Author: Kashish Chadha

BCCI president Sourav Ganguly refrained from commenting on the issue related to young opener Shubman Gill, stating it is solely the team management’s call to decide whether they require an adequate replacement for the England series or not. Gill has reportedly sustained a leg injury on the tour of UK since India’s loss in the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton. But, despite the challenging England series looming, there has been no official announcement of the same from the BCCI, with no replacement confirmed. The team management, including skipper Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri, seems to have assessed Gill’s injury such that…

Former India batsman WV Raman believes it’s only a matter of time before the great Rahul Dravid is considered for the post of India’s head coach on a full-time basis. Raman’s comments came as Dravid oversees the Indian team on their limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka. With full-time head coach Ravi Shastri and his support staff currently in England for their Test assignment with the regular side, the BCCI asked Dravid and a team of NCA coaches to look after the alternative squad in the Island nation. Not just Raman, many other prominent voices in Indian cricket have been calling for Dravid’s elevation to the head coach’s…

After a sloppy performance in the previous game, South Africa were back to their best in the third and final ODI against Ireland in Dublin on Friday. Hurt over their loss in the previous game, the visitors pulled off a comprehensive victory over the Irish to square up the three-match series 1-1 after the first one-dayer was affected by bad weather. Opening batsmen Quinton de Kock and Janneman Malan gave The Proteas a dominating start. Having opted to bat upon winning the toss, South Africa saw their openers stitch an outstanding 225-run opening stand. Both De Kock and Malan made centuries on the day. While the former…

West Indies scripted another victory over the visiting Australian side and finished the five-match T20I series with an impressive 4-1 scoreline this Friday. Opening batsman Evin Lewis and left-arm pacer Sheldon Cottrell were the two stand-out performers. Lewis’ exceptional innings of 79 off 34 balls helped the Calypso Kings reach an intimidating score of 199/8 after winning the toss and opting to bat first. The free-flowing knock from the aggressive left-hander included 4 fours and 9 sixes. Cottrell gave away only 28 runs off his four overs in a high-scoring encounter and bagged three wickets on the night. Besides Lewis, there wasn’t…

On Friday, the International Cricket Council confirmed the draws for this year’s T20 World Cup. Originally, India and England were in the same Super 12 groups, whereas Australia and Pakistan were part of the other. But with the pandemic wreaking havoc and leading to several matches being cancelled, the ICC had to tweak the cut-off date on the rankings table and rejig the groups accordingly. The latest groups have been formed on the basis of the ranking table as of March 20, 2021. India, Pakistan are now clubbed with New Zealand, Afghanistan and two qualifying teams in Group 2 of the Super 12 stage, while West Indies, South Africa, England and…

Warwickshire skipper Will Rhodes has been appointed captain of a County Select XI that will take on the visiting India XI in a three-day warm-up game in Durham, starting Tuesday. Rhodes has been named skipper of the playing XI featuring the best from the available county players and will be entering the fixture after 452 runs in the ongoing County Championship. Among other notable inclusions in the 14-member squad that the ECB announced on Thursday are Haseem Hameed, James Bracey, Jake Libby and Ethan Bamber. While opening batter Hameed has been a cricketer rejuvenated in this first-class season with 642 runs from 15 innings at…

England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive, Tom Harrison, has confirmed there will be no strict bio-bubble reimposed on players for the forthcoming England-India Test series, starting August 4. ECB is mindful of the threat amid the COVID-19 pandemic and will be maintaining the safety protocols, but there won’t be a stringent bubble in place for the two teams’ cricketers. Despite the recent surge of positive cases inside both England and Indian teams’ camps, the authorities had to self-isolate those identified as closed contacts.  The entire England first-choice ODI squad had to enter a phase of isolation just two days…

All-rounder Deepak Hooda will be representing Rajasthan in the 2021-22 Indian domestic season after parting ways with Baroda in controversial circumstances. Hooda has informed of his decision to the Baroda Cricket Association after an infamous spat with fellow state all-rounder Krunal Pandya. Hooda had a troublesome last winter with Baroda where he walked out of the team’s bio-bubble just a day before the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 was about to commence in January. The reason being an ugly altercation with Krunal. The BCA subsequently banned Hooda for the rest of the 2020-21 season for disciplinary reasons. Months later, Hooda is now ending…

Back-up wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha, standby opening batsman Abhimanyu Easwaran and bowling coach Bharat Arun have been isolated after being deemed in close contact with India’sIndia’s throwdown specialist Dayananda Garani, who has tested COVID-19 positive in UK. The BCCI confirmed the news via a statement on Thursday, stating that Garani was in the team hotel when he tested positive after a round of RT-PCR tests on July 14. The board’sboard’s medical team identified Saha, Easwaran and Arun as those in Garani’sGarani’s close contact and thus had no option but to put them in a 10-day quarantine. During this phase, all four…

One of the heroes of India’s game-transforming 1983 World Cup win, middle-order batsman Yashpal Sharma passed away at the age of 66 on Tuesday (July 13). Yashpal, who played 37 Tests and 42 ODIs for India between 1978 and 1985, couldn’t reportedly recover from a cardiac arrest that he had suffered. He is survived by his wife Renu Sharma, two daughters Puja, Preeti and son Chirag Sharma. A gritty customer, Yashpal scored 2489 runs in international cricket for India. He scored 2 hundreds and 9 half-centuries in his Test career and produced 4 scores past fifty in ODIs. He was instrumental to Indian cricket’s biggest…