Sports

‘Warriors Sevens’ to end rugby drought

Published

4 years ago

2021/10/19

Rugby sevens in Sri Lanka has been the ideal tool to find players for the 15-a-side version of the game (Pic by Kamal Wanniarachchi)

by a Special Sports Correspondent

Probably for the first time in the history of Sri Lanka rugby a-seven-a-side tournament-featuring division one clubs- will be played on October 30 and 31 in Colombo without the presence of spectators.

Rugby, like most other sports, has felt the blow from the Covid 19 pandemic and there hasn’t been any rugby activity for the past one and half years except for a friendly rugby encounter which featured players from Sri Lanka Air Force and CH & FC a few months ago.

The truth is that Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) failed to start rugby in the island during the pandemic even though some other sports associations did. Track and Field, tennis, table tennis, cricket and badminton managed to have activities for the players and National Olympic Committee managed to send the island’s representatives to contest the Olympic Games which was held in Japan a few months ago. Even at the Olympics there was a rugby sevens event and Fiji won the title underscoring the fact that rugby can be held during difficult times like this if the necessary precautions and health guidelines are followed.

SSP Nizam Jamaldeen, one of the organisers of the upcoming club rugby sevens- titled ‘Warriors Rugby Sevens’-said that players taking part in the tournament would be going into a bio bubble and the tournament would be played under strict health guidelines and without spectators. “The players have suffered without rugby for almost two years now, so the Police and the security forces were asked to organise a seven-a-side tournament. We have the blessings of Sri Lanka Rugby and Sri Lanka Society of Rugby Football referees and sponsors. Dialog is one of the sponsors and the organisers are optimistic in finding more sponsors before the tournament kicks off,” said Jamaldeen who is also a former national rugby player and a present rugby administrator.

According to the organisers of the tournament the teams that have accepted invitations to contest the tournament are Police Sports Club A, Police Griffins, Sri Lanka Air Force A, Sri Lanka Air Force B, Navy Sports Club A, Navy Sports Club B, Army Sports Club A, Army Colts, CH & FC and Havelocks Sports Club.

Interestingly Kandy Sports Club and Ceylonese Rugby & Football Club have decided against taking part in the tournament due to lack of time to prepare for the event.

Sri Lanka was running the risk of losing a good number of players due to rugby inactivity before this tournament came along. And this tournament greatly serves the task of keeping the players in the game. Most players are in the game because it’s a lucrative occupation and the absence of rugby activities has made them shelve their boots and find other forms of employment that have no connection to rugby.

SLR, some time back, wanted to tie up with Sri Lanka Air Force and have a club rugby sevens tournament, but that never got off the ground with the authorities citing the pandemic as the key reason among other issues for the event being a non-starter.

In rugby all over the world the season starts with a seven-a-side tournament because that’s the method used to select promising players to form the pool for the upcoming gruelling 15-a-side rugby season. According to the organisers of the ‘Warriors Rugby Sevens’ the national rugby selectors would be present at the games to select the national pool for future overseas assignments.

Sri Lanka’s rugby sevens has a decorated history. From the day Policeman K.F Jenkins introduced the abbreviated form of rugby to Sri Lanka on February1, 1931 the islanders have picked up the game with the enthusiasm that a child has for a new toy and enjoyed a fair share of luck at the international scene too.

It must be mentioned here that the fifteen-a-side version of rugby was played in the island before that and its ‘little brother’ (Rugby sevens) though arriving later proved to be a better bet for the pint-sized islanders when locking horns with hefty players in the international scene.

Rugby sevens, unlike today, didn’t know what professionalism was and Asian teams made good progress and could be counted when contesting the much looked forward to Hong Kong ‘Sevens’ tournament. Sri Lanka had the honour of contesting the maiden event of this tournament in 1976 and was a regular till other Asian and African teams moved up in rankings and shoved Sri Lanka out of contention. Sri Lanka won the ‘Bowl’ Competition in 1984. Sri Lanka is not a regular at the professionally organised World Rugby Sevens Series where the stop at Hong Kong is just one of the legs in a series where there are nine other stops when the players starting travelling and playing.

It’s good that the forces and the Police are in the forefront and organising this sevens rugby tournament. But critics would sure have their reservations because without CR&FC and Kandy SC the event will definitely lack the sparks and glamour. For the record the players from Kandy had wanted to field a team at the upcoming tournament under the name Kandy ‘Lions’, but their request was turned down along with several other similar requests coming, of course from Division B sides, because the authorities were not going to take responsibility for the players’ welfare given the challenging health situation in the country.

Spectators will have to catch the action from Police Park on these two days from televisions at their living rooms at home. Rugby needs the spectators, cheering and that sense of camaraderie, but the times don’t permit any of that. Rugby has its way of connecting and given the ‘new normal’ spectators would soon find a way to relate to rugby on the tv screen and find contentment. Let the games begin!

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Sooryavanshi blitz, Jurel 81* help Rajasthan Royals take down Royal Challengers Bengaluru with ease

Published

14 hours ago

2026/04/11

Priyan

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi struck at 300.00 [Cricinfo]

Vaibhav Sooriyavanshi equalled his own record for the fastest half-century, off 15 balls, in a six-fest on a flat Guwahati deck as Rajasthan Royals walloped Royal Challengers Bengaluru for their fourth straight win.

RCB hit seven sixes through their 20 overs in an innings where they went all out, seemingly mindful of the challenge Sooryavanshi would pose. And pose he did, hitting seven sixes off his own blade, in a scarcely believable exhibition of brutal hitting.

Reputation counted for little. If it was Jasprit Bumrah the other night, it was Josh Hazlewood’s turn to come under Sooryavanshi’s wheel on Friday. By the time he was dismissed for a 26-ball 78, toe-ending a flat-batted hit to long-on off Krunal Pandya, RR’s asking rate in a 202 chase was just over six with 11.5 overs remaining.

Sooryavanshi’s uninhibited hitting was matched by Dhruv Jurel’s scintillating stroke play, the pair effectively snuffed out RCB’s hopes in the powerplay itself as they plundered 97 – the highest of the season. Although RR lost a couple of wickets in a rush thereafter, the result was never really in doubt.

RCB’s defence was given an early lift when the returning Hazlewood struck in the second over to remove Yashasvi Jaiswal. After conceding a couple of sixes off the short ball, Hazlewood responded smartly by going cross-seam and into the pitch to induce the edge. But the delight at having struck early dissipated quickly as Sooryavanshi seized control by rattling off three boundaries and a six in succession in his next over.

Each of the four boundaries pierced a different arc. The short ball was carved behind point, the hard length into the pitch was muscled over mid-on, the fuller one driven crisply between cover and mid-off, and when tested with the bumper, Sooryavanshi fetched it from outside off and nailed the pull over deep square for six.

And remarkably, it wasn’t just Hazlewood under the pump. Bhuvneshwar Kumar – who had nearly dismissed him first ball with a late-curving inswinging yorker, only for the teenager to dig it out and shovel it straight back for four – was also taken apart. In the fifth over, Sooryavanshi swatted him for back-to-back sixes to bring up his half-century.

Keeping pace with Sooryavanshi stroke for stroke can’t be easy, but Jurel managed it seamlessly, without ever looking like he was trying to. He capped off the powerplay by hitting rookie Abhinandan Singh for a sequence of 4, 6, 4, 0, 6, 4 to end an extraordinary passage.

Jurel’s fast hands were the defining feature of that over – whether it was picking length early to pull or using his wrists to whip the ball into the top tier over deep square. He would later take charge of the innings, tightening his approach after a flurry of wickets, and finishing unbeaten on 76 off 36 balls.

Jurel’s 68-run fifth-wicket stand with Ravindra Jadeja then guided RR home comfortably, steadying things after Krunal briefly stirred RCB’s hopes with back-to-back strikes of Sooryavanshi and Shimron Hetmyer in the ninth over.

RR went through a quiet passage of four overs without a boundary, but the early onslaught from Sooryavanshi and Jurel meant they could afford to play out a few quiet overs fully knowing RCB were a spinner short, as they activated Venkatesh Iyer as an impact player for batting firepower in place of Suyash Sharma.

The match had a blockbuster opening act, with Jofra Archer’s vicious, rip-roaring bouncer sending back Phil Salt for a golden duck. But Virat Kohli fought fire with fire, hitting him for three boundaries in his next over, before Archer struck back to remove the in-form Devdutt Padikkal.

This didn’t affect Kohli, though, as he shredded a much-talked-about matchup with Sandeep Sharma (who had dismissed him seven times in 18 innings) by thumping him over the infield for two fours. But trouble soon came RCB’s way as Ravi Bishnoi struck two quick blows to leave them 73 for 4.

In his first two outings, Rajat Patidar went crash-bang-wallop from the get-go. But a top-order wobble forced him to dig deep. He played himself in, getting to 20 off 22 balls at one stage. And then, three overs later, he brought up a half-century off 35 balls. One of the reasons for this surge was his surety in stroke-making.

The two sixes he hit off Nandre Burger in the 15th had that stamp of authority. A gentle extension of his arms to loft one cleanly over long-off laid down the marker, but the hop back to whip a short ball aimed at his ribs over deep square leg was the blockbuster.

With none of Romario Shepherd or Tim David coming off with the bat, RCB brought in Venkatesh Iyer as their Impact Player, leaving Suyash on the bench. And Venkatesh gave an excellent account of himself on RCB debut, finishing the innings off with a cameo 29 that pushed them past 200.

As it turned out, it was nowhere near enough.

Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals 202 for 4 (Yashasvi Jiswal 13, Dhruv Jurel 81*, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 78, Ravindra Jadeja 24*; Josh Hazelwood 2-44, Krunal Pandya 2-30) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 201 for 8 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli32, Devudutt Padikkal 14, Rajat Patidar 63, Tim David 13, Romario Shepherd 22, Venkatesh Iyer 29*; Jofra Archer 2-33, Sandeep Sharma 1-47, Ravi Bishnoi 2-32, Ravindra Jadeja 1-14, Brijesh Sharma 2-37) by six wickets

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Brazil bowler Laura Cardoso takes 9 Lesotho wickets in record-breaking T20 win

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/10

Priyan

Laura Cardoso has taken the best bowling record in a T20 Women's International following her nine-wicket haul against Lesotho [Aljazeera]

Brazil are the unlikely candidates to have claimed two cricket records as one of their bowlers took a record nine wickets – including five in a row – in their 189-run T20 Women’s International victory against Lesotho in Botswana.

Having won the toss on Thursday, at the BCA Kalahari Women’s T20 International Tournament, Brazil posted a daunting 202-8 with wicketkeeper Monnike Machado hitting 69 off 41.

The fun, for the Brazilians, was only just beginning, though, as Laura Cardoso claimed a hat-trick with the last three deliveries of her first over – the second of the Lesotho innings – to set in motion the incredible feat that eventually saw the Africans bowled out for 13.

The 21-year-old then continued her wicket-taking achievement with a Women’s T20 International first of five dismissals in a row as she struck with the first two balls of her second over. This was all part of claiming the first nine Lesotho wickets to fall, but being denied the chance to take all 10 after a change of bowling following her third over. Her final wicket was Ret’sepile Limema, who fell to the fifth ball of the fifth over, with Cardoso replaced for the following over at that end. Her nine wickets, nevertheless, is the best return in either men’s or women’s T20 internationals.

The right-arm seamer did, indeed, come close to another hat-trick, when she claimed wickets with the last two balls of her second over, which itself totalled four victims.

Cardoso, who has has taken 55 wickets in 48 T20 matches for Brazil, replaces Indonesia’s Rohmalia Rohmalia at the top of the Women’s T20 best bowling rankings, as she finished with figures of 3-2-4-9.

Rohmalia had claimed seven wickets in 2024 in a match against Mongolia in Bali. Only three other women have claimed seven in a T20 international.

The men’s record, and the overall in the format, had been held by Bhutan’s Sonam Yeshey after ⁠he took eight wickets for seven ⁠runs against Myanmar ⁠last year.

The previous record for the number of wickets in consecutive deliveries was four, and was jointly held with the most prominent occasion in women’s cricket being when Shakera Selman pulled off the feat for the West Indies against Pakistan in 2018. Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga are among the most notable bowlers from the men’s game to have claimed four consecutively in the format.

Although a huge winning margin, Brazil’s overall win does not compare with Argentina’s record after they beat Chile by 364 runs in 2023. The Argentinians had struck 427-1 to set up their victory.

Lesotho’s part in the record extends to no further than Cardoso’s haul, with the record-lowest total belonging to Mali, who were bowled out for 6 in 2019 by Rwanda.

Brazil, ‌who lead the six-team tournament with five straight wins, play ‌Mozambique ‌on Friday.

[Aljazeera]

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Zimbabwe Women set for maiden tour of Pakistan

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/10

Priyan

Pakistan and Zimbabwe will play 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is [Cricbuzz]

Zimbabwe Women are set for their maiden tour to Pakistan for three ODIs and three T20Is.

The ODIs kick off on May 3 and will be part of the ICC Women’s Championship 2025-29. The T20I series will be played from May 12. All six matches will take place at the National Bank Stadium in Karachi.

Pakistan are currently placed fifth on the Women’s Championship table after a 2-1 series loss to South Africa. Zimbabwe are placed seventh after a three-match series loss to New Zealand.

Zimbabwe are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on April 29.