Unlike football, which offends the sensibilities of some very conservative Muslims because it is normally played in shorts, cricket is played in long sleeves and trousers, in line with traditional dress codes. It also bears some resemblance to traditional Afghan children's games involving throwing and using sticks to hit smaller sticks or balls.
IMAGES from Australian Open matches played at Melbourne Park on Friday
Check out India's schedule on Day 9 of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast on Friday.
Virat Kohli? M C Mary Kom? Neeraj Chopra?
>There's still hope and plenty to play for, says Rediff.com's Aruneel Sadadekar.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday
Here's what happened at the Sultan trailer launch!
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday
There was ecstasy and agony in equal measure for the Indian contingent on Friday.
Away from the cricket field, it was a year in which Sania Mirza was unarguably the biggest success story with her staggering 10 titles on the Tour -- two of them Grand Slams.
'People think Salman is ready to remove his shirt for small things but it takes a lot to convince him to take that shirt off.' Sultan director Ali Abbas Zafar tells us what to expect from his film.
England pacer James Anderson says Virat Kohli is not 'invincible' and poor slip fielding from his team mates has allowed the Indian skipper to get off the hook in the first innings of the first Test in Birmingham.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday.
They shut up the naysers with sheer success.
Star grappler Yogeshwar Dutt heaved a sigh of relief after clinching a spot for the World Championships by beating Amit Kumar Dhankhar, who had gone to court last year against the Olympic medallist alleging favouritism.
The suspense over wrestler Narsingh Yadav's participation in the Rio Olympic Games was prolonged further after the National Anti-Doping Agency deferred its final verdict on the doping scandal to Monday.
After condemning Steve Smith's conduct during the Cape Town Test on Sunday, Shane Warne struck a more supportive tone on Wednesday.
After bringing home just two medals from the Rio Olympics, India needs to be realistic in its preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Games and should narrow its focus to a handful of sports, says former All England badminton champion Prakash Padukone. P.V. Sindhu's silver medal in the badminton women's singles and a bronze from wrestler Sakshi Malik at the Rio Games was considered a sorry return for a nation of 1.3 billion people. India have won a total of 28 medals since first competing at the Olympics in 1900 but a government think tank has come up with a strategy it hopes will help the country to 50 medals in 2024, including prioritising 10 sports.
In front of a packed arena, in his first pro bout that lasted all ten rounds, Vijender Singh beat Kerry Hopes 98-92-98-92 and 100-92 in a close contest to win the WBO Asia Pacific super middleweight title fight in New Delhi on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Sunday, hosted the National Sports awardees, including Rio Olympics silver medallist PV Sindhu and bronze winner Sakshi Malik, at his 7 Race Course Road residence in New Delhi.
A resurgent SpiceJet is spreading its wings and Vistara is set to challenge Jet on long-haul routes in the coming years.
Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore says the corporate sector is very much willing to support development of sports and athletes in India but it needs to be given the assurance that the money is going in right hands.
The NITI Aayog has big plans for Indian sport.
It was gold rush for India on the opening day of the South Asian Games with the country's wrestlers, swimmers and weightlifters showing their regional dominance by making a near clean sweep of top honours on Saturday. India clinched 14 gold and five silver medals on a highly productive day to top the medals tally with an overall count of 19.Sri Lanka, despite having a higher overall medal count of 21, occupied the second spot in the table owing to alesser tally of gold medals (4). Wrestlers were the stars for India, grabbing as many as five gold medals followed by the swimmers who clinched four gold and three silver medals. The weightlifters added three gold medals to the tally after the cyclists had opened India's account with two gold and an equal number of silver medals in the morning. Three women and two male grapplers finished on top of the podium as the proceedings went on expected lines on the opening day of the competitions.
Sakshi thanked Olympic medalists Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt for showing wrestling the way.
The organisers have become savvier about marketing the game.
A Parliamentary Standing Committee praised the government for the wrestling and boxing facilities at the Sports Authority of India's Sonepat Center but pointed out that "excellence needs to be replicated for other sports disciplines".
Star Australian opener David Warner has labeled the International Cricket Council's crackdown concerning on-field player behaviour "a bit of a joke". In the lead-up to the 2015 World Cup, the ICC made it clear they would be adopting a firmer stance on player behaviour, particularly exchanges between opponents as well as over-zealous wicket celebrations. But Warner, who was Wednesday night crowned Allan Border Medallist as Australia's player of the year, believes the crackdown has diminished the entertainment value of the sport. "It's been tough with the crackdown of the ICC at the moment - I'm not going to have a pot shot at them but it's becoming a bit of a joke," he told cricket.com.au. "The players can't celebrate as much. "Back in the day I used to love watching Glenn McGrath bowl to the West Indians, and them bowling to us, and (the bowlers) getting in the faces of the batsmen.
London Olympics bronze medallist M C Mary Kom was on Monday voted the 'Most Valuable Player' of India's campaign at the Incheon Asian Games, at a felicitation for the medal winners by the contingent sponsors, Samsung India.
An Olympic campaign saved by the fortitude of three women, a cricket team that rediscovered itself under a bold and zealous Virat Kohli -- Indian sports in 2016 was a dramatic mix of highs and lows wherein athletes mostly raised the bar but administrators found new ways to embarrass the country.
With the year sprinting to a close, we bring you, in pictures, some of the best action from the sports world.
What Indrani doesn't know is that even if she is handed down a sentence of not guilty by the judge at the end of the long and meandering Sheena Bora murder trial, for India's legion of armchair judges, she will always be guilty. She won't be able to change that. Ever.
'If the appointment of Salman Khan helps promote sports in our country, then what's the harm?'
'Kumbalangi Nights is a movie that respects women, but most importantly, it's a movie that loves them,' says Sreehari Nair.
'No country can go from zero to hero at the Olympics.' 'A hundred Indians now feature in the world's top 25 and that's progress,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'She has to get the funds, cut through bureaucratic flab, speed up modernisation, ensure planned acquisitions stick to timelines, make organisational changes and ensure the military is capable of performing the task that it is given,' says Brigadier S K Chatterjee (retd).
Why did the Chinese military take over the lab in Wuhan in end January? Did something go wrong? Claude Arpi glances at the mystery surrounding the origin of the coronavirus.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Friday
Wrestling Federation of India, on Friday, conceded that it was not being able to convince the Court of Arbitration for Sports' panel that grappler Narsingh Yadav was a victim of conspiracy and sabotage, and that was why he lost the case and was ejected from the Rio Olympics with a four-year ban.
Though many fishermen were brought ashore safely and admitted to hospitals, many are yet to recover from the shock of wrestling the lashing waves and seeing death face-to-face.
