Aakash Chopra: A cricketer with an erudite insight of the game

Aakash Chopra: A cricketer with an erudite insight of the game: Class, talent and temperament, these three words astutely demonstrate Aakash Chopra’s abilities. A former Test cricketer, whose journey at the highest level of the game might have been hindered to only climb the higher echelon of success in the next few years. Repeated injuries hampered his cricket career but his love for the game continued and he became a popular cricket expert-cum-writer.

Aakash Chopra’s charismatic style of saying difficult things in simplistic manner has connected with his fans well. The crafty batsman, whose square cuts and cover drives on the off-side often mesmerised all of us, is now enthralling us even more with his in-depth cricket knowledge as a writer.

His articles have appeared in both the famous books named; Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel and Sachin Tendulkar: The man cricket loved back, making him hugely popular as a cricket columnist and journalist.

Beyond the Blues: A First-Class Season Like No Other –

The former India Test opener’s debut novel “Beyond the Blues: A First-Class Season Like No Other (based on 2007-08)” made him a literary genius in a very short span of time. He wrote this book when he was already playing first-class matches, making him one of the rarest cricketers to have tasted literary success as an active cricketer. This book marked the literary journey of India’s finest cricket analysts and writers.

Out of the Blue: Rajasthan’s Road to the Ranji Trophy –

His very next book, Out of the Blue: Rajasthan’s Road to the Ranji Trophy, was once again declared super-hit and won many hearts as well. Both these books ignited fresh thinking and understanding towards the nitty-gritty of India’s domestic cricket. Thereafter Aakash started writing for India’s prominent newspapers as columnist and continued to remain a source of inspiration for young cricket reporters all across the globe.

The Insider – 

A few days back, the former flamboyant opener, launched his latest book, “The Insider” his third one. Aakash Chopra has now become the second most successful cricket writer after the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who has authored 4 books until now. In other words, Aakash is now just 1 short of equaling Sunil Gavaskar’s tally as a writer.

In The Insider, Aakash Chopra tried to capture the on field excitement. There is not even an iota of dull moment while reading this book. The cricketer-turned-author has discussed several aspects of cricket in his latest book. He has thrown light on the ‘concentration a batsman needs’. What determines whether a player is in-form or out-of-form? Why the preparation for Tests, ODIs and T20Is differ? Why most teams crumble under pressure?

Though, these questions are very much familiar to cricket, yet there are no easy answers to these ones. This is the mastery of Aakash Chopra. He has brought few vibrant and relevant questions in front of us and analyzed their possible solutions. Obviously, fans and the readers will necessarily feel engaged while reading the book.

Chopra has tried to dig deeper into these pertaining questions surrounding the world of cricket and almost each player. In other words, it is ideally a book for the learners, and the learned’s who wish to know more about the intricacies of the game. Interestingly, the book covers almost all angles of the cricket from the perspective of a bowler to an opening batsman, from technical requirement of the game to psychological factor and much more. The book looks beyond what is obvious to our eyes. Readers will have a lot to take back as they complete reading the book – a magnum opus of Askash Chopra.

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