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Cricket’s flawed contracts

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Although there’s been much hype about the new contracts national players are supposed to sign with a lot of stress on fitness, The Island learns that the contracts in fact are flawed with loopholes which can be manipulated by interested parties. 

It has been brought to our notice that a certain clause in the contracts says that a player can be exempted from fitness tests if the selectors think so.  

The clause it is said has been included to benefit a former fast bowler who had a disastrous stint as national captain. Reputed  to have employed mean tactics to get the captaincy, the fast bowler received little support from the team and was eventually removed. However, with the top brass of the national cricket team including skipper Dimuth Karunaratne and former captain Angelo Mathews axed from the ODI side, path has been created for the misfiring fast bowler to make a return to the side and possibly even captain again. 

The fast bowler who has never compiled with required fitness standards would struggle to meet the current minimum requirements. The two kilometer run which players need to finish inside eight minutes and 30 seconds has made several established players ineligible for selections. However, the fast bowler is expected to get an exception thanks to the controversial clause. 

The fast bowler’s Bombay don is said to be the mastermind of the flawed contract.

Senior players are up in arms and they want the clause dropped from the contracts. 

Certain senior players are also contemplating retirement or not to sign  contracts but remain available for national selections.  

All-rounder Thisara Perera became the first casualty of the stand off between the administration and players and has announced his retirement. 

Sri Lanka’s performances in recent years, particularly in white ball cricket, has not been up to scratch and drastic changes being done to address the poor performances has been welcomed. Dilruwan Perera, a veteran Test cricketer, would have gone on the tour of the West Indies and played the home Tests against Bangladesh but he failed a fitness test. No leniency was shown to him whatsoever despite him being 38. However, the existence of this particular clause that minimum fitness standards are not mandatory is cause for serious concern.  Charlie Austin seems to be running cricket in the country again through his proxies.



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Lanning ruled out of the Ashes, Healy to lead Australia

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Meg Lanning will miss the Ashes in England (pic Cricinfo)
Australia captain Meg Lanning has been ruled out of the Ashes due to medical reasons Alyssa Healy will lead the side in the multi-format series which begins on June 22.
Lanning returned to playing in January after taking an extended break from the game to manage her mental health and led Australia to the T20 World Cup title in South Africa during March before going on to feature in the inaugural WPL.
A CA statement added: “On the advice of CA medical staff, Lanning has been withdrawn from the squad due to a medical issue which requires management from home. A timeline for Lanning’s return to play will become clearer in due course.”
It will be the second Ashes series that Lanning has missed after she sat out the 2017-18 series in Australia due to a shoulder injury.
(Cricinfo)
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Ryan Crouser breaks world shot put record with 23.56m in Los Angeles

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Ryan Crouser (pic World Athletics)

USA’s Ryan Crouser threw 23.56m* to improve his own world shot put record at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix, this season’s sixth World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on Saturday (27).

That mark adds 19cm to the previous world record of 23.37m that Crouser recorded at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene in June 2021.

The world record had looked under threat when the world and Olympic champion opened his series with 23.23m. He went even farther in round two, throwing 23.31m and edging closer to the barrier at the back of the throws area.

After a third-round throw of 22.94m, Crouser took to the circle for his fourth attempt and launched the implement 23.56m, raising his arms and clapping when the distance was confirmed.

He completed a sensational series with 22.80m in the fifth round and 22.86m in the sixth.

(World Athletics)

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Gill gets ready to spoil Dhoni’s farewell party

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Mahendra Singh Dhoni wouldn’t mind a ‘Farewell to Remember’ but a young Shubman Gill, oozing grace, would do everything under his control to prevent Chennai Super Kings from beating Gujarat Titans to its fifth IPL title, in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

Nearly 19 summers back when a young Dhoni was making his first strides in India blue, a four-year-old Gill was taking stance on a vast farmland in Punjab’s Fazilka village on Pakistan border, with a handmade customised bat, prepared by his doting grandfather.

On Sunday, at the 1,32,000-seater Narendra Modi Stadium, the soon-to-be 42 Dhoni will have one last assignment in his favourite Canary Yellow jersey – to stop Indian cricket’s megastar-in-waiting and do a ‘High Five’.

Three hundreds and 851 runs don’t happen every season but on a batting belter at the Motera, what will be Dhoni’s strategy to rein in the ‘Mohali Marauder’?

Will it be Deepak Chahar’s swing or Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket-to-wicket bowling? Or will it be Moeen Ali, who could be the ‘Joker in the Pack’ with his enticing flighted deliveries outside the off-stump which could sharply break back. Can Matheesha Pathirana bowl some incisive toe-crushers?

A technically near-perfect batter against a captain known for thinking out of the box. It can’t get more exciting than this.

His die-hard fans might expect him to come back again next year but even Dhoni, who has played the entire season with a heavily strapped left knee might find it extremely difficult to keep up with the demands of the shortest format.

So for every ‘Thala’ (elder brother in Tamil) fan, it’s all about savoring the Dhoni moments till it lasts. In this CSK set-up, he could afford to bat at No. 8 in most games but entering the finals with a bowling line-up that missed Deepak Chahar for the better part of first half and had to turn a profligate Tushar Deshpande into a dependable wicket-taker.

Turning an inconsistent Shivam Dube into a six-hitting bully or overseeing the return of Ravindra Jadeja, the T20 bowler, the legend of Dhoni will never cease to exist. It will only grow and his captaincy stories will also be burnished with coats of myth decades down the line.

They say familiarity breeds contempt but contempt would be the last word in Dhoni and CSK’s mind when they face Hardik Padya’s Titans.

The CSK logo features a “Roaring Lion” but they would take the team from Land of Gir Forest lightly at their own peril.

After 73 games, the two of the most consistent teams are pitted against each other in the summit clash.

No team has emulated the structural and team building ethos of Chennai Super Kings as minutely as Gujarat Titans, another team, where cricketing decisions are based on sound logic, consistency and no interference from overbearing owners.

There is a skipper in Pandya, who believes that there is only one way to lead the team. It’s called ‘The Mahi Way’.

Batters win matches but bowlers win tournaments is an old saying and it couldn’t be more apt when one tracks Titans’ performance.

Mohammed Shami (28 wickets), Rashid Khan (27 wickets) and Mohit Sharma (24 wickets) have executed plans more often than not and thus it hasn’t really effected the Titans that second highest run-scorer after Gill’s 851 runs is skipper Hardik Pandya (325), who is more than 500 runs behind.

Wriddhiman Saha, a keeper-par-excellence, woukd consider himself lucky, that team management never thought of replacing him despite a strike-rate of 127 opening the batting and only one fifty plus score in 16 knocks.

And herein, Dhoni would try to seize the opportunity. If they can get Gill out early, none of the other batters have shown wherewithal to fight hard and bowlers would need a decent total on board.

Under Dhoni, if players like Ajinkya Rahane (299 runs in 13 matches, two fifties) and Shivam Dube have found their groove this season, young bowlers such as Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana (17 wickets in 15 matches) and India’s uncapped Tushar Deshpande (21 wickets in 15 matches) have also been able to find their feet at the IPL stage.

In CSK’s batting line-up, Devon Conway (625 runs in 15 matches, six fifties) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (564 runs in 15 matches, four fifties) have time and again provided CSK with resolute starts at the top.

The big-hitting Dube (386 runs in 15 matches, three fifties) is the second joint-highest six-hitter for CSK in this IPL with 33 sixes, joined by Gill in the list.

There are no clear favourites and it could be one of the finest finals in history of IPL.

Teams (from):

Gujarat Titans:

Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav, R. Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, KS Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Joshua Little and Mohit Sharma.

Chennai Super Kings:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c&wk), Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Sisanda Magala, Shivam Dube, Dwaine Pretorius, Ajay Mandal, Nishant Sindhu, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Simarjeet Singh, Matheesha Pathirana, Mahesh Theekshana, Bhagath Verma, Prashant Solanki, Shaikh Rasheed, Tushar Deshpande.

(PTI)
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