Iyer, Warner in marquee set in IPL 2022 auction
Shreyas Iyer, David Warner, R. Ashwin, Trent Boult, Pat Cummins, Quinton de Kock, Shikhar Dhawan, Faf du Plessis, Kagiso Rabada and Mohammed Shami will be part of the marquee set in the 2022 IPL mega auction, scheduled on 12 and 13 February in Bengaluru.
The BCCI informed all ten franchises that the auction process ‘will commence with the marquee set followed by a full round of capped players by specialism -- batsmen, all-rounders, wicket Keeper/batsmen, fast bowlers and spin bowlers and then move into a full specialism round of uncapped players.’
The IPL released its final auction pool, which had been pruned to 590 players from the original list of 1,214. The final list includes 44 new names that were registered in the auction pool upon the request of the franchises.
No crowd for ODIs, 75% for T20Is
The three ODIs between India and West Indies, scheduled from 6 February, will be played behind closed door at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. However, The Eden Gardens in Kolkata will allow 75 % of its capacity to be filled for the three T20Is, starting 16 February, after the West Bengal government issued a notification relaxing Covid-19 norms.
The state government issued a notification on 31 January which stated that, ‘All indoor and outdoor sports activities will be allowed with 75% of the capacity of the venue.’
India to play Australia in Commonwealth Games opener
The ICC confirmed its complete line-up for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games after Sri Lanka became the eighth team to qualify following their win in the ICC Commonwealth Games Qualifier 2022 in Kuala Lumpur last week. Besides Sri Lanka, the other seven women's teams that will compete in the quadrennial games scheduled to begin on 28 July, are Australia, Barbados, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa.
Australia and India, finalists of the 2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup, will play the tournament opener on 29 July. The medal matches will be played on 7 August.
Along with Australia and India, Group A comprises Barbados and Pakistan, while England, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka are pooled into Group B.
Matthews, Raj move up in ICC ODI rankings
Hayley Matthews moved two places up to sixth in the ICC women's ODI rankings for all-rounders, while Mithali Raj went up one place to be the second among batters.
Matthews starred with both bat and ball in the two ODIs against South Africa in Johannesburg, taking four wickets at an economy of 3.78 and hitting a 63-ball 51 in the rain-hit first game. This also helped her gain four spots among bowlers. She is now the 11th-ranked bowler with a rating of 587, the highest in her career so far.
Raj has a rating of 738, and is behind only Alyssa Healy (750). Meanwhile, Smriti Mandhana remained at sixth place, with 710.