Hardik Rajgor

O ver the years, fans of Indian cricket have worshipped different gods and their virtues –  Sunil Gavaskar  was an artist at the crease, VVS Laxman was a wizard, the stoic dependability of  Rahul Dravid  was the yin to Virender Sehwag’s yang, and Sachin Tendulkar was the genius on whose bat blade rested a billion dreams. But Virat Kohli is Gavaskar, Laxman, Dravid, Sehwag, and Tendulkar all rolled into one. King Kohli  has mastered all three formats of the game. He is immune to the colour of the ball, the size of the ground, and the quality of the pitch. When the match demands patience, he has more patience than a kindergarten teacher. When the tempo needs picking up, he shifts gears faster than a Bugatti Veyron. In desperate times, when the team needs to grind it out, his precise efficiency is like a  soldier’s  on the battlefield. As captain, his brain seems to work faster than a supercomputer while making calculations and taking risks. India...

T he visual of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović trying to console a sobbing Luka Modrić after their side’s 4-2 loss to France in the World Cup final is going to stay with me – and I am certain I speak for many who love and follow football with ardent devotion. It was irrelevant whether you supported  Croatia , France, or were a neutral spectator. Watching a grown man cry after a game is heartbreaking. More so, when it is Luka Modrić, a player you just cannot not love. At 32, Luka Modrić might have played his last game at a  World Cup  for Croatia, taking them to the finals and winning the Golden Ball in the process. In his own words, it was a “bittersweet moment,” because personal glory is pale in comparison to winning the ultimate prize for the team. It tells you everything you need to know about the Croatian captain. With three Man of the  Match  awards in seven games, Croatia’s midfield general had a stellar tournament. It is rather fitting t...

T here are many things Diego Maradona could have done after his stint as the world’s greatest footballer of all time. He could have, like other legends from the world of  sport , chosen a dignified, greying life spent in a suit throwing instructions at footballers from the other side of the touchline, he could become a  football  pundit on TV, or he could have simply posed for photographs while doing humanitarian work across the globe. But that’s not who Diego Maradona is. Maradona’s entire life has been a Mountain Dew commercial – full throttle, filled with thrill and  adventure . If his life were to be summarised as an inanimate object, it would be a Formula One car. It moves at speed, there’s a lot of thrill, but a permanent risk that things could come crashing down any moment. He is Argentina’s comic star, action hero, and chocolate boy all rolled into one. When he’s not busy smoking pot, sporting a Che Guevara tattoo, and trying out a funky hairstyle, he...

W hen I played Brian Lara International  Cricket  on our Pentium 4 PC as a kid, I was an addict who had figured the game out – quite the way  Nirav Modi  had figured out the loopholes in the banking system. If the computer bowled a good length delivery outside the off stump, I had to move my batsman a bit, press Shift + Right Mouse Button (RMB) and it would go for a six. Every single time. Perhaps it was a game bug but I couldn’t care less as I smashed 250 runs in 20 overs and became the gaming nerd of my society. To put things in perspective, it was 1999 and these were humble times. A time when good batting line-ups would struggle to chase 250 runs in an ODI game. As I watched  England  take Australia to the cleaners at Nottingham yesterday, amassing 481 runs in a 50-over game, I realised that Codemasters, the developers of Brian Lara International Cricket, had actually made a prophecy all those years back. It wasn’t a game bug after all. Every good ...

T he Indian women’s cricket team is on an absolute tear in the ongoing Asia Cup, demolishing opposition with an authority that rivals world-beating sides like Viv Richards’ West Indies and Steve Waugh’s Australia. Despite proving for the umpteenth time that the quality of their game is on the same level as their male counterparts, a yawning gap exists when it comes to how they’re rewarded. The prize amount for winning Player of the Match, an honour bagged so far by captain Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, is a paltry 250 USD. In comparison, the Man of the Match in the 2016 men’s Asia Cup final, Shikhar Dhawan, took home 7,500 USD. When it comes to getting a slice of the monetary pie, women cricketers are still getting the stepchild treatment from the BCCI. In March this year, BCCI announced new contracts for both the men’s and women’s cricket teams. A few of Kohli’s boys would be earning  14 times  more money than Mithali & Co. To sum up the irony, they decided to mak...