MS Dhoni let off with 50 per cent fine after angry reaction to umpire's call

Melbourne, Jul 21: Cricket Australia's chief executive Nick Hockley has said that the Indian players and staff will most likely be asked to face two weeks of quarantine before the four-match Test series.

This scenario will bring the Adelaide Oval and its newly constructed hotel firmly into view as the sort of biosecure bubble, ESPNCricinfo reported.

India and Australia are slated to face each other in a four-match Test series, which is to begin from December 4 at Brisbane.

"The two-week quarantine is pretty well-defined. What we are working on is making sure that even within that quarantine environment, the players have got the absolute best training facilities, so that their preparation for the matches is as optimal as it can possibly be," ESPNCricinfo quoted Hockey as saying.

"Certainly the fact that the Adelaide Oval has a hotel. It does provide a facility not dissimilar to Old Trafford or Ageas Bowl where the hotels are integrated into the venue," he added.

Hockley also said that an exacting standard of biosecurity and testing would be applied before the series against India as the coronavirus cases are spiking in the subcontinent.

"It's widely known and it's unlikely that international travel restrictions would have lifted by the time that India will be due to come into the country. Clearly there will be testing regimes. We will be able to test people before that they get on to the plane and it is the nature of the situation of making sure we have the quarantine arrangements in line with government and health authority protocols," Hockley said.

"The key thing for the players is that there's regular testing and that we appropriately quarantine them when they come in and all of those plans are currently in development," he added.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday announced the postponement of the T20 World Cup 2020 slated to be held in Australia from October 18-November 15 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Following the announcement, the BCCI is likely to go ahead with the Indian Premier League (IPL) in the October-November window. However, it is known where the T20 tournament will be played as cases continue to rise in India.
"I think the BCCI has made no secrets that they are considering what that means for the IPL. For us, it's about getting a bit of an understanding and certainty around what that means. Clearly, in a normal course, some of our best players are obviously top picks for those IPL teams," Hockley said.

"It's a bit premature to speculate on that. We need to understand what the plans are if any and once we understand that we will make decisions accordingly," he added.

Mumbai, May 26: Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar said that if he was playing currently he and Virat Kohli would have been the best of friends off the field, but real enemies whenever they stepped on the field.

Akhtar also said that he would have liked to challenge Kohli to drive the ball.

"Virat Kohli and I would have been the best of friends as both of us are Punjabi, but on the field, we would have been the best of the enemies. I would have loved to get inside the head of Kohli. I would have told him that you cannot play a cut or pull shot against me," Akhtar told Sanjay Manjrekar in a videocast hosted by ESPNCricinfo.

"I would have gone wide of the crease and bowled a ball that would go away from him, I would have forced him to drive the ball as it is his favourite shot. So I would keep forcing him to play the drive shot at my pace," he added.

Akhtar also said that he wishes that Kohli could have played against some of the top bowlers in the game.

The Rawalpindi Express said that Kohli would have enjoyed the challenge of facing bowlers like Wasim Akram, Shane Warne, and Waqar Younis.

"I would also keep talking to him, because if I get him to lose his focus then that would have been great. The great thing about Kohli is that he gets more focused when he is challenged. But I believe Virat Kohli would have still scored the same amount of runs if I was playing," Akhtar said.

"I really wish that he had played against Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shane Warne, and then Virat would have also enjoyed the challenge," he added.

Akhtar played 224 matches for Pakistan in international cricket and took 444 wickets across all formats.

Over the years, comparisons between Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar have been growing and many have picked the current Indian skipper to break the records set by Tendulkar.

Tendulkar called time on his career after registering 100 international centuries, while Kohli has 70 centuries across all formats.

Currently, Kohli is ranked at the top spot in the ICC ODI rankings while he is in second place in the Tests rankings.

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.