Tag: Australia cricket

  • Australian A-List cricketers to miss Sri Lanka tour to prepare for Pak series

    Australian A-List cricketers to miss Sri Lanka tour to prepare for Pak series

    Cricket Australia has confirmed that they are preparing for Pakistan tour and this is the reason why their players David Warner and Mitchell Marsh will not attend the Sri Lankan series.

    Read More – ‘All looking really positive’ for Pak tour, says Australian Captain Pat Cummins

    Chief selector of the Australian team George Bailey, while announcing the team for the Sri Lankan series, revealed that David Warner, Mitchell Marsh and others are granted leaves to prepare for the Pakistan tour.

    The head coach of the Australian side, Justin Langer, will miss the upcoming T20I series against Sri Lanka as he will be busy preparing for Australia’s full-fledged tour to Pakistan in March this year. The Aussies will play three Tests, three ODIs as well as one T20I match against Pakistan.

    Aaron Finch will continue to lead the Australian side in the series.

    Australia T20I Squad:

    Aaron Finch (C), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Josh Inglis, Ben McDermott, Glenn Maxwell, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Adam Zampa

    On the other hand, Australian media claims that Cricket Australia and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) are in a process of dialogues to play all the matches at one venue. Earlier, the first Test match of the series was set to start from March 3 in Karachi. The second in Rawalpindi from March 12 to 16 and the third in Lahore from March 21 to 25.

    The Australian cricket team will be visiting Pakistan in March and April.

  • ‘We are in this together’: Australian cricket chief says if team tours Pak, ‘I will go with them’

    ‘We are in this together’: Australian cricket chief says if team tours Pak, ‘I will go with them’

    Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) Chief Todd Greenberg has told Australian cricketers that he will travel to Pakistan with them if the tour gets final approval but respects the wishes of “one or two” who might want to back out of the trip. If the team gets security clearance to travel, it will be Australia’s first tour to Pakistan since 1998.

    “I’ve made an assurance to the players that they won’t go alone. If they’re going to Pakistan, I’ll be going with them and I think that’s important. It’s an opportunity to show the players that we’re in this together,” Greenberg told Australian publication The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

    “The ACA accompanied Cricket Australia on a pre-tour of Pakistan late last year, and the reports were all very positive,” he further added.

    “But we’ll continue to take the advice of DFAT and other government organisations, as we need to be able to satisfy not just the players, but their families, that it’s safe to tour.” International teams have been reluctant to travel to Pakistan since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in 2009.

    However, international players have competed in Pakistan Super League (PSL) and the West Indies also travelled to Pakistan in December 2021 for a Twenty20 series.

    Greenberg is aware that despite security assurances, a few cricketers might be unwilling to travel to Pakistan but he won’t force anyone.

    “There may be one or two players who won’t be comfortable despite the best advice we give, and that’s OK, we need to respect that.”

    CA chief executive Nick Hockley is also planning to travel to Pakistan for at least some part of the tour, while the interim chair Richard Freudenstein may visit for a period to meet with his counterpart Ramiz Raja, unless a new permanent chair is chosen by then, according to the report in the SMH.

    New Zealand and England had called off their tours to Pakistan ahead of the T20 World Cup last year, much to the disappointment of cricket fans in Pakistan.

    Chairman PCB Raja had earlier emphasised that cricketing nations need to back each other but said that “western bloc” was not helping the cause. He said he was expecting Australia to do the same what England and New Zealand did to them.

    It must be noted here that Pakistan will be hosting series with England twice in 2022. The Englishmen will visit Pakistan for seven-T20I series in September-October and they will return for a three-Test series starting in November, after the T20 World Cup in Australia.

    Pakistan and New Zealand Cricket Boards are also in constant talks to plan a series between the two nations.

    Meanwhile, the seventh edition of PSL is also set to kick start from January 27. International players from many cricketing nations will participate in the league.

  • India hands Australia first defeat since 1988 at Brisbane’s Gabba ground

    India handed Australia their first defeat since 1988 at Brisbane’s Gabba ground, allowing them to clinch the four-Test series 2-1 to win the Border-Gavaskar trophy on Tuesday.

    Wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant starred with a swashbuckling 89 not out as the injury-depleted visitors overhauled the 328-run target with three overs to go, winning by three wickets.

    Australia had not been beaten at the Gabba since falling to Viv Richards’ all-conquering West Indies side by nine wickets in November 1988.

    Since then, Australia had played 31 test matches at The Gabba, winning 24 of them, while drawing the remaining seven.

    “Last time Australia lost a Gabba Test… George H.W. Bush had just won the US Presidential election, Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi was charting #1, Virat Kohli was 16 days old and Sachin Tendulkar was still one year away from making his Test debut,” wrote ICC on Twitter.

    India’s 329 for seven also smashed the 69-year-old record for the biggest run-chase at the Gabba, set by Australia who scored 236 for seven to beat the West Indies in 1951.

    The series win was a remarkable achievement considering India were bowled out for their lowest Test score of 36 to lose the first Test in Adelaide, before bouncing back to win the second in Melbourne.

    The visitors, ravaged by injuries and captain Virat Kohli’s absence for paternity leave, then batted throughout the final day to draw the third Test in Sydney.

    “It really means a lot to us. I don’t know how to describe this victory but I’m really proud of all the boys,” said India’s interim skipper Ajinkya Rahane. “They showed character, attitude, especially after the Adelaide Test match. We decided we’re going to fight really hard and we just wanted to give our best.”

    Man-of-the-match Pant, who played a similar innings in the drawn Sydney Test, blasted his 89 from 138 balls with nine fours and a six.

    His innings followed an equally impressive knock from 21-year-old Shubman Gill, who made 91 at the top of the order earlier in the day.

    Before the latest match, India had played six test matches at The Gabba, losing five of them with one draw. In their seventh outing on the ground, they managed to beat Australia and with this win, India moved to the top of the ICC World Test Championship ranking list.

    Meanwhile, Kohli congratulated the team and the board on their historic win.

  • ‘Mighty India crumbling down’: Akhtar trolls India on shameful defeat

    ‘Mighty India crumbling down’: Akhtar trolls India on shameful defeat

    Shoaib Akhtar has trolled the Indian cricket team after their shameful defeat by Australia in Adelaide Saturday.

    “I woke up and saw the score 369. I couldn’t believe it. Then I washed my eyes and saw the score 36/9. I couldn’t believe it either & went back to sleep,” wrote the former fast bowler on social media.

    Later in a video, the pacer said, “Embarrassing loss, embarrassing batting. World’s mightiest batting crumbling down.”

    “Humara bhi record torr dia inho ne, 36 all out. This is a disgraceful and terrible performance,” he continued. “It happens in cricket and this is what will happen to you. Bear it and bear the criticism.”

    “Mighty India crashing down, crumbling down,” he added.

    Akhtar didn’t stop there and posted another video on Twitter with a caption, saying, “This will not be forgotten easily. Must come back very strongly from here. Theek thaak phentii pari hai.”

    Similarly, Wasim Akram also expressed his shock over the score, commenting: “What a spell by the Australians. Pace matters.”

    Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Fawad Chaudhry also trolled the team by tweeting the hashtag ‘Australian Surgical Strike’.

    Australia’s world-class pace attack dismissed India for their lowest ever Test score of 36-9 in second innings of the opening Test Match of the series and defeated them chasing the target of 90 runs with eight wickets in hand.

    India started day three of the day-night Test on nine for one and with a 62-run lead, looking to build a competitive second innings total for Australia to chase. But their hopes were left in tatters after an exhibition of fast bowling by Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.

    It was the last Australia will see of Virat Kohli batting this summer, with the captain missing the final three Tests to return home for the birth of his first child.

  • Brother of Pakistani-Australian cricketer jailed over fake terror plot

    Brother of Pakistani-Australian cricketer jailed over fake terror plot

    The brother of Pakistani-Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja has been jailed for at least two years and six months for causing a co-worker to be locked up in a maximum-security jail by framing him with fake terrorism claims.

    Arsalan Tariq Khawaja admitted forging entries in the notebook of his UNSW colleague Kamer Nizamdeen in August 2018 after being jealous of his contact with a mutual woman friend, reported an Australian news agency.

    The entries included death threats against then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the governor-general, as well as lists to attack police stations, an Anzac Day ceremony, the Boxing Day Test match and landmarks including St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.

    In the NSW District Court on Thursday, Judge Robert Weber jailed the 40-year-old for four years and six months with a non-parole period of two years and six months.

    The term was backdated to when he first went into custody, meaning he will be eligible for release on parole in June 2021.

    Khawaja pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and dishonestly influencing a public official.

    He also asked the judge to take into account further matters of forging a document for a public official to accept it as genuine and inducing a witness to give false testimony.

    After Khawaja presented the authorities with the notebook, Nizamdeen was arrested and held in a high-security jail for one month until the truth was discovered.

    Describing his victim impact statement as “compelling evidence of the trauma and emotional harm” suffered by Nizamdeen, the judge noted he was unable to go back to his job and has returned to Sri Lanka.

    His report of having serious flashbacks to his time in prison was hardly surprising, given the innocent man spent part of his time in an isolation cell in a maximum security prison, the judge said.

    Khawaja also admitted that in 2017 he phoned authorities about another innocent man of whom he was jealous and made visa and terrorism accusations, including that the man had trained overseas.

    In the call he named his famous brother as a possible target of the man.

    The judge accepted psychiatric evidence that Khawaja had a borderline personality disorder which provided some explanation as to why such an intelligent man resorted to such “unforgivable” behaviour.