India did not respect Test cricket: Newman
Lee, Mithali joint leaders in rankings
Former England cricketer Paul Newman has slammed Indian cricketers, BCCI and the IPL following the cancellation of Manchester Test due to Covid-19 fears in the visiting camp.
He went on to say that "India did not respect this series and they did not respect Test cricket either in flouting Covid guidelines ahead of the fourth Test". India's assistant physio Yogesh Parmar tested positive for Covid-19 on the eve of the series-decider sending tremors down the Indian dressing room and ultimately leading to the cancellation of the match.
"There is no way the series decider would have been called off on the morning of the first day had the majority of India's players not been flying to Dubai for the resumption of the richest tournament in cricket. "No India player with an IPL contract wanted to risk playing in this Test, then testing positive and being forced to stay in England for another 10 days, so missing the restart of the tournament in the UAE on September 19," former seamer Newman, who has played 135 firstclass matches and 177 List A games, wrote in his column for the Daily Mail. "India did not respect this series in pulling out yesterday and they did not respect Test cricket either in flouting Covid guidelines ahead of the fourth Test."
He also blamed Team India chief coach Ravi Shastri's book launch event ahead of the fourth Test in London.
India skipper Mithali Raj was on Tuesday joined at the top by South Africa opener Lizelle Lee, whose unbeaten 91 in the opening match against the West Indies helped her take joint-first position in the latest ICC women's ODI rankings.
While Mithali, who retains her number one spot, is now tied in first place with Lee at 762 rating points, with Australia's Alyssa Healy in third place, India opener Smiriti Mandhana also held on to her ninth spot.
Lee, who first seized the top position in June 2018 and again reached the summit in March this year.
Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami and spinner Poonam Yadav remained static on fifth and ninth respectively among bowlers, while Deepti Sharma maintained her fifth spot in the all-rounders' list.