The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has thrown its weight behind MS Dhoni after the International Cricket Council (ICC) objected to the army crest on his wicketkeeping gloves during India's World Cup 2019 opening match against South Africa on June 5.

Committee of Administrators chief Vinod Rai confirmed that BCCI has written a letter to the International Cricket Council seeking permission for Dhoni to wear the gloves with the army badge.

"We have already written (to ICC to seek permission for MS Dhoni to wear 'Balidaan' insignia on his gloves), will speak more after the meeting (CoA meeting)," Vinod Rai said.

Chairman of Indian Premier League, Rajeev Shukla said the ICC should not have any objection to let MS Dhoni wear the gloves as there is no commercial aspect involved in the gesture.

"It's not a commercial or a religious thing. It's only about the country's pride. So I don't think the ICC should have any objection because it has got nothing to do with commercial endorsements," Rajeev Shukla said.

'It would need to be considered by the ICC'

Claire Furlong, ICC General Manager, Strategic Communications, had said that the BCCI has been asked to get the symbol removed from Dhoni's gloves.

"We have requested the BCCI to get it removed," Claire Furlong had said.

However, Clarie Furlong confirmed the BCCI's request and said the decision will only be taken by the apex body of world cricket.

Fans in India were furious after the ICC asked MS Dhoni to change his gloves. in fact, #DhoniKeepTheGlove started trending on social media on Friday as several fans came out to support Dhoni over his gesture.

On the other hand, former India football team captain Baichung Bhutia said it's important for a player of any stature to respect the rules of the sport.

"I think it's a wonderful gesture from MS Dhoni but at the same time, it's important to follow the rules and laws of the sport. If the laws and rules do not permit, then I think as a player he shouldn't be wearing it," Baichung Bhutia said.

"If you start somewhere and then a lot of controversies may follow. So I think I think, for every player, no matter how big the player is, the laws need to be followed."

SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), after registering a loss against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Super Over, would look to come back stronger to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and remain in playoffs contention, when the two franchises cross swords at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday. SRH would be eyeing to shrug off their Super Over defeat and add two points to take their tally to 14 points. Despite their defeat against Mumbai Indians on Thursday, Hyderabad's net run rate is +0.653, which is superior to others in contention for the playoffs.

Even if the Hyderabad franchise loses their last match, they can still reach playoffs if Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab don't win more than one of their last two matches.

In the absence of their batting mainstay David Warner, young Manish Pandey (71 off 47 balls) shouldered the responsibility pretty well in the last match against Mumbai as he pushed the match into the Super Over after he carted Hardik Pandya for a last-ball six to bring the scores level.

Mumbai Indians had scored 162 for five in the allotted 20 overs. Needing nine to win in super over, Pandya and Kieron Pollard took the side home with three balls to spare.

The Hyderabad franchise had managed 8 for 2 with Jasprit Bumrah bagging Pandey and Mohammed Nabi's wickets.

Captain Kane Williamson, all-rounder Vijay Shankar and comeback man Wriddhiman Saha will look to score in the key match. Hyderabad bowlers have performed well in patches and need to get their act together against Bangalore's master blasters AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli.

The visitors boast of multi-pronged attack in which Afghanistan's Rashid Khan has been the standout performer.

Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed and experienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar, along with the Afghan spin twins Rashid and Mohammed Nabi add sting to Hyderabad attack.

The Bangalore outfit will be playing for pride after their hopes of entering playoffs went up in smoke after their match against Rajasthan Royals was abandoned due to rain.

Squads:

SunRisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (capt), Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami, Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Martin Guptill, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (capt), Parthiv Patel (wk), AB de Villiers, Colin de Grandhomme, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Moeen Ali, Shimron Hetmyer, Dale Steyn, Shivam Dube, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Devdutt Padikkal, Himmat Singh, Milind Kumar, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Heinrich Klaasen, Pawan Negi, Washington Sundar, Akshdeep Nath, Prayas Ray Barman, Kulwant Khejroliya, Tim Southee.

Shooter Apurvi Chandela became the world number one in women's 10m Air Rifle category with 1,926 rankings points, according to the latest rankings released by International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) on Wednesday. The shooter, won the gold medal in 10m Air Rifle event in the New Delhi Shooting World Cup earlier this year, took to Twitter to announce her commendable feat. "World Number 1. Touched a milestone in my shooting career today!!" tweeted Apurvi Chandela.

While Chandela has already booked a Tokyo Olympics berth, she narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth with a total score of 207.8, at the recently-concluded ISSF World Cup in Beijing, China.

However, India won the team medal with a total score of 1887.2.

Anjum Moudgil, who was sixth in the eight-member final, occupies the second spot in world rankings.

Apart from these two, Manu Bhaker is the world number 10 in the 25m Pistol Women category.

Among the men, Divyansh Singh Panwar's Beijing World Cup exploits propelled him to world number four in 10m Air Rifle category.

Divyansh won two gold medals at Beijing - 10m Air Rifle Men and 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team - and also secured his quota at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Abhishek Verma, who also won a gold medal in Beijing, was world number three in 10m Air Pistol category. India's teen sensation Saurabh Chaudhary was not far away at world number 6.

Anish Bhanwala, another of India's talented young shooter, was on the 10th spot in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol category.

Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings have already qualified for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 playoffs. However, a clash of them at the fag end of the tournament promises plenty of fireworks. Under the captaincy of Shreyas Iyer, Delhi Capitals defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday to top the points table and book themselves a playoffs berth. CSK, on the other hand, had qualified for the playoffs earlier but suffered a defeat to Mumbai Indians after that and their net run-rate slipped into negative. On Wednesday, Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings will face off in a battle for the top position at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

With just two games left in the league stage, CSK will look to roar back with victories to seal a spot in the top two and get the home comfort in Qualifier 1.

Without MS Dhoni, CSK's batting collapsed against MI and they lost the game by 46 runs to surrender their position at the top of the points table to Delhi. With 16 points from 12 games, CSK will be hoping that their talismanic captain recovers from the bout of fever, which forced him to sit out the MI fixture and be ready to feature in the last home match of the league phase.

Also, the home team will be expecting influential all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja to be back in the mix too.

Delhi Capitals, on the other hand, would be high on confidence having posted four wins in their last five matches. Young Shreyas Iyer has done a good job of leading the team, which also has 16 points from 12 games, and has scored important runs.

He will be keen to put on some valuable runs on board against the formidable CSK and would also expect Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, and Rishabh Pant to find ways to score on a sluggish Chepauk track.

It will be fascinating to see how the league's top wicket-taker Kagiso Rabada does on CSK's home turf, traditionally known to offer help to slow bowlers. The spin-heavy CSK led by Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh could prove quite a handful for Dhawan and company and how they cope with that would determine the game's outcome, as would the Delhi tweakers performance.

Squads:

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Murali Vijay, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Shorey, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Rituraj Gaikwad, Dwayne Bravo, Karn Sharma, Imran Tahir, Harbhajan Singh, Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Mohit Sharma, K M Asif, Deepak Chahar, N Jagadeesan, Scott Kuggeleijn.

Delhi Capitals: Shreyas Iyer (capt), Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Colin Ingram, Keemo Paul, Axar Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Amit Mishra, Kagiso Rabada, Ishant Sharma, Hanuma Vihari, Ankush Bains, Chris Morris, Sherfane Rutherford, Jalaj Saxena, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Nathu Singh, Bandaru Ayyappa, Colin Munro, Manjot Kalra.

Rohit Sharma was fined of 15 percent of his match fees for breaching the code of conduct following the KKR vs MI IPL 2019 clash on Sunday. The Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper hit the stumps with his bat after being adjudged leg-before-wicket (LBW) after trying to loft KKR left-arm pacer, Harry Gurney. Rohit Sharma initially reviewed the decision and after he was given out, he demonstrated his disapproval by exchanging a few words with the on-field umpire, culminating with him breaking the stumps.

Chasing a score of 233 at the Eden Gardens, Rohit Sharma gave the Mumbai Indians a good start by smashing three boundaries early into his innings, before losing his wicket to Harry Gurney in the fourth over.

Replays showed that the ball was just clipping leg stump as the Mumbai Indians captain reviewed the decision.

During the hearing with the match referee after the game, Rohit Sharma accepted the sanction.

"Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai Indians batsman, and the captain was fined 15 percent of his match fees for breaching the VIVO Indian Premier League's (IPL) Code of Conduct during his team's match against Kolkata Knight Riders at Kolkata,".

"Mr. Sharma admitted to the Level 1 offence 2.2 of the IPL's Code of Conduct and accepted the sanction."

Kolkata Knight Riders, after being made to bat first by the Mumbai Indians at the toss, posted a huge score of 232/2, with notable contributions from Shubman Gill (76 off 45 balls), Chris Lynn (54 off 29 balls) and an unbeaten 80 off 40 balls from Andre Russell.

Placed third in the IPL points table with 14 points in 12 games, Mumbai Indians eventually went on to lose the game by 34 runs, despite a valiant effort from all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who played a blistering knock of 91 off 34 balls, before being dismissed by Harry Gurney on the final ball of the 17th over.