Cricket Zelo

The ongoing season of Ranji Trophy is being played on neutral venues. Before the season started, there was this huge portion of uncertainty as to whether the batsman would be able to adjust on tracks which were foreign in nature in spite of being at home. Putting all speculations aside, five batsman rose to the occasion during the tournament. This piece of writing is not about the batsmen who scored the fastest century or 1,000 runs in the season, but it is about batsmen who toiled on the 22 yards hard and long for their respective maiden triple centuries or the 'Big Daddy Hundreds'.

Swapnil Gugale (Maharashtra) - On a flat batting deck at Wankhede Stadium, Gugale, skipper of Maharashtra elected to bat against Delhi. After losing a couple of wickets in the first 10 overs, Gugale, who came in as opener joined hands with Ankit Bawne to make sure that no other wicket fell during the next 164.5 overs. The 25 year-old right hand batsman finished Day 1 on 152* and eventually scored …

Another year. Another Australian summer. Another Boxing Day Test. There is something noteworthy about the test match which starts on December 26 every year. There is this wind of speciality which blows around Melbourne.Boxing Day Test is being played on a regular basis since 1990. Out of the 40 Boxing Day Tests in Melbourne, 23 have been won by Australia whereas eight have been won by touring teams and nine have ended in a draw. The stat clearly shows the dominance of Australia on the Boxing Day eve. Pakistan is the touring team for this year. They have played the Boxing Day Test on three other occasions. The match resulted in a draw in 1983 but the Australians had the better of Pakistan in 2004 and 2009 where they defeated them by nine wickets and 170 runs respectively. Apart from the Boxing Day test, this match also happens to be the second match of the 3-test series. With Pakistan already 0-1 down, a further defeat for them would mean the end of hope of a test series win in Australia…