Malahide, is
an affluent coastal suburban town on the northside of Dublin city, Ireland and
is in news !
Exciting IPL
and exhilarating batting by this young man ~ he
was involved in two run outs, and then batted like a man possessed. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is stingy but today he was
torn apart – the last over of his reads : W-4-4-6-6-6 ! – today Bhuvi has
leaked runs and Pant scored 43 of them in just 11 balls; against Rashid Khan he
scored 27 in 13 balls – he scored 128* of mere 63 balls with 7 sixers. With that century he is the Orange cap holder
with 521 runs in 11 innings. Lokesh Rahul has 471 in 10; Suryakumar Yadav 435
in 11; Ambati Rayudu 423 in 10 and Kane Williamson 416 in 11 (he is batting
now)
Rishabh Pant
moved around from city to city in his early teens to make a name for himself.
He switched bases from Roorkee to Delhi to Rajasthan, then returned to Delhi,
and was even thrown out of an academy once. A few years down the road, he
opened the batting for India in the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh, smashed a
record-breaking fifty against Nepal and followed it up with a century against
Namibia to help India qualify for the semi-finals. Incidentally, his century
came on the same day when he was bought by Delhi Daredevils for INR 1.9 crores
from a base price of Rs 10 lakhs, Cricinfo writes on him.
Delhi
Daredevils captain Shreyas Iyer opted to bat in a must-win clash against
table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad on a cracked pitch in Delhi. They left out
allrounder Dan Christian but persisted with his Australia team-mate Glenn Maxwell,
who has managed only 133 runs in nine matches this season. Fast bowler Avesh
Khan and wicketkeeper-batsman Naman Ojha also missed the cut. Instead, Harshal
Patel and Shahbaz Nadeem were picked. Prithvi Shaw, Jason roy, Shreyas Iyer,
Harshal Patel, Glenn Maxwell – all failed – all more than made up by that great
innings by Rishab Pant. DD has now set a
target of 188!
The Bangladesh Cricket
Board has expressed disappointment at Cricket Australia's decision to cancel
their bilateral series in Australia later this year because the tour was not
commercially viable. BCB chief
executive, said that boards like CA were expected to host teams regardless of
the tour's appeal to the home audience. He cited the example of Bangladesh
hosting teams despite not having made profits for some tours. BCB reportedly makes money only when teams
like India, Pakistan, England and Australia tour Bangladesh. The official felt that it was disappointing
that CA looked at financial viability – though many host matches to
maintain bilateral commitments. It is not always financially viable. If the BCB
can afford them, then we would expect the bigger cricket boards to do the same,
said he.
The BCB's response stems
from the disappointment of Cricket Australia cancelling two trips to Bangladesh
- in 2015 for a full tour and in 2016 for the Under-19 World Cup - because of
security fears. CA was only convinced of security in Bangladesh after England
toured in October 2016.
Eleven years and counting
have elapsed since the single most transformative moment in the history of
Irish cricket - the legendary World Cup victory at Sabina Park, on St Patrick's
Day 2007, that propelled a team of part-timers into the big-time and made
feasible the scenes that will unfold at Malahide in the coming five days.
Ireland are about to become cricket's 11th Test nation.
Extraordinarily, four of
the men who held their nerve in that Group D thriller those years ago will be
back on parade for Ireland tomorrow. The current captain Will Porterfield, the
fast bowler Boyd Rankin - whose own journey has taken him to England Test
colours and back again - and the O'Brien brothers: Niall, whose dogged 72 set
up that thrilling three-wicket win, and Kevin, whose unbeaten 16 guided his
side over the line on that occasion, but whose own crowning glory would come
against England at Bangalore in the subsequent World Cup. Pak is likely to
debut another ul-Haq in their ranks
Imam-ul-Haq, the nephew of the then-captain, Inzamam.
Whatever is in this
colour was part 1 ~ part 2 was to unfold differently for Delhi Daredevils or
rather a familiar story ? 128* of 63 was not the player of the match but 92*
off 50 was !!! ~ it was to be another Delhi boy, Shikhar Dhawan and man from down under Kane Williamson stole the thunder and ensured Sunrisers Hyderabad became
the first team to progress to the playoffs. The result also meant Daredevils
were the first team to be knocked out.
On a typically slow Feroz Shah Kotla pitch, the chase ought to have been
a challenging one, but Dhawan scored his second half-century of the season and
Williamson hit his sixth to make light work of it. They added an unbroken 176
for the second wicket - the highest stand for Sunrisers - to usher their team
home with nine wickets and seven balls to spare.
Yes ~ such
things happen in Cricket – one cannot help recalling what uninformed critics
would speak on every Indian loss - that
when Sachin scores a century India loses !
.. statistically far away from the truth and
exposing lack of understanding of the game.
Of his 51 Test centuries, 20 came in matches when India won and in One
dayers – 33 of them out of 49 in One dayers were winning efforts ~ not to speak
of some more – where he waged a lone battle. Sad, after that unbelievable
innings, Pant is on losing side.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
10th May
2018.
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