𝓝𝓡 reflections

The biggest cricket carnival across the globe has grown significantly in the past 15 years. Who would have thought that the players will miss the opportunity to play international matches for their respective countries and will choose IPL over it? Whether it be the money factor, the stars packed teams or the pro- active franchises with another level of crazy fans, this grand league has firmed its roots and will only further grow upwards and onwards from the present position. The way IPL has ambushed other major leagues in the world is simply commendable. Throwing the light on the financial model, the growth numbers are just astonishing. Take an example of KKR team whose owner is Shahrukh Khan. SRK’S team brand value in the year 2009 was $22 million and it shot up to around $36 million in 2021. The IPL brand, as a whole, saw a growth of a staggering 134 percent since its first season 14 years ago in 2009. Seeing these statistics when the BCCI announced in 2019 ab...

Losing away test series by a comparatively weak team of South Africa and then facing whitewash from the same team in the ODI series. That’s what happened with ICT where we lost 2-1 in in the Freedom test series and then 3-0 in the ODI’s. This was only the 5th time that India had been whitewashed in the white ball series. Numbers themselves speak the present position of a team which last year claimed that they have the capability and resources to play as 2 different teams simultaneously and even winning on the foreign pitches is now struggling to win a match with a full-strength side excluding Rohit Sharma. On 31st Dec,2021 the whole team was on the 7th cloud when we won the first test match and more over, we won for the first time in Centurion. So, this time was seen as the best opportunity to win a test series in South Africa but we were not able to because of the simple fact that the Proteas played and understood the conditions better than us and completely ou...

Just two wins away from breaking Steve Waugh’s record of number of test wins and suddenly on January 15th,2022 Virat Kohli tweets in the evening that he is stepping down as the Indian Test Captain. His decision sent shockwaves across the cricket fraternity and the assumptions were being made that this decision is a result of the loss in the Freedom Series against South Africa. But those who have seen him over the years knew it was not a spurt decision but rather a completely planned one and we have seen this before. Year- 2014, Indian tour of Australia, after the second test MS DHONI (then the captain in charge) comes out in the press conference and just says “I am done” and quits the test cricket leaving the tour in middle and the captaincy was given in the hands of young, inexperienced Virat Kohli. Irony here is Australia is the same country where Kohli had faced several charges and bashings due to his inappropriate gestures to the crowd (when the crowed sledged him) and ...