On Thursday morning, the world woke up to the news of the death of iconic New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe. A teenage prodigy, who went on to carve an illustrious career with his superlative batting and smart captaincy, lost his three-year long battle against cancer at the age of 53. Unfortunately, Crowe is among a few famous cricketers who battled to beat cancer but didn't survive the fight.
'We did not know we would one day dominate nearly 70 per cent of the market.' 'Today, of 100 diamonds available for trade in Antwerp, 93 are cut and polished in India.' A fascinating excerpt from Shantanu Guha Ray's The Diamond Trail: How India Rose To Global Domination.
The World Atlas of Tattoo features Nagaland's Mo Naga, Kolkata's Abhinandan 'Obi' Basu and new Delhi's Manjeet Singh, amongst the who's who of tattoo art all over the world.
Why Kumar Sangakkara is counted alongside Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid?
A summary of the day's play in the Ranji Trophy matches at different venues around the country.
The recent controversy regarding the national anthem, provoked by Rajasthan's Governor Kalyan Singh, has got many revisiting the lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore's most famous composition.
What matters is that you live the moment and remain strong. It doesn't matter which form of music you love. Irrespective, one must spread music because music has the power to spread love and peace, says sensational pianist Stephen Devassy
Nayan Mongia expresses his candid views on Haridk Pandya and also sheds light on Kohli's captaincy.
'When I was playing, the BCCI used to appoint the coach.' 'That was not the captain's prerogative, but now things have changed.'
'My type exists in heaps -- millions really -- cheering, cussing and calculating from the comforts of our living room as if the television screen can magically convey our woe or wisdom to the player.' 'Except without our frantic cheering, irrational logic and infectious gusto, the sport would have half its appeal.' Sukanya Verma on what it is like to be the Indian Cricket Fan.
Former India opener Virender Sehwag offers a straight bat on the best batsmen in contemporary cricket, IPL team Kings XI Punjab, of which he is mentor, and why he is comfortable doing cricket commentary. Harish Kotian/Rediff.com listens in.
Emerging markets could be affected by a combination of lower liquidity and higher dollar interest rates caused by a hike in the US Fed funds rate.
From Rohit Sharma's record breaking double century in One-Day Internationals, the team's never-ending woes in overseas Tests, to the controversy surrounding Board of Control for Cricket in India's president-in-exile Narayanswami Srinivasan over the Indian Premier League spot-fixing scandal, Indian cricket had the good, bad and ugly in equal measure in 2014.
Ambassador Natarajan Krishnan and Ambassador Shankar Bajpai helped shape Indian foreign policy at a glorious, but difficult, time in history, recalls Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Rajneesh Gupta presents all the fascinating career numbers of players in the World Cup.
The greatest Olympian ever now has 28 (gulp!) Olympic medals, including three silver and two bronze medals.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
'Azhar has been very honest and has revealed a lot. Did he accept the (match-fixing) money? Did the match-fixing happen? Did he betray his team? We have tackled all that.' Director Tony D'Souza gets candid about his new film, Azhar.
'I only played it to repay the sacrifices and hard work that both my parents had put in to make me play the sport.' 'I feel proud of them that they fought against orthodox notions of society to help me take up a sport.'
Sachin Tendulkar. An inspiration to a nation. An icon of his sport. Sachin's life offers many, many, lessons, as Devendra Prabhudesai explains in his new book Winning Like Sachin. Think & Succeed Like Tendulkar, from which this fascinating glimpse we are proud to post today, the Master's 45th birthday.
'A player need to have T20 skills otherwise he is not going to survive.'
'No matter how much runs you score in the Ranji Trophy or Duleep Trophy or Irani Trophy, if you don't have T20 skills in batting or bowling you are not going to go too far.'
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday.
20 years ago this week, India and Australia played one of the greatest Test matches in cricket history. Sreehari Nair relives the sound and the fury of that unforgettable game at the Eden Gardens.
'If Richie Benaud was born to play cricket and born to lead, he was also born to commentate on the game he graced with his inspirational presence.'
'What I see in Bollywood is that there's this assembly line -- there's a lyrics writer, there's a composer, then there's playback singer who is selected on mutual discussion, and then there's a producer who oversees the entire thing.' Grammy-winner Ricky Kej would rather make his own music than pander to the Indian film industry.
Penpix of the Zimbabwe squad for the 2015 cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
'The past few weeks in England will be remembered as much for Kohli's skilled conquest of his English demons as they will be for his dreadful reading of pitches, curious selection choices, sporadic tactical lapses, and overall inability to help his side cross the finish line,' notes Dhruv Munjal.
Sepp Blatter, Luis Figo, Michael van Praag and Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein have bid to stand for FIFA president.
'The World Cup is being played in the football crazy country after 64 years and nothing excites the Brazilians more than the sacred game,' says B S Prakash, India's former ambassador to Brazil.
Anjali helped Sachin Tendulkar deal with the debacles during his reign as captain and carry on.
Indian cricket, it seems, pays overwhelming obeisance to a vapid, old adage: The more it changes, the more it remains the same.
GM is already in our food chain for years. The approval for indigenous GM mustard should put fake fear-mongering to rest, says Shekhar Gupta
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
Prem Panicker, a keen follower of the game and one of cricket's finest writers, interacted with readers on the Rediff World Cup Chat.
Some stellar performances by seasoned veterans and promising youngsters continued to raise the bar in Olympic sports but there was heartbreak in equal measure when corruption scandals blighted India's favourite obsession, cricket, in a see-saw year for the country's sportspersons.
The full text of the speech delivered by VVS Laxman at the Pataudi Memorial Lecture in Kolkata.
The death of Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight champion known as much for his political activism as his boxing brilliance, triggered a worldwide outpouring of affection and admiration for one of the best-known figures of the 20th century.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
For his 60th birthday in December, which he called his third 20th birthday, Mallya flew in Enrique Iglesias to perform at his villa overlooking the beach in Goa.
