Former Indian cricketer to join IPL side in 2019, Ashwin and Rahane to play in upcoming tournament, and more- Cricket News Today, October 18, 2018

Welcome to Sportkseeda's Cricket News Today for October 18, 2018.

The third day of play of the second Test between Australia and Pakistan continued today in Abu Dhabi. Apart from an extremely strange incident at the beginning of the day involving a run-out, Pakistan are in firm control of the match.

They managed to score 400 runs with the loss of 9 wickets before declaring. Babar Azam fell one run short of his century while Sarfraz Ahmed, Azhar Ali, and Fakhar Zaman scored half-centuries as well.

Australia have a mammoth 528 run total to chase down with two days left to play.

In other matches from around the world, Delhi clinched a nail-biting victory over Jharkhand in the second semifinal encounter of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. They will now take on Mumbai in the final to be held on October 20 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Now, let's take a look at the trending news from today:

#1 Amitabh Chaudhary clarifies that he is not Rahul Johri's substitute

Amidst the sexual harassment claims levelled against BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, he was asked by the Commitee of Administrators to stay back in India and not travel to Singapore for an ICC meeting.

Amitabh Chaudhary, who is the acting secretary of the BCCI, attended the meeting. It was assumed that he was present as Johri's replacement, however, BCCI confirmed that he was supposed to attend the meeting anyway.

"Ever since it was decided that Mr. Rahul Johri would not attend the ICC-CEC meeting, an impression has been created that Mr. Amitabh Choudhary, Acting secretary BCCI, is being sent as a 'substitute' for Mr Johri," read a BCCI statement.

"It must be noted Mr. Choudhary is a Director on the ICC Board of Directors, the highest ICC forum, for nearly two years now and has been representing India/BCCI at the meetings in his capacity as the ICC Board Director," read the BCCI statement quoting Choudhary.

"Choudhary was scheduled to attend the ICC Board of Directors meeting in the ongoing ICC conference even if Mr. Johri was going to attend the Chief Executives' meeting.

#2 Azhar Ali involved in bizarre run-out

The third day of the second Test between Pakistan and Australia continued today in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan continued to dominate as their batsmen took on the opposition bowlers with ease and did not allow them to pick up wickets at regular intervals.

However, early on in the day, Azhar Ali was involved in an extremely bizarre run-out.

While facing Peter Siddle, Ali edged the ball past gully on the drive and it ran to the rope and the two batsmen thought it had gone for four. However, it stopped just short of the rope. Mitchell Starc chased it down and threw it back and Azhar and Asad were mid-pitch just having a conversation while Tim Paine whipped the bails off.

#3 Deodhar Trophy squads announced; Ashwin and Rahane to play

Ashwin and Rahane will play in the Deodhar Trophy

One of India's premier limited-overs tournament, the Deodhar Trophy, will begin in a few weeks from now. The tournament will feature three teams, namely India A, B, and C. Unlike the previous years, the Vijay Hazare Trophy champions will not take part in the tournament.

"It was decided during the technical committee meeting of BCCI that there will be three teams instead of one being Vijay Hazare champions," Saba Karim told PTI on Thursday.

The tournament will feature the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ajinkya Rahane, who will play for India A and India C respectively.

Squads:

India A: Dinesh Karthik (c, wk), Prithvi Shaw, Anmolpreet Singh, A R Easwaran, Ankit Bawne, Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Krunal Pandya, R Ashwin, Shreyas Gopal, S Mulani, Mohammed Siraj, Dhawal Kulkarni, Siddarth Kaul

India B: Shreyas Iyer (c), Mayank Agarwal, Rituraj Gaekwad, PS Chopra, Hanuma Vihari, Manoj Tiwary, Ankush Bains (wk), Rohit Rayudu, K Gowtham, Mayank Markande, S Nadeem, Deepak Chahar, Varun Aaron, Jaydev Unadkat

India C: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Abhinav Mukund, Shubman Gill, R Samarth, Suresh Raina, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Vijay Shankar, Washington Sundar, Rahul Chahar, Pappu Roy, Navdeep Saini, R Gurbani, Umar Nazir

#4 Reports: Mohammed Kaif to join Delhi Daredevils

Mohammad Kaif

Former Indian cricketer Mohammed Kaif will reportedly join the Indian Premier League side Delhi Daredevils for the 2019 season.

He previously worked with the Gujarat Lions in 2017 as the assistant coach to Brad Hodge.

Kaif, who made his international debut back in 2000 against South Africa in Bangalore, played 13 Test matches and 125 ODIs for India with his last international game coming in 2006 against South Africa.

He announced his retirement from the game in July this year.