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Warner Marsh Rested As Mcdermott Gets Slotted Into Australia Squad For Sri Lanka T20is

Warner, Marsh rested as McDermott gets slotted into Australia squad for Sri Lanka T20Is

Chairman of Selectors for Australia, George Bailey announced the national squad for the upcoming home series against Sri Lanka starting February 11 in Sydney. While big-hitting Ben McDermott has been rewarded for his brilliant showing in the Big Bash League 2021-22, Mitchell Marsh and David Warner have been rested for the match series to prepare for the Pakistan tour that follows.

McDermott leads the BBL run list with 577 runs at a strike rate of 153.86 in only 13 innings. In fact, the 27-year-old also became the first player in the league’s history to hit back to back hundreds.

Apart from McDermott, Jhye Richardson, Travis Head and Moises Henriques have also been rewarded for their good showing throughout the summer while Josh Hazlewood, who missed out on most of the Ashes action due to side strain has been selected to get match practise before the Pakistan tour.

Head coach Justin Langer has also taken planned leave to refresh before the Pakistan tour and Assistant coach Andrew McDonald will act as interim head coach for this series.

“This squad will begin preparation for the ICC T20 World Cup defence at home later this year, and includes several players who have an early chance to impress in these five matches against a quality opposition,” Bailey said in a press release.

Australia Squad

Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Josh Inglis, Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa

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People wouldn’t have been able to digest his success: Shastri on Kohli stepping down from Test captaincy

Former India coach Ravi Shastri, who is also considered very close to former all formats captain of India, Virat Kohli, has taken an indirect jibe at the BCCI management which includes President Sourav Ganguly by saying that people would have been jealous of Kohli’s success. Shastri reasoned that for the next two years India would have played a lot of Tests at home and Kohli, who already was the most successful Indian Test skipper at the time of his stepping down, would have had more wins under his belt. "For sure, he could have led India for at least 2 years because next two years India would be playing at home and who is coming over - 9 and 10 jacks, going by the rankings,” he said. “But he would have then made it to 50-60 wins under his captaincy and a lot of people will not be able to digest that fact,” added the 59-year-old in his chat with India Today. Saying that the kind of results Kohli has achieved would have been revered in any other country while he is being questioned in India just after a 1-2 loss to South Africa, Shastri explained that it was things of this sort that would have made the 33-year-old Kohli think about exploring his batting more and giving up on the pressure of captaincy. "He only knows how much is he enjoying captaincy. When Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni were not enjoying captaincy, they left. Similarly, when Virat thought that he had won 40 matches, six years he had been leading and now he wants to enjoy his cricket. He wants to focus on his batting and release a bit of pressure and it happens with a lot of individuals," said Shastri. Kohli had stepped down from the T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup 2021 and was unceremoniously sacked from the ODI captaincy by the Ganguly led BCCI, about which both Kohli and Ganguly made contrasting comments. And just days after all that, he stepped down from Test captaincy after the series loss against South Africa.

Shakib joins DJ Bravo in elite list of players with 400 wickets and 5000 runs in T20s

It wasn’t really a great game for one of the superstars and most sought after cricketers in the shortest format Shakib Al Hasan in the Bangladesh Premier League 2022. His side Fortune Barishal lost to Minister Group Dhaka by four wickets. He could also score only 23 runs and took only one wicket. But in this very inconsequential game with both ball and bat, the all-rounder reached a milestone that has been scaled by only one player prior to him in the entire world. Playing his 353rd T20 game in his 16-year long career in the shortest format, Shakib became only the second player after West Indies’ Dwayne Barvao to complete the double of 400 wickets and 5000 runs in the shortest format. However, this feat will not be remembered much by Shakib as it came almost at the end of the match when the opposition side needed only one run to win the match and the opposition skipper Mahmudullah Riyad, in an attempt to hit for four over covers was caught at short covers. Shakib also has 5610 runs to his kitty at an average of 20.25 and at a strike rate of 120. The only other player in contention to enter the list is another Caribbean in Andre Russell who has so far claimed 350 wickets and hit 6563 in 395 T20s.

Lucknow franchise takes the name of owner’s previous IPL team, call themselves Lucknow Super Giants

The Indian Premier League will now have other Super Giants as one of the two new entrants in the league, Lucknow has now unveiled their official name and they would be called Lucknow Supergiants. Rising Pune Supergiants, which played in the IPL in the 2017 and 18 edition of the league as one of the replacement teams alongside Gujarat Lions in place for banned teams Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Riyals, was also owned by RPS Group owner Sanjeev Goenka who now also owns the Lucknow franchise. Mr Goenka thanked the people for participating in a public opinion campaign run by the new franchise where people were given a chance to suggest the name of the franchise and the owners would then subsequently choose one of the most popular suggestions. The campaign was named #NaamBanaoNaamKamao. The team has already drafted in KL Rahul, Marcus Stoinis and Ravi Bishnoi as pre-signed players ahead of the Mega Auctions 2022 scheduled to take place on February 12 and 13 in Bengaluru.

Sri Lanka clinch berth at Commonwealth Games 2022, defeat Bangladesh in Qualifier’s final

Sri Lanka women beat Bangladesh Women in winners’ take all round-robin clash at the Commonwealth Games 2022 Global Qualifier event hosted at the Kinrara Oval in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was the last round-robin clash of the tournament which began on January 18 and was played by five teams to find one team which will be part of history as women’s cricket would be included for the first time in the Commonwealth Games during Birmingham 2022. Apart from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Scotland, Kenya and hosts Malaysia also participated in the qualifying tournament. Before the final games, both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had won three matches each and thus the last game became a virtual final. In this match, the Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu won the toss and decided to bat first. It was thanks to her innings of 48 off just 28 balls, coupled with those of Nilakshi Silva’s 28 and wicket-keeper batter Anushka Sanjeewani’s 20 that the Sri Lanka women reached a competitive total of 136 in its 20 overs. In reply, the Bangladeshi women started in a slow fashion as Murshida Khatun and Fragana Haque built a 50 run stand for the second wicket but fell way below the required run rate. The pressure started mounting and as a result, the team lost wickets in quick intervals at the wrong time as it went from 93-2 to 11-5 very quickly. In the end, Bangladesh could only make 114 at the loss of five wickets in their quota of 20 overs, eventually losing the match by 22 runs. Sri Lanka would now join hosts England, New Zealand and South Africa in Group A of the quadrennial event. In Group B Australia, India and Pakistan made it through on the virtue of the ICC rankings in the T20 format while Barbados was given the seat at the event to represent the West Indies as the West Indies cricket team represents a group of islands in the Caribbean seas instead of one nation. For Sri Lanka this victory also acts as a balm as it missed out on the World Cup 2022 berth on the virtue of rankings as the qualifier event for that was cancelled due to Omicron spread in Zimbabwe. This will only be the second time that cricket will feature in the Commonwealth Games after a men's 50-over competition that was played in Kuala Lumpur Games in 1998. However, the difference between that and this is the fact that this event will be contested in the shortest format i.e. T20 and only women's teams will take part in it.