory

Sunrisers Hyderabad rode on the power of Dale Steyn's experience to pick up their second consecutive win, this one over Royal Challengers Bangalore, after the game had gone into Twenty20 cricket's sudden death - the Super Over. Steyn had to defend 20 runs, thanks to Cameron White's two blazing hits off Vinay Kumar, and came out on top as Royal Challengers fell five runs short.

The teams had fought tooth and nail throughout the forty overs in front of a noisy crowd in Hyderabad. Defending seven, Vinay bowled an impressive 20th over for the second game in a row - conceding only six - but could not repeat the performance in the tiebreaker. He was Virat Kohli's go-to man after he had defended 10 runs off the last over against Mumbai Indians.

In a relief to Salman, court adjourns hit-and-run case till April 29

Mumbai: A Mumbai sessions court, which was to hear the revision application filed by actor Salman Khan in the 2002 hit-and-run case, has adjourned the matter till April 29 as the judge who was supposed to hear the case is on leave. Salman Khan's application challenges a magistrate court order that changed the charges against him from death by negligence to culpable homicide.

The actor has contended that the magistrate had erred in invoking the charge of 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder' (section 304 part II IPC) in the hit-and-run case of 2002. The offence under this section attracts ten years' punishment and is triable by a sessions court.

Narine spins Kolkata to win in opener

In 2008, Brendon McCullum had set the inaugural edition of the IPL alight with a whirlwind century that stands out for its audacity after more than 300 games in the tournament over five years. Not many will remember the exploits of his team in the opening game of IPL 2013 five years from now, but Kolkata Knight Riders' performance was a dominating one for the conditions they played in as defending champions. On a slow Eden Gardens track that didn't always cater to power-play, Sunil Narine and Rajat Bhatia restricted the Delhi Daredevils batsmen and captain Gautam Gambhir anchored the bulk of the chase.