Sri Lanka will be looking for the elusive test match and series win when they tour India for a Three Test, five ODI and Two T20 match series from November to December 2009. The team arrive in India on November 8th for the 55-day tour.
Zaheer Abbas fitted effortlessly into the architectural splendours of Cheltenham College. So wonderful were the wristy strokes he eased around the ground during the Cheltenham festival that his very presence enhanced the historic buildings. Perhaps English Heritage should have slapped a preservation order on the entire scene. For the man they called 'Zed' could be just as monumental as any building. He may have been a pretty batsman, but he was by no means ephemeral. His first Test innings in England brought him 274, at Edgbaston in 1971. Three years later it was nine hours batting for 240 at the Oval. He had a hearty appetite for runs. Zaheer made his debut for Karachi in 1965-6, then toured Ireland with Pakistan International Airlines in 1969 before making his Test debut against New Zealand that October. He was dropped after just one Test. He joined Gloucestershire in 1972, but his early Test performances did not match his big scores. He made 72 at Headingley in 1971, but his best Test score on a 1972-73 tour of Australia was 51. He toured New Zealand with Pakistan in 1972-73 and opened the batting. Not until the tour of Australia in 1976-77 did he achieve real consistency. He made 85 and 101 in the Adelaide Test and 90 and 58 at the MCG. A few months later he was in the West Indies and made 80 at Georgetown. In the World Cup of 1975 he made 97 against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge
Full name : Syed Zaheer Abbas Kirmani
Born : July 24, 1947, Sialkot, Punjab
Batting style : Right-hand bat
Bowling style : Right-arm offbreak
Test debut : Pakistan v New Zealand at Karachi - Oct 24-27, 1969
Last Test : Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Sialkot - Oct 27-31, 1985
ODI debut : England v Pakistan at Nottingham - Aug 31, 1974
Last ODI : Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Hyderabad (Sind) - Nov 3, 1985
The 2009 ICC World Twenty20 is a Twenty20 cricket tournament scheduled to take place in England in June of 2009. It will be the second World Twenty20 and will consist of 12 teams, contested by all Test-playing nations plus qualifiers (Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland)
The Champions Twenty20 League, formed with the official sanction of ICC will kick off in October 2008. Eight domestic teams from four nations will participate. Cricket Australia will partner the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket South Africa (CSA). The champion team in the Champions Twenty20 league will get US $5 million, which is the highest ever prize money for a cricket event.
