HM 24 APRIL page 11.qxd (Page 1)THE HIMALAYAN MAIL 11JAMMU SATURDAY APRIL 24, 2021
NEW DELHI, APRIL 23: All-rounder Axar Patel, who rejoined the Delhi Cap- itals squad after recovering from COVID-19, said getting to meet his teammates after a 20-day quarantine comes a close second to his Test de- but as the "best moment" of his life.
The 27-year-old had ini- tially checked into the Delhi Capitals' team hotel on March 28 in Mumbai with a negative test report but he returned positive for the dreaded infection on April 3 and was transferred to the BCCI's designated medical facility with mild symptoms.
"It has been really great to come out of quarantine after 20 days and meet my team- mates. This is the best mo- ment in my life after my Test debut," Axar said.
The left-arm spinner added that watching his IPL side win most of its matches kept him motivated.
"I was alone in my room for 20 days and I didn't have anything to do. I was watch- ing the matches and one good thing was that our team won most of the matches, so I got even more motivated to re-join the side," he added.
Earlier, the Delhi Capitals
posted a video of Axar meet- ing his teammates in the camp.
"Smiles and hugs all around as Bapu returned to the DC camp," the franchise posted.
"Aadmi dekh ke hi toh mujhe maza aa raha hai (I'm getting joy just by seeing people)," Patel said in the video.
Axar attended his first training session with the team on Wednesday and the all-rounder said he is not
pushing himself too hard at the moment.
"I have started batting and bowling practice, but I haven't pushed too hard during training.
"I have spoken to the doc- tors about how I should go about my training, and I am carrying out my practice ac- cording to their sugges- tions."
When asked about the di- rections given to him by skipper Rishabh Pant and head coach Ricky Ponting,
Axar said, "Rishabh and Ricky sir have told me to train keeping in mind about how my body is reacting to practice drills in the next two-three days.
"We are not thinking ahead too much at the mo- ment, we are just focusing on how my body is reacting to training sessions."
Axar was the second IPL player to get infected by the virus after Royal Challengers Bangalore opener Devdutt Padikkal.
There have also been a couple of incidents of false positives in the tournament.
Axar's Delhi teammate, South African pacer Anrich Nortje, had to spend ex- tended time in quarantine due to a false positive result for COVID-19.
Nitish Rana had also tested positive after joining the Kolkata Knight Riders camp but his next RT-PCR result turned out to be neg- ative.
In Axar's absence, the Capitals had roped in young Mumbai left-arm spinner Shams Mulani as IPL's first short-term COVID-19 re- placement.
Delhi Capitals are slated to take on Sunrisers Hyder- abad in Chennai on Sunday.
Axar recovers from COVID- 19; joins Delhi Capitals
NEW DELHI, APRIL 23: A desperate Kolkata Knight Riders will look to bring their campaign back on track after a hat-trick of defeats when they face a be- leaguered Rajasthan Royals in their IPL clash in Mum- bai on Saturday.
Big on paper, KKR, led by England's World Cup win- ning skipper Eoin Morgan, have so far failed to come together as a unit and slipped to sixth in the table after starting the tourna- ment on a high against Sun- risers Hyderabad.
Facing bottom-placed Rajasthan Royals, who have been the most inconsistent team so far in the season, KKR will be desperate for a turnaround.
The rise of Pat Cummins as a batsman in their 18-run defeat to CSK will provide a big boost but it can't paper over the failure of their star batsmen, who have floun- dered even while chasing even modest target. The seamers too have leaked runs in the death overs.
Having struggled on Chepauk's slow surface, KKR had hoped to return to winning ways at the Wankhede but Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaik- wad took their attack to the cleaners and amassed a massive 220/3 in their pre- vious match.
If that was not all, their famed top-five, including Shubman Gill and Morgan, fell cheaply inside the Pow- erplay.
Andre Russell and Di- nesh Karthik revived the
chase before Cummins pro- duced some sensational powerhitting, slamming a 34-ball 66 not out before running out of partners as KKR finished on 202 after reeling on 31/5 at one stage.
"Everyone's pumped. I am sure if we get a win or two and we will be on our way and flying. I think there's a feeling that we can win from basically any- where," Cummins had said.
The other positive has been Russell's return to form. It was his 54 off 22 balls that had set the tone and it would not be a bad ploy for Morgan to promote the Jamaican up in the or- der, while Cummins pro- vides the late blitz.
The skipper will himself look to get back among the runs, while he will be equally concerned about Gill, who returned with a golden duck against CSK.
Rajasthan Royals, on the other hand, are coming into
the match after a humiliat- ing 10-wicket loss against RCB. Sanju Samson's men have failed to inspire after posting their only win of the tournament, against Delhi Capitals in their second match.
Samson has fizzled out af- ter a blazing 119 against Punjab Kings and the top and middle-order look brit- tle with Jos Buttler, Manan Vohra and David Miller en- during poor form.
The bowling is also a big concern for the inaugural edition champions as their big buy Chris Morris and Mustafizur Rahman have struggled to check the flow of runs.
They also have limited overseas options with Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes ruled out because of in- juries, while Liam Living- stone has left the team cit- ing bio-bubble fatigue.
Squads: Rajasthan Royals: Sanju
Samson (captain, w/k), Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Manan Vohra, Anuj Rawat, Riyan Parag, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Shreyas Gopal, Mayank Markande, An- drew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Kartik Tyagi, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya, KC Cariappa, Kuldip Yadav, Akash Singh.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Eoin Morgan (captain), Di- nesh Karthik, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Tim Seifert, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Na- garkoti, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Rahul Tri- pathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Shakib Al Hasan, Sheldon Jackson, Vaibhav Arora, Harbhajan Singh, Karun Nair, Ben Cutting, Venkatesh Iyer, Pawan Negi.
IPL: KKR hope to revive campaign against struggling Royals
NEW DELHI, APRIL 23: Life of a professional cricketer isn't easy and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things all the more difficult as movement off the field is strictly moni- tored, says mental condi- tioning coach Anand Chu- lani, who is working with several players in IPL 2021.
Chulani says adjusting to the protocols of a bio-bub- ble life isn't easy for a crick- eter and this is where the role of a mental condition- ing coach becomes very im- portant.
While his association with England and Ra- jasthan Royals batsman Jos Buttler is well documented, Anand is also working with cricketers in three IPL teams at present -- Ra- jasthan Royals, Delhi Capi- tals and Kolkata Knight Riders.
"I speak to a lot of guys. I mean, there's different lev- els. Some guys I speak to formally, in the sense of I'm coaching them formally. You know, a lot of these guys are friends. So I speak to them informally as well. Unfortunately, some of the Indian boys don't feel like they want to share it. Work- ing with a couple of promi- nent ones that are in the In- dian team, I do realise that, you know, there's still a sense of not wanting to let the name out when it comes to the Indian society," Anand told ANI
Anand feels there is still a lot of stigma attached to dis- cussing mental health in In- dia and that is what keeps Indian sportspersons away from talking about their ex-
periences with mental coaches.
"I think, you know, to me, it's about honesty and hu- mility and also stigma. I think a lot of Indian crick- eters are very humble. And I think they do share a lot of praise, you know, but they share it with their coaches, they share with their train- ers. What I think unfortu- nately, people look at the medical side of it, as always, if I share, there's a problem with you know, I'm not strong.
"Whereas to me, that's ridiculous because every- one's strong. In the same way we conditioned our body, we initiate our minds. So when a person gets help with a physical trainer, it doesn't mean they're not strong. It just means they want someone to help them
condition muscles. In the same way, you know, if someone shares that I gave them help mentally, it does- n't mean that they are weak, it just means someone helped them condition their mental muscles," he ex- plained.
Asked about the types of queries that come to him from the cricketers, Anand said: "Sure, I can tell you I worked in the IPL now for a couple of years. I'm working with a few players from Kolkata, Delhi, a few play- ers from Rajasthan. The kind of questions that have come to me. Well, it de- pends. In my couple of years working with the IPL, I get different cases. So I've had, a lot of times a player will come to me, if they're not feeling good, they're mentally stressed. They're
feeling pressure, or they don't feel confident.
"There's a whole bunch of boys that just come to me for I guess life lessons, if nothing else, you know, people forget these guys are like in their 20s, late 20s. You know, I've helped boys in the IPL with their rela- tionships, you know, with their girlfriends. I've helped them, you know, handle family pressures at home. You know, I help them, you know, deal with insecurities they even have about other teammates.
"Yes, I'm a mental condi- tioning coach. And yes, I work with their mind, but I'm actually working with who they are fully. If you are a self-doubting person off the field, you are more than likely to be under pressure on the field, you'll be self- doubting."
So what is the key to suc- ceed then? Anand says self- doubt is normal, but one must overcome it to suc- ceed at the top level. He also feels the avenues to switch off have decreased in the bubble life and that makes it more important to be mentally strong.
"It's like every athlete has self-doubt just as every hu- man being has self-doubt. But before in the IPL, they would have parties or they would have social events or they would go out or they would find other ways to re- lease that pressure, or stress or overthinking. Now, what's happened is they've got less, you know, avenues to release that tension, or to distract themselves from their thoughts.
Why bio-bubble life is so tough for cricketers...
NEW DELHI,APRIL 23: Rajasthan Royals team director Kumar Sangakkara said one among the top four of his batting line-up will have to score big for the side to bounce back from its cur- rent slump.
Rajasthan have managed just one win from four matches so far to slip to bot- tom of the IPL points table. The most recent debacle came against Royal Chal- lengers Bangalore on Thurs- day night as they suffered a 10-wicket hammering in a lop-sided contest.
Royals recovered from a top order collapse to set RCB a healthy target of 178, whose openers Devdutt Padikkal (101) and Virat Kohli (72) took their team home in just 16.3 overs.
"...you see the ability, there is just need to build those partnerships and one of the top four they need to get a big score," Sangakkara said after the match.
The RR top four features the big-hitters like Jos But- tler, skipper Sanju Samson and David Miller. The team, however, struggled in the Powerplay yet again and was reduced to 32/3 in the first six overs.
If it hadn't been for Shivam Dube (46 off 32 balls) and Rahul Tewatia's (40 off 23 balls) counter-at- tacking innings, RR would have finished on a much lesser score.
"We need to bat smartly in the powerplay and keep those partnerships going and one or two need to score those big scores. Unfortu- nately, today we didn't man- age that," Sagakkara said.
"The middle order and lower middle order really fought well and that was quite impressive to see."
All-rounder Dube and Tewatia shared nine fours and four sixes.
"I thought Shivam batted really well and showed a lot more intensity and aware- ness than in the other three games."
"...(we) have to tie to- gether good performances with the bat, not just with the ball and back it up with some really good fielding," he pointed out.
"You have got to be much better at executing your game plans and keep that self-belief and self-confi-
dence going. It's only been four games, but you know, games can go by quite quickly so we have got a lot of thinking to do," he ex- plained.
The former Sri Lankan skipper was all praise for Padikkal, who smashed 11 fours and six maximums in his maiden century that came off 52 balls.
"I thought it was an excep- tional innings...he kind of anticipated some of the de- liveries that were going to be bowled with the fields set," Sangakkara said.
Sangakkara on how Royals can get campaign back on track
NEW DELHI, APRIL 23: The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) could host crowds of 85,000 for Aus- tralian Rules football matches this weekend after authorities raised an atten- dance cap at the stadium on Friday.
The Australian Football League (AFL) had hoped the 100,000-seat MCG might be allowed full capac- ity for Sunday's traditional ANZAC Day blockbuster between the Collingwood Magpies and Essendon Bombers.
But authorities opted for caution, adding only 10,000 to the previous crowd cap of 75,000.
Other stadiums in Victo- ria state will remain at 75% capacity announced last month.
"The announcement of an extra 10,000 tickets at both matches this weekend is a great result for football fans in Victoria and highlights the hard work of fans adher- ing to 'Covidsafe' rules across the first six rounds of the season,” AFL Executive General Manager Kylie
Rogers said in a statement. The Melbourne Demons
play champions Richmond Tigers at the MCG on Satur- day before Sunday's match on ANZAC Day, a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand marking the anniversary of the April 25 landing of Al- lied forces on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915.
The AFL declared the AN- ZAC Day clash a "sell-out" this week before the new al- lotment of tickets, raising the prospect of a world record stadium attendance
for a sporting event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
India recorded crowds of 67,200 and 66,352 for the first two Twenty20 cricket matches against England at the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad last month.
The AFL match between West Coast Eagles and Collingwood at Perth Sta- dium last Friday drew 54,159, the biggest for a sporting event in the south- ern hemisphere since the pandemic.
Australia's MCG allowed 85,000 crowd for AFL matches