There are better fast bowlers in Indian T20 cricket than Shami: Ricky Ponting
Dubai (PTI): Australian legend Ricky Ponting feels Mohammed Shami's strength lies in the longest format and there are better quick bowlers in India's T20 set up, weighing in on his absence from the Asia Cup squad.
India have picked Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan and Arshdeep Singh as the three specialist fast bowlers with all-rounder Hardik Pandya being the fourth pacer in the 15-member squad.
"He's (Shami) been a very, very good bowler for India for a long time now. If you look at his strengths, his Test cricket is probably where he thrives the most," Ponting, a two-time World Cup-winning captain, said in the latest episode of The ICC Review.
"I think there are better fast bowlers in Indian T20 cricket than Shami and they've only named three (for the Asia Cup). So if there's potentially four named in the squad he might be the fourth man in."
With Jasprit Bumrah and Harshal Patel nursing injuries, many felt Shami might be included to share the new-ball duties during the Asia Cup.
"I would think they'll probably only have the four quicks coming to Australia. They'll still want to bring a lot of spin here even though the wickets are probably not that conducive," Ponting said.
The Asia Cup will be held in Dubai and Sharjah from August 27 to September 11 and Ponting picked India as the favourites to win the tournament.
"It's always hard to go past India in any tournament, not just an Asia Cup, but I think every time we talk about the T20 World Cup which is coming up, I think that India will be right in the thick of it there," the 47-year-old said.
"Their depth is definitely better than the other teams and I think India will win the Asia Cup."
Arch-rivals India and Pakistan haven't competed in a bilateral series for nearly a decade now.
"To be totally honest it's one that we've been starved of, haven't we looking back the last 15 or 20 years," Ponting said.
"As a cricket lover like I am and a cricket observer, any time those sorts of battles come up it's almost always nice to sit back and watch because everything just goes up a notch, doesn't it?
"When I think about rivalries, Australia and England and Ashes cricket is the pinnacle I've always thought of for our Test match game. I'm sure India and Pakistanis will say the same about that and the actual rivalry would be the pinnacle of Test match cricket for those two countries as well."
Ponting believes India have the depth to prevail over Pakistan.
"I'll stick with India to win that clash against Pakistan. That's taking nothing away from Pakistan because they are an incredible cricket nation that continue to present out-and-out superstar players." PTI ATK
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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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