ROOT, BUTTLER JOIN THUNDER FOR BBL 201819
LONDON:
England’s Test captain Joe Root and Jos Buttler have agreed a deal to play for Sydney Thunder in the first half of the 2018-19 Big Bash League (BBL). Both players will be available for seven games that fall between England’s winter tours to Sri Lanka and West Indies. Root went unsold in the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) auction in January and has played just 12 T20 matches since England’s loss to West Indies in the World T20 final in April 2016. By contrast, Buttler is one of most in demand players in the world in the short form of the game. Buttler starred for Rajasthan Royals in IPL this year and returns to Sydney Thunder after scoring 202 runs in six innings during last year’s Big
Bash.
Rishabh Pant was introduced as the team’s youngest at a media interaction soon after the Trent Bridge win on Wednesday, but India’s newest Test wicketkeeper is no babe-inthe-woods. The 20-year-old had played four T20s, but it was his first keeping experience for India, and ended with seven catches.
The best was a dive to his natural leg side to pick Ollie Pope off Ishant Sharma. Two were at the business end of bouncer plans for Lord’s Test centurion Chris Woakes. In the first innings, it was off the one who keeps him laughing on the field, Hardik Pandya — he has said Pant is a ‘lambe race ka ghoda’. He stuck out the right glove while flying to left.
Winds of change are blowing in the India team. Jasprit Bumrah, the strike bowler, is four Tests old.
Prithvi Shaw, 18, the U-19 World Cup-winning skipper, replaced Pant as the team’s youngest hours after the Trent Bridge game.
NOTTINGHAM:
DHONI-LIKE STORY
Pant’s India keeping apprenticeship didn’t start in limited overs because the biggest star from the hinterland with roots in Uttarakhand like him is still going strong. He is yet to play with MS Dhoni in blue, though the Delhi Ranji skipper constantly turns to