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.