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‘Players don’t run on petrol!’: Ravi Shastri hands out ominous warning for cricket boards, ICC

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‘Players don’t run on petrol!’: Ravi Shastri hands out ominous warning for cricket boards, ICC

Ravi Shastri, the outgoing head coach of the Indian team, warned that if cricket committees and the International Cricket Committee (ICC) around the world do not address their mental fatigue, cricketers may choose to withdraw from international commitments. Shastri talked about the loss of the “mental and physical” of the Indian players after playing in the biosecurity bubble in the past six months. India failed to qualify for the knockout stage of the T20 World Cup.

The 59-year-old said that the poor performance of the Indian team in the 2021 T20 World Cup was partly due to exhaustion due to the prolonged biosecurity bubble. “I won’t make excuses, but we have been living in a biosecurity bubble for the past six months. Ideally, we want a bigger gap between the IPL and the World Cup.

These are all human beings, and they didn’t come on!” Terry said on Star Sports before India’s last Super 12 game against Namibia that they won with 9 wickets. “I am mentally exhausted and I hope to be at my age, but these people need to rest to recover from physical and mental fatigue,” he further added. Shastri insisted that the current Indian team is a “victorious team”, right The lack of attention to players’ mental health may hinder the team’s progress.

“All cricket boards and ICCs need to consider how they will deal with the mental fatigue of the players. Because after a period of time, if we continue to play in such a bubble, you will see players start to withdraw from future series. You can do Make a change and let young people fill it, but in the end, India is playing and people will remember it. Let me tell you that this Indian team is a winning team,” Shastri said.

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The coach said that the Indian team’s X-Factor was gone, and due to fatigue, the team did not “turn on” as it should. “When an important game comes, when the pressure hits you-you are not as energetic as you should be. This is not an excuse. We accept failure because we are not afraid of failure. Because in the process of trying to win, you will Lost a game. Here we did not try to win because of the lack of the X factor,” he said.

News Source : Hindustan Times

Cricket

KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

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KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe

VVS Laxman went through the first half of his illustrious 15-and-a-half-year international career with the proverbial axe hanging over him. Despite his magical stroke-play and a well-founded reputation for rallying the lower order to bat above itself, he was forever the first name that sprang to the decision-makers’ minds when they had to drop someone to accommodate someone else. It wasn’t until the second half of his stint with the national team that he had ‘job security’, which automatically manifested itself in an array of glorious, match-turning knocks and earmarked him as one for a crisis.

KL Rahul is now dangerously close to approaching the Laxman territory, though at least in this instance, a case can be made out, perhaps, for why he often seems to be playing for his place. Almost a decade after his Test debut in Australia in December 2014, he has yet to nail down a permanent spot, a result of glaring inconsistency and repeated dalliances with injuries that have left him with a modest average of 33.87 from 53 Test appearances.

Unlike Laxman, who was thrust to the opener’s position for three years from 1997, successive team managements have worked overtime to create space for Rahul. He started off in the middle order in Melbourne against Australia, opened in the next Test in Sydney when he made a sparkling century, continued in that position for a good nine years – around the large pockets when either injuries or lack of form relegated him to the sidelines – and now seems to have found his calling in the middle order, where he was tried out in an almost last throw of the dice in South Africa last December.

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In his limited time at the No. 6 position, Rahul has been a revelation. On a spiteful surface in Centurion in his first innings back in the middle order, the classy right-hander made a marvellous 101 – Virat Kohli’s 38 was the next highest score – in India’s 245 all out. Two Tests later, against England in Hyderabad, he waltzed to 86 of the best until a hamstring strain kept him out of the last four Tests.

On his comeback last month against Bangladesh, Rahul showed why he is rated so highly, and therefore why he so frustrates when he chooses to shackle himself mentally, with uninhibited shot-making when India were pressing for a declaration (Chennai) and looking to make up for lost time with a frenetic batting approach (Kanpur) in the two Tests. Kanpur was especially mesmeric, 68 flowing off his bat in a mere 43 deliveries. It was the best of Rahul.

Axe hangs over Rahul’s head for India vs New Zealand 2nd Test

And yet here we are, two innings later, wondering whether he will, or should, feature in the playing XI in Pune, where India take on New Zealand in a must-win second Test from Thursday.

Shubman Gill, him of three centuries in his last six Tests, missed the Bengaluru defeat to the Kiwis with a stiff neck. Replacement batter Sarfaraz Khan made the most of own good fortune with a delectable 150, which makes it near impossible to drop him now that Gill is fully fit. To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula which has worked beautifully in the last few years, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe.

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One of the few men to have led India in all three formats internationally, Rahul didn’t help his cause with scores of 0 and 12 at his home ground, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the first innings, he was strangled down leg-side by William O’Rourke while in the second, he received a peach from the same paceman operating with the second new ball and was again caught behind. Rahul was one of 11 failures in India’s first-innings 46 and one of seven wickets to fall in 93 deliveries to the second new cherry, but failures past and the logjam created by Gill’s availability have combined to identify him as the most susceptible to the axe.

It’s a cross impossible to bear, but also impossible to ignore just because it is so heavy, so overarching. Rahul is beyond gifted and makes batting appear oh-so-simple, but his struggles to embrace sustained run-making can’t be wished away. He is the eternal team man, much like his celebrated namesake also from Karnataka – both kept wickets admirably in 50-over World Cups 21 years apart, both made attractive and impactful runs during the tournament and both tasted bitter defeat at the hands of Australia in the final – but ‘eternal team man’ can sometimes be an euphemism for the ‘most dispensable’ and Rahul can be excused for thinking that those two lines have blurred beyond repair. Of course, if he is brutally honest to himself, he will acknowledge at least to himself that he too must bear culpability for the blurring of the lines.

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