The Australian cricket team has been touted as the best team in the world for over ten years but the last one year has been very bad for them. It was beaten down by the Indian team, New Zealand team and also by the England team in all formats of the game.
Now the Australian team has bounced back with a stylish and dominant victory over the New Zealand team in the finals of the Champions Trophy one day cricket tournament. The victory is likely to give more moral boost to the once great team, for fighting out the matches in the coming months.

Newzeland team cruised past scotland in their T20 match in the world cup being held in England. This time around also, there was good scope of an upset. Especially since there was rain and the match was curtailed to a 7 over match. Scotland scored 89 for 4 wickets from their allotted 7 overs. The score looked too high. However, Newzealand, powered by Brendon mcullum and Jesse Ryder calmly chased the big target and averted any upsets in the process.

Svetlana Kuznetsova beat fellow Russian and world number one Dinara Safina to win the French Open at Roland Garros. The Seventh seed Kuznetsova, won the encounter to come through 6-4 6-2 for her second major title. Her other title win was the 2004 US Open. Kuznetsova reeled off the last four games to win in one hour 14 minutes.

Safina had hoped to confirm her number one status with a first Grand Slam title, but was well below her best and double-faulted on match point. An emotional Safina slammed her racquet into the dirt in frustration after making her seventh double-fault of the day on match point. The 23-year-old has now lost in the French Open final for two years running, and was also heavily beaten by Serena Williams in February’s Australian Open final.

England suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Netherland in the T20 opening match. Netherlands, chasing a big score of 163, chased it successfully and won of the very last ball of the innings. The last over was bowled by Stuart Broad, and Netherlands needed 7 runs of it. Almost 4 balls of that over, one or other run out should have happened, and all of them were missed by England.

With this shock defeat, there are chances that England may not qualify for the super 8 also.

Roger Federer earned one more shot at the French Open Crown which has eluded him so far. He beat Juan Martin del Potro in five sets. Now that this year Federer does not have to face Nadal, his chances of winning the clay court title have actually gone up. However, the way he beat Potro does not inspire confidence in him. He was struggling initially against the 5th seeded Argentinian. Though he clawed back to win the game, he was not very convincing on the whole. Let us see what he does with the giant killer, Robin Soderling in the finals!

The Premier League saw its revenues go up by 26% in the 2007/08 season to nearly $3.15bn. The revenues of top-flight English sides were £1.93bn, up from £1.5bn a year earlier, Deloitte said.

The premier league seems to be the only one of its kind bucking the economic trend and posting both top line and bottom line growth figures and showing a very healthy business model. It is to be noted that even the indian premier league, which is actually a cricket version of the premier league in UK, is also showing good growths and monies.

Despite the downturn, 11 of the 20 top league clubs made an operating profit in 2007/08, from eight a year before. This is inspite of the increases in salaries.

Injury is one unavoidable part of any sports. But most of us, when we get injured, don’t have any idea as to how to proceed next. We do get treatment but we may also get bogged down by the treatment time and we may not be able to come out of the injury and come out to play the next time.

Now, there is an interesting site, physioroom.com, which showcases the injuries of all the premier league players. Every single footballer who has ever got injured is listed here. Their injury history is also given. Not only football but also other sports personalities who have got injuries and the kind of injuries are listed here. A fascinating set of facts! That gives us good understanding of how even famous players got injured and notonly that, how they are able to come back to play from these seemingly debilitating injuries.

Incidentally, the site also lists the different medical practitioners who can be contacted for various injuries,
it also lists the kind of First Aid Kits required for different injuries. It not only lists the injuries but also gives guidance from experts on what to do if somebody gets injured. A very useful site.

IPL, the Indian Premier League, the game of twenty overs cricket match, is reaching its climax. The semi finals are over the the finalists have been spotted. The surprising part of this year’s edition has been that the bottom teams of the 2008 have made it to the finals. Deccan chargers and Royal Challengers Bangalore, the two teams which finished at the bottom of the table last year, have become the finalists this year. While the Deccan Chargers beat the Delhi Daredevils to enter the finals, the Royal Challengers Bangalore beat the much fancied Chennai Super Kings to enter the finals. The 53 day show ends today with the final match between these two teams.

The Indian Premier League cricket matches happening in South Africa is having huge viewer ship across the globe. Especially there are lot of viewers in India, the sponsoring country. Initially, there were reports of poor viewer ship for the matches because they are happening outside India.

But that does not seem to be the case. The matches are expected to be completed in the next three weeks. The blend of four foreign players plus seven Indian players in each team, is working out to be a thrilling formula.

The twenty overs format of the cricket match has been forced out of India last month, due to inadequate security assurances from the government.

The first round of two games of the Indian Premier League started in South Africa with a wonderful fight.

In the first match, The Chennai Super Kings was beaten down in a close fight by the Mumbai Indians, with only 19 runs margin.

In the second match, Rajasthan Royals , who were the winners of the last year tournament, were beaten down very badly by the underdogs Bangalore Royals.

We can expect more surprises and thrillers in the days to come.