News Analysis India

Tag: Gayle

  • Ben Stokes out of IPL with finger fracture, confirms Rajasthan Royals

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: Star England all-rounder Ben Stokes’ IPL campaign came to an abrupt end after sustaining a finger fracture during Rajasthan Royals’ opening game against Punjab Kings, the franchise confirmed on Tuesday.

    Stokes will, however, remain in India for a week before flying back to United Kingdom.

    “Rajasthan Royals all-rounder Ben Stokes injured a finger on his left hand while fielding during the team’s match against Punjab Kings on 12 April 2021 in Mumbai,” Royals said in a statement after reports emerged in British media about his injury.

    “Subsequent investigations revealed that he sustained a broken finger, which will unfortunately rule him out of the remainder of IPL 2021 season.”

    This is another telling blow for the Royals after the franchise missed the services of Jofra Archer due to a hand surgery.

    “Everyone at Rajasthan Royals absolutely admires Ben for being such a huge asset and a valuable member of the Royals family, both on and off the field, and wishes him a speedy recovery.

    “We are delighted that Ben would like to stay with the group to provide his valued support and inputs off the field. In the meantime, we will be reviewing potential replacement options for the remainder of the season,” the statement further said.

    Stokes sustained the injury when he went for the catch which dismissed Chris Gayle.

    “Having dropped a chance earlier in the match, Stokes ran in from long on and dived forward to complete the dismissal of the West Indian batsman. He immediately felt discomfort in his left hand, grimacing as he got up to celebrate with his teammates,” British newspaper ‘Independent’ had reported.

    It was due to the injury that Stokes didn’t bowl more than one over with Punjab Kings scoring a massive 222.

    “The Independent understands that Stokes will remain out in India for a week. Dialogue has already begun between the ECB and Royals around managing the injury,” the newspaper said.

    “He will have an X-Ray in India (Mumbai) on Thursday to determine how much damage has been done before the ECB take over the planning of the recovery,” it further said.

  • SRH seek to bounce back in clash against CSK

    Their unbeaten run in the tournament snapped by the ‘Gayle Storm’, Sunrisers Hyderabad would look to bounce back when they take on Chennai Super Kings in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match in Hyderabad on Sunday.

    Both the Sunrisers and the Super Kings have six points each from four matches, having lost just one game so far, and a win by either side at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium at Uppal will take them to the top of the table.

    The Sunrisers began their IPL campaign with three wins on the trot before they were stopped on their tracks by West Indian swashbuckler Chris Gayle, who played a special innings of 104 not out off 64 balls at Mohali on Thursday.

    The Kane Willamson-led side will have to forget the battering of his bowlers by Gayle and quickly regroup against the Super Kings who, despite having to shift their home venue to Pune due to the Cauvery water dispute, have been doing very well.

    After winning their first two matches, the Super Kings slumped to a defeat against Kings XI Punjab before bouncing back with a 64-run win over Rajasthan Royals on Friday on the back of smashing century (106 from 57 balls) from veteran Australian Shane Watson.

    Watson has been in fine touch with both the bat and ball, thereby proving his utility as a top-class all-rounder. He is currently the top scorer and top wicket-taker for CSK but on Sunday he will be up against one of the most balanced sides in this IPL.

    All the front line bowlers of the Sunrisers — Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Billy Stanlake and Shakib-al-Hasan — have been among the top wicket-takers so far this season though young Afghan spinner Rashid Khan is struggling a bit with just three wickets from four matches. He was taken to the cleaners by Gayle in their last match, conceding 55 runs for one wicket.

    Kaul has six wickets while Kumar, Stanlake and Shakib have taken five wickets each.

    For CSK, Watson is the top bowler with six wickets to his name. Man to man, the Sunrisers have been a better side in the bowling department. In fact, they are touted as the most balanced bowling unit of this IPL.

    In the batting department, the Super Kings have a lot of depth. They have batsmen who can play shots well up to the number seven spot. Watson has been leading the charge but Ambati Rayudu and captain and stalwart Mahendra Singh Dhoni are also doing a decent job with the bat.

    But Englishman Sam Billings and West Indian Dwayne Bravo have not done much after hitting a half century each, and both would be looking to do better, going ahead.

    For the Sunrisers, Kane Williamson and Shikhar Dhawan are the main batsmen in their side. They have been playing that role very well so far though Dhawan had to retire hurt in their last match against Kings XI Punjab after being hit by the ball on his elbow.

    SQUADS

    Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (captain), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Rashid Khan Arman, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Sandeep Sharma, Shakib Al Hasan, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Mohammad Nabi Eisakhil, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Billy Stanlake, Siddharth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Shreevats Goswami, Basil Thampi, T. Natarajan, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Ricky Bhui, Sachin Baby, Tanmay Agarwal.

    Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Faf du Plessis, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Deepak Chahar, K M Asif, Kanishk Seth, Lungi Ngidi, Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay, Sam Billings, Mark Wood, Kshitiz Sharma, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Imran Tahir, Karn Sharma, Shardul Thakur, N Jagadeesan.

  • Streak Hints at KKR’s Plans to Get Gayle Out Early

    After Chris Gayle blasted a 63-ball 104 against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowling coach Heath Streak on Friday hinted that they will look to get the dynamic West Indies batter back in the hut early when they take on Kings XI Punjab here.

    Gayle’s whirlwind hundred, his sixth in the Indian Premier League (IPL), helped Punjab ease past Hyderabad by 15 runs at Mohali on Thursday night.

    Gayle hit 11 sixes and took the best T20 bowler in the world, Rashid Khan, to the cleaners smashing the Afghanistan spinner for four consecutive sixes.

    “Lot of people always ask us, the bowling coaches ‘what’s the plan’. It is very difficult for us to say because then he’ll find out. So we can’t really tell you the exact plan. He is a dangerous player,” Streak told reporters when asked about plans to contain Gayle on the eve of their Punjab game at the Eden Gardens here.

    “How you start to him is very important early on. If you allow someone like Chris to get into his innings and rhythm and confidence, he is a very dangerous player. He is so powerful and backs his ability when the ball is in his zone to clear the boundary,” said the former Zimbabwe captain.

    “Last night was one of many examples we have seen not just in IPL but in his career. We will be planning well for him as well as the other players,” Streak added.

    Gayle was not picked in the IPL auctions initially before Punjab decided to take T20 cricket’s most successful batsman for his base price of Rs.2 crore.

    Dropped for the first two games, Gayle helped Punjab beat Chennai Super Kings by notching up a 33-ball 63 before the hundred.

    Streak was asked about the West Indians having a gala time in the IPL. Led by Gayle, KKR’s Andre Russell and Mumbai Indians’ Evin Lewis are in the top-10 highest run-getters so far this IPL while all-rounder Dwayne Bravo and Sunil Narine have also done well for Chennai and KKR respectively.

    “They (West Indians) get bored by playing the long format of the game,” Streak said.

    “A lot of them are playing all the leagues around the world, if you look at guys like Andre and Sunil (Narine) from our team and others in the tournament like (Keiron) Pollard. They play in PSL, CPL, BBL, IPL. They are becoming highly specialised in this format of the game, whereas some of the others play all the three formats of the game,” Streak said.

    Coming to KKR, the hosts will also go into the game high on confidence after registering a convincing seven-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur.

    This was their second win in a row after succumbing to two back-to-back defeats.

    Asked about new captain Dinesh Karthik and whether he is getting into the groove after taking over the mantle from Gautam Gambhir, KKR’s most successful captain, Streak said, ” Although he is new at IPL level and hasn’t had much experience, his leadership qualities are really good.

    “He is a highly detailed person, his attention to small things is good and he has shown that even when you watch him bat. He brings that composure and reads the situation well.”

    Streak lauded his under-fire pace battery for doing well in the last two games, saying as the tournament wears on they will get much better.

    “If we just look at barring Sunrisers (Hyderabad), it has been tough for seamers in IPL on really good wickets.

    “In the last couple of games, our seamers have been outstanding and I have been very impressed especially with young (Shivam) Mavi. He has been outstanding. Our seamers will get better and better. It’s difficult to replace someone of the calibre of Mitchell Starc but I think the guys we do have, have got the attributes.”

  • Former RCB Players Lighting up the League While Virat Kohli & Co Look to Kick-start Campaign Against DD

    Former Royal Challengers Bangalore players have been in sublime form in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), while at the same time, Virat Kohli and his boys are once again struggling at the bottom half of the table, in the early stages of the tournament.

    While on one hand, stars like KL Rahul, Chris Gayle and Shane Watson have been tearing the bowlers apart for their respective teams in the cash-rich league, RCB’s new recruits haven’t been able perform at their optimum levels as they have once again started ever so slow in the league.

    IPl points

     

    RCB opted to retain the likes of Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers and Sarfaraz Khan ahead of the auction, and while the choice of picking the first two was a no-brainer, same thing certainly cannot be said about the youngster Sarfaraz, who has scored just 11 runs in three innings so far.

    Kings XI Punjab’s Rahul and Gayle have been one of the top batsmen in the league and are scoring runs for fun. While Chennai Super Kings’ Shane Watson showed in their last match against Rajasthan Royals that he is still a force to be reckoned with in the shortest format of the game.

    KL Rahul – M:4, R: 153, HS: 51, SR: 171.9

    Rahul started off the campaign with a stunning onslaught against Delhi Daredevils in Mohali and went up to notch the fastest IPL fifty as well. Rahul has been instrumental is providing his team with ideal starts and has scores of 51, 47, 37 and 18 in four match, thus far.

    Chris Gayle – M:2, R: 167, HS: 104*, SR: 167.0

    After being snubbed early on in the auction, KXIP took a punt with Chris Gayle, acquiring his services for his base price of Rs 2 Cr, and boy the decision to do so has paid dividends for the team. Gayle had a point to prove and in just two matches, he seemed to have done that by slamming a fifty and a century.

    Shane Watson – M:4, R: 175, HS: 106, SR: 176.7, W: 6, ECON: 7.3

    All-rounder Shane Watson too has shown that despite not playing international cricket, he still has a lot to offer in the IPL. With the help of his 51-ball ton against Royals, Watson has become one of the leading run-getters in the league, while with 6 wickets in his kitty already, Watson is amongst the top wicket-takers as well.

    To make matters worse of RCB, their batting line-up hasn’t fired on all cylinders, despite having so many big names, and they have had to rely on skipper Kohli to provide respectability to the score after losing wickets in a heap in almost every game that they have played so far.

    Apart from their match against KXIP, where the likes of De Villiers and Quinton de Kock fired them to their only win of the tournament so far, their batting have been found wanting on most occassion. Mandeep Singh has also shone in bits and pieces but overall, it hasn’t been a magnificent campaign for him either. Brendon McCullum failed on couple of occasions after scoring 43 in the first match and was dropped from side while his replacement Corey Anderson was dismissed for a duck in the first match that he played.

    Kohli and his boys will look to make amends in their next game against Delhi Daredevils but even if they do so, RCB fans will still be left pondering of stars like Rahul, Gayle and Watson had turned up in their colors once again this season.

  • When Ziva Wanted to Hug MS Dhoni During CSK’s Game Against KXIP

    Even as MS Dhoni was gearing up to go out and bat in the middle during the Chennai Super Kings-Kings XI Punjab game at the IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on Sunday, daughter Ziva suddenly wanted to hug her father and insisted that her dad be called from the dug-out.Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni was back in his elements on Sunday night as he almost single-handedly took CSK over the line against Kings XI Punjab in Mohali, but it was a bad back injury that saw the skipper fall just short as KXIP won by 4 runs.

    Speaking at the end of the game about his back and how difficult it was to carry on with a back injury, Dhoni was at his candid best. “It’s bad; how bad it is, I don’t know. God has given me the power. I don’t need to use the back a lot, the hands can do the job. But overall, we’ll assess how bad it is. It shouldn’t be too bad because I know what really happened and once you know the kind of injury it is, it becomes slightly easy to get out of it and also we have three-four days now before the next game. I’m quite used to playing with few injuries, whether it is back, fingers, elbow or something else. You have to be tough and get on with the game,” he smiled.Chris Gayle starred with the bat and Mohit Sharma kept his cool in the end as Kings XI Punjab registered a 4-run win over the Chennai Super Kings in Mohali on Sunday.

    Gayle announced his arrival to KXIP with a scintillating 63 runs from 33 balls. His magical innings included seven fours, four sixes as the hosts reached a commanding total of 197/7 after their 20 overs.

    For CSK, it was the MS Dhoni show as he scored an unbeaten 79 off just 44 balls but for once, failed to take his team past the finish line.

    The men in yellow were never really in the chase as they lost wickets at regular intervals.

    Mohit Sharma removed Shane Watson early, the in-form Aussie making only 11. Murali Vijay, who had replaced Suresh Raina, didn’t last long either as he was dismissed for 12 by Andrew Tye.

    Ravichandran Ashwin’s leg-spin accounted for CSK’s hero in the previous game – Sam Billings, as he looked to sweep the KXIP captain but completely missed the ball to be trapped lbw. Though, the umpire didn’t raise his finger, DRS came to Ashwin’s rescue.

    However, then Skipper MS Dhoni then joined Ambati Rayudu in the middle and the two put on a 57-run partnership which got CSK back on track.

    Dhoni’s injured back didn’t help their cause either as he had to call in the physio for treatement.

    But as he often does, the 36-year-old took the game right till the end and started bringing in the big shots when the required rate reached 15. CSK needed 67 off 24 balls, but then Jadeja-Dhoni combo hit 9,19 and 19 runs in the 17th,18th and 19th over respectively.

    This meant Mohit Sharma had the unenviable task of defending 17 runs in the final over.

    He started by bowling yorkers outside the off-stump, which Dhoni struggled to hit due to a jarred back. In the end, it was enough to guide KXIP to their third victory.

    Earlier, Gayle showed why he is still the most feared batsman across the world. It all started when on the first ball of his innings, he caressed Harbhajan Singh through the covers for a four.

    There was no looking back from there as he notched a fifty in just 22 balls. His innings was instrumental in powering Punjab to the huge total.