David Warner back as Sunrisers Hyderabad captain
New Delhi: Explosive Australian batsman David Warner was on Thursday reinstated as IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad's captain, a position that he had to give up after the ball-tampering scandal in 2018.
The 33-year-old Warner, who led the Sunrisers to the trophy in 2016, will take over from New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson for the season starting March 29.
"I am thrilled to be given the captaincy for this coming IPL 2020. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to lead the side once again," Warner said in a video posted by the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
"I'd like to thank Kane (Williamson) for the way you guys led the team throughout the last couple of years and I'd be leaning on you guys for support and insight to the game as well," he said.
"To the management thank you for the opportunity and I'm sure I'll be doing my very best to try and lead us and lift again the IPL trophy this coming year," he added.
Warner had stepped down as captain after he was barred from participating in the 2018 season of the tournament in the aftermath of the ball-tampering scandal.
In March 2018, during Australia's third Test against South Africa in Cape Town, Cameron Bancroft was caught using a sand paper to tamper the ball.
Warner and then captain Steve Smith were both slapped with one-year bans for conspiring to do it, while Bancroft was suspended for nine months.
After serving the ban, Warner made a successful return to international cricket before last year's ODI World Cup where he was the second highest run-getter with 647 runs at an average of 71.88, just one run behind India's Rohit Sharma.
The dashing opener was also awarded the Allan Border Medal for the third time earlier this month. He was Australia's best batsman at the World Cup and excelled in Twenty20 series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Warner took apart Pakistan's young bowling attack in the two-Test series that followed, including a career-high 335 not out in Adelaide. Warner also a enjoyed a fruitful season with the Sunrisers in the IPL last year.
The southpaw amassed 692 runs, hitting an unbeaten century and going beyond the fifty-run mark eight times in 12 games. In the absence of Warner, the Williamson-led Sunrisers had finished runners-up in 2018.
The Hyderabad franchise had lost to the Delhi Capitals in the eliminator last year. The team will start its campaign against defending champions Mumbai Indians on April 1 in Hyderabad.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
