The Sports-India Community

Australia well on top at the end of Day 1. The collapse from 69/1 to 87/5 was truly bizarre, but has become a staple of the Indian middle order again. Kohli and Rohit need to retire soon. They are clamming up the test batting, and are not contributing much. Ashwin and (especially) Nitish saved the b...

Good decision to turn pro now that he's qualified for the Aus Open main draw and the ATP Next Gen finals. There is a hallowed tradition of Stanford tennis players turning pro before finishing college -- which began with John McEnroe. (Among Indians, we had Laxmi Poruri, who was a successful pro -- h...

A beauty from Starc got Jaiswal LBW first ball. KL Rahul was caught behind off Boland's first ball of the match (when Rahul was yet to get off the mark) but it turned out to be a No-Ball. That settled Rahul's nerves, and he is playing more confidently now. India 38/1 after 13 overs. Gill started wit...

Straight swap of Rohit for Padikkal and Shubman for Jurel. Neither of the replacements did enough at Perth to give the selectors any headaches at all. I think we should play either Jadeja or Ashwin at Adelaide and Sydney, perhaps also at the MCG -- ahead of Washington Sundar, who was pretty ineffec...

Great to see Ashwin back in the XI for Adelaide. I had expected that either he or Jadeja would play at Adelaide, given that spin gets some help in Adelaide -- and an offspinner is usually more effective against the Aussie lefthanders. India have won the toss and will bat under heavy cloud cover this...

Sorry I didn't notice that episode. Who was the member who left the forum?

Shrivalli also lost 57 26 in the doubles R1 (last 16 pairs). So Ankita is the only Indian still alive in doubles.

Looks like we are going to play Jaiswal, Rahul, Gill, Kohli, Rohit (c), Pant, Sundar, Nitish, Rana, Bumrah, Siraj at Adelaide.

I would have preferred to see Jadeja play as well (and Ashwin ahead of Sundar). But Nitish's batting and bowling in Perth seems to have put paid to Jadeja's chances.

Two Indian pairs are seeded 1 and 2 in the men's doubles -- Jeevan/VSP are the top seeds, Anirudh/Niki are second seeds. And Saketh/Mukund are unseeded, but drawn to play the second seeds (who have a R1 bye) in the QF if they can win their R1 match.

Despite his absence from the tour for half the calendar year, Saketh won 4 Challenger doubles titles -- in Chennai and Bengaluru early in the year, and then a couple this month.

[R1] 3-Sasikumar Mukund (IND, 367) d. Zhang Minghui (CHN, 2005) 63 61

Big miss for Ramkumar. He should have played singles and doubles here. Saketh is forced to partner Mukund, who hardly ever plays doubles.

I think he has a protected ranking of around 100 in doubles that he could use to try and get into the Alternates list at the AO, and use for at least a few ATP tournaments, perhaps in March-April next year.

He has also entered the AO Asia-Pac wildcard playoff, partnering Mukund.

Perhaps visa issues were involved too. The line judges heavily favour Chinese players in China, which may have been another deterrent.

(My FB post immediately after the test ended; sorry for posting it late here). A stirring 295-run win for India at the Perth stadium -- the relatively new arena where Australia had won all four tests previously played there. It was being called Australia's Citadel, after the previous one (Brisbane's...