As anticipated, the political masters of Pakistan have finally directed its national cricket team to lift the boycott and play India on 15 February, 2026, as scheduled in Colombo . The Masters must've thought the money at stake is too lucrative to continue indulging in such kind of grumpy politics. Of course, they had imposed some pre-conditions that included making the 'handshake' a mandatory protocol, but the ICC looked the other way. So, the PCB takes it as protecting the 'spirit of cricket'. The Indian cricket board , the sponsors, the TV channels and millions of fans who do not necessarily mix patriotism with sports, if it's cricket in particular, must be deliriously ecstatic that all the revenues and hype and excitement shall be there for harvest thr oughout the ICC Men's T20 World Cup-2026 , co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka . Most of the Indians fans must also be ecstatic to have their heroes go on vanquishing the enemy neighbor and humiliating t...
Well, as far as the three batting stalwarts of Indian Cricket—Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul—are concerned they’re needed all the time irrespective of the relentless experimentation process with promising youngsters and whatever frame of mind or form they’ve been in recently. They can come anytime anywhere and for all key white-ball world tournaments they are a must, and they’re always justified in displacing batsmen like Deepak Hooda, Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan and even seasoned campaigners like Shreyas Iyer and Shikhar Dhawan. However, it stops just at that point. After they do or don’t do their bit in their batting the all-rounders take over. No doubt, all-rounders like Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya have been doing great in recent times. But putting in them all the responsibility to bowl, to bat and to win the matches cannot be a long-term strategy. Besides, as has been witnessed in recent months, the in-form and specialized batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav and Dinesh Karth...