When should one retire? This question has assumed greater significance ever since India's debacle in Australia and earlier in England. Ideally one should retire when they are at the top of their respective profession and there is no other mountain left to climb. But this is more easily said than done. Retirement has to do with as much the player as with the administration the player is a part of. Don Bradman retired when he had played 52 Tests and had scored 29 centuries. Had Bradman scored four runs in....

When Duncan Fletcher took over the reigns of the Indian cricket team, it was, perhaps, one of the most enviable jobs in the cricketing world. The Indian team had not only won the World Cup after 28 years, but was also the best Test team in the world. Moreover, India had a stable captain in MS Dhoni who was a heady mix of both youth and experience. Who wouldn't want to be the head honcho of such an ensemble? Well theoretically, life couldn't have been better for Fletcher, only he....

Speculating! That's what an Indian cricket fan is engaged in these days. Compiling statistics after every loss and correlating them to frame a winning picture for the next encounter. That's nothing but speculation, which has fallen prostrate in the last eight months. But you can't find fault with the zeal of such fans. They invest to see their team live and die with a brave heart. And when that fails to transpire, they start speculating. However, it's important to dig deep and find reasons for what led to that pile....

Let me get this straight. Every time a ball crashed into Rahul Dravid's stumps this Australian summer, it was because stints with the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals had corrupted an otherwise flawless technique. And when those edges flew from VVS Laxman's bat into the slips, it was safe to assume that his static feet were a curse from the Deccan Chargers and the Kochi Tuskers. Gautam Gambhir has become so accustomed to dabbing the ball for a single to third man in his Kolkata Knight Riders uniform....

The heartbeat of India - the batting - does not beat anymore. The golden age is over. I know my fellow columnists differ on this but I am convinced that we will not see some great gentlemen of the batting order in the middle again. Collectively, they were too timid, technically deficient against the swinging and seaming ball, full of faults in the mind even as slower physical reactions robbed them of the nous to be a force on testing foreign soil. In England, Australia and South Africa, they....

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were merely re-emphasising the essential creed of the modern sportsman while slugging it out for six hours at the Australian Open. In one word - fitness. Skill, they were saying, is nothing without fitness; a finely tuned physique alone matters when the aim of the game is reduced to its simplest term, as was done by Jimmy Connors many years ago: to get the ball over the net just one more time than your opponent. This takes in the ability to run from corner....

Life has come full circle for Yuvraj Singh in the last few months. From being crowned as the Player of the Tournament in India's World Cup victory last year to being ridden with one injury after another (one sustained during the Nottingham Test in England that cut short his tour) to being dropped from the Test team for the third Test in the home series against West Indies to being diagnosed with a non-malignant lung tumour. Now there is another piece of bad news which in my opinion is the....

To err is human. And cricketers, their demigod status in India notwithstanding, are indeed human beings. To expect more than what is physically possible is a trait of the masses who haven't really experienced the grueling schedules the players are subject to. It is but obvious that top form cannot be always maintained and for every win, there is a loss waiting on the horizon. This is not about defending team India though. Let it be said here that two consecutive 4-0 Test series losses away from home have....

The series against Pakistan starting in Dubai on Tuesday is England's first since they became the No. 1 Test team in the World, grabbing the title emphatically from India at home last year. It is an unfamiliar feeling for the team, but one in which they must thrive. They have not been the best of starters away from home, as defeats in Multan, Brisbane, Kandy, Hamilton, Chennai and Kingston, and draws in Centurion and Brisbane, over their last 10 overseas tours, clearly show. Traditionally, England's conservatism when faced with....

For long the Aussies have been the ones whom everyone loved to hate; apart from their winning ways post the 1999 World Cup, the fact that their game-plans often included gamesmanship and rattling of the opposition with constant needling and a war of words, went some way in defining their very existence on the field. However, they have not always been the best of sports when the favour has been returned, as was epitomised during the infamous Glenn McGrath-Ramnaresh Sarwan spat, even though it would be universally agreed that the....

India have landed in Australia with a starting XI having more international runs, wickets, catches and experience than their counterparts. The only area where the host XI outpowers them would be fielding. Even in exposure to tough situations, sledging and other forms of 'mental disintegration', the visitors have a bigger legacy than the host team. It's not without reason that Adam Gilchrist and a few other pundits feel this is India's best chance to win Down Under. But can India win the four-match series? When I pen the first XI....

It was a tough call this morning - to go to bed (at 6 AM) after a late shift at work (flexible timings take a whole new meaning when you work in sports), or to go to the Kotla for the final day of the Test, with an unprecedented 100th Sachin Tendulkar century and an India victory imminent? Sleep or cricket? Actually, it wasn't a tough call at all. Sachin and India won hands down. That decision turned out to be the easiest part. Getting into the stadium....

Team India turned the tables on old rivals England with an emphatic 5-0 win in the recently concluded ODI series. The totally one-sided nature of the contest meant that the treatment meted out to the Indians in England over the summer was paid back in the same manner by Team India. MS Dhoni's team not only regained its number 3 status in the World ODI rankings after sliding to number 5 at the end of the England tour but also got back a large measure of pride that had been....

While India are busy getting their behinds handed to them on a platter in a thoroughly whooped state, there are a few interesting things unfolding in some other parts of the cricketing world. A resurgent Zimbabwe making a triumphant comeback to donning the whites, and an in-transit Australia embarking on their maiden voyage under a new leader, taking on a Sri Lankan team still trying to come to terms with Test cricket in the isle post Murali. Zimbabwe's story comes as a heartening news for Test cricket. Zimbabwe, playing....

Cricket legend Kapil Dev had strong words for MS Dhoni after the Indian skipper brought himself on to bowl on day two of the Lord's Test. In fact, it is difficult to digest the 'making mockery of test cricket' statement from the former Indian captain, especially because everyone knows that Dhoni is generally not given to such antics. By day two of the Lord's Test, India were facing a double blow. First, Zaheer was out of the attack due to an apparent hamstring injury and two, none of the Indian....

Owned by the richest man of India, Mukesh Ambani and led by the best batsman in the world Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai Indians are one team that has once again taken IPL and fans by strom. Even though fans are talking about overdoze of cricket, but wherever Mumbai Indians have played so far, we have seen one thing -- jam packed stadium just because it has Sachin Tendulkar in the team. Mumbai Indians can now be called a dream team in the IPL-4 not just because it has Tendulkar....

Since the advent of Cricket, Bowlers have always been its whipping boys. In a world where every kid growing up dreams of becoming a Sachin Tendulkar, only a few would want to emulate a Shane Warne or Anil Kumble. Everyone would remember that the highest individual ODI score is an unbeaten 200 by Sachin Tendulkar, but what of Chaminda Vaas who single-handedly tore the Zimbabwe team to shreds, picking a jaw-dropping eight wickets for 19 runs. How many people know that, let alone remember it. Its not the....

The 'Godsend' creature was approaching his chef d'oeuvre, his 50th Test hundred. And not just me but the cricket fans all over the world had their hearts in their mouth when the little champion got the touch from the middle of his bat to reach the milestone. When we all were saluting the maestro, he himself was busy thanking his dear and near ones by uttering words while looking into the deep blue sky. Though the Centurion Test will be remembered for a lot of things, Jacques....