Author: Boria Majumdar

Birmingham has a very special place for Revsportz. I travelled to Birmingham three times between May and July 2022. The first trip, at the end of May, was to do a recce and record a few build-up shows for the Commonwealth Games. The second was in late June for the one-off Test match between England and India, and the third a fortnight or so later for the Commonwealth Games, which began on July 28. The work we did in Birmingham was the motivation I needed to get back into the zone after the unfair ban was imposed on me in…

“When you look at the history, the global south in terms of the host cities is not represented at all”, IOC President Kirsty Coventry. One of the most important points highlighted by IOC President Kirsty Coventry in her first-ever press conference is that the IOC has now decided to pause and reflect on future-host-city decision-making in an attempt to give every interested party an equal opportunity and make it a level playing field. The organisation is keen to reflect on some of its own decisions and reset if need be. It has all been agreed upon in the most recently…

Boria Majumdar We are here in the UK to cover cricket. And the emphasis here is on ‘cricket’. It just doesn’t mean men’s cricket. The Indian women’s cricket team start their tour in Nottingham on the 28th and will have a practice session at the same venue on the 27th at 1.30pm local time. Revsportz will indeed be there and report on all the action from on ground. Trisha Ghosal and Debasis Sen, two of my senior reporters, will be on ground to cover the practice and the game and stand true to what we have always claimed – holistic…

We did a show at 5pm yesterday where, among other things, we discussed fandom in India and how it is mostly toxic. This was because the ‘questions’ that were being asked, and there were hundreds of them, ranged from “sack Gautam Gambhir” to “Shubman Gill is useless”. One person, and there is no point naming them here, messaged 93 times asking the same thing. “Why did you not ask tough questions of Gautam Gambhir?” There is no two ways about it that Gambhir has a poor record as head coach of the Test side. India have lost 7 of the…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds India will not win against England by being defensive. England wasn’t and the way to tackle them is to give things back in the same vein. In hindsight, India was defensive in Leeds. The batters did exceptionally well to score 450 and 350 plus but it did not get its due because the bowling wasn’t capable of picking 20 wickets. I say this in hindsight and based on what happened. India missed Kuldeep Yadav or Arshdeep Singh. Both are genuine wicket-takers and were sorely missed in the English second innings. On day 5, the moment Jasprit…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds In the end it was a fascinating Test match with England holding their nerve. India, who many thought will be pushovers in Leeds, fought till the end and skipper Shubman Gill kept rotating his bowlers around to stay in the hunt. While India batted superbly and fought hard, the one thing that really let the team down in this Test match was fielding. On the last day also, India let the centurion Ben Duckett off when he was on 98. Yet again it was Yashasvi Jaiswal. He went on to make 149. Add the five catches…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds In our post-match live show, most comments, and there were more than 1500 of them, expressed apprehension about India’s bowling attack. The refrain was the same – India are a one-bowler-dependant team and Jasprit Bumrah lacks support. In the absence of a proper support cast, England have a strong chance of overhauling this rather difficult target. These arguments are mostly true. Since Australia, India have struggled to find support for Bumrah. Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna have been consistently inconsistent. Three or four good balls are followed by a couple of loose balls, and that’s when…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds It was moments after the World Test Championship final had ended and Debasis Sen and I were doing a show from outside the Grace Gates of the Lord’s cricket ground. That’s when I heard someone call out my name. It was a tad surprising, for the gentleman was in the middle of the road, and waving at me with a smile. It was Dilip Doshi. I responded with a warm ‘Dilipda’ and requested him to come and join our show. He did and for the next 30 minutes, we analysed the WTC final together. In fact,…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds It was as if Farokh Engineer was waiting for the call. The moment Rishabh Pant scored the hundred, I dialled Engineer, for I was certain he would be celebrating. “I was playing bridge and watching Rishabh,” said Engineer unable to contain his excitement. “Absolutely incredible innings this was. I enjoyed every minute of it.” “How many hundreds has got?” he asked me. “Must be 12-13?” Even before I could answer that he now had eight in Tests, Engineer had started again, “This is the age of batsman-wicketkeepers, and as a batter-keeper, Rishabh Pant is undoubtedly the…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds This has been a real exhibition from KL Rahul. An innings of serious class and discipline. There have been phases of the game where he was beaten multiple times. He was lucky to survive a peach from Chris Woakes. But at no point did he give up. He didn’t mind looking ugly at times. It was proper Test match batting. He got a few blows into his body and yet stayed put. Rahul wasn’t ready to give up and that’s what India needed from their star batter. Each time he was beaten you could see Rahul…