Category: Cricket

Bhajji appeared in ad without his turban. This has landed him in trouble with SGPC (Sikh org) . He apologized for hurting Sikh sentiments and criticized the SGPC for taking this issue up with the media. As a parting short, he also raised a very valid issue about Sikhs who have cut their hair! Its like saying, “Hey, at least I didn’t cut my hair, look at Yuvraj Singh, Gurdas Mann and others who have cut their hair and yet getting away with it. What do you have to say to them?” This does raise an important issue that the SGPC is going to find really hard to respond to. A true Bhajji doosra!

Pak cricket and controversies go hand in hand. The Inzy-Hair scandal has barely settled down and the Younis Khan one follows. Not to mention the departure of Shaharyar Khan.

The biggest beneficiary of course is Mohd. Yousef. (there were rumors that he turned to Islam to earn the captaincy!). With Younis still in the team it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. The Champions Trophy has not started but the drama certainly has.

After a long break Viru made some runs in the Challenger final! If he can’t continue this form into the Champions trophy its going to be hard to justify his presence in the team for the world cup, especially with both Gambhir and Uthappa showing decent form. When he scores big he is a match winner. The problem is that he seldom scores!

Its long overdue. Ganguly should retire. He can land a plum commentator slot for the Champions Trophy and possibly the World Cup. Its a pity that he didn’t go out in style. But to a large extent he has no one to blame besides himself. His failure in the challenger Series will hopefully convince him that its time bid adieu.

Inzy is free of ball tampering charges. But he has to sit out four games. Darrell Hair has nothing to worry about. The match was long forfeited. Who compensates the public for the loss of a day and quarter of exciting play? If Inzy and co are not guilty of ball tampering, shouldn’t the Umpire be taken to task for depriving the public of some serious cricket?

Its probably the only instance where a serious charge was levelled against a cricket captain, hearing is held after several weeks and at the end of the investigation, everyone goes home smiling! A true win-win scenario.

The Challenger series should be a fine test of up and coming talent against the current crop of players. The Board needs to be commended for bringing in some new talent to the national stage while also bringing back Badani, Balaji, VVS, Nehra, Zaheer and the like (not to mention the great Dada!).

The BCCI has finally spoken up on the issue and opposed Hair umpiring in the Champions trophy. It was a good move on the part of the Board. It remains to be seen how this plays out. I will be awful if the BCCI and the rest buckle down to various pressures and back out at a later stage.

There was report that Shastri criticized the team management for shuffling the batting order. He went on to say that Dravid should assert himself more, the batting order must be decided by the captain etc.

How does Shastri know that the batting order was Chappell’s decision? I suspect that it was a joint decision. Dravid has had a good run as an opener except in this DLF series. Viru has been in pathetic form. Under the circumstances I think it was a worthwhile experiment to open with Dravid. When it failed, he was quick to return to the middle order. Dravid was right when he said the batting failed India. Viru failed (as always), Sachin failed when it was most needed as did Dravid and the rest of the team. I don’t think any of this can be blamed on experimentation. The only experimentation that was done was to bring back Mongia and it worked! The number 3 spot usually filled in by Pathan was now available. It had to be either Kaif or Dravid, and the captain decided to give Kaif a chance. In short, I suspect Shastri got it wrong this time around unless he is somehow privy to dressing room discussions!

India fizzled out once again despite a very achievable target of 213. The Indian batting has struggled throughout this tournament. Viru is woefully out of form (bowled in three successive innings is a sign of serious loss of form) and needs a rest. It was very heartening to see that Dravid dropped down the order after the series of failures in the opening slot. (One can easily speculate that in same situation Ganguly would have continued to open the innings :-). Also, dropping Yuvraj was a fine move. He is another player badly in need of a rest. It was great to see Mongia seize the opportunity. It just goes to show that there is plenty of talent outside of the current bunch provided the selectors are willing to give others a chance.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the lower order batsman practicing their batting. Given this it is shameful that Bhajji, Agarkar, Munaf and RP combined could barely make 5 runs! This an area the Aussies always excel. After having lost the top half, the rest fought back to take the score to 213. Haddin is slowly being groomed to take over from Gilchrist. Clarke and Watson had to sit out this match. This just shows that the Aussie bench strength is simply unparalleled. On paper (and most often on the field), the Aussies are far ahead of all other teams. India for sure does not have what it take to beat the Aussies. At best, India can pull off an odd ODI victory or two.

The only thing that can stop the Aussies is some superlative on the field performance. At the present moment I think the only team that is likely to come up with of such a superlative on the field performance are the “hit and miss” WI. They are capable of such extremes that most teams are incapable off. The final tonight will be another test of the WI unpredictability as much as it is a test of the Aussie invincibility.

This is a great opportunity for the Indian cricket team to gain a huge psychological advantage before the start of the Champions trophy. The Indian batting has yet to fire. It might make sense to play five bowlers and perhaps bring in Mongia in place of the struggling Yuvraj and maybe Kaif in place of Raina. After a decent tour of WI, Kaif suddenly finds himself out of the playing 11! The other possible change might be to drop RP Singh and bring in Powar. Given that Bhajji has been able to get some assistance from the pitch this might not be a bad bet.