Indian ODI team gets Ajinkya Rahane as new captain for Zimbabwe tour

#AjinkyaRahane #Zimbabwe #Harare #harbhajansingh #INDvsZIM There was a certain amount of uncertainty regarding the Zimbabwe tour to play ODI and T20 and matters appear to have been resolved. The BCCI has agreed to rest a whole lot of players because of ‘too much cricket’ and tiredness and fatigue creeping in which was affecting the performance of key players.
The BCCI has, therefore, given the captaincy to Ajinkya Rahane who will be taking a new crop of players to Zimbabwe to play three ODIs and two T20 matches beginning July 10 in Harare. Ajinkya Rahane is a consistent batsman and, in the just concluded tour of Bangladesh, he got a chance to pay in only one ODI.
This has been reported in oneindia.com dated 29 June 2015.

The new team will see the return of Harbhajan Singh to the shorter formats of the game and new players will be seen in the form of some who have proved their worth in the IPL. They are Murali Vijay, Manoj Tewari, Robin Uthappa, Kedar Jadhav, Karn Sharma, and uncapped Karnataka batsman Manish Pandey and paceman Sandeep Sharma.
There is no specialist wicketkeeper but both Robin Uthappa and Manoj Tywari can carry out the role. Seniors who have been rested are M S Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, Ravichandra Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Obviously, the BCCI wants to give chances to newcomers and look out for new talent for the future because cricket is a game that will continue to hold attention for a longtime to come and, there is bound to be wastages.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)
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Indian team gets a break before 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup takes off

#2015iccworldcup #carltonmidtriseries India take on arch rivals Pakistan in the opening game of the 2015 ICC Cricket World cup in Adelaide on 15 February 2015 and, given their miserable showing in the Carlton Mid tri series, BCCI has agreed to give them a break. This has been reported in sports.ndtv.com dated 1 February 2015.
The intention is to allow the players to regroup themselves and make an effort to put the bad show behind and rise as one to defend the title.
When India won the last time around in 2011, the venue was India – this time it is in Australia. They have been in Australia for quite some time and should have got acclimatized by now, hopefully.
Moreover, in 2011, India had stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Virendra Shewag – but, alas, this time, those names are absent and India would have to rely on a whole bunch of newbies. Newbies in the context of the World Cup even though most of them are exciting players. The worry is their performances have lacked consistency. They have been flashes in the pan and, at the world cup level, what is necessary is determination and consistency.
Captain M S Dhoni has an unenviable task ahead of him – he has to extract the best from his players and, the whole country would wait with bated breath to see how best he can make use of the resources at his disposal.
As per information – the team has been booked into a resort near Adelaide where they would have the option to switch off their mobile phones and relax and recover comfortably. It seems Sourav Ganguli had suggested that the players need to send some time with their families. Accordingly, permission was granted to a few players who wanted to go to Melbourne or Sydney to meet their relatives.
India is in Group B with Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Ireland and the UAE.

BCCI announces Indian team for 2015 cricket World Cup

BCCI has announced a team consisting of 30 players for the 2015 World Cup to be played in another 71-days’ time in Australia but big names like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh are not in the list.
The decision was taken by the five-member selection panel headed by Sandeep Patil and they chose to leave the heroes of World Cup 2011 from the squad in spite of their past laurels.
Commenting on the selection, former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar remarked that the omitted seniors had not performed in domestic circuit and therefore, could have hardly made their case. He has added that the game has become faster and a team cannot afford to take passengers.
The only players carried forward from the 2011 World Cup are MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and R Ashwin. The focus is obviously on youth.
Remaining players are new to the huge stage of the World Cup but, that should not be much of a problem because they have experience of playing in the IPL at home.
It is understood that the final 15-member squad should be announced latest by January 7 - the World Cup starts from February 14.

Cuttack cuts Sri Lanka down to size – visitors beaten by Virat Kohli & Co

It was a literal run feast in the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack as India beat Sri Lanka by a huge margin of 169 runs to take a lead in the 5-match ODI series timesofindia.indiatimes.com. With the Indian openers scoring centuries each and with Ishaant Sharma’s haul of four wickets, the visitors had no answer to the Indians. They could not bat beyond 40 overs and were all out for 194 runs.
The Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane scored 113 and 111 runs respectively and set up 231 runs for the first wicket stand which helped the remaining batsmen to pile up the miseries on the Sri Lankans.
Moreover, the pace bowlers ensured that the advantage was never frittered away and captain Virat Kohli was a happy captain.
The sudden void created by the West Indies pulling out of their scheduled tour of India due to a dispute with their Cricket Board, Sri Lanka seized the opportunity given by the BCCI to get some much needed match practice before the 2015 Cricket World Cup. They also had to groom new players because some of the Sri Lankans stalwarts were aging and replacements were necessary – such newcomers needed to acclimatize with cricket on the international arena. And – what better to do so other than playing with their neighbors who are loaded with talent.
This sudden change of itinerary helped M S Dhoni to get some rest and also allowed Virat Kohli to step out in the role of the captain for the first three ODIs.