Virat Kohli aimed for 3-4 tons in England, was ready to play for India A: Delhi coach
Former India spinner and Delhi's Ranji Trophy coach, Sarandeep Singh, said he was shocked by Virat Kohli's Test retirement, revealing details of his conversation with the star batter during his last red-ball game in New Delhi in February. Sarandeep claimed that Kohli had told him he was keen to perform well in the five-Test series and was prepared to play practice games with the India A team in June.Virat Kohli featured in a Ranji Trophy match for Delhi against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in February, weeks after the disappointing tour of Australia. However, the former captain's announcement of his Test retirement left many stunned. India Today reported that Kohli had informed the BCCI of his decision, but a top board official was trying to persuade the star cricketer to travel to England.Also Read: Test cricket will feel quieter without its gladiatorSarandeep, speaking to JioStar, said Kohli had told him during the Ranji Trophy match that he was eager to shoulder responsibility as a senior batter in the team and score three or four hundreds in England.As it stands, India will be without both Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who also retired from Tests last week. The team will miss two of their most experienced batters during the five-Test series in England, scheduled from 20 June to 4 August."Only he knows the reason (for his retirement). Everyone is shocked," Sarandeep said."There was no sign of it. Neither did I hear from anyone else about this. Look at the way he is performing in the IPL. He is in good form.KOHLI WAS READY TO PLAY FOR INDIA A: SARANDEEP"I asked him if he would play a couple of County Cricket matches before the England tour. He said, 'No Paaji, I am looking to play India A matches. Two India A matches where I will prepare for the Test series.' He had a settled plan. Suddenly, seeing him end his red-ball career is surprising. He doesn't have any fitness issues, no form issues," he said."If you look at the Australia tour, Virat is known for his big runs Down Under. He started with a century and didn't get it. He was not satisfied with it."During the Ranji Trophy, he told me, 'I want to score three or four hundreds in England. I have to take responsibility being the senior batter in the team'," the coach added.Kohli ended his Test career with 9,230 runs in 123 matches. The former captain's average dipped due to a lean patch over the past few years. He managed only three hundreds in the last six years in the longest format of the game.Kohli endured a poor run in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year, scoring 190 runs in five Tests. He began the tour with a century in the series opener in Perth but managed just 85 runs in the remaining four Tests.With both Kohli and Rohit stepping away from the Test arena, India will begin the new cycle of the World Test Championship with a young team. Shubman Gill is reportedly the frontrunner to lead the Test side, while Rishabh Pant might be named his deputy.India are expected to announce their Test squad for the England tour before the fourth week of May. The India A team is scheduled to play three four-day practice matches in England from June 1.
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Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Today South Africa expected to buck trend, snub fairytale-spoilers Australia
For once, Australia might not be able to stop a charming fairy tale from unfolding. This one is about a diminutive black cricketer from the township helping South Africa take a giant leap in the post-apartheid era. At Lord's on Saturday, the team with a history of spoiling many parties and pouring water on planned victory parades could well be dealing with the trauma they regularly inflict on their rivals. On Day 3 of the World Test Championship final, South Africa will be on the cusp of a famous win and the Aussies are very likely to end up as the world's most popular runners-up ever. South Africa, just two wickets down, needs 69 runs to be the second team this century to beat the mighty Aussies in an ICC final. And cheering the overnight unbeaten batsmen – opener Aiden Markram (102) and skipper Temba Bavuma (65) – to go past the target will be a host of jilted international cricketers and their army of traumatized fans, living with the painful memory of watching the Aussies walk away with silverware which they would think was within their grasp. What Germany is to football, Australia is to cricket. Puskas's Hungary, Cruyff's Total Footballers, England's golden generation, Maradona and Messi's Argentina, South Korea and Brazil at home – the world has often wondered how generations of German footballers are born with the knack of adding anti-climatic twists to perfectly flowing Cinderella tales. Akram's Pakistan, Ganguly and Rohit's India, Jayawardene's Sri Lanka, McCullum's New Zealand – to name a few – the Aussies too rarely missed the chance to prick those beautifully floating bubbles over the cricketing skies. The mighty cricketing nation is reputed to write its own scripts where the hare overruns the tortoise and Goliath pins down David. Giving credit where it is due, the famous Aussie consistency, like the fabled German efficiency, is single-handedly responsible for denying the sport many feel-good bedtime stories in different languages and dialects. This time it seems, fingers crossed, they have failed to make the sporting literature poorer. In years to come, kids in South African townships will be told the story of their country's first-ever full-time black captain Bavuma, whose name, in his native Xhosa, means Hope. It can't be anybody but a soothsayer who came up with such an apt name for the 5'4″ cricketing super hero. For a nation still dealing with apartheid era trauma, Temba returning home with its first major ICC trophy would mean so much to so many. A well-balanced mixed team, with no overwhelming intrigue around it, would have delighted the founding fathers of the born-again post-apartheid era South Africa. The sight of Markram and Bavuma – a white former captain and a black present skipper – guiding the team through a tricky chase would have gladdened the divided society used to hearing whispers of racial tensions in the sporting arena. Bavuma's men, in case they win this one, would have done more for the country's two big goals – inclusivity and reconciliation – than what most government initiatives could take years or decades. A title triumph in the game's toughest format would have sky-rocketed the ambitions of the young cricketers growing up in Langa, the black township near Cape Town where Bavuma grew. Not too far back, this used to be a ghetto with non-existent basic amenities. After Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and the subsequent multi-racial election in 1994, Langa saw change. The erstwhile marginalised space with match-box mud huts now has high-rise buildings with satellite discs perched on most balconies. Langa hasn't forgotten its past but it has certainly moved on. At the exact place where 69 black anti-apartheid protesters were killed by police bullets in 1960 is the Sharpeville massacre memorial. During a visit to Langa during India's 2018 tour to South Africa, one could feel the reverence among the locals for the martyrs and an optimism about the new life they gifted them. But Langa was bitter about the outside world's attitude towards their cricket and cricketers. That was the time, Bavuma had been dropped for the India Test in his own backyard – Newlands, Cape Town. Among those at the stadium disappointed by the playing XI selection was Cagew Ezra. He was 65 but looked barely 50. He had been tasked by the Western Province Cricket to develop cricket in black townships. Unofficially, he had kept an eye on Langa's bright young cricketers for ages. He was at the non-striker end, when Bavuma, just 13, came up with his coming-of-age match-winning knock for Langa CC. That day Ezra, a Black, knew Bavuma was special and he would take him under his wings. Passing cricketing wisdom to the next generation happens to be the age-old Langa tradition that Bavuma benefitted from. These timely tutorials by multiple experts shooting the breeze around Langa would make Bavuma change opinions and perceptions in South Africa. He would go on to prove that Black cricketers didn't take up the sport just to bowl at white and coloured players. Bavuma showed that players from townships can bat too. He would become the first black cricketer to score a Test hundred for South Africa. 'Temba is a big role model because every kid feels that I will get there one day,' Ezra would say. Bavuma's big test as a leader came up in the 2021 World T20 tournament where his close friend Quinton de Kock didn't take the knee, the symbolic support for the Black Lives Matter movement. This was a ticking time-bomb, a PR disaster waiting to happen. The world called de Kock's stand insensitive, but Bavuma didn't rush to pass judgement nor was he tongue-tied. 'My beliefs, the way that I see things, is shaped by my own experience and background, and so is the other person's. If there is a disagreement in terms of beliefs, in terms of views, that's why we have those hard conversations. Through those conversations, we will be able to get the comfort to accept the other person's decision. I can't force anyone to see things the way I do, neither can they force me to,' he would say. That day Bavuma rose in stature, from a shrewd captain he became a statesman. What he lacked to be hailed as a true leader was a Cup. On Saturday, he could tick that box too. Fingers crossed, this story is too good to have a tragic end.
News18
an hour ago
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Sourav Ganguly Slams Shreyas Iyer's Omission From India's Test Squad
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Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Shubman Gill starts India captaincy journey with sparkling knock, KL Rahul hits fifty in India vs India A match
Ever since he landed in England a little more than a week ago, KL Rahul has been in red-hot form with the bat. continued his rich vein of form. After hitting 116 and 51 for India A against England Lions in the second practice match at Northampton, Rahul took another giant step in his preparation for the five-match Test series against England by hitting a half-century in the India vs India A intra-squad warm-up match at Beckenham on Friday. The four-day warm-up match, which does not have first-class status, is India's last chance of getting a match-like feel before the Test series next week. The Indian team management decided to keep it a closed-door affair, restricting any broadcaster and media personnel at the venue. The only updates from the match came from the social media handles of BCCI after the close of play. Apart from Rahul's fifty, the biggest silver lining for India was the new captain Shubman Gill's positive performance. Just like Rahul, Gill also scored a half-century while all-rounder Shardul Thakur, who is fighting with Nitish Kumar Reddy for a spot in the XI, picked up wickets. "Beckenham. A solid Opening Day in the Intra-Squad game! Half-centuries for KL Rahul & Captain Shubman Gill. Shardul Thakur amongst the wickets," posted BCCI. Gill, who has a poor average of 14.66 in England and has scored just 88 runs in six innings across three matches here with a best score of 28, will take plenty of confidence from his knock. Thakur, who scored knocks of 27 (in first unofficial Test) and 19 and 34 (in the second unofficial Test) against England Lions and also took two wickets against them, also got some valuable game time as he battles a young Nitish Kumar Reddy for the spot of a pace-bowling all-rounder in the team. India's first Test against England at Leeds from June 20 will mark the start of a new era under newly-appointed captain Shubman Gill, as he aims to lead a new-look team to glory following the retirements of stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli from Tests and Ravichandran Ashwin from international cricket. The series will be held from June to August 2025, with matches scheduled at Headingley in Leeds, Edgbaston in Birmingham, Lord's and The Oval in London, and Old Trafford in Manchester. India's Test squad for England series: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
