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By K.R. Nayar  India’s women’s team thrashing England by 270 runs in the one-off Test match at the historic Lord’s Cricket Ground will be etched as a golden page in India’s cricket history. Becoming the winner of the first-ever women’s Test at Lord’s is indeed a great honour. It is akin to planting the tricolour at the summit of Mount Everest. One is reminded of the famous quote by Sunil Gavaskar after he crossed the 10,000-run barrier in Test cricket and had compared it to climbing Mount Everest, when he said: “There may be others who will follow, but the one who gets there first is remembered”. In the future, many women’s teams may go on to record Test victories at Lord’s, but India, who did it first through an emphatic win, will be remembered forever. All firsts, in sport, are indeed forever. Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and coach Amol Muzumdar need to be lauded for being able to shake off the ICC T20 World Cup exit defeat barely two weeks ago at the same venue (on June...

By K.R. Nayar Team India’s back-to-back T20I series losses is not just disappointing – it is alarming. Questions are piling up as to why this has happened, including defeats to Ireland and a meek surrender to England. The excuse given is that the selectors are experimenting, and hence the team deserves a long rope. That raises an important question: Is England the right place to conduct experiments without experienced or senior players? It is a fact that even experienced players have struggled to adapt to English conditions. Such humiliation and a string of defeats can only squash the confidence of all the players in this team.  It is worth examining the comments by both, coach Gautam Gambhir and skipper Shreyas Iyer, following the poor show.  Gambhir’s tone while answering queries from journalists was laced with dismissiveness. It seemed as if those questioning the repeated failures were overreacting. Gambhir’s “intelligent” answer was: "It's absolutely true that we...

By K.R. Nayar Sanju Samson has been dropped again. This time, the axe has fallen before the three-match T20I series against Zimbabwe. A study of Samson’s career reveals a blatant truth: he tops the list among Indian cricketers to be dropped from the Indian team the maximum number of times and has been ignored from the playing eleven despite being part of the squad. Samson has been dropped for the Zimbabwe series after just three scores of 5, 0, and 1, but this came after knocks of 97 not out, 89, and 89 that helped India win the T20 World Cup. This literally means that the selectors are walking around him with an axe. In fact, he got the chance to play those match-winning knocks in the T20 World Cup after the selectors tried their best to keep him out of the playing eleven, but were forced to include him towards the end. For the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup, the selectors had happily kept him out of the eleven throughout the tournament, as if his best role was to warm the bench. Those ...

By K.R. Nayar  Australian women lifted the 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup title for the seventh time, and this time it happened due to ‘Moon’ and the ‘Stars’. Beth Mooney, nicknamed Moon, played a splendid knock of 64, backed by Phoebe Litchfield’s 48. These two, along with the other players, all of whom are worthy of being stars, ensured a seven-wicket win over England in the final at Lord’s Cricket Ground on July 5, 2026. The Australian team is in seventh heaven now, mainly due to their meticulous planning and consistent hard work. They have also won the ICC Women’s World Cup (50-over) seven times, proving themselves to be a power in world cricket. Though Team India are the reigning women’s World Cup champions, they have a long way to go to become a strong force in both formats like the Australians in women’s cricket. So why is it a treat to watch these Australian women in action? Primarily, it is the confidence with which they walk onto the field announcing they are out...

By K.R. Nayar  While reporting domestic cricket in the UAE, a smiling face always greeted me at different venues and almost at all tournaments. Cricketers lovingly called him “Uncle.” To some, he was Uncle Thomson; to others, Bulla Mama. But to everyone in general, Thomson John D'Silva was warmth wrapped in a smile. As the manager of many domestic teams in the UAE, most of his teams have won numerous laurels. He was an inspiring presence, and he passed away on July 2, 2026, at the age of 75. The ever-smiling Uncle Thomson   Not everyone is blessed with innate man-management skills. Uncle Thomson had that unique ability not just to manage but to mentor and be like a guardian. During the glorious period of domestic cricket in the UAE, when tournaments were enthusiastically organised by passionate lovers of the game and councils, Uncle Thomson was in great demand as a team manager. As a reporter, he was my best point of contact since he would willingly share details about eve...

By K.R. Nayar  Ireland’s 2-0 clean sweep over India in Belfast is shocking. As the reigning T20 world champions, one wonders whether it was the Irish luck that beat India. Also, since the victory happened in Belfast, it may well be that the Ireland team was influenced by Boney M’s famous song Belfast and may have walked out humming the lyrics of the song: “Belfast, Belfast, Belfast. Got to have a belief in, got to have a belief in, got to have a belief in all the people.” It is indeed the belief in their ability to beat the world champions that gave Ireland their 34-run win in the first T20 match and the nerve-shredding one-run win in the second match. This is not just a historic series sweep for Ireland, but for world cricket itself. To beat India, which hasn’t been beaten in 16 series over three years, is truly remarkable.   Had it been a one-off win, it could have been attributed to Irish luck, a term associated more with dumb luck rather than actual skill, intelligence...