Watch | Mitchell Starc bowls the ‘Mother of All Wild Balls’

Australian pacer Mitchell Starc bowled on the wildest deliveries seen in recent memory against Sri Lanka in the third T20I game against Sri Lanka on Tuesday, 15 February.

Bowling his final over - the 18th over of the first innings, Starc’s fifth delivery slipped out of his hands and went metres over the batsman’s head beating keeper Matthew Wade in the process. It was an attempted slower ball that did not stick in his hand and ended up lobbing up as a beamer.

Commentators in the game speculated if they have ever seen a ball go that wide in world cricket and comparisons were drawn to Steve Harmison’s Ashes delivery as well.

You can watch the video for reference below:

Thankfully the delivery did not do a lot of damage to Australia’s position in the game, as they had cramped up Sri Lanka fairly well throughout the first innings. They managed to choke out the opposition for just 121 runs in the first innings and then returned to chase it down with more than three overs remaining.

With the win, Australia has extended themselves to an unassailable lead of 3-0 in the series and are continuing their domination in the shortest format of the game in the run-up to the 2022 T20 World Cup.

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AUS vs SL | Australia attain unassailable 3-0 lead against hapless Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka batting line-up failed to turn up on Tuesday, 15 February at Canberra, ensuring that the series win was out of the bounds for the visitors. Australia won the game by a comprehensive margin of 6 wickets chasing down a modest target of 122 runs in 16.5 overs. A sporting pitch at Canberra meant that captain Aaron Finch showed no hesitation in bowling first and threw a Josh Hazlewood challenge at the Lankans. The right hander’s exceptional control on the off stump line led to a lot of issues for the Lankans. Although he was hit for a boundary in his first over, he did very well in the remaining 5 deliveries taking the ball slightly away from the right hander. Finch mixed up his attack in the powerplay, bowling Mitchell Starc, Hazlewood and Kane Richardson in the first three overs. Richardson’s ability to get the ball move away from the left hander rewarded him with the wicket of Charith Asalanka and a soft dismissal of Danushka Gunathilaka meant that the visitors were pushed to the backfoot straight away. Runs were not easy to come by for Lanka batters as the spinners mixed up their pace throughout and the pacers bowled clever slower balls. Barring Mitchell Starc’s wayward final over, Australia looked in full control over the order as SL crumbled slowly to just put 121 runs in their 20 overs. Kane Richardson was the pick among the bowlers picking up three wickets from his four overs giving away just 21 runs. Coming into bat, Australia were never going to be troubled at their own backyard with just a small total, but the Lankan bowlers were not going to give up without a fight. Mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana started the proceedings with a first ball wicket of Ben McDermott edging him back to the slip fielder. He put the Canberra drift to good use picking up two wickets in the powerplay for 17 runs, out of which 12 came in the last over of the powerplay. Despite sending McDermott and promoted Ashton Agar back into the hut early, Lanka’s progress was cut short by a certain Glenn Maxwell who was in the mood to put on a show. A 26-ball 39 innings studded with 3 boundaries and 2 huge sixes took Sri Lanka out of the equation fairly quickly, while Aaron Finch played a slow innings of 36-ball 35 alongside him. At the time of getting out, Maxwell had set up Australia for a big win needing 45 runs off the last 9 overs. The rest of the work was done by Jos Inglis and Marcus Stoinis in the back end as they put together a partnership of 22 runs from 16 balls, wrapping the game up well in advance. Australia now will go into the final two matches with a lot of scope for experiment with Sri Lanka not having the services of Wanindu Hasaranga for the rest of the games. The last two games are scheduled for 18 and 20 February in Melbourne.

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Minimum of 9 players required for continuation of Ranji Trophy matches

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has come up with a special pointer keeping the Covid-19 situation in mind and one of those is continuing the match even if there is an unavailability of 11 players in a side. Apart from this, one point will be rewarded to each side if a first-innings result is not completed because of the Covid-19 situation. "First innings result not achieved for any reason (Weather interference, COVID Outbreak within team or any other unforeseen circumstances): One Point each (sic)," says the BCCI circular. "Due to COVID outbreak within a team AFTER THE START OF THE MATCH, if the team has minimum nine players available to take the field (after utilising all the Covid replacements) then the match will continue (sic)," the BCCI note said. But the board also clarified that if a team is not able to field at least nine players, there would be a different way of determining the result. "Due to COVID outbreak within a team AFTER THE START OF THE MATCH, if the team is unable to field minimum nine players (after utilising all the Covid replacements) and this situation remains till the conclusion of the match then result of the match will be determined as follows - A. In the league stage, points will be awarded to the teams based on points table above. B. During knock out games which team will qualify for next round will be determined by higher run quotient or spin of the coin (sic)." The BCCI has further said that if a player is injured during the play then he would need to be fit to participate in the match within four minutes. "If a player is seriously injured or any kind of injury (batsman/bowler/fielder) happens on the field of play and requires medical attention, The maximum time allowed for that player to recover from the injury and to be ready to participate in the match is Four minutes. The player has to leave the field if he needs more time to recover." POINTS SYSTEM 1 Outright Win: Six Points 2 Innings Win/Win by 10 Wickets One Bonus Point 3 First Innings Lead but no outright win Three Points 4 Loss on first innings One Point 5 Tie on first innings without outright result One Point each 6 Tie on both innings Three Points each 7 Outright Loss Zero Points 8 First innings result not achieved for any reason One Point each (Weather interference, COVID Outbreak within team or any other unforeseen circumstances).