😶About yesterday...
It's not always bright and shiny and for sure this match will stay with me. Sometimes you know how and what to do but when you step on court, there is stress and struggle.
I'll recover and do better.

It's 16th of December, 2020. India is standing at the back of an ODI series loss and a momentum shifting win in the t20i series. It's time for the marquee Border Gavaskar trophy. The pink ball test, the boxing day, new year's test and the Gabba Challenge. Are we up for it?

Join me on a special thread where I take you through the series with the journey of the series. We shall look at the playing 11s, the game progressions, special strategies, important moments, standout performances.

Fasten your seat belt or don't, hop on anyway for 46 tweets ☺️

Match 1: Adelaide

Jadeja is injured so Ashwin becomes an easy answer for the tough question of the lone spinner. There are other tough questions as to who should be the 2nd opener, Gill who had good practice game or Shaw who scored a 50 in the last test he played? Pant or Saha?

India is going into the pink ball test with Pace trio Bumrah Shami Umesh. Shaw is opening and Saha keeping. A decision probably taken with the Wicketkeeping ability as the priority

Virat has one the toss and decided to bat. He has never lost a test match after winning the toss

Second ball of the first over and the nightmares turn true as Starc runs through Shaw. Mayank gets out after getting a start and then Virat stitches two gritty partnerships with Pujara and Rahane. Things turn bad only when Virat gets run out on an unfortunate wrong call by Rahane

What do you see?

Ball is a Son/Sun?

Purple+Orange=Dark or Light? [D]?

8 Stars, 5 Stripes, Stars+Stripes= ? and ?

See the Shadow on the Sun/Basketball?

See the Crescent Moon?

Distance is important?

Names are important?

Phoenix?

Suns?

THEY NEVER THOUGHT WE WOULD THINK ?!

Pith: Behind the Western Guilt Complex

My take on the courage deficit afflicting us.

One of the defining characteristics of our society is a sense of guilt.

This guilt manifests itself in the way we bend over backwards for marginalised groups, and the way we defend weakness with ferocity.

White guilt, LGBT allies and male feminists abound.

Obesity is championed as body positivity.

People are villainised and ostracised for their lack of feeling for those who struggle. You are a bad person if you are against redistribution.

Our judgement of people's character primarily takes place through this lens.

Empathy, rather than courage, has the moral high ground.

I say this merely as an observation, rather than to dismiss the merits of empathy as a virtue.

I've long wondered why this is, and have been presented with various explanations.

One is colonial and slaver guilt - that we feel ashamed of the horrors we committed as the British Empire and as white slavers in the US.

Another is our culture's roots in Christianity, where the notion of original sin breeds a sense of shame.

#Thread #Cricket

It's important that credit should be given to the right individuals where 'coaching' is concerned. Let's not be blind to some leading contributions that have come from lesser-known names.
#TeamIndia #coaches

Blindly crediting a Rahul Dravid or a Ravi Shastri for years of hard work someone else has put in is not fair. Here's a list of individuals responsible for the success of Team India players...
#TeamIndia #coaches #AUSvsIND

Shubhman Gill -- his father Lakhwinder Singh.
Rohit Sharma -- his childhood coach and go-to man Dinesh Lad.
Cheteshwar Pujara -- his dad Arvind Pujara
Ajinkya Rahane -- Pravin Amre
Virat Kohli -- Rajkumar Sharma, Ravi Shastri
Rishabh Pant -- Tarak Sinha, Ricky Ponting

Mayank Agarwal -- RX Murali
Prithvi Shaw -- Santosh Pingutkar (childhood coach), Mak Waingankar (long-time mentor), Raju Pathak (Rizvi)
R Ashwin -- nobody in particular, grew in stature as he played more cricket
Jasprit Bumrah -- the Mumbai Indians set up, and Bharat Arun

Hardik Pandya -- Jitendra Singh in Baroda & Mumbai Indians set-up
Kuldeep Yadav -- Kapil Pandey
Mohammed Siraj -- Bharat Arun
Mohammed Shami -- Badruddin Siddiqui & Bharat Arun
T Natarajan -- Diwakar Vasu
Wriddhiman Saha -- Jayanta Bhowmick
Navdeep Saini -- Bharat Arun