Let's talk Cricket

                                                                         Picture credits: Wikipedia Test cricket is the original form of cricket. It's exactly what the name suggests, A Test. It's a test of patience, concentration, fitness - both mental and physical and a lot of other things. Sounds interesting right? Well, not so. One Test match goes on for 5 days, and that's where it suffers because people seem this sort of cricket "boring". There are many reasons behind it. One is T20 cricket. The shortest form of International cricket. A 3-4 hour match has a lot of crowd compared to the traditional Test cricket. The demand for Test cricket is lowering year on year and this isn't a good sign for cricket. The reason is there are still a lot of cricket purists who enjoy watching Test cricket. To t...

                                                                    Picture credits: www.scroll.in Hi Virat, I heard your name for the first time when you lead the team to win the U19 Cricket World Cup for India. You made your way into the senior Indian side and your career thus far has been amazing. You are deemed as the best batsman of modern era and often being compared to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Don Bradman. Everything is great and you love and respect from people all around the world. I admire you as a batsman. You're breaking each and every record as if that's just a school boy stuff for you. I've seen you improve to be a fit player from your days of U19 cricket and that change and commitment is what rewards you today. As much as I admire you and follow you in your professional career, I do not li...

                                                                       Picure credits: www.bbc.com The last week or so has been tough as an avid follower of the sport. First, Dale Steyn announced his retirement from Test cricket, and not so long after Hashim Amla announced his retirement from all forms of the game. These two have impacted and served South Africa cricket for a lot of years and their contribution has been immense to the standing of South Africa in international cricket today Hashim Amla, born in Surat, India - the "Mighty Hash" as they call him went on to become a legend in the sport playing cricket for South Africa. They say numbers don't lie and it is true in Hashim Amla's case. He's the second highest run scorer for South Africa in Tests, behind Jacques Kallis, with 9282 runs in ...

Picture credits:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/danielgreef/431806671/ Arguably the biggest event in the world of cricket, The Ashes 2019 is less than a week away. It's an on going debate whether the Ashes is bigger than the World Cup itself, and why not? it's older than the World Cup by close to a 100 years. Ashes is a rivalry, a rivalry which reveals every sportsman as an individual outside of sport and the players put their lives to win it. It's about pride for the players, for the nation and more so for the game to evolve. Many players from both countries have put winning the Ashes as a more superior goal than to win the World Cup. That in itself says a lot about the tournament which demands both mental and physical fitness. I wonder what cricket would be without the Ashes. Could it be of the level what we are witnessing today? England and Australia are cricket rivals and amongst the best in the firsts who started playing cricket. The pride to be superior, domina...

Picture Credits: U.S. Wall Street Journal Before the start of the English tour, Team India had many questions to answer. It felt like India will answer all those questions and authorize their dominance in England. However, after the recently concluded ODI series, India instead of answering the questions have got more problems to solve. This English series, especially the ODI’s was going to be very crucial because this is the last time India were playing in England before the World Cup. After a comprehensive win in the 1 st ODI, it felt like Team India is the best team at the moment and nothing can stop them. Kuldeep Yadav ran through the English batting line up. However, it’s often said that a team is no.1 for a reason. England, the no.1 team in ODI’s currently came back stronger and easily won the next 2 matches. Joe Root with two classy centuries didn’t allow India to find even a chance to get back in either of the matches. After being castled out by Kuldeep in the firs...

I enjoy watching cricket. I have followed and loved the sport since I was a kid. But, these days, watching Cricket bores me.! It’s not the same. The game has evolved and it’s good for the game and the revenue makers. However, the game is getting more and more batsman friendly day by day. I fear there will be a time, where a team will score 600 in an ODI and 350 in a T20. There will be a time where scoring 450 will be normal. These scores sound exciting and we praise the batsmen. Even I don’t want to take anything from the batsmen, but the question here is, is cricket just a batsman’s game? Is it moving towards being just a batsman vs. batsman game? There have been long talks in the past whether cricket is a batsman’s game, that past is now a reality, especially the Limited Overs Cricket. As far as I know, cricket is supposed to be a batsman vs. bowler, one ball at a time, how you face it? It’s about the skills of the batsman to survive a good ball and punish the bad ba...