Cricket

2022 - 8 - 18

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Image courtesy of "Sportico.com"

After a $6B Payday, Cricket Prepares to Stake Its Claim in the U.S. (Sportico.com)

Today's guest columnist is Josh Lalor, an Australian professional cricket player and consultant for KPMG. The June sale of media rights for the next five ...

Lalor, a consultant with KPMG, has spent the past 15 years playing cricket professionally in Australia and other leagues around the world. A sport which has been built on the foundation of creating strong cricket-playing nations is being disrupted by an even stronger league in India—and the prospect of an emerging U.S. If the IPL decides to do so, it now has the capacity to offer the best players in the world a higher salary for a 10-week tournament than they can earn with their national teams in a year. The IPL remains the catalyst that influences the rest of the game globally, perhaps more so than those of us inside the sport could imagine. Meanwhile, the sport is drawing the interest of some of American business’ best and brightest. As the sport’s chief innovator, the IPL undoubtedly has plans for MLC and the USA’s population of roughly 4.5 million Indian expats. Under Marathe, USA Cricket has won the right to co-host the T20 World Cup in 2024. Disney and Viacom18 did not rest, with Disney retaining the TV rights at $3 billion and Viacom18 winning the digital rights for around the same amount, staggering figures. The IPL is the pinnacle of T20 cricket, the game’s shortest form—a little like a Major League Baseball contest, but where it’s possible to see the equivalent of 20 home runs per game. [India](https://www.sportico.com/t/india/) alone, it’s a fair assumption that 1 in 5 people on the planet are IPL fans. Amazon, Disney and Viacom18 are household media conglomerates that were short-listed to participate in the media rights e-auction, with Amazon pulling out at the 11th hour, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall. In May it was announced that Chris Paul and Larry Fitzgerald invested in the Rajasthan Royals, the inaugural IPL winners in 2008, joining co-owner RedBird Capital, which bought a 15% stake in 2020.

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Image courtesy of "The Indian Express"

Sarel Erwee, who nearly quit cricket after mental battles, and lower ... (The Indian Express)

If not for a freak dismissal to their dogged fighter of a captain Dean Elgar, South Africa could well and truly have cooked the English goose.

I am very fortunate to have worked with a sports psychologist and to have the support of my parents,” he has said in the past. All the years of hard work, all the hard slogging I had to do at semi-professional level and franchise level felt pointless and worthless at one stage. The left-handed opener Sarel Erwee, who had got to a fine 73 on his first appearance at Lord’s, was shocked by a brute of a bouncer from the bouncer-happy Ben Stokes, gloving a simple catch to Ben Foakes. Jack Leach got one to loop and dip on Aidan Markram who poked lamely at it for a catch to the keeper. But now, one has to wait and watch – and that in itself is a tribute to England’s new approach. If not for a freak dismissal to their dogged fighter of a captain Dean Elgar, South Africa could well and truly have cooked the English goose.

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Image courtesy of "Outlook India"

Are We Witnessing Virat Kohli's End In Cricket? (Outlook India)

Physically, Virat Kohli doesn't appear to be struggling, but as it often happens when you are out of form, the first mistake you make tends to be your last.

Of the various bits that make up the sporting quilt it is the comeback that is in the brightest colours. Loss of form is accompanied by anxiety, fear and the conviction that perhaps the good times, the centuries, the goals, the ability to hit the lines consistently were all a chimera, a fantasy that never existed. Kohli is caught in a vice between conscious control and spontaneity, and it gets tighter with every (relative) failure. The conscious mind must be kept occupied so as not to interfere with the subconscious mind doing its job.” To be a serious batsman without taking everything too seriously, in other words. This is the tyranny of expectation. When critics say, “the performance lacked soul” or insist that there was nothing technically wrong with a performance but it somehow didn’t come together, they are pointing to the existence of the opposite of being out of form—being in the ‘zone’. The order might change, the time spent in each category might vary, with the zone often being momentary (taking a brilliant catch, for example) and the other two temporary by definition. “As writers or artists, we stick with the empty page or canvas in front of us, the anxiety inside us. Sometimes, you can lose form in the course of a performance and rediscover it while continuing to play. In both, there is something unexplained, causes are mysterious, but the effects are clear and in public view. Writers and artists who do their stuff behind closed doors either tend to keep at it till they find their touch again or lay off for a while in the hope of doing so soon. Great performers know how to deal with this, so their performances—on the sports field, on stage, in music or on the podium—don’t fall below a certain level.

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Image courtesy of "NDTVSports.com"

Gautam Gambhir To Play In Second Edition Of Legends League ... (NDTVSports.com)

Former India opening batter Gautam Gambhir on Friday confirmed his participation in the upcoming second edition of Legends League Cricket.

Like us on [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robo.ndtv.cricket&hl=en)or [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/ndtv-cricket/id418320331?mt=8). [Gautam Gambhir](https://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/players/563-gautam-gambhir-playerprofile) on Friday confirmed his participation in the upcoming second edition of Legends League Cricket. I am sure fans will be expecting to experience the same nerve-chilling performance from Gautam and other iconic players in Season 2." "I am glad to share that I have committed to take part in the upcoming Legends League Cricket from September 17th onwards. Players from across 10 foreign countries will be participating in this match. It will be a privilege and an honour to rub shoulders once again with the glitterati of world cricket," said Gambhir in an official release.

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Image courtesy of "Cricbuzz"

Cricket in Transition: A new game in the birth canal | Cricbuzz.com (Cricbuzz)

In the first part of a new feature series on Cricbuzz Plus, Bharat Sundaresan outlines the rapid changes that cricket is going through and poses questions ...

And if we agree that cricket's evolution is following the money, is this a good thing or a bad thing (or a bit of both)? This will be outlined in Part Two of the series next week. Those in the know had predicted the rise in global power of the big investors of the IPL a while back and for understandable reasons too. Is world cricket currently like Tom Hanks at the start of The Terminal, finding itself stuck in a quagmire due to no fault of its own? In addition, of course to the ones they've already bought in the UAE and in the proposed T20 league in the rapidly-burgeoning market of the USA. In August and September, Cricbuzz is publishing a six-part series looking at the broader picture of how cricket is transitioning.

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