The Indian cricket team flew to Sydney and preferred to spent the day indoors even as there was intense speculation over Mahendra Singh Dhoni's decision to quit the Test format with immediate effect, which surprised the cricket fraternity.
India needs to get the team composition right in the third and final Twenty20 International to prevent South Africa from recording a clean sweep, in Kolkata, on Thursday.
Crediting India's emphatic win over arch-rivals Pakistan in the World Cup to Mahendra Singh Dhoni's mature captaincy, Kapil Dev has said the Indian skipper used his experience really well and was spot on with field placements.
Currently, Kohli has 13 brands under his belt.
'I played around 140 matches for RCB, but I received no proper communication from them.'
Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said he was happy that the likes of Yuvraj Singh came good in the match. "I think consistent performance is very important. In the last 9-10 T20s we have played, we have done well. It was good to see a few of the others contributing as well," he said. "Yuvraj Singh's innings was crucial, not just for this match but for the team as well, good to see him get into some good form," Dhoni added. Asked about the pitch, he said, "Today's wicket was harder than some of the other wickets, but it was still a little soft, which allows the ball to grip and move around.
Virat Kohli's unbeaten 56 off 47 balls, Yuvraj Singh's explosive 35 off 18 balls and a clinical bowling performance helped India edge out Sri Lanka by five wickets to storm into the final of Asia Cup. Kohli also equalled the record of Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum of most number of 50's in T20 cricket.
An "emotional" and "overwhelmed" Virat Kohli has termed his exceptional 82-run knock against Australia as his best in Twenty20 internationals.
India's ODI squad against Australia announced; squads for New Zealand tour declared
Former Australia pacer Geoff Lawson has heaped praise on in-form India's Test captain Virat Kohli, saying the star batsman is "arguably the number one batsman in the world". "Kohli at the moment, is arguably the number one batsman in the world. He is in the form of his life. I was impressed with him when I saw him on the first tour to Australia (in 2011-12)," Lawson told reporters in Mumbai on Saturday. "He was (among) the few Indian batsmen who took on the challenge of playing on the bouncy Australian wickets," said the former Australia fast bowler, who is on a short coaching sting at the Payyade Sports Club in suburban Kandivili.
aptain Virat Kohli and premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, were both called back into a full-strength Indian squad, while Dinesh Karthik was left out of the five-match ODI series against Australia, starting in Visakhapatnam, on February 24.
Virat Kohli has had a modest World Cup so far.
So here is why India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is our player of the day!
Ajinkya Rahane was chosen as captain of the depleted Indian team for the limited overs tour to Zimbabwe next month as the selectors decided to rest several seniors including Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli.
India's limited overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who remains a sought after personality in the endorsement world despite his retirement from Tests, has been duped by one of the many brands he endorses -- Spartan Sports -- of over Rs 20 crore. It has been reliably learnt that a three-year bat and sponsorship deal worth Rs 13 crore has gone sour with Australia-based Spartan Sports, a sporting gear and equipment company, regularly defaulting on payments. With the royalty clause on Dhoni's bat deal included, the owed amount goes well over Rs 20 crore.
Images from the first ODI between India and the West Indies in Guwahati.
Virat Kohli hit an unbeaten 154 to make short work of a seemingly steep target as India beat New Zealand by seven wickets in the third one-day international in Mohali to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series on Sunday.
Ahead of the start of India's 3-match T20I series against New Zealand, Hardik Pandya and his mates -- Washington Sundar, Umran Malik, Shreyas Iyer, Arshdeep Singh, Shardul Thakur -- were spotted shirtless -- much like what Salman Khan used to do in the late 1990s and early 2000s -- at a lovely beach.
He finished the decade with 20,960 international runs -- 5,775 more than anybody else -- and 69 hundreds -- 22 more than anybody else. This is a player performing at an extraordinarily high all-format level unseen in the history of cricket.
As the 16th edition of the glitzy Indian Premier League is set to unfold, let's take a look at the driving force of the T20 league and what's in store in this edition.
After guiding India to a convincing six-wicket win over Bangladesh in their Asia Cup opener captain Virat Kolhi credited his success to his dad.
Dhoni on Monday became the co-owner of Chennaiyin FC, one of the eight franchise of Indian Super League.
Former pace bowler Ajit Agarkar said that the biggest challenge for new India captain Rohit Sharma will be to maintain his fitness and play every game till next year's ODI World Cup.
No one was disturbing Mahendra Singh Dhoni, neither did he care about anything else. He just kept on staring at the MCG wicket.
Pakistan's flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi says that Virat Kohli was "too emotional" as a leader and it will take him some time to fill in the captaincy void left by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's retirement from Test cricket.
Rohit Sharma-led India's main aim would be to settle their middle-order combination and also find a perfect batting position for Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The rumoured differences, drama and intrigue seemed to have taken a backseat as coach Anil Kumble gave skipper Virat Kohli throwdowns during the Indian cricket team's indoor net session in Birmingham on Friday.
Having tried quite a few permutations and combinations in the two losses so far, the Indian think-tank seems to have settled for Virat Kohli at the No.4 position to hit the right balance and stay alive in the ongoing tri-series.
Left surprised by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's retirement from Test cricket, Australian vice-captain Brad Haddin termed the former India captain a "true gentleman" of the game.
Former Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist on Monday offerred his support behind Virat Kohli following India's heart-wrenching defeat against Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final, saying that the Indian captain, whose transition has been excellent in the recent years, should not be judged on the basis of performance in just one game.
The Trent Bridge Triumph was India's second biggest win against England in England. Rajneesh Gupta serves up the interesting numbers from the third Test.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead the Indian team for the limited overs tour of Zimbabwe starting June 11, while top stars like Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane have been rested.
Indian batting mainstay Virat Kohli said the Asia Cup starting in Mirpur, on Wednesday, is a perfect platform to assess the team's strengths, weaknesses and its current standing on the global stage ahead of the big-ticket World Twenty20 next month.
Kohli warned that youngsters will have mental problems if they don't embrace the pristine form of five-day cricket.
Former Team Director of the Indian cricket team Ravi Shastri made it clear that had he been the chairman of selectors, he would have thought about making "Virat Kohli the captain in all three formats" and let Mahendra Singh Dhoni "enjoy his game". Asked if he feels that Kohli is ready for leading across all formats, Shastri told India Today channel: "If I am the chairman of selectors, I would be thinking in that fashion, absolutely. It is it time to start thinking. You have to see India has no major event in three years till 2019 World Cup. This is your best chance to think and build." Shastri also made it clear that Dhoni can still contribute as a player. "By no stretch of imagination, you are taking anything away from MS. He can still contribute massively as a player. Time has come to allow him to enjoy himself, enjoy the game. It also depends on how much hungry MS is, how passionate he is, whether the juices are still flowing. It's a Catch-22 situation but you have to take hard decisions."
Captain MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli gave India a slender chance of coming back into the game after a fight back. But England struck late to level their chances as well. Here are the statistical highlights of the third day's play of the fourth Test between India and England played in Nagpur on Saturday.
Chennai Super Kings cruised to a comfortable eight-wicket victory over an out-of-sorts Royal Challengers Bangalore to strengthen their second place in the seventh edition of the IPL at the Eden Gardens on Saturday.
However, if aggression was the buzzword during the Australia Tests, the Kohli that was on show against Pakistan was a different version, a restrained one, and if one may say, after the Border-Gavaskar series, possibly a more matured one.
A desperate India seek to restore parity against South Africa and remain consequential in the World Test Championship.
'Rishabh Pant must have gone through tough times because of the expectations on him.' 'It is not always easy to step into the shoes of a legendary cricketer.'
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