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The first XI would be:

Sunil Gavaskar, Viru Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli (c), Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anil Kumble, Jasprit Bumrah.

2nd XI:

Merchant, Gambhir, Mankad, Hazare, Ganguly (c), Laxman, Pant, Srinath, Prasanna, Shami ...

Michael Vaughan has suggested that the IPL be completed in England this year. I think it's a great suggestion (for a change!). It would enable India's test players to get comfortable with English conditions before the test series gets underway -- although I suspect some of the Indian youngsters ...

Riya Bhatia seems to have hit an incredible vein of form in singles and doubles (without necessarily shedding her customary inconsistency). But what a win this was!

Actually Yan Bai lost in Q2 of his last tournament (Gwangju Challenger) and Q1 of the one before that (Busan Challenger). But he lost the final of the Shenzhen M25 in March, and won the M15 in Maanshan (China) in early-March. I have a feeling that Mukund will avenge his past losses to Yan Bai this ...

Italian Open (Rome Masters)

[R1] Rohan Bopanna/Adam Pavlasek (IND/CZE) vs. 6-Michael Venus/Nikola Mektic (NZL/CRO)
[R1] Yuki Bhambri/Robert Galloway (IND/USA) vs. 4-Horacio Zeballos/Marcel Granollers (ARG/ESP)

In the 1970s, many people had started looking upon the Italian Open (now called Rome ...

Likely side for the first test, which begins on 20th June:

Jaiswal, Abimanyu Easwaran, Gill, Kohli, Karun Nair, Rahul (wk), Nitish Reddy/H Pandya, Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Bumrah (c), Mukesh Kumar/Unadkat.

I think Kohli or Bumrah should captain India for the England series, with Gill appointed as vice captain -- and perhaps captaining the India A side before the series as well. He needs some apprenticeship as captain, and also needs to find form in English conditions (where he has failed so far ...

Rohit Sharma, sadly, will go down as a mediocre test batsman, who failed to live up to his potential -- especially outside India. He averaged around 31 outside India, and 51-ish in India, with a career batting average of just over 40. That is much worse than Vishwanath, Vengsarkar and Ganguly -- who ...

Mukund through to the QF at the China M25 on clay:

[R2] 3-Sasikumar Mukund (IND,456) d. Seongbin Sim (KOR,1060) 63 63

Wonderful to have two Indian women players facing each other in a W50 final outside India.

17 year old Ayush Mhatre is clearly another one to watch. A scintillating knock from him today. The CSK-RCB match was another thriller, but RCB won this time -- and moved to the top of the table. Kohli played a gem of a knock, but gave in to hubris in the way he got out to a slower-ball-bouncer.

No change or addition to the men's singles list for the past 8 months, but one correction (an asterisk) added:

Ramanathan Krishnan - 6
Vijay Amritraj - 18
Ramesh Krishnan - 23
Somdev Devvarman - 62
Sumit Nagal - 68
Sashi Menon - 71
Leander Paes- 73
Anand Amritraj - 74
Prajnesh Gunneswaran - 75 ...

Since Indians have done rather well in men's doubles, here is the list of all Indians who have been ranked in the top-100 in men's doubles (with their best rankings mentioned too) since doubles rankings began in March 1976:

Leander Paes - 1 (37 weeks as #1; record 462 weeks in top 10)
Mahesh ...

The clay season is winding down. I wonder who Yuki will partner in the grass season. He won his first ATP tour title on grass after all.

VSP (partnering the younger Tsitsipas) lost 36 36 in R1 at Aix-en-Provence. Balaji's QF against the second seeds starts soon.