David Warner ruled out of first Test against India with groin injury

BBL 2020 Team Preview: Perth wants bumper harvest after two scorched seasons

The most successfulf team in the history of Big Bash League (BBL) is all set to make a dash for the title in the upcoming season. Perth Scorchers have taken the BBL trophy home three times and have finished runners-up twice. What is even more impressive is the fact that their success has come largely on the back of home-grown talent. However, the last two seasons have seen a decline in the team's performance. The Scorchers earned the wooden spoon in the 2018-19 season, followed by a sixth-place finish in the last edition. Much of the same squad from the 2019-20 season will again be representing them this time also. Hopefully, from the Scorchers' fans' point of view, they will be more efficient. What does work in favour of the Western Australia-based side is the unique nature of the pitch at their home stadium. Known worldwide as home of the fastest track in the world, Perth presents a distinct challenge than any other venue in Australia, perhaps the world. Even though cricket matches are not taking place at the fabled WACA stadium, the pitch at the new Optus arena has also shown the same characteristics as the one at the former venue. Mitchell Marsh would be leading the team this year as well. Marsh is an uderrated player in limited overs cricket. He has proven to be a very useful bowler with the white ball, able to get some swing at his medium pace, and also is a solid batsman. Being a Western Australia player, his familiarity with the conditions is a big plus. Bowling Attack The bowling attack, especially the pace department, is extremely crucial. Due to the ongoing international season, there aren't any big stars among the seamers. Jhye Richardson, Jason Behrendorff, and Andrew Tye are the three most prominent pacers. All three have played for Australia in limited-overs cricket but remain on the fringes of the team. None of these pacers have extreme pace like Mitchell Starc. But aided with the extra bounce in home conditions, they can be a handful on their day. It was The back up seamers are relatively unknown. Last year, it was Richardson who usually bore the weight of being his team's leading bowler. Behrendorff and Tye may give him some help this time. Among the other seamers in the squad, one important name is Matthew Kelly. He often opened the bowling last season for this team. That experience may push him ahead on the pecking list. For a change of angle, left-armer Joel Paris may be the man to go to. The Scorchers have two very capable spinners. Fawad Ahmed arrived in Australia as a refugee from religious persecution and was hailed as a great prospect. Despite making his debut in international cricket in 2013, he has failed to live up to the expectation. But he has the skills to succeed. As a leg-spinner, he will benefit from extra bounce of Perth pitches. Same can be said about Ashton Agar. He is now an experienced left-arm spinner who is more in the orthodox mould of left-arm spinners. But having played for Scorchers and experienced T20 cricket, he now knows the tricks of the trade in this format also. But Agar is likely to miss out on the early part of the season due to an injury he sustained in the ODI series between Australia and India. Not only is he a very useful bowler, his handy batting adds to his value as a team member. As of now, the left-arm spinner is aiming to return by the end of the month. To cover his absence, the Scorchers have taken on board an exciting young talent from Western Australia. Corey Rocchiccioli couldn't take part in the Sheffield Shield matches earlier in the season due to an injury of his own. But his talent led to him being included in the travelling party of the Australian team this year. Lastly, the Perth team have chosen Liam Guthrie as a cover for Cameron Green. Guthrie has played 10 Sheffield Shield matches with very modest return. He would be an x-factor in the line-up. Batting Talent Scorchers have two overseas openers in their squad. Both are known for explosive batting. However, Jason Roy of England has shown the ability to bat for long periods as well. Colin Munro, on the other hand, will go hammer and tongs right from the begining. Not only is the Kiwi batter ranked fifth in T20I rankings for batsmen, he also enjoyed great success in the Caribbean Premier League earlier this year. These two are capable of providing a blistering start to the innings. But if this is the opening pair, the one that opened the innings in the last season, Liam Livingstone and Josh Inglis, and did so with modest success, would have to be adjusted elsewhere. However, Roy and Livingstone, being English players, would not be available for the early part of the season. To cover for Roy, another Englishman, Joe Clarke has been picked up by the team. Clarke benefitted from a successful time in the English counterpart to BBL - the T20 Blast - where he was the fifth-highest run-getter. On the other hand, Inglis is a key player whose place in the team is certain. Last year, in an otherwise disappointing season for his team, he racked up 405 runs. It is possible that he would retain his place at the top of the order. So, when Livingstone and Roy join the squad, there will be four potential openers in the squad. Which one of them remains in the team will depend on the first three matches where Inglis and Munro are certain to open. "Colin’s naturally aggressive instinct with the bat and ability to take the game away from the opposition quickly will make him an extremely important impact player for us this summer. We look forward to welcoming Colin to the Scorchers," coach Voges said when the news of the New Zealander's joining the team came out. Voges also expressed confidence that the absence of the two English batsmen won't cause too much damage. "It’s unfortunate we won’t have our English players Liam and Jason for the early part of the campaign, but we have been planning around that since the tour was earmarked and are very excited to welcome Joe to the side," he stated. Cameron Bancroft has been a Test opener and is best known for his role in the sandpaper gate saga. But he has decent numbers in T20s as well. Last season, he occupied the pivotal no. 3 position with some success. But if Livingstone and Inglis are removed from the opening spot, then Bancroft may have to shift downwards in the order. Skipper Mitchell Marsh is not just a big lad but also has runs at the Test level in the past. This means he has technique to go along with power. Ashton Turner showed his big hitting ability last year when he played a blinder to win a match for Australia against India. Marsh and Turner would provide the strength to the middle order. Cameron Green would be a valuable member of the team in the lower order but he would miss the initial matches of the season. A hundred that he scored against the Indian team in a practice match recently showed his batting abilities. Finishing Touches Last year's BBL saw Scorchers going in with a similar squad to the one this year. However, a great start to the season ended up being overshadowed by a poor finish which led to the team missing the play-offs. This time, having experienced the mistakes of last season, one expects the Perth-based team to be better off. Since they don't have any superstars of T20 cricket like Rashid Khan or Chris Gayle in their ranks, they would have to hope that home-grown players come good. This may or may not work in their favour. The first match of the season for Scorchers would take place on December 12 against Melbourne Renegades.

AUS vs IND 3rd T20: What Experts said as Wade, spinners help Aussies salvage some pride

The Indian batsmen finally faltered at last as Aussie spinners finally got around to have the best of Hardik Pandya and Virat Kohli at crucial moments to give their team a win at last. Even after this 12 run loss at the Sydney Cricket Ground, India won the series 2-1 and moved to the Tests with a bit of momentum and a lot of confidence. While Mitchell Swepson got the Man of the Match award for his impressive 3/23 in four overs, Hardik Pandya was adjudged Man of the Series for his impact in the entire series. Swepson got the important wickets of Shikhar Dhawan, Sanju Samson, and Shreyas Iyer. Captains' Viewpoints The Indian captain Virat Kohli was happy getting back at the Aussies with a series win after getting drubbed in the ODIs. Speaking in the post-match presentation ceremony, Kohli lauded his players saying that the same competitive spirit needs to be carried to the Tests as well. “The series win is a little asterisk for us to finish the 2020 season on a high,” he said. “We need to take the same competitive attitude into the Tests, and having played here a few times, we can score runs as well. Once it's time to capitalize and score, we need to do that session by session,” added Kohli. The skipper was also confident that the current side is stronger than the last one. Taking about today’s chase Kohli said, “At one stage when Hardik started going we thought we could pull it off. The middle over phase during our batting cost us the game. A partnership of 30-odd would've made it easier for Hardik.” Kohli,32, thinks that the team is managing to find ways to come back and give the opposition a scare every time. He also praised teh strong Sydney crowd. “I feel the crowd was a factor as well, it's always giving you a dimension of motivation. Our crowd pulls us through sometimes, and Australia's too, and we as players feed off the crowd's energy,” he concluded. The Aussie captain Aaron Finch continued being on the winning side of the match in Sydney as after the two ODIs, he won a T20I too in Sydney (He did not play the previous game.) “It was a great series, and we just happened to be on the wrong end of the first two,” Finch said in the post-match presentation. Lauding the two spinners, who gave away just 44 runs in seven overs, at a time when teh chasing team needed to gove above nine all the time, Finch said, “It's the first time we've had two leg-spinners in the side, and they were bold with the short boundaries here, so credit to both of them.” “Swepson bowled the 7th over against Shikhar and Virat, both destructive in their own ways, but Zamps bowled really well as well,” he added. Summing up the entire season post the 2019 World Cup, Finch said, “We played some great white-ball cricket over the last 18 months and really proud of the bunch.” Expert Opinion While the match was in focus, the umpiring decisions were scrutinized thoroughly, especially the wides in teh second innings, as well as the DRS of Matthew Wade. However, it was the dropped catches that got the creampie treatment on Twitter. Gaurav Kalra had the best of the comments on the dropped catches saying that it was better, that the series ended with a dropped catch as that has been the main feature of the series. Cricket Journalist Vimal Kumar pointed out how the loss ended Team India's winning streak in the T20Is for the last 10 games. Boria Majumdar, a cricket expert, and commentator raised an important point saying that Sanju Samson, has finally got a full three-game run and failed immensely, meaning that he wouldn't be getting many chances in the future. Freddy Wilde, a cricket analyst from England was also talking serious business and it related to Australia's chances at the 2021 World Cup. He raised the point of how the Australian middle-order needed help while the opening slot has too many contenders. Aakash Chopra the cricketer turned analyst discussed the decision involving Matthew Wade and how it was fair of the umpires to term the DRS null and void. And has been the tradition, we end the segment with a Gaurav Kalra pun, and of course, the Indian team didn't do what he predicted. With 1-1 in the limited-overs, the bandwagon now moves to the best of the game format- the Tests, with the first one, a day/night affair beginning at Adelaide Oval. How would the teams fare in that, would be exciting to watch.

AUS vs IND | 3rd T20: Kohli's lone effort goes in vain as hosts avert clean sweep

The hosts Australia averted a clean sweep as a valiant effort from Virat Kohli with the bat proved to be not enough for the Australian batting efforts put on display in the last T20 of the three-match series. The tourists won the series by a margin of 2-1 after a couple of dismal performances in the first two ODIs of the white-ball leg of the series. Chasing the target of 187 runs, India were off to a worst possible start with KL Rahul falling into a trap, hitting the ball to a tactically placed Steve Smith at the deep midwicket boundary. Finch has called on Glenn Maxwell to bowl the first over of the innings in a big risk that paid off with the wicket of Rahul. Next man in, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan kept up the pace of the chase as they took Sean Abbott for 11 runs in his first over after a very economical over from Maxwell. Kohli took nine balls before hitting a thumping flick off Daniel Sams who had got him out in the last game and the Indian innings was up and running at 33 for one at the end of fourth over. The breakthrough arrived for India when Finch reintroduced Abbott to finish off the power play but Kohli and Dhawan made sure that they made good use of the last over of the field restrictions. The duo took 15 runs off the sixth over to keep up with the required run rate. Hero of the last agem, who almost choked India in the second T20, Mitchell Swepson was brought in to the attack with the hope of getting either of the batting duo who have been in great touch in the T20 series. Swepson bettered his performance in the final T20 and picked up the big three wickets of Dhawan, Samson and Iyer to break the backbone of the Indian batting and derailed the chase that left Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya too much to do in the end overs. At the midway stage, India were guilty of eating up too many dot balls as the required rate had surged past 10 runs per over and the wickets at regular intervals kept on hampering their growth in the middle phase. Virat went on to score a big score but ate half of the deliveries the team had in its hands and his teammates were left to score double the runs on every deliveries to win the game. He scored 85 off 61 but that left his teammates only 59 balls to score remaining 102 runs and that may well have proved detrimental for other batsmen. When Dhawan was dismissed in the ninth over of the chase and Samson arrived at the crease, the young man had no other chance but to try and hit every second ball for boundary to bring back the momentum for his side. Ultimately, he was not able to find boundaries and ended up throwing his wicket away with a half-hearted shot on a full toss and the effect of suring required rate was quite telling on the fall of his wicket. Iyer has not got opportunity to bat freely in the middle in the series and Swepson made sure that he will finish the white-ball leg of the tour on a unsatisfactory note, trapping him inside the crease with an attempted leg spinning ball but it did not turn and went on with the arm to wrapp on Iyer’s pads to send him packing on a golden duck. Once again, the mettle was on Pandya to see off the game for his side and both he and captain Kohli looked set to at least run close to the total set by the hosts but Finch drew another masterstroke as zampa was introduced in an aggressive move to lure Pandya into false shots and the leg spinner repaid the faith dismissing Pandya on his very first ball of the fresh spell and the target that was looking distant for the tourists, wnet out of their reach. Earlier, Virat Kohli won the toss and decided to chase again after a successful attempt last time at the same ground. The home side was stronger with the return of skipper Aaron Finch who missed the last game due to a hip injury but it did little to help them at the start of the match. Finch looked out of sorts against a relentless Washington Sundar who kept on coming to with immaculate lengths and ultimately forced an error from Finch to get him caught at mid off position. Steve Smith came to the crease and looked separate for boundaries after a sluggish innings in the last game but both Sundar and Deepak Chahar bowled measured line and lengths to him. On the other hand, Matthew Wade was going on his merry way and made full use of the shot boundary on one side of the wicket and kept on hitting Sundar and Chahar into gaps and over the infield to score a second consecutive half-century in the series. He was looking ominous at one end while Smith was struggling yet again to keep up the momentum. Kohli introduced Yuzvendra Chahal into the attack just after the power play and both he and Sundar kept it so tight for the Wade-Smith duo that the right-hander felt the urge of doing something against Sundar in the 10th over. Boundaries on the off-side were shorter and tempting for Smith to go against Sundar. He presented a chance to KL Rahul when he walked past a quicker one off Sundar but Rahul fumbled and Smith got the reprieve. He made sure to rub the salt into the wounds and smashed the next ball behind square on the off side with a similar shot that he attempted and missed. Sundar was smart enough to preempt more big shots of him and he also read Smith’s eagerness to go towards the off side. Ultimately, he outsmarted Smith with a slower delivery that found Smith too early in his attempted shot over the infield on the off-side and the ball disturbed his off stump in a much needed relief for both Rahul and India. Maxwell followed Smith’s departure and with him there started a round of controversies and too much happenings on the field. Right in the next over (10th), Natarajan trapped Wade in front of the stumps and no one bothered to appeal but after looking at the replays on the big screen, Kohli decided to review the lbw decision. Wade was quick to object and although the review was called and Wade was found out in line of the stumps, umpires stepped in to deny India the wicket for failing to call for it within the 15 seconds of stipulated time. Wade, too, made good use of the reprieve and deposited Shardul Thakur way back into the stands on his very first ball of the match. Maxwell was not far behind and he made sure Thakur did not get away after conceding a six in the early part of the over. The drama was not over yet as Kohli brought back Chahal to get rid of Maxwell who has a history of struggles against Chahal and the leg spinner got the better of the swashbuckling right-hander by tossing a faster, leg spinning ball outside his eyeline only to be found overstepping as Maxwell, too, earned a reprieve. Maxwell went on to score a half-century off 31 balls but he did not look in as devastating form as he holds the reputation for as India got back in the game with wickets in the end phase of the innings as the last four overs yielded only 41 runs when the situation could have been a lot worse for the visitors. Hardik Pandya was called the Man of the Series for his swashbuckling batting efforts throughout the the T20 series and especially the batting efforts that he put on in the last game to win Indian the game single-handedly in the last over. Mitchell Swepson was called Man of the Match for his highly-impressive spell of 23/3 from his four overs quota. The hosts will be relieved on averting the clean sweep but would be honest to admit that that the touring Indian side exposed many frailties in their team while for the Indian white-ball sides, it would be a learning curve with two T20 world cups coming up in the next two year.

Ajay Jadeja's attempted funny comment goes wrong, draws ire of fans

Former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja, currently working as a commentator on the ongoing India vs Australia T20I series, put his foot in the mouth during the final game of the series on Tuesday. In an attempt to be humourous, he ended up making a comment about Virat Kohli that has drawn criticism from all around. The incident occured during Australia's innings in the match. When Virat dropped a catch offered by Matthew Wade, off the bowling of Washington Sundar, Jadeja, on air at the moment, remarked: "I am not worried about the Indian team but the baby arriving." The comment had missed the mark and soon, the Twitterati were up in arms over it.