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Usman Khwaja Supports Steve Smith For Australias Captaincy

Usman Khwaja supports Steve Smith for Australia's captaincy

Out of favour Australia batsman Usman Khwaja has supported former skipper Steve Smith to take the charge of the national team once again. Khwaja, who is leading the Queensland side in the second round of the Sheffield Shield, said that Smith has already paid for the mistakes he committed being the leader of the team, and hence if he wants to lead the side again, the opportunity must be given to him.

“If Steve Smith wants to captain Australia, I think he should captain Australia. He’s our number one batsman, he’s done it before, he’s paid for his mistakes, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be in line for the captaincy if wants to do it, Khwaja said to reporters in Brisbane.

Khwaja is the latest Australian cricketer to throw his weight behind Smith’s claim on the captaincy of the Australian team. Earlier late last year, former Australian batsman Mark Waugh, who was a member of the selection committee in the recent past, had said that Smith deserves redemption and that he should get the captaincy back.

“I would have made Steve Smith captain. He is one of the best players in the team, so he is always going to be picked in the team,” Waugh had said on Fox Sports’ Heavy Roller Podcast.

“Plus he has captained Australia for a number of years. He’s got a great cricket brain and I think he is a leader, so why not?” I know a lot of people say why should he captain again? But hang on the crime has been paid for as minor as I thought it was. He’s paid his penance there, so he gets back to captain. I think he is a pretty good captain.”

On the other hand, spin legend Shane Warne has always rejected the idea of reinstating Smith as the captain of the Australian team. Although he has forgiven Smith for the act in South Africa in 2018 he still believes that Smith’s phase as captain has gone by and that the right-hander should focus on amassing more and more runs with the bat.

“I wouldn’t (make him captain), I think Steve Smith has had his time. I would go with someone else as captain. Steve Smith we want to bat and bat. I think we just let him bat and play. His time has been. It has got nothing to do with the issues in South Africa for me. I just think it is time for someone else,” Warne said.

There was a debate around Tim Paine’s position as the captain of the team after the series loss from India at home, but the selectors have backed Paine for the near future. However, the next series for Australia is far away at the end of the year and if Australia fail to retain the urn in their own backyard, Paine's position as captain will become untenable.

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Sunil Gavaskar completes 50 year of Test career; Twitter pours tribute

One of the prominent stalwarts of Indian cricket Sunil Gavaskar has been felicitated by the BCCI on the completion of 50 years of his Test career. BCCI Scereatry Jay Shah presented Gavaskar with a memento during the lunch break on the third day of the fourth Test between India and England which the first little master of Cricket accepted amid huge cheers from the crowd present in Ahemdabad. He had made his debut in the longest format on March 06, 1971, on the tour of the West Indies. He had missed the first Test of the series due to an injury but made his way into the team led by Ajit Wadegar in Port of Spain. He left an impression with the very first innings in whites and scored 65 runs—that people who followed that series rate very highly. He went on to play as many as 125 Tests for India and amassed 10122 runs with an astounding average of 51.12 runs per over on the back of 34 hundred and 45 fifties. Followers of the game in that era had a virtual field day today as they flocked to Twitter to pour tributes on Sunil Gavaskar’s amazing career. A lot of them had different stories to tell about the little master on the microblogging site.

IPL schedule likely to be out next week; BCCI assures support from Maharashtra govt

Senior officials of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) met Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday, March 3, to figure out a way forward for hosting the cash-rich league in Mumbai. Cricbuzz reported that Pawar, an influential figure in Maharashtra politics, assured BCCI acting CEO Hemang Amin and IPL chairman Brijesh Patel of all possible support from the Maharashtra government. With surging cases of the novel coronavirus, BCCI has been apprehensive of holding the IPL in Mumbai, a city that has been averaging 15,000 new Covid-19 cases every day. With just a little over a month left for the IPL to begin, BCCI have neither announced the dates nor the venue for the cash-rich tournament. Earlier, reports had suggested that BCCI are looking to host the tournament in six centres - Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai and if possible, Mumbai. Cricbuzz further reported that the associations of Punjab, Rajasthan and Hyderabad have been trying to squeeze into the list of venues. Punjab CM Capt. Amarinder Singh tweeted on 2 March that he was shocked at Mohali’s exclusion as an IPL venue and further stated that all necessary safety arrangements will be made if Mohali is allowed to hold matches. The BCCI is waiting for the IPL Governing Council to approve the IPL schedule. Reports have suggested that it will be held in the next couple of days. With elections being held in the months of March and April the council will have their task cut out in the next few days.

Washington Sundar stranded on 96

Washington Sundar was left stranded on the non-striker end and remained unbeaten on 96 while India's lower order batsmen were blown away by Ben Stokes with the ball. He was outstanding with the bat and stitched valuable partnerships of 113 with Rishabh Pant and followed it with another hundred-run partnership with Axar Patel. Axar Patel got run out on 43 and that exposed the remaining two pacers Mohammed Siraj and Ishant Sharma with the bat against Ben Stokes and the all-rounder did not take more than four balls to wipe out both of them to leave Washington helpless at 96 not out. India got bowled out for 365 runs in their first innings and earned a massive lead of 160 runs over England in the first session of the third day’s play.

WI vs SL | 2nd T20I: All-round Hasaranga, disciplined bowlers set up series decider

Sri Lanka bounced back in the second T20 against West Indies with all their might and levelled the three-match series at the Coolidge. Having set a challenging target of 161 runs, the Lankan bowlers were at the top of their game and did not allow any batsman of the power-packed batting line up to come at the top of them, and defended the score by a big margin of 63 runs. Hasaranga de Silva was adjudged the Player of the Match for his all-round display where he picked up three big wickets and provided flourish to Sri Lanka’s batting efforts down the order. Skipper Angelo Mathews relied on the spin and variations of Akila Dananjaya along with the pace of Dushmantha Chameera and the duo bowled tight lines to send a sense of desperation in the hosts’ camp. Dananjaya was all over him Lendl Simmons and the right-hander could not find a way to get away with the required run rate. The effect of quiet overs was telling and Lewis decided to slog his and Windies’s out of the early struggle, but Dananjya was too succinct with his variations and beat him with the one that kept on coming into him with the arm. The universe boss arrived at number three and he literally started bossings around with a six and a boundary of Chameera to bring Windies on track to chase down the target. Dananjaya tried to choke them once again from the other end, but Thisara Perera paid for his discipline with both Gayle and Simmons setting themselves up to send him over the boundary lines repetitively. Simmons and Gayle plundered the all-rounder for 20 runs with three foursa and one six to end the first powerplay, and the partnership started looking ominous for the tourists. S Simmons started timing the ball nicely, but Hasarranga arrived at the bowling crease just after the end of the powerplay. He did not start well, but in a first sign that the night was to be his, Hassaranga picked up the big wicket of Chris Gayle with a real drag on delivery. Sri Lanka were back in the game, but only just with another danger man Nicholas Pooran out to bat. Hassaranga was not finished in that over and accounted for Simmons with a googly to pegg Windies significantly back in the game. Windies promoted Jason Holder over skipper Kieron Pollard, but the tall all-rounder could be as good as only for a six but another spinner Danushka Gunathilaka accounted for him to leave the men in marron in real tatters. Fresh from belligerent innings where he hit six sixes in an over, Pollard was in the mood to use his finishing skills and asked Bravo to bat ahead of him. If the previous setbacks were due to spinners and their variations, natural variations off the pitch of Chameera were too good for Pooran and Bravo and Windies were under real pressure just like in the last game and needed Pollard to come good once again if they were to win the game. Pollard was on the money from the word go and smashed his only third ball and thumped Hasaranga’s googly over the mid-wicket boundary to send a signal to the Sri Lanka camp. Fabian Allen too started to get the feel of the game with a six off Dananjaya to resurrect Windies. Hasaranga came back strongly to send Allen back to the pavilion while also not allowing batsmen to run away with a flurry of boundaries. The job was getting tougher for the hosts, but they had hope as long as Pollard was there and Lakshan Sandakan shattered the last piece of respite Windies were banking on. He dragged Pollard towards the off side and in the desperation of surging required run rate, Windies skipper holed out at the deep cover to be the final nail in the coffin. However, Obed McCoy tried the best he could do and rattled Perera in his second over as well. He smashed him all corners to take 23 runs off him, but the target was too far away from his reach and finally, West Indies had to squander the 1-0 lead in the series. Earlier in the evening, Sri Lanka’s skipper Angelo Mathews won the toss and elected to put the runs on the board. The opening pair of Danushka Gunathilaka and Niroshan Dickwella was separated from the last game, and Pathum Nissanka was rewarded a promotion for his batting in the first game of the series. Gunathilaka and Nissanka started not so belligerent, but classical shots paid off for them as Fidel Edwards started with fuller balls in search of some swing in the air. Two boundaries in the very first over were good enough to set up the batting for the tourists, and they did not take their foot off from the pedal. Pollard tried to replicate a marvellous catch like in the last game just around the end of the powerplay, but it was not to be his day in the field and Gunathilaka was handed a reprieve and the left-hander reached a fifty from 35 balls to give a near-perfect platform to the batsmen batting down the order. Just when they were looking to take the game completely away from the West Indies, the old and wily Dwayne Bravo came into the attack to send both of them back to the pavilion. He was not finished and came back to dismiss Dinesh Chandimal to push Sri Lanka’s advantage into disarray. Angelo Mathews and Ashen Bandara were tasked with the resurrection of Sri Lanka’s batting, but neither of them could make it big and departed only after stabilising the innings, before Hasaranga came into the scene and bludgeoned the bowlers around to take Lanka past 150 run-mark. The three-match T20 series between the sides has now been levelled with this Sri Lanka win and the decider of the series will be played at the same venue on March 08.