When Heroes Collide: Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist Feast With Indian PM Narendra Modi

September 7, 2014

Mumbai, Sep 7: Former cricketers Brett Lee and Adam Gilchrist on Friday exchanged pleasantries with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a dinner banquet hosted for Australian PM Tony Abbott. The former cricketers were included in the Australian delegation as part of Abbott's official tour of India.

Heroes CollideLee's love for India is well known and the former Australian speed ace enjoys a huge fan base in the country. He will also soon star in an Indo-Australian movie project titled 'UnIndian', a romantic comedy. In the film, Lee will be seen romancing actress Tannishtha Chatterjee. The sportsman says he is comfortable doing a romantic film as it suits his real life personality.

At the dinner banquet with Modi, Lee looked extremely happy and later shared a picture on social networking site Twitter where the two were seen shaking hands while posing for the camera.

"What an absolute privilege to have dinner with @narendramodi last night. An amazing experience," Lee, who is popularly known as Binga by cricket fans around the world, wrote on his Twitter page.

When it comes to cricket, there is no better place to be than India. And Gilchrist, who has played in numerous editions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) during and after his Australia career ended, is in love with the country's cricket madness. In his autobiography titled True Colours, Gilchrist even called India the most valuable place he had ever visited.

"Shukriya @narendramodi for a wonderful dinner,an absolute pleasure to meet you @BrettLee_58 @TonyAbbottMHR," tweeted a happy-looking Gilchrist.

Earlier during their trip, the duo met Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar at Mumbai's Cricket Club of India along with PM Abbott. Even the Aussie PM was impressed by the respect India show to their cricketers and said it was similar to how Australians love their own stars.

"...as I discovered yesterday, Australian cricketers are at least as revered in this country as at home and this will only increase now that Brett Lee is to become the latest Bollywood star in a new Indian-Australian film co-production," Abbott said.

The two countries also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of sports on Friday. The initiative will promote exchange of programmes, experience, skills, techniques and knowledge in sports. It will also facilitate exchange of sports personnel, coaches, officials, training and technologies.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Mumbai, Mar 8: Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar returned to India's ODI squad as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the team for the upcoming South Africa series.

South Africa are scheduled to tour India for a three-match ODI series, starting from March 12.

India's ODI squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Virat Kohli (C ), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) have already announced their squad for the series and spinner George Linde was given maiden ODI call-up.

South Africa squad: Quinton de Kock (c, wk), Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Faf du Plessis, Kyle Verreynne, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Jon-Jon Smuts, Andile Phehlukwayo, Lungi Ngidi, Lutho Sipamla, Beuran Hendricks, Anrich Nortje, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Janneman Malan.

The first ODI will be played in Dharamsala while the other two matches will be played in Lucknow and Kolkata on March 15 and 18, respectively.

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News Network
March 27,2020

New Delhi, Mar 27: Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar on Friday donated Rs 50 lakh to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far claimed 17 Indian lives and wreaked havoc globally.

Tendulkar's donation is so far the biggest contribution among India's leading sportspersons, some of whom have pledged their salaries while a few others have donated medical equipment to fight the dreaded outbreak, which has caused more than 24,000 deaths globally.

"Sachin Tendulkar decided to contribute Rs 25 lakh each to Prime Minister's Relief Fund and Chief Minister's Relief Fund in his bid to join the fight against COVID-19. It was his decision that he wanted to contribute to both funds," a source privy to the development, told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

Tendulkar has been associated with a lot of charity work and there has been umpteen times, he has taken up social causes, helped people, which has never been brought to public notice.

Among other prominent cricketers, the Pathan brothers -- Irfan and Yusuf -- donated 4000 face masks to Baroda police and health department while Mahendra Singh Dhoni, through a Pune based NGO, made a contribution of Rs 1 lakh.

Among athletes from other disciplines, wrestler Bajrang Punia and sprinter Hima Das are some of the prominent names to have donated their salaries in the battle against the dreaded virus which has led to a 21-day national lockdown.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Colombo, Mar 23: Sri Lankan batting great Kumar Sangakkara has said he is currently in self-quarantine, following his government's guidelines for those recently returning from Europe, which has now become the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authorities are concerned over people returning from the most-affected COVID-19 countries in Europe not registering with the police and practising isolation.

"I have no symptoms or anything like that, but I'm following government guidelines," Sangakkara told News First.

"I arrived from London over a week ago and the first thing was there was a news bulletin saying that anyone who had travelled from within March 1 to 15 should register themselves with the police and undergo self-quarantine. I registered myself with the police."

The former captain said this even as the government confirmed there have been at least three cases of recent returnees attempting to hide the novel coronavirus symptoms from authorities.

Both Sangakkara and his former teammate Mahela Jayawardene have been active on social media, urging Sri Lankans to avoid panic and to exercise proper social distancing, as the country went into curfew on Friday evening.

Sri Lanka has so far reported more than 80 active COVID-19 positive cases in the country.

Across the world, the number of infected has crossed three lakh besides a death toll of more than 14,000 people.

Meanwhile, former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has also gone into a two-week isolation after returning from the United Kingdom.

Gillespie, who is the head coach at Sussex, had been in Cape Town with the team for a pre-season tour, which was cut short as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

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