Watson Century guides Australia to Champions Trophy Title, beat New Zealand by 6 wickets in Final

Shane Watson's back to back century helps Australia to their consecutive ICC Champions Trophy title, as they beat New Zealand in a low scoring final by 6 wickets with 28 balls remaining on October 5th at Centurion.

New Zealand without their captain Daniel Vettori made only 200/9 in 50 overs due to tight bowling by Australian pace bowlers Lee and Hauritz took 2 and 3 wickets respectively.

Ausstralia reduced to 6-2 in 3 overs but Watson and Cameron White (62 runs) put 128 runs for the 3rd wickets and ensures an easy win. Shane Watson scored unbeaten 105 runs competed his century by 2 sixes in last 2 balls of the innings hit 10 fours and 4 sixes.

Shane Watson won Man of the Match award his back to back award in Champions Trophy final. Ricky Ponting won the Golden Bat award as highest run scorer in the tournament with 288 runs in 4 games at an avg. of 72 and also won the Man of the Series award. south Africa's Wayne Parnell got Golden Ball award as highest wicket taker with 11 wickets in 3 matches.

Australia got a 2 Million USD as a winner prize.

Match Summary:

Australia 206 for 4 (Watson 105*, White 62, Mills 3-27) beat New Zealand 200 for 9 (Guptill 40, Hauritz 3-37, Lee 2-45) by six wickets

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Ind vs WI 12th Match Live Scorecard ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | India vs West Indie sLive Scorecard

India vs West Indies, 12th match of ICC Champions Trophy, is very important only if Pakistan beat Australia in the earlier match of the day on Wednesday, September 12 at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg and the timing is 14:30 local, 12:30 GMT, 6.00 PM IST, 6.30 PM Pak Time.

India can go with four bowlers and Yusuf Pathan can come back in playing 11. Indian bowling is a disaster so far in the tournament.

India Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni(capt/wk), Yusuf Pathan/AmitMishra, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh/Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar.

West Indies Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Dale Richards, Andre Fletcher, Devon Smith, Travis Dowlin, Floyd Reifer (capt), Kieran Powerll, David Bernard, Chadwick Walton (wk), Darren Sammy, Kemar Roach, Nikita Miller.

India vs West Indies Live Score Card:

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Aus Vs Pak 11th Match Live Scorecard ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | Australia vs Pakistan

Pakistan, top team of Group A, will take on Australia in the 11 th game of Champions Trophy 2009 and the result of this match will decide the final team of the semi-finals on September 11, 2009. This important match will start at 09:30 local, 07:30 GMT, 1.30 PM IST, 2.00 PM Pak Time.

If Australia win they will qualify for the last four to join with Pakistan, New Zealand and England and if Pakistan win, then India have to beat West Indies by a good margin. The net run-rates of Australia and India appear vast: +1.00 for Australia, -1.08 for India.

Pakistan will rest some key players and Mohammad Asif will come back in the national team after 19 months. Australia will probably go with the same team.

Australia Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Shane Watson, Tim Paine (wk), Ricky Ponting (capt), Michael Hussey, Callum Ferguson, Cameron White, James Hopes, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Nathan Hauritz, Peter Siddle.

Pakistan Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Misbah-ul-Haq, Kamran Akmal (wk), Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan (capt), Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Asif, Saeed Ajmal, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamer.

Pakistan vs Australia Live Commentary:

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SA Vs NZ 3rd Match Live Scorecard ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | South Africa Vs New Zealand

In the 3rd match of ICC Champions Trophy 2009, New Zealand will play against South Africa on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at SuperSport Park, Centurion. This interesting match will start at 09:30 local, 07:30 GMT, 1.30 PM IST, 2.00 PM Pak Time.

South Africa already lost their opening match by Sri Lanka just 48 hrs back.The reason that South Africa hadn't played any competitive One Day International match for the last 5 months. It's time for Graeme Smith and his team to wake up.
New Zealand batsman played very well against India in their warm-up match, specially the both Martin Guptill (63) and Jesse Ryder (57) gave a strong base and with Neil Broom (66 off 46 balls) blasting batting to lead New Zealand score to 301. Shane Bond & Captain Denial Vettroi bowled very well against India.

South Africa Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Graeme Smith (capt), Johan Botha, Hashim Amla, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Albie Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Wayne Parnell, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Roelof van der Merwe

New Zealand Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Daniel Vettori (capt), Neil Broom, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott, Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram Jeetan Patel, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey, Shane Bond, Ian Butler

Watch Live Cricket Scorecard of South Africa Vs Sri Lanka

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PAK Vs WI 2nd Match Live Scorecard ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | Pakistan Vs West Indies

In the 2nd match of ICC Champions Trophy 2009, Pakistan will take charge against West Indies on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg. This interesting match will start at 14:30 local, 12:30 GMT, 6.00 PM IST, 6.30 PM Pak Time.

Pakistan is a well balanced team and They have prooved when Pakistan won ICC Twenty20 World Cup just 2 months before. Pakistan won against Sri Lanka in his warm-up match. Opener Kamran Akmal, young Umar and expeperienced middle order batsman Misbah-ul-Haq all are in good form. Shahid Afridi will be captain and will lead his team against West Indies because captain Younis Khan who fractured his little finger during training. Pakistani bowlers also are much disciplined including Naved-ul-Hasan, Umar Gul and Mohammed Aamer and return of Mohammed Asif will improve Pakistan bowling attack.
West Indies has less experiecned & balanced team as compare to Pakistan because West Indies team has a fresh team and they already lost ODI and Test from a lower ranked Bangladesh team. The key players will be vice-captain Darren Sammy, opener Devon Smith and fast bowler Tino Best. West Indies captain, 37-year old Floyd Reifer is an experienced domestic cricketer.

Pakistan Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umer Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi(C), Rana Naved-ul Hasan, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal(WK), Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Asif, Rao Iftikhar, Saeed Ajmal

West Indies Team for ICC Champions Trophy 2009:

Floyd Reifer (C), Darren Sammy, David Bernard, Tino Best, Royston Crandon, Travis Dowlin, Andre Fletcher, Nikita Miller, Kevin McLean, Kieran Powell, Dale Richards, Kemar Roach, Devon Smith, Gavin Tonge, Chadwick Walton

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India Loose Against New Zealand in First Warmup Match ICC Champions Trophy 2009 | NZ Beat IND

Before ICC Champions Trophy 2009, ICC had scheduled some warm matches on 18th & 20th September 2009. New Zealand defeated India by 103 runs in the first warm up match of India at Potchefstroom. Thus New Zealand took its revenge of the defeat in the lately ended Compaq Cup in Sri Lanka.

New Zealand batsman played very well specially the both Martin Guptill (63) and Jesse Ryder (57) gave a strong base and with Neil Broom (66 off 46 balls) blasting batting to lead New Zealand score to 301. Shane Bond & Captain Denial Vettroi bowled very well against India.
Some bright spots were noticed: Abhishek Nayar (41) was quite impressive in batting. Amit Mishra & Yousuf Pathan bowled very ecnomically. But still India's bowling is a weaklink and needs drasticall improvement to stage a real challenge to the other Teams.

In other warm matches, Sri Lanka won against West Indies by 5 wickets at Pretoria. Pakistan won against Warriors by 6 wickets at Bennoi.

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4 Million USD Prize Money for 2009 Champions Trophy

ICC has increased the prize money of 2009 Champions Trophy almost 4 times to US$4 million for the tournament from September 22 to October 5 in South Africa. The format of the tournament has also been revised from the last tournament as only 8 top team will participate instead of 10 teams with no qualifying rounds.

8 teams has been divided into 2 groups of 4 teams each and the top 2 teams from each group will qualify for the semi finals. India and Pakistan will be in the same group along with Australia an West Indies. In the other group South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and England will fight for the top place.

15 games short tournament which was initially planned last year in Pakistan will host at Centurion and Wanderers.

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