Ahmedabad, Mar 16: Cricketer Irfan Pathan met Chief Minister Narendra Modi in his chamber in the Assembly building Friday and invited him for the wedding of his elder brother and cricketer Yusuf Pathan in Mumbai on March 27.
Yusuf is getting married to physiotherapist Afreen. She works in Vadodara while her parents live in Mumbai. Officials in CMO said Modi, who had so far avoided attending wedding of cricketers, was willing to attend Yusuf's wedding.
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.
Bengaluru, Jun 9: Former India skipper Rahul Dravid has said that Virat Kohli understands that the real respect for him as a cricketer will come through success in the longest format of the game.
Dravid, popularly known as 'The Wall', also said that Test batsmanship has become exciting to watch now as batters play aggressive shots more often.
"I actually believe Test batsmanship has become more exciting than before, the aggressive element of Test batsmanship is going forward, players are playing shots and it is good to see, a good thing for India is Virat Kohli really values Test cricket, he understands that the real respect for him as a cricketer will come from his success in Test cricket," Dravid told Sanjay Manjrekar in a videocast hosted by ESPNCricinfo.
He also said that defensive batting in cricket is not irrelevant, but added that players can have successful careers without having a good defensive technique.
"I don't think it is becoming irrelevant, maybe the value of defensive batting is not the same as it was a generation ago, it can never become irrelevant, I think you still need to defend your wicket if you want to score suns, I feel now you can survive without a good defensive technique in cricket," Dravid said.
"Today, you do not need to have a good Test career to have a successful career, look at the best players in the world today, a lot of them have a good defensive technique and they can play out difficult periods of the game," he added.
The 47-year-old Dravid also said that all young players want to represent their country in all three formats during their initial days, but eventually, they become realistic as time passes by.
"I would say in my interaction with the younger players, everyone's hero is someone who has succeeded in all formats of the game. I think all players start off wanting to play all formats, but then guys get a little realistic about their careers, superstars of the game will still want to play to all formats of the game," Dravid said.
Dravid is the only player in the history of cricket to be involved in two 300-plus ODI partnerships.
He played 164 Tests, 344 ODIs and one T20I for India. Dravid had announced his retirement from international cricket in March 2012.
He finished his career with 48 international centuries.
He has also coached the Indian junior sides (India U-19 and India A) and he is now the head of the National Cricket Academy (NCA).
Dravid has also led the side during his playing days and under his leadership, the side had managed to register their first Test series win in England.
Jun 25: After asserting that the 2011 World Cup final was "sold" by "certain parties" in Sri Lanka to India, the island nation's former sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage has now called his claim a "suspicion" that he wants investigated.
The Lankan government has ordered an enquiry into the matter and a special Police investigation unit recorded Aluthgamage's statement on Wednesday. He told the team that he was only suspicious of fixing.
"I want my suspicion investigated," Aluthgamage told reporters.
"I gave to the Police, a copy of the complaint I lodged with the International Cricket Council (ICC) on 30 October 2011 regarding the said allegation as then Sports Minister," he said.
Aluthgamage has alleged that his country "sold" the game to India, a claim that was ridiculed by former captains Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene who demanded evidence from him.
Set a target of 275, India clinched the trophy thanks to the brilliance of Gautam Gambhir (97) and then skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (91).
"Today I am telling you that we sold the 2011 world cup, I said this when I was the sports minister," Aluthgamage, who was the sports minister at the time, had stated.
Sangakkara, the captain of Sri Lanka at that time, asked him to produce evidence for an anti-corruption probe.
"He needs to take his 'evidence' to the ICC and the Anti corruption and Security Unit so the claims can be investigated thoroughly," he tweeted.
Jayawardene, also a former captain who scored a hundred in that game, ridiculed the charge.
"Is the elections around the corner...like the circus has started...names and evidence?" he asked in a tweet.
Aluthgamage said that in his opinion no players were involved in fixing the result, "but certain parties were."
Both Aluthgamage and the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa were among the invitees at the final played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Following his allegations, Aravinda de Silva, the former great who was the then chairman of selectors, has urged the BCCI to conduct its own investigation.
De Silva has said he is willing to travel to India to take part in such an investigation despite the current COVID-19 threat.
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