The captain of the Mumbai Indians, Hardik Pandya, is leading the Reliance 1 team in the DY Patil T20 tournament, marking his eagerly anticipated comeback to cricket. Since sustaining an ankle injury during India’s ICC Cricket World Cup group stage match against Bangladesh in October of last year, Pandya has not participated in any international cricket matches for the team India.

Pandya was not present for the home series of five T20 internationals against Australia, nor for the three ODI and three T20I matches that made up the journey to South Africa. In Pandya’s absence, top-ranked T20I batsman Suryakumar Yadav donned the role of captain.

Hardik Pandya returned to the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru last week, where he participated in match simulations as part of a fitness test. He started training for the DY Patil T20 Cup in preparation of the IPL 2024 after passing the fitness tests.

Ahead of the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season, Pandya was moved from the Gujarat Titans (GT) to the Mumbai Indians (MI) in November last year. Former MI captain Rohit Sharma, who has won five IPL trophies for the team, has been replaced by Hardik Pandya in the 2024 season of the famous league.

With players like Tilak Verma, Nehal Wadhera, Akash Madhwal, and Piyush Chawla, Pandya is in charge of a superstar-studded lineup. With Pandya leading the team, these players will play for MI.

However, Rohit Sharma will be captaining the team in the upcoming T20 World Cup, which is scheduled to take place in the USA and the West Indies in June, with the intention of putting an end to India’s ICC trophy drought.

Meanwhile, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah earlier announced that Rohit Sharma will lead the Men in Blue in the ICC T20 World Cup. He also voiced hope that Team India will emerge victorious in the T20 cricket tournament and break their ten-year trophy drought under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy.

England was unable to save a five-match series against India, after falling short by five wickets in the fourth Test match in Ranchi today. India’s commanding 3-1 series lead proved to be enough to seal the Test series defeat for Ben Stokes’ team.

India, dubbed the “final frontier” of bazball, proved to be a tough Test for the Brendon McCullum team, who faced harsh criticism for their batting strategy during this series. India won the 17th consecutive Test series, maintaining their winning streak in home Tests. In the red-ball version of the game, the squad increased their record for the most consecutive series victories at home.

The last test series which India lost agains England was in 2012 when Alastair Cook captained the English team. India has won every home match they have played since losing the series by 2-1. India hasn’t even drawn a Test series since their defeat by England in 2012.

India’s start to the current series had not been good. After losing the opening game in Hyderabad, Rohit Sharma’s squad reamined unbeatable even without a number of key players for the next 3-matches. The Indian squad proved to be very resilient, winning three straight games in Ranchi, Rajkot, and Vizag.

On the tricky Ranchi track, England won a vital toss and chose to bat first. With the help of an incredible century from Joe Root, they scored 353 runs in the opening half. India scored 307 runs in their first innings of replying. Jaiswal put up a spectacular 73, but Jurel was the real standout for India, scoring a solid 90 and creating important alliances with Kuldeep and Akash Deep to cut into England’s lead.

Meanwhile, the most impressive bowler was Shoaib Bashir, who took his first five wicket haul despite giving up 119 runs in 44 overs.

Indian captain Rohit Sharma scored his 17^th Test half-century as he crossed 9000 runs in his Test career on Monday. The Indian skipper got off to a brilliant start on the 4^th day of the Ranchi Test as the India chases a target of 192 runs against England. Earlier in the innings the Indian captain crossed the 4000-run mark in Test matches. In 58 Test matches, he has scored a total of 4,003 runs with an impressive average of 44.97, including 11 centuries and 16 fifties.

He became the 17^th Indian to achieve the feat. He played a milestone innings as he also registered 1000 runs against England. Sharma continued his fine touch his fine touch on Day 4 and slammed James Anderson for a magnificent six. As India moves closer to a win and securing the series win, the Indian captain leads the charge for the hosts.

The Indian captain has been in lukewarm form throughout the Test series. His batting had been far more impressive in the Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam Tests. But Sharma came back into form as he hit a magnificent century agianst England in Rajkot. Earlier in the first innings of the Ranchi Test, he could manage just 2 runs.

England’s 2^nd innings witnessed a collapse, reaching a total of 145 runs. Zak Crawley (60) and Johnny Barstow (30) showed some resistance, but Indian spinners dominated, with Ravichandran Ashwin (5/51) and Kuldeep Yadav (4/22) taking all 10 wickets.

In the first innings India posted 307 in response to England’s 353, with Yashasvi Jaiswal contributing significantly. Despite struggling at 219/7, an important partnership between Dhruv Jurel (90) and Kuldeep (28) helped India surpass the 300-run mark. Spinner Shoaib Bashir took a 5 wicket haul (5/119), Tom Hartley (3/68) and James Anderson (2/48) also made important contributions with the ball.