KL Rahul‘s presence behind the stumps during the ODI World Cup gave the Indian team the balance but the stylish Karnataka right-hander is unlikely to don the big gloves in white-ball cricket going forward. The national selection committee is expected to meet on January 19, a day after the Vijay Hazare Trophy final, to select the 15-member provisional squad for the Champions Trophy and there will be some debate on two fringe selections – the second keeper’s slot and the wrist spinner in case Kuldeep Yadav fails to get fit in time.

In the case of keeper’s slot, Rishabh Pant is the first choice by a country mile but the second keeper’s slot could be a three-way fight between Dhruv Jurel, Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan. As of now, it looks like Jurel could win the battle.

Samson could lose out as he decided to skip the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Kishan played 27 ODIs to score 933 runs at an average of 42-plus with a double hundred and seven half-centuries to show for his efforts.

But he has fallen a bit out of favour with the current selection committee after skipping domestic cricket last year, which led to him losing his BCCI annual central contract.

Kishan has had a modest Vijay Hazare Trophy where he scored 316 runs in seven games with a single hundred against one of the NE states.

While Kishan was a part of the World Cup squad, young UP and Rajasthan Royals man Jurel has impressed one and all and could certainly walk in as the second keeper.

Jurel has been kept in the T20 squad for England also as Sanju Samson’s understudy. While he has made his T20I debut in Zimbabwe, his selection in the shortest format is significant as the selection committee, led by Ajit Agarkar, seemed to be keen on keeping him in the white-ball scheme of things.

It is understood that going forward, Pant and Jurel could be one and two for India in Tests and ODIs, while Samson is believed to be only suited for the T20 version where he has scored three centuries in the fag end of 2024.

Bishnoi vs Varun

Kuldeep Yadav is slated to appear for a fitness test and match simulation soon but Tamil Nadu’s Varun Chakravarthy, with 18 wickets in six games, and Gujarat’s Ravi Bishnoi with 14 wickets from six games are both in contention having shown their wares in T20Is for India.

Varun has two five-wicket hauls for Tamil Nadu and has taken his wickets at an economy rate of 4.36. But his ability to bowl on flat decks at the Dubai Stadium is still a point of debate. Besides, his fielding, which is not exactly international standard, is some sort of a liability at the international level.

Bishnoi, who mostly bowls googlies, was very impressive as he went at an economy rate of 3.64 during the VHT campaign. Add to it, he has a very powerful arm, can field anywhere in the deep and is a fantastic catcher.

While Chakravarthy has played under Gautam Gambhir at KKR, Bishnoi has also turned up under India’s head coach during his time at the Lucknow Super Giants. 

Ruturaj Gaikwad’s whirlwind 148 not out powered Maharashtra to a nine-wicket win over Services, while all-round show from Utkarsh Singh and a fine 134 from Ishan Kishan highlighted Jharkhand’s eight-wicket win against Manipur in Vijay Hazare Trophy on Monday. Gaikwad struck 11 sixes and 16 fours during his 74-ball knock as Maharashtra scored 205 for one in reply to Services’ 204 all-out in 48 overs. For Maharashtra, Pradeep Dhade (3/38) and Satyajeet Bachhav (3/36) were the pick among the bowlers in their Group B contest here at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy.

Kishan, Utkarsh shine in Jharkhand win

In Jaipur, India wicketkeeper-batter Kishan blasted a 78-ball 134 with 16 fours and six sixes, while Utkarsh produced an all-round effort, returning 6-1-21-2 in the first innings and scoring 68 off 64 balls with nine fours and a six.

Jharkhand defeated Manipur by eight wickets in their second round game in Jaipur’s Dr Soni Stadium.

Mumbai scrape to win by three wickets

Atharva Ankolekar (4/55) snapped four wickets, while Tanush Kotian, who received a call-up to join the Indian squad for the reminder of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, took 2 for 38 and scored a vital 39 as Mumbai scraped to a win over Hyderabad in their Group C match in Ahmedabad on Monday.

Tanmay Agarwal’s 64 (74 balls, 9x4s, 1x6s) and Aravelly Avinash’s 52 (47 balls, 6x4s, 3x6s) were not enough as Hyderabad were bowled out for just 169 in 38.1 overs.

In reply, Kotian’s 39 and Shreyas Iyer’s quickfire 20-ball 44 (4x4s, 3x6s) were crucial as Mumbai got over the line, scoring 175 for seven in 25.2 overs.

Saini, Shokeen shine in Delhi’s win 

India bowler Navdeep Saini took 4 for 37 from his seven overs, while Hrithik Shokeen returned a tight spell of 8.1-1-26-3 as Delhi recorded a comprehensive 79-run win against Madhya Pradesh in their Group E match in Hyderabad.

Delhi were shot out for 211 in 48.4 overs with Anuj Rawat top-scoring with 78 from 103 balls, hitting eight fours and two sixes.

Surbhanshu Senapati hit 55 from 72 balls with nine fours while Harsh Gawli scored 42 but Madhya Pradesh were bowled out for a mere 132 in 37.1 overs.

Baroda beat Kerala in high-scoring contest

Baroda registered a 62-run win over Kerala in a high-scoring Group E match at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad.

Ninad Rathva hit 136 off 99 balls with 19 fours and three sixes, Parth Kohli smashed 72 off 87 balls with three sixes and four each while skipper Krunal Pandya hammered seven fours and three sixes during his 80 off 54 balls as Baroda posted a mammoth 403.

In reply, Rohan Kunnumal (65), Ahammed Imran (51) and Mohammed Azharuddeen (104 off 58 balls, 8x4s, 7x6s) tried their best before Kerala were dismissed for 341 as Baroda walked away with a win.

Brief scores:

At Mumbai: Services 204 in 48 overs (Mohit Ahlawat 61; Pradeep Dadhe 3/38, Satyajeet Bachhav 3/36) lost to Maharashtra 205/1 in 20.2 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 148*) by 9 wickets.

At Jaipur: Manipur 253/7 in 50 overs (Johnson Singh 69; Utkarsh Singh 2/21, Anukul Roy 2/47) lost to Jharkhand 255/2 in 28.3 overs (Ishan Kishan 134, Utkarsh Singh 68) by 8 wickets.

At Ahmedabad: Hyderabad 169 in 38.1 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 64, Aravelly Avinash 52; Atharva Ankolekar 4/55, Tanush Kotian 2/38, Ayush Mhatre 3/17) lost to Mumbai 175/7 in 25.2 overs (Tanush Kotian 39*, Shreyas Iyer 44*; Saranu Nishanth 3/42, Mohammad Muddasir 2/55) by 3 wickets.

At Hyderabad: Delhi 211 in 48.4 overs (Anuj Rawat 78; Kumar Kartikeya 2/24, Sagar Solanki 2/27, Kulwant Khejroliya 2/36) beat MadhyaPradesh 132 in 37.1 overs (Harsh Gawli 42, Subhranshu Senapati 55; Navdeep Saini 4/37, Hrithik Shokeen 3/26) by 79 runs.

At Hyderabad: Baroda 403 in 50 overs (Ninad Rathva 136, Parth Kohli 72, Krunal Pandya 80; Sharafuddeen 2/51) beat Kerala 341 in 45.5 overs (Rohan Kunnumal 65, Ahammed Imran 51, Mohammed Azharuddeen 104; Akash Maharaj Singh 3/70) by 62 runs. DDV ATK ATK

A member of the Mumbai Indians team since 2018, Ishan Kishan was sold to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 auction. The wicket-keeper batter was released by the Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2-day auction, with the franchise deciding to keep Tilak Varma instead. Mumbai did bid for him in the auction, but didn’t go beyond INR 3.20 crore mark. Now, MI skipper Hardik Pandya has opened up on his departure.

Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad engaged in an intense bidding war for the player, before the latter roped him in for a fee of INR 11.25 crore. With Ishan’s exit, MI lost a big part of its core, a player who had been with the side for 7 years.

Hardik, in a video shared by the franchise on social media, admitted that the bosses knew getting Ishan back would be tough from the auction.

“Ishan has been the ‘freshness’ and the ‘energy’ of the room. When we couldn’t retain him, we always knew that it’s gonna be very difficult to get him back from the auction simply because we knew that, the kind of player and kind of skillset he brings. He always used to be keep the dressing room light, has made a lot of people smile,” Hardik said in the video.

href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/MumbaiMeriJaan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#MumbaiMeriJaan #MumbaiIndians | @ishankishan51 pic.twitter.com/K1Gz5DKYUU

— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) December 1, 2024

“That love and warmth, it came very natural to him and there will be less cake smashing, less pranks happening on people. That was Ishan and who used to bring so much love to this team, that is something as a group we are going to miss. Ishan Kishan, you always be MI’s pocket-dynamo. We all gonna miss you and we all love you,” he added.

Ishan was bought by MI for a whopping fee of INR 15.25 crore in the IPL 2022 season and was retained in the 2023 and the 2024 campaigns. However, a string of poor performances saw him being released ahead of the 2025 auction.

With SRH, however, Ishan has found another franchise that is being touted among the finest in the league, at least on paper.

Ishan Kishan found a new home in Sunrisers Hyderabad, while Royal Challengers Bengaluru zipped in to take away Phil Salt in the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction in Jeddah on Sunday. In the capped wicketkeepers, South Africa’s Quinton de Kock came up first with bids from Rs 2 crore. Initially, there wasn’t any movement, but Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) opened the bidding by raising the paddle. Soon, Mumbai Indians (MI) came in at Rs 2.2 crore. SRH didn’t allow MI to let go easily, but the five-time champions eventually led at Rs 3 crore. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) came in to intensify the bidding war and acquired his services for Rs 3.6 crore.

England’s Jonny Bairstow, who last played for Punjab Kings, was next to follow and went unsold. One of the leading run-scorers of the last season, swashbuckling opener Phil Salt, came in at Rs 2 crore.

The Royal Challengers Bengaluru and MI were locked in a fierce bid, with the price escalating rapidly. After MI decided to opt out of the race, KKR entered the fray.

RCB raised the bid to Rs 8 crore, and KKR came right at it with Rs 8.25 crore. The bid reached Rs 9 crore and eventually zipped past Rs 10 crore. Both tables pondered on their next move, and RCB eventually sealed the deal at Rs 11.5 crore.

After missing out on Salt, KKR quickly wrapped up Afghanistan keeper-batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz for his base price of Rs 2 crore. India’s out-of-favour Ishan Kishan came in, and another intense bidding war followed.

The bid began on Rs 2 crore, and MI straightaway got into action to ensure a reunion. Punjab Kings joined the action for the in-demand explosive wicketkeeper batter. As the bid escalated to Rs 5 crore, MI pulled out, and Delhi Capitals decided to have a taste of the action.

The back and forth continued, but PBKS stood in the firm position of taking away Kishan, with the bid standing at Rs 10 crore. As things looked almost done and dusted, SRH arrived to add more firepower to their batting unit. They landed the winning bid, which stood at Rs 11.25 crore.

Jitesh Sharma attracted attention from a couple of franchises but RCB looked to take away the Vidarbha-based player. PBKS decided to use RTM but opted out to match RCB’s Rs 11 crore bid.

Presence of a few frontline stars like Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami and its co-existence with the IPL mega auction have given the latest edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, beginning across venues from Saturday, a meaty context. But interestingly, the players are not sewn by a common auction thread in the country’s premier domestic T20 tournament. Pandya need not to worry about impressing the IPL scouts after finding a place in Mumbai Indians’ retention list ahead of the auction on November 23 and 24 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The all-rounder’s appearance in Baroda’s jersey is more in line with the BCCI’s policy of leading cricketers mandatorily appearing in domestic tournaments.

So, his aim will be to keep in touch with the game and possibly help Baroda to a rare title victory.

But Shami’s outing for Bengal is multi-dimensional. The veteran pacer will be eager to come up with a fine show to further underline his fitness after recently taking seven wickets for his state in a Ranji Trophy match against Madhya Pradesh.

It’s a chance for him to continue to chart his way back to top-level cricket, and his efforts here will also have a bearing on him boarding the flight to Australia, at least for the latter part of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

That’s the larger picture, but the 34-year-old will also be looking to get picked up in the IPL auction after getting released by Gujarat Titans.

Considering his lofty pedigree and skills, Shami will certainly find a taker in the auction room, but a couple of power spells in the SMAT will add more gravitas to his profile when his name is read out by the auctioneer.

Similarly, Shreyas Iyer (Mumbai), who had led Kolkata Knight Riders to title in IPL 2024, and Yuzvendra Chahal (Haryana) will be looking to boost their already impressive IPL CV with fine efforts in the tournament.

After all, in the pacy auction world, a recent productive outing can further add to the monetary value surrounding a player irrespective of his stature.

A quick rewind to Shah Rukh Khan’s value rising a few rungs after guiding Tamil Nadu to SMA title with a final ball six against Karnataka a couple of seasons ago will validate that point.

This year too, a plethora of young and relatively unfamiliar names will be hoping to make this tournament a platform to attract big quids from the auction.

Bengal wicketkeeper batter Abhishek Porel, who was part of India A tour to Australia recently, can score runs at a furious pace and the 22-year-old would want to press his best foot forward in the initial rounds itself.

Then we have Abhinav Manohar of Karnataka, who was let go by the Titans.

Abhinav garnered 507 runs at an average of 84.5 at a whopping 196.5 strike-rate in the KSCA Maharaja T20 recently, and he would be eager to further buttress claim with substantial knocks here in the middle-order.

Young Manav Suthar of Rajasthan too fall in the same category, as he has already constructed the image of a thrifty left-arm spinner and a handy lower-order batter.

Along with these established and budding stars, an array of players, who have been pushed behind, such as Karun Nair (Vidarbha), Krunal Pandya (Baroda) and Deepak Hooda (Rajasthan) too will dream to resurrect their sagging IPL careers with some excellent outings in the event.

File photo of Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant© BCCI/Sportzpics

The recent India A vs Australia A warm-up match made a lot of noise due to ball-tampering allegations against the visiting team. During the match, the umpires informed India A players that the ball has been changed as it was tampered with. Umpire Shawn Craig brought the development to Indian players’ notice during the first unofficial Test. In a statement, Cricket Australia said that the ball had to be changed “due to deterioration”, while both the managers and the captains were informed of the decision before the start of the day’s play.  

Now Fox Cricket, has released a video of the exact stump mic conversation. 

Here’s how it went

Shawn Craig: When you scratch it, we change the ball. No more discussion. Let’s play. This is not a discussion.

Ishan Kishan: So we are going to play with this ball?

Craig: You’re playing with that ball.

Ishan: That’s a very stupid decision.

Craig: Excuse me. You will be on report for dissent. That is inappropriate behaviour. Because of your actions we changed the ball.

Kishan: Thank you!

Following that, a discussion took place in the Fox Cricket panel. The panel agreed that the way the Indian players showed dissent proved the ‘might and force of India’ in world cricket.  

David Warner‘s wife, Candice, was also part of the discussion. She said, “It just goes to show the power of India and how strong they are. A lot of these umpires want to be part of the IPL.”

One of the panelists then added: “India run the game. Every dollar that is raised in cricket, is raised by India. This change over the last few decades has been extraordinary.”

According to a report in The Indian Express, a player, requesting anonymity, denied tampering allegations, suggesting a “nail from the sideboards may have brushed the ball.”

According to Cricket Australia’s code of conduct, players involved in the ball tampering incident could be handed bans if the team is found to have intentionally changed the condition of the ball.

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“Any action(s) likely to alter the condition of the ball which are not specifically permitted under Law 41.3.2 may be regarded as unfair,” Cricket Australia’s code of conduct reads.

After the controversy spiralled up, Cricket Australia issued a statement saying, the ball change happened “due to deterioration.”

The fire-works have already started even before the senior Indian cricket team has landed in Australia. The India vs Australia series is often considered one of the most marquee series and tempers often fly high in the contest. Currently, India A is touring Australia with players like Abhimanyu Easwaran, Nitish Kumar Reddy (both part of the main squad), Ishan Kishan in the team. And, the India A team has been accused of ‘ball tampering’ during the practice match against Australia A. 

Ahead of the start of the day’s play on Sunday, the match officials informed India A players that the ball has been changed as it was tampered with. Umpire Shawn Craig brought the development to Indian players’ notice during the first unofficial Test. He said: “When you scratch it, we change the ball. No more discussion, let’s play.”

India A’s wicket-keeper batter for the match, Ishan Kishan fumed at the umpire’s call and called it a “stupid decision”.

In a statement, Cricket Australia said that the ball had to be changed “due to deterioration”, while both the managers and the captains were informed of the decision before the start of the day’s play. 

Now, according to a report in The Indian Express, a player, requesting anonymity, denied tampering allegations, suggesting a “nail from the sideboards may have brushed the ball.”

According to Cricket Australia’s code of conduct, players involved in the ball tampering incident could be handed bans if the team is found to have intentionally changed the condition of the ball.

“Any action(s) likely to alter the condition of the ball which are not specifically permitted under Law 41.3.2 may be regarded as unfair,” Cricket Australia’s code of conduct reads.

After the controversy spiralled up, Cricket Australia issued a statement saying, the ball change happened “due to deterioration

India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test LIVE Streaming: India A will be squaring off against Australia A in the first Unofficial Test of the two-match series, starting from Thursday in Mackay, Australia. The outings of Abhimanyu Easwaran, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Prasidh Krishna will be the primary focal points of India A’s four-day match. Easwaran, Nitish and Pradish have been included in India’s squad for the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, beginning on November 22, and the thinktank will be eager to know how they fare in Australian conditions.

Other than this aforementioned troika, the likes of skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, top-order batter B Sai Sudharsan, pacers Yash Dayal and Navdeep Saini and middle-order batter Devdutt Padikkal can look forward to churn out some good efforts to keep themselves on the periphery of selection in case of an eventuality in the senior side. Ishan Kishan, the wicketkeeper batter, too will be eager to make the most of this chance after a finding his favour back with the powers that be.

When will the India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match begin?

The India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match will begin on Thursday, October 31.

Where will the India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match be held?

The India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match will be held at the Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay.

What time will the India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match start?

The India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match will start at 5:30 AM IST. The toss will take place at 5:00 AM.

Which TV channels will live telecast the India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match?

The India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match will not be telecast live in India

Where to follow the live streaming of the India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match?

The India A vs Australia A, 1st Unofficial Test match will be streamed live on the Cricket.com.au app and website.

(All details are as per information provided by the broadcaster)

(With PTI Inputs)

File photo of Ishan Kishan© X (Twitter)