South Africa fight back strongly after Sri Lanka put up impressive first-innings total

Bizarre! Bihar Cricket Association selects two teams for Mushtaq Ali Trophy

Another round of controversies erupted in one of the most controversial state cricket associations the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) as two warring factions led by the Association President Rakesh Tiwary and Secretary of BCA Sanjay Kumar selected two different teams for the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament to represent Bihar. The Tiwary faction released a 20 member squad led by the Ranji Team captain Ashutosh Aman, while secretary Sanjay Kumar’s squad has Keshav Kumar, the opening batsman who was among the runs in this Ranji season as the leader of the squad. The surprising factor is, there are no common players in both squads. Reacting to media queries on this bizarre incident Prez Tiwary said, “This is a non-issue. The BCCI provided us with an ODMS software password which is used for the registration of players. 30 rooms are booked by BCCI in Chennai bio bubble as per the list sent by us. The secretary’s team is a fake one.” Alleging that the Secretary has been removed by the Association after eight members signed a petition, Tiwary also leveled charges of favoritism and biasedness on Kumar. “He has put his own son Shivam Sanjay Kumar in the team along with Verma’s son Lakhan Raja,” Tiwary said. Kumar has his own version of the truth to speak, He alleged former India wicketkeeper and one of the top members of the BCCI, Saba Karim of miscommunication and cheating. “Saba Karim misused his position as GM (Cricket Operations) and illegally changed the credentials of the ODMS for player registration of BCA and providing it to a person he favours,” Kumar wrote in a letter addressed to the media. Now it is up to BCCI to sort out the matter as only five days remain before all the teams assemble at their respective bio-secure hubs. Bihar team, (whichever of the two is confirmed) have to reach Chennai for their group matches where they will face Arunachal Pradesh in their first game on 11th January. The tournament begins on 10th January.

Gill draws discipline lessons from Rahane's masterclass; Starc rues dropped chances

After earning the Test debut, Indian opener Shubman Gill was given the baptism of fire at the fag end of the first day at the MCG, but he showed composure and for both his and India’s good, he had luck going for him, to combat the ever so challenging bowling line up of Australia. He was beaten on numerous occasion by Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, but he did not let it affect his mindset and played with just the right attitude the team management would have expected of him while they were taking the call on his inclusion in the side at the expense of Prithvi Shaw. He showed he has shots in his repertoire from both front foot and back foot, and on the day he was against a stern examination by the Australian pacers, the young man from Fazilka in Punjab did not hold back in pulling out punches on the Boxing Day. He also said that the fact that he has been around the team set up for some time now gave him enough room for preparation to not to have the feeling of finding himself in an all-new place facing the likes of Pat Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood. "When I came in to bat, there was something in the pitch and the pitch was lively. The only thing which I told myself was that no matter what's happening on the pitch or what's happening around me, I should be able to play my game and I should be able to express myself, play with intent. That was my thought process throughout my innings,” Gill said in the virtual press conference after the end of second day’s play in Melbourne. "I've been travelling with the team for the last four-five Test series. Being with the team, it helped me a lot. To be able to settle in the team. I've been doing all my net sessions and practice sessions, to be able to play someone like Boom (Bumrah), Shami bhai, Umesh bhai or Ishant bhai in the nets, it's a huge confidence booster for a youngster to be playing against a top bowling attack in the nets. When I went out to bat today, I didn't really feel like I was in a whole new place." Gill batted well for his brisk 45 and was looking set for a big one after successfully negotiating the new ball spells from the pacers on the first day and in the early phase of the first session of the day two where he was tested a bit more by Cummins who were bringing the balls into him sharply off the seam. Ultimately, Gill was defeated in the game of patience, as he was lured into driving at a delivery that was not full enough to be driven off the front foot, and anyway, Gill was rooted to the crease and attempted to drive it through the line without moving his feet at all. No wonder, a batsman of his calibre would be disappointed by that dismissal and Gill’s case was no different. "I'm not really happy with the way I got out. It was the last ball of Cummins's spell and I should have seen it off. It was a loose shot to play at that moment. But overall my goal was to play with intent and build partnerships, and I managed it to an extent," Gill added. His skipper in this game and for the next two matches-- Ajinkya Rahane did all things correctly what he faltered at as he showed impeccable patience to deal the pace attack while showing enough intent to take the full toll on anything that could have been called loose by the Australians. Gill has been a phenomenal batsman in the domestic circuit and for India A and for him, Ainkya Rahane provided just the perfect template of setting a Test innings without flirting with too many dangers, to emulate in his coming innings with the bat. "This knock was all about patience. He was patient, and more importantly when you are playing such a high-quality bowling attack, sometimes you go in that shell and you are not able to score runs. The way Ajinkya bhai played, it was such a magnificent knock to watch from outside. How to see off those tough periods, the loose balls that he was getting he was making sure he was putting all of them away," Gill said at the end of the second day's play,” Gill said in awe of Rahane’s unbeaten hundred. The appreciation for Rahane’s splendid innnings innings was not limited in the Indian camp as the hosts underlined the importance of his long resistance at the crease as well, although the further presence of Rahane at the crease might take the game completely from their grasp as well. Mitchell Starc was called upon by Tim Paine with the second new ball to see the back of Rahane just like the first Test, and the Indian skipper gave as many as two chances against the second new ball, but Steve Smith and Travis Head turned out to be the culprits and dropped him to make the frustrating day into an agonising one for the hosts. The left armer also rued the number of missed opportunities but acknowledged that they were outsmarted by Rahane by his chanceless batting and also a bit of luck. "He's batted really well there, he took his chances. We could have got him out maybe three, four or five times before he got to his hundred. He's run his luck there and scored a good hundred. So well done to him,” Starc said. India have secured a lead of 82 runs with the skipper Rahane and Jadeja remaining unbeaten at the end of day two and the pitch holds the key for both teams as India would look to press on especially with two spinners in the playing XI, but Starc ruled out outrageous help from the pitch and reckoned that the pitch is fattening out for the batsmen to enjoy batting on the third day. "I think we found that once the ball got softer, the wicket's pretty flaccid. I think by the end of today, there were no demons in it anymore. I think it's a typical Melbourne, it flattens out. Even with that extra bit of grass than we're normally used to here, it's become a pretty flat wicket. So it's important for us when we get a chance again to bat really big and bat us into the game again,” Starc said of the MCG pitch where the curators had left 11 mm long grass to aid pacers. But the Indian camp is banking on the pitch to aid more turn and in that case, the sipping duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin would be lethal forces for the Australian batting line up which looks jaded and unsure of their tactics. Shubman Gill took a reference to the help Ashwin-Jadeja were getting on the first day, along with the kind of purchase that Lyon could extract on day two, to suggest that the pitch will not be any easier to bat on against spinners. "As you saw on the first day as well, there was a bit of turn for Ash [Ashwin] bhai and Jaddu [Jadeja] bhai. Today also, you could see there was a bit of turn for Nathan (Lyon). Obviously, there's going to be more cracks and the wicket is going to get more challenging for the batsmen. So it's really important for us to capitalise on this lead that we have and then to get them all-out as quickly as possible,” Gill added. The visitor’s camp would be hoping for the unbeaten pair of Rahane and Jadeja to stay at the crease for at least one session and score another 80 odd runs to put the hosts under big pressure before unleashing their spin twins against them. If the pitch will offer assistance to the spinners, both Jadeja and Ashwin can spin a aweb around the Australian batting line up to justify the brave call his captain took by fielding both of them at the iconic MCG.

ICC Team of the decade: Pakistan supporters allege favoritism; Dhoni named skipper of limited overs side

The Pakistan cricket supporters fumed as the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced Teams of the decade for various categories, but no Pakistani, men or women could make the cut. Reacting to the teams announced by the apex cricketing body, several Pakistani journalists and fans tweeted citing mainly Babar Azam’s impressive limited-overs records, suggesting that the ICC has done injustice to the fans and cricketers of the Pak nation by not including anyone from their country. Of the top eight nine cricket-playing nations, Pakistan is the only team that hasn’t got any representation in the teams announced for this decade, even Bangladesh and West Indies have representations. In the list for the three men’s teams i.e. Tests, ODIs, and T20Is, Australia and India have the most representations with five players each making the cut overlapping all lists. England has four while South Africa has three names. New Zealand, West Indies, and Sri Lanka have two players each on the list, and Afghanistan and Bangladesh have one each. MS Dhoni, the charismatic captain and the only skipper in the world to have won all three cricket trophies i.e. World Cups in both T20 and ODI and the 50 over Champions Trophy, has been chosen as the captain for the limited-overs while India’s dashing batsman Virat Kohli has been made the skipper of the Test team. ICC Men's Test Team of the Decade Alastair Cook (ENG), David Warner (AUS), Kane Williamson (NZ), Virat Kohli (c) (IND), Steve Smith (AUS), Kumar Sangakkara (wk) (SL), Ben Stokes (ENG), Ravichandran Ashwin (IND), Dale Steyn (SA), Stuart Broad (ENG), Jimmy Anderson (ENG) ICC Men's ODI Team of the Decade Rohit Sharma (IND), David Warner (AUS), Virat Kohli (IND), AB de Villiers (SA), Shakib Al Hasan (BAN), MS Dhoni (c & wk) (IND), Ben Stokes (ENG), Mitchell Starc (AUS), Trent Boult (NZ), Imran Tahir (SA), Lasith Malinga (SL) ICC Men's T20I Team of the Decade Rohit Sharma (IND), Chris Gayle (WI), Aaron Finch (AUS), Virat Kohli (IND), AB de Villiers (SA), Glenn Maxwell (AUS), MS Dhoni (c & wk) (IND), Kieron Pollard (WI), Rashid Khan (AFG), Jasprit Bumrah (IND), Lasith Malinga (SL) ICC Women's ODI Team of the Decade Alyssa Healy (AUS), Suzie Bates (NZ), Mithali Raj (IND), Meg Lanning (c) (AUS), Stafanie Taylor, Sarah Taylor (wk) (ENG), Ellyse Perry (AUS), Dane van Niekerk (SA), Marizanne Kapp (SA), Jhulan Goswami (IND), Anisa Mohammed (WI) ICC Women's T20I Team of the Decade Alyssa Healy (wk) (AUS), Sophie Devine (NZ), Suzie Bates (NZ), Meg Lanning (c) (AUS), Harmanpreet Kaur (IND), Stafanie Taylor (WI), Deandra Dottin (WI), Ellyse Perry (AUS), Anya Shrubsole (ENG), Megan Schutt (AUS), Poonam Yadav (IND)

Why is Rahane always asked to prove himself? Why are Indians so unfair to him?

One of the biggest problems of with Indian cricket community is its inability to distinguish between formats. This is most evident in how performances in Indian Premier League (IPL) are often considered sound basis to rate a player's abilities in the longer format. Also, not looking at different formats separately leads to incorrect assumptions about form. One player who is constantly described as playing for his career or under pressure to prove himself again is Ajinkya Rahane. Anyone who only looks at his Test performances would be stunned to see how unfairly he is tagged as 'out of form' even in the longest format of the game. So much has been said and written about the 'form' of Rahane coming into this series. That is the height of absurdity. If one looks at the performances of Rahane in Test cricket, he would know that the Mumbai batsman has been among the most consistent in the Indian team and is actually a cornerstone of the team's batting. But this is where the short-sightedness of Indian fans and critics comes into play. Just because he didn't have a good IPL, Rahane was dubbed as being 'out of form.' Now, what in the world does a T20 league have to do with Test cricket. If IPL performances be the parameter for judging a player's form in Tests, Indian should drop Pujara since he doesn't even get into an IPL XI. Now, let's look at Rahane's performances in the last few years. Yes, he didn't get runs in the two Tests against New Zealand, India's last Test series. But guess what, neither did Virat Kohli. In fact, in the four innings that India played in that series, the highest score by an Indian was 58 - by Mayank Agarwal in the second innings of the first Test. In the first innings of that match, Rahane was the top scorer for India with 46. Now let's keep going backwards. Before that series, India played Bangladesh at home in two Tests. India had just two innings to bat in the two matches. Rahane scored 86 and 51 in his two innings. Before that, India played South Africa in three Tests at home. Rahane scored 215 runs in that series with an average of over 72, including one century and one half-century. Before that, in West Indies, Rahane scored 271 runs at an average of 102 with one hundred and two fifties, in the two-match series. Now, even before the series in West Indies, Rahane was deemed to be 'under pressure.' Why was that? Let's look at his performances in Test matches before that tour. In India's famous series win in Australia, Rahane wasn't among the top scorers. Still, he scored half-centuries in the first two Tests - He didn't get runs in the remaining two matches, which included just three innings, but is that enough to question his place in the team. Prior to the tour of Australia, Rahane had scored 87 in the first innings of the only Test India won in England, forming a partnership with Virat Kohli that set up India's victory. Prior to that, in South Africa, Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli chose Rohit Sharma ahead of Rahane for the first two Tests because Rohit has more 'intent' - the word that Shastri-Kohli duo are obsessed with. Rohit failed in both those matches and then, Rahane played in the third Test, played on a most dangerous seamer-friendly pitch. In India's vital second-innings, he top scored with 48, helping India gain a big win. A player with such a record ought to be backed even when he's had a lean series, rather than judged to be 'playing for his place.' More importantly, Rahane's form since India's tour of West Indies has been extremely good. Yet, because he didn't do well in a T20 league, he was judged to be 'under pressure.' Such nonsense must cease immediately.