Scrap two new-ball rule, says Tendulkar

Agencies
June 23, 2018

New Delhi, Jun 23: Batting great Sachin Tendulkar says cricket should revisit the rule of using two new balls in one-day games in order to revive the moribund art of reverse swing in the format.

Bowlers have often found themselves short-changed since the 2011 decision to have one new ball from each end which, many believe, has rendered the already batsman-friendly format even more lop-sided.

The decision meant the ball never gets old enough to generate reverse or aid the spinners, while being easier to score off in the death overs.

England's marauding batsmen drove home the point in the ongoing ODI series against Australia by amassing 342, a world record 481 and 314 in their last three matches.

"Having two new balls in one day cricket is a perfect recipe for disaster as each ball is not given the time to get old enough to reverse," Tendulkar, who retired in 2013 with more than 34,000 international runs against his name, tweeted on Friday.

"We haven't seen reverse swing, an integral part of the death overs, for a long time."

Former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis, one of the best exponents of reverse swing, supported his long-time Indian rival.

"Reason why we don’t produce many attacking fast bowlers... They all very defensive in their approach...always looking for changeups..totally agree with you @sachin_rt reverse swing is almost vanished," tweeted the 87-Test veteran.

England batsmen clobbered 21 sixes and 41 fours as they became the first team to reach 450 in one-day cricket at Nottingham, prompting former captain Mike Atherton to question the rule.

"The game needs to find a suitable white ball that swings at the start and must abandon the use of two balls per innings, to allow for the return of reverse swing — two fundamental skills of the game that provide as much entertainment as any number of sixes belted into the Nottingham night sky," he wrote in the Times.

Stuart Broad was not part of the team at Nottingham and the England pacer also demanded a balance between bat and ball.

"I find reverse swing really exciting to watch, I'd like to see it back in the white ball game," he tweeted.

India captain Virat Kohli also sympathised with the "brutal" plight of the bowlers.

"I have played ODI cricket when there was only one new ball allowed and reverse swing used to be a massive factor in the latter half of the innings, which I think as a batsman was more challenging," Kohli told reporters on Friday ahead of the team's departure for Ireland and England.

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Agencies
May 9,2020

Tokyo, May 9: As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus pandemic, the organisers of Tokyo Game Show have cancelled 2020 showpiece event.

TGS 2020 was slated to be played from September 24 to September 27 at the Makuhari Messe convention center. However, there now talks going on for holding an online event instead.

According to the Verge, this is the first time that TGS has ever been cancelled since it started in 1996.

TGS 2020 gained more attention because of its status as the last major trade show before the launch of the upcoming next-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

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News Network
July 1,2020

New Delhi, Jul 1: After being named as India's 'Most Valuable Player' in Test cricket in the 21st century, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja on Wednesday said that he will always aim to give his best for the country.

His remark came as Jadeja achieved an MVP rating of 97.3 and as a result, he was also rated as the second most valuable player Test player worldwide, only second to Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan.

"Thank you Wisden India for naming me the 'Most Valuable Player'. I would like to thank all my teammates, coaches, fans, and well-wishers for your support as I aim to give my best for our country. Jai Hind," Jadeja tweeted.

Based on CricViz's market-leading analytics, each player in world cricket was awarded an 'MVP rating' by Wisden using a statistical model to rank their 'match impact' compared to their peers.

Jadeja has played in 49 Tests from 2012, managing to score 1,869 runs and has also picked up 213 wickets.

"It might come as a surprise to see Ravindra Jadeja, India's spin-bowling all-rounder, feature as India's number one. After all, he's not even always an automatic pick in their Test team. However, when he does play he is picked as a frontline bowler and has batted as high as No.6 - contributing to a very high match involvement," the official website of Wisden quoted CricViz's Freddie Wilde as saying.

"But Jadeja's position is based on more than simply volume: it's what he does when he's involved that really counts. The 31-year-old's bowling average of 24.62 is better than Shane Warne's and his batting average of 35.26 is better than Shane Watson's. His batting and bowling average differential of 10.62 runs is the second-best of any player this century to have scored more than 1,000 runs and taken 150 wickets. He is an all-rounder of the very highest quality," he added.

With the bat in hand, Jadeja has managed to score one century and 14 fifties in the longest format of the game.

He was last seen in action during India's two-Test series against New Zealand earlier this year.

He would have been in action for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the IPL had the tournament commenced from March 29.

However, the IPL has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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News Network
June 6,2020

New Delhi, Jun 6: Former West Indies pacer Michael Holding has come out in support of MS Dhoni, saying that the wicket-keeper batsman indeed wanted to win the match against England in the 2019 World Cup.

India's performance in the World Cup match against England last year has once again become a matter of debate as all-rounder Ben Stokes in his book titled 'On Fire' questioned the intent of the Indian side.

Stokes also said that Dhoni's intent was questionable as he did not go for big shots when India still had a chance to win the match.

However, Holding said that nowadays people tend to write anything in their books.

"Well, people will write anything in books these days, because people are a lot more free with their opinions and when they are writing books, they need to be making headlines at times," Holding said on his official YouTube channel.

"But, to be honest, a lot of people watching that game perhaps wouldn't have arrived to the same conclusion that Ben Stokes arrived at that India were not trying to win," he added.

Holding did say that it seemed like that India did not have the same intensity as they would have had if the match was a do-or-die match.

"It was not the game that India had to win, but I don't think anyone can say that was a team tactic to lose the game. I watched that game and it appeared to me as if India weren't putting up their 100 per cent, but I realised it was not the case when the expression on MS Dhoni's face told me that he desperately wanted to win, so I do not think it was a team decision to not try to win," the former Windies pacer said.

"But I don't think they went with the same intensity of wanting to win the game, say, if it was a do-or-die situation. If it was, we would have seen a different game," he added.

On his official YouTube channel, Holding also said that no team goes in with a set pattern in terms of chasing targets.

In the round-robin stage match against England in Birmingham, India failed to chase down the massive target of 338 and fell short by 31 runs.

That was the only game that India lost in the premier tournament last year before the semifinal loss against the Kiwis.

India's chasing approach, in particular of wicket-keeper batsman Dhoni, was criticised by many, including the fans at home.

As soon as Stokes mentioned Dhoni's lack of intent in his book 'On Fire', Pakistan fans started saying that India deliberately lost the match to knock out their neighbours.

However, Stokes clarified that he never said India lost deliberately and some people were twisting his words.

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