Newsfile: April 21

'Royals' best team in five years' - Trivedi: Rajasthan Royals have been the form team of IPL 2012 so far, sitting at the top-end of a tight points table with four wins from six games. Despite their relative lack of stars, much like in the inaugural season of the IPL, they’ve more than competed. That 2008 team went on to win the tournament, but this team is their best yet, according to seamer Siddharth Trivedi. “We have a balanced team, a good mix of players. A lot of them [people] consider us underdogs … But in my opinion, this is our best team in five years,” he said. “We have a lot of youngsters and domestic players who have the hunger to perform; they are aware that they could get noticed by the national selectors.”

Spin or pace? Delhi Daredevils' Shahbaz Nadeem might have confounded the likes of JP Duminy and Richard Levi with his left-arm spin, but if he had had his way, he might have been a fast bowler. In an interview with Cricketcountry.com, he said he had taken up spin bowling only at the insistence of his coach Imtiaz Hussain. “I wanted to be a fast bowler because Wasim Akram was my idol, but my coach Imtiaz Hussain asked me to bowl spin instead as I didn’t have the required height and the physique for fast bowling,” he said. “I was about 11 or 12 years old at the time. He told me we would see about bowling fast later, so I started to bowl spin.”