Author: Boria Majumdar

Taskin Ahmed tried to bounce out Hardik Pandya. All he did was rock back, and get the bat close enough to the ball to give it the momentum to take it over and above the wicketkeeper for a boundary. And as he did so, he did not even look back to see where the ball had gone. Rather, he was focussed on chewing gum, and he kept doing so till Taskin walked back to his mark with a wry smile on his face. It was typical Hardik Pandya. Swagger of a very different kind. His 39 off 16 balls meant…

For the longest time, the murmurs were heard. And yet, there was a veneer of objectivity and rationality. Somewhere, there was still the notion that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), as a parent body, was objective. Not anymore. Not after it unilaterally announced that Mohun Bagan Super Giant (MBSG) had apparently withdrawn from the AFC Champions League Two because they hadn’t traveled to Iran. The AFC did so ignoring a Government of India advisory dated October 2, which asked Indians to avoid non-essential travel to Iran given the geopolitical conditions prevalent there. Iran is currently a war zone and the…

Pakistan’s cricket teams, both men and women, are equally poor at the moment. And it is a real problem for the world game. The sport needs a strong Pakistan and, for the moment at least, we don’t have that. The win against Sri Lanka to start the Women’s T20 World Cup campaign was an aberration and, against India, the mediocrity of the side was yet again apparent. India made Pakistan look good at times, and were poor as well. For the India-Pakistan contests to retain their charm, we need a better Pakistan. The cricket world needs a team which is…

Ravi Shastri has often been criticised on social media. Trolled as well. But never did he shy away from responsibility. I remember him telling me once that in adverse situations, it is important that the coach takes over and shields his or her players. Face the bullets coming at them. When India were all out for 36 against Australia in Adelaide (2020), it was Shastri who faced the media. Handled the questions head on and protected the boys. It helped make a statement. To be honest, I expected the same from Amol Muzumdar in Dubai at the end of the…

This is not a rant. Rather, it is a lament. India were poor last night. Absolutely awful. And because of that, they have now pushed themselves to the brink of being eliminated in the group stage of the T20 World Cup. Everything that could go wrong did. The truth is India did not deserve to win. Not when you make such basic mistakes, and play such pathetic cricket. Let’s start from the top. The fielding from the very beginning was shambolic. From Richa Ghosh making a mess of a reasonably easy chance, to Renuka Thakur conceding a boundary, India were…

“Pehle jab bazaar jata tha ya kahin aur, log haste the. Aap jante hain kyun. Abhi sammaan dete hain. Kehte hai yeh wohi hai jo gold medal jita hai. Ma Kasam wala [Earlier, when I went to the bazaar, people used to laugh. Now, they give respect. They said this is the one who won the gold medal, the swear-on-your-mother guy],” said Navdeep Singh as we settled down for a conversation on how the Paralympic gold has changed his life. In the last few days, Navdeep has finished a Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) shoot with Amitabh Bachchan, attended the Reliance…

The Women’s T20 World Cup is upon us. India will start their campaign against New Zealand tomorrow and go into the competition as one of the favourites. They have won both their warm-up games and the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team are on the cusp of history. When Rohit Sharma led the Indian men’s team to the USA and the Caribbean in June, the number of media who accompanied them was huge. We all remember how many media people came back on the special charter flight from Barbados thanks to Jay Shah and the BCCI. The question is, how many of our…

Mahatma Gandhi and cricket sounds a bit odd to begin with. The Mahatma, never really of any keen athletic disposition, trying his hand at what was a colonial import to keep the empire together wasn’t the most logical thing. Yet, he did have his run-ins with the gentleman’s game from time to time, eventually playing a serious hand in the discontinuance of the Bombay Pentangular tournament, colonial India’s version of the commercially lucrative IPL. Kausik Bandyopadhyay in his work, Mahatma on the Pitch, says it nicely, “It is interesting to explore the illusions of a sporting Gandhi, who played little…

Almost every day during the last week, we have seen a press release issued by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). Either, it is issued by PT Usha, its president, or by some member of the Executive body opposed to her at the moment. I am not going into the merits of who is right or who is wrong. The fact is, it doesn’t really matter because the end result is India cutting a very sorry figure in front of the world. That there is no love lost between the president and her team is known. That there is disunity is…

Indian chess is at an all-time high, and there is much interest in the sport across the country at the moment. With the Global Chess League (GCL) round the corner and Gukesh Dommaraju involved in a World Championship title clash in exactly a month and a half, interest is all set to be sustained and even peak over the next few weeks. Speaking to RevSportz, R Praggnanandhaa, a key member of the gold-medal-winning team at the Chess Olympiad, made a huge statement, which should come as music to the ears of every Indian chess fan. He not only backed Gukesh…