Category: India Cricket

Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes’s side have developed clarity in the final innings and never seem to give up

Sports writers love a Churchillian speech that precedes a mind-bending feat. Take three years ago, when word got back that Brendon McCullum had told his England players to “run towards the danger” at Trent Bridge before Jonny Bairstow vaporised a target of 299 against New Zealand. It was like ruddy catnip for the press corps.

This time, after reeling in 371 at Headingley on Tuesday at a breezy 4.5 runs per over and with 14 overs to spare? Apparently very little was said in the dressing room beforehand beyond “bat the day, win the game” or Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett deciding between them to ignore the target and just “play like it was day one”.

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• First Test, D4: India 471 & 364; England 465 & 21-0

• Tongue takes three wickets in four balls

Another India lower-order collapse gave England a fighting chance of a thrilling victory in the first Test at Headingley, with the hosts 21-0 in their second innings at the close of play on day four, chasing 371 to win.

Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul struck centuries for the visitors, with the former becoming the second wicketkeeper to hit twin tons in a Test match. But just as he did in the first innings, Josh Tongue came to the fore when seeing off the Indian tail, with three wickets in four balls helping ensure the tourists lost their final six second-innings wickets for 31 runs.

Ali Martin’s report will follow shortly.

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After a run of greats at the helm, the tourists’ early promotion of their new leader is an intriguing choice to steady a listing ship

Shubman Gill was a pretty laid-back character when he played for Glamorgan three summers ago. So laid back, in fact, that early on during his time there he parked the brand new Volvo the club had arranged for him and apparently left the keys in the ignition. Sure enough, after training, he returned to find it had been pinched.

Cue panic in the finance department at Sophia Gardens, calls to the insurers and the like. But at least his new teammates had material for some lighthearted mickey-taking. Gill, just turned 23 but already an India star on the rise, had arrived for three September rounds of the County Championship in 2022. Saying hello with 92 on debut in Cardiff, and goodbye with 119 at Hove, it sounds like he fitted in well.

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• Vice-captain gets the nod after 171 against Zimbabwe

• The 21-year-old rising star featured against West Indies

Ollie Pope has retained his England place and will face India in the first Test starting on Friday, the 171 he scored against Zimbabwe last month having proved enough to hold off the emerging challenge of Jacob Bethell.

Bethell’s success in Pope’s No 3 slot during the three-match series in New Zealand over the winter, when he scored a half-century in each Test and averaged 52, appeared to have made the position his to lose.

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If the Pataudi Trophy had to be renamed then the rivalry between India and England’s two most-capped Test cricketers was worthy of the switch

Spring 2006 and India are batting against England at the Wankhede in Mumbai. The series is all square, one Test each with one to play. England, batting first, have made an even 400, thanks in large part to a century by Andrew Strauss and 88 from his Middlesex teammate Owais Shah, who is making his debut.

It is just past tea on the second day and India’s openers are already gone, bounced out by Matthew Hoggard. Sachin Tendulkar is at No 4 and England’s captain, Andrew Flintoff, has just thrown the ball to his first-change bowler, Jimmy Anderson.

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The retiree’s final innings may have been unremarkable but his entire career was a testament to his relentless pursuit of excellence which helped redefine Indian cricket

At dawn on a pale pastel morning in late January, thousands of fans started queueing outside the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Before long the queues turned chaotic. Scuffles broke out. Three people were injured and a police motorcycle was damaged. Armed security personnel were deployed inside and outside the venue, occasionally stepping in front of the sightscreen and causing play to be stopped.

But the consequences of Virat Kohli playing his first domestic red-ball game for Delhi in 12 years are less interesting than why he was there in the first place. Kohli rolled up in his Porsche two days before the game, arriving early to beat the crowds and so he could fit in a full gym session before team fitness drills and net practice. Desperately short of form, and yet a desperate romantic, Kohli had come to worship at the altar. One last crack at Test cricket. One last attempt at rekindling the skill that had long deserted him.

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• Sachin Tendulkar leads tributes to former captain
• Kohli: ‘I’m walking away with a heart full of gratitude’

The former India captain Virat Kohli has announced his retirement from Test cricket. The 36-year-old’s decision comes the week after Rohit Sharma, who succeeded Kohli as skipper, also retired from the red-ball format and a month before India start a five-match Test series in England.

The 36-year-old Kohli amassed 9,230 runs in 123 Tests at an average of 46.85, putting him 19th in the all-time list for runscorers and behind only Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar among his fellow Indians.

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• WTC format ‘as if designed on the back of a fag packet’
• New 2025 edition includes tributes to Graham Thorpe

Wisden hits the shelves this week and, as well as unveiling its latest batch of award winners, it has trained its sights on the International Cricket Council. The World Test Championship, the book argues, is a “shambles masquerading as a showpiece”.

The publication of the sport’s annual bible is timely, with the future of the WTC discussed recently at ICC meetings in ­Zimbabwe. In typically opaque fashion, the sport’s governing body is yet to announce the outcome of the debate.

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Rohit Sharma’s side are all-time greats but Indian dominance has created imbalance and over-dependence

They can tear you apart with a thousand incisive cuts or systematically grind you down to a fine powder. They have a bottomless well of talent with multiple world class options in every position. Winning is not only expected but demanded, both from within the camp and throughout their legions of loyal supporters that have turned them into a commercial behemoth.

No, not India, who eased past New Zealand to claim the Champions Trophy this weekend. We’re talking about Ricky Ponting’s Australia. Actually, it’s Clive Lloyd’s West Indians. Or should that be Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Richie McCaw’s All Blacks, or the Americans under Christie Rampone, Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe?

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• Final: India, 254-6, bt N Zealand, 251-7, by four wickets
• Captain smashes 76 after Kiwis unable to set big target

India won another global trophy with a four-wicket victory over New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final on Sunday.

Their captain, Rohit Sharma, led the chase with 76 off 83 balls and KL Rahul’s unbeaten 34 helped India cross the finish line on 254 for six in 49 overs.

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• Australia 264 all out; India 267-6 in Dubai
• Veteran’s 84 takes his team to four-wicket victory

Many changes of personnel, one simple change of sequence. The World Cup final in 2023 began with Pat Cummins choosing to give Australia’s bowlers the chance to choke India’s batting. A year and a half later, in the Champions Trophy, Steve Smith as injury substitute decided that a very different Australian team should bat first.

Late-career struggles or no, Virat Kohli is one-day cricket’s greatest chaser. And while a miniature tournament semi-final in Dubai is not an equal trade for a World Cup decider in a packed house at home, there will be partial catharsis for this India side beating Australia in a global tournament knockout.

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• Captain believes key is how batters take on ‘middle overs’
• Australia still to decide how many spinners to include

White-ball cricket is often about the powerplay at the start of an innings and the death overs at the end, but the Australia captain Steve Smith believes it is the overs in the middle that will decide the Champions Trophy semi-final against India on Tuesday.

Australia go into the Dubai lair that dry pitches and expat fans have turned into a home from home for India with Rohit Sharma’s team seeking to snare them in a web of spin. India used four spinners in their last match against New Zealand, the quartet taking nine wickets, five going to the recalled Varun Chakravarthy.

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• Group A: India, 244-4, bt Pakistan, 241, by 6wkts
• Kohli’s 51st ODI century seals victory in Dubai

Virat Kohli’s record-extending 51st one-day century secured a six-wicket win over Pakistan in Dubai that puts India on the verge of qualifying for the Champions Trophy semi-finals.

After Pakistan were bowled out for a disappointing 241 in 49.4 overs, Kohli took centre stage, ticking off 14,000 ODI runs en route to 100 not out off 111 balls – with a final cover drive sealing his century and India’s victory, which leaves their rivals on the brink of early elimination.

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• Bangladesh 228, India 231-4; India win by six wickets
• Gill hits unbeaten century, Shami shines with ball

Shubman Gill struck an unbeaten century after Mohammed Shami took five wickets as India cruised to a six-wicket win over Bangladesh in their Champions Trophy opener in Dubai.

Having slipped to 35 for five after choosing to bat, Bangladesh fought back to make 228 with Towhid Hridoy making 100 and Jaker Ali contributing 68, the pair sharing a sixth-wicket stand of 154.

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Favourites India come into tournament on sour note after refusal to play in Pakistan gives superpower tactical edge

As the ICC Champions Trophy resurfaces in Pakistan this week, nearly eight years since the last one, folks will be forgiven for a few double takes, for feeling a bit like Ian Wright reuniting with his old teacher in that lovely viral clip, jaw dropped to the floor and gasping: “You’re alive! Someone said you were dead!”

Although did anyone seriously think the Champions Trophy was toast? They say cockroaches and microbes would survive a nuclear apocalypse but there is every chance international cricket’s 50‑over tournoi would also spring up in the wasteland, glowing with radiation but still ready to stick its presumably mutated winners in those Miami Vice-style white blazers and deliver that sweet, sweet broadcast money.

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