Author: RevSportz Comment

KL Rahul has Test centuries in Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean. He averages 47.67 in ODIs and has a strike-rate (87.37), comparable to that of Steve Smith and Joe Root. In T20Is, he has a better strike-rate and twice as many centuries (2) as Virat Kohli. Why, then, is he the butt of so many jokes and the target of such venom from so-called fans? If you followed the social-media narrative, you’d think Rahul was a plodder with the numbers of the erstwhile Maharajah of Vizianagram, whose six innings for India in 1936 fetched him 33…

It was in 2007, the year a 20-year-old Novak Djokovic reached his first Grand Slam final, that the Coen Brothers made No Country for Old Men, with the rugged Javier Bardem in the assassin’s role. Djokovic lost to Roger Federer in straight sets in that US Open final. It was Federer’s 12th major title, and if anyone had suggested then that Djokovic would win twice as many, they would have been laughed out of the room. Federer was 27 when he won the last of his five US Open titles in 2008. Rafael Nadal, his great rival, surmounted incredible odds…

Two days after a titanic tussle against highly fancied Iraq in the semifinal of the King’s Cup, India’s tournament ended with a demoralising 1-0 defeat to Lebanon – a side they had beaten in the Intercontinental Cup final in June – in the third-place play-off in the stifling heat and pouring rain in Chiang Mai. The crucial goal, almost predictably given the lack of quality from both sides in the final third, came from a set piece in the 77th minute. Ali Al Haj swung in a corner, and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu made a stupendous save to keep out a…

What makes a great sporting rivalry? More than anything else, the answer is regular engagement. When Spain’s La Liga releases its fixture list each summer, the first thing a Real Madrid fan looks for are the two dates for El Clásico against Barcelona. He or she will then search for the home and away matches against Atletico, their cross-town rivals. In cricket, thousands of fans get on to travel and ticketing apps as soon as the Ashes schedule is announced. In baseball, a New York Yankees fan will be sure to pencil in the dates for games against the Boston…

We love to throw around the word ‘immortal’. But in many ways, the beauty of sport is its fleeting nature. Our heroes of yesterday have grown old or faded away. Those who were once boys of summer are now arthritic old men who no one associates with extraordinary physical prowess and agility. But in some part of our minds, they will always remain as they once were — gilded by sunshine and doing wondrous things that made you gasp in sheer awe. In that respect, the 2023 Rugby Union World Cup starts off at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis…