All posts tagged: The Sports Column by Sandeep Dwivedi

Has the World T20 triumph satiated Rohit & Kohli or can they push themselves in Australia | Cricket News

Has the World T20 triumph satiated Rohit & Kohli or can they push themselves in Australia | Cricket News

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Is age catching up with Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, India’s two batting stalwarts on the wrong side of 30? Or had the World T20I triumph re-calibrated their ambitions? Cricketers vouch that once they wear the India jersey, the aches and pains disappear. They also say that regardless of the mind space they are in, the urge to do well for the country never fades. There is no doubting these emotions in Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. These are proven performers, the best in business. It’s their beliefs and convictions that have taken them to lofty heights, making them deliver at the biggest stage. But science scoffs at emotions and nationalism. It puts limits on the human body, and also the mind. The love of tri-colour, the pride of representing a nation of billion cricket fans doesn’t quicken your reflexes or strides. Even the fittest of men slow down and the most driven can temporarily lose motivation. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma with T20 World Cup 2024. (Agencies) Go back to the visuals of that …

Who is Shohei Ohtani? Samurai with Hello Kitty cuteness in baseball

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Months before a 60-year-old woman with Indian roots might become the US president, a 30-year-old Japanese man is redefining baseball, the ultimate American pastime. The age of Asia, it seems, is upon America with the land of the rising sun announcing dawn. And they thought it was China they needed to worry about. The Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris might have nosed ahead of her Republican rival Donald Trump on the popularity charts but she is nowhere near the cult following of Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star who has hit the Major League Baseball, and all 50 American states, like a giant spiraling storm. This isn’t just a baseball story, it’s much more. It’s about soft-power superseding real power, the blurring of international borders and excellence leading to acceptability. It’s also about multicultural America delivering on its promise of equality and making even unrealistic dreams come true. Born to a national level badminton playing mother and an amateur baseball playing father, the Japanese had pedigree. But Ohtani isn’t some ‘find of the …

Why Italy doesn’t go nuts over Jannik Sinner | Tennis News

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When compared to his country’s underwhelming tennis legacy, Jannik Sinner is a clear over-achiever. But somehow, Italy doesn’t extend him the unanimous and unconditional love that he so deserves. Sinner is the World No.1 and that’s an unprecedented high for a country whose greatest-ever male player for long was the 70s star Adriano Panatta, the winner of just one Grand Slam title. At 23, Sinner is already the Australian Open champion and is billed to win many more Slams. The ongoing US Open could see him win his second. When Sinner has Carlos Alcaraz across the court, memories of the Nadal-Federer era come rushing back. So why can’t the passionately sporty European nation treat him like the Azzurri? The answer is simple – Because for many, he isn’t a true blue Italian. For one he has a German name. It doesn’t have the sing-song stretch of characters found in Godfather movies. His Italian too isn’t pure, it is accented. His hands don’t flay when he talks. He is studious on court, like the Germans. Sinner …

Virat Kohli vs Commentators: Bring out the popcorn, tune in to yet another player-pundit battle at World T20 | Cricket News

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In this week’s less-talked about IPL news, Virat Kohli questioned the credentials of those calling the game and hinted that they, unlike him, didn’t have the first-hand experience of being in a tight T20 situation. This was after the commentators – an eclectic group of game’s greats and internationals of repute – had been critical about his strike rate and his skills to take on the spinners. “It is about winning the game for the team. And there is a reason you have done this for 15 years … You have done this, day in and day out. You have won games for your team. And I am not quite sure, if you have not been in that situation yourself, to sit and speak about the game from a box,” Kohli said. Here the ‘you’ alternately meant ‘I’ and the ‘commentators’. Kohli didn’t take names but it was easy to guess who he was targeting. Be it former or present, cricketers have egos. They don’t like to be educated about the game they have obsessively …

Virat Kohli, India and cricket are being muscled out of T20 by new-age big-hitters | Ipl News

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There was a time when Virat Kohli was the proud owner of that rare all-format batting template. Tests to ODI to T20 and back – he would change his jersey and gears but he was always Kohli. A child of the 90s, he had seen Sachin Tendulkar for far too long to give up on correctness. The celebrated Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh would sum up Kohli’s commitment to cricket’s ethos with an iconic line: “Much as the marketers would love to take cricket out of T20, Kohli keeps putting it back in.” Finally, it seems Kohli’s long resistance is waning. This isn’t about the batting great’s deficiencies as a T20 batsman, more about cricket’s slow walk towards the exit in the game’s shortest format. A proof of these tumultuous transitional times is this puzzling contraction that is floating around this IPL. Despite being the highest run-getter for the first-half of season’s IPL, questions are being asked about Kohli’s place in the Indian side for the World T20. For most of this month a bunch …

It’s absurd to abuse Hardik Pandya for being Mumbai Indians captain and diabolical to call him names | Ipl News

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This IPL season has seen the most venomous targeting of a player ever. And this time, it has gone way beyond the usual online trolling. Hardik Pandya, following his switch from Gujarat Titans to Mumbai Indians, got hysterically booed all through his team’s first outing in Ahmedabad, his home venue for the previous two seasons. The anger was apparently because of Gujarat’s sense of betrayal. The accusation was mounted on weak legs. It fell flat pretty quickly. In the very next game, in Hyderabad this time, the screeching jeers from the stands didn’t stop. Visuals also emerged of a shower of shoes hitting a giant screen on which a smiling Hardik spoke after MI’s second successive loss. This Monday, MI play their first home game of the season. And there are those who believe that the Wankhede loyalists, aka fans of previous captain Rohit Sharma, too might not instantly warm up to the new skipper. Worryingly, Hardik, in the first two games, wasn’t subjected to the usual theatrical harmless hooting and hollering that one hears …

Rohit Sharma & The Heart of Captaincy: Talk, listen and never lose sense of humour | Cricket News

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Lack of intensity on the field, was one observation that the pundits made after India, under captain Rohit Sharma, lost the first Test of this England series in Hyderabad. They would connect it to the absence of Virat Kohli, world cricket’s mega star known to wind up rivals and coax the crowd to cheer the team when chips are down. That was in the the last week of January. Over the next five weeks, during the course of the next 4 Tests, the Indian team’s chatter, recorded diligently by stump microphones, would go viral on social media. Those who have closely followed the intensely-fought series now see Rohit as a highly communicative leader and say that the buzz he creates on the field is the reason for India’s stunning comeback in the series. In cricket, a sport with a format that goes on for five days, captains and communication is an interesting study. Though, the length or frequency of conversation a captain has with his players doesn’t decide his leadership caliber. Do talkers make better …

Meet Indian cricket’s 17th Man – son of an influential father and misfits in dressing room | Cricket News

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There is an intriguing line in the recent end-of-Ranji-season Instagram outburst by out-of-favour India batsman Hanuma Vihari. It is where he alleges political interference in cricketing affairs and vows to never turn up for Andhra again. Here’s how it goes: “I was the captain in the first game against Bengal. During that game, I shouted on (sic) 17th player and he complained to his dad (who is a politician). His dad in return asked the association to take action against me.” The story goes that Vihari had to quit captaincy as the father of the 17th player, a YSR Congress corporator, allegedly had his way. The said episode, besides starting a cricketing inquest and political squabble in Andhra, also turns the limelight towards the dark corner of the dressing room that houses the non-playing, non-drinks-carrying extras – the mysterious 17th players on the Indian domestic circuit. Ranji Trophy 2023/24 pic.twitter.com/PXHNG487BQ — Hanuma vihari (@Hanumavihari) February 26, 2024 In a sport that needs 11 players on the field, and about 15 in a squad, the drafting …

Yashasvi Jaiswal’s success a hat-tip to Mumbai, city with big heart and giving cricketers | Cricket News

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Here’s a request. While applauding India’s bright new star Yashasvi Jaiswal’s runs and his technical correctness, do give a hat-tip to his city Mumbai that has dutifully conserved its cricketing heritage like a precious family heirloom. Cricket’s original Indian home hasn’t allowed the wild winds of change to uproot the foundation of the game. Had it not been for Mumbai, Yashasvi wouldn’t have happened. His is a barely believable true story. As an 11-year-old son of a small-time shopkeeper in Bhadohi in UP, he had travelled all alone to the city that Bollywood keeps telling the world fulfils every dream. Yashavi wanted to play for India, he was driven and focused. He eventually did. There was help from coaches, mentors and guardians but if one zooms out, a more heartening bigger picture emerges. Yashasvi, the outsider with raw talent, was adopted by a system that still works on meritocracy. Unlike the erstwhile cricketing heavyweight Delhi, Mumbai still cares for its cricket and young cricketers. Had the young Yashasvi undertaken the shorter trip from home and …

Super Bowl-Bachhans: Why it’s ridiculous to suggest that Joe Biden and Taylor Swift are busy rigging a win for Travis Kelce | Sport-others News

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America is being told that this Sunday’s Super Bowl, that much-celebrated annual sporting spectacle, is rigged. Wasn’t something similar said in India about an equally grand cricket event a few months back? And pulling the strings to ensure that Kansas City Chiefs become the 2024 National Football League (NFL) champions for political gains allegedly is the POTUS himself – Joe Biden. Doesn’t even that sound familiar? But before the Indian parallel, here is a brief about the big American ‘politics meets sports’ story for the precious few who are untouched by social media, memes, chat shows, stand-ups and news networks. So Chiefs star player Travis Kelce, along with his far more well-known girlfriend, the pop icon Taylor Swift, are said to be supporters of Biden, a second-term hopeful for the November elections. This has resulted in many of Donald Trump’s Republicans and the online army of influential rightwing voices saying that the White House has choreographed the Super Bowl, which, they say, will end with Chiefs winnings and Kelce-Swift giving a thumbs up to Biden …