Tag: india cricket

  • Throwback: Did Rohit Sharma want to become coach of Pakistan’s cricket team?

    Throwback: Did Rohit Sharma want to become coach of Pakistan’s cricket team?

    From wanting to become Pakistan’s cricket team coach to losing against Pakistan, it’s been a long road for Rohit Sharma.

    After Pakistan’s thumping victory against India, an odd video of Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma surfaced on social media.

    In the video, the reporter asked Rohit, “What would you suggest to Pakistani batsmen so that they come out of this crisis?” Pakistan had just been comprehensively defeated in World Cup 2019 by arch rivals India.

    To this, Sharma sarcastically responded by saying, “If I ever become the coach of Pakistan’s team, I will tell them”.

    On September 4, Pakistan won against India by five wickets in a do-or-die match of the Asia Cup 2022. Sharma scored 28 runs. For Pakistan, Shadab Khan picked up two wickets for 31 runs, while Mohammad Hasnain, Haris Rauf, Naseem Shah and Muhammad Nawaz took a wicket each.

    Prior to this, in another India vs Pakistan match which was played on August 28, Sharma got out after scoring only 12 runs.

    In yesterday’s (September 8) match against Afghanistan, Indian cricketer KL Rahul stepped in as captain for the toss. He said that Sharma “wants to take a break”.

    Last year, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) named Rohit Sharma as the new One Day International (ODI) captain of the Indian cricket team. He took over from his predecessor, batting maestro, Virat Kohli.

  • Memes: Pak reacts to India’s defeat

    Memes: Pak reacts to India’s defeat

    New Zealand defeated India by 8 wickets on Sunday, making it quite difficult for the men in blue to reach the semi-finals in the T20 World Cup.

    India gave New Zealand a target of 111 runs. The Kiwis easily chased the target in the 14th over.

    Despite India having world-class batters, Black Caps dismissed seven Indians during the first innings of the match. Indian captain Virat Kohli could only score nine. Currently, India is at number 5 in Group B of the T20 World Cup 2021.

    Since last night, Pakistani social media is filled with memes and reactions.

  • Pakistan cricket fights back…hard

    Pakistanis are on a high these days after Pakistan cricket team’s three consecutive wins at the T20 World Cup. Pakistan is on the top in their group with three out of three wins against India, New Zealand and Afghanistan. We still have to play the remaining two matches against Namibia and Scotland next week (November 2 and 7) before the semi-finals.

    Pakistan cricket team broke its jinx by beating India for the first time in a World Cup match. And what a win it was! We restricted the India side to just 151 runs and we chased the score without losing a single wicket. The second match against New Zealand was even more special as this had come after the team pulled out of its tour to Pakistan last month.

    In September, cricket fans across Pakistan were heartbroken after New Zealand’s disappointing decision to abandon the Pakistan series over “security threats” just minutes before the first One-Day International (ODI) match was about to begin in Rawalpindi. Following New Zealand’s unilateral decision, England also decided to cancel their men’s and women’s teams’ tour to Pakistan in October. New Zealand was to play in Pakistan after almost 18 years while England’s men have not played an international match in Pakistan since 2005 and their women’s team were to visit the country for the first time.

    It was not just the cricket fans who were disappointed; apart from the huge financial loss to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) because of these cancellations, it must have affected the Pakistan cricket team as well. After the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009, Pakistan has had to play their ‘home series’ away from home for many years. Cricket came back to Pakistan due to the efforts of Najam Sethi and others at the PCB.

    We Pakistanis criticise our team a lot when they don’t perform well but we need to understand what our players have been through for more than a decade now. They have been away from their families for months on end due to home series in the UAE; they have had to rebuild the team after the 2010 spot-fixing scandal; Pakistanis are kept out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to political reasons; and they have had to face discrimination in cricket because of India’s influence at the International Cricket Council (ICC) – Pakistan does not get enough bilateral series and enough international matches to compete with other teams. Under such difficult circumstances, our team has won the ICC Champions Trophy, ruled the Test rankings, made the Pakistan Super League (PSL) a huge international success and much more. We are proud of our Men in Green. They have cheered us up in the most depressing of times. Pakistan Zindabad.

  • Pakistan crushes India: All the memes you cannot miss

    Pakistan crushes India: All the memes you cannot miss

    History has been made. Pakistan defeated India for the first time in a World Cup fixture by 10 wickets after losing 12 straight matches to the Men in Blue.

    While chasing 152, Pakistani openers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan played till the end. Shaheen Shah Afridi remained in the limelight by taking three blue wickets, including skipper Virat Kohli’s at 57.

    Since Sunday night, hashtags related to the match have been trending as Pakistanis were cheering the brilliant victory of boys in green.

    Memes were all over Pakistani Twitter so here are all the MUST-SEE memes that you cannot miss.

    Sorry neighbour, we rock!

  • Pakistan, India placed in same group in T20 World Cup

    Pakistan, India placed in same group in T20 World Cup

    Pakistan and India will meet in the Super 12s stage of the 2021 men’s T20 World Cup, to be co-hosted by the UAE and Oman between October 17 and November 14. This will make it the first face-off between the two teams in more than two years; their last fixture was in the 2019 50-over World Cup.

    On Friday, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the make-up of the groups – both for the first round and for the Super 12s stage – for the big-ticket tournament, which will be the first multi-team, global event organised by the ICC since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic early last year. The final of the World Test Championship, featuring India and New Zealand, was hosted in Southampton last month.

    The ICC did not unveil the schedule for the 16-team tournament, which is expected to be finalised shortly.

    The first-round matches will be split between two groups, with the games to be played in the UAE and Oman. Group A has Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands and Namibia, while Group B has Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Oman. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the Super 12s, which will be played in the three UAE centres – Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.

    Teams in the Super 12s have been pooled into two groups as well. India and Pakistan are in Group 2 alongside New Zealand, Afghanistan and two qualifiers – B1 and A2. Group 1 comprises defending champions West Indies along with England, Australia and South Africa and the other two qualifiers – A1 and B2. The groups, the ICC confirmed, were selected on the basis of the team rankings as of March 20, 2021.

    In the 2020 edition of the tournament, which was originally scheduled for Australia and was later postponed by the ICC because of the Covid-19 pandemic, India and Pakistan were in different groups because they were number one and number two in the ICC T20I rankings at the time of the deadline. That would have been the first time the two teams would not have contested in the group stage of a global tournament since the 2011 50-over World Cup.

    This time, India are second behind England, and ahead of New Zealand, followed by Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, Afghanistan and West Indies.

    “There are some great match-ups offered by the groups and it starts to bring the event to life for our fans as our first multi-team event since the onset of the global pandemic draws closer,” Geoff Allardice, the ICC’s acting chief executive, said in a statement on Friday. “Given the disruption caused by Covid-19, we selected the cutoff date as close as possible to the event to ensure we were able to include the maximum amount of cricket in the rankings which determine the groups. There is no doubt we will witness some highly competitive cricket when the event gets underway in just three months.”

    The tournament was earlier scheduled to be played in India, but owing to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic in the country, the BCCI decided to move it overseas, even though the Indian board continues to be official hosts for the event.

  • Australia dismiss India for 36, their lowest ever Test score

    Australia dismiss India for 36, their lowest ever Test score

    Australia’s world-class pace attack dismissed India for their lowest ever Test score of 36 on Saturday, with the hosts needing 75 to win the opening Test in Adelaide at dinner after an incredible batting collapse.

    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.

    India’s previous Test low was 42 against England at Lord’s in 1974. Their 36 was the joint fourth lowest of all time with New Zealand’s 26 against England in 1955 at Auckland the worst ever.

    Their capitulation left Australia needing 90 to win, with Joe Burns and Matthew Wade knocking off 15 of them before the dinner break.

    Cummins wasted no time removing night watchman Jasprit Bumrah for two in the second over of the day, temping him to push at a slower ball that popped back up to him.

    That brought the stubborn Cheteshwar Pujara to the crease. He saw off an over from Cummins, but that was as good as it got for the veteran who fell without scoring.

    Cummins, the world’s number one Test bowler, sent down a delivery that had to be played and Pujara caught an edge that carried to Tim Paine behind the stumps.

    It left India on 15 for three, and it only got worse with opener Mayank Agarwal back in the pavilion five balls later for nine, again caught by Paine on Josh Hazlewood’s opening delivery.

    Hazlewood and Paine again combined to get rid of Ajinkya Rahane for naught then Cummins picked up the massive wicket of Virat Kohli.

    The superstar batsman had smacked Cummins for four but was gone the next ball after a review, caught by Cameron Green as he attempted a cover drive.

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

    At 19 for six, India were in real danger of making their lowest ever score and when Wriddhiman Saha chipped a Hazlewood delivery to Marnus Labuschagne and Ravi Ashwin was out next ball, it became more of a reality.

    A four from Hanuma Vihari at least took India past New Zealand’s all-time low to spare them that embarrassment.

    But Vihari didn’t last much longer, caught by Paine with Hazlewood again doing the damage before Mohammed Shami was forced to retire hurt after a Cummins thunderbolt hit his right arm.