Moving…

I haven’t updated this blog for a while since I am in the process of transferring all the posts to my website sidvee.net. I have also been hosting podcasts (and occasionally writing) for 81allout.com, a website I co-founded two years ago. You can subscribe to the 81allout podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts and a

One March morning in Auckland

Twenty-five years ago, Navjot Sidhu woke up – in a hotel room in Auckland – with a stiff neck. This is a critical detail in the history of Indian cricket. For Sidhu’s last four ODIs had yielded scores of: 34, 26, 79 and 108. His second-innings 98 had helped India save the only Test on

The value of Dhoni

Sometimes a player’s worth is magnified by virtue of his absence. MS Dhoni was rested for the final two One-Day Internationals in the series against Australia. When India lost at Mohali – failing to defend 358 – the great Bishan Bedi wondered why they would rest their “half-captain”, a man whose calming influence could have

Two 153s, twenty years apart

When Kusal Perera glided Kagiso Rabada to the third-man fence on the fourth day of the Durban Test against South Africa he was 153 not out. Not 154. Not 152. But the coincidentally perfect 153 – just as Brian Lara’s score 20 years ago. For mathematicians, 153 is a source of endless fascination – including

‘There’s nothing wrong with being gay’

This was supposed to be a piece about Joe Root’s Test-match batting over the last three years. I wanted to highlight the alarming decline in his output since he took over as captain, and visualise the outrage that may have been directed at the national selectors – not to mention the attendant hysteria on social

Chennai 1999 – a retrospective

It’s 20 years since India and Pakistan played out a terrific Test in Chennai. The 18-year-old me watched this game on television – in between trying to study for my 12th standard board exams. I am pretty sure I only caught bits and pieces of days one, two and three – and once Afridi got

Windies rekindle emotions of yore

In among the glorious highlights of West Indies’ 381-run shellacking of England in Bridgetown, were some sights unrecorded in the scorecard: … on day one, a bare-headed Shimron Hetymer – yes, hatless, capless and helmetless – shimmied down the pitch and lofted Adil Rashid for a massive six over long-off. This was a googly from

History!

India have won a Test series in Australia. Eight words. Never uttered before this day. Just so that one can hear them again: India. Have. Won. A. Test. Series. In. Australia. Four years after 0-2. Seven years after 0-4. Eleven years after 1-2. Fifteen years after 1-1. Nineteen years after 0-3. Twenty-seven years after 0-4.

F is for Fast

Ricky Ponting made over 13,000 Test runs but many Indian cricket fans remember the one ball when he scored nothing. On the second day of the Boxing Day Test in 1999, Javagal Srinath let loose a short ball. It was short and leapt off the pitch. Ponting, of course, dealt with bouncers like they were

Four Kohli fours…

(This piece was published on Cricketnext.com after the second day of the Perth Test.) Sometimes, it is not what you see but what you feel. The shock you experience when a fast, swinging yorker beats an opener. The clear, deathly sound of the stumps rattling. The dumbfounded expression on the batsman’s face. A confirmation that this