The Top Edge

  He can bat, he can bowl, he can keep, he can field, he can captain a team. He is the Mr. 360 of cricket.  He holds the record for the fastest 50, 100 and 150 in one day internationals. He can bash a bowler for 64 runs in two overs and also play an unbelievable blockathon of 220 deliveries scoring just 33 runs without hitting a boundary. He can take absolute blinders in the field as well as get the batsman run out with his rocket throws. Woah! Is there anything Abraham Benjamin de Villiers can't do on the field? Certainly not! Known for his unorthodox batting technique, the superman from South Africa made his international debut for the Proteas back in the year 2004 against England at Port Elizabeth and since then he has never looked back. In his 15 years long international career, he broke several batting records. Other than scoring the fastest 50, 100 and 150 in ODIs, Ab has scored the fastest test hundred and T20 fifty by a South African. He was the number one ranked batsm...

  The SG cricket balls, produced in India, have faced a serious backlash in the recent years for their poor quality. Ravichandran Ashwin, the Indian off-spinner, has time and again expressed his disappointment with the manufacture of SG balls. Indian skipper Virat Kohli too has also been very vocal of his opinions about the poor quality of the ball and even suggested that the Dukes ball should be used in test cricket all over the world. The Dukes and the SG cricket balls, however, are pretty similar to each other as far as their manufacturing techniques are concerned. Both of them are hand stitched, have six rows of stitching and a prominent seam. The only difference is that that thread of the latter is thicker and stitched closer, but this hardly makes any difference in performance of the ball at the highest level. The Kookaburra cricket balls are way different from the other two. They are primarily machine stitched and, as a result, don't have a prominent seam and tend to lose th...

You are one of the greatest bowlers of all time with over 800 international wickets, you run in, bowl a decent good length delivery and see a young lad, on the strike, reverse sweeping you over the slip cordon for a four. Wouldn't you feel being humiliated? Wouldn't you feel being harassed? Well, by this time you would have obviously guessed that I am talking of James Anderson being bullied by Rishabh Pant. Of course this is not the first and the last time we saw Rishabh Pant bullying a bowler with his unique unorthodox shots. He has been in this business for quite some years now. It's a journey of a 12 year old kid from Roorkee who would travel to Delhi with his mother for his cricket training. The same kid, now 23, is making the bowlers travel all over the park with his 360 degrees shots. In a short career of 4 years he has already become the only Indian keeper batsman to smash test hundreds in Australia and England. In addition to it, he has also played many magnificent ...

    August 30th, 2018, the last time we saw Hardik Pandya playing in whites for India. It was the fourth test match of the series against England in Southampton. Since then it has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride for the Indian all rounder. He has played a vital role in the Indian team's sheer dominance in world cricket over the years and as India gets ready for another tour to the UK for the longest form of the game, lets have a look at the India's multi dimensional player's journey. The stage was set for the much awaited India vs Pakistan game at the Dubai international stadium as India took on the arch rivals in the Asia cup 2018. India were asked to bowl first after Pakistan opted to bat first after winning the toss. It was the 18th over of the innings when Hardik, who had already bowled 4 overs of his quota, came running to bowl to Babar Azam and was knocked down on the ground in his follow through. He appeared to have slipped there, but he kne...