Dean Jones, 59, suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away on Thursday. (File Photo/PTI)

Thousands of miles away from the IPL game, there was another struggle underway on Thursday: between uber professionals trying to get on with their job and friends visibly shaken by a dear loss. Hours after Dean Jones’ passing, his Dugout co-commentators Scott Styris, Brett Lee and others remembered the professor and the player.

There were no ‘wickets’ or ‘big overs’ on Thursday. No banter or dance moves. It didn’t feel right without the man who brought the party together. And if you didn’t already know that Dean Jones was the leader of the Dugout commentary bunch, Styris spelt it out for you.

“You’ll se...

In this file photo, Dean Jones holds the stumps as he races to embrace team captain Allan Border, right, in a moment of jubilation, in Calcutta, India. (AP Photo)

A picture speaks a thousand words. Sometimes it does more. One of them is a grainy, pixelated one of Dean Jones leaning onto his bat like a walking stick and vomiting on the ground, attended by a couple of Indian cricketers and his batting partner during his sweat-drenching double hundred in the exhausting Madras heat of 1986. This could arguably be the most historic and symbolic of photographs in the history of modern Australian cricket history, the picture that set in stone a world-beating Aussie dynasty for nearly two-and-a-half decades.

It made...

It was a dream performance from Rahul, showcasing elegance, poise, premeditation. (BCCI/IPL)

At the toss, Kings XI Punjab captain KL Rahul said that his team was a little rusty coming into this game. One would tend to disagree, judging by the manner in which he bossed over Royal Challengers Bangalore’s bowlers. It was a dream performance from Rahul, showcasing elegance, poise, premeditation with a bit of mayhem thrown in towards the end. His unbeaten 69-ball 132 – the highest score by an Indian in the IPL – put up 207 as the target in front of Virat Kohli’s team, and they capitulated abysmally to lose by 97 runs.

To further make it a day to forget for Kohli, Rahul enjoyed two reprieves — both coming at the h...

Commentator Michael Slater interviews KL Rahul Captain of Kings XI Punjab KL Rahul at the toss. (BCCI/IPL)

It was a subtly sombre bunch of commentary professionals who were coming to grips with their grief after the demise of Dean Jones. Often between the normalcy of banter and guffaws, peeked out the sudden grief.

Slater ‘struggling to come to terms’

Often, the shock of a sudden tragedy overwhelms those close to the deceased. There are quite a few Australians in the IPL commentary team, many who would have known Dean Jones for several years. It was evident that former Australia opener Michael Slater was not his ebullient self during the pre-match show on the host broadcaster...

KL Rahul captain of Kings XI Punjab celebrates his century. (BCCI/IPL)

Kings XI Punjab batsman KL Rahul, opening the innings against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Thursday, scored the first century of season 13 of the Indian Premier League.

His unbeaten century took KXIP to a total of 206/3 in 20 overs. Rahul’s breathtaking knock comprised 14 fours and seven sixes.

RAHUL EXPRESS
UNSTOPPABLE@klrahul11#KXIPvRCB#IPL2020 #IPL2020Updates pic.twitter.com/MCZPZzbZam

— Dr. Akash Shukla 🇮🇳 (@Akashsh14759919) September 24, 2020

Enroute to his hundred, Rahul also completed 2000 runs in the IPL. He is now the fastest Indian batsman to achieve this milestone.

He needed 60 innings to score 2000 runs...

Dean Jones was 59, a swashbuckling batsman who had played 52 Tests and 164 ODIs. (Reuters)

HOURS AFTER former Australian cricketer and commentator Dean Jones succumbed to a massive cardiac arrest in a Mumbai hotel, Kiran More was in a state of shock. “We had met for breakfast and I later saw him running in the hotel hallway, something he always did in the bio-secure environment. I even threw a pillow at him in jest. He was then going up to his room as he had called a person to fix his laptop…that person later told me that Jones had suddenly fallen on the floor,” the former India player said.

Jones was 59, a swashbuckling batsman who had played 52 Tests and 164 ODIs before he became a popular commentat...

Anwar Ali belongs to the famous Class of 2017, the first Indian team to play in a FIFA World Cup, albeit in under-17. (File photo)

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has recommended that junior India international Anwar Ali ‘should be restricted from competitive sports activity’ because of a congenital heart condition.

A senior All India Football Federation (AIFF) official said the chairman of AFC’s medical commission, Dato Gurucharan Singh, has warned that Ali’s illness could aggravate if he continued playing competitive football. The AIFF has called for a meeting of its Emergency Committee to take a final call on the issue...