With 4 international captains, SRH prove they have the edge

Agencies

November 7, 2020

Abu Dhabi, Nov 7: SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) are making the most of the presence of four international captains in their line-up with two of them, Jason Holder and Kane Williamson, combining to lead the team home in a tricky chase against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Friday night's Eliminator.

Both Kane Williamson, who leads New Zealand in international cricket, and Jason Holder, who captains West Indies, added unbeaten 65 runs for the fifth wicket on a tricky spin-friendly surface to lead their team to a six-wicket win over RCB.

Earlier, Holder picked three wickets for 25 to lead the bowling which also had Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan who bowled miserly again with figures of 4-0-22-0. The duo helped restrict RCB to 131 for seven in 20 overs.

Ever since Holder has joined the team, on October 22, SRH have won five of their six games, and now are just two games away from the Indian Premier League title.

While Holder has picked 13 wickets in six matches besides his couple of cameos with the bat, the other three -- Williamson, Rashid and former Australia skipper David Warner, who is leading SRH in IPL, too have contributed to the team's cause.

Williamson's fifty (50 not out off 44 balls) against RCB was his second match-winning contribution this IPL after a 26-ball 41 against DC in an earlier game, but his presence in the middle-order is beginning to materialise now. SRH had benched him in between, but had to bring him back after they realised that the middle-order was vulnerable without him.

"We have calmness, level-headedness with Kane in the middle," Holder said after the partnership between the two on Friday.

Williamson repaid the compliment after the game saying, "He (Holder) is cooler than me. The all-rounder role in the team has been well held by him."

Leg-spinner Rashid Khan is the leading wicket-taker for SRH with 19 scalps and more importantly, has the best economy rate in this season's IPL with 5.30 runs per over.

"Rashid is the leader of the attack. I am running out of superlatives for both - Williamson and Rashid," added Holder.

Skipper Warner is the second highest run-getter in the IPL this season with 546 runs and is 124 runs behind KXIP skipper KL Rahul in the race for Orange Cap. He has scored four half-centuries, two of which have come in the last four games when SRH have turned it on to surge back into the competition.

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Chaos continues as IndiGo cancels more flights including 73 from Bengaluru airport

News Network

December 4,2025

Domestic carrier IndiGo has cancelled over 180 flights from three major airports — Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru — on Thursday, December 4, as the airline struggles to secure the required crew to operate its flights in the wake of new flight-duty and rest-period norms for pilots.

While the number of cancellations at Mumbai airport stands at 86 (41 arrivals and 45 departures) for the day, at Bengaluru, 73 flights have been cancelled, including 41 arrivals, according to a PTI report that quoted sources.

"IndiGo cancelled over 180 flights on Thursday at three airports-Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru," the source told the news agency.

Besides, it had cancelled as many as 33 flights at Delhi airport for Thursday, the source said, adding, "The number of cancellations is expected to be higher by the end of the day."

The Gurugram-based airline's On-Time Performance (OTP) nosedived to 19.7 per cent at six key airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad — on December 3, as it struggled to get the required crew to operate its services, down from almost half of December 2, when it was 35 per cent.

"IndiGo has been facing acute crew shortage since the implementation of the second phase of the FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) norms, leading to cancellations and huge delays in its operations across the airports," a source had told PTI on Wednesday.

Chaos continued at several major airports for the third day on Thursday because of the cancellations.

A spokesperson for the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru said that 73 IndiGo flights had been cancelled on Thursday.

At least 150 flights were cancelled and dozens of others delayed on Wednesday, airport sources said, leaving thousands of travellers stranded, according to news agency Reuters.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has said it is investigating IndiGo flight disruptions and has asked the airline to submit the reasons for the current situation, as well as its plans to reduce flight cancellations and delays.

It may be mentioned here that the pilots' body, Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), has alleged that IndiGo, despite getting a two-year preparatory window before the full implementation of new flight duty and rest period norms for cockpit crew, "inexplicably" adopted a "hiring freeze".

The FIP said it has urged the safety regulator, the DGCA, not to approve airlines' seasonal flight schedules unless they have adequate staff to operate their services "safely and reliably" in accordance with the New Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms.

In a letter to the DGCA late on Wednesday, the FIP urged the DGCA to consider re-evaluating and reallocating slots to other airlines, which have the capacity to operate them without disruption during the peak holiday and fog season if IndiGo continues to "fail in delivering on its commitments to passengers due to its own avoidable staffing shortages."

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