Vidharba playing on familiar territory so the skipper Sai Kishore and support staff could've done a better job of reading the pitch. I can understand Tamil Nadu's confusion because it's a away game for them but not for Vidharba.

Pitches are spicy and batters need patience to survive so no complaints from my side. Only following TN vs MUM because wanted to see Iyer but missed it, now will wait for the day 2 highlight package.

Both Vidarbha and Tamil Nadu won the toss and opted to bat first, followed by a classic batting collapse in both matches. That's some coincidence lol

Didn't watch the first half of the game but tuned in for TN vs Mumbai and to me, the pitch looked like 3rd day pitch with some rough patches for spinners already in play and they did exploit the conditions nicely in their short spell.

I am surprised to see that part timer Glenn Phillips took a Fifer here and Satner is warming the bench. It was a proper green deck in the first inning and weirdly assisting spinners now, which never happens in New Zealand and it's quite a rare experience as far as from an Indian fan's perspective.

Maybe because spin assisting decks are only reserved for Eng+Aus+SA because they don't have too many skilled spinners barring Australia (Lyon).

The match is not done for the Kiwis yet but I'll repeat what I've said many times.

New Zealand are Australia's bunny and the latter treats the former as India always treats Sri Lanka in any bilateral series. For some reason, Kiwis always find themselves in trenches when playing against Australia and hardly win anything.

Hilarious and at the same time depressing to see local talent hell bent on playing anchor roles for no reason and scoring slowly.

Local players are not faring well in the field as well. I bet they are driving foreign players and their skippers crazy with their timid approach in the outfield.   

Poor Kiwis  Sent opponent in on green top, also picked up their 6 wickets cheaply but Green came out of syllabus and to make things worse, he's batting with the tail and added more than 150 runs.

On top of that, the biggest partnership of the first inning is the 10th wicket partnership, 78 and counting lol. Now they would hope for the pitch to flatten out for 2 days at least.

^^  Had Sophie Devine or Richa Ghosh stayed there for a bit long then the result could've been different.

Mandana was freaking amazing but the problem was Sabbhineni Meghana, for some reason she was playing the anchor role when the asking rate was 12 RPO. They lost momentum there and others had to take risks. After a few seasons, Mandana might get the idea of the "curse of RCB". 

He's an old fashioned cricketer (physically) and not physically gifted like Jadeja or disciplined like Jimmy Anderson.

His knees are also about to give up, it would be great if he could take a leave from the IPL for good and focus on his fitness and test cricket. Only then he can extend his career, maybe 3-4 years at best.

In this series, he looked off color with the ball, I know it's harsh but when you have wicket taker bowler like Kuldeep sitting in the dugout then the team can't afford that, hence bench strength is good to have.

Ashwin did bag 17 wickets so far but he also didn't look at best, which is very rare. He did contributed though by picking 3-6 wickets in almost every outing and he's your number 1 spin bowler so you can't drop him. This also didn't help Axar's cause, then we have Jaddu's angle which you mentioned already.  

Competition is tough in the Indian team and things are surely looking dicey for Patidar.

Chinnaswamy Stadium being true to its nature. Graveyard for bowlers in Men's IPL and giving the same treatment to WPL's bowlers.

Virtually no respect for bowlers at this venue. Even Skipper had to remove Marizanne Kapp after 1st over, this hardly happens with the Kapp. So far for RCB, Mandana doing a job and Sophie Devine spectating from the best seat in the house.

5 overs and 5 different bowlers!

What's happening with the BCCI these days? Surprisingly and for a good reason, they are being too aggressive and looking serious regarding strengthening domestic and test cricket.

Matching an IPL contract seems a big deal to me, guess it's for national contract players only not Ranji players, maybe there would be a different yardstick for Ranji players. Atm they earn like 10-20 lakhs if they are playing all Ranji fixtures, it might go up again.

BCCI reportedly planning red-ball match fee hike to meet IPL contract value

Lots of media reporting the same so might be true.

Siraj played 2 back to back matches and nowadays high command taking workload management pills regularly so he could be rested. In that scenario Akashdeep deserves another go, Bumrah is coming back so Siraj missing out on the last match shouldn't be an issue.

^^ Just heard in one podcast that when he was dropped after the 2nd test match against England. He faked a back spasm injury and skipped the Ranji match. He was asked to play Ranji so he could regain his form and NCA cleared him from any back spasm scare. BCCI didn't like this tactic, mind you Ajit Agarkar, the current chief selector used to be part of the Mumbai Cricket State Board so there is a possibility of him getting some input regarding Iyer throwing a tantrum when playing for his state board.

Ishan's drama was in the open so it does make sense.

But kinda surprised by Iyer's exclusion. He must have done something to piss off the management and surely his poor form in the test is not one of them. I mean dude was in red hot form in the ODI WC so clearly deserved the contract, the national contract is not about money per se but reputation.

Updates

BCCI is not holding back anymore and walking the talk by making an example of players like Ishan Kishan or to some extent Shreyas Iyer. For now no annual contract for Either of them

There were signs of many young players taking everything casual in domestic cricket because of their IPL contracts. This Ishan Kishan's drama Opened the Pandora Box, now players will think twice about skipping Ranji etc.

^^ They are collapsing like a house of cards so hardly any opportunity missed for the Irish.

Seamers are just feasting on Afghans. Set batter Ibrahim Zadran was looking good from one end but now he's too sitting in the dugout and will watch their inning wrap up quickly.

SENA countries would hope that because the venue is in England and it suits their batting and bowling attack. Doubt if any subcontinent team or Windies want to face India in any condition, not that they are in a race but still.

One off test in SENA is a tough deal. Against top teams, India loses its first match in almost every test series even at home because they hardly play warm up games because of a tight schedule.

Mandana played aggressively but Gujrat's rubbish infield and outfield helped her as well. At times Gujrat's fielders (Local players) misfielded like a meme and gave 2 boundaries as freebies.

I think they should keep their tradition alive but in case, if RCBW lifts the Trophy then I reckon, Kohli will retire from the IPL.

The Percentage points gap between the top 3 looks all right.

We should see some decent change in the next week, depending on the NZ vs AUS contest. India could remain in 2nd spot even if they lose the last test against England. However, they need match points desperately because they had to share points with the Windies (That draw might hurt) and they are also playing against Australia in an away series.

Despite all the competitiveness England are still lagging and it won't change, at least in this cycle.

To keep behind the wicket and bat in the test format, Pant still needs a long recovery time, so Jurel is looking solid for this year. When the time comes then I'd say it's a good headache to have 2 solid batting WK in the wings.

Australia has 10-sh consecutive home series records 2 times but there were a couple of draw series in between as well so second best is considered 10 series which is ofc Australia. 2 more test series are lined up this year (NZ and BAN) so Indian should up their tally to 19 soon, unless some surprises are waiting.

Edit

On Patidar, he's a good bat and was the first-choice replacement when big guns were out. Unfortunately, he didn't click at all. I won't mind if they give him another go, at the same time. Also okay with it, if they replace him with Axar or KL Rahul (if he's fit).

I'd like to see the Bumrah-Akashdeep combination for Dharamshala. Siraj will surely get a rest due to workload management.