Author: Bharath Ramaraj

Before the 2012 IPL final between Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings, Gautam Gambhir had a decision to make: Whether to drop Brendon McCullum, the explosive batter, for the summit clash. Lakshmipathy Balaji, one of his lead seamers, had suffered an injury. So, Gambhir thought of rejigging the side by bringing in an overseas pace bowler in Brett Lee. In that process, to balance the overseas-quota, he had to leave out the experienced McCullum and select Manvinder Bisla. As it happened, from being known as Tillakaratne Dilshan’s lookalike, Bisla went on to star in KKR’s memorable triumph. This anecdote…

On a rather cloudy morning at The Lord’s, Saurav Chandidas Ganguly, on his Test debut, walked out to bat on the back of Dominic Cork dismissing his bunny, Vikram Rathour. Ganguly, then 23, had looked assured at the crease in the final ODI of the three-match series against England, at Old Trafford, but there were many sceptics who doubted his credentials in red-ball cricket. Those comments by his detractors had only strengthened Ganguly’s resolve to succeed in the Test arena. Just nine runs after the fall of Rathour’s wicket, Ganguly ended up playing a fine square-drive of Peter Martin, the…

Ever since MS Dhoni smashed a career-defining hundred against Pakistan in Vizag in 2005, his name has been at the forefront of national consciousness. Many years ago, fans wanted to know how many litres of milk Dhoni drinks every day. Or something about the evolution of Dhoni’s long hair. Incidentally, every time MS Dhoni walked out to bat in IPL 2024, the decibel levels inside cricket stadiums peaked to anywhere between 95 to 125 dB. Even when CSK took on Lucknow Super Giants in an away game, it seemed as if the former were playing at their beloved Chepauk stadium.…

The photograph of a pleased Saurabh Netravalkar holding his hands aloft after bowling the all-important Super Over against Pakistan is quite evocative. Roughly around a month since that memorable performance, as yours truly engaged in a freewheeling conversation with the USA cricketer, you couldn’t help but imagine the left-arm pacer being in Zen-mode while having a ball in hand. There is a touch of calm countenance attached to his cricket. In the just-concluded ICC T20 World Cup, be it finding nifty movement with the new ball or keeping it tight at the back-end of an innings, Netravalkar had the right…

Peter Roebuck had once said the following lines on Sachin Tendulkar, India’s legendary batter: “On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt at one of the stations. The train stopped by for a few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing a century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This genius can stop time in India!” This famous quote is used quite frequently across media platforms and portals. Let’s tweak the aforesaid quote further by saying, not just any famous personality from the cricketing world, but…

Six years ago, Sumit Nagal collected a mere two games in a Wimbledon Qualifiers match against K Majchrzak. After a thorough Google search, you might end up getting just the scoreline of the aforementioned match. There is no highlights package or relevant stats related to it. After all, it was a contest between two relatively unknown players, slugging it out in a qualifier. When the same Nagal, now ranked 71, took on M Kecmanovic, in the first round of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, there was a bit of buzz surrounding the match. Indian tennis fans had the chance to watch…

Somewhere in the storehouse of my memory now lives a weeping David Miller. The experienced cricketer couldn’t hold back the tears after South Africa slipped to a gut-wrenching seven-run defeat in the T20 World Cup final against India. It is an enduring image to add to all those heartbreaking moments that South Africa have suffered over a little more than three decades in cricket World Cups. The rain-rule fiasco in the 1992 World Cup semifinal, the mix-up between Lance Klusener and Allan Donald in the 1999 World Cup semifinal, the blunder surrounding the DL method in 2003, a depressed Dale…

“I was going through what I was going through, then I came back in the Asia Cup. I was playing well. And then I felt like, ‘Wow! I am ready to play in this World Cup.’ By the 10th over, we were 31 for 4 and I had just run Axar [Patel] out. I think I was 12 off 25 or something. And I remember Rahul bhai (Dravid) came during the break and I don’t remember what he said. “I swear, I told him this as well, ‘I had no idea what you said, I was zoned out.’ My mind…

June 23, 2013 was a great day in the history of Indian cricket. On that day, India won the Champions Trophy after beating England in a thriller. The celebrations that followed would be remembered for a long time to come — Virat Kohli, in particular, doing warm-ups and then his dance steps. At that juncture, no one could have envisaged that the Men in Blue would go empty handed for the next 11 years as far as ICC tournaments are concerned. Last year, in the 2023 World Cup, it felt like India would finally end the drought. After all, they…

“The art of leg-spin is not just bowling a leg-break; the art of leg-spin is to examine, deceive and outwit,” wrote the late Shane Warne in his autobiography, No Spin. “That is the whole art. And within it is the magic.” Warne passed away in 2022, but somewhere up in heaven, he would be chuffed to observe how Kuldeep has turned out to be a worthy disciple. The Kanpur-born cricketer, who initially wanted to follow in the footsteps of another magician, Wasim Akram, has been bamboozling one batter after another with his box of variations. More importantly, he never compromises…