SPORTS

It seems that Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson - since becoming the captain of his side - has had an obsession with pocketing the toss coins.

In the 12th clash of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between RR and the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the former team's skipper Sanju Samson was seeing winning the toss and opting to field first.

However, after MS Dhoni had flipped the coin, which fell close to Samson, the Royals' skipper was seen quickly grabbing the coin. He had done the same only a few days ago when his side was against Punjab Kings (PBKS).

Body language, and putting on an act were among the "four points" AB de Villiers discussed with Virat Kohli when the Indian captain made a "special call" after the second T20I against England in Ahmedabad, where he helped India chase down a target with an unbeaten 73.

Kohli made the call because of a "lack of clarity" in his mind, having struggled for fluency during the preceding four-Test series, when he scored just two half-centuries.

"I mentioned four points," de Villiers revealed during an interview with the Royal Challengers Bangalore website. "We spoke a couple of things away from the game and then also a couple of technical things, but it was very basic. I have been wanting to tell him for quite a while because I was watching him for a few months and it looked like he was quite intense at the crease, with his whole game. So I really wasn't surprised when I saw the message [from Kohli] and I knew immediately all he needs to do is the basic stuff."

India head coach Ravi Shastri praised Chennai Super Kings fast bowler Deepak Chahar after he registered figures of 13/4 against Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League 2021 encounter on Friday. Chahar dismissed PBKS opener, Mayank Agarwal, for a duck in the first over, and then followed it up with the dismissal of the dangerous Chris Gayle in the 5th over the match.

But Chahar was far from done. Two balls later, Chahar picked up the wicket of Nicholas Pooran, and then followed it up with the dismissal of Deepak Hooda for 10 in the 7th over.

Glenn Maxwell is proving to be a multi-utility player for Royal Challengers Bangalore besides showing ominous form with the bat early in the IPL, feels head coach Simon Katich.

The 32-year-old, who was snapped by RCB for Rs 14.25 crore after a massive bidding war with CSK, already has justified the faith shown in him by playing two match-winning knocks in their back-to-back wins this season. The Australian is also looking to shed the perennial under-performer tag in the IPL.

"He's shown a lot of maturity, particularly today (against SRH on Wednesday) , when wickets were falling around him... He summed up the conditions really well, and took the game deep, that's credit to him for his experience for summing it up and then executing right at the end when we needed some quick runs," said Katich.

Pakistan captain Babar Azam is now the No.1-ranked ODI batsman, ending India captain Virat Kohli's long reign at the top of the charts. Babar's match-winning 82-ball 94 in the third ODI against South Africa helped him gain 13 rating points to reach career-best 865 points.

Azam made a total of 228 runs in Pakistan's famous series win against South Africa, including a century in the first match in Centurion. That helped him move ahead of Kohli - who has been No. 1 since displacing AB de Villiers in October 2017 - by a point, but he dropped to 852 after his score of 31 in the second ODI and remained at No. 2 by the time of the last weekly rankings update. After his knock in the third ODI, he gained eight more than Kohli, to became just the fourth Pakistan batsman to attain the top ranking after Zaheer Abbas (1983-84), Javed Miandad (1988-89), and Mohammad Yousuf (2003).