Sai Kishore keeps calm to nullify valiant effort from Sravana Kumar; hands Chepauk it's record third TNPL title

ENG vs IND | 2nd Test, Day 4: Moeen, Wood overpower Rahane - Pujara to set up cracking final day

The infuriated gestures from Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from the Indian balcony to ask Rishabh Pant and Ishant Sharma to have a word with on-filed umpires over the issue of light all but slumped up the tourists’ position in the game. Having started the game on such dominating note that experts and fans started arguing if the Indian team finally arrived on England tour, they are the side facing the strongest chance of defeat leading into the final day of the series. They needed to put on another strong batting performance on the line of what the opposition captain Joe Root had done on the previous day. However, they were down and out and on the brink barely after reaching the fifty run mark. As soon as Rohit Sharma departed pulling Mark Wood to Moeen Ali at deep square leg, the onus fell on the middle order to finally come to the party and bail the team out of trouble. They kind of did all the hard work but could not quite steer the visitors out of trouble by the end of the day’s play. It was a perfect day of cricket for England as they kept the control of the game in their favour throughout the course of the day and found breakthroughs at regular intervals to keep India at bay. The early wickets of Rohit, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli gave them a real sense of opportunity, while Moeen Ali’s twin strikes late in the day tilted the momentum significantly in their favour. Wood uproots India’s base In absence of Stuart Broad, Ollie Robinson was preferred over Mark Wood with the new ball and the latter was brought into the attack only after the 20th over in the first innings. However, the nature of the pitch had changed considerably from the first day to the fourth day and after having batted for a magnificent 180, Root was aware of its slowness. Robinson was again preferred with the new ball, but he amended his course by not delaying Wood this time around. Root would have felt the urge to use the extra pace of Wood to extract more help from the surface and the move paid off almost immediately as Rahul could not quite hold himself from playing at a short of good length ball he should have left. Rohit, a compulsive hooker of the short ball, was asked to hit some lusty shots. Remaining true to his nature and style, he obliged with a crisp shot that went flat over the square leg boundary. Having seen Rohit taking on the short ball, Root sent positioned deep square leg at a finer position and the right-hander perished falling into the trap. Wood was asked to attack Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane with a short ball from round the wicket angle. However, they did not lose their patience and Wood had to go back after finishing that spell. He came back later towards the end of the day’s play when Rahane and Pujara were closing in on a 100-run partnership. The latter was confident to pull the pacer for four to bring up the partnership landmark but the jubilation was short-lived. Wood produced a snotter that rarer off from the good length area, leaving Pujara with no answer other than to edging to third slip. Wood was rapid and on the money whenever Root needed him and his role as an enforcer of this England was well-ratified. Rahane-Pujara’s hear the calls Both Rahane and Pujara were under tremendous pressure coming into bat in the second innings after their failures in the first innings squandered the dominating start by the openers. Both of them were guilty of searching the ball outside their off stump against Anderson and India could not reach the level they should have reached after Rahul’s century and Rohit’s 83. Rahane joined Pujara after the fall of the gigantic wicket of Kohli when they were just 28 runs ahead of England with more than five sessions remaining in the game. They had to make a call on whether they wanted to take the game on or they wanted to soak up the pressure and bat with solidity and concentration on the surface that was not playing dangerous tricks. In an unsurprising move, they decided to take time and needless to say they took a lot of time as Pujara took as many as 35 balls to get off the mark. Rahane too ate a fair share of balls to bring solidity to the Indian batting. They batted out the remaining part of the morning session and carried on their merry way to bat the entire afternoon session at a run rate of fewer than two runs per over. The slowness of their partnership would have ignited debates about ‘intent’ and being too defensive, but lack of batting depth and a lot of time left in the game meant they had to dig in. Moeen Ali’s love affair with India in England Moeen Ali was the chief beneficiary of Pujara-Rahane’s defensive batting as he allowed Root with the control of the game from the other end. His first 10 overs yielded runs at two runs per over and lack of timing from both batsmen meant even his loose deliveries went unpunished. The rewards of building pressure and bowling in a tight channel outside off stump paid dividends when Rahane, who was getting beaten repeatedly on the backfoot, edged one through to Jos Buttler. Moeen has had Rahane’s numbers in the past and the journey continued at lord’s today. Moeen bettered his day by finding a perfect off-spinner’s delivery against Jadeja. He was getting good drift throughout the day and another such delivery found Jadeja playing for a ball that shaped to come into him in the air, before turning off the pitch, and opening him up and hitting the stumps. The twin strikes just before the second new ball was due put England significantly ahead in the game and India would need remarkable batting from Pant and bowlers to get back in the game. Looking ahead to the final day India are ahead by 154 runs but have only Pant who can score runs and put England under pressure. They need the bowlers to shine bright with the bat and especially Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah need to defend well to give Pant some opportunity to attack England early on on the final day. If they fail to perform that task, Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami should be ready to swing their bats to maximise the number of runs they can add. A lot of India’s fortunes will depend on the longevity of Pant’s stay at the crease and for England, it would be a battle for cat and mouse as they would be willing to hide the ball away from the right-hander and wipe off the tail. The first four days have been topsy-turvy with no team clearly ahead in the game. However, by the end of the fourth day, England are favourites to take the game and 1-0 lead in their kitty. Whatever it has in store for the fans of the game, it’s Rishabh Pant standing in between England and India on the final day of the Lord’s Test.

BCB palns extension of coach Russell Domingo’s contract to 2022 T20 World Cup

Bangladesh Cricket Board President Nazmul Hassan Papon is in talks with the board members to finalise the extension of Bangladesh senior national team head coach Russell Domingo’s contract. Domingo, who signed up after the 2019 World Cup is about to have his initial contract’s time over. However, the recent 4-1 victory over Australia along with a successful Zimbabwe tour and an ODI series win against Sri Lanka has changed the scenario in Domingo’s favour, which was previously uncertain due to Bangladesh’s continuous failure, the biggest being 2-0 drubbing in Tests by second-string West Indies team at home. "No final decision has been made. He is with us till the World Cup (2021 T20 World Cup). Contract renewal will happen. There is no problem with this. The contract is most likely to be extended,” Papon said in a media interaction on Sunday, August 15 ahead of the national team’s high-performance camp being set up at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhary Stadium in Chattogram. "We have not yet informed him [Domingo] about this decision, neither have we discussed it with ourselves. We just talked to a few people. Now we need to talk to many more. Then we will make the final decision,” the BCB prez added. Clarifying that the talk is only about the extension of the contract till 2022 T20 World Cup and not till 2023 ODI World Cup, Papon said, “Most likely we have been thinking for a year. There are two T20 World Cups. For now, the idea of renewing until the 2022 T20 World Cup is in mind. We will confirm it after talking with everyone.” The Tigers, having won a historic first bilateral series against Australia will be taking on New Zealand in another five-match T20I series starting September 1 at the Sher-E-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka.

Jayden Seales becomes youngest West Indian to take five-wicket haul, breaks 71-year-old record

Trinidad and Tobago fast bowler Jayden Seales became the youngest West Indian to take a five-wicket haul in Test cricket when he got Pakistan’s Hasan Ali caught at deep fine leg to get the visitors all out in their second innings of the first Test at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. With this five-wicket haul, his first in international cricket or any kind of First-Class cricket, the 19 years and 339 days old pacer became the youngest pacer to achieve this feat for West Indies, breaking the 71-year-old record held by slow left-arm orthodox bowler Alfred Valentine, who had taken a five-wicket haul at the age of 20 in 1950. Seales, who had started the fourth day with two wickets in his kitty during the second Pakistan innings, picked the wickets of Yasir Shah and Shaheen Afridi, before finally getting Ali caught off a bouncer. These three wickets added to the two wickets of Fawad Alam and Abid Ali that he had already taken. The pacer is playing only his third Test. Ali was also the last man to get out for the visitors who could add only 43 runs to their overnight score of 160-5. By getting bundled out for 203, the Babar Azam led side set a target of 168 for the hosts to chase and register their first-ever win against the former in the last 41 years.

‘This isn’t your backyard’: Kohli attacks Anderson, Stuart Broad reminds pacer's record at Lord's

Long-time arch-rivals James Anderson and Virat Kohli were engaged in a war of words early on the fourth day of the second Test at Lord’s. Anderson was trying all his tricks to get the better of India skipper while Kohli was not liking the “swearing” Anderson had to offer him. The incident happened in the 17th over of India’s second innings when Kohli took on a verbal battle with the leader of England’s bowling attack. Kohli was heard saying “this is not your backyard” along with swearing words to Anderson on the stump mic. He also reminded Anderson of his age in the middle of that verbal duel. “You're swearing at me again, are you? This isn’t your fu**ing backyard," said Kohli to initiate the duel. Later he followed that up with “chirp chirp chirp. This is what old age makes you,” remark at Anderson. Notably, Anderson had some words to say to Jasprit Bumrah at the end of the third day's play after he was peppered by short bowling by Bumrah, and Kohli might have come at Anderson recalling that moment. Anderson’s bowling partner Stuart Broad, who has been ruled out of the series after the first Test at Trent Bridge did not like the ‘backyard’ remark from Kohli and reminded the world of Anderson’s phenomenal record at Lord’s to make a point that the venue was as close as possible to being a ‘backyard’ for the most successful pace bowler in Test cricket. Anderson picked the 31st five-wicket haul of his career and seventh at Lord’s in the first innings of the ongoing Test match.