For the first time in four races, Team MRF did not finish on the podium as the Malaysian Rally, the fourth leg of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship ended in a one-horse race with just one team in the reckoning for the title.

India’s top rallyist Gaurav Gill came up with an electrifying drive to put himself in pole position for the championship before an unfortunate technical error saw the Team MRF driver retire in the fou

Going into the fourth leg of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship 2013, Team MRF’s youngest recruit, Esapekka Lappi — the raciest in current times in the eyes of none other than India’s top rallyist, Gaurav Gill — will come up against the strongest challenge in his fledgling, yet supremely successful stint in rallying.

In the end there was so much drama in it that even a script writer couldn’t have conjured it up so convincingly. A sell-out crowd of 35,000 braved the rains, waited out patiently for a solid three hours before the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s final league game got underway.

Two days to go, one league game in hand and potentially three teams in the reckoning for the final playoffs berth. Add to that the threat of rain.

It appeared ridiculously easy and more so given the way in which the 41-year-old Adam Gillchrist and the 38-year-old Azhar went about their task of decimating Royal Challengers Bangalore.

For all their bravado, Royal Challengers Bangalore have ended up being poor travellers this IPL season. Of their eight away games, the Challengers managed to pull back just two while going down in six.

On a day when 14 wickets fell by the wayside to ensure an early finish in the second Test, Tim Southee’s sustained spell of seam bowling on the third morning firstly meant the Indians would fall a lit

The biggest threat to M.S. Dhoni’s men in this second of this short two-Test series will emanate from the weather and not their rivals.

Following two tough tours when Indian Test cricket was brutalised and sent to the depths of despair in England and Australia, the home series against a young and inexperienced New Zealand squad must have been the perfect antidote for Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men.