The jury has voted, the verdict’s out and this being January that can only mean that it’s time to all-hail Lionel Messi again. Since two-thirds of the voters comprise national team captains and coaches and with 41.6% of the total votes going to Messi, there really should have been no debate about an unprecedented fourth Ballon D’Or for the peerless ball wizard of this generation if not of all time. Read more

A confidential order from who-can’t-be-refused is just a click away from being sent to Nagpur, the venue for the last Test. This is how it reads: Should England survive Kolkata too, slip in some burglars into the England nets in the guise of net bowlers to steal all their bats. Read more

The lament about how Test cricket is on a rapid decline and that it will be dumped very soon is something we hear on a daily basis. Cricket bosses point to declining spectators for the five-day matches and worry that young fans are keener to watch one-day and Twenty20 matches. Read more

For the next one month, spin will be the most used and debated term as India look to tame England in a four-Test series at home. Since skipper MS Dhoni gave a call for preparing turning tracks at home, there seems to be an anxiety to hit the visiting batsmen on dry surfaces that crack and throw up puffs of dust at least in the first half of the five-day encounter, if not on the opening day itself. Read more

A prominent Indian rally driver had this to say about the comparison between racing and rallying: “racing is a white collar job, rallying is a blue collar job.” The implication being that tearing through all manner of publicly used tarmac roads, dirt tracks, hills and forests is the form of motorsport much closer to ordinary people. Not to mention more demanding and labour intensive. Read more

Once every year, the boys from Namchi Sports Hostel get out of southern Sikkim, board a train from New Jalpaiguri and come to the national capital to take part in a tournament that is in its 53rd year. Read more

On one of the rain-soaked walls of Delhi School of Economics, or D-School as it’s popularly known, there’s a barely visible poster, with some text printed on a deep blue background in a font size too small to be readable from the other side of Chhatra Marg. The text details the itinerary of the 15th edition of the Nehru Cup, an invitational tournament that is supposed to be the marquee event organised by AIFF, the governing body of football in India. Read more

It seems that every major sports competition these days is accompanied by stories of the grumbling citizenry of a host country or city who feel like a party is being hosted at the expense of their taxes that they aren’t invited to in the first place. Read more

It’s July 2nd, 2000 and it is a horrible day as far as I’m concerned. However, it is not because I’m struggling to get through class XII and not keeping up with my homework for which I’m getting plenty of stick from my mother. Neither is it because I have a terrible toothache which has not subsided even after a trip to the dentist. Read more

It’s been five whole days since the quadruple-drama began. As tennis fans we all expected a clash of egos (as Indian tennis history has repeated itself umpteen number of times before a mega event) but the drama unfolding currently has probably reached its zenith. Read more