IPL 2021: Eight groundstaff members test positive for COVID-19 at the Wankhede Stadium

I consider it my World Cup: Winning WTC is the ultimate goal for ageing Umesh Yadav

India’s fast bowler, Umesh Yadav believes that for players who play very limited to no white-ball cricket, representing the country at the World Test Championship and winning it is the ultimate goal. At 33, Yadav hopes to make it to the playing XI in England and then perform his best to have a lasting memory of the showpiece Test event. "We have worked really hard to get there,” Yadav told ESPNCricinfo about the WTC finale in England. “With players like me who are not regulars in white-ball cricket, it is this that we consider our World Cup. If I am able to perform well in that match and we end up winning, being world champions will forever be a memory," he said. Considering that England is a place where India would like to play with four-seamers, Yadav sees himself being a part of the bowling lineup. "The match is in England, where swing and seam are important, so I definitely see myself in the playing XI for that game," said the Nagpur born. The WTC final is scheduled to take place between India and New Zealand from 18-22 June at Southampton in England. Talking about his future in cricket, Yadav said that he hardly has two to three years to push himself and if he could do that, it would ultimately be beneficial to the team. "I am 33 now and I know that I can mostly pull my body for another two or three years, and there will be some youngsters who will be arriving (to play). I feel this is just healthy because it ultimately ends up benefiting the team,” he said. The Vidarbha bowler who has so far taken 263 wickets in 130 appearances for India feels lucky that he hasn’t faced the brunt of injury as much as some of his peers have had to. “Relatively I haven't had that many injuries. And that is satisfying as a fast bowler, because once a fast bowler starts getting injured (regularly), he tends to start struggling, which ultimately reduces his (playing) life,” said Yadav, who will be playing for Delhi Capitals in the upcoming edition of the IPL.

SA vs PAK: Pakistan does what Pakistan do; mess up easy chase and win last-ball thriller

It was a normal day at SuperSport Park in Centurion with two teams playing usual (referred to as boring in modern lingo) ODI cricket until one of them decided to make it interesting. Pakistan, while chasing down a target of 274 set up by the South African, were having an easy ride, were rather cruising to it at 186-1 in the 32nd over with their young skipper having completed his 13th ODI century in just his 78th game. But Pakistan and things going smoothly are antonyms to an extreme. Babar, trying to be cheeky, edged one to the wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock and was soon followed by his partner Imam-Ul-Haq, jeopardising their chances, but not completely. However, two newcomers, debutant Danish Aziz and relatively inexperienced Asif Ali also fell in the footsteps of their skipper, playing wasteful shots to put Pakistan under all sorts of pressure. From 186-1, they were suddenly 203-5. It was then that the experienced and calm heads of Mohammad Rizwan and Shadab Khan eked out a plan to get the remaining runs, which were required at less than run a ball. The duo added 53 for the seventh wicket. Just when Pakistan looked in complete control, the panic button was pressed once again. Rizwan, trying to hit one out of the park, just managed to hole it out in the deep to Andile Phehlukwayo. The run rate pressure mounted again and from 18 required off 17 balls, the equation got up to 13 off nine balls. But then Pakistan were gifted another lifeline as Lungi Ngidi bowled Shadab, but it was declared a waist-high no-ball and on the free hit, he hit a four and then took three of the last ball to simplify the matters with three required off the last over. So we thought it was over by then, but it wasn’t. Shadab trying to be a superhero, hit the very first ball in the air and was caught by Rassie Van der Dussen at deep Point. Rassie was the one who had dropped him early on. Faheem Ashraf then played three dots with the last of them hitting him on his helmet and the physio rushing to the field for the mandatory concussion check. Whether it was the physio or the ball hitting, but some sense was put in Faheem’s head and to his support, Phehlukwayo, who had kept it short and wide for the first four balls, pitched it fuller and the left-hander hit it down the ground to pick up two and make the match tantalizingly enticing with Super Over hopes getting aroused. With one required of the last ball, Temba Bavuma the skipper brought in the field and blocked all the ways. All that Phehlukwayo was required to do was to land in a near-perfect yorker or a wide yorker at the very best, if not a perfect toe crusher. But he bowled it a pitch-perfect length ball for Faheem to drive past short cover and get to the win. Pakistan won by three wickets. Nortje was the best bowler for the Proteas with four scalps to his credit. Earlier in the day, Babar invited Bavuma’s men to bat after winning the toss. The result was as desired for the Pakistanis (can’t say men in green as both the teams wore almost the same dress) as they picked four wickets pushing the South African train off the tracks. Shaheen Afridi was the wrecker in chief, picking two of those four wickets. Rassie, playing only his 22nd game, turned out to be the saviour for South Africa, scoring his maiden ton and getting the team up to a respectable total of 273-6. He was supported well by David Miller who got a fifty and Phehlukwayo (29 off 35). The two teams will now collide at The Wanderers Stadium in the second ODI on 4th April.

IPL 2021: With Indian core group intact, Simon Katich feels RCB has got the right balance to click

Royal Challengers Bangalore, the side that has not had a great deal of success in the Indian Premier League (IPL) over the years is ready with the right mix of youth, experience, foreign and domestic players, feels coach Simon Katich. Talking about the mini-auction and the team’s development ahead of the new season, Katich said that keeping the core group of Indian talent was their priority. “We made a conscious effort to try and keep the core of the group together. We got to the playoffs after a lot of years and we kept backing a lot of Indian talent, which helped us in getting there,” he said in a video uploaded by the RCB on their official Twitter account. Stating that they have kept the guys they backed last year and are expecting the returns from them, Katich said, “We backed young [Devdutt] Padikkal who had never played IPL and he didn’t let us down. We backed Washington Sundar and played him a full season and he went on to play great cricket for India in the next six month. We also backed young [Mohammed] Siraj and [Navdeep] Saini. These four young Indian players there are the ones that we backed and gave full playing time.” The role of the experience was also highlighted by the former Australian Test opener as he counted on the likes of skipper Virat Kohli and senior men Yuzvendar Chahal and AB de Villiers alongside new recruits Glenn Maxwell and Dan Christian to get them over the line this time around. “Of course with Chahal and Virat, the experience is there and the core of the Indian players is maintained. There was some rejig no doubt, but ultimately we are happy with the team that we have got at the display. And with Maxwell and Dan Christian coming in, we are high on experience as well,” said the 45-year-old. The Challengers play their first game against Mumbai Indians, which will also be the first game of the IPL 2021 and would take place at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

Kuldeep Yadav rues lack of consistent opportunities

Kuldeep Yadav has had a terrible time in the past few months. Once an unputdownable force in the bowling set-up, Kuldeep has found it difficult to even breakthrough into the first XIs of most squads he has been a part of. Then, when he got the opportunity to impress in the ODI series against England, he came up short against a highly aggressive batting line up on pitches not suitable for his style of bowling. Discussing what went wrong for him in the series against England, Kuldeep, in an interview with Mid-Day newspaper, said that a lack of consistent opportunities hampered him in finding consistency in line and lengths. He said that the focus was on finding a perfect length which he and his coach both felt the way to go forward. “It would have been better had I focused on length. If you’re playing regularly, you get an idea about the length and can quickly identify what length to bowl. But when you’re playing with breaks, the length may sometimes be a little up or short. If I work hard on my lengths, it will help me bowl better. My sir [Pandey] felt the same,” Kuldeep said in the interview. Kuldeep Yadav and his spin bowling partner Yuzvendra Chahal came into the picture when India decided to move away from the pair of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who were considered safe options instead of wicket-taking ones to force the issue in the middle phase of the game. They tasted success on the tour of South Africa and England before things started to get tougher for both of them, more so for Kuldeep. One school of thought suggests that batsmen have understood the lack of pace in his bowling and hence he has been found out at the big stage. Kuldeep, however, does not heed to those talks, and instead focussing on improving his skills to bring new weapons up his sleeve to fox batsmen. “I don’t pay attention to all this talk. It’s important that I keep improving my skills and be as accurate as possible. If you’re playing regularly, batsmen tend to read you. If they are getting comfortable playing me, then my job as a bowler is to keep improving. And that’s why I look to add or change a few things every time. With the help of video analysts, batsmen are aware what the bowler is doing…how he is bowling the wrong’un or leg-spin, etc,” Kuldeep added. He said the game remains the same for all batsmen and bowlers as they are competing against each other every day and hence more than being found out, it’s about factors such as rhythm, confidence that also dictate players’ performance over time. “Everyone is here to improve. Despite all the analysis, batsmen still find ways to score runs and bowlers still find different methods to take wickets. There are other factors too like form, rhythm and confidence. If confidence is high, you’ll start taking wickets and people will again start talking good things about you,” Kuldeep asserted. Kuldeep has returned to the Kolkata Knight Riders for the upcoming edition of the IPL and he will have his task cut out to break it into the KKR XI as well after missing out in some games last season.