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  • Psl 2021 Ms Vs Lhq Dhani Dazzles With 45 As Qalandars Are Thrashed To Fourth Consecutive Defeat

PSL 2021 | MS vs LHQ: Dhani dazzles with 4/5 as Qalandars are thrashed to fourth consecutive defeat

Once again Lahore Qalandars boarded the same bus in Abu Dhabi named ‘batting collapse’ as they were all out for 89 one of the lowest totals in the league’s history, trying to chase 170 in a must-win game of the Pakistan Super League 2021. Shahnawaz Dhani was the star of the match with the ball for Multan Sultans, picking four wickets for just five runs. 

Dhani was helped by some very average batting by the Qalandars which has been continuing since the last four games. With this fourth consecutive defeat, Qalandars ended their 10 match group stage run with five wins and five losses. Just 10 points from 10 games and a run rate that is worst among all the teams in the race for the Playoffs won’t do any good for Lahore as they would now pray for a Quetta Gladiators victory over Karachi Kings on June 19 to help them go through as the fourth-placed team. 

None of the Lahore batters were up to ask in this game as James Faulkner a bowling all-rounder who batted at number seven was the highest scorer with 22 from 11 balls. The 23-year-old Dhani was adjudged Man of the Match for his brilliant bowling performance. His figures of 4/5 are now the second-best bowling figures of this season and with 18 wickets in just eight innings, he sits at the top of the highest wicket-takers list for this season. 

Sohail Akhtar, the Qalandars skipper who has failed alongside his team has nothing to say apart from the fact that it’s tough to pinpoint one person or issue when the entire unite fails so miserably. “When our batting flops this horribly it's tough to point fingers at the bowling performance,” he said. 

Earlier in the evening, it was Sohaib Maqsood and Rilee Rossouw who got Multan Sultans rolling with the bat after both openers in skipper Mohammad Rizwan and last match hero Shan Masood failed. But Qlanadars came back and removed both Rossouw and Maqsood in a short span of time. From 123-3 in the 15th over and eying a total in excess of 180, Sultans suddenly found themselves reeling at 141-8 in the 19th over. 

Then came the much-needed boost by Sohail Tanvir, who, with his one haded hook, a pull, a straight drive and a Chinese cut, hit two sixes and three fours in the last over of the innings bowled by the quickest man with the ball in hand, Haris Rauf. This totally shifted the momentum back to Sultans which they utilised in their defence of the total. 

Reacting to the win, Rizwan said, “When the team performs according to the situation your job becomes very easy.” Asked about his plans for the Playoffs, the wicket-keeper batsman diverted the question saying, “You go match by match and ball by ball and not get too ahead of yourself. Just play according to the situation and the rest will take care of itself.”

This was Sultans fourth win in a row and with this, they reached 10 points and because of a superior run rate, climbed to the second spot on the points table with a match in hand. Until and unless they lose it by an unimaginably huge margin against Islamabad United in their last league game on Saturday, June 19, Sultans have almost confined their place in the Playoffs.

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ENG W vs IND W | One-off Test, Day-3: Shafali Verma leads India’s fightback following-on on a rain-marred day

Rain was in the air all over England on June 18 and County Ground Bristol wasn’t secured from it either. But in the time that play did happen, England Women were mostly on top of it. They rolled India Women over quickly to enforce a follow on. For India, Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma started the proceedings right from their overnight score of 187-5. But on the very first ball of the day, Kaur was removed by Sophie Ecclestone. From there on, it became very difficult to arrest the innings as wicketkeeper batter Tania Bhatia and allrounder Sneh Rana followed suit. Pace bowler Pooja Vastrakar did show some character and some abilities with the bat, stitching together a partnership of 33 runs with Deepti to take India close to avoiding the follow on. However new ball did the trick as experienced campaigners Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole removed Vatsrakar and Jhulan Goswami within successive overs to get India all out for 231, which was 15 behind the 246 that they needed to score to avoid follow on. Forced to follow on, India didn’t have a great start as Smriti Mandhana was removed for eight by Brunt. In a spot of bother, Deepti was promoted to number three. Backing that promotion she stood along with Shafali Verma as she kept scoring at a brisk pace. Verma completed her second fifty in the game and became the only Indian Women player to hit two fifties on her Test debut. The last session of play was not possible as India ended their day at 83-1 with Verma batting at 55 and Deepti at 18.

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Ashwin, Pant, Rohit Sharma, Bumrah weigh in on pressure of expectations Indian team deal with

Giving insights of the amount of pressure the star-studded Indian side face over the time from fans, Indian star players have opened up on what it means to be a Test cricketer for India and how do they deal with the enormous pressure of expectations. Off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said that Indian Test cricketers are special for having the skills in them to soak up the pressure as every time they feature in global tournament, there are hige rounds of expectations that they will be champions. He said that a cricketer while he is stepping up every ladder to play for India understands fair bit of what sort of pressure they will have to deal with at the international level. “As a kid when you grow up to play cricket in india, you know what the adulation is, you know what the expectation is, you know what the pressure is gonna be like. We all crave it. What makes a Test cricketer in India very special is the ability to be able to handle pressure and repeat good performances over a period of time. The expectation for an indian team to win a tournament is always gonna be high,” the champion spinner said in an ICC video released on Twitter giving insights about the Indian side. Speedster Jasprit Bumrah, who has risen through the ranks at a rapid rate since his debut in 2018, said that he tries to ‘block’ out the ‘outside’ and ‘unnecessary’ noise of expectations as it can bring unnecessary pressure on him. He said Cricket, the game itself is already a very demanding game and so far he has chosen to take one day at a time instead of getting bogged down by the weight of expectations. “For me personally, I try not to focus on all those expectations. I try to take it one day at a time because if I let the outside noise affect me all the time, then there is unnecessary pressure. Anyway it’s a high pressure sport and a lot of responsibilities are on you. I look to block all of that, try to focus on things I have to do, try to enjoy the game and try to take it one day at a time. So rest, will take care of itself,” Bumrah said in the same video. Wicketkeeper batsman Rishabh Pant, who has emerged as the firebrand cricketer of the Indian side over the last few series, conceded that he feels the ‘expectattion pressure.’ However, he said that he just does not want to feel ‘that kind of pressure’ as it can hamper his best efforts in the field and hence he focuses only to giving his best and making the team proud while out there in the field. “Yes, there is expectation pressure but if I think about that I can’t give my 100 per cent in the field. I don’t want to give myself that kind of pressure. I just want to give my 100 per cent each and every day and make my team proud. That’s the only thing I can do,” Pant said. Opener Rohit Sharma has a lot of things riding on his shoulders if India have to clich the first edition of the World Test Championship. He has the monumental task of combatting the Kiwi quartet of Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson and Neil Wagner. However, he said that he no longer feels weighed down under the huge amount of pressure of expectations and goes out on the field to just enjoy the game. He said that Cricket will always be played for a ‘limited’ period of time and hence it is important for individual players to enjoy the game itself to get relived off the pressure. “I used to feel it when I was 20. But right now, for me it’s all about just going out there and having fun. At the end of the day, this game is all about having fun. It’s a good bunch of individuals that we have together and cricket is played for limited period of time and you should remember to have as much fun as possible as well,” Rohit asserted. The first day of the World Test Championship final has been washed out by persistent rain in Southampton. The weather forecast for the remainder of the schedule does not look any proming either and both India and New Zealand will have to be at their absolute best to enforce result in the game if rain continues to affect the play.