Rajasthan Cricket Association vs Australia: Preview and Live Score
Touring Australian cricket team starts their tour of India tomorrow with a two-day practice match against a local team formed by Rajasthan Cricket Association. Australia will face Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA)’s Centre of Excellence team at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium. Australia is now in India to take part in the upcoming four-match test series.
Match: Rajasthan Cricket Association’s Centre of Excellence Team vs Australia
Date: 27 September 2008, Saturday
Venue: Sawai Mansingh Stadium
Kick off: 09:30 local time (04:00 GMT)
Australian cricket team reached India last Monday and since then they had been staying at Rajasthan where they received warm welcome from Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA). Reports have it that Cricket Australia thanked Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) for the kind of hospitality RCA offered to the visiting side. Moreover, Rajasthan Cricket Association earlier responded to Cricket Australia (CA)’s request to BCCI for arranging an additional practice match following the postponement of this month’s scheduled Champions Trophy in Pakistan. Initially, Australia was supposed to play only one warm-up match at Hyderabad that will begin from 2 October.
Tomorrow’s match has been organized by Rajasthan Cricket Association. Most of the players of RCA’s Centre of Excellence team are from Rajasthan’s Ranji trophy squad that includes few players who earlier played for India’s national team. Gagan Khoda, who represented India in one day cricket, will lead the local side in the absence of another ODI player Venugopal Rao who is currently participating in the JP Atray tournament in Chandigarh with MRF Pace Academy.
Pacer Pankaj Singh was in the India’s test squad that toured Australia earlier this year. However, the young prospect of Rajasthan did not play any match. Most of the other players are not well-known in international level, but ahead of the new season of Ranji Trophy, I think, it is a good chance for the Rajasthan players to face Australian team.
For Australia, on the other hand, it is also an important match as the touring team got the chance to assimilate with the Indian condition. Australia practiced by their own for the last four days, and now they are going to face local players from tomorrow. This is undoubtedly a very good chance for Australia to get used to with the local condition, weather and other things. After the two-day match, Australian team will get three days to work out their problems they would found from the match, before meeting Indian Board President XI in Hyderabad in the second warm match.
Australia will look to ensure the best use of the practice match, giving chances to as many players as possible in the match. Australia has come to tour India with a relatively young, inexperienced squad with four uncapped players in the 15-member squad. All rounder Andrew Symonds have been left out of the tour on disciplinary ground. Most importantly, Australia’s spin attack features two uncapped players. So, I think, Ricky Ponting must feature Jason Krejza and Bryce McGain, the two uncapped spinners, in the practice match.
Online Live Score and Updates
I am not yet confirmed about which television channel is going to show the match. However, I am giving some online live score websites from where you might get the online live score and updates of the match. Well, as it is a practice match, I can not assure you that all of the following sites will be giving live score of the match. So, I will request you to go through all the sites first to see who are giving live score of the match.
Cricinfo
Cricketnext
Cricket.sulekha
stickcricket
cricpoint
Win or defeat is not important in the match, though it is true that Australia would not want to suffer a morale-denting defeat ahead of the first test, starting from 9 October 2008. Rajasthan Cricket Association’s Centre of Excellence team will look to give a strong challenge for the visiting side. As it is a two-day match, a draw seems to be the most likely result in the match.
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