Sri Lanka bank on spinners for T20 success

Sri Lanka expect the spinners to pick up another rich haul when they take on the West Indies in the World Twenty20 semi-final at the Oval on Friday.
The Sri Lankans have bulldozed their way through the tournament with five straight wins, mainly on the back of spin twins Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan who lead a balanced bowling attack.
Mendis, who puzzles batsmen by turning the ball both ways with one visible action, has so far picked up 11 wickets in the tournament, just one behind Pakistani seamer Umar Gul's tally of 12.
Muralitharan has five wickets, while fast bowler Lasith Malinga has picked up 10 with a mix of toe-crushing yorkers and slower deliveries.
Former captain Mahela Jayawardene, who handed the reigns to Kumar Sangakkara before the tournament, said he was confident the bowlers will deliver at the crunch time.
"Look, Murali can turn the ball on any surface," Jayawardene said of the star off-spinner, who is the world's highest wicket-taker in both Tests and one-day cricket.
"And if Ajantha sticks to his plans, we have a fairly good chance of going all the way."
Mendis grabbed 3-9 in three overs as Sri Lanka routed New Zealand by 48 runs in their last Super Eights match at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.
The Black Caps failed miserably to chase down a target of 159 in a must-win game and were shot out for 110 in 17 overs.
Jayawardene said the team was taking it one match at a time and would not be carried away just because they had reached the semi-finals.
"We set goals for ourselves when we came to the tournament. At the start was going through the first round, then the Super Eights.
"Now we have two goals left, win the semis and the final. But we have to stay calm and focussed on the job at hand."
Jaywardene said the secret of Sri Lanka's success in the tournament was trying to stay one step ahead of the others, like bringing on the slow bowlers in the first six overs when the field was inside the circle.
"As a team we realise we have to peak at a certain time in the tournament," he said. "Teams analyse you these days so what we are trying to do is stay one step ahead of the others.
"Sometimes it works, other times it does not work, but as long as the attitude is there and the confidence is there to do that, it will help in the long run.
"The good things is we have so many bowling options that we can use them at any time depending on the situation and what we want to achieve.
"We have asked the guys to be prepared at any given time."
Sangakkara was excited about having a bowler like Mendis in the side.
"Ajantha was brilliant. He is very difficult to read and he has an attacking mindset. It's a great ability to have," said Sangakkara.
"He has a great leg break, but he varies his deliveries depending on whether or not he is bowling to a left or right-hander."
Sri Lanka, runners-up at the 50-overs-a-side World Cup in the Caribbean in 2007, failed to make the semi-finals in the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa later that year.

ICC hits back over Pakistan World Cup claims

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday hit back at Pakistan over a legal challenge launched by the Asian giants after they were stripped of matches in the 2011 World Cup.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said Saturday it would challenge the ICC decision to move matches out of the country over security fears. The PCB branded the decision legally flawed.
But the ICC Board said on Thursday that they had not decided to remove the PCB as a joint host of the event, but only that the matches assigned to the PCB should be played outside Pakistan.
ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said: "We are naturally disappointed that the PCB has chosen to pursue its grievance with the ICC through legal channels but, having received correspondence from its lawyers, we have now responded.
"We used our response to clarify inaccuracies and misunderstandings in the PCB's claim, including confirmation of the fact that the agenda and the Board papers for the recent ICC Board meetings did very specifically raise the question of whether the World Cup 2011 matches assigned to the PCB as joint hosts should be relocated outside of Pakistan.
"We also pointed out that the ICC Board agreed only that the matches should be moved away from Pakistan, not that the PCB should be removed from its position as a joint host of the event itself.
"The suggestion the ICC Board was not empowered to decide that matches should be moved away from Pakistan and that such a decision was 'legally flawed' is also incorrect and without foundation."
The ICC insisted that concerns over security were paramount.
"We need to deliver a tournament that is safe, secure and, above all, successful and it was on that basis that the decision was taken that matches could not be played in Pakistan," added Lorgat.
"We hope the PCB realises that by attempting to pursue the matter through legal channels, it will result in the diversion of funds and resources better served to ensure a safe, secure and successful tournament in 2011, something that will benefit all our members, including Pakistan."

India take World Cup charge after Pakistan exit

India will organise a major part of cricket's World Cup in 2011 after Pakistan were stripped of co-hosting rights, the International Cricket Council said on Tuesday.
The showpiece event awarded to South Asia was thrown into turmoil earlier this month after the ICC removed Pakistan as a host nation due to security concerns, following the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March.
The ICC moved swifty to put the tournament back on track, giving India a majority of matches with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh retained as co-hosts.
"We are confident of organising a very successful World Cup," ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told reporters after a meeting of the tournament's organising committee here.
The World Cup secretariat was shifted from Lahore to Mumbai, while the Indian cricket board official Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the event's managing director in place of Pakistani banker Salman Butt.
India will host 29 matches at eight venues, including one quarter-final, a semi-final and the final, Lorgat said.
Sri Lanka will organise 12 matches at three venues, including a quarter-final and semi-final, while Bangladesh gets eight games at two venues.
The Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka will host the opening ceremony on February 18 and the tournament opener the next day, besides two quarter-final matches.
The organising committee, headed by ICC vice-president Sharad Pawar of India, will include an operations and planning group comprising Bangladesh official Mahboob Alam, Indian board secretary N. Srinivasan, Sri Lanka's Duleep Mendis and Shetty.
Lorgat swept aside questions on whether Pakistan would boycott the World Cup in protest at being denied hosting rights, saying "we will cross the bridge when we come to it."