Our batting cost us more than anything: Bangladesh selector Habibul Bashar on failed T20 World Cup campaign

T20 World Cup | Martin Guptill recovers from injury, available for selection against India

New Zealand opener Martin Guptill has recovered from his toe injury which he suffered against Pakistan in the team’s first clash at the Super 12 stage. The 35-year-old was hit in the toes while batting nad it changed shades because of the blow. "It went a different shade of colour for a period of time. But he trained yesterday and he's training again tonight, so it's great to see that he's available and fit for selection," New Zealand coach Gary Stead said in a media interaction before the team’s clash against India on Sunday in Dubai. Though Guptill has never quite performed against India in the 12 T20I matches that he has played, having an average of 17, which is almost half his career average of 32, bit the kind of danger he brings into the xi and especially with his experience, he can be a game-changer in just a span of five overs, more so if New Zealand bat second in dewy conditions. Along with Guptill, Adam Milne, who was added to the main squad after Lockie Ferguson’s injury, will also be available for selection in this game. Both India and New Zealand have lost their opening games to Pakistan and thus in the context of getting the second spot in the group, this match is virtually a knockout.

Babar Azam scored match-winning knock against India with his mother fighting for life on ventilator

It has been revealed by Pakistan cricket captain Babar Azam’s father Azam Siddique that his son played the match against India knowing that his mother was fighting for life on a ventilator back home. His mother had undergone surgery and is now recovering well, but the three games that Pakistan played in the Group stage, in all three of them, Babar had at the back of his mind, the condition of his mother which till then wasn’t stable. Writing an Instagram post, Mr Siddique informed how his son played under severe distress but still didn’t lose his composure. "It's time for my nation to know some truth,” Babar’s father said in the post. “Congratulations to all of you on the victory in the three games. There was a big test at our house. On the day the match was against India, that day Babar's mother was on a ventilator. Babar played all three matches in severe distress. I came here so that Babar may not get weak,” he added. In the match against India, Babar scored an unbeaten 62 to see his team through by 10 wickets in a record jinx breaking game. In the match against New Zealand he did get out cheaply but his team was rescued by experienced Shoaib Malik and Asif Ali. And in the Afghanistan game, he once again scored a crucial fifty but got out an important juncture of the game. But Asif Ali once again made sure that Pakistan ended up on the right side of a tense game. In the next two games, Pakistan play Namibia and Scotland which look easy and if they win the two, they would go to the semi-finals as the top-ranked Group 2 team.

IPL 2022 to allow franchise auction purse of INR 90 crore, new franchises can pre-sign three players

The Indian Premier League will allow all the 10 franchises an auction purse of INR 90 crore, an increase of INR 5 crore from the 2021 IPL Mini Auction purse. The IPL Governing Council will also allow the older franchises to retain up to four players in the retentions window that begins from November 1 and go on till the 30th. As per the rules, the two new franchises, Ahmedabad and Lucknow will then be allowed to pick three players each of their choices from the ones not retained and pre-sign them before the IPL 2022 auctions. There was no mention of the Right to Match Cards in the letter sent by BCCI and IPL GC to the franchises. The window for the two new franchises for pre-signing the players will begin from December 1 and go on up to December 25, with the IPL 2022 Auction most probably happening in January 2022. What would be the retention slab? The GC also decided on the salary cap of the retained players and if a franchise chooses to retain four players, it will have to lose a total of INR 42 crore from its auction purse. In case the older franchises are retaining four players, they will be charged INR 16 crore for the first, INR 12 crore for the second, INR 8 crore for the third and INR 6 crore for the fourth player. If the franchises choose to retain three players then their slabs are: INR 15 crore, INR 11 crore and INR 7 crore, for a total of INR 33 crore. If two players are retained, then the slabs are INR 14 crore and INR 10 crore, for a total of INR 24 crore. For only one player, INR 14 crore will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse and if the sole retention is that of an uncapped player, then the amount deducted will be INR 4 crore. What's the retention policy? There is a cap that the franchises can’t retain more than three Indian capped players, not more than two international players and not more than two uncapped players in case of four retained players. In the case of three retentions, not more than two Indians, not more than one international and uncapped player is allowed to be retained. This rule will also apply to the new franchises. Can players be paid more than retention slab limit? Yes, the franchises can and most likely will pay players more than the slab limit to retain them. It happened in 2018 when RCB and Virat Kohli agreed that the Indian captain’s fee would be INR 17 crore, two more than the slab limit of INR 15 crore. But if that is the case, then the extra amount will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse. The franchise can decide to keep a player and pay him lower than the band as well, but it wouldn’t make sense as the slab amount will anyways be deducted from the Auction purse.

T20 World Cup | England make resounding statement as Buttler, Woakes, Jordan punish Australia

If there was a dominating performance by a batsman who completely overshadowed the opposition with a brutal display of power hitting, Jos Buttler’s carnage of Australian bowlers on Saturday night in Dubai was indeed the best of them. From the express pace of Micthell Starc to the leg-spin of Adam Zamp all travelled to all parts of the ground and Buttler almost single-handedly thrashed Australia with the bat to complete a perfect night for England. Australia were poor with the bat both in execution and approach in their mind. They were quite fearful from the very first over when in a change of tactic, Eoin Morgan tossed the ball to Adil Rashid. In the end, England finished the game with their reputation as one of the strongest sides in the tournament firmly enhanced and Australia ended the game with signs of a side starting to unravel after a few good performances. Jos Buttler’s elite thrashing Contrary to what has been his modus operandi in white-ball games, Buttler started off slowly with the bat and waited for Australians to commit errors and in a desperate attempt to defend 125 runs, there were a lot of them from the men in yellow. His first shot in anger came as late as in the fourth over when he danced down the track to smack Ashton Agar into the stand at long-off. He never looked back from that point and punished Josh Hazlewood in the next over to seek the complete authority of the game. The final over of the powerplay by Starc turned out to be the point when all hell broke loose for both sides and Buttler was supreme both on the back foot and front foot. First, he hit a nonchalant six over long-off when Starc tried to bowl full and then when the bowler corrected his length by bowling short, he was ever ready to punish the next ball for another six. The plight of Starc did not stop in that over and he was hit for three fours in his next over by him and Dawid Malan. After Starc, it was the turn of leg spinner Zampa, who took the wicket of Jason Roy and Buttler did not allow his balls to turn whenever he decided to go big and reached his fifty in 25 balls with a colossal six. It was Zampa’s third over and 11th over overall when England all but completed the complete mauling of their arch-rivals and Buttler finished at a 32-ball 71. Woakes’s—a continuous success with the new ball Chris Woakes was one of the dark horses of the England bowling attack coming into the tournament and he has gone on to become their strike bowler towards the end of the Super 12 stage. After scalping important wickets against West Indies and Bangladesh, he was once again amongst wickets and turned the clock back to the semi-final against the same opponent two years earlier in the ICC ODI World Cup. Dawid Warner got valuable runs in the last game and felt confident to get going against Woakes. He needed to go as well with the importance of powerplay becoming more and more evident in the tournament and he walked down the track to get him off his length. However, Woakes was up to the task and he pulled his length back and a committed Warner had no options but to poke at an away going delivery to Buttler. His second scalp—Glenn Maxwell dashed Australian hopes of having someone who could take the game to the opposition irrespective of where they were and with Maxwell’s wicket, it was all about reaching some sort of total for the Aussies. England have picked more wickets in the powerplay in the tournament than they have picked in the entire last year and Woakes has been the tormentor-in-chief of oppositions for them with the new ball. Chris Jordan—the force multiplier Eoin Morgan has been a master tactician of the game and so has been his adaptability in changing bowlers as per changing conditions of a game and nature of opponents. He was quick to take Rashid off the bowling as soon as Steve Smith came out to bat and asked Chris Jordan to go with the new ball. Jordan has not been known for his new-ball exploits and hence the move could have gone either way with Smith going on to resurrect Australia. But, Jordan got the big fish in Smith, who was desperate to get a move on looking at Finch struggling to get the ball off the square. His shoulders have been rated strong and he found enough extra bounce may be due to the ball getting stuck in the pitch and the ball did not arrive at Smith as quickly as he expected. Woakes, who was standing at mid-on established that nothing could go wrong for him and his side as he backpedalled to take a one-handed screamer. By the time he returned with his second spell, his mates had made a light work of the Australian batting lineup. However, a sluggish Finch and Pat Cummins, who hit his first two balls for sixes, were there to keep Australia’s hopes of reaching closer to 140 runs were there. Jordan finished the challenge in the first two balls of his fourth over and quashed any hope of an Australian revival. He finished with a staggering bowling figure of 4-0-17-3. Off day or reality check? Australia face tough questions Australia were never the favourites in a keenly matched group bit their in-form players ensured they got two wins out of their first two games and their fans and a section of experts were victims of recency bias. However, Australia were quick to not let them live with the bias and compelled them to course-correct by performing at the level or closer to their level in the recent past. None of their batsmen got out on the boundary or was the victim of mistiming a glory shot. Instead, almost all of them were dismissed in manners suggestive of their struggle on the night to either pick the length or the line of the ball or else they were the signs of them not watching the ball closely enough. Australia could certainly move on from the game deeming it a bad day in office but they are the most likely side to get on a losing spree as has been the case in the last few years and the coach Justin Langer and Aaron Finch have tasks on their hands to keep them agile of the opportunities at stake.