Vijay Dahiya roped in as Uttar Pradesh coach for upcoming domestic season

MS Dhoni becomes first player to complete 100 catches for single IPL team

Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni became the first man in Indian Premier League history to complete 10 catches for a single team. He reached the milestone in the 44th game of the IPL against Sunsrisers Hyderabad. The former India captain caught three players in this match and the third catch of Wriddhiman Saha became his 100th for CSK. In total, MSD has taken 119 catches, 19 of which have come for Rising Pune Super Giants, the side which he represented in the two years of 2016 and 2017 when CSK was banned from participation after the spot-fixing saga in the IPL. In terms of dismissals, the 40-year-old has 158 of them to his credit, 37 of which are standings and he stands 12 clear of second-placed Dinesh Karthik in the list of total dismissals by a wicket-keeper in the IPL. As far as most catches are concerned, both wicket-keeper and fielders combined, there is no one other than MSD to have completed 100 catches for a single team. His vice-captain, Suresh Raina is closest to him with 109 total catches playing for both CSK and Gujarat Lions.

Etiquette doesn’t equal laws: Jimmy Neesham supports Morgan-Southee in Ashwin incident

New Zealand all-rounder, Jimmy Neesha, who is also part of the Mumbai Indians squad for the Indian Premier League 2021, has said that he would support Eoin Morgan and Tim Southee in the recent incident involving Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. Stating that ‘etiquette doesn’t equal laws’, the Kiwi supported his compatriot Southee and his teammate Morgan, both of whom were playing for Kolkata Knight Riders in a match against Delhi Capitals of which Ashwin is an integral part. In a series of Twitter posts, Neesham clarified why he has taken the stand, even as Ashwin was not wrong in the laws of the game. A Twitter user asked as to why there was no uproar when Ben Stokes got four runs when the ball ricocheted off his bat in the World Cup final 2019, but only one run taken by Ashwin is being seen as a ‘disgrace’. Answering him, Neesham said, “Because they’re runs if the ball crosses the boundary. But the etiquette of the game is that you don’t run if you’ve caused the deflection. It’s just one of those unspoken spirit of the game things.” Earlier, the 35-year-old Indian spinner in a long thread clarified as to why he was not wrong in taking the extra run when the ball had hit Rishabh Pant and that he would always take the stand without putting anybody on a higher moral ground pedestal. The incident took place in the 41st match of the IPL which was eventually won by KKR by three wickets to deny Capitals an entry into the Playoffs on that day.

BCCI Secretary Jay Shah overjoyed with IPL viewership figures

The Indian Premier League has finally brought smiles to the faces of the people associated with the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It was evident when BCCI Secretary Jay Shah announced on Twitter that IPL 2021 was about to cross the 400 million viewership mark and had 12 million more viewers at the same stage (match 35) when compared to the 2020 edition of the tournament. The Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), a TV audience measurement service revealed that IPL 14 so far has garnered 380 million viewers until match 35. When compared with TV aggregates, it is the highest number since the last three editions of the tournament. The consumption for VIVO IPL 2021 including Star Sports’ pre-match programming stands at 242 billion minutes. Talking about the latest development, a Star Sports spokesperson said, “We look forward to a very competitive and immersive second half of the season before we head into the pinnacle of T20 Cricket, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, later next month,” as reported by Moneycontrol.

Martyn and Sehwag were the two guys I grew up watching: Ireland’s Paul Stirling

Ireland opener Paul Stirling said that his childhood and batting technique growing up was influenced by Indian batter Virender Sehwag and Australian Damien Martyn, two very different players in terms of technique. "I probably had two batsmen that I loved watching, one was Damien Martyn, he was nice to look up (to), pleasant on the eye, aesthetically pleasing, someone I can never emulate,” Stirling said in a video chat with ICC ahead of the T20 World Cup first round where Ireland will be playing alongside Sri Lanka, Netherlands and Namibia to qualify to the second round. Talking about another batsman that he watched growing up and was able to emulate as well in terms of his playing style, the 31-year-old said, “Virender Sehwag, the other one I watched. (I) loved his play through the off-side (and) tried to copy a lot of his stuff, not very well be it, but (I) loved watching that two bat.” Stirling, who has now represented Ireland in more than 300 games, (213 international) said that his cricketing journey started with falling in love with the game at an early age and then he went on to watch red-ball cricket as much as he could. “Cricket was mainly the one that I probably fell in love with the most from the earliest age from about five (years old). I used to watch Test cricket at home, which was not really the normal thing to do in Belfast as a 10-year-old," he said. Stirling, who has been playing in various tournaments around the world, is one of the top performers in limited-overs and has so far scored more than 7000 runs in 216 innings in the white-ball formats.