Cricket now

Black soil pitches with the soil transported from Kalahandi. PC – RevSportz. Bharath Ramaraj, CoE   As yours truly entered the Centre of Excellence in Bande Kodigehalli — right next to the longest highway in the country — the weather was pleasant. The blissful clouds seemed restful rather than angry.   Having visited the CoE before, one could gauge that the length and breadth of the premises extended far and wide. If someone enters the CoE for the first time and walks through the premises at night, the aforementioned person might just lose their way. It encapsulates the colosseum called the CoE.   By 9.45am, a BCCI official was ready to take a group of journalists around the grand theatre. To begin with, the tour was about the three grounds — Ground A, B and C. All three are built according to ICC regulations for first-class venues.   Ground A has local block soil, brought from Mandya. It is also one of the three grounds that has the required comm...

Image :Debasis Sen Vaibhav Tripathi, Colombo At the end, when the practice game came to an end, a certain Gautam Gambhir was seen smiling and laughing with Sitanshu Kotak and Sairaj Bahutule. Even the players looked in a jovial mood after defeating SLC XI in the practice match at the NCC. The way India played gave the team management plenty to smile about, especially on the last day, with Shubman Gill coming out to bat after being on the sidelines for two days. All the chatter around the Indian captain’s fitness was swept away once he batted in the middle without any sort of discomfort. Devdutt Padikkal’s century, along with the all-round brilliance of Ravindra Jadeja and Manav Suthar, meant Team India took plenty of positives from the game. For India, more than individual performances, the main objective was to adapt to the conditions. Apart from Jadeja, KL Rahul and Kuldeep Yadav, no other player had come to Sri Lanka for a Test series. Adaptability was the main objective of the g...

  Kuldeep Yadav. Image :X Ravindra Jadeja’s mimicry of Kuldeep Yadav has gone viral on social media. Now, what needs to go viral over the next two weeks is Kuldeep’s performance. There has never been any doubt about Kuldeep’s talent. But his career has been a stop-start one. Has he been given the opportunities he deserves? Perhaps not. Yet he has stayed the course and persevered. That is the quality one should look for in a sportsperson, and it is a quality Kuldeep has displayed in abundance. The day before yesterday, I was in conversation with distinguished banker and corporate leader Shyam Srinivasan at the launch of his book at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Shyam was asked what one piece of advice he would give the students in attendance. Interestingly, he told them to simply show up. Not every day will be a good one, and not every day will bring success. In fact, there will be far more days of disappointment than triumph. Yet all you need to...

With the two-Test series against Sri Lanka around the corner, one question stands out for India: How important is it for Kuldeep Yadav to make himself India’s lead spinner? The question becomes even more relevant with Ravindra Jadeja back in the squad and younger options such as Manav Suthar and Saransh Jain around him. Kuldeep has the experience and the skill set, but now he needs to take ownership of the role. Kuldeep has also developed into a more rounded bowler over the years. He entered the Sri Lanka series with 79 Test wickets from 18 matches, while his recent Test numbers underline how effective he can be when given an extended role. He took 12 wickets in India’s two-Test series against the West Indies in October 2025. The Wrist-Spin Advantage: Why He Doesn’t Need the Pitch’s Help A wrist-spinner at his best doesn’t need much assistance from the pitch; he can create pressure and pick up wickets purely through skill, regardless of conditions. That’s wh...

  Image: Debasis Sen Debasis Sen, Colombo India Test captain Shubman Gill missed the second day of the three-day warm-up match against the Sri Lanka Cricket XI at the NCC Grounds in Colombo after being advised to rest by the team’s medical staff. Gill sustained an impact injury to his right ring finger during Thursday’s training session and was rested as a precaution. With India’s first Test against Sri Lanka beginning in Galle on August 15, the visiting team’s management is taking no chances with the captain’s fitness. Instead of batting, Gill spent time on the sidelines on Saturday, closely observing Gurnoor Brar and Manav Suthar during their net session. The India captain interacted with both players and shared technical inputs as they went through throwdowns, and faced Harsh Dubey, Shivang Kumar and Tanush Kotian. Brar, in particular, strengthened his case for a place in India’s playing XI with an impressive all-round performance in the warm-up game. The seamer retur...

  Images: Debasis Sen Unlike football, where the manager is the real boss of the team, cricket has been and always will be a sport where the captain is the ultimate authority. If there is ever a clash between the captain and the coach, as was the case between Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli a decade ago, it is the captain who eventually prevails. From that standpoint, the Sri Lanka series is a very important one for Shubman Gill. While there is no clash whatsoever between Gautam Gambhir and Gill, the truth is that Gill needs to make the team his own and be his own man. As a batter, he is India’s best red-ball player at the moment. He looks sublime, and the 2025 England series saw Gill coming of age as a Test batter. Sadly for him and for India, he was injured in Kolkata in the game against South Africa and could not play any further part in the series. I still believe that had Gill played the Kolkata Test, India would have won the contest. Rishabh Pant led the team in his absence i...