The T20 World Cup is not too far away, and the Indian selectors would have begun shortlisting the probable 15. T20 brings forth a unique skill set of players who need not be labeled as orthodox players in cricketing parlance. Moreover, it involves fast adaptation to the shorter version of the three formats.

Indian selectors generally choose the top 25 and filter it down to 15.

There has been a big crowd of Indian players recently, and the bench strength is strengthening up day by day.

Kheltalk.com has analyzed the present crop of players and separated the wheat from the chafe.

Here are five players who may never be chosen to play in the upcoming T20 World Cup.
1. Axar Patel:

With the way Axar Patel entered the Test arena against the visiting English team, he was an automatic choice for the upcoming ODi’s and T20″s.

Good luck, which ran along with him in the tests, slowed down as he was taken to the cleaners by the English Batsman. He was dropped immediately by Virat &co. He is yet to appear in the IPL too. His chances took another wrong turn as Ravi Jadeja is back after his thumb injury. Axar may not even make it to the probable fifteen. But who knows? If luck accompanies him, he may be back.

2. Rahul Tewatia:

None expected this all-rounder to perform the way he did in the UAE IPL. AB DE Villiers and Jos Butler could only equal his reverse sweeps and switch hits. Rahul played winning knocks and earned his selection in the T20 matches against England. Unfortunately, he warned the benches once again as he did in his initial days at the IPL. Much depends on this IPL for him to be in the playing XI for the world cup. He would make it to the fifteen for sure, but uncertainty in the playing XI.

3. Shardul Thakur:

If there is one player in the Indian Circuit who is the most hardworking, it has to be Shardul Thakur. He does take wickets but also gets hit. He bats down the order but inevitably has no time to settle down.  To top all this, he has to compete against Bumrah, Shami, Siraj, and Natrajan. Virat Kohli backs him up a bit, which could work in his favor if one of the four pacers fails. Otherwise, he has to wait for better days.

4. Navdeep Saini:

Saini’s luck was in full force when he was chosen to play for India Down Under in Australia. Saini never lived up to even 20 percent of the expectations of his captain and team. Despite repeated chances, he failed and made way for Siraj and Natrajan, who took the opportunity with both hands.  With the initial pace attack back, and the newbie’s performing well, Saini has to climb more than a mountain or two to find a place in the playing XI.

5. Ishan Kishan:

Ishan gave massive confidence in his first match against England but succumbed to paltry scores in the subsequent ones. The exit door was there, and he took it. Predictions were there he would find his form in the IPL, but his dismal form continues. On the other hand, his teammate Surya Kumar Yadav continues his success, and Shikar Dhawan has found his form. Ishan Kishan could consider himself lucky if he gets chosen in the fifteen, but his chances of playing a match in the world cup are almost zero.

The post Five Indian Players Who Might Not Find A Place In The 2021 T20 World Cup Squad appeared first on RVCJ Media.

Jimmy Neesham, the New Zealand player, is one of those few cricketers who are pretty active on the social media networks and interact with their fans and followers on a regular basis. Jimmy was also the part of the New Zealand team which played and lost the World Cup 2019 final against England. It was certainly one of the best matches of the cricket history as both the teams gave their everything in desperation to win the World Cup trophy and it ended up as one of the most heart wrenching moments for the Kiwi cricketers.

It was a low scoring One Day International match as both the teams managed to score 241 runs because of which the match went into Super Over. In the super over, England batted first and gave a target of 16 runs to New Zealanders in one over. Jimmy Neesham played the first five balls and scored 14 runs of Jofra Archer and on the last ball, Kiwis had to score 2 runs to win the match.

Martin Guptill played the last ball and both the batsmen ran for 2 runs but Guptill missed the crease with few inches and the super over also ended up in a tie. The decision of the winner was taken by boundary-count rule as per which the team which has scored more fours in the match is the winner. The trophy was taken home by England as they had hit six fours more than the Kiwis.

Jimmy Neesham was very hurt that day and he went on to ask kids not to take up sports in life. The cricket lovers keep on talking about that WC 2019 final and recently a Twitter user talked about that match, stating that things would have been different if Jimmy Neesham had been on the strike on the last ball.

The user tweeted, “I still wish how Neesham had finished WC final after smashing archer for a six which led equation came down to 7 off 4”.

I still wish how neesham had finished wc final after smashing archer for a six which led equation came down to 7 off 4

— Deepak Kumar (@yash1234556) May 9, 2021

Jimmy who is already very tired of talking about that game also noticed the tweet and responded with, “Just one day off would be nice”.

Just one day off would be nice https://t.co/v3MDpqy2ih

— Jimmy Neesham (@JimmyNeesh) May 9, 2021

Well, it is kind of obvious that talking about that loss must be painful for Jimmy Neesham so fans should also understand his feelings and stop talking about it.

The post Jimmy Neesham Responds To Fan Who Reminds Him Of Painful 2019 WC Final Against England appeared first on RVCJ Media.

India is fighting against the second wave of COVID-19 at the moment and in majority of the states, lockdown has been imposed by the state governments. Moreover, the biggest cricket extravaganza IPL 2021 also got postponed after some players and staff members tested COVID-19 positive. The Aussie cricketer Pat Cummins was showered with love and affection by the Indians after he donated $50K for COVID-19 crisis which India is facing. Recently he found himself in a funny situation because of the goof-up that he made while posting a tweet.

It so happened that Pat Cummins took part in a YouTube show Players Lounge in which he interacted with one of the most famous female sports presenters of India, Mayanti Langer Binny. However while posting a tweet about the show, Pat Cummins made a mistake of tagging the Indian cricketer Mayank Agarwal instead of Mayanti Langer.

The Australian cricketer tweeted, “Good fun chatting to @mayankcricket and @Swannyg66 on the Players Lounge Podcast a couple of weeks back!”

Good fun chatting to @mayankcricket and @Swannyg66 on the Players Lounge Podcast a couple of weeks back! https://t.co/elURWhdx4v

— Pat Cummins (@patcummins30) May 9, 2021

Mayank Agarwal was quick to respond to the goof-up as he wrote, “@patcummins30 You got the wrong person Pat”.

@patcummins30 You got the wrong person Pat

— Mayank Agarwal (@mayankcricket) May 9, 2021

Later on Mayanti Langer also responded with “epic” and some laughing emoticons.

#epic

— Mayanti Langer Binny (@MayantiLanger_B) May 9, 2021

During the interaction, Pat Cummins talked about his experience of playing with the Indian pacers such as Shivam Mavi and Prasidh Krishna. He said that KKR has a great set-up and the group is quite chilled and relaxed. He also praised the young Indian pacers who are a part of KKR and have got the chance to play at the international level just after playing the under-19 level. While Pat Cummins is like mentor to all the young Indian pacers, the Aussie pacer feels that he can learn more from the youngsters than what the youngsters can learn from him.

Mayanti Langer

Pat Cummins has had a reasonable IPL 2021 with both the bat and the ball. He is still not able to return to his country and is stuck in Maldives because of the travel ban imposed by the Australian government till May 15.

However, the good news is that he is going to become father by spring as his long time girlfriend Becky Boston is pregnant and she shared the good news on her Instagram handle in which she posted the photo of her baby bump. She captioned the post, “I can’t hide this happiness any longer!! Baby Boston Cummins will be joining us in Spring we are SO excited to meet you!!! @patcummins30”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Becky Boston (@becky_boston)

Congratulations to the couple!

The post Pat Cummins Tags Mayank Agarwal Instead Of Mayanti Langer In This Tweet, Mayank Agarwal Reacts appeared first on RVCJ Media.

The coronavirus pandemic may have played a role in the indefinite postponement of the IPL 2021 but the international cricket series is being played in full swing. The Pakistan cricket team is on the tour to Zimbabwe and after winning the 3-match T20I series by 2-1, it has now also won the 2-match test series by 2-0. Though the hosts showed some fight in the T20I series, both the test matches were one-sided as Pakistan did not even need to bat the second time and Zimbabwe had to take follow-on in both the test matches.

When the second test match between Pakistan and Zimbabwe was in progress and the former seemed to be in a strong position, the former Pakistani cricketer Ramiz Raja posted a video on his YouTube channel in which he said that the two match test series between Pakistan and Zimbabwe was very poor advertisement of the longest format of the game.

According to Ramiz Raja who has now become a commentator, some people are of the opinion that when a weak team plays against a strong team, what matters is the lessons that the weak team learns rather than the result of the game. Ramiz further adds that he feels Zimbabwe hasn’t learnt anything from this test series as they were continuously dominated by the Pakistani cricket team and Zimbabwe’s batting performance was very poor in both the test matches.

Ramiz said that such mismatch series should be avoided because already the test cricket is struggling to get audiences and if they are shown such one-sided games, they will certainly choose to watch football or any other game. Ramiz Raja states that the test matches which end in 3 days are a joke, adding that Zimbabwe should stop playing test cricket for some time and focus on shorter formats as of now.

Ramiz Raja also talked about the Zimbabwe side of 1992 and said that the Zimbabwean team was pretty competitive at that time with 3-4 players of the world-class level but the things are very different now as not only the game but the system has also declined to a great extent.

Do you agree with Ramiz Raja? What are your views in this connection?

The post Ramiz Raja Disappointed With Zim-Pak Test Series, Says “Such One-Sided Matches Are A Joke” appeared first on RVCJ Media.

Royal Challengers Bangalore was having a great time in the IPL 2021 with 5 wins and 2 defeats in the 7 matches that it has played and one of the biggest reasons for this superb performance of RCB is the South African legend AB de Villiers.

AB de Villiers has taken retirement from the international cricket almost 3 years ago but the manner in which he has played in the IPL 2021, it is quite clear that a lot cricket is still remaining in this 37 years old cricketer. ABD scored 3 fifties and what made him stand apart from everyone was the fact that he batted beautifully at the slow and tricky surface of Chepauk where many other batsmen were finding it difficult to score runs. Hopefully, ABD will be back in the South African cricket team for the series against West Indies which will take place before the ICC T20I World Cup.

The former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag who was also known for his destructive batting style was all praises for AB de Villiers in an interview which he gave recently. According to Viru Paaji, AB de Villiers will always be known as Mr. 360 degree, in fact it may happen that people may forget his real name but they will always remember him as Mr. 360 degree. Sehwag further states that Mr. 360 degree is pretty good name and there is no need of coming up with another name for him.

Viru then referred to an incident that happened in the match which RCB played against Delhi Capitals. He said that when ABD left few deliveries of Marcus Stoinus which were outside off-stump, he came to realise that he left a wrong delivery. Sehwag said that on the next ball, ABD moved towards the off-stump as he was expecting a similar delivery but it was a short-pitched delivery which ABD hit for the maximum.

Sehwag says that only AB de Villiers has the talent to do such thing, if there had been any other batsman, he would have either got out or ducked the ball and this is why Mr. 360 degree is the perfect name for ABD.

Viru was talking about the match in which ABD scored 75 runs in 42 balls including 23 runs in the last over of Marcus Stoinis and helped his team in winning the match against DC.

Sehwag is certainly right about ABD. What do you say?

The post Sehwag Can’t Stop Praising AB De Villiers, Calls Him Mr. 360 Degree For His Unusual Talent appeared first on RVCJ Media.

The Indian cricket team is certainly one of the strongest teams of the cricket world and what makes it stand apart from other cricketing nations is its bench strength. The world got the chance of seeing India’s bench strength in the four match test series that was played between India and Australia last year in which India defeated the hosts by 2-1.

The Australian tour took place just after the IPL 2020 which was held in UAE due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Indian side may have lost the ODI series but won the T20I series and made history by retaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Before the beginning of the test series, many cricketing experts predicted that Australia would easily clean sweep the series and their confidence further increased after India suffered a humiliating defeat in the first test match which was played at Adelaide. The problems for India were going to increase further as India’s best test batsman and skipper Virat Kohli went on paternity leave after the first test match.

However, the Australian team and the cricket experts got the shock of their lifetime when the Indian side under the leadership of Ajinkya Rahane defeated the Australian team in the second test match which was played at Melbourne. Injuries were also a concern for the Indian squad and this was the time when the Indian youngsters rose to the situation and proved themselves when the opportunity was given to them. Despite the fact that the Aussies had a upper hand for almost first four days in the third test match which was played at Sydney, the Indians managed to draw it with the help of courageous and determined batting performance by the Indian batsmen, especially R Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari.

The fourth test match was played at Brisbane, Gabba, where the Australians were invincible for the last 33 years and injuries further increased the problems for the Indian camp. However, the less-experienced Indian team emerged as winner and not only won the test series but also broke the record of the Aussies at Gabba.

Recently during a show which was hosted by Mark Vaughan and Brendon Julian, the former England cricketer Michael Vaughan and the former Aussie cricketer and current coach of Australian team Justin Langer were asked to give their opinion on the test series which took place between the two super-powers of the cricket world.

Michael Vaughan took this is as an opportunity to troll Justin Langer as he said, “There’s no shame in losing to India’s 3^rd XI”. Justin Langer was in no mood to take it lightly and said that everybody makes fun like Vaughan about losing to India’s 2^nd or 3^rd playing XI but the real truth is that a team will be pretty strong if it is from a nation that has a population of one and half a billion and who love cricket a lot.

He stated that there will be very good players who will leave no chance of showing their talent when they are given the opportunity. Langer added that the Indian youngsters were very talented and fierce and unluckily, the Australian team was on the wrong side of the ledger.

We certainly agree with Justin Langer! What about you?

The post Michael Vaughan Trolls Justin Langer For Losing To India’s 3rd XI, Justin Langer Gives An Apt Reply appeared first on RVCJ Media.

The IPL 2021 had been going pretty good for Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore as it was on the third spot with 5 wins and 2 defeats in the 7 matches that it played before the tournament got postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact in this season, there was a time when RCB was at the top of the points table which is something very unusual and it increased the hopes of RCB fans manifold as they felt that their favourite team will definitely win its first IPL title this year.

However after some players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had to take the difficult decision of postponing the IPL 2021.

The former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan expressed his opinion over the effect of postponement of the IPL 2021 on the RCB fans as the team was playing pretty good and it felt as if they would make their slogan, “Ee Sala Cup Namde” (this time cup is ours) come true this time.

Irfan Pathan said that the team was performing well, their star players AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell were playing well and the bowling was also superb. He added that if we take a look from the point of view of the fans, they would be disappointed as this season was going good and they must be expecting their team to win the IPL this time.

Irfan also praised Virat Kohli and said that this time Virat Kohli as a skipper must be happier than Virat Kohli as a batsman as his team responded in a brilliant manner and the combination of Virat Kohli and Mike Hesson worked pretty well for the team in the auctions.

Mike Hesson is the Director of Cricket Operations of Bangalore and it won’t be wrong to say that RCB pulled all the right plugs in the auctions, for example they bought Glenn Maxwell despite his dismal performance in the IPL 2020 and Maxwell justified their faith by performing well in the IPL 2021.

Irfan also said that RCB took some good decisions while trading as well as they not only managed to trade Harshal Patel but also Daniel Sams. However, Daniel Sams didn’t come handy as he was purchased keeping in mind that he would be useful if the team got the chance to play in Bengaluru.

Undoubtedly, RCB fans must be upset.

The post Irfan Pathan Talks About How RCB Fans’ Hope Of “Ee Sala Cup Namde” Crushed After IPL Postponement appeared first on RVCJ Media.