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...
We knew him those days only through the radio commentaries whenever India happened to play England. We are talking of the early seventies when television coverage was restricted to mostly New Delhi cricket Tests and there no possibility of any national telecast as there was no terrestrial network through satellites. Cricket came live to our homes only after 1982. Therefore we knew little about his towering 6.6 feet all-round field presence and much lesser about his utterances, antics and entertainment on the field. But even through radio commentaries he made his presence felt particularly in 1974 when England defeated India 3-0 in England with India getting shot out for 42 in the second innings of the Lords Test, and then again during 1976-77 England tour of India known as the John Lever ‘Vaseline’ Series when India lost again 3-1. As a great cricketer he remained etched in our mind since then and his popularity later as a commentator, when we actually started seeing him, only ...