Author: Bharath Ramaraj

At one stage during the Indian Premier League game between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium, Suryakumar Yadav was on 35 off 22 deliveries. There were six overs left to be bowled at the time. In that passage of play, Suryakumar supercharged his batting engine and ended up with a 49-ball unbeaten 103 – his first IPL hundred. For a moment, it felt as if he was driving through the Mumbai traffic at 60 km/h, before switching gears and racing past all obstacles at a breakneck speed of 140 km/h. It was another of Suryakumar’s quintessential T20 knocks, where…

In the cauldron of Hyderabad, Kolkata Knight Riders’ Varun Chakravarthy lit up the stadium with a game-breaking final over against Sunrisers Hyderabad. If we delve deeper into the last ball of that over, it gives us some insight into what has worked for Chakravarthy in IPL 2023: The speed of the delivery was 107 km/h, dovetailed with enough revs. The line and length were also near-perfect, as Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s attempted slog could only connect with thin air. After a rather disappointing IPL last season, where he picked up just six wickets in 11 matches, Chakravarthy has stuck to the maxim of working on…

Overview Just when everything seemed to be falling in place, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) suffered a rather ignominious seven-wicket loss at the hands of Delhi Capitals. Interestingly, their next opponent, Mumbai Indians, too suffered a crushing loss at the hands of Chennai Super Kings after a bit of a resurgence. The two teams are also neck-to-neck in the points table with five wins each. Despite the loss to Delhi, RCB had a few positives to take from the game. One of them was Mahipal Lomror, who ended up with his maiden IPL fifty. Previously, many had talked about the potential he…

Back in 2010, in an ODI at North Sound Ground in Antigua, Dwayne Bravo, the West Indies all-rounder, seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse against David Miller, the new entrant in the South African side. For a while, Bravo succeeded too, as he mixed up his lines and lengths to keep Miller, a left-hand batter, guessing about his variations. Unfortunately for Bravo, the final ball of the over was in the slot and Miller tonked it down the ground. At that time, very few would have imagined that this particular lofted shot would turn out to…

On a track that offered even bounce for long periods of the game, Wriddhiman Saha, Shubman Gill and Mohit Sharma helped the top-placed Gujarat Titans to thump Lucknow Super Giants by 56 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Here are our takeaways from the match. The Saha blitz Saha continued the good form that he had shown against Rajasthan Royals with a quick-fire 43-ball 81 against Lucknow. In the second over itself, he pulled Avesh Khan for a four and a six. He then took on Mohsin Khan by smacking him for two fours and two sixes. The…

In what turned out to be a mostly one-sided affair, Delhi Capitals crushed Royal Challengers Bangalore by seven wickets in an Indian Premier League match played in Delhi. Delhi chased down the target of 182 in under 17 overs. With this win, Delhi moved up one place to slot in at ninth place, while Bangalore remained in fifth with 10 points. Here are our takeaways from the match. Salt comes out all guns blazing Phil Salt explored all corners of the ground and ended up with a 45-ball 87. He began on the right note by clubbing Josh Hazlewood for…

Around four years ago, Neeraj Chopra, then Asian and Commonwealth Games champion in the javelin throw, posted an update on his Instagram handle. “Undergone elbow surgery in Mumbai by Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala,” it said. “Will require some months of rehabilitation before I can start back with throwing. Hoping to return stronger. Every setback is a setup for a comeback. God wants to bring you out better than you were before.” Neeraj had undergone a surgery to remove bone fragments in his elbow, which were causing him acute discomfort. Soon, summer gave way to the rainy season and then spring, and…

On a sunny morning in Colombo, in 2016, a 14-year-old Rohit Paudel walked out to bat in the Under-19 Asian Cricket Council game against India Under-19, with his side in trouble at 86 for 6. Rohit, who was making his Under-19 debut for Nepal, then proceeded to play an innings that had its share of bravado and good game awareness. There was one over in particular, where he took his game to an elevated plane by scoring 24 runs in five balls. Kamlesh Nagarkoti, who was bowling at a fair clip, was lofted and pulled, and there was also a…

With almost all parts of the engine functioning smoothly, the top-placed Gujarat Titans would believe they have the required balance to not just win tomorrow’s match versus Rajasthan Royals but also defend the IPL title that they hoisted last year. Having said that, they lost their last game versus an energised Delhi Capitals on a seaming deck. So did that loss expose any chinks in the GT side? One of the few areas where GT seem to lack a bit of firepower is at the top of the order: W Saha has notched up 151 runs at a strike rate…

In the second over of the IPL 2023 game between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, Jofra Archer extracted appreciable movement off the seam at over 90mph and beat Jos Buttler, his England teammate, on the inside edge. That delivery didn’t produce a wicket, but it brought back some fond memories of Archer bowling peaches in top-flight cricket. Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, Archer has been more in the news for a spate of injuries than his on-field performances. It all started during England’s successful tour of South Africa in 2019-20. He missed out on playing the second…