I expected it before, and I'm expecting it again.

113* off 94. 21 overs to go.

The first ever double ton in ODIs?

15.6 Singh to Jayasuriya, SIX, Third six of the over. The legend is on the hunt here. Banged in short, doesn't have the pace to hurry Jayasuriya who pulls it into midwicket stands. What a wallop. 26 runs in this over. Scintillating stuff. Sri Lanka's fortunes hang on Jayasuriya's bat.

15.5 Singh to Jayasuriya, no run, Oh swing and a miss. Again it was in the slot. Width offered outside off and Jaya wanted to loft it over covers

15.4 Singh to Jayasuriya, FOUR, Carnage continues. RP hurls it short and wide - why, you have to ask him - and Jayasuriya murders it over extra cover. Super batting this. Great entertainment.

15.3 Singh to Jayasuriya, FOUR, Gallops to 77 with a carve over covers. After serving two full pitched deliveries, RP hit the short of length. No luck. Try something else.

15.2 Singh to Jayasuriya, SIX, They have spiked his drinks I tell you. Not that he needs any thing to make him hit more. This time he goes over long-off. Another imperious thrust of the front foot and a clean swing of the blade. Up up and over

15.1 Singh to Jayasuriya, SIX, Wallop. Massive hit over long-on. He thrust his front foot out and swung a full delivery over the boundary.

87* of 58!! He's taking it single handedly to the Indians!

vs Pakistan: 10-0-68-0

vs Sri Lanka: 10-0-80-1

vs Sri Lanka, Final:

10.6 Pathan to Jayasuriya, 1 run, 114.6 kmph delivery off the scrambled seam, outside off and Jaya retains the strike with a dab to Ishant at third man

10.5 Pathan to Jayasuriya, no run, 127 kmph delivery and outside off, cut hard but straight to point. A deep point is in place now

10.4 Pathan to Jayasuriya, FOUR, And again. Yummy little short-arm cut over point. Typical Jayasuriya. Great to watch. A tad short in length and outside off, Jayasuriya went back to carve it up and over

10.3 Pathan to Jayasuriya, FOUR, 113.02 kmph drifts down leg and Jayasuriya tickles it to fine-leg boundary. Ten runs from the first three balls. Jayasuriya is going after Pathan.

10.2 Pathan to Jayasuriya, 2 runs, a 99.02 kmph slower one and Jayasuriya dashes down the track and is a touch early into his lofted shot but clears the covers. Sehwag ran back but couldn't reach it.

10.1 Pathan to Jayasuriya, FOUR, 125.3 kmph gentle seam-up delivery outside off and Jayasuriya blasts it off the back foot through covers.

Why is he playing?

That said, Lankans seem to be in trouble. Not cause of Pathan though.

Sri Lanka 175-0 in 25 overs.

Jayasuriya 119* off 80. 15 4s, 6 6s.

First ever 200 in ODIs on the cards?

Third score of above 400?

The Venue

The 9th edition of the Asia Cup gets underway in Pakistan from Tuesday.

This is the 1st time that the Asia Cup is being held in Pakistan with the previous editions held in Sharjah (1984, 1995), India (1991), Sri Lanka (1986, 1997, 2004), and Bangladesh (1988, 2000).

The Teams

Besides the 4 Asian test playing nations, the top two Asian associate nations, Honk Kong and the UAE, are also part of the tournament as they were in 2004.

The 6 teams have been divided into 2 Groups:

Group A: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE
Group B: Pakistan, India, Honk Kong

The Format

Round 1 will take all of 3 days to complete with each team playing against the other in its Group.

Group A matches will be held in Lahore, while Group B will be based in Karachi.

The top 2 teams from each group will move forward to Round 2 where they play against each other in a Round-Robin format over a week. All matches will be held in Karachi.

The top 2 at the end of the Round-Robin stage will contest the final, which will also be played in Karachi.

The Champions

Sri Lanka are the defending champions having won the Asia Cup in 2004 at home. They have won the title on 2 pevious occassions as well - 1986 and 1997.

India have won the most Asia Cup titles with 4 victories in 1984, 1988, 1991, and 1995.

Pakistan have won it only once in 2000.

The Performers

Batsmen

Among the top 10 run scorers in the Asia Cup, only Sanath Jayasuriya and Mohmmad Yousuf will be playing this edition.

Jayasuriya tops the batting charts with 842 runs in 20 Asia Cup matches at an average of 46.77.

Yousuf is 10th on the same list with 392 runs in 9 matches at an average of 78.40.

Jayasuriya also tops the centuries list with 4 Asia Cup 100s, while Shoaib Malik is the only other player with more than 1 Asia Cup 100 - both his 100s came in the previous edition, a time when Malik used to bat at number 3 (Hint).

Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan are the only other centurions playing in this edition of the Asia Cup.

Bowlers

Sanath Jayasuriya is also the highest wicket taker in past Asia Cup with 20 wickets in 20 matches at an average of 30.25.

His team mates, Vaas and Muralitharan, are also among the top 10 with 18 and 16 wickes respectively.

Irfan Pathan is the only other player from those taking part in this edition to feature in the top 10 with all his 14 wickets coming in the previous tournament.

All matches will be day-night and will start at 10:00am GMT (4:00pm PST, 3:30pm IST, and 2:00pm UAE time).

Coming Soon on Well Pitched:

Asia Cup 2008: The Form Book
Asia Cup 2008: Getting to Know the UAE

The 3rd Quarter of the Indian Premier League is over. In 30 days, 42 matches have been played.

Initially, when I started doing these quarterly reports (Q1, Q2), I did not know that the matches were evenly distributed with 14 games over every 10 days. But thats how it has perfectly panned out and it only seems logical to compare how each of these 10 days were.

RR, RCB, and DC have had consistent quarters in the IPL, while the fortunes of the other teams have fluctuated throughout. KXI and CSK strenghtened their positions during Q3, while MI continued its strong resurgence by becoming the only team to win 6 consecutive games in the IPL.

KKR and DDD who began their campaigns strongly are dangerously lingering in the 5th and 6th positions, yet the RACE to the Final Four remains open. S. Rajesh of Cricinfo pointed out a possibility that even at this stage, RR can miss out.

Thats how open and unpredictable this tournament has been and thats why the viewers have been hooked.

Some people questioned that the length of the tournament, 45 days to be exact, would be taxing on the viewers who would lose interest. Nothing like that has happened and Q3 was witnessed with the same packed crowds and large number of TV viewers as Q1 and Q2.

With Q4 expected to be the most exciting quarter of the IPL, and the RACE to the Final Four in its concluding stages, expect the interest of the viewers to remain high, if not higher than the preceding quarters.

Here's a look at the top performers of the IPL at the end of Q3.

Leading Batsmen
1. Gautam Gambhir (DDD) - 465 runs in 11 innings at 46.50
2. Virender Sehwag (DDD) - 338 runs in 11 innings at 37.55
3. Rohit Sharma (DC) - 337 runs in 10 innings at 37.44
4. Sanath Jayasuriya (MI) - 336 runs in 10 innings at 42.00
5. Adam Gilchrist (DC) - 335 in 11 innings at 33.50

The top 3 batsmen remain the same as Q2, however Gambhir and Sharma exchange places. Gambhir has looked impressive throughout the tournament and now has over a 100 run lead over Sehwag, the 2nd highest run scorer in the IPL.

Jayasuriya breaks into the top 5 for the first time, while Gilchrist drops from 4 at the end of Q2 to 5. I reckon Jayasuriya in the last 3 games has batted the way he did in 1996, which by far was his best cricketing year with the bat.

Its interesting to note that only a single run separate each of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th ranked batsmen. And only 2 runs separate the 5th from the 6th (Shane Watson, 333), which is separated by only a run with the 7th (MS Dhoni, 332).

Graeme Smith, Shaun Marsh, and David Hussey make up the top 10. Marsh has batted only 6 times for his 297 runs, which is quite remarkable.

While Gambhir is leading by quite a big margin, there isn't much difference between the other batsmen in the top 10.

Leading Bowlers
1. RP Singh (DC) - 15 wickets in 11 matches at 23.86
2. Shane Warne (RR) - 14 wickets in 10 matches at 18.78
3. Irfan Pathan (KXIP) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 18.69
4. Sreesanth (KXIP) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 22.61
5. Zaheer Khan (RCB) - 13 wickets in 10 matches at 24.61

Irfan Pathan, who topped the charts at the end of Q1 and Q2 drops from the top spot down to number 3, which he shares with team mate Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan.

The Indians continue to dominate the bowling list as they did in Q1 and Q2, with RP Singh over taking his Indian team mates to the number 1 spot at the end of Q3.

From the list at the end of Q2, Ashish Nehra drops out, while Sreesanth breaks into the top 5 for the first time. The slap has definitely done him a lot of good.

Shane Warne, who had dropped from 3rd to 5th between Q1 and Q2, is now in the 2nd spot. My bets are on him topping the charts at the end of Q4.

The 6th in the list, Watson has 12 wickets, while the bowlers from 7th to 11th (Tanvir, Kulkarni, Bravo, Chawla) each have 11 wickets apiece.

Other Stats
Highest Team Score: 240-5, CSK vs KXIP.
Highest Individual Score: 158*, Brendon McCullum (KKR) vs RCB.
Best Strike Rate (min 100 runs): 204.34, Brendon McCullum (KKR).
Most Sixes: 20, Sanath Jayasuriya (MI)
Best Bowling Performance: 6-14, Sohail Tanvir (RR) vs CSK.
Best Economy Rate (min 10 overs): 5.77, Saurav Ganguly (KKR).

The highest team and individual scores, and the highest strike rate have remain unchanged since Q1. Plus it took 2 quarters for someone to surpass McCullum's number of sixes, all of which were hit during Q1.

Sohail Tanvir's figures remain untouched, even though Balaji, Mishra, Ntini, and Shoaib Akhtar have come close. Overall there was better bowling on display during Q3 than the preceding quarters.

Ganguly is a surprise with the best economy rate - he has bowled 17 overs for only 104 runs, and he's picked up 5 wickets as well.

Another 10 days to go for the group stage. Another 14 matches, which will not only decide the RACE, but also the top performers.

Stay tuned for Q4 results.

Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shoaib Akhtar, Saurav Ganguly, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mukesh Ambani.

Put these men together in any location in India and one can be sure to get cheers that will bring the house down.

Put these men together in Mumbai and the crowd's cheers will surely bring the entire neighborhood down!

That is what you can expect today at the Wankhede Stadium when the Kolkata Knight Riders take on the Mumbai Indians.

What a match its going to be.

KKR and MI have turned the tables in the last 10 days or so and both are currently on a winning streak - KKR have won their last 3 matches, while MI have won their last 4.

One of the team's streaks will come to an end today.

No team in the Indian Premier League has thus far won more than 5 matches in a row - Rajhastan Royals' 5 match winning streak was halted by MI, while Kings XI's 5 match winning run hit the road blocks against the Chennai Super Kings.

Will MI also make it 5 in a row? Or will KKR put an end to their streak?

Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly are arguably the best opening pair India ever had in ODIs. They are also one of the most successful opening pairs in world cricket (ODIs).

Today though, they are up against each other leading not only their respective teams, but their respective cities in this crucial IPL match.

Will Ganguly outscore Sachin on the latter's home ground? Or will Sachin choose this occasion to fire?

Shoaib Akhtar made an impactful return in KKR's last match. Today, he will be up against Sachin Tendulkar, who also returned to cricket in the previous match, and Sanath Jayasuriya, who scored a rattling century of a mere 40 odd deliveries in his last match.

Shoaib with the ball. Sachin and Jayasuriya coming out to bat. The thought of watching this contest sends shivers down my spine.

Will Shoaib silence the Mumbai crowd? Or will we see his deliveries being dispatched over the point and the 3rd man region?

Sachin is revered like a God in Mumbai. But Shahrukh Khan is no less, he is their King Khan, their Baadshah.

Who is Mumbai going to back?

This is definitely an intriguing one.

Only if SRK donned the #12 shirt and took the field, how would Mumbai react?

How would the react to SRK supporting a team other than Mumbai?

This match is also a very crucial one in the context of the RACE to the Final Four.

If KKR win today, they will leave the Daredevils, Super Kings, and Kings XI behind and jump to 2nd spot on the points table.

If MI win today, they will join the Daredevils and the Riders on 10 points each and that too with a match in hand.

With so much at stake, two similarly balanced teams who have been on a winning run, come face to face tonight.

You can expect the mother of all crackers of matches!