Ganguly’s surgery successful, two more stents implanted

Daily Round up | Jan 28: England contingent in India tests negative for COVID-19

All members of the England cricket team who have arrived in India for a four-match Test series starting February 05 have tested negative for the Covid-19 tests while Pakistan and South Africa fought well in Karachi to keep the first Test of the series in balance. Here are the important news from the cricketing world that deserves your attention England squad members test Covid-19 negative All members of the English touring contingent have returned negative for the Covid-19 testing upon their arrival in Chennai, IANs reported. The tourists will play two Tests at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, followed by the final two of the series scheduled to take place at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. Read the full story here Tom Banton pondering opting out of IPL 2021 English explosive batsman Tom Banton is pondering opting out of the Indian Premier League this year as he is going for more and more game time on the field while the four overseas players rule has affected his chances in making the fist playing XI of the sides. In the last season of IPL, Banton represented the Kolkata Knight Riders, but could feature in only two games, and scored 18 runs. “Growing up as a kid the IPL was a tournament that I absolutely loved watching. But I feel like I'm at a stage now where I need to be playing cricket instead of sitting on the bench," Tom Banton told Sky sports. Read the full story here Rishabh Pant searching new house in Delhi-NCR Rishabh Pant is searching for a new house for himself as the Indian wicketkeeper-batsman announced on his Twitter timeline that his family members are urging him to buy a new house for the family. He suggested ‘Gurgaon’ as one of the locations in his mind, and asked his followers to suggest more options to him. Read the full story here Sourav Ganguly’s health update The health conditions of the BCCI President Sourav Ganguly is stable and the doctors attending him have said that the decision on stent insertion will be taken only after conducting several rounds of tests to assess various health parameters. “Mr Ganguly slept well all night. He had a light breakfast this morning. A series of tests will be conducted on him today to decide on the next course of treatment,” the senior doctor, part of the panel attending to Ganguly said. Read the full story here Markram, van der Dussen lead Proteas’ fightback in Karachi Test The top-order batsmen of South Africa have brought the team back in the opening Test of the series at the National Stadium in Karachi. Trailing by 158 runs, Dean Elgar and Aiden Markram provided a decent start before Rassie van der Dussen joined hands with Markram to lead Proteas fightback on the third day. As the end of the play neared, the spinning pair of Nauman Ali and Yasir Shah, stuck big wickets of Markram, Faf du Plessis and van der Dussen to keep the game in the balance. At the end of the third day’s play, South Africa were 187/4 and secured a lead of 29 runs going into the day four of the Test. Earlier, a flourish from the lower order batsmen carried Pakistan to a big lead of 158 runs while Kagiso Rabada reached the milestone of 200 Test wickets in his 44th Test. Check full scorecard

England players test negative for covid-19 in Chennai

All the players of the England contingent on India tour have tested negative for covid-19 in tests conducted in Chennai. IANS quoted an English official on account of anonymity saying, “All the tests of English players have returned negative results. The tests will be conducted every third day in the lead-up to the series.” The English, as well as the Indian team, is staying at Leela Palace Hotel in Chennai which will remain the home of both the teams for the first two Tests which are scheduled to take place in Chennai from o5th and 13th February respectively. The remaining two matches of the Test series would be played at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera in Ahmedabad. The Indian team have reached Chennai as well and both the teams would be allowed to practice from the 2nd February due to the covid-19 protocols. The 42-day long tour of England involves a series each in all three formats including a four-match Test series, a five-match T20I series and a three-match T20 series. The matches would be played at three venues with all three ODIs scheduled to be played at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.

Tom Banton might skip IPL to concentrate on county cricket

Flamboyant English batsman Tom Banton is contemplating skipping the next edition of the Indian Premier League as he is of the opinion that he is at such a stage that he needs to play more and more cricket rather than just warming benches. The IPL Auctions is slated to be held on 18th February and all the franchises have announced their list of released and retained players. Banton who was part of the Kolkata Knight Riders set-up in 2020 after being bought at his base price of 1 crore was among those 6 players released by the franchise. The young batsman who is capable of decimating any bowling attack on their day had to worm the benches for the major part of the tournament last year. He just played a couple of matches scoring 18 runs. During his interaction with Sky Sports, Banton reiterated the fact that IPL was a tournament that he loved being part of while growing up but in hindsight, he wants to play more cricket rather than warming the benches. “Growing up as a kid the IPL was a tournament that I absolutely loved watching. But I feel like I'm at a stage now where I need to be playing cricket instead of sitting on the bench," Tom Banton told Sky sports. Banton further added that he has warmed the benches so much that he is currently missing playing cricket. "The last year has taught me quite a bit, obviously all these tournaments are great but a lot of them I've been sat on the sidelines and not really doing a huge amount. I miss batting and playing cricket if I'm being honest," he said. He further added that he might skip the IPL in order to play for his county and get close to the dream of representing England in the longest format. "I feel at this point in my career it's probably best if I play a few red-ball games for Somerset and get back into that because I do miss playing red-ball cricket and my ambition is still to play Test cricket. We'll have to wait and see. I still haven't decided yet, but I'm just going to speak to a few people and try to decide from there,” he signed off.

Potentially more threatening: Michael Vaughan on ‘bouncer’ ban suggestions

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan has said that banning bouncers in Under-18 cricket could potentially be more harmful to the young cricketers as they would be suddenly exposed to it in senior cricket and hence would most likely not be able to play. “It is a ridiculous suggestion and yet another example of something risky being termed as ‘too dangerous’,” he wrote in his column for The Telegraph. Concussion specialist and the Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation, media director of Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation, Michael Turner had suggested to the Marylebone Cricket Club, the custodian of the cricket laws that to deal with the menace of concussion, bouncers are banned for junior cricketers. Defending why kids must play with the bouncers, Vaughan, 46, said, “I see kids play at junior level and my son too plays, there is very little short-pitched bowling. The kids don’t have that much of physical strength to bowl short pitch.” The batsmen who made over 5,700 runs in Test cricket at an average of more than 40 further warned the MCC saying, “Young batsmen have got to learn to play that stuff because if we ban it at the junior level, we would have to ban it all levels.” Concussion became an important issue in the sport of cricket after an Australian opener Phil Hughes was hit on the head by a bouncer from Sean Abbott and died due to the concussion caused by it.