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Hussey to join WC squadBANGALORE, MARCH 6 (AGENCIES): MIKE HUSSEY will make a shock return to Australia's World Cup squad a month after he was ruled out of it due to injury. Just over a week since the withdrawal of fast-bowler Doug Bollinger due to an ankle injury, Australian selectors have decided that the veteran Western Australian is the best replacement While Australia captain Ricky Ponting twice expressed res-ervations about changing the balance of the squad by re-placing a bowler with a batsman, Cricket Australia will also send Victorian paceman Dirk Nannes to the subcontinent as a standby player. Advertisement: Story continues below That will enable Australia to quickly cover any injuries to its first-choice attack of Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson, or to reserve bowler John Hastings.

Hussey, 35, seriously injured his hamstring seven weeks ago and needed surgery to repair it. He was with-drawn from Australia's squad a day before it departed for the tournament a month ago but resumed playing last week, for Western Australia in the Sheffield Shield. That he made only 30 runs in two innings against Queensland was judged by selectors to be less important than the fact he was able to complete the match. "Michael has success-fully recovered from major hamstring surgery and is seen as someone who is capable of assisting Australia as we strive to win this tournament," chairman of selectors An-drew Hilditch said.

BANGALORE, MARCH 6 (AGENCIES): India’s batting line-up ensured no upsets in their World Cup campaign as a fighting Ire-land was done-in by Yusuf Pathan’s cameo towards the end while Yuvraj Singh played the anchor role with his gritty 47th ODI fifty.

Chasing under the lights, the home team had to battle for every run as the Irish outfit made their small total very competitive with intel-ligent bowling and superb fielding. The final scorecard saw India winning by five wickets, a margin that could have been narrower if the total was slightly more. The game was a much needed reality check for the Men in Blue as their games in the initial phase of the tourna-ment have exposed some of the chinks in their armour after being tagged favourites to win the trophy.

Yuvraj emerged as the surprise package of the match, getting a five-wicket haul when other spinners were having a tough time in the park and also con-tributed with the willow when it was needed from him. Ireland had started to spoil the Indian party as the fifth wicket fell in the form of MS Dhoni’s lbw that saw

WC: India beat Ireland by 5 wickets

(Left) India's Sachin Tendulkar bats during their ICC Cricket World Cup match against Ireland. (Center) India's Yuvraj Singh bats during their ICC Cricket World Cup match against Ireland.(Right) India's Yusuf Pathan bats during their ICC Cricket World Cup match against Ireland in Bangalore, Sunday, March. 6. (AP Photos)

him asking for a review de-spite being plumb in front of the wicket, only to be confirmed of the worst.

Things got tight for the home team with a terrible mix-

up on the pitch that saw Virat Kohli run out. Ireland had de-cided to put up a brave fight as the third Indian wicket in the form of Sachin Tendulkar’s lbw went down to George

Dockrell. The batsman walked back after scoring 38 runs as Yuvraj came to the crease.

India lost opener Vi-render Sehwag (5) early-on in their run chase to Trent

Johnston’s delivery that stood-up on the batsman, resulting in a leading edge to the bowler. The second hiccup came in the loss of Gautam Gambhir (10),

sending some worries down the dressing room.

In the first half of the tie, Ireland were wrapped-up for 207 runs by a slightly more disciplined effort by

the Indian bowlers. Kevin O’Brien, the fastest World Cup century scorer to the turf, came in with a reputa-tion at stake. He was given the bitter Indian medicine

of genuine spin artistry and fell to Yuvraj, giving him his second scalp of the day. Yuvraj also took Irish skipper William Porter-field (75) and John Mooney (5) in a great spell of spin bowling, covering the spot of the fifth bowler with pa-nache. The duo of Porter-field and O’Brien did forge a vital partnership after the early loss of wickets to take Ireland total past the 100-run mark but just one good partnership was not enough to merit mercy from the Indian bowlers.

Zaheer Khan too made his presence felt with three wickets, starting the pro-ceedings with Paul Stirling’s dismissal for a duck. Zaheer clean bowled the batsman with his good line that saw the Irish scorecard reading 1/1. He continued with his le-thal form and gave the home team the perfect start with his second wicket of the day in his second over. Ed Joyce (4) was the victim who was caught brilliantly behind the wickets by Dhoni, send-ing the packed stadium into a loud cheer. He then took another wicket at the death and was finally given sup-port from the other end as Munaf Patel opened his tally with the last Irish wicket.

CHENNAI, MARCH 6 (PTI): South Africa suc-cumbed to a batting col-lapse under pressure as England snatched a dra-matic six-runvictory over title aspirants South Africa in a low-scoring World Cup Group B thriller here on Sunday. England defended a small total of 171 which they scored in 45.4 overs af-ter electing to bat with fast bowler Stuart Broad taking four for 15 to help his side bounce back into the tour-nament after their humili-ating defeat against Ireland.

Chasing 172 for a win, South Africa were on course at 124 for three in the 32nd over after openers Graeme Smith (22) and Hashim Amla (42) had given them a sound start before they slumped to 127 for seven in the 37th over on a turn-ing track at the M A Chaid-ambaram Stadium. They, in fact, lost three wickets -- that of AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis and JP Duminy -- at the same score of 124 with

fast bowler James Ander-son taking two.

The South African tailenders, however, hung on for a while with Morne van Wynk and Dale Steyn sharing 33 runs in 10.4 overs for the eighth wick-et. But once van Wynk was out for 13, Broad dismissed Dale Steyn (20) and Morne Morkel (1) in the space of four balls to bundle out South Africa for 165 in 47.4 overs. With two full points from today`s match, Eng-land bounced back to con-tention for a quarterfinal berth on five points from four matches while South Africa are on four points from three matches.

Defending a small to-tal, England opened their bowling with left-arm spin-ner Michael Yardy and fast bowler Anderson but South Africa raced to 27 for no loss in the first five overs without much trouble. Searching for an early wicket, Andrew Strauss introduced his best spinner Graeme Swann in

the seventh over and that did put brakes on South Af-rican scoring rate with the offie getting the turn from the Chepauk pitch.

England, however, had to wait till the 15th over to get their first breakthrough as they were successful in their review of the umpire`s decision to rule South Af-rican opener and captain Graeme Smith not out. The field umpire gave Smith not out but the television replays suggested the ball might have just kissed the batsman`s glove before wicketkeeper took the catch and the third umpire ruled him out.

Smith`s 22 came from 41 balls from which he hit just two fours. He raised 63 runs for the opening wicket with Amla. England pressed hard for another wicket and the introduction of Broad in the 17th over paid divi-dends as he dismissed two key South African batsmen -- Amla and Jacques Kallis -- in his first three overs.

England beat South Africa by 6 runs

England's Stuart Broad, right, Matt Prior, Michael Yardy , second, left, and captain Andrew Strauss, left, celebrate as they win by 6 runs in the Cricket World Cup match between South Africa and England in Chennai, Sunday, March 6. (AP Photo)

CHENNAI, MARCH 6 (AP): South Africa cap-tain Graeme Smith was ag-grieved on Sunday after a contentious umpire deci-sion review led to his dis-missal against England and started his team's slide to defeat. TV umpire Asoka de Silva took about five min-utes to decide that Smith had gloved a delivery by Graeme Swann to wicket-keeper Matt Prior, overturn-ing the on-field umpire's call and adjudging the South Af-rica captain out on Sunday.

The incident was the first of two in the Group B game to show what critics say are the inadequacies of the umpire decision review system, which the Interna-tional Cricket Council has said should only be used to overturn obvious errors.

Smith declined to elab-orate upon his clear un-happiness at the dismissal, saying that it was not ap-propriate to discuss it pub-licly. His England counter-

part backed the decision - if not the manner in which it was reached. "We were ab-solutely happy because we were absolutely certain that he gloved the ball," Andrew Strauss said. "I was field-ing at slip and there was a sound. In that sense, it was the right decision."

Smith joins the ranks of those unhappy at what has been seen by many players and officials as the imper-fect implementation of the review system. Without so-called hotspot technology to show whether the ball has made contact with a player's bat, the TV umpire can be left to make a judgment call that can be as contentious as that made in a split sec-ond by his on-field counter-part. The Board of Control for Cricket in India has long been skeptical of the system, which makes use of technol-ogy paid for by broadcasters and must be assented to by both teams for use in bilat-eral series.

Smith angered by review in narrow World Cup loss