Mumbai Indians will be without the services of veteran Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga for at least their first six matches of the Indian Premier League, starting Saturday. Malinga has made himself unavailable for the team's first six matches as he will be participating in Sri Lanka's Super Provincial One-Day domestic tournament in a bid to make it to the WC team.
Virat Kohli will soon be seen wearing No 18 on his white flannels as the ICC has allowed Test-playing nations to have the players sport their names and numbers on their jerseys. This move is aimed at popularising the longest format of the game. The English county & Australian state sides are used to wearing whites with names and numbers on the back.
Indian men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty has pulled out of the India Open to provide themselves more time to achieve full fitness and hit top form ahead of the Tokyo Olympic qualification.
With Satwik suffering a shoulder injury late last year, the Indian duo had to skip the tournaments in Malaysia, Indonesia and All England.
"One man doesn't win the IPL," Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming said Friday, differing with Gautam Gambhir's viewpoint that one can't say Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the same breath, as India's captain has not won the tournament. Former India opener Gambhir, who led Kolkata Knight Riders to two IPL trophies in 2012 and 2014.