Azhar Ali dismisses rumours about PCB 's plans of sacking him from Test captaincy

IPL 2020: Prithvi Shaw must wait for chances after missed opportunities

After starting the Indian Premier League 2020 on a winning note and dominating the early part of the season, the Delhi Capitals have gone off the hook in the last few matches and are now staring at the brink of losing out the top two spots on the points table. A lot of it can be attributed to a long list of batsmen who have not come to the party this season and the team was left to be rescued by sparks of brilliance from batsmen and strong bowling performances, especially the speedster in Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje. The South African duo did not have a good day in the field in the last two games and the vulnerability in the team’s batting line up was exposed to the tooth. The team has struggled with the failures at the top with Prithvi Shaw showing recklessness and inconsistencies at the top while Ajinkya Rhaane who was brought back in place of him to bring solidity to the line up has also struggled to get going and help Shikhar Dhawan who has been hammering tons at the other end. Rahane has batted at the top of the order in the last two games when Shaw was dropped but has not been able to capitalise on the chances and proved to be ineffective and ended up putting pressure on Dhawan leading him to waste his good form with attempted big shots every ball. Rahane is under pressure as he is being promoted in place of Shaw, but the Delhi Capitals management has made it clear that the 19-year-old was given enough chance before being dropped from the playing Xi and that he will now have to wait for his turn after others in the team get sufficient chances to prosper. The Delhi Capitals are set to face the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore in their next two fixtures and the team will have to win at least one of the two games to secure a playoff berth.

ICC mulling Olympics return; asks nations to assess financial benefits

The prospect of the inclusion of Cricket in the Olympics gets stronger with the latest development with the International Cricket Council. The global governing body for cricket has asked the member nations to assess the financial benefits of taking the game into global and multi-sports events such as the Olympics. In a bid to preempt the benefits the game could reap in for the game, the ICC has sent questionnaires to the member nations and has asked them to come back with answers such as the level of financial assistance they will derive from their respective government and as well as Olympic organisations in case of confirmation of cricket’s inclusion. The council has also asked the members to explore the level of assistance they could get in case of both permanent and one-off inclusion. The Dubai-headquartered governing body has asked the nations to submit the response of the questionnaire by November 2. The ICC had conducted a similar discussion in the past as well, but riddance from the Big Three cricket boards such as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), and the Cricket Australia forced the premature end of the discussion on Cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics. These boards objected to the plan as they argued that the proposed Olympics plan will take time away from some of the lucrative bilateral series.

Australia picks 21-year-old Cameron Green to take on India in ODIs, T20Is

Australian national selectors have named an 18-man squad to face the Virat Kohli-led Indian team later this year. The selection of Cameron Green, who has been in tremendous form in the ongoing season of the Sheffield Shield, has been the most interesting element of the team selection while the return of Moises Henriques as an all-rounder in the Australian white-ball sides has also taken the headlines. Speaking about Green’s ability as a developing player, the chairman of the selection committee Trevor Hohns said: "Cameron's domestic form has been outstanding and he has carried it through for Western Australia this summer. As a potential player of the future, this is an opportunity for him to be part of the squad and build on his experience." Green has amassed 1,097 runs with four centuries from 27 innings in his 17 match-long First-class careers with an average of 52.23, becoming the only batsman after Steve Smith having an average in excess of 50 in Australian domestic first-class circuit. He bowls right-arm medium and has been a force to reckon with the ball as well and has taken 28 wickets with an astounding average strike rate combo of 21.43 and 41.3 respectively. The ongoing phase of the Sheffield Shield where he is dominating the scenes with the bat is scheduled to end before the international season will begin and that gives 21-year-old Green with a perfect window to get on to the scenes in Test cricket if selectors will back him to come good against India in whites as well. On the other hand, the selectors have gone in with the experience factor by bringing back a 33-year-old Moises Henriques who has played for Australia in a coloured jersey in 2017. He too has been good with the bat in the initial round of the Sheffield Shield and selectors have gone in with him while Mitchell Marsh set to be assigned the role of an all-rounder in the longest format against India. "Moises is a tremendous cricketer with loads of experience and is a great person to have around the group. His form was extremely impressive in leading the Sixers to the BBL title last summer and he has played well at the start of this season," Hohns said on Henriques’ selection. Australian ODI and T-20 squad Aaron Finch (capt), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Sams, Kane Richardson, Steven Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa

Hits & Flops as MI down Virat Kohli’s Bangalore courtesy Surya-Bumrah show

Suryakumar Yadav in batting and Jasprit Bumarah in bowling combined to humble Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wickets in Abu Dhabi to move closer to the Playoffs of the Indian Premier League 2020. The Kieron Pollard led team was pushed to the back foot in the initial 10 overs of the game after a brilliant partnership between young guns Josh Philippe and Devdutt Padikkal gave RCB a flying start. However, that did not last long as Mumbai bowlers picked up their line and length and tried different things at different points to strict RCB to a modest total of 166. After this, Surya took charge as two quick wickets fell for the blue and gold, both of which were of experienced and in-form batsmen in Quinton de Kock and Ishan Kishan. On this note let’s look at the Hits and Flops of the game Hits #1 Suryakumar Yadav Having not been selected in the Indian team for the limited-over series down-under, Yadav pulled up his socks and decided that it would be his choice weapon- his bat which would do the talking instead of him bad-mouthing selectors or team management. And boy did he talk! Taking the attack to the opposition, Surya built partnerships with not just one but four batsmen in Ishan Kishan, Saurabh Tiwari, Krunal Pandya, and Hardik Pandya before winning the game alongside his skipper Kieron Pollard. In his innings of 73* off just 43 balls, Yadav hit 10 fours and three sixes, puncturing the entire attack of the Bengaluru based team. Yadav, since the start of this season, has scored 362 runs and is looking solid to score some more. #2 Jasprit Bumrah RCB at one stage were cruising at 71-0 in seven overs. After that Rahul Chahar got the crucial wicket Joshua Philippe, but since then it was all Jasprit Bumrah as he started building pressure upon the likes of Virat Kohli and to a certain extent even Devdutt Padikkal, stopping the flow of runs and thereby forcing the players to play rash shots. In this attempt of his, Bumrah got the wickets of Virat Kohli and Devudtt and later on dismissed Shivam Dube as well. At one stage the score was looking to go beyond 180 as de Villiers and Padikkal were going great at 130-2 in 15 overs, even after the fall of Kohli’s wicket. However, that was pulled back to just 165 courtesy of some nasty Yorkers and disguised slower ones from the Gujarati maestro. With these three scalps, Bumrah has now moved to the second spot in the race to the Purple Cap. #3 Devdutt Padikkal Padikkal has shown in this entire tournament that he belongs at the international level, especially with the range of shots that he possesses. In this game, too, he was at the full swing hitting the balls left-right, and center, and built a crucial 71 run partnership with another youngster Joshua Philippe. He did not stop there and played well alongside skipper Kohli and senior Pro de Villiers as well. In total, Padikkal made 74 off 45 balls with the help of 12 fours and one six. The only problem, with him, has been that he is not able to finish the innings and always gets out in the middle. If he works on this, chances are that he would become one of the greatest Indian openers. Flops #1 Virat Kohli Virat didn’t just fail as a batsman but also as a captain. Chopping and changing the team so often wouldn’t give satisfactory results as has been seen in the cases of successful teams like Chennai and Mumbai. These teams always back one set of players to win them every match instead of just keep on changing players. While the changes were surely a flop decision, his batting too was just disdainful. Kohli could only muster to score nine runs and played 14 deliveries for that, building pressure on the young Padikkal. #2 Dale Steyn Steyn was ‘called into the team to swing the ball early on’ as per skipper Kohli. However, he couldn’t get any purchase from the deck. Also in the 18th over, when Mumbai required 27 to win from 18 balls, he was hit for 11 runs, getting the run rate down by a huge margin. In the entire match, Steyn could not pick up even a single wicket and finished with the figures of 0-43 in his quota of four overs. With this loss, Virat Kohli and Co. now have their task cut out as they will be facing Sunrisres Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals both of which would also be fighting for a qualification spot, just like the RCB.