The world’s best Test bowler had the No 1 batsman’s measure for much of the second day of the first Test yet India’s captain punished England’s other bowlers in scoring 149Virat Kohli does not care to talk about the 2014 tour any more. After four years it seems the India captain has grown sick of being asked about it. But he did open up on it once, in 2015. “I put too much pressure on myself,” he said in an interview with Cricket Monthly. “I made it seem like a big mountain in front of me and once I was not able to scale it I was really disappointed.” Related: Virat Kohli’s brilliant century frustrates England in India fightback Anderson...
Recent visits have been mired in controversy but Virat Kohli’s team will play five Tests and hopes are high for a return of the sporting values that once characterised the tourThe Maharaja of Porbandar was a better captain than batsman, a fact that, it has to be said, had very little to do with his leadership. The Maharaja was India’s leader on their very first Test tour of England, back in 1932.When it was over, the joke was that he’d bought more Rolls-Royces than he scored runs. Which was unfair, since the scorebooks show that he made a combined total of eight in the matches he played, and even the most generous estimates are that he only had seven Rolls...
Loose claims in an al-Jazeera documentary have bundled three separate claims of malpractice into one, with some of the information coming from a self-proclaimed crookThe story goes that when the Australian Cricket Board knocked back Kerry Packer in 1976, Packer told them: “there’s a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen, so name your price”. That line came to mind early on in al-Jazeera’s new documentary, Cricket’s Match-Fixers, when its undercover journalist, David Harrison, meets the alleged match‑fixer, Aneel Munawar, for the first time. Harrison asks Munawar if he ever has problems arranging fixes. “Actually,” Munawar tells him, “if you have the money, you will do anything.” Harrison opens up a suitcase full of cash and says:...
India’s captain is the best chance we have of countering the global dominance of T20s and one-day internationalsVirat Kohli knows about pressure. He is Sachin Tendulkar for the Twitter generation, with 23.3 million people hanging on his every emoji. When he bats, a country of 1.3 billion fidgets with vicarious need. Most of us can barely cope with trying to make ourselves happy but Kohli is in a blissful state where pressure is a drug that stimulates all kinds of achievement. He averages more than 50 in all three forms of cricket, an unprecedented record, and has turned the extraordinary into the everyday.He probably will not mind, then, if we add a bit more pressure. Virat, you may be the only person who can...
India’s captain is on the verge of becoming the first player to be No1 simultaneously in Tests, ODIs and T20s – a feat that would end debate about his status among the greatsA disturbing thing happened last month. Sachin Tendulkar, the most unapproachable personage in cricket, was suddenly eager to be interviewed. Tendulkar is currently promoting a documentary film called Sachin: A Billion Dreams. At moments like these The Talent often finds itself wheeled out, grudgingly, for a 10-minute round-table clichefest.This was different though. This time Tendulkar was jarringly up for it. Not only was he available. Sachin seemed to have picked me out specifically to interview him, insisting above all on this detail. Yes, his people confirmed, Sachin is...