IPL 2019: Suresh Raina, Imran Tahir guide Chennai to 5-wicket win over Kolkata

Agencies
April 15, 2019

Kolkata, Apr 15: Imran Tahir spun a web before Suresh Raina found his mojo back with a half-century as Chennai Super Kings inched closer towards another playoff qualification with a five-wicket victory over Kolkata Knight Riders in an IPL match on Sunday.

After Tahir's career-best 4 for 27 restricted KKR to 161 for 8, CSK coasted to the target in 19.4 overs as Raina anchored the chase with an unbeaten 58 off 42 balls with seven fours and a six.

Ravindra Jadeja also played an important cameo hitting 31 off 17 balls to pave the way for the team's seventh win in eight games.

Needing 24 runs off the last two overs, Jadeja smashed Harry Gurney for three successive fours to make it just a formality in the last over.

This was the defending champions fourth win on the trot as they consolidated their position atop the table with 14 points and one more win will virtually seal their spot in play-offs whose cut-off over the ears has been 16 points.

This was also their first win at the Eden Gardens since 2013 as they did a double on KKR who suffered a hat-trick of defeats for the first time since 2014 and set to slip out of their second place in the table. Incidentally, 161 is their lowest score at the Eden this season.

KKR next face Royal Challengers Bangalore here on April 19.

Sunil Narine was the pick of KKR bowling with figures 2/19 that included a wicket-maiden when he cleaned up Faf du Plessis (24) to end the powerplay.

But Raina held on at the other end with significant partnerships including a 40-run stand with skipper MS Dhoni.

It all seemed a walk in the park for CSK when Narine gave the biggest breakthrough dismissing Dhoni for 16 with team's score of 121/5, needing 41 runs from 26 balls.

But Raina held his nerves while Jadeja gave the finishing touches. On an Eden Gardens track where spinners had struggled so far, Tahir spun the match in favour of Chennai with his twin double blows in the 11th and 15th overs en route his career-best IPL figures that took him past Kagiso Rabada in the leading wicket-takers' tally.

Tahir removed an ominous-looking Chris Lynn (82 off 51 balls; 7x4, 6x6) and in a space of four balls removed the dangerous Andre Russell (10) for the first time under a score of 40 this season to put brakes on their scoring.

Tahir's bowling had such devastating effect that KKR managed just 28 runs from last five overs and went on to lose three more wickets to end up with a below-par total.

But it was a different script for KKR early on with a fit-again Lynn giving them a flying start en route to his second fifty this season that came off just 36 balls.

Having missed his team's last match because of flu, Lynn went ballistic against Deepak Chahar who bled 22 runs from his first two overs with the Aussie smashing the seamer for 4-6-4 in the third over.

Such was Lynn's dominance that the otherwise explosive Sunil Narine looked like a spectator at the other end with the Aussie having a share of 31 off 33 runs in the first four overs.

A 200-plus total looked imminent with Lynn looking dangerous and Russell starting to explode with a boundary and a six off Tahir.

But Tahir, aided by some brilliant catching from Faf du Plessis and the substitute Dhruv Shorey, made inroads removing Nitish Rana (21) and Robin Uthappa (0) in space of two balls.

CSK's catching was exceptional with Du Plessis charging in from long-off to dismiss Uthappa off first ball, then Shradul Thakur at deep square leg clung onto a flat hit from Lynn.

The big one was that of Shorey when he charged in for a swerving low catch to get rid off Russell, who looked in his usual explosive zone with 10 runs from 4 balls (1x4, 1x6).

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News Network
January 23,2020

Dhaka, Jan 23: Left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who is part of the Bangladesh squad traveling to Pakistan, posted a cryptic tweet before team's departure which raised a few eyebrows.

On Wednesday evening, Rahman took to Twitter to post a selfie along with his teammates before the team's departure and asked his followers to pray for them, writing: "Heading to Pakistan. Remember us in your prayers."

Bangladesh were earlier reluctant to travel to Pakistan. However, the officials of both the teams met in Dubai and it was after many deliberations, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) agreed to send their team for a cricket series.

Bangladesh will be playing three T20Is, two Tests and an ODI in Pakistan between January and April. The T20I series will be played from January 24-27 in Lahore, followed by the first Test from February 7 to 11.

Bangladesh will then return to Pakistan in April for the one-off ODI which will be played on April 3 and the second Test from April 5-9.

Senior players like Mushfiqur Rahim decided against traveling to Pakistan citing personal reasons. After that, five members of the Bangladesh coaching staff also pulled out of the tour.

Pakistan have also recalled the experienced duo of Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik, along with pacer Shaheen Afridi for the T20I series.

Squads:

Bangladesh: Mahmudullah (Captain), Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Naim Sheikh, Najmul Hossain Shanto, Liton Kumer Das, MD Mithun, Afif Hossain Dhrubo, Mahedi Hasan, Aminul Islam Biplob, Mustafizur Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Al-Amin Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Hasan Mahmud.

Pakistan: Babar Azam (captain), Ahsan Ali, Amad Butt, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Musa Khan, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Usman Qadir.

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News Network
January 28,2020

Gibraltar, Jan 28: Young Indian Grand Master R Praggnanandhaa pulled off a huge upset, beating former world champion Veselin Topalov in the sixth round of the 18th Gibraltar chess festival to record his fifth straight win here.

The 14-year-old Chennai lad needed just 33 moves to put it across the Bulgarian. He had started with a loss against compatriot P V Nandhidhaa but since then he has been on a winning spree.

Praggnanandhaa, who recently won the world under-18 title, said: "It was very tough to prepare against him."

He is in second spot on five points with six other players and will take on Chinese GM Wang Hao in the seventh round.

Seventeen-year-old Russian GM Andrey Esipenko jumped to sole lead with 5.5 points with a win over Georgia's Ivan Cheparinov

The Russian player would be unpaired in the seventh round as he decided to take a bye.

A bunch of players including Indians — B Adhiban, K Sasikiran, Shardul Gagare, Karthikeyan Murali, SL Narayanan — are in joint third place with 4.5 points.

Adhiban beat Gabriel Flom, while D Gukesh, the world's second youngest Grand Master ever, defeated Martin Percivaldi to move to four points.

Also winning were Karthikeyan Murali against Qi B Chen and Gagare over France's Maxime Lagarde.

Top-seed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's moderate run continued as he was held to a draw by GM Aryan Chopra.

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News Network
July 3,2020

Karachi, Jul 3: Pakistan limited overs captain Babar Azam is tired of his constant comparisons with India skipper Virat Kohli and says he would rather be compared to the greats at home.

Babar, six years younger to Kohli, has a long way to go in getting close to Kohli's staggering numbers across formats. The India skipper has 70 hundreds to his name and averages more than 50 in all three formats.

"I would be more happy if you compare to me say a Javed Miandad, Muhammad Yousuf or Younis Khan. Why compare me to Kohli or any Indian player?" asked the 25-year-old, who is in England with the national team, said in an online media interaction on Thursday.

Babar has scored 16 international hundreds and averages more than 50 in ODIs and T20s. In 26 Tests, he has scored 1850 runs at 45.12.

He also said that he is not targeting any English bowler for the series next month.

"I don’t see who the bowler is or his reputation. I just try to play each ball on merit. England no doubt has a top bowling attack and they have advantage of playing at home but this is a challenge I want to score runs in," he said.

Before the squad’s departure for England, Pakistan batting coach Younis Khan said that pacer Joffra Archer will be a handful for the Pakistani batsmen.

Babar said that he would try to play every English bowler on merit but conceded that after getting runs in Australia last year, he was keen to leave his footprint in the coming Test and T20 series in England.

Reminded that some former Test players had already written off Pakistan for the England series, Babar said they were entitled to their opinion.

"But we don’t have a bad team and already we have been enjoying our training. It is good to be back on the field after such a long lay-off. I think we have the bowlers to trouble them like Abbas, Naseem, Shaheen and others while we have some experience in our batting line-up."

Babar said he would love to get a triple century in a Test match.

"When you score a century, you naturally want to go on and convert that into a double or a triple century. This is something I would like to do during the Test series.

"I like to play my natural game but my selection of shots depends on the conditions and bowlers."

Babar also ruled out any problems in the Pakistan dressing room due to the presence of former skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed, who was sacked last year.

But he said that since Muhammad Rizwan had been playing in all formats for Pakistan in recent times, he would be the starting keeper in the Test series ahead of Sarfaraz.

"I think we first have to give Rizwan a proper chance and Sarfaraz is there as back up."

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