South Asian Business news and information

New Zealand has clinched the three-match ODI series against Pakistan in United Arab Emirates following a thrilling victory in the third and the final match of the series in Abu Dhabi. New Zealand won the last ODI by only 7 runs. Chasing a target of 212, Pakistan was struggling after losing 9 wickets at 101. However, a gallant innings from 17 year-old Mohammad Aamer almost took the match away from New Zealand’s grip.

Before the end of Cold War and Soviet Union, Pakistan was the best friend of USA in South Asia. On the other hand, India has very close relationship with Soviet Union. So, Pakistan received generous aid from USA over the decades. After the fall of Soviet Union, the equation got changed some and Washington has now very good relationship with India too. Anyway, US Congress has approved a bill to increase non-military aid to Pakistan.

The match between India and Australia has been abandoned due to heavy rain. Winning the toss, Australia chose to bat first and scored 234 for the loss of four wickets from 42.3 overs. However, batsmen could not continue the game due to heavy rain and they had to leave the ground to take shelter from rain. As ground was wet and unable to play because of water, match referee refused. Now, both Australia and India will have to look for their next match to make sure their place in the semi-final round.

The curtain of ICC Champions Trophy is going to be opened day after tomorrow. You can find the schedule here in this blog. Yes, this is the good part of Internet today. Cricket may not be a popular sports outside of India and there is not that many websites dedicated to this game. However, there are some dedicated bloggers who are there for you. They are writing every day just to bring some news for you so that you don’t have to browse that much. Here, I am giving a list of some blogs that will give coverage to ICC Champions Trophy 2009.

Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra, two of the top actresses of Bollywood, are coming together in a remake of Bride Wars which would be produced by Shrishti Arya. Bride Wars is a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway. Kate and Anne are two best friends who wanted to get married in the same hotel on the same day and they try to sabotage each other’s marriage.  

India got off to a good start to Compaq Cup 2009 tri-nation tournament as they defeated New Zealand by 6 wickets. With this victory, India ensured their appearance in the final, leaving New Zealand out of the tournament. India will face Sri Lanka on Saturday in their second match of the preliminary stage before meeting the same opponent in the final.

Veteran Indian batsmen Rahul Dravid got a recall to India’s ODI squad for the Compaq Cup and ICC Champions Trophy 2009. No doubt, Dravid contributed a lot to Indian cricket over more than a decade and he should be considered among the greats of Indian cricket. However, his recent call up to the ODI squad raised a number of questions and it seems that BCCI and Indian selectors follow double standard in team selection.

I can not understand why Pakistan selectors are in dilemma mood when it comes about selecting the players ahead of the up-coming ICC Champions Trophy 2009 in South Africa. On Friday, the 15-member squad of Pakistan cricket team was supposed to be announced. Yet I don’t know what actually happened after that day. However, chief selector Iqbal Qasim has already completed his consultation with Coach Intikhab Alam and PCB chairman Ijaz Butt.

This is a guest post from Kamrul Hasan who is the blogger of Cricket Updates. Cricket Updates is a nice blog and it has around 1270 Feedburner subscribers. So, it is some popular too. Here is his post:

Pakistan all rounder Shahid Afridi has given a victory to his team in his debut T20 match as skipper. He led Twenty20 World Champion team Pakistan in this only T20 match against host Sri Lanka and ended the tour series with a victory. Sri Lanka has been beaten by 52 runs at the hand of Pakistan. The whole R Premadasa stadium was full of supporters.