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Ind Vs Wi Suryakumar Yadav Rohit Sharma Hold India Strong In First T20i

IND vs WI | Suryakumar Yadav & Rohit Sharma hold India strong in first T20I

India registered a 6-wicket victory against West Indies at Eden Gardens on Wednesday, 16 February. Two belligerent innings from Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav set India on the path of victory despite their other players struggling for most of the innings.

Chasing 158 on a pitch that slightly gripped, Rohit Shamra got off to a belligerent start at his favourite venue and scored 40 off 19 before holing Roston Chase out to mid wicket. While the captain was off to a flyer, his Mumbai Indians understudy Ishan Kishan struggled to find timing and scored an underwhelming 35 off 42 and once again fell victim to Roston Chase in the deep.

Virat Kohli looked good for his 17 but was caught at long off by Kieron Pollard while trying to clear Fabian Allen.

Just when runs were becoming scarce Suryakumar Yadav showed his ability once again and brought his full repertoire of shots to the party, scoring all over the ground. 35 off 18 got the runs flowing once again and introduction of Venkatesh Iyer after Rishab Pant’s soft dismissal helped. He started hitting boundaries from the word go and scored 24 off 13 on the other end helping India chase down 158 with 7 balls remaining.

Earlier in the innings, West Indies’ conservative approach to their batting in the first 10 overs turned out to be the writing on the wall. They struggled to hit the pacers early on and then could not get away debutant Ravi Bishnoi. All among Brandon King, Rovman Powell and Roston Chase failed to score while Kyle Mayers put on a struggling 31 off 24 balls.

This meant that Nicholas Pooran dug deep and latched on to his crease till the time he could start getting his shots away. Pooran stayed till the 18th over of the match and scored an exciting 61 off 43 balls which was laden with 4 boundaries and 5 sixes. Barring the left hander, Kieron Pollard also scored 24 off 19 to take Windies to a safe score which turned out to be too low on the day.

Ravi Bishnoi was declared the player of the match for his great outing of 4-0-17-2; he admitted being nervous at the start of the game resulted in a lot of wides getting bowled. He stated that he understands his strengths and he will work on them in the next matches.

With the win, India have stretched their run of win to four matches and will look to continue it in the next two games remaining in the series.

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West Indies tour of India 2022

IND vs WI | India restrict Windies for 157; Bishnoi picks 2 on debut

India largely managed to keep West Indies at bay managing to keep them restricted to 157 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in their registered 20 overs. Having bowled well in the entire first half of the innings, India had the grip on West Indies till the 13th over of the game with Windies struggling at 81/4. However, fielding restrictions were put on India for the final two overs of the game for slow over-rate and aided by Nicholas Pooran’s superb innings, Windies went up to 157 runs scoring over 65 runs in the final 5 overs. Pooran was slow to start off with but went on about business attacking the likes of Yuzvendra Chahal and Harshal Patel. He scored his half century in 38 balls when Windies desperately needed someone to dig deep. Kieron Pollard finished with 24 off 19 making sure the Windies had at least something to defend. For India, debutant Ravi Bishnoi did superbly well and picked two wickets for just 17 runs, barring Bishnoi Harshal Patel also picked two but gave away 37 runs in return.

Watch | Nepal Cricket Team wins heart for displaying "Spirit of Cricket" against Ireland

Nepal wicketkeeper Mohammad Asif Sheikh and his side won hearts around the cricketing world, during a fixture against Ireland on Monday (February 14), for their brilliant gesture of "Spirit of Cricket". On Monday, Nepal locked horns with the Irishmen in the 6th match of the Oman Quadrangular T20I series at the Al-Amerat Cricket Ground at Muscat. The incident took place during the penultimate over of Ireland's innings when Mark Adair tried to hit the ball on the on-side, delivered by Kamal Singh Airee. He failed to make a good connection and tried to steal a quick single. In the process, the non-striker Andy Balbirnie went on to collide with the bowler. Even though Airee picked the ball and threw it to wicket-keeper Sheikh, the latter decider against whipping off the bails to effect an easy run-out. Commentator Andrew Leonard couldn't hold back his emotions and declared it as the "Spirit of Cricket" moment of the year. He said: "I’ve got goosebumps here in the commentary box because that’s a touching moment. It was accidental, and he could have run him out here, and Aasif Sheikh has said, ‘No, he’s not going to do it because of the spirit of the game’. That’s your nominee for the Spirit of Cricket Award for 2022 for the ICC.” Here’s the video: Nepal's heartwarming gesture has earned them plaudits from the Cricket fraternity as well as fans, who took to social media to laud them. Coming back to the game, Ireland eventually posted 127 in 20 overs with George Dockrell top-scoring with a 22-ball 28. In reply, Nepal could only muster 9-111 in 20 overs, with keeper Aasif Sheikh (23 off 22 deliveries) and Dipendra Singh (28 off 30 deliveries) managing in excess of 20 runs. It was a disciplined all-round bowling performance from the Irish, with Andy McBride spearheading it with figures of 2/13 in four overs. Nepal may have lost the Match comprehensively but they turned out to be the real winners in Muscat that day.

BPL 2022 | Tactical disaster-class throws Chattogram out of the competition

After storming into the Qualifiers of the Bangladesh Premier League by defeating Khulna Tigers in the first knockout game, Chattogram Challengers fell victim to their own madness on Wednesday, February 16. After posting a below par total of 148 runs in a good pitch, Challengers were thrown out of context in the first 6 overs after Sunil Narine took them out of the park. Not only did Narine score the fastest BPL half century in the game, he also helped Comilla post the highest powerplay score of 84 runs in the competition. With just 65 required off the last 84 balls, it was a walk in the park for a batting line up that houses the likes of Faf du Plessis and Moeen Ali. Both the international batters remained not out after Narine’s dismissal and won the game with 7 wickets and 43 balls remaining. While Moeen scored 30 off 13, Faf scored the same number of runs in 23 balls. Challengers were themselves to be blamed for the awful planning as they fed Sunil Narine three overs of spin in the powerplay. The elite spin hitter, who is known for this very specific skill set all over the world hit the fastest 50 ever scored in the history of BPL and in Bangladesh to put Comilla in an undefeatable position inside the first 5 overs. Narine - as expected got out to pace in the sixth over of the game scoring 57 off 16. From their it was just about game management and risk free cricket as After electing to bat first in the first innings, Chattogram straightaway had to deal with the initial new ball movement from Abu Hider and Mustafizur Rahman. Despite starting well in the first over, opener Will Jacks looked frustrated with the amount of movement the pacers were extracting and played a rash shot against Shohidul Islam in the fourth over right after getting beaten by a jaffa in the earlier ball. This ensued a flurry of wickets, all of them where batters looked impatient early in the game. Right after Jacks was Chadwick Walton who was caught plumb in front trying to sweep spinner Tanvir Islam. And then came the worst bit. A double wicket maiden in the final over of the powerplay from Moeen Ali dedicated the terms to Chattogram straightaway. And this is where the think tank and the players need to be blamed. When the game demanded stability, Chattogram batters got out via schoolboy errors, either trying to hit a ball that was never in the arc or trying to step down and then missing the ball. It was only for late hitting of Akbar Ali and Mritunjoy Chowdhury that brought Chattogram a decent total before they were wrapped up in the first ball of the final over. However, it would turn out to be too low as tactical failure early in the second innings of the game would make it a cake walk for Comilla who would go on to seal the game by 7 wickets.

Kiwi commentator dissects why Suresh Raina was unsold at Auctions

Former New Zealand cricketer and renowned commentator Simon Doull has listed possible reasons behind veteran middle-order batsman Suresh Raina going unsold in the recent mega-auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Raina, who is one of the greatest-ever to feature in the cash-rich league, found no takers over the span of two days in the recent auction. Dubbed as 'Mr IPL' for his stellar performances over the years, Raina, along with MS Dhoni, was the heartbeat of the Chennai franchise. However, the events of the past two years may have led to Raina losing faith of both Dhoni, as well as the franchise, feels Doull. "There are two to three parts to it. He lost his loyalty in the UAE, we don't need to go on (and talk about) why it was. There's enough speculation about that. He lost the loyalty of the team and he lost the loyalty of MS Dhoni. Once you do that, you're very unlikely to be welcomed back,” Doull said on CricBuzz. The incident Doull was referring to took place in 2020 when Raina controversially pulled out of the season, citing family issues. He did return for last year's edition but was eventually dropped for Robin Uthappa due to poor form at the business end of the season. Secondly, Doull reckoned that since Raina no longer plays international and domestic cricket and given his well-documented issues against the short ball, he made a big mistake by putting his base price as high as Rs 2 Crore. "You're not fit and you're scared of the short ball. You're not playing 500 USD for him in any auction,” reckoned the former New Zealand seamer. “He's been an absolute great of the IPL. One of the leading lights in the first 8-9 years, but unfortunately time comes to an end. You do silly things and you pay the price," he added. Raina remains the fourth-highest run-scorer in the history of the IPL. In 205 games, he scored 5528 runs at an average of 32.51 and a strike rate of 136.76 with the help of 39 half-centuries and a solitary hundred.