Cricket news round-up – October 3: Rohit gets a ton, Kapil and Gaekwad resign from CAC

Rohit Sharma registered his fourth Test ton on the first day of the Vizag Test against South Africa. Indian Women will be playing an additional T20I against the Proteas. Kapil Dev and Anshuman Gaekwad resigned from CAC.

Rohit Sharma begins new Test innings

India ended Day 1 of the Vizag Test with an advantage as the openers are still in the middle with the team score on 202 for no loss. When Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal walked in after Virat Kohli elected to bat first, all eyes were on Sharma for obvious reasons.

Rohit started slowly and scored only 17 runs in the first hour of the match. He was never in a hurry and took time. Eventually, he came into his own and started playing his shots. When the Indian openers went at lunch with 91/0, Sharma was on 52. He equaled Rahul Dravid’s record of six consecutive fifty-plus scores at home. His early five scores are 82, 51*, 102*, 65 and 50*. He also has an astonishing Test average of 98.22 on Indian soil currently.

Mayank (85) also registered his best individual Test score thus far. They became only the seventh Indian opening pair to add 100+ in first innings together. On Day 2 Mayank is expected to record his maiden Test hundred with Rohit adding more runs to his name.

Pakistan register a historic win

Pakistan became the team with the highest number of wins over a single opposition Sri Lanka with 92 wins. Earlier it was Australia who has this feat against New Zealand. Danushka Gunathilka’s registered second ODI hundred to score a massive 133 off just 134 balls. He was there in the middle throughout to take care of the team innings. Dasun Shanaka was the second highest scorer of the Lankan innings with a quick 24-ball 43. Mohammad Amir picked up three wickets conceding only 50 runs in his ten overs but the efforts were really not enough to restrict the hosts. Sri Lanka finally put up 297/9 at the end of 50 overs.

In reply, Fakhar Zaman and Abid Ali gave a good start and the middle order capitalized on it. All from the top and middle-order contributed to chase down the massive target. After Zaman’s 76 and Ali’s 74, it was Haris Sohail who completed the job at the end. He took the charge in the 42^nd over and scored a 50-ball 56 to take Pakistan to the finishing line. At the end, Iftikhar Ahmed (28) won the match and did the almost unthinkable.

Pakistan won the three-match series 2-0.

Additional T20I to be played between India and South Africa Women

India Women and South Africa Women will play an additional T20I match on Thursday (October 3). This has been arranged by the management to make up for the two abandoned games due to heavy rain. So the series will now be a six-match one, with the final game of the series being played on October 4.

Presently India Women are leading the series 2-0. They won the first match, and then after two washouts went on to win the fourth encounter as well. With two games in hand now, South Africa still have a chance to draw the series if they win the next two games.

Kapil Dev and Anshuman Gaekwad resign from CAC

Former Indian captain Kapil Dev and former Indian opener Anshuman Gaekwad resigned Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) following a conflict of interest issue.

Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) life member Sanjiv Gupta filed a complaint against the trio as the BCCI constitution that suggests no individual can hold more than one post at the same time. According to Gupta, the trio are conflicted of the same. The members were served Conflict of Interest notice by BCCI’s ethics officer DK Jain in September 2019.

Rangaswamy was the first one to give up her role in CAC and ICA as well . Kapil followed her even without revealing any reason. He directly sent an email to the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA). Then hours after Kapil’s resignation, Gaekwad came up with his final call.