Indian mix doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy on Thursday lost in the round of 16 match in the ongoing French Open.Playing at Court 4, the Indian pair lost against Indonesia’s Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti 21-15, 17-21, 19-21. The pair Ponnappa and Satwik dominated the game in the first round but the Indonesian duo came back stronger in the second and the third round.

Earlier, India’s ace shuttler PV Sindhu defeated Denmark’s Julie Jakobsen 21-15, 21-18 in straight sets to advance into the second round of the women’s singles event at the French Open 2021.

Elsewhere, London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal was forced to retire from her opening round match with an injury. Saina Nehwal was trailing 21-11, 9-2 against Japan’s Sayaka Takahashi in her women’s singles clash when she decided to concede.

Earlier, Lakshya Sen stormed into the men’s singles round of 16. The 20-year-old defeated Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 21-10, 21-16 in 45 minutes. Sourabh Verma also went into the men’s singles round of 32. He defeated Brazil’s Ygor Coelho 22-20, 21-19.

Australia opening batter David Warner has confirmed that he will go into the Indian Premier League [IPL] auction 2022. Warner is going through a lean patch and had been dropped from Sunrisers Hyderabad playing XI during the IPL 2021. “I will put my name in the auction. By the signs of the recent IPL, I won’t be retained by the Sunrisers, so I’m looking forward to a fresh start,” sen.com.au quoted Warner as saying.

The Australia opening batter admitted that it was “tough” to come to terms after he was dropped from the playing XI by SRH. “It was a tough pill to swallow,” said Warner.

“I kind of laughed at the reasoning, that two guys were hitting the ball out of the middle a little bit better than I was. Given that when you’re playing the game you’re playing the scenario…”

“Obviously there are a lot of moving parts around there. What you have to do as a professional athlete is take it on the chin do everything you can for the team.”“Not being able to go there, run drinks and be around was when it sort of hit home that it could be personal, and I’m still yet to get those answers,” he added.Warner was also removed as SRH skipper in May this year following his poor form.

SRH have won the IPL title just once and the win came under Warner’s leadership in 2016. The side this year failed to reach the playoffs and ended the IPL 2021 at the eighth position.

England batter Jason Roy has revealed that he had to overcome dark thoughts and put his hard work in training into action as his 61 helped England beat Bangladesh by eight wickets in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

England had restricted Bangladesh to a considerably below par total of 124 for nine thanks to two wickets in two balls for Moeen Ali and Tymal Mills at either end of a lacklustre innings, while Liam Livingstone also chipped in with the wickets of Mushfiqur Rahim and captain Mahmudullah. In reply, Roy’s blistering knock came off just 38 balls and fittingly came in his 50th T20 international appearance as he answered critics that had been questioning his ability to play left-arm spin at the top of the order in emphatic fashion, after working hard with teammate Liam Dawson in the nets.

“I enjoyed that innings a lot. It’s an area of my game I’ve been working extremely hard on, on slow pitches against left-arm spinners and the angle as such. It was a big game for me to put all my hard work I’ve been doing in the nets into play. Credit to the bowlers, we were chasing a total well below par but we still had to knock it off,” Roy said in an official release issued by ICC.

“I think as a batter, as a cricketer, you always have some darker thoughts going into your mind before the game, ‘What if, this can happen, this can happen.’ But you’ve got to remind yourself that your training has been good, I’ve worked a hell of a lot against Liam Dawson in the nets. He’s bowling so much to me and I’ve got to keep reminding myself to do what I do in training and things will be alright,” he added.

Bangladesh struggled in their first ever T20 clash against England, but Roy insisted they were not easy opponents and revealed his side will continue to focus on themselves rather than worrying about what other teams can do.

“I don’t think they are an easy team to beat, they’ve got some matchwinners out there, some extremely good players. We came out and kept it very simple and stuck to what we do, we don’t look too much into what a lot of other teams do, we make sure everything in our camp is right and we are doing our roles right,” said Roy.

Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah lamented his side’s inability to get off to a good start with the bat as they slipped to a second straight Super 12s defeat to leave the Tigers needing wins against West Indies, South Africa and Australia to stand a chance of progressing to the semi-finals.

“We were disappointed with the batting, it was a good wicket but we didn’t start well and didn’t have any partnerships in the middle either,” said Mahmudullah.“We’ve been lacking a good start, on these wickets it gets difficult later on. We are more skilled hitters than power hitters, we don’t want to change that because we believe we can post good totals. We need to reassess and come up with a good plan,” he added.

Hardik Pandya’s position in the Indian team has come under intense scrutiny after he stopped bowling due to stiffness in the back. But his back holding up at training on Wednesday after he bowled a short spell for around 15 minutes comes as a huge sign of relief for the Indian team management going into the must-win game against New Zealand.

Sources said the basic problem Hardik had earlier was that his back muscles were getting stiff the moment he bowled. “If you see, even during the IPL, he did bowl at the nets in the beginning, but his back started getting stiff and that is why he had to rest and skip the game against Chennai Super Kings on September 19 and against Kolkata Knight Riders on September 23. “But him coming out to bat after his short bowling burst on Wednesday and then to play the pull shots showed that his back was able to hold up. The pivot that comes with playing the pull exerts pressure on the back and if you have muscle stiffness, you cannot attempt that shot. So hopefully, he is almost there when it comes to giving the captain an option as a bowler,” the source said.

Coming into the T20 World Cup, skipper Virat Kohli had said he is looking at Hardik getting ready to bowl at least two overs in a game at some stage in the tournament.

“Well, I honestly feel that Hardik Pandya presently with his physical condition is getting better in terms of being prepared to bowl at least two overs for us at a certain stage in this tournament and we strongly believe we can make the most of the opportunity we have at our hand till the time he starts bowling. We have considered a couple of other options to chip in with overs so we are not bothered about that all,” said Kohli during a virtual pre-match press conference ahead of the Pakistan game.

“What he brings at number six for us is something that you cannot create overnight. Hence, I was always in favour of backing him as a batter in Australia purely and we saw what he did in the T20I series and how he can take the game away from the opposition. We understand the value he brings to the team as a number six batter and it is important to have such players who can play impact innings. For us, that is way more valuable than forcing him to do something that he cannot at the moment, he is motivated and he is keen to start giving us a couple of overs to us,” he had added.

Four players of the Mumbai squad have tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament.

Sources within the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) confirmed this development to ANI on Wednesday. “Yes, Shams Mulani, Sairaj Patil, Sarfaraz Khan and Prashant Solanki have tested positive for COVID-19. They will now miss the league stage of the tournament, rest of the players have departed for Guwahati to take part in the tournament,” the source said.

India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane will be leading Mumbai in the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament.

Prithvi Shaw has been named as vice-captain while Yashasvi Jaiswal has also been named in the 20-member squad.

The Senior Selection Committee of Mumbai Cricket Association consisting of Salil Ankola (Chairman), Gulam Parkar, Sunil More, Prasad Desai and Anand Yalvigi had selected the following players to represent Mumbai in Syed Mushtaq All T20 Trophy to be played from November 4 in Guwahati.

Mumbai will square off against Karnataka in their first match of the tournament on November 4.

Mumbai squad: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Prithvi Shaw, Aditya Tare, Shivam Dube, Tushar Deshpande, Sarfaraz Khan, Prashant Solanki, Shams Mulani, Atharva Ankolekar, Dhaval Kulkarni, Hardik Tamore, Mohit Awasthi, Siddhesh Lad, Sairaj Patil, Aman Khan, Arman Jaffer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tanush Kotian, Deepak Shetty, Roystan Dias.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President Sourav Ganguly will step down from the board of ATK-Mohun Bagan after RPSG Ventures won the bid for the Lucknow franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for a record INR 7,090 crores.

As per ESPNcricinfo, Ganguly has initiated the process of standing down from his role at Mohun Bagan, which is one of the most popular football clubs in India and is currently part of the Indian Super League (ISL). In addition to being one of the directors on the Mohun Bagan board, Ganguly is also a shareholder.

The issue of the conflict surfaced after RPSG vice-chairman Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of Mohun Bagan as well as the as-yet-unnamed Lucknow IPL franchise, told CNBC-TV 18 on Monday that Ganguly was on the verge of stepping down. “Well, I think he is going to step down from Mohun Bagan completely… I think today,” Goenka told the business television network, as per ESPNcricinfo. “It is for Sourav to make the announcement. I mean, sorry. I think I pre-empted it.”

If Ganguly carried on occupying the positions both at the BCCI and Mohun Bagan, he would fall foul of the ‘direct or indirect interest’ conflict rule under the BCCI constitution.

Apart from RPSG who won the bid for the Lucknow franchise, the Irelia Company Pte Ltd (CVC Capital Partners) won the bid for the Ahmedabad franchise (for INR 5,625 crores).