Author: Boria Majumdar

With 50 days to go for the Trailblazers Conclave, I couldn’t think of anyone better than Mr TV Narendran to kick off the build-up. There is a very personal story connecting the conclave and Mr Narendran. When I was initially thinking about the conclave, my very first call was to him. “If it’s only cricket, we’d not want to do it,” he said. Those words were music to my ears. I had always wanted to include Olympic and Paralympic sport and create a synergy with men’s and women’s cricket. Imagine Abhinav Bindra sitting down with Richa Ghosh to talk about…

Mohsin Naqvi is a politician first and a sports administrator later. We saw this clearly during the Asia Cup in Dubai. It therefore came as no surprise when Mr Naqvi told the press in Lahore that Pakistan had not yet decided whether they would participate in the T20 World Cup, and that the final call would be taken by the Prime Minister. He also referred to the India–Pakistan skirmish in May 2025 and then ended the briefing, leaving behind a cloud of intrigue. The truth is that Mr Naqvi said nothing of substance. Yet he managed to placate Bangladesh.…

We are 50 days away from the Tata Steel Trailblazers Conclave 4.0. It is the best sports conclave in the country at the moment, and this year promises to be no different. In fact, it will grow further in both scale and scope, with 30-plus athletes and a host of sports administrators making Kolkata their home between 14 and 17 March, 2026. Revsportz Trailblazers Conclave 2.0 had just concluded on March 8, 2024, and each one of us had begun to celebrate. For five months, we had worked to bring India’s best Olympic and Paralympic athletes under one roof,…

As the dust settles on the Bangladesh-T20 World Cup fiasco, one has to say the entire episode was unnecessary. Bangladesh overreacted to the Mustafizur Rahman situation, were successfully provoked by Pakistan into doing so, and tried to play to the local political constituency by showing how tough they could be and attempting to teach India a lesson. In all this, they forgot a basic democratic principle: the majority always wins, and you need to be smart when you don’t have the numbers in the boardroom. Bangladesh were outvoted and outdone, outthought and outplayed. Now, they do not have a leg…

The T20 World Cup is exactly two weeks away, and as defending champions you want every base covered. You want the skipper back among the runs and the entire batting line-up firing. What you don’t want is over-dependence on any one player. For a while, it looked as if India were getting a tad over-reliant on Abhishek Sharma. You seemed to need the young gun to fire for the team to take off – and that’s precisely what you don’t want going into a title defence. Last night, India aced it. And in doing so, they found answers to every…

If you are an Indian cricket fan, you will know that the series India and New Zealand are currently competing in is the IDFC First Bank T20 series. During the live broadcast, it is always interesting to read the trivia that appears in the bottom-left corner of the television screen, displayed in IDFC First Bank’s maroon and white colours. Few people, however, know that the trophy the two teams are playing for is unique: it is made from recycled materials — used cricket bats discarded by schools and leather from used cricket balls. It is a fantastic innovation and has…

Sourav Ganguly is a man of many roles. As I write this, preparations are under way for his forthcoming biopic, with the directorial team making the rounds of his Behala house. He is a show host, corporate speaker and able administrator, not to mention a doting father. But above all, he remains a cricketer, and that is his true calling. The Pretoria Capitals story is a clear case in point. The cricket pitch is where Sourav finds his true mojo, and that is where he really belongs. Pretoria started poorly and lost the first couple of games. Things were not…

Political grandstanding has won. Bangladesh are out of the T20 World Cup. The moment it became a case of cricket first or nation first, the writing was on the wall. There was no way the current establishment could afford to look weak in the eyes of its own people. If that meant sacrificing their cricketers and cricket, they were prepared to do so. Aminul Islam Bulbul, the BCB president, called the ICC’s decision unfair and suggested that they would keep fighting. Isolated, cornered, and having lost the vote 2–14, one wonders how. Some continue to hope for a miracle. The…

Bangladesh cricket should have seen this coming. For far too long, it has been driven by political posturing of entirely the wrong kind. For reasons best known to themselves, the authorities linked the removal of Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL to the ICC World Cup, without understanding that this would cut no ice with the ICC. The two issues are not remotely related, yet politicians turned it into a matter of national prestige. In doing so, they have damaged Bangladesh cricket and caused it potentially irreparable harm. With the ICC acting decisively and clearly stating its position, the BCB now…

The next six weeks could well define Gautam Gambhir’s legacy as India’s head coach. With the T20 series beginning today, this represents Gambhir’s final opportunity to streamline India’s title defence ahead of the World Cup, which begins on February 7 with a match against the USA in Mumbai. Gambhir has been on the receiving end of considerable criticism over the past two months. A below-par showing in red-ball cricket against South Africa, followed by a 1–2 series loss to New Zealand in the 50-over format, has pushed matters to the brink. However, I would not read too much into…