India cruise to semi-finals on Sehwag blitzkrieg The Premadasa Stadium was set afire yesterday evening, but Virender Sehwag was not arrested for arson. In fact, that would probably have been the only way to stop him in mid-flow, for England's bowlers certainly didn't have a clue. Sehwag went on to score his second one-day century, 126 to be exact, featuring more fours and sixes than you could shake a stick at. By the time he departed, Sourav Ganguly was getting into his groove, so England ceded yet another century to him, and India finally cruised to the target of 270 in less than 40 overs and for the loss of just two wickets. That target in fact could have been much lower, but India's bowlers yielded the advantage after having England reeling early in their innings. Ian Blackwell, in his second ODI, hit up 88 and ensured that England got to what looked like a competitive total at the time. But in hindsight, India may even have been able to chase a 100 runs more!

Ganguly effusive in praise for Sehwag If Sourav Ganguly was grinning from ear to ear after the match against England, few could have blame him. "We should not have allowed England to get to 270, but Sehwag's 100 took the game away from England," he began. As expected, he was effusive in his praise of Sehwag. "Sehwag's innings was absolutely brilliant and took the pressure away from us. The way he played took the sting out of the game. By the time he was dismissed the game was already in our pocket. Unless something went terribly wrong, we were going to win from that position." England captain Nasser Hussain for his part said, "Nothing went wrong really. India just played exceptionally well on the day. The first eight overs they bowled were very difficult for our batsmen and again when they batted their first 15 overs were very good. Sometimes you just have to give credit where it's due." "We've played against India a lot and have studied their game carefully. We know what areas they do most of their hitting in and have thought of a few ways to restrict that. It just didn't work today though," said Hussain. "Both openers came at us strongly and we didn't have an answer. We need to show more character in situations like this. We're all right when teams don't quite come at us as strongly as this and we'll have to work out ways to counter this." "We tried a few variations today - slower balls and bumpers and the like. But today everything seemed to go for four. In English conditions where the ball does a bit more off the wicket and in the air you don't need to do much more than put the ball in the right place. In conditions like this you need more variations," said Hussain.

Brijesh Patel wants Srinath back Newly appointed chairman of Indian selectors, Brijesh Patel, plans to persuade Javagal Srinath to come out of retirement. India take on West Indies in a three Test and seven one-day series at home soon after the ICC Champions Trophy and Patel wants Srinath to make himself available for the battle. "I will definitely be speaking to Srinath about playing Test matches again. The new ball attack is a bit of a worry," Patel said. As secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, Patel had tried to make Srinath reconsider his decision on previous occasions too. The 33-year-old Karnataka mediumpacer retired from the longer version of the game after India's tour of West Indies, where he was visibly flagging at the end of the five-Test series.

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