All posts by csb10.top

India’s Test squad in England will be without head coach Gautam Gambhir for the start of the closed-door warm-up fixture against India A in Beckenham from Friday. ESPNcricinfo has learnt Gambhir left for New Delhi on Wednesday due to a family emergency.In Gambhir’s absence, Sitanshu Kotak and Ryan ten Doeschate, the assistant coaches, along with bowling coach Morne Morkel, will take charge of the group. Hrishikesh Kanitkar, meanwhile, is in charge of India A.The match in Beckenham offers the senior India side an opportunity to tune up ahead of the team’s departure for Leeds ahead of the Test series opener against England from June 20.Gambhir’s absence comes at a crucial time, with the team management set to deliberate on the batting order, something he had said would be decided in the run-up to the first Test. The retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have opened up at least two slots, with B Sai Sudharsan and Karun Nair in the running to fill them.Of members of India’s Test squad who featured for India A in two unofficial Tests against England Lions, Nair, Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran were among the runs. Nair top-scored in the series with 259 runs, including a double-century in the first game in Canterbury.Jurel, meanwhile, hit three half-centuries to score 227 runs, while Easwaran struck two fifties. KL Rahul, tipped to open the batting with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the Test series, made scores of 116 and 51 in his only outing in Northampton.The team management will also potentially be toying over who among Shardul Thakur and Nitish Reddy will play as the seam-bowling allrounder. Reddy picked up two wickets across 26.5 overs while Thakur got two wickets across 43 overs across the two first-class games against Lions. For the pace attack, it’s likely that two out of Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna will join Jasprit Bumrah in the XI for the first Test.”All in all, very happy with the start so far,” Morkel said ahead of the warm-up game against India A. “I was a little bit nervous in terms of the lack of red-ball [cricket] we’ve played. But seeing how the guys are moving around and training the last three days, it’s a pleasing sight. There’s some quality energy in this group, and that’s what you need. You need to go into a Test series confident, you need to have that team spirit in the group, and I think so far they have done a great job.”The five-Test series marks the start of India’s new World Test Championship cycle as well as the beginning of Shubman Gill’s tenure as Test captain.

Big Picture: Will LSG spoil RCB’s party?

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) need not have watched the game between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Monday with a calculator in hand to see what kind of margin they need for Tuesday to finish in the top two for a straight shot into the IPL 2025 final. No matter what the result on Monday night, RCB just need to win their last league game against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) to reach 19 points that will guarantee them a place in qualifier 1, whether they finish on top or second.If LSG win on Tuesday, though, RCB will finish third and play in the eliminator, like they did last year and bowed out of the tournament after a loss to Rajasthan Royals (RR).Related

• PBKS 'haven't achieved anything yet' – Ponting keeps it real

• Hazlewood returns to bolster RCB ahead of playoffs

• Moody, Kumble want RCB to shake off loss and not second-guess themselves

• RCB need their share of luck now to find lost momentum

• Injury scare for Tim David ahead of playoffs

What might scare RCB a little is that the teams eliminated from the playoffs race have been beating the teams that have made it to the playoffs over the last four days. It was LSG who started that trend by taking down the table-toppers Gujarat Titans (GT) with a match-winning century from Mitchell Marsh. Nicholas Pooran’s return to runs after a slump in between also bodes well for LSG, and so does the bowling of 6’4” fast bowler Will O’Rourke, who has bagged four wickets in his two showings so far, after he came on as a replacement for the injured Mayank Yadav.The day after LSG’s last game, RCB had their four-match winning streak broken by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Even though one loss doesn’t make or break a team’s confidence, RCB suffered a blow in that clash when their middle-order basher Tim David hurt himself while fielding in the deep, and is unlikely for Tuesday.RCB will, however, be boosted by the return of their ace fast bowler Josh Hazlewood, who stayed back in Australia for his shoulder rehab when the IPL had resumed, and has joined the team ahead of the last league game.

Form guide

Royal Challengers Bengaluru LWWWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
Lucknow Super Giants: WLLLL

In the spotlight: Josh Hazlewood and Rishabh Pant

There are not many overseas bowlers who have taken IPL 2025 by storm, but Josh Hazlewood is among the small bunch. His metronomic bowling style married with the T20 weapons of hard lengths, pace variations and yorkers make him one of the most feared fast bowlers in the competition. He is a potent weapon in both the powerplay and the death overs, and RCB will look to bank heavily on him, on both Tuesday and in the playoffs, before he heads to London for the WTC final.0:58

Moody: RCB need to move on from this loss quickly

Rishabh Pant is having his worst IPL season, be it in terms of runs, strike rate or average. In his last game, however, Pant gave glimpses of Pant of the old when he hit two sixes with his usual physics-defying positions he gets into by the time he finishes his shots. It could be because LSG had been eliminated from the playoffs, and we saw a carefree Pant with a nothing-to-lose attitude. LSG will hope he bats more like that on Tuesday, and he will hope he gets some more runs before flying out to London for the Test series as vice-captain.

Team news and likely XIIs

RCB will be forced to make a couple of changes. Hazlewood’s return to the XI will be in place of Lungi Ngidi, who misses the last league game to fly back home for WTC final preparations with his national side.The big miss will be David, who had scored 42 runs off 20 deliveries he faced in their last two games. RCB may not have a like-for-like replacement for him if he’s unavailable, but they do have Liam Livingstone and Tim Seifert who was brought in as replacement for Jacob Bethell for the remainder of the tournament, just like they have Blessing Muzarabani for Ngidi. Both Seifert and Muzarabani have joined the squad. Their captain Rajat Patidar was only fit to bat in the last game, and he could continue to be their Impact Player if he has still not recovered to field.Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 Rajat Patidar, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Krunal Pandya, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Yash Dayal, 12 Suyash SharmaThe main change LSG could make is bringing back Digvesh Rathi, who missed the last game because of his one-match suspension. If their opener Aiden Markram has returned home to prepare for the WTC final, LSG will need a new opener. Will Pant move up the order again? They may also want to give chances to more players on the bench such as batter Matthew Breetzke, wicketkeeper-batter Aryan Juyal, batting allrounder Yuvraj Chaudhary, bowling allrounder Rajvardhan Hangargekar and batting allrounder Arshin Kulkarni who still haven’t played a game this season, and Himmat Singh hasn’t batted even once despite getting two matches this season.Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Matthew Breetzke/Aiden Markram, 2 Mitchell Marsh, 3 Nicholas Pooran, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Himmat Singh, 8 Digvesh Rathi, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Akash Deep, 11 Will O’Rourke, 12 Akash Singh

The big question

Pitch and conditions

It’s going to be a mixed-soil pitch for Lucknow’s last game of the season, made up of red and black soil. That’s usually a batting-friendly track. The last game played on that strip was between LSG and CSK when the hosts were restricted to 166 and MS Dhoni had taken CSK home. It’s expected to be extremely hot in Lucknow on Tuesday, with temperatures going over 36 degrees Celsius, and a good amount of humidity too to make it more sultry. There is no rain in the forecast.

Stats and trivia

• RCB will have to find a way to stop LSG’s overseas batters from hitting sixes: Marsh has struck the second-most sixes in the powerplay so far whereas Pooran has the most in the middle overs
• Will RCB be brave enough to bowl Krunal Pandya to Pooran? Because Pooran also holds the record of most sixes against spin in this IPL, at 25, with 15 being the second-best. Pooran has hardly faced Krunal so far, having scored 25 off his 15 balls so far in the IPL without being dismissed yet
• RCB could become the first time in the history of the IPL to win all their seven away games, if they bag another W on Tuesday
• Virat Kohli is 24 away from 9000 runs for RCB overall, in the IPL and Champions League T20 combined

Last year, Yuzvendra Chahal the first bowler to reach the 200-wicket mark in the IPL. No one else has reached there yet – the next best among active bowlers is Bhuvneshwar Kumar with 186. But a year on, and five matches into IPL 2025 for his new team Punjab Kings (PBKS), questions are cropping up about Chahal’s effectiveness.In this IPL, Chahal has picked up just two wickets in five innings at an economy rate of 11.13 and has not bowled his full quota in three games. Since making his debut in IPL 2013, Chahal – a wicket-taking option – has never had an economy rate of over 9.41 (2024) in a season. This year, he is going at 11.13, the 56 he conceded in his four overs against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Saturday not helping that number.Piyush Chawal, another legspinner and the second-highest wicket-taker in the history of the IPL, felt Chahal has been playing a “safe game”, which is new for him.Related

• Hopes: Chahal 'struggling to get into the game at the moment'

• Lockie Ferguson hobbles off two balls into his spell

• Abhishek Sharma takes T20 hitting out of this world

• Abhishek Sharma's whirlwind 141 leads SRH to second-highest IPL chase

“Well, he created that chance [Chahal dropped Abhishek Sharma off his own bowling] and you need at least one chance, and he created that one and he has nobody [else] to blame for that,” Chawla said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “He almost reached there but apart from that… later on when both the batters [Abhishek and Travis Head] were going after him, I didn’t find that Yuzvendra Chahal which we used to see a couple of years back and even till last year. He was just not trying to get the batter out. He was just trying to toss it wide and playing more of a safe game, defensive bowling. That Yuzvendra Chahal we have not seen.”What would Chawla have done on a flat pitch like the one in Hyderabad where the opponents are playing a high-risk, high-reward game chasing a huge target?”I have not seen him bowling googlies also. If you’re bowling wide outside off stump for them [left-hand batters] and it’s going away from there, so you eventually get a chance to get a wicket or something like that,” Chawla said. “But he didn’t bowl that, maybe because of the lack of form. If you see this season, he has bowled some 14-15 [15] overs and he’s not bowled his four [overs] quite often, and he’s conceding more than 11-12 runs in a season at the moment, which [makes] you feel you want to play a defensive game.Yuzvendra Chahal has looked off-colour so far•BCCI

“You just want to get your four overs in and then try to pick up a wicket. But today, I felt it was the day when you have 245 runs on the board, any which way you’re going for runs, so you should better try for wickets and if you pick up those couple of wickets, then you are in the game.”PBKS, who have never won the IPL, went hard for Chahal at the auction and spent INR 18 crore for him, making him the most expensive spinner ever bought at an IPL auction. He is their premier spinner. Though PBKS have won three of their five matches so far, will Chahal’s form affect them as the race for the playoffs heats up?”I think the few deliveries that he bowled when he picked up Travis Head’s wicket, that is what we need to see Yuzvendra Chahal bowl more often,” Wasim Jaffer said. “You’re looking to spin the ball, looking to bowl googly, looking to put some revs on the ball, which I think we are missing from watching Yuzi. He is very defensive in his mindset and the pressure is pretty much visible on his face that, you know, he’s off colour. But you know for Punjab to become good, he’s the main puzzle that they need to solve.”

Virat Kohli has advocated for the presence of families on tours, emphasising the balance he felt they bring to players who might be going through tough times on the field.”It’s very difficult to explain to people how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something which is intense, which happens on the outside,” Kohli said during the RCB Innovational Lab Indian Sports Summit ahead of IPL 2025, when asked about the role his family had played on tough tours.”I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings to a large extent. And I feel quite disappointed about that because it’s like people who have no control over what’s going on are kind of brought into conversations and put out at the forefront that, ‘oh, maybe they need to be kept away.'”Related

• India's white-ball wizards need a new cheat code for sustained excellence

• Stung by recent losses, BCCI cracks ten-point whip on men's national team

• Kohli fined 20% of match fees after heated altercation with Konstas at MCG

• Kohli: Experienced the 'most intense disappointment' after Australia tour

In the aftermath of India’s recent 3-1 Test series loss in Australia, the BCCI issued a directive that limited the time players spent with their families on tours. It ruled that players’ immediate families – partner and children – can join them only after the first two weeks on tours of over 45 days, while staying for no longer than 14 days. On shorter tours, families can accompany players for up to a week.”If you ask any player, do you want your family to be around you all the time? You’ll be like, yes. I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk,” Kohli said. “I want to be able to be normal. And then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility. You finish that responsibility, and you come back to life.”Like, there could be different situations happening in your life all the time. And that allows you to be absolutely normal. Not in a vague sense, but in a very real way that you finish your commitment, your responsibility, and then you come back to your house, you’re with family, and there’s absolutely normalcy in your house and normal family life goes on. So, for me, that is absolutely a day of immense pleasure. And I won’t miss any opportunities to go out and spend time with my family whenever I can.”‘I want this all to be an event that helps my team win. That’s why you see the celebration that I have when we pick up a wicket in a tight situation’•Getty Images

How challenging is it for Kohli to strike a balance between two different personas – the family man who strives for balance on tours, and the ultra-aggressive on-field presence who can occasionally get caught up in the heat of a battle, like in Melbourne when he shoulder-charged debutant Sam Konstas?”It’s naturally kind of getting tapered down again,” Kohli said when asked about his on-field persona. “People are not happy about that either. I don’t know what to do, to be honest. Earlier, my aggression was a problem, now my calmness is a problem. It’s like, I have no idea what needs to be done, that’s why I don’t focus on it much.”The kind of person I am, the kind of personality I have, yes, I do have tendencies to kind of go overboard. And I’ve never shied away from that. But the starting point is, okay, sometimes it might not have gone out with the right intent, but more often than not, the starting point has been of care. I want this all to be an event that helps my team win. That’s why you see the celebration that I have when we pick up a wicket in a tight situation. Because I’m like, yes, this is exactly what needs to happen. And I represent it like that.”For a lot of people, it might not have been something that they’re able to process. But for me, it always comes from the right place. While batting, of course, it puts me in a different place. Because I don’t have small, regular events to get excited about. I mean, the end goal is finishing the game. And then, yes, I can represent it the way I used to in the past. Again, things are happening naturally with me. It’s getting tapered down naturally.”My competitiveness has not gone down. So, I think for a lot of people, it’s very difficult to process how is the competitiveness going to be at the same level if the aggression is not. You can still be aggressive in your mind, but you don’t necessarily need to express it out there every now and then out of frustration, which I have – I mean, in the recent past as well, which is not a great thing, to be honest, I don’t feel great about those things myself.”

Wides outside off stump and over the head of the batter will be adjudicated using Hawk-Eye technology in IPL 2025. The decision was approved by the IPL on Thursday and communicated to all ten captains during a meeting in Mumbai ahead of the 2025 season which starts from March 22.

Over-the-head wides

ESPNcricinfo has learned that the same technology which was used to measure over-the-waist no-balls in IPL 2024 will be applied in the case of the over-the-head wides. The ball-tracking technology, which is part of Hawk-Eye, will measure the height of the ball as it passes the batter at the popping crease which will then be matched against the toe-to-head height of the batter when in an upright position – recorded in advance. If the height of the ball is higher than the recorded head height, then it will be declared a wide.The head heights of each player would be stored in the database and there will be no subjective call involved in the decision making with an automated system carrying out the measurement.

Wide guideline to move with batter

The subjective element involved in deciding wides will also be removed from this season as the IPL has decided that the wide guideline – usually in blue – will move with the batter. For example, if a right-hand batter moves one feet to his right outside off stump, the wide guideline will accordingly shift the same distance and will be used to adjudicate a wide.The Hawk-Eye technology will carry out the measurement automatically – both how much the batter has moved and how much the guideline moves. The TV umpire can see the movement on his screen and can adjudicate whether it is a wide or not based on whether ball pitched within or outside the revised wide guideline. The measurements will not be shown on TV screen and will only be visible to the TV umpire. The return crease, marked white, will not move. Also, the new system will not be applicable to adjudicate leg-side wides.The IPL has been at the forefront of adopting technology in decision-making for the past few years. In 2023, having trialled the system in the WPL, which was also the first instance in T20 cricket, teams were allowed to refer wides and no-balls as part of the two DRS reviews in IPL. Last year the IPL became the first league to use ball-tracking technology to judge over-the-waist no-balls.The Smart Replay System, which was introduced in IPL 2024, will be used this season as well to increase the accuracy and speed of decision-making.

Matthew Kuhnemann insists he’s put interrogation of his action firmly behind him as he targets a Test tour of the West Indies mid-year.The left-arm spinner was cleared to continue bowling by the ICC in late February after being reported for a suspect action following Australia’s away triumph over Sri Lanka.Kuhnemann was temporarily suspended from bowling and had a 10-day wait for results after being put through testing by cricket’s governing body.Related

• Kuhnemann cleared of suspect bowling action by ICC

The 28-year-old, who spoke to media on Friday for the first time since the incident, said he was always confident his action would be given the green light. So much so, he used the 10 days to spend some time on the Gold Coast.”It was actually great to have a bit of downtime with my family,” he said. “[The wait] wasn’t as nerve wracking as people may have thought.”When it first happened there was definitely some shock [and] I was very grateful for the support Cricket Australia and Cricket Tasmania provided.”[But I’ve played] over 100 professional games and had never been questioned … I was always confident that I would be fine.”I’ve had a couple of weeks to sit back and reflect on everything now and move on.”Had tests deemed Kuhnemann extended his elbow by more than 15 degrees, he would have been banned from bowling until he could prove he had remedied the situation.Kuhnemann was Australia’s highest wicket taker in the two-Test series against Sri Lanka with 16 scalps at an average of 17.18. He played through pain after breaking his right thumb in the Big Bash League in January.Kuhnemann said the ICC tests, thumb injury and battles securing a spot for previous state side Queensland had built his resilience.”It is the life of a professional sportsman these days, people might doubt you and whatnot but it’s how you take the doubt and turn it into a positive,” he said. “I’ve never been more confident in my ability as a cricketer.”Over in Sri Lanka that was probably the best time of my career, the ball was coming out beautifully.”Kuhnemann will be hoping to help last-placed Tasmania to a win when they host New South Wales in a day-night fixture in the final Sheffield Shield round starting Saturday.The next goal is a potential stint in England with Durham and a trip to the Caribbean with Australia, who play West Indies in a three-Test series beginning June.”I’ve never been to the West Indies … but it can take some spin,” Kuhnemann said. “If the opportunity comes, I’d love to go over there and play.”

Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) has decided not to renew the contract with the head coach of the men’s team, Monty Desai. He recently completed his two-year tenure and a CAN spokesperson said “it was not a sudden decision,” but a “mutual agreement”.”Head coach of the men’s national cricket team Shri Mrugang Jagdish Desai ‘Monty Desai’ was appointed with a tenure of two-year and the agreement has come to an end which we all are well aware of,” CAN spokesperson Chhumbi Lama said in a release. “Also, it is hereby informed that the Cricket Association of Nepal has decided not to renew the contract.”It was not a sudden decision. A board meeting held earlier had decided not to offer him a contract extension. There is no reason to think negatively of him, the decision was more of a mutual agreement.”