ChinmayC Blog

  Sam Curran Of course, history does repeat itself from time to time; but the history of successfully chasing 337 runs in a one-day international (ODI) match does not repeat itself too often.  Thanks to some incredible display of power batting by Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes England chased 337 and defeated India by 6 wickets the other day in the second ODI of the ICC World Cup Super League series thus levelling the 3-match series. Although India posted a target, a little less than the other day, of 329 today England nearly repeated history again with bowling allrounder Sam Curran (95 not out) taking over charge. It rankled in the minds of Indian fans that the famed batting strength of the hosts wasted 8 balls of the Indian innings as there were no batsmen left, and that they could have set a target well over 350 runs. In the bargain were treated to a real nail-biter of a match that India, studded with dropped catches and misfields, finally managed to win by 7 runs thus winnin...

 Jonny Bairstow When a team chases a down a massive target of 337 runs with plenty of overs to spare you can only watch wonder-struck at the sensational batting display that has to be the cause of it and cannot really blame the rival team. England have done this tonight, overcoming the Indian target that looked quite formidable very easily at the end thanks to the spectacular batting performances of all the top three: Jason Roy notching up 55 off 52 balls falling to a terrible run-out; Jonny Bairstow registering a magnificent ton of 124 off just 112 balls; and most importantly, Ben Stokes scoring an incredible 99 in just 52 balls, getting out caught 1 run away from what could have been a memorable century. There were 24 fours and unbelievable 20 sixes (10 of those go to Stokes) in their victorious innings. At one stage of the game they were scoring almost 20 runs an over with Bairstow and Stokes firing all cylinders in their partnership of 175 runs. So then, England won the second ...

In the first one-day international (ODI) of the three-match Series played in Pune India have beaten England by 66 runs yesterday, taking a 1-0 lead in the series. Like the last few matches this game too was played to empty stadiums due to the second wave of COVID-19 virus in India. India’s captain Virat Kohli lost the toss yet again, for the third time in a row taking into account the last two T20 internationals, and it proved to be a good toss to lose, yet again. It was heartening to see India’s regular opening pair, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, coming in to open the innings. Perhaps this being the first match of the series India started very cautiously to avoid the oft-repeated first-match blues, and concentrated on doing the groundwork for a good total. However, they did not get into a shell which also proves to be India’s undoing on many occasions. In the power-play overs they managed to put up 64 runs when Rohit departed for 28 off 42 balls.        The fir...

From January of the year called 2020 onwards we had been constantly getting reports of the havoc created by the SARS-Cov-2 or the COVID-19 virus in various pockets of China. From February of the same year stray cases were being reported from some parts of India and from the month of March cases were on an unmistakable rise, particularly in the states of Kerala and Maharashtra. We were also hearing about the dangerous spread in several European countries, and we even saw on television how normal ebullient parts of countries like Italy and Spain were looking like ghost cities because of the lockdown. But somehow, at that point of time neither the Indian authorities nor the public took it seriously and perhaps was not aware of the incredibly fast human-to-human transmission that the virus was capable of. Not surprising at all, because even the World Health Organization did not know much at that time. Lockdown was also a novel concept for us and many thought that lockdown was not a realist...

Thanks to India’s non-stop experimentation we got to see a brand new opening partner, none other than India captain Virat Kohli, with Rohit Sharma, and the duo treated us to one of the most exhilarating batting displays in recent times. Rohit was the dominant partner hitting the ball all around the park in his cracker of an innings of 64 runs off 34 balls with 5 sixes and 4 fours while Kohli played the sheet anchor role perfectly, allowing Rohit go berserk. They piled up 94 runs in just the ninth over, and the momentum thus built never slowed down as Suryakumar Yadav, the sensation of the 4 th T20I match, came in at no.3 and made a quickfire 32 in 17 balls. And then, the run-feast was left open to Kohli and Hardik Pandya both of whom played some incredible hits over the fence to post India’s highest ever T20 total against England, 225 runs to win for the demoralized visitors.   The match was almost sealed in favour of India, although England did try putting up a brave front with...

At the start of the five-match T20I Series at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad from 12 th March 2021 between England and India, the former was the No.1 team in ICC T20I rankings while the latter was in the second position, and a tough contest was very much in the offing. Interestingly too, both the teams won 7 matches each out of the 14 T20Is played so far between them. But somehow, the win-toss-win-match syndrome has been interfering with the proceedings so far. Thanks to the factors like knowing exactly what total to chase and the night dew the obvious decision on winning the toss has been to bowl first. In the first T20I Eoin Morgan's England won the toss and decided to bowl; the visitors won the match by eight wickets leading the series 1-0. In the second Virat Kohli's India won the toss and as usual decided to bowl; the hosts won the match by 7 wickets, leveling the series at 1-1. And, in the third T20I played on 16 th March 2021 England won the toss again and decid...

India have crushed England by an innings and 25 runs in the fourth and last cricket test match at the Motera, Ahmedabad today and won the Test Series 3-1, thus qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) Final to be played at Lord’s from 18 th June 2021. India needed to win the Series by at least 2-1 margin and had this match been won by the visitors the Series would have ended in a 2-2 draw in which case Australia would have qualified. There are three priceless innings from the Indians that contributed to this emphatic win at the Motera today. First and foremost, the man-of-the-match Rishabh Pant for his incredible century of 101 in just 118 balls coming in to bat at a time when India had lost 4 wickets for 80 still trailing by 125 runs to England’s first innings total of 205. There was tremendous pressure on him to stick on and at the same time pile up enough runs to help his team come back in the game. Rishabh played against his normal attacking style defending a lot with Rohi...