Faf du Plessis set to play for Peshawar Zalmi in PSL play-offs

Shane Watson announces retirement from all forms of cricket: Report

Chennai Super Kings’ star batsman Shane Watson has announced to his CSK teammates about his plans to retire from all forms of cricket, a TOI report claimed. He made public his future in cricket after the team’s win over the Kings XI Punjab in their last match of the season. Shane Watson has been an IPL legend and one of the best all-rounders in the game. He was snapped up by the Super Kings in the auction before the IPL 2018. He was not looking in great touch throughout the tournament but MS Dhoni kept on persisting with him and Watson repaid the faith by scoring a match-winning century in the final against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Before coming into the CSK camp, Watson had also played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals where his exploits with both the bat and ball won him many accolades and a place in the Australian team after a successful IPL in the first edition. For the Chennai Super Kings, Watson was a big-match player who won them the cup in 2018 while missing out narrowly in the next edition last year. Watson was at his best in both the finals of the last two seasons and it was evident of his temperament and quality. In the inaugural edition of the IPL, he had amassed 472 runs from the 15 matches he played in that season and that was good enough for his captain at the Rajasthan Royals Shane Warne to accept his credentials as good enough for Australian cricket. "Throughout the series he has been superb. He lost a bit of the edge in the last few games but today he was absolutely fantastic and showed his class. He's a fantastic all-round cricketer and good enough to be in the Australian team," Shane Warne had said back in 2008 about Shane Watson.

Sanjay Manjrekar tips Prithvi Shaw to emulate Virender Sehwag's batting

Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has tried to help a struggling Prithvi Shaw who has been looking out of sorts in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League. Manjrekar tweeted and advised Shaw to show some restraint and not look for shots that he is not good with or does not have the confidence to pull off those ‘impossible shots.’ He went further and suggested him to take former Indian opener Virender Sehwag as a role model and emulate his style of stroke playing where he persisted with only those shots on which he had full confidence and had the game to pull off. Prithvi Shaw has been going through a slump in the IPL 2020 and has also been dropped due to a longer streak of failures. He was then recalled to the playing Xi in the last game against the Delhi Capitals where he kept on attacking Trent Boult’s deliveries that were not pitched in the zones suitable for hitting shots in his areas of strength. Ultimately, he perished in the attempt to force the issue against Boult and it prompted Manjrekar to come up with the suggestion to come back to his best. The Delhi Capitals are set to take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in their last match before the playoffs begin and they will need Shaw to shine on the night against Virat Kohli’s men if they have to stand any chance to secure a top two position on the points table of this year’s IPL.

BCCI inks deal with MPL as the new apparel sponsor of Indian cricket team

The Board of Control for Cricket in India has handed out the sponsorship of the apparel of the Indian cricket team to fantasy gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL). The sponsorship will be in place for a period of three years and MPL will replace the existing apparel sponsor, Nike, as per a PTI report. The report further suggests that MPL and the BCCI have agreed for match fees of Rs 65 lakh which is significantly lower than what Nike was offering. “Yes, Apex Council has passed the sponsorship deal for the apparel of Indian team. However the rate per match will be ₹65 lakh per game instead of ₹88 lakh that Nike was giving,” PTI quoted an unnamed BCCI official. Nike had a five-year contract with the BCCI in which the clothing and accessories behemoth paid Rs 370 crore for the period between 2016-2020 along with royalty of Rs 30 crore. The ongoing global economic downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc in the business community and the BCCI was aware of the challenges at its hands given that no major apparel company agreed to pay as much as Nike had agreed to pay while signing the sponsorship contract in 2016.

IPL 2020 | KKR vs RR: Hits and Flops as Big guns finally deliver for the Knight Riders

It was as clinical as it can get for the Knight Riders as they defeated Rajasthan Royals by a huge margin of 60 runs to give themselves a good enough chance to qualify for the Playoffs in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League. Eoin Morgan, the skipper led with an example as even after losing the toss, the Knight Riders put on more than just a competitive total of 191 runs on the board. If the batting was better than expected, then the bowling just raised itself above the level of any expectations, as another big-game player, Pat Cummins decided to turn this game on its head as he picked up four wickets in the powerplay to dismantle the RR innings altogether. While all this was taking place, Dinesh Karthik, the former captain probably played the most crucial of the roles as he took a blinder to remove the danger man Ben Stokes after he got a flashy edge off a Cummins delivery. There were certain flop performances as well, but they were mostly in the ranks of the Royals. On this note, let’s have a look at the Hits and Flops of the game. Hits #1 Pat Cummins After being hit for 19 in the first five balls of the first over, Pat Cummins made a strong comeback as he picked up the wicket of Robin Uthappa off the final delivery of his first over, and then on the first delivery of his next over, he removed the most precious of the Royals’ wickets, Ben Strokes. The credit for this wicket was however stolen of Dinesh Karthik and he rightly deserved it as well. Cummins didn’t stop there as he went on to claim three more in his first spell, breaking the backbone of the Rajasthan innings. Finishing with the figures of 4/34 after conceding 19 in the first over is a phenomenal feat achieved by Cummins. #2 Eoin Morgan After shuffling across the batting order, the skipper finally found his place at number five. Having persisted with that number in the last few games, he eked out a mind-blowing performance in this game scoring 68 off just 35 balls at the strike rate of almost 195. More important than the number of runs was the situation in which he scored those runs. He put together two handy partnerships with Andre Russell and Cummins of 45 and 40 each to push the score from 99-3 in the 13th over to 191 by the end of the 20th. His innings included five fours and six sixes. Captaincy wise too, the Englishman was spot on with his changes and field placements. #3 Shivam Mavi The captain Eoin Morgan, in his post-match interaction at the presentation ceremony praised Shivam Mavi saying that although it was Cummins who picked up most of the wickets, the diligence of Mavi must not be sidelined because he stuck to bowling the hard line of the good length which was discussed in the team meeting. The Uttar Pradesh born indeed bowled the hard-line and got the crucial wicket of in-form Sanju Samson. Later on, the bowler was back to pick one more wicket of Kartik Tyagi in his last over. Mavi finished with impressive figures of 2/15 in his four overs, going at even less than four an over. Flops #1 Steve Smith The Rajasthan captain has remained a flop throughout the tournament barring a few games. As told by Ashish Nehra during the live commentary of the match, Smith has looked to hit the bowl hard instead of timing it and that has led to his downfall this season. In the last 10 games that he has played in the IPL, Smith could only manage to get one fifty and score just 184 runs at an average of 20.44 In this game too, he got played down of a straighter delivery from Pat Cummins, the reason being he wanted to hit the ball hard. #2 Sanju Samson Having played amazing knocks in the Royals’ victories, it was needed that Samson stayed at the crease and build a partnership with others, especially after the fall of two big wickets in Ben Stokes and Steve Smith. But he could barely open his account as he was caught by Dinesh Karthik off a ripper from Shivam Mavi. Having won this game, KKR and their fans would now pray that either Sunrisers Hyderabad simply lose their game or the game between Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore gets one-sided.