Plus: Keeping Up With The Viranis — It's All About Loving (Their) Family.
IND vs ENG Ends 2-2: 5 Yorkers From A Test Series For The Ages | The Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy was contested with passion, fire, resilience and courage to become one of the all-time greatest Test series, writes Karan Pradhan .
| IT MAY LACK the colourful and gold leaf-encrusted kits, it may take the best part of 30 hours to complete a match (and even then, there may be no result) and it may only be contested at the top level by a very small handful of teams, but there can be no substitute for Test cricket. And the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy (as befitting the gentlemen in whose honour it was named) was contested with passion, fire, resilience and courage to become one of the all-time greatest series in this format. What distinguished the series from any others in the past is that there was rarely a moment when any team could be declared an overwhelming favourite in terms of winning the series. India and England matched each other step for step in a dazzling dance of Test match performances that culminated in the most nail-shredding of finales on Monday morning. In fact, the series was so well balanced that at its absolute halfway mark right in between the third Test, both teams had scored exactly 387 runs apiece. A statistician’s delight, certainly, but here’s what we made of 25 days of riveting Test cricket. Continue reading. | | | Keeping Up With The Viranis | It's all about loving (their) family! Manik Sharma revisits the small-screen saga that was, along with its matriarch-to-be, the arbiter of middle-class morality.
| IT’S DUSK. A time of the day when most households in India settle into the rhythm of resigning themselves to the lull of night. But in the Virani household, this same hour is rife for devolving into cult-like congregations. The foyer overflows with people. From a distance it looks like a small mob has overtaken the floor. You could mistake this for question hour in the Lok Sabha, but here some work might still be accomplished — like deciding who’s wearing the ugliest dress, or who makes the most pointless observations. Almost 25 years on, we are back amidst generational specimens that held the country’s gaze. Not a lot has changed; which is both baffling and bold. Smriti Irani, a year after she quietly exited active politics — without really denouncing it — returns to the titular role that made her a household name. More than a name, it made her an ethical plank. The mother-sister-bahu figure who somehow saddles the worlds of responsibility and reverence, of servitude and leadership, compassion and correctness. And most importantly, a certain strident Indianness: conservative, modest, value-based, and familial. Here is what has changed in this sequel: Everyone’s older (obviously). On no other face is this ageing more apparent than Tulsi’s. Even that iconic introduction is briefly interrupted by a moment in which she looks into the mirror forlornly, saturated and deadened by years of shouldering the demon that Indians have since learned to divorce as the first moment of reckoning — a joint family. 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
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