Sachin Tendulkar talks about his emotional moment with Virat Kohli

IND vs WI | Windies still search for balance against dominant India

After winning a convincing game in the first T20I fixture of the series, India will be looking to continue their run - albeit with the few forced changes in their line-up. The second T20I match, once again will be played in the Eden Gardens Kolkata under the floodlights and it is possible that they would not have the services of Deepak Chahar and Venkatesh Iyer who were hit in the last game. While Iyer returned to play a fantastic cameo during the chase, there has been no update regarding the conditions of Chahar. However, India will be confident with what they have in their reserves against a team that has not done the basics right throughout the tenure of the tour. Windies, playing in the subcontinent, half a year away from the next T20 World Cup, are struggling to manoeuvre spin. In the first game, they got stuck in the first 10 overs of the game and it took the brilliance of Nicholas Pooran to bail them out of the situation. Windies need to dig deep and figure out very quickly what their best combination is going into the T20 World Cup and who are their best assets that can shine against a team like India. Match Details India vs West Indies, 2nd T20I Date - 18 February, Friday Time - 7 PM IST Venue - Eden Gardens, Kolkata Broadcast - Star Sports Network Pitch & Weather Report When you are playing in Kolkata at this time of the year, the weather prevails over the pitch. Windies captain Kieron Pollard got into a scuffle with the umpire in the last game over the conditions of the ball in the second innings. The dew was so much on the night that Windies players found it quite difficult to bowl. If that is the case once again, Pollard will do well to win the toss and bowl first. On the last day, it did grip the slightest bit on the Eden pitch, but that type of assistance would be minimal for the bowler. The pitch is once again expected to be a slow turner that would favour the batsmen for the larger part of the second innings. Team News India Here is the interesting bit. India have players injured and India have trouble with form. Ishan Kishan probably played his worst knock in international colours the other night, but there is a lot of time before one can actually write him off. Virat Kohli looked fantastic for his brief innings of 17, but let’s call it what it was - brief. Sharma acknowledged the presence of Shreyas Iyer in the pre match press conference but stated that India need someone in the top 4 or 5 who can actually roll their arms over. If that is the case, India can call up Shardul Thakur for Venky while Deepak Chahar could make way for Avesh Khan - a bowler fans really want to see. Probable Playing XI Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Venkatesh Iyer/Shardul Thakur, Avesh Khan, Bhubaneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Yuzvendra Chahal West Indies Jason Holder will possibly be coming back into the game, which means puts West Indies in a very odd position in terms of balance. Their weakest T20 player Roston Chase performed the best among them last night and there is no way that you can leave out an asset just like that. Windies - if they choose to tweak their batting order a little bit, can send Fabian Allen up and drop Holder lower down the order -a place where he can be effective, but this will mean that one among Romario Shepherd, Odeon Smith or Sheldon Cottrell would have to walk out. Both Shepherd and Smith bring batting attributes with them and it is unlikely that the visitors will reduce their batting order after repeated failures. It will be interesting to see how they accommodate both Holder and Chase in the line-up and who they end up sacrificing on the day. Probable Playing XI Brandon King, Kyle Mayers, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Roston Chase, Rovman Powell, Kieron Pollard (c), Fabian Allen, Jason Holder, Odeon Smith, Akeal Hosein, Sheldon Cottrell CE Fantasy XI Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant, Rohit Sharma (C), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav (VC), Fabian Allen, Roston Chase, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Sheldon Cottrell

Ranji Trophy 2022 | Out of favour Ajinkya Rahane & Manish Pandey find form

Out of favour stars of the Indian national team - Ajinkya Rahane and Manish Pandey struck individual centuries on Day 1 of the Ranji Trophy. While former India captain Rahane scored a patient 108 off 250 against Saurashtra, Manish Pandey was particularly impressive hitting a rapid 156 off 121 balls. Manish’s counterattacking innings came after Karnataka were put in a spot of bother by Railways by being 3 down for 110 runs. Manish along with Siddharth KV stitched a partnership of 267 runs and put the domestic powerhouse in a strong position. It needs to be mentioned that Pandey was out of favour in the Sunrisers camp despite being an experienced campaigner with them. He tanked very badly in the first phase of the last edition’s Indian Premier League as SRH lost several games on a trot. On the other hand, this innings from Rahane might do a world of good for him as predicted by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly earlier. Ganguly publicly stated earlier this month that he would like to see both Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara go back in the domestic season to get rid of the chinks in their armour. Rahane’s innings today is a striking validation for the statement. There were impressive performances in the Ranji today, with S Sreesanth making an appearance in the long format after 9 years. He picked two wickets in his first innings. Barring Sreesanth, Yash Dhull made a century on his First Class debut for Delhi against Tamil Nadu.

NZW vs INDW | Former India captain wants this star to be dropped from the team

Former India captain Diana Edulji argued that Indian all-rounder Harmanpreet Kaur should be dropped from the Indian national team. Speaking to news agency PTI, Edulji made it clear that the Indian batter cannot survive in the team based on one innings in the 2017 World Cup. “I am very disappointed with her. She was my favourite player but you can’t survive on that one innings (171 against Australia in 2017). She is only one innings away from a big knock but the effort has to be there. I will be the happiest if she proves me wrong. I just want the team to win the World Cup. Edulji further stated that different players should not have different yardsticks for getting dropped. “If you are going with the same yardstick which was used to drop Jemimah Rodrigues, what the coach (Ramesh Powar) had mentioned, the same yardstick should be applied to Harmanpreet,” Incidentally Harmanpreet Kaur fared very well coming into this series. She scored 310 runs from 13 outings in the competition at an impressive strike rate of 127. However, that form has failed to transpire in India’s World Cup preparation against New Zealand with the batter not passing 15 runs even on one occasion. India will be taking on the White Ferns, early morning on Friday with the goal to save the 5-match ODI series.

Watch | Marnus Labuschagne’s innovative spin training setup at his home

Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne unravelled his home training setup on Thursday, 17 February, revealing his innovative fix to negotiate spin bowling in the subcontinent. The 27-year-old who shot to fame after his tremendous Ashes innings as a concussion substitute to Steve Smith broke the setup down in his video explaining all the aspects at play. The right hander explained that he has taped aluminium squares to a rough mat to insinuate the conditions in spin-friendly pitches like India where the ball can turn sharp if it hits the rough (the mat) or it can come in straight if the ball is bowled as an undercutter (aluminium strips). Famous for his quirks in the matches that he plays, Labuschagne uploaded a video footage of how things went down and Twitter could not have enough of him. The micro blogging site hailed the batsman for his preparation and his attention to detail before predicting that it could possibly be an amazing battle once he comes to the subcontinent. Notably, Australia are scheduled to play Pakistan in March on a long one month tour where they will play three Test matches and three ODIs. Australia were supposed to send a full strength squad to the tour but would be without the services of Glenn Maxwell and Micheal Neser owing to their personal commitments and injury respectively.