Author: Boria Majumdar

Boria Majumdar Mahela Jayawardene captained Sri Lanka in two World Cup finals, scoring a dazzling century in a losing cause in 2011. He subsequently coached Mumbai Indians in the IPL with great success. One of the finest thinkers on the game, he spoke to Boria Majumdar in this special World Cup episode of Backstage with Boria, on topics as diverse as Sri Lanka punching above their weight, Rohit Sharma the captain and India-Pakistan in front of 100,000 in Ahmedabad. Excerpts from the conversation: Boria: First question … 2011, the last time the World Cup was played on our soil, your…

Sutirtha and Ayhika Mukherjee winning the table tennis medal will rank as one of India’s best ever table tennis performances of all time. For them to beat China in China in front of a partisan Chinese crowd, speaks volumes of their mental strength. Even yesterday against the North Korean pair they were in the contest till the very last game. For two athletes who haven’t had much support, this Asian Games has indeed turned the corner. Soon after Revsportz put out an interview with the Mukherjee’s done by Trisha Ghosal in the evening, we got a call from Parth Jindal,…

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, wasn’t just one of the greatest middle-distance runners of all time. He also raced in an era where he could see first-hand the full extent of Africa’s athletic potential. When, in his subsequent avatar as the sport’s chief administrator, he raised the thorny topic of immigration, those that might otherwise have turned a blind eye to it were forced to listen. “It’s not an easy thing for me to say but I was finding it quite hard to see a difference between what was emerging and human trafficking,” Coe said in an…

A RevSportz Exclusive By now, we’ve all seen the pictures and replays many times over. The false start, the chaos that ensued, a ten-minute delay, all the girls being allowed to race, and Jyothi Yarraji’s long, loping strides that allowed her to come back from a slow start to win a medal that was upgraded to silver once China’s Yanni Wu was rightly disqualified. On Monday morning, James Hillier, Athletics Director at the Reliance Foundation and Jyothi’s coach, spoke to Boria Majumdar, RevSportz Editor-in-chief, and tried to make sense of one of the most extraordinary races any of us has…

Unless the HOC Stadium in Hangzhou was suddenly the setting for smoke, mirrors and optical illusions of the David Copperfield variety, what happened at the start of the women’s 100m hurdles was really beyond dispute. Before the race, the attention was squarely on the middle lanes, with China’s Yanni Wu in lane 4 and Yuwei Lin in lane 6 sandwiching India’s Jyothi Yarraji in lane 5. The trio were expected to share the medals, though no one knew in what order they would finish. With Wu and Jyothi having season’s bests within 0.02s of each other, there really was nothing…

Hopes have soared and the country is now expecting a really good showing in Paris in July 2024 at the Olympics. And if the shooters are mentored and nurtured well, there is no reason why this hope will remain unfulfilled. 21 medals including 7 golds at the Asian Games and Indian shooting is on a steep upward climb after the lull of a few years. Hopes have soared and the country is now expecting a really good showing in Paris in July 2024 at the Olympics. And if the shooters are mentored and nurtured well, there is no reason why…

He is one of the most articulate athletes you could come across. Poised, calm and focussed, Saurav Ghosal is an interviewer’s delight. And if the going is good, the conversation only gets better and better. Ghosal, who is on cloud nine after winning the team gold in squash at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, spoke about his own preparation, the tension, chances in the individual category and a lot more in this conversation with Boria Majumdar. Boria: When I first got in touch, I remember you telling me about your preparation. Now that the games are underway and you have…

A Revsportz Exclusive This was the only medal that she did not have in her stellar trophy cabinet. And things didn’t change in Hangzhou, with a pain in her thigh during the warm-up stopping Mirabai Chanu from pushing harder. Chanu, one of India’s greatest athletes, has had a tough few months. With the home situation in Manipur extremely worrying, she was seen appealing on social media for things to get better. When she was training in the USA in August, she had a pain in her thigh. After Ultrasounds and treatment, she managed the pain. Between her and Vijay…

In the end, the gulf in quality was all too apparent. Saudi Arabia are Asian Under-23 champions for a reason, and even with two seasoned pros in Sunil Chhetri and Sandesh Jhingan in the ranks, India were no match for them in a round-of-16 clash at the Asian Games. Two superbly taken goals from Mohammed Khalil Maran, who will soon return to training with Cristiano Ronaldo at Al-Nassr, were the difference, but the score line didn’t tell the whole story. “If we speak about the fight, I’m very proud of them,” Igor Stimac, the India coach, told RevSportz when asked…

From fun drills at practice to motivational speeches, captain and coach doing all they can ahead of the Saudi encounter. India plays their last 16 match against Saudi Arabia this evening and all of India’s players are charged up and looking forward to the game. They have finally left behind all the under preparedness that plagued their participation at the start of the competition and are keen to make an impact in this knockout encounter. Against a higher ranked team and one which has played excellent football, the Indians have their task cut out. But they don’t seem flustered: from…