Author: Boria Majumdar

2023 will go down in Indian sport as a year that promised much, while 2024 looks to be one full of possibilities. In cricket, the team played superbly well to make the World Cup final, before one bad day against Australia ruined their hopes of winning the world title. The team under Rohit Sharma also made the final of the World Test Championship but then were below par at The Oval. And at the end of the year, they were poor against South Africa at Centurion leaving plenty of unanswered questions going into the New Year Test in Cape Town.…

The Asian Games gold notwithstanding, the game has very little to show for in 2023 in white ball cricket. Consistently inconsistent, the Indian women’s team has shown very little progress in the year gone by. It was March 2020 and the Indian women had made the final of the world T-20 in Australia against all odds. It was the second final for the side in 3 years after Mithali Raj had led the team to the final of the 50 over world cup in England in 2017. With 86,000 fans at the MCG, the occasion was a real spectacle. While…

How do you select a coach, and does a great player always make the best coach? Andrew McDonald, for example, was never a great player. But under his guidance, Australia won everything that there was to win in 2023. To understand this, I will actually go away from cricket and to Neeraj Chopra. Neeraj’s choice of coach is all reason and prudence. And in doing so, he has time and again pointed our attention to some key attributes that we need to keep in mind. “In 2018, I went to Germany to train with Uwe Hohn,” said Neeraj. Hohn, for…

We had great sporting performances in 2023. R Praggnanandhaa making the World Chess final, Virat Kohli making a strong comeback to form and scoring 750 runs in the World Cup, HS Prannoy winning his first Super Series title, Neeraj Chopra winning the World Championship and Asian Games golds, Kishore Jena making the Olympics cut and winning the Asian Games silver to name a few. But as we look back at what has been a breakthrough year, we at RevSportz decided to pick Chirag Shetty and SatwikSairaj Rankireddy as our male athletes of the year 2023. Understandably elated when we mentioned…

As the Indian team gets ready to assemble in Doha for the Asian Cup, they do so in a day, there is some good news regarding the fitness of Sahal Abdul Samad. Sahal who hasn’t played in the last 3 weeks is nearing full fitness and is expected to be ready for the first game. While he reported a very slight discomfort over the outer ankle while receiving a pass with his inner foot yesterday, the best news for Indian football fans is that he is pain free at the moment. And that’s what should please the Indian team management…

They remain fond memories. Multiple conversations with King Pele spread over days during his visit to Kolkata in 2015. While some were formal interviews, others were conversations on the fly as we travelled all over the city. So today, on his first death anniversary, I checked my notes and put together some of the best answers that Pele had given in the course of our numerous conversations. Boria: Almost everyone considers you to be the greatest. The King. Can there be a second Pele? Who comes closest to Pele? Pele: Listen, everywhere I go to, people say X or Y…

Eight Indian batters were on show at Centurion and only two – KL Rahul in the first innings and Virat Kohli in the second – stood out. Half the others got out to bad shots and some continued to be in white-ball mode on a bowler-friendly wicket. What would have been going through Rahul Dravid’s mind as he watched some of his boys surrender their wickets? Dravid, one of the greatest batters of his time, was all about application. He would grit it out and not give up his wicket at any cost. As coach, he just watched a team…

At 256-5, India needed a strong first session to pull things back. And in helpful conditions, a good bowling morning is par. What we got instead was below-par intensity and spraying the ball around. The moment Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj were taken off to try and preserve them for the new ball, South Africa were off. Gifts all round the wicket from Shardul Thakur and Prasidh Krishna, and India looked hapless. Runs at a canter and the match was gone. By the time the new ball was taken, South Africa were in complete control. Just compare Nandre Burger, the…

It was October 2002, and I was a PhD student at Oxford University working on the history of Indian cricket when I got a call from an auctioneer in London. He had helped me with material and sounded very excited on the phone. “Come and see what I have found,” he told me. When I met him the next day, I was in disbelief. I was actually holding in my hand a letter from Douglas Jardine addressed to Duleepsinhji, which said that Jardine had finally figured out a way to stop Donald Bradman and he wanted to discuss it with…

KL Rahul during his unbeaten 70 runs knock. Source: BCCI Left out of the Test team after a string of underwhelming performances, much was said about KL Rahul being given a long rope. And the trolls had an absolute feast going after him for days on end. The injury in the IPL did not help and some even rejoiced, saying good riddance, when he wasn’t available for the WTC final. In fact, had it been KL instead of KS (Bharat), the final might have been a different story. Centurion was proof, and how. India were struggling at 93-4 when Rahul…