Former Australia captain Steve Smith spoke about playing in India ahead of the Border Gavaskar Trophy. He said the playing in India is a different experience all together and winning a Test series here is even bigger than Ashes.

“This Test series in India is definitely a very big series. I don’t know if this win in India is the final frontier, but I have never won there, despite being here twice for Tests. It is always difficult to play in India, we have some challenges but the players are ready for it,” said Smith.

However, at the same time when former Australian skipper said that winning Test series in India is bigger than Ashes, he also took the opportunity to criticize the Indian pitches. He said that it is better for his team to practice alone rather than playing practice matches on irrelevant Indian pitches ahead of the four-Test match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.

Australia have decided not to play a single warm-up match in India during the month-long Test series, mainly because the host country provides grass wickets for practice while preparing spin-friendly pitches for the actual matches. Smith, who won the country’s best men’s player award for the fourth time in his career on Monday, said his team would be benefited more from a net session than a practice match.

The 18-member squad, led by Pat Cummins, held a camp on spin-friendly pitches in Sydney ahead of the series and will have a week’s practice in Bengaluru ahead of the first Test starting on February 9 in Nagpur. Both the teams have been sweating it hard in the nets, as this Test series is really important from the World Test Championship point of view. Where Australia is at the number 1 ICC Test Rankings, India is still at the second spot.

However, winning this Test series by 3-1 or 4-0 will benefit India and Men In Blue will pave their way to the WTC Finals.

Delhi’s Patiala House Court, while giving a witness order to Indian cricketer Shikhar Dhawan’s ex-wife Ayesha Mukherjee, said on Monday that she will never give any false statement against the cricketer. The Indian opener had alleged that his ex-wife was trying to tarnish his image.

A divorce case is going on between Shikhar Dhawan and Ayesha Mukherjee, due to which Shikhar told the court that Ayesha is trying to tarnish his image. Patiala House Court Judge Harish Kumar asked Ayesha not to broadcast or post any message on social media that would malign the cricketer’s image.

For the unversed, Ayesha Mukherjee and Shikhar Dhawan got married in 2012 after dating for more than 2 years. Both of them also have a son named Zoravar. Ayesha had a second marriage with Dhawan, before that she had two daughters from her first wedding. In 2020 both had called it quits and were living separately. The divorce case of both is still going on in the court.

In the court, the judge while passing the order said that reputation of a person is dear to all and it is considered to be an asset of the highest order because physical property can be recovered after loss but reputation once destroyed cannot be revived, that’s why it has to be protected. However, it is equally true that if someone has a legal grievance against someone, he or she cannot be stopped from taking up their grievance with the concerned authority.

Dhawan’s lawyer Aman Hingorani said Ayesha shared messages detailing cricketer’s misbehavior with her close friends and acquaintances and even with officials of the cricket authorities. Dhawan’s lawyer also quoted that Ayesha has also alleged that she does not get any money from Dhawan to survive and is forced to take money from his daughter’s boyfriend.

The Asia Cup venue tussle between India and Pakistan is not ending anytime soon. Despite an immediate Asian Cricket Council meeting, the fate of Asia Cup tournament is still hanging in balance. Where BCCI has made it clear that the Indian team will not travel to Pakistan, veteran cricketer Javed Miandad has expressed his frustration on the same.

While talking to a Pakistan media, Miandad said that he has been saying it for so long that if India can not travel to Pakistan, they can go to hell. He also said that it’s ICC’s job to control such things, else there’s no point of having a governing body. Javed focused on the fact that if Pakistan was given the venue orders then now why India is refusing to travel and if there is a problem there, then ICC should knock the country out of this tournament.

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“ICC should have one rule for every country. If such teams don’t come, no matter how strong they are, you should remove them,” the former Pakistani cricketer added. Further in his analysis, Miandad added that he believes that Team India isn’t travelling to Pakistan as they fear the temperament of it’s public.

Miandad said that Men In Blue will not go to Pakistan because Indian cricket fans are nasty and if their country loses to any team they even burn the houses and go voilent.

However, BCCI has made it cleat that Indian team can’t travel to Pakistan for Asia Cup 2023 as they did not get the permission from the Government of India. In such a case Sri Lanka can either host the 6-team tournament or Dubai can be a neutral venue for the Asia Cup.

Jai Shah has shared the schedule of the tournament saying that Asia Cup 2023 will be held in September but further details are awaited.

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