Yuvraj Singh to return to India on Monday

inShare1

New Delhi: Yuvraj Singh is set to return to India on Monday after his treatment for cancer in Boston. Presently, the left-handed batsman is in London and is recovering well.

Yuvraj tweeted in the early hours of Sunday morning, "finally the day has come ! i am going home tomorrow ! cant wait , excited to see my friends and family ..see you india!! mera bharat mahan !"

Immediately, Yuvraj is not expected to start playing and may return at the end of 2012. He was diagnosed with a rare form of germ cell cancer, Yuvraj underwent three sessions of chemotherapy and was discharged from a Boston hospital last month. He is expected to announce his future plans and details about treatment received once he returns to the country.

IPL 5: Pune hammer Punjab for second win

inShare

Pune: In front of a large home crowd at last – there were no matches played in Pune last season – a Sourav Ganguly-led Pune Warriors India inaugurated a spanking new Sahara Stadium with a convincing 22-run win over Kings XI Punjab. Pune's innings lacked direction until Marlon Samuels (46) and Robin Uthappa (40) added 81 for the third wicket, and after their dismissals it threatened to end with a whimper. But for the second match running Steven Smith came to his team's rescue, this time scoring a 12-ball 25 including three sixes in four balls. A 27-run penultimate over, which started with Uthappa's wicket but went downhill from there after Harmeet Singh was barred from bowling, turned out to be crucial in Pune's match-winning 166 for 6.

Having opted to bat, Sourav Ganguly gave the home fans a glimpse of his old self when he hit three fours in his first six deliveries faced. That was as good as it got for him, however, as he was done in by a slower ball from Dimitri Mascarenhas – an odd replacement for Shaun Marsh – that mid-off had no hassles holding on to. Praveen Kumar delivered the second wicket, collecting the ball off his own bowling and nailing the stumps to catch Jesse Ryder short of the crease.

IPL 5: DC eye first win in clash with MI

Visakhapatnam: Deccan Chargers have a lot to prove. Since their march to glory in the second edition of the IPL in 2009, the graph has taken a downward slide for the Hyderabad-based team. After going down to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the play-off for third place the following year, the team was placed seventh on the points table at the end of last season. The latest for them is a face-off against Mumbai Indians, on the back of a 74-run mauling at the hands of defending champions Chennai Super Kings.

The welcome return of skipper Kumar Sangakkara to the side, who missed out on Deccan's tournament opener against Chennai due to Sri Lanka's recently concluded Test series against England at home, is sure to prove a shot in the arm in the batting as well as leadership departments. A chase of 194 was always going to be a daunting one against CSK, but the fact that DC fell so woefully short of their mark emphasises how badly the side missed his services.

Gambhir blames batting for KKR's loss

inShare1

Jaipur: Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir on Sunday blamed batting failure for his side's 22-run defeat against Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here and said that they did not deserve to win the tie

"We lost three quick wickets and thereafter we could not recover. It was good job by the bowlers to restrict Rajasthan to 164 but with this kind of batting we don't deserve to win," Gambhir said at the post-match press conference.

Rajasthan Royals vs Kolkata Knight Riders (T20)

Rajasthan Royals innings164/5(20.0)

R/R: 8.20

Batsman	Status	Runs	Balls	4s	6s	SR
Rahul Dravid (C)	run out (Iqbal Abdulla)	26	24	2	2	108.33
Ajinkya Rahane	run out (Gautam Gambhir)	0	4	0	0	0.00
Shreevats Goswami (W)	b Rajat Bhatia	23	18	2	0	127.78
Ashok Menaria	b Brett Lee	40	30	4	1	133.33
Brad Hodge	c Brendon McCullum b Brett Lee	44	29	3	2	151.72
Owais Shah	not out	23	11	2	1	209.09
Kevon Cooper	not out	5	5	0	0	100.00
Johan Botha
Ankeet Chavan
Amit Singh
Siddharth Trivedi

Extras: 3 (b - 0, w - 2, no - 0, lb - 1, penalty - 0)
Fall of Wickets	1/1 (Ajinkya Rahane 1.3ov.) 2/44 (Rahul Dravid 6.4ov.) 3/61 (Shreevats Goswami 8.4ov.) 4/125 (Brad Hodge 16.1ov.) 5/152 (Ashok Menaria 18.4ov.)