Mithun Manhas elected new BCCI president, Amita Sharma to head women’s selection panel
Mumbai(PTI): Former Delhi captain Mithun Manhas was on Sunday elected president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) here.
Manhas, 45, became the 37th president of the Board, as he succeeded Roger Binny who resigned last month after turning 70.
The former all-rounder, who featured in 157 First-Class, 130 List A and 55 IPL matches between 1997-98 and 2016-17, had emerged as the consensus choice following an informal meeting of the Board’s power brokers in New Delhi earlier this month.
Manhas has an impressive tally of 9714 first class runs with 27 centuries to go with 4126 runs in List A matches.
The AGM confirmed a few other key appointments. BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia and IPL Governing Council chairman Arun Dhumal retained their posts, while Karnataka State Cricket Association chief and former India cricketer Raghuram Bhat was elected treasurer.
Prabhtej Bhatia moved from treasurer to joint secretary, replacing Rohan Gauns Desai, and Saurashtra Cricket Association President Jaydev Shah made an Apex Council member in place of Dilip Vengsarkar.
Amita Sharma was named chairperson of the women’s selection panel, replacing Neetu David. The former India fast bowler, who played 116 ODIs, will be joined by Shyama Dey, Jaya Sharma and Sravanthi Naidu. Their tenure will begin after the women’s World Cup being held in India and Sri Lanka from September 30 to November 2.
Former India internationals RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha were inducted into the men’s selection panel, while ex-Tamil Nadu batter S Sharath returned to the junior selection committee.
Welcoming Manhas’ election, former India spinner Harbhajan Singh, attending the AGM as Punjab Cricket Association’s representative, said a cricketer at the helm of affairs of the Board was a positive step.
"When a cricketer heads a cricket body, his experience and other qualities help. It’s a good decision and it’s been happening for the last three terms which is a great thing for the cricketers as well for him to give something back to the game," he said.
"The BCCI has started this and there cannot be anything greater for any cricketer that he can also give something back. I’ve played a lot of cricket with Mithun since U19 days and I am very happy for him."
Harbhajan also expressed hope that Manhas would focus on strengthening infrastructure across the country.
"I hope that those things which he (perhaps) didn’t get in terms of facilities as a cricketer or could not get to that point (in career), from whatever he has learnt so far in his life, he does such a job that no young cricketer is left behind due to lack of infrastructure,” he said.
"A lot of development is taking place across the country if we talk about it. New grounds are coming up in new places and cricket is going to smaller venues. The credit goes to the BCCI and I hope Mithun will carry forward the same legacy and does a great job.”
Harbhajan also urged the BCCI to contribute towards relief work in flood-hit Punjab and other north Indian states.
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A 99-run loss is unacceptable: Hayden blames batting horror
Ahmedabad (PTI): Gujarat Titans' batting coach Matthew Hayden was scathing about their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians, blaming a "horror" batting display and poor death bowling for the heavy loss in the IPL.
From being 44/3 in 5.5 overs, MI hammered 73 runs in the last four overs to post a challenging 199/5 here on Monday. In reply, GT were bundled out for 100.
"I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit," the legendary Australian opener told media in the post-match interaction.
"It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada's performance with the ball. so we've got some work to do, definitely."
GT boast a strong batting line-up in Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538). They have also added New Zealand’s explosive Glenn Phillips in the middle order alongside Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia.
"When you look down at our batting line-up, we've got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise...
"So you can't be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!"
The 54-year-old said GT lost the game in the powerplay.
"Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they're coming in with six overs, you know that you're in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can't win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play," he said.
Shahrukh (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia (49 off 42) have not fared well this season and Hayden feels the duo along with Phillips (67 off 54 balls) have been struggling because the top order has been below its best.
"The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips -- his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you'll take that all day long in the majority of games," Hayden said.
"However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion's share of the batting. We shouldn't be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That's not their role. That's not what they train for."
Hayden said GT has an aggressive and adaptable unit but their execution fell apart on the day.
"We are a very good thinking batting unit. We're not a conservative batting unit. You don't go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they're an adaptive batting unit. ...they've got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn't.
"So the worry isn't just today about the middle order. It'd be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking."
It was poorly executed bowling effort
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Hayden also pointed to poor execution in the death overs.
"I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.
"When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a 'horror story' -- 73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance... It was purely an executional thing."
He added that GT were below par with the ball on a surface that didn’t fully justify the high total.
"We're very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.
"When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it's a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That's been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn't that wicket (199/5)... It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.
"So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn't a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision."
Hayden said the chase was still within reach but poor shot selection proved costly.
"And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.
"And it wasn't an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings."
