Author: Shamik Chakrabarty

On the other side of the phone, Rashid Latif sounds effusive. The former Pakistan captain is closely following the India-England Test series and he has fallen for Yashasvi Jaiswal. “He is a high-class player. He will score a lot of runs for India,””Latif says, speaking to RevSportz. Another former Pakistan international, opener Shoaib Mohammad, thinks the system and structure is well organised in India. According to him, that is why there is a big difference in quality in the supply line of cricketers in India and in Pakistan. The Ranchi win has given India an unassailable 3-1 lead in the…

As Dhruv Jurel ran a couple to take India over the line in the fourth Test against England in Ranchi, Sunil Gavaskar chose to look beyond the winning moment and peeked into the future. “Lovely to see these youngsters celebrate, taking India home. This will be something that they will remember all their lives. When you play a hand in taking your country to a win, it is an extraordinary feeling. In the hands of these two youngsters (Jurel and Shubman Gill) Indian cricket will rely on more such victories over the next decade-and-a-half. Both in their early twenties, so…

Rohit Sharma’s on-field communication with his team-mates could come with a statutory warning – for mature audiences only. But between his explicit words – pretty normal in on-field sporting lingo everywhere – there are some gems. “Aare kya hua hai tera, bhag kiyun nahi raha hai (what has happened to you, why aren’t you running)?” he would say, if he spotted someone not moving quickly. And then, there was his berating of Sarfaraz Khan during the third day’s play of the fourth Test in Ranchi. “E bhai, hero nahi banne ka [Brother, don’t try to be a hero],” the skipper…

The Ranchi Test is poised on a knife edge. Zak Crawley and Jonny Bairstow were running away with the game for England, when Kuldeep Yadav intervened. The chinaman bowler was inexplicably underbowled (just 12 overs) in the first innings, especially during the 113-run partnership between Joe Root and Ben Foakes. In the second innings, he was given 15 overs at a stretch, on either side of tea. And Kuldeep broke the backbone of England batting with 4-22, bringing India firmly back into the contest. At stumps on Day 3 of the third Test, the hosts were 40 for no loss,…

At 161-5, India were feeling the heat. Shoaib Bashir had just accounted for Yashasvi Jaiswal and the home team’s batting reserves on a spiteful Ranchi pitch was down to its last recognised pair, Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel. Both were playing their second Test and under pressure, Sarfaraz was looking a tad tentative. He perished soon, to Tom Hartley, with India going deeper in the mire. From his stint at the IPL, Ben Stokes knows a lot about the young Indian batters, their shot-making preferences. He has an idea about Jurel’s knack of playing lofted drives against the spinners. The…

At 130-4, it came down to two Azad Maidan boys to get India out of trouble. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan had stitched an unbroken 172-run fifth wicket partnership in the second innings of the third Test in Rajkot. But here in the fourth Test in Ranchi, the situation was different. Back then, India were in ascendancy. On Saturday, on a difficult surface, they were under the pump. Both Jaiswal and Sarfaraz are very good players against spin and they were expected to be India’s best bet against Shoaib Bashir’s off-spin. The young England tweaker was spinning a web around…

At 90-4, Mumbai were in trouble on the first day of their Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Baroda. The cream of their batting — Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane and Shams Mulani– was gone and the responsibility fell on young Musheer Khan to get his team out of the woods. The 18-year-old was making a comeback to the first-class fold after more than a year’s gap. It was only his fourth game at this level. At stumps on Day 1, Musheer was unbeaten on 128, with Mumbai finishing the day on 248-5. The youngster, Sarfaraz Khan’s brother, made a serious impression at…

Down 1-2, with two matches to go, and English cricket at the moment is seemingly caught in the quagmire of finding the right approach. Joe Root is at the centre of the storm, vertically splitting opinions following his reverse ramp against Jasprit Bumrah in the first innings of the Rajkot Test. The older hands are still condemning it, while the current team coached by Brendon McCullum and skippered by Ben Stokes is standing by the former captain. In the third Test, chasing India’s first innings total of 445, England were 219-2 at one stage, when Root tried to reverse-ramp Bumrah…

In India’s pre-game net sessions, there’s always an early bird. Yashasvi Jaiswal is invariably the first player to hit the nets, wearing his training kit and starting his session with a round of leg-spin bowling. He is slowly but steadily honing his tweaking skills to the extent that in the near future he will be confident enough to bowl in matches. Raju Pathak, Jaiswal’s coach at Rizvi Springfield School in Mumbai is not surprised. “He has always been like that. In school, if the reporting time for practice was 8.30 am, Yashasvi would turn up an hour before, doing the…

With a 2-1 lead in the five-match series, the Indian team management has decided to rest Jasprit Bumrah for the fourth Test, starting in Ranchi from February 23. The call came along the expected lines, with an eye on managing the fast bowler’s workload. Over the first three Tests, Bumrah had bowled 80.5 overs. KL Rahul, too, won’t be available for the fourth Test, as he is yet to recover fully from a quadriceps injury. The middle-order batsman was included in the squad for the last three Tests, although his match participation was subject to fitness. Rahul had to sit…