Sydney, Nov 12: Andrew Symonds was not originally on the selectors’ minds for Friday’s exhibition Twenty20 match against an All Stars team at the Gabba. However, he proved extremely lucky to be playing as James Hopes, who was preferred over Symonds, was struggling with a chest injury and would not have been fit.

Symonds has been out of the Aussie team for a few months now, after he went for fishing instead of attending an important meting during the last West Indies tour.

Sydney, Nov 12: The second highest wicket taker in the world and former Australian cricketer, Shane Warne has said that it wasn’t the right time to hang skipper Ricky Ponting, instead he should be encouraged and supported by the team management.

He said that Ricky had stood up everytime he was challenged, like in 2005 after the Ashes series when England won the series after a long gap.

Dubai, Nov 11 : Pakistan could move up to fourth in the Reliance Mobile ICC ODI Championship table if its beats the West Indies 3-0 in the upcoming series beginning on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.

All the ODIs will be day and night matches and will take place at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi and if Shoaib Malik’s men can win all three they will gain four ratings points and move above fifth-placed India and fourth-placed New Zealand.

Dubai, Nov. 11 : Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has gained two places in the latest Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings for Test bowlers and is now in seventh position, the highest ranking the off-spinner has enjoyed since 2003.

London, Nov 11 : English middle order batsman Paul Collingwood has insisted that England has the firepower to crush India — and put down a marker for next summer’s Ashes.

Collignwood believes the pace attack of Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison will be crucial against India over the next six weeks, The Sun reported.

The Durham all-rounder said: “Apart from the Allen Stanford match, we’ve had two successful months under Kevin Pietersen’s captaincy. Our seam attack, firing on all cylinders, is very hard to beat. And the balance in our side is there now, just look at the team-sheet.”

Melbourne, Nov. 11 : Queensland and Australian all-rounder Shane Watson and some other Australian cricketers have become pin-up boys in a soon-to-be-released calendar aimed at raising funds for the McGrath Foundation.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed Watson, according to the Courier Mail, hottie, who is also known as the main squeeze of Fox Sports talking head Lee Furlong, peeled off his threads for the racy shoot at Coolum beach recently and emerged as somewhat of a natural according to snapper Pedro Virgil.