Ian Bell has been controversially dropped from the side that will take on Pakistan during the One Day leg of the England team’s tour of the United Arab Emirates.

Bell’s contribution towards the England One Day team has been in decline for a period of time now, and the selectors have decided it is now time to give opportunities to some new players.

Jos Buttler is expected to fill Bell’s space in the order, as he has shown with his stint with the England Lions that he is not fazed by the pitches in the sub-continent, as he scored big runs at an impressive strike rate for them against a Sri Lanka A side.

Ricky Ponting is, without doubt, one of the most prolific batsman in the history of test cricket.

At present, he is the third leading scorer in test match cricket behind only Indians Dravid and Tendulkar. His incredibly average of 52.64 is something that would make you think that it would be impossible for the Australian team to drop him.

However, this only tells part of the story. In the history of the game in Australia, almost all ex-captains have left the side immediately after either losing or giving up the captaincy.

Jacques Kallis has recently been the recipient of ringing praise from none other than up and coming Australian all rounder Daniel Christian.

Christian described Kallis as ‘the stand out all rounder in the world’, as well as arguing that Kallis has a case to be regarded the best all rounder the game has ever seen. This is an entirely fair point, as Kallis has scored a mountain of runs in both Test matches and One Day Internationals for his native South Africa, as well as taking over 250 wickets in Test matches.

Without a shadow of doubt, one of the most talented test teams in world cricket is the Australia Cricket team.

They proved this in massive style recently as they tore apart the Indian cricket team which was playing a tournament there. The Indians are the holders of the World Cup, so defeating them is no mean feat, but the Aussies looked like they were simply toying with them.

The first match, held at the MCG, began on Boxing Day with very high expectations of the Indian side, and of one person in particular. This person was Sachin Tendulkar, who was carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire nation on his shoulders as he looked to get his hundredth century in international cricket. This is a feat that has not been achieved before, and probably never will be.

In spite of Shane Warne's marvellous comeback in competitive cricket in Australia in the KFC Twenty 20 Big Bash with the Melbourne Stars, his team looks as if it could have done with some tips on how to succeed - the best team in the competition on paper lie at the bottom of the table!

The 42 year old Warne bowled superbly against the Perth Scorchers and it was largely due to his efforts with the ball that the Stars managed to bundle them out for 136, but even then the so-called glamour team of the competition somehow managed to lose by 8 runs!?

Yuvraj Singh hopes he will have recovered from a non-malignant lung tumour in time to take part in India's limited-overs games against Australia in February.

The batsman has been receiving treatment for the condition, but has now told the Times of India that he is back in training and should be returning to normal practice in a matter of days.

"I will be ready for the one-dayers in Australia," he said. "I just can't wait to have that India logo on my shirt again. I want to wear that India cap again."

It came at the very end of a long tour of India, which felt all the more demanding and tiring because of the way England played their cricket - losing all of the first 6 games by some landslide results - but England finally have a win on the board in their Tour of India!

Kevin Pietersen hit 53 off just 59 balls to help guide England to victory in their Twenty20 match against the Indians in Kolkotta, to end the Tour on at least a bit of a high, and beat the cricket betting odds! The England boys didn't get too carried away..

"It was a tricky wicket," he said. "It was one of those wickets where you had to take a risk in the first six overs. Luckily I was dropped, and allowed to carry on builing runs."

The Indian cricket board has approved the controversial DRS system. The development comes after the ICC chief executives' committee unanimously recommended "universal standards" over what technology to use.

Elsewhere, the committee supported plans to abolish runners in international cricket.

And two new balls per innings - one from each end - would be used in one-day internationals from 1 October.

On 10 June, India had said it would veto any plans to use the DRS in the four-match Test series starting at Lord's on 21 July.

West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul has said that he has been asked to retire by the selectors. Chanderpaul made the allegations in a letter to the West Indies Cricket Board's chief executive, Ernest Hilaire. It was the second such communication the 36-year-old has made over the past week after Hilaire questioned the discipline and application in the team.

"The WICB selectors asked me to retire and were upset when I refused to do so," Chanderpaul wrote, according to ESPN cricinfo.

Ravi Shastri has described that the World Cup is not very exciting at the moment and is hoping for better matches in the future.Maybe another way to say this would be that India's ONLY strength is batting... and that makes us the favourites!!!!