Call for adaptable laws as rain dumps Kohli out of IPL

Agencies
May 1, 2019

Bengaluru, May 1: Cricket pundits on Wednesday called for fresh ideas to prevent key games being abandoned without a result after Virat Kohli's team crashed out of the Indian Premier League following a rain-hit match.

Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore were locked in a must-win game against Rajasthan Royals but the match was abandoned late Tuesday due to heavy downpours.

After the start had been delayed by more than three hours due to rains that left one end of the pitch sodden, organisers reduced the match to the minimum five-overs-a-side.

But further showers meant Rajasthan could not complete even that.

Indian leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal took a hat-trick to restrict Bangalore to 62 for seven in five overs and Rajasthan were 41-1 off 3.2 overs when rain stopped play.

Former South African captain Shaun Pollock suggested the match could have started earlier if more "adaptable" rules had allowed bowlers to all use the same, drier end of the pitch.

"When they looked at the pitch and saw there was a water problem could they not have reduced it to a five-over game (earlier) and played from one side?" he told the online Cricbuzz chat show.

"If you know rain is coming on the PGA (golf) tour they don't tee off at one o'clock, they bring it forward then they make it two-tee start and begin at nine o'clock."

"We need to be a little more adaptable. At the end of the day both those teams needed those two points. Somehow a common sense rule should be implemented at times."

Bangalore, who have never won the IPL, have nine points from 13 games and are out of the race for the play-offs with one match to go.

Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings have already made the play-offs while the remaining five teams are still fighting to grab the last two slots.

"Sometimes the players have to give a little bit and sometimes the officials have to give a little bit," former India batsman Ajay Jadeja said on the Cricbuzz chat show.

"Covers need to get better. We still can't be living in an era of uncovered pitches. And there are people who are providing you better covers, you just don't want to spend on it."

Before the start of the match Kohli, the world's number one Test and ODI batsman, had rued losing 10 out of 13 tosses in the current IPL season.

"I was trying to practise the coin toss, nothing seems to be working," Kohli joked.

The world's most popular T20 tournament ends with the final in Hyderabad on May 12.

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News Network
March 28,2020

Milan, Mar 28: Juventus star Paulo Dybala revealed how he "struggled to breathe" after contracting coronavirus which has killed over 9,000 people in Italy.

The Argentine international announced last Saturday he was one of three Juventus players to catch the virus along with Daniele Rugani and Blaise Matuidi, who both had no symptoms.

"I feel better now after some strong symptoms," the 26-year-old Dybala told JTV channel.

"A couple of days ago I was not well, I felt heavy and after five minutes of movement I had to stop because I was struggling to breathe.

"Now I can move and walk to start trying to train, because when I tried in the past few days I started to shake too much.

"I gasped for air and as a result I couldn't do anything, after five minutes I was already very tired, I felt the body heavy and my muscles hurt.

"Now I'm fine. My fiancee Oriana (Sabatini) has also overcome the symptoms."

Dybala has scored 13 goals in all competitions this season, including in league leader's Juventus's last game against Inter Milan before Serie A and all sport in Italy was suspended.

"The goal against Inter was the greatest emotion, (Aaron) Ramsey provided the perfect assist - it's a pity that there was no public," added Dybala.

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News Network
May 18,2020

Karachi, May 18: Former Pakistan captain Younis Khan believes it is at least five years too early to compare Virat Kohli and Babar Azam as the Indian skipper has proven himself in "every kind of situation" and the latter has not.

"Virat Kohli is far more experienced than Babar. He has at least five years more experience of top cricket and he is at the peak of his career," said Younis, Pakistan's leading run-getter in Tests.

"Kohli has far more exposure than Babar and he has been in every kind of situation and proven himself. No one gets 70 international centuries like that and this are proof of his class and abilities. He has scored runs in every situation and all opposition."

Younis said said Babar still has a long way to go.

"Babar has been in top cricket for just around five years. He has got a very impressive batting average across all three formats and he is getting better by the day.

"You see him batting and you can see he has got the same qualities that Kohli had at the start of his career."

Besides amassing 70 international hundreds, 31-year-old Kohli averages more than 50 in all three formats. The India skipper has scored more than 20,000 runs while 25-year-old Babar has 6680 runs across formats though the Pakistan limited overs skipper has played significantly lesser number of games.

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News Network
June 24,2020

New Delhi, Jun 24: Star Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan deeply regrets his "silly mistake" of not reporting a corrupt approach by an Indian bookie to the ICC, leading to his one year suspension from the game.

Shakib was banned for two years, one year of it suspended, for failing to report corrupt approaches during an IPL edition by an alleged Indian bookie named Deepak Aggarwal.

"I took the approaches too casually When I met the anti-corruption guy and told them and they knew everything. Gave them all the evidence and they knew everything that happened," Shakib told Harsha Bhogle on 'Cricbuzz in Conversation'.

"To be honest, that's the only reason I was banned for a year, otherwise I'd have been banned for five or 10 years," he added on the ICC's investigation.

The 33-year-old, who was in brilliant form before the ban, amassing 606 runs in the 2019 World Cup in the UK, said he regrets how he went about the situation.

"But I think that was a silly mistake I made. Because with my experience and the amount of international matches I've played and the amount of ICC's anti-corruption code of conduct classes I took, I shouldn't have made that decision, to be honest."

Lesson learnt, Shakib's advice to all young criceters is to never take any such message lightly.

"I regret that. No one should take such messages or calls (from bookies) lightly or leave it away. We must inform the ICC ACSU guy to be on the safe side and that's the lesson I learnt, and I think I learnt a big lesson," he added.

The all-rounder, whose ban ends on October 29, said he became a bit arrogant and never felt he was doing anything wrong by not reporting the bookie's approach immediately.

"Because you do most things right in your life, you tend to get arrogant with some decisions. You may not realise but you're doing wrong by the books. It never came to my mind that I am doing something wrong

"It was just a feeling of 'okay, what's going to happen, leave it' and I continued with my life. But that's the mistake I made. And that happens," Shakib said.

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