Cricket Australia opens its coffers for women's game, Meg Lanning points out benefits

Australian Women have been one of the best women sides on the world stage and their skipper Meg Lanning doesn’t credit the success of her side and their predecessors to luck. Instead, she believes that the women’s game has received a fair share of investment for it to have developed to such an extent that they rule the world cricket, both on and off the field.

She said that the game will benefit at large if there will be more and more investment in women’s sport as it will boost all the stakeholders involved such as the game itself, its fans, and obviously the players.

Her comments came along with the new payment structure for the women players both at the international level and the Big Bash level. She said that the level of performance put up by the players have been ratified by the latest significant hike in payments.

"The success and prominence of women's cricket in Australia have not happened by accident. Cricket has shown that when you properly invest in female sport, the results follow and everyone benefits -- the game, the fans, and the players," Australia women's captain Meg Lanning said in an official statement.

"Because of the success of the game over the past few years, in which women's domestic cricket has played a crucial role, the ACA has worked with Cricket Australia to ensure this is reflected in an increase in player payments across both the WNCL and WBBL," she added.

Cricket Australia has announced that a whopping USD $4 million will be spent on the overall support for women's players in the ongoing season.

Discover more

Shafali Verma fails with bat, shines bright in the field on Women Big Bash League debut

One of the most explosive India Women batters Shafali Verman failed to light up the stage on her debut in the Women’s Big Bash League on Thursday, 14 October. Verma was signed by the Sydney Sixers Women and in the first game from the side against the Melbourne Stars Women, she could manage only eight runs, that too at an uncharacteristic strike rate of 80. However, she did not have only failures to show with as she was excellent in the field and effected a brilliant run out by hitting the stumps from the short midwicket region to send Annabel Sutherland. Later, Sutherland got her revenge from Verma by dismissing her after the right-hander reached eight runs. The Melbourne Stars Women posted 99 runs in the rain-curtailed 11-over game and the Sydney Sixers Women were on course to chase the score through an unbeaten partnership between Alyssa Healy and Ashleigh Gardner.

IPL 2021 | Morgan says Knight Riders will dissect batting collapse in final phase of qualifier

The Knight Riders needed just 13 runs of the last four overs with as many as eight wickets in their hands but rather than sailing through a comfortable victory, it neded Rahul Tripathi to hit a special six on the penultimate ball to win them the game. The Knight Riders lost their plot after the fall of Nitish Rana, and slid from 123/1 to to 130/7 before Rahul bailed them out of the trouble. Morgan conceded that they should have won the game very convincingly after a string start by Venkatesh Iyer and Shubman Gill and assured that the management will dissect the proceedings of the last four overs where they saw their four batsmen registering ducks. However, Morgan was more delighted to see his side in the final for the first time since the 2014 edition. He lauded Rahul for keeping his calm under pressure and hitting the match-winning six. “Should’ve been a lot easier after the start we got. The openers gave us a great platform. We will dissect what happened in the last four overs,” Morgan said during the post-match presentation. “Dew came in and all, but hey, we have won and we are in the finals. We are delighted to get over the line. Would’ve loved to win convincingly but Capitals are a very good side. Six off two, the odds were probably in favour of the bowling side, but Rahul Tripathi has done superbly well for us.” The Knight Riders have never lost an IPL final and Morgan and company would hope the trend will continue on October 15 when they will go head to head against the Chennai Super Kings.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa thrash Central Punjab to win second consecutive National T20 championship

A phenomenal all-around performance by Iftikhar Ahmed helped the defending champions Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to crush Central Punjab by seven wickets in the final of the Pakistan National T20 tournament and defend their championship in Lahore. Iftikhar first took three wickets for just five runs in his two-over spell that included the big wicket of Ahmed Shehzad, who was looking set on a 36-ball 44. His other two scalps were Hussain Talat and Sai Badar. Chasing a middling total of 149 runs, the Khyber side was up and running with the top order batsmen contributing decently. However, they could not put the side in a commanding position and it need Iftikhar to rule the show once again and this time he dismantled Central Punjab with his bat and hit 19-ball 45 to help Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the second consecutive championship. From Central Punjab, the experienced duo of Shehzad and Kamran Akmal were the most successful batsmen against the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bowling attack led by Imran Khan and Arsh Iqbal, and Mohammad Imran, who took three wickets. On the other hand, for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kamran Ghulam was the highest run score on the night of the final and laid the platform for their win along with Sahibzada Farhan and Kamran Ghulam. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa proved themselves as the team to beat in the tournament and fittingly, Iftikhar Ahmed was awarded the Man of the Match and tournament to establish his all-around dominance in the tournament.

Was shattered to hear about it: Tim Paine on Will Pucovski's concussion

Australia’s young batsman Will Pucovski's bad luck with head injuries doesn't seem to be ending as he has suffered another instance of concussion after taking a hit in the indoor nets of Victoria, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. He is showing minor signs of concussion, the report added. The latest episode of concussion put his overall well-being in jeopardy while his participation in the Australian Test squad for the upcoming Ashes series has also taken a massive hit. Notably, the latest bout of injury is the 10th instance of head injury for the 23-year old batting prodigy, and it’s unlikely that Cricket Victoria will risk his health and well being by rushing his return. Even Aussie Test skipper Tim Paine is of the opinion that Will should not be rushed to the Test arena given his history with concussions. "I've spoken to him a bit the last few days, he's improving slowly, I don't think it's as bad as some of the others he's had before," Paine was quoted as saying to SEN Hobart. "But obviously, with his history, we have to be very careful with anything around the brain. There's no need to rush him at the moment. He's still 22-23 years of age, so he's got a long time in the game if we get it right," he added. Pucovski was hit on the head while representing Australia A last summer and it delayed his imminent Test debut. He waited and debuted only in the third Test of the series against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but the instance of bad luck did not leave him alone. He dislocated his shoulder while attempting to stop a ball from going towards the boundary and missed the remainder of the series.