Cricket news round-up – January 20: India claim series 2-1, England in command at Port Elizabeth

India won the ODI series against Australia. England dominated throughout at Port Elizabeth. India and Pakistan began their Under-19 World Cup campaign with big wins.

Huge win for India in Bangalore

Steven Smith’s 131 and Marnus Labuschagne’s 54 were all that Australians had to be happy about their batting in Bangalore. The third and final ODI of the 3-match series between India and Australia saw the visitors set a target of 287. Australia looked settled after losing David Warner and Aaron Finch pretty quickly. Smith and Labuschagne built a partnership of 127 and then started the downfall just after the dismissal of Labuschagne in 32^nd over.

Ravindra Jadeja rose to the occasion and took Labuschagne and Mitchell Starc in the 32^nd over and India were on the drivers’ seat. Eventually, they lost last five wickets for 51 runs. Mohammed Shami (4/63) picked up two top-order batsmen and then came back to wrap up the Australian innings.

Although KL Rahul could not perform well this time, Rohit Sharma smashed a brilliant century. His 119 off 128 was well supported by the skipper. Virat Kohli, the Payer of the Series scored a 91-ball 89 and then Shreyas Iyer (44*) finished the job. India won the series 2-1 as Rohit Sharma was named the Man of the Match.

England eye series lead against South Africa

England just need four more wickets on the last day of the Port Elizabeth Test to take 2-1 series lead. At this point, they would be more concerned about the weather than taking the last four wickets as South African batsmen continued to bat on day four.

The Proteas at first lost their last four wickets of the first innings while adding just one run in the process as Stuart Broad and Sam Curran used the new ball expertly. Broad took 3/0 to and ensured the follow on.

There was another lengthy rain delay; however, once the match was resumed Mark Wood provided two quick blows by dismissing Dean Elgar and Jubayr Hamza. There was a partnership of 22 runs in more than 15 overs between Pieter Malan and the captain Faf du Plessis. Then Joe Root came to rescue and provided the breakthrough. Root did not stop here and ended up picking up three more wickets including the top scorer du Plessis who scored 36. Root now has 4/31, his best Test bowling analysis so far with the South Africans struggling at 102 for 6. With no top-order batsmen left, they would hope for heavy rain to help them save the Test match.

Under-19 World Cup: India and Pakistan begin with wins

Both India and Pakistan Under-19 teams started the World Cup with convincing wins. The Indian youngsters beat their sub-continental neighbours, Sri Lanka, by 90 runs whereas Pakistan completed their chase within 12 overs after bowling out Scotland Under-19 for just 75 runs.

For India, it was a very good combined team performance with all their batsmen reaching double figures. Yashasvi Jaiswal top scored with 59 and the captain Priyam Garg scored 56. Some late hitting from Dhruv Jurel and Siddhesh Veer took them to a massive 297/4. Sri Lanka were always behind the required rate which kept climbing. For India, Akash Singh, Veer, and Ravi Bishnoi took two wickets each and Sri Lanka were all out for 207.

For Pakistan Under-19 team it was a great performance by their young fast bowlers. All the 10 wickets were shared by the three fast bowlers Tahir Hussain, Abbas Afridi, and Mohammad Wasim. Wasim was the star with five wickets to his name for just 12 runs. There were few early hiccups for Pakistan but Irfan Khan with unbeaten 38 ensured that the chase was completed with seven wickets in hand.

Dhoni to be retained by CSK, says Srinivasan

There is uncertainty over Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s international cricket career. But his IPL association with Chennai Super Kings is still going strong. According to the owner of Chennai Super Kings, Dhoni will not just play 2020 IPL, in 2021 he will be retained by the franchise after going to the auction pool.

N Srinivasan, the vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements who owns the team has confirmed, “People keep saying when will he… how long will he play, etc. He will play. I can assure you. He will play this year. Next year he will go the auction; he will be retained. So there is no doubt in anybody’s min.”