Author: Bharath Ramaraj

The year was 1993. The final exams had just about got over, and it was time for vacations. Alongside playing cricket or some other sport, there was an extra incentive – Prime Sports was scheduled to show highlights and a bit of live telecast of Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies. A year earlier, Pakistan were crowned the 50-over World Champions and they had also defeated England in a keenly contested Test series 2-1. The Ws, Wasim and Waqar, made the old ball talk. Meanwhile, the West Indies still possessed a lethal pace attack, comprising Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and…

Three Ashes Tests have been played. And all three have gone to the wire. Australia won the first two, but England pulled one back with a tense three-wicket win in Leeds. Harry Brook’s 75, and his stand of 59 with Chris Woakes, turned out to be the game-changing passage of the match as England chased down the target of 251 in just 50 overs. At 171 for 6, with Jonny Bairstow dragging one on to the stumps with an airy-fairy drive, Australia would have believed they were in with a chance to seal the Ashes. At that moment, Brook…

“Losing in the second round, I don’t find that motivating,” said Andy Murray, former Wimbledon champion, after slipping to defeat against Stefanos Tsitsipas in an epic five-setter. “It’s not why I put all of the work in. I’m unbelievably disappointed and upset now. Maybe I will feel different in a few days but right now it doesn’t feel good.” Murray had echoed similar sentiments after bowing out in early rounds of the 2021 and 2022 Wimbledon Championships, as he slowly trudges through the fag end of an illustrious career. It was around six years ago when a hammer blow turned…

With the Indian economy opening up to foreign participation in various sectors in the early 1990s, it forever changed the life of the middle class in the country. One of the major changes that took India by storm in that era was the advent of Cable TV. Suddenly, one could move fingers around the TV remote and watch a swathe of channels. For a sports fan, one could switch over from live cricket to Wimbledon to WWF (later to be known as WWE), or a talented Michael Schumacher battling it out against the Brit Damon Hill in Formula 1. Although it…

The clock tick-tocks relentlessly and stops for none. Even your superheroes would one day walk into the sunset of their careers. MS Dhoni has certainly been a superhero for many. But as he celebrates his 42nd birthday, it is fair to say he is at the fag end of his illustrious career. So, it is perhaps time to recollect a trail of early memories from when Dhoni was known more as a ticket collector than a trophy winner. The year was 2002. Newspapers were very much in vogue, and for a cricket aficionado, ‘brief scores’ were still a source…

Just over four to five months ago, in February this year, James Anderson was making the pink ball move this way and that as he ran through the heart of the New Zealand batting unit at Bay Oval. At 14,187 days, Anderson soon became the oldest No.1-ranked Test match bowler since Clarrie Grimmett. At that moment, it felt as if Anderson was a freak of nature. After all, in the previous series in Pakistan, he bowled with tactical nous, augmenting it with subtle swing and supreme fitness. But as an athlete gets on the wrong side of 30, questions are asked:…

It was 3.00 PM in the afternoon, and the players involved in the Duleep Trophy game between North Zone and North East Zone were going through the routine tea break. The crows were upping the ante with calls of “caw” and “kraa”. And there was some generator running behind at full speed. Other than that, there was silence. A few minutes passed by and play resumed, with North Zone already in front by more than 600 runs. Soon they declared their second innings. Amid all the silence, a 22-year-old Harshit Rana bounded to the crease and started a brisk…

When you imagine sport on the African continent, you envisage a young kid dribbling and swerving across a football pitch. Whether it be the Sahara region, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Savannah, the Swahili Coast, the rainforests, or Southern Africa, the continent is synonymous with the magic of football. But in Zimbabwe, a quintessentially English game has steadily gained popularity. Dave Houghton, the Zimbabwe cricketer-turned-coach, has seen it all. The many troughs and a few peaks that the country has managed to scale over the past four decades. He was part of the Zimbabwe side that famously defeated Australia in a 1983…

India v Bangladesh – Pune, October 19 Over a period of time, most of the surfaces for limited-overs cricket at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune have been batting-friendly. If one needs further evidence, eight 300-plus scores have been achieved in just seven ODIs at the ground. More importantly, teams have twice chased down targets in excess of 300. In Pune, the muggier period generally lasts from April 30 to November 9 (Source – Weatherspark.com). So, that could lead to the dew factor coming into play during the World Cup. When India lock horns with Bangladesh, we could witness…

Many years ago, Priyank Panchal’s childhood coach made a prophecy about how he would one day end up playing for India. That prediction almost came true in 2021-22. “One of my coaches, when I went to a coaching camp, said, ‘this boy will play for India’,” Panchal told RevSportz. “I remember those words, and I did end up being in the Indian squad (for the tour of South Africa). The name of my coach was Kiran Prambath.” Although Panchal hasn’t yet played for India, he has been a prolific run-getter for Gujarat in first-class cricket, having amassed 7,901 runs. He has…