Cricket
ICC Men's Champion's Trophy
India won all group stage matches, and South Africa could've done the same had its match with Australia not been washed out. South Africa and Australia were beaten by India and New Zealand in the semis. The fact that India made it into the finals meant that the finals would not be played in the nominal host country of Pakistan. I had the pleasure of watching the final in a movie theatre, arriving after New Zealand's powerplay had just ended. They were in a good spot, but then India's spinners then applied the brakes. Wickets dropping at regular intervals and lack of scoring options meant New Zealand took till the 44th over to pick the pace back up, and ended with a reasonable 251/7. India's chase started off well, too, ending the powerplay only 5 runs behind but a wicket ahead of where New Zealand were at that stage. The high scoring rate continued till the 14th over, when New Zealand's bowlers began applying the squeeze. And then a few India batsmen fell in quick succession, culminating in the 27th over, a wicket maiden that claimed Rohit Sharma. A 61-run partnership between Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel steadied the ship with some sensible batting, keeping the scorecard ticking without taking too many risks. India stayed ahead of New Zealand's score at the same stage all the while, but the fear of another collapse kept us all on our toes - to the extent that we were cheering on dot balls because that was preferable to a wicket. As Iyer and Patel got comfortable and began picking up the pace, they too fell in the space of 3 overs. KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya played a mini-rescue-act of their own, with Pandya falling when India needed 11 runs off 15 balls. Jadeja then sealed the deal with an over to spare, giving India yet another ICC trophy.
Sri Lanka W Tour of NZ, 1st-3rd ODIs, 1st-3rd T20Is
The first ODI and the last T20I had to be abandoned, but New Zealand won the ODI series comfortably and the two sides shared the spoils in the T20I series.
Pakistan M Tour of NZ, 1st-5th T20Is, 1st ODI
Complete host advantage here, except for the third T20I, where Pakistan chased down a 200-run target with 4 overs and 9 wickets to spare.
Australia W Tour of New Zealand, 1st-3rd T20Is
Oz domination.
Formula 1
Australian Grand Prix
The McLarens dominated the first half of this race, with Piastri being asked to not attack Norris until they cleared backmarkers. That seemed to have thrown Piastri's flow off, as he made a mistake and fell behind. Down came the rain and brought Verstappen back into contention, as the McLarens both went off the track. Norris managed to rejoin without a lot of trouble but Oscar went deep into the next corner and somehow got stranded on the grass as Norris dived into the pits. Had a full-course-yellow been called at this point, Verstappen would've had a cheap pit stop and taken the race lead. However, Piastri somehow managed to find the tiniest bit of traction to get moving at his home race, to the roaring delight of the crowd, forcing Verstappen to take a full pit stop time loss after driving on unsuitable tyres for a couple of laps, and sealing Norris's victory.
This was a tough race for the rookies, with Hadjar crashing out on the formation lap, Doohan crashing out on lap 1, Sainz (not a rookie) crashing out under safety car, Alonso (a rookie for the memes) crashed on lap 34, Bortoleto and Lawson crashing out on laps 47 and 48 respectively. Bearman was the last of the finishers and Antonelli had a stellar drive.
Chinese Grand Prix
Hamilton won the Sprint, Piastri won his one-sixteenth home race from Norris.
Tsunoda And Lawson Swap Places
Why even give Lawson the pre-season testing if you were gonna fire him after 2 races anyway???????????