Micromax Cup Cricket: India Win The First ODI Against Sri Lanka!

India defeated Sri Lanka by 21 runs in the first one day international cricket match at Hambantota in Sri Lanka today.

India won the toss and elected to bat first. The start was a little shaky with Gautam Gambhir getting out early and Sehwag, joining the team after a break, was living dangerously. But with the ever dependable Virat Kohli the duo steadied the innings and very soon anchored the team for a big total. Settling down to his attacking best Sehwag looked good for a century, but was unfortunately run out for 96. Kohli showed his class by notching up his fourth hundred in five matches scoring 106 runs off 113 balls. With a sound knock of 54 by Suresh Raina and a cameo by skipper Dhoni Team India reached an imposing total of 314/6 in allotted fifty overs. For Sri Lanka all their bowlers proved to be expensive and only Perera managed to capture three Indian wickets.

Set a daunting target of 315 runs Sri Lanka too started shakily losing Dilshan early to Irfan Pathan. They kept on losing wickets at regular intervals with only Sangakkara solidly defending one end. Skipper Mahela Jaywardene too fell for a low score. At 191/6 in 38 overs the job looked to be almost done for India, but Sangakkara went on to score a brilliant century and laid a challenging partnership with Perera--the most successful bowler in the Indian innings. The duo threatened to take the match away from India.

Irfan Pathan and R Ashwin bowled economically for India. Coming back into the team Zaheer Khan conceded 63 run in his 10 overs capturing only one Sri Lankan wicket. Pathan, Yadav and Ashwin took two wickets each.

Finally the target proved to be too tall for Sri Lanka to overhaul. Sangakkara’s wicket in the 48^th over was the final blow. He made 133 runs, but failed to see his team through. Their innings folded up for 293 falling short by 21 runs.

India has made a good beginning winning the first one day international, a feat they normally fail to accomplish on most foreign tours. Virat Kohli was the natural choice for the man of the match. India go up 1-0 against Sri Lanka in the five match series with the second one day international coming up on July 24. The Scorecard:

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!