India announced their squad for the first three matches of their 5-match ODI Series against England yesterday. Despite the call for heads to roll after a poor year of cricket from India, only one senior member of the team was axed, out of form opener Virender Sehwag. The Delhi run machine's place was taken by Cheteshwar Pujara with the selectors naming an otherwise unchanged side from the series against Pakistan.

Gautam Gambhir and Ajinkya Rahane will both proably open the batting for India. Gambhir’s form has also been deteriorating for quite a while, and he needs to pull up his socks or might find himself unceremoniously dropped like his opening partner.

ECB today announced that Nottinghamshire all-rounder Samit Patel has been awarded an England increment contract for 2012-13. Patel has played a total of three T20 matches and three Tests for England in the current contract period to earn his increment contract.

The England selectors today announced a 14-man T20 squad and a 14-man ODI squad for February's tour of New Zealand as well as a 15-man England Lions squad for a limited overs tour of Australia also in February.

The T20 squad shows two changes from the squad selected for the series against India with Stuart Broad returning to captain the side after a heel injury forced him to miss out on the most recent T20 series and Steven Finn also returns. The New Zealand series comprises two fixtures against a New Zealand XI in preparation for a three match series starting on February 9 in Auckland.

England drew the two match T20 series with India 1-1 after winning a nailbiter of a match that went down to the very last ball. Chasing a total of 177 runs posted by India, the English started off well, but faced some setbacks in the middle overs as Yuvraj Singh once again spun India back into the contest. With 23 runs needed off the last 2 overs, captain Eoin Morgan took charge along with Jos Buttler, and the game boiled down to the English needing 3 runs off the last delivery. Morgan finished the game in style as he hit the ball for a six, to ensure that England headed home feeling rather good about themselves for their Christmas holidays.

India and England squared-off in the second and final T20 match in this short series at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai. The Indians would have gone into the match looking to make it a clean sweep, having won the first game in Pune a couple of days ago. The toss though went England's way with the visitors deciding to field first. Both teams made just the one change for this game with Joe Root coming in for Danny Briggs in the England line-up, while the Indians called-up Rohit Sharma for allrounder Ravindra Jadeja.

The Indians team led by veteran superstar Yuvraj Singh put on an excellent allround performance to win the first T20 against England in Pune today. Batting first, England started the match like a house on fire and were well on top at the half-way stage of their innings, before a stellar performance by Yuvraj with the ball restricted them to a below par 157-6 in their 20 overs. India chased down the target with time to spare with all of their batsmen getting runs and Yuvraj Singh topping the batting efforts as well with a belligerent 38 from just 21 balls.

The first game of a two match T20 series got underway as India faced off against England at the Subrata Roy Sahara stadium in Pune. A hard pitch with a bit of grass awaited the sides on what looked like a belter of a track.

The BCCI have announced that they will be preponing the timings of all ODIs between India and England in an attempt to negate any unfair advantage that may be brought about by the dew factor. While the ODIs were initially intended to be day-night matches, the fact that the dew would put the side fielding second at a severe disadvantage forced the BCCI to rethink the timings.

Australia captain Michael Clarke has reclaimed the top spot in the latest ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen that were released on Tuesday after the completion of the Hobart and Nagpur Tests. Clarke, who entered the Hobart Test trailing number-one ranked Shivnarine Chanderpaul by just one ratings point, now leads the West Indian by nine points. Clarke's knocks of 74 and 57 in the Hobart Test against Sri Lanka that was won by Australia by 137 runs, played a part in helping him race to the top.

England's captain Alastair Cook, who was the other contender for the top spot, has remained in fourth position after losing 38 ratings points following his double failure in the Nagpur Test which ended in a draw. He now trails Clarke by 52 ratings points.