This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am — James Joyce
A billion dollars can’t buy you an ounce of the talent that oozes out of Pakistan’s young left-arm fast bowler Mohammad Amir. Is there anything that an aspiring fast bowler would not trade to-have-even-half of what this 18-year-old boy has in abundance? And is it, therefore, a rational question to ask that why would the proud possessor of such … [Read more...]
The older lot in the Indian dressing room knows it all too well and now the younger generation got to witness it at the P Sara Oval in Colombo: Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman is a bad wicket genius. Laxman’s flawless hundred had Murali Vijay giving him a bow when he was returning to the dressing room while Dravid and Tendulkar could just not … [Read more...]
‘Match turning out to be a classic’ was what Justin Langer said after the fourth day’s play of the second Test of Australia’s 2004 tour of India. It was a four Test series and Australia had won the first Test in Bangalore by quite some margin. Ricky Ponting was unavailable for the first three Tests due to a finger injury and Sachin … [Read more...]
For a fan of the game a good day of Test match cricket is an adventure that is more exciting, intriguing, and entertaining than a season full of senseless versions of the shorter-form. Wednesday, the 21st of July 2010, was one such day; and it gave fans a double scoop of edge-of-the-seat cricket. This is how fans of Test cricket want to be spoiled. … [Read more...]
“That bloke’s making me look ordinary! He’s ruining my career!” said Phil Tufnell, the bad boy of English cricket in the 1990s, while stripping all his insecurity about Shane Warne. India too finds itself in a situation where all that ails the cricketing universe is painted as its doing. The Australian, which presents itself as the … [Read more...]
It was great to sit back and watch Rohit Sharma make an audacious and unbeaten 79 in 46 balls at number 4 in India’s T20 match against Australia where seven other batsmen who played above and below him made a total of 24 runs in 42 balls. Harbhajan Singh, who made 13 runs batting at number nine, was the only other Indian player to get to double … [Read more...]
Cricket was a gentleman’s game. This was that I have used in the previous sentence was an is to a certain degree when the game was played in whites and the dirt it attracted was largely on the ground and could pass off as a by product of tough competitive cricket at the highest level—showing a bit of ‘mongrel’ as the Aussies would put it. … [Read more...]
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. — The Merchant of Venice When Christopher Martin-Jenkins used this Shakespearean beginning to cry out for less cricket in 2003 the world was not going through as acute a … [Read more...]
“During the summer of 1997 The Times Magazine published John Woodcock’s personal selection of the 100 greatest cricketers in the history of the game. This immediately sparked a wide-ranging debate in the cricket world but it was universally agreed that no one was better qualified to undertake so daunting and essentially controversial a task,” … [Read more...]
“Say that cricket has nothing to do with politics and you say that cricket has nothing to do with life,” wrote journalist and cricket commentator John Arlott. It is a statement that can be appreciated by anyone who is aware of—or has even remotely tried to understand—how the game is run in his part of the world. Let me say at the onset … [Read more...]
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