Sunday Musings

KL Rahul was somewhat of a surprise choice as captain of Kings XI Punjab for Season 13 of the Indian Premier League. The Karnataka batsman didn’t have a great captaincy pedigree at any level, including for his state team. But when the net was cast to find a successor to R Ashwin, captain for the previous two seasons but having...

Dean Jones was much liked and tremendously respected across the cricketing stratosphere. That’s obvious from the spontaneous outpouring of grief and anguish in the immediacy of his shocking demise in Mumbai on Thursday (September 24). Jones touched the lives of thousands around the globe with his sincerity, honest, self-deprecating sense of humour and a child-like wonderment which belied his all-too-short...

Their first-round elimination at the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand stung England. Their 50-over cricket had never been particularly flamboyant or entertaining, but their inability to finish in the top four in their seven-team preliminary group was particularly galling for Eoin Morgan and his bunch. Defeat at the hands of Bangladesh, which cemented the Asian side’s place...

The US Open, in its climactic stages in New York currently, was seen as a golden opportunity for Novak Djokovic to close the gap between him and his great rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Through injury and safety concerns respectively, the Swiss maestro and the Spanish matador pulled out of the year’s second tennis Grand Slam, seemingly giving the...

Lionel Messi has been associated with FC Barcelona, the Spanish footballing giants, for nearly two decades now. In itself, that’s fascinating. When you take into account the fact that the Argentine genius is still only 33, fascination turns to awe. A product of the youth system at the Catalan club, Messi has stood steadfastly by his club through mainly thick...

Some two weeks after his great buddy and destroyer-in-arms Stuart Broad became only the second Englishman to take 500 Test wickets, James Anderson went one better. At the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, on the final evening of the three-Test series against Pakistan earlier this week, the extraordinary Lancastrian set stall as the first fast bowler to reach the incredible milestone...

It was an Independence Day like no other. The Covid-19 pandemic had already necessitated the celebrations to be muted and low-key when, late in the evening on August 15, 2020, Mahendra Singh Dhoni threw a bombshell. Admittedly, it was always a case of when rather than whether, but when the former captain announced through Instagram that he was retiring from...

Last week, England and Pakistan joined hands to conjure a fabulous Test match at Old Trafford, a game that showcased the best that the longer version has to offer. Pakistan had by far the better of the exchanges for large pockets, including deep into the England chase of 277 by lopping off the top order for next to nothing. At...

If things go to plan, the US Open will mark the return of Grand Slam tennis at the end of the month. Traditionally the last of the four majors on the tennis calendar, this year’s Open, due to start in New York on August 31, will be the second Grand Slam after January’s Australian Open in Melbourne. The long and...

Last week, Stuart Broad gatecrashed into a very exclusive club boasting some of the finest bowlers to have graced the international arena. When he trapped West Indian opener Kraigg Brathwaite in front of the stumps at Old Trafford in Manchester, the 34-year-old paceman became only the seventh bowler in Test history to touch the magical mark of 500 wickets. The...