Cricforu

The head sat perfectly inside the blue helmet as the Little Master walked serenely to the centre to take guard in pursuit of what was to be his 100th international hundred. For Sachin, it was not just those 30 odd runs that had to knocked off, but the fact that this century had to be [...]

  He first started with a mere brick and as he grew in size, stature and experience, Rahul Dravid, over the years weaved not just magic with the willow, but also gave the purists and his fans the joy of watching batting in its purest form. In his decade-and-half innings with international cricket, not for [...]

  At 36, former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is not getting any younger. Worse still, he will turn 37 in December and with scores 8 and 0 at the atrocious Newlands Test; pressure on Punter is getting too suffocating. Ever since he lost the Ashes to England earlier this year, critics have been baying for [...]

Even if the coaching manual says that things need to be kept simple in cricket, there are 99 per cent of players, coaches, support staff and many others associated with the sport who are hell-bent on complicating simple techniques, in the process forget that it’s after all just a game. But not Virender Sehwag. For [...]

  A few years ago, I was having a chat with V.V.S. Laxman’s coach John Manoj at the sidelines of a match and he made a fascinating point. “Laxman was so talented and had such great hand-eye coordination that we asked him to continue what he was doing. He could easily show the ball the [...]

There is a lot of ambiguity in the way the smaller teams prepare for their game. Not many speak about their team’s strengths and weaknesses as many won’t even know who are in the playing XI. Zimbabwe was in falling into same category UNTIL Saturday. The final day of the first and only Test against [...]

  My first memories of watching the West Indies play was way back in 1989 when the grand-old Doordarshan used to air half-an-hour highlights of India’s tour to the Caribbean. The series began with the five-match ODIs, the first being at Bridgetown, Barbados and rightfully so, the hosts romped home with 50 runs. Desmond Haynes [...]

P.S: this article is written with good humour and must be taken in good spirit! It is going to be a terrible Thursday for Pakistan skipper Salman Butt who has been found guilty of cheating at the trial in a London court. Butt is likely to get a custodial sentence of about seven years. His [...]