Chennai Super Kings killed Indian Cricket

Ravinder Jadeja will be playing Test matches for India on the brink of triple centuries on Rajkot pitch. And he moves in the team ahead of Manoj Tiwary and Ajinkya Rahane.  This is shameful and disgrace. Ridiculous and sinful. Chennai Super Kings is now hell bent to destroy the fabric of Indian cricket. Time to kick out N Srinivasan, Duncan Fletcher and MS Dhoni out of Indian cricket. Indian cricket is not about Chennai Super Kings franchisee. 

The spot Jadeja will play was once owned by Ganguly and occasionally by Laxman. Later on by Yuvraj and Raina. 

The post does not reflect the outrage and disgusting feeling on the happenings in Mumbai and Kolkata. Had to write about the feeling to see Jadeja play, so wrote the nothing post.

Ricky Ponting retires

So Ricky Ponting has called time on his 17 year old Test career in 2012 based on "tentative" manner of dismissals in first 2 Tests. And Perth test shall be his last.  He had already called time upon the ODI career and with him retiring the successful era of Australian dominance shall come to an end. He was the last pole of the dominating Aussies who ruled the world in 1990s and 2000s. He was a very successful captain who basically carried on the legacy of Steve Waugh in 2004 and struggled after 2007 Ashes when the greats retired one by one.  And those defeats put him in a very ordinary light -- some one not been able to turn the things around with men of ordinary capability. When he was the captain and had the awesome men like Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, Matty Hayden, Jus Langer and of course Glenn McGrath, the results spoke for themselves and post 2008 when all of the above men were gone, the results show a downward spiral.

Later on his form dwindled and every test series he played was speculated to be his last. But Indians revived him last summer as they have done to so many failing batsmen and suddenly Ponting talked about the back to back Ashes prospects next year. But he was done in by series of ordinary scores in the ongoing series vs South Africans. In a series when Australians have maintained a noose over the # 1 team in the world and all batsmen around him were getting huge scores, Ponting struggled. And thats when he determined he was not contributing enough that led to this decision.

The world cricket in 2012  especially the Test cricket will be very poor with 3 of the most illustrious men retired -- Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman from India and now Ricky Ponting from Australia. Not to mention that Andrew Strauss from England had also called time earlier this year, but he might not be in the league of this 3 men. And again in near foreseeable future Sachin Tendulkar might call it time as well.  The Test cricket will be poorest in years then. As an Indian fan, I hated Ponting make runs in Australia against India, but there were few sights of pleasure also watching him bat against other teams. Indian fans despise him, they hate him, a lot of frentic fans rejoiced on facebook when they saw the news of Ponting retirement.  Ponting has had a formidable record in Tests and ODIs. And like the contemporaries he did not excel in T20Is and very soon he retired from that format.

He has had 2nd highest ODI centuries and 2nd highest ODI runs as in Tests after Tendulkar. But what he has is something no other player in history has. 2 World cup wins back to back as a captain, 3 overall.  2 Champions Trophy wins when the Aussies struggled in this trophy till 2006.  Ponting led Australia in 3 world cups, won 2 and lost in the quarters of the last one.  Under him Australia won 34 World cup games in row and this looks to be a record which will never be broken. 

Ponting is hailed as 2nd best Australian batsman only after Don Bradman. He scored runs in all conditions against all countries. He struggled against India in India especially against Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. But in return series in 2003, 2011 he made tons of runs against Indians.  He scored against South Africa, England, Kiwis, West Indies and of course Lankans. But again he was the only captain to lose 3 Ashes (2005, 2009 and 2010-11). Something he was very keen to improve, but his scoring dried and off he went.

He was not a very good sportsmen as often he claimed the catches that were not, he appealed when the dismissals looked dodgy, pressurized umpires, had a short temper. Who can forget that 1998 Sharjah tourney when he was hurt by Javagal Srinath bouncer and he rudely sent back the bowler when out of courtesy, Srinath went to check if he was fine. He had tussles with Zaheer Khan, Sourav Ganguly and of course Harbhajan Singh. The 2008 series in Australia was one of the worst in terms of "spirit of cricket" which led Anil Kumble to famously quote "Only one team was playing in the spirit of the game".

All said and done, despite his shortcomings as a captain and a person on the field, Ricky Ponting will be a cricketing legend with formidable record in Tests and ODIs. And he shall be missed.

Thank You Ricky Ponting for all of your cricketing memories. And I must confess when he was in his prime, I so very wished his form fell so that Tendulkar's records remain intact and now they will.

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Motera win

As expected India won the first Test in the Motera and that win came after 7 years later on the ground.  This time the relaid pitch was slow, low bouncy one as opposed to flat ones in past.  England continue to work to their reputation of being inept to play spin and apply some application.  Here were a few positives and negatives:

Positives:

• Yuvraj Singh's classier return to the test cricket. His 74 was not amongst his fluent, but he was on the field for 2 and half days. And that is good sign for him. Now only he could make consistent scores on the # 6 spot, he could make a name in Test cricket as well.
  
• Cheteshwar Pujara's 247 runs without getting dismissed. He put a price on his wicket, didnt get out a single time and he did outscore Sehwag in 2nd innings while chasing 77.  A long term prospect found. And best bet to continue batting at #3, the one where a legend batted for 168 Tests and 16 years.
• Pragyan Ojha, with his best match figures, he continues to grow in confidence and getting better day by day. He's now raced to 85 odd wickets in 18 Tests and at an average of 30, which is bound to improve with time. His dismissals of KP in both innings and then bowled dismissal of Ali Cook were remarkable ones.
  
• And of course Virender Sehwag with a Test century after 2 years on the same ground he had the last one.  He will be playing his 100th one in Wankhede, the world cup winning venue and it shall even be better if he scores his trademark big ton in that Test.
• Fast bowling. Umesh Yadav bowling with pace and lot of hostility. Zaheer Khan with whatever  contributions he make, it's good for him.
  

Negatives:

• R Ashvin, he got 4 wickets in the test and he tried too much. Impatient and flat. Gave up too easily when he did not get wickets. At one point of time he gave out 154 runs without taking a wicket. One more failure and talks to get in Harbhajan Singh will only grow louder.
• Sachin Tendulkar, though he took a couple of wickets and he was agile in the field, he did not make the runs, only 13 of them and its now 5 innings without substantial contribution. The best thing now is he returns to his home ground and a century there will be an awesome return to the form (for whatever time he feels is left to play).
• MS Dhoni's keeping and batting. Only thing he excelled in was in whining and post match comments.  When things don't go his way , he just gives up and we get to see a lot of unimaginative captaincy. 
  
• And a rare failure from Virat Kohli.

And of course umpiring.

We are 2 days out from the 2nd Test and the media reports suggest that the Wankhede pitch will assist seam and swing at least on day 1.  So let's see how England fare. And if the so called famed English lineup turns up.

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Sehwag and Gambhir show they still belong!!

A big middle finger to the critics of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir by scoring a 100 run and counting partnership for first wicket.....

Job just started and long way to go..

Bravo West Indies for being the T20 champions

And the South Africa gave their CHOKERS tag to Sri Lanka. And how. West Indies, the pre-tournament favorites won a world title after 33 years. Huge achievement. Happy for them. They deserved the victory. Their team is one super power in T20 format, no wonder they shall garner record IPL auction prices later this year or early next year.

Marlon Samuels played a gem of a match winning innings to turn the score of 2/32 to a match winning 137 in 20 overs. And then the big hitters of Lanka were silenced through a disciplined bowling attack of West Indies. 

Chris Gayle, for all his pre-match noise, had the last laugh though in the end and he would be ridiculing the loud mouth Mahela Jaywardhene who felt amazing when his team reached 4th final in last 5 years. But they have not won a single event and thats not amazing. Actually that is ridiculous. Forever bridesmaid. They did not have a single reason for not winning this tournament. Home conditions, slow and low wikats, army of tweakers who bowl within the now tweaked 15 degree elbow rule, so called best T20 bowler who went for 54 runs in 4 overs, boring band and of course the ignorant, cricket crazy fans who just blindly support their team. 

What they did not have was a spirit to win the tournament. If they had won this tournament, the spirit of cricket world wide would have taken a beating. Frequently challenging ICC rules and tweaking it to their convenience had to pay some time and it did in this crushing defeat. 

"We are all really happy to be part of a very successful group over a period of time," he said. "We have been blessed with four now - although I know we haven't won anything. But four finals, it's amazing. In one's career you are lucky enough to play in one final."

We play with a very positive mindset. We spoke at the start of the tournament that we would have to play on three different surfaces in Hambantota, Pallakele and now Colombo. We had to adapt. It is about handling tough situations better."

This were his words after they defeated Pakistan in the semi-final.  All of this was not on display when they took the field to chase down the target. But they were beaten in their own game. Loud mouthing never helps. Sri Lanka will forever be known for the 1996 victory, they'd never be known for the fact they reached 4 finals in 5 years and failed to win one of them. 

Mahela Jayawardhena's problem is he speaks too quickly and speaks too much. He seems to be that project manager of an IT company who is process oriented, but always fails to deliver the projects on time and with necessary quality standards. People loath this kind of characters in their team. And when he often tweaks the rules to his favor, he basically presents a poor picture of himself in the world crickat.   

SL unveil a lot of cricketers from their so called school system and most of them fail to shine consistently on international level. Take out the 3 big players of their team and the team is a dud. The captaincy revolves in hands of those 3 creatures. Each of whom is a genius in batting, but they fail to go the distance when it comes to win a world title. 

All of those character talks, silken batting touch and "romanticism" and of course "neutral's favorite" goes down the drain when you continously fail at last hurdle and still boast hugely about the losing team. Mahela Jayawardhena spoke too early about Chris Gayle and he had to lick his own spit.

And as a loser shall do, he has stepped down again from the captaincy. Albeit only T20 this time. Pakistani players retire,  they come back, they retire, they come back. Sri Lankan captains quit captaincy, they come back again and they quit captaincy again.

Play well and play within the spirits Lankans. 

And what a birthday gift turned out to be today for Dwayne Bravo today. Something to cherish for life. Simon Taufel bowed out of umpiring today and he has had a wonderful career in umpiring over last decade or so. And it was just apt that the last of the West Indies greats of 1970s and 1980s -- Richie Richardson is team manager today and though he was not part of any world cup wins, he would surely have remembered the winning feeling they so frequently had in 1980s.  And only if Windies shall convert this super win in more consistent displays in ODIs and of course Tests, the world cricket shall be richer once again.

Sri Lanka continue to abuse the ICC laws

Any talk of a moral high from Sri Lanka camp sounds hollow after what they constantly do to abuse the ICC rules. First with the action of Murali and now the "switch" of captaincy to avoid a one match ban over their temporary captain and best T20 batsman.

What is further amazing is the lad has guts to go down to a press conference and justify what he does -- abusing the rules / law and making fun of it, while ICC continues to be a foolish mute spectator. 

So what's next from Sri Lanka camp -- making the substitute fielder bat or bowl in the semi-final game ?

Why India failed to "MAKE IT LARGE" in World T20

So India has been kicked out of WT20 yet again, for 3rd time in row without making it to the semis. This time with a difference though.  Last 2 editions, India failed to win a single game in Super 8s and this time India won 2, yet it was kicked out. India won 4 out of 5 games and were out. West Indies had one outright win and one super over win, one game was washed out. They lost one game comprehensively and one on D/L. Yet they see themselves in semi-final. But that shall be case of sour grapes if we are to blame the ICC for the format of the tournament.  The rules and groupings of Super 8 was always known to India and when it came to crunch games, India failed to wrest the initiative.

A few reasons IMO for this failure:

Dhoni's jaded captaincy

Dhoni has now seemed to run out of ideas and his instinctive moves seem to fail more than succeed.  Like they say his luck is now running out. He looks a tired captain and he has excuses ready for every single occasion when India fails to win the game. For example in that super 8 game vs Australia, he had an excuse ready "RAIN". Anybody who is a decent follower of the game shall tell Dhoni that boss you erred in the team selection. No business sitting Sehwag out and opening with Irfan Pathan. With due respect, Pathan is the best allrounder we have and better than the likes of Jadeja and YP, but he is no Shane Watson. He is a decent batsman, but no means worth opening.   He top scored but took 30 balls for his 31. Game lost. Plus 3 spinners and one of them is Piyush Chawala. He was a sorry figure when he was hit for runs.  5 bowlers, with none of them being good enough to stop rampaging Shane Watson and Dave Warner.

Even in today's game with SA he got the part timers on before Ashvin and when the need was to take the wickets, Dhoni was trying to woo the new selection committee chairman by bringing in Rohit Sharma ahead of Ashvin. Ashvin might not have taken wickets or he might not be the bowler in international games, that he is in IPL, yet he could have stopped flow of runs. Rohit Sharma gave away 14 runs in that over, Faf Du Plessis got the start he needed and the target of semis was lost.  In the game against Australia Irfan Pathan was brought on in 9th or 10th over and by that time Warner and Watson were set, they tore apart Pathan.  Pathan has to bowl within 5 or 6 overs and that's where his strength lies.

Dhoni's over reliance on part timers is baffling.   He has now started to look jaded, tired and short of ideas. He has his own set of players, his own ideas which fail more now than success. He refuses to change the batting order, he refuses to drop the players that form his core team, no matter they succeed or fail.  Ashvin has taken 12 wickets in 15 games, yet he plays all matches as # 1 spinner in 3 formats.  Harbhajan got 4/12 vs England and next game he went for 20 in 2. He was dropped in games against Pak and SA. Ashvin was without wickets in game against Australia, he was persisted today and vs Pakistan. Why different benchmarks ? Just cos Ashvin plays for same franchisee as Dhoni?

Poor team selection

Srikanth should be known as the worst selection committee chairman India has ever had. Apart from all the known and reported follies he had, the worst thing he has done is created a batch of TN cricketers ready for replacements and injected a stream of failed cricketers in the national team. Ashvin for example is no different from Harbhajan (of 2010 and 2011 riled upon as container than a wicket taker) in ODIs and T20Is, yet he plays all games. L Balaji did nothing of importance in domestic cricket and yet out of blue he was in the final 15. Even though he ended with 9 wickets in the failed campaign, he was easy meat even for the tail enders and today Morne Morkel almost got SA to victory. 

Why was Umesh Yadav not selected? What is Zaheer Khan doing in T20Is when he seems disinterested in the format? What is Ashok Dinda doing in the team ? And suddenly what did Rohit Sharma do from that horror ODI series in SL to the World T20 in SL that saw him selected in the final 15?  

Manoj Tiwary continues to be benched forever across limited over formats. Why ?  Dhoni just does not seem to trust players outside his coterie of players, something which Ganguly never did and that's why his era threw genuine match winners in Yuvraj, Sehwag etc.

IPL continues to do any good

Ever since IPL has come on board India has gone down in performance in T20Is. India failed to win a single Super 8 game in 2009, 2010 edition and in 2012, it won 2 but crashed out early. IPL benefited players from foreign countries like Australia (Shane Watson, Mike Hussey and Dave Warner for ex) and SA  (Faf du Plessis, Jacques Kallis etc), but the host country whose rich businessmen hire this foreign players, fails to benefit. Where are the players who are the byproducts of the IPL in India? Who are those players? Unfortnately there are very few players who can be said to find of IPL. The Indian players who have succeeded in IPL are already playing for country or have played and failed (Ashvin, Dinda, Balaji, Rohit Sharma).

So now is the time to do a retrospective on IPL whether it is doing any good to Indian cricket in terms of quality of players in T20 format?  Take any IPL game and see the average score. Hardly it shall be less than 170 or 175. And then take a look at the scores India have made in T20Is in this year ? 152, 128/2, 140, 170, 160, 166 and 153.  Hardly match winning scores.  Last time India crossed 200 was 5 years ago when there was no IPL, no ICL and India did not know how to play T20 and neither they took it seriously. Since then every player of Indian ODI team plays average 15 T20 games per year and yet when it comes to T20Is, the star studded icon players of franchisees fail to make it "LARGE" at highest level.

CLT20 is next and barring Yuvraj and Kohli most of the players who were part of this team will be in SA playing that tournament and will make big scores (or take wickets). And of course the disgruntled fans like me shall feel cheated who want to see India "MAKE IT LARGE" in every international series or tournament.

India maintain a glorious 20 year old tradition

So the Indians make an awesome comeback beating the rogue Pakies by 8 wickets with 3 overs to spare. And by doing that they maintain a 20 year tradition -- not losing a single fucking match to them in a World event. And in this glorious tradition, I'd let go those thousands of Pakistani Sharjah victories specifically scheduled on Fridays to aid them in some special way. Gone are those days now when specific parts of all Indian cities used to rejoice on Pakistani victories and you havent heard likes of Shoaib Malik after 2007 thanking Indian "Muslims" for supporting their team.

Pakies imploded today as they explode explosives in India. They wanted to make runs, huge runs. So that their "Varied attack" could take wickets and seal a place in semi-final. But they did not apply minds. Senseless batting is Pakistan's USP. And noone better than Shahid Afridi signifies it. He believes in mentality -- if I touch a ball it has to be six or I am out. He hit 2 boundaries and then he was OUT. A golden duck against SA in first game and today he walked at # 3. 

Hafeez is T20I captain but he played a test match and made a scratchy 15 off 28 balls. And basically thats where he set a platform to allow other Paki batsmen to implode and they did. Even a Tamil Nadu centric attack with the likes of Balaji and Ashvin whose speeds might differ by 10mph or 20mph were able to get this poor non English speaking batsmen out. Heck Balaji is on hattrick next game. 

All in all a pressure game made one sided by the mindless Pakistani game plan where they not have any plan. No plan at all. They buckled under pressure. They are now a mentally fragile side. Saeed Ajmal is not going to win them all games they play. And the Pakistani batsmen need to understand the importance of playing the game as per the match situation rather than those Afridi style wild slogs.

India's Super Eights Issue

England continue to confound against spin and collapse on Sunday gives a very good hope for a Test whitewash in the winter. But then the entire batting lineup shall be different to the one we saw fold out for meager 80 on Sunday. Thanks to Dinda, England just managed to get past the lowest ever T20I score.  England next are to face Windies and their mystery spinner might be another big challenge to conquer for England. Sunil Naraine had an awful English summer in damp conditions but in SL he shall be a definitive threat to English batsmen. And the spin challenge doesnt stop right there.  Mendis or the new spinner of SL await next and then Daniel Vettori in NZ game.

England look sorry and they will not win the World T20 if they continue to fall prey to spin bowling.

And btw, here is a toast to the fighting spirit of Harbhajan Singh for his superb return to the International cricket. But if thats going to be long term, that needs to be seen.  Ashvin will return next game and that shall mark an end to Harbhajan unless MS wants to play 2 spinners. 4/12 are the best Indian figures in T20I and also that victory was biggest for India in terms of runs. A T20I win over England in 5 years.

India has its own set of problems. Batting line up looks formidable on paper and despite playing plethora of T20s in a year, India find it difficult to score or accelerate in international T20 games.  Low par scores of 159 vs Afghanistan, 155 vs SL in Aug and 170 vs England indicate that India need to pace their innings really well. Another mystery is the strike rate of MSD who has played countless "cool" innings for his IPL franchisee but he fails to repeat that form in T20Is. Or for that matter his ODI form. A strike rate of 110 and a highest score of 48 is under achievement for Indian captain.

The pace department is a poor reading for India. Zaheer Khan is of little value in T20s and less said about L Balaji and Dinda the better. Dinda has quite long runup and a high jump in his action, but his pace is again 130ish.  And no wickets either.  Umesh Yadav should have been playing this tournament, instead he was playing in pointless Irani trophy fixture.  Hopefully with new selection committee getting installed, they will iron out this kind of selection blunders in future.

Australia are top heavy and once the top 3 are gone, the rest are dicey against spin. Perhaps India should look forward to exploit this weakness in their first game of Super 8s.  Super 8s is a worry for India since first edition(Super 6 then). They have never won the first game of Super 8s in T20Is and for that matter in past 2 editions they have lost all 3 Super 8 games. Will this be different ? Hopefully yes.

South Africa are next opponents and then there is Pakistan.  So if India can win 2 of this 3 games then they would be a very good team to go in the semi-finals. But for that the batting has to click and fast scoring needs to be done.  Likes of Gambhir, Raina, Dhoni will need to pace their innings. And a little bit of patience for Sehwag.  and with a weaker bowling department, the batting is the only key to a repeat of 2007.

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Beat the rowdy Englishmen!!!

No matter how shit Indian bowling is, I'd bet them to beat down the rude English tomorrow in the meaningless last league game of Group A.  Go Indians, nail down that cranky little boy Stuart Broad's rowdy Englishmen. 

Nothing is pacifying seeing the whipped asses of this rowdy Englishmen, who are undeserving #1 in ODIs. And then wont care if Indians are kicked out in Super 8's itself!!!!

Dhoni messes up with Yuvi's return!!

When Dhoni messes up something, he has excuses ready for everything. Like he did have for the bizzare loss in the 2nd T20I yesterday. Pitch got changed when he came to bat suddenly.  He has played his IPL cricket on that damn pitch and if he didnt knew it then he should have drowned himself for not knowing it. He has been a hyped player in the T20 format and he has often gone slow in start. But yesterday he messed it up and team lost the game which it had no business losing it. 

22 off 23 balls might seem a decent score but at one stage it was 9 off 16 balls and thats where India lost the plot. He coming at 5 was also a wrong move if he is to play slow. Irfan Pathan is much of an improved batsman and he should have been coming when Kohli got out.  Sending in Rohit Sharma on Yuvi's dismissal was also a blooper and instead Tiwary or Pathan should have been sent. Dont know what the team management was thinking.

And of course it was a Chennai game, so the local heroes had to play. Didnt matter they turned out to be flops.  L Balaji and R Ashvin were flop stars yesterday.  Now that Srikanth is gone, we expect no freebies rolled out to the failed stars of Tamil Nadu cricket.

Welcome Back Yuvraj Singh

Welcome back to the field Yuvraj Singh. Today is those one of the rare days where turning up on the field would matter the most and whether you make or do not make runs shall not matter. Today's day is an ode to your persona and your spirit.  And that's what the fans are joyed to see.

 

The man of 2011 World Cup final is back and that should be the biggest plot of the day.

 

 

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Apply 25% reservation for Pakistani players in ICC awards

Let the 33% reservation quota in Indian government jobs apply to 25% reservation for Pakistani cricketers in ICC annual awards categories as well. That way the Pakistanis shall be happy given the hue and cry their board and bloggers have created over Ajmal snub!!!

PCB's sour grapes

The talks of PCB boycotting the ICC awards and instead awarding Ajmal on its own following the snub is a classic case of sour grapes.  Ajmal should have been in the list given his returns in all 3 formats of the game, but the knee jerk reaction of PCB is childish and ridiculous. 

May be Vernon Philander should have made way for Ajmal!!

Leave Sachin Tendulkar alone

Nothing is wrong with Sachin Tendulkar's batting form except the fact that he seems distracted at the moment and his picking and choosing isnt helping him any more. He is an MP, he needs a break to be with his family and then a Test series arrives once in few months. So this is the reason why he is not in the form he should be. It's not the time to go for him. He just got bowled and we are not used to see him getting bowled that often. He did have this kind of spell once in 2002 when in England and West Indies he got bowled few times in row. Pedro Collins and Alex Tudor were the culprits then, Trent Boult and Tim Southee are now.

For the transition phase, Indian test cricket is in, the team needs him and more than ever now. So lets just not get behind him to go but to stay on and focus back on cricket, not put additional pressure than he has already handled in 23 years. For a country lacking genuine heroes and role models here is one man who has passed every stern test and provided millions of cheering and happy moments, so lets not bog him down asking him to go. We're just nobodies compared to his stature asking him to go.

Leave Tendulkar alone and allow him to focus on his game.

Sehwag and Gambhir are 5th most successful opening pair in Tests, very soon they will be 3rd.

Idea of moving down Sehwag to middle order is outright foolish and replacing Sehwag at the top with Rahane, who is a # 3 in domestic cricket for Mumbai, is even more foolish.

The opening pair of Gambhir and Sehwag have added 4028 runs together on top in Tests and they stand at 5th in the all time list of highest partnership runs. And by the end of year they have a very good chance to surpass SL pair of Attapattu and Jayasuriya (4469) and now defunct Strauss and Cook (4711). 

Statistically if you take a look at the topmost pairs then this Indian pair is quickest to reach 4000 runs (79 innings). 33 of 79 innings they have opened together have been 50+ runs (10 hundred and 23 fifty), again that's amongst the best. Their average is the best amongst top 5 pairs. 

More figures can be found at following cricinfo link:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283663.html

Its true they have not been able to replicate the form in last few tests overseas, but then the batting has suffered slump collectively.  

It is very essential that the pair is given ample amount of time to recover its mojo and be back amongst runs. And I am sure they will be back among runs and very soon you shall see the best of this pair. Its in ages that India has got a stable opening pair in Tests after years of frequent changes after Gavaskar and till Sehwag and Gambhir came together. 

Let Rahane be kept to put pressure on Suresh Raina for #6 slot instead.

Shelf Life of a England Test captain

Shelf life of an England Test Captain

Post South African Series loss under old captain -------- Losing South African Series under himself.

Graeme Smith is one helluva happy man after a hattrick of claiming 3 "leader of men"  of England team.  Nasir Hussein in 2003, Michael Vaughan in 2008 and now Andrew Strauss in 2012.

Whatever be the reason behind Strauss's retirement -- loss of form or series loss presented to the media, the real reason seems to be the mishandling of KP episode.  Now that Strauss is gone, KP's return to the England team must be fast tracked !!!

Pakistan have lost their killer instinct

Things on the field have not been GREAT for Pakistan team in terms of the results in their bilateral series. At least in ODIs. They won Asia cup after 12 years, fine. But they lost 0-4 to England and 1-3 to SL and are trailing 0-1 in  their own backyard (middle east is their home away from home since 1980s) against Australia.  True, that there have been very little or no controversies off the field or any act of stupidity from their players like it was at its peak in 2009-10. But results have been failing them off late. 

They have now a stable coaching setup -- head coach is reputed in subcontinent, the bowling coach keeps changing, but do Pak really need bowling coach? Mohammed Akram is their new coach in bowling department. Captaincy hasnt changed hands except Hafiz replacing Misbah in T20Is and later being dumped in shortest format for good (probably).  So what's the reason behind the consistent failures?

The batsmen are collapsing, the bowlers can't bail the team out every time they go in middle. They have a good attack in terms of fast bowling and spin bowling alike, but the selections are inconsistent. Mohammed Sami is back in one series, out next. Spinach man is out one series and in next one.  Umar Gul is failing to find his mojo in ODIs with his stock deliveries regularly failing him.  Wahab Riaz, the WC semi-final hero, is out and in, then out and in thereby losing his confidence. 

Saeed Ajmal is world class bowler, no doubt. And so is Shahid Afridi who is now a true bowler with his batting reduced to ridiculous standards. And their vice captain is surprisingly (underestimated) #1 ODi bowler in world.  Spin department is in good hands, but the fast bowling department is chopped and changed every series. I cant recall if a bowler has got a longer run (2-3 series) in Pakistan. 

IMO the reason they are losing more than they are winning is, the Pakistan team has lost their aggression and killer instinct. Being an Indian follower, I know how much we used to hate Pak winning everything in India in 1990s when they had a superb bowling attack in Waqar, Akram, Aaqib Javed and of course Saqlain Mushtaq. Any bowler out of the blue used to come against India and find himself in wickets. How can anyone forget 7-37 from Aaqib Javed including his hattrick in 1991 Sharjah. Or for that matter the creepy character -- Javed Miandad, Aamir Sohail (1992 and 1996 World cup acts in games against India are still afresh).  Even in the days of Inzamam there was little bit of aggression in the team.  No matter what the situation would be in a match, the team would always put up a fight and more often win from hopeless situations. Now they lose out of winning positions and collapse in heap.  Even in helpful Middle Eastern conditions.

Pakistan look best when they play the game in the way they were famous to play in 1990s. Even though if they lost, they enthralled fans. But now even if they win, they are more boring to watch. Except for Shahid Afridi, there is no player who is exciting to watch in terms of aggression. Kamran Akamal looks foolish when he tries to get aggressive. The poor lad has made a comeback in the team after 18 months after getting clearances from all sorts of PCB committees.   

And hell there is no Ijaz Butt in PCB. Zaka Ashraf is leading PCB with no controversies. And that's making Pakistan cricket a little bit dull to follow.  

Cmon guys show some aggression. Put up some dance upon fall of a wicket something like Shoaib Akhtar did or Afridi does. Run wildly from boundary line to  bowl a ball with jaws and mouth shaking like Waqar Younis and bowl some toe-crushing yorkers making batsmen looking foolish. 

World T20 should be a good place for Pak team to start showing some aggression and killer instinct.

Loud Mouth Ashvin

It will help Ravi Ashvin to keep quiet and let his ball do the talking instead of being a loud mouth in the media. Every day we read some kind of statements from the spinner and mostly it puts him in the bad light. He has been growing tall as a spinner in Tests but his fielding skills remain slow and his running even more ridiculous. Not to forget how big a failure he was in Australia where he leaked 100 runs almost every innings and got very few wickets in return.

"Pressure is off me" said Ashvin a few days back in TOI. Well the pressure of playing for India and succeeding never eases off dude and if you fail few times, a motivated Harbhajan Singh is ready to bounce back in Tests as well. 

So keep the mouth shut and keep taking wickets in heaps of dozen!!!!

Kiwis clipped in BiriyaniLand

The new look India's test team won its first test in 16 years without names reading as RS Dravid and VVS Laxman in the team sheet. And this time the team at opposite end was New Zealand who have their wings clipped and fighting ability abandoned somewhere down in the exotic NZ locales. 

They could not play Ashvin who took 12-85, his best match figures and they collapsed in a heap. Unworthy opponents.

159 and 164. 

No wicket for Zaheer Khan, no runs for Sachin Tendulkar. What next for this lads ?

Srikanth's contribution to the team as a national selector will be continued implants from his home state, while most of them failed (Vijay, Mukund, Badrinath, Dinesh Karthik), Ashvin has continued to find success in home tests at least and is contributing to the wins. So as long as it lasts!!!

The biggest find of this test was indeed the coming of age of the much hyped (on the blogs) Cheteshwar Pujara (who justified the hype) and continued increasing the century count we have been used to see at # 3 spot in Tests for last 16 years.

A tribute to cricketing achievements of VVS Laxman - 1

It was the summer of 1996. School life had just ended and it was a time to step into the college life. The pre-engineering exams were just done. India had lost to SL in the World cup semi-final in Eden Gardens and the agony and pain was still afresh in the mind. In the meanwhile India had played in a couple of meaningless ODI tournaments in Singapore and Sharjah before they embarked on England tour. A 23 year old lad had debuted in the Singapore tournament which was more known for the record Jayasuriya or Afridi created in terms of fastest 100. It was Dravid. And in England touring party one name had created flutter which people termed as "quota selection".  That lad had scored back to back 100s in first 2 Tests in England including one in Lord's. That was Saurav Ganguly.

Few months later, I had just decided to drop out of the engineering college I was in after a disastrous first semester exams to try my luck in another college. And it coincided with the Titan Cup followed by a South African test series, first on Indian soil. It was Ahmedabad Test and a new lad had debuted in that test. Some very long name ending in Laxman.

Yeah right. VVS Laxman. Vangirappu Venkata Sai Laxman, hailing from Hyderabad, then known for delivering Azharuddin to Indian cricket.  His debut wasnt very auspicious. That test was more known for a deadlier spell by J Srinath destroying SA single handed. 6-21 led India to first ever Test win over South Africa.

The class of 1996 had been formed which in future would go onto make a golden history in Indian Test cricket.

The boy was forgotten soon. He continued making Test appearances often and used to get lost in oblivion. The new formidable Indian middle order was just getting formed.  Ganguly was at # 3 then, Tendulkar was immovable at 4. Dravid came in at 6 after Azharuddin.

Tours of SL and WI in 1997 followed and VVS Laxman failed to make any significant contributions in those tours. That was a time of disillusionment in Indian cricket. Lot of new faces came in and they faded very soon. David Johnson,  Dodda Ganesh, Noel "Who" David were few of those obscure cricketers who came in and faded soon. Not to mention Abe Kuruvilla, Sujith Somsundar and of course Vikram Rathore.

The turning point came in Laxman's career in 1998 when it was Mark Taylor's Australia team to tour India for a full Test series after 12 years (ignoring one off test in 1996).  The highlight of the series was Tendulkar vs Shane Warne battle. Nothing else mattered then.

It was Navjot Singh Siddhu and VVS Laxman who formed the opening pair then. Siddhu set the stage in almost every innings with his sixes off the spinners of Australian team. And Laxman quietly did the job with 50s and 30s in that series. 

But his marquee moment was yet to arrive and that was in Sydney 2000.

--- To be continued

India the world champs in U-19 format too

And India are the undisputed kings of 50 over cricket, be it senior level or the kids level at U-19. Winning a world cup in Australia by beating Australia is heroic and the credit goes to Unmukt Chand and his team for doing an encore of what Md Kaif did in 2000 and Virat Kohli did in 2008.

Great stuff guys. 

The victory sounds sweet cos it came in the tough batting conditions of Tony Ireland stadium and the team sweated it out in all games to win the tournament. There were no free wins.  And it was in Australia. 

And if few of this lads could graduate to the national team, especially in fast bowling department, then it shall be a prize well earned. Fast bowlers, I repeat, not the lads belonging to the clan of Venky Prasad, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar etc.

Enuff ranted!!!

VVS Laxman

VVS Laxman is the Kishore Kumar of Indian Cricket. Serene, divine, calming.

Enough Said.

England lose their #1 ranking

England are no longer the #1 in Tests and they are no longer in T20Is as well. Very soon they shall be disposed off the undeserving spot in ODIs as  well.  England have lost the Test series 0-2 to South Africa and the latter are the new # 1 in Tests, at least for a while.   For long time in the media including cricinfo, we were fed with the stories how good this England team is and how close they run to the greatest Australian and West Indies team, about how world class their bowling attack is which comes good only in seaming and swinging conditions, how good work culture the team has and all that crap. Yet despite of all this there was a Kevin Pietersen episode who shredded the claim of world class team ethic in the dressing room. The so called world class bowling attack failed to come good when it mattered most.  They took only 2 wickets in the opening test and the team dominated only 2 of the 15 days of Test series.

The South Africa didn't choke this time and the credit has to go to the World Cup winning coach Gary Kirsten.  They outplayed England in all departments and even though they did feel the heat occasionally, like good teams they found their way out and in the end came up trumps.  Beating England in England twice in a row is a significant achievement. And in the times when the English media boasted about the greatness of their team. Overhyped players like Ali Cook, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad (who had a miserable series with the bat) and of course Ian Bell failed to rise to the occasion and in the end the team bite the dust. The England team, if they were so good, should have held the #1 spot for long time, but they could just hold it for a year. India, with so called shortcomings, managed to hold it for close to 2 years.

The result was forthcoming. During the entire year the England team failed to play like a #1 team. They lost in desert safari to Pakistan, actually whitewashed 0-3, hung to a 1-1 draw in SL and then lost 0-2 to SA, managing to beat WI by 2-0 in between.  Strauss failed to make runs, the ECB had trouble with their best player and he stood out of the team when it mattered most for him to play. The selections were flawed, the ego battles ran supreme and when it mattered the #1 team failed to rise to the occasion and the crown was lost.

They now have a tough Indian series ahead and Indian team shall make it a point to avenge to the 0-4 drubbing last year. Historically England have never played well in India over past 25 years. They lost 0-3 in 1993, 1-1 in 2006, 0-1 in 2001 and 2008.  And this time the result shall be no different.

English media shall now tear apart the team and that shall prove that there is no middle ground in English cricket, either their team and media is outright foolish or they are extremely proud. Right now its time to play the losers music and may be drown the head in shame after a display not worthy of being called a # 1 team.

Perhaps ECB is right in dropping Kevin Pietersen

The KP drama every day leaves the followers with more twists and turns than what Jack Bauer managed in the entire 8 seasons of epic "24" teleserial.  When one thought that finally the episode would be over with KP releasing the apology in a video statement, they were wrong. KP had done more damage than what ECB first thought. And KP has paid the price. He wont play the final test of this series. And ECB have done the obvious which might have been hardest thing to do for them in recent times. 

But they were left with no choice. KP didnt offer any chance to them.  Team unity comes over whims and fancies of any player, no matter it is  KP or any one else. Sending scathing texts about the coach and captain to the opposing team is just ridiculous and outright stupid. KP has paid the price for it and perhaps cost England the #1 ranking in Tests at least. 

He was given 6 hours to set things right owing to the texts he sent, but KP already had done the damage and there was nothing he could have done to win his place back even after all sorts of back-down from the stated positions all this while. 

I think ECB has done right to drop KP and set a precedent in world cricket that no player is indispensable, no matter if he is best player and in-form player. Team spirit and unity come first. And the worst price they are going to pay would be the loss of # 1 ranking in Tests.

ECB are to blame in the way they have managed KP all this years, but KP is no saint either.  Playing IPL ahead of Kiwi Test series wasnt right and so were his demands to pick and choose games / series he wanted to play. Moreover his behavior within the dressing room and outside it left a lot to be desired and led to questions if he was matured enough. But one thing that went always in his favor was his batsmanship. He is England's best player.  And now he stands lost, stands lonely and mocked.

Perhaps this ouster is temporary and is short-lived. Perhaps it is not. The ODIs against Saffers and T20 world cup follow, it remains to be seen if KP makes it into those teams. But for now its ECB leads in the ego clashes against KP.

Test team selection

My tidbits on the Test selection and T20 World Cup selection:

Test Selection:

This will be the first series in 17 years India plays without Rahul Dravid and ironically its against the same team, it last played against. New Zealand in 1995 in India.   And his spot has been up for grabs. There have been a lot of contenders for his spot. The # 3 spot has been very critical in modern day Test matches and more often than not Dravid has been termed as virtual opener(less since Viru – Gautam opening) in Tests. And there have been 3 contenders:

·         VVS Laxman

·         Virat Kohli

·         Cheteshwar Pujara

VVS Laxman has been the fallback guy whenever Dravid has been not playing (injury or rest) and his most prominent innings has come in at the # 3 spot. So till the time he plays around, the # 3 spot should go to VVS Laxman.  And the talk of this series been a farewell series for VVS has been farfetched. India play next 10 Tests at home within 1 year and if Laxman is gone, then Tendulkar is the only experienced hand in the middle order.  That will not be a very good idea to lose 2 experienced middle order folks back to back and so it's imperative that Laxman stays around at least for 10 Tests, form and fitness permitting.

The top 4 should read as Sehwag, Gambhir, Laxman and Tendulkar.  Tendulkar is back after the break and he should be rejuvenated and keen to set those critics wrong.  Also the talk of having a replacement for Sehwag in overseas tour is wrong. He is 33 and is in good form.  He has had a quiet Australian tour, but with Sehwag, you never know when he will be back to destructive best. And for revival of Test fortunes, its important that the experienced hands remain at helm on the top of order.

Kohli goes in at 5 and Pujara at 6.  Good thing is Raina is back in the fold and that should be good for his confidence. The next 10 tests are at home, so the short ball talk should not bug his mind.   But for now Raina should be warming up the bench with Pujara getting in a look.  

Reserves: Rahane, Raina

Rahane as a reserve opener is again a farfetched talk as the lad has always batted at 3 in domestic cricket for Mumbai.

Bowling:

No Harbhajan yet. Fair enough, he hasn't found form yet. A stint in English country hasn't helped him either.  Ashvin continues to be the prime spinner and supported by Pragyan Ojha.  So this two lads should be the pair bowling to hapless Kiwis and nothing less than a 2-0 win should be expected and accepted.  And guess who's the 3^rd one. Piyush Chawla!!!!

Bizzare selection, but that's been the way of Mr Kris Srikanth's term and this was the last team his committee selected and it would be on its way out by the end of September. That shall be a relief.

Ishant Sharma has been fast tracked into the team and I am not sure if he has had match fitness.  Injuries and lack of match fitness have been few of many reasons for the 0-8 scoreline on away tours and it seems that the selectors haven't learnt anything from those tours.  Zaheer Khan and Umesh Yadav should be the 2 fast bowlers followed by 2 spinners in the playing XI.

Overall the team looks good enough and since its NZ, the results should be in India's favor.  And it shall be an awkward moment for the players and of course the serious followers of Indian cricket to see no Rahul Dravid stepping in on the field after 16 long years.

England as #1 ODI team is a joke

Holy Shit. England are new # 1 in ODIs too. A team that was knocked out in the Quarters of the world cup, a team that lost 0-5 in India twice is now # 1 in ODIs. And on what basis ? 10 out of 10 wins in 2012. Darn!!!

England give two hoots to ODIs, they dont care a damn about this format of the game. They have even discontinued the 50 over games in their domestic setup. None of their players has ever scored 6000 runs in ODIs and a handful of players have played 200 ODIs. 

Such a team is # 1 in ODIs.

And a team like India who has had few bad series in last 2 and half years are # 3.

Update:

Here is the breakdown of the W/L for the last 2 years (01 Aug 2010 - 04 Aug 2012)

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;home_or_away=1;home_or_away=2;home_or_away=3;orderby=won;spanmax2=04-Aug-2012;spanmin2=01+Aug+2010;spanval2=span;template=results;type=team

And its clearly evident that England have a w/l ration of only 1.33 whereas India, Australia , Pakistan and South Africa have better win loss ratio.  The best team indicates its SA and then India who have W/L ratio of 2.0.

By what standards England are # 1 team, no one knows. ICC has got it all wrong.

I hate to say it but it seems ICC rankings seem to be biased towards England and am not sure what ICC sees in the results that the fans dont see or the cricket followers don't see. England as # 1 ODI team is a big joke and it casts a question mark over validity of ICC rankings algorithm!!!

India take a 2-1 series in ODI series vs SL

India went 2-1 up in the ongoing ODI series in SL vs SL. And today's win was another example of the depth in the batting team has despite:

• Absence of Tendulkar and Yuvraj from the team.
• Presence of Rohit Sharma in the team.

There were a few milestones set in this victory like:

• Gambhir scored his 11th ODI ton, 6th against SL.
• Pathan and Raina scored 3rd 50 partnership in 7 innings together.
• Gambhir and Raina have already scored 1900 runs in 29 innings together.
• Raina has scored now 3 50s in last 5 completed innings.
• 288/5 was highest score chased down in SL vs SL.

And Tony Greig was made shut his mouth by Suresh Raina who was very vocal earlier on his inability to play short balls. True there were some attempts by Mathews and Malinga to bounce him out, but this is subcontinental pitch, Raina had enough time in his hand to duck it out or play a pull. 

Gautam Gambhir was outstanding today in his 100, but Sehwag was reckless, Kohli and Dhoni were scratchy.  Pathan kept a cool mind to support Raina chase down the tough target and that should settle the debate for the # 7 spot for short term, if not for long term.  Once Yuvraj Singh makes a come back, the debate can be reopened who goes out to accomodate the player of the World Cup. 

Irfan Pathan was good in bowling too taking one quick wicket to reduce Lanka to 3//20 with Zak taking 2 from the other end.  Bad news for Jadeja of course and his half brother -- IPL winner Yusuf Pathan.

But it was sinful to let the Lankans race to 286 from 3/20. The bowling attack has been a worry and the likes of Ashwin and Rahul Sharma havent been no better than Harbhajan Singh when it comes to take wickets.  Dinda gives 100% in every game, but his 100% is not good enough to get him wickets or stake a claim for the # 3 seamer in the team.

Only good he did today was to bounce out Sangakaara who would now get 4-6 week to enjoy travel, food and hotels (read Straight Point's tweet).  Umesh Yadav, if he gets more opportunities, I am sure he would develop into a better ODI bowler and would have more variations. He has that quality which very less Indian fast bowlers have had in present and in past -- genuine pace.

And scoreline of 5, 0, 0 is good enough to dump the non-performing Nohit (Rohit) Sharma out of the playing XI. If this is not good enough, then the fans are not sure what more does he needs to do to be out of the team and give a chance to Manoj Tiwary or Ajinkya Rahane. 

Ever since Sharma made his debut in European tour of 2007 vs SA in Ireland, he has been hailed a guy with lot of promise, flair and ability. But leaving out the Zimbabwe tour of 2010 when he hit 2 100s, 2008 CB series when he played a match winning 66* vs Australia with Tendulkar in company at other end and the WI series of 2011 (home and away), he hasnt showed any glimpse of that ability and flair. He does not have the attitude or temperament to succeed at the highest level. The captain and selectors should now KNOW this. 

He is also been hailed as best of the young lot in terms of quality and pleasure to eyes when he plays those shots. But if you take a look at the other players of his age group then he is left lot behind.  Ever since he has made debut in 2007, he has played 83 odd ODIs with very few substantial innings.  Virat Kohli debuted a little less than year from Sharma and he has been regular in the team only from 2010 Australia ODI series, but from there on, he has been an exceptional ODI batsman already scoring 3000+ ODI runs, 12 hundreds and one Test 100 in Australia vs Australia. He should be in line to come at # 3 in the Test match vs New Zealand starting in less than a month in Hyderabad. 

Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary have impressed the fans and experts in whatever limited opportunities they have got at highest level. Rahane has had a wonderful IPL and more than that he has got a lot of time to spend with legendary Rahul Dravid in RR dressing room this IPL and that would definetely help him in the long run. He should be the one who should replacing Dravid in test team and probably come at # 5 or 6 with Laxman moving to # 3 slot (if selected).

There are a few weak points India has to care of before the team can come back on track and find its consistent winning run which led to the world cup victory.  #4 batting spot in ODIs and bowling attack composition are few of those.  Sooner they are addressed, better is for India. 

And a decision on the coach has to be made soon who is quickly nullifying the good work done by Gary Kirsten in 3.5 years.

England's #1 ranking in danger

The top ranked Test team and supposedly the only custodian of Test cricket in the world -- England have lost comprehensively to South Africans in their own backyard by innings and 12 runs. While the margin might look pretty ordinary on the outset, but if the scorecard is to be looked upon, English team should drown themselves in ocean of shame and despair after all the bloating and trumpeting done by the patronizing media. The so called best bowling attack in the world could not take more than 2 wickets of the opposition and in turn lost 20 wickets soon. 

The so called top class bowlers like Swann, Anderson and Broad went for runs and few of them even returned wicketless. All this for the top ranked test nation. We were continously feeded stuff by English journalists how good their Test team is and how good English cricket is.  Perhaps they fail to understand that they have been able to win only 1 game out of last 6 they have played against top class test teams (exclude West Indies).

And their next trip is to India where the fans and Indian players will not want to let them go back with any result less than a 4-0 whitewash!!

Resumption of Cricket ties between India - Pak

India are set to play a bilateral series with Pakistan after 5 years and the move to resume the bilateral ties is a welcome one. In today's era of cricket when there is no one dominating team like Australia of 2000s and West Indies of past, there are 4 or 5 very good teams with little separating the other one, it makes sense to play against every other opposition as much as possible to avoid a situation in the global tournament where you dont know what to expect from the other team.

The ties were frozen after the  2008 episode and though India continued to play the neigbhouring country in ICC tournaments, the participation in IPL and bilateral tournaments was frozen. And the resumption of the bilateral ties will give a chance to the next generation of India's players to know what it is playing against that team and what pressure really is.  Its time the politics is separated from cricket when it comes to the games between this 2 countries. The political landscape between this 2 countries is hardly going to change, no matter what measures are being employed by respective governments, the element of mistrust and communication gap shall always persist. So why let the game of cricket suffer.

There have been some political voices opposing the move and most of them have come from the state of Maharashtra, but they hardly make any sense or hold any relevance in the interest of the game.  Though there are no rheoterical statements from the right wing parties to dig the pitch or not let the players from that team step in Mumbai, there have been some opposition from cricketing players and they have been political. Kirti Azad is a well known BJP MP and his opposition is more of a political ritual, the opposition from Sunny Gavaskar is amusing. It hardly makes any sense to oppose the resumption of the cricketing relations between this 2 countries. Its an unsaid truth that the 2 countries shall never be friendly with each other. The relations shall never be "normal" or "warm" or "friendly" as long as the political setup in that country doesnt give up its obsession with anti India tirade. Having said that the players from both the countries shall benefit by playing with each other. Their game is going to improve and the team that learns more shall benefit in the longer run in international cricket.

Both teams in limited formats are young and very soon India shall have a young team in Test matches too and if this teams play test series once every 2-3 years then the game shall benefit. We hardly see any hard fought rivalries this days after the decline of Australia as a dominating team and India's batting prowess in last 2 overseas tours.  So if India and Pakistan are able to resume their rivalries leaving out the political drama out of the game, then only the world of cricket shall benefit and any such move should always be welcome by the fraternity that wants the game of cricket to evolve and get better at all times in the present and in the future.

Back to the blog

Back to back 4-0 defeats in Tests were deflating, add the CB series insult and pain of losing to Bangladesh in the inconsequential Asia Cup were good enough reasons to keep away from blogging on cricket. And IPL, it stopped being serious cricket ever since Srini's croonies found IPL as platform to claw into Indian team and doom the fortunes. Add the agony of seeing Shahrukh Khan's team win this IPL (no offence to Gautam Gambhir, he is one of my fav batsman). So this were good reasons to stay away from blog. 

Periodically I kept checking if Google deleted my blog, luckily it did not.  So this is the end of the hibernation for me and I can assume that I am back on the blogging scenario. Though old fashioned, but the single reason of following Indian fortunes in blues and whites keep me going. 

A lot has changed in the cricketing world since the last post. Australia have lost to England in ODIs and that has  given a false booty to obnoxious English media to believe that their team is really going places. Well, if you ask me, they are a bullshit ODI team who wins only in their backyard riding on the caveat of seaming and swinging conditions that aid their bowlers. The same set of bowlers struggle abroad and the same set of batsmen like Bopara, Bell and of course Trott struggle to make runs abroad. 

Pakistan lost a test series in 2 years and also the ODI series to SL. SL won their first test series after Murali retired. Sangakarra made 100s and went past Don Bradman.  SA is in England and they are making noises about their chances in England about winning and gaining the # 1 ranking in Tests.  Pakistan are now no 4 and sadly that is at India's expense. 

Back in India, the ODI team is in Sri Lanka to start the new fresh season which is going to be a vendetta season. England and Australia tour India for 4 tests each and nothing short of 4-0 win would be acceptable. Also the Kiwis tour India in August and September and then the World T20 is in place. 

The ODI team has been declared. Tendulkar, as he has been doing, has "rested" during this series in SL. Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan are out of the team. Good thing. Vinay Kumar is injured and Irfan Pathan is back in the team. Good thing again. Selectors have chosen a full strength ODI team almost (barring Yuvraj Singh who should return to the ODI and T20 fold once he has full fitness and GOD willing that should be very soon). So India should focus to win this ODI series 4-1 at least and get a good start to the season which is going to be very critical from batting point of view. 

Weekend games

The weekend results of the IPL were expected with Chennai pitch suiting the franchisee with choke’em and win sort of play, Deccan expectedly lost. Mumbai struggled and KKR won something. But the compelling and enduring image to last for long times in the cricket followers is going to be the wild celebration from DADA when he bowled out KP and his allround performance got his campaign back on track.  Its never enough to see DADA  in action and its like revisiting those golden years of his and Tendulkar’s partnership at the ODI top level and then those countless partnership runs in tests. And not to forget his captain marvelous record!!

Great thing even today is how his lads respect him even being in the opposite IPL teams like Sehwag, Harbhajan etc and of course Yuvraj Singh providing him with some hair styling tips.  Nostalgia is at its peak when I watch Ganguly in action.

This IPL is proving to be most open in its history except the Dhakkan Dischargers who now seem to win nothing. Perhaps they wont win anything, cos  they are limited in talent and application.

8 of 9 teams have won minimum 3 games and no team has won more than 4. 4 teams are tied at 8 points and 4 at 6 (till the RCB vs RR game).  The next few games should give pointers to who’d be the top 4 to play in the “play-offs”.

IPL Team Review - 2

Another weekend begins in the IPL tamasha and this time it’s the turn of CSK, Pune Warriors, KXIP, KKR and Dhakkan Dischargers to play their games in addition to the much anticipated return of Sachin Tendulkar after being injured in the opener. Any action is too short to see Tendulkar in action, really even after 23 years of watching him play.

The IPL has seen a few teams like:

•       Pune Warriors
•       Royal Challengers

being inconsistent with their matches. Winning few, then losing a few. And then there are few evil teams who are hated more than they are loved:

•       Chennai Super Kinks
•       Kolkata Knight Riders

Whose every defeat is cheered and every win is greeted with boooos.

But the standout teams are:

•       Delhi Daredevils
•       Rajasthan Royals

Who are not only consistent, but also winning the games comprehensively. Its been a delight to watch the twin hundreds scored by the players belonging to this teams – Rahane and KP.  Especially those 6 fours in S Aravind’s over were awesome display of orthodox batting. Unfortunately they were 4s, not 6s, else Rahane would have been in the league of Yuvraj Singh (6 6s) and H Gibbs.  Media didn’t cover much of those 6 fours,  but Rahane has proved enough that he belongs to the highest level and he certainly should find himself making a Test debut soon replacing Dravid, who incidentally is his IPL captain. No doubt that Rahane would be benefitting a lot from Rahul Dravid in terms of wisdom and temperament by sharing the dressing room with him.

Mumbai Indians look insipid without the talismanic Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh is too classy as a captain, something that baffles his fans (including me) the way he approaches few games. In one of those low scoring games against Delhi when they were blown away for 92, Harbhajan didn’t care to bowl and went with 5 pacers.  Unfortunately his best fast bowler had a back problem, so he didn’t play that game. He has been ineffective as a bowler this tournament thus putting a lot more questions on whether he can ever be the bowler he was a few years ago.   The team doesn’t have a replacement for Tendulkar at the top and though they have rotated a lot of openers with Levi, none of them has actually provided them the starts that would boost the scoring.

Tendulkar needs to return back sooner than later before its all over for the MIs.

Saurav Ganguly has led well, but has flopped as batsman and that’s hurting the Pune team. Though they have Ryder, Uthappa, Mathews, Steven Smith in their lineup, the team’d hope a lot more from their legendary captain to score more runs.  Ashok Dinda has again boosted his confidence playing in IPL thus proving a lot to his detractors that he is from the tribe that thrives in IPL (likes of Jadeja, Ashvin, M Vijay etc) but fail miserably in international arena.  Or may be Ganguly is handling him well than Dhoni did in those ODI tournaments.

Punjab team is more reliant on its foreign players and they don’t have quality domestic players. Hussey, Marsh and Gilly form the Aussie trio playing for this team, but till now none of them have come good and that’s hurting the team. Add to it the drama of the owner who had an ugly spat with the match officials over dismissal of Shaun Marsh in that game against KKR. 

Deccan Chargers have lost 4 games of 4, 2 of them in last over. They just don’t have personnel to arrest this slide and are expected to be wooden spoon winners this time around too (lastly in 2008).

The big letdowns:

•       Suresh Raina
•       R Ashvin
•       MS Dhoni
•       Praveen Kumar
•       M Vijay
•       P Valthaty
•       Virat Kohli

The top 3 of this list have been playing in the champion team of last 2 years and this season they are big flops. Though you never say “finished” for Dhoni, but I think its time up for Raina for time being. He’d be too valuable to be dropped from CSK, but unless he doesn’t turn the tide with some consistent and big scores, he would be finding himself out of the contention from the starting XI in any format of the game. And given his T20 reputation, he’d be a big loss given this is a T20I world cup year.

Praveen Kumar is a poor bowler after his injury and he has got hit for runs, pace has dropped, no wickets have come up too.    Pragyan Ojha and Rahul Sharma are better spin bowlers than R Ashvin, but CSK connections and royal backing from CSK folks, he continues to play every game India plays in every format. 2 wickets in 6 games are poor returns, given the highs of 2009 – 2011 he has had with this franchisee.

The positive points (From Indian perspective) are:

1.      Munaf Patel is among the wickets and though he is a creepy character too, but lot better than the likes of Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ashok Dinda who bowl at same pace, don’t take wickets. So he should be one of the contenders to come back in the limited overs team.
2.       Zaheer Khan has played every. Better news is his fitness looks good.
3.      Umesh Yadav with economy  rate of  6 and S/R of 14.  And pace too.
4.      Ajinkya Rahane in batting.