Indian Flop XI

The flop XI for India in 1990s and 2000s

1. Vikram Rathore

2. Devang Gandhi

3. Jacob Martin

4. Sanjay Manjrekar

5. Vijay Bharadwaj

6.  Sanjay Bangar

7. Dinesh Karthik

8. Dodda Ganesh

9. Noel Who David

10. David Johnson

11. Iqbal Sidiqqui

World XI - part II

The remaining part of the world XI goes here :

7. Adam Gilchrist.

8. Malcomm Marshall

9. Wasim Akram

10. Shane Warne

11. Glenn McGrath.

Chaminda Vaas and Rumesh Rathnayake are in the probables list and so is Murali. That cracks me up.

Geidon Low

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/479042.html

Unfortunately in this article most of the aliens who destroyed cricket cometh out of Indian supremacy of the world Cricket.

The author fails to keep aside his India bias while trying to set forth the conflicts of interests he talks about to keep the game clean. And thats where we fail to take him seriously. And thats where he fails to come out as convincing bias free author.

Evil Cheeka Brigade is back in Challengers

Srikanth declared the Challengers trophy squads for India Red, Blue and Greens. The CT would be held in Indore on October 8 - 11.

Who are the captains ? Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik and Subbu Dabrinath.

Wow. Dinesh Karthik and Subbu being the Chennai lads are now the captains of the squads. What the Butt.

To add more salt to the wound, Srini is now the BCCI chief in elect. So see more of Chennai duds in national team and if the coaches, captains dont follow suit, they would be fired. Getting MSD in CSK was a master stroke from Srini in 2007.

Lets have a look at each of the squad in detail:

India Blue: Yuvraj Singh (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Srivats Goswami, Ajinkya Rahane, Manoj Tiwary, Irfan Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Piyush Chawla, Umesh Yadav, RP Singh, Yo Mahesh, Ganesh Satish, Tanmay Srivastava

Jadeja is part of the squad and so is Irfan Pathan. Who is Ganesh Satish? A search on cricinfo yielded 5 results none of which matched this lad.  Ok on wikipedia its suggested that he is part of Karnataka squad, he is an opener.

India Red: Led by Sri Sri Sriyut Wicketkeeper Shiromani Chennainandan Swaminandan Dinesh Karthikam. Alias KKD alias Boss DK alias Bosseshwar.  His credits and debits are well known. Before he could have left for a promotion tour of a Kolly movie, Srikanth pulled him out and assigned responsibilities of leading Lal India. Thats a behind door entry to India test team. Now if MSD injures further his finger, Bosseshwar would be back in the team.

India Green:  IPL Nandan, Champion Swamy Subramaniam Badrinath Maharaj who last played ODIs good 2 years back would lead a Hari India team. Credentials ? Zilch. But hailing from state of Srikanth and BCCI chief to be yielded dividends.  And guess who is the part of the team ? Mr Junior Sreekanth. Credentials ? One 40 odd in CLT20 and being son of Srikanth. 

Ashvin is part of this team means he wont be part of 2nd Australian Test too.  If he was so impressive in CLT20, what the butt is he doing in Challengers Trophy.

None in the 3 squads knows Usha Raje Stadium as better as Naman Ojha, but what he would speak, Dabri wont get it. 

Srikanth does it again. He has pushed his croonies in the teams and now with Srini coming over as BCCI prez we would see India becoming Tamil Nadu XI in future FTP tours.  And let me remind you not worthy players from TN XI, but useless and flop players who have some relations to this bigots would be in.  Dinesh Karthik and Dabri havent played well for India in ages, yet they keep coming in out of nowhere.

Even Wasim Jaffer and Ajit Agarkar did not get this many chances when Dilip Vengsarkar was around. At least Jaffer made some hundreds in that span of 2006-08, what about this 2?

World XI - 1

All time world XI is the new feature on cricinfo.com.

I thought with my limited amount of cricket history, I should pick one as well. I dont have any info on how good and great the old legends lke Jack Hobbs or Ken Barrington or anyone else listed in the probables.

Futile excersise to form a test team across different eras who played in different conditions and against limited teams.

For example in 1940s and 1950s there were just 6 Test teams with India and Pakistan getting very little test cricket. England, Australia ruled the roost followed by West Indies and South Africa.

Still doing the excersise.

In my team I shall have  2 openers, 4 batsmen, 1 wicket keeper, 4 bowlers.

There are some ridiculous entries in the probables list just cos the all time XI is going to be from the list of countries all time great players. WTB!!

A lot like Marvan PattaAttu who played great against minnows and on flat track conditions.  Sangakara, MJ figure and VVS does not just cos KS Mj are greats for their country (are they really?) and VVS did nt make it.

Kumar Sangakara making it to test wicketkeepers list, he does not even keep this days. He just peeps and beeps.

Rashid Latif over Wasim Bari. Ludicrous.

Openers

It has to be Virender Sehwag at 1. He just redefined the opening batting in 2000s with his aggressive strokeplay. Not only he makes big hundreds but makes them fairly fast giving a chance to his team to bowl out the opposition. And he does not fear short balls. He can defend too, he can bat for long hours and across days.  He has had fastest triple centuries and is just one of the 3 to make 2 triple centuries. I dont have any doubt that very soon he shall go on to become only man to hit 3 or 4 triple centuries and who knows one fine day he would break Brian Lara's record of 400* too.

1. Virender Sehwag

I dont know about the old legends like Len Hutton, Vic Trumper, Hunte, Hanif etc. So wont get them in.

Who wont make it are Jayasuriya, Attapattu, Anwar, Smith,Turner, Richards etc.

2nd opener would be one of Greenidge and Gavaskar. Greenidge had Haynes to his company and the batting lineup followed Richardson, Richards, Lloyd, Logie at different times and an awesome fierce pace attack.

Gavaskar had almost none to his credit for most part of his career.  For his first 8 years of Test cricket he did not have a genuine fast bowler. Only in 1978 he had Kapil Dev who sensationally changed the landscape of fast bowling in the country. All he had was ball shine removers and 4 great spinners who would excel only in spin friendly conditions at home and would flop abroad.  In 1980s India had a lean run in Tests when they hardly won anything in 31 odd tests. And then some respectable batting came along in form of Vishy, Vengy. Gavaskar would bat long, make runs and give some pride to Indian Test cricket which at the time of his debut was rilled with inferior complex and none of the world class players.

My 2nd opener would be Gavaskar for the sheer amount of change he brought to Indian Test batting.

2. Sunil Gavaskar

Middle Order

The options are: Arjuna Ranatunga, Bert Sutcliffe, Brian Lara, Dudley Nourse, George Headley, Graeme Pollock, Greg Chappell, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Jacques Kallis, Javed Miandad, Ken Barrington, Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene, Martin Crowe, Martin Donnelly, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Viv Richards, Vijay Hazare, Wally Hammond, Zaheer Abbas

No info on Hammond, Sutcliffe, Nourse, Headley, Pollock, Donnelly etc.

# 3: A lot of modern day contenders for # 3 spot. Ponting (he did not make it), Dravid, Kallis, Lara, Sangakara and all.

But one man pips all of them. Sir Don Bradman. 99.94 is the number on itself that would make him get the # 3 slot.

3. Sir Don Bradman

#4. Contenders for # 4 are Jayawardhene, Crowe, Inzamam, Kevin Pieterson and all.

The unanimous choice for this slot is none but Sachin Tendulkar. No need to mention the reason why he pips all of them.  MJ is no comparison for him. Even though he has got 28 hundreds, a lot of them carry no value cos they have come on flat pancakes of SSC, Premdasa and against BD, Zim and other countries in SL.  Javed Miandad, Inzy and others were good batters but they fade before Tendulkar.

4. Sachin Tendulkar

Number 5 and 6 are tricky. I would not go for specialist batsmen in the history of the game who batted on this numbers and scored runs. I'd rather chose players on who can play good on any number.

I would have Brian Lara at 5.  Awesome batsman, part of mediocre team of Windies post 1995 domination. Had great reagainst Australia, the best team of his generation like Tendulkar. He played a great deal of gems against Australia and other teams but the ones that stand out are 277 in Sydney, his fest hundred and the twin hundreds in 1999 series vs Australia that happened  the rest of the batsmen in the team folded and he single handedly won his team 2 Tests.

And of course has 375 and 400 but they did not fetch wins for his team, so they dont figure that high in the list. He rattled Muralitharan every time he played against SL. Just cos he was a part of poor team, the runs agaisnt Murali were not enough to win Tests against them.

5. Brian Lara

# 6 for Jacques Kallis, the highest run getter for SA and a more than useful bowler.

He does not figure in the allrounder category but he would always pitch in as 5th bowthe team and mostly as 3rd pacer.

6. Jacques Kallis.

The rest of the team in 2nd part.

Team thus far:

1. Sehwag

2. Gavaskar

3. Bradman

4. Tendulkar

5. Lara

6. Kallis

India - Aus Preview 1

Ok go away T20s, Champions Leagues, Pakistans, Butts and of course the Sri Lankans (last opposition to play India).

 

Here is the biggest test series of the modern times coming up at a time when it actually should. Just 2 tests, but they are more than welcome.  Welcome at a point of time when the few stakeholders in cricket took no less interest in damaging the foundation of the game. Few countries by aligning with the bookies, few countries sticking to newspapers for the allegations and then  taking a moral stand to quit the ODI series.  Few so called best talents were tarnished, few tarnished became more tarnished and a so called urbane suave skipper captaining Tests became the ring leader. Not to forget the usual loose stuff from the ICC director of that country.

 

And when there was last Test series India played, it was on flat pancakes of Sri Lanka, we had a lot of moral preachings and daily cribs on unfair FTP.

 

Come now, we wont have anymore of it.

 

The India and Australia rivalry of this decade times back to 1998 when Australian team toured India for first time in 12 years for a full Test series. That was a Sachin Test series, a lot has been written and mentioned for that. Wont add anything more.

 

What followed was the greatest modern day Test series in 2001, a Bucknored series in 2003-04, another classic in 2004, acrimonious 2007-08 and the one sided 2008 series. When Australians steamrolled the other opposition, Indians under Saurav Ganguly got in the thick of Aussie skin preventing them going all over Indians. Not only Indians won but they also punctured the Australian juggernaut.

 

In 2001 when Aussies were looking for 17th win, then again in 2008 when they were looking for 17th win, at Perth Indians punctured the Australian test juggernaut and since then Aussies have failed to attain the same heights. They lost to India in 2008, South Africa at home (first time in 17 yrs) and then to England in 2009.  Hell, even Pakistan won a test against them in 15 years.

 

The main architects of the Indian dream run against Aussies are:

 

1. Saurav Ganguly
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. VVS Laxman
4. Rahul Dravid
5. Harbhajan Singh
6. Virender Sehwag and
7. unheralded Anil Kumble.

Anil Kumble has taken 114 wickets against them in the modern era, which is the highest anyone has taken against Aussies since their domination began since 1995.

 

Wont go onto the individual contributions of each of the above players. 3 of this players would still be danger for the Aussies -- Sehwag, Tendulkar and Laxman.

 

Australia has got little firepower in their bowling.  Though Bollinger, Johnson are top class pacers, they might struggle on pitches offering less bounce to them. Rest of the lot is inexperienced, but then cant be written off. Nathan Hauritz and Steven Smith were demolished by lesser Indian batsmen in the tour game.  The batting firepower has diminished too from 2007 series -- Hayden,  Symonds are gone. Ponting does not make runs this days, Hussey is on a decline, Katich and Watson are good exponents at the top. North is going South in batting and there is no Haddin around (is he?). So the only real threat remaining for India is Michael Clarke.  Spinners are lready softened, though India would need to be wary of Michael Clarke (good success against India, 6-9 in 2004 and last 3 wickets in one over in Sydney 2008) and Marcus North (unexpected match winner against Pak, but we are no Pak).

 

India has its own set of worries. Gambhir, Dravid are short of runs and time in the middle. Laxman, Sehwag, Tendulkar are in imperious touch, Raina and Dhoni are good. What worries the fans is the bowling. Zaheer is just fresh from injury and his exploits in CLT20 dont offer much confidence, but then this is Test match. If he could extract reverse swing in both the Tests, the Australians would be a vulnerable lot.  Harbhajan Singh desparately needs wickets else his place would be in real danger, now that Ashvin had a tremendous CLT20 and he is from Tamil Nadu. So Cheeka would leave no stone unturned to push Ash in the team.  If he does and he takes wickets, nothing good like it.

 

Ojha is good for IPL and he was not impressive in Sri Lanka. Ishant Sharma should get a lot of bounce in Mohali and Bangalore is happy hunting ground for him as he made his debut in the city and took a 5-for against the minnows Pakistan in 2007.

 

All in all this should be a good series to watch, a lot depends on how well the 2 teams bat as bowling looks frill for both the teams.

 

PS : India have not lost a Test in Mohali in 16 years since Walsh-Benjamin attack in 1994, Australia have not lost a test in Bangalore in 4 visits (won in 1998, 2004, draw in 2008).

 

Chennai Super Kinks Vijay Gaan

Chennai Super Kinks ki Bara Bajau. 

Kya whistle podi hai

Sreekanth aaj khush hai

Srini aaj khush hai

Dhoni bahut udaas hai

Khush he zamana aaj

26 tareekh hai jee 

Chennai jiti he CLT20

Srikanth ka din he ji

Anni India ja raha hai

Dabri Chennai aa raha hai

Karthik Endhiran Endhiran gaa raha hai

Khush he zamana aaj Chennai diwas hai

Khush he zamana aaj Srini khush hai....

Chennai Super Kinks ki barah ka dher....

Champions League jeete hai aaj

Tamil Nadu league agla nishana hai

Endhiran Endhiran Endhiran!!!!!!

What is Dinesh Karthik upto ?

Its been a long hiatus for Dinesh Karthik. He has not been selected for any of the national or tour game teams.  He has been hiding from the bloggers and the media. Perhaps he is planning a tie up with Rajni's to be released movie Robot.  He is going to dance and make some typical Rajni style statements in the promo of movie in interior parts of TN. Though he is not needed by Rajni himself as his name is good enough to pull a fan to the theater, but its being learnt that Dinesh Karthik replaced himself on his own in the promotion team.

Kris Srikanth's forced enforcements for him has given a mental block in Karthik's mind that he would forever be a replacement. He was hoping that he could replace Rajni in Robot, but Rajni is a huge shoe to fill in. His movie experience is more than what actual age of Karthik is.

So after snubbed by Srikanth and Rajni its being learnt that he is trying to fit himself in Simbu's team. Simbu is the same guy who acted in a movie called "Velu" something where he has to go fetch a medicine from US and he goes in and from US in a flash from rooftop of his house using escape velocity principle. Dinesh Karthik is experienced enough to jump and dance, so he is hoping Simbu would have some kind of role for him.

Its also learnt that Karthik has undergone special training from Kiran More on how to jump and he watches the famous mimick action of Javed Miandad for Kiran More act in 1992 World Cup.

Dinesh is also pissed at Vijay and Anni who have pipped him ahead of himself in the good book of Srikanth. Its being said that Srini has his hand on Vijay as enforced replacement in every team for any injured player. So that exclusive bragging rights have been granted to Vijay.  Dinesh has urged Srini to bid for him in the next IPL auction for whatever amount he can. Even 10,000 Rs contract would be good enough for Dinesh as he is desparate to prove to Srini and Cheeka that he is proud Tamilian who rotted in foreign Delhi...But Srini and Cheeka have not purchased Dinesh's desparation as Vijay and Anni are now next enforced replacements.

Virat Kohli, #7 go man

The # 7 spot in India's ODI team is up for grabs, the incumbents right now occupying the spots have not inspired any confidence. Yeah the great allrounder Ravinder Jajdeja, the spineless allrounder who cant hit, cant field and cant bowl. Enuf said.

RCB's campaign in CLT20 has thrown up a name we already know and he has in a way redeemed himself after disastrous SL tour.

Virat Kohli, my go man for # 7 spot for now.

Ijaz Butt likes Gunda

Ijaz Buttela mera naam, hu mai shaitan ka chela...

Naam he mera Ijaz Buttiya, khadi karata hu me ICC, ECB, Cricket ki khatiya

I truly feel Ijaz Butt watches Gunda every time he goes out to speak in public and peeks out some very ludicrous bullcrap in every interview and statement he makes. 

I believe he is inspired by character of Bulla who always keeps khullaaaaaaaaaa........

Gunda is a classic cult movie in Bollywood which has got some awesome dialogues.  Looking at the trend of Ijaz Butt's statements the comparison of Butt-speak with Bulla and Chutiya of Gunda fame is just about apt.

Clarification

Taking Strike for Brick Bats. Arm Ball called illegal and booked for chucking.

 

My blog is not a very popular one amongst cricket bloggers and fans of some very good cricket playing countries. I have received some super comments from Sinhalese, Tamil readers (unable to know what as I cant read and comprehend those scripts) for my special love for SL and Srikanth's croonies.

 

Last year I had received some brickbats from Pakistan fans.

 

Last weekend when I was about to leave for Vir Zania beach for witnessing Air Show, I had a barrage of tweets from very popular Ache of SOAL fame. SOAL is not a musical band but it does sound harmonical for kirkat.

 

SOAL is a very good blog. One of the very few blogs i look forward to read in my Google reader.  Though he has retired many a times and came back to blogging just like MoYo, his blogging is lot more classical than MoYo's batting.

 

He had some issues with me having special love for Sri Lanka as cricketing country. I am not a fan of SL for the way they play their cricket. Every body has got to have that right reserved (just like Ijaz Butt has right to sue, ban, fine and withdraw). Some of bloggers do like India, some dont, some like Australia, most of them dont (everybody loves Pricky could be a good cricket soap opera, given the upcoming test battle), some of us like England, some dont, most of us joke on Pakistan cricket and moreso on its administrators.

 

So if I have my thoughts coming up on SL and the tactics they deploy to win (other thing that they dont win) or if I rip apart Mr Sangakara (some of us rip Ponting or Strauss or most of us rip Bhajjipa) or if I question "character" rants of MJ, then whats so bad in it ? So much so that I am abused and accused of "war" (whatever sense that tweet was put up).

 

I am not a very great blogger, I dont get too many comments, not many tweet followers, not many mention or retweet my tweets.  I am not a part of any group cricketing website (i was part for very very few days though later i was kicked out).  Due to few Sri Lankan bloggers who posted some very offending comments (personal, related to Indian cricket and in many cases country too) I had to close down the comments sectaion, not that I receive many comments when the section is open.

 

I have coem across hate posts for me on many Lankan blogs, the latest guy Kangon who played martyr on twitter had one such tweet sharing my blog URL with his followers and as a result I had a lot of barrage (call sledging in cricket terms) on my blog.

 

My point of view is if you dont agree with a post on the blog, there is a simple option called "Ignore". (Most of the bloggers do for me). Why get to personal attack? I have not trashed any blogger in person on this blog. I have not gone and sweared any one in person on anybody's blog, then why so much of hate and abuse against me?

 

Last year during T20 WC warmup game between India and Pakistan there was a joint excersise on a blog URL for live blogging between Ind and Pak bloggers. I had requested access for it, but was denied. Those days I had some special camaradrie with Q and ....

 

That was it for me and I decided not to be part of anymore multi author blogs.  I might go off blogging any day. Actually I thought hard to shut down my twitter stuff and blog on Saturday while en route to Vir Zania from Mary Go Land but decided against it for now.

 

To conclude, if you cant agree on  PoV of a blog then do not get to hate or swear, just ignore. Or better block it.

Spot Fixing Sol

The best way to deal with the ongoing spot fixing saga in Pakistan would be to ban Pakistan of any cricket activities till the Prez in that country replaces Ijaz Butt as PCB head.  Till Butt is PCB head, the cricket in that country would continue to see more dark days like Sunday and more idiotic statements would coming out of their closet. Every tour Pak would make would focus on their off the field activities  than their on field activities.

It would also be futile to expect that the real ringleaders in the spot fixing saga would ever come out. The bans, fines and all such cleansing activities would continue despite all high talk from ICC and ECB.

ECB has been equal measure culprit as PCB. They have unrelenting greed for money as do Pak cricketers caught up in the spot fixing controversy. As soon as the controversy broke out, the tour should have been cancelled, but ECB continued playing the ball game on the name of cricket and its integrity. Its the same ECB who had allowed US fraudster Alan Stanford to land on so called home of cricket with shameless treasues of money and have English players wives sit on his lap in that farce called Stanford T20. It also hoped it would be a befitting reply to IPL.

ECB bungled step after step and continued to make huge statements. That its own team could not get past a team caught up in massive controversy shows how good it is for Ashes or the world cup to follow.  Their record in India over last 2 ODI series says it all how good they would be to pose up a challenge to the contenders -- Australia and South Africa.

Pakistan cricketers, lest they dont do a soul searching and overcome their pitfalls, such controversies would continue to happen. And no Ijaz or Giles or Zarda would be able to clean it, lest they themselves make them strong in character to not fall for the crooks and suspicious characters on and off the tour. If they are able to do so in coming years the game would take a huge step to get itself clean of the so called danger of omittence.

 

Yuvraj's omission is baffling.

India's team for the first test is almost a good one except following:

1. Yuvraj's omission is baffling. He did not get a chance to demonstrate his so called loss of form in Tests after the disastrous Galle test. Next test he was injured and next one Raina persisted over him. Ideally he could have been given one chance to prove his form in Tests and then drop would have been justified. Now that Che is in, it seems that for forseeable future Yuvraj's Test fortunes are on hold for now.
2. Che finally gets in the team but is he going to play ? He would no more than a drinks man. Ideally he should replace Dravid at 3, but then Dravid has had one poor series in Lanka and he should be back in form again.
3. Harbhajan in the team is baffling. He has not been in form, fitness and sane mind.  As SP says he is a spot fixer in Indian team.

Zaheer, Ishant, Harbhajan and IPL should be the lineup for bowling.  GG, VS, RD, ST, VVS, SR, MSD for batting.

Freelancing in T20 Kiran Potdar way

Mumbai Indians got their first win in the CLT and this is not good enough to see them through to the semis even if they beat RCB in their final game.  The savagery of Kiran Potdar aka Keiron Pollard was sole reason why MI could win this one by 31 runs.

Besides Zaks and Harbhajan got wickets too.

Good for their morale, good for India (really?).

By the way Pollard's success in non international T20s suggest a disturbing trend :

"The T20 players play great in club / franchisee level T20s but they fail to deliver when they play for their country."

Have not heard Pollard succeed in ODIs and T20Is for West Indies.

He belongs to the category of Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay, Dabrinath.  So turning freelance is a good option for Vijay, Dabris and Rainas. Even Jaddukha and Dinesh Karthik can join this club and stop competing for slots in Indian team for ODI/T20/Tests.  The original freelancer Freddie Flintoff retired today from all forms of cricket including IPL.

I am sure CSK would retain following players in the upcoming IPL4 auction:

• Dabri
• Raina
• Anni
• Vijay

And bid for Dinesh Karthik to snatch Tamil player from cruel North Indian franchisee Delhi DareEvils.

Politics behind Butt's visit....

Ijaz Butt is in India to meet hsi good friend Sharad Pawar. And he also gave an interview to Barkha Dutt of NDTV. Nothing new did he say except that he hoped that India and Pakistan should resume playing cricket. Sharad Pawar, as ICC chief hoped it would happen, but as UPA minister he would know that wont happen till Madam G and MMS provide their approvals. And approval would happen when Mr 10 %, patron of Ijaz's Butt would take some steps on....

Alright thats a different thread. Coming back to Butt in India, he said the same thing "Players innocent until proven guilty".

Thats been the favorite punchline of Indian politicians caught in scams all this years. And there is a sparking similarity -- none of the politicians here have been ever convicted by law and their cricketers havent been too. The politicians have lost the elections after the corruption charges were slapped on them, but never proved. Ditto for their cricketers. Madam G's hubby and former PM is a great example. Charged of Bofors corruption, he was never convicted, but he lost 1989 elections and his life in 1991.

There is very much political significance to the meeting between Pawar and Butt.  As ICC chief Pawar would want ties to resume between 2 countries, but as a cabinet minister in the govt he wont have much power to execute the will to a ruling and resume the cricketing ties. Butt would also have requested Pawar to start the cricketing ties cos his board is bankrupt and now he wants to go SL way to have series with India.

Wont be a bad idea to have India - Pak series now as India would royally thump them and make favorable amends in the ODI and Test records :)

That can even make Ravinder Jaddukha look a great allrounder as even he can nab hapless mindless hopeless toothless brainless pennyless Pak batsmen.

In short, do not expect anything to happen on the 3 tainted Pak cricketers in near future. Money business all round is too strong to have pCB/ICC/ECB to take any action on this 3 cricketers. It should not be a surprise to see three back in action soon as did the previous 6 players (banned in March, playing in JUne). Even Butt would replace his mind to change his opinion on the 3 players then :D

Fuck You Mahila Loserawardhene

Fuck you Mahela Jayawardhene. All your character shit goes to hell as soon as you step out of Sri Lanka. Scorelines of 0 and 10 just indicate that you aint good enough outside sub continent for anything. 

Shut the hell up if you cant match your words with the scores from the bat. 

Curious case of Vijay, Dabri and Raina

Here are Raina speak:

I wanted to make sure we rotated the strike, and that we hit the loose ball for four," said Raina, who scored a commanding 87. "When you bat at number three it gives you time to build an innings. When you bat at number seven for India, it's very difficult to score a 50 or a century

Great he scored a match winning super stroked 87 for his home team. Great his one innings got Chennai a win good enough to go semis for now.

But he just spoke garbage. 

He bats at 7 for India ? Since when ? The no 7 spot belongs to great allrounder Ravinder Saheb JadduKha who has made the spot his own.  

At 7 its not necessary to score a 50 or 100 always. Quick cameos depending on situation (240 odd in 45 overs) or stabilising 50s or 100s are need (100 for 5 in 20 overs) are prescribed. 

I do not remember an occasion in last 3 years (since 2008 when he made a comeback post Chappell era) Raina Saheb has batted at 7 for India.  And except useless JadduKha many no 7 players have hit big runs for India -- Dravid at times, Kaif, Uthappa and Pathan have been successful for India at that position. 

Coming in 43rd or 44th over many players have hit quick fire 50s to change the complexion of the game altogether while chasing or setting a target.

Raina is just giving an excuse to prove his failure with bat for India. Here is the reason:

Raina plays for CSK in IPL (and hence for CLT20) and gets money from India Cements owner Nambiarayan Srini. No wonder he is topmost Indian run getter in IPL 3 editions thus far. 

A look at his ODI stats in the 3 years say the picture : 

He has played 58 innings and made 1832 runs at 40 runs per game with 3 hundreds and 12 fiftees.  Great record. Last time he played at 7 for India was in 2008.  In 2009-2010 period he has mostly batted at 5 or 6 for India. Increase the spot by 1 in matches when Tendulkar does not play. 

Deflated figures without consistency.  Good in one tourney, average in other. 

And contrast those figures with the IPL. Awesome records in all 3 seasons.  600, 400 and 500 runs.  Amazing strike rates, innovations, big hits, short balls negotiated and what not. 

When playing for India constantly getting out to short balls, ugly hits over square leg leading to dismissals. Why ? 

Is he fixing the games or chosing the games to play well ? Play well in more money games like IPL or CLT20? Be an average batsman in games for India ? What if BCCI matches ODI match fee as money he gets for IPL game? Will then he play consistently ?

Ditto for Dabri and Vijay. ZVijay today made 68 at amazing strike rate of 130.  He had great IPL. But contrast that to India matches.  

ODIs : 4 games 71 runs and 17.75. Against Zimbabwe, the weakest of ODI playing teams (forget associate teams) he was scratchy and made 10 off 40 balls. 

Tests : 6 games for 259 runs. Highest of 87 vs SL last year.  Just 2 50s. Why ? Is he content with 30s and 40s for India? Does his talent go hiding when playing for India and it comes out in open for CSK and Tamil Nadu?

This guys have to sort out their priorities right, else they would / should be kicked out of the national team for there is no dearth of deserving batsmen. Why is it that all evils today emanate from Tamil Nadu in Indian cricket? Selection issues? Quota selections? Rigged auctions?  No state has had more fringe players than Tamil Nadu in last few years, yet none of those Tamil Nadu players have been able to fix their spots.  Is TNCA and CSK so insecure that it has to fire a coach for not playing a bowler in A tour ? 

filtered

2008-2010

67

58

12

1832

116*

39.82

1897

96.57

3

12

3

148

51

All time XI greats for India

Cricinfo has published its all time XI greats for India. Here's the XI :

1. Gavaskar
2. Sehwag
3. Dravid
4. Tendulkar
5. Hazare
6. Mankad
7. Dhoni
8. Dev
9. Sri
10. Kumble
11. Prasanna

Well the top 4 are perfectly fine. No dispute on that.

No 5 and no 6 are problem.

No VVS Laxman in there? Cant imagine the guy who played one of the greatest Test innings ever is not in the all time great list.

How many times Hazare played? And over how many years? Against how many countries and in what conditions ? Agreed he was one of very early Indian cricketers and cricketers across ages are absurd to be compared.

Still when this excersise is being done, then you gotta take consideration of number of Tests played, against whom, the quality of opposition and the time span.

Sanjay Manjrekar had a comment on Javagal Srinath's inclusion in the list. Why ? He certainly was a very good fast bowler given the era he came in. Had injuries not backed him a bit, then he would have had played more tests than he actually did. He got wickets in placid Indian conditions. His two spells of 6-21 and a 8-for in Calcutta vs Pakistan were splendid spells of bowling in Indian conditions.

Perhaps Sanjay was pissed why he and his father were not included who at best played with defensive mindset to draw the games.

I think in place of Hazare VVS Laxman should have made the cut and in place of Mankad it should have been either Ganguly as left hander or if an allrounder was needed it should have been Jimmy Amarnath for his sheer ability to stand up against Windies pacers of 70s and 80s.

Spin attack is already strong with Kumble and Pras to take care of, only thing this team lacks is seam bowlers and in foreign conditions they need 3rd seamer which could easily be taken care by Jimmy Amarnath.

Pity that Suresh Menon did all the writing for the all time XI for India.

India vs Australia Preview - 1

The Australia Test series is just under a month away and for the test cricket romantics its the best series cricket witnesses irrespective of rankings and personnel. 1990s and 200s have provided some memorable contests between the 2 teams and the balance has been delicately shifted to the either of the team in few years.

Since the disastrous tour of 1991 when India lost 0-4, the Indians have evolved into a tough opposition for Australia. Here is the breakup of the results and matches post 1991 :

1996 : India 1-0 (1)

1998 : India 2-1(3)

2000: Australia 3-0(3)

2001 : India 2-1 (3)

2003 : 1-1 (4)

2004 : Australia 2-1(4)

2007 : Australia 2-1(4)

2008 : India 2-0(4)

So here's the cumulative breakup:

Total : 26

India : 10

Aus : 10

Draw : 6

Included are the Sydney Tests of 2004 and 2008 when India could have been the winners but for Steve Bucknor and....

Included is Chennai Test of 2004 when the final day rains prevented an Indian victory and a Sehwag classic. India needed another 201/210 runs to win on day 5 and Sehwag had hit Pidge for 3 fours in the last over of 4th day. Earlier Simon Katich and Jason Gillespie had denied lower 4th innings target for India as in Sydney earlier in 2004.

So the batting lineup for India is more or less decided:

1. Sehwag

2. Gambhir.

3. Dravid

4. Tendulkar

5. Laxman

6. Raina

7. Dhoni

And the bowling attack should be: Zaheer, Ishant, ?, ?

Given his reputation and his equations, Harbhajan would be one of the contenders and the second spot would be fought between IPL Ojha, Amit Mishra and Ashvin if he comes good in the tour game.

The other 2 reserve batsmen should be Yuvraj and Pujara.

Champions League update thus far

CLT20 is on in full flow and thats the Cricket Ka Asli Muqabla.  There are lot of new faces in the commentary boxes and thats a welcome sign. Saurav Ganguly is in the box and so are Shastri, Gavaskar -- India's finest. Good respite from the likes of Arun Lal, Shiva and company. On the flip side we also have Pommie Bangwa and Russell Arnold. The results so far are as expected.

1. Out of the 10 playing teams 3 are from India and 2 of them have won the first games emphatically when they were supposed to struggle and flaunder in this conditions. The critics forget that it was in South Africa, that India has had their best run in the ICC editions of the World Cup and World T20. A world cup final in 2003 and World T20 win in 2007. So how the teams would struggle is beyond comprehension. This point of view has been pastered on us by Sanjay Manjrekars of the world who refuse to see anything silver lining in the dooms.  Sachin Tendulkar the batsman continued his good form and that pretty much almost covered his unusual errings in the field as captain. Kumble and MSD led their respective teams to victories with ease and they should be good for the semis if they continue to play the same way they did in their first games.
2. Wayamba is as useless as Mahelangakara's character rants. They failed miserably against Warriors and a lot of  that blame has to go on Mahila who fell for a duck. I guess the major reason they failed to win was that the character juice supply was in short and a lot of that did not arrive from Lankan godowns.  Only positive point of their team was old Kulatunga and young Pareira (there are so many Pareiras playing for Lanka, its difficult to track them all) with their positive batting. The praise ends here.
3. Australian teams have had mixed bag so far. South Australia RedBacks beat Lions (SA) by 19 runs on day 2 of the tourney and Victoria, the Aussie version of Tamil Nadu lost their opening game to Warriors who look  good to go the semis route at least.
4. Windies and Kiwis teams had horrible outings in conditions that should have suited them ideally.

As of now given the form RCB, CSK, Warriors and one of RedBacks/Lions look good to go the distance to the semis.

Kumble had figures of 1/10 in 4 overs against Guyana. Harbhajan could not take a wicket in the game against Lions.  When Kumble played Harbhajan often got wickets owing to the pressure built by Kumble from the other end. Since Kumble retired, Harbhajan has struggled in Tests and that has impacted further his ODI and T20 bowling.

Kallis is continuing his good run this year in CL as well and he came good with bat and ball in the game vs Guyana. Dravid had a 33 which was solid and flair of typical Dravid in his peak in ODIs. Unfortunately he grassed a few dollies which prompted few to call for his axing and a well tracked farewell. Uncalled for.

Sachin had a good outing in first game as batsman and his other big names failed. Dumniny, Pollard, Rayudu, Sathish were miserable. Except Malinga none came good in bowling. Sachin is too good a player to repeat his captaincy mistakes in the second game tomorow.

Indian players have had a good outing so far. Unexpectedly Junior Cheeka had a 42 which should fast track his place into national colors. That there are other deserving players than him to get the India cap is another story, he has that advantage of having DAD at high position backed by Nambiarulu Srinivasan, the CSK owner and powerful BCCI sachiv.

So if he finds a place in the ODI team as a replacement for great Sobers in making RavinderSing Jaddukha, it sould not be a surprise as Cheeka would have ensured a good entry behind the door.

Dabri had a good outing again and like his Chennai friend DK he would now come into contention for every team India plays and once in he would be back to usual scoring pattern of 10s, 20s and 30s.  Its good. It keeps our community (bloggers and twitterers) busy guessing who # 6 in Tests and # 7 in ODIs would be. Not to forget that the jokes would continue too.

PS : Thanks SoulBerry for mentioning that this blog is one of the good ones for IPL and CLT20. It means a lot when this blog has more distractors than admirers. Appreciate a lot.

Mumbai Chokers

For this very reason MI is a team who would not win the CL20 or IPL. Except Tendulkar the rest of the team is a mixture of jokers. Good for nothing. Sathishes, Rayudus, Pollards all combined dont make half of what Sachin Tendulkar contributes. I feel for the guy. He gives his all even in a club tourney and the big money makers dont even put the worth of the talent to bail out the team of the crisis.

Zaheer had a forgettable comeback, but thats excused as coming from a break. Harbhajan never takes wickets this days be it T20s or Tests or ODis. And he is still India's no 1 spinner....Get off dude.

The Lions who had just 2 Test players or ones with some international experience ran amok the IPL team which is costliest, belonging to the richest Indian and captained by a guy who has made more runs, scored more 100s than anybody else in the cricketing world. Yet they are unable to win a tight contest. Chokers would be a good tag to label on Mumbai Indians.

Except for Sachin Tendulkar none other were playing a game. And when Tendulkar got out, the game was all over for MI.

There was a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai that more people watched Boppana Quraishi lose the uS open doubles final than Tendulkar and he'd never expected this to happen. Cmon man this is a CLT20, not an India match.

Media is going gung ho about possible India Pakistan combine to play sport. Thats an impossible union ever.  Media keeps imagining things and when they get a rude jolt from Qureshis (Foren mantri) and 10%s (rashtrapati), they get back to usual bashing........

Another selectorial wisdom from Srikanth led panel

India's selectors never learn from their previous mistakes. And thats one of the big reasons India's ODI campaign seems to be in murkier water after running a high on 2008 and 2009.  The selection panel showed its wisdom and richness of thoughts and vision in the selection of BP XI for the warmup against touring Aussies later this month in Mohali.

There are just 6 specialist batsmen in the squad who would obviously play the game should no injury happen. But what if injury happens ?

Here is the breakup squad:

Openers : Gautam Gambhir and Abhinav Mukund.

Middle Order : Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane (in no particular order)

Wicket Keeper : Wriddhiman Saha

Spinners : R Ashwin, Piyush Chawla

Fast bowlers : Jaidev Undakat, Mithun, Sreesanth,

Allrounder : Jadeja

Crap!!

Jadeja is still being pronounced as allrounder. He is not even allrounder at domestic level. Still he finds a place in every team is surprising and disastrously ridiculous. I'd stop following Indian cricket the day he makes it to Test team replacing any of the batting greats.

GAmbhir is rightly in the team as he is short of the match practice owing to injury and the poor run in the Galle Test.

R Ashvin, Mukund are from TN. Mukund is deserving one though. He was at the other end in the partnership that saw M VIjay being rushed in 2008 owing to GG ban for 3rd Test.

Piyush Chawla is as a leg spinner and Ashvin is as a off spinner. If Ashvin comes good then he would exert some pressure on off colored IPL Ojha and Harbhajan Singh. Chawla is unsure commodity as he is being given lot of chances and he has not grabbed them with both hands.

The other side of selectors wisdom is if any of the 3 IPL teams make it to the semis or the finals of CLT20, then one of Dhawan, Kohli and Ashvin would miss out on the tour game as it starts on 9/25. CLT20 ends on 9/29.

So if this teams reach semis or 2 of the teams reach final some vital cogs of Test team would need to rush to India immediately to be part of the Test team......And switch from T20 mode to Test mode.

Dravid, Tendulkar, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Raina and MSD.  4 of 7 batsmen and 2 of the 4 bowlers.  Wow what a good scheduling we've got for the Test series and the tour game for Australia.

Good side of this selection is there are no Rohit Sharmas and Dinesh Karthiks.  What if Cheteshwar Pujara comes good in this tour game ? WIll Srikanth under influence of N Srini include him ahead of Suresh Raina (a CSK member)? or at least as a reserve batsman for the 14/15/16 member team for first test ?

Its clear that selectors have not gone wise from the Nagpur experience earlier this year when RD, VVS had injuries and W Saha had to play as a specialist batsmen last moment when Rohit Sharma also injured himself.

For sure there are similarities between Ijaz Butt and K Srikanth for they never learn from the mistakes and commit new folly every time.

Mr and Mrs ten percent

ICC has sent notice to Kamran Akamal indicating he is under scanner for his suspicious activities all this year for Australian tour, England tour and Asia Cup activities.  TOI reports that he had been notified before the Lord's test too and he had replied to the notice. But the notice reply were found to be ridiculous and so he was charged once again.

This time the PCB was ignored. The notice was sent directly to the rogue keeper.

PCB chief returned to his homeland and received jeers. Still unfazed he declared he wont have any investigation as ICC and Scotland Yard investigation are already on. Actually he meant this

We are incompetent, impotent and idiots. If we launch any investigations then all we are going to do is say "Where is the proof" ? If proofs are unearthed we would ban and fine the players. And then have them submit the appeals and finally revoke the bans and fines. We would turn a blind eye to what the players do while on the tour, whom they meet, how much cash they make, whether they play cricket or do anything beyond that. We are incompetent, impotent."

So in the end its back to the square one. Laughing stock. Amazingly, still nothing would happen. Butt, the bil of Pak defence minister shall continue to be  the pCB chief and continue to say "Where is the proof" and "Innocent until proved guilty". He would be "impotent until proved potent".

If Akamal is charged then why is he playing ?

A search for Ijaz Butt on twitter yields some hillarious tweets even from his own countrymen like "trading off Ijaz Butt" and stuff like that.

Irony is that who is going to kick him out ? The patron ? Mr 10 % :D. Who knows he might be getting some slice of the spot fixing payment from the bookies !! And Ijaz Butt would be getting his share too. Probably that explains the reason why this two buffoons are still in place.

ICC suspends Pakistan captain, premier fast bowler and Veena Malik's ex bf

Start of the day : PCB withdraws  the 3 players on grounds of mental torture from media, bloggers, ex-cricketers and fans. Pakistan envoy to Britain confirms this proving that he is cousin of Ijaz Butt in terms of mental health and wisdom.

Later in the day : ICC suspends 3 players on grounds of corruption under ACSU.

Welcome step.  Some action had to be taken and ICC was the only one who could have taken this action given how impotent and inept PCB is.

What happens to Kamran  Akamal ? He was implicated too right ? Did Shahid Afridi save his ass as Akamal constantly rants Shahid Bhai Shahid Bhai ?

By the way collage below (courtesy : ndtv.com and mid-day.com) should be good enough to nail Salman Butt and Kamran Akamal.  A fitting reply to those who are asking for proofs. Nothing can get bigger than this pictures and the video footage shown by NOTW.

Spot Fixing Stake Holders

Trying to draw a picture who's on what side of the spot fixing scandal. We've had truckload of tweets on the spot fixing stuff, lot of media articles across cricketing nations and conspiracy theories. A lot of turning blind eye stuff, demanding of proofs when they are damning present in the video, linkage to RAW, linkage to India, linkage to corruption within that country, conspiracy from ICC chief and what not.

Backers and Movers

*

Geoff Lawson

*

Rameez Raza

*

Michael Atherton

*

Ijaz Butt

*

Shahid Afridi

*

Mohd Ijaz

*

Salman Butt

*

Yawar Saeed

*

Few Pakistani bloggers

*

Daily Mail

Against

* Indian bloggers

* Indian tweeters

* Indian media

* England team

* English media

* Imran Khan

* Sarfaraz Nawaz

* Javed Miandad

* Few Pak bloggers

* Australian team like Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, N Hauritz

* Micahel Vaughan

There have been few crazy mongers who have gone onto blame Indian establishment for the spot fixing stuff :

* Daily mail linking RAW, ICC, Indian commision (in UK) and BCCI to ruin Aamer's career. I was typing character, thanks to Sangakara overdose.

* Veena Malik, their Rakhi Sawant who's blamed entire Pak cricketing fraternity involvement in match fixing.

* Ijaz Butt who still asks "Whers the proof. Show me the proof."

* Mr 10 % who's asked for interim report from Ijaz Butt.

* Gilani who feels Pak head is down in shame

* Zakhrani and Malik who change their views every single day.

* Haroon Lorgat who feels ACSU is doing good job but it is a powerless and toothless body.

* ICC chief Sharad Pawar who himself is in a mess pledges no action.

The win-win situation to deal with this spot fixing stuff could have been

"Temporarily suspend the named 3/4 players till investigations of Scotland yard are done and some premises either way are established. The tour could have gone ahead."

This also would have set some credibility on PCB's part showing that they were keen to get this mess out of their system. Albeit it was never to happen and there has been same predictable reaction to this entire episode. Those 3 players would still go on to play the ODIs and as Pak would lose 0-5 it would be very difficult to tell which ones were a genuine losses and which ones were spot fixed.