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

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.

BCB postpones National Cricket League in wake of rising Covid-19 cases

In a move to keep the players safe from the second wave of Covid-19 that has hit the entire subcontinent, the Bangladesh Cricket Board has decided to postpone the National Cricket League. The Board’s decision came also as a precautionary measure to protect Sri Lanka bound players from getting infected by Covid-19 as the earlier decision was only for the National squad members to skip the third round of the traditional four-day tournament. Later on, however, it was decided to completely postpone the league. In a press release uploaded on its official website, BCB said, “The Tournament Committee of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has deferred the start of the next round of matches of the Bangabandhu 22nd National Cricket League (NCL) to a later date.” “Two rounds of the eight-team NCL has been completed already. Schedule for matches from the third round onwards will be announced later.” The Bangladesh team would be touring Sri Lanka for a two-match Test series starting April 21. Both the fixtures will take place at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in, Pallekele.

WI vs SL | Brathwaite misses out on twin centuries, Holder-Mayers set up perfect finish

A valiant innings of 85 runs and twin fifties from middle-order batsmen Kyle Mayers and Jason Holder helped West Indies put Sri Lanka out of contention of winning the second and final game of the series. In reply to the target of 375 runs, Sri Lanka were 29/0 at the stumps on the fourth day with both Dimuth Karunaratne and Lahiru Thirimanne negotiating the last nine overs of the day. They were helped by wayward bowling by the new ball bowlers in Kemar Roach and Jason Holder. Earlier, to start the day, Pathum Nissanka completed a hardworking fifty to continue his golden run of form with the bat. However, in order to add more runs while batting with the lower order batsmen, he perished to a short ball by Roach. Roach wiped off Vishwa Fernando and with him, Sri Lanka’s first innings in the same over as Windies earned a 96 run lead. The situation demanded a strong partnership between Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell, who has not had a great time with the bat in the last few months. He survived a close LBW call and hit few boundaries to get going but the innings was cut short by an accurate Suranga Lakmal from round the wicket. Needing quick runs with the need to win the game, Windies promoted Jermaine Blackwood to the number three position. There was intent from both batsmen as boundaries started coming off easily for them. A confusion between them in running between the wicket allowed Sri Lanka n opportunity to run Blackwood out, but as they have done on the tour so far, they wasted it. The missed out run out chance got more embarrassing when Blackowdd was dropped in the slips just two overs later. Sri Lanka have been quite poor in the field and they dropped many catches in the first innings to let Swindies get off the hook. Finally, Dushmantha Chameera came on to send Blackwood back to the pavilion although the ball did not deserve a wicket but for the poor short of the batsman. A similar delivery was guided seamlessly by the next man Kyle Mayers and the duo started putting pressure on the bowling line up with calculated assault. Off-spinner Dhananjaya de Silva troubled the left-handed Mayers, but he was saved on the DRS by the very old foe for captains—umpire's call, that that ICC said yesterday is here to stay. Emboldened by the reprieve, Mayers got more belligerent with the bat and put Chameera on his attack list. He was treating the pacer with disdain ad waiting on the backfoot in expectations of short-pitched bowling. There was no improvement in Lank’s fielding as Oshada Fernando grassed yet another chance off Brathwaite of the bowling of Chameera. Both batsmen reached their fifty run-mark and Windies pressed on for more and more runs to force a result in the game. Lakmal came back to see the back of Mayers but there was no respite for the tourists as Holder took off from where Mayers left the crease. A silky drive against de Silva’s spin and the former captain was off and running. He looked in menacing touch and when bowlers tested his backfoot game, he brought ut his whopping pull shots to send the signal to his IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad that although he is away from them, the preparation is well and truly on for the IPL. Brathwaite was nearing his second century of the match but the momentum was not slowing for him. He was finding boundaries with the use of the wrist. However, he missed out on the feat when he tried to be too cheeky against Chameera. Windies were already on the charge and Joshua Da Sliva did not waste any time in stamping his team’s authority on the game. After batting for nearly 75 overs, Windies declared their second innings to have a crack on Sri Lankan batsmen. But, that intent and efforts were thwarted by the Sri Lankan openers and it has set up a perfect finish for a highly riveting final day of the Test and series.

ICC sets up Member Support Fund to help member nations struggling due to Covid-19

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has set up a Member Support Fund worth USD $5 million to help member nations struggling to keep up with the increased cost and lowering revenues amid the Covid-19 pandemic. As per an ESPNcricinfo report, many members nations have sought the ICC’s help to keep the game going amid a scarcity of cash and increased investment. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has made life tougher for Cricketing boards who were already thin on finances. Hosting teams and staging bilateral series have become a tough ask for such boards as now they have to prepare bio-secure arrangements for players and match officials. "There are boards currently who are struggling and are short of cash, who have said that they cannot host cricket as it needs to be during the pandemic. Costs of arranging chartered flights, of ensuring hotels are fully biosecure, which means booking out entire hotels - these are all extra costs that some of the smaller boards have pointed to and said, either we have more money or we can't do it. So it's trying to help cricket carry on,” ESPNcricinfo quoted an official as saying. There have many cancellations of global tournaments that otherwise would have worked to provide cash to these embattling cricket boards and hence ICC finds it imperative to provide the grant to members.