In this special episode of the 81allout podcast, we chat with journalist and author Bharat Sundaresan on his experiences of covering India’s recent tour to Australia.
Bharat is a cricket reporter at cricbuzz.com and is the author of The Dhoni Touch: Unravelling the Enigma that is MS Dhoni
Talking points:
- Covering a Test series in COVID times
- Driving from one Australian state to the other, avoiding borders
- The uncertainty over the venues and itinerary
- Wearing masks in the press box
- A distracted press box as India collapsed for 36 in Adelaide
- The spate of injuries during the tour
- A relatively muted Boxing Day
- Ashwin’s spell in Melbourne
- Ajinkya Rahane’s captaincy
- Mohammad Siraj improving with every spell in Melbourne
- Siraj reporting poor crowd behavior
- Australia constantly threatening to break away… until India kept fighting back
- The net session when Pant talked to his bruised arm
- The Ravi Shastri effect on the youngster in the team
- Ashwin’s innings in the battling draw in Sydney
- Vihari – the quiet achiever
- Covering the Brisbane Test from a radio studio in Sydney
- Australians convincing themselves of the Brisbane myth
- All the talk of the weather in Brisbane
- India putting themselves in a position to dictate terms on the final day
- The emotional charge to victory
Participants:
Bharat Sundaresan (@beastieboy07)
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (@Sidvee)
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Related:
The unlikely script of the Gabba heist – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
Bruised but unbowed: India’s mighty display of guts and gumption – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
The summer of Siraj – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
Washington Sundar: destiny’s child – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
Rahane’s personality-defining day out – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
Ashwin: The conscientious spin scientist – Bharat Sundaresan – cricbuzz.com
List of Bharat Sundaresan’s cricbuzz columns
The dreamiest win – 81allout podcast
That momentous feeling – Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
The victorious draw in Sydney – 81allout podcast
The Melbourne bounceback – 81allout podcast
A tragicomedy called 36 all out – 81allout podcast
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Lead image from Scroll.in
WE NEED ANOTHER EPISODE AS A REVIEW OF THIS EPISODE!!!
This was the perfect episode that needed to be there as a pressure release after such intense. (And I could see Sidvee enjoying himself so much after so long that he himself started playing along “wahan se bhi daaal sakte hainnn” :D). And it’s perfectly OK; everyone’s allowed some guilty pleasure, some cheat days.
I won’t reveal much spoilers wrt to the episode this time, but it was amazing to know how Beastie Boy had to travel (and often spend his nights near a border town) across states. This sacrifice won’t get mentioned anywhere. Ever. Unless he pens this down in his own book. And can I suggest a name? Auxperts from Australia 😀
And this Paaji culture is more Punjabi than Delhi, and now some youngsters are making another level before Paaji, which is “Bhaiya” :D. Out of context, during (initial days of) lockdown, I was watching the YT show of J Rodrigues and Smriti M ft Yuzi Chahal in which they referred him as Yuzi Bhaiya. I did’nt know how to react 😀
P.S: One of my ex-colleagues (from Haryana) had spent nearly 5 years in Chennai and then came to Gurgaon. He often did this “tch” while talking like BB does.