ChinmayC Blog

The movie aptly titled ‘83’ is really worth reliving Team India’s glorious World Cup victory at Lord’s in 1983 defeating the mighty West Indies , thus stopping the latter’s hat-trick moments after victories in 1975 and 1979 ; and in fact, the West Indies team is yet to win their third World Cup since then. I missed watching the movie on the big screen as moviegoing has been effectively stopped since the last two years, particularly for the elderly people like me. I grabbed the opportunity as soon as the great cricket movie was premiered on television yesterday. The movie too has suffered due to the pandemic: first it was slated for release in 2019 which, unfortunately, was postponed due to post-production reasons and after that the COVID-19 recurring bans and restrictions never allowed to make the movie reach millions of cricket fans. Finally, though it could be released in December 2021 its shows were again affected by the Omicron wave. Therefore, as it were, the movie could not re...

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has given its approval for officially using the word ‘ batter ’ to describe a ‘ batsman ’ or ‘ batswoman ’ in all forms of cricket and commentaries or writings with effect from the ICC Men’s Cricket T20 World Cup-2021 . The ICC has said that the word ‘batter’ has in fact been used since the last about four years, mostly in commentaries and also by some cricketers themselves, and this shift of usage is noted by the supreme cricket body. The Council further said that the word is ‘ gender neutral ’ and it makes cricket a more inclusive game. A large majority of the people concerned with the most popular game of the world have welcomed this change with some describing it as a ‘common-sense change’. They further argue that nobody describes a ‘ bowler ’ as ‘bowlsman’ or ‘bowlswoman’ or a ‘fielder’ as ‘ fieldsman ’ or ‘ fieldswoman ’. However, the word ‘fieldsman’ has been in usage since the old times and even sometimes now. This writer is not aware if...

After some terrific cricket and some horrific related incidents during the first three months of 2018 it’s time now for a commercial break. Well, not exactly though for millions of avid fans! They have been patiently waiting for this most commercially viable form of cricket since the last season. Come April-May for over a decade now,   and nobody can stop these fans for going gaga over this movie-styled entertainers of the sport. Right, we are talking about the 11 th Season of the Indian Premiere League-2018 T20 Cricket tournament starting from 7 th April till the end of next month. Many fans would be excited this time for the return of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) with the former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni back as captain of CSK and Ajinkya Rahane replacing the tainted Steve Smith as captain of RR while New Zealand captain Kane Williamson replaced the tainted David Warner as captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Shikhar Dhawan was earlier tipped f...

After winning the last and the most thrilling one day international match in Sydney (January 23) against Australia by six wickets thus avoiding the humiliating whitewash losing the ODI Series 4-1 India today have crushed the hosts in the first of the 3-match T20 Cricket Series in Adelaide by 37 runs taking 1-0 lead. Put into bat Indian top order fired all cylinders again with Virat Kohli stealing the show with a scintillating 90 not out. Rohit Sharma made an explosive opening putting the Aussie bowlers to the axe and then Virat took over with the ODI discard Suresh Raina scoring at will. Raina struggled to find his rhythm and slowly settled into his favorite strokes. However, he wisely left most of the scoring to the unstoppable Virat. In the last over skipper Dhoni too showed his long lost magic hitting up 11 runs in three balls. India set a daunting target of 189 in 20 overs and Indian spectators waited with crossed fingers for the Indian bowlers to perform. And the Bumrah connecti...

Nine months after forcing BCCI President N Srinivasan to resign the Supreme Court of India has virtually demolished the big-money-powered cricket clout of India in a landmark judgment delivered today on the IPL Spot Fixing Scandal and Conflict of Interest case. The court said that Srinivasan created the conflict of interest himself by bringing in an amendment to the constitution as BCCI Chief. The court struck down this controversial 6.2.4 clause that allows BCCI officials to own IPL teams and have commercial interests. Scrapping of this rule means that Srinivasan cannot contest the BCCI elections which the court ordered to be held within next six weeks. Supreme Court gives Srini one option though—you can fight election if you give up your IPL team Chennai Super Kings. This is not one of the easiest options to make use of because of obvious ‘cricket’ lobbies, players, business and revenues. Furthermore, the court constituted a three-member panel of judges to decide the fate of Chenna...

The murky affairs of the Indian Premiere League-Season Five (IPL-5) Cricket T20 continue abated. Today the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) held a managing committee meeting in Mumbai and unanimously adopted the proposal of banning Bollywood megastar and Co-owner of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) IPL franchise, Shahrukh Khan (SRK or King Khan), for five years from entering the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai where the movie-star allegedly misbehaved with MCA officials and security personnel. The meeting was chaired by the president of MCA, Vilasrao Deshmukh, who is also a cabinet minister in the Government of India.  The MCA maintained that theirs is an independent body and is empowered to take binding decisions on matters directly relating to them. But as the apex body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is also empowered to take the final decision in this matter and the expected tussle within the cricket bodies is awaited with tremendous anticipation. Apart from ...

Whatever it is, finally it’s genuine cricket that interests genuine cricket lovers. Let the cheerleaders of all hues and colors with dress or the lack of it dance on! Let the non-cricketing crowd gesticulate to their hearts content just to see themselves in those huge screens on the field! Let the glam-slam-bang lady commentators be a little too careless about their costumes! Let the noise as deafening as it can get! Let the ‘strategic’ breaks break the rhythm! From the comfort of your homes you can just mute it all and enjoy some cricket if any! Hot and humid conditions at the start of the Indian summer are making the pitches a lot slower with the ball doing things. Therefore, despite all those debilitating restrictions on the bowlers run-making in this IPL-5 is getting very difficult, desperate at times. This version of the IPL has earned the distinction of having the largest number of low-scoring thrillers. With mere targets of just above 100 runs the chases have not been easy at a...