Hobbies & Life – Page 2 – Matter of Fact

Vidarbha inching towards a victory

Rajneesh Gurbani seems to be in sublime form! This morning, he scythed through Delhi’s middle and tail for a hat-trick against Delhi— no mean achievement in a Ranji Trophy final— and went on to claim four wickets in just six balls. He bowled intelligently today: neither Mishra, nor Saini, nor Shorey could read his incredible inswingers. They simply froze as …

Vidarbha in Ranji trophy final

What an exciting victory! Vidarbha in Ranji Trophy final! Absolutely unbelievable! Vidarbha cricket’s finest hour! The teams were so closely matched and the result so incredibly close! The way Vidarbha held its nerves in what turned out to be a nail biting finish and snatched victory from the tightening jaws of defeat makes me very proud of the team. Great …

Cricket can be exciting and nail biting

If West Indies could defeat England on Tuesday, how could Bangladesh on Wednesday be far behind? The two test matches (England vs. West Indies at Headingley and Bangladesh vs. Australia at Mirpur) would go down in history for generating exciting and thrilling cricket. The countries that won these tests were rated as underdogs! Indeed these tests produced the best and …

Cricket records have a very short half life!

How long do the records in International Cricket last? And how quickly do they tumble? Today, at Auckland, Martin Guptill’s 19-ball record for fastest New Zealand fifty lasted barely for 20 minutes. He got out in the seventh over; in came Colin Munro, and he began to treat Sri Lankan bowlers with a ferocity that would humble Ben Stokes. Seven …

10 Reasons why India won the World Cup Final

Satyamev Jayate Even before the first ball of the World cup final was bowled, the entire world witnessed a bizarre happening. Dhoni flipped the coin in the air for Sangakkara to call. Sangakkara mumbled his call, and had apparently lost the toss but the toss ended up being disputed – the first time such an event taking place in a …

World Cup 2011: 10 reasons why India beat Pakistan

Dhoni winning the toss Chasing 250+ in a World Cup semi-final is not an easy task. The Mohali pitch was not ugly, but contrary to what most Pundits – Saurabh dada included- had predicted, it not a batting beauty either. As the inning progressed, the pitch turned slow, the balls stopped, and the batsmen found it difficult even to rotate …

Cricket Watch from the East Stand

Paisa Vasool! The fate of the second one-day match between India and Australia was almost decided even before Australian openers took guard. 350+ was too good a total for a very ordinary Australian batting line-up. This is a match Ponting would quickly like to forget: his bowlers gave away over 100 runs in the last 10 overs, his batsmen couldn’t …