ALL ABOUT CRICKET

Hyderabad Heroes started their campaign on a winning note in a power-disrupted inaugural match of the rebel India Cricket League's second season defeating last year runners-up Lahore Badshah by 18 runs.

In the end, in an anti climax resulting due to a massive power failure in Hyderabad resulted in the match being awarded to the Hyderabad Heroes, who won the match by 18 runs (VJD method). Local lad Ambati Rayudu won the Man of the Match for his half century.

Badshahs captain Inzamam, won the toss for the Badshahs & elected to field, wanting to take first advantage of the fresh pitch. The Badshahs struck early getting the dangerous Abdul Razzaq early in the second over, cheaply for 13 (7 balls) in the second over.

Prize money:

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) today announced the prize money corpus of Rs.13.72crore for its October 2008 edition of ‘ICL 20s Indian Championship’ at a press conference held in Hyderabad. The Winners of this tournament stand to gain Rs. 2crore; while the Runner-up will cash in Rs.1crore. The incentive for individual performance during the 41 match tournament will be an impressive Rs. 2 lakh for Man of the Match and a huge Rs.40Lakh for the Man of the Series. Per match winning in the league stage will be Rs. 25lakh and the loosing semi-finalists will stand to win Rs. 50 Lakh.

Image © ICL

Dilip Vengasarkar on Friday said he would refrain from responding to Sourav Ganguly's outburst against the selectors till the end of the current series against Australia as it could divert the team's focus.

"I won't answer him now as this is not the right time because India are in the middle of a Test series (against Australia) and it might affect the focus of the team," Vengsarkar said.

The Indian openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir gave a good start to the second innings rattling up 68 for no loss in 18.1 overs before a sharp shower forced play to be called off a little early. Sehwag was on 43 and Gambhir was giving him company on 20 at stumps on day two which saw the Australians consolidating their position in the match. Zaheer Khan was the pick of the Indian bowlers with 5 for 91 while fellow paceman Ishant Sharma took 4 for 77. With the three days left in the match, the Indians will have to bat out of their skins to counter the Aussie total since they may have to bat on a last day track in the fourth innings. Watson, who played his first Test innings in three years, just faced 14 balls.