Why is Virat so animated? Please ask him, says Pollard
Visakhapatnam: India skipper Virat Kohli has been a bit more charged up than he usually is during the ongoing West Indies series and rival captain Kieron Pollard is "clueless" as to what's been the trigger.
During the T20 series, Kohli's imitation of Kesrick Williams' 'notebook tick' celebration was 'television gold', and then he seemed agitated when on-field umpire Shaun George referred Ravindra Jadeja's run-out in the first ODI in Chennai.
In fact, Kohli was very animated after Pollard's first-ball dismissal.
"You have to ask him why he is so animated. I can't answer that for you. It is what it is. You ask him that question and let him answer that. I don't know. I have no clue," Pollard replied with a wry smile.
In pursuit of 388, the West Indies were 192 for three in the 30th over, but lost five wickets for 18 runs to eventually lose the second ODI by 107 runs here on Wednesday.
But more than the middle order collapse, Pollard was concerned about the 120 plus runs conceded in the last 10 overs.
"We were in a good position and if you lose wickets frequently, you put yourself on the backfoot. That's where we faltered in the chase and we accept that," Pollard admitted.
"Chasing 388, guys had to go out and express themselves, rather than trying to get in. I thought, where the game changed was in last 10 overs (of Indian innings), we went for a 127 runs, that's where we lost the momentum in the entire game.
"Before that, it was neck and neck and we knew it was a good track. We haven't really executed in the back-end which has been really the storyline for us when there has been a flat track."
On the day, Rohit Sharma was dropped on 70 by Shimron Hetmyer but Pollard defended his team's catching, saying that the overall standard has been pretty good.
"For me, personally, fielding is an attitude. The intensity with which you go out on the field, your anticipation and awareness of what is taking place at that point in time. Both teams have been guilty of dropping catches and making some basic errors," observed one of the finest fielders in the game.
Pollard also wants the broadcasters to cut them some slack as showing their bloopers again and again doesn't really help.
"But overall throughout the ODIs and T20s, we have been pretty good. Standards have risen a bit, but we are human beings. We tend to make mistakes. I keep saying in conversations that our mistakes are broadcast so that people can have opinion on it."
Shai Hope, on Wednesday, pipped Virat Kohli and is only behind Rohit Sharma in the top ODI run-getters list for 2019, with a match left in the calendar year.
Pollard was not too worried about Hope's none-too-impressive strike rate of 75 as he knows what the keeper-opener brings to the table.
"Sometimes we get carried away by so many stats and so many datas that we don't give importance to how we build a team. You don't build a team with guys who only play shots. You got to have an anchor who would hold one end," Pollard defended his colleague.
"If you look at how we played cricket in past few years, we have been losing a lot of wickets early up and so you have to build a foundation. You can't build the top part of the house and then build the bottom. We have identified Shai as someone who opens the batting and has been phenomenal."
It's all about knowing the roles and responsibilities rather data crunching, which Pollard believes is the media's job.
"You go up and down and that's how you find a middle ground. It's work in progress for us and we don't want to get into details about that strike rate. We leave that to you guys to write about and we would enjoy reading the articles," he said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
