I am on a break, have to see my family: Nitin Menon

After the cricketers had earlier opted out of the IPL 2021 citing personal reasons, the match officials have also joined the list. Umpires Nitin Menon and Paul Reiffel have withdrawn their names from the cash-rich tournament.

Menon has flown back to his home in Indore after his wife and mother had tested positive for COVID-19. 

“I am in hospital taking care of my family members,” Menon told Times of India. 

“I am on a break, have to see my family,” he added. 

Earlier, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had confirmed that the two umpires have opted out of this year’s IPL. 

“Nitin has a small child to look after as his mother and wife have tested positive while Reiffel informed BCCI that he fears not being able to go home due to the Australian government’s decision banning all flights from India. The BCCI already had several local umpires as back-up so they will be officiating in games in which Menon and Reiffel were scheduled to stand,” a BCCI official confirmed to The Indian Express.

Three Aussie cricketers Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson and Andrew Tye had already opted out of the tournament. 



 

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Change in attitude has worked for us in this edition: CSK coach Stephen Fleming

Chennai Super Kings are on a winning streak in this IPL 2021. The MS Dhoni-led side have won five of the six matches that they played. CSK defeated SRH by 7 wickets on Wednesday in Delhi after chasing down a target of 172 runs. The Chennai-based team had a tough time last year after they failed to make it through to the playoffs. Comparing the two seasons, head coach Stephen Fleming admitted that the team faced some challenges in the UAE last year but the change in the attitude of the players has worked for them in this edition so far. “It was tough in the UAE (the last IPL’s venue). We had a pretty bad run. A lot of things went against us, which we didn’t make too much of at the time,” Fleming said. “We made some changes around our attitude towards what we were doing, and then we were really sure what style we wanted to play going into this year’s IPL,” he added. The IPL matches are taking place in neutral venues. Talking about the same, the former New Zealand captain pointed out that the team management was looking for the players who could chip in in foreign conditions and get the job done for the side. “…in the off season we just looked at players that could fit in and do a job – not just in Chennai but in conditions that were still a bit foreign. The attitude change as well,” the left-handed batsman said. CSK are presently sitting at the top of the table after a comprehensive win over SRH and will now play Mumbai Indians on Saturday in Delhi.

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IPL 2021 | CSK vs SRH: Hits and Flops as accomplishing Super Kings punish Sunrisers into disarray

Amid the unprecedented times and the unbearable havoc that the Covid-19 has wreaked upon India, the only thing normal is the Chennai Super Kings coming back to winning ways in the IPL. Having won four of their first five matches this season, The Super Kings were quite a confident group coming into the contest against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, and it was telling in their approach while batting. On the other hand, the Sunrisers were lacklustre once again with the bat and could post only 171 runs although the pair of Manish Pandey and David Warner scored individual fifties. Here, we’ll decipher the best and the worst performances of the night. Hits Ruturaj Gaikwad Ruturaj Gaikwad has started turning the trust, investments and all the hype surrounding him before he made his debut last year, into performances, a substantial one at that. He had looked like a fish out of water when he was inducted into the middle order but with the continuous struggles of Shane Watson, the door just opened for him by the halfway stage last year. The campaign ended as a nightmare for the Super Kings, but they were elated at finding a polished talent in Ruturaj Gaikwad and as always the Stephen Fleming-MS Dhoni was not lost in their vision to see the enormous value he could bring to the table. He had started turning a corner by the last few matches of IPL 2020 but the start of the ongoing edition was a pleasant one for him and the CSK. However, the CSK team management is not short of patience in backing their players whom they believe can contribute, and Gaikwad is reaping full returns out of the opportunities. Against the Sunrisers, he started off awkwardly against the control and precise length of Sandeep Sharma. Siddarth Kaul too induced an outside edge off his bat but he survived that chance too. Two moments of awkwardness was enough for the right-hander and then the long night began for the Sunrisers in New Delhi. The powerplay yielded 50 runs but a majority of runs flowed off Faf du Plessis' bat and Gaikwad was at a run a ball 17. He had to amend his course or else the Super Kings would have had to struggle in the middle phase. He was awake to the task and milked Jagadeesha Suchith superbly, first from the front foot and then waited for him to pounce from the back foot. On the very first ball he faced from the left-arm spinner, he was down to the pitch of the ball to whip it over midwicket for four and played with the mind of the spinner who was afraid of him getting to the pitch of the ball again. An attempted length ball was not executed well and Gaikwad pulled it over midwicket to stamp his authority on the spinner with wide-ranging shots in his repertoire. Although he dominated Suchith, his best was yet to come and it came against none other than the trump card in the Sunrisers camp—Rashid Khan. Warner called upon Rashid to stop the impressive partnership from becoming carnage and he started well to stop the momentum. However, he too was to face the ire of Gaikwad and his mastery of bowling in-between lengths was well capitalised upon by the right-hander. After conceding only four runs in his first over, Gaikwad took him off for a boundary in his next but the champion spinner fought back to keep it to just 11 runs from his first two overs. The carnage was well and truly on against Suchith though from the other end and three back to back boundaries off him established that the Sunrisers were out of the game by the end of the 12th over. Whatever hopes they would have had was shattered in the next over when Gaikwad handed Rashid Khan a similar treatment he offered Suchith—a hattrick of boundaries. To be fair to Rashid, he got one to edge Gaikwad but only for Bairstow to spill the chance behind. But, Gaikwad did not let him settle and punished him for bowling short deliveries one after another to make it a flurry of boundaries. Rashid came back again and hit his stumps beating him all ends up with a ripping leg break. But Rashid too would concede, Gaikwad won that bout of battle as he snatched away the game from the Sunrisers even in his four-over quota of bowling. Faf du Plessis Faf du Plessis has seen various phases of the Chennai Super Kings. He has been a veteran in yellow who first saw the opening pair of Murali Vijay and Michael Hussey dominating the bowling attack followed by the pair of Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith. Then, he came to the forefront of the batting order with Shane Watson and also saw the worst season for the Super Kings last year where he and his opening partner struggled miserably to get going. Having seen what has worked for the Super Kings in their heydays and not working with a diminishing MS Dhoni last year, du Plessis has batted with absolute freedom at the top after finding his form just at the right time. On the night against the Sunrisers, it was him who took the onus on himself to get the Super Kings going while Gaikwad took some time to get going. He started his onslaught with a signature down the track and drive through extra cover against Khaleel Ahmed. When the left armer returned with his second over, du Plessis was more ready and played a splendid drive through the cover using just his hands that Ian Bishop rated as ‘a thing of beauty' from the commentary box. He scored his third fifty of this season from 32 balls and set up the chase for the Super Kings. There were words surrounding his place in the team after an average season last year but Dhoni and Fleming stuck with him and the results are flowing off his bat in the forms of crips drives and rocketing aerial shots over the fielder. Kane Williamson Kane Williamson flourished and outclassed David Warner in the game of strike rate. Yes, you read that right. Williamson, for the class and composure he brings to the batting crease can easily be classified as a defensive batsman or the one who could just anchor in a T20 innings. He does not get that luxury of setting up games batting at the top for the Sunrisers though. But, Williamson has made a name for himself with whatever opportunities he has got in the IPL. On the night against the Super Kings, a completely different avatar of Williamson was to the fore as the Sunrisers struggled for the sluggish display of batting by David Warner and Manish Pandey—players known as T20 specialists. He walked out to bat only in the 18th over after the departure of Warner and was equal to the task from the second ball. At the end of the 18th over, the Sunrisers were 138 and were facing the threat of ending up with an under-par score on a pitch that appeared to be true in nature. Williamson had other ideas though and from a two-ball five, he jumped to a seven-ball 24 hitting Shardul Thakur from the midwicket part of the ground to the third man. He literally toyed with Sahrdul’s mind and Dhoni’s field placements to lead the Sunrisers to a score of respectability. Williamson’s success with the bat will put enormous pressure on Warner to come up with the performance to lead the men in orange out of the deep slumber they find themselves in at the moment. Williamson, on the other hand, will keep chipping away with making most of the opportunities at whatever positions in the 14th edition of the IPL. Flops David Warner For any batsman of this era in T20 cricket, staying at the crease for the first 102 balls of the tidal 120 balls in an innings without playing a match-winning innings is a terrible outcome. But, when that failing batsman is David Warner with all the flamboyance and all the shots of the game up his sleeves, it becomes a colossal failure. Warner started off the innings for the Sunrisers, and when he was walking back to the pavilion on the first ball of the 18th over, he must have felt the whole weight of the world fell upon him. In his 55-ball innings, he could muster only 57 although he hit 3 fours and two sixes. What went wrong for him then? The thing that has plagued Warner this season so far is his lack of intent and assertiveness at the crease. Against the Super Kings as well, he was static in the middle and did not take an aggressive approach against Jadeja as a proactive move and instead aired for them to commit a mistake. He hit his first six on the 89th ball of the innings and it spoke volume of his struggles in the middle. He did not come to this edition of the IPL on the back of many games behind him as he was ruled out for the majority of the series against India due to injury. He played some match in the Australian domestic circuit but the spark and domination he bats with have been really missing from Warner this season. Jagadeesha Suchith Jagadeesha Suchith would understand the harsh reality of the game. He fell agonisingly short of becoming an unlikely hero that won the Sunriers their last game against the Sunrisers by hitting sixes in Chennai. In the following game, he was the culprit for the Sunrisers who opened up the tap for Ruturaj Gaikwad who was struggling for timing at a run a ball 17. He was assigned the task of bowling the seventh over after the powerplay as Warner would have hoped to bring Rashid into the attack to go on a full-on choke mode. However, Suchith provided Gaikwad with loose deliveries on a platter and whatever pressure the bowlers have had on Gaikwad was let off in a span of three balls. Suchith played the game against the Super Kings only because Abdul Samad has not recovered from his injury and the Sunrisers could show enough confidence in Abhishek Sharma. However, the next few games of the Sunrisers scheduled to be played on similar pitches, the Sunrisers selectors will have to take another call on whom they want to replace Suchith with. The Sunrisers nosedived further to the bottom of the points table while the Super Kings have strengthened their grip on the table with a resounding comeback after a disastrous season last year.

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IPL 2021 | CSK vs SRH: What Experts said as Chennai rub salt on Hyderabad's open wounds

Chennai Super Kings are back on the top of the table after a thumping win over Sunrisers Hyderabad who are already struggling in this edition of the IPL to find any rhythm. CSK won by 7 wickets while chasing a target of 172 in 20 overs in Delhi on Wednesday. Openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis once again showed their class and put yet another 100-run stand for the first wicket. Gaikwad who continued his form in this encounter against SRH notched up 75 off 44 that included 12 boundaries before getting cleaned up by Rashid Khan. The Afghan spinner broke Gaikwad’s defence to send him packing. On the other side, Du Plessis carried on his purple patch with the bat and struck yet another half-century in IPL 2021. The right-hander scored 56 off 38 before getting trapped in front of the stumps by Rashid. CSK only lost one more wicket during the chase in the form of Moeen Ali’s dismissal who was caught in the deep by Kedar Jadhav off Rashid. The spinner scalped all the three wickets that went down. Later Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina made sure that there were no more fall of wickets and the two left-handers took CSK over the line in the 19th over with 9 balls to spare. Earlier, David Warner after winning the toss opted to bat first. SRH lost Jonny Bairstow early in the innings but captain Warner and Manish Pandey steadied the ship for the side and put up 106 runs for the second wicket on the board. Both the players scored individual half-centuries but the Hyderabad side needed to push the scoring rate which was provided by Kane Williamson later on. Williamson’s late surge saw the New Zealand skipper scoring 26* off just 10 balls taking the total to 171/3 in 20 overs. Lungi Ngidi picked up a couple of wickets for CSK while Sam Curran got one. Sunrisers skipper Warner’s slow-paced innings was one of the reasons why the team wasn’t able to put up a total that could have created some problems for CSK. He did score 57 that came off 55 deliveries which had three boundaries and two sixes during the course. Captains’ corner SRH captain David Warner admitted that the way he batted became the reason for his team getting under pressure. “I take full responsibility for the way I batted, it was really slow, found a lot of fielders and I got frustrated. The way Manish batted was exceptional. Kane got us to a respectable total, but I take full responsibility as it was a total below par. I probably hit 15 good shots to the fielders, I couldn't do much about it. They are the ones that make or break your innings. It gets frustrating as a batsman when you find the fielders. We had 170 on the board but we couldn't take powerplay wickets and it's always tough (to come back) on a good surface like this,” Warner said. Warner lavished praise on Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis for the way the two batted and scored a 100-run stand during the chase to give CSK a steady start. “Their two openers batted really well, but we fought well in the end. Felt like you could squeeze a bit after those wickets but they were always ahead in the game. He (Kane) was going to bat four no matter what, that's where he bats, that is his job, just that I soaked up too many balls. It's about being positive, it's a good batting surface. We have a day game here as well. 170 is about a par total at night, but things could be different in a day game. From a batting perspective we need to find the gaps and need to be positive. We are a bunch of fighters. The guys will be hurt by this, but they'll be up and about,” he added. To everyone’s surprise, there wasn’t really much for the spinners on the track in Delhi and CSK skipper MS Dhoni too admitted that the ball was coming nicely on the bat and didn’t really have any spin on offer. “The batting was superb. But that doesn't mean the bowling was not good. It was a surprisingly good wicket. Whenever we come to Delhi we never expect a wicket like this. It was coming on nicely, there was nothing for the spinners as well.Good thing was there was no dew. Last night we felt 170 was just below par if there's no dew. Brilliant opening partnership. Addressing the problem (how the change from last season). Whenever you start the tournament, you may or may not face issues in playing XI. The earlier you settle the better,” Dhoni said. Dhoni also talked about how the players have taken up the onus on themselves especially after the team fared in the last edition of the tournament. “Overall if I have to sum it up, the players have taken more responsibility this year. You will be facing adverse things but ultimately it boils down to how each individual rises to the occasion and gives the extra 10 percent for the team. Last 8-10 years we've not changed a lot of players so they know our approach. Also we appreciate the players not playing a lot. Only way you can put it forward is having those nice interactions. Just try to have the frame of mind where if you get the opportunity you'll be ready. Keeping the dressing room atmosphere healthy is important,” he further added. Experts’ opinion Commentator Harsha Bhogle was of the opinion that SRH might have fallen short 10-15 runs but the total was still defendable especially after the kind of bowling attack they had in the lineup for the game against CSK. Harsha heaped praises for the way CSK went after the chase in Delhi. Boria Majumdar hailed the way CSk dominated the run chase. Boria also appreciated the efforts put in by Rashid who picked up three wickets during the course. Journalist Ayaz Memon had lavished praise for the CSK side and how the team looks balanced in all the departments. CSK will now face MI on Saturday while SRH would be up against RR on Sunday in Delhi.