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New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry has broken his thumb while training with his domestic side Canterbury in the Plunket Shield. Henry was hit on his right thumb while batting in the nets, and the injury has put him in doubt for New Zealand’s upcoming home season.”Matt was unfortunately struck on the tip of the right thumb while batting in the nets,” Canterbury physio Tim Dovbysh said. “Matt got an X-ray [done] immediately after training which confirmed the fracture.”Dovbysh said Henry would require about four to six weeks to be fully fit, meaning he is likely to miss the first game of the home series against West Indies – the T20I at Eden Park on November 27. New Zealand are currently scheduled to play West Indies in three T20Is and two Tests, before hosting Pakistan for the same number of matches in December.This January, Henry had also injured his left thumb during the opening day of the Sydney Test against Australia.Henry has added to New Zealand’s injury concerns ahead of the home season, with their captain Kane Williamson also currently recovering from an adductor injury he picked up in the IPL.Williamson last played for his side the Sunrisers Hyderabad on October 13, having missed three games since, something which former New Zealand fast bowler Danny Morrison has put down to the excessive cricket played these days. Speaking to , Morrison said, “I just wonder whether, in terms of the amount of cricket these guys play these days, toing and froing in all the different genres of it… I’m not surprised it’s taking its toll.””Kane… plays all formats. So, when I look at that, something’s got to give. At the moment, I think he’s still very sore and very tight.”

Super Over Two mid-table sides separated by just two points. Two misfiring middle orders. Two squads unable to use their reserve overseas players in the best possible way. Two teams that were neck and neck with three wins each against each other since 2018. What happened when they met on Sunday evening? A Super Over, of course.Lockie Ferguson made that one-over face-off a one-sided affair though. Playing his first match in over seven months, Ferguson, in the space of three balls, first removed David Warner’s off stump to hand him a golden duck and then hit the base of Abdul Samad’s middle stump with a full and slower delivery, with only two runs allowed in between. A single from Eoin Morgan and two leg-byes off Dinesh Karthik’s pads with a fumble at short-fine leg gave the Kolkata Knight Riders two points from the third Super Over of the season to keep them on fourth place on the points table.Ferguson had earlier dented the Sunrisers Hyderabad chase of 164 with a spectacular spell of fast bowling that read 4-0-3-15 without conceding a single boundary. Ferguson did the damage against a tweaked Sunrisers line-up that saw Kane Williamson open with Jonny Bairstow, and Warner push himself down to No. 4. He allowed just seven in the 18th over when the Sunrisers needed 37 from 18. With 30 to win from 12, Samad and Warner targeted Shivam Mavi on the off side for two fours before the former fell off the last ball of the over – another dismissal that featured Ferguson. Samad had clubbed a full toss to deep midwicket where Ferguson pouched the ball right inside the rope before carefully lobbing it to Shubman Gill when he lost balance.Warner had struck only two fours in his 28-ball 33 when the last over started with Andre Russell bowling a big wide outside off to Rashid Khan from around the wicket which was later called a no-ball. Once Warner got strike, he first found the cow-corner boundary, then hammered a length delivery past the bowler and then whipped an innocuous-looking leg-stump delivery for the third four in a row. With four to get off two, Warner took a double but couldn’t get bat on the last ball and settled for one leg-bye when Russell nipped the ball into his pads. It was time for a Super Over.Sunrisers’ Williamson experiment
Slow starts, an inexperienced middle order, and Warner not looking at his best made the Sunrisers change their line-up. Williamson, who was carrying a hamstring niggle, took charge at the top with fluent strokeplay, hitting consecutive fours off Mavi, while Bairstow muscled Varun Chakravarthy off the back foot. The duo also attacked Russell and Pat Cummins together to finish the sixth over on 58, of which 46 came in boundaries, and was the Knight Riders’ fourth consecutive powerplay without a wicket.But then came Ferguson in the seventh over. Williamson upper cut his first ball to third man to end an enterprising 19-ball 29 that saw Priyam Garg come in at No. 3. Garg couldn’t last more than seven balls as Ferguson’s slower delivery rammed into his stumps and, four balls later, Bairstow found long-off against Chakravarthy.The Warner you haven’t seen
Warner has been struggling by his standards this IPL and on Sunday he got a life on the first ball he faced from Kuldeep Yadav when Karthik missed a stumping after a loopy delivery deflected off the batman’s pad. With his team three down and half the innings left, an uncharacteristically watchful Warner relied on ones and two. At the other end, Manish Pandey was removed by a 148kmh Ferguson yorker. On one hand was Ferguson’s express pace, and on the other was Yadav taking pace off the ball – the duo combined for 18 dots from their seven overs together, which featured no boundaries. Warner saw them off and saved his boundaries for the end, which eventually tied the scores.Knight Riders slow off the blocks
In what was a start-stop-start innings, the Knight Riders struggled to get going properly because Shubman Gill couldn’t find the gaps and ate up 17 dots in his 37-ball 36. Apart from his three consecutive fours off Basil Thampi in the fifth over that helped the Knight Riders register their best opening stand this IPL, it was mainly Rahul Tripathi’s attacking strokes that relatively drove up the run rate. However, Tripathi’s dismissal on the last ball of the powerplay, for 23 off 16, slowed them down again as Rashid Khan came on in the eighth over.Vijay Shankar bowls four for the first time in IPL
Before Khan, though, the seventh over was given to Vijay Shankar, who dried up the runs further with his clever use of length and pace variations. The fifth bowler has been an issue for the Sunrisers and this time they used him smartly – bowling from the seventh over onwards, they got three out of him by the 11th over, for just 15 runs. But it was neither Khan nor Shankar who pushed the Knight Riders back as much as Garg. Two excellent running catches – one at the long-off boundary to remove Gill in the 12th over and the other running in from deep midwicket inside the circle when Nitish Rana top-edged Shankar three balls later, left them on 88 for 3 with just under eight overs left.DK and Morgan show
Russell’s poor run with the bat continued. With plenty of overs left on a slow pitch, his short stay ended when he holed out to deep midwicket for 8 against T Natarajan. Khan’s quota was done by then but the slow and dipping yorkers and full tosses of Sandeep Sharma and Natarajan were still not letting the batsmen score freely. Karthik – like he did against the Kings XI Punjab with a half-century – gave his team a late push with deft footwork. He used the crease better than anyone: he first walked down to sweep a low Sharma full toss for six, then stayed back for a Natarajan yorker to drill it down the ground for four, and then went back again to dispatch another Natarajan delivery for a six over long-on.After 19 overs, the Knight Riders were 147 for 4 with Morgan on 18 off 17 and Karthik 29 off 14. Morgan faced the entire last over from Thampi who kept missing his yorkers. Morgan hit him down the ground, smashed him over square leg for a six and ran three doubles before handing a catch to long-off to collect 16 off the over. Knight Riders had taken 52 from the last four to post a challenging total. It proved to be enough.

Greg Barclay, New Zealand Cricket’s representative on the ICC board, is one vote away from becoming chair of the global governing body, with India’s imprimatur, but the acting chair Imran Khwaja will be able to take the permanent role if he can maintain the current voting deadlock for another two rounds.ESPNcricinfo has learned that Barclay, the NZC chairman, emerged with a 10-6 majority in the first round of voting held on Wednesday, one short of the 11 votes required for a two-thirds majority and the chair under the ICC constitution. The quirks of the system allow for the incumbent, in this case Singapore’s Khwaja, to hang onto the chair if three rounds of voting pass without a two-thirds majority being reached.While the voting takes place by secret ballot, Barclay was understood to have entered the process with the backing of the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the ECB – the “big three” bloc that took a controlling financial stake in world cricket’s affairs in 2014 before their changes were walked back somewhat under the chairmanship of Shashank Manohar from 2015 to June this year.ALSO READ: Three rounds of voting to select new ICC chairmanKhwaja, a long-term representative for the interests of the game’s smaller nations, served as Manohar’s deputy and was the first candidate to emerge in opposition to the ECB’s former chairman Colin Graves, who was forced to drop out of the race earlier this year once his earlier support from the BCCI evaporated due to Barclay’s candidacy and hesitance among other nations.Having joined the ICC as the NZC representative in 2014, Barclay has earned a reputation as an honest broker and won respect from numerous more seasoned cricket administrators in that time. Nevertheless, some doubts have remained about his ability to “carry the room” as an independent chair given the strong influences of the BCCI, ECB, and CA.Sourav Ganguly, the BCCI president, has been a notable force in the jockeying for votes, working the phones to discuss matters of the game’s governance with undecided board members. It is unclear which side of the voting divide the ICC’s independent board director, Indra Nooyi, has landed on.Unsurprisingly, the central conflict so far as votes are concerned has revolved largely around money, and the ability of two contrasting world views to deliver more cash over the next broadcast rights cycle to Member nations.Khwaja’s position, shared by the experienced PCB president Ehsan Mani and the ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney, is that the staging of as many ICC events as possible, packed up in a long-term broadcast deal, stands the best chance to offer a more significant portion of money to the nations that need it most – essentially all boards other than those of India, England, and Australia.The opposite view is that bilateral tours, buttressed by the additional context of the World Test Championship and the ODI league, can still provide vital cashflow to all nations involved, balanced out with still frequent but fewer ICC events. There was particular consternation when Sawhney proposed the re-introduction of a Champions Trophy-style event in years not already occupied by ODI or T20 World Cups. By way of a rebuttal, Ganguly has spoken of an annual tournament involving India, Australia, England and one other nation on a rotation basis.Another tension is that between the ICC board as the game’s peak decision-making body and the striving of ICC management to have a greater say as to cricket’s global direction. This much was made clear in the recent advertising of a new position, that of “vice-president – strategy”.Its position description includes the following summary: “The role will report to the ICC’s Chief Executive Officer and will be responsible to support in formulating and implementing the ICC’s strategy, with a focus on key critical projects, building the future of the sport, business development and best practices by working closely with key stakeholders.”This is the kind of modus operandi that the ICC’s Members have long deemed to be the territory of Member chairs in discussion at the board table, rather than a function of management. The ICC’s governance is also under review, in a process led by the CA chair Earl Eddings, after it was commissioned by Manohar shortly prior to his departure.

England have expressed concerns over the integrity of the teams’ bio-secure bubble in South Africa, leaving the ODI leg of their tour in jeopardy, after a positive test for Covid-19 from the hosts’ camp led to the first ODI being postponed on Friday.The match was called off an hour before the toss and has been rescheduled to Monday, with all players and hotel staff to be retested on Friday evening.However, South Africa have yet to determine how one of their players contracted the coronavirus and, although they maintain their confidence that the bio-secure environment works, a further round of tests scheduled for Friday afternoon may decide whether the three matches are able to go ahead.”There is a cause for concern and England has expressed a concern. England are questioning the confidence they have in the bio-secure environment and rightfully so,” Dr Shuaib Manjra, CSA’s chief medical officer, said.”If there has been a player who tested positive in the last week, they have cause for concern and we respect that concern. We met with the English medical team and we have planned out a way. We will retest all players and hotel staff [tomorrow, later brought forward]. We will await the results and determine a course of action and then on Tuesday before the final ODI we will retest the team again.”ALSO READ: First ODI at Cape Town called off after Covid scareSouth Africa’s players have so far been tested five times, three times before the start of the T20I series which revealed two positive cases, and once in between the T20Is and ODIs. Although CSA have declined to confirm the names due to doctor-patient confidentiality, David Miller and Andile Phehlukwayo are widely understood to be the first two players in question.The first player who tested positive did not enter the bio-bubble and isolated on his own while the second was removed from the bubble when he tested positive two days later. Both players tested negative on the fourth round of tests, just before the start of the T20 series last Friday, and rejoined the squad last Saturday.The third positive case was discovered a week later, from a test before the start of the ODIs yesterday, and CSA is unsure how it came about. Heinrich Klaasen was a notable absentee from Tuesday’s final T20I, with his captain Quinton de Kock stating at the toss that he was sick.”This test surprised us because we have confidence in the integrity of the bio-secure environment,” Manjra said. “Further tests indicate that this is a more recent case that occurred within the bio-secure environment. So clearly there seems to be some kind of breach which we have investigated in great detail to try and determined where this happened.The first ODI between England and South Africa at Cape Town was postponed due to a Covid-19 scare•Getty Images

“We have traversed a couple of different spaces, trying to recount some of the events: speaking to the player, looking at security cameras, looking at other information and we haven’t been able to date to identify where the source was but clearly it’s cause for concern.”The situation is understood to have unsettled the England camp, who have been staying at the same Vineyard hotel as the South Africa squad, albeit in separate wings with mixing between the two squads banned. Communal areas have been used on a rota basis and deep-cleaned between whiles, with the hotel staff also staying on the premises. Outside of travel to matches and practice, the teams’ only other authorised departures from the hotel grounds have been for rounds of golf at Boshenmeer, near Paarl, again subject to strict protocols.England’s 24 players, plus support staff, are due to leave South Africa on a chartered flight on December 10. With the prospect of Christmas at home for some members of the squad, and imminent stints in Australia at the Big Bash for others, there is believed to be a reluctance among the players to jeopardise those plans.A scheduled joint press conference between ECB and CSA was cancelled soon after the match had been called off, with Ashley Giles, the team director, later addressing the situation in a statement.”On behalf of the England touring party and the ECB, I would like to thank Cricket South Africa for their collaborative approach to postponing today’s one-day international,” Giles said.”Our number one priority is the health and safety of the England team and management group, and the correct decision was made following discussions between the two boards and respective medical teams.”The England party will remain at its base in Cape Town on Friday and Saturday, and we are hopeful that the three-match series will be played before we depart next Thursday starting with the match at Paarl on Sunday.”In conceding that a player may have breached protocols, Manjra was adamant that no-one was allowed to leave the team hotel in Cape Town unsupervised.”I can categorically state that there is no player who is able to leave the hotel environment by virtue of the fact that there is security around and the security will not allow the player to leave, unless that player is leaving in an assigned vehicle which is an official vehicle with an official driver,” Manjra said.”There is a command centre here led by the Colonel from the Claremont Police Force and they strictly enforce the bio-bubble. They wouldn’t allow anybody to leave.”ESPNcricinfo

However, earlier on in the tour, players did leave for what appear valid reasons. “In fact some players left as a group to go across to the Oval [across the road from the hotel] to train and that became a matter of concern because they had seen it and we had addressed that concern with the Colonel and the command centre. It is impossible for any player or official to leave this.”That revelation gives credence to Manjra’s suggestion that the bubble is not working as intended. “I am fairly convinced that 99% of the time this environment is working,” he said. “There may be a breach that is unbeknown to us. I am not saying there is zero risk. There may be a slight risk. There are a lot of moving parts in a tour such as this and we are trying to control that.”South Africa’s would not be the first breach of protocols in the new normal. Last month, West Indies’ players were barred from training during their period of managed isolation in New Zealand after sharing food and socialising in hallways, while Pakistan were put on a final warning that they would be sent back home after several similar incidents. Pakistan remain in isolation and have not been granted an exemption to train.This is South Africa’s first experience hosting a bio-bubble – the tour is believed to be worth £3 million to CSA – and they are due for three more this summer, with incoming tours scheduled against Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan. It is England’s first time in a bubble away from home, having successfully negotiated their home summer with a series of bio-secure environments.

Cricket Australia has confirmed India’s players were subjected to racial abuse during the third test at the SCG but cleared the six spectators who were taken from their seats and questioned by police at the ground.CA launched an investigation with New South Wales Police after India fast bowlers Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj complained of hearing racist slurs while fielding near the boundary rope.Problems first emerged at the close of the play on the third day when a group of senior India players were seen in conversation with the umpires as they left the field.On the fourth day, play was held up for about 10 minutes after Siraj approached an umpire to voice his concerns before police stepped in to take six male fans from their seats.Related

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“CA confirms that members of the Indian cricket team were subjected to racial abuse,” CA head of security and integrity Sean Carroll said in a statement.”CA’s own investigation into the matter remains open, with CCTV footage, ticketing data and interviews with spectators still being analysed in an attempt to locate those responsible.”CA’s investigation concluded that the spectators filmed and/or photographed by media in the Brewongle Stand concourse at the conclusion of the 86th over on day four of the test did not engage in racist behaviour.”CA said it had submitted its report on the investigation to the ICC. The board added that it was awaiting confirmation from police that they had completed their own investigation.Both Siraj and Ajinkya Rahane, India’s stand-in captain for the final three Tests in Australia, said that the on-field umpires had given them the choice of leaving the field in Sydney while the authorities were dealing with the spectators, but Rahane refused.”What happened in Sydney was very bad and not acceptable at all,” Rahane told the this week. “When we go overseas, fans abuse opponents to cheer up the home team. But when people are abusing you based on the colour of your skin and hurling racial slurs, that are not acceptable. My message [to the authorities] was: Those who racially abused the players, get them out of the ground. We will not leave the field. Until you are ejecting them, we are not playing.”Speaking shortly after the incidents at the SCG, R Ashwin said abuse from the crowds had been a regular feature of his visits to Sydney.”This is my fourth tour to Australia and in Sydney, especially, we have had a few experiences even in the past,” he said. “I think one or two times even the players have reacted and got into trouble in the past, and that’s not because of the player, it is actually because of the way the crowd has been speaking, especially the people close to the boundary edge.””They have been quite nasty, they have been hurling abuses as well, but this is the time they have gone one step ahead and used racial abuse.”

Perhaps, after a fortnight or so when the topic of pitches has dominated the conversation, it was to be expected that an England player might eventually pass comment.Until this point, all the debate about the surfaces in India had been carried out in the media. The England team – and the England team management – have made no negative comment. Indeed, they’re reiterated the party line: the wickets have been challenging and they have been out-played on them by a fine India side.But, after a media conference in which the question was asked, then asked again and then asked in fancy dress, someone finally broke ranks. Jack Leach had a view. And yes, he was suggesting better wickets were required.The only issue – well, an issue for those hoping for a controversy to stoke more eye-catching headlines – was that Leach was talking about pitches in England. Echoing the comments of his captain, Joe Root, who called for “serious improvements” in the standard of county wickets after the third Test, Leach suggested that, if the county game was going to better prepare players for the spin challenge expected in Asia, it could start by preparing ‘better’ wickets.”My thoughts are that the wickets in county cricket in general need to be good surfaces to start with,” Leach said. “Then, if they can break up and bring spin into the game later on, I think that’s a good thing for producing spinners.”They can bowl in the first innings on good wickets. And then, in the second innings when things are starting to happen, they [learn to deal with] the pressure of being the guy who needs to try and bowl the opposition out. That’s the ideal, I think.”If the spinner is playing in a four-man attack with three seamers and a spinner, then I think the role of the spinner becomes more important. But if there’s four or five seamers [in the side], or a couple of batters that also bowl seam, then I think your overs [as a spinner] can really go down; especially on some of the county wickets I’ve played on in the last couple of years.”Leach built his reputation, in part at least, by bowling on wickets at Taunton which were rarely described as ‘good’. While they might provide pretty decent preparation for playing on surfaces such as those seen in Chennai and Ahmedabad in recent days – and they certainly helped Leach catch the selectors’ eyes – they are not the sort of pitches either he or Root have in mind.Dom Bess chats to spin consultant Jeetan Patel•Getty Images

Instead, they mean the sort of surface on which a spinner might be used in the first innings to offer control and variation – Root had suggested the sort of surface where teams routinely score 400 or 500 – and the sort of surface on which they may play an increasing role in the second as the wicket wears. In short, both Leach and Root are calling for surfaces which are better for batting, limit the influence of seamers armed with a Dukes ball and better replicate the conditions traditionally seen at Test level around the world. All of which seems reasonable enough.But quite how these comments are received around the county game remains to be seen. Certainly groundstaff, who might feel a little criticised here, could be forgiven for reacting with a rueful smile. As if their jobs, given the volume of cricket played in England each summer, is not already hard, asking them to prepare Test-quality batting surfaces in the early weeks of the county season is probably unreasonable. If England really want to improve their county surfaces, they will almost certainly have to improve their domestic schedule, and avoid playing the bulk of the season when seamers predominate.In 2021, eight of the 14 rounds of County Championship cricket are scheduled to take place before the end of May (four take place before the end of April) with four more rounds (and the Bob Willis Trophy final) taking place in autumnal September. That leaves just two rounds – eight days of cricket, in other words – scheduled to take place in July or August when surfaces might be expected to provide most assistance to spin bowlers.This was an issue hinted at by England’s newly-appointed spin-bowling coach, Jeetan Patel. But while Patel was happy to allude to the problem, he is also a realist. Just as he found a way to flourish in county cricket, he is adamant young spinners can “upskill” to the point they “can still contribute in April and September.” Related

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“There’s probably 20 or 30 options,” Patel said when asked how the development of England’s young spinners could be improved. “You could send spin groups away [on overseas camps], you could play [first-class cricket] in the middle of the year or the end of it.”Ultimately, we want to be playing on the best wickets possible, whether that’s one that does a little bit on day one, flattens out days two and three, and then spins on day four – that’s the ultimate. That would be the ideal and if you spoke to any player or coach in this group here, that’s what they would ask for because that is very close to Test cricket.”We want to build Test cricketers, that’s part of my job, and that’s what I want to see: how is a spinner going to affect a game on days one, two and three but also be a match-winner on day four.”But for me it’s [important to] upskill those [county spinners] so they can still contribute in April and September. That’s the thing we forget: there is an opportunity to contribute as a spinner, whether it’s going at two an over, taking two wickets in the first innings or three in the third or fourth. There are opportunities for spinners in England. At county level, the pitches are either over-prepared or under-prepared. So within that is an opportunity for spinners to succeed.”There’s so many good seamers flying around, as well. And at the end of the day the counties want to win games. Let’s not be too quick to say ‘we have to play a spinner in every XI’ because if we tour New Zealand, then there may not be an opportunity for a spinner to play in a Test match there. We also have to be prepared to pick teams that are going to win games.”Whatever wicket England encounter in Ahmedabad this week, it seems the answer to long-term improvement may lie much closer to home.

Yusuf Pathan, the big-hitting allrounder who was part of the Indian teams that won the 2007 World T20 as well as the 2011 World Cup, has announced his retirement from all forms of the game. “The time has come today for me to put a full stop to this innings of my life,” Pathan, 38, said in a statement, which he released on social media.Yusuf, who last played for India on March 30, 2012 in a T20I in Johannesburg, played 57 ODIs and 22 T20Is between 2007 and 2012. In ODIs, he scored 810 runs at an average of 27.00 and strike rate of 113.60, with two centuries, while also picking up 33 wickets. In T20Is, his 236 runs came at a strike rate of 146.58, and he also picked up 13 wickets.He made his first-class debut for Baroda in the 2001-02 season, not long after he had made a name as a batsman who could hit a long ball and an offspinner who had a knack of picking up wickets when he was picked in the Baroda Under-16 team. He moved up the rungs quickly, but it took him a while to establish himself in the Baroda senior team, which he succeeded in doing only in 2004-05.His ability to score runs quickly – he had the highest strike rate in the 2006-07 Ranji Trophy (minimum 200 runs) – coupled with impressive performances in the 50-over Deodhar Trophy and domestic T20 tournament in the 2006-07 season was rewarded with a spot in India’s squad for the 2007 World T20. He didn’t get a game till the final against Pakistan, though, in which he opened the innings with Gautam Gambhir and scored an eight-ball 15. India won the final by five runs, with the younger Pathan, Irfan, winning the Player-of-the-Match award. By the time the 2011 World Cup came around, Yusuf was an established member of India’s white-ball sides, and played six games in India’s triumphant run, scoring 74 runs at a strike rate of 115.62 and bowling 35 overs at an economy rate of 4.77 – he picked up just one wicket.”Winning two World Cups for India and lifting Sachin Tendulkar on my shoulders were some of the best moments of my career,” Yusuf said. He also called his brother Irfan his “backbone” and said he was “always there for me during the highs and lows of my career”.Yusuf was a major cog in the Rajasthan Royals wheel in their run to the title in the inaugural IPL, when he scored 435 runs with four fifties at a strike rate of 179. He was the Player of the Match in the IPL 2008 final, taking 3 for 22 in four overs and then hitting 56 off 39.In February 2010, after a spell out of the Indian team, he put his name back in the reckoning with a 190-ball, unbeaten double-century as West Zone sealed the highest first-class chase ever in the 2010 Duleep Trophy final.Yusuf went on to have more success in the IPL, with the Kolkata Knight Riders. He was bought for USD 2.1 million (INR 9.4 crore approx.) in the mega auction by the Knight Riders, the joint second-highest bid at the auction that year, and stayed with the franchise for six years till 2017. He was part of both their title triumphs in 2012 and 2014. In 2014, he hit what was then the fastest fifty in IPL history, getting to the mark in just 15 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad on the way to 72 off 22 balls, ensuring the Knight Riders finished second on the league table. Yusuf’s half-century remained the quickest ever in the tournament until KL Rahul got there in 14 balls in 2018.He had earlier hit a 37-ball hundred in the 2010 edition, against Mumbai Indians, which remained the fastest century in the IPL till Chris Gayle got there in 30 balls in 2013.Overall, Yusuf made 3204 runs in 174 IPL games, at an average of 29.12 and a strike rate of 142.97. He picked up 42 wickets, at an average of 33.69 and an economy of 7.40.Yusuf was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2018 auction, and played for the franchise for two years. He went unsold in 2020 and 2021.