Sports

Kicked Hard and Laid Low

Venkata Vemuri

From the world’s richest football club to debts the size of a football field, Man U is in serious disarray.

Tee Break with Jeev

Akshay Sawai

It’s the country’s fastest growing sport. It has sponsorship money other sports envy. But you have to catch a champion like Jeev Milkha Singh to get its essence.

After an astonishing 2009, Virender Sehwag has been named by England’s The Daily Telegraph as ‘the player of the decade’. Open talks to the Nawab of Najafgarh about his plans, and finds that this man does not even know how to think small.

You Are Not Tiger’s Wife…

Dileep Premachandran

So stop berating him. Tiger Woods only owes his family an explanation, not us. All we can demand of him is golfing excellence. In any case, he is not the first world-class sportsman to face such embarrassment, if that’s what his ‘infidelity’ really is. It is a path down which some of the best athletes have strayed, and still stayed on top of their game.

When Sehwag Went SehWhack

Akshay Sawai

Life that ebbed and flowed around the field as one man came close to a triple century.

For the Love of Polo

Charu Bahri

In Rajasthan, the game of kings is an aspirational recreation—for queens, rich tourists and poor mahouts alike. But riding a horse is not a skill that can be hired for a day, and therefore there’s also chauffeured polo, atop elephants and camels.

Gambhir to Sherawat: An Evening’s Progress

Akshay Sawai

From the sidelines of the most prestigious Indian cricket honours, the Ceat Cricket Rating awards

The Ghost of a Lost Final

Dave Seminara

In 1974, India reached the final of the Davis Cup. But the Government forced the team to boycott the match as the host, South Africa, was under apartheid rule. The players are still not sure if it was the right decision. Also, they reveal old grouses against the Amritraj brothers

Character Artiste

Akshay Sawai

A look at the man who lurks inside the run machine called Sachin Tendulkar—his unique stamina, his famous humility, his constant disappointment with humanity...

First an Indian

Boria Majumdar

Blood on his face, a fresh-faced boy on the vicious pitches of Pakistan signalled his arrival with two squeaky words, ‘Main khelega’. He stood and he’s still standing. Tall. A paean to the man who epitomises national pride