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...
Photo: India today.in India have never lost a One-Day International (ODI) Series against the West Indies since 2007, and have become the best world team in terms of maximum ODI Series wins (32) during this decade surpassing Australia and England. In an absorbing match played in Cuttuk last evening India managed to overcome West Indies by 4 wickets in the penultimate over. In a high scoring match WI, put into bat, had a late charge led by skipper Kieron Pollard and Nicholas Puran setting a challenging total of 315--a score over 300 always had a winning chance, and but for the huge hits by Shardul Thakur and in spite of man-of-the-match Virat Kohli's knock of 85 with rollicking half centuries by Rohit Sharma and K Rahul the match could've gone in either direction. This brings us to the point I'd like to make about West Indies. For the first time WI didn't show their traditional 'unpredictability', and offered a lot of resistance and fighting spirit in almost all ...