It was a heavy news-week for the sports desk, as we churned out news, features and interviews on the Australian Open, the Ranji Trophy, the Women’s World Cup and football’s transfer deadline day.
Here are some of our articles that you may have missed, but which we say are ‘must reads’!
AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Novak Djokovic beat Andy Murray in the Australian Open final to win his third successive crown in Melbourne.
Is Dhoni’s friendship with Srinivasan good for Indian cricket? PTI
Sports Editor Ashish Magotra wonders whether the Serb is the perfect tennis player: The perfect tennis player? No chinks in Djokovic’s game.
And not ignoring the women, here’s a recap of how Victoria Azarenka beat Li Na to retain her crown.
And, the best images from the Australian Open.
MUMBAI WIN RANJI TROPHY
Mumbai lifted their 40th Ranji Trophy after comprehensively beating Saurashtra in the final at Wankhede.
Firstpost spoke to Ajit Agarkar and Sitanshu Kotak. Agarkar said that Mumbai all-rounder Abhishek Nayar may never have this sort of form again while Kotak believes too much was made of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja not being available for the final.
And finally, does anyone think Wasim Jaffer deserves a place in the India team? Blogger Avinash Subramaniam certainly does.
LEAGUE/FA CUP AND TRANSFER DEADLINE DAY
Liverpool, Chelsea, Norwich and Tottenham Hotspur all failed to win against lesser sides in the cup fixtures in England.
Here’s a look at all the Cup-upsets this season.
The January transfer window ended, where players like David Beckham, Mario Balotelli and Demba Ba moved to other clubs.
All the transfers in January across Europe.
We took particular interest in Balotelli’s move to AC Milan, and how this could be his last shot at greatness.
WOMEN’S WORLD CUP KICKS-OFF
India kicked off their ICC Women’s World Cup in style, defeating West Indies by 105-runs.
Pulasta Dhar was at the match, and says that women’s cricket is far from boring. It is, in fact, pretty interesting, as seen when Sri Lanka beat England with a last ball six in the second match of the tournament.
AND FINALLY…
Tariq Engineer writes about the flurrying friendship between MS Dhoni and N Srinivasan, and whether it is good for Indian cricket.
In our weekly Sports Talk video with cricket expert Ayaz Memon, we serve up a dish on how Virender Sehwag should take a page from Andrea Pirlo’s book.
We finally got a chance to catch up with P Kashyap and asked him about his feelings on breaking into the top 10 badminton rankings. His reply was, “It’s okay.” Click here for the full interview.
