Category: Cricket

Cricket: Bangladesh Tour

India’s tour of Bangladesh is nothing to write home about as pointed out by the Indian skipper, Rahul Dravid. It just confirmed what was already known — that Bangladesh has a long way to go before becoming a team worthy of Test status.

  • Dinesh Karthick once again proved himself to be a fighter. His real test will however be on the England tour. Hopefully, the electors won’t fall back on the hopelessly out of form Sehwag.
  • Jaffer fought back after a pair in the first test, to ensure a berth on the tour of England.
  • Tendulkar scored two centuries in a row. For now, his critics might take a break, but he won’t keep his detractors away until he can do something similar on the tour of England.
  • Rajesh Pawar will hopefully get another tour to prove himself and won’t be dumped after being benched for the two Tests.

Overall, India lost a golden opportunity to unearth some young talent by continuing to play Sachin, Sourav and the like. Their centuries mean little besides helping beef up their averages to cover for failures on the tour of England!

Cricket: India’s Team Selection Flawed

With the two Test series against Bangladesh about to get underway, team India is faced with difficult decision about which heavy weight to drop! After a dismal World Cup the decision to rest Ganguly and Sachin for the ODI series was at best a half-hearted attempt at responding to the public’s frustration with the team. Considering that Test cricket is Bangladesh’s weaker form of the game, shouldn’t India continue and experiment with some young blood? A combination comprising of Jaffer, Dravid, Karthik, Dhoni, VVS, plus a couple of new comers should be more than sufficient to challenge Bangladesh.

It is painful to read that India has to make a choice about whom to drop among Sachin, Yuvraj, Ganguly and VVS, whe so many talented youngsters are back warming the benches in India. There were reports in the media that both Ganguly and Sachin were eye-ing the captaincy (which neither of them have surprisingly denied!). Under these circumstances, its all the more important, that Dravid to make some tough decisions. Hopefully, the World Cup defeat will encourage him to make some bold selection calls.

The lack of penetration of Indian bowlers is not new. So a five bowler combination would make a lot of sense. Ahead of upcoming tours it is important to test out Rajesh Pawar in particular at the international level. Romesh Powar meanwhile deserves a spot for his continued good performance at the domestic level. With Kumble being an automatic choice, this means going in with three spinners and two seamers. As for the seamers, Zaheer, who has been belted around enough by the Bangla boys, could use a break. Munaf has proven that he has the wicket-taking ability. On the other hand, VRV does generate a fair amount of pace, which could prove as a good combination along with Munaf. With five bowlers in the playing eleven that leaves room for five batsmen plus Dhoni as the keeper. If Dravid has the “guts” to experiment, he should make some tough calls and not hesitate to “rest” one or more of the veterans. However, in all likelihood, the same veterans will turn up and amass centuries while the younger folk sit out the match.

My Guess of India’s Likely 11 (packed with batsmen and just four bowlers): Jaffer, Ganguly, VVS, Sachin, Dravid, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kumble, Powar, Zaheer, Munaf. Twelfth Man: Karthik

Cricket: India Struggle

India managed to beat Bangladesh thanks to fine batting by Dhoni and Karthik. The strategy of sending Dhoni up the order was certainly a Ravi Shastri effect considering that this was never tried in the Chappell days. Dhoni has scored many of his big knocks either opening or at number 3 at the domestic level. So this was a good ploy, that actually worked. 

Mongia’s addition seems to have definitely strengthened the bowling department. Powar despite being expensive, clearly has the ability to take wickets unlike Harbhajan Singh. Zaheer Khan does not seem to have recovered from the belting he received from Bangladesh in the World Cup. India would do well to give him a rest and try RP Singh for the next ODI. At a minimum in his current form, he might break a nose or two! 🙂

In the hot and oppressive weather in Bangladesh, it might be best to focus on spin. This could mean bringing in Piyush Chawla for the next ODI in place of one of the seamers, possibly Sreesanth, since Munaf is a safer bet.

India’s opening combination is still a problem and is unikely to end until Sehwag is given a long rest. Bringing in Uthappa for Sehwag would be a good step, but its unlikely to happen given that both Shastri and Dravid appear to have endless faith in Sehwag.

Cricket: India Under Pressure

As India take on Bangladesh, the pressure will clearly be on India. New coach, minus Sachin and Ganguly, plenty of rumors about friction in the team, and the big loss in the World Cup, all combined, is bound to put Dravid and his boys under tremendous pressure. The Bangla boys on the other hand, have little to lose. If they win, they can claim that the world cup win was no fluke. On the other hand if they lose Bashar will attribute it to a poor show on the day, a slow start after a break etc.

With Shastri in charge, at a minimum, one can expect some reasonable control over the media and its endless speculation. But first, he and the rest of the team management will have to show some results. The pressure is going to be all around. An otherwise boring series might just turn out to be an interesting one!

Cricket: Australian Dominance Continues

Australia won the Cricket World Cup held in the West Indies, as many had expected. With this victory the the Aussies have completed three World Cup titles in a row. The Aussie dominance of world cricket is unparalleled and almost reaching a point where its unhealthy for the game. The good news is that several cricket teams have improved the quality of their game significantly since the World Cup in 2003. The bad news is that the Aussies are still far ahead in terms of consistency, skill and overall professionalism. Ricky Ponting and his men are simply far superior than the rest of the teams combined and this has been the situation for many years.Sri Lanka deserves special credit for their outstanding performance throughout this tournament. Jayawardane has led from the front in all respects and at 29, with several years of cricket still ahead of him, seems to be firmly in-charge of Sri Lankan cricket. Their cricketing future seems bright and one worthy of emulating especially for teams such as Pakistan and India. Bangladesh and Ireland having qualified for the last eight at the expense of India and Pakistan, have plenty to be happy about. New Zealand is a team that seems to consistently progress as far as the semis and they have reason to feel frustrated as one more World Cup went by with another loss in the semis. South Africa return with their “chokers” tag in tact. India, Pakistan and England are back to the drawing board so to speak and have plenty to think about as they plan for the next four years leading up to the World Cup in the sub-continent.

Lastly, this World Cup was poorly planned resulting in poor spectator response. Matches could have been held without huge gaps and the entire World cup could have been completed in half the time. Hopefully, these mistakes will be addressed in the next World Cup. The final moments of the today’s match when the umpires, players and the officials were all in a confused state about the result of the match, was both comical and a sad reflection of the poor management behind World Cricket in general. As the game of cricket adapts to the times, it might be prudent to bring in some professional management at the helm of the ICC and the various Boards of the cricket playing countries.

Cricket: Over-Aggressiveness Cost SA

South Africa went into the semi-finals against Australia with a very tough task ahead of them. Smith won the toss and elected to bat on what was supposed to be a batting track where as the match progressed, scoring runs would get more difficult (courtesy: Ian Botham’s analysis of the wicket). Unfortunately, SA pretty much lost the match in the first hour. It can be attributed completely to their over-aggressiveness. Smith is known of his aggression and on several occasions, it has served him well. But today was not of one of those days. 

In the third over of the innings he jumped out a couple of steps trying to hit the ball out of the ground! Next, of all people Kallis, an otherwise sedate, level-headed batsmen, exposed all his stumps in an attempt to hit McGrath over the top! (Ponting’s pre-match characterization of Kallis as a “slow-coach” seems to have paid off!). From then on it looked like SA had no plan B whatsoever. Prince, the ideal man for the situation, threw his wicket away to a disgraceful swipe at a virtual wide ball!

In short, pretty much all the batsmen went out and had wild swings! Nothing epitomized this approach more than the insane shot played by the last batsman, Langveldt. With still 5+ overs to go and big-hitter Kemp at the other end, Langveldt tried to hit Watson out of the park when he should have been trying to stick around and give his partner the strike!

The South African team has over the years earned the name “chokers” for losing close games. This time around they strangled themselves and choked right upfront! Its sad to see a team that had the best chance of giving Australia a run for their money, completely fall apart.

Cricket: SL Peaked Early?

Sri Lanka was at its very best in the game against NZ (the eternal semi-finalists). Led by the captain, Sri Lanka’s batting was simply outstanding. For a team that has no real big hitters in the middle order, the amount of runs they made in the last 10 overs was simply remarkable. Jayawardene was outstanding to say the least. In the early part of his innings he was struggling to force the pace. But he remained calm as ever and more than made up for it in the second half of his innings. It was great example of ODI batsmanship. The kind of big hits that he produced at the end were so “uncharacteristic” when you think about his normal batting style. SL had two very poor lbw decisions against them, despite which they went on to make a very challenging total.

The SL bowling is so strong especially on the turning tracks in the WI that anything over 200 is a tough total to chase against them. With 290 to get NZ needed a big innings from one of their top batsmen, but it never came through, thanks to Murali’s magic. New Zealand’s main strike bowler, Shane Bond had a poor start from which he never recovered and this was consistent with NZ’s performance today overall.

Hats off to Stephen Fleming for quitting the ODI captaincy. The timing could not have been better. During the last decade, he has served NZ cricket in a big way both as captain and as an ODI player. Besides, he has even een grooming his successor. Martin Crowe was over-reacting by criticizing the NZ team and the coach, John Bracewell. After so many good games NZ just lost to a better team on a bad day.

One can only hope that Sri Lanka does not repeat India’s performance in the last World Cup final after so many great performances in a row. The fear is that SL’s performance today was so good, that its almost impossible to match this level of performance. It would be awful to see another one-sided final, especially one featuring a dominant Aussie team.

Btw, if my pre-World Cup predictions were to come true, SA should beat the Aussies in the other semi-finals! 🙂

Needless Sensationalism

Spin by the media is not exactly new. But it simply crosses the line when you have serious issue like the murder of Pakistan Cricket Coach, Bob Woolmer. Check out these two news reports, one on the Cricket website and the other on Times of India website, both on the same topic. The cricket site report is restrained as it should be and reports that the investigators have made significant progress. The TOI reports on the other hand are supposedly based on a report in the Independent. The TOI reports that the killer has been identified! The independent goes on to add its own piece of a “masala” with a needless comment, “Police declined to comment on the identity of the suspect, understood to be male, or say whether he is a member of the Pakistan team or management”. And the TOI promptly picked up this piece of masala to say “According to The Independent , the suspect is a male but the police have declined to comment if he is a member of the Pakistan team or the management.”

Why on earth would the police comment on a query like that? Isn’t the media implicitly accusing the Pakistan team by asking such queries?

Bangladesh Tour: Young Team, Please!

The BCCI has recommended to the Indian selectors to pick a young team for the Bangladesh tour. I just hope the selectors would take this advice seriously! The so-called super stars of Indian cricket have had their chance on the World stage and failed miserably. Now comes a series against Bangladesh. This is perfect time to experiment and discover some new talent. On the last Bangladesh tour India lost an opportunity by dragging along the same “old” players. A struggling Sachin Tendulkar scored a century etc. on the last tour. Duh! What a waste? What were the selectors trying to prove?

Just look at Sri Lanka. Marvan Attapattu the former captain has been warming the benches as a reserve for this entire World Cup. Can’t India’s super-stars take a break from a single tour? It doesn’t have to mean that its the end of the road for the likes of Ganguly, Sehwag and Sachin. They can always be brought back for the tour of England and Australia. In the mean time, its a golden opportunity for India to unearth the talent that sadly Dilip Vengsarkar thinks doesn’t exist. It would be premature to pick the under 19 players, unless there is some outstanding talent that is spotted. Instead it would be prudent to try those who have had a chance to mature through the system (the 23-29 year olds).

The Australian team is a perfect example where this approach has been perfected. Barring Michael Clarke most players have come into the Aussie side after significant number of years at the domestic level (I don’t mean to say that India’s Ranji circuit is anywhere close to its equivalent Down Under).

Btw, Here is my pick for this tour (though I think the selectors will continue to persist with the Gangulys, and Sachins).

ODI Team:

Dravid, Gambhir, Uthappa, Badrinath, Yuvraj, Karthik, Dhoni, Powar, Piyush Chawla, RP Singh, Manoj Tiwari, Yusuf Pathan, SS Paul, Zaheer Khan, Gagandeep Singh.

Test Team:

Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Dravid, Venugopal Rao, VVS, Yuvraj, Kaif, Powar, Kumble, Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, Karthik, Munaf Patel, VRV Singh, RP Singh.