Category: Cricket

Woolmer: Cricket’s Big Loss

It was shocking to hear the news of Bob Woolmer’s death shortly after his team, Pak bombed out of Cricket World Cup. Woolmer was one of the leading thinkers of the game. It is a well known fact that he was the first to introduce the use of computers into cricket. The entire cricketing world has followed his path of incorporating the use of latest technology in cricket. His death is a huge loss to the entire cricketing world.

Its highly likely that the stress had a lot to do his sudden death. Pak performance this world cup has been dismal to say the least. Despite being an excellent coach Woolmer could do little to turnaround Pakistan’s politics-ridden cricket. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Woolmer had a book in the works (considering the number of cricket books these days) covering his experiences of coaching Pak and dealing with its internal politics.

Woolmer still clearly had a lot to offer the cricketing world and it was sad and unfortunate that this happened.

World Cup: Re-thinking Sehwag’s Role

India made a huge mistake in the match against Bangladesh by opening with the out of form Sehwag. The man badly needs a break and in his current form simply doesn’t deserve to open the innings. If you look at India’s batsmen — Ganguly, Yuvraj, Sachin have all had breaks forced or injury-driven and it has done them and the team a world of good.

Its no secret that Sehwag hasn’t scored anything worthwhile since his failures at the last World Cup in 2003. Yet, if the captain is so fond of having him around, its best if he retains him in the team for the all rounder spot and have him bowl his 10 overs and have a go with the bat in the slog overs. That’s the role he can do justice to. Unfortunately, Sehwag’s bowling does not find favor with Dravid , despite his good bowling performance on the recent Carribean tour. Sehwag is always brought into the attack as an after thought — well after Sachin, Ganguly and Yuvraj have been tried.

Rahul Dravid’s captaincy could sink merely because of this decision to persist with Sehwag or he could seem a genius for persisting with Sehwag. Only in India will a player be persisted with for such a long time. Even the likes of Hayden and Martin have been dropped at sme time or the other. Treating him as an all rounder and dropping him down the order for the slog overs makes sense irrespective of his performance in the match against Bermuda.

Cricket: World Cup Swings Into Action

The World Cup swung into some serious action these past few days – excitement, surprises and some super lative performances from lesser known teams.

Pak Crash Out of the World Cup: Pak was the first casualty as it literally drove itself out of the super-8 stage by losing to both WI and Ireland. Hats off to the Irish for their stupendous effort. Its understatement to say that Pak was well below par. But then, I think Pak had it coming (check out Pak Must Look Beyond Inzy from Feb last year). Besides, without Shoaib, Asif and Razzack, Pak was too depleted a side and the results speak for itself.

Bangladesh Excels: Bangladesh rocked the star studded Indian team. Slow starters India, suffered a severe wake up call. There is no question that Bangladesh put up a superb show. Their fielding was outstanding and their bowlers did a superb job of restricting India’s stroke makers. Their batting was very impressive. India’s leader bowler, Zaheer Khan was belted around the park like he were a club level bowler. Munaf and Agrarkar did no better.

Bangladesh fully deserved to win. However, they are capable pulling off a “West Indies” and slumping to the other extreme. Dav Whatmore was perfectly right when he down played the victory that it was “just one match”.

The British are Drinkin‘: Flintoff and co. were in deep trouble for a drinking binge. Flintoff might have escaped this incident for now, but when England is out of the World Cup, there is bound to be a resurgence of attacks on the man for this incident. With Michael Vaughan’s fitness being an eternal issue and Andrew Strauss hopelessly out of form, it will e interesting to see who would step in to lead if needed.

World Cup Opener: WI Expose Pak Weaknesses

The Pak team simply has way too many shortcomings and the World Cup opener just confirmed that. Without Shoaib and Asif at the start and Razzack in the middle overs Pak’s bowling simply lacks the strength to curtail or bowl out the opposition. Mohammed Hafeez and Rao Anjum are great back up bowlers who can easily do justice to being the fourth and fifth bowlers but to expect these folks to do more than that is a clear sign of weakness in the team composition. To make matters worse Rana is far from his best at the moment. That really leaves only Umar Gul as the main strike bowler. Danish Kaneria’s fielding weakness is hard to hide and his position in the team is probably just a temporary fix until Afridi is back. In the final analysis, however, Pak lost this match more so because of its batsmen than its bowlers.

242 was by no means a difficult target. Firstly, it required some disciplined batting without the need for heroics. Unfortunately, heroics is what many of the top order batsmen attempted. Imran Nazir, Hafeez and Younis Khan were all out to needlessly ambitious strokes. That left Inzy and Yousuf fighting to consolidate and at one point it looked like they would. However, after both of them left in quick succession, Pak completely lost the plot. Shoaib Malik has done well at the top of the order and its not clear why Pak would not continue with him and Kamran or Hafeez at the opening slot. That should free up the middle order for an extra batsmen or all rounder to come in after Inzy.

As for the WI this was a good comeback game after the disgraceful practice match against India. Samuels looked in great touch and though Lara looked equally in good form, failed to carry on to a big score. Sarwan chose to be aggressive from the word go and was lucky to survive a first ball duck. After the bad start, the WI did well to reach 242. Backed by some disciplined bowling and tight fielding the WI quite comfortably bowled Pak out below 200.

Team India: Finding The Ideal Combination

The two practice games showed that India is settling in quite nicely to the Carribean conditions. The WI match was a big let down with hardly anything to fight for when chasing the paltry score of 85. Yet, Sehwag failed with a duck. Its time for Dravid to wake and smell the coffee so to speak. Sehwag was not the force he once was and continuing to send him at the top of the order is going to hurt the team real bad. Another embarrassment for the captain is Irfan Pathan. He was bowling at a speed of less than 110!

Its best that Uthappa open the innings with Ganguly. He appears to offer exactly what Viru offered at the start of his career. A fast eye, ability to hit the ball hard and score runs at a breath taking pace that can really unsettle the opposition. Dravid, Sachin, Yuvraj, and Dhoni form the rest of the middle order. Agarkar, Bhajji, Zaheer and Munaf together make up the bowling combination.

That leaves just the one spot. The question before team management would be whether to play an extra batsman, extra bowler or an all rounder. The choices being Kumble, Viru, Karthik or Sreesanth. A good all rounder (which is Team India’s biggest weakness) would have been an automatic choice for this spot. On a turning track Kumble becomes an automatic choice for this reaming slot in the team, while Sreesanth should get the nod on a fast track. That leaves Pathan, Sehwag and Karthik to chose from. If Dravid is still entertaining thoughts of backing Sehwag, the least he could do was to drop him down the order and hope that he comes good in the slog overs. Based on current form, Pathan’s batting is clearly a better bet than Viru for the middle order. On the other hand, Sehwag’s bowling on the slow Carribean tracks is likely to be more effective than Pathan’s deteriorating bowling. Unfortunately, Dravid seldom uses Sehwag’s bowling skills to the maximum. It will be interesting to see which way the team management goes. For now, its clear that both Pathan and Sehwag are showing no signs of recovering from their slump in form and continuing to carry them in the playing 11 seems like a stretch.

World Cup 2007 Cricket Predictions

With the Cricket World Cup around the corner I thought I should wear my astrologer hat and try making a prediction or two. I think Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India will make it to the semi-finals. If one of these teams were to miss out, my guess is that it would be West Indies that makes it to the semis in place of one of these teams.

As for the final I think it will be an Australia-South Africa final and my guess is that South Africa will win!

As for the other teams, Pak is badly weakened by the absence of Shoaib, Razzack and Asif. England, despite their recent win Down Under is not a very balanced side, while Sri Lanka’s bowling is too dependent on Murali. An aging Vaas and bunch of young (often wild) seamers won’t be able to pull it off in my opinion. Lastly the hosts, WI are the most unpredictable. I won’t be surprised if they make it to the semis but I doubt they have what it takes to win the final, Sir Viv Richards views not withstanding.

Vengsarkar: A Refreshing Change

Vengsarkar’s recent comments that “Sehwag was included because of Dravid’s insistence” appears to have created a ruckus.

Unlike his predecessor, there is no question that Vengsarkar seems to have brought a lot of candor to the selection process. When asked about Kaif he promptly said, “Fielding alone won’t do, he has to score more runs” Likewise when asked about Ashish Nehra’s exclusion and the fact that he was a force in the previous World Cup, Vengsarkar said, “That was in 2003, I too played in the 1987 World Cup!”

The issue with his comments about Sehwag is much ado about nothing. In fact, he stated that when he was captain he didn’t get the team he wanted. Its a great justification for why he chose to defer to Dravid on Sehwag’s selection issue. It displays a level of sophistication and deep understanding of the game that can come only with playing cricket at the highest level and having held the top job (captaincy of Team India).

Team India: Less Complaints Than Ever Before?

For the first time, the general consensus among India’s cricket crazy public seems to be that the selectors have chosen the best possible team available, barring a few complaints. Sehwag, Kumble, Karthik are the often sighted suspect selections. But on the other hand, Sehwag’s past success, Kumble’s track record and Karthik’s recent performances have all been sighted as reasons to justify their selection. The coach and the captain appear to be happy as well and team India has had a decent run of success in recent times to counter any claims of unfair selections.

It remains to be seen how the team performs. But for the moment, the “national” consensus about the team appears to be true, though extremely unusual for a country of cricket fans where no one is ever shy to express an opinion.

Cricket: Wow, England Won!

Hats off to the Englishmen for winnning the first ODI against the Aussies. Pretty impressive considering what an awful tour England has had so far in Australia. Collingwood continues to impress. Apart from Collingwood only Ian Bell and Flintoff made any worthwhile contributions. In short, it was for all practicall purposes a single-handed effort. The hopelessly out of form Strauss is best at the opening or number 3 slot. At number 4 he is a complete misfit and it reflects in his performance.

It should be interesting to see how the Aussies come back after this defeat. Considering that they are not used to losing (!) it must be psychologically difficult to come to terms with this defeat!

Dravid Shot the Messenger!

For the first time in his career as captain Rahul Dravid goofed when it came to responding to queries from the press. When asked about the team manager’s report referring to the spat between Chappel and Sehwag, the otherwise suave and composed captain lost his cool and verbally shot the messenger, Chetan Desai, instead of responding to the issue at hand. No matter what the qualifications of the team manager might be, he was just performing an operational responsibility. In this capacity he is clearly entitled to his opinions and interpretations of happenings in the dressing room. The truth is that Mr. Desai found some issues and he reported them. One can understand Dravid taking issue with the fact that the report was leaked. But attacking Mr. Desai’s credentials was totally uncalled for. Does it really matter what his cricketing credentials are? If his credentials are an issue, Dravid should take up the issue with the Board rather than attack him in public!

In any case, it is good to know that Dravid stands up for his men. One can only hope that in backing Sehwag to the hilt, India’s most reliable man has not made an unreliable bet.