India Vs England - 3rd ODI:  Root, Morgan guide England to 8-wkt win; win series 2-1

New Delhi, Jan 16: Veteran cricketer Mithali Raj was on Thursday demoted to Grade B from A in the BCCI central contracts while Radha Yadav and Taniya Bhatia were elevated to the middle bracket.

Mithali not being kept in the Rs 50 lakh category was expected as the 37-year-old retired from T20s in September last year. However, she remains the ODI captain and plans to carry on till the 2021 World Cup.

T20 skipper Harmanpreet Kaur retained his A category contract alongside Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav.

Radha and Taniya, who both had a Grade C contract worth Rs 10 lakh last year, have now entered Grade B (Rs 30 lakh).

Players getting a central contract for the first time are 15-year-old opener Shafali Verma and Harleen Deol, who like the teenager is an attacking batter.

Shafali has attracted a lot of attention ever since making her India debut last year. She recently made 124 against Australia A in Brisbane. The opener will be expected to deliver in the upcoming T20 World Cup Down Under.

Dropped from the list is Mona Meshram, who was in Grade C last year and hasn't played a single game in recent times.

The latest contracts run from October 2019 to September 2020.

Grade A (Rs 50 lakh): Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav.

Grade B (Rs 30 lakh): Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia, Shikha Pandey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma.

Grade C (Rs 10 lakh): Veda Krishnamurthy, Punam Raut, Anuja Patil, Mansi Joshi, D Hemlatha, Arundhati Reddy, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Harleen Deol, Priya Punia, Shafali Verma.

Sydney, Feb 22: India's demolition of a formidable Australia in the Women's T20 World Cup opener will give them a huge boost going forward, said star batswoman Mithali Raj, who also lauded leggie Poonam Yadav for her magical performance.

Poonam took four for 19 to help India complete a 17-run victory against defending champions Australia on Friday.

"Everyone has been talking about how much batting depth Australia have, yet they couldn't chase 132," Raj, a former India Test and ODI captain, said in an ICC release.

"India will take so much confidence from that victory, but this World Cup is still very open. The match between Australia and India proved how competitive the tournament will be. It proves it does not matter where you stand in the ICC rankings.

"We will be seeing more of the same drama yet. This victory proves every team has a chance," said Raj, who has retired from T20 cricket.

The 37-year-old veteran batswoman said "the opening match definitely lived up to the hype of the tournament".

"It was a whirlwind. There were so many ups and downs. It was a great start to the tournament not only because India beat the defending champions on home soil, but also because of how the game progressed altogether.

"At no point could you say it was going in one side's favour. First we saw our early wickets fall, then we recovered and Australia had to chase 132 before their middle-order collapsed. India and Australia both took the game their own way at different points which made it fascinating for spectators to watch."

Raj said Poonam's spell was the turning point.

"She's been one of the main spinners for India for quite some time now, and her style worked again. Getting their (Australia's) middle-order out really titled the match towards India, she was brilliant.

"Although we recovered our innings through Deepti Sharma and her partnership with Jemimah Rodrigues, it was Poonam's flurry of wickets against Australia's megastars, which completely changed the game," Raj said.

Raj also praised 16-year-old Shafali Verma for scoring 29 off 15 on her World Cup debut.

"Shafali Verma impressed me too on her debut. She gave India's middle order the cushioning they needed to regain momentum. Verma has stuck with stroke play that she demonstrated in the tri-series," she said.

New Delhi, Jul 25: Former India spinner Anil Kumble said that he has never understood why people compared him with Australia's Shane Warne.

Kumble was doing an Instagram live session with former Zimbabwe pacer Pommie Mbangwa and it was then that the spinner also talked about being the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.

"It feels really wonderful to finish with these many wickets. I never bothered about statistics or what my average should be, I wanted to bowl the whole day and be the one to take wickets. To finish as the third-highest wicket-taker in Tests alongside Murali and Warne is very special. All three of us played in the same era, there were a lot of comparisons, I do not know why people compared me with Warne. Warne was someone really different and he was on a different plane," Kumble told Mbangwa during the interaction.
"These two guys could spin the ball on any surface so it became really difficult for me when they started comparing me with Warne and Murali. I learnt a lot by watching them both bowl," he added.

The Indian spinner announced his retirement from international cricket in 2008. He finished with 619 wickets in the longest format of the game.

He has the third-highest number of wickets in Tests, only behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Australia's Shane Warne (708).

Kumble is the second bowler in the history of international cricket after England's Jim Laker to take all ten wickets in an innings of a Test match.

He had achieved the feat against Pakistan in 1999 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. Kumble had bowling figures of 10-74 from 26.3 overs in the second innings of the Test match.
Kumble will be coaching Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL).