Author: RevSportz Comment

The 2019 ODI World Cup final was, arguably, the greatest white-ball cricket game ever. The 2023 final didn’t lack for drama either, with Australia overcoming the loss of three wickets inside seven overs to silence a huge, partisan crowd in Ahmedabad. The quality of the cricket was not in question – labelling those tournaments ‘World Cups’ was. How can you have a global competition where you go out of your way to shut the door on most national sides? The football World Cup went from 24 to 32 teams in 1998, and is poised for a jump to 48 in…

RevSportz Comment There was so much that was problematic about India’s World Cup qualifier in Qatar that it’s hard to know where to start. In an age when someone stuck in the Arabian desert could, in theory, send their coordinates correct to a few metres to rescuers, it defied belief that a World Cup football game was played without the basic technology that told match officials whether the ball had crossed the line or not. South Korea’s Kim Woo-sung is a convenient villain, but the first thing a referee does is look up at his linesman. And if there’s no…

Rahul Dravid’s monumental 270 had led India to a famous series victory in Rawalpindi – India’s first in Pakistan – and less than an hour later, he fronted up to the media. At the back of a room, a distinguished looking man stood in a corner and listening. Once or twice, he nodded his head in approval as Dravid spoke. Minutes later, after Dravid had gone back to the team celebrations, this man spoke to a few of the Indian media persons who were still hanging around. “What a wonderful ambassador he [Dravid] is for your country,” said the man.…

Those born and raised in the USA, or who have lived there for decades, might have been transported to another venue exactly 400 miles away as they watched Pakistan implode in mind-bending fashion at the Nassau County International Stadium. The Highmark Stadium is home to the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills. In the early 1990s, a time when Pakistan cricket was riding high, the Bills made four consecutive appearances in the Super Bowl, the showpiece event in America’s sporting calendar. In 1991, with eight seconds left on the clock, Scott Norwood missed a field goal that would have given the…

When he was approximately halfway through his storied career, Sachin Tendulkar was asked during an interview to pick out half a dozen of his finest knocks. The usual suspects, like the 155 against Shane Warne and company in Chennai (1998) made the list, but there was also what many might have seen as an odd inclusion. He spoke of a 43-ball 44 he made in an ODI in Trinidad in April 1997, a match that India lost badly. But in his mind, the 10 fours he struck and the control with which he batted on a tricky pitch against a…

RevSportz Comment Those that were there won’t easily forget Bob Woolmer’s final press conference. Minutes after Pakistan’s shock three-wicket defeat against Ireland, the World Cup new boys, in Jamaica, he came into the small room and took his place behind the microphones. Though he was sweating in the heat, he looked almost ashen, a man drained of every joy. Before taking on the Pakistan job in 2004, Woolmer had worked with the International Cricket Council’s High-Performance Programme, whose aim was primarily to improve playing standards in the Associate nations under the ICC banner. And though he was clearly smarting from…

RevSportz Comment “Football victories shape a nation’s identity as much as wars do.” These are not the words of a football player or coach. Instead, they were uttered by Franjo Tudjman, the first President of Croatia, who counted himself as one of the national team’s biggest fans. Someone who enjoyed high approval ratings for most of his eight years in power, Tudjman instinctively understood the power of sport to bring people together, especially in a young nation still establishing its identity. Igor Stimac was part of the Croatian side that Tudjman spoke of, so fondly. Their progress to the quarterfinals…

There will be millions who recall the irate reaction to India’s first-round World Cup exit in 2007. Players’ homes were attacked, sections of the media went into vitriolic meltdown, and some fans abandoned the game they loved. What isn’t perhaps remembered 17 years on is how it could have been so much worse. The first team to push India towards the trap door was Bangladesh, at Trinidad’s Queen’s Park Oval on March 17. Normally, that would have been the tournament’s seismic event. But on that same afternoon – St. Patrick’s Day, no less – across the water in Jamaica, an…

Real Madrid last lost a European Cup/Champions League final in 1981, to Bob Paisley’s Liverpool. Since then, they have won nine straight finals, which is simply unreal. It was also in 1981 that the second movie in the Friday the 13th horror franchise came out. Appropriate really, since like Jason in those movies, Real Madrid never die. Comprehensively outplayed for the best part of an hour at Wembley, they moved through the gears when it mattered, beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 with goals from Dani Carvajal and Vinicius Junior. It was their sixth Champions League win in 11 seasons, and a…

We live in an age of football coaches wedded to philosophies. If Jurgen Klopp’s teams will be remembered for their gegenpressing and Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona for their tiki-taka, it was Murderball that Marcelo Bielsa’s players were subjected to. Each of these coaches has influenced dozens of others, and impacted the sport from top to bottom. On Saturday night, however, the most successful football manager in history will step out on to the Wembley turf for the Champions League final, and no one would be able to tell you what his philosophy is. Carlo Ancelotti is far too classy a man…