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The Ashes | Both the energy and mood in England camp is low, says Stuart Broad

England fast bowler Stuart Broad admitted that the mood in the English camp is quite low after the side lost all the three games in the Ashes series so far. The right-arm bowler further added that this Australian side is a good team but “not the best” that they have played. 

“Part of the reason things feel so down within our camp is that while Australia are a good cricket team, they are not the best we have faced here and I still feel that, without Covid, an opportunity existed to do something special,” Broad wrote in a column for The Daily Mail.

“Both the energy and the mood in the camp is low,” Broad wrote.

Mentioning about his future, Broad wrote that he isn’t someone who would take decisions emotionally and added that he is pretty fit. 

“There is a long time between now and the tour of the Caribbean in March and I have never been one to make emotional decisions. So I’m not going to make any spur-of-the-moment calls on my future. I feel fit, I’ve come back from the calf injury feeling strong and I’m taking wickets in the nets. That’s all I can do given the lack of tour games and the tight schedule,” he wrote. 

Australia have taken an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series while the penultimate clash is scheduled to take place in Sydney from January 5, 2022. 

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SA vs IND | 2nd Test, Day 1: Duanne Olivier rattles India as Pujara, Rahane continue to disappoint

A brilliant comeback after a poor and ineffective first spell of bowling from Duanne Olivier pushed India on backfoot in the first session of the second Test against South Africa. Olivier was trusted to partner Kagiso Rabada with the new ball over Lungi Ngidi, who had taken a five-wicket haul in the last Test, but he looked short of rhythm and offered half volleys to Mayank Agarwal. The right-hander was up to the task and hit him for two boundaries to get India off to a confident start. The duo carried on with their usual patterns from the last game. KL Rahul was more defensive of the two but he received the most number of good balls from the Proteas pace bowling attack. He was particularly troubled by Lungi Ngidi, who bowled the best among the pacers in the first half of the first session. The first success though came to Marco Jansen, who got one to angle across Mayank Agarwal right after the drinks break and the right-hander could not resist the temptation to drive the ball. On the other hand, Rahul was going strong as ever while Cheteshwar Pujara was battling the pace attack on a surface offering spongy bounce and a lot of demons in his mind. He was defensive as ever and never tried to put South Africa pacers under pressure even when they offered him short and wide deliveries. Olivier was brought back into the attack just before the lunch break and he was all warmed up for the role of enforcer after a poor start. He first extracted the extra bounce he has been known for to take the splice of Pujara’s bat and Temba Bavuma took an easy opportunity. Virat Kohli’s absence pushed Ajinkya Rahane to the top order and a lot was expected of him at the number four slot. However, continuing the trend of his career over the last few years, he failed to make good use of his fluency and form from the first Test and played a nervous poke way outside off stump to give catching practice to Keegan Petersen. All the hard work of KL Rahul and positive intent from Mayank Agarwal was squandered in a span of two deliveries by Olivier and India will have to bat really well in the remaining two sessions of the day to post a fighting total on the board.

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BCCI starts compensating domestic players for Covid hit 2020-21 season

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) started to compensate the domestic players, both male and female for the Covid hit 2020-21 season. For the state associations that have sent in the duly filled forms, the players have got 50% of their regular earnings while a number of players are yet to receive payments because of procedural delays. It was the Mohammad Azharuddin-led seven-member working group that formulated the compensation for the Covid-19-affected season by the BCCI. And according to that formula, a player who featured in eight games in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy would receive INR 11.20 lakh in coherence with what he would have received had the season not been marred with Covid. Similarly, those players who were in the squad but couldn’t play a game in the 2019-20 season would also get compensation equal to the correspondence fee. All the players are to be compensated ahead of the start of the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy season which begins from January 13 and would go on till March 17, with matches taking place at seven different venues. The Covid cases are on a rise in the country once again with third-wave eminent. The Vijay Merchant Trophy which is played by U-16 boys was cancelled citing the non-vaccination of players. But it seemed that Ranji would go on as players taking part in the tournament are already double vaccinated. The match fee for players has been increased with the season and a player with experience of more than 40 First Class games would be getting INR 60,00 per day. Earlier all senior men’s players in the playing xi would get the same amount of INR 35,000. But now a player who has played matches between 20-40 would get INR 50,000 per day while those having played below 20 Games would EARN INR 40,000 per day. Similarly per day fee for women cricketers was also raised from INR 12,500 to 20,000. However, along with the perk has also come the side effect as BCCI has reduced the number of games to five at group stages from eight played during the last season of the Ranji Trophy. Players hope that from the next season or whenever the Covid threat subsides, and the format returns to home and away basis, then the teams could play the same eight games as earlier.