Author: Shamik Chakrabarty

The Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee chose to be bold. They refused to put champagne on ice, opting for champagne cricket at the top instead. The result? Shubman Gill, who until Friday was India’s vice-captain in the T20Is, has been dropped for the upcoming T20I World Cup. The defending champions would be going to the ICC’s biennial showpiece with Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson as their first-choice opening pair and Ishan Kishan as the reserve. For the next few days, Gill would continue to be the story of the selection meeting that took place here in Mumbai on Saturday. But let’s…

Hurricane Hardik blew at Motera that ravaged South Africa’s bowling, George Linde in particular. After his first three overs, the left-arm spinner’s figures read 1/19. On a batting paradise at Narendra Modi Stadium, it was an excellent effort. Then the carnage began. After 13 overs, India were 131/3, losing the toss and batting first in the final T20I against South Africa on Friday. Suryakumar Yadav (5) yet again fell cheaply and Pandya walked out to bat to a rousing reception from nearly 80,000 fans. People in this part of the world still love the home boy, the former Gujarat Titans…

The immediate focus is the T20 World Cup provisional squad selection. The small matter of picking the squads for the white-ball series — three ODIs and five T20Is — against New Zealand next month is there as well. The World Cup starts on February 7 and the participating cricket boards will have to send the provisional squads to the ICC by early January. The Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee will pick the Indian squad for the World Cup on Saturday. The BCCI hasn’t confirmed it yet. On the face of it, Test cricket has taken a back seat at the moment.…

Two months ago, cricket here was played in the sound of silence. The noise would be deafening in the T20I series decider between India and South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Friday. The India versus West Indies Test in early October came at a time when this part of the world was celebrating Navratri. A five-day game against the Carribeans was way down in the fans’ priority list. Barely a few hundreds turned up for a no-contest that ended inside three days. Test cricket these days doesn’t fetch money. T20 is the game’s cash cow. The fourth T20I…

The 2026 IPL auction saw a paradigm shift in Chennai Super Kings’ philosophy. They went to the auction with a purse of Rs 43.4 crore and spent Rs 28.4 crore of those to sign up two uncapped young Indian cricketers. Prashant Veer, 20, and Kartik Sharma, 19, became CSK players for Rs 14.2 crore each. The changed philosophy started to take shape midway into the last season, through the acquisitions of Ayush Mhatre, Urvil Patel and Dewald Brevis. As head coach Stephen Fleming said at the press conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the game has evolved and the…

At Chennai Super Kings trials, Prashant Veer was told to focus on consistency. The youngster is now going to MS Dhoni’s gurukul. The left-arm spinner, who can also give a cricket ball a real tonk with the bat, will have a wonderful opportunity to grow. At Rs 14.2 crore, Veer, son of a primary schoolteacher from Amethi, became the most expensive uncapped player in the history of the IPL. Kartik Sharma, who is called a ‘six-hitting machine’ back in native Rajasthan, later joined him at the top. But this story is about the boy from a village in Uttar Pradesh…

Unless there’s an eleventh-hour twist, Sarfaraz Khan is set to return to the IPL after going unsold at last year’s mega-auction. The Mumbai batter is in excellent form in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with 256 runs from six matches at 64.00 and a strike-rate of 182.85. It is learnt that at least three franchises are monitoring him ahead of the 2026 IPL auction in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Sarfaraz is listed in the opening set of capped batters with a base price of Rs 75 lakh. Circa 2025 didn’t go well for the 28-year-old. He was part of…

Shubman Gill started brightly in cold Dharamsala during the third T20I against South Africa on Sunday. There was no scoreboard pressure. India were chasing 118 for victory and, even in seaming conditions, Abhishek Sharma was making batting look like a walk in the park. Gill was content to play second fiddle. But once Abhishek was dismissed for an 18-ball 35, India’s T20I vice-captain seemed to go into a shell. In the end, a run-a-ball 28, the latter half of which resembled an ODI knock, was not detrimental to India’s cause. The hosts were always ahead in the game, but from…

First things first, Satadru Dutta, the sports promoter from Rishra, was either too naive or too clever by half. Lionel Messi’s GOAT Tour, A Satadru Dutta Initiative, was his most ambitious project yet. He had organised the visits of Pele, Diego Maradona and Ronaldinho before. But they were the stars of yore. Messi, along with Cristiano Ronaldo, is still the world’s biggest sporting personality, notwithstanding that he is 38 years old and currently plies his trade in Major League Soccer (MLS). He is also a current World Cup winner. For a vast section of football fans in Kolkata, Fifa’s…

Shubman Gill might be playing the remaining three T20Is of the ongoing series against South Africa to save his place in the team. That he is the vice-captain of the side doesn’t insulate him from the chop. It is learnt that the selectors and the team management are concerned about a worrying top-order slump with the T20 World Cup around the corner. Gill will have to regain his mojo at the earliest. Suryakumar Yadav, the captain, is not covering himself in glory either. That Axar Patel was sent ahead of him in the second T20I in New Chandigarh, when the…