Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
22 July 2010, 06:06 PM IST
The inevitable happened a few hours ago. Sri Lanka demolished India by 10 wickets at Galle. The sorry performance of MS Dhoni and company was in stark contrast to Pakistan’s super first day first show against Australia at Leeds. The key point is this:...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
13 July 2010, 03:08 PM IST
Thomas Muller has received the Golden Boot and Diego Forlan has earned the Golden Ball. But it's undeniable that Paul the Octopus was the real star of the 2010 football World Cup. No living creature was as much loved and lampooned as the invertebrate from...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
03 July 2010, 03:44 PM IST
It never really needed any kind of confirmation, but then this is it. Late Friday night we saw why football is the greatest game in the world, and, also why it always will be. No other sport evokes so many emotions so fervently and so honestly across the...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
27 June 2010, 10:08 PM IST
Every World Cup needs a game that becomes a forever photograph in the mind’s eye. On Sunday evening, the world got that game. But for all the fabulous goals scored in the frenetic pre-quarters encounter, the Germany-England game will be equally remembered and...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
21 June 2010, 07:02 PM IST
When Luiz Felipe Scolari took over as coach of a flailing Brazil side for the 2002 World Cup, he brought in a bunch of unpleasant ideas. He wanted the team to commit fouls and play ugly football if it helped the Selecaos regain the most cherished trophy in the...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
16 June 2010, 04:41 PM IST
For the first 55 minutes of Brazil's World Cup opener against North Korea, I tried hard to look for the Brazil I have always loved. A few instances of Robinho's cute but ineffective showboating notwithstanding, I found precious little. Crosses floated more in...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
14 June 2010, 08:46 PM IST
On Sunday, the impossible happened at Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium in South Africa. Germany played the most appetising and pretty-as-you-please football of the 2010 World Cup yet. And that includes Argentina’s performance in its opening game, barring Lionel...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
05 June 2010, 08:34 PM IST
Team India lost convincingly. Once again. This time to Sri Lanka. Now we can pack our bags and lick our wounds. We lost three of the four games we played in this tournament; two of them to Zimbabwe. Do you remember a more pathetic performance in recent years? ...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
03 June 2010, 08:27 PM IST
Team India's season of shame continues. If there is anything like humiliation on a cricket field, then this was it. Imagine losing to Zimbabwe in consecutive games, and this time with more than 11 over to spare. The winners even claimed the bonus point with...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
25 May 2010, 05:50 PM IST
The 80-odd thrillers that James Headley Chase wrote were in essence ethical fables of men with negotiable morals and women who offer their bodies and take your soul. Those novels had a recurrent, subterranean theme: crime never pays. Often their protagonists...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
17 May 2010, 01:03 AM IST
England outplayed old foe Australia in all departments of the game to become worthy T20 world champion. When a team wins in the shortest form of cricket with three overs to spare, it is a pretty comprehensive triumph. Few would grudge Paul Collingwood...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
12 May 2010, 02:21 AM IST
Team India is out of the T20 World Cup. With three defeats in a row, who can say we didn’t deserve this inglorious exit? Simply put, we played some of our worst cricket in recent memory. How did this happen? We know how. We couldn’t bat, bowl or field....
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
09 May 2010, 11:26 PM IST
Team India’s horror show continues. And who’s to blame? To begin with, the selectors must take the flak for choosing players on reputation, not form. But that does not absolve MS Dhoni and company. They have given us a free horror show in the Super Eight...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
07 May 2010, 10:58 PM IST
Every team occasionally plays a match that seems like a nightmare to its supporters. On Friday, India played that kind of game against Australia. When the last 15 overs of a 40 over game looks like a mere formality, then someone has been humiliated on the...
Posted By
Avijit Ghosh
02 May 2010, 10:45 PM IST
MS Dhoni's Team India looked in fine fettle in its 14 run win against South Africa in the T20 World Cup on Sunday. That’s primarily because Suresh Raina played one of the finest innings by an Indian in a T20 World Cup match. It was certainly the first time an...
Avijit Ghosh works as a senior assistant editor at The Times of India in Delhi. Born in Agartala, he grew up in different small towns of Bihar and Jharkhand. He is addicted to films, music, cricket and football. He has written two books: "Bandicoots in the Moonlight", a novel, and "Cinema Bhojpuri", a book on films.
The views expressed in Addictions are the author´s own.
