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After some terrific cricket and some horrific related incidents during the first three months of 2018 it’s time now for a commercial break. Well, not exactly though for millions of avid fans! They have been patiently waiting for this most commercially viable form of cricket since the last season. Come April-May for over a decade now,   and nobody can stop these fans for going gaga over this movie-styled entertainers of the sport. Right, we are talking about the 11 th Season of the Indian Premiere League-2018 T20 Cricket tournament starting from 7 th April till the end of next month. Many fans would be excited this time for the return of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) with the former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni back as captain of CSK and Ajinkya Rahane replacing the tainted Steve Smith as captain of RR while New Zealand captain Kane Williamson replaced the tainted David Warner as captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Shikhar Dhawan was earlier tip

Mitchell Santner  It looked like a Test match on the last day (the third day could be the last day) on a rank turner with batsmen struggling for dear life. More specifically, it looked exactly like the last Test match played in this venue in November, 2015 between India and South Africa when the hosts won the series thanks to the rank turner and spin within three days. For the first match of the Super-10 stage of the ICC World T20 Championship the pitch in Nagpur was obviously out of ranks. Who knows it was perhaps gifted to Team India thanks to their known aversion to anything ‘green’. Only recently the ‘green’ offered in Pune worked disastrously for the Australia bashers as they perished to a shock defeat against a lifeless Sri Lanka in the first match of the domestic T20 Series that they eventually won 2-1. Whatever be the pitch issue, it was New Zealand who prepared perfectly for it including three spinners in the team and batting with a definite plan. The so-called masters

India beat South Africa by 337 runs to sweep the Freedom Test Series 3-0 and lift the Paytm Freedom Trophy today in Delhi. This is Team India’s most deserving win of the Freedom Series Test cricket as the Delhi pitch has behaved the way it has been all these years giving equal opportunities to pacers, spinners and even batsmen. It is a big relief that the pitch has not been converted into a rank turner like in Mohali and Nagpur earlier. The Delhi test has gone into the last session of the fifth and final day and the team that played best has won. From the third day onwards the pitch became slower and slower making run-making difficult and at the same time not yielding the lethal cracks for the bowlers. The Indian victory largely comes on the back of the player of the match Ajinkya Rahane who scored two magnificent back to back centuries with good contributions Virat Kohli who finally came into form and accurate bowling from both the spinners and fast bowlers. Ironically, Raha

India got the best pitch possible to seal the Freedom Test Series against South Africa by winning the third test match in Nagpur in less than three days again thus taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match Series. Spinners of India won the first test in Mohali in less than three days and could have repeated the feat in Bengaluru too had rains not intervened from the second day onwards. Bravo India for pitching in perfectly in the perfect kind of pitches provided with perfection by the perfect supporters of Indian cricket. All cricket action at the moment seems to be so spin-oriented that India opted for just one pacer in the squad for the Nagpur test in the form of Ishant Sharma and yet he hardly bowled. The pitch was referred to as ‘diabolic’ by some while for the Indian fans it should described as ‘historic’. Yes, when India win it is always historic and when they lose it is always ‘unfavourable conditions’. Look at the scores. India won the toss and electing to bat f

As is considered only natural in this country the first Test between India and South Africa at Mohali ended within three days. India beat South Africa by 108 runs today to take 1-0 lead in the four-match Freedom Trophy Test Series. This result must have made Team India, the team management, the cricket Board and all cricket mandarins extremely happy and all must be praising the curator at Mohali no holds barred for creating such a wonder of a cricket pitch. Yes, for India at home the ‘pitch’ along with the add-ons of other ‘conditions’ matter most rather than the competitive quality of the game or the application of the Indian batsmen or the ‘strike’ capability of the Indian bowlers. This has been the case for decades now. In the seventies or even eighties we still remember the commentators saying Sunil Gavaskar coming up to open the bowling   with fielders hitting the ball very hard to the ground at every opportunity. This was to make the ball softer as quickly as possible so

India under the young Test skipper Virat Kohli finally managed to break the 22-year no-win jinx in Test Series hosted by Sri Lanka defeating the hosts by 117 runs in the third Test today thus winning the Series 2-1 after wasting a huge opportunity in the first of the three Tests mostly dominated by them. In the first Test at Galle a win for India seemed only a formality when a dismal bout of batting ensured a win for Sri Lanka. In the third Test in Colombo India put Sri Lanka on the mat setting a huge target of 386 runs and capturing three vital wickets for 67 runs at stumps on the fourth day yesterday. They needed to capture 7 wickets today for a series win in Sri Lanka after 22 years, but their bowlers again showed the haunting lack of penetration for most part of today with the scare of Sri Lanka either drawing or even winning the match and the Series looming large. However, at the last moments of the fifth day Ashwin came back to capture 4 wickets ensuring a win for India. In t

The world knows India as a cricket-craziest nation and its tremendous fan-following for the game; the world understands India’s potential as the ultimate market for cricket for all formats of the game; the world acknowledges the Indian cricket Board (BCCI) as the richest one with influence and hold running effortlessly through to the very top and the world sees the IPL as India’s answer to the football league and as one of the largest sports tournaments benefiting everyone’s coffers from cricket owners, officials and players. Besides, for the IPL there are huge players’ interests, particularly budding cricketers, and numerous stakeholders cutting across India. All these factors concerning the ‘spirit of the game of cricket’ finally seemed to have shaped the Supreme Court of India order as a somewhat ‘favorable’ one for the BCCI considering the circumstances preceding it. On the historic day of 25 th March, 2014 the Supreme Court asked BCCI Chief N Srinivasan to resign gi

New look or old look, new wine or old wine, old bottle or new bottle—whatever way you tend to look at Team India it has been historically proven that India never had answers to sheer fast bowling on green and bouncy tracks overseas. Indian batsmen from times immemorial get bogged down and bat tentatively when faced with fiery spells of pace bowling. That India have never won a single Test Series in Australia and in South Africa in its entire cricketing history is something the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) must not go on ignoring. A few wins here and there have been aberrations rather than being real. BCCI must veer away from its money-oriented policy of preparing ‘commercial’ dry tracks for one-day cricket, and spinning, often unplayable, tracks for Tests. It is not being cynical when we comment that Indian batsmen are kings at home and Indian spinners create wicket-taking records on pitches tailor made for them. While South African or other country fast bowlers generate bowling

It was expected though not entirely predictable--in both cases. Over the last few years Congress came to be identified with corruption thanks to various scams of the ruling coalition. Anna Hazare started the movement against corruption and rocked the whole of India--particularly Delhi. The BJP constantly attacking Congress on corruption and moving around Anna not exactly supporting or opposing him somewhat escaped being clubbed with corruption or Congress. Then BJP launched Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate. Add to it the unabated inflation. For the four states that went to Assembly polls in November-December, 2013 these factors possibly led to a wave for change with record voting percentage in most states and BJP beat Congress 4-0, almost. It was a sweep in BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh and a grand comeback in Rajasthan. BJP ruled Chattisgarh was also retained after a tough Congress fight that happened largely due to the recent Naxal attack on its leaders. Arvind Kejr

We, talking about our generation specifically, grew up with the history of Mahatma Gandhi—how he made India independent through complete non-violence a movement based on truth and how the greatest Indian leader of all time was assassinated on the fateful day of 30 th January, 1948. We grew up with Nelson Mandela hearing about his movement against the racist policy of Apartheid in South Africa based on the same Gandhian ideals, later watching him go about his noble ways and hearing his inspirational speeches—in India and everywhere. How he finally won like Mahatma Gandhi ending Apartheid and becoming the first black President of South Africa in 1994. He has been our Gandhi live and heart wrenchingly we lost him on Thursday evening, the 5 th of December, 2013—losing a continuous source of leadership, indomitable spirit and inspiration. Of course, we knew that he had not been keeping well for the last few months being in and out of the ICU, and that he had reached the ripe age