Author: Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

What to expect An intense game. KKR have their backs to the wall after two defeats and a solitary win. SRH are on the same boat. Of the six teams on two points from three games, SRH are eighth and KKR 10th. So much for the finalists from the 2024 edition. Under such circumstances, usually, games tend to take a weird shape. Nobody can predict which way it will tilt. It’s hard to tell the favourites. Eden Gardens will assist carry and lift amid talks of slowing the surface down, following some hue and cry from the home team and…

Shortly before the halfway mark of the Delhi Capitals (DC) chase against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Kevin Pietersen appeared on TV. The DC innings was in the doldrums when their team mentor went on air. Wickets were falling in a heap, but the former England heavyweight insisted that they still had some ‘wonderful strikers of the cricket ball’ to come. Among the names he took were Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam. Ashutosh was impressive for Punjab Kings in his debut IPL season in 2024. Nigam was playing the first IPL game of his life. The two brought the team back…

The moment of the Chennai Super Kings-Mumbai Indians match lasted less than half a second. It was the 11th over of the MI innings. Suryakumar Yadav was bringing the batting side back in the game. Noor Ahmad beat him on a forward charge, the ball spun away, and the right-hander’s hind leg got off the ground before he planted it back. That was all MS Dhoni needed to brush the bails off. At a packed MA Chidambaram Stadium decked in yellow and chanting his name, that was the only occasion when Dhoni was in ‘action’. It showed that at 43,…

CSK start their IPL 2025 campaign with a win over MI. (PC: X.com)Rachin Ravindra sealed it with a six. MS Dhoni was watching from the other end, as Chennai Super Kings began their IPL 2025 campaign with a four-wicket win against Mumbai Indians. The Chepauk was choc-a-bloc on Sunday evening. The home team kept finding someone or the other to win the crucial moments. MI fought despite missing Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah, but were never really in it after making 155/9. Ravindra and Ruturaj Gaikwad had put CSK firmly on course with a 67-run partnership for the second wicket.…

Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians, MA Chidambaram Stadium, 7.30 pm What to expect Fireworks. This is the most anticipated feature of a match pitting the six-time champions against a side which won it five times. However, given the nature of the Chennai pitch, this might turn out to a slow-burning battle, where the gap between the teams will be thin. Ability to rotate strike might become as important as the power to clear the boundary. With Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah not available for different reasons, MI have to make late adjustments. With due respect to MI’s overall might,…

Scene 1: Requests for IPL tickets come from unexpected quarters. This was a few years back at the neighbourhood liquor shop. The person on the other side of the counter appeared unusually polite that evening. His question explained why. “Dada, ekta ticket hobe (is it possible to manage a ticket)?” It had become a common question by then. But still, the place made it memorable. Scene 2: There is a clinic in south Kolkata, with three-four TV sets hanging from the walls of the room where patients are dialysed. It’s a long process, which takes about four hours, and involves…

Things change dramatically in T20s. Two openers, hailed as the next batting superstars from India across formats, have seen this from close quarters. In their case, it’s been lows after highs. Captain of the Indian team to Zimbabwe last July, Shubman Gill was not even in the squad when India last played this format. Part of the 2024 T20 World Cup side, Yashasvi Jaiswal is in similar space. Gill and Jaiswal came to the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year on the back of stellar outings against England in the five-match Test series at home. Gill, the Gujarat Titans captain,…

“You may be the best player in the world, but may not be the best in your house,” was how Viswanathan Anand summed up the Indian upsurge in global chess. Apart from the domination displayed by the youngsters at the top level in recent times, the other hallmark has been bench strength. In the top 15 in the open section, there are five Indians, including the ever-shining Anand. This fosters healthy competition at home. These players know they have no time to relax. Any lapse and they will be overtaken by one of their own. This is a relentless pursuit…

Anju Bobby George at the relaxation-cum-podcast room at the Tata Steel Trailblazers conclave in Kolkata. Someone asked if 6.81 metres was still the national record. India’s first world athletics championship medal-winner gave a cold stare. “It’s 6.83,” she said. It was not an engaging conversation, but a glimpse nonetheless of how seriously athletes value what they do. Ask India’s long jump legend about her protégé Shaili Singh, and the answer comes as soon as the question is asked. “She has done 6.76. She’s doing okay.” This conclave organised by RevSportz was certainly a spectacle on the stage. The who’s who…

With the cricket team bouncing back after hiccups in the longest format, the chess contingent has not let India down. R Praggnanandhaa, winner of the first top event of the year at Wijk Aan Zee, is the joint-leader with Aravindh Chithambaram, behind on tie-break score, after Round 5 of the Prague Masters. This is not a top-most event, but a formidable gathering nonetheless. Pragg and Aravindh are leading this nine-round competition featuring 10 players, with 3.5 points each and a full point ahead of their nearest rivals, is a continuation of the Indian surge in chess. These players have not…