Jay Shah becomes the youngest President of Asian Cricket Council

Match Report: Vince’s blitz blows scorchers away; glides Sixers into consecutive BBL final

Sixers opener James Vince it seems had saved the best for the last as he brought out his best in the season so far, scoring a brilliant 98* to beat Scorchers comprehensively at Manuka Oval and take his team to consecutive BBL finals. Vince missed out on the opportunity to score the first hundred for Sixers in this year’s league as he was denied the opportunity by an Andrew Tye wide when the Men in Pink needed one to win and, he needed two for the century. With this win, the Sixers have also reserved a right to play at their home ground the Sydney Cricket ground for the first time in BBL10. Chasing a moderate total of 168 set up by the Scorchers, the Sixers got off to a great start as Josh Philippe and James Vince took the team to 92 in just nine overs. They almost got the match away from the Scorchers with the opening partnership and if there was any hope left for Scorchers revival in the game, it was downed by the second wicket partnership between Vince and Hughes. The two added 76 in just 49 balls and got over with the match pretty quick. Earlier in the evening, contrary to the expectations, Ashton Turner, the Scorchers skipper won the toss and decided to bat first. His decision backfired as there was a lot of dew in the second innings, which as apparent from his decision, he and the Scorchers management did not expect. What cost them more was the fact that they were not being able to get to a good total to defend in the second innings when the dew hit in. The Scorchers were hurried on by the pace of Ben Dwarshuis and Sean Abbott early on as they lost wickets regularly. It was only after josh Inglis got together with Colin Munro to get Scorchers out of the mess as they two of them steadied the ship adding 42 of 36 balls before Munro was trapped by Bird via Jordan Silk on the boundary lines. Mitchell Marsh then had a howler of a decision by Umpire giving him out caught behind when he clearly hadn’t touched the ball. Had it not been for the partnership between skipper Turner and Inglis, getting to 150 seemed tough for the Orange brigade at one point of time. Inglis, who has been in great touch in this entire season, scored an important 69* off 41 balls while Turner got 33 off 22 as they added 59 of 34 balls to take Scorchers to a fighting total of 167 in 20 overs. Having lost the Qualifier, Scorchers would now await the winner of the Knockout between Brisbane Heat and Sydney Thunder to play the Challenger at the Optus in Perth, to be played on 04th February.

You won’t see all best players in every series: Jos Buttler

England wicket-keeper batsman Joe Buttler has said that the top players will not feature in every series in the coming year to focus on there mental well-being. “You want your strongest team out every time, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem possible at the moment,” Buttler said during a virtual media conference. “It’s certainly a challenge but people around the world are going through tough situations. The pandemic has had people whose world has been turned upside down and we are very fortunate to play cricket and do our job that we love,” Buttler said. But Buttler did admit that it is challenging to stay away from family for along time. “Having said that you do find it challenging having to stay away from your families, being in quarantine and locked up in hotels. ECB has been forward thinking in rotating players for this series. “At times, it’s frustrating as you want to have best players on the show all the time but it’s not possible with the amount of time that one spends in a bio bubble. You can’t expect people to keep doing that,” he said during the conference organised by ECB for Indian journalists. India and England will play each other in four Tests, five T20Is and three ODIs. The Test series begins on February 5 in Chennai.

SMAT 2021 Final: Tamil Nadu hold edge over Baroda

Dinesh Karthik led Tamil Nadu will be playing in their third Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final and for the first time in two consecutive finals after being beaten by Karnataka in a thriller last year. This time around the opposition is Baroda, who have shocked most cricket pundits by beating two heavyweights in Haryana and Punjab in the knockouts and Gujarat at the group stage, remaining unbeaten throughout their campaign. Battle of perseverance Both the teams in the finals are battle-hardened having come out of all sorts of trouble in the entire tournament and remaining unbeaten throughout. While Tamil Nadu faced their biggest hurdle in the quarterfinal against Himachal Pradesh, Baroda had been subjected to danger right in their first game against Uttarakhand which they won by four runs and then again against Haryana which they won on the last ball of the match through Vishnu Solanki’s heroics. Thus in this game both the teams would be looking to bank on their skills to come out of the troublesome situations. A lot will also depend on the captaincy of Kedar Devdhar and Dinesh Karthik as both of them have been great with their decision-making skills. How they deal with the best team they are going to face would be interesting to see. Baroda would also be a bit more pumped in a way that they have beaten quality sides on their run-up to the finals in their last three games while Tamil Nadu’s win over Himachal and Rajasthan could not be rated as highly, mostly due to the absence of stars in both the teams as compared to those present in Punjab and Haryana, which Baroda have beaten. Players to watch out for Both the teams have some great players who have shown throughout the tournament. Some of them have really shone and turned the game on its head from unbelievable situations. Thus, in the final, the following players can turn out to be the game-changers. Tamil Nadu Narayan Jagadeesan Jagadeesan has been Mr Consisitent for the team from down south so far with 350 runs in seven innings with an average of almost 88 (87.50), which is huge for a T20 tournament. His strike rate of 142.27 is also as good as it gets for an opener. Thus he is going to be an important wicket for Broda, although he hasn’t been able to make a big impact in the Knockouts so far. Sai Kishore Sai Kishore is another Tamil Nadu youngster who has utilised the opportunity to make a case for himself, especially in this tournament with an amazing economy rate of 5.16, although he has taken just eight wickets in seven games. But more than the wickets, it’s the amount of pressure that he puts on the batsmen which eventually leads to wickets for other bowlers too. Dinesh Karthik The name is enough for this man. With the amount of experience that he has got of playing at higher levels, he is always going to be a man to watch out for. In this tournament heh has socred 161 runs but has been out only twice in seven innings and has an average of 80 alongside a strike rate of 161. Baroda Kedar Devdhar For Baroda, their acting captain (in absence of Krunal Pandya) Kedar Devdhar has done amazingly well as he is the third-highest run-scorer in the tournament with 333 runs at an average of 83 and with a best of 99*. He occupies one end and plays the anchor and therefore could be dangerous as he allows the likes of Vishnu Solankis and Karthik Kakade to attack from the other end before takes on the charge after settling down as well. Lukman Meriwala Meriwala could be really dangerous and it was evident during the semi-finals against Punjab as he removed two of the best Punjab batsmen Prabhsimran Singh and Abhishek Sharma quite early in the game. He is quick and can bounce the batsmen out as well along with the ability to bring the ball back in for the right-handers. He has so far picked up 14wickets in the tournament with a brilliant average of 11.78 and an economy rate of 6.22 Vishnu Solanki Solanki has won a game that was almost over for Baroda with 15 required from three balls. But apart from that also he has scored 218 runs in seven innings with an average of 54 and thus he could be a good prospect for Broda at the top of the order. Pitch Report The pitch at the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad has been on the slower side in the day games and n the night, it has been difficult to chase down totals, even as a lot of dew is there on the ground. There is an initial movement for fast bowlers in the evening and that plays an important role for the team fielding second as the fast bowlers come into play. Weather and Toss The weather at Motera for tomorrow is going to be perfect for a cricket game as there is no chance of rain. The dew is going to heavy as usual and therefore the skipper winning the toss would choose to field first. Tamil Nadu Strongest XI Hari Nishanth, N Jagadeesan, Baba Aparajith, Arun Karthik, Sonu Yadav, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Shahrukh Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, M Mohammed, Murugan Ashwin, Aswin Crist Baroda Strongest XI Kedar Devdhar (c), Smit Patel (wk), Vishnu Solanki, Abhimanyu Rajput, Ninad Rathva, Atit Sheth, Bhanu Pania, Babashafi Pathan, Lukman Meriwala, Bhargav Bhatt, Karthik Kakade

Joe Root is very hard to bowl dot balls at: Jos Buttler

England wicket-keeper batsman Joe Buttler has praised skipper Joe Root for his performance in Sri Lanka in the recently concluded Test series. "Joe was in fantastic form in Sri Lanka, he has always had a brilliant game to play spin bowling. He is one of the best exponents of the sweep shot and he picks length brilliantly. It is a big strength when playing spin, he is very hard to bowl dot balls at. He scores quickly against spin and he has so many shots, he manages to rotate strike. "He did that fantastically well in Sri Lanka, the biggest thing about him was the hunger shown by him to bat for long periods. He showed great application both mentally and tactically. He is in great form and it is a great place for him to be at just at the start of the year," said Buttler while replying to an ANI query during a virtual press conference. England thumped Sri Lanka to complete a clean sweep win away from home. Root scored a double ton in the match and followed it with 186 in the second encounter. The English team is slated to tour India where they will play four Tests, five T20Is and three ODIs. The Test series begins on February 5 in Chennai.