ChinmayC Blog

In whole of my ‘aware-of-cricket’ life I’ve never seen my home team in such a pitiable state—in absolute doldrums, no directions pointing anywhere, no will of any sort, a complete absence of a ‘management’ and no team building efforts—since the 0-3 drubbing by New Zealand on home turf till the present moment down under, except, of course, the lone wonder in Perth. Therefore, I’m rather drawn fatally to an arguably merciless mindset of comparing Team India to a national museum. The reasons thereof are very easy to detect: all the preciously historic set pieces are still on a grand display irrespective of if people of a cricket loving nature do grace those with generous footfalls or not; the timings and the duty hours are fixed irrespective of the ‘weather’ conditions as the controllers continue to feel that they must ‘learn’ from mistakes; and that some of the old pieces are only being adjusted here and there without giving any thought to bringing in new and newer pieces of interest or ...

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...

The Gabba Fortress! On the 19 th of January 2021 at the Gabba in Brisbane, the dying moments of the fifth and final day of the fourth cricket test match between Indian and Australia, India accomplished the most improbable by defeating the shell-shocked hosts by 3 wickets. Set a daunting target of 328 runs for a win the visitors replied at 4/0 at stumps on the fourth day which meant India had to get 324 runs on the last day for victory. The Indian team, already written off by many an expert after the catastrophic 36 runs all out in the first test in Sydney thus conceding an easy win for Australia, had a tough job ahead on an unpredictable last-day pitch facing arguably the best bowling attack of the world. Most importantly, the ground is popularly known as Gabbatoir for Australia where the home team never lost a test match against any cricket team since the last 32 years with an unbelievable tally of 24-0 wins. Therefore, at best, most of the cricket experts and fans expected India to ...

Rishabh Pant It was a rare of the rarest moments in the history of Test Cricket with a Test match going down the wire till the last mandatory overs and converting itself into a T20-like situation as India needed around 50-odd runs from the last 10 overs and Australia needed to capture 5 wickets. That too, in the fifth and final day of the match with India batting last facing a daunting target 328 runs for victory or to suffer defeat or to save the match and the Series. This was also like a classic tennis game with match points and Series points over a breathtaking and suspenseful period of time.   And, who could be a better player than Rishabh Pant in that T20 moments? Conclusively for the team, Pant blossomed into tremendous form from the third Test in Sydney and started doing what he had been expected to do since a long while, irrespective of the formats of the game concerned. With more successful players in the shortest formats, Washington Sundar and Shardul Thakur giving him ...

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...