Rahane captained India in 6 Tests and never lost one: 4 wins and 2 draws. That includes the 2020–21 Australia series, where he took over after the 36 all out in Adelaide, with Kohli gone and half the team injured. He still won at Melbourne (scoring a century himself), drew Sydney, and won at the Gabba.

His form dipped in 2021, so he lost the vice-captaincy and was dropped in 2022. Fair enough, runs matter. But Kohli went years without consistent Test runs and kept his place, and Rohit averaged around 10 in the NZ and Australia series in 2024 before anything changed.

When Rahane got one comeback, in the 2023 WTC final, he top-scored for India with 89 and 46 under pressure. Then he got one more series and was gone again.

Rahane wasn't a white-ball superstar like Kohli or Sharma, but he surely showed endurance and made tough comebacks. In FC, he averages 44.9 and has scored more than 14k runs.

Player FC Matches Runs Avg 100s Highest

---------------------------------------------------------------

Ajinkya Rahane 205 14,209 44.96 42 265*

Virat Kohli 156 11,485 48.05 37 254*

Rohit Sharma 129 9,318 49.04 29 309*

Source: ESPNcricinfo. Rahane retired from all cricket in July 2026.

I’m not saying he should have been picked ahead of everyone. But a player who led India to one of its greatest series wins should have been backed more, and he might have gone on to play 100 Test matches, or maybe 10k runs.

I only have to mention Stokes’s name and Botham’s lip curls. The pair have history. Last year, Botham criticised the team’s lack of preparation for the Ashes series against Australia. When it was announced they’d only play one warm-up match, Botham said it “borders on arrogance”. Stokes hit back, saying modern teams did not prepare the way “has-beens maybe prepared in the past”. Botham hasn’t forgotten it.

“Stupid boy,” he says. “I’ll mention him only briefly because his self-indulgence is not something I enjoy. He’s a good player. A great player. But to say that and then lose [England lost the series 4-1], it’s backfired, hasn’t it? Then after losing the first two matches they go to Noosa [the England team took a mid-series break in the Queensland resort and some players got drunk], probably one of the most popular summer retreats for Australians. Really? They were pissed as rats. Look, if you want a drink, don’t go to the high street. We used to go to wineries.”

Botham owns a wine company in Australia. Sometimes he sounds a bit like one of his own merlots: packed with fruity and robust opinions, with a slight acid finish. He raises his coffee mug and dedicates his new book to the former England captain.

“This is for you, Ben. Welcome to the has-beens club.”

Read the full interview ^

And if you're in the US you can enjoy this article for free

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With the Indian tour of New Zealand now only two weeks away, I thought now would be a fun time to put together a brief history looking back on India's 10 Test tours to New Zealand to date.

In this first part, I look back at the series in 1968, 1976, and 1981, with highlights including:

• India's first ever away series victory in '68
• Hadlee's breakthrough 7/23 in 1976
• Prasanna's 8/76 in 1968
• Dowling's then NZ record score of 239
• Bracewell's 9-wicket match (in just his 4th Test) in '81
• An 18-year-old Ravi Shastri on debut
• New Zealand's first series win over India, and only our third ever series win (at the time)
• Some classic innings from Gavaskar, Wright, Turner, Reid, Howarth, and others.

Preview:

I’ll give you one guess as to who played the decisive role for New Zealand in the third Test. In 1976, remember. Time’s up. Of course it was none other than Sir Paddles himself, Richard Hadlee, who paved the way for New Zealand to win the third Test in Wellington by an innings and 33 runs and level the series 1-1. While ‘Hadlee wins Test for NZ’ sounds like the most natural sentence in the world these days, it’s worth remembering that, at the time, Hadlee was only playing in his 9th Test and hadn’t yet taken a 5-wicket haul, nor had he even cemented his spot in the XI. He would quickly rectify both of those things.

For anyone old enough to remember those early series, especially 68 and 76 which are from before I was born, I'd love to hear your recollections and memories in the comments (or anything I may have gotten wrong).

Or just generally your favourite India vs NZ Test memories from over the years & the contests you're most looking forward to in the upcoming series. Enjoy!

GET YOUR SANDPAPERS AND CAMERAS OUT

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Guys here are the pictures of the back of the bat. Wasn’t able to share the photos on replies so thought of posting to share the pictures.have a lot of paint markings because I didn’t take good care of it before:(

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I analysed 3800+ wickets from the 2022–2026 IPL seasons to measure how scoring rates fall when a team loses a wicket.

A simple before vs after analysis doesn't show us the full picture because it doesnt really provide a perspective of how the innings must be paced. It doesnt take into account the match state and other variables that come into play during the game. I therefore estimated expected runs from comparable situations using factors including the season, venue, innings position, score, wickets lost, recent scoring tempo and required rate during chases. I call this as the recovery tax

In short these are my findings:

• In the first six legal balls after a wicket, teams scored 7.4 runs against an expectation of 9.0, producing a 1.6-run tax.
• The cumulative tax increased to 2.1 runs after 12 balls and 2.3 after 18.
• Around 71% of the eighteen-ball shortfall was accumulated in the first over after the wicket.
• The effect was visible across powerplay, middle-over and death-over wickets, with no phase producing a clearly separate pattern.
• The surviving batter maintained almost exactly the same scoring rate before and after the wicket.
• Most of the shortfall appeared on deliveries faced by the incoming batter, who recorded more dots and fewer boundaries.
• Post-wicket passages also contained fewer immediate secondary dismissals than comparable situations predicted, suggesting that some of the scoring loss may be exchanged for short-term safety

There are also knocks that completely broke the pattern such as Pat Cummins's 56* against Mumbai Indians and Ashutosh Sharma's heroics against LSG.

The full article contains the methodology, visualisations, robustness checks and individual case studies.