KKR's Tim Seifert breaks down while talking about Covid-19

Remainder of IPL 2021 in UAE from September 19 to October 10: Reports

The remainder of the Indian Premier League would be played in the United Arab Emirates in the September-October window with the first match starting on September 19, Sports Today has reported. A 21-day window has been drawn up by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for the remainder of the 31 games to be played to complete the 14th edition of the season which got curtailed earlier in May due to the covid-19 pandemic. If reports are to be believed, the tournament is set to end with the final on October 10, right ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup. "The BCCI has spoken to all the stakeholders and the likely start could be between September 18th to 20th. Since September 18 is a Saturday and 19 a Sunday, it is more likely that you would want to re-start it on a weekend date," a BCCI official was quoted as saying to PTI on conditions of anonymity. The reports further suggest that the dates of India’s England tour will not be changed and BCCI did not make any such request to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Team India’s England tour which begins with WTC Final on June 18 and then the subsequent five-match Test series vs the hosts starting August 4, will end on September 14 as decided. However, on September 15th, Indian players will travel to Dubai instead of coming home. This would be a bubble to bubble transfer and the players will remain in a three-day quarantine in their team hotels. 'The Indian team and the English players who will be available will fly in the same charter flight from Manchester to Dubai," said the BCCI source. Another speculation suggested in the report is that the Caribbean Premier League which is supposed to end on September 19 would be expedited to end at least three to four days early so that IPL bound West Indies and international players are relieved. Trinbago Knight Riders a CPL franchise, owned by the owners of IPL’s Kolkata Knight Riders is supposed to play a key role in the considerations. "West Indies players will also fly in after completing the Caribbean Premier League engagements. There will be three-day quarantine for players arriving from the UK and the Caribbean,' the source added. For the 31 matches to be played, there would be 10 doubleheader days and seven matches would be played on single match days. The Four playoffs would then be played to end the tournament. The IPL franchises have been appraised by the BCCI and IPL Governing Council. 'We have been told by the BCCI to be ready for the tournament. We have been given a September 15 to 20 window,' a team official said. The league was postponed on May 4 after a lot of cases of covid-19 emerged in the Bio-bubble.

To call Lord’s home for six months: Taylor, Nicholls and coach Stead remember MCC Scholarship days

New Zealand trio of experienced middle-order batter Ross Taylor, young Henry Nicholls and coach Gary Stead remembered their days as Marlybone Cricket Club’s Young Cricket at Lord’s Scholarship days ahead of their team’s Test at the iconic stadium starting Jun 2. Taylor, who is now one of the most accomplished Kiwi batters in all formats of the game remembered coming to London in 2002. “I used to watch Test matches growing up. And there was always talk about the slope [Lord’s]. I was fortunate enough in 2002 to be New Zealand’s recipient for Young cricketer Lord’s,’ he said in a video uploaded by Blackcaps’ official Twitter account. The 37-year-old then went ahead to narrate how it turned out to be an unforgettable six months in London. “I was a young boy who hadn’t really travelled much and London was a bit of an eye-opener. I realised very early on that this is the avenue that I wanted to pursue and become a full-time cricketer. To call Lord’s home for six months is something I will never forget,” said Taylor, who has now played more than 100 Tests and has scored more than 17,000 international runs. Henry Nicholls, who made his Test debut for New Zealand in 2016 against Australia back home, remembered the 2019 World Cup Final and how it seemed like coming full circle for the MCC Young Cricketer fellow of 2010. “When I returned to play the World Cup in 2019, security people remembered me, which was pretty cool. It was also like going full circle and meeting people who were there, where I was once,” said Nicholls, who just recently tied the knot with his girlfriend Lucy. Talking about his time at the Mecca of cricket, the 29-year-old said, “It was a great opportunity and I was following in the footsteps of some of the great guys, obviously, now I am even sharing the dressing room with a few of them.” “It was playing a lot of cricket, playing back to back to back, three-four days a week. When there were international games, 20 of us the young cricketers would do different jobs,” added Nicholls who has so far played 37 Tests for the Blackcaps. Reminiscing about one such job, the left-hander said, “I was standing near the batting team’s dressing room during an England-Australia one day game. I would tell the radio people about the scores and who was coming to bat next. It was a pretty surreal experience.” Gary Stead, currently the Kiwi coach was also an MCC fellow back in 1990. Revisiting his time in London and Lord’s, he said that it was always great to come back to a place that has had so much influence on you as a person. “To me, Lord’ s is a special place. I was lucky enough to go there on a scholarship when I was 18 and to live there, to breathe there and work there for almost six months was great,” said the former Kiwi player who represented the national team in five Tests. “When you have memories like that and you have been there for a long time, you want to go back and reconnect with that place,” he added. The New Zealand team is in England for a three-Test sojourn which also involves the all-important inaugural World Test Championship Final against India in Southampton, starting from June 18.

Quetta Gladiators Anwar Ali tests positive for Covid-19

Quetta Gladiators fast bowler Anwar Ali has tested positive for Covid-19 and won’t take the flight to Abu Dhabi for the remaining matches of the PSL 2021. There are two charter flights that are leaving from Karachi and Lahore. The fast bowler had tested negative before he checked into the hotel in Karachi but then returned with a positive test result on Tuesday. He has been isolated for 10 days in the same hotel but on a different floor and would be released from the hotel only after returning two negative tests. The franchise members are scheduled to take the flight to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday (May 26) will have to be quarantined for seven days and will have to be tested negative twice before being allowed to get into the bio-bubble environment. There have been three separate bubbles created by the PCB, one for players, support staff, match officials, hotel staff and PCB officials; the second, in a different hotel, for the TV production crew and key event management personnel; and the third is an accommodation dedicated to the groundstaff. The Gladiators had earlier suffered another blow after Naseem Shah was ruled out of the competition for breaching the Covid-19 protocols. "The PCB doesn't take any pride in releasing a young fast bowler from its marquee event but if we will ignore this breach, then we will potentially put at risk the entire event," Babar Hamid, commercial director and head of PSL said. "We appreciate Quetta Gladiators for accepting this decision as it confirms we are all aligned to strictly following and implementing the protocols." The PSL 2021 had been postponed earlier after there were instances of Covid-19 cases within the franchises. It was then scheduled to take place between June 1 to June 20 in Karachi but the franchises had requested the PCB to move it to the UAE citing the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.

Delhi High Court orders probe against Gautam Gambhir

Former India opener and current BJP MP Gautam Gambhir has found himself in some trouble after the Delhi High Court had ordered an investigation into three specific allegations against him and AAP MLAs Preeti Tomar and Praveen Kumar. The Court has directed the Drug Controller to hold an inquiry against him for illegally stocking the Covid-19 medicines and file a status report regarding the investigation within a week. The Delhi High Court though said that Gambhir’s intentions weren’t bad. “Mr Gautam Gambhir may have done this with the best of interests. Our issue is, is it a responsible behaviour when everything is in short supply? Should he not have realised it will become in short supply for others? Many others must have suffered on this account?” the court said. “The way he(Gambhir) has gone about it, he has done a disservice. Ten other people would stand up and say we’ll also adopt modus operandi. This was not the way,” the court added. The bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh examined the status report of Delhi Police which said that the former KKR captain had bought 2,628 strips of Fabiflu on the basis of a prescription from Dr Manish of Sanjay Garg Hospital. Out of these, 2,343 strips were distributed to patients while the others were handed over to Delhi government''s Director General of Health Services for distribution. "The aspect which needs to be examined is how such a large quantity of Fabiflu was authorized to be purchased in retail as the medicine was in grave short supply at the relevant time. We can take judicial notice of this fact as we have been hearing this matter for a considerable time now.” "It also needs examination as to how these medicines were distributed to several patients or attendants by Dr Manish of Sanjay Garg hospital," the bench said.