Former Tamil Nadu and CSK seamer Yo Mahesh retires from all forms of cricket
All the news snippets in the run-up to the 2020-21 domestic season
Vijaykumar Yo Mahesh, the former Tamil Nadu and Chennai Super Kings seamer, has retired from all forms of cricket a day before his 33rd birthday. He ends his career with 108 wickets in 50 first-class games to go with 93 wickets in List A cricket at an average of 24.67. His last competitive game was in August 2019, when he turned out in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL. His last appearance for Tamil Nadu was a List A fixture against Assam in Chennai in September 2018.
Yo Mahesh was among the first Indian domestic players to enjoy IPL success, emerging as Delhi Daredevils’ highest wicket-taker in the inaugural season, with 16 strikes at an economy rate of 8.77. He then joined the Super Kings, and picked up three wickets in five matches, including a match-winning haul of 2 for 21 against Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur.
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— Yomi (@yomi2105 December 20, 2020
Multiple injuries then put him out of action, but after getting his knees operated in London, Yo Mahesh returned to first-class cricket after five years in 2017 and helped Tamil Nadu snatch first-innings advantage against Mumbai with two wickets followed by a career-best 103 not out.
Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma named Delhi coach
Rajkumar Sharma, a former Delhi first-class player but more famous for being Virat Kohli’s childhood coach, has been named the head coach of the Delhi senior team for the upcoming 2020-21 season.
Sharma was the bowling coach of the team last season, when KP Bhaskar was the head coach. With Sharma’s promotion, former India batsman Gursharan Singh has been named the assistant coach of the team. Singh, who played one Test and one ODI in New Zealand in 1990, coached Uttarakhand last year and has been involved with various state teams since 2007. Sharma had won the prestigious Dronacharya award – the highest government award for sports coaches – in 2016. He has also coached Associate team Malta, won the CK Nayudu Trophy (Under-23 as head coach with Delhi and also been part of a camp with the India A women’s team as a coach.
The Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA also named Ashu Dani as the chairperson of the selection committee.
These appointments were announced after they were recommended on December 19 by the cricket advisory committee of the DDCA, which is now headed by Rohan Jaitley, son of the late Arun Jaitley, who also served as the vice-president of the BCCI and president of the DDCA.
M Vijay to skip Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy because of ‘personal reasons’
Tamil Nadu opening batsman M Vijay has pulled out of the upcoming edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament citing “personal reasons”, while K Vignesh, the medium-pacer, was not up for selection after testing positive for Covid-19. They have been replaced in the 26-strong list of probables by L Suryaprakash, a 31-year-old batsman who has played three T20s and eight first-class matches for Tamil Nadu, and RS Jaganath Sinivas, a 22-year-old medium-pacer with one first-class appearance.
The squad – headlined by players like Dinesh Karthik, Vijay Shankar, Sandeep Warrier, M Ashwin and R Sai Kishore – will play three practice matches among themselves on December 19, 20 and 21 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai before the final squad is picked on December 21. Tamil Nadu are in Elite Group B in the tournament, scheduled to start on January 10 next year, along with Assam, Bengal, Hyderabad, Jharkhand and Odisha, and will play all their matches in Kolkata.
Vijay, now 36 and a veteran of 61 Tests, 17 ODIs and nine T20Is, played three matches for the Chennai Super Kings in the latest edition of the IPL, but without a noteworthy performance. He is vastly experienced in the format, having turned out in 169 T20 matches over the years, scoring 4223 runs at an average of 26.22 and strike rate of 122.19, with three centuries.