Heena Sharma Blog

India have dropped three places to fifth in the expanded men's Twenty20 International team rankings while Pakistan have consolidated their top position, according to the latest list issued by the ICC. The ICC Friday unveiled an expanded T20I team rankings table with 80 teams who will now be able to gauge their progress in a format, recognised by the world body as the vehicle for the growth of the game. Pakistan, ICC T20 World Cup champions in 2009, are now on 286 points while the next four teams are within two points of each other -- South Africa (262), England (261), Australia (261) and India (260). South Africa and India have swapped positions two and five in the expanded table, whose launch coincides with the annual rankings update in which series results from 2015-16 are removed and outcomes from 2016-17 and 2017-18 are weighted at 50 per cent. In other significant changes, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have moved up one place each to seventh and eighth positions, re

West Indies cricket star Chris Gayle Monday won a Aus dollars 300,000 (USD 221,000) payout from an Australian media group which claimed he exposed his genitals to a massage therapist. The all-rounder was accused by Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in a series of stories in the newspapers in 2016. They alleged he exposed his penis and indecently propositioned the woman in a dressing room at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney. Gayle strenuously denied the allegations, claiming at the time that the journalists behind the story wanted to "destroy him". His teammate Dwayne Smith, who was in the changing room at the time, also denied the incident took place. He won his defamation case in October last year, with jurors finding Fairfax was motivated by malice and had failed to establish a defence of truth. Read More Business Standard