Australian media slams Ashes batsmen

July 20, 2013

Australian_mediaSydney, Jul 20: Australia's newspapers on Saturday ripped into their team's feeble batting in the second Test against England, fearing the Ashes campaign might have unravelled in one catastrophic session at Lord's.

Australia collapsed to 128 all out in reply to England's first innings 361 with the home side opting against enforcing the follow-on and reaching 31 for three in their second innings by stumps for an overall lead of 264.

Ashes holders England are already 1-0 up in the five-match series after last week's 14-run win at Trent Bridge.

"What a mess, what a shambles, what a debacle, what an embarrassment," thundered the Daily Telegraph's Malcolm Conn.

"Some of Australia's most well-paid professional sportsmen have been responsible for amateur-hour. There can't have been few more mindless batting performances than Australia's appalling 128 during the second day at Lord's."

Conn added: "Australia's feeble collapse had nothing to do with outside distractions from (sacked coach) Mickey Arthur or anyone else, it was just simple ineptitude.

"The players have no one to blame but themselves. Cricket Australia spends millions pampering and preparing its players with a support staff almost the size of a cricket team."

Fairfax Media feared the Ashes could be over for Australia and said it was one of several recent woeful top-order batting performances.

"Australia's Ashes campaign might have unravelled in one catastrophic session at Lord's," Chloe Saltau wrote.

"Awful batting contributed to the touring team being levelled for 128, Australia's lowest total at Lord's since 1968."

Fairfax columnist Malcolm Knox took it a step further.

"The British department of health has announced that the current heat wave has contributed to more than 700 fatalities. Australian batting was not listed among them, but the Ashes, as a contest, headed into the weekend on a morphine drip," Knox said.

"A batting collapse such as Australia's on Friday was one of the few things about this series that was anticipated. Its precedents go back not just to India, but reach deep into the (Ricky) Ponting years.

"The roll call reads like the carved frieze in a war memorial. Perth, 2012. Hobart, 2011. Cape Town, 2011. Melbourne, 2010. Headingley, 2010. They go back to the one that most resembles this, which was at the Oval Test match in the Ashes series of 2009, when the entire rubber was decided between lunch and tea on the second day."

The Australian's Wayne Smith described it as one of the most dismal days of Ashes cricket in living memory, with coach Darren Lehmann "giving a tongue-lashing to Australia's miserably underperforming batsmen".

The Australian's cricket columnist Gideon Haigh singled out opener Shane Watson for particular criticism.

"At Lord's yesterday, a cricket experiment continued: the effort to turn Shane Watson into a Test batsman, now into its 43rd attempt," he wrote.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Atlanta, Jan 9: Top tennis stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams will be playing an exhibition match to raise funds for Australia's bushfire relief.

Apart from these three, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas have also confirmed their availability for the match, CNN reported.

The match will be played on January 15 at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena. The Australian Open Rally for Relief will be donating the proceedings from the ticket sales to the bushfire relief efforts.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova had also announced on Wednesday that she had left 10 signed pairs of her tennis shoes in her Brisbane hotel that members of the public could buy with a donation to the Australian Red Cross.

"Brisbane, I have signed ten pairs of my tennis shoes, left them at the @BrisbaneTennis
desk at the Westin Hotel, alongside a donation envelope for fire rescue efforts.They're yours to keep,we just ask you to donate AUD 300 a pair. All money going directly to Red Cross," Sharapova tweeted.

Earlier, former Australian spinner Shane Warne on Monday had announced to auction his Baggy Green cap to raise funds for victims of devastating bushfires in Australia.

Taking to Twitter, Warne made the announcement and posted a statement.

"The horrific bushfires in Australia have left us all in disbelief. The impact these devastating fires are having on so many people is unthinkable and has touched us all. Lives have been lost, homes have been destroyed and over 500 million animals have died too," Warne wrote.

"Everyone is in this together and we continue to find ways to contribute and help on a daily basis. This has led me to auction my beloved baggy green cap (350) that I wore throughout my Test career," he added.

Warne joined a growing list of cricketers to raise money for the bushfire victims. Australian players Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell and D'Arcy Short have already announced that they will donate AUD 250 each for every six they hit in the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) to support bushfire victims.

Athletes from other sports too joined the movement as tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic decided to donate 25,000 dollars each for Australia's bushfire relief fund.

Wildfires have been raging across Australia for months, killing 23 people, burning about 6 million hectares (23,000 square miles) of bushland and killing a billion animals.

Naval and air rescue operations were launched on Friday as mass evacuations of towns at risk of being engulfed by flames got underway.b

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Agencies
January 16,2020

New Delhi, Jan 16: Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Thursday dropped from the BCCI's list of centrally contracted players, raising fresh doubts on the future of the former India captain who has not played since the World Cup semifinal loss to New Zealand last year.

The BCCI announced the central contracts for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni was in the A category, which fetches a player Rs 5 crore, until last year.

Skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma and top pacer Jasprit Bumrah were retained in the highest A+ bracket of Rs 7 crore.

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News Network
May 8,2020

New Delhi, May 8: India skipper Virat Kohli believes cricket in empty stadiums is a real possibility in post COVID-19 world and though it is unlikely to have a bearing on the intensity of players, he feels the magic would certainly go missing.

Cricket Boards across the globe are exploring the option of resuming the sport in empty stadiums. There is speculation that fans could be kept away from stadiums in a bid to salvage the T20 World Cup in Australia, which is currently under threat due to the global health crisis.

"It's quite a possible situation, it might happen, I honestly don't know how everyone is going to take that because we all are used to playing in front of so many passionate fans," Kohli said in Star Sports' show 'Cricket Connected'.

"I know it will be played at a very good intensity but that feeling of the crowd connecting with the players and the tension of the game where everyone goes through it in the stadium, those emotions are very difficult to recreate," he added.

Kohli said the many moments which are created because of the passion brought in by fans, would be missing.

"Things will still go on, but I doubt that one will feel that magic happening inside because of the atmosphere that was created.

"We will play sports how it is supposed to be played, but those magical moments will be difficult to come by," he said.

Cricketers such as Ben Stokes, Jason Roy, Jos Buttler and Pat Cummins have backed the idea of playing behind closed doors.

However, legendary Australian Allan Border has said it would defy belief to host a World Cup without spectators.

Another Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell and some other cricketers have also expressed similar sentiments.

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