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 ...

The World Cup-2023 Final still remains a nightmare, a bad dream that refuses to go, in the minds of most of Indian cricket lovers: their home team on home grounds crashing to a humiliating and a listless defeat in the grand finale after winning all the ten games leading to it. Well, for most of the sober cricket lovers win or defeat is always a part of any game and it’s never an issue to be distressingly sour or angry about; but the problem was that their home team couldn’t offer a creditable fight against Australia that they defeated in the very first game of the event and also in the previous matches in a bilateral series and had gone down like a pack of schoolboys as if trying to understand or find what’s the game of cricket all about. And that rankled, and still does. Expectedly, the fans or the organizers started crying hoarse about the pitch being doctored unnecessarily or mistakenly even though it belonged to their own country and to the supposedly biggest stadium of the country...

First, of course, let’s talk about the cricket star born last night in the match between Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the 56 th match of IPL-2023. His name is Yashasvi Jaiswal who raced to the quickest ever fifty in IPL history taking just 13 balls and then going on to remain unbeaten at 98 off 47 balls to help his team RR win in style. Aged only 22, the southpaw opening batsman Jaiswal has humble origins—from a poor family in Uttar Pradesh—coming to Mumbai to train in cricket at the age of just ten and then struggling there for years, with no place of stay and doing gigs in dairies and paani puri shops. To make this cricketing dream come true he then started living in a tent with the cricket grounds men till he was noticed by a Mumbai training academy for his talent. He has several feats in first class cricket as the youngest player ever, playing for Mumbai in domestic cricket and he started his IPL stint from the year ...

The ‘home’ perception and the celebrations thereof owe their origins to the naming of the competing franchises since 2008. Most of the franchises are named after major cities of the country like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru etc. and one or two after the source state like Rajasthan Royals. Obviously, it’s always been expected that the cricket lovers of those cities or states would ideally be the supporters of the ‘home’ team and show full loyalties as respective fans (However, it’s not clear as to whether locals of the concerned city only or the full state should become ravenous supporters or not, because in case of Maharashtra there was another franchise named Pune Warriors once, and so it was ambiguous as to who the state of Maharashtra fans should support). And that’s what’s been happening ever since, although the whole ‘celebration’ syndrome defies all logic: because, first, the players for each franchise are selected through the path-breaking auctions with ...

After being crowned with the ODI World Champions title in 2019 England today has completed the global white-ball supremacy by defeating Pakistan by 5 wickets in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Final in Melbourne . Pakistan has almost done an India just managing to post a meagre target of 138 and consuming 15 overs to score 100 runs after being put into bat by England like in the semi-final against India; but the target came to be even less than India's 169 thanks to Hardik Pandya . However, their famous pace bowlers gave England a hard time and but for the resurgent Shaheen Afridi 's injury who was unable to fully bowl the last two overs of his quota the match could've gone down the wire at the death.  Like India, Pakistan openers failed once again to build the momentum and other Pak batsmen stumbled along, scoring a pitiful 18 runs in the last four death overs. But again, unlike India, they attacked England batsmen from the first over putting up two slips and not at a...

It is a historical fact that cricketers from the Eastern and the North Eastern regions of the country rarely make it as big as Sourav Ganguly and get to represent Team India at the international level. We’re yet to have a cricketer from the states of North East India who’s made it to Team India. Therefore, when some player achieves this feat people of that particular state or region get ecstatic and their euphoria normally gets translated into a range of sentiments and emotions—positive most of the times, but can be darker at moments of adversity that, according to their perceptions, seem to affect their loved cricketer. I remember quite a few instances while I had been to Kolkata and happened to listen to the radio commentary of India’s test or one-day matches out on the streets. Invariably a person would come up to me and ask what the score was. I would reply India was batting and the score was this or that. On almost a reflex emotion the person would want to know, “Is Ganguly still ...

That India had been kicked out of the Asia Cup-2022 should hardly come as a surprise or some kind of a setback for the Indian cricket board, the Selectors, the India captain and the India coach, because this tournament too has been another clog in the machinery of experimentation for determining a ‘national’ squad for the ICC T20 World Cup-2022 that starts in October in Australia this year. While the ICC had been trying laudably hard to provide valuable practice in the shortest format for all the contesting national sides Team India or the franchises thereof or the team management had been basically trying to justify the IPL and to vindicate the selections therefrom. During this time most of the cricketing superstars of India had been rested or allowed to recuperate from supposed injuries, and as a crucial part of the experiments the superstars, all IPL-captain stuff, were brought in for this international tournament which totally neutralizes the earlier experiments with the IPL stars ...

It has to be termed as a good positive sign in view of the ICC World Cup T20 coming up later this year and the ODI ICC World Cup coming next year that Team India, of late, has been winning in the shorter formats consistently. After Team India-Bumrah franchise lost the leftover 5 th Test against England the various franchises have been blooming in the following matches in the shorter formats. Before the 5 th Test Team India-Pandya franchise had triumphed over Ireland quite easily; then Team India-Rohit franchise won both the T20I Series and the ODI Series against England with the same margin of 2-1; next, Team India-Dhawan franchise swept the 3-match ODI Series against the competitive and spirited West Indies on the latter’s turf 3-0; and at the moment Team India-Rohit franchise has taken a lead of 1-0 in the 3-match T20I Series against the West Indies routing the hosts in the first T20I match. Before this winning spree Team India-Pant franchise managed to draw the ODI Series against ...

No doubt, we cannot question the fundamental rights of people, particularly the ebullient young generation, of loving short and sweet but highly entertaining cricket games like movies. Add to it the digital revolution taking place all over the world as well as in India, even penetrating the rural areas thanks to the initiatives of the government. Now everyone, young or older, wants to enjoy whatever they love on their mobiles or tabs or laptops from wherever they happen to be. For what do you think the streaming platforms are becoming so popular? The digital experience is always unique, as it is very personal, independent and not location-dependent as we’ve already mentioned. In such a scenario what the Indian Premiere League (IPL) has achieved in its 3-day e-auction for TV and Digital broadcasting rights is mindboggling indeed, but not entirely unexpected. The four packages of media rights, A, B, C and D, fetched the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) a record-breaking figur...

Against my wishes as a true lover of the game of cricket, I’ve still preferred to use the word ‘dubious’ in the title of this piece. This is essentially because what happened in the 18 th over in the match between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) belied all logic and tenets of professional cricket. Further, this basically business-driven tournament has had its long history of controversies and scandals over the decades. Even now, if you surf the internet over IPL matches, you’ll find a whole lot of sceptics who think most the matches are always stage-managed, primarily through the scourge of the game called spot fixing. Well, their views cannot be correct in general, because we’ve been witnessing fiercely competitive cricket in most of the IPL seasons, and on many occasions this writer has commented about the triumph of cricket over business. Okay, now to that moment that happened last evening at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.   Mumbai, opting to field first, ev...

Five-time IPL Champions Mumbai Indians (MI), the maximum number any franchise has won the tournament title, has crashed to their consecutive sixth defeat in IPL-2022 losing to Lucknow Super Giants (LPG) by 18 runs today at the Brabourne stadium Mumbai. The irony gets even bitter as this time the tournament has most of the league matches being played in Mumbai, the erstwhile home ground for the team, leaving the crowds with nothing to cheer for. I just wonder if this is some kind of a jinx with the newly appointed Team India captain in all three formats going on a losing spree like the former captain Virat Kohli with his team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) figuring at the bottom steps of the points ladder in almost all the previous versions of the IPL! Now, MI is looking at a disastrous ouster from the tournament unless it achieves the near-impossible task of winning at least 7 of its remaining 8 matches to stay in contention.   What ails MI? Well, to my mind the biggest factor...