ChinmayC Blog

India have come back in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test Series with a resounding victory in the second test in Melbourne today, defeating Australia by 8 wickets. A sweet revenge for the debacle in Adelaide, striking back with the same victory margin. But for the specter of 36-all-out the visitors could perhaps have won the first test too. And, the specter loomed large again today when two Indian wickets fell for 19, chasing a paltry victory target of 70 runs. Fortunately, the Starc-Cummins-Hazelwood threat did not become a reality again as captain Ajinkya Rahane, the hero and the player-of-the-match, joined debutant opener Shubman Gill who continued to be confident and as solid as in the first innings. The victory came in the 16 th over and the Test Series is now one-all with two tests to follow.   We mentioned in our last post on cricket that the top-form Indian bowlers just needed that much support from the batsmen to not allow the opposition snatch a sudden-death victory. Raha...

Ashwin's Laugh of  Frustration? Australia have won the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Series defeating India by 8 wickets inside three days in Adelaide which had been the first ever d/n pink-ball match between the two teams, and the hosts lead the series 1-0 with the second Test starting on the Boxing day, that is from the 26 th of December in Melbourne.   Last night at stumps it had been advantage India with a lead of 53 runs that seemed to be crucial and 9/1 as the night watchman Jasprit Bumrah saw off the day successfully. A very exciting third day’s play was anticipated with the Indian batting depth promising to score sufficient runs to corner the hosts who would be batting last. However, the very first hour of the ‘morning’ session destroyed India batting thoroughly as the visitors ended up with the their lowest ever test score of an unbelievable 36, the previous lowest being 42 against England in England in 1974. It was not simply that the Aussie pacers bowled incr...

My most used pair of shoes needed a polish very badly. The shoe-color container dried up long back. In the prolonged lockdown period, it was not possible to visit a shoe store and could not order online as well as it was not an essential item. Even after the unlock had gradually widened I didn’t think of venturing out due to the transport hassles. Instead, I started looking for a shoe-shiner shop on my customary evening walks, but found that most of those shops were yet to reopen. Even that lone shoe-polish guy sitting on the roadside with a box was missing.   On my walk that evening I changed my normal route, and started looking closely around as I walked on. Luckily, on a solitary corner of a by-lane that branched off to my left from the main road I found a shoe-shiner shop. I marched towards it feeling like a victorious commander. But as I neared my target I had to stop on my tracks. A lady, well clad in ordinary clothes, was sitting there bent over something that she seemed t...

It is extremely ironical that the only Indian sector largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic should get embroiled in a seemingly endless crisis. The Farmers’ agitation, some people detest calling it that, has entered the 12 th day with the farmers still camping in the Delhi-Haryana border, braving the unusually cold winter this time and blocking most of the highways leading to the capital. Three rounds of talks with the Government of India have failed to yield solutions that the farmers wanted, and the fourth round of talks has been scheduled on December 9. With the Union Agriculture minister still adhering to the government line of argument that the reforms as promised by the Farm Laws would be beneficial for the farmers in the long run, the distressed and tired farmers want a repeal of the laws, and demand an answer of ‘yes or no’ to that. Therefore, despite the government’s promise of presenting a set of concrete proposals on the 9 th the farmers are going ahead with their plan...

Finally in Sydney, India has tasted victory beating Australia by 6 wickets in the second T20 international match today, thus winning the three-match Dettol T20I Series with an unassailable 2-0 lead. Hardik Pandya became the man of the moment with his explosive winning innings of 42 off 22 balls, supported ably by Shikhar Dhawan (52), KL Rahul (30) and Virat Kohli (40). Like Australia avenged their home ODI Series loss in 2018-19 by overwhelming India in the Dettol ODI Series 2-1, India have now taken sweet revenge of their T20I Series loss in the 2018-19 tour. India had earlier won the first T20I match in Canberra by 11 runs, and today’s victory marks their third consecutive win in India Tour of Australia 2020-21. This win also marks India’s 10 th consecutive win in international T20 matches.   Kohli won the toss, and took a tricky decision by inviting the hosts to bat first. Australia raced towards a huge score from the word go with stand-in captain Wade (in absence of injured ...

Even though the Indian Premiere League (IPL) is basically a T20 club-cricket tournament with multinational cricketers, the stakes involved in the tournament are immense. There is the great promise of moolah for every stakeholder: from the richest cricket board of the world BCCI to the national cricket icons or superstars, little-known domestic cricketers and international cricket stars. Every club or franchise is sort of produced by a business group or a rich investor, and all of the investors not only want their money back, but also shares of the net profits. The fantastic popularity that the IPL enjoys brings in the advertisers and commercial sponsors/co-sponsors. So, for obvious reasons nobody would ever like to give up on this annual bonanza, at any cost. No doubt, the BCCI had been desperate to organize IPL-2020 despite the pandemic, and finally grabbed the anticipated slot that was vacated by the ICC as the Cricket T20 World Cup-2020 could not be held. Not to speak of the other b...