Introduction David Warner’s fall from grace in 2018 was as public and as brutal as any sporting scandal in cricket history. The sandpaper affair in South Africa — where Warner, along with Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, was found to have been involved in ball-tampering — cost him a one-year ban from all cricket, the...
Introduction Suresh Raina was called Mr. IPL for years — a nickname that acknowledged what the statistics confirmed: he was the most consistent run-scorer in the competition’s first decade, appearing in more matches than almost anyone else, rarely having a bad season, and performing in finals as reliably as he performed in league matches. He...
Introduction Before Lasith Malinga, T20 death bowling was simple: you bowled short, you bowled wide, you hoped the batter made a mistake. After Malinga, everything changed. The Sri Lankan fast bowler’s unique round-arm, slinging action — combined with the most precise yorker in cricket history — established a template for how to bowl in T20 cricket’s final...
Introduction Some franchise cricket stories are about glory won or squandered. The Kochi Tuskers Kerala story is about none of those things. It is about how a franchise that played exactly one season of IPL cricket, finished seventh out of ten teams, and was then terminated by the cricket board it was playing under, went to arbitration...
Introduction The story of Deccan Chargers’ 2009 IPL title is well known. What is less known is how close the franchise came to making completely different decisions — decisions that might have meant no title, no Gilchrist captaincy, and a very different franchise history. The auction strategies, the players nearly signed instead, and the internal discussions that shaped the...
Introduction On April 28, 2025, Rajasthan Royals were chasing 210 against Gujarat Titans. They needed a big innings early and quickly. At the other end of the ground, in Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium, a 14-year-old boy from Samastipur, Bihar — who had arrived at the IPL auction the previous December to find himself sold for Rs. 1.1 crore to Rajasthan...
Introduction When India won the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup — their first T20 global title in 17 years — the celebrations were enormous. Virat Kohli cried. Rohit Sharma raised the trophy. But behind the emotion of the moment was a structural reality that deserves more analysis than it typically gets: virtually every key player in India’s World...
Introduction Other batsmen hit sixes. Other batsmen win matches. But no one in the history of T20 cricket has done what MS Dhoni does specifically: he walks in when a match is apparently lost, he absorbs the pressure for several overs, and then he executes — with a precision that looks like magic but is actually the product of...
Introduction The IPL 2022 season was different. Ten teams instead of eight, a new group-stage format, new franchises with new narratives. And amidst all of it, one batsman who simply played a different sport from everyone else. Jos Buttler, the England wicketkeeper-batsman, had been a reliable IPL performer for Rajasthan Royals for years — good enough, consistent...
Introduction When Sunil Narine arrived in the IPL in 2012, he was the most talked-about mystery spinner in world cricket. His finger-spin variations bamboozled the best batters in the format; nobody could pick his wrong’un, his carrom ball, or his faster one. He was the most valuable bowling asset in T20 cricket. His batting? Barely noticed. He was a genuine number-ten —...