Tour of Australia 2020-21: Indian Squads Look To Be A Judicious Mix!

Photo: deccanchronicle.com

The all-India cricket selection committee of the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) has yesterday finalized the Indian squads for the India Tour of Australia 2020-21 to be played from end of next month under new normal rules due to the pandemic. Three squads for the T20Is, ODIs and Tests have been announced with some significant changes of players/specialists. Rishabh Pant, who is reportedly unfit due to weight issues, has been left out of the shorter formats and included in the Test squad as the second wicket-keeper. This is despite he being the hype of the millennium when he was not selected for the ICC Cricket World Cup-2019, initially, and the Board eventually forced to select him due to Shikhar Dhawan’s injury, but largely due to the pressures created by the Pant fans on social media, the mainstream media hooting for him even with editorials and a range of cricket experts and ex-players crying for his inclusion. However, it proved to be a damp squib, and Pant is yet to prove his mettle in the ODIs and the T20Is. The IPL 2020 in UAE has also failed so far to bring out the ‘best’ in him.

 

The BCCI has also been judicious enough by doing away with the selection of injured batsman Rohit Sharma and fast bowler Ishant Sharma instead of taking the risks. Accordingly, KL Rahul has been named vice-captain for the T20Is and the ODIs thanks perhaps to his current rollicking form in the IPL 2020. His inclusion in the Test squad has been contested though by some ex-cricketers since there are already two wicket-keepers included (Wriddhiman Saha and Pant) and Ajinkya Rahane being made the vice-captain. However, with 18 players in the squad there should be a lot of scope for selecting the playing eleven, and it also must be borne in mind that Rahul first came into international fame in the Test format. His co-opener in IPL 2020 for Kings Eleven Punjab, Mayank Agarwal has also made it to all the three formats.

 

Inclusion of the IPL star of recent years, Sanju Samson, in the T20I squad is significant too; because apart from being an attacking batsman Samson is also a wicket-keeper and he would provide relief to KL Rahul whenever required. Promising pacer Navdeep Saini has also made it to all the squads while spinner Yuzvendra Chahal is retained for the shorter formats and spinner Kuldeep Yadav selected for the Test squad only with R Ashwin coming in. Other offbeat selections from IPL 2020 being that of spinner Varun Chakravarthy for the T20I squad and pacer Mohammed Siraj for the Test squad.

 

The Squads:

T20I: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul (vice-captain and wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Varun Chakravarthy.

ODI: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (vice-captain & wicket-keeper), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Agarwal, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Navdeep Saini, Shardul Thakur.

Test: Virat Kohli (Captain), Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (vice-captain), Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, R. Ashwin, Mohd. Siraj.

 

Four additional bowlers, all IPL 2020 finds: Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kartik Tyagi, Ishan Porel and T. Natarajan will travel with the Indian contingent as per the BCCI release. All team management members, coach and players not playing in IPL would join in Dubai, and all the squads are to fly to Australia from Dubai after November 10 IPL final.

 

There is, however, still a lot of uncertainty about the final India-Australia match schedule with different sports sites giving different dates for the matches. The final schedule is to be announced only after all the quarantine and other norm requirements are fixed. In all, three T20Is, three ODIs and four Test matches will be played between November-January 2020-21. While Sydney is believed to host the first few matches covering all formats Adelaide would be the venue for the pink-ball day-night Test match. With the pandemic hopefully coming under perfect control by the month of December in Australia cricket spectators could be allowed for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG Melbourne, that is to say, from 26^th December. In spite of the continuing uncertainty of the final schedule this Series is likely to be very absorbing, considering the fact that the Virat Kohli team had won in the Test series last time against the hosts in Australia. 

Meanwhile the schedule of the tour has been finalized with the first One-Day International match starting on 27th November in Sydney. The fourth and last Test match taking place in Brisbane from the 15th January, 2021. The Final Schedule:

Now Showing: Vote For COVID-19 Vaccine And More!

 

Photo: sandesh.com

While there has been a global race among nations for the production of the first effective COVID-19 vaccine India perhaps becomes the first nation to politicize the vaccine that is still a long way off. Yes, COVID-19 pandemic may kindly take note. There has been a lot of ‘finance’ involved in it and so the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in a way, had to figure in this. Releasing the BJP Manifesto for the three-phase Bihar assembly elections starting October 28, her party promised to distribute the would-be COVID-19 vaccine absolutely free to all citizens of the state. However, it was not clarified about that segment of the state’s citizens who would not perhaps vote for the party’s alliance as to how to exclude or list them out. Apart from this the Finance Minister further justified her presence by promising around 1.9 million new jobs for Bihar.

 

The directly political populism of ‘vote for vaccine’ has, obviously, attracted a series of allegations and attacks from the opposition political parties. They ask, ‘what about other states’ or ‘not free for the non-BJP states’? The immense pressure compelled the party to come out with a clarification that ‘once the vaccine is approved by the ICMR and available for mass production, the central government would distribute the same to all states at nominal costs, and vaccine distribution being a state discretion the Bihar government (if their alliance wins, of course) would make it available free of cost to all people in Bihar. Well, whether the clarification would hold enough water or not the point of poll politics is made squarely and rather too effectively to the gullible and poor voters of the state.

 

Another point needs to be made here. On one hand, the central government has been urging people to adapt to the new normal norms in the strictest way possible while on the other, for motives of politicking the representatives of the ruling class and others have been blatantly violating the norms for wooing the voters who are the people too. Huge political rallies in Bihar have been open invitations for the virus, with more and more rallies to follow. Not only this, almost everyday some protest rallies are taking place in some places, organized by the opposition or the non-ruling opposition or whatever, and here you see only a few leaders wearing masks, and no social distancing at all. The rampant politicking has been one of the major factors for India taking more than six months to reach the pandemic peak.

 

And then, Durga Puja 2020 is one more issue that stinks of direct political play. Bengalis of West Bengal and Kolkata call it their national festival, rightfully so, and this creates a crisis of sorts for the political parties of the state. No party could afford to hurt the peoples’ sentiments by asking them to worship from home and not visit the puja pandals, the shops and the eateries at all. 

Therefore, the ruling TMC government had, as always, announced financial assistance to all puja organizers more than a month back, and then tried to placate them further by allowing pandal-hopping from the third day onward of the bright-moon fortnight or Devi Paksha, with strict norms, of course. The opposition, particularly the BJP huffing and puffing to come to power in the state somehow, has also been trying its best to please the voters who are the devotees too. Finally, it took the Calcutta High Court to clamp down rules for the Durga Puja 2020 celebrations, making all public puja pandals ‘no entry’ zones.

 

No wonder then that Prime Minister Narendra Modi too found time to inaugurate Durga Puja pandals in Kolkata today, albeit virtually. It is apparently more important now for all political parties to assuage the feelings of the Bangla devotees who are also voters, hurt sourly by the High Court ruling and its refusal to consider a review petition by the organizers. Assembly elections are due in the state in the first part of next year, very significantly.

 

One last point. A COVID-19 vaccine can come the earliest by the first part of 2021 only and that too is dependent on so many other factors. Our humble point being that the more the delay in the vaccine coming the more will be the number of possible beneficiaries, because at least two assembly elections are due early next year and more would follow. Once a promise of free vaccine to the people-voters declared it cannot be denied in other states where the same party is going to try its luck in the upcoming elections.

IPL 2020: Super Cricketing Matches Over the Weekend!

Whenever we get to watch cricket of the highest order involving star national and international players we tend to forget about the format of the game and in which ‘type’ it is being played, international Tests or ODIs or T20Is or commercial league T20 matches, and we consider and cherish such games as treats. This exactly has been the case in all of the four matches of the Indian Premier League-2020 (IPL 2020) played over the weekend, that is on Saturday and Sunday, 17-18 October 2020 in UAE, each of the four matches being a humdinger down the wire, and several national and international cricketers displaying tremendous competitive spirit and superlative cricket.

 

Photo: espncricinfo.com

The first game on Saturday was played between RCB and RR in Dubai. RR set a competitive target of 178, and RCB started the chase on a pitch slowing down and found shot-making increasingly difficult. They needed 76 runs off the last 41 balls when Virat Kohli departed for 43 runs off 32 balls, and in came AB de Villiers. Despite his attacking shots from the word go, it came down to needing 35 runs in the last two overs for a win. The incredible prowess of de Villiers unfolded, and he won the match for RCB making 55 runs in just 22 balls, comprising of 6 sixes and with two balls to spare. He thus snatched a victory by 7 wickets from the jaws of an impending defeat, and RCB needed this victory badly, after its listless performance in the game against KXIP on 15^th October when de Villiers was demoted to number six in the batting order with only three overs to play with, this unusual move by Kohli contributed largely to the KXIP, a team on the verge of being ousted from the tournament, getting a new lease of life. More significantly, de Villiers delivered another superlative knock of 73 runs off 33 balls that helped his team win the match against KKR on 12^th October.

 

The second match on Saturday was played between DC and CSK in Sharjah and it also went down to the last over and last-minute fireworks. Again, chasing a competitive CSK target of 180 DC proceeded mostly thanks to a brilliant century by Shikhar Dhawan as wickets on the other end fell in regular intervals slowing down the scoring-rate. 17 runs were required in the last over, and the new batsman Axar Patel had the strike, not the set batsman Dhawan. And what followed was just breathtaking. Axar, as if on a mission, kept on hitting sixes from the first ball, scoring a scintillating 21 in 5 balls and DC winning the duel by 5 wickets.

 

The two matches yesterday, that is Sunday, the 18^th October, were not only close encounters, but both were also tied ones, keeping the viewers riveted with unending twists and turns. The first match was played in Abu Dhabi between KKR and SRH, both teams desperate for the next couple of points. KKR, Russel still not delivering, reached a somewhat respectable total of 163/6 thanks largely to the unbeaten Morgan-Karthik partnership. Chasing a modest target, SRH, despite a rollicking opening partnership between injured Williamson and Bairstow, faltered eventually losing wickets regularly. Finally, skipper Warner still in command, SRH could not get the 30 runs from the last two overs and the match was tied. SRH had also no clue to the incredible bowling by pacer Lockie Ferguson who was playing his first game of the tournament. In came Warner again for the super over, but fell to Ferguson first ball, and KKR had triumphed finally with new skipper Morgan partnering with keeper Dinesh Karthik overhauling the small target easily.

 

Photo: espncricinfo.com

The last match yesterday was played in Dubai between MI and KXIP. Chasing a competitive MI target of 177 runs KXIP, riding on another super knock of 77 by KL Rahul, failed to score the victorious 2 runs off the last ball of the last over in spite Jordan’s last-minute heroics, getting brilliantly run out coming for the second run, and the match was tied. Bowling the super over MI’s main strike bowler Jasprit Bumrah bowled yorker after yorker kept the winning score for the MI at just 6 runs. However, the twists could not be foreseen even by MI’s season openers Rohit Sharma and de Kock as KXIP’s strike bowler Mohammad Shami surpassed the brilliance of Bumrah by bowling a beauty of an over, and Rohit, again for the defining 2-run for victory was run out with classic precision by a diving Rahul, and the super over was also tied. Things were different in the second super over, because batsmen and bowlers in action for the first super over could not feature in the second. So, Pollard and Hardik Pandya came in to bat the second super over for MI while Jordan bowled it for KXIP. They could manage only 11 runs and the final target was 12 for KXIP. MI's pacer Trent Boult proved to be a poor man's Bumrah. And, Gayle coming in as an opener for the first time in IPL 2020, started the proceedings with first-ball six, and then Mayank Agarwal who earlier saved a sure Pollard six followed it up with the fours. So then, finally KXIP got the much-fought two points and still remained in contention with 6 points. A match, forget the IPL format or type, of historical proportions finally ended. Results:

 

Now, DC with 14 points is set to enter the playoffs, followed by MI and RCB with 12 each, KKR with 10 and the remaining four teams locked with 6 points each, leaving the doors still tantalizingly open for IPL 2020. All the franchises have played 9 matches each so far and 5 matches each are remaining. This new-normal IPL 2020 in UAE, has somewhat reversed the pattern of winning-toss-fielding-first-and-mostly-winning in Indian settings, and has also seen batsmen struggling for runs on rather slowish pitches instead of the undaunted rain of fours-sixes in Indian settings. These factors have made the tournament hard-fought, closer and absorbing as we have seen in the last four matches over the weekend.