Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja begin rehab at NCA

Most guys didn’t sleep whole night: Nicholas Pooran proud of West Indies fight in last T20I

West Indian stand-in skipper Nicholas Pooran who had got the duty to captain the team on Pakistan tour after regular skipper Kieron Pollard pulled out, said that he was proud of his team’s fight in the last T20I of the three-match series against the hosts. This statement came after the West Indies team’s five members tested Covid-19 positive just ahead of the game and they had to scamper to assemble an 11 man team to play the last game. “Most of the guys haven't slept the whole night and I'm very proud of the unit. I want to commend all the guys for making that extra effort to come out to play today,” Pooran said in the post-match interview after his team lost the game by seven wickets. Talking about the events before the game where the squad’s total strength came down significantly after the cases with three players in Roston Chase, Kyle Mayers and Sheldon Cottrell having tested positive for Covid-19 earlier on December 11. “We spent the whole day wondering whether we should play this game or not. A lot of positives and a lot of guys took their opportunities,” said Pooran who played an instrumental role in his team scoring 207 in their 20 overs. The skipper scored 64 off 37 deliveries. However, with brilliant knocks from Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, both of whom completed big fifties, Pakistan managed to chase down the target with seven balls remaining. but, Pooran was extremely delighted with the performance even as he felt that while batting his men could have scored a lot more runs than they already did. “ [These are] A special bunch of guys and we have competed throughout and well done to the guys. [I] Felt like the last two overs, we lost the momentum. Pakistan bowled well. We were 15 runs short on this wicket,” said the 26-year-old. Due to the Covid-19 scenario, the three-match ODI series between the two teams has now been postponed to June 2022.

The Ashes | Pat Cummins allowed to go home, Cricket Australia refutes South Australia govt's charge

Australia Test captain Pat Cummins, who got ruled out of the ongoing Day-Night Ashes Test in Adelaide has been granted permission to head home in New South Wales despite being a close contact of a Covid-19 infected person, Fox Sports reported. Also, Cricket Australia has categorically denied the charge levied by the South Australia government that the board decided to rule the skipper Pat Cummins out of the second Ashes Test on its own and without consultation with the Health Department. CEO Nick Hockely said that the board went through a quick discussion with the health department and decided to exclude Cummins from the Day-Night Test only after getting the confirmation of him being a close contact. “I think the Premier’s reference is that normally they go through quite a detailed process of contact tracing,” Hockley told SEN radio. “The work we did was engage SA Health immediately. And we needed to understand the situation in very (quickly). “We called an emergency meeting with our contacts at SA health and they confirmed Pat would be treated as close contact, so it was very much a collective decision and we had that confirmation through from SA Health. We knew (Cummins was a close contact) ahead of time through our discussions with SA Health.” Cummins’ departure to New South Wales has all but cleared the way for his return to the Australia Test side for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG starting December 26. In his absence, Steve Smith lead the Test side after a gap of four years and Michael Neser got the Baggy green to bowl alongside Mitchell Starc and Jhye Richardson.

WATCH: A sneak peek into Team India's journey from Mumbai to Johannesburg

The Indian team has reached South Africa and the BCCI has released a video giving an insight about their journey from Mumbai to Johannesburg. “From Mumbai to Jo'Burg! Capturing #TeamIndia's journey to South Africa ,” the video was captioned. India and South Africa will lock horns with each other in three Tests which will be followed by as many ODIs. The Test series is scheduled to begin on December 26 in Centurion while the first ODI will be held on January 19, 2022 in Paarl. Earlier, there were rumours going around that Test skipper Virat Kohli might not feature in the ODIs but the right-handed batsman cleared the air and said that he is totally available for the fixtures. "I was and I am available for selection all this time," Kohli said in a press conference. “You shouldn't be asking me this question honestly, you should ask the people who are writing about the things based on their sources because as far as I am concerned, I was always available.” There was a tweak in the leadership group after Rohit Sharma was handed over the ODI captaincy and was named the vice captain of the Test side as well. Unfortunately, the opener will miss the Test series due to a hamstring injury.

The Ashes | Day-Night Test, Day 2: Ricky Ponting predicts a dismissal from commentary box, again

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting is known for having eyes of detail and he has used that quality to best effect while calling the game on air. He has been very successful in foreseeing the onset of dismissal or set of events while obviously dissecting correctly the takeaways of the game in a much insightful way than it appears for the wider public. His attention to detail was at the forefront yet again as he could predict tactic England were trying to employ against Cameron Green as soon as the all-rounder walked out to bat. He has followed Green’s batting stance closely and predicted that England would bowl fuller and straighter to him because he stands with an open front foot in fear of getting trapped LBW. He was making this assessment as Ben Stokes was running in to bowl the third delivery of his 16th over and on cue, he delivered a full ball that sneaked through the gap between bat and pad to bowl him. Ponting achieved a similar feat at the start of the last Australian summer when India were playing the Day-Night Test against the home side and he could foresee Mithcell Starc’s plan of action against opener Prithvi Shaw. Then, he had predicted that Shaw was a candidate to get bowled through the gat as bat used to come from the gully angle creating a big gap between bat and pad and Starc delivered exactly the same result vindicating his assessment.