IPL 2022 will be hosted in India, confirms Jay Shah

Tim Paine should have been stripped of captaincy 3 years ago, mulls CA Chairman

Cricket Australia Chairman Richard Freudenstein is of the opinion that Tim Paine should have been stripped off his Test captaincy back in 2018 when Cricket Australia initially found out about the sex scandal. Speaking at a joint press conference alongside CA CEO Nick Hockley, Freudenstein stated that the decision clearly sent the wrong message and that the role of Australian cricket’s captain should be held to higher standards. "I acknowledge the decision clearly sent the wrong message that this behaviour is acceptable and without serious consequences. Tim Paine on Friday, 19 November resigned from the position of captain with a public statement that he is ashamed of his actions. “Today, I'm announcing my decision to stand down as the captain of the Australian men's test team. It's an incredibly difficult decision, but the right one for me, my family, and cricket,” an emotional Paine had read from a statement.

Watch | Shaheen Afridi loses cool; takes Afif Hossain down in an unnecessary bout of aggression

Pakistan’s star pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi lost his cool while bowling against Bangladesh in the second match of the T20I series. Bowling his second over of the game in the first innings, Afridi had just got hit for a six from newcomer Afif Hossain. The batter had picked up the length ball and had lifted it off his pads for a six behind deep backward square leg. Replying to the shot, Afridi shot back with his trademark yorker, but to no avail, since the batsman read it well and drove the slightly off yorker straight back to the bowler. At this moment, Afridi picked up the ball on his followthrough and chucked it right back at the batter, flooring him with the throw. The ball went on to hit Afif on the back of his foot and he had to be attended by the physio for an extended period of time. Though Afridi went to the Bangladesh batter and apologised straight away, many thought that the action was plain unnecessary. In a fate of Karma, Afridi took a long walk back to his marker and his next ball was hit for another boundary, albeit leg-byes in the very same over. However, Bangladesh failed to put on any resistance from their and surrendered the match scoring a below par total of 108 runs in their 20 overs. The score was never enough to defend and they lost the game by a margin of 8 wickets and 11 balls remaining.

Hapless Bangladesh sink deeper in losing run; surrender T20I series with one game remaining

Bangladesh cricket team lost their seventh T20 International on the bounce to surrender the three match series against visitors Pakistan. Known to be a tough cookie at home conditions, Bangladesh crumbled under the quality bowling attack of Pakistan once again and failed to put up a defendable total for two matches in a row. Batting first in both matches at Dhaka, Bangladesh put up 127 runs in their first game, and scored a meagre 108/7 on Saturday evening. Coming into the defence of the total, the Bangladesh bowlers started the second innings on a great note, removing Babar Azam very early in the innings. The Pakistan batsmen found it difficult to play their shots against pacers who were extracting good carry from the pitch, but Mohammad Rizwan (39 off 45) and Fakhar Zaman saw the tough phase through. The pitch became really sluggish in the latter half of the innings with batsmen finding it very difficult to play their shots, but Fakhar Zaman toiled hard and stayed there till the end to see off the game. He top-scored for Pakistan with 57 off 51 balls. Earlier in the innings, Bangladesh batters were once again rattled by the Pakistan pace attack early in the innings. Both their openers, Mohammad Naim Sheikh (2 off 8) and Saif Hassan (0 off 1) had no clue about what was going on and could not provide the home team with any sort of tempo. The pace trio of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Wasim Jr. were all among wickets, picking up four between the three of them. However, it was Shadab Khan who was the shining star of the Pakistan bowling line up dismissing the dangerous Afif Hossain and a set Najmul Hasan Shanto to break the back of the Bangladesh line-up. With that win, Pakistan continued their strong performance in the shortest format of the game and won the T20I series with a match remaining. The next fixture will be played on Monday, 22 November.

Karnataka just about hold out Vidarbha to enter finals of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy

Tight finishes have started becoming a thing for the Karnataka T20 team after they once again won a closely fought game to enter the finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Playing the semi finals of the 2021 edition, Karnataka sneaked past the opponents to win the game by four runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday 20 November. Defending a decent total of 177, Karnataka were put in a spot of bother after the Vidarbha batters took on the Karnataka bowling attack and added 43 runs for the first wicket in just 5 overs. The attacking game continued from the Vidarbha batsmen but they kept losing wickets in regular intervals failing to convert their starts. Vidarbha’s entire batting order were among runs, but it was the brilliance of KC Cariappa that brought Karnataka back into the game. He bowled the tough overs and dismissed two of Vidarbha’s most attacking batsmen in opener Atharva Taide (32 off 16) and Shubham Dubey (24 off 16). He gave Karnataka their first victory by breaking the opening pair in the penultimate over of the powerplay and bagged the wicket of Dubey right after the break to halt the batting side’s momentum. Even with Cariappa’s spell of four overs, things had to be capped off at the back end of the innings, and a lovely 19th over from Vyshak Vijay Kumar rose up to the occasion and mixed his lines and lengths to keep the batsmen quiet. Despite his good work he did get hit for a six and a four in that over which brought down the equation to 14 off the last over, a fairly gettable total at that point of the game. However, right arm medium pacer Vidhyadhar Patil sealed off the game picking the much needed wicket of Akshay Karnewar in the first ball of the final over. From there, it was just about keep the head on the shoulders, and Patil did that without any problems. Earlier in the day, Karnataka rode on their top three to post a huge total in a crunch game. The hitting was led by Rohan Kadam who was dropped in the very first over of the game by Virdarbha’s captain Apoorv Wadkar behind the stumps. Kadam went on to post 87 off 56 balls and was aided by Manish Pandey (54 off 42) and Abhinav Manohar who played an attacking 27 off 13 late in the innings. Darsham Nalkande was the pick among the bowlers as he picked up four wickets in four balls in the final over of the game. With that, Karnataka have now set up a reverse fixture of the 2019 final against Tamil Nadu where the former won the game in the tightest margins of one run.