Author: Rahul Giri







A bad beating before the World Cup is no bad thing, especially if it emphasises that you cannot afford to let standards slip. It also forces you to look again at the personnel at your disposal. With the leading players now playing three formats, in addition to tournaments like the Indian Premier League (IPL), the time between major competitions has to be carefully managed. When a player is just starting out or when they’re coming towards the end of their careers, team managements are acutely conscious of the workloads they take on. The time after a major event is…

At the end of the second ODI between Australia and India, Mitchell Marsh and Travis Head wore broad smiles as they walked back to the pavilion. After all, the duo had smashed the Indian attack to shreds, piloting the visitors to a 10-wicket win in a mere 11 overs. Meanwhile, the Indian players seemed dazed and dumbfounded. The kind of a day that the home side’s players would want to forget quickly and move forward. So what could be the reason behind India’s capitulation with the bat in hand? The first over of the game bowled by Mitchell Starc itself…





ISL FINAL today. One of the most difficult things in sport is to accept you were complacent. Very rarely does any athlete agree with such an outrageous proposition. And if you are Sunil Chhetri, India’s best football brand, such a thing is not just improbable, it is impossible. And yet it happened. When I asked him what explained the horror run between November and January and if he was complacenent, Chhetri agreed he was. He agreed that with all things going his way, he may have started to take things for granted. But sport being the biggest leveller of all,…

-Atreyo Mukhopadhyay ATK Mohun Bagan vs Bengaluru FC. Unlikely opponents in this season’s ISL final? Yes, perhaps. Unlikely contenders for India’s most prestigious football crown? No way. Two of the country’s most illustrious and dedicated football units are up against each other in the pinnacle match to be played in Fatorda, Goa, today. The format, without promotion or relegation, is an oft-heard criticism of this ambitious project called ISL which started in 2014. A version of the IPL in football, teams owned by film stars and celebrities from other walks of life, a tournament featuring franchises sans the traditional entities…

  He has been a lightning rod for criticism of the Indian team in recent times, and has lost his Test place, but KL Rahul showed in a low-scoring game just how important he could be to India’s hopes of winning the World Cup on home soil. It’s fair to say that KL Rahul has stayed in Indian cricket’s short-term plans because of his ODI form on Indian pitches. A lot of players suffered form slumps in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, unable to get to grips with bubble life, quarantine periods and isolation from friends and family.…