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Watch Emotional Ravi Shastri Gives Farewell Speech To Team India

Watch | Emotional Ravi Shastri gives farewell speech to Team India

The Indian cricket team bowed out of the T20 World Cup on a winning note against Namibia on Tuesday, 9 November, at the Dubai International Stadium. It also marked the last game of head coach Ravi Shastri with the team as his contract with the national team ends with the commencement of the World Cup. The former India cricketer was emotional in his final speech as a coach and termed the current Indian side as one of the greatest teams to have played the game of cricket.

“You guys as a team have over exceeded my expectations. Over the last few years, you go across the globe and beat everyone across all formats. It makes you one of the great teams that have played the game. Not [just] a great Indian team, hear me out, this will go down as one of the great teams to have played the game ever,” Shastri said in a video uploaded by the BCCI on their official website.

The 59-year-old was not shy to admit that this T20 World Cup was not the best of the efforts that Team India have put in. And he also repented having missed out on winning a few ICC trophies but was happy to proclaim that the team members will get another chance to do that.

“You will be wiser, more experienced when the next opportunity comes. But for me the most important thing is, you know in life, it’s not all about what you accomplish, it is about what you overcome, overwrites everything else,” he said.

“What you have gone through in the last two years, the Covid, the hurdles that have come on the way, write-offs that happened and everything. You become stronger in mind, tougher and ready to compete at the highest level and that’s the best thing I like about this Indian team,” the coach added.

With Shastri gone, Rahul Dravid would now be taking over as the coach of the Indian team starting with the New Zealand series from November 18.

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India bow out of T20 World Cup campaign outclassing Namibia

The Indian cricket team bowed out of the T20 World Cup by defeating Namibia by a comprehensive margin of 9 wickets. Virat Kohli’s men showed no signs of relaxation despite having their campaign ended by a New Zealand victory against Afghanistan on Sunday 7 November. They stuck to their process and stayed on top of the game at every possible phase making sure that there are no surprises left in this edition of the World Cup. After restricting Namibia to a total of 132 runs, the Indian batting unit, courtesy of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav put pedal to the metal and brought up the total with 28 balls remaining. KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma scored fluent 50s after surviving early scares in the innings. After the departure of Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav took over the reins and was at his absolute best, displaying his breathtaking range of strokes. He scored 25 off 19 balls. Earlier in the innings, the Indian spinners weaved their magic to puncture any momentum that the Namibia batting order could have had. Aided by the cross-breeze from the Pavillion end, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja routed the Namibian batting order picking three wickets between them. While Ashwin beat the players in flight, Jadeja used his length and pace to good measure outfoxing the opposition players. Jasprit Bumrah was among the wickets as well, picking up key wickets of Micheal van Lingen and David Weise at two ends of the innings. Weise top scored for Namibia with 26 runs off 25 balls before chipping a full length slower ball from Bumrah to Rohit Sharma standing inside the cricle. There was a silver lining for Namibia despite the loss in the tournament as they qualified for the 2022 T20 World Cup scheduled in Australia. Captain Gerhard Erasmus acknowledged the same and stated that they have hopefully inspired the next level of cricketers in Namibia to take the sport forward. Ravindra Jadeja was adjudged the man of the match for his stellar spell of 4-0-16-3. The game marked the end of Virat Kohli’s captaincy in the T20I format with the legendary right hander finishing off with a 64 percent win record in his tenure. Reflecting on the same, Kohli stated that it has been ‘6-7 years of intense cricket’ and it is a relief to have relinquished the captaincy given the ‘toll it has taken’ out of him. He added that as long as he plays for India, his passion will never fade and he will forever give his 120% for the team. India will now be heading home and hopfeully for a much needed break after staying in bio-bubbles for over six months. They start their next assignment against New Zealand on 17 November in a three match T20I series.

T20 World Cup | IND vs NAM: Jadeja, Ashwin threaten but Namibia put up decent total on board

Two big shots in the last over of the innings off Mohammed Shami and 37 runs from the last four overs, propelled Namibia to 132 runs from their share of 20 overs. They were off to a steady start as the openers Stephan Baard and Michael van Lingen played some crisp shots over the top of the thirty-yard circle, but quickly lost their way as Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja brought India firmly in control of the game. Wickets kept on falling in the middle phase of the game as Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin combined to take six Namibian wickets in the phase. Ashwin picked three wickets for 20 runs in his four over quota while Jadeja got as many wickets while giving four less than his off-spinning partner. Namibians were once looking at scores around 100 runs by David Wiese played a solid innings of 26 runs and stitched valuable innings with Jan Frylinck and in the end a six and four by Ruben Trumpelmann off Shami took them beyond the 130-run mark. Both India and Namibia have been knocked out of the race to the semi-finals. It’s Virat Kohli’s last game as the skipper of India’s T20 side and hence the Men in Blue would be desperate to give them a winning farewell albeit they lost the opportunity to go the distance in the tournament.

Mithali Raj focused on World Cup; asks all to leave women's IPL issue to 'best judge' BCCI

Putting water on the controversies and contentious discussions around a women’s version of the Indian Premier League, the skipper of the India’s Women ODI and Test team, Mithali Raj has said that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the “best judge” to decide the viability of such tournaments as there are various non-cricketing aspects are involved in it. “As a player, I have always believed that the BCCI is the best judge of when a tournament like women’s IPL can be held because it’s not just about conducting but a whole lot of logistics and commerce is involved in it. There are lot of other factors too. People do say that it’s time for women’s IPL, but I think the Board is the best judge to understand when they can come up with the Women’s IP,” Mithali said in an interview with Cricket.com. On the other hand, Mithali said that Indian players should be focusing on the upcoming ODI World Cup leaving the discussions of an IPL for the BCCI to do. She said that her sole focus is building and developing an all-round side to perform well at the world cup by making full use of the widening pool of players coming through the ranks of domestic cricket. “Right now, I feel instead of talking about the IPL, it’s important that we focus on the World Cup as that it’s a major event. At the moment it’s important for me to get the team prepared for the World Cup. If the team does well in the World Cup, then it will be a huge boost for the sport in the country and for the domestic players as well. This season there is a huge difference in the domestic standards. The pool of players has increased based on how the domestic season has been conducted. Having the India-A, Emerging teams, Under-19 teams, domestic structure is giving a platform for these players to perform,” she added. Mithali led India Women to the tour of Australia last month for an unsuccessful campaign across both the ODI and Test format. They were brilliant with the bat i the only Test match but could not quite enforce a result in their favor while their best in the 50 over format came only in the final game of the three-game series after losing the series.

Players are mentally and physically drained: Ravi Shastri singles out reason for World Cup debacle

Indian head coach Ravi Shastri said that the players have become mentally and physically drained after constantly shifting bio-bubbles in the past six months. Speaking to Ian Bishop in a pre-match interview, Shastri spoke about how the Indian team would have liked to have a bigger gap between the Indian Premier League and the T20 World Cup. “First of all its rest,” Shastri stated after Bishop asked him how can India rebuild from this defeat. “I am mentally drained. But I expect that at my age. But these guys are mentally and physically drained. Six months in a bubble and we would have ideally liked to have a bigger gap between the IPL and the T20 World Cup.” He said that when the big games come, a drained mind would not be able to be as switched on as it should be. However, the coach said that it was not an excuse and that winning and losing is just part of the game. Shastri would be making way for Rahul Dravid who is scheduled to take over the Indian team after the World Cup. Dravid could have Rohit Sharma has his captain in the next year leading up to the T20 World Cup in Australia.