MS

Tea Lover

[Iceland Cricket @icelandcricket]

We can confirm that we don't wish to add Gautam Gambhir to our coaching staff. He clearly has talent, though. To take those Indian players and deliver those results in Ireland takes truly remarkable gifts.

[MS @shuklam]

@himganj153 Makes me wonder if removal of impact player rule will lower the strike rates or not.
(BCCI has the opportunity to conduct this novel experiment)

[Abhishek Mukherjee @ovshake42]

This Spirit of Cricket nonsense really needs to stop.

Cricket has Laws and that is it: the rest is noise.

[Abhishek Mukherjee @ovshake42]

Agree.

Also, this whole "T20 player X won't survive in Test cricket" narrative is funny, because many Test stars struggle in T20.

[MS @shuklam]

@himganj153 @notself Just read that thread, and thanks for the analysis Himanish. Great work. Vaibhav is an enigma, so we're more curious about his performance.

Frankly this analysis deserves an article from you. Are you planning to write one?

[Abhishek Mukherjee @ovshake42]

Sooryavanshi was on 83(25) - amazing how ahead of the times that 87(25) was.

[Sundeep Misra @MisraSundeep]

How much does it take to understand the character of a man?

It’s been a few years (Jan-June 2023) since our finest wrestlers were dragged onto the streets, a stone’s throw from Parliament, while the government looked on with the rapt attention of watching a reality TV show.

Who doesn’t know Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh? Don’t we understand the stripes of the beast? It lurks in society. Insecure men, used to getting what they want, barking commands while an army of uneducated foot soldiers act on their behalf.

Men like these usually don’t have a spine. Brought up in a culture where women remain in the shadows, they can’t fathom women on a wrestling mat; they want control there too. Touch and feel are lesser crimes to them. They want to control your soul, because that is their calling card to the outside world: fear, intimidation, and your career and life held like a steering wheel in their hands. You are a puppet. No less.

The world watches this theatre. No one reacts. Those who support this are cut from the same cloth; intimidation is their weapon of choice.

For Vinesh Phogat, in a normal world, a just society, she would be a rock star, feted at every step. It’s a tragedy that between her and the wrestling world changing in India, the difference was a mere 100 grams. The difference between getting a new order and dispatching the old. A gold or a silver might have changed the trajectory of how we perceive these feudal lords sitting over National Sports Federations.

For every medal won, how many souls get crushed? How much self-respect and dignity does one lose in the process?

But look closely, and you realize this is a global script.

From Larry Nassar and the complicit executives at USA Gymnastics who silenced young girls for decades to protect their brand, to the “monster” coaches in South Korea’s short-track speed skating who battered Olympic champions in the dark while bureaucrats looked away, the rot is identical.

These fiefdoms always operate on the same blueprint: tolerate the abuse, reward the tyrant, and protect the system as long as the medals keep coming. The fallout we see today is just the bursting of a boil that has been festering for decades.

Such a contrast: A world aligning itself to AI also has a rogue still living in a feudal mindset.

Sadly, it has taken the High Court to order correctness. While the Sports Ministry sat silent, the Delhi High Court had to step in to stop a vindictive federation from blocking Vinesh’s comeback after her maternity break. When the WFI callously labeled her Olympic heartbreak a “national shame” in a show-cause notice, the court fired back with standard human decency: “Motherhood is celebrated in this country... Do not act out of vengeance.”

Neither the Sports Ministers nor the so-called ‘literate’ bureaucrats had the balls to say “enough is enough” until forced by a bench.

How much of ‘us’ do we lose to these medieval minds? Till when must we count the number of women wrestlers who dare the system against the endless numbers we lose to the ones who simply give up?

Postscript: South Korean Speed Skating coach Cho Jae-beom was sentenced to more than ten years for sexually assaulting double Olympic gold medallist Shim Suk-hee.

Judge sentenced Larry Nassar to 40 years to 175 years in prison. USA Gymnastics agreed to pay (2021) the survivors $380 million. The Justice Department agreed to pay $138.7 million to settle claims that the FBI failed to conduct adequate investigations of Nassar’s conduct.
#vineshphogat #wrestling #womeninsport @Phogat_Vinesh

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

A scathing report from one of India's best sports journalists. It makes me despair for Indian sport.

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

Trump threatening Iran for weeks

[Kartik Kannan @kartik_kannan]

Honestly, I feel this was rude from Vikram Solanki. Very poor way to have a conversation. It's a perfectly light first question, not sure why he had to answer that way

[Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor]

Having just seen long lines for cooking gas cylinders on the streets of cities in India — one of many bystanders to the conflict whose population has been seriously impacted—I’m struck yet again by how relatively insulated the U.S. is from the wars it unleashes

[Sanjeev Sanyal @sanjeevsanyal]

I think there should be a re-match

[Himanish Ganjoo @himganj153]

Agree with everything said by Atherton. Especially the point about the ICC being an events company. Fundraising on the back of India games.

[Shailesh @shailesh18_]

This looks so bad when you see how much CA pays both its male and female cricketers annually. Both deserve higher pay for sure from BCCI.

95L–100L is the average amount for female cricketers from CA; the highest ones earn around 2 cr just from their central contracts.

[TheRandomCricketPhotosGuy @RandomCricketP1]

Seriously, what justifies abusing people in the minds of those who do it? BTW, players from associate nations are more frequently at the receiving end of this abuse as one might think. Their DMs are filled with abuses of those who put money on them on some random betting apps.

[Ashwin 🇮🇳 @ashwinravi99]

T 20 is a sport that is consistently evolving and can leave the best of players behind, if they fail to adapt or recognise the curve they may have to navigate.

We are used to consuming cricket through the volume of runs scored and wickets taken by batters and bowlers respectively, but trends are starting to clearly deviate wrto T 20.

This is from the recently concluded #WPL2026 , the team with the highest collective strike and best economy rate won.

Keep it simple.

[Erika Morris @ErikaMorris79]

This same CSK??

The streets will NEVER forget that N. Srinivasan said this.

Now tell me CSK aren’t riding on the success of the WPL?

[Fundoo Professor @Sanjay__Bakshi]

Cheers!

[Sarayu Pani @sarayupani]

Any reason to use a picture of her with two Pakistani cricketers for a quote that has nothing to do with Pakistan cricket?

The answer is evident in the replies.

Seriously just trolls pretending to be sports commentators.

[Arjun Dev @arjun19dev]

True story: A state association has asked a player to pull out of the WPL to play in some practice matches - “to be eligible to be selected for the state team”. In the politest way she has declined but what even is the thinking? Picked for WPL - punishment is dropped from state