Author: Boria Majumdar

Boria Majumdar in Leeds All through his career, much has been said about KL Rahul being given a long rope. And the trolls have had an absolute feast going after him for days on end. The injury in the 2023 IPL, for example, led some to say good riddance, for it ruled him out of the World Test Championship (WTC) final. That he still averages 35 after over a decade in international cricket is often cited as proof of Rahul’s inconsistency at the Test level. For his fans, however, Rahul is penning his own story. And needless to say, his…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds I am running out of superlatives for Jasprit Bumrah, who now has 12 five-fors in away Tests at an average of 19. Catches dropped, chances gone begging, little support from the other end, and yet he keeps coming. Relentless and committed, determined and skilful. A bowler of his skill bowling at the top of his powers is pure art. The thrill of watching him steaming in and bowling is exactly what Test cricket is all about. The moment the ball is handed to him, you kind of know something will happen. The shake of the shoulder,…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds England were in control of proceedings at a potentially decisive stage of play on Day 2 of the first Test. Almost against the run of play, Jasprit Bumrah, India’s talisman, got the wicket of Ben Duckett. Once the cheers subsided, the English section of the crowd started to celebrate almost. Coming out was Joe Root, England’s and perhaps the world’s best batter and someone who has literally tormented teams in the last two years. The ball was fairly old and India were facing the daunting prospect of bowling to Root and Ollie Pope. Making matters worse…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds It was a day of missed opportunities for India. If day one was perfect, day two was the classic imperfect day. First, from 430-3, India collapsed to 471 all out. It was a bad collapse, with the last seven wickets falling for a paltry 41 runs. When almost everyone expected the team to score 550 and bat England out of the game, some poor shots and some good English fielding made sure it was not the case. Even then, 471 was a decent enough score, and with the cloud cover over Headingley, the conditions were perfect…

-Boria Majumdar in Leeds Rishabh Pant in red-ball cricket has always been special. In fact, may I say, we have time and again written about it. Now with seven hundreds, he has the maximum number of centuries by a wicketkeeper-batter for India. More importantly, he has most of his hundreds in SENA countries and is one who is well and truly a red ball great of this generation. Here, the southpaw surpasses MS Dhoni, who had six Test tons. In Headingley, Pant played what has been an exceptional innings. Coming in at the fall of Yashasvi Jaiswal, India needed a…

Boria Majumdar It is all about intensity. That’s what Test cricket is about. And when you have control, you make the most of it and punish the opposition. That’s what India did at Headingley on Day 1. It was indeed a good toss to lose, for Shubman Gill too would have bowled first according to what he said after the coin was flipped. That England opted to bowl could well cost them this game. The first two hours defined India’s batsmanship. They were prepared to grind it out, play close to the body, leave balls outside off stump and refocus…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds In 1996, a 23-year-old Sachin Tendulkar, then India’s No. 4 and captain-in-waiting, led the way at Edgbaston on a wicket that was very difficult to bat on. His colleagues hardly offered any support to the master, who stood tall and made a telling statement in the second innings. It was an innings of pure class. Against an attack that had Dominic Cork and Chris Lewis bowling superbly well, Tendulkar was the lone warrior with a majestic hundred. India were bowled out for 219, with Tendulkar scoring 122 of them. Even Tendulkar, when he thinks back to…

Boria Majumdar in Leeds Test cricket is all about playing to the conditions. You need to be ugly on occasion, but do not give up. And that’s exactly what Yashaswi Jaiswal did today at Headingley. For a period, Sunil Gavaskar was sitting with us at the press box and watching the young man bat. And just when he flashed at a ball, you could see the great man’s face contort. “Don’t play too many shots too soon,” he said. “You have loads of talent to do well on this wicket.” Just then, Jaiswal played one of his signature straight…

For decades, Headingley was associated with one of Indian cricket’s lowest points. The scoreboard showing 0-4 in the second innings in 1952, after Fred Trueman and Alec Bedser ran amok with the new ball, remains a sore point. That Vijay Hazare and Dattu Phadkar battled back to make a match of it was forgotten thanks to that one photograph of the scoreboard. By the time India arrived in England in 1986, they had gone 10 Tests without a win – seven of them draws – since beating the same opponents in Mumbai in November-December 1984. England, fresh off a 5-0…

Boria Majumdar There has been much talk about the naming of the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy, and in all of this, Sachin Tendulkar decided to stay silent. In fact, against the backdrop of the Ahmedabad tragedy, he insisted that there should be no celebration over the renaming. Finally, he decided to open up on the entire issue, and also helped set up the England-India series in this exclusive conversation with Boria Majumdar for RevSportz. Boria: Sachin, there has been much controversy over the naming of the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy. You have stayed silent all this while. How do you look at it? Tendulkar:…