Life Etc Etc

In a nutshell All those who endured the torture of the 2003 World Cup final deserved a day where the tables would turn and India would heap the same kind of misery on our Oceanian neighbors that they once piled upon us. Fun fact, my win predictor friend didn't have much to do on that evening too more than two decades ago. The D-Day The final of the 2026 World Cup produced a one-sided beating much to the delight of my friend, the one and only Win Predictor who also practically dozed off throughout the semifinal until being woken up by Jacob Bethell's explosive century.  The final would offer no such snags for my friend. This was at first a canter by any stretch of the imagination until  Samson fell trying to up the ante.  Jimmy Neesham who accounted for Samson then took two more making it 3 wickets in the space of 5 balls and Hardik Pandya who promoted himself at the expense of his captain found the meaning of hard times. My Win Predictor friend's slumber was about...

It was a humdinger of a match to close out the Super Eights for Group 2. Yet, until the 18th over everything pointed to a Pakistan victory. My friend the Win Predictor was just going through the motions and looking forward to calmly calling it a day. 'Destiny' Dasun Shanaka  however had other plans. He had just smoked a six of Shadab to push the win probability up to a little under 3% and before the end of the penultimate over would double Sri Lanka's chances of winning with another six. 18.2 overs Sri Lanka's win probability <Courtesy: cricinfo > 18.4 overs Sri Lanka's win probability <Courtesy:  cricinfo > Continuing his aggressive intent, Shanaka took 10 runs off Shaheen Shah Afridi 's first two deliveries. Still, my Win Predictor friend was still not impressed and refused to budge.  19.2 overs Sri Lanka's win probability <Courtesy:  cricinfo > But, in a sport where intent is everything, 'Destiny' Dasun pummelled two straight ...

There was no way that Sri lanka were going to score 64 runs in 2 balls and win their  Super Eights encounter against New Zealand . Still, the win predictor gave them a 0.01% chance when in my opinion they didn't have a chance in a gazillion to walk away as the victors. 2026 T20 World Cup: New Zealand vs Sri Lanka scorecard  In order for Sri Lanka to have a shout: Glen Phillips had to offer up at least 9-10 no-balls Chameera or Theekshana would then have had to launch each of those free hits into the stands That's 9-10 sixes on the trot while there's only instance ( Meghalaya's Akash Kumar Choudhary during a Ranji match ) in the entire history of cricket where a batsman managed to score the maximum, eight out of eight times Considering the fact that two tailenders were up against Glen Phillips' off breaks, victory was practically impossible. There was a mathematical probability of a win (as illustrated above) but wouldn't you agree 0.01% was a tad too optimist...

I wanted to start off this blog by sharing a beautiful piece on Cricinfo about the redemption arc of Deepti Sharma . If it was South Africa who denied us a place in the semifinals four years ago we paid them back in kind by lifting the world cup trophy. This however was not a resounding performance by any means, there were concentration lapses, nerves and also moments where the pendulum genuinely swung the other way.  Here are some prime examples: Radha Yadav's gigantic no-ball which brought down the target by 13 runs (two consecutive sixes of the no-ball and the free hit) in just one ball Deepti dropping a straight forward chance at midwicket of Dercksen   Jemimah Rodrigues shelling a sitter of the dangerous looking Nadine de Klerk Shree Charani's final over jitters as she offered 10 runs (5w, 1w and 4) on a platter to de Klerk  But we still won chiefly due to the tandem of Deepti's guile and Shafali's guts. Deepti more than made up for her drop by knocking over...

India chased a world record total of 338 to sprint past Australia in the semifinals of the 2025 World Cup. Out of 157 chases, 92 resulted in victories for India.  So this run chase should have been a cake walk for India, right?  Wrong!   Why? Let's take a look at India's successful chases over the last 15 years. Trend line representing India's top 10 successful chases before the semifinal win Until the  2017 World Cup final,  India had chased a score of over 230 only once Until the victory in the semifinals, India's highest ever successful chase was 264 against Australia in 2021. This was also the first ever time that India had chased a total of over 250 against any opposition It remained their only victorious chase over 250 against Australia until this semifinal win  Out of 92 victories for India batting second, only 20 (~22%) involved chasing a score of 200 or more Including the semifinal win, India had chased a score of over 250 only 4 times in their e...

I expressed a lot of satisfaction in one of my previous blogs that draws in test matches were drastically coming down. We just had one more draw at the Gabba in Brisbane as part of the Border-Gavaskar series. So, this seemed like the right time to look back at the various draw related stats between India and Australia.  Out of the 110 tests played between both countries 30 tests ended up draws. I wanted to find out whether the number of draws between the two countries were increasing or decreasing over the years .  India vs Australia draw stats The first draw between both countries was a rain affected match in 1947 . A majority of the draws during the initial decades only occurred in India. 30% (8) of tests played between the two sides during the 60s and 70s ended in draws . All of these draws occurred in India while all the tests played in Australia during this period produced a result always in Australia's favor  The  1979-1980 series which happened in Indi...

In my previous blog we arrived at a ratio  (Total no. of medals won at the Asian Games) / (Total no. of medals won at Olympics)   which correlated the performance of the Asian games with the Olympics that occurred in the same four year cycle.  We found out that India's ratio of 17.83  was at the bottom of the list  (remember a lower ratio points to a greater ability to reproduce one's Asian Games performance on the Olympic stage)  when we considered the top ranking nations at Asian Games.  But one question remained unanswered, was this the greatest disparity between Asian Games and Olympics as far as India was concerned? I dove straight into the medal tallies from the previous century to dig up the answer to my question.  The graph brought about several interesting observations: Until 2008 Olympics, India's performance at the 1952 Helsinki games (with 2 medals) was its best ever so was the medal tally at the first ever Asian Games in 1951. Such a...

From the pinnacle of Asian Games, Olympics was a steep fall for India. That set me thinking as to how many more countries found the going tough on the world stage after excelling at the Asian games. For my initial analysis, I took the top 15 countries at Asian Games and mapped out their corresponding ranking at Olympics. As expected, India's Olympic ranking of 71 was third worst behind Malaysia and Qatar. But rankings are not always a great measure to assess how well a country did at a multisport event where a country with a single gold medal outranks another with multiple medals on the account of that country not winning a gold medal. So, in order to have an equitable comparison, I mapped out the number of medals each country won at the Olympics and Asian Games side by side.   This time India narrowly avoided the lower third of the graph which contained countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia and Bahrain that were placed higher over India in the Olympic rankings. Like rankin...

 As a sports fan, the one thing you would like to absolutely avoid is to see your heroes getting humbled. I went through the misery of Indian team's collapse in the 2023 World Cup final , then watched Rafa getting pulverized at Roland Garros and have now witnessed Daniel Dubois batter Anthony Joshua at Wembley. So here are three disappointing things about the Anthony Joshua knockout: What's most disheartening about this fight is the way it started . AJ never looked like he was in his elements. He was on the backfoot from the get go and once Dubois' punch landed at the end of the first round, he never found his legs in the next few rounds. This was totally unexpected from a thorough professional like Joshua who's known to meticulously prepare for all of his fights If the match began with adversity, things started looking up for AJ by the time the 5th round started. He hurt Dubois with a right and set him up for an uppercut by backing him into the ropes but like a lot ...

When Asian Games concluded in October 2023, with the Indian athletics contingent winning a whopping 29 medals , there was hope that in 10 months time we would be putting up our strongest performance ever in Olympics 2024. That, unfortunately remained an unfulfilled dream. Apart from Neeraj Chopra, Avinash Sable and the men's relay team to some extent there was no fight offered by any of our athletes which made them look like serious medal contenders. So, where did it all go wrong? Annu Rani at Paris Olympics <Courtesy: Olympics > I pointed this out in a tweet of mine but I believe a majority of our athletes peaked for the Asian Games with almost everything going downhill from there either due to lack of prep, focus or injuries.  Harmilan Bains, Ancy Sojan Edappilly, Tajinderpal Singh Toor and Kishore Jena all suffered injuries post Asian Games with Harmilan and Ancy missing out on Olympic qualification Jyothi Yarraji was posting a string of sub 13 second times prior to her in...

If winning an Olympic medal is the toughest thing that a sportsperson can achieve in their life then qualifying for the Olympics should be right up there for a country like India which until a decade ago didn't have a proper ecosystem to develop athletes at the grassroot level. It's already been a week since the Olympics has started but before we talk about the Olympians, let's take a look at the heroes who made a place in our heart even after missing out on qualification. Tejas Shirse : If there was an award for the most improved athlete of the year then it must go to Tejas who broke the 100m hurdles national record in his pursuit of Olympic glory. His yearning to excel took him to Europe where he produced a series of podium finishes as he collected ranking points which put him within touching distance of his dream. If only he started his season a bit earlier, we could have seen Tejas' penchant for excellence burn brighter on the Olympics stage but if not this one he...

As an Indian cricket fan, I am happy that we were able to put behind the heartbreak of 2023 to achieve this world cup victory .  This post will however not be celebratory in nature, on the contrary it seeks to critically analyze some of the team management's decisions which could have cost us the big one once again. Rigidity with the team selection has been a recurring theme in many of the failed world cup campaigns of the recent past. I therefore have three questions about some of the decisions that went into the batting order and team selection.   Jasprit Bumrah in disbelief upon winning the World Cup 2024 <Courtesy: ICC > a) This tournament we persisted with the opening combination of Rohit and Virat (who was in woeful form until the final) despite having an attacking option in the form of Yashasvi Jaiswal. Did the team management have a crystal ball to predict that Virat would finally come good in the final? Even though Virat eventually repaid the team managem...

There's no rivalry quite like the India - Pakistan rivalry in the sport of Cricket, Now, I don't know if this recent contest was one for the ages but it definitely had enough swings in its momentum for it to be remembered for a long time. This blog post however is not about the rivalry, it's about three pertinent questions which have been bothering me ever since the match concluded . I will put forth my questions below but do help me out with your answers: Who scored the best '13' in the match? There were four scores of '13' in the match. One by India's Rohit Sharma and three by Babar Azam , Usman Khan and Fakhar Zaman from Pakistan. Each of the players have a valid claim for the title but who do you think nicked it? Rohit Sharma scored '13' when the pitch was probably the most difficult to bat on Babar scored '13' and got his side off to a decent start in a low scoring game Usman took the most number of deliveries to score '13...

This was a nail biter which will be remembered for the way the fielding team came back into the match after the chasing side almost ran away with the result. Here are three very interesting parallels from yesterday's encounter between SRH and RR:   Make the second 10 count: Sunrisers Hyderabad only made 75 runs in their first 10 overs. In the next 10 they smashed 126 setting a target of 201 runs for the opposition. While bowling second, they gave away 100 runs for the loss of two wickets in the first 10 overs but launched a rear guard to take five wickets for 100 runs in the next 10 overs to restrict Rajasthan Royals to 200/7 . Thus SRH's path to victory was built on making the second half of each innings count. Revenge 16 years in the making : When Rajasthan Royals met Deccan Chargers in the inaugural IPL at Hyderabad, they coasted to victory through Shane Warne's final over heroics . Here's a comparison between this match and the one from all those years ago: Royals ...

"You aren't done until you tell yourself that you are done!" September 2022 Joe Joyce outlasts Joseph Parker in a war of attrition. Joyce keeps coming forward taking everything that Parker threw at him and delivers a vicious knockout to end the contest. This was the first knockout of Parker's career and many thought such a deflating loss would end his stint as a respected heavyweight contender. Joyce on the other hand was crowned as the mandatory for the WBO Heavyweight Championship. He was proclaimed as the rising star of the division and a serious threat to the reigning champions. April 2023 With the mandatory title fight still a long way away, Joe Joyce took on the dangerous but unproven former Olympic Silver Medalist, Zhilei Zhang in a stay busy fight. To everyone's dismay, Joyce wilted under the onslaught of Zhang's power punching who took the possession of the WBO Interim Heavyweight title and the mandatory status. Like Parker, this was the first sto...

India wins another Test and wraps up another series with a  series score line of 3-1 , That score line made me wonder as to how fortunate we are today to be watching Test matches which actually produce a result. This was really not the case when I was a kid with many tests ending in a stalemate. A draw, back then was considered to be an acceptable result and in many cases also treated on par with a victory. Those were the days when neither sporting declarations nor spirited chases were in vogue. A Test match on the 5th day would typically meander meaninglessly allowing those playing to get to some personal milestones and thankfully end before the scheduled close with the customary handshakes of opposing teams. That's probably the reason why I don't remember too many drawn test matches from that era. The only memorable draw that comes to my mind was the one in Sydney where Vihari and Ashwin stalled Australia's charge . Since a draw has become somewhat of a rarity these day...

It took me sometime to collect my thoughts after the utterly disappointing World Cup final on Sunday. I needed this break to objectively wrap my head around what might have happened and also listen to the analyses from various sources before writing this piece. Within the last week, I've seen  several experts  claim that a slow track was intentionally prepared to provide an outside advantage to India with that strategy ultimately backfiring on the hosts. I don't know how true these allegations are but more than the pitch I single out the team's performance as the primary reason we lost that day . Here are three things which our team could have done better.  1. Firstly, we did not read the pitch as well as the Australian team did . Rohit Sharma revealed that he would have batted first had he won the toss on a surface which played better in the second innings. Considering the fact that we played more international matches than any other team at the venue we should have had...

Before the first ball is bowled in the final tomorrow, I would like to have my final say on this World Cup. We've seen a tournament where the Indian Juggernaut has rolled along thumping teams across the Indian sub-continent. Come T20s or ODIs the core of this team has largely been the same since 2019. After some misguided attempts to bag a World T20, the team is finally flourishing in a format which suits its strengths. One thing which we could have done without, were the repeated tributes to Virat Kohli. Conversations on/off the field inevitably centered on him, fall of wicket montages unfailingly transmitted his reactions and the preview packages to all matches featuring India were replete with his references. Virat is a great player, no doubt, we just don't need to be reminded about it every other minute. Cricket World Cup 2023: Grandest prize of them all <Courtesy: Logowik >  Our opponents in the final, Australia started listlessly but found form at the right time. Th...