Beyond Cricket by Sayandeep Dutta

  The West Indies and Northern Warriors Wicket Keeper batsman, Nicolas Pooran smashed the ball all over the park in his 26 balls 89 runs innings. In the 11 th match of the Abu Dhabi T10 League, the Northern Warriors won by 30 runs against a fighting Bengal Tigers team. Batting first, the Warriors posted a mammoth 162/4 in their allotted 10 overs. Walked into the crease at the score of 22/1 in 1.5 overs, Pooran went on to his six hitting streak after quietly facing the first 3 balls scoring a single run. In his 26 balls innings, he smashed 12 towering sixes to go with 3 fours. The best part was that the innings was full of pure cricket shots and no slogging. He along with his West Indies teammate, Lendl Simmons (41)   put on a 122-runs stand in very quick time, taking their team to a massive 162 runs. The Bengal Tigers struggled at the start with Johnson Charles and Afif Hossain falling cheaply. But, the partnership between the Spiceman, Andre Fletcher (53) and Chirag Suri (...

Three Australian Superstars feathers the IPL release list IPL fever is back with the player auctions for the fourteenth season. All eight teams are geared up to shake up their squad during the auction scheduled to be held on 11 th February, 2021. Unsure about how the Pandemic will pan out, teams will be looking forward to get a stable team balance who can be suitable for both Indian and foreign conditions. Over the years we have seen teams going for players who can suit their home playing conditions as they were scheduled to play 7 home matches out of 14 matches. But, the scenario changed in the last edition of the money rich league as the tournament had to be forcefully pushed to UAE due to the COVID 19 pandemic and none of the teams had the advantage of home ground. With a very little turnaround time, all franchise owners and management has been busy in shaping up their squads by releasing some and retaining most of the squad for almost most of the teams. Lets have a look at the t...

  The future stars debuting during Border-Gavaskar Trophy One of the greatest rivalries of the century started when the mighty Aussies came to India in 2001. Then, the world number one team was in an unstoppable winning streak demolishing every opponent’s in any given playing surface. The resurgent Indian team after a heartbreaking match fixing scandal was trying to find new faces to take the team forward. In the 3 match series at home, India was already down 1-0 when they came to Eden Gardens where the historic turnaround was awaiting. The Indian team were forced to follow on after the first innings deficit of 274 runs. Following on, India posted a mammoth 657/7d on the back of VVS Laxman’s 281 and Rahul Dravid’s 180. Chasing 384 runs for victory, the Australian’s were bundled out for 212 handing India, one of their famous victories in their Cricket history. The Turbanator, Harbhajan Singh announced himself in the World stage with a 13 wickets match haul including the hattrick in ...

  The English Cricket team will finally be able to start the postponed series against Sri Lanka. The tour was previously scheduled in the month of March, 2020, but the touring team had to go back home due to the Covid 19 Pandemic. The 2 Test series will be part of the World Test Championship. England will be hoping to continue their winning streak in Sri Lanka in the same manner they did in their previous tour to the island nation in 2018. Sri Lanka, on the other hand will be looking to turn the tables and look to redeem themselves after the poor performance in South Africa. With the return of Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Sri Lanka will be looking forward to put up a much better performance. England decided to rest their star all-rounder Ben Stokes for this series. Also, the spin bowling all-rounder, Moeen Ali was not able to be a part of the squad as he was tested positive for Covid 19. Looking at the slow turning pitches, he would have been very handy with his off spinners...

  With all to play for, team India is looking to put together a decent line up to face the mighty Aussies for the series decider on a ground where the host did not loose a Test match in 32 years. Currently, the Border-Gavaskar series is locked at 1-1. We have seen some of the dramatic scenes this series starting with India getting blown away for 36 runs in the first Test. They bounced back to win the second Test on the back of their stand in Captain Rahane’s wonderful century. Then the dramatic final day of the third Test where India batted for 131 overs to save the Test match with some really injured players. We have also seen 5 Test debutants this series, Cameron Green, Will Pukovski from Australia, Mohemmad Siraj, Shubman Gill and Navdeep Saini from India all making a substantial contribution in the matches they played. During the course of the series, India suffered some huge blows with most of the senior players in the squad are injured and unavailable. Started with Captain ...

  Paine-Ashwin  Australia Vs India, 2020-21 – 3 rd Test Final Score Australia: 338 & 212/6d India: 244 & 334/6 Match Drawn   In an extraordinary final day, we saw the bruised Indian cricketers pull up their socks to defy the hosts with some resilient defensive batting. Starting the day at 98/2 needing 309 runs to win the Test match, India lost their Captain, Ajinkya Rahane cheaply of the bowling of Nathan Lyon scoring just 4 runs. Then, Wicket Keeper Rishab Pant along with Pujara stitched together a 148-run partnership. Pant was eventually dismissed by Lyon scoring 97 runs in very quick time. We saw a typical Pant Innings with lots of gorgeous and outrageous strokes and also providing some simple chances which the Aussies which they were not able to grab. 9 overs later, the gritty innings of Pujara came to an end playing down the wrong line of Hazlewood loosing his off stump. He scored 77 runs of 205 balls. With Jadeja injured, Ravi Ashwin walked in a...

  In the ongoing Test series down under, former greats and many others are lashing out at the slow scoring rate of India's number 3, Cheteshwar Pujara. Former Cricket legends like Ricky Ponting and Allan Border criticized his style of batting in the on going Test series. Border came up with comments like, “He is almost scared to play a shot”. Pujara recently came up with a fitting reply quoting that he has to bat in this manner. The Australian greats are lashing out on Pujara, at a time when the entire Australian team was not able to get out of the blocks in the first two test scoring at a modest run rate of 2.6 per over in the first innings of the first Test, again 2.6 runs per over in the first innings and 1.9 runs per over in the second innings of the second Test. Not much of a different in the style of batting and the approach, in 2018-19 series, he was the highest run getter with 521 runs guiding India to win the Test series Down Under. The conversion rate was much better in...

  Cameron Green scoring his maiden Test half century The fielding woes continues as India started the 4 th Day with Hanuma Vihari spilling a rather simple chance presented by Labuschagne of Bumrah in the second ball of the day. The storyline could have been different, but now Australia has given a huge 407 runs target to chase for the Indian team. Starting the day at 103/2, ace batsmen, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith continued their good run from the first innings pilling on another century stand for the 3 rd wicket before Marnus got dismissed by a fine catch by Wriddhiman Saha down the leg side of Saini after a fine knock of 73 runs. Wade followed soon nicking one to Saha of Saini scoring just 4 runs of 11 balls. Smith went on to score 81. Australia went on to declare at the score of 312/6 after Cameron Green got dismissed for a solid 84. Green brought up his maiden half century in Test Cricket. Vihari dropped a sitter from Labuschagne in the second ball of Day 4 Meanwhile...

  ASIA XI VS ROW XI T20’s has taken the world by storm since it’s inception a decade and a half ago. During this time, we have seen the game has evolved leaps and bounds with lots of innovations. Players coming up with Cricket skills which were not even dreamt of before this. In the past few weeks we have seen a lot of talks around the ICC Teams of the decade released for all three formats. Here I am trying to break it down to two teams finding out the best possible combinations for and Asian XI and the Rest of the World XI of the decade. THE OPENERS: Asia XI : Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan Rohit-Dhawan in action Rohit, “THE HITMAN” Sharma is one of the most prolific six hitters in world cricket today. Probably, the move to open the innings with him re-ignited the batting prowess of Rohit. He is definitely considered as one of the most feared batsman in full flow. He also has the record for highest individual ODI score of 264. When in song, the Hitman’s batting is a sight fo...