Author: Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

There will be turn, possibly square, and from the first day. Tests will get over inside three days. England deciding to include three spinners in the XI accentuated the spin talk. Former cricketers, columnists and fans in general were preparing for another trial by turn. Last year’s Australia series and three three-day Tests were still fresh in the mind. After two exciting games in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, filled with twists and turns (of another kind), it can be said that the discussions on spin were exaggerated. Nobody knew how the pitches would behave and jumped to the conclusion that excessive…

In the end, Indians and English fans were celebrating together in the stands in Visakhapatnam. One team won and another lost, but for these spectators, it was four days of exciting cricket, where the home team prevailed due to some exceptional individual efforts. RevSportz lists the key factors… Jaiswal’s precious double: Yashasvi Jaiswal’s double-century set India up. His 209 towered above the rest, with the next-highest being Shubman Gill’s 34. Almost all the batters got off to starts, no one else converted it into a big one. Had Jaiswal too got out for 30 or 40, India’s first-innings total would…

Irrespective of the outcome of the second Test against England in Visakhapatnam, the Indian team will head into the break before the third with concerns in the mind. There will be creased foreheads and some head scratching. Other than Bazball, a lot of it should concern their own batting. This is not something this team had to contend with in the recent past. Batting in their own backyard had seldom been a problem for the Indians this millennium. They were bothered by other thoughts, like how to contain a Steve Smith or Alastair Cook, who both made multiple centuries on…

The sun was blazing down. Shortly after lunch, it was warm, humid and a bit uncomfortable if you were in the uncovered parts of the stands at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam. There was one calming factor if you were a home-team fan. Someone was warming up in these hot conditions. Nobody knew what was coming but it was building, quietly. What unfolded over the next few hours over a few spells of furious fast bowling at its intelligent best should turn this India-England Test series on its head. Bowled out for what seemed to be a below-par 396 despite…

Whatever its length may be, a long rope is not endless. Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer are probably nearing the end of it. Both have been given a number of opportunities, considering their performances in the past and potential to do well in the future. After a series of low returns, including in the first innings of the second Test against England, it’s fair to say time is running out. In Visakhapatnam, Gill and Iyer looked slightly better than they had in the recent past. They middled more than they did not, saw through the initial period when batters might…

In any form of cricket, start is a key word, more so for a batter. This is a phase when he or she is uncertain of a lot of things. The feet may be hesitant. Conditions can be unfamiliar and feel of the pitch minimal. Contact with bat and ball can also be on and off. Sometimes, it is more off than on. And then, once that start has been achieved, it has to be capitalised on. For starters, that was the story of Day 1 in the India-England second Test in Visakhapatnam. It was a tale of two parts.…

Other than the port and its beaches, Visakhapatnam is also getting known for its medical infrastructure. Parts of the city are dotted with hospitals and diagnostic centres. They get patients from different places in Andhra Pradesh and also from Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The Indian team is not in need of medical attention yet. A couple of their players are out injured and they are 0-1 down in the five-Test series against England. But they have reason to believe that they can make a comeback, beginning with the second Test which gets underway on February 2. Here are five things that…

Speculation is a favourite pastime of the great Indian cricket fraternity. This encompasses activities of the selectors, team management, the board that governs and, of course, we the people. This becomes rife in the times of crises. The graver the situation, the bigger the clamour – who, when, what, why, why not! As the second India-England Test in Visakhapatnam comes closer, louder are the murmurs. India, unbelievably 1-0 down after the first match of the five-Test series, have Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul out of the second Test due to injuries. No Virat Kohli. How many reinforcements then? Two changes…

Most of the talk surrounding the India-England Test series has been about spin and pitch. Will the ball turn? How much? From the first hour of the match? This became a national fixation as far as the media of the two countries are concerned. For valid reasons, mind you. Pitches turned heads last year in the series against Australia and also before that. Beneath all that dust and rubble, something was forgotten. Pace, with crafty use of the seam and intelligence, can be an equally deadly weapon on surfaces not rolled out for speedsters. Pitches where the ball ‘grips’ can be…

India lost a Test on the fourth evening after looking like winning for two-and-a half days. In a dramatic turn of events seldom seen on home soil in a long time, they firstallowed England to come out of a hole and then dug one for themselves which proved too deep. With due credit to England and Oliver Pope, there were problems aplenty in the home team. From application errors in batting in both innings, loose bowling at crucial times, passive captaincy and a sudden dip in overall intensity, there were several factors. RevSportz lists what went wrong in Hyderabad and…