IPL 2020 | MI vs RR: Twitter reacts as Rohit's Mumbai thrashes Steve Smith's Royals

India tour of Australia schedule confirmed, Blue Brigade to play the day-night Test in Adelaide

The schedule of the Indian team’s tour of Australia has been confirmed with the Blue Brigade playing their first day-night Test overseas in Adelaide. The Virat Kohli led team would travel to Australia right after the end of the IPL on November 10 reported ESPNCricinfo.com White ball cricket would start the competition with three ODIs in Brisbane followed by three T20Is in Adelaide. India’s second Pink ball Test, first outside India, would be played in Adelaide and the boxing day Test would be held at its natural venue of Melbourne. While the First test would be held between December 17 and 21, the Boxing Day Test is likely to be held from December 26-30 followed by Tests in Sydney and Brisbane. Before the Pink Ball test, to acclimatize to the conditions, the Indian team would play a warm-up Pink ball Test in Adelaide as well. Before making the official announcement, both Cricket Australia and the Board of Control for Cricket in India are waiting for the formal nods from the state governments in Australia. The Indian team and the Australian players playing in the IPL would require the permission of the Queensland Government for arrival and the SOP for the number of days in quarantine, which as yet not been decided.

IPL 2020: SRH brings Andhra's Prithvi Raj Yarra as Bhuvneshwar Kumar's replacement

The Sunrisers Hyderabad has named a replacement for Bhuvneshwar Kumar who was ruled out from the remainder of this season of the Indian Premier League. The David Warner-led team has called up left-arm pacer from Andhra Pradesh Prithvi Raj Yarra to fill the slot left void by Bhvneshwar’s injury. The team took to its Twitter handle to confirm the status of Bhuvneshwar’s injury and said that the Indian pacer has been ruled out and also announced the inclusion of Prithvi Raj Yarra into the squad. Getting into the SRH team will be sort of Deja Vu for Yarra who had made his debut against the Sunrisers only for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the last season. In the two matches, he was given the chance to play, Yarra has not been impressive and gave away runs with an economy rate in excess of 11 runs per over. The Sunrisers are struggling to cope up in this season and have lost three out of five matches they have played this season. While the bowlers have struggled to find consistency, Hyderabad’s batsmen have been looking for form in this season.

IPL 2020 | KKR vs CSK: Match Preview, Predicted XI & Dream 11 Fantasy Picks

After the team got back on the winning ways MS Dhoni would hope the streak will be longer than the losing streak the team was having when it will meet the Kolkata Knight Riders in Abu Dhabi while the men in blue and purple would hope for a turnaround after a placid show in the last game against the Delhi Capitals. The Knight Riders were witness to Murphy’s law that states everything that can go wrong will go wrong while the Super Kings had their luck completely opposite to them, with all the departments clicking in unison. KKR’s bowlers were wayward while batsmen lacked steam, a problem that the Chennai Super Kings may well have resolved, at least at the top of the order. Chennai Super Kings were struggling to get going at a brisk pace at the start of the inning, but a shock of three losses on the trot following the age-old strategy of taking the game deep rang an alarm in the yellow camp. Openers came to all guns blazing and once they warded off their rustiness against the new ball, there were no looking for the pair of Faf Du Plessis and Shane Watson who made the mockery of the Kings XI Punjab’s bowling attack. It was not all about the CSK’s batting in the last game, as the bowlers, too, looked to have learned hard lessons from those three defeats until then and bowled well in tandem. Ravindra Jadeja was back to his best in both bowling and fielding and the return of Dwayne Bravo also bolstered the bowling attack in the middle overs. On the other hand, the Kolkata Knight Riders need a lot of resurrection in both the team selection and the batting order. Captain Dinesh Karthik’s form has gone off the boil in the last couple of IPL seasons and that he has slotted himself at the number four position leaves players such as Andre Russell and Eoin Morgan with far too few balls to change the course of a game. On the issue of the underperforming top order, the romanticisation of Sunil Narine as an opener has to be stopped and he should be replaced with Rahul Tripathi whose class has been wasted down the order. Tripathi has shown his credentials against the new ball in the IPL 2017 when he played for Rising Pune Supergiant and it’s high time KKR management back him to come good at the start of the inning. On the bowling front as well, the Knight Riders have been poor in execution, and the day when Pat Cummins has failed to give the team a decent start, the KKr has ended up leaking too many runs and putting too much of pressure on the batting line up. Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings: Match Details Match number- 21 Date: October 7, 2020 at 7:30 PM IST, 02:00 PM GMT, 6:00 PM Local Venue: Abu Dhabi Pitch and weather The Kolkata Knight Riders will face Chennai Super Kings on a used pitch and that can bring spinners into the game. Abu Dhabi has seen the onset of due in the latter part of the game and that will be on captains’ mind at the toss. Chasing has been tough in the side but the Super Kings were too good while chasing in their last game and MS Dhoni may very well opt to bat second in hope of due and similar performance from the batsmen. Weather conditions will remain ideal to play cricket with the temperature hovering in the range between 30 degrees to 40 degrees and lower humidity during the night time will also help players in the field. Team News Kolkata Knight Riders Kolkata Knight Riders will look to amend their batting strategies and may look at Tom Banton in place of Sunil Narine who has looked a pale shadow of himself in this season so far. He has failed with both bat and ball and the KKR management may put its weight behind the dazzling Englishman who has been rated highly for his freakish batting in the shortest format. The team had dropped Kuldeep Yadav looking at the Delhi’s batsmen hard-hitting skills against spinners and opted for Varun Chakravarthy along with three pacers in Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, and Kamlesh Nagarkot. The strategy did not work well and the team is likely to walk back on it, bringing back Kuldeep Yadav in place of any of Mavi and Nagarkoti. Expected XI Rahul Tripathi, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tom Banton, Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik (captain and wk), Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti/Shivam Mavi Chennai Super Kings The Super Kings are not known for changing their team too often and when the team pulled off a clinical performance in the last game, it is unlikely they will change it in the match against the Knight Riders. MS Dhoni would hope for a similar return for his bowlers, especially spinners and batsmen to carry on with the momentum and a regained touch at the top. Kedar Jadhav’s place in the playing XI has been under the scanner for a very long time but knowing Dhoni’s modus operandi, it’s unlikely that he will be shown the door in the game against the Knight Riders. Expected XI Shane Watson, Faf Du Plessis Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (captain and wk), Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Piyush Chawla Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings: Dream 11 team and tips Faf Du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, Eoin Morgan, Shubman Gill, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Andre Russell, Deepak Chahar, Pat Cummins, Kuldeep Yadav Captain: Eoin Morgan Vice-captain: Ambati Rayudu

Pacer of Sikh origin dreams big to play for Pakistan against India

Mahinder Pal Singh, a 20-year-old Sikh boy from Pakistan is dreaming big to represent his country of birth-Pakistan at the international stage. Mahinder wants to earn for himself and is ambitious to be a hero of big and eye-catching matches such as between India and Pakistan. He has also discussed his family life in an interview given to Pakassion.net and said that his relatives and friends residing in India will root for Pakistan in the matches when he will represent Pakistan. “Absolutely. It would mean so much to me to play for Pakistan against India at any level of cricket. If you ask any cricketer, they will say that they want to play in high-pressure matches, the big occasions where the world is watching. India versus Pakistan is always a special occasion and I would love the opportunity to be a part of this occasion at some point in the future in my cricketing career. I would love to be called a hero in a high-tempo match, against strong opposition and watched by fans all around the world. I have relatives in Punjab in India, my aunt lives there along with many other relatives who we meet on a regular basis. As well as this, I have a lot of fans in India, especially from Punjab who always wish me well and say that if I ever play for Pakistan, they will support me and Pakistan in those matches,” Singh told Pakpassion.net when asked about his aspiration to play big games and especially against India. Talking about the difficulties he has to deal with in pursuit of survival and becoming a cricketer from the Sikh community in Pakistan, Mahinder Pal Singh said that he never give up on working hard on his dreams and that he did not heed to the advice given by many to leave the fantasy of playing cricket in Pakistan because of his Sikhi origin. “Many people said to me, don’t be silly about playing cricket professionally in Pakistan. They said to me, as a Sikh you have no chance as you will always be discriminated against. But in my heart, there was this burning desire to prove people wrong and I knew that if I worked hard nothing could hold me back. I’ve had to struggle a lot and there have been some very tough days but I am not prepared to give up on my dream. I have encountered discrimination at many levels and some snide comments, but there are good and bad people everywhere. If one out of 100 people is racist, that means that the other 99 people are not. I tend to focus on the good people who support me and encourage me, rather than worrying about the 1% of the ignorant people who offer negative opinions about me,’ Singh added in his response to Pakpassion.net. Singh also said that he takes inspiration from Bhupinder Singh and Gulab Singh, only two players of Sikh origin who went on to play for Pakistan' domestic cricket but failed to go higher to the international level instead of getting dismayed from his path in trying to win a national call up. Mahinder Pal Singh had burst onto the scene after his selection into the camp of emerging fast bowlers organised by Pakistan's National Cricket Academy coaches and currently plays for Wahadat Eaglets Club Lahore where former Pakistan pace bowler Mohsin Kamal played for and Babar Azam played for this club until he was 16 years old.