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Punjab Cm Amarinder Singh Questions Mohalis Snub As Ipl 2021 Venue

Punjab CM Amarinder Singh questions Mohali's snub as IPL 2021 venue

The BCCI recently announced the schedule for the IPL 2021 and six cities have been shortlisted for hosting the fixtures. The cities include Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata while Mohali was snubbed for being the host.

Punjab CM Amarinder Singh has now questioned BCCI’s decision. “I have written to them (BCCI) saying if they can have a match in Mumbai, which has had 9,000 cases per day, then what's wrong with Mohali. We will take the necessary precautions,” Amarinder Singh was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Earlier, a BCCI official had explained the reason behind Mohali not being selected as one of the venues for the IPL matches this year.

“We don’t want a situation to arise where we have an IPL match in Mohali and a farmer agitation march moves towards the stadium. It will attract media attention from all over the world. We don’t want such a situation to arise. Mohali is not among shortlisted venues due to the current scenario in the northern part of India," BCCI official said.

The tournament will have as many 56 matches. Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata will host 10 matches each while Delhi and Ahmedabad will have 8 games each. The IPL is slated to begin from April 9 in Chennai when defending champions Mumbai Indians will lock horns with RCB in the opener. MI won the 2020 season after beating Delhi Capitals in the final. This was MI’s fifth title win in the IPL.

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Dreams don’t turn to dust: Dropped from Team India, Shikha Pandey tweets video entailing her journey

Indian women’s team lead pace bowler before the ongoing series against South Africa women, Shikha Pandey shared an emotional video entailing her journey to becoming a professional cricketer. Putting out the video on Twitter, Shikha captioned it as, “09.03.2014: Dreams don’t turn to dust!” This video also comes at an important juncture because the pacer has been sidelined after the T20 World Cup, even without much fault of her. Indian women’s team vice-captain Harmanpreet Kaur also said that Pandey was not dropped on the basis of her form, but because the Indian set up wanted to try new players. The video, which replays some parts of Shikah’s life through a flipbook, shows a young Shikha watching a game of cricket in April 19918 and then slowly flips to 09 March 2014 when the Andhra born made her India debut at the age of 24. Now at 31, the Indian speedster has played two Tests, 52 ODIs and 50 T20Is so far and taken a total of 113 wickets in them.

Sourav Ganguly hints at no crowds during IPL 2021

BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has hinted that the full IPL 2021 season may be held behind closed doors. The IPL 2021 is scheduled to begin from April 9 with RCB taking on Mumbai Indians in the opening match in Chennai. "Don't know yet, depends on the situation," Ganguly told India Today on Monday. "It's [IPL] slightly different than a bilateral [series]. If you open up to crowds, there are teams playing in middle, there are teams practising outside as well. Lot of these stadiums have practice pitches outside, and teams practice there because they play every day. So to open it up to crowds, you expect them to get closer to the practicing teams. So that could be a bit of a risk." The IPL 2020 was held in UAE and the former skipper suggested that the tournament took place without the spectators there as well. "Dubai also was the same: we started closed doors and expected to open out to the crowds, but since it went so well, we didn't take the risk of having crowds back, so we'll see." The IPL 2021 schedule was released recently. There would be 56 matches in total with Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata hosting 10 games each while Delhi and Ahmedabad will have 8. The schedule has been made in such a way that the teams will have to travel only thrice during the tournament. Mumbai Indians are the defending champions. MI won the 2020 edition of the IPL after beating Delhi Capitals in the final. The Mumbai franchise are the most successful IPL team with five titles to their name.

Sam Curran defends English rotation policy

England all-rounder Sam Curran has defended the rotation policy adopted by the England and Wales Cricket Board. The Surrey all-rounder, who was rested for the entire India Test leg after playing two Tests in Sri Lanka, said that he personally found it refreshing to get a rest before the white ball series. "Definitely... a lot of stuff has been spoken about the rotation. As a player, I have found it very beneficial, the bubbles are really tough from the player's perspective, being away for long periods, it is nice coming back after my break, refreshed and really raring to go for this white-ball series, I think it is going to be a great series,” he said in the press conference. Talking about the importance of the series with respect to the upcoming T20 World Cup in October this year, Curran said that it is always an important series whenever England plays. "The Test series was really competitive, it was great to watch a fantastic series, unfortunately, England did lose. I think again with the T20s coming up... it is a World Cup year, so it is going to be a lot of emphasis on us doing well," the 22-year-old said. Saying that a lot of players playing in the T20 series didn't play in the Tests, Sam said, it could benefit the team. “I guess the players move on very quickly and focus on what is ahead and try and improve, so come Friday, the team that goes up will be ready and excited to play against a really good Indian outfit," added the Northampton born. The first of the five T20Is between India and England would be played on 12th March at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

IPL 2021 | RCB holds mini camp ahead of the tournament

The IPL 2021 is round the corner and the teams have begun with the preparations for the tournament already. Recently, RCB’s coaching staff and some of the uncapped players got together and had a fitness assessment session in Bengaluru. RCB’s strength and conditioning coach Shankar Basu said that the bio-bubbles have made the players really tired. “The bio-bubbles have made the players tired so we need to take care of the mental aspect. We have had a good support staff and have been together for a long time and we try to put the best foot forward,” he said in the video released by the franchise. The opening match of the IPL 2021 will be played between RCB and Mumbai Indians in Chennai. There would be 56 matches in total. Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru will host 10 games each while Delhi and Ahmedabad will have 8 games. There would be 11 double headers. The schedule has been made in such a way that every team will have to travel only three times during the tournament. "After hosting the tournament safely and successfully in the UAE last year with all safety protocols in place, the BCCI is confident of hosting the IPL at home with health and safety of players and all people involved being paramount," BCCI said in the release. RCB have never won an IPL trophy. They have been into the finals thrice but failed to lift the cup. The IPL2021 mini auctions took place in February in Chennai. The Bangalore franchise bought Glenn Maxwell and Kyle Jamieson for Rs. 14.25 Cr and Rs 15 Cr respectively. Apart from this, they also bought Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Suyash Prabhudessai, KS Bharat for Rs 20 lakh each while Daniel Christian for Rs. 4.8 Cr.