Jasprit Bumrah is being monitored: Vikram Rathour

Dominic Bess rattles Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka have been bundled out for 132 in the first innings of the first Test against England in Galle. Batting first, the home side had a terrible start to the proceedings after losing three wickets at a team score of 25. Angelo Mathews and captain Dinesh Chandimal tried to steady the ship for the side as the two batsmen put up 56 runs for the fourth wicket before Mathews departed for 27. Sri Lanka then saw a flurry of wickets and were reduced to 105/6 to eventually get bundled out for 132. Chandimal top scored with 28. For England it was Dominic Bess who was the star with the ball after he picked up a fifer while Stuart Broad rattled Sri Lanka’s top order to scalp a three-for. Kusal Mendis woes continued as he registered his fourth duck on the trot. England are missing the services of all-rounder Moeen Ali who tested positive for COVID-19 while Ben Stokes has also been rested. Dimuth Karunaratne had earlier said that the hosts do have an advantage over England. "From the last series they played against us, Stokes is not in their squad and Jennings is not in the team. And Stokes is the guy who balanced their team. The players in the current squad don't have much experience in these conditions. "That said, we shouldn't take it easy. They've prepared well, and I've seen how well they've prepared. They've also been playing cricket and they were the first ones to start playing Tests again after Covid hit. Their fitness levels are still up there. We only started again against South Africa, and because of the injury concerns, we've lost players."

Australia captain Tim Paine urges fans to leave all abuses at Gabba's gate

Australian captain Tim Paine has advised the crowds who are looking to come into the Gabba where the fourth and the final Test of the summer is scheduled to be played, to come without their racial standpoints and leave all of them at the gate of the stadium. Paine reiterated his and the stand of the Australian team saying that spectators entering into stadiums are entitled to support neither team or even the match officials, but any sort of abuse and more so the racial abuse will not be tolerated one bit. "In terms of crowd behaviour - we don't condone the abuse of anyone; let alone from the racial standpoint. So we want people to come along to the Gabba, enjoy the game of cricket, support Australia, support India. Support the umpires if you like. But my suggestion is you leave the abuse at the gate and just respect the players, respect the game and have a good time,” Paine said in the pre-match virtual press conference. Paine too was caught in the crossfire of confrontation between the players on either side of the fence and he was the principal figure of the sledge that took place on the fifth day of the Test. He was the one who started the act of getting into the skin of the opponent, and it led to a proper verbal duel between him and Ashwin. Paine said that he will try to handle the pressure in different ways than he did in the Sydney Test and regain the focus on leading his own team, rather than paying attention to what the opposition team is up to. "I just think I'll handle it differently. I let it get under my skin, no doubt about that. I've admitted that - but for me, it's about rising above it and concentrating on what I'm doing and concentrating on leading my team, not worrying about what is going on with the other side. That's the focus for us, we've spoken a lot this game about controlling what we can control and focusing more inwardly on ourselves. If we do that, we'll be in a good position,” Pain added. "If you look throughout my whole career, I think I've done a pretty good job of staying relaxed for 99% of it. Again, it's going back to how I play my best cricket [and] that's [by] having a smile on my face, enjoying cricket for what it is - a game. And at times the other day, I certainly thought I got caught up in the moment. What I've been really good at is being able to step back - even just have a look around the crowd at times - and realise that at that very second, you're captaining your country in a Test match. "It's something I have always wanted to do, so remind yourself that way to enjoy it. Obviously, I'm going to compete very hard, that's what I do. I want to win as much as anyone and I'm a competitive player but there's a fine line. It's the same with my batting - if I'm too tense and trying too hard to fight hard, then I am a pretty ordinary batter. If I look to go out, relax, have fun and look to score then I'm normally a much better player - it's just a slight tweak in my mindset. It's nothing new to me, it's getting back to what I normally do." Paine had called Ashwin ‘...head’ and it led to former stars calling for his ouster as the leader of the Australian Test team, but Paine insisted on muting the voices around him and his team. "I have noted but I'm not going into it, getting into a back and forth with Sunny Gavaskar. I don't think I'm going to win that. Look, he's entitled to his opinion. It doesn't affect us one iota. Anything it's adding to the Test match which is great. So Sunny can keep saying what he wants to say but at the end of the day, it's absolutely got nothing to do with him,” Paine addressed the criticism he faced after a heated day five in Sydney.

R Ashwin can pick 800 Test wickets: Muttiah Muralitharan

Former Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has said that India’ R Ashwin has the potential to scalp 800 Test wickets and further added that Australia’s Nathan Lyon is good but doesn’t have the ability to go that far. “Ashwin has a chance because he is a great bowler. Other than that, I don’t think any younger bowler coming in will go to 800. Maybe Nathan Lyon is not good enough to reach it. He is close to 400 (396) but he has had to play many, many matches to get there,” Muralitharan was quoted as saying in a Michael Vaughan column for the London-based Telegraph. The Indian spinner has picked up 377 wickets in 74 Test appearances for India at an average of 25.53 while Lyon has played 99 Tests for Australia at an average of 31.98. Muralitharan who has picked up 800 wickets in Test cricket talks about how T20Is have changed the dynamics of the game. The problem in Test cricket is that Twenty20s and one-day internationals have changed the dynamics. “When I played, the batsmen were technically so good and wickets were flat; now, they try to finish matches in three days. The bowlers in my day had to do extra work to get spin and do something magic to get results.” India and Australia will lock horns with each other in the decider in Brisbane slated to begin on Friday.

Ashwin was crawling on floor reveals wife Prithi

India’s R Ashwin played one of the finest innings during the third Test against Australia in Sydney after leading the way to a draw alongside Hanuma Vihari. Ashwin scored an unbeaten 39 off 128 in the second innings at SCG. In a column for the Indian Express, Ashwin's wife Prithi Narayan has explained the kind of pain Ashwin was going through. "It had been a tense morning. Over the years, I have seen him handle pain and know he has a high threshold for it, but I had never seen him like this. He was crawling on the floor. He couldn’t get up or bend down. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to play and the snack-break comment was said only in half-jest. As he was about to leave, he said, 'I have to play. I have to get this done'," Prithi wrote. Are you fine, physically?' I asked him and he shot back, 'Didn’t you see me bowl?!' and said he felt he had a tweak in the back that was beginning to hurt. He felt during warm-ups that morning that he stepped awkwardly and did something to his back,” she added. India rode on some fine batting performances from Cheteshwar Pujara, Rishabh Pant, Hanuma Vihari and Ashwin to end the game as a draw while they were handed a target of 407. Pujara scored 77 while Pant and Vihari struck 97 and 23* respectively as India ended the second innings at 334/5 in 131 overs. The Indian team has been facing a some injury concerns on this tour. Vihari and Jadeja have been ruled out after the third Test. Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and KL Rahul had sustained injuries earlier. The two team now take on each in the deciding Test in Brisbane scheduled to begin on Friday.