ChinmayC Blog

With two back to back one sided victories India have taken a 2-1 lead in the five-match ODI cricket series against England. The last win in MS Dhoni’s hometown Ranchi was the most resounding one. One was in some bit of a doubt when Dhoni won the toss and put England in, but who would understand the Ranchi pitch behavior better than Dhoni himself! The Indian bowlers rallied behind a resolutely positive skipper to skittle England all out for 155 in the 43 rd over. With a rejuvenated Team India the chase was a forgone conclusion as they romped home with nearly 22 overs to spare. The biggest plus of the match for India was Virat Kohli who roared back into form with a masterful 77 not out with 9 fours and 2 sixes. To the great delight of the home crowds Dhoni came in to hit the winning stroke remaining not out one more time at 10. India won the match by 7 wickets . After a long phase of indifferent performances, team selection issues and reported division within the team, India now look se...

India fielded a full-strength team today against Australia in its do or die match in Sydney . But, when you concentrate on rotation-experimentation instead of trying to win matches, when your ego-play gets prominence over cricket and when you mess up things unnecessarily even God does not help you when you finally wake up to reality. Team India exemplified that fully today in the tenth match of the CB Series one-day cricket played in Australia . They wanted Zaheer Khan desperately today, but he was declared unfit. When he was fit you did not consider taking him! Even then, the Indian bowlers did a decent job getting Aus restricted to 252/9 in allotted fifty overs—a total that was very gettable. This time captain handed over the ball too to the vice captain Sehwag who obliged him with three wickets bowling the last over of the Aussie innings too. For the first time the Indian captain placed his full faith in the big three of top order. But it came too late. Sehwag failed again with t...

The Indian Hockey Team won the inaugural Asian Hockey Championship held in China beating arch rivals Pakistan. And the championship for money started anew. The Hockey players came home triumphant, but they thought celebrations were not up to the mark—that is say—to the level of cricket triumphs! They were felicitated in a ministerial level function, but mayhem followed. They were given cash incentives of 25,000 rupees each (just above 500 dollars) which the players indignantly rejected. The Indian Hockey federation haplessly cited ‘no money’ as the reason and sent an S0S to the Indian sports minister. Immediately in the afternoon yesterday the minister hiked the amount to 150,000 rupees each along with 2.5 million rupees offered by a state government. The hockey players were righteously angry. Recently, the world cup cricket winning Indian players were given 20 million rupees each along with many add-on thrown in by many connected with the game. At least give us something that can comp...