Archives for 2018

A galaxy of former and current stars will be in action at the iconic Lord’s on Thursday to play an exhibition match between the ICC World XI and the West Indies and help raise funds for the refurbishment of five cricket stadia in the Caribbean that were damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi has finally been named to lead the World XI after England’s limited overs captain Eoin Morgan sustained a broken finger during a domestic match.

“It’s a great honour to be leading the ICC World XI side, that too for such a good cause. I’m sure all the players from either side are looking forward to the match with great enthusiasm and people will get to see some high-quality cricket on Thursday,” Afridi said on Twitter.

The World XI side, in fact, has had more than a few changes since being formally announced.

Morgan was the first name announced, followed by those of Afridi, his compatriot Shoaib Malik and Thisara Perera, the Sri Lanka T20I captain. Next came Rashid Khan, the Afghan leg-spin superstar, and Bangladesh stalwarts Shakib Al Hasan and Tamim Iqbal, followed by Indians Dinesh Karthik and Hardik Pandya and New Zealanders Luke Ronchi and Mitchell McClenaghan.

That completed the XI, but Shakib opted out because of personal reasons and was replaced by the exciting teenaged Nepal leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane.

Pandya has also opted out since then, to be replaced by countrymate Mohammed Shami, who has also been swapped with Tymal Mills, while Sam Billings has filled in for Morgan.

English cricketers Adil Rashid and Sam Curran have also been late additions to the 13-man squad.

The squad still wears an extremely strong look. Iqbal, Billings, Karthik, Ronchi and Malik, with Afridi and Perera providing excellent options for a late burst, makes for a mouth-watering batting line-up.

Karthik, Ronchi and Billings are all wicket-keeping candidates, while in McClenaghan, Curran and Mills, there’s a good pace department.

But the most exciting is perhaps the spin attack, or the leg-spin attack, with the two Rashids and Lamichhane all available for selection, not to forget Afridi himself.

With Samuel Badree on the other side, this one could well be the greatest exhibition of T20 leg-spin bowling ever.

Whichever combination Afridi and Andy Flower, the World XI coach, decide to put out on the field should provide excellent competition to the defending ICC World T20 champions.

Carlos Brathwaite, who hit Ben Stokes for four successive sixes to win the Windies the last ICC World T20 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens in April 2016, is the captain of the Windies side, and the squad has some fantastic T20 talent in their midst.

T20 stars Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Evin Lewis and Badree are the big names in Brathwaite’s line-up, while in Marlon Samuels, Andre Fletcher, Rovman Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Kesrick Williams and others, there’s a lot of firepower.

Six of those players were a part of the XI that won the World T20 2016 final.

Squads:

ICC World XI: Shahid Afridi (Captain), Sam Billings (WK), Sam Curran, Tamim Iqbal, Tymal Mills, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Rashid Khan, Sandeep Lamichhane, Mitchell McClenaghan, Shoaib Malik, Thisara Perera, Luke Ronchi (WK), Adil Rashid.

West Indies: Carlos Brathwaite (Captain), Samuel Badree, Rayad Emrit, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Evin Lewis, Ashley Nurse, Keemo Paul, Rovman Powell, Denesh Ramdin (WK), Andre Russell, Marlon Samuels, Kesrick Williams.

The ruling BJP in Maharashtra is leading in Palghar but trailing in the Bhandara-Gondiya constituency as counting progresses in the May 28 Lok Sabha bypolls here on Thursday.

At 11 a.m., the BJP candidate in Palghar, Rajendra Gavit, notched up over 80,000 votes while his nearest Shiv Sena rival Shriniwas Vanga was trailing at around 62,000 votes.

They were followed by the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi’s Baliram Jadhav at 54,000 votes and Congress’s Damodar Shingada at 17,000 votes.

In Bhandara, the BJP candidate Hemant Patle, who was leading in the earlier rounds of counting, suddenly fell behind Nationalist Congress Party’s Madhukar Kukde, who surged ahead with a lead of over 17,000 votes.

Elections in both the constituencies were marred by large-scale incidents of malfunctioning EVM-VVPATs with all the opposition parties and ruling ally Shiv Sena hurling allegations of foul play and tampering of the machines.

The high-stakes elections in both the seats, came in the wake of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ vow, to win the elections “come what may” — and his subsequent controversial remarks of using “Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed” to bag the polls at all costs.

Former India captain Anup Kumar suffered a fall from grace as he commanded a mere Rs 30 lakh at the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Season 6 auction here on Wednesday.

Anup, who led India to a record third World Cup title in 2016, will represent the Jaipur Pink Panthers this season.

He had commanded a price of Rs 56.65 lakh last season, while being retained for the fifth consecutive time by the U Mumba franchise. However, he was not retained this season following a run of poor form.

Anup, who made his international debut at the 2010 Asian Games, won the title the same year and retained it in 2014.

Russia’s defensive weakness was on display as the 2018 FIFA World Cup hosts fell 1-0 to Austria, who failed to qualify for the tournament.

Playing their penultimate international friendly before the World Cup, the Russians started brightly in Wednesday night’s match at the Innsbruck’s Tivoli Stadium here, reports EFE news agency.

But the momentum shifted to the hosts in the 12th minute with a shot on goal by Robert Zulj in his first match as a starter for Austria.

With Marko Arnautovic taking the lead, the Austrians picked up the pace and started asking questions of the Russian defenders.

It was the West Ham United player who set up the only goal of the night, getting the ball to Alessandro Schöpf, who beat Akinfeev to make it 1-0 for Austria in the 28th minute.

The visitors, meanwhile, proved unable to pose any threat to the Austrian goal and were lucky not to go down a man when Granat brought down Arnautovic with a tackle that would have merited a red card under different circumstances.

Arnautovic had a chance to double the lead for Austria early in the second half, but his shot went over the cross-bar.

Both teams made changes in the second period, robbing the contest of rhythm and excitement.

Russia will visit Turkey next week for their final friendly before hosting Saudi Arabia in Moscow on June 14 in the World Cup kick-off.