WBBL 2021 | Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma shine for Renegades and Thunder with their all-round show

The Indian players are finally coming to the party in the Women’s Big Bash League after the tournament moving to Western Australia from Tasmania. In today’s four games, Indians Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodriguez and Radha Yadav, all showed their brilliance while Shafali Verma, Poonam Yadav and Richa Ghosh failed to contribute very match with their skills.

After a brilliant show from Harmanpreet yesterday with both bat and ball where she scored 43, she went on to do better and reached her first-ever fifty in this season’s WBBL. This broke her 10-match drought of scoring a 50. Scoring 73 off just 46 balls, she made a chase of 161 against Adelaide Strikers Women look like a cakewalk on a difficult Lilac Hill Park wicket in Perth.

The Indian T20 skipper was also aided by a quick start from her compatriot Jemiah Rodriguez who scored a quickfire 27 off just 16 balls. These two innings were key in Renegades Women now moving to the top of the league table with a fourth consecutive win. Even with the ball, the off-spinner Harmanpreet picked two wickets and gave away only 31 runs in her four overs.

In another game at Aurora Stadium in Launceston, Tasmania, Deepti Sharma showcased her skills with the ball and picked up three wickets to lead the defence of 146 for Sydney Thunder Women against Hobart Hurricanes Women. Her effort of 3-13 in four overs was the biggest boost for the Thunder to bowl out Hurricanes for just 109 and win two back to back games having lost four in a row earlier.

With the bat too Sharma’s 20 off 15 balls played a vital role alongside Smriti Mandhana’s run a ball fifty to get to 146.

Radha Yadav, the left-arm spinner was also in good touch as she helped her team Sydney Sixers Women beat home side Parth Scorchers Women. Her spell of 2-22 in four overs in which she got the wickets of Beth Mooney and Heather Graham, was a key one alongside those of Nicol Bolton’s and Lauren Chaetle’s in restricting the Scorchers for 117-9, defending a huge total of 161.

Alyssa Healy’s 94 unbeaten off 57 balls helped Sixers get to 161 in the first place. With this win, the Sixers also ended their three-match losing streak.

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Our batting cost us more than anything: Bangladesh selector Habibul Bashar on failed T20 World Cup campaign

Bangladesh have lost three games in the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup and its chief selector, Habibul Bashar who is travelling with the side in the UAE, said that batting has let the team down and has been the main reason for the team’s failure. “Our batting hasn't lived up to our expectations. We have to improve in the powerplay, especially, if we want to do well in the T20s. We need power-hitters in the late order. Other teams score at ten an-over in the end overs, but we also lack in that area,” Bashar was quoted as saying in interaction with Bangladesh media. Like every World Cup in recent years, Bangladesh came to this World Cup with high hopes, especially having beaten Australia and New Zealand comprehensively in Dhaka. But in the very first game of the World Cup, they lost their composure while chasing just 140 against Scotland and lost the match by 6 runs. They however went in to qualify for the Super 12, but over here too, they have been disappointing. "Everyone is quite upset. We created an opportunity against West Indies. It would have been a mental boost had we defeated them. Now we know that we missed the opportunity,” said the former Bangladesh captain on the team’s three-run loss against defending champions in a game that they dominated for the most part before eventually losing it. On being asked as to what could be done to prepare better for the next edition of the World Cup in 2022 in Australia, Bashar said, "I think in our next domestic T20 tournaments, we should have better batting wickets, where the scores can be around 180 to 200 consistently. We play in the same wickets repeatedly in tournaments like the BPL. This prevents better batting in powerplays, and building power-hitters down the order,” "I am disappointed (with the outcome) as a selector. We are a settled ODI side. We have had ups and downs in Test cricket, but we haven't found consistency in T20 cricket,” he added before going on to promise to fight even harder in the remaining two games of this World Cup and end it on a high. "We have two more World Cup matches remaining and although we know that we are virtually out of the running for the semi-finals, we still want to finish the tournament on a positive note," he said. Bangladesh will play against two very tough oppositions in Australia and South Africa in its last two Super 12 matches.

T20 World Cup | Martin Guptill recovers from injury, available for selection against India

New Zealand opener Martin Guptill has recovered from his toe injury which he suffered against Pakistan in the team’s first clash at the Super 12 stage. The 35-year-old was hit in the toes while batting nad it changed shades because of the blow. "It went a different shade of colour for a period of time. But he trained yesterday and he's training again tonight, so it's great to see that he's available and fit for selection," New Zealand coach Gary Stead said in a media interaction before the team’s clash against India on Sunday in Dubai. Though Guptill has never quite performed against India in the 12 T20I matches that he has played, having an average of 17, which is almost half his career average of 32, bit the kind of danger he brings into the xi and especially with his experience, he can be a game-changer in just a span of five overs, more so if New Zealand bat second in dewy conditions. Along with Guptill, Adam Milne, who was added to the main squad after Lockie Ferguson’s injury, will also be available for selection in this game. Both India and New Zealand have lost their opening games to Pakistan and thus in the context of getting the second spot in the group, this match is virtually a knockout.

Babar Azam scored match-winning knock against India with his mother fighting for life on ventilator

It has been revealed by Pakistan cricket captain Babar Azam’s father Azam Siddique that his son played the match against India knowing that his mother was fighting for life on a ventilator back home. His mother had undergone surgery and is now recovering well, but the three games that Pakistan played in the Group stage, in all three of them, Babar had at the back of his mind, the condition of his mother which till then wasn’t stable. Writing an Instagram post, Mr Siddique informed how his son played under severe distress but still didn’t lose his composure. "It's time for my nation to know some truth,” Babar’s father said in the post. “Congratulations to all of you on the victory in the three games. There was a big test at our house. On the day the match was against India, that day Babar's mother was on a ventilator. Babar played all three matches in severe distress. I came here so that Babar may not get weak,” he added. In the match against India, Babar scored an unbeaten 62 to see his team through by 10 wickets in a record jinx breaking game. In the match against New Zealand he did get out cheaply but his team was rescued by experienced Shoaib Malik and Asif Ali. And in the Afghanistan game, he once again scored a crucial fifty but got out an important juncture of the game. But Asif Ali once again made sure that Pakistan ended up on the right side of a tense game. In the next two games, Pakistan play Namibia and Scotland which look easy and if they win the two, they would go to the semi-finals as the top-ranked Group 2 team.

IPL 2022 to allow franchise auction purse of INR 90 crore, new franchises can pre-sign three players

The Indian Premier League will allow all the 10 franchises an auction purse of INR 90 crore, an increase of INR 5 crore from the 2021 IPL Mini Auction purse. The IPL Governing Council will also allow the older franchises to retain up to four players in the retentions window that begins from November 1 and go on till the 30th. As per the rules, the two new franchises, Ahmedabad and Lucknow will then be allowed to pick three players each of their choices from the ones not retained and pre-sign them before the IPL 2022 auctions. There was no mention of the Right to Match Cards in the letter sent by BCCI and IPL GC to the franchises. The window for the two new franchises for pre-signing the players will begin from December 1 and go on up to December 25, with the IPL 2022 Auction most probably happening in January 2022. What would be the retention slab? The GC also decided on the salary cap of the retained players and if a franchise chooses to retain four players, it will have to lose a total of INR 42 crore from its auction purse. In case the older franchises are retaining four players, they will be charged INR 16 crore for the first, INR 12 crore for the second, INR 8 crore for the third and INR 6 crore for the fourth player. If the franchises choose to retain three players then their slabs are: INR 15 crore, INR 11 crore and INR 7 crore, for a total of INR 33 crore. If two players are retained, then the slabs are INR 14 crore and INR 10 crore, for a total of INR 24 crore. For only one player, INR 14 crore will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse and if the sole retention is that of an uncapped player, then the amount deducted will be INR 4 crore. What's the retention policy? There is a cap that the franchises can’t retain more than three Indian capped players, not more than two international players and not more than two uncapped players in case of four retained players. In the case of three retentions, not more than two Indians, not more than one international and uncapped player is allowed to be retained. This rule will also apply to the new franchises. Can players be paid more than retention slab limit? Yes, the franchises can and most likely will pay players more than the slab limit to retain them. It happened in 2018 when RCB and Virat Kohli agreed that the Indian captain’s fee would be INR 17 crore, two more than the slab limit of INR 15 crore. But if that is the case, then the extra amount will be deducted from a franchise's auction purse. The franchise can decide to keep a player and pay him lower than the band as well, but it wouldn’t make sense as the slab amount will anyways be deducted from the Auction purse.