Author: Atreyo Mukhopadhyay

Before the Chess World Cup quarter-final featuring two Indians, their coaches had refused to pick a favourite. “I don’t gamble,” said RB Ramesh, R Praggnanandhaa’s mentor. “It’s 50:50,” quipped Srinath Narayanan, who trains Arjun Erigaisi. Their words turned out to be prophetic. The two beat each other with black in the games played under normal time control to force a tie-break. They fought tooth and nail in four games of rapid and three more in blitz, pinned each other again with black, before Praggnanandhaa prevailed in the equivalent of sudden-death in football, where they go on until there is a…

Until recently, there used to be a perception about Indian chess players. The world raved over the country’s talent pool, the growing list of Grandmasters (GM) and its steadily enhancing stature in the world of 64 squares. Everybody spoke highly of the youngsters, who kept lowering the bar in terms of age while attaining GM titles. Yet, Indians have not made a major mark in world events at the senior men’s level after Viswanathan Anand. Generally speaking, the Indians were perfect examples of gentleman losers. Barring Anand, the five-time former world champion and World No. 1, India as a team…

This was in 2019. The occasion was the Tata Steel India Rapid and Blitz chess tournament in Kolkata. Top players including Magnus Carlsen were participating. The Indian contingent led by Viswanathan Anand didn’t do that well. Anand was asked on the last day why had India not produced anyone after him who could be in the top 10 for a reasonable period and why no one had made it to the Candidates, the event that chooses the challenger to the world champion. Indian chess had been breeding a number of promising Grandmasters (GM) for a few years by then. P…

Cricket has a tendency to find revival stories when underdogs who were once-powerful script upsets. In recent times, in the international game, no team has stoked this sentiment more than West Indies. This might happen again after their T20I series win against India. To beat the most sought-after team after failing to make it to the main draw of the previous T20 World Cup and the upcoming 50-over event is just what a team in distress needs. Hang on! West Indies have flattered to deceive far too many times for this victory to be treated as a redemption sign. The…

Buried under a bunch of World Championships lined up over the next few weeks is one involving bridge. A regular at the team event featuring four categories nowadays, Indians have been unsuccessful in all expect for the Senior section, in which they won a silver and a bronze in 2022 and 2019. They will try to come closer this time at the event which is important for India for another reason. The World Championships in the Moroccan capital of Marrakesh (August 20-September 2) will be followed by the Asian Games in Hangzhou in China (from September 23). Bridge made its…

There is something called a good headache. In team sports, it refers to the state of a side with a problem of plenty and bench strength. Like the Australian cricket teams of the first decade of this century, or the 2014 German football team which won the World Cup despite missing a number of regulars. What the Indian selectors are going to face cannot be called a happy headache. There is plenty and there are problems due to that, as far as the opening options are concerned. That’s because Yashaswi Jaiswal’s form is expected to spark a debate on his…

Had East Bengal fans been told before the match that they would get a draw against Mohun Bagan in the Durand Cup encounter, many would have settled for it. What the underdogs got in the end might have exceeded expectations — a first win against their archrivals since January 2019. Nandha Kumar became the darling of the East Bengal crowd in the 60th minute when he ran through the length of the Mohun Bagan half, and switched the ball from his right foot to left to wrong-foot defender Avinash Thapa, before unleashing a curler to the far corner which gave…

It’s a football derby dating back over 100 years. The first Mohun Bagan-East Bengal match was an unofficial one, played in 1921. It ended 0-0. East Bengal won the first official fixture, by a 1-0 margin in 1925. Over the decades, this match became a part of the culture in West Bengal. Almost every Bengali is either a Mohun Bagan or East Bengal fan. The closest of friends and relatives they may be, but on derby day, club loyalties cause sharp divides. The bitterness lingers for a few days before they become friends again. That craze has diminished of late.…

Looking at it holistically and taking into account performances in the past along with the probability of success in the future, this can be seen as a passing blip. Narrowing the viewpoint and sticking strictly to the present, the reality may appear different. He was tipped to be the next Indian batting superstar, a few months before the actual countdown to the World Cup began. With the big moment coming closer, Shubman Gill is short on runs. Like the greatest of them all, Gill is entitled to lean patches. Hardly any batter in modern cricket escapes that. And it’s…

One came into this match in a rich a vein of form, after having rediscovered himself. The other had to put himself on the path to rediscovering form. The two combined in the third T20I against West Indies to hand India a seven-wicket win and keep the series alive. Trailing 1-2, India now head to Florida for the last two games. The target of 160 did not look that simple given the way the pitch assisted spin in the first half of the match. Kuldeep Yadav made best use of that. But losing Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, the debutant,…