Mujeeb Ur Rahman roped in by Middlesex for 2021 Natwest T20 Blast

BCCI approves 10 teams in IPL 2022; Nods for cricket in Olympics

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has approved the expansion of the Indian Premier League (IPL) into a 10-team tournament. BCCI has ratified the addition of teams starting the 2022 edition of the league in its AGM held today. Another agenda up for the discussion was taking the game to the Olympics on the line of request for proposal from the International Cricket Council. BCCI has supported the idea of bringing Cricket in the Olympics’ fold but will decide on the course of action in consultations with the ICC. There was a lot of debate on the conflict of interest issues related to BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, but as per a PTI report, no member associations put forward any questions regarding the endorsement deals of Sourav Ganguly.

India challenged Nathan Lyon in his early days. He is now turning the table

When Michael Clarke and Mickey Arthur backed Nathan Lyon with a baggy green on the tour of Sri Lanka in 2021, it was purely on the promise the off-spinner had to offer, having played only four first-class games and taken only 12 wickets at a dismal strike rate of 86.5 balls per wicket. Lyon was quick and smart to pounce the opportunity to become the match-winner for the Australians they were desperately looking for in the subcontinent by a fifer in his maiden Test and repaid the faith immediately. But, the bigger challenges were looming large for the Kangaroos as they had to head to South Africa, the country which has not produced a single world-beating spinner in their history. Also, Lyon was to play the majority of matches at the Australian pitches, which don’t have the reputation of being conducive to spin (Shane Warne was a genius and an outlier). Although the series against Sri Lanka and South Africa did go as per the plans, there was a sense of unknown about Lyon as the Australians were gearing up to host the MS Dhoni-led Indian team, that had the long list of batsmen who were rated as master of players against spin bowling. Experts and Australians were rating the series against India as the big litmus test for Lyon, who for the first time was to bowl against the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. They had valid reasons to rate the series as a litmus test for Lyon as their best produced in the spin bowling department—Shane Warne had a history of torrid days against the then middle-order batsmen of the Indian team. Fast forward to 2020, now Nathan Lyon is on the verge of two special milestones—400 Test wickets and 100 Test matches and the achievements whenever they arrive imply only one inference—that Lyon passed the litmus test one after the other and kept on churning at the opposition batting line ups as the likes of Mitchell Johnson, and Patrick Cummins kept on earning the headlines. Indian teams, both under the leadership of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli have been an integral part of Lyon’s journey in Test cricket. Australia defeated India 4-0 in the 2011 Border Gavaskar series and when Michael Clarke led the Kangaroos back to India for the defence in the 2013-14 season, the team needed Lyon to come back to becoming the aggressive bowler, the quality with which he started his career in 2011. But the tour turned out to be a setback for Lyon and the first part of it almost ended his Test career like other spinners who show promise but fizzle out with time against good batting teams. In the first Test in Chennai, he was taught a tough lesson that his predecessors were taught very harshly by the likes of Navjot Singh Siddhu and Sachin Tendulkar. MS Dhoni took offence at the line of his bowling and started nailing him over the top. Turned out, Lyon could not match the courage and stroke-making of MS Dhoni and Australian were made to feel inferior in the very first Test. Subsequently, he was dropped from the second Test, but his replacement, Xavier Doherty, proved to be more ineffective than him and Clarke had no options but to reinstate him back into the playing XI. After another debacle in Mohali in the third Test, Clarke persisted with him for the final Test in Delhi and the pitch was turning big time for him to make a name against the Indian batting line up that was not showing cracks against him. Once again Lyon saw a once in a lifetime opportunity and once again he seized it with splendid bowling performances. He picked seven precious wickets in the first innings to keep Australia in the game, and it turned out to be the stage for Lyon from where he never looked back again. A couple of Ashes series followed after the series against India, and although those were dominated by seam and pace bowling, Lyon was always there, plugging the whatever gaps the pacers were leaving him to fill. Another breakthrough series came in the next year and fortunately against India that sealed his fate in the Australian dressing team. The Indian team was without their captain and the maverick who had wreaked havoc for Lyon in Chennai, MS Dhoni who was out with wrist injury but the team under Virat Kohli was no pushovers. The Indian team showed valiant determination for the fight and took the game to the hosts and threatened to chase a total on the final day of Adelaide Test, with Virat Kohli leading the counterattack with centuries in both innings. Indian batsmen were in no mood to let Lyon get away with good figures and they followed the pattern set by MS Dhoni. But, this time, the situation was different and Lyon was prepared and had a measure of the pitch at Adelaide Oval more than Indian batsmen and he bowled Australia to victory on the back of 12 wickets in the match, although conceding runs at an economy rate in excess of 3.5 and 4 implying the aggressive approach by the Indians against him. Now, Lyon is a veteran of 97 Tests and with 391 wickets in his bag, he has matured as a bowler and reads the game and minds of batsmen with such ease. He recognises the challenge that the current Indian team, like the team of the past, will look to him for scoring opportunities but he is not running away from any contest either. In the last series, Mayank Agarwal showed signs of taking the game to him after surviving the initial burst of Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood, but after a brief period of domination by the young right-hander, Lon showed he was not going to be rattled by the onslaught and outplayed Agarwal in the battle of nerves. "India will probably look to try to attack me again, especially when you look at the quality of the quick bowlers we've got here in the Australian side. So I think it's one of their tactics to come at me, which is totally fine, I'm pretty used to having guys come after me but it's just about, for me, being able to know when to attack and when to defend as well and realise who I'm bowling with at the other end and having that partnership. So it's all fun and part of playing cricket, especially being a little spin bowler, you're going to have a lot of guys come out and try to attack you,” Lyon said in a virtual press conference. While he has been challenged more often by the aggressive Indian batsmen who come at him with intent to change his usual approach of bowling, he has been equally thwarted by Chesteshwar Pujara, who has shown a tendency of sitting in the crease, and waiting for the off-spinner to commit mistakes to pounce on. Simply, Pujara tries to outplay Lyon in the game he wins against other batsmen— the battle of patience. Pujara was done in by Lyon in Adelaide in the first innings when the Indian number three could not pick the length early and was caught in the middle of the front foot and back foot and Lyon has hinted that the Australian put a big prize on Pujara’s wicket and that he has some more tricks to foax the Indian mainstay. "Pujara is a world-class batter and he's going to be a big challenge for us for the rest of the series. We spoke about him in-depth before the series started, it was good to see a couple of plans come off in Adelaide, but we've got a couple more things up our sleeve hopefully that if he does get in we can put in to deploy. He's a world-class batter so it's always fun challenging yourself against the best players in the world and Pujara's definitely one of those guys. The home team is buoyant at bowling the Indian team for bowling them out for their lowest score in the history, but Lyon is also pragmatic enough to look at the event of the day three of the first Test as something that can’t be done every day. "That was one of the days when nothing went right for them and everything went right for us. So we've all had them, it's part of the game of cricket," Lyon added.

Ajit Agarkar frontrunner to become chairman of selection committee

Former Indian pacer Ajit Agarkar is likely to be the new chairman of the selection committee based on his more experienced international career. Agarkar is among the 11 candidates shortlisted by the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) for the three vacancies in the selection panel of the national cricket team. Agarkar will lead the selection panel as per BCCI’s norm of awarding the chairman post to the most capped member of the panel. The selection panel is currently headed by former left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi, who has played 15 Tests, while the only other selector with his tenure remaining—Harvinder Singh represents. The three openings were created by Jatin Paranjpe (West Zone), Devang Gandhi (East) and Sarandeep Singh (North) who all have completed their tenure. From the North Zone Chetan Sharma, Maninder Singh, Vijay Dahiya, Ajay Ratra and Nikhil Chopra and from East—Shiv Sunder Das, Debashish Mohanty and Ranadeb Bose are known to have applied. Other than Agarkar, Former Indian pacer Chetan Sharma, and left-arm spinner Maninder Singh have also applied for a post on the selection panel. The likes of Vijay Dahiya, Ajay Ratra and Nikhil Chopra have also applied for the North Zone while Shiv Sunder Das, Debashish Mohanty and Ranadeb Bose have also applied from the East Zone. The Test series against England scheduled to be held in February 2021 will be the first assignment for the new selection committee which will be constituted after a round of video interview by the CAC under the leadership of Madan Lal.

Gavaskar attacks Kohli, alleges ‘different rules for different players’ in Team India

Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has lambasted the Indian team management for what he believes are ‘different rules for different players’ in the team set up as well as the lack of humility in the leadership group to accept ‘forthrightness’ of players who disagree with their viewpoints. Gavaskar has hit out at captain Virat Kohli’s decision to return home mid-series for the birth of his first child, while others such as the new pacer T Natarajan did not get the chance to see his newborn as he is in Australia, in his column for Sportstar magazine. “Another player who will wonder about the rules, but, of course, can’t make any noise about it as he is a newcomer. It is T. Natarajan. The left-arm yorker specialist who made an impressive debut in the T20 and had Hardik Pandya gallantly offering to share the man of the T20 series prize with him had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on,” Gavaskar wrote. Gavaskar also pointed out the unfairness handed out to Natarajan as he was asked to stay in Australia even after the completion of the white-ball leg of the tour, but not as part of the squad, but as a net bowler whose job is to help batsmen prepare for the Test series. Gavaskar strongly objected to the different set of standards being followed while making decisions of ‘paternity leaves’ of players. “He had become a father for the first time even as the IPL playoffs were going on. He was asked to stay on for the (Australia) Test series but not as a part of the team but as a net bowler. Imagine that. A match-winner, albeit in another format, being asked to be a net bowler. He will thus return home only after the series ends in the third week of January and get to see his daughter for the first time then. And there is the captain (Virat Kohli) going back after the first Test for the birth of his first child,” Gavaskar strongly opined. On the issue of lack of heart in the leadership group, Gavaskar has taken the reference of the off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who, Gavaskar believes, has been hard done by not for his bowling on overseas tours, but for his ‘forthrightness.’ He said that the team management always keeps a sword hanging on Ashwin and in case of an average outing on the field, he is made to sit out, while other players of the team such as the batsmen don’t have to go through such rigorous selection procedure. “For far too long Ashwin has suffered not for his bowling ability of which only the churlish will have doubts, but for his forthrightness and speaking his mind at meetings where most others just nod even if they don’t agree. If Ashwin doesn’t take heaps of wickets in one game, he is invariably sidelined for the next one. That does not happen to established batsmen though,” Gavaskar reckoned. There has been a history between Sunil Gavaskar and Virat Kohli and his actress wife—Anushka Sharma had responded to Gavaskar when the batting maestro had taken her name while discussing the batting form of the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s captain Virat Kohli in the IPL 2020.