Welcome to Episode 80 of Never on the Backfoot Podcast. Joining me on the podcast today is Vijay Lokapally Sir. He is an Indian sports journalist and author. He started his career with the Patriot newspaper in 1981 and later joined The Hindu Group in 1986. Vijay Sir has been considered in the media as one of India's most respected writers on cricket, and according to Sportskeeda, he is regarded as one of the most well-known sports journalists of India. He has written five books related to cricket. The first was The Virender Sehwag Story, chronicling the life of the former cricketer Virender Sehwag. He subsequently wrote Driven: The Virat Kohli Story. His next two books were World Cup Warriors: The Boys in Blue (2019) and Speed Merchants: The Story of Indian Pace Bowling 1886 to 2019 (2020). Sir also co-wrote cricketer Rohit Sharma's biographical book The Hitman: The Rohit Sharma Story in 2020 as well. Having read his books and regular pieces in The Hindu and also SPORTSTAR and most importantly, having admired his writing style and persona, it is an absolute dream come true for a fan like me to interview a man of his stature. I’m sure you listeners will also resonate with Sir and his lovely insights. Without further ado, let's hop on to understand more about her journey with Cricket and most importantly journalism. The podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Overcast and a lot of other platforms and so please do spread the word. Also, feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions for the already published episodes and recommendations for future topics. Do check out @neveronthebackfoot on Instagram and @neverontheback1 on Twitter for the latest facts, trivia, quizzes, terminology, retweets, fresh tweets and a lot more coming up this cricket season. Stay safe and take care, listeners 💛