Author: Rahul Giri

By Bharath Ramaraj Reece Topley and the injury curse Five stress fractures of the back over a period of six years. Shoulder surgery and a broken hand. Add in the ankle injury that ruled him out of England’s victorious 2022 T20 World Cup campaign, and now this shoulder dislocation. Reece Topley must be wondering whether he has been cursed by someone. In the RCB versus MI game, Topley had started on a perfect note by castling Cameron Green. However, in the eighth over, he dived to stop a single. Unfortunately, he landed awkwardly on his right shoulder.…

By Atreyo Mukhopadhyay Six-over tale This match was over in the first six overs. Rajasthan Royals 85/1. Sunrisers Hyderabad 30/2. That is where it was done and dusted. Chasing 204 to win and reduced to that, it was all over. It was not necessarily about what kind of bowling resources the teams used. It was about the kind of batting power they came up with. Rajasthan were about guns blazing. Go, go and go for it. Hit them out of the park, whatever the cost. Hyderabad were obviously not up to it when it came to responding to…

Interview conducted during the writing of 1971, a book by Boria Majumdar and Gautam Bhattacharyya Q: Despite a match-winning spell in Trinidad, you did not get picked for the 1971 English tour. Did you find that strange ? A: Strange is an understatement. It was a massive disappointment, and has stayed with me since then. I ended my career without playing in England. Q; The explanation given was that you and Jaisimha did not get enough runs on the Caribbean tour. A: I would think we got dropped because (Vijay) Merchant had this vision of grooming youngsters. He should have considered the reality…



-Boria Majumdar Trinidad 1971. Indian cricket’s best hour to many. This Test match not only provided answers to the great Sunil Gavaskar that he belonged there but also to the rest of the world. Gavaskar’s 65 and 67 not out in the first and second innings were indications that India had finally found its successor to Merchant and someone who had the ability to be an all-time great of the game. While it was Sardesai, Gavaskar and Solkar who performed with the bat in Trinidad, Venkataraghavan, Prasanna and Bedi took centre stage with the ball, along with the indomitable Salim…

The night Mumbai Indians played (and lost) their first IPL final, the Lalit Modi era in Indian cricket administration came to an abrupt end. As far as Lalit Modi was concerned he was all flamboyance when he landed in the stadium in his helicopter. The suit and every piece of clothing he wore were perfectly colour coordinated and in place, it was impossible to gauge that here was a man going through the worst crisis of his life. It was literally his genius to be able to keep calm with all the goings on around him and conduct the…



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With his dreams of leading his country shredded by SandpaperGate, David Warner’s leadership skills haven’t been on view for a while. Rishabh Pant’s unfortunate injury has given him an opportunity he thought he might never have again.   It was around 6AM on May 30, 2016, a Monday morning, and David Warner was about to leave the hotel for the airport in Bengaluru. He had a 10 AM flight for New York, where he would finally meet his wife Candice and two daughters, Ivy and Indi, after a month and a half. Soon after he was in the car, he…