Social media may be buzzing with birthday wishes for Rohit Sharma, a people’s hero and former captain of Mumbai Indians, but he would have preferred a more active 39th birthday on Thursday, 30 April. A hamstring injury has now sidelined him for four games in a row and on Wednesday evening, he was again a spectator in the dugout, watching the five-time champions crash to their sixth defeat in eight games.

“Rohit’s gonna take a couple of more games. He’s been trying. It’s not up to exactly where he would want, so not available for the team,’’ skipper Hardik Pandya said after winning the toss and opting to bat. The irony is, despite the 'Mumbai Paltan' riding on Ryan Rickleton’s breezy century to rustle up 243/5, it was not enough as Sunrisers Hyderabad pulled off another monster chase, of which we have seen a dime a dozen this season.

The million-dollar question for Sharma's fans is: will this be his IPL curtain call? It’s turning out to be yet another poor season for one of the most successful teams in IPL history as they languish in ninth position, and Sharma missing out two more would bring matters down to the last four league games, now that their chances of making the play-offs are all but gone. What’s more, MI’s gamble of pitching an all-foreign pair of Rickleton and Will Jacks at the top of the order paid off handsomely last night as they put up 93 runs in 7.1 overs. 

Such a forced time-out at this stage of his career, when batters rely on muscle memory to time the ball, is simply bad news. More so as Sharma had a fair start to the season in the first four games. While he looked in good touch with a 38-ball 78 in their season-opener against Kolkata Knight Riders, the former captain had totalled 137 runs in four games at an average of 45.66 and a strike rate of 165.06. But that strike rate is no longer par in this format, when matches are being won or lost in the powerplays, even if one is Rohit Sharma.

It was an interesting piece of trivia that the IPL 'El Clasico' between MI and CSK last week featured neither Sharma nor Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for the first time. While it’s a testimony to their longevity as players, it’s also a stark reminder that all good things come to an end. While MSD’s presence is largely attributable to the brand value he brings to the table for the yellow shirts, Sharma has limited game time in international cricket in only ODIs — making it an imperative for him to shine in the IPL.

The next round of ODIs is against a weaker opposition — Afghanistan at home in June — and any questions over fitness or form will once again scupper the veteran’s place in the team. The ambition of a final flourish in the 50-over World Cup in South Africa, no prizes for guessing, has once again begun to look like a long shot for the ‘Hitman.’

The uneasy question gnawing at the minds of Indian football fans, with barely one-and-a-half months to go for the FIFA World Cup, is that there is no official broadcaster for the country yet. The showpiece, which will see an expanded field of 48 teams and a last hurrah for the two icons Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, will kick off on 12 June across the US, Mexico and Canada.

The ‘greatest show on earth’ has a huge following in the Indian market — especially in states like West Bengal, Kerala, Goa and Maharashtra — thanks to the exposure to global club football. However, industry watchers feel that time zone differences and the potential dilution in the quality of competition with 16 teams added at one go — not to speak of the uncertainty of advertising revenue — have been a major deterrent for the likes of Jio Hotstar, Sony and Fan Code.

FIFA had, for the 2026 cycle, attempted to bundle two upcoming World Cups (2026 and 2030) and initially sought close to $100 million from the Indian sub-continent. The market didn’t respond favourably, forcing the world governing body to scale it down in a big way but it still failed to draw interest from the big players.

The buzz right now is that the ball is currently in Jio Hotstar’s court but if they don’t enter the fray, the fallback option could well be Prasar Bharati stepping in through Doordarshan.

There have been precedents when India’s sports broadcasting regulations allowed events of national importance to be routed through free-to-air platforms — though the telecast would certainly lack the multi-language, high-production ecosystem experienced in 2022.

Replying to a National Herald query about the possibility of Doordarshan entering the fray in the eleventh hour, a Prasar Bharati veteran said: ‘’If it comes to a crunch, DD may enter the fray from the quarter final stages as they have done it in the past. The corporation has it’s own share of financial woes at the moment, but the government is often moved to act owing to public sentiment and political pressures. Since DD has a slew of GECs (general entertainment channels) in regional languages, they also need footages for providing value to it’s programmes.’’

A sports broadcasting insider, meanwhile, broke it down further as to what could be holding back the likes of a Jio Hotstar with deep pockets. ‘’Any broadcasting major will look for return on investment (RoI) and it looks uncertain due to the match timings — along with the fact that cricket has already eaten into a lion’s share of advertising revenue this year with the back-to-back T20 World Cup and the IPL.  

"A few other corporate houses who are invested in sport want to hold their horses as the Asian Games is also scheduled later this year which has got strong Indian participation,’’ he said.

Incidentally, Viacom18 (as Jio’s sporting arm was known as before it’s mega merger with Star Sports) paid roughly $62 million for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but the match timings suited fine with the Indian audience. 

A report in sports website Revsportz suggests that FIFA could also choose to bypass traditional broadcasters altogether and stream the tournament in India via its own digital ecosystem, potentially through a partnership with YouTube. It would not be without precedent — the world governing body has already experimented with direct-to-consumer models via FIFA+, but doing so for a marquee market like India would mark a significant shift.

 A YouTube tie-up would guarantee both reach and accessibility, especially among younger, mobile-first audiences - while allowing FIFA to retain greater control over distribution and monetisation. It remains to be seen whether such streaming, with occasional buffering jarring the spectator experience, whet the apetite of the fans in the country.

The euphoria over India’s first-ever ICC Women’s World Cup win (50 overs) being a distant memory now, it’s time for Harmanpreet Kaur & Co to take a fresh guard for a tilt at the upcoming T20 World Cup in June-July in England. The current form of the Women in Blue, however, raises an element of concern as South Africa snubbed them 4-1 in a five-match T20 series at home which ended on Monday, 28 April.

The final T20 in Benoni saw skipper Laura Wolvdaart leading by example, yet again, with a power packed 92 off just 56 balls as India fell short in the chase by 23 runs. It was an insipid performance by the Indian team overall as they looked out of sorts in this format—failing to exploit the powerplay while their bowling unit failed to make early breakthroughs in the earlier matches. The fielding looked sluggish in parts and a disappointed Harmanpreet later admitted it was a kind of wake-up call and they needed to ‘regroup’ soon.

The best showing by Indian women in the T20 World Cup so far had been a runners up finish in the 2020 edition Down Under, while the previous edition in 2024 in the UAE saw them exiting from the group stages. The shortest format, if truth be told, is still a work in progress for the Indian team though a 2-1 series win in Australia last February turned out to be their only silver lining in a tour Down Under. 

In a multi-format tour, the returns were dismal as India suffered a 3-0 sweep in the ODI series (all heavy losses) while Australia beat them by 10 wickets in a one-off Test—with the visitors failing to reach 200 in either innings.  The focus, for now, will be to sharpen their game for the T20 showpiece and the pressure of expectations will be huge after their historic triumph in the ODI World Cup at home.

’’We need to sit together as a group and think how to move forward. Disappointing for us, lots of positives and learnings for us,’’ Harmanpreet said at the post-match presentation. A look at the team composition in the last series reveals that the Women in Blue have not been able to create a horses-for-courses policy to excel in this format—overtly relying on the ODI stalwarts like their captain, deputy Smriti Mandhana (rested for last two matches as South Africa had already taken a 3-0 lead), Jemimah Rodrigues as well as Deepti Sharma, Player of the Tournament in ODI World Cup.

‘’We did well in patches today. In batting, the powerplay was something which cost us as we didn’t get too many runs and lost two wickets. It’s disappointing, we need to keep working hard,’’ remarked Harmanpreet.

The team is now scheduled to tour England for a three-match T20I series starting in end-May and will serve as their final preparation for the 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. A tough challenge hence awaits—and it’s time that the likes of Shafali Varma and Richa Ghosh, whose explosive style suits the format which is pushing the boundaries, to take up more responsibility.

It was in April three years back when Rinku Singh ‘arrived’ as a true finisher in the horizon of Indian cricket – slamming those five sixes in the last over from Yash Dayal against Gujarat Titans to snatch a miraculous win for Kolkata Knight Riders. Now an established name in national T20 set-up and a part of the last T20 World Cup winning squad, the down-to-earth star from Aligarh lived a renaissance of his fortunes against Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday after a series of indifferent seasons.

An innings of 81 off 53 balls under the most trying circumstances after the Knights were reduced to 91 for seven, five catches in the deep where Rinku seemed to be omnipresent – it was simply his night in a low-scoring, error ridden contest. It’s a win which hasn’t really altered the fortunes of the Knights, but they have at least pulled themselves back from the last spot to eighth on the table.

Be it during KKR’s successful campaign in 2024 or the Men in Blue’s World T20 win, the batting position of Rinku often came in the way of him playing the man of the moment. Coming in between number six to eight, he often got starts and was hitting the ball well – much in the manner Rinku took them over the line in their last home game against Rajasthan Royals – but the gritty half-century at his home turf Ekana was an exceptional effort which would rank as a much more valuable one than the manic hitting one had been privy to recent times. 

Reduced to 31 for three after powerplay, there were serious doubts as to whether the Knights would be able to bat the full 20 overs and put a competitive total. As wickets kept tumbling at the other end to a resurgent left arm quick Mohsin Khan, Rinku absorbed the pressure and went at around a run-a-ball for the majority of his innings, scoring 43 runs off his first 40 deliveries. Once he got the measure of the LSG bowlers, he shifted gears and in the final two overs, KKR plundered 43 runs as Rinku took Shami and Digvesh Rathi to the cleaners.

LSG skipper Rishabh Pant made a tactical mistake when he fell back on young wrist spinner Digvesh Rathi for the final over and Rinku picked him up for special treatment. He hammered Rathi for four consecutive sixes – taking the Knights to a 150-plus total.

Speaking to the broadcasters after Knights had the last laugh in a one-sided super over, the first this season, Rinku reflected on his gameplan: ‘’My mindset is usually to see how to play the game (because I usually walk in after 4-5 wickets have fallen) and I think about how to take the game deep. Wickets had fallen (tonight) so I wanted to take singles, doubles and then capitalise on the loose balls. Just found out late that a spinner would bowl the 20^th over.’’

Replying to the question as to how the catches seemed to be following him everywhere in the deep, Rinku said in his trademark style: ‘’I love fielding, right from my childhood. I enjoy my fielding.’’ Deep down, he must have been feeling relieved at finally being able to vindicate the team management’s faith to hoist him as the vice captain – a reward for his loyalty and commitment to the Purple Army over the years.

At 27 years, he is already a IPL veteran – as the days of trolls, carrying drinks now look far behind him. There could be any number of wannabe stars in this cash-rich league but if you want someone to bat for your life in this format, it has got to be Rinku Singh!

There are no better sights in contemporary cricket than to see KL Rahul in top gear. The senior pro of Indian cricket showed the fire still rages in the belly when he became only the third player – and first Indian – to hit 150-plus in the history of IPL on Saturday though it came in a losing cause.

It was a hot afternoon at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the capital which saw Rahul, now 34, turn up the heat again for Delhi Capitals in a season which has already seen him plunder 357 runs. A record target of 265 looked daunting by any stretch of imagination despite the favourable batting conditions, but Punjab Kings came up another evidence of their new found self belief when they overhauled it to prevail by six wickets with seven balls left.

The smaller boundaries, along with the belter of a wicket on offer provided a perfect stage for Rahul to unfurl strokes all round the wicket against a Punjab attack which looked clueless – 16 boundaries and nine sixes dotting his unbeaten 152 off 67 balls. However, the 'double trouble' of Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh made use of the conditions for a blistering powerplay, though it was eventually Shreyas Iyer's brutal assault of 71 (off 36 balls) which took them home.

The way individual landmarks and team totals are falling by the wayside in IPL, it won’t be long before the likes of a Abhishek Sharma or Priyansh Arya race to a 150-score. However as on date, it’s the highest individual score by an Indian in IPL history as Rahul surpassed Abhishek Sharma’s 141 (against Punjab Kings, 2025). Striking at over 200 throughout the 20 overs, Rahul completed his century off 47 balls - which marked just the third 150-plus score in IPL history after Chris Gayle’s 175 not out (RCB vs Pune Warriors, 2013) and Brendon McCullum’s 158 not out (KKR vs RCB, 2008). 

What’s more, it’s the first time in 13 years that a batter has scored 150-plus in IPL. ‘’There are mixed emotions about the innings,’’ said a visibly fatigued Rahul who worried about suffering from cramps. Dropped on 18 by Shashank Singh, Rahul made full use of the reprieve to forge a 220-run with local boy Nitish Rana (91) for the second wicket. It was second biggest stand for any wicket in IPL history behind 229 set by Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. ‘’It was satisfying to play cricketing shots and Rana was also in full flow,’’ Rahul said at innings break.

Highest individual scores in IPL
175* - Chris Gayle (RCB) vs PWI, Bengaluru, 2013
158* - Brendon McCullum (KKR) vs RCB, Bengaluru, 2008
152* - KL Rahul (DC) vs PBKS, Delhi, 2026
141 - Abhishek Sharma (SRH) vs PBKS, Hyderabad, 2025

Highest individual scores by an Indian (Men’s T20)
152* - KL Rahul vs PBKS, Delhi, 2026
151 - Tilak Varma vs Meghalaya, Rajkot, 2024
148 - Abhishek Sharma vs Bengal, Secunderabad, 2025
147 - Shreyas Iyer vs Sikkim, Indore, 2019
146* - Punit Bisht vs Mizoram, Chennai, 2021

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is relieved at the halfway mark of the Indian Super League 2026 (ISL) at being able to make ends meet on a ‘frugal budget’ – even as they try to finalise a commercial partner on a long term basis from the 2026-27 season. The entire domestic season, with the ISL and I-League as it’s showpiece products, had been staring at a bleak future at the end of last year after the Reliance-owned Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) did not renew their contract.

The difference between budgets of the double leg ISL till last year and the truncated league, now underway, is a study in contrast with the AIFF being forced to restrict the operating costs to a budget of Rs 25 crores this season. Genius Sports, the frontrunner to be AIFF commercial partner aspiring to step into the shoes of FSDL, has pitched in with an offer of Rs 63 crores per year – Fan Code lagging behind with a bid of Rs 36 cr.

Speaking to National Herald over phone, M. Satya Narayan, the AIFF Deputy Secretary General said the federation is relieved that they had been able to salvage the situation somewhat even that meant cutting corners.

‘’If there had been no leagues this year, thousands of footballers would have been unemployed along with the support staff, referees and those down the ecosystem. The only area where the quality could have been better is the broadcasting but we are confident of scaling up things by next season,’’ remarked the senior official, who had taken up a key role in firefighting for AIFF for the past year.

A London-based company which specialises on sports data, technology and are broadcast partners of a number of global products, including the English Premier League, Genius Sports gave a presentation to the 14 clubs on their long term vision of an association with the AIFF on Thursday. Out of their off of Rs 63 crores annually, Rs 50 cr has been earmarked as the operational cost for ISL while AIFF will receive the remaining Rs 13 cr.

A proposal which, according to some of the clubs involved in talks with AIFF and Genius, is ‘not satisfactory’ as they feel there is nothing in it for them. ‘’The AIFF is supposed to get the remaining Rs 13 cr but it has to be ploughed back on a number of heads like referees’ expenses, disciplinary committee and legal – which would entail a figure in the region of six crores. The clubs will certainly get a share of the pie over a period of time,’’ Satya Narayan said.

 An unheralded name in Indian sports fraternity, the AIFF describes Genius Sports as ‘’the official data, technology, and broadcast partner that powers the global sports and media ecosystem. Genius is the trusted partner to over 700 sports organisations, including many of the world’s largest leagues, teams, sportsbooks, brands and broadcasters, such as the NFL, English Premier League, NCAA, DraftKings, FanDuel, bet365, Coca-Cola, EA Sports, CBS, NBC and ESPN.’’

Even as the AIFF  is firefighting to zero in on a commercial partner, informed sources feel a number of former champion clubs want to see FSDL back at the helm. They feel that the FSDL has a much better understanding of the ‘ground realities’ of Indian football after being associated with it since 2010 – not to speak of the greater purse for the operations and clubs’ share. The Masters Rights Agreement (MRA) between them and AIFF expired last December and the FSDL have stayed away from fresh bids so far.

Asked about a possible return of FSDL, the AIFF Deputy Secretary General said: ‘’As on date, we have two entities who have bid for the commercial rights partnership. We all have seen how the first bid failed to attract a single bid and are now going ahead with what we have on the table. It is up to the Commercial Rights Partner to rope in others. However in AIFF, we are keen that the clubs and commercial partner along with AIFF, work towards making it a win-win for all stakeholders.''

Meanwhile, the ISL derby between reigning champions Mohun Bagan Super Giants and East Bengal is scheduled in Kolkata on 17 May.

Is a Chetta (meaning elder brother in Malayali) rule about to begin in Chennai Super Kings? The speculation is slowly gaining ground as Sanju Samson has found his mojo in the yellow shirt after a tentative start to the season – easing his way to his second century of IPL 2026 as his new team prevailed in the El Clasico of IPL against Mumbai Indians on Thursday.

While the wicketkeeper-batter seems to be carrying on from where he had left off in the T20 World Cup, there is a school of thought which feels Samson has what it takes to be the successor to the great Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain. The talismanic former skipper is back in the thick of things after a calf strain and is in line to make an appearance in their next away game against Gujarat Titans on Sunday, but social media clips show MSD is happily playing the mentor to the 31-year-old.

The CSK management are known for their aversion to any knee-jerk changes – what with them installing a younger Ruturaj Gaikwad as the new captain from 2024 season. The choice must have had a buy-in from Dhoni but then, that was a phase when the Ravindra Jadeja experiment had failed and it looked worthwhile to invest in an emerging Indian talent like Ruturaj. However, the arrival of Samson has created a viable alternative as he brings in the experience of leading Rajasthan Royals for four seasons between 2021 and 2024.

 In his popular podcast, Ravi Ashwin – who does know a thing or two about the CSK mindset – said: ‘’The mantle passing over, if you ask me, I mean, I’m no astrologer but all I can tell you is I do see Sanju captaining CSK at some stage. Don’t know when, but I do see that happening. The one thing I wouldn’t want to risk upon or don’t want Sanju is him stepping into someone’s shoes. You don’t have to really step into anybody’s legacy. We don’t necessarily need to live like that or play like that.’’

Interestingly enough, Samson combined the demand of batting deep in their innings as well as maintain it’s momentum – a factor which contributed to them reaching a 200-plus total despite none of the other batters managing to cross even the 25-run mark. Asked about it, he attributed to a sense of responsibility: ‘’We actually kept on losing wickets here and there. Whenever we wanted to go big, I think we were losing a few wickets. So, I thought it’s very important for a settled batsman to stay until the end. That's what I tried and that’s what happened today.

‘’The game tells you what to do. You don’t have to come with a preconceived mindset and you don't have to be premeditating, telling yourself this is how I play or this is what I want to do.

‘’With the experience I have, the team definitely comes first. You can say: this is the way I play and that you might get out or you might not, but with the experience and the responsibility shown in me, it is my duty to understand the match situation and what the team demands, putting that first and then planning my game around it,’’ he said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

The Kerala man is now third in race for the Orange Cap with 293 runs from seven matches - following Abhishek Sharma (323) and Heinrich Klaasen (320). Irrespective of whether he eventually emerges the topscorer or not, CSK has found the leader of their batting unit. 

The focus is back on Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the thala hits the nets for Chennai Super Kings again. After missing out on more than three weeks of IPL action owing to a calf strain, the iconic figure cast his imposing shadow at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium once again ahead of his team's away match against Mumbai Indians this evening.

The clash of two of the most successful IPL teams in history potentially signals the return of MSD, but Chennai fans may now have to wait until the weekend. Eric Simmons, the long-serving bowling coach of CSK, indicated on Wednesday that Dhoni has not yet achieved 100 per cent match fitness, with the new deadline being the home match against Gujarat Titans on Sunday, 26 April.

The unpopular question that many are afraid to ask is: what can the 44-year-old master finisher bring to the table for a team which has managed just two wins from six games and is languishing at eighth spot on the table? Ever since leading the yellow shirts to a fifth title in 2023 — the season when the legend was accorded an emotional farewell in all the venues that he played in — Dhoni has not really delivered as a player. 

Last year, it was a no-brainer that when the BCCI tweaked the retention rules, a provision was made for an ‘uncapped’ player so that it cleared the decks for CSK to retain Dhoni as a player for another season.

It was no different this year, though the franchise went in for a much-talked about trade of Sanju Samson from Rajasthan Royals — a man-to-man replacement as a wicketkeeper and a dashing batter. The only way Dhoni can hence fit into the scheme of things is be an ‘impact player’ in the lower order to give a total a late surge or when they are up against steep targets.

It’s not surprising that in the history of derby clashes between Mumbai and Chennai, Dhoni is the second highest scorer with 679 runs, second only to Rohit Sharma (881).

However, that's all in the realm of the past and it’s perhaps not harsh to say that CSK now looks more to leverage Brand Dhoni rather than define his utility in terms of runs and catches or stumpings.

In IPL 2024, Dhoni had scraped together 161 runs in 14 matches (strike rate 220.54) and 196 in 14 innings (SR 135.17) in 2025 when he also led the squad on a stop-gap basis due to Ruturaj Gaikwad’s injury.

‘’MSD will stay with us forever,’’ has been the refrain from Kasi Viswanathan, the CEO of CSK, for the last few years in answer to the speculation as to which would be his last year as a cricketer. A member of the board of directors for India Cements, owners of CSK, Dhoni is a vital cog in the wheel in terms of strategy planning — a bandwidth which is unprecedented in the ROI (return on investment)-driven world of IPL.

“We in CSK have known from the very start that cricketers and administrators think differently. It is better that cricketers are allowed to take on-field calls while the administrators focus on things off the field. MSD had our fullest support in shaping the team and the way we played. The bond was organic and you can see the results”, Viswanathan  said in an interview earlier this year.

There is no doubt that as and when MSD stages a comeback, he will be a player-mentor. One cannot question his shelf life as a player either as it’s a privately owned franchise after all, and if his fans feel that the show must go on!

It was the social media post that Abhishek Sharma — the man they're calling a bowlers’ nightmare in powerplays — must have been waiting for the most after his cracking 135 against Delhi Capitals on Tuesday. ‘’Let the bat do the work. Getting better each day (clap) well played sir Abhishek. Keep up with the process,’’ posted his mentor Yuvraj Singh.

This is perhaps as much of an encomium that Yuvraj — one of India’s finest white-ball matchwinners — would allow for one of his favourite wards. The story of how the two-time World Cup winner opened the doors to his Chandigarh home for two of his wards — Shubman Gill and Abhishek — during the Covid lockdown has acquired a life of its own but the list of his wards is growing by the day, with Punjab Kings openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh also picking his brains now.

A T20 century by Abhishek — the ICC world no. 1 T20 batter — especially in the IPL doesn’t surprise his fans any longer, but the one on Tuesday had a special ring about it. The 25-year-old now has nine career T20 centuries, the same as Virat Kohli, after playing less than half the number of matches than the master batter.

The nightmare of three ducks on the trot in the last T20 World Cup looks like a distant memory now, but his job is far from done as the Abhishek-Travis Head duo must continue to wreak havoc in the powerplays for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the remaining seven matches for a spot in the play-offs.

If a T20 game is a statistician’s nightmare for its frenetic pace, the job gets doubly difficult when someone like an Abhishek or one of the Gen Z batters is in the middle. His century against Delhi at home came off 47 balls — making him only the second batter after Chris Gayle to score two IPL hundreds in less than 50 balls. The question already being asked is: can he break the Universe Boss’ record of 22 T20 centuries when he is done?

Interestingly enough, such phenomenal consistency did not come overnight for the allrounder, who made a quiet IPL entry in 2018 with Delhi Capitals (then Delhi Daredevils) as a product of the India Under-19 pipeline. The same year, Gill announced his arrival with Kolkata Knight Riders and was immediately hailed as one for the future for his poise and technique, while Abhishek had to bide his time after switching to the Orange Army, where the team management pitchforked him into the opener’s role.

If Abhishek needed direction and a ruthless work ethic, the man who provided it — along with some tough love — has been Yuvraj. The cancer survivor, who in his playing days was often accused of not being disciplined enough, laid out a four-year plan for the talented youngster for the India cap back in 2020 and it panned out that way. The career graph showed a 360-degree change and since 2023, Abhishek has scored 4,000 runs in his trusted format with a strike rate of 196, a testimony to the so-called high-risk, high-reward approach.

What exactly were the tweaks that Yuvraj made to his game? The mentor and Brian Lara (the Trinidad master served as batting mentor for SRH for one season) introduced the youngster to golf, a sport where the swing relies on core rotation, arm rotation and follow through. Abhishek took to it, and the results started showing as any delivery on his arc started flying to the boundaries with alarming regularity.

It’s not for nothing that the great Kapil Dev, now a regular golfer and president of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), wrote in a signed column a few days ago that he would have scored at least 2,000 runs more had he taken up golf simultaneously with cricket.  

The Abhishek-Head combination is now reminding IPL followers of the glory days of the David Warner-Jonny Bairstow combine, but the level of devastation is up manifold as the format has changed dramatically over the last two years.

A piece of statistic says their combined run-rate is 12.37, while in the last two seasons, SRH has posted the two highest powerplay scores in history: 125 and 107, both for no loss. At this rate, that elusive 300-total may well be round the corner.

Tilak Varma may be only 23, but he was very much among the chosen five—alongwith Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah—to have been retained by Mumbai Indians when they rebooted in the last mega auction. He showed a maturity far beyond his age to adapt his batting as per the match situation since his IPL debut in 2022. The only thing missing in his IPL track record till Monday, 20 April, was a century.

And it came when the team needed it the most against a consistent Gujarat Titans at the later’s fortress—ending a four-match losing streak for the five-time champs. The pressure of losing that many matches in a row in IPL can often make the most successful of teams look like a divided camp—and it was not an exception with the Mumbai Indians. A seventh spot on the table, with two wins from six matches, may not look as healthy as the team would like to be but it at least gives them a plank to bounce back.

A 45-ball century—joint fastest for MI with Sri Lankan legend Sanath Jayasuriya achieving it in the inaugural 2008 edition—must have come as a huge relief for Tilak who had scraped together 43 runs from previous five innings. He followed the time-tested method of spending sometime in the middle, scoring only 17 runs from the first 20 balls before exploding at the backend of the innings.       

‘’It (101 not out) was very important for the team and for me,’’ Tilak told the broadcasters. ‘’Over the last four or five games, the one thing constantly running through my head was that I hadn’t spent much time in the middle and hadn’t faced many balls, so my aim was to spend some time at the wicket and then adapt according to the team's situation.’’

 Explaining his approach, Tilak said he assessed the pitch early and focused on straight hitting to counter the slow nature of the wicket. ‘’Whenever MI comes to Ahmedabad, they usually give us a black soil wicket, which is a bit slow in nature. It’s not that our batters cannot adapt, but we know what we can do if there is more bounce,’’ said Tilak, a key member of the Men in Blue in T20 format with a T20 World Cup and Asia Cup already on his shelves.

 ‘’Since it was slow and low, we had to adjust and try to hit straight. There wasn’t much bounce, so playing across the line to deliveries in line with the stumps was risky. I decided to hit straighter and I read the conditions well; thankfully, I was able to score some runs.’’

While his lacklusture batting form possibly saw him coming in at number five, which needed him to explode in the last six overs, Tilak was candid enough to say that his preferred position is number three. ‘’Personally, I like batting at number three a lot. However, I am happy to bat wherever the team needs me because since childhood, I have practised in a way that allows me to play confidently in any position. But if someone asks me, I would always say number three.’’

With the monkey off his back with the runs flowing off his bat, Tilak was optimistic about a turnaround though there is now a major question mark over Suryakumar Yadav’s dry run. ‘’We know what we are capable of, having several World Cup winners in the side, experienced players, and the skills we possess. If we execute well, we can be unstoppable. So it is important to keep our heads down and continue working hard," he said.

The athletics community of India has been left redfaced with the classification by anti-doping watchdog of World Athletics' as India being an ‘extremely high risk’ category for substance abuse. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has changed the grading of Athletics Federation of India from ‘B’ to ‘A’— raising a chatter whether it will interfere with the country’s Olympics 2036 ambitions.

‘’The AIU move has nothing to do with India’s bid for Olympics or hosting of Commonwealth Games,’’ claimed Adille Sumariwala, a former long serving AFI president and one of the vice presidents of World Athletics. Speaking to National Herald, the Olympian and former sprint ace said they would not be in denial about the global body’s action and felt it gives them an opportunity to "clean up the system".

 The AIU statement says: “This decision, recently taken by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) Board, relates to the consistently extremely high risk of doping in India which has ranked in the top two for the most Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) in athletics between 2022 and 2025. In 2022, India recorded 48 ADRVs (ranked 2nd); in 2023, 63 (ranked 2nd); in 2024, 71 (ranked 1st) and for 2025, India has recorded 30 ADRVs so far (ranked 1st) (note: there will be a substantial time lag in reporting the final ADRV numbers).”

AIU chairperson David Howman made a damning indictment about the health of doping control in Indian athletics: “The doping situation in India has been high-risk for a long time and, unfortunately, the quality of the domestic anti-doping programme is simply not proportionate to the doping risk. The AIU will now work with the AFI to achieve reforms to safeguard the integrity of the sport of athletics, as we have done with other Category A Member Federations.”

Making a case for India, Sumariwala said: ‘’If you scan the cases of violations in India, one will see the number of elite athletes is very negligible—they are mostly young athletes in minor events who have often got swayed by their coaches. We have said before that the rise in number of positive cases in recent times is because of the rise in number of tests and there again, the numbers have come down after 2025.’’

However, recent examples have thrown up some prominent names like discus thrower Seema Punia, a former Asian Games gold medallist, who has been handed a 16-month ban and will miss the Asiad later this year. Dhanalakshmi Sekar, a prominent 27-year-old sprinter from Tamil Nadu, has been handed a eight-year ban by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) on 30 December last year for a second doping offence—raising concerns that the AFI is up against a tough challenge.

A Wada (World Anti Doping Agency) report last year branded India as the world’s worst doping offender for a third consecutive time with a record 260 cases of drug abuse by athletes in 2024. The figure was the highest among all countries that conducted 5,000 or more tests—reflecting a positivity rate of 3.6 per cent.

 A AFI press release said on Tuesday: ‘’AFI has also strongly advocated for the criminalisation of those responsible for doping—particularly at the grassroots—to deter coaches and parents from exploiting young athletes.

 ‘’With continued collaboration between the AIU, NADA, and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, AFI is confident that India will overcome this challenge and soon be removed from Category A,’’ the statement added.