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AUSTRALIA’S TOUR OF SRI LANKA, 2022 – Strife hit Sri Lanka banks hopes on Australia’s tour

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The worsening economic and political situation in Sri Lanka has cast doubts over Australia’s tour to the country next month although both Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and Cricket Australia (CA) are maintaining that the month-long series will go ahead.”At present the tour will go on as planned. We will be looking at the developments in the next couple of days and decide what to do,” Mohan de Silva, the secretary of SLC, told Cricbuzz on Wednesday (May 4).Australia are to play three T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests from June 7 to July 12.The uncertainty, which even the SLC official is conceding, is because of the situation at ground zero. There has been an acute shortage of essentials, fuel, food stocks; the people are having to experience long hours of power outage. There was a 12-hour power cut last month but the condition has seemingly improved with a fluctuating scenario of three hours, give or take. There was no power cut on May Day.In that backdrop, there were questions if the SLC should have the day-night games in the first place with a few stakeholders of the SLC of the view that the white-ball games could be converted into day games. De Silva said a call will be taken on that soon, but an SLC official said the board is not dependent on the national grid.

“We have our own generators and we don’t depend on the government’s power. It will be a different case if there is a fuel shortage,” said Charith Senanayake, a former manager of the Sri Lanka national team. “The political situation has no bearing on the game and the SLC is always apolitical.”

The SLC is also planning to start its full-fledged domestic season on May 22.

“Whether day or day-night game is up to the host nation,” said a spokesman of the CA confirming that the tour will take place. “There is no change to the status of the tour. Our head of security confirms that there are no concerns about the tour proceeding as scheduled from either side. The squad will arrive in Sri Lanka in June.”

The option of moving the series out of Sri Lanka was considered but UAE is not the right place for cricket in June-July because of extreme heat.The CA and SLC assurances notwithstanding, Cricbuzz can confirm that both boards have expressed apprehensions internally with their stakeholders saying a lot will depend on how the situation pans out going forward in the next 30 days.

“One month is too long a time to predict anything because we do know what will happen in the next week. Like in any civil unrest, life moves on and that is happening in Sri Lanka too. The country has gone bankrupt and the political situation is volatile and unclear. The political activists are agitating outside the president’s office but I don’t think he is anyway concerned.

“The law enforcing authorities, with their past experience, are accommodating and there is no unrest on the streets. The people are listening to music at home and they will watch cricket too. But it will take one insane person to disturb the quietness, so we can’t predict what will be the state of affairs when the series is scheduled to begin in a month ,” says Colombo-based Malinda Seneviratne, a political analyst.The series is important for the cash-strapped SLC. The overseas value of the tour is about USD 2 million. The internal media rights worth would be of about USD 300,000 and through ground advertisements and other sources of income, the Lanka Board can raise up to USD 3 million overall. But the production outlay would be just as high too. At the end of the series, the SLC could be left with USD 1 million revenue, substantial amount by all means considering that the country is left with only $50 million foreign exchange.

(Cricbuzz)



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Rajapaksa, Arshdeep deliver winning start for PBKS

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Bhanuka Rajapaksa hit fifty off 32 balls. (pic BCCI)

A power-packed, collective performance with the bat set the platform for Punjab Kings’ winning start as they downed Kolkata Knight Riders by seven runs (DLS method) at the PCA stadium in Mohali on Saturday (April 1). Bhanuka Rajapaksa (50 off 32) registered his maiden IPL fifty while Shikhar Dhawan struck a 29-ball 40, and along with useful contributions from the rest of the batters, PBKS posted a formidable 191/5. Andre Russell top-scored for KKR but they lost wickets at regular intervals and eventually fell short of the DLS par score as they finished with 146/7 in 16 overs when rain forced the players off the field.

Brief scores:

Punjab Kings 191/5 in 20 overs (Bhanuka Rajapaksa 50, Shikhar Dhawan 40; Tim Southee 2-54) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 146/7 in 16 overs (Andre Russell 35; Venkatesh Iyer 34; Arshdeep Singh 3-19) by 7 runs (DLS method).

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Ruturaj 92 in vain as Titans win opening game

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Shubman Gill set the platform for a terrific run-chase in the season opener

A brilliant 92 from Ruturaj Gaikwad went in vain as defending champions Gujarat Titans beat Chennai Super Kings in Ahmedabad on Friday (March 31) in the tournament opener. Gaikwad’s innings was nullified to an extent initially by Shubman Gill before a few vital blows towards the end of the game from the Titans middle order got the job done for them with four balls to spare.

Brief scores:

Chennai Super Kings 178/7 in 20 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 92; Rashid Khan 2/26, Mohammed Shami 2/29) lost to Gujarat Titans182/5 in 19.2 overs (Shubman Gill 63; Rajvardhan Hangargekar 3/36) by 5 wickets

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Bowlers, Stirling lead Ireland to their first win in Bangladesh in any format

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Paul Stirling was as free-flowing as ever as he guided Ireland’s chase

Ireland finally notched a win on their tour of Bangladesh by scoring a seven-wicket win in the final T20I in Chattogram on Friday. Mark Adair led the bowling charge with three wickets as Bangladesh were bowled out for 124, and Paul Stirling, later named Player of the Match, was at his inventive best as he struck a 41-ball 77 to headline the chase. It was Ireland’s first T20I win over Bangladesh since 2009 and their first win in any format in the country.

Bangladesh had already taken the series after winning the first two games earlier in the week, and made two changes, perhaps to try out alternatives. Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Mustafizur Rahman went out; Rishad Hossain was handed a debut and Shoriful Islam made a comeback. It was the batting that came unstuck, though.

After opting to bat, Bangladesh were 61 for 7 in nine-and-a-half overs. Shamim Hossain, however, scored his first international half-century, making 51 off 42 balls with five fours and two sixes to give them a competitive 124. One of those sixes was a particularly eye-catching shot, when he reverse-whipped Curtis Campher hit over backward point for six.

But with Stirling in blistering form, and playing a few inventive shots of his own, the chase was done and dusted in 14 overs.Bangladesh’s slide started in the second over. Litton Das’ slash towards deep point against a wide Adair delivery landed in George Dockrell’s lap. It was the first time Bangladesh had lost a wicket in the powerplay after three matches.

Najmul Hossain Shanto was next to go, hitting a slog-sweep off Harry Tector straight to deep midwicket. Campher juggled the catch but clung on. In the next over, Campher himself got a wicket, when Rony Talukdar holed out at deep midwicket.

Towhid Hridoy and Shakib Al Hasan, however, went for their shots in keeping with Bangladesh’s new approach, and hit a couple of big ones, but both were gone in the space of three balls. Shakib was caught at short midwicket mistiming a pull off Adair, while Hridoy holed out off Ben White in the seventh over

Matthew Humphreys had two wicketless ODIs in Sylhet, but the left-arm spinner had a better start to his T20I career. He took a wicket off his first ball when he yorked Rishad for 8.

That made him the first Ireland bowler to take a wicket with his first ball in T20Is. This was, however, not the first time a debutant had done this against Bangladesh. Previously, Rory Kleinveldt, Pragyan Ojha, Lockie Ferguson and Cole McConchie have all achieved the feat.

Humphreys added his second off his third ball, when Taskin Ahmed was caught at deep midwicket for a duck.Shamim and Nasum Ahmed added 33 runs for the eighth wicket before Nasum was caught in the covers off Gareth Delany’s legspin. Adair took his third when he removed Shoriful, before Fionn Hand took Shamim’s wicket in the final over.

Stirling didn’t get going at the start, as there were two early wickets, of Ross Adair and Lorcan Tucker, but once he was set, there was no stopping him. He cut and swept Shakib for fours to kickstart the chase, and then deposited Hasan Mahmud’s half-tracker for his first six next over. No bowler escaped his wrath, or his inventiveness, as he hit ten fours and four sixes in his 41-ball innings.

Many of those came in one Shoriful over, the 11th of the innings, when he pulled a six and hit three fours to take 20 runs. Rishad put an end to the mayhem when he had Stirling caught at long-on in the 13th over – it was Stirling’s 22nd half-century in T20Is and Rishad’s first international wicket – but Campher closed out the chase with a four and a six off Taskin.

Brief scores:

Ireland 126 for 3 (Stirling 77, Campher 16*, Tector 14*, Rishad 1-19) beat Bangladesh 124 (Shamim 51, Adair 3-25, Humphreys 2-10) by seven wickets

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