Author: RevSportz Comment

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…

RevSportz Comment To understand why the Woolloongabba in Brisbane is such a forbidding venue, you only have to look at Queensland’s cricket history. Queensland’s Maroons are one half of one of sport’s most ferocious rivalries, Rugby League’s State of Origin clashes which can sell out stadiums as big as the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). But in the bat-and-ball sport, the New South Wales Blues were usually from another planet. Queensland first entered the Sheffield Shield in 1926-27, 34 years after the competition began, and had to wait three decades just to finish second. By the time they lifted the trophy…

It’s a measure of how much Australia have dominated under lights with the pink ball in Adelaide that the Gabba Test is now seen as an ‘easier’ game. Even when it was justifiably labelled the Gabbatoir – where visiting teams went to get slaughtered – the near-century-old venue in Brisbane never saw the hosts win more than seven in a row. If, as expected, Australia complete the formalities on Sunday, it will be their eighth successive pink-ball triumph in Adelaide. Make no mistake though, Brisbane will be a formidable challenge for Rohit Sharma and his men, especially after crashing down…

Dear Rashid Bhai (in the true sense of the word), As someone who played with distinction for his country more than 200 times, we expect you to be a proud Pakistani. Now, it turns out – or, at least, according to a video going viral on social media – that your heart beats for India as well. “Leaving the country doesn’t mean we’ll forget the people,” you said, referencing your father’s decision to move to Karachi in the 1950s. “Our colour will still remain blue, won’t it? One of my brothers lives in Sultanpur, and 90 per cent of my…

For a cricket team, there are few dilemmas greater than when a captain is out of form. There have been rare exceptions in the game’s history, like England’s Mike Brearley, who were picked for their leadership nous alone, but by and large, a struggling captain can lead to an uncomfortable dressing room. In Rohit Sharma’s case, he wasn’t part of the epic Test win in Perth, one of the finest in India’s history. But now, as we head into the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, he will return. Where does he play, and can he break out of a lean trot…

The Mumbai Indians (MI) had done most of their heavy lifting before the auction, using up Rs 75 crore of their total purse on retaining five players. Rohit Sharma, former captain, Hardik Pandya, the current leader, Suryakumar Yadav – India’s T20 captain – Jasprit Bumrah and Tilak Varma all stayed, meaning that the auction focus was very much on the foreign contingent and finding bowlers to supplement Bumrah’s sublime skills. “We had four of our top 7 in place already, just needed to fill a couple of slots with the right complimentary players,” said Akash Ambani, the team owner, after…

RevSportz Comment In the eyes of millions, Indian cricket came of age at Eden Gardens in March 2001, with a victory after following-on against Steve Waugh’s Invincibles. But it was other victories, away from home, in the same decade that truly established that Indian cricket was on an upward trajectory and not inclined to look back. Each was unexpected, as much a bucking of the odds as the World Cup final triumph in 1983, and because they came in the format where the better team invariably prevails, they became benchmarks for future generations to follow. At Headingley in 2002, Sourav…

He may not have played a T20I for India in nearly a year, but Shreyas Iyer remains a marquee name in the Indian Premier League (IPL). In the first set of names up for auction in Jeddah, Iyer was snapped up by Punjab Kings for an astonishing 26.75 crores. That’s quite an outlay for a batter with an IPL career average of 127.48. Iyer, who plays Ranji Trophy for Mumbai, started his IPL career in Delhi, and spent seven seasons there, including a spell as captain after Gautam Gambhir retired. His coach at Delhi Capitals in those later years was…

In its early years, no one quite knew what to make of the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction. The first, before the 2008 season, was very much a step into the unknown, and some of the completely arbitrary sums paid for players caused schisms in dressing rooms, with even several Australian cricketers talking of the impact the ‘valuations’ had on their relationships with fellow professionals. It was impossible to escape the notion, however, that subsequent mini-auctions were often about some team owners swanning around and buys made based on individual whims and fancies. There seemed little method to the madness,…