Indian spinners restrict England to 165/9 despite Buttler's fluent 45
Chennai, Jan 25 (PTI): Jos Buttler showed semblance of fight but other English batters didn't follow skipper's suit while succumbing to Indian spinners, as the visitors were restricted to an underwhelming 165/9 in the second T20I here on Saturday.
Buttler (45, 30b, 2x4, 3x6) played some delectable shots, including a sequence of 4, 6, 4 off pacer Arshdeep Singh, who got rid of Phil Salt in the first over itself.
Salt pulled the left-arm pacer, who was earlier on the day named as the ICC Men's T20 Player of the Year, but could not find the distance to get caught by Washington Sundar, who replaced injured Nitish Kumar Reddy in the XI, near the square leg boundary.
Washington had a moment of success for himself when Ben Duckett's reverse off him fell easily into the hands of Dhruv Jurel, who came in for injured Rinku Singh.
However, the pull shot continued to haunt the English batters for the rest of the night as Buttler and later Liam Livingstone perished playing that shot.
India vice-captain Axar Patel (2/32) was the beneficiary of England batters' adventurous intentions.
The left-arm spinner bowled into the pitch and the inherent grip on the surface did not allow the batters to impart force and direction to their shots.
Buttler, whose aggression helped England to reach 58 for two in the Power Play overs, was caught by Tilak Varma, while Livingstone ended in the hands of substitute Harshit Rana.
All-rounder Brydon Carse, who came in for Gus Atkinson, used the long handle to good effect, making 31 off 17 balls including three sixes but a moment of misunderstanding with Jofra Archer snapped his promising knock.
But the highlight of the England innings was the dismissal of Harry Brook, who began well, smashing a six off spinner Varun Chakravarthy (2/38).
But soon a back of the hand delivery breached Brook's defence to rattle his off-stump, as the English right-hander could not read it despite Chennai not having any smog.
A couple of beefy blows by lower-order batters helped England go past the 150-run mark but they will be left pondering their approach against the Indian spinners.
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Delhi court sentences Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia, associate to life imprisonment
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has sentenced Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia and his associate to life imprisonment under MCOCA provisions, but refused the death penalty saying the offences did not fall under the category of 'rarest of the rare cases'.
Additional Sessions Judge Vandana Jain sentenced Gulia and Dhirpal alias Kana to rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In an order dated December 13, the judge said, "Death sentence can only be awarded in 'rarest of the rare cases' wherein the murder is committed in an extremely inhumane, barbarous, grotesque or dastardly manner as to arouse umbrage of the community at large."
The judge said that on weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it could be concluded that the present case did not fall under the category, and so, the death penalty could not be imposed upon the convicts.
"Thus, both the convicts are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 3 lakh each, for committing the offence under Section 3 of MCOCA," she said.
The public prosecutor, seeking the death penalty for both the accused, submitted that they were involved in several unlawful activities while they were on bail in other cases.
He argued that the accused had shown no respect for the law and acted without any fear of legal consequences, and therefore did not deserve any leniency from the court.
The court noted that both convicts were involved in offences of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, robbery, house trespass, and criminal intimidation. Besides, they had misused the liberty of interim bail granted to them by absconding.
It said, "The terror of the convicts was such that it created fear psychosis in the mind of the general public, and they lost complete faith in the law enforcement agencies and chose to accede to the illegal demands of convicts. Despite suffering losses, they could not gather the courage to depose against them."
The court noted that Gulia was involved in at least 18 criminal cases, while Dhirpal had links to 10 serious offences.
It underlined that MCOCA had been enacted "keeping in view the fact that organised crime had come up as a serious threat to society, as it knew no territorial boundaries and is fuelled by illegal wealth generated by committing the offence of extortion, contract killings, kidnapping for ransom, collection of protection money, murder, etc."
Both accused persons had been convicted on December 10 in a case registered at Najafgarh police station. The police filed a chargesheet under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) and 4 (punishment for possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of member of organised crime syndicate) of MCOCA.
