India beat West Indies by 96 runs in third ODI, win series 3-0
Ahmedabad (PTI): Rohit Sharma's tenure as India ODI captain began with a 3-0 demolition of the West Indies after the impressive hosts put up an all-round performance to win the third game by 96 runs here on Friday.
Shreyas Iyer's responsible 80 coupled with Rishabh Pant's aggressive 56 powered India to a challenging 265 in the inconsequential fixture.
The hosts then shot out their opponents for 169 in 37.1 overs as the visitors continued their dismal batting show.
With one eye on the 2023 ODI World Cup, the Indian team management gained plenty positives from their experiments in the third-match series including the emergence of pacer Prasidh Krishna as the strike bowler. He ended with nine wickets in the series.
Deepak Hooda, who did not play the third ODI, showed promise as a middle-order batter while Suryakumar Yadav showed that he could curb his natural aggressive intent if such a situation arises.
The wrist spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, who made a return as a pairing, did not bowl together but did well individually. An ordinary batting performance the West Indies batters also made the Indian bowlers' task easier throughout the series.
The away team was never in the chase and was blown away by another stellar show of fast bowling.
Pacer Deepak Chahar, playing his first game of the series, struck twice in the fifth over. First he sent back Brandon King (14), who edged to Suryakumar Yadav in the slip cordon and then on the last ball of the over, removed Shamarh Brooks (0), leaving the visitors at 25/3. West Indies could not recover from there on.
The ODI series will be followed by three T20 in Kolkata beginning February 16.
Earlier, Shreyas and the flamboyant Pant resurrected the India innings with their 110-run stand after India suffered a top-order collapse to be reeling at 42/3.
The duo toyed with the opposition attack even as the southpaw displayed his hard-hitting prowess, striking six fours and a six.
The Mumbaikar, who was playing his first game after COVID recovery, looked in his elements, as he mixed caution and aggression. He completed his ninth ODI fifty with a single to deep extra cover.
After his fifty, Shreyas upped the ante as he and Pant completed their 100-run stand in 112 balls.
Pant too notched up his fifth ODI 50 with a single. But in the 30th over, he perished, giving leggie Hayden Walsh (2/59) his first wicket and Suryakumar Yadav (6) followed suit, as India lost half their side for 164.
But a determined Shreyas played his shots at will before giving a sitter to Darren Bravo at long-off in the 38th over. In his 111-ball knock, he hit nine boundaries.
However, Chahar (38; 4x4; 2x6) and Washington Sundar (33, 2x4; 1x6) played their parts to perfection and forged 53 runs for seventh wicket. Their knocks propelled India past the 260-run mark.
After opting to bat, India lost opener Rohit Sharma (13) cheaply. Pacer Alzarri Joseph (2/54) pegged the hosts back, by first cleaning up Rohit on the third ball of the fourth over and then dismissed Virat Kohli (0) on the fifth ball to leave the hosts teetering at 16/2.
Kohli tried to flick a delivery that was going down the leg, but edged to Shai Hope in what was a soft dismissal, extending the wait for his 71st hundred in international cricket.
Shikhar Dhawan (10) and Shreyas tried to rally the innings but were able to add only 26 runs for the third wicket.
Dhawan, who too played his first game of the series after recovering from COVD, became pacer Odean Smith's (1/36) first victim as he was caught by Jason Holder in the slip cordon.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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