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WBBL 2021 | Kim Garth’s three wickets, three maidens highlight Melbourne Stars win, Mandhana fails again

It was one of the absolutely humungous achievements pulled up by Irish Women’s bowler Kim Garth, who is playing her trade for Melbourne Stars Women in the Women’s Big Bash League 2021. 

Playing against the Sydney Thunder Women, the 25-year-old right-arm medium-fast bowler bowled three maiden overs in a row and also picked up three wickets to end up with magical figures of 3 overs 3 maidens, 0 runs and 3 wickets. She only conceded 12 runs in her final over bowling the final one of the game while defending 24 runs on board. 

Courtesy of her amazing spell, the Stars notched up a 12 run win as they defended 108 against a batting lineup that had the likes of Indian superstars Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, and hometown hero Hannah Darlington. This is now the third defeat in four games, one of which was abandoned due to rain for the defending champions, whose defence of the title looks very much in danger. 

India star Smriti Mandhan failed once again with the bat as she was dismissed for three of 10 balls by Annabel Sutherland even as Garth continued her domination from the other end. In fact, the Thunder Women were reduced to 12-4 in the first four overs before India all-rounder Deepti Sharma, first with Anika Learoyd and then with Darlington put on partnerships worth 42 each. But that wasn’t sufficient for the two times champions to chase down 108. 

Earlier in the day, choosing to bat first after winning the toss at the Aurora Stadium in Launceston, Tasmania, Stars managed to reach 108-7 courtesy of a half-century by experienced Elyse Villani. English import Maia Bouchier chipped in with a crucial 31 off 28 balls while the rest of the batters couldn’t even get into double figures.

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T20 World Cup | SA vs WI: Taking nothing for granted, Rabada hopeful of turnaround by Proteas

South Africa fast bowler Kagiso Rabada is hopeful that with a positive approach and with players having worked out their mistakes in the nets after a close defeat against Australia in the first match of their Super 12 encounters in the T20 World Cup 2021, the team can bounce back. South Africa next play West Indies on Tuesday in Dubai. “They're a dangerous team. You can't underestimate anyone,” Rabada said about the West Indies in a pre-match press conference on the sidelines of the big game. Tomorrow is a new day. We're going to have to go and be as disciplined as we were in our first game [with the ball]. We cannot take anything for granted,” he added. South Africa were indeed very disciplined with the ball, however, it was their performance with the bat that disappointed their fans. Getting to only 118 in 20 overs was never going to be enough. Talking about learning from mistakes, the 26-year-old said that having an ideal game is not an easy thing to achieve and that the players have worked in nets on their mistakes. “It obviously wasn't the ideal start with the bat, and rarely do you ever have a perfect cricket game, although you would want both departments to balance out or balance each other out. We've analysed what we have needed to do, and the guys are on it at the training grounds,” said the fast bowler, who scored crucial 19 runs with the bat to get his team past 100 runs total which looked difficult at 83-7. “It's just one game that we couldn't get over the line. Tomorrow is another day. Why be negative about it? Be positive. Whatever happens, happens,” he added, sounding hopeful of a turnaround in Dubai.

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T20 World Cup | Windies will continue being aggressive with better shot selection against South Africa

West Indies coach Phil Simmons blamed the shot selection of his batters for being bundled out for a meagre 55, the third-lowest T20 World Cup total ever and lowest ever for the team from the Caribbean. The aggressive approach adopted by the team was according to the style of play and the coach wasn’t worried about that. He would rather have the team playing aggressively, but with better shot selection. Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Simmons said, "Well, the style in which we play our cricket has always been in the style in which we play our cricket. But we also got to assess the situation at the time and play according to the situation. We will continue to be in our aggressive state, but our shot-selection and assessment of the situation must be a lot better." "For me, Saturday was just about bad shot selection. The bowling wasn't, as we would say, extraordinary. All the guys have played against these guys [England] before, so I just put it down to bad shot selection. We need to improve that tenfold by the time we get to Tuesday,” the coach added. The biggest threat that the West Indies team would have to face in their next game against South Africa would of playing chinaman spinner Tabriaz Shamsi, who also troubled a lot of West Indian batters in Proteas’ tour of the Caribbean in June this year. Simmons was aware of the threat and said that the team is working on it and better results are expected in the next game. 'Yeah, we've been looking back at that [T20I series in the West Indies] and seeing how in the games so far here [in the UAE] how people have played and won but also about how batsmen are going to find a way to score off him and without him being much of a threat,” said the 58-year-old. After losing a close low scoring encounter in Abu Dhabi, the Temba Bavuma led said have moved to Dubai where Windies were drubbed by England.

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Terming Pakistan favourites for T20 World Cup, Williamson hopeful of game to be played in good spirit

When Pakistan beat India for the first time in World Cup history on Sunday night, their entire nation was thrilled. Their next target, which they have been claiming ever since the tour was abandoned midway by the New Zealand team in September, are the Kiwis in this T20 World Cup 2021. Now they finally face Blacckacaps in the encounter on Tuesday evening in Sharjah. On New Zealand and their skipper Kane Williamson’s mind there is no such thing as Pakistan seeking revenge for something. He is hopeful that the game will be played in the right spirit. "There are a lot of good relations within the two teams. Over the years they've played a lot against each other, and a number of players have played with each other, as well. I am sure the game will be played in the right spirit," said Willaimson in the pre-match press conference. "I suppose the focus now is here at the T20 World Cup, and no doubt after the performance last night, Pakistan have some momentum and are feeling pretty good about their cricket," the Kiwi captain added. New Zealand, who lost both their World Cup warm-up games coming into the Super 12 would be under immense pressure in the spinning conditions of Sharjah where in the last game Afghan spinners bundled out Scotland for only 60 runs. The 31-year-old Kiwi skipper agreed to the pressure saying that Pakistan are favourites to win the World Cup, especially after their last game and given their experience of playing in UAE over the years. "It was a fantastic performance. I think Pakistan have come to the T20 World Cup full of confidence, having played in these conditions more than most. They certainly put on a show last night and showed why they're one of the favourites in the competition,” he said.

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Valuation of IPL franchises through the years

It was a fascinating day for Indian cricket after two more teams were added to the Indian Premier League and the 2022 edition will now have ten sides battling it out for the trophy. The two teams are based out of Lucknow and Ahmedabad respectively. While Sanjeev Goenka owned RPSG Group got the rights of the Lucknow team for a sum of Rs 7,090 crores, the bid for the Ahmedabad franchise was made by CVC Capitals Partners for Rs 5,625 crores. The valuation of the IPL teams have not been at these skyrocketing figures since the inception. Here we now take a look at the teams and the cost (USD) that they went for in the first auction. Most teams were sold for the 2008 edition around the price of 100 crore rupees. The now four-time IPL champions Chennai Super Kings went for Rs 91 million while Delhi Capitals, Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab went for 107 million, 84 million and 76 million rupees respectively. The Kolkata Knight Riders which had a huge hype in that period owing to the ownership of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, went for 75 million rupees. Mumbai Indians, hailing from the business capital of India attracted the highest bid of 124 million rupees. The Royal Challengers Bangalore went for 111 million in that auction. IPL had one more round of tender in the last decade and the now-defunct Pune Warriors India went for a huge sum of 301 million. That showed the rise of the stature of the Indian Premier League in the business market and despite the match-fixing allegations, IPL did not fizzle out. If the Pune bid was any indication, this 2021 auction was always going to attract big money from business houses and the BCCI did expect a combined business of Rs 7000 crores from this round. However, they outdid themselves and received a total bid of over Rs 12000 crores a day after India lost to Pakistan in the T20 World Cup. The bid for the Ahmedabad franchise went to 692 million while the Lucknow team went for 932 million. What will be the impact on the value of other franchises? The higher amount of the new franchises means that there will be rise in the stocks for the older franchises as well. If the owners consider selling the franchise, they might attract much more money than they bought the franchise for. For instance, in 2018, Jindal South West (JSW) bought the 50% ownership of Delhi Capitals (formerly Delhi Daredevils) from GMR group. At that time the valuation of the franchise was somewhere around Rs 1100 crore and JSW made the payment of half of that amount. With 10 teams announced, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) later announced that the 2022 edition will be a 74-match affair where the teams will play seven away and seven home matches during the course.