Posts

Showing posts from 2019

Sachin Tendulkar vs. Steve Smith

Image
                                                                  Picture Credits: www.ibtimes.co.in I've been a huge Sachin Tendulkar fan for years and still am, so much so that I've argued with my friends, family, fought with them and I can't listen to anything against Sachin Tendulkar. In the end, he's the God. In fact, he's the reason why I started watching cricket in the first place. As a batsman and as a person, he has been inspiring generations after generations. On the other hand, there's a boy from Australia who comes up to the international arena and believed by many as the next Shane Warne and a few years later is being regarded as the next Sir Donald Bradman. He's Steve Smith, who with his unorthodox style of batting has taken the world of cricket by storm. The Ashes 2019 belonged to him and it's not th...

World Test Championship: A move in the right or the wrong direction?

Image
                                                                         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...

An open letter to Virat Kohli

Image
                                                                    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...

Mighty hash - The end of the road

Image
                                                                       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 ...

Gearing up to Ashes 2019

Image
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...