Mayank Agarwal added to team India after players test positive for Covid-19

Ganguly confirms pink ball Test for India vs Sri Lanka

Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sourav Ganguly has confirmed that Virat Kohli will be up against the Pink Ball in his 100th Test match. Speaking to Sportstar, Ganguly revealed that the first Test match between India and Sri Lanka will be played in Bengaluru starting 25 February. The Indian Test team has been through some tumultuous off late with constant questions arising over the form of senior pros like Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. To make matters worse, Kohli’s shock captaincy decision has set things back further and the team currently is without a full time red-ball captain. Ganguly also shed some light on the matter of Pujara and Rahane stating that he has full confidence in both of them that they will score runs in Ranji Trophy this season and rediscover their form in the international arena.

Women’s T20 Challenge to return, confirms Sourav Ganguly

Women’s T20 challenge, which was skipped last season, will be back in 2022, confirmed Board of Control for Cricket in India president - Sourav Ganguly. In an interview with Sportstar, Ganguly said that the final plan is for women cricketers to have their own Indian Premier League, but at the moment, BCCI will be holding the tournament in its original form. The T20 Challenge is a three team tournament that is held during the playoffs of the men’s Indian Premier League, and while being a good initiative has been largely criticised for its scale. Ganguly had said back in 2020 that the tournament will be upped to IPL scale by 2022, but now it is confirmed that the plan has not come to pass.

PSL 2022 | Dominant Lahore bury Peshawar by 29 runs to win two games in a row

Shaheen Shah Afridi’s Lahore Qalandars stormed past Wahab Riaz’s Peshawar Zalmi on Wednesday, 2 February to win back to back games in the Pakistan Super League. Qalandars, owing to Fakhar Zaman’s one more successful outing in the PSL this season, posted a huge total of 199 runs in the first innings. Zaman, who scored 66 off 38 balls, found support from Mohammad Hafeez (37 off 19) and Rashid Khan (22 off 8) down the order, who played great cameos to push the score to a near impossible feat. While the chase was always going to be difficult against a team that specialise in their bowling, Peshawar did not do themselves any favour by being fidgety with their strokes. They had the most awful of starts after Shaheen Afridi’s ripping yorker got the better of Hazratullah Zazai, one of Peshawar’s trump cards in the powerplay. Barring Kamran Akmal (41 off 24), who took on Rashid Khan in his first over, nobody else managed to put up a fight and Peshawar never really managed to get close to the total. Hussain Talat was one of the culprits of the day, scoring just 15 runs after playing 24 balls. Barring Shaheen Afridi, Zaman Khan was the star of the day, picking up two wickets in an over to break the partnership of a well set Akmal and Hussain Talat. The final two overs of the game saw the fall of four wickets, where Afridi picked up one and David Wiese two of them. The other one was a Haider Ali runout. The Namibian Wiese actually took a hattrick on the day in the final over, but the last wicket was reversed after an LBW review by the third umpire. Multitudes of catches fell on the day with balls popping out of the hands of several stars on the boundary lines. Miscommunications between the fielders also resulted in balls landing between 2-3 incoming fielders as well. With this win, Lahore moved up to the second spot in the league table with four points from three matches.

'Then Mahi Bhai came and told...' - Yuzvendra Chahal recalls MS Dhoni's words after going for 64 in 4 overs

Chahal said that Dhoni's words of support dawned a realisation for him that one can't perform at the peak of their powers in every game.