Ban on saliva use made it difficult to maintain the ball: Jasprit Bumrah

Sachin’s son Arjun Tendulkar registers for IPL Mini -Auction

Legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun Tendulkar has registered himself for the upcoming IPL 2021 Mini-Auction, which is scheduled to be held on 18th February. Along with Arjun veteran Harbhajan Singh has also enlisted his name in this year's IPL auction even as he was released by his team Chennai Super Kings, earlier this month. He was supposed to have retired after he was released by the CSK. Arjun made his List A debut in the recently concluded Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021 in which he played two games and took two wickets by giving away runs at an economy rate of 9.57. It was then itself speculated that the 21 year old might be considered for an IPL debut this season and with him registering in the player's auction, most likely he would be picked by some team or the other. Among the other big names listed for the auctions as per reports are Kedar Jadhav, Hanuma Vihari and Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan.

Shakib injured again; BCB confirms a thigh strain

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) confirmed that ace all-rounder Shakib-Al-Hasan has been diagnosed with a thigh strain. Shakib was carried off the field on the second day of the first Test between Bangladesh and West Indies going on at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhary Stadium in Chattogram. The BCB in an official statement confirmed that it was a new injury and not the same one that the 33-year-old suffered from in the last ODI of the three-match ODI series against the same opposition that concluded last week. “He recovered from his previous groin injury ahead of the first Test and successfully managing to bat in the Bangladesh first innings as well as send down six overs, all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan has suffered a strain in a different region of his left thigh while fielding on day two,'' said BCB told the press on Friday. In the first innings, Shakib had scored 68 runs before getting out to Rahkeem Cornwall. While in the field he could bowl only six overs in which he gave away 16 runs without taking a wicket. Whether he would take any further part in the game or not is not clear. ''The injury was confirmed by an MRI scan this morning. The BCB medical team will continue to treat and review his progress over the course of the first Test,'' the BCB statement added.

Mitchell Starc not among 1097 players registered for IPL Mini Auction

A total of 1097 players have registered for the Indian Premier League mini-auction which is scheduled to be hosted on 18th February. The biggest surprise has been of the Australian pacer Mitchell Starc pulling out of the auction. On the domestic front, S Sreesanth, who played his first competitive game for the first time in eight years has also been included in the players’ list. Even though it is just a min auction 21 capped Indian players have registered for it, surprisingly the maximum number of registrations have come from the West Indies, whose 56 players have registered for the mini IPL auction. The other teams in the fray with high registration are Australia with 42 and South Africa with 38. Although a huge number of players have registered for the auctions, even if every franchise were to have the maximum of 25 players in their squad, only 61 players could be taken in the auction and of that 61, only a maximum of 22 overseas players can play. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy has just concluded and thus a large number of Indian uncapped players, to be precise 743 such players would be in action. There are also 68 uncapped International players in the fray as well. As far as associate nations are concerned, there are 27 players who have registered themselves as being part of associate nations, the highest number of them coming from UAE (9). The auctions on 18th would coincide with the start of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

IND vs ENG | 1st Test day 1 report: Sweeping Root, defiant Sibley lead England's dominance

A splendid century from captain Joe Root and defiant innings by Dominic Sibley have put the England team in a position of real strength in the first Test against India in Chennai. The duo put on a show of completely different bating styles with Sibley holding on the one side of the wicket, while Root liberated his team on the back of his usual sweep and river sweeps. Root was coming into this Test match with a huge round of expectations from him as he was in terrific form against Sri Lanka on the pitches where his teammates were clearly searching for answers. His team was looking at him to get them out to a good position in yet another game, and the English skipper was not in any mood to waste his good form. On the other hand, Sibley was the symbol of resistance for the tourists on the first-day pitch at the M.A. Chidambaram stadium. Indian bowlers were bowling accurate lines and lengths to him for the large part of the day before their discipline and patience were worn down by Sibley who denied them the chance to dismiss him and get an opening into the middle and lower order. The pair stretched their partnership to 200 runs in the fag end of the day’s play as the tourists piled on the misery of hosts’ bowlers on a placid Chepauk pitch that offered them very little, and Root’s primitiveness clearly exposed the lack of reliable options for skipper Kohli who must have missed the services of Ravindra Jadeja. Root has been guilty of throwing his starts and form in the past, but he has already faced more deliveries this year than his batting stays at the crease in the last year although he has played five fewer matches this year. Root is the leader of the English batting line up, other than being the captain of the side, and by the end of the first day in Chennai and Sri Lanka series that preceded this Test, he has now started to blossom as the leader of the attack. A little ray of hope came after the partnership for Kohli and India on the back of Jasprit Bumrah who was making his debut on Indian soil and had no other options but to make his own luck. He banked on the old-aged formula of taking the pitch out of the equation by bowling really full deliveries as both his scalps – Dan Lawrence and Sibley were results of surprising batsmen with really full-deliveries and catching them rooted in the crease. Joe Root remained not out at the end of the first day’s play and he will be the massive thorn in the flesh of Indians come the second day in the Test as Kohli and his team face the prospect of batting last in the game, albeit the pitch is appearing to be an absolute road. Earlier in the day, Joe Root had a fascinating start to the series as he won the very essential toss as an Indian batting order batting on this pitch would have sent the tourists so far back in the game. Kohli was not hiding his point of view and expressed clearly his eagerness to bat first and make the most of the surface that had nothing in it for any form of bowlers. Indian pacers started on the disciplined note, but the English openers Sibley and Rory Burns were watchful to start off the innings. Bumrah looked threatening while Ishant clearly looked rust having not played a long-form game in a very long time. With no clear sign of swing or any other form of assistance to his pacers, Kohli turned to his trump card in Ashwin in the seventh over, and while he bowled with his absolute control over his dip and flight, the surface left him disappointed and toothless and the solitary wicket he got of Burns was more the case of the left-hander scripting his own demise than the off-spinner actually getting better of him. Although the script on the field changed from the triumph in Brisbane, the of-filed loggerheads and headaches around finding the perfect balance of the playing XI did not leave India in their own backyard as well. Just before the start of the match, the BCCI issued a statement notifying of Axar Patel’s knee injury who was touted to be the man who could be a like for like replacement for Jadeja, and his absence combined with the effects Sri Lanka’s left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya had on the English batting line up was too tempting an option for the Kohli-led management to overlook Shahbaz Nadeem. Along with that, to make things more complicated for the hosts, Axar was also set to bat at the number seven position ahead of Ashwin and the team management could not take a brave call on having a slightly longer tail with Kuldeep Yadav batting just at the eighth position and rather banked on Washington Sundar to provide all-round performance at his home ground as well. Kuldeep Yadav was all but certain to play before the injury to Axar threw all the team combination in disarray and India went to a defensive option of the deeper batting line up instead of bolstering the bowling line up which in the hindsight, they clearly missed on a flat Chepauk pitch. Needless to say, Kohli missed Jadeja’s control on the first day with both Washington and Nadeem struggling for control and providing boundary balls to the English batsmen. They had a tough competitor in Root who really played well to their mindset as the English skipper clearly walked out with clear tactics of not attacking any of Ashwin, Ishant, and Bumrah while charging towards both Washington and Nadeem. It was a clear case of Root asking the depth of their prowess and at the end of the first day’s play, Root emerged as the clear winner. At the end of the day’s play, England was 263/3 and while Root will be looking forward to taking the innings deeper and bat India out of the game, for the hosts the morning session tomorrow will be the most vital if they have to come back in the game.