Sports Blogs

On Tuesday evening, English seamer Stuart Broad became the second England bowler and seventh in the World to take 500 international test wickets. Stuart Christopher John Broad, son of former English opener Chris Broad who is currently ICC’s Match Referee . Stuart Broad who turned 34 years last month became the second English bowler to surpass the  500 test wickets mark. He has also joined an elite list of balling greats like Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, James Anderson, Glenn McGrath, and yours truly, Broad who all are in the 500 Club. To date, he has played 140 Tests, 121 ODIs, and 56 iT20s for England. Stuart Broad’s contribution to the game cannot be portrayed by any writing or documentary. He is a modern age great of the game. Broad made his one-day debut in August 2006 against Pakistan and his test debut in December 2007 against Sri Lanka. Many cricketing journalists and pundits say that Stuart Broad has played his last ODI match for England back in 2016 ...

Happy 84 th birthday to the second-best cricketer of all time who could have played for any side as a batsman, a fast bowler or a left arm spinner. Sir Garfield St Auburn Sobers who turned 84 years old today who was the best cricketer born in Barbados. Sir Garfield also is known as Gary has played 93 Tests and a single ODI for the West Indies. His career lasted for two long decades. The Barbados born lad is undoubtedly the best all-rounder to have played the game of cricket. He scored 8032 runs, took 236 wickets, and fielded 110 catches in the international arena.  Sir Gary Sobers was one in the elite list of all-rounders who could play for any side as a batsman or a bowler. Sobers was a much-celebrated player of his time that’s why Sir Don Bradman called him a “Five in One Cricketer” . He said, Sir Gary was an exceptional batsman, a gun fielder who could field anywhere, a left-arm seamer, left-arm spinner, and left-arm wrist spinner too. He got knighted by Queen Elizabeth II i...

USA’s Men Basketball team for the 1992 Olympics was called the greatest team ever of any sport to have played together. It was also called the Dream team by the Sports Illustrated magazine . A team that had ballers like Jordon, Johnson, Bird, Barkley, Pippen, and the 7 other elite legends , this team has to be called the Dream team.  USA's basketball players were always considered as the best in business. The USA basketball team had won nine out of eleven Olympics Gold Medals before the Barcelona Olympics. Then, why were the 1992 Olympic Games so special for the game and fans of Basketball?  The answer is. It was the first time that the active players from the National Basketball Association popularly known as NBA were allowed to represent their country at the Olympic Games. In 1989, three years before the games, FIBA the international acting body of Basketball asks the member boards to change the rules to allow the NBA players to feature in the Olympics. The results of th...

The second test match of the #raisethebat series was a delight for cricket followers. England the host was 1 down in the series before the match as the visiting team - Windies won the first match by 4 wickets in a convincing fashion. The Captaincy Debut of England’s Miracle Man was purely a flop show but he did not disappoint as a player in the second match. Joe Root came back from the marital break. His cricketing brains were a big positive for the England team but Jofra Archer’s breaching by visiting his family was a concern. Apart from this, the host dropped Jimmy Anderson, Mark Wood, and Joe Denly. Stuart Broad, Sam Curran, and Chris Woakes were included in the playing eleven. These modifications made England more vigorous. Jason Holder won the toss and sent the hosts to bat and he made the first and the biggest mistake of the match. He must have thought his team would depict the first test match. But no, this time English batting was more experienced. Despite two quick wic...

Test Cricket is regarded as the toughest format in Cricket . A cricketer's technique and temperament are tested consistently for five long days. It is played with full passion and aggression and players care test cricket religiously. But, test cricket has its fair share of controversies too. The perfect example of a shameful incident in test cricket was the Border-Gavaskar Trophy of 2007-08. India was touring Australia for Test and ODI series. The visitors had their chance to win their maiden test series in Australia as in 2003 India was able to level the series. India has become a world-class side until 2008, they had a great batting lineup, ace spinners, and a bunch of talented quicks too. The team was led by cunning Anil Kumble who backed his team & teammates during all those controversies.  The series became so controversial because of bad umpiring decisions and the Monkey Gate . The instance has come back to light as the Umpire from that series Steve Bucknor has now sai...

Today, I got all my answers. I got to know why the earlier generation to our age group does not like a T20 match that much. Today was the day when a new kind of cricket match was played. It was the latest entry of a format to the game of cricket named as 3TC . It was 3 Team Cricket match playing altogether in a single match. Firstly, it was very hard to guess what's going on! The extraordinary cricket match was played between 3 teams at SuperSport Park, Centurion . It was hard to digest kind of a Cricket match which was launched on Nelson Mandela Day . The motive of the Solidary Cup 3TC is to raise funds for those in the cricketing community who have suffered due to COVID19 . The rules of the match was a little different as compared to any other cricket match. My definition for the 3 Team Cricket is “It was 6 over long test match played between 3 teams”.   Rules were such as:   3TC was a 36 overs match played between 3 teams. Each team had 8 players. There were 2 innings...

Today is the one year anniversary of one of the thriller most World Cup final in Cricket. On July 14 in 2019, the final of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 was played at the Mecca of Cricket – Lords. The final was to be played between the hosts England and last World Cup’s runners up New Zealand. It was the most thriller and full of climax sort of match where the scores tied even after the whole match. The lead up to the final was a turnaround for both the teams. In the round-robin round of the tournament, England lost two successive matches to Sri Lanka and Australia. Then all of the remaining matches for them became must-wins. England who was famously known to chock in major tournaments did not chock in the must-win matches in the tournament. The story for New Zealand was parallel to England. They made it to the top four because they had a better net run rate than Pakistan but in the semifinal match against India, New Zealand punched above their weight. India were firm favorites to win the...

The world cricket was about to start with the first test #raisethebat series . This series is England vs Windies and it was also the most celebrated and promoted series in 2020. As the cricket resumed with this series after the four-month break after the COVID19 outbreak.  Cricket is now to be played with some alterations because of the hazardous virus. England first time saw a cricket match without any spectators. Bowlers were not allowed to use saliva and players were playing with their lives at stake. This match was a perfect example of what a test match should be. The match started on the 8 th of July 2020 . The start of the most awaited test match was anti-climax. The first day of the game was ruined due to rain. England skipper for the game Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bat but because of the rain, the team could only bat 17.4 overs. Apart from the remarkable contest between the bat and the ball, the day also saw both teams on their knees as a tribute to G...

Dadagiri is a word in the Hindi language which is used to notify a bossy trait. Generally, it is a negative word but in cricket, it was used to define the aggression and passion of Sourav Ganguly towards the game. Instances of such Dadagiri in cricket held time to time during Ganguly’s prosperous career. The most controversial and celebrated career in the Indian Cricket began in 1992 and ended up 2008. Saurav Ganguly was born and brought up in Kolkata, West Bengal therefore he was known as Dada of Indian Cricket. Dada made his international debut against West Indies in January 1992 at Brisbane. It wasn’t a memorable innings, the left-handed batsman just managed for score 3 runs before he was given LBW to Anderson Cummins. Ganguly was dropped from the Indian side and did not get selected for the next 4 years. It was summers in England in June of 1996 and Dada with Rahul Dravid made their test debut together at the Lords. Sourav scored two centuries in consecutive tests . He sco...

One another Indian Cricket fairy tale was scripted. The beginning of this tale was held at Chittagong on December 23, 2004 . India was playing an ODI series against Bangladesh and it was the first match of the series and starting of an era too. A young man from Ranchi made his debut for India. In this match, the youngster got runout on the first ball and India managed to get merely 245 runs courtesy to Mohammad Kaif’s 111 balls 80 . India won that match by 11 runs and the debutant came under the radar from his first match only. This newcomer was Mahender Singh Dhoni who had long silky hair. He had an elegant batting style and he was known for his long six-hitting skills in domestic circuit but the aggressive batter had a weak link behind the stumps in his initials days. Initially, the Ranchi lad was very much criticized. Sometimes for his model-like appearance or for his carefree batting and stumping style . A few months later in a match in 2005, Saurav Ganguly then the Indian c...

Spot-fixing and match-fixing are the utmost crime that exists in Cricket. Fixing is changing the outcomes of the match using money or any other materialized possession. Usually, a match is fixed by offering a player to underperform. The task of match-fixing is performed by professionals who are known as bookies. Another news regarding fixing in cricket has turned up from time to time. This time it is about the World Cup final of 2011 which was held at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai . The allegation that the final was fixed has been imposed many times. Few Srilankan high prolific identities have claimed that the Indian win was fixed. The World Cup 1996 winning captain - Arjuna Ranatunga has made statements that 2011 final was fixed and he seeks probe. In 2017 , Ranatunga posted a video on his Facebook page. He said that he was commenting during that match. He further added that he had doubts and was distressed about the incident. Currently, the controversy has turned up ...