Natarajan on the road to recovery after knee surgery, shares exercise video

Hanuma Vihari confident of India doing well in the WTC Final

India’s middle-order batsman Hanuma Vihari, who is being praised all over the internet for his tremendous work in helping the people during the second wave of Covid-19 in India feels that the Men’s team could do great in the upcoming World Test Championship Final. “We are in the finals and we are playing New Zealand, which is going to be challenging in these conditions, we all know that, but the Indian team can do outstanding things," Vihari, who is currently in England playing for Warwickshire in the County Championship 2021, after being unable to fetch an IPL contract for this season. The Andhra player came into the limelight from his 161 ball 23 runs Test and tour saving innings for India against Australia in Sydney, in January this year. An injured Vihari along with Ravi Chandran Ashwin played 254 balls scoring only 62 runs and forcing a draw in a match that looked a certain loss for the Men in Blue. The 27-year-old though has not been himself since then, scoring just a single fifty in his last 10 innings. Even in county cricket, he has been a flop show till now, with just 100 runs in six innings at an average of 16.25 and with two ducks in his name. But the Andhra skipper is confident that the experience of playing in England would not only help him in the WTC Final against New Zealand in Southampton but also in the subsequent five-match Test series against hosts England. "I am trying to prepare in the best way possible for the WTC final and the England series. It's going to be interesting and exciting as well for all the Indian fans because it's the first edition of the WTC,” said Vihari who would join Team India on June 2, when the Blue brigade reaches England for the three-month-long stay.

David Saker, bowling coach in Cape Town 2018 Test, responds to Bancroft's 'self explanatory' call

The Newlands Test saga seems to have been opened up once again by the comment made by Cameron Bancroft, who was at the heart of the crisis that saw himself along with Steve Smith and David Warner face suspension from playing the game and representing Australia at the world stage. Responding to the development of the matter, the then bowling coach of Australia, David Saker has said that there were a lot of things that should have been done by the Australian team and all including him and the head coach Darren Lehman could well be blamed partly or entirely for the loss of credibility in Australian players and team. He went on to say that these finger pointing towards one another can go on and for years without any purpose other than crisis lingering over players and individuals involved. “Obviously a lot of things went wrong at that time. The finger-pointing is going to go on and on and on. There was a lot of people to blame. It could have been me to blame, it could have been someone else. It could have been stopped and it wasn’t, which is unfortunate,” Saker told to The Age. Pointing to Bancroft for his latest comments with regards to Mitchell Starc being aware of what was happening at the ground, Saker said that maybe the right-handed opener was trying to get an easy closure for himself by revealing all he knew about. “Cameron’s a very nice guy. He’s just doing it to get something off his chest ... He’s not going to be the last. You could point your finger at me, you could point your finger at Boof (Darren Lehmann), could you point it at other people, of course, you could. The disappointing thing is it’s never going to go away. Regardless of what’s said. We all know that we made a monumental mistake. The gravity wasn’t as plain until it all came out,” Saker added. Notably, Cameron Bancroft’s interview with The Guardian where he concluded that it was ‘self-explanatory’ that bowler must be knowing if the ball was being tampered with. Following Bancroft’s interview, Cricket Australia said that the governing body that led a ‘detailed and comprehensive investigation of the Cape Town Test is still open to hearing new information or evidence from anyone including Bancroft himself.

When Malik became captain, I had thoughts of quitting cricket: Shahid Afridi

Shahid Afridi, arguably Pakistan’s most famous cricketer after Imran Khan has revealed an incident where he thought of quitting professional cricket, as early as 2009. The 41-year-old felt that after his herpes in the 2009 World T20 winning campaign of the team, he wasn’t really given as much importance as he should have been and Shoaib Malik was made the skipper instead of him. “Shoaib Malik had become the captain and there was a lot of politics going on within the team,” Afridi was quoted as saying to Samaa TV. Boom-Boom recalled that at that point in time an elderly persona and the might Allah himself came to his rescue and put some sense into his mind. Talking about the elderly man, Afridi said, “He said you’re so worried about your own performance and worldly matters. Just compare your hardships to those of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and you will realise that yours are nothing." The Multan Sultans player who played 398 ODIs, 99 T20is and 27 Tests for his country shed light on the 2007 Shoaib Akhtar- Mohammad Asif controversy as well, where Ajhtar was sent back to Pakistan after having hit Asif with a bat during a dressing room argument. “Things happen,” Afridi said. “Asif had sided with me in a joke which enraged Shoaib and all this happened. But Shoaib has a very beautiful heart,” added the man who scored 11,196 runs and took 541 wickets in his 20 years long international career.

Michael Hussey will take commercial flight but to reach together with Maldives contingent on May 17

A large contingent of Australian players, umpires and commentators, who were stranded in Maldives in order to be eligible to enter Australia following the travel ban from India, is set to reach the country on Monday, May 17 via a chartered flight arranged by the BCCI. The contingent includes the likes of Pat Cummins, David Warner, Steven Smith and Michael Slater will be taken to Sydney where they will be put under quarantine in a hotel before they can head back to their homes. On the other hand, Chennai Super Kings coach Michael Hussey, who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection, will head back to Australia in a comerical flight via Qatar. The future of the players and all other participants of the IPL were unclear after the Australian federal government had imposed a travel ban on all travel, including its own citizens from India. Then, the BCCI arranged a chartered flight for them to assemble in Maldives before heading back to their homes.