The Sporting Spotlight

Football Season 2020-21 With coming of May comes the end of footballing season across Europe. It is the time when best teams in their respective leagues are crowned champions and the one's which underperform are relegated to lower divisions. This weekend most of the leagues across Europe had their final matches where champions were crowned.(few leagues like in denmark and slovakia has still one matchday left)                              (winners across various leagues of Europe) It was a difficult season for all the teams across Europe, with a shortened season due to covid-19 all the teams had to play large number of matches in shorter span of time. It led to many injuries and breakdowns but still teams were able to choke out a way to play to complete their seasons, which is a remarkable feat for all. With only European Finals to be played it is time to review the seasons across top-5 leagues. Here is my views o...

  England Tour of India For the first time in covid-19 era, India played a home series. England were the first team to play in India in almost a year. For the first time in the history India was going to play a home series without fans in stadium. The series begin with 4 match test series with first two matches to be played in Chennai and next two in Ahmedabad. India began series on a sour note by loosing the first test by a huge margin of 227 runs. It was a poor performance by Indian team considering their heroics in Australia. But from the next match team came back on track winning all the remaining three matches. India won second test by huge 317 runs, then they wrapped up the third match (pink ball test) within 2 days winning by 10 wickets and in final fourth test they won by an innings & 25 runs. By winning the test series (3-1) India also booked their ticket for World Test Championship Final against New Zealand. After the tests it was time for T20I's. It was a battle betw...

India Tour of Australia   International cricket is back, after a wait of 9 long months we got to witness Indian cricket team in action once again. And their first assignment after the break was tour down under, in which they had to play 3 ODI's, 3 T20s and 4 Test matches. At the beginning of the series '92 WC themed jerseys were launched for team India to wear in limited over series. India's tour started on a sour note as India lost the first ODI by a huge margin (66 runs). Same happened in the second ODI too, where again India lost by 51 runs. In both the matches Indian batsmen were beaten by pace of Aussie bowlers and Indian bowlers gave away easy runs. But Australia couldn't be third lucky as India finally won the third ODI by 13 runs. It was India's first victory in ODI's in 2020. After ODI's, it was time for T20 series and coming on after playing IPL, this time Indian side were the one's who came out to be victorious. They easily defeated Australia ...

ISL-2020 India is a land of festivals, there are lots of festivals celebrated across the span of India. But in times of the ongoing pandemic there has been a curb in celebration of these festivals. And in these difficult times not the traditional-cultural festivals but the sporting festivals have come to our rescue. One such festival, the cricketing festival IPL has just concluded and now its time for footballing festival ISL to begin.  Football was the first competitive sports to played in India  after uplifting of restrictions and now ISL is  the first competitive league to be played in India in bio-secure bubble in Goa. Football is the biggest sport in the world has gained immense popularity in India due to beginning of ISL and pumping of money which had attracted lots of foreign stars. Many top footballers like Alessandro Del Piero, Roberto Carlos, Roberto Pieres, Diego  Forlan, Andrea Pirlo all have come and played in India which has attracted lots of fans to th...

  IPL-2020 Indian Premier League-IPL, festival of cricket in India has been concluded with Mumbai Indians being crowned the champions for the 5th time. For second year Mumbai have been the winners. In finals they convincingly defeated Delhi capitals(for 4th time this season😅😅) by 5 wickets. The festival of cricket started on 19th September 2020 with arch rivals CSK taking on MI(Indian El Clasico). And as usual CSK started with a convincing win over their old nemesis. Action packed opening day was followed by a another exciting game between DC and KXIP which was taken to super over due to umpires error. Not only the opening two games but whole season was full of action. There were many games which were like rollercoaster rides, with no one(even players) didn't know who was going to win. Like match between Punjab and Rajasthan where Rahul Tewatia hit 5 sixes in an over to make highest successful chase in IPL. Or in an another match between Punjab and Mumbai which which was tied twi...

 What After Sunil Chettri? It is one of the biggest questions echoing in Indian football society, but still we are not able to find answer to this question. Sunil Chettri has been the driving force of Indian football team from last few years. In last 10 matches played by India only one player named other than Chettri is able to score a goal for India. This has caused lots of problems to Indian football team, resulting in loosing matches to even weaker teams like Afghanistan and Bangladesh in World Cup qualifying matches, denting their chances of qualification. It is not that India have not tried other forwards or they don't have good quality strikers but none of them has been able to perform well. One of the reasons for this is beginning of ISL, the new top division of football league in India. In order to win the ISL trophy most of the coaches select foreign strikers to play and score more goals. This has resulted in conversion to wingers. Hence, when they play for India they are ...

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE A new season of Champions League is just around the corner. Just two months ago Bayern Munich defeated PSG in Lisbon to complete their second treble. Champions League the most prestigious European club competition is held every year to decide best club team across the continent. It was started way back in 1955 as " European Champion Clubs' Cup " where champions of domestic leagues across Europe participated in a straight knockout competition. The competition was rebranded in 1992 as " UEFA Champions League " with addition of group stages and inclusion of multiple teams from certain countries. It became the first branded club competition in the world. In its current format, 32 clubs(26 from different leagues and 6 from qualifiers) are divided in 8 groups of 4 teams each with 2 teams from each group qualifying for the knockout stages. Since its inception 22 clubs have won the competition. Clubs from Spain have been most successful with 18 titles f...