Factoids

Cricket’s World Cup moved out of England for the first time in 1987, with India and Pakistan as the co-hosts. Going into their final league fixture, India had bounced back from a one-run loss to Australia in their opening tie to place themselves on course to top the group, and secure a semi-final tie at home. To do so, they...

Since their maiden Test in November 2000, against neighbours India in Dhaka, Bangladesh had been desperate to step out of the shadows. They had their moments in limited-overs cricket, such as putting it past India in the 2007 World Cup and advancing beyond the first stage, and making the quarterfinal of the 2015 edition in Australia and New Zealand, but...

Long before Rohit Sharma arrived in a blaze of sixes to be bestowed with the title of Hitman, an American boxer born in Memphis had made The Hitman his own calling card. Thomas Hearns, also called the Motor City Cobra, charted an unprecedented path during a 29-year boxing career. As if 29 years in top-flight boxing isn’t unprecedented enough. Such...

In the 1980s, West Indies were an unstoppable force. First under Clive Lloyd, and then when Viv Richards took over, the Caribbeans were practically invincible wherever they played Test cricket, sweeping all before them with a justified arrogance that bordered on the disdainful. Throughout that decade, they lost just eight out of 82 Tests, a majority of them fashioned by...

They call him the Smiling Assassin, and not without reason. Muttiah Muralitharan never made you feel bad when he teased and tormented you to your doom, with a big smile on his face. The Sri Lankan off-spinner played all his cricket with a smile, whether he was getting the ball to turn big and leave batsmen bemused, or if they...

Jacques Villeneuve was only 13 when he sought his mother’s permission to follow in the footsteps of his father and aspire for a career in motor racing. His father, Giles, had been killed two years previously on the race track during a qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder in 1982, following a collision with Jochen Mass. His...

Virat Kohli had led India to the Under-19 World Cup title in Kuala Lumpur in March 2008. Even during that campaign, it was obvious that this batsman was to go on to greater things, though no one would possibly have imagined that in a decade’s time, he would establish himself as the best all-format batsman of his generation. His hunger...

The MRF World Series for the Nehru Cup was akin to the World Cup itself, with all top teams assembling in India for top honours. The best players in the world had congregated on one stage, and the race was as much for team glory as for individual bragging rights. Few people have the same sense of occasion as Viv...

There has been no more fearsome paceman in the history of the game than Malcolm Marshall. Short of physical stature, Marshall was a giant in every sense, all raw pace packed into this small, lithe frame that uncoiled at the first hint of battle and made the ball talk on even the most docile of surfaces. Marshall was soft-spoken, when...

Where Virender Sehwag was an unfettered spirit whose attitude reflected in his batting, Geoffrey Boycott was the polar opposite, a grafter and grinder who relied on wearing attacks down rather than imposing himself. Of brilliant technique and both aware and proud of that fact, Boycott once survived the most torrid Michael Holding over for five deliveries before being dismissed off...