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Durham completed their Friends Life t20 programme with a fourth successive win when they beat Derbyshire by 37 runs at Chester-le-Street

28-Jul-2013
ScorecardDurham completed their Friends Life t20 programme with a fourth successive win when they beat Derbyshire by 37 runs at Chester-le-Street. The Dynamos must now wait to discover whether they have qualified for the quarter-finals as one of the two best third-placed teams.Durham were penalised 0.25 points for a salary-cap breach last season, leaving them third in the division on 11.75. They now need either defeat for Glamorgan or a no-result between Warwickshire and Somerset in the Midlands/West/Wales Group, or both Essex and Middlesex to lose in the South Group, to see them through as one of the two best third-placed teams.After being put in, Gordon Muchall’s T20 best of 66 not out took Durham to 187 for 3 and earned him the man of the match award. Derbyshire were all out for 150 with seven balls unused. There were three sixes in Muchall’s 26-ball half-century and his stand of 79 in just under seven overs with Scott Borthwick virtually put the game beyond Derbyshire.They looked like making a fight of it as they sped to 42 in the first four overs of their reply, but the challenge faded after Chesney Hughes went down the pitch and was stumped for 34 in Gareth Breese’s first over. Hughes hit seven fours in his 22-ball knock, but the only other significant contribution came from Dan Redfern.He made 43 off 34 balls before falling to a stunning diving catch at long-off by Ben Stokes, who also showed his athleticism with a sharp piece of fielding off his own bowling to run out Alex Hughes.Phil Mustard, playing his 100th T20 game for Durham, contributed 24 from 21 balls to an opening stand of 54 with acting captain Mark Stoneman, who went on to make 47. His exit brought in Muchall at 83 for 2 in the 11th over and two overs later he drove two successive balls from Wes Durston over long-on for six then also cleared the rope off Redfern.Stokes, the competition’s leading six-hitter with 18, was unable to add to his tally. He made 10 not out after going in when Borthwick fell for 31 in the 18th over.

Uday Saharan, Rishith Reddy, Ansh Gosai, Abishek Porel and Pushpendra Singh Rathore called up

Sreshth Shah21-Jan-2022The BCCI is sending five players to the Under-19 World Cup in the West indies as back-up following a Covid-19 outbreak in the Indian camp, with five players of the original squad in the Caribbean testing positive for the virus this week.The five players being sent in as reinforcements are Uday Saharan, Abishek Porel, Rishith Reddy, Ansh Gosai and Pushpendra Singh Rathore.On Wednesday, six India players were unavailable for selection for the fixture against Ireland. The group included captain Yash Dhull and vice-captain Shaik Rasheed. They, along with Aaradhya Yadav, Manav Parakh and Siddarth Yadav have also been ruled out of India’s last group-stage game, against Uganda, scheduled for Saturday.While Saharan, Reddy, Gosai and Rathore were all part of the travelling reserves announced by the BCCI before the World Cup, they did not travel to the Caribbean with the main squad. Porel, who was initially not part of the reserves, has made the cut in the place of Amrit Raj Upadhyay.Related

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• India U19s' concerns: Depleted squad, travel worries

• Covid-19: Five Indians ruled out of game against Uganda

Left-arm spinner Upadhyay was originally picked among the reserves, but has been pipped by Porel, and the reason, ESPNcricinfo understands, is that he is a wicketkeeper. Aaradhya, the second keeper in the main squad, is currently in isolation, leaving the squad with only Dinesh Bana to wear the big gloves.Saharan is a batter from Rajasthan, who hit 102 in the tri-series competition played between two India Under-19 sides and Bangladesh Under-19 late last year. Reddy is a right-arm seamer from Hyderabad who picked up 5 for 53 against Bangladesh Under-19s in the same tournament. Saurashtra’s Gosai is a right-handed batter known for his innovative shot-making, and Rajasthan’s Rathore is a batting allrounder.Once the five reserves reach the Caribbean, they will have to serve a mandatory quarantine period before joining the team. They are currently not part of the main squad; the tournament’s event technical committee will have to approve them before they can play in the competition.It’s possible that the committee will allow them only as temporary Covid-19 replacements, which comes with the caveat that they must exit the squad once the affected players return after recovery. If the BCCI so wants, these players can apply to be permanent additions to the squad, but that is usually done to replace injured players.Although the five Covid-infected players are currently in isolation, they are expected to be available for India’s quarter-final game, which likely be played on January 29. However, if their recovery takes longer or more players return positive tests or suffer injuries, the team management can dip into their reserves at short notice.India, who became the first team in the competition to qualify for the quarter-finals, have their knockout fixture scheduled in another country, Antigua and Barbuda. This means the players who are currently in Trinidad and Tobago will have to return negative tests before they can fly out.

“If you’re not motivated to play a normal game but extra-motivated to play a game with some incentive, that’s unacceptable”

Karthik Krishnaswamy03-Mar-20219:32

Mute Me: Virat Kohli – where have all the centuries gone?

India versus England. The last Test of the last-but-one series in the current World Test Championship cycle. Everything is on the line. For India, it’s simple: win or draw, and they book their place in the final, alongside New Zealand. For England there’s the incentive of playing spoiler: if they win, India will miss out, and Australia will make the final instead.When you throw in all the conflicting emotions of Australia fans cheering England, you have just the sort of scenario the ICC and its member boards may have hoped for when they came up with the concept of the Test Championship.Related

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• Ishant: Winning WTC will be the same feeling as winning the World Cup

And yet, on the eve of the Test match that will determine India’s fate in the tournament, their captain didn’t sound like a man dreaming about glory in the final.”If you want me to be brutally honest, it might work for teams who are not that motivated to play Test cricket,” Virat Kohli said, when asked what he thought of the Test Championship as a concept. “Teams like us, who are motivated to play Test cricket and want to win Test matches and keep Indian cricket team at the top of the world in Test cricket, we have no issues whatsoever, whether it’s a World Test Championship or not. I think for teams like us, it’s only a distraction when you start thinking of the World Test Championship.”Eventually it’s only a game of cricket. Even that game, a World Cup final, semi-final, anything you take, it’s a game of cricket at the end of the day, and if you’re not motivated to play a normal game of cricket and you’re extra-motivated to play a game of cricket which has some incentive to it, for me, as an individual, that’s unacceptable, and we as a team have never played with that mindset.”For us, any game is important, we are going to go for a result whenever the opportunity presents itself, and that’s why people want to watch us as a team now. You could ask some of the teams that probably wouldn’t have looked at Test cricket as a priority, but for us it really doesn’t change anything. As I said, if we start thinking too much about it, then that is a distraction from our process and plans.”Virat Kohli – “Teams like us who are motivated to play Test cricket, we have no issues whatsoever, whether it’s a World Test Championship or not”•Getty Images

Now there are a couple of things to keep in mind when you read that quote. One, Kohli may well have expressed himself more harshly than intended while trying to communicate his single-minded focus on the immediate task at hand – winning the fourth Test against England – and play down the significance of the prize that awaits his team if they complete it successfully.And it’s not that the view expressed here is shared by everyone in the India dressing room. Ishant Sharma, for instance, has spoken of the Test Championship final as being the equal of a World Cup final for him, now that he only plays one format for India. Others may share that view too.But for Kohli to express himself as he did was a departure from his early enthusiasm for the Test Championship. When it was introduced, he suggested the Championship would add a whole new level of spice to Test cricket.”I think for all the cricketers involved now, every session and every game will be more intense, there will be more on the line,” he had said. “So it will be challenging, but all the more exciting and all the teams I am sure are going to enjoy a lot through this whole journey of the Test Championships.”Since then, global events – chiefly the Covid-19 pandemic – have conspired to take some of the gloss off this first cycle of the Test Championship. From all teams playing an equal number of series, a spate of cancellations led the boards to agree to a system that ranked teams based on the percentage of points they had contested. India ended up needing to do more to get to the final than most other teams, since they were one of only two teams who weren’t affected by cancellations.It was always going to be an imperfect solution in an imperfect situation, and Kohli expressed his displeasure after India lost the first Test against England, leaving them in a delicate situation as far as reaching the final was concerned.”If suddenly the rules can change when you’re in lockdown, nothing is in your control at all,” he said then. “So we’re not bothered at all about the table or the things that are going on on the outside. For some things there’s no logic, for some things you can have a debate for hours, as much as you want, but the only thing that you can control as a side, to an extent, is playing good cricket, and that’s our only focus, regardless of who’s on top of the table.”If India fail to reach the final, Kohli will probably remain lukewarm about the Test Championship, and that’s only natural for someone in his situation. But if they get there, it’s not inconceivable that he’ll sing its praises again.

Phoenix recover from 71 for 6 as pair put on 48 off 30 balls

ECB Reporters Network13-Aug-2021Erin Burns, the Australian allrounder, hit 38 from 26 balls and Emily Arlott 22 from 14 to keep Birmingham Phoenix in with an outside chance of qualifying for the final stages of the inaugural women’s Hundred.Phoenix recovered from 71 for 6, needing 55 with 42 balls left, to pip Trent Rockets by three wickets with six balls to spare after Burns and Arlott had put on 48 from 30 deliveries.Left-arm spinner Kirstie Gordon took 3 for 26 to make it 12 wickets in the tournament as Rockets Women totalled 125 for 7 from 100 balls, Abbey Freeborn (30) and Heather Graham (26) adding 54 in 39 balls for the fifth wicket. But despite Sammy-Jo Johnson taking 3 for 22 to increase her tally to 15, the total was not enough.Trent Rockets Women remain one of three teams on seven points with a home match against Manchester Originals to come, while Phoenix, on six points, travel to Northern Superchargers on Thursday.Second and third in the final table will meet to decide who meets Southern Brave, who are already through to the Lord’s final.Rachel Priest and Johnson gave the Rockets innings a strong start with 34 from 20 balls, both hitting sixes, but the innings lost some momentum as Johnson was lbw trying to reverse sweep off-spinner Burns, Katherine Brunt was bowled by Gordon and Nat Sciver was run out by a direct hit arrowed in from deep midwicket by Katie Mack to be 63 for 4 from 52.Graham had an escape on nine when she was dropped at cover off Emily Arlott before she and Freeborn added 28 in 15 balls. But both were dismissed in the space of three balls by Gordon, who beat Freeborn’s swing before Graham hit her straight to mid-off in a final set that cost only one run.Shafali Verma, on 16 from nine balls after her match-winning 76 not out against Welsh Fire on Monday, was caught at deep midwicket in an early setback for Phoenix, giving Brunt her wicket for the second time in the tournament and the fifth time this summer after a battle between the two that began in the England-India international series.Katherine Brunt roars after dismissing Shafali Verma•Getty Images

The innings seemed to be going nowhere as Eve Jones was leg before to Georgia Davis’s off spin and skipper Amy Jones to a poor shot that saw her caught at short third man off Johnson, who quickly added a second wicket with a low return catch to remove Mack. When Sarah Glenn had Gwenan Davis caught behind they were 58 for 5.Izzy Wong top-edged to short third man but Burns and Arlott turned things round. Burns swept ball No. 88 straight to deep backward square but Arlott, who survived a tough caught-and-bowled chance to Johnson, kept her cool to win the match with back-to-back boundaries.

Rajiv Shukla has resigned as IPL chairman, following the scandal over alleged corruption in the league

ESPNcricinfo staff01-Jun-2013Rajiv Shukla has resigned as IPL chairman, following the scandal over alleged corruption in the league. His decision to stand down comes less than 24 hours after the resignations of two top BCCI officials, secretary Sanjay Jagdale and treasurer Ajay Shirke, and on the eve of a crucial BCCI working committee meeting in Chennai, where the future of N Srinivasan as board president is expected to be decided.On Saturday evening, Shukla told : “I have decided to quit as IPL chairman. It is a decision that I was pondering over for some time. I think it is time to step down. Sanjay Jagdale and Ajay Shirke resigned in the best interest of Indian cricket. I thought this is the right time.”Shirke, responding to news of Shukla’s resignation, said the challenge now lay in how to move forward. “It is his decision. He’s in the eye of the storm, he must have realised the gravity of what he felt,” Shirke told . “It is never too late, the question is what are the steps being taken from now on to restore the faith and restore transparency. No one is able to pinpoint the faults and what steps should be taken.”Shukla took over as IPL chairman at the BCCI’s Annual General Meeting in September 2011, from Chirayu Amin. The tenure is for a year, but can be extended at the board’s AGM. Shukla, who was reappointed as chairman in 2012, had gone on record saying he would not extend his term at this September’s AGM.IPL 2013 has been plunged into controversy over the past two weeks, following the arrests of three Rajasthan Royals players for alleged spot-fixing, and Chennai Super Kings official Gurunath Meiyappan – the the son-in-law of board president N Srinivasan, who is also the managing director of Super Kings’ owner, India Cements – for alleged betting.Apart from Shukla, the IPL’s governing council comprises Arun Jaitley (Delhi District Cricket Association), Anirudh Chaudhary (Haryana Cricket Association), Amitabh Chaudhary (Jharkhand CA), Sanjay Patel (Baroda CA), Ganga Raju (Andhra CA), MP Pandove (Punjab CA), and former India Test cricketer and current television commentator Ravi Shastri.Meanwhile Jagdale, who resigned as BCCI secretary on Friday, said a “massive clean-up job” is necessary following the controversies. “The spot-fixing and betting scandal has badly dented the image of cricket. A massive clean-up job is required to overcome this,” he said. “But this will take time as the damage done is very big.”It is very difficult to stop fixing in cricket and BCCI has its own limitations, but the the board can strengthen its surveillance and curb the menace of fixing. At the same time, the BCCI will have to take strict action against cricketers who are found guilty. To earn the faith of fans, the BCCI administrators will have to show determination and work as a unit.”Whether Srinivasan, under mounting pressure, will step aside as board president – at least temporarily, until the inquiry into Gurunath, India Cements and Rajasthan Royals’ owners is complete – is likely to be answered on Sunday, following the BCCI’s emergency meeting. Jagdale said he would not consider returning to the BCCI even if Srinivasan resigned: “I am not even looking at the possibility of coming back into the BCCI’s fold. I think I am done with my innings.”

Rishabh Pant and MS Dhoni will both be keen to get two shots at a place in the IPL final

Alagappan Muthu03-Oct-20216:11

Polite Enquiries: Will Dhoni retain himself for CSK next year?

Big picture

There isn’t a great deal of jeopardy in the contest. Both Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals have qualified for the playoffs but there is the small matter of confirming a place in the top two, which offers an extra shot at a place in the IPL final.A scrappy victory over the defending champions, led by their former captain, may well be just the kind of tonic the Capitals need as they move into the final stretch of the IPL. Mumbai Indians were in full-on fightback mode on Saturday but Shreyas Iyer weathered the blows like a grizzled old pro who knew just when to go for the KO. This team already has a great pair of openers and a phenomenal bowling attack. Now they’ve found their middle-order marshal.

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Super Kings also learned a valuable lesson, albeit in a loss to Rajasthan Royals. After going down in that high-scoring game, they will be better informed about what to do and what not to when batters come at them as hard as Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shivam Dube did.

In the news

Marcus Stoinis has spent three games on the sidelines as a result of injury. It is as yet unclear if he has recovered well enough to take part in tomorrow’s match.1:52

Has R Ashwin underperformed this IPL?

Likely XIs

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Moeen Ali, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 Suresh Raina, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Dwayne Bravo, 9 Shardul Thakur, 10 Deepak Chahar, 11 Josh Hazlewood/Sam CurranDelhi Capitals: 1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Steven Smith, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk) 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Anrich Nortje, 11 Avesh Khan

Strategy punt

• Prithvi Shaw is a destructive batter, when the ball comes down perfectly straight. Bowlers capable of moving the new ball have troubled him in the past. So he might want to be off strike when Deepak Chahar has the ball. The head-to-head reads 55 runs off 50 balls and five dismissals.
• South Africa may not want him in their T20 side anymore but Faf du Plessis is among the first names down on the Super Kings team sheet. He sets the tone for their entire innings, so taking him out assumes top priority. Enter R Ashwin (45 runs off 45 balls, three dismissals) and Kagiso Rabada (31 off 28, three dismissals). Capitals will do well to open the bowling with this pair.

Stats that matter

• Super Kings have been the best six-hitting team in the IPL. They have cleared the ropes 96 times with Ruturaj Gaikwad topping the list of players (20) with the most maximums this season.
• Shikhar Dhawan appeared invulnerable in the India leg of the tournament, averaging 54 and striking at 134. But after four matches in the UAE, those figures have gone down to 20.5 and 114.
• The Delhi franchise is one shy of 100 wins in the IPL.

Club permitted 19,000 spectators for match in July in extension of government pilot

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Jun-2021The third ODI between England and Pakistan at Edgbaston next month will be permitted an 80 percent capacity crowd, in the latest steps of a government pilot scheme geared towards the return of full stadiums in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.The match, a day-night contest on July 13, is set to be held in front of a 19,000 crowd, which would make it the best attended cricket match in the UK since the start of the pandemic.The news comes after 70 percent capacity crowds were permitted at Edgbaston for the recent second Test between England and New Zealand – which amounted to 60,000 fans over the four days of the contest. On this occasion, however, the scheme will be extended to Under-16s, who were excluded from the last round of trials.”It’s fantastic for sport in the West Midlands that so many cricket fans will be able to enjoy another blockbuster fixture in England versus Pakistan at Edgbaston,” Stuart Cain, Warwickshire’s chief executive said.”The recent Test match gave us a fantastic opportunity to build a new model for large scale sporting events and I’m pleased to see elements of this first trial being carried forward for the Pakistan match.Related

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“Technology played a big part in this and we will again focus on using this as a way of creating a safe environment whilst enhancing Edgbaston’s reputation as one of the best atmospheres in world cricket.”That reputation took a dent last week following a large-scale pitch invasion at the end of Birmingham Bear’s defeat to Derbyshire in the Vitality Blast, an incident that was blamed on a student promotion that got out of hand.Cain branded the scenes at that event as “disgraceful”, adding that the club would seek to ban those responsible for life.To secure their attendances for the Pakistan ODI, spectators aged 11 or older will be required to show a negative Covid lateral flow test result, or proof of two vaccinations (first and second dose) at least 14 days before the fixture.Any ticket purchasers who no longer wish to attend the match can request a refund via an online form at the club’s website, although all such requests must be made before the deadline at 4pm on Thursday, July 1.

Kumar Sangakkara did it again, dropping himself from the XI after a poor run of scores in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s first five matches

The Report by Abhishek Purohit17-Apr-2013Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsAmit Mishra’s third IPL hat-trick gave Sunrisers a close win•BCCI

Hat-tricks in the IPL

2008
L Balaji for Chennai Super Kings v Kolkata Knight Riders
Amit Mishra for Delhi Daredevils v Deccan Chargers
Makhaya Ntini for Chennai Super Kings v Kolkata Knight Riders
2009
Yuvraj Singh for Kings XI Punjab v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Rohit Sharma for Deccan Chargers v Mumbai Indians
Yuvraj Singh for Kings XI Punjab v Deccan Chargers
2010
Praveen Kumar for Royal Challengers Bangalore v Rajasthan Royals
2011
Amit Mishra for Deccan Chargers v Kings XI Punjab
2012
Ajit Chandila for Rajasthan Royals v Pune Warriors
2013
Sunil Narine for Kolkata Knight Riders v Kings XI Punjab
Amit Mishra for Sunrisers Hyderabad v Pune Warriors

Sunrisers Hyderabad had defended 126 in their IPL debut against Pune Warriors in Hyderabad. When the return game started this afternoon in Pune, the giant screen at the Sahara Stadium flashed “Revenge”. Warriors almost exacted it: they restricted Sunrisers to 119 and then needed 19 off 19 in their chase, with six wickets in hand. Sunrisers used up just 13 of those 19 deliveries to take six wickets, four of them falling to Amit Mishra, who took his third IPL hat-trick, as Warriors imploded in spectacularly inept fashion.Four of the last six batsmen, including captain Angelo Mathews, fell swinging wildly, something that could be put down to collective brain-fade instead of the benign asking-rate. Three of those batsmen were allrounders – Mitchell Marsh, Abhishek Nayar and Mathews himself. Marsh wanted to hit Dale Steyn out of the ground, Nayar tried it against Thisara Perera and Mathews against Mishra. All three holed out on a pitch Mathews himself had called ‘up-and-down’ and slow at the toss, suggesting those shots would be mighty difficult to pull off.A stunned Manish Pandey took a single off the third ball of the 19th over, right after Mishra had dismissed Mathews, and watched in increasing horror as Rahul Sharma was bowled after a missed slog while trying to follow the trail blazed by the allrounders. Bhuvneshwar Kumar played for turn to a googly to depart lbw and Mishra completed the hat-trick, and an unbelievable win, with one more googly, as Ashok Dinda too pushed for a legbreak. Mishra’s figures read 4-0-19-4 and came after his 30 off 24 had stretched Sunrisers to 119 for 8 from 44 for 6. Interestingly, Sunrisers had used up all their bowlers except their legspinners until the last two oversWarriors were in the game throughout except for those final moments of madness. Bhuvneshwar Kumar moved it in and out and ran through the Sunrisers top order to leave them gasping at 17 for 4, including the wicket of stand-in captain Cameron White for a golden duck.Biplab Samantray and Karan Sharma were unlikely candidates to fight back. Samantray batted sensibly to make a run-a-ball 37 before holing out to long off. Perera came in after Karan’s wicket and it was expected he would resist, too. But he edged behind for 2, trying to drive almost every ball he faced.It was left to Mishra to make vital runs once more. He came in after Perera was dismissed in the 11th over and hung around till the last, pushing Sunrisers well beyond 100 along with Ashish Reddy. Twenty-six came off the last two overs of the innings bowled by Mathews and Dinda.Robin Uthappa and Aaron Finch came hard at Sunrisers, their opening stand worth 38 in just over four overs. Steyn was taken for 22 in his first two overs, but the way the openers fell was a peek into the way the sand castle would crumble later. Uthappa flicked Perera straight to deep square leg and Finch punched him to backward point off successive deliveries.The size of the target and the pace of the start meant Warriors were always in front until the flood of wickets in the penultimate over. Mishra had been Player of the Match in Hyderabad, too, with 3 for 19.

Michael Hussey was denied a century as South Australia squeaked to first innings points over Western Australia on a tense day two of the Sheffield Shield match at the Adelaide Oval

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Mar-2013
ScorecardMichael Hussey was denied a century as South Australia squeaked to first innings points over Western Australia on a tense day two of the Sheffield Shield match at the Adelaide Oval.John Botha’s five wickets had put SA on the path to a comfortable lead as the visitors subsided to 9 for 166, but Hussey and Michael Hogan added a stubborn 69 to take WA to the outskirts of the lead.However, Chadd Sayers coaxed Hogan to drag an expansive drive onto his stumps in the final over of the day, consigning Hussey to an unbeaten 99 and the Warriors to a 13-run deficit. SA can go top of the table with an outright win.Hogan had earlier claimed his own five-wicket return as SA’s tail was quickly accounted for in the morning.

The selectors are expected to pick an enlarged squad with enough reserves to cater for any contingency

Nagraj Gollapudi07-May-2021The Indian squads for both the World Test Championship final and the five-Test England series are set to be picked over the weekend. It is understood that the Virat Kohli-lead Indian squad is likely to depart for England on June 2.Keeping in mind the extensive length of the tour, spanning between June and mid-September, the selectors are expected to pick an enlarged squad with enough reserves to cater for any contingency. Even the ICC recently approved increasing the squad strength from 23 to 30 (including support staff) for global events during the Covid-19 pandemic.Related

• Kohli and wife Anushka donate INR 2 crore for India's Covid-19 fight

• England counties offer to host remainder of IPL 2021 in September

• Covid-19: India A tour of England postponed, India Test team to travel with larger squad instead

The WTC final between India and New Zealand is scheduled to be held in Southampton between June 18 and 22. As per the existing schedule, the Test series is meant to begin only on August 4, with the first match at Trent Bridge followed by Lord’s (August 12-16), Leeds (August 25-29), The Oval (September 2-6) and Old Trafford (September 10-14).As per the previous plan, before the UK government in April put India on the red list of countries from where travellers are barred during the pandemic, the BCCI was looking at picking two separate squads with the first batch meant for the WTC final and the second batch leaving closer to the England tour.That is one of the key questions that the BCCI needs to resolve: what the players would do in the nearly four-week gap before the squad reassembles for the England Test series. In April, the ECB announced that the Indians would be arriving with an inflated squad and would play two intra-squad practice matches in July. Those two matches replaced the original warm-up schedule comprising two previously planned four-day fixtures between Indians and India A in July. The ECB, in agreement with BCCI, had postponed the India A tour due to the pandemic.The other question for the BCCI deals with players wanting to travel with their families keeping in mind the long tour. With the UK imposing a hard quarantine for all in-bound travellers from India (this applied even to the England players and support staff that returned from the IPL this week), the BCCI needs to figure whether it can get exemptions for the families. Currently, the ICC along with the ECB are speaking to the UK government to get exemptions for the players for the WTC final.Both those points are likely to feature when the BCCI’s top brass meets soon, which is even likely over the weekend once the selectors submit the final list of names for the enlarged squad. It is also likely that the BCCI might hold back announcing the squad until it has the nod from the Indian government authorities as well as the ICC and ECB on the travel exemptions and the quarantine rules.