Sambit Bal

Editor-in-chief, ESPNcricinfo

From catharsis to conflict, and other stories

Extreme pitches aside, the year's red-ball contests were fierce, and home advantage wasn't as marked as before. And India's world title raised hopes for a revolution in the women's game

01-Jan-2026•Sambit Bal

The match that changed cricket forever

Every India-Pakistan match makes a lot of noise, but the reverberations of this one can still be felt today

29-Mar-2025•Sambit Bal

Ian Chappell may have quit writing, but he never quits on people

His loyalty to the game, and to the people who win his respect and friendship, has been remarkable, and his writing has embodied something of that

24-Feb-2025•Sambit Bal

Rohit did the decent thing, so why cloak it in intrigue?

In the series of mis-steps in Australia, Rohit dropping himself, if you strip it of emotion, is among the most clear-headed decisions India have made

03-Jan-2025•Sambit Bal

Can cricket shrink to save itself?

Test cricket has had a fabulous year, and despite its flaws, cricket is growing, but the calendar is a cause for concern

01-Jan-2025•Sambit Bal

With Gavaskar we believed, without him we despaired

Decades before India dominated world cricket, Gavaskar gave them an identity in the game

10-Jul-2024•Sambit Bal

T20 can be fun without the ball-bashing too

We've got used to floods of runs, but low-scoring T20 games can often be engrossing, as the World Cup has showed

20-Jun-2024•Sambit Bal

How many sixes need to be hit before they lose their magic?

Almost unthinkably, the spectacle of batters hitting the ball into the stands has become routine and predictable

27-Apr-2024•Sambit Bal

How Bazball alters one of the fundamental truths of Test cricket

The genius of England's approach is that it takes the traditional consequences of dismissal out of the equation

14-Feb-2024•Sambit Bal

Cricket will go where the fans take it, and that's all right

We're often alarmed at changes in the sport and the direction it seems to be headed in, but maybe the fear is unfounded

30-Dec-2023•Sambit Bal

India's heartbreak is most poignant in the dashed hopes of Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid

For the team's captain and coach, it was their last, best shot at the biggest prize in the game. Being thwarted at the very end will have been shattering for their team and them

20-Nov-2023•Sambit Bal

Inevitable but unpredictable, India and Australia have been two trains on a collision course

The two powerhouses of 21st-century cricket were tipped to meet in this year's World Cup final, and they made it there in contrasting styles

18-Nov-2023•Sambit Bal

India have a big, bad, beautiful bowling machine

All this World Cup they have been unstoppable, operating at a different level from their opposition

07-Nov-2023•Sambit Bal

Why middling scores make for the best kind of ODI

Runfests usually kill games as contests. But team scores a little below 300? Now we're talking

30-Oct-2023•Sambit Bal

An atmosphere like never before, but it could have been so much more

The 100,000-strong Ahmedabad crowd made itself heard, but it was a shame there was almost no green in that vastness of blue

14-Oct-2023•Sambit Bal

In World Cups, pressure comes with the territory. It's what makes winning sweet

Champions, like Virat Kohli, embrace pressure and rise in its presence. They know how to shut out noise, and when to be buoyed by it

10-Oct-2023•Sambit Bal

India vs Australia: when the World Cup bursts into life

Two of the greatest teams of modern times, with a storied past against each other, meet at a venue steeped in cricket history

07-Oct-2023•Sambit Bal

India's endless dream run

In 1983 the team achieved all of their fans' expectations - and then went where no one had ever dared imagine

27-Sep-2023•Sambit Bal

We've lived cricket for three decades, alongside you

For 30 years, ESPNcricinfo has been the world's companion for the game

20-Mar-2023•Sambit Bal

T20s might be the future, but they won't thrive without bilateral cricket and its ecosystem

A look back at 2022: how Stokes and Co redefined Test cricket, the continuing rise of the shortest format, and more

02-Jan-2023•Sambit Bal

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