In a dramatic clash, which has become the norm this tourney whenever the Barmy Army is involved, England prevailed over West Indies on a skiddy Chennai wicket, and defended their total of 243 by 18 runs to stay alive in the World Cup. James Tredwell and Graeme Swann called upon the last ounce of England's spirit and successfully resisted the onslaught launched by Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and Andre Russell in a pendulous encounter.

Andrew Strauss won the toss and elected to bat on what seemed a flat, grassless wicket with good bounce. As England rung changes in their playing eleven, driven by both desperation and player indisposition, Andrew Strauss gave a strident pep talk to pump his team up for this life-threatening clash. He and Matt Prior began watchfully, as Roach's first over saw Strauss shoulder more arms than a Hindu Goddess. All the care was all to the good; as soon as he got the measure of the wicket, he clipped full balls and pulled shorter ones to the boundary. Sulieman Benn, from the other end however, was not as inhibitive as his usual wont. Prior (21) put him away for a few speeding boundaries, but lack of footwork and misjudgement of length let Andre Russell clatter one into his stumps to end a 48-run opening stand. This brought forth Jonathan Trott, who promptly flicked, pulled and drove to the boundary with a vengeance towards the disparaging remarks made about his scoring pace, and at the end of the 10^th over, England had raced away to 60/1.

Australia moved to their rightful place at the top of the Group A on Wednesday, finally catching up with the rest of the teams in terms of games played at the ICC Cricket World Cup. The reigning World Champions stretched their unbeaten run to 34 games with a crushing 7 wicket win over minnows Canada at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. An opening stand of 183 between Shane Watson (94) and Brad Haddin (83) allowed Australia to chase down Canada's effort of 211 with more than 15 overs to spare. The four quarter-finalists from Group A are firmly in place, but with just 2 points separating 1st from 4th, the order in which they will finish will only be evident after Sri Lanka play New Zealand and Australia square-off against Pakistan.

Back at Bengaluru, Canada started the day on a positive note, winning the toss, and were brave enough to opt to bat first. The wicket looked like a belter, but the worry for the Associate Nations when taking on a powerful attack like the Australia's always is that they could get knocked over very quickly under a hundred runs and could face the ignominy of an embarassing defeat. Canada though opted to take the bull by the horns and give themselves a chance at being competitive but getting as many as they could inside 50 overs and then making Australia sweat a bit in the run chase.

Australian umpiring can be confident of a vibrant future if this ICC Cricket World Cup is any guide. There are 18 umpires officiating in the current group stages of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Five of those men in the middle are from Australia – a creditable 28% of umpires at the event learnt their skills Down Under.

Sean Cary, Umpire Manager at Cricket Australia, believes the training and pathways available to umpires in Australian cricket provide the perfect bedrock for future international honours for umpires. “To have five Australian trained umpires officiating at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 reflects very well on those umpires as individuals and on the Australian system in general. We've worked hard to create a system which encourages the growth of umpiring talent and this group have shown that if you work hard enough and have the determination you may well end up umpiring on the biggest stage of all,” Cary said.

So far the only replacement news coming out of the ICC Cricket World Cup was that of cricketers being replaced from their squads due to injuries. However, it seems the changing bug has caught the ICC as well and Umpire Asoka De Silva is the first casualty.

What started off as a slew of erroneous umpiring decisions assumed gigantic proportions, when De Silva gave batsman Gary Wilson out leg before in Ireland's loss to West Indies in Mohali, despite having a second look at the decision through the review system. The decision turned the match in favour of the Windies and instead of De Silva being reprimanded, it was Irish captain William Porterfield who became the victim of ICC's ire after strongly criticising the decision in the post match conference.

Public perceptions are often hard to overturn but JP Duminy has done just that over the past year in literally smashing the viewpoint that he cannot do the big hitting job in the latter stages of limited overs international matches.

The facts speak for themselves. JP has played 10 ODIs in the current calendar year and has a batting average of 56 and a strike rate of 93 percent. This compares with two of the acknowledged champions – AB de Villiers 54 and 106 and Hashim Amla 55 and 89.

South Africa became the first team from Group B to qualify for the knock-out phase of the ICC Cricket World Cup when they beat Ireland by a comprehensive 131 runs at Kolkata's famous Eden Gardens on Tuesday.

The Proteas now have 8 points from 5 matches but will have to wait to see where they finish on the final log and who their quarter-final opponents will be. If they win their final Group match against Bangladesh at Dhaka on Saturday they will finish top of the log and play the fourth placed side in Group A. This is likely to be either Pakistan or New Zealand.

The Irish challenge for a place in the quarter-finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup came to an end on Tuesday when the European minnows were handsomely beaten by South Africa by 131 runs at the Eden Gardens today. South Africa had early hiccups losing 5 wickets for 117 runs, but a brilliant 99 from JP Duminy took the Proteas to a formidable total. The South African bowling was too strong for Ireland as they were knocked over for just 141. Morne Morkel and Robin Peterson were the pick of the bowlers, taking 3 wickets each. The win meant that South Africa were the first team from Group B to advance to the last 8 and moved to the top of the table with 8 points from 5 games. Three other teams amongst India, West Indies, Bangladesh and England will join them there.

Ireland won the toss and decided to exploit the conditions by bowling first. The pitch had a bit of grass and the bowlers started well. Boyd Rankin generated a bit of pace and didn't let Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla break free. Finally Amla took Rankin on and smashed a boundary and a six but he went for a shot too many, edging a widish delivery to George Dockrell, who took a fine catch at the third man boundary.

Ireland's William Porterfield has been officially reprimanded for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct following his side's match against the West Indies in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 in Mohali on Friday.

Porterfield pleaded guilty to contravening Level 1 offence (Section 2.1.7) of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Team Officials which relates to “public criticism of, or inappropriate comment in relation to, an incident occurring in an international match or any player, player support personnel or match official”.