Author: Boria Majumdar

Boria Majumdar in Birmingham Don’t be surprised if India ring wholesale changes for the second Test. There could be as many as four changes in the team that played the first Test at Headingley. While the playing XI hasn’t been finalised yet, it can be said that each of these changes are being seriously mulled on. The first is certainty. Jasprit Bumrah will be resting and will be replaced by Akash Deep. He has been bowling well at the nets and is finally niggle free. Akash had a reasonable Australia tour and in helpful conditions could pose a few problems…

Boria Majumdar in Birmingham Rishabh Pant was the star for India in the first Test at Headingley. Hundreds in both innings of a Test match on English soil is a very rare achievement. No Indian keeper has been there and chances are it won’t happen again very soon. Add keeping wickets for 182 overs and you understand the magnitude of his achievement. When you add the medical miracle he has been through a year earlier, you realise why he is a generational talent. Rishabh has been someone I have always had time for. Over the years I have seen him…

Boria Majumdar in Birmingham Lalit Modi is a feisty character. And I have always loved asking him the tough questions. Enjoyed pushing him. Unless you question Lalit and challenge him, you will never get him to open up. I have always believed that while Lalit should be credited for setting up the IPL, he subsequently became bigger than the brand and paid the price. The brand is always bigger than an individual and that includes Lalit Modi. So while there could be no IPL without Lalit, it is also true that the brand was thereafter good enough to survive and…

Boria Majumdar, London It was long planned. Lalit Modi had graciously invited the entire RevSportz team to his house for tea and agreed to a roundtable with us. As decided, we reached sharp at 2 pm and Lalit was waiting, looking relaxed in the inner patio of his lavish 2 Belgrave Square mansion. “What do you want to drink,” he asked, as all of us settled down, on what was a very warm London afternoon. As some real nice and chilled lemonade got served, we got down to business. From the stampede during this year’s IPL-winning celebrations in Bengaluru, how…

Boria Majumdar in Birmingham In the last 24 hours I have received close to 100 messages, asking me what my plans are with RevSportz. Some have even asked me what will happen to the 50 journalists working for the company. It was essential for me to spell the vision out. RevSportz is a dream that I am living. It was meant as a breath of fresh air in India’s sports media landscape and will only grow from strength to strength. And I will lead this change with every bit of passion and ability that I have. We started the journey…

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…