Asia Cup 2025: Who Can Stop India? The Rivals Gunning For Glory
|
As the action cues up, Karan Pradhan runs through the stats, squads, rivalries and surprises that could define the most wide-open edition of the Asia Cup yet.
|
THE THIRD T20 EDITION of the Asia Cup and the 17th overall is almost upon us . Through a quirk of the Asian Cricket Council’s premier competition, while India arrived in host nation UAE as defending champions (crowned in 2023), it is actually Sri Lanka who won the last T20 Asia Cup back in 2022 and entered this year’s edition as defending format champions, to coin a phrase. Regardless, it all kicks off on Tuesday, September 9, with Afghanistan going head-to-head with Hong Kong. With Rashid Khan and Co. looking to start things off with a comprehensive win in their bid to cement a place in the next stage, let’s take a closer look at what we can expect from this tournament. THE TALE OF THE TAPE In order to compare like and like, we’ll only focus on the 2016 and 2022 Asia Cups that were both contested in the T20 format. Apart from a poor showing in the Super 4s of the 2022 edition, where successive defeats to Pakistan and Sri Lanka saw India miss out on a finals berth, the Suryakumar Yadav-led team has been a juggernaut in T20 Asia Cups. A win record of 80% puts India head and shoulders above nearest competitor Sri Lanka (with 60%), and Pakistan and Afghanistan (50%). Stream live sports, films and shows with an OTTplay Power Play pack for only Rs 149 per month. Grab this offer now! In terms of individual performers too, India retains top spot. Among batters, Virat Kohli has been the highest scorer with 429 runs from nine innings, followed by Pakistani powerhouse Rizwan Khan (281 from six) and Rohit Sharma (271 from nine). With the ball, it’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar who rules the roost with 13 wickets from six matches. Close behind him are the UAE’s Amjad Javed (12 from seven) and Mohammad Naveed (11 from seven). As is the case with most tournaments these days — particularly those in Asian conditions — India will start as firm favourites. The team’s only T20 outing this year was a bilateral rubber against England, which was won handsomely. Despite this apparent lack of match practice, regularly facing up to some of the world’s best players in the IPL will keep the Indian players in good nick. But if not India, then who? Continue Reading. |
Bad Girl: A Magnificent Film That Articulates What We Really Want From Tamil Cinema
|
Bad Girl is about engaging with the very real experiences of a young woman without slipping into a territory where pity and regret unite for a chokehold, writes Aditya Shrikrishna. |
IN VARSHA BHARATH’S BAD GIRL, the eponymous protagonist keeps returning to one question that hovers over her life like a single dark cloud obscuring the galaxy of stars beyond. “ Naa yen ipdi irukken?” (Why am I like this?) The girl is Ramya, a name that is so commonplace in South India that it could be its own Jane Doe for half a country. For a whole generation that grew up between the 1980s and the first decade of the 21st century, the name bears no real characteristic. In a certain class of society, it is as regular as music class after school or the insistence to speak in textbook-perfect English outside of the classroom. Bad Girl begins around the mid-2000s — a generation that was sneaking mobile phones into school and beta testing Orkut before the exodus to Facebook; so, probably the last to stick to a name like Ramya. And yet, there are three Ramyas in the classroom. Bad Girl’s Ramya (Anjali Sivaraman), daughter of a teacher (Shanthipriya as Sundari) in the same school, is so feral that she strives to be the main character in her life, a life of banality according to her. The life of all Ramyas. Stream the latest Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada releases, with OTTplay's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. Bad Girl, written by Varsha and produced by Vetrimaaran, premiered earlier this year at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won the NETPAC award. After a few more festival stops, it is now in theatres. Ostensibly a coming-of-age tale, the film’s grammar doesn’t betray its festival pedigree. Its registers are very much in the mainstream, even if the subject, the protagonist and the treatment, not to mention female crew (Preetha Jayaraman shares cinematography credits with Jagadeesh Ravi and Prince Anderson with editing by Radha Sridhar and costumes by Shruthi Manjari), are Tamil cinema novelty. Continue Reading. |
Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? Forward this email to a friend, or use the share buttons below ⬇️ |
| | This weekly newsletter compiles a list of the latest (and most important) reviews from OTTplay so you can figure what to watch or ditch over the weekend ahead. |
| Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think it worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. |
| In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an
hour on this. |
| | Hindustan Media Ventures Limited,
Hindustan Times House, 18-20,
Second Floor, Kasturba Gandhi
Marg, New Delhi - 110 001, India |
DOWNLOAD THE OTTPLAY APP ⬇️ |
| | If you need any guidance or support along the way, please send an email to ottplay@htmedialabs.com . We’re here to help! |
©️2025 OTTplay, HT Media Labs. All rights reserved. |
| | |
