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PBL kicks off tomorrow, to experiment with Trump match

January 1, 2016

Mumbai, Jan 1: The revamped Premier Badminton League (PBL), commencing here tomorrow with hosts Mumbai Rockets taking on the Saina Nehwal-spearheaded Awadhe Warriors, is to experiment with a new concept - Trump match - that's expected to keep the interest till the end of a tie.

PBL

The League, revived after a gap of two years following a successful inaugural Indian Badminton League in 2013, has brought in the fresh idea in which each of the competing teams will nominate one match in each tie as their Trump Card.

A victory by the team that picked the particular game as its Trump will provide it with one extra point but a defeat will set it back by one point, and the intrigue generated by this new concept would keep the ties alive till the end, according to national coach Pullela Gopichand.

"It's a great addition to the league to ensure that the excitement remains till the end of the tie. Two teams can nominate the same match as Trump match. This ensures that the last two matches are also important in a tie," said Gopichand here in the run-up to the League opener.

"Even a 3-0 lead is not sufficient to win as you still can lose the tie. Spectators' interest will be kept alive. It needs to be seen how the players react to the extra pressure. Some play better under pressure and some others crack," he said.

World no. 2 Saina, who commanded USD 100,000 at the auction, would be leading Awadhe Warriors' challenge against Mumbai Rockets who appear strong in men's singles with two top men shuttlers of the country - H S Prannoy and R M V Gurusaidutt - leading their charge.

The host outfit has a strong men's doubles players in Denmark's Mathias Boe and Russia's Vladimir Ivanov.

World no. 20, Prannoy, has already sounded upbeat about his team's chances."Over the last two years I have been playing really well, along with Gurusaidutt. We both are in good form. We are a pretty balanced outfit. We have really good doubles players too," said the 23-year-old, who hails from Kerala, here ahead of the tournament opener.

The Warriors would look up in the main to Sai Praneeth, Sourabh Verma and Tanomgsak Saensomboonsuk of Thailand in men's singles, apart from the undoubted skills and fighting spirit of London Olympics bronze medallist and World Championship silver medallist Saina.

The opening tie will be followed on January 3 by clashes between Hyderabad Hunters and Bengaluru Top Guns, to be followed by the evening encounter between the Rockets and Chennai Smashers.

Top Guns have roped in a pretty strong men's singles players in Kidambi Srikanth, India's highest ranked player in the world (no. 9), Anand Pawar and Sameer Verma - who recently won the men's singles crown at the Tata Open Indian Challenge.

The Malaysian men's doubles combination of Kim Wah Lim and Thien How Hoon, ranked 32nd, adds meat to the squad's overall strength along with India's women's doubles specialist Ashwini Ponnappa.

Hyderabad, on the other hand, have the formidable Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia, currently the world no. 5, to lead the challenge from the front. He's got the added experience of having played in season 1 of the League.

Hunters would also depend on 2012 Olympic Games quarter finalist Parupalli Kashyap, the world no. 15 who is on the comeback trail after an injury lay-off, in singles.

They also have the vast experience of Carsten Mogensen (men's/mixed doubles) of Denmark and veteran Indian shuttler Jwala Gutta (women's/mixed doubles). The team looks very well equipped.

Chennai Smashers don't have any top men's singles players in their ranks and would be depending a lot on the performance of their top woman singles player P V Sindhu, ranked 12th in the world.

They have the seasoned Indian men's doubles player Prannav Jerry Chopra to bank on along with England's top mixed doubles player Chris Adcock whose regular partner Gabrielle Adcock, however, will be representing Delhi Acers whose shuttlers will not be playing here.

The second leg of the tournament, after its two-day stint in Mumbai, is to be held in Lucknow on January 4, 5 and 6.

The tournament would be telecast 'live' by Star Sports which has signed up as the title sponsor for the PBL, the channel announced today.

"Star Sports plans to introduce several innovative broadcast initiatives to the League in its efforts to forge a deeper engagement with fans and place them right in the thick of this fast-paced sport. The broadcaster will project telemetry like players’ heart rates live on screen," the channel said in a media statement.

"Tweaks to the rules, like unpredictable player draws, ‘Trump Matches’ – which are worth bonus points – and the newly-introduced ‘sudden death’ rule will add a further dose of excitement to the tournament.

"It will also hand out four awards after each day of play for the best rally, the fastest smash, the player of the day and the fan of the day as selected through contests run by franchises across locations," it added.

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News Network
March 2,2020

Mar 2: Indian captain Virat Kohli was left frustrated and deflated as New Zealand won the second Test inside three days in Christchurch on Monday to sweep the series.

India started the day at 90 for six and were all out for 124, before New Zealand chased down the required 132 to win for the loss of three wickets in 36 overs.

It ended a disappointing tour for India and Kohli as New Zealand, who won the first Test by 10 wickets early on day four, wrapped up the series with ease.

New Zealand are now unbeaten in their last 13 home Tests, winning nine of them, and in the past decade their record as hosts is played 39, won 20, drawn 13 and lost five.

In the latest series, on traditional New Zealand green wickets, India managed scores of 165, 191, 242 and 124, reflecting the low contributions from Kohli of 2, 19, 3 and 14.

Kohli came to New Zealand as the world's top Test batsman and oozing charm as he described New Zealand as the “nice guys” of cricket.

But during the series he lost his top ranking to Australian Steve Smith and when Kane Williamson went for three in the first innings of the second Test the pressure showed when he gave the New Zealand skipper a very animated send-off.

There was further evidence of frustration when he was caught on camera yelling an obscenity at a group of New Zealand supporters on Sunday.

The end came quickly for India on day three as Tim Southee and Trent Boult tormented the batsmen with their variety of inswing and outswing deliveries targeting both sides of the stumps.

Hanuma Vihari was the first to fall, in Southee's second over, when he turned a legside delivery too fine and was caught by BJ Watling diving to his left.

Five balls later and with no addition to the score, India's other overnight batsman Rishabh Pant was caught behind off a Boult delivery that swung away.

Mohammed Shami was caught for five by Tom Blundell at deep mid-wicket and Jasprit Bumrah was run out when trying to give the strike to Ravindra Jadeja, who was unbeaten on 16.

Boult and Southee signed for most of the dismissals with Boult taking four for 28 and Southee three for 36. The swing pair accounted for 25 of the 40 Indian wickets in the series.

There was enough seam and swing available for India to keep the New Zealand batsmen guessing but Bumrah and Umesh Yadav were unable to apply consistent pressure and Mohammed Shami was troubled by a sore shoulder.

New Zealand coasted through a century opening stand by Tom Latham and Blundell before losing three quick wickets.

Latham notched his 18th half-century and second of the Test before he was caught behind off Yadav for 52, Kane Williamson had a short stay for five, and Blundell went for 55.

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News Network
February 5,2020

Aukland, Feb 5: Striker Navneet Kaur scored a brace to guide the Indian women's hockey team to a convincing 3-0 win over New Zealand in the last game of its five-match tour here on Wednesday.

Navneet found the net in the 45th and 58th minutes, while Sharmila scored a field goal in the 54th minute as India drew curtains on the New Zealand tour on a bright note.

After a goalless opening two quarters, Navneet finally broke the deadlock for India in the 45th minute.

Sharmila then doubled the lead when she struck a powerful shot past the New Zealand goalkeeper in the 54th minute. Navneet found the net again just two minutes from the final hooter with a beautiful field strike.

India began the tour by thrashing New Zealand Development squad 4-0 before suffering close 1-2 and 0-1 defeats to the home senior team.

In penultimate game of the tour, skipper Rani's lone strike handed India a 1-0 win over Great Britain.

"...I am happy we produced three goals against New Zealand in the last match. This tour gave us a good insight about where we need to improve and one of the things is to create faster play than we do now," said India's chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne.

Commenting on his side's performance during the tour, Marijne said, "Sometimes we tend to keep the ball too long on the stick and then we create pressure. We need to avoid that by passing faster.

"On the defence side, we need to be a bit more calmer and need to improve our tackling. We will have a four week camp after a short break when we return home and we will be working on these points."

The Indian team will return home on February 7.

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Agencies
August 5,2020

New Delhi, Aug 5: "Want to know what makes him tick," said Australian pacer Kane Richardson will talking about playing alongside Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.

The IPL 2020 will be played in the UAE from September 19-November 10 and the tournament will run for 53 days.

In the players' auction which was conducted in December 2019, RCB managed to bag key players like Richardson, Chris Morris, Aaron Finch, Dale Steyn, Joshua Philippe, and Isuru Udana.

In an interaction with news agency, Richardson talked about playing alongside Kohli and the learning curve which is in store for him by being in the same squad as Proteas great Dale Steyn.
"Huge. These guys (Virat, AB de Villiers) are the absolute legends of the game. Anything I can learn from them will be a bonus, that's for sure.

I am really looking forward to playing with Virat, there are few more competitive players in the world. I am really looking forward to seeing what makes him tick," Richardson said.

The 29-year-old pacer also said that he would want to learn from Steyn as to how to be consistent in all formats of the game over a long period of time.

"There are loads I can learn from Dale. He has been amongst the best at the highest level for so long. His control and ability to swing the ball without losing his pace is really impressive. 

I look forward to getting in his ear about how he performs so consistently over a long period, in all forms," said Richardson who has 39 ODI wickets to his credit.

Richardson has so far played 14 games in his IPL career so far and has picked up 18 wickets. The bowler played for Pune Warriors India in 2013, Rajasthan Royals in 2014, and RCB in 2016.

For this year's IPL, RCB has also bagged Australia's limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch, and Richardson thinks having a familiar face in the camp would help him to settle better in the franchise.

"Finchey is an awesome player and a fantastic leader. I am sure it will help to have two Aussies in the side along with Josh who is playing his first tournament after a massive summer in the BBL. We are all professionals, I'm sure it won't take long for us to gel as a side," Richardson said.

However, before the IPL starts, Australia is expected to tour England for a limited-overs series, comprising of three ODIs and as many T20Is.

The side was last seen in action in March this year as they played one ODI against New Zealand in Sydney. After the first match, the remaining two ODIs were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Talking about the series against England, Kane replied: "We will be fresh, that's one thing, while the England players have been in a bubble for some time now. As long as we get enough practice in before and possibly some centre wicket it should not be an issue."

"They are World Cup holders and the number one ranked side for a very good reason. It will be a tough series also given they will have played a fair bit of cricket together by then. We know we need to work hard on our one-day game which will be a priority over the next period," he added.

The pacer also talked about how the lockdown was like for him, and Richardson feels that everyone would come back strong as a result of this break.

"The break from playing has been refreshing, to be honest. We have come back strong and are well into pre-season training with our states. As a bowler, our loads are not at their peak but we are working towards getting ready for a tour of the UK in a few weeks," Richardson said.

The Australian quick has so far played 25 ODIs and 18 T20Is, managing to take 39 and 19 wickets respectively.

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