SPORTS

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday announced annual contracts for the senior women's team. The BCCI retained 19 players in total, with T20 International (T20I) captain Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav given the top contract. Veterans Mithali Raj -- who captains the Test and ODI teams -- and Jhulan Goswami were among 10 players to get Grade B contracts. Teen sensation Shafali Verma was also upgraded from a Grade C contract to Grade B.

The Grade A players will receive Rs 50 lakh each for the period between October 2020 and September 2021, while the 10 players with Grade B contracts will get Rs 30 lakh each.

The players in Grade C will receive Rs 10 lakh each for this period.

Around two weeks after a former junior national wrestling champion Sagar Rana was murdered outside the parking lot of Chhatrasal stadium in New Delhi, the Delhi Police has announced a reward of ₹ 1 lakh for any information that leads to the arrest of wrestler Sushil Kumar, who is on the run in connection with the case.

Also, a reward of ₹ 50,000 has been announced for Ajay, who is also on the run in the same case, Delhi Police officials said.

Earlier, a Delhi court had issued a non-bailable warrant against the accused in the connection with the murder of 23-year-old Sagar Rana at Chhatrasal Stadium, including Sushil Kumar.

The ICC on Monday dismissed claims made by news channel Al Jazeera that India’s Test matches against England (2016) and Australia (2017) were fixed, saying the passages of play identified as fixed were entirely predictable, and therefore “implausible as a fix”.

Al Jazeera in a documentary — ‘Cricket’s Match Fixers’ — released in 2018 had claimed that India’s game against England in Chennai in 2016 and the one against Australia in 2017 in Ranchi were fixed.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) also cleared five people — filmed by the channel — of any wrongdoing saying even as they behaved in a questionable manner but no credible evidence was available to charge them.

India Women are set to tour Australia for a bilateral series in September. The tour, originally comprising three ODIs and slated for January this year, was officially postponed in December 2020. A report on the Cricket Australia website at the time said the series, rescheduled for the 2021-22 season, would be expanded to include three T20Is.

While CA is yet to make an official announcement on the dates or make-up of the series, Australia pace bowler Megan Schutt said on a recent podcast that her side's next assignment would be against India.

Ousted Indian women’s cricket team coach WV Raman has written to BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, alleging that there is a “prima donna culture” in the national team and it needs to change.

In the mail that has also been marked to National Cricket Academy head Rahul Dravid, Raman has also offered to present a roadmap for women’s cricket in the country, if asked.

In a surprising move, the former India Test player was not retained as the head coach of the senior women’s team by the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) which picked Ramesh Powar for the top job. Raman’s major achievements included a runners-up finish for the side at the women’s T20 World Cup last year.