Gully Point✓

RP Singh pushed for Bhuvneshwar Kumar's recall while Agarkar was chairman. He got blocked. Agarkar leaves, Ojha takes interim charge and the same name walks straight into the T20I squad.

One wicket in three games since his India comeback and Bhuvneshwar Kumar still insists: "I still believe that a bowler can control the game." India just chased 199 in 13.2 overs with the openers smashing 100 in five overs. Love the confidence, Bhuvi, but your own comeback hasn't exactly backed those words. Three games, one wicket and batters going after him. Right now, Bhuvneshwar needs to show that control with the ball.

Australia dropped Beau Webster. They picked Cam Green, who wasn't fit to bowl. Scott Boland was left out too. Steve Smith was out with a neck injury. So they turned to Cooper Connolly for variety, and his first Test wicket was Matthew Breetzke on 2. Starc took 6-72. Lyon took 2-71. South Africa 329 all out. Australia got away with it on day one. Green or Webster, who should have played ?

South Africa were cruising at 158/0. Then Cummins took over. Five wickets for 29, with batters hooking and pulling straight into his short-ball traps. The tail got a different plan. Starc took the second new ball, pitched full, swung it late and finished the innings in two overs. 158/0 to 329 all out.

Correction. The five for 29 was South Africa's collapse, not Cummins' figures. Starc took 6-72 and Lyon 2-71.

Rohit Sharma joked about his World Cup plans on a TV show. "Both are Captain of India now. Gill is my captain right now, and I want to play the 2027 World Cup, so I have to keep him happy." He added that he needs Iyer onside too, for a T20I comeback at the 2028 World Cup. It was a joke. But a man who will be 40 at the 2027 World Cup is joking about playing two more.

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhishek Sharma opening was the idea. Wellington was the evidence. Between them they made 158 of India's 199. Samson added 18 off 13 at No. 3 and the chase was over in 13.2 overs. A working combination means someone sits out. That is a selection call, not an insult to anyone.

Let Vaibhav Sooryavanshi open with Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson at No. 3 and Ishan Kishan at No. 4 in T20Is. If this clicks, Samson and Kishan could strengthen India's ODI middle order too, alongside Rohit, Gill and Virat in the top three. Both are wicketkeepers, which puts KL Rahul's spot under pressure. Rahul has scored just 5 runs in his last three first-class innings: 4 and 1 against Andhra, then 0 against New Zealand A. Add his costly fielding mistakes and his place deserves serious scrutiny.

CSK replaced Fleming and then cleared out the entire support staff. Hussey, Simons, Greg King and Simsek are all gone after a decade or more each. Zaheer Khan now builds a coaching room with no carryover on the batting and bowling side, with only Sriram and Foster surviving the clearout. Morkel and Mohit know the dressing room culture. Whether that matters more than fresh ideas is a question CSK answered with this reshuffle.

Pat Cummins won the toss at Newlands and put South Africa in. Bold call. South Africa have lost there after being sent in only once, in 1896. By lunch Aiden Markram and Marques Ackerman were 140 without loss, South Africa's first century opening stand in 42 Test innings. Cummins got pulled for six in over one, and Lyon was on by the 11th. At lunch, that bold call was costing Australia 140 runs without a wicket.

Same pitch. Same bowlers. Iyer still couldn't explain it. Abhishek Sharma made 113 off 38 balls with 11 sixes and he and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi put on 133 off 43 to turn a 199 chase into a 13.2-over stroll. Captain Shreyas Iyer made 5 off 10. He admitted that when he walked out to bat, "I was like, how did they manage this?"

Ayush Badoni has done what only Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir have done for Delhi, and he still doesn't have a settled IPL spot. Back-to-back Ranji double centuries, against Gujarat and then Jharkhand in Ranchi. He's the 21st Indian batter ever to manage it. Kohli and Gambhir turned that kind of patch into long India careers. Badoni has the same line on his record and still no settled place in an IPL XI.

Abhishek Sharma's 35-ball hundred in Wellington is only the second-fastest century of his own T20I career. He faster one, 30 balls against Afghanistan six weeks ago, still stands as the fastest T20I century by an Indian batter. Same pattern in the powerplay. His innings here is the second-highest score by an Indian in the first six overs, behind his own 76 off 22 in that Afghanistan game. Abhishek Sharma has stopped chasing other batters' records now he is chasing his own

India reached a hundred in 5 overs, faster than South Africa's 5.3-over mark for the fastest hundred by a full-member team. Abhishek Sharma tore into New Zealand's attack and dragged India to 118/0, the highest powerplay score in men's T20I history. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was at the other end for most of it. Two names share the record. One man did the damage.

Harmanpreet Kaur handed over the captaincy and said "I don't think there is any pressure anymore... I just want to enjoy my batting." She has just made a century batting at four. Smriti Mandhana, the new captain, has 32 and a duck. India lead 2-0, with Pratika Rawal's hundred and a 61 at the top of the order. One gave up the captaincy and made runs. The other took it and is still looking for them.

Steve Smith had a nets hit on the morning of the Cape Town decider and still couldn't prove his fitness. Josh Inglis replaces him, one of four changes to Australia's XI for a Test they need to win. Australia have swapped a specialist batter for a keeper-batter on the morning of the match, with the series on the line. Their middle order changes with it. Smith's neck was the story all week. It has now picked the team.

Zaheer Khan is flying to Mumbai to meet a player who still hasn't decided whether he will play in 2027. CSK are rebuilding their coaching staff, trying to free up purse space before November 15, and still waiting on MS Dhoni. He missed the entire 2026 season through injury. Now every retention decision hangs on whether he wants one more IPL season. CSK have a rebuild to run and their biggest decision still belongs to Dhoni.

Simon Harmer says Pat Cummins told Temba Bavuma he was "making the wrong decision" by batting on through the rain delays. South Africa kept batting, made 425/9 and won by an innings. Harmer says Cummins "managed to eat his words". By Harmer's account, even Matthew Breetzke got involved mid-innings. Bavuma stuck with his call, and South Africa proved Cummins wrong.

Devdutt Padikkal made 199 in the unofficial Test. One run short of a double century, denied by a contentious leg-side caught-behind he visibly disputed. That's back-to-back unofficial Test centuries since he replaced an injured Sai Sudharsan, with a hundred in the tour game before that. Sudharsan, in the same match, made 91. It seems the No. 3 race stopped being close.

Badrinath wants Varun Chakaravarthy in for Sooryavanshi at No. 3. New Zealand have posted 220 and 180 in two games at Christchurch. Wellington's Basin Reserve, open on three sides, brings its own wind into the equation. Meanwhile Bhuvneshwar has leaked 49 and 50 in his last two spells and Morkel still wants him left alone to find his feet. India are 2-0 up. The XI debate shouldn't be about Sooryavanshi's spot. It should be about whether India can afford a fourth over of Bhuvneshwar right now.

42 not out at a strike rate of 280 in the first T20I against New Zealand. 31 at over 180 in the next one. Same result both times, India won. That's two different match situations solved with the same fearlessness. R Ashwin says Dhir is already squeezing out Hardik Pandya, Dube and Rinku Singh for a spot. Yet he hasn't bowled a single over in these T20Is. India is trusting half of what he can do.

Lance Klusener has called Vaibhav Sooryavanshi "the next superstar" of Indian cricket. That's some serious backing for a teenager! But Klusener has a tougher warning for Shubman Gill. He believes separating batting from captaincy is a challenge even experienced leaders struggle with. Vaibhav is being tipped to carry forward the legacy of Kohli and Rohit, while Gill is already dealing with the pressure of leading India. Gill has the talent, but India need their captain scoring runs without the burden of leadership dragging down his batting.