Final match abandoned - Trophy shared
India 38-1 (8.4 overs) v Sri Lanka 222-7 (50 overs)
India and Sri Lanka shared the ICC Champions Trophy after rain again washed out the final in Colombo.
The first attempt at staging the match was abandoned on Sunday, two overs into the second innings.
And just seven more overs were available the following day before a thunderstorm again brought the players off.
India could claim a slight advantage, after Sri Lanka again struggled to post a competitive total, reaching 222 for seven thanks to half-centuries from Mahela Jayawardene and Russel Arnold.
Captain Sourav Ganguly was disappointed India did not have the chance to win the ICC Champions Trophy outright after rain again forced the final to be abandoned.
The bad weather forced players off the pitch with India 38 for one in reply to Sri Lanka's 222 for seven.
"It was all set up to be a good match," Ganguly said.
"We bowled well to restrict them but it could have been anyone's game."
His Sri Lankan counterpart Sanath Jayasuriya said it was "unfortunate" that rain had intervened.
But he felt his slow bowlers would still have had a good chance of winning the game.
"Both teams wanted to play, but unfortunately weather intervened," he said.
"But we were not really under pressure because the wicket was getting slower and it would not have been easy to bat.
"Two hundred and twenty was a good score."
England's veteran cricket umpire David Shepherd made cricket history of sorts on Monday when he used a red card during a match - to order a dog off the pitch.
The dog had wandered onto the pitch during the final of the 12-nation ICC Champions Trophy match between India and Sri Lanka.
When ground staff failed to drive the animal away, Shepherd took out from his shirt pocket what looked like a red card used in soccer to order a person off the field.
Shepherd then turned toward the dog and flashed the card.
It had no impact, but moments later ground staff managed to get the dog off the field.
Indian captain Sourav Ganguly on Monday night said star batsman Sachin Tendulkar would continue to play at number four in the interest of the team and flayed critics forputting needless pressure on the master blaster by highlighting his rare failures.
"Sachin is a quality player. It's good for the team that he bats at no.4,' Ganguly told the media after the ICC Champions trophy final agaisnt Sri Lanka in which Tendulkar batted one-drop.
The skipper cited Tendulkar's performance in England in the Nat West triangular one-day series also involving Srilanka to contend that he fitted into the number four slot very well. "He knows that it's good for the team that he bats at no.4".
Tendulkar, who has over 11,000 runs in his 300 one-dayers, with 33 centuries under his belt, had said two days ago that he would prefer to open the innings, but that he had accepted his allotted position in the middle order in the interest of the team.
"He hasn't expressed the desire to me", Ganguly said.
"People who put pressure on him should realise that we need to win as a team as well, "Ganguly argued. However, he had a different explanation for why tendulkar batted at number three today.
PwC one-day ratings
Sri Lanka occupy the number one positions for batting and bowling in the new PwC one-day ratings for the first time ever.
Muttiah Muralitharan has held on to top place in the bowling ahead of Glenn McGrath after the ICC Champions Trophy.
In-form Sanath Jayasuriya has moved ahead of Sachin Tendulkar to claim top place in the batting for the first time.
Key India players have also made big strides up the ratings.
Virender Sehwag surged up 30 places during the Champions Trophy to ninth place, while Zaheer Khan has joined Harbhajan Singh in the top ten of the bowlers.
Marcus Trescothick climbed three places to third in the list - the highest rating achieved by an England player since the PwC one-day international system was launched in 1998.
Michael Bevan, for so long Australia's dominant player in one-day internationals, has slipped back to fourth place which he now shares with Ricky Ponting.
Australia-Pakistan Test series
Mark Waugh must quickly find a way to improve his dismal batting record in Sri Lanka if he is to remain a force in international cricket.
Waugh has admitted he needs some big scores against Pakistan, beginning in the First Test here on Thursday, to save his spot in the team.
But such is the urgency of the situation for "Junior" that he may have his 125-Test career terminated immediately after the First Test at Saravanamuttu Stadium if he can't shake the nervous starts which have been eroding his reputation.
Making his task even harder is that in six previous Tests here against Sri Lanka he has made only 90 runs in 10 innings at an average of nine, with five ducks.
"I think I need runs," Waugh said. "Last summer I made a lot of 30s and 40s. I need to make hundreds or 70s and 80s.
"I think I've got to make some runs but I'm not putting any more pressure on than normal.
"There's always pressure at Test cricket. It's just part of it. I'm just going to go out there and enjoy it."
The elegant right-hander scored a rather modest 438 runs at 33.69 in nine Tests last summer against New Zealand and South Africa.
Australians may need to revise the way they are taught to play slow bowling if they want to break the hold subcontinental spinners have had over them in recent years, Test captain Steve Waugh claimed yesterday.
After another batting capitulation to quality off-spin during last Friday's Champions Trophy one-day semi-final against Sri Lanka, Waugh conceded the method Australians employ against the turning ball was due for revision.
Waugh's concerns were aired as his team prepare for the first of three Tests against Pakistan which will be played in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, where spinners historically have dominated.
Since Waugh took over as skipper three and a half years ago, his team have triumphed in every Test cricket environment except where they have encountered quality off-spin, particularly in India where Australia has not won a Test series since 1969.
In that time, the slow bowlers who have performed best against Australia have been finger spinners Harbhajan Singh, from India (32 wickets at 17.03), Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (15 at 23.27) and Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq (10 at 25.10).
Australian captain Steve Waugh last night admitted he knew little about Pakistan's mystery line-up and fears they could produce an ambush in the first Test beginning on Thursday.
The Australians will attempt to gather as much information as possible on Pakistan's revamped team in the lead-up to the Test but obtaining in-depth analysis on low-profile players of sub-continent teams is notoriously difficult.
Rocked by the withdrawals of senior players Wasim Akram, Saeed Anwar, Yousuf Youhana and Inzamam-ul-Haq, Pakistani selectors have had little choice but to turn to a new generation of talent.
Replacing a combined 271 games of Test experience are inexperienced openers Taufeeq Umar and Imran Farhat, middle-order batsmen Hasan Raza and Faisal Iqbal, talented young leg-spinner Danish Kaneria, fast bowler Mohammad Zahid and uncapped allrounder Rana Naved-ul-Hasan.
The seven have managed just 28 Tests while only Zahid and Iqbal have played a Test or a one-day game against Australia.
"That could mean it's a bit more dangerous because you don't know the other players," Waugh said.
Bangladesh tour of South Africa
South African wicket-keeper/batsman Errol Stewart could miss the one-day series against Bangladesh after suffering a self-inflicted arm injury.
The 33-year-old needed was taken to hospital after severing an artery when he punched a dressing room window during a provincial game in Durban, according to reports.
He was playing for KwaZulu Natal against Boland and the incident occurred following his second innings dismissal.
Stewart was last week named in a 14-man squad for the first two games of the three-match series against Bangladesh, his first international call-up for almost nine years.
He played five times in 1993-4, scoring 57 runs, with a highest score of 23 not out, and taking three catches.
South African one-day squad: S Pollock (capt), M Boucher (vice-capt), D Benkenstein, B Dippenaar, A Donald, H Gibbs, J Kallis, L Klusener, M Ngam, M Ntini, J Ontong, G Smith, E Stewart, M van Jaarsveld.
World Cup
A fit and on-form Lance Klusener is vital if South Africa are to win next year's cricket World Cup on home soil.
Cricket experts are unanimous on that when asked about the allrounder's worth to the national cricket side. They all agreed that he is nowhere close to the player he needs to be for South Africa.
But while he seems out-of-sorts, the national selectors have stuck with the allrounder. He is in the squad for the first two one-dayers against Bangladesh next month.
Klusener, the player of the tournament at the World Cup in England in 1999, cut a forlorn figure during the recent ICC Champions tournament in Sri Lanka. Where earlier in his career he would have strode to the wicket like a matador ready to face anything, he now seems bereft of confidence and as if he does not know where his next boundary is going to come from.
Former South Africa A coach Hylton Ackerman says teams have worked him out to a certain extent.
"People have realised that he struggles against slow bowlers, and bowlers who take the pace of the ball. He needs pace on the ball and nobody's giving it to him," he said.
