The big news: England look to fight back

England won the toss and went into lunch at a steady 117/1 on the first day of the fourth Test in Mumbai. India, who are already 2-0 up in the five-match series, are looking to seal a series win at the Wankhede Stadium. However, some bad news for India was in store as Ajinkya Rahane was ruled out of the remaining two Tests of the India-England series after reportedly injuring his thumb during practice on Wednesday. Manish Pandey has been brought in as his replacement, while pacer Shardul Thakur comes in place of Mohammed Shami, who had complained of a sore knee, ahead of the Mumbai Test.

Other top stories :

  1. Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli was not pleased for the Christmas break England’s players will have between the Tests and the limited-overs series in India. Kohli also asked for an eight-day gap between Tests on India’s away tours in the future. “Make sure when we go there, we also have eight days’ gap after three Tests and a 25-day gap between ODIs and Tests. We didn’t ask for it, but seeing the long season ahead, it did us no harm,” said Kohli.
  2. In a Ranji game, 18 wickets fell on day one against Delhi and Saurashtra. Delhi bowlers Sumit Narwal and Pradeep Sangwan scalped four wickets apiece to bowl out Saurashtra for 92. Saurashtra fought back to restrict Delhi to 194 for eight at stumps. 
  3. The Board of Control for Cricket in India could breathe a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the board to spend Rs 1.33 crore for the remaining two matches of the India-England Test series. However, the apex court has been reported to have asked the Board to submit an affidavit on the revenue collections from all Test matches in the series. The BCCI were also permitted to spend an amount of Rs25 lakh for each one-day International and Twenty20 International of the ongoing series against England. 
  4. In an interesting movie, the Marylebone Cricket Club, the body in charge of governing the Laws of Cricket, has recommend that players be sent off during matches for bad behaviour. This recommendation was made on Wednesday among other recommendations after a meeting of the committee in Mumbai on December 6 and 7.