Author: RevSportz Comment

At first glance, it seems almost absurd to suggest that Mikel Arteta, Arsenal’s manager, is feeling the heat as much as Manchester United’s Ruben Amorim ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup third round clash at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal sit second in the English Premier League and are realistically the only team that can stop Liverpool and Arne Slot from winning a record-equalling 20th title. They’re also third in the new-look UEFA Champions League, poised for an automatic place in the last 16. And though Newcastle United shocked them in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final, Arsenal more than…

RevSportz Comment Though he never played a Test against them, Damien Fleming, a superb swing bowler on his day, was part of the generation of Australian cricketers that wrested the (unofficial) Test-match crown from mighty West Indies in the 1990s. So, when Fleming – who witnessed Curtly Ambrose’s spell of 1/7 from 5.2 overs at the old WACA in Perth, the sorcery of Wasim Akram and the White Lightning of Allan Donald – speaks, you tend to listen. “Jasprit Bumrah is the greatest touring fast bowler that I have ever seen,” he said recently, as Bumrah finished the five-Test Border-Gavaskar…

It’s one of cricket’s many quirks that the format followed by the least people is considered the most important. And while captaincy in the white-ball formats is handed out like candy on Halloween, it remains a very big deal in Test cricket. Removing a captain in the middle of a high-profile Test series, especially one like the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, is almost unheard of. Yet, that could be Rohit Sharma’s fate when India take the field at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday. Because the team is in Australia, the local media will doubtless draw parallels to what happened with Kim…

RevSportz Comment With Australia having battled back into the ascendancy in the tussle for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, some of those who once wore the baggy green have wasted no time in putting the boot in. The 295-run thrashing in Perth seems many moons ago now, and the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are squarely in the crosshairs after three dismal outings in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. Michael Slater, cavalier opener in the team that took over West Indies’ mantle as the world’s greatest side, suggested after Australia’s 184-run win at the MCG that Kohli had become something of…

RevSportz Comment This is usually the time of year when Manchester City, under Pep Guardiola’s coaching, make their move. If they haven’t already started the season like a high-speed locomotive, it’s during the crowded fixture list in December-January that City stretch their legs and put distance between themselves and the chasing pack. This year, it couldn’t be more different. Heading into Christmas, City sit in seventh place in the table, 12 points behind Liverpool having played a game more. No one is even mentioning the title any more. With six defeats and a draw in their last eight league matches,…

RevSportz Comment One of the most surprising aspects of the controversy surrounding Ravindra Jadeja’s media interaction in the build-up to the Boxing Day Test was the utterly one-eyed approach taken by the Australian media present. It was as if common sense had left the building and been replaced by conspiracy theories. That it happened in Australia was even more eyebrow-raising. For more than a century, Australian sports journalism has been robust and objective for the most part. There have been few holy cows. Even Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest of them all, wasn’t immune to criticism. On the 1930 tour…

Given that Test cricket goes back nearly 150 years, it seems almost laughable to talk of the Boxing Day Test as a tradition. It became an annual affair only in 1980, once Kerry Packer’s Channel 9 acquired the TV rights to Australian cricket. And even then, the response was far from overwhelming. In 1981, on one of the greatest days of cricket ever played – Kim Hughes making 100 not out in a total of 198, and Dennis Lillee clean-bowling Viv Richards as West Indies finished on 10/4 – there were only 39,982 watching inside the cavernous Melbourne Cricket Ground,…

RevSportz Comment One of the elementary mistakes you tend to be guilty of as a cub reporter is to make comparisons across eras and rush to snap judgements purely on the basis of numbers. For example, you could look at Chennai’s great off-spinner of yesteryear, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, and conclude that he was only half the bowler that Ravichandran Ashwin was because his strike-rate (95.3) was nearly twice that of the younger man (50.7). Ashwin, as earnest a student of the game as any, would have been the first to laugh you out of the room if you made such a…

RevSportz Comment “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.” It’s more than half a century since Vince Lombardi, the legendary American Football coach, passed away, but his words still ring true across playing fields all over the world. In cricket, however, even a draw or a tie can sometimes feel like victory. The walking wounded that were the India XI in Sydney nearly four years ago…

RevSportz Comment Over the decades, Australian cricket crowds have earned a reputation for both boisterousness and quick wit. Stephen Gascoigne, or Yabba as he came to be known, frequented the famous Hill at the Sydney Cricket Ground nearly a century ago. His heckling of visiting players, especially Poms, was so famous that he now has his own statue at the ground. “Leave our flies alone, Jardine,” he’s said to have told England’s captain during the controversial Bodyline series. “They’re the only friends you’ve got here. Such wisecracks have been par for the course during Ashes series. Some 60 years after…