Bollywood superstar and owner of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Shah Rukh Khan, reportedly presented a blank check to Gautam Gambhir, ‘Daily Jagran’ has reported.
Gambhir is also interested in the job of India’s head coach, but wants a guarantee that he will apply only if he is selected for the coach, Daily Jagran claims.
According to an NDTV report, the Indian Cricket Board is interested in appointing Gambhir as the coach of the Indian cricket team.
Since many foreign coaches have refused to coach the Indian team, now the Indian board is thinking of Gautam Gambhir as the head coach after Rahul Dravid.
Gambhir, who has mentor Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2024, has been offered a ‘blank check’ by Shah Rukh Khan to join the franchise for the next 10 years.
Bollywood star Preity Zinta recently shared a precious memory from her early days in the industry on Instagram. The post featured a snapshot from her very first photoshoot at the age of 20.
In the caption, Zinta confessed to feeling clueless about posing for the camera back then. She wrote, “was going through some old stuff n found this photo! OMG!!! My first photo shoot ever… I was all of 20 & I thought I knew everything I needed to know about the world … except how to pose for a photo shoot.” Her candid reflection resonated with fans, who appreciated her honesty and humility.
Since her debut in the 1998 film ‘Dil Se,’ Preity Zinta has captivated audiences with her charm and talent. Alongside her successful acting career, she is also known for her philanthropy and advocacy work.
Cricket is the third most popular sport in the world with approximately 2.5 billion fans spread across the globe. The gentleman’s game, mocked at times for being slow, has morphed into a fast-paced, adrenalin- pumping speedy ride.
The first international match between two countries was played between United States of America (USA) and Canada in New York in 1844, but the fact that the International Cricket Council (ICC) did not exist in 1844, means this match wasn’t recognizes as an official game. The first official cricket match was played between Australia and England in Melbourne in 1877.
The first cricket World Cup was organized in 1975 in England, with the mighty West Indies walking away with the trophy.
How India destroying cricket for other countries?
India won just two matches in the 1975 and 1979 World Cup tournaments, the weakest team at that time. Wisden Sports magazine’s Chief Editor David Frith had infamously written in an article that a team like India should not play in the tournament if they have not improved and if a team like India wins, “I will eat my words.”
In the 1983 World Cup, India won four out of six matches in the group stage, cementing their place in the semi-finals where they defeated England by six wickets.
The final was played between India and West Indies, the hot favorite team after winning two World Cups in a row. All the odds were stacked against India, but the country created history on June 25, defeating West Indies at Lords, and lifting the Cup.
The historic win gave Narendra Kumar Prasadrao (NKP) Salve the confidence he needed to grab the mantle of the British’s own game from them. NKP Salve befriended Sri Lanka and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to form the Asian Cricket Committee, on which ICC had no control in 1984. They arranged a tournament between Asian teams, named Asia Cup. This was Salve’s way of telling Britishers that the southern countries could host tournaments too.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had no money to host a World Cup at first. Salve asked Pakistan to host the next world cup together. Then Salve contacted Dhirubhai Ambani with the help of Indira Gandhi. When the money was arranged, Mr. Salve put forth his proposal at the next ICC Meeting.
There was no rule before this that a new nation will host a World Cup. NKP Salve proposed a Rotational Policy. According to this policy “A new nation will host the World Cup after every four years.”
Australia and New Zealand agreed, . And when voting took place, India and Pakistan got the hosting of 1987 World Cup.
It was a success, but BCCI didn’t make any money 30 years ago. Even after the 83 tournament, Indian players would get INR 200 per day allowance and 1500 as match fees.
The South African cricket team was returning to international cricket in 1991 after a gap of 21 years and they were going to play their first three match ODI series against India.
At that time Indian television Doordrshan was broadcasting these matches and they were charging money for broadcasting instead of paying, and BCCI was just earning on tickets and on-ground advertisements.
But this time they kept the broadcasting rights in their hand and sold it to South African television channel for $200,000.
On the same year India opened their market for globalization foreign companies. New money started floating into India at the same time, these foreign companies wanted to market their products in India and nothing was watched more than cricket.
Because of satellite television, cricket was now seen even in small villages of India. It was great for these companies and BCCI. In 1993, India sold broadcast rights of England’s tour of India to a broadcasting company TWI for $600,000.
In no time, BCCI became the richest cricket board in the world. However, things change after you get rich. Remember, how NKP Salve grabbed 1987’s World Cup from England. It was decided according to rotational policy that England will host 1996’s World Cup.
But in 1996, a broadcaster named Mark Mascarhanes made an offer to BCCI that if India hosts the tournament, then he would give $ 14 million for broadcasting. BCCI liked the offer and got the hosting of 1996 World Cup.
But in 1996, Australia and West Indies refused to play their matches in Sri Lanka. Then a BCCI administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya thought, ICC’s next Chairman should be an Asian.
In 1997, Dalmiya contested ICC elections, and won.
But the question is, how?
Actually Mr. Dalmiya knew one thing, that most of ICC’s full time members would vote for the English Boards favorite candidate. At that time, associate teams had one vote each in these elections, but the representatives of these associate teams had no money to be present in the elections being held in London.
So Mr. Dalmiya bought tickets for representatives of associate teams, booked hotels in London for them, even hosted a dinner party for them before elections and when elections happened these representatives voted for Mr. Dalmiya and he won. Now an Indian was the boss of the world of cricket.
Indian Premier League (IPL) is the second richest sports league in the world, with a net worth surpassing 15 billion dollars but IPL is not the only T20 cricket league in the world. Every cricket Board has made their own cricket leagues, but BCCI does not allow their players to play in these leagues.
BCCI knows, value of these leagues might increase because of Indian viewership and if their value increases it might dilute the power of BCCI. So Indian players are not allowed to participate.
These boards have become so weak that they have to listen everything that BCCI orders because these boards only make money when India tours their countries. BCCI uses this very thing to get their things done in world cricket.
In 2012 England’s former Chief Justice submitted an independent report to ICC In which, he suggested some changes in governance. He felt that ICC shouldn’t be a Member Club Cricket Power is leaning to one side especially towards India. Associate nations aren’t getting enough funds, cricket won’t grow in these countries without funds.
BCCI takes the biggest share, ICC has only 12 full time members and 96 associate members. These members are underfunded. There is no chance that, cricket will grow in these countries without funds. Once $30,000 were given to the Chinese cricket board to improve cricket there. [2008 stats, current stats are not published]. China’s population is around 1.5 billion, how’s that even possible, that cricket will grow in country like China with such a small fund?
It’s not only about associate nations, even full time members are being further weakened. If we see the latest ICC Men’s Future Tours Program India will play most of the matches with top teams and with Zimbabwe and Ireland, India will play three and two matches respectively in five years, when Zimbabwe and Ireland are also full time members.
As far as the administrators of the game are concerned, they don’t care about West Indies Cricket. West Indies Cricket Board is bankrupt today, two times world champion team couldn’t even qualify for World Cup 2023, just because of lack of funds. How will these teams, cricket boards grow without the funds?
ICC is unofficially run by BCCI and instead of growing the game, they are shrinking it. In 2007’s World Cup, 16 teams played the tournament, and in 2023’s, only 10 teams participated. Apart from this there were 26 teams in International Association Football Federation (FIFA) World Cup 2006, and now there are 48 teams participating in 2026 World Cup.
You know why?
In 2007’s World Cup, India was eliminated early from the tournament, they could only play three matches. Broadcasters had to face a loss. If India had played more matches, broadcasters would have benefitted. BCCI reduced the teams and the format is designed in a way that India will definitely play nine matches.
BCCI doesn’t care about winning World Cups, they just want to make money. I feel, this sport should spread like football all around the world. With only 10 teams, it’s becoming boring and I think cricket has power to spread peace and happiness.
HowBCCI is killing Cricket:
You won’t believe it, from 2024 onwards, there will be no international cricket played for 2.5 months, only IPL. Isn’t this the murder of the sport we love so much?
Indian cricket is mostly run by Indian politicians and businessmen. Arun Jaitley’s son is president of Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA). Rajasthan’s CM’s Son Vaibhav Gehlot is President of Rajhistan cricket Association (RCA,) Sharad Pawar’s grandnephew is a President of Mumbai cricket association (MCA), Anurag Thakur, BJP politician, was a president Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) from there he became a president of BCCI.
Today his brother is a president of HPCA. Ashok Sigamani is president of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), the son of a Minister Jyotiradhitya Scindia is the president of Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA), his father was president of BCCI.
BCCI treasurer Chirayu Amin’s son Pranav Amin is Bihar cricket association (BCA)’s President, Sourav Ganguly’s brother is a President Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and the most fun example of this is Gujarat cricket associations former president was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He gave that post to Amit Shah after becoming Prime Minister and today, Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah is the secretary of BCCI and I’m only talking about a few states here.
Cricket shouldn’t be run by politicians and businessmen, it should be run by former cricketers, that’s it. I’m the biggest fan of cricket, like any Pakistani, I can’t bear to see one private organization is controlling the growth of this game. I want this sport to grow all over the world because this sport can do many good things.
Afghanistan cricket team is one such example, these players initially used to live in refugee camps, they played World Cup in 2015 and you know what, Afghanistan cricket was initially helped by Pakistan.
But it feels like there are people in BCCI who don’t care about the growth of this game. They just want to make money, they just want to keep their power safe, even if they have to kill this centuries old sport to achieve that.
Note: This information is collected from various platform, like cricket websites, YouTube, Facebook etc.
A match between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) did not end on a happy note after Virat Kohli sledged Afghan fast bowler Naveen-ul-Haq in the 17th over.
RCB registered a superb 18-run win against LSG on Monday night. However, what became the win was overshadowed by the brawl between RCB batter Virat Kohli, Lucknow mentor Gautam Gambhir and fast bowler Naveen-ul-Haq.
It seemed like a replay of 2013 when the latter was leading Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and involved in a heated exchange with a young Virat who was just 5 years old in the cricketing circle. A decade later, a similar picture was in front of everyone.
Naveen-ul-Haq has now shared his thoughts with some of his teammates according to Indian Express. The Afghan pacer has reportedly said, “I am here to play in the IPL, not to take abuse from anyone.” The bowler said that as a player, he has dignity and nobody can abuse him like that.
Haq and Kohli both shared cryptic Instagram stories after the incident in which the latter shared quotes while the former directly pointed towards Kohli and wrote:
“You get what you deserve, that’s how it should be and that’s how it goes.”
The incident was condemned by former players while all three were also heavily penalised.
A heated argument took place between Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir after Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) beat Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by 18 runs in a low-scoring thriller at the Ekana Stadium during Indian Premier League (IPL).
Now Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir and Naveen-ul-Haq have been fined for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct. LSG’s Naveen-ul-Haq was also spotted arguing with Kohli and that did not go down well with the IPL management.
— Mehulsinh Vaghela (@LoneWarrior1109) May 1, 2023
“Mr Gambhir admitted to the Level 2 offence under Article 2.21 of the IPL Code of Conduct and has been fined 100 per cent of his match fee. Similarly, Mr Kohli admitted to the Level 2 offence under Article 2.21 of the IPL Code of Conduct and has been fined 100 per cent of his match fee. Mr Naveen-ul-Haq, on the other hand, has been fined 50 per cent of his match fees for breaching the IPL Code of Conduct during the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore,” read a statement from the IPL.
This is not the first time that Virat and Gautam have locked horns with each other. Whenever these two face each other, fans have seen aggression from both sides.
Afghan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq has crafted a bad image in the cricket world by showing abusive aggression. A gesture he made while he aggressively shook hands with Kohli left cricketing fans aghast.
Match Highlights: Royal Challengers Bangalore 126/9 in 20 overs (Faf du Plessis 44, Virat Kohli 31; Naveen-ul-Haq 3-30, Ravi Bishnoi 2-21) beat Lucknow Super Giants 108 all out in 19.5 overs (K. Gowtham 23, Amit Mishra 19; Josh Hazlewood 2-15, Karn Sharma 2-20) by 18 runs
Indian cricket star Virat Kohli was fined on Tuesday for breaching the Indian Premier League (IPL) code of conduct, after his team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RBC) went down to Chennai in a nail-biting match.
Kohli’s wild celebration of Chennai batsman Shivam Dube’s wicket at a crucial point of the high-scoring game on Monday resulted in the sanction, according to media reports.
Kohli must pay 10 percent of his match fees for the ‘Level 1 offence’ that he committed. A statement issued by IPL says that the batter admitted to the offence. MS Dhoni led CSK won by eight runs after the nail biting finish in which record-equaling 33 sixes were hit. Kohli was once fined when he hit a plastic chair with his bat after getting dismissed in an IPL match. King Kohli, many speculate, can’t control his emotions on the field.
According to media reports, Kohli has fallen out with India’s former cricket chief Saurav Ganguly with the two men reportedly “unfollowing” each other on Instagram.
Kohli quit as Indian T20 skipper in late 2021 and in January 2022 was sacked from the 50-over format captaincy, later giving up leading the Test side too after a reported fall-out with Ganguly.
Pakistan cricket team has failed to win a single test at home under Babar Azam’s captaincy however all-rounder Shahdab Khan has said that the nation is being unjust to Babar Azam.
Babar Azam has been criticized in the past few months by former cricketers and fans for his captaincy.
Shadab, in a recent interview with a local TV channel, defended his captain, asking Pakistanis to realize how valuable Babar is and desist from unnecessarily criticizing him.
“I think we are doing injustice with such a diamond. Pakistan has been blessed with such a big diamond. He [Babar] is a bigger diamond than Kohinoor,” Shadab said.
“As a nation, we are not valuing Babar for what he is worth and are pressurizing him. At the end of the day, he is human. We should respect him the way the world respects him,” he added. The all-rounder was also surprised by the criticism of Babar’s leadership qualities by former cricketers.
“I am surprised when people doubt him as a captain or a leader. He is Pakistan’s biggest player. Our nation should respect him the way we respect him in the team,” he concluded.
The Pakistan captain recently received the ICC Cricketer of the year award for his performances in the year 2022.
Lahore Qalandars continued their winning streak on Monday, thrashing Islamabad United in the 16th fixture of PSL 8 by 110 runs at the Gaddafi stadium Lahore.
Choosing to bat first, Qalandars set a massive target of 201 runs with the help of a sensational knock by young player Abdullah Shafique. Islamabad United’s strong batting lineup was eviscerated by Qalandars’ bowling attack, knocking them out in just 13.5 overs by conceding only 90 runs and a thrilling bowling display from David Wiese and Sikandar Raza.
United, on the other hand, were left to revisit their planning. Qalandars captain Shaheen Shah Afridi, who had the stumps flying against Peshawar Zalmi in his first over a day earlier, did not bowl another classic against United. In reply to the huge total, United could not establish a productive partnership after Gurbaz and Munro put up 56-2 in the powerplay. Zaman Khan gave Lahore a much-needed breakthrough after openers Colin Munro and Gurbaz (23) helped Islamabad make a good start.
Zaman delivered a slow short bowl that was mistimed by Gurbaz and Fakhar Zaman took a blinder to send the Afghan batter back to the pavilion.
Soon after Gurbaz’s departure, Shaheen introduced David Wiese, who got the better of Colin Munro, reducing Islamabad to 54-2.
The left-handed batter scored 18 runs off 14 balls.
In the next over, fiery pacer Haris Rauf struck as he sent Rassie van der Dussen (3) packing.
Wiese delivered again as he sent Islamabad’s skipper Shadab Khan (4) back to the pavilion after a successful review.
In a bid to shore up the run rate, Asif Ali went for a six but ended up getting caught by Haris off Rashid Khan.
Wiese added to Islamabad’s miseries by trapping Azam Khan for an lbw. The wicket-keeper batter, who scored 96 runs against Quetta Gladiators in their previous match, was sent packing after he scored only four runs.
The wizard Rashid claimed his second scalp of the evening by bowling out Tom Curran (10).
For Lahore, Wiese claimed three wickets, while Rashid and Raza took two scalps each. Zaman and Haris secured a wicket each.
Playing XI for both teams
Lahore Qalandars: Fakhar Zaman, Tahir Baig, Abdullah Shafique, Sam Billings (wk), Hussain Talat, Sikandar Raza, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Shaheen Afridi (c), Haris Rauf, Zaman Khan
Islamabad United: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Colin Munro, Rassie van der Dussen, Shadab Khan (c), Azam Khan (wk), Asif Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Tom Curran, Abrar Ahmed, Zeeshan Zameer, Hasan Ali
Biopic on Dada: Ranbir Kapoor to play the role of Saurav Gangully
Ranbir Kapoor has bagged another covered role, getting selected to portray Saurav Ganguly, the Dada of Indian cricket, in an upcoming biopic.
Ganguly, considered one of the greatest Indian captains, played for his country from 1992 till 2008 when he retired from all formats of the game.
After his retirement from cricket, Ganguly has remained involved in the sport as a commentator and administrator. He was the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from 2019 to 2021.
Shooting of the biopic will start soon after the promotion of Ranbir Kapoor’s new film “Tu Jhuuti May Makaar” is over.
Film makers have not announced the full cast yet but it is confirmed that Ranbir Kapoor will do the lead role. As per details, MS Dhoni, also known as Saurav Ganguly’s talent pick in 2006 series against Pakistan, will also be essayed in the film.
The movie will be directed by filmmaker Hansal Mehta and produced by Shemaroo Entertainment in association with Joy Ganguly, Saurav Ganguly’s brother. The biopic is expected to showcase Ganguly’s journey as a cricketer and his rise to becoming the captain of the Indian cricket team. It will also delve into the controversies that he faced during his career, including the infamous 2002 feud with former Indian coach Greg Chappell.
One of the most renowned football clubs in the world—Liverpool F.C.—has been approached by Indian billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani with a takeover bid, according to several media reports.
Ambani is the eighth richest man in the world with a net worth of more than $90 billion. He is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd and is an avid sports fan. Currently, he is the owner of the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Mumbai Indians, and is the founder of the Indian Super League (ISL).
Fenway Sports Group (FSG) purchased the membership of the football club in 2010 and the group is now reportedly preparing to sell it for £4 billion.
The current owner’s decision to sell the club comes after Liverpool’s poor start to the domestic season.
Though cricket continues to be the most followed sport in India, football is now slowly catching up.
However, the news is not officially confirmed as it has been not verified by the billionaire’s company yet.
