Cric Crunch

IPL -- Players vs Spectators

2010-04-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of watching the ChennaiSuperKings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore game in MAC last Wednesday and i just loved every movement of the match. CSK victory made things even better :-)

I really pity for the cricketers to toil in such hot and humid conditions, we were not even able to sit in the stands in the heat.It easy to comment and blog all that we like sitting in the comforts of the AC rooms !!!!. The great MAC stadium which has produced some exciting games was changed into an Live Rock Concert show stage, with full fledged bands (with Sivamani in full swing),lights of all colors, mega size speakers and not to forget the cheer girls dancing through out the match.

For each and every ball, the speakers will open up and shout the latest Tamil fast track song in full sound not to mention when a four or six is scored. Not sure how batsmen call for singles and two's when the speakers are barring all ends. Its just great to notice that in spite of so much noise and distractions (read cheer girls) the players get to concentrate and perform. As you know, in T20 even a few balls can change the course of the game, its too much pressure on the players and I feel its very very tough on the players. As expected we have already faced many players burn out. Vijay played his best in the recent past and was exhausted in just 4 overs from the start and needed assistance at the end of every over is the clear sign that the players are taxed too much with back to back games and excessive travel.Its just too much pressure with excessively hot conditions are not good for the players.

For the spectator, yes its just great. Finish your work by 7-7.30 (there are few lucky ones like me who can squeeze time to catch up with 4.00pm games also :-)) in the evening and enjoy the game like a evening movie show. I can see crowds in all ages, i saw a 60+ old lady walking with a stick coming to the stadium just to enjoy the atmosphere. I could also see full family in attendance from grandson to grandfather making it to the match. It was great ... Go to the stadium at least once to experience the atmosphere.

Sack TN Players ....

2010-03-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

I am just tired of watching CSK's inconsistent display, specially with the Chennai players. Match after match our TN players are failing with the bat & ball and display pathetic performance in the field. There can be many many factors for our defeat against RCB but i will attribute the lose to the catches dropped by Ashwin and M.Vijay.

The catch dropped by Vijay is a absolute sitter and 99 out of 100 times, even a school boy cricketer will catch them with ease. I would like to see minimum of 4 changes in the side for the next game. Drop Vijay,Ashwin,Baily and Parthiv and bring in Dhoni,Kemp (hopefully he is fit),Jakati and Badani. This may sound little radical but if Dhoni and Kemp are fit they pick themselves,jakati brings variety with Murali and need not say anything on Badani's experience and skills to force the pace. Vijay is not a player for this format and lets not take chances and doom his carrier playing him. Both Ashwin and Vijay needs a break and also expect the CSK cricket management talks to them and make sure that they realize that their place is not for granted.

CSK is in its familiar position as ever fighting for a spot in the top 4. CSK needs to win minimum of 6 in the remaining 9 games and that's not easy task. RCB,DC,MI have won 3-4 games and sitting pretty and DD is pushed to make sure that they win, so you can expect some fighting display from them and not to forget KKR and KXI punjab both the teams will get the best players for this format in McCullam,Marsh,Lee and David Hussey. M.Hussey will add instant balance in CSk middle order but since he is expected only in the last leg, its going to be a tough long haul for CSK. Lets hope a fit Dhoni and Kemp bring fresh momentum to CSK.

CSK plays like Team India

2010-03-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

Chennai Super Kings lost the game against kingsXI Punjab from a stage where they could not have lost. CSK performance somehow mirror's team India's performance in ODI and T-20's in the last season. One given day the team will produce some terrific performance and the next day some dreadful cricket, this is what is happening for CSK. CSK pulled a brilliant victory against Delhi chasing 185+ and losing here chasing a paltry 130+ score that too when the asking rate at the final stages were just run a ball.

On the whole, CSK started positively with some disciplined bowling performance from both seamers and spinners. Murali and Balaji were exceptional in picking wickets at the right time and at the same time containing the run flow. Fielding was also good if not great. CSK is said to be a strong batting unit but has not yet fired collectively, once Haydan and Raina were gone the batting looked a little suspect in the middle. In my view Parthiv is not the right choice for opening or for this format. Even though he got runs, i would say he took too many balls for his runs and most important thing in the version is to rotate the strike, if u can not force the pace give strike to the other person. Haydos did not get much strike in the early part, parthiv was kind of playing almost 4 balls of every over and leaving haydos under pressure. But then if the lower order with Morkel in strike, it is pathetic to see Ashwin trying to take control of the situation, the best thing would have been to give strike to morkel and watch the proceedings.

I do not want to write about the bowl out, which to does not make much seance, that to in a league format, why can't we share points ? Both the teams do not deserve a win in this game, both played poor cricket.

As a CSK fan, i wish CSK play's consistent cricket in the coming matches and makes sure we enter the semi-finals with out a struggle. I would also like to see Badani in the middle order in place of Vijay, who i my view is a player for the longer version of the game and badani is solid batsmen and superb fielder and can also chip in with few overs.

Dhoni out of action !!!

2010-03-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

Dhoni played one of his best knock's in T-20 cricket in the recent past. The partnership with Badri made sure that CSK reached a respectable score. Dhoni's innings was a gem, the way he pulled Bond for a flat six was the pinnacle. As a CSK supporter, i was tense watching the proceedings and after he got hit in the hand, i thought its all over but i think that ignited the old dhoni with those punishing hits to the fence.

CSK bowled brilliantly in the initial overs or i should say it was poor batting from KKR that led to their slide. O.A.Shah's wicket was a beauty from Balaji, he looks a bit more confident and also fit than the previous 2 seasons. Good for him and CSK. Kemp is real good addition to the side, his nagging slow bowling (poi bowling in tamil slang) adds variety to the attack.

On the whole, this win should have grouped the team well and the confidence should be high but for the big blow of dhoni being ruled out for the next 4 games. Dhoni out of action means, that parthiv is in and that does not really sound good, i would have loved to see Badani in action. Also i would have expected Badri to lead the side with all his experience in leading the India A side,SouthZone challenger sides etc but not sure from where did Raina emerge as a captain.. lets see how he performs as captain. Haydos is due for a big one and if badani replaces Vijay that will give options in the top and we will also get a extra bowling option. Vijay some how is struggling to force the pace and i fell he is best suited for the longer version of the game.

On the favourites for lifting the IPL-III, i feel MI is the best balanced side with the additions of Bravo and Pollard both are capable of big hitting and most importantly both are nagging slow bowlers best suited for T20. With the local talen in Rayudu and S.Tiwari playing some good knocks at importants stages of the game, i would say MI is the favourites. I am a great fan of Sachin like millions of cricket loving people around the world but i am not a fan of sachin's captaincy for obvious reasons, if he can pull this up and win the trophy for MI it will be great.

Australia back on Top

2009-10-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

It was great to see Australians back to their best with resounding win over the depleted NewZeland. Ponting and his team once again proved they are champs and deliver when it matters most. This victory means a lot and must be sweet for Ponting and Australia after the bitter Ashes loss and test series loss against South Africa at home. Even Team India was compared with Australian's almost all the time when ever India won a single outing against them and was written that India will replace the Aussies in the top, which till now is only on papers.

I am a great fan of the few modern day batsmen like Steve Waugh,Ponting,Lara and my favorite of all Sachin. I think Ponting has performed exceptionally well when it comes to the big stage and the finals, even though he had a strong team when he came into the side and his success was attributed to mostly because, he was playing for Australia. Now with all the big guys out and shouldering the young team and most importantly carrying the team with him and scoring big in the big game shows that he has been more successful than any one in this era, even more than our own great Sachin.

On Team India's performance in the championship, it was ordinary and i feel it will stay like this in the future for various obvious reasons. I can kind of relate English football with our cricket team, england used to be a big force in football until the cash rich EPL took the center stage and after that you all know that England has not been able to even reach the semi-finals of the WorldCup even though they had great players in the side. I can see the same happening to Indian cricket, lot of quick money is in the table through IPL and sponsorships and the pride for playing for India is there only till you play the first few seasons and after that its like you consolidate and get yourself picked for one of the IPL franchise. Its really good to see that our players are paid well and secured for the future and with great infrastructure in place we should see the team raise their level of professionalism and perform consistently at the top level and not settle with IPL. Australia benefited most from IPL re-discovering players like Shane Watson,Marsh etc but we have lost more players than discovered.

BCCI and selectors need to look into team building from now on and save the players from injury by opting out from useless tours like the one we had in WestIndies and Srilanka to keep the team in good shape for the WorldCup. BCCI should look into the roles of the various coaches and support staff in the team to make sure they deliver and not travel like baggage. Paddy Upton's recommendations on performance improvement stimulants are the worst suggestions i have ever heard / read from any coach or support staff in any sporting field.

Will Pakistan get lucky twice ??

2009-09-21T07:25:00.001-07:00

Cricket is best described as "game of luck" will Pakistan get lucky twice in a year ........ I know many people in this part of the world would not even like to imagine Pakistan winning the Champions Trophy-2009. Keeping in mind that Pakistan is the most unpredictable team in the draw and can win any team on a given day with some brilliant individual performance and at the same time lose games meekly. One big advantage Pakistan has is the limited number of games they have played this year and have not played many games after the T-20 world cup win, the fatigue factor is ruled out and the players are fit.

As always the cricket crazy Indian public is already in full expectation to see Dhoni and team to win the Trophy as a consolation for the T-20 lose. Team India's strength is in the batting and the bowlers can string some surprise if the wickets in South Africa . There is also lot of pressure on the top order batsmen to fire all the time as the bowling is considered as weak link. The opener for India will be a great match to watch with India locking horns with Pakistan. Pakistan would have played against the depleted West Indies team and would have won the match and should be in good frame of mind for the high voltage game. India on the other hand will be under immense pressure to start the tournament with a win specially against Pakistan.

I have a feeling, its going to be real tough for India to finish on top. We lack a bit in bowling and we have rarely chased to victory in the recent past. Our fielding is the most inconsistent. If our bowlers come good and the top 5 batsmen fires then we have very fair chance. Having said that the majority of the boys should have very fond memories of winning T-20 WorldCup here in SA and that should motivate them and make them believe that they can win the trophy.

My Teams for Semi-Finals

1. South Africa
2. India / Pakistan
3. Australia
4. SriLanka

Find the fixes for Champions Trophy -2009 here http://www.cricinfo.com/iccct2009/content/series/374074.html?template=fixtures

Aussies pushed to the wall .........

2009-07-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

England made history beating Australia in the 2nd test in Lords breaking the long standing loosing streak.The England victory came at the right time of the series with 3 more tests the Ashes 2009 is wide open now. All credit to captain Strauss for keeping the team together and playing a wonderful captains knock in the 1st innings.

Man of the Match Flintoff bowled his heart out on the last session of the 4th day and the first session of the 5th day which changed the course of the match. Having said that i would have given Strauss the Man of the Match for his splendid 150 in the 1st innings. I would say J.Anderson bowled truly well in the 1st innings to stop the Aussies from getting the upper hand.Finally England has pulled their socks and played as a team go 1 up in the series to make the already hyped Ashes interesting and absorbing.Collingwood and Peiterson played their part well to make sure that they have enough runs on the board and the final spell from Flintoff was so fierce fast bowling which proved too much for Clark and Haddin.

Very little went right for Ponting here. He was given out caught when he did not hit it, he remains 25 runs short of passing Allan Border's Australian Test record. He was forced to juggle an attack in which the spearhead went over 5 runs a over and the spinner dislocated a finger on his bowling hand.

Its very tough to make a come back in a test where you receive 4-5 dubious decisions and that too 3 in the 4th innings of the match.I am not sure why this so called media kept silent when it comes to a english cricketer when it comes to some controversy. If Strauss decision to claim for Hughes catch, ponting confirming a catch against India is no different. I don't understand why the umpires resist from using technology when it is available on doubtful decisions.

The biggest problem with the current Australian team is the self-belief that they can win the series. There has been lot of doubting themself on various aspects and which shows on the field. I don't think that it will improve dramatically once Brett is back. Over the years it has been proved time and again that the team should belief they have it with in them to win. I am sure Ponting & the senior pros like Hussey will not let go easily and try to pull back things in Aussies way. I feel one good win here will make the total out look of the team totally positive.

Hoping to see a fighting display from the Aussies in the 3rd test, with Peiterson ruled out for the rest of the series its not going to be easy for England.

Ashes 2009

2009-07-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

1st test in cardiff has proved that ICC should never think of tinkering with the Test cricket format. The match was a treat to watch with some superb exhibition of skills with the bat and ball. The life time innings from Collingwood and the tail playing for time to save the match should make the ICC officials think hard before embarking on any kind of change in the format.

Aussies were on top right from the go and never gave the english men a chance to dominate the proceedings. The only session England can take heart of was the lower order batting well to get runs on the board in the 1st innings and the last session of the last day.

Australian batting line is back to its own with all the top order batsmen except M.Hussey getting runs and its only matter of time that Hussey gets into form. The big plus for australia is the find of the youngster North playing some important knocks, he did very well in South Africa and continues the good work here. I like the way he bats, in the sense he knows when to attack and when to defend and his technique is solid. The big relief for Australia is Ponting getting back to his own, i enjoyed every movement of his 150 and the flow of strokes and what not, if he continues to perform like this i am sure it will reflect in his captaincy. Katich is the most under-rated player in the Australian team and i remember the way he played in India in his early days and has come a long way to seal his place in the team, even though he is not the great player to watch (chanderpaul style) but very effective. Haddin has taken the big burden of filling the great legacy left by Gilli and has been pretty successful till now, even though its early days to compare with Gilli.

As for as the England batting, its a side that rarely perform as a team. England i would say is the most over-rated team in world cricket today. All the players are good individual players and perform to keep their place in the team and rarely play as a team to win. Kevin Peiterson and Strauss are the two solid batsmen who can make a difference to the side and i would say Cook is fine player but lacks confidence now with string of medicare performances. We have not seen much from Boppara in the test arena and all others Collingwood,Flintoff,Prior are all absolutely over rated players as batsmen. Even though Collingwood played the innings of his life, i would say he will fail often than perform. Flinoff is the utterly over-rated player i have ever come accross in cricket history. I do not remember his batting winning a Test match in the recent past, a player with so many injury problem and uncertainty is not worth the kind of backing he gets from the ECB.

Australia missed the fire power in the bowling department and were a bit too defensive in the field. May be the 2005 ashes loss is still rankling hard in Ponting that he was a bit defensive and let the tail to score runs and play time in both the innings. Ponting back to form should help his confidence and show in his captaincy. There is only one strike bowler in Johnson who can run through the opponents and that is hurting the chances of taking 20 wickets. All the other bowlers can support and take wickets but not take wickets in quick time which is very important in test cricket. I feel this is what had cost the 1st Test for Australia.

I see england is a better bowling side compared to the batting even though they gave away 650+ in the 1st test. If the conditions and wickets are going to favour seam bowling they can prove very difficult to tackle with. Anderson & Flintoff with Harmison can prove to be a solid seam attack in helping conditions. S.Broad is listless if the wickets are not helping, i would prefer harmison or Sidebottom for him. Paniser has been out of form for too long and may be needs a tour to India to get back to form with helpful wickets. Swann is yet another ordinary spinner who will be carted even in our TNCA First div league but he is ratted so high.

Overall Australia as a team is a better side compared to England and its going to be Aussies yet again.

Tough times for True Cricket

2009-06-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

The next cricket calender is going to be the toughest year for true cricket .. Test Match Cricket. The ICC move to make modifications to the current format makes me worried that the best format of the game will have to undergo changes.

The proposed 4 days for tests can make the game more spectator friendly but not the true test of character of the game. I know people will argue that the format was changed even in the past like having a rest day after the 3rd day and so on but for purists the 5 day format of Test Cricket is true cricket even though there are few phases where the game can get boring.If test cricket is restricted to 4 days initially there will be few no result matches. Over a period of time things will settle down and we will see results but we will see the end of players who painstakingly spend hours and hours in the middle to fight to save the match and show character and technique (Just imagine Artherton's match saving 5th day innings against SouthAfrica and many such innings from Dravid).

I would blame the various cricket boards to have dragged the best format of cricket to this stage with poor planning and unmindful push to the slam bang version to fill their coffers. It was a pity to see empty stand in WI when Aussies toured and the same was seen even in cricket crazy country like Srilanka and India. Many factors like pricing of tickets,lack of initiative to market the format has brought down the most important format of the game down to this stage.

Finally it will be sad if the format is changed in any way and the talk of playing with color dress & day-night just hits the last nail in the coffin.I can not even think of seeing the players in color dress in the true cricket "TEST CRICKET".

On Indian Tour to West Indies

Rohit,R.Jadeja & Y.Pathan all wasted the god sent chances they got to play in this series. I am disappointed with this pathetic display purticullarly by Rohit. Rohit was so promising when he entered the international scene and some how he is yet to cement his place in the team.Good to see D.Karthick get some runs but this is not good enough for him to assure himself of a place when the big guys come back. Dhoni is back among runs and after a long time his batting has won a game for India. Not much to write about our bowling it just suffers and need a lot of discipline to put up some decent performance.

On Selection Matters

I know Cheeka as a selector is doing his bit to make sure that TN players are part of the team and Dhoni does his bit to keep them out of the playing XI. Unfortunately for Dhoni this time the youngsters he backs has failed more often than perform. I expected Badri to get a chance after dismal show from R.Sharma & Y.Pathan but yet to get his chance. On all merits M.Vijay should have got the openers slot at the first place but some how dhoni preferred karthick for reasons best known to him. Saving grace is karthick has performed well. I think at least now the people who back dhoni for all his decisions will agree with me on his prejudice against TN cricketers.

I would also feel that I.Sharma needs to be handled carefully, we have lost some good young talent in the past due to some poor handling of players. I see that I.Sharma is shot of confidence and needs a lot of hand holding so that he gets back to his prime.

Overall i would say this tour to WI is played just because of some obligation between the two boards and there is no real interest or intensity. The cricket administrators should put an end to these sort of meaningless series in the future, more so because the players are already overworked.

Early Exit for Team India

2009-06-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Team India's campaign to retain the T20 world cup came to an end with the second consecutive loss in the Super 8 stage. There has been lot of expectation from the Indian fans and the stadium looked grim at times even though the match is played in England and the host nation is progressing to win. Indian fans out numbered the English fans on Sunday and the match moving from one side to the other like our sensex, the cricket mad Indian fans were backing Team India like anything but in the end it was the team which held their nerves and the experience won the match for England. The Semi-final line up is already done, so the remaining matches in the Super 8 is just for the sake of playing.

I pity Dhoni.

I have mentioned quite a few times in my previous posts during the IPL that Dhoni is a bit confused with his batting position and desperately wants to prove as a batsmen. This confused state of mind has reflected in the not so aggressive moves that he took in the 2 super 8 games. To me dhoni is kind of likes to dominate the proceedings and likes to be in the thick of action all the time but once his batting style changed he was not able to do this with big success and this was very much apparent in the IPL & WorldCup.

I feel it has become a habit now for the general public and the media to take a player to the cloud on success and dump him to the ground from there on failure. This is very much evident in Dhoni's case, what ever he did made news and every other move was talked as a strategy and so on and when he and the team failed its the opposite. I feel pity for dhoni, he could have done a lot of things much better but i strongly feel that holding one person for the team's debacle is crap talk. I just do not understand how the past Indian cricketers sitting in the news channel's just talk what ever they feel like and get so personnel on their comments, its very disgusting and disturbing trend.

I would say Team India was a bit off color in this tournament. Bowling was very ordinary, Zaheer did not deliver what was expected from him (early breakthrough) Ishant Sharma was listless and Harbhajan was not able to produce a maginc spell in the middle overs which normally puts india well positioned on chasing or defending. On batting it was even more disappointing that other than Yuvraj & Y.Pathan none of the other guys looked comfortable, Gambhir is the key player for the team's success and when he was not getting the runs the top order failed badly. Rohit & Raina were shot of experience to handle some fine swing and seam bowling and failed miserably. I dont have to write on the fielding, we fielded below par through out the tournament and gifted 10-15 runs in all the matches.

Overall i would say that a combination of too-much pressure to retain the trophy, over-worked body and fatigue factors contributed to the early exit of Team India.

Team India starts with a Win

2009-06-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

Team India started their campaign to retain the T20 WorldCup in style with a reasonable victory over the talented Bangladesh.

Yuvi played a gem of an innings to save the day for India with power packed 41 of just 18 balls to pep up the score and India finally finished with a reasonable score of 180. Rohit and Gambhir started the innings in typical style with some well timed hits to the fence.Gambhir back to form is good sign for India and Rohit performing well in the openers slot gives us the flexibility of including an extra bowler. I feel Rohit is bit too ambitious in his strokes, he seems to be going after the bowling all the time.

We are a bit slow in the middle overs between 7 & 14 overs where we struggled to score runs but Yuvi was in great touch that he clobbered the bangladesh bowlers all over the park with towering sixes. Yuvi ensured India gets to a respectable total and I.pathan finishing off with a 6 & 4 in the final few deliveries. Sadly Raina did not get enough overs to set his eye in and explode and it was the same for Y.Pathan. We should also give credit to the bangladeshi spinners, they bowled brilliantly in the middle overs to restrict the explosive Dhonia and Gowtham.

Bangladesh started their chase in good stead with some hard hitting from both the openers and exposed our new ball bowlers. Zaheer was not spared and as usual I.Pathan gave away his quota of runs with the new ball (god know how he is picked time and again and given the new ball) Dhoni brought in Y.Pathan and he responded well to remove the inexperienced Tamim. After this point it was all the way Ohja show with some great seam bowling from I.sharma from the other end, Ohja picked wickets in all the overs and gave very few runs and sealed the victory for India. Harbajan played the role of restricting the run flow to perfection. I feel we gave away too many runs in the initial overs and need to find some way to restrict the run flow to 6 an over in the first 6 overs.

Over all it was a good day and may not be a great opener for India but this should have provided the team management to think through the combination for the future matches.

Sad to see that Aussies are struggling to make it to the knock out stage from the group of death. Aussies need to win against Srilanka by a big margin and WestIndies should also win Srilanka for Australia to make it to the knock out stage. On the other group its a battle between England and Pakistan to make it to the knock out stage. Netherland seems to be determined to make it to the next stage.

Time to cheer Team India :-)

2009-05-31T02:23:00.000-07:00

T20 WorldCup is fast approaching and its time for us to cheer and support Team India. It will be great fun to see the same people backing their foes couple of weeks back in the IPL.

One thing is sure that its going to be exciting than the 1st edition. Australia and SouthAfrica have already made their intentions clear that they are not going to take it easy. The success of 2007 worldcup and the mega success of IPL has proved that the format is here to stay and the top teams are going to fight for the top spot.With the success of IPL, victory here means a lot in terms of domestic T20 championships and replicate IPL like formats in their respective nation. so its going to be keenly contested WorldCup.

I feel there is no clear favorites for the 2009 WorldCup and there's going to be a lot of upsets and surprise winners. There are lot of new names in most of the teams but for Team India and the success of these new talents will be the defining factor.

India has distinct advantage of having many match winners in this T20 format. Sehwag,Yuvraj,Dhoni,Raina & Y.Pathan can win matches single handedly and Gambhirs form will decide the fate our campaign. Ishant,R.P.Sighn,Praveen & Zaheer should be doing well in helpful conditions. I will never pick an inconsistent performer like Irfan but i am sure he will play a few games and can spring a few surprise in helpful conditions. Harbhajan & Ohja form a good spinning options for Dhoni.Overall we have a very well balanced team and it all depends on how well we cope with the conditions and potential is transformed to performance and most importantly how well Dhoni uses his talented side.

For cricket fanatics like us, its going to be yet another 2-3 weeks of sleepless nights after the month long IPL carnival. Most of the matches will start at 5.30 UK time which is 11 in the night for us and true cricket fans will try their best to keep them awake till the end of the match. For general public this years event will not be a discussion item as they might not watch the matches live. The Newspapers will carry only partial scores and detailed scores will be available only on the next day which will be too late as our TV News channels will break the news.

Dhoni digs CSK's graveyard ........

2009-05-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

It has been very hard to see that CSK went down without a real fight, as a CSK fanatic it was very tough to digest the fact that csk did not make it to the finals.

I am not going to write about the way they performed but the strategic failure in picking the XI for the big semi-finals based on commonsense and the facts which sent CSK packing out of the tournament.

I attribute this defeat is the reflection of Mr Cool Dhoni putting himself ahead of the team in many instances in this tournament. This was a open fact through out the tournament, it was purely some over-smart captaincy,unimaginable team selection and no intervention from the think tanks of CSK cricket management to set thing right at least at some point of the tournament.

Specially on the semi-finals, why would some one pick Goni ahead of a spinner in spite of his very poor performance with the ball and pathetic fielding. Dhoni yet again proved he backs few guys and goes with the instinct and not by one's performance. The whole cricket world knows that it has been spinners all through the tournament but he preferred Goni ahead of Ashwin who bowled brilliantly in the low scoring match against KXIP. Why to pick Oram again and again when he is not going to get his time to settle down in batting with the strong top order and he has been listless with his bowling. We could have picked Thusara or Ntini (sad that we did not use the leading SA bowler in even a single match) as a pure bowler and if this is not acceptable he could have used him as a new ball bowler and picked Ashwin in place of Goni, we would have had many options in the middle overs. If dhoni plans to bat up at No3 & No 4 there is no use in having both Badri and Oram in the side just for fielding.

Finally if Dhoni is going to shuffle his batting order very often in any form of the game in favor of himself, not only CSK but even Indian Team will suffer in time. We saw this happen in Kitply and AsiaCup finals with some dour batting from Dhoni but there was some justification for that but the kind of moves he made in the IPL is debatable. The sad side of all this is neither CSK nor India has a good backup for captaincy .

CSK strikes the right combination :-)

2009-05-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

Great to see Dhoni re-inventing himself to play one of the most aggressive knocks against Punjab Kings XI and keeping his cool in the death overs as captain. Dhoni was not at his element all through the first phase of the tournament with most of the experiments going against him and CSK lost 3 games in a row. Finally Dhoni & CSK has come out strongly to perform like champs and looks like they can not go wrong from here but for the very ordinary fielding performance.

I still feel there is some confusion in the batting line up even though they have sort of sorted out things and seems to have hit the best combination. My pri match batting order will be like Haydos,Vijay,Raina,Badri,Dhoni,Morkel,Oram and may be based on the match situation badri can be pushed back in the order but i feel they have to stick to this line up. If CSK is pushed to think of an extra bowler, i would prefer dropping Oram and play Ntini rather than disturb Haydos and Vijay pair. In my view Oram has not been able to adapt to the T20 format yet, i think he has bowled very few overs and has got few opportunity to score big with the bat. I have a feeling Ntini might give his best, if given a chance now and may also get ready for the super semi-finals.

Morkel and Thyagi have been good in the last couple of matches with some great seam bowling and most importantly not giving away any extra runs in the initial overs. Murali,Jataki and Balaji have come good in the last 3 matches with some tight spells in the middle overs and Raina has been proving to be the trusted bowler in the death overs. Morkel and Balaji are little bit unpredictable in the end overs, invariably both of them provide a big (12-18 runs) over in the end, need to improve on this and restrict to a 10 run over in the end, Ntini in place of Oram might strike the required balance.

Its all open and dhoni has been pleading in the pre-match and post-match comments that CSK need to field better and hold on to all the chances that come their way. Is this because we don't have a fielding coach :-) may not be, see how many coach's KKR got and also look at their performance, i feel its all in the mind and if one or two come up with some special effort (like the one Raina took in the last game ) all others will follow suit. Today there is a lot of doubt if they will hold on to the chance so they let them go. Hope the confidence is back soon and does not cost them any more.

CSK has a good 4 day break and i am sure will help the old boys of the team (Haydos & Murali) to cool of their heels. Having said that we have another 4 matches and if we win the next 2 matches we are sure of making it to the semi-finals. Need to give some rest for Haydos,Murali,Morkel (has been playing non stop for the past 8 months) & Balaji. Baily has not been tried out till now and has been in the bench for too long and the only match he played he did not bat or bowl so i would expect dhoni to try his bench strength so that they will be useful for 2010 :-). Its the same with Ashwin, he got a game to play but did not bowl or bat so if it will help if they have to replace someone due to injury or some unexpected events.

CSK back on Track !!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

Great Double for CSK and chennai is again bustling with the hope as we are back on track and will put up some exiting stuff going forward.It was nice to see the two rookie bowlers perform exceptionally well and i see Thyagi is the future for Indian Cricket and high quality material and needs lot of hand holding to be successful in the international arena.

Finally all the comments and bashing to send Badri at No 4 has been heard and Badri has just performed like a champ, even though there is lot of room for improvement. I would have expected a Raina like innings (98) from Badri in the game against DD but again the effort was just fantastic.M.Vijay started of well and needs a couple of games to settle down and i am sure he is far far better batsman than Parthiv so please stick with him.

Jakati bowled superbly to pick 4 wickets and kept the run flow under check and sure to help CSK in the upcoming matches. We chennai folks would have loved to see Ashwin in his place, why did Dhoni prefer Jakati over Ashwin ? he just got only one match and he did not bowl or bat then how is that Jakati is picked ? I know you will say we already have Murali & Raina bowling off spin and we need a left arm spinner. Including Thyagi & Jataki over Amarnath (who did very well last season) and Ashwin has only proved that Dhoni is not confident on TN players for some reason or other. At least now we have 3 players from TN and wish that they perform well and give confidence to Dhoni in picking more from the state.

Coming back to the match against DC, i hope and wish that the top guns in the middle order get some runs to boost the total and help the bowlers. Dhoni,Albie & Oram are total failures with the bat and expect them to raise to the occasion and peak their form at the right time.CSK has slight edge over the DC as Fidel leaving the team and DC losing the last 2 matches and CSK winning the last 2 games

Good Luck Guys.

Bad run continues for CSK :-(

2009-04-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

Chennai's bad run continues with just 1 win of 5 matches and currently stands at 5th position in the table. CSK team management needs to do something and changes in the team is imperative. Some how i feel the team is not gelling well and it shows in the field, i doubt if dhoni is as aggressive as he was earlier and when scoring runs. It was hard to see the match against Deccan Chargers with each individual standing at their position with somber faces even before the match was lost.

The main problem for CSK is none of the big names are performing to their reputation except for Haydos & Murali. Dhoni in particular needs to re-discover himself and play to his strength (aggression) and not for his reputation. Its been too long now he has played an attacking knock for India or CSK, he has been trying to occupy the crease and graft runs and that is not expected from him, he is expected to score quick and fast. The only way he can do that is re-discover himself and play his natural game. Albee Morkel the biggest success for SouthAfrica in the last ODI series against Australia and lot was expected from him in this IPL-2 but has been disappointing till now. Raina has been good in patches and has not converted the good starts into big scores and has thrown the wicket at very important stages of the game. Balaji & Badri has been pretty inconsistent as ever. Balaji has been gifting runs at will and has not been reliable and badri has not scored any runs and he is in the playing 11 just b'cas there is no alternative Indian batsmen in the bench.

Now moving back to the team selection, i wonder how and why they are playing Joginder and giving him only 1/2 overs when spinners are so successful in South African wickets. Its time we do some change to the lineup by playing Vijay in place of Parthiv and Ashwin in place of Joginder and may be after couple of matches we can also try Bailey so that we know how good he is and how we plan to use him. I am sure there will be some change in the line up and i will not be surprised if dhoni picks Vijay in place of Badri and play Parthiv as a keeper and ask him to bat down the order. I think at least now VBC as top guy for cricketing affairs for CSK speaks his mind to the people concerned and not stop with writing blogs.

CSK is left with no other option but win the next 3 or 4 matches to make sure that they are not left far behind the chase to find a place in the semi-finals. Already DC & DD are comfortably placed and MI has made strong claims to be in the semi-finals and the last spot will be a fight between CSK and primarily RR and to an extent Kings XI Punjab.

Bad start for CSK & RR

2009-04-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

MI & RCB performed like real champions to beat CSK and RR respectively. Sachin leading from the front for MI and Dravid & Kumble performing for RCB to start IPL-2 on a winning note.

I am not going to write on what happened in the match for CSK but on what went wrong for CSK and the mistakes that cost the match for CSK.

1.Hayden dropping a sitter from sachin early on the game.
2.When CSK had restricted MI well Flintoff gifting 25 runs in the 18th over.
3.Flintoff & Hayden throwing their wickets after showing signs of recovery.
4.Playing 11 and batting order.

I feel dropping catches,gifting runs and throwing wickets are normal and sometimes depends on many factors like weather,first game,batsmen just hitting out and taking all the risks etc but what baffles me is the team selection and the order in which the batsmen were sent in for the chase.

CSK were playing with 10 players and the 11th man was playing as a fielder, no bowling and no batting, how can you play Ashwin and not give him even a single over it is ridiculous to play him at the first place when you are playing 3 specialist bowlers and 2 bowling all rounders and having picked him in the team not trying him even for a single over shows how confident the captain is on Ashwin.

I don't understand how you can not pick A.morkel, what ever the reason be (kits not arrived on time !!) it is very silly to think that he can not play with the available kit from the other players in the team. How on earth you can pick Joginder ahead of balaji (even though joginder did well) i doubt if Dhoni has any confidence in the chennai players. It is really hurting when you see only 2 players picked from chennai for the CSK team and 1 of them did not bowl or bat and the other specialist batsmen walking in at the end overs when the asking rate has gone up to 11 a over.Its a shame for TNCA and Chennai players that they are treated so badly in spite of owning the team. All the other teams (except RR) play minimum of 3-4 players from the state and they are key performers also.Some how i get a feeling that dhoni is not confident about players from TN.

How is that all the big hitting batsmen were sent in one after the other early in the innings and send the inexperienced players in the end overs and expect them to perform. May be he is experimenting in the initial phase of the tournament but it is always good to start winning so that the team's morale and confidence gets momentum going forward. I am not blaming Dhoni alone here its a total failure of the team management which includes Fleming. I strongly feel that its time that dhoni starts to keep wickets and create an option to include one more batsmen/bowler in the team. I would want to see Flintoff at number 6 and Morkel at 7 and may earlier depending on the match scenario and not at no 4 / 5 pre-planned.

I am sure the team management on cricketing affairs get together and plan for the next game and come out with the best possible lineup which should include Hayden,Morkel,Flintoff and Murali and make sure they start winning.

Will Rajasthan Royals make it again ??

2009-04-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

Rajasthan Royals (RR) is already in South Africa (SA) and have started playing matches with strong sides in SA.Will Shane Warne and team be able to win the second edition for their new owner (read Shilpa :-)) is the most asked question in the media today.

RR is not my favorites this time around to win the tournament.The basic reason for this observation is, last year the players who helped the team win matches were Yusuf,Watson,R.Jadeja,Asnodkar & importantly S.Tanvir under the great leadership of Shane. All the above players except Shane and Watson will not find it easy playing in SA. S.Tanvir is ruled out of the tournament and Watson should be rusty back into the side after a 2 month rest after injury. Yusuf,R.Jadeja,Asnodkar & Kaif are players who relish the ball to come below the knee roll and don't like the ball coming quick and bouncing above the knee roll and i strongly feel that these players performance in this tournament will be limited. Shane even though playing/coaching competitive cricket through out the year, he is not getting younger by the day and it was showing in the way he was bowling and ground fielding in the first practice game.

Am i sounding little too against RR :-) ok lets see the strengths of RR now

Smith the captain of SA is the biggest strength for RR, he know the wickets,conditions,reads the players better than anyone in today's cricket and should be playing a very important role in the teams preparation and should be behind each every decision on the planning. Basically he is the key think tank of the team along with Shane.Mascarenhas,M.Morkel,S.Trivedi and Munaf Patel should do well in helping conditions. Mascarenhas has been in and out of the England team and has not played much for RR last season should be raring to go here and prove a point to the england selectors. Morkel and Munaf should be too much for any team to handle in the first 6-8 overs, S.Trivedi played the supporting role so well last time and should be hoping to do well this time also.

Yusuf and Asnodkar are just unpredictable players and if they click in bouncy tracks its a bonus and they will just be un-stopable and prove to be match winners. I am eager to see how Jadeja performs in SA, he is a very strong willed player and does not get cowed down by the reputation of the bowler or the batsmen playing against him and wish he does well and makes a strong claim into the Indian T20 side.

Bottom Line:

Shane and Smith are the key people to get this in-experienced side to get united and make them believe that they can win in SA.

Its no fluke !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

MS Dhoni & team has yet again proved that its no fluke,luck or blip but true professionalism that has made winning a habit. It was really nice to see that the whole team contributing to the series win. One has to give full credit to Dhoni for making each and every member of the team believe that we can win any opponents, any where and under any conditions. The most fabulous thing about Dhoni is that he has been able to manage this with two different set of players, for T20 & ODI half the team is different and very young, on the other side he has been successful in making even the experienced players to believe that they can win any team and win consistently.

The brilliance of Gambhir,care free Sehwag,flamboyant Yuvraj,aggressive bhaji,Ishant,crafty Zaheer and cool dhoni has made the seniors Sachin,Dravid & Laxman to give that extra bit and made sure that they contribute and contribute when it matters most. Gambhir has been just too good over the last couple of seasons, the biggest strength i see in him is the fearlessness on facing any opponent. He gives respect only to the delivery and not to the bowler who bowls and his past record or reputation etc, if the delivery needs to be hit it will be hit. The hundred he made in the 2nd test just proves that he has arrived in style and he can play out time if the circumstances requires. I wish that he continues this fearless attitude in the coming seasons also without fearing for his reputation.

Zaheer & Harbajan has been brilliant through out the series with some brilliant spells. Even though the strike rate can be improved , both of them made sure that they bowl to the plan. Lot was expected from Ishant in the helpful conditions but he bowled well in patches but was not able to repeat the magic he did in Australia, i am sure he will come back strongly in the upcoming series.Munaf played his part to perfection, supporting Zaheer & Ishanth sharma, Yovraj,sehwag & sachin did their bit as bowlers.

Few disappointments as for as the Test Series was Sehwag, he did play few quick fire knocks but failed to convert them into big scores. I feel Yuvraj was also very tentative and most of times cramped to some good quick bowling from CrisMartin and feel that its time we have to try RohithSharma/Raina/Kholi/M.Vijay in test matches and leave Yuvraj to concentrate on ODI and T20. Dhinesh Karthick got a golden chance and missed to capitalize on that and again failed to perform with the bat and i think he has hit the last nail in his international carrier. Its very unfortunate that Misra & Vijay dod not get even a single game in the tour, lets hope that these youngsters get their chances before they give up.

Sorry folks will post on Rajasthan Royals next up.

Chennai Super Kings

2009-04-05T04:18:00.000-07:00

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) goes to South Africa with couple of current SA front line players in A.Morkel and Ntini. A.Morkel is in brilliant form and Ntini doing reasonably well in tandem with Steyn should do lot of good to the CSK team. 1st season coach K.Wessels should be helping the team in providing inputs on the nature of wickets and conditions in various venues across SA.

Even though i am a CSK supporter, i feel that its not going to be as easy as last time around with the tournament moving to SouthAfrica. Having said that CSK is the most balanced team on paper with Hayden available for the full season,addition of Flintoff, In form Morkel & Raina, Dhoni the most successful captain in recent times is backed by some good local talent in S.Badrinath,Vidyuth,Anirudh makes a very good line up. Flintoff,Morkel in the line up provide great balance, they can bowl minimum of 7-8 overs and SA wickets should help seamer's better. Murali/Ntini along with L.Balaji,Goni should provide a solid bowling line up if not great bowling line up.

My 11 for the first phase of the tournament with all the players available.

Hayden
Anirudha Srikkanth // Vidyuth
Suresh Raina
MS Dhoni
Albie Morkel
Andrew Flintoff / Jacob Oram
Subramaniam Badrinath
Lakshmipathy Balaji
Manpreet Gony / Amarnath
Muttiah Muralitharan / Ntini
JoginderSharma / Ashwin

(There are few new names in Bailey and other local talent, we may have to take note of these talents in the 2nd phase. We will be pushed to think on Hussey availability for the latest stages of the tournament)

Hayden will be given the free hand to attack and play his natural game and score as many runs as possible in the initial 10 overs. Raina,Dhoni,Morkel,Badri and Flintoff just make a great top order which i am sure any bowling attack will worry to restrict.

I feel CSK has the best batting line up and if the bowling does reasonably well CSK should win comfortably. CSK should be chasing scores around 180-190 easily and the bowlers will be comfortable to restrict score around 200-210 not less than that at least in the initial phase of the tournament. To reach the semi-finals, Hayden,Raina,Morkel, Flintoff (to an extent )Murali and L.Balaji should perform consistently well. It goes without saying that Dhoni will have to lead side with more imagination and use the local boys well.

Having done the above analysis based on the past performance, cricket has never gone the way one would like to or no amount of analysis works. The DC (Deccan Chargers) were the best side on paper last year with all the big hitters (Gilcrist,Gibbs, Symonds etc) in the side they finished last in the table.

As a true CSK fan, lets support (watching set Max :(), pray and wish CSK does well to reach the last four, may be after that we will cry,pray and do what ever to see that CSK wins the trophy.

Next Post on Rajasthan Royals !!!!

IPL - International Premier League

2009-03-29T02:52:00.000-07:00

Finally Indians can be proud of having a International sporting event IPL and more happy in conducting the event overseas making it a truly international.Great that LalithModi commissioner of IPL is helping South African economy staging the IPL in SA. India in all probability will transport some 1000+ people including players for various teams and take care of them for the 45 day long tournament meant for Indian Domestic Cricketers.

One should really appreciate BCCI and IPL for somehow making sure that the IPL season-2 is stagged and Modi has pointed out that he wants this event to go on as he does not want to disappoint the Indian public and feels that the core audience are the TV viewers, hence season-2 will also be a big hit and he also feels that IPL will become popular in SA and improve the viewership for the season-3.

Two issues gets solved by stagging the IPL in SA
1)Govt need not worry about security
2)BCCI will not disappoint the Indian public even though the stadiums are empty as its primarily for TV viewers.

There were some great comments from few Modi critics that if the objective is provide entertainment to the Indian TV Viewers we could hold the tournament here in india with closed stadiums, we will provide security only for the players so the government is also happy and there is no need for extra security personnel.In this case both the issues will get solved and the game will also be played in India and the thousands of dollars would not go out of the country.

Now as a true CSK fan, i am disappointed that we may not get to watch cricket from MAC stadium but like all the other fans we will at least be able to watch in TV. CSK has the best balance and has a captain with AC and this time around we should be able to win the cup. I think CSK management has a very good problem to have, they have all the great guys from around the world and they can pick only 4 a game. With Hayden,Hussey,AlbieMorkel,Freddie,Murali,Ntini its a challenge to pick the right combination for a given match.

Lets hope Dhoni brings the DLF IPL trophy to Chennai as he did for India in the T20 World Cup.

Modi & PC rob IPL from India

2009-03-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Indian cricket fans are taken for a ride by the two most powerful men in the country P.Chidambaram (PC) and Lalit Modi (Modi). Both have their own case to fight but finally the most successful event ever conducted in Indian Cricket history IPL has been robbed from India.

It all started on the events that happened in Pakistan last month and the subsequent media intervention and imaginative journalism to its best raising questions on what if the same happens in India. Its fair from the Home Minister to be concerned with the big tournament scheduled at the same time when the country goes to polls and rightly asked for support and confirmation from the state governments on the availability of security personnel to handle both the big events. Modi is also correct in scheduling IPL between April 10th and End of May as this is the only time window where all the international players are available.

Given the scenario, i would fault the way Modi & team took PC head on with unwarranted statements like "World will not stop if India goes to Poll" and "IPL will organize its own security for the event" and so on which i am sure would have made things worse. Given that PC is a very strong personality and does not given in easily on confrontations like these and like true politician he took the issue to the state government and you all know the out come. PC is now points to the state governments disability to provide security as a reason and has washed his hands.

BCCI has taken the bold step of going abroad (England / SA) to conduct this years IPL and not give up and skip 2009 edition. Lot of things are yet to be finalized and given that we are hardly a month away from the IPL to start its going to be a Himalayan task for the organizers. I also feel that there might be some lobbying to stop taking this event abroad and coming up with some kind of a workable solution between the IPL and Home Ministry to avoid embarrassment as it might have some effect in BJP ruled states. Already Narendra Modi has offered to stage all the games in Gujarat and is ready to provide security, may be this has come a little late but sure it will send some signals to the Congress high command. If IPL manages to conduct this event in India and the tournament goes without any incident, that will be a great boost to the government to claim that the country is safe and also confirm that India will conduct the 2010 CWG.

As a cricket fan, if this years event happens in a foreign land we are left with very little to cheer as we will be robbed of the chance to view the games live in the stadium. All said and done, I think after the initial rounds of matches the interest will go up and we will somehow make sure that we reach home before the start for all the 8.00PM game to get glued to the TV sets.

Wish and pray that IPL is held in India and both the polls and IPL finish without any bad incident.

Aussies strong comeback

2009-03-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Australia has comeback with a strong message that they are a strong and determined unit to fight it out to remain in the top. Australia's big win in the 1st test only proves that they are not letting things go out of their control. The batting line up is coming good with Hughes and North coming good and Johnson proving to be a allrounder in the making. The only worry for them now is Hussey and Ponting not being consistent as they used to be as for as the batting is concerned and lack atleast one genuine quick and spinner in the side to back Johnson. Brett Lee's comeback for the Ashes should greatly help their bowling. Not sure why Australia is not trying to nurture a spinner, Kreza did well in india and also has a very good domestic season but for some reason he is being sidelined.

Over all its good to see the champion side making a good come back. It will be great to see a three pronged fight to get to the top with SouthAfrica and India fighting to get to the top in quick time.

Indian campaign in NewZeland has been mixed with the loss in both T20 games and a strong comeback in the ODI its going to be a good contest ahead. Dhoni after the T20 debacle has come good with both captaincy and the bat. His experiments with promoting himself to No 3 has so for provided good results, having said that i strongly believe that he belongs to No 5 / 6 and thats where he can really help the team under all circumstances. Again i would like to stress that Sachin should be playing only on important ODI's, we have youngster in Gambhir doing well and should be opening with Sehwag in the ODI. Moving him down order is not going to help his form or confidence. Dhoni might come out and say,all the players should know how it is to taste others positions or expect players should perform on any position, this might help the team for a short period, if we are building the team for the future there must be some regular order and the players should be confident and mentally prepared for the game.

My preference would be in the below mentioned order,

1)Sehwag
2)Gambhir / Sachin (only if required)
3)RohithSharma / Raina
4)Yuvraj
5)Raina / RohithSharma
6)Dhoni
7)Yusuf Pathan / (any batting all rounder " not Irfan pathan ")
8)Harbhajan
9)Zaheer
10)Praveen kumar
11)Munaf Patel /Shreeshanth / Balaji / Ishant Sharma (only if required)

On the bowling front, i am sure that we are not handling Ishant Sharma well. He is the future of Indian bowling and he needs to play only Tests and important ODI tournaments. A simple injury in the T20 has created problems for his fitness and imagine if he had injured himself in the ODI series and not available for the test series.

Its going to be interesting to see how the test series goes with both the teams getting tough to prove that they are good in their own way.

Will write a post latter on the black day in Pakistan for world cricket (sport).

Cricket March - 2009

2009-02-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Great month ahead for cricket lovers all around the globe. Australia is desperate to demonstrate that they are NO 1 in the business and South Africa will fight to win the series and in the process take the No 1 spot in the ICC Test Rankings. India starts the ODI in NewZeland this month end and goes on to play the 3 test series in march.

Current Team India is the best balanced side ever toured NewZeland and with ODI series victory's against Australia,South Africa and recently SriLanka should do well to the "Yes we can" attitude of the young players lead by the cool M.S.Dhoni. NewZeland also has been playing some superb cricket over the last few months with some close matches against the Aussies. NewZeland might have come home beating Australia if they had a full game in the decider.

Indian team for the ODI look very balanced and strong in all the departments. To win matches in NewZeland one needs to have good starts and i wish Gambhir and Sehwag open the innings for the first 2 ODI and make changes in the top if they don't get good starts. I think Sachin can play down the order or wait for the youngsters to fail or get in only if and must play a ODI (we need to preserve him for the test series ), his presence in the dressing room can just provide that great feeling among the youngsters. The grounds are small in NewZeland and should help our young brigade of stroke players like Raina,Yuvi,Dhoni and off course Sehwag and Gambhir to get quick runs and post big totals.

Bowling looks a bit week, Ishant is one real quick bowler who can make things happen for India. All the other bowlers including Zaheer is vulnerable in small grounds, hope the team management plans well to tackle the big hitting kiwi batsmen. Bajji and company should do the trick for India, i don't believe that Irfan Pathan is going to play any important role as bowling all rounder.

Kiwis should be full of confidence with the great show in Australia and the top order has been getting runs. McCullum,Guptill,Redmond,Elliot are all in good nick and their bowling also looks decent with Southe and Vetori performing well is a plus. Above all this the conditions in NewZeland is the big advantage for them with the home crowd support, they must be hoping to put up good fight in all the ODI matches.

The ODI series outcome will have a strong bearing in the TestSeries.

Ten on the Trot ??

2009-02-05T02:09:00.000-08:00

Its 8 continuous ODI win for Dhoni & Team now and will they end up the series in SriLanka with 10 on the trot is the big question with the cricket mad people of India. Given that India won the series without much fuss, we can hope that the team might go for the kill to make sure that the winning streak continues.

There were some hype and expectation when India decided to take the short tour to SriLanka that the Lankans will avenge for the defeat in the last series. The hype was backed by some stupendous performances in Pakistan with big wins but nothing really happened and there was no challenge from the Lankan side to match the all round performance of the Indian side and lost the 3 games. Dhoni and team is just having the best period in Indian Cricket History with some great win at home and abroad. It has been a complete team effort with all the players coming good over the last 12-18 months.

Having won the series comfortably the team management should be resting the key players for the remaining matches to make sure that the players are fully fit and available for the more important NewZeland series. I would have expected Dhoni to rest Ishant Sharma,Zaheer Khan, Sehwag and Sachin, but he chose to play all the players other than Sachin which i feel is not the correct thing to do at this stage. Sachin should have played this match and spend sometime in the middle to get his confidence going after 3 consecutive decisions going against him. I am not sure why Ishant Sharma and Sehwag is playing this game, its not only about form its also about fitness, it will be very costly for team India if any of these guys get injured in these games. When i write this post i see that Dhoni has come in at No 3 ahead of R.G Sharma,Raina,Yuvraj, i am little worried that the team management takes a very short term view on things. I strongly feel that this is the time to groom the youngsters for the future and if success gets to the head i am not sure if we can win consistently and for a sustained period of time.

On TamilNadu Players

Its really good to see Balaji back into the team and wish that he has a good run in his come back. It would have been perfect for him to have gone directly to NewZeland where conditions will help seam bowling and there is very little chance for a fast bowler to fail. Good that he is not in the playing XI in the 4th ODI in the slow srilankan wicket.

I am also very happy to see Badrinath coming good when it matters most, 200 in duleep trophy semi-finals will help his confidence and should be hoping to do well in the finals and find a spot in the test squad. Its also nice to see D.Karthick coming good with the bat and there has never been any issues with his ability behind the wickets and i am sure he will be in the squad as the second wicket keeper.

I think Srikkanth has done his best to make sure that TN cricketers are recognized for their performances and its now for the players to perform at the highest level and prove cheeks decisions are correct.

Why ODI Series Now in SriLanka

2009-01-19T04:06:00.000-08:00

I am just wondering why Team India should tour SriLanka now, the team has got the wonderful chance to take a break and re-group for the tough NewZeland tour. BCCI did the right thing by requesting for an additional test in NewZeland and that is justified but i don't understand why we should be touring SriLanka after we have played a full 5 ODI series just a few months back.

SriLankan board is bankrupt and hence would want their team to play all through the year to make ends meet. Srilankan Cricket administrators proved that some how they need to make money, they have sent their full team to Zimbabwae and Bangladesh just to make sure that they get some money to run cricket. Their fill up for India in Pakistan is also to help them and Pakistan board to make some money. BCCI is one of the richest sports body and why would India need to tour SriLanka now.

This break would have been great if the probables and the team management grouped for a camp and prepared well for the NewZeland tour. Team India has not done well in NewZeland in the past and we need some special performances to make sure that we do well, if not great. We must basically get used to the icy whether in the island and batsmen in purticular should get used to the natural big swing in the island. It would have been ideal for the team to practice in chilly conditions like Dharmashala (the facility in the stadium is just too good to conduct a camp).I think playing this short 5 ODI series is not going to help our fight to get to the top of the test rating, event though these rating business is a scrap (hope you read the joke of top 20 all time greats rated by the ICC). Team India is the best balanced team now in all formats of the game and hope BCCI shows some respect to the players and help the team to reach the top.

Agreed that BCCI has done a lot to its players in terms of monitory stuff but when it comes to planning the schedule it has always been behind big money and not friendly towards the players. Its a long season ahead for Indian players, after NewZeland all the players have to play the cash rich IPL in the hot summer and get ready for the ICC 20-20, then get ready for the series against WestIndies. I am sure none of the senior players would have been willing to travel to SriLanka now. The other reason for their reluctance will also be the war in SriLanka.

On the team to Srilanka, its a good move to bring in the young R.Jadeja he has been wonderful ever since we got to see him the Under-19 worldcup,IPL and in now in the Ranji Trophy. I would have liked to rest Sachin,Ishant and ZaheerKhan for this ODI series, these players full fitness is critical for TeamIndia's success in NewZeland. I was praying that L.Balaji should not be rushed into the international side for ODI series and should be picked for NewZeland, as he is a natural swing bowler. I am sure Cheeka should have played his part in making sure he gets the right chance. I am not sure how Irfan pathan is being picked for the series with such poor performances, cheeka must be pleasing a few other selectors and may be even Dhoni who is very particular in making sure the players part of that historic T20 world cup team should some how be in his team.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Pragyan Ojha

Welcome 2009 - TamilNadu Cricket

2009-01-09T04:19:00.000-08:00

Wishing all the readers a very happy,successful and prosperous 2009.

Back to cricket, its the same old story from the TamilNadu Ranji Team, but i should say this young team did well as a team and i hope this team if stays together can scale great highs.

It was a spirited run for the young and talented TamilNadu team to have reached the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy and my congratulations to W.V.Raman and Team.

On way to the semi-finals there were lot of good performances from TamilNadu. Abhinav Mukund, ArunKarthick, M.Vijay, Balaji and Ashwin and a brilliant run with the bat from the captain Dhinesh Karthick. In spite of their brilliant performances in the league phase and some good knocks in the knock out stage TN was not able to beat the UP side in the exciting finish for the first innings lead in the semi-finals.

After such a great opening stand of over 150+ and at one stage 280+ for 2 to being bowled out for 445 is very unfortunate and the middle order just did not click to put a big score on the board to take advantage of batting first. Badrinath and Karthick the senior most players in the squad with over 50+ on end of day 1 and starting a fresh day should have gone further to come up with big hundreds and raise a big total but the quick dismissal did not go well with the other middle order batsmen. Vidyuth has not been in good form through out the season and failed again but for Dhandapany breezy 67 it would have been very difficult to have posted the respectable 445.

It was even more disappointing to have let the game to the opponents after taking the crucial wickets of T.Srivastav,Raina,Kaif early and let the totally out of form middle order to score big to chase the score only reflects that the young team was not confident and did not believe in them. I am not taking the credit from Shukla and Parvinder for such brilliant performance in the middle but only trying to put things in perspective. Karthick has been pathetic behind the stumps and his lapses in the crucial junctures of the game in the semi-finals made things easy for the UP batsmen.

UP batsmen also exposed TN bowling and Ashwin was not effective in the batsmen friendly wicket and TN had to press the seamers for more overs and that did not go well in the context of the game. Balaji has been great through out the season with some brilliant performance and should been looking back to be in the big league. I feel he will make it to the Indian Squad for the seamer friendly NewZeland tour.

In summary its the same old sad story that TN fights to reach the semi-finals but fails to move ahead and win the coveted Ranji Trophy.

Exceptional Series win for South Africa

2008-12-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

Exceptional series win is an understatement for the way SA came back from difficult situation in both the test matches and turned it around to win the series. Smith and team made history in Australia winning the series for the first time in Australia and Australia has lost a home series after 17 long years.

South Africa's preparation for the series showed that they are going to fight till the last in every game and they have proved that to perfection. One should really feel happy for SA coach for his professional approach to make sure that the team had all that needs to win the mighty Aussies in Australia. He hired Fletcher (under whom the England beat Aussies in 2005) as an consultant and worked with him before the tour, he also took expert advice from Indian Coach Gary Kirsten on how Team India prepared and executed against the Aussies this summer. I would say it was a special moment for South Africa Cricket and hit the last nail on the coffins of the Aussies number one spot.

South Africa did many things right in the series and the whole of 2008, 3 of their top batsmen have crossed the 1000 runs in the calender year and their strike bowler in Steyn (74 wickets in 2008) has been exceptionally good this year and has struck when ever they needed wickets. The real find of the series is J.P.Duminy. The 24 year old has just played like an experienced campaigner under difficult situation and proved that he is here to stay for a long long time with the SA team. His half century in the fourth innings in WACA showed that he can play under pressure and the 160+ in the first innings when SA was 190+ for 7 and behind some 200 runs played a gem of an innings to turn things for SA. Steyn's all round show fetched him the Man of the Match but i thought the trophy should be shared. Maybe the big one "Man of Series" is reserved for this youngster. I don't think i should write about Smith, he has played the major role in every SA surge to top. The innings he played in the wearing pitch in the 4th innings to beat the England was incredible and the powerful strikes in Perth led from the front and should say a role model for a person to lead from the front. It was a brilliant team effort and each and every member of the team contributing for the victory.

South Africa was accused of poor performance in the ODI's against the England after they won the test series and the British media wrote that it was a one of series win. I am sure the same media will hail praise and take back their words and start writing off Australia as they will be touring for the Ashes next summer. I was very sure that the ODI series loss for SA was just because of the hangover they had after winning the test series and they have proved that now.

On the lighter side, i am not sure if South Africans are so jubilant as Indian fans are :) :) All the News Channels had the SA victory covered and also highlighted the downfall of the Mighty Australians. It was kind of a sweet revenge for the Indian fans to see the Aussies come down cropping.

For the Australians nothing seems to be going their way, giving away 400+ in the 4th innings and letting the advantage from 200 + ahead with the tail in the middle to settle for 60 + behind shows that the Aussies just lack everything, bowling,confidence and the fighting spirit which was long associated with the Mighty Aussies. Ricky Ponting and Johnson are the 2 players who will go to Sydney with some confidence with personnel success but Ricky must be feeling very bad to lose a test series at home.

Australian media will make sure that at least few heads roll out from the team. All the senior players are under pressure with the poor show and i think Hayden will be forced to retire at Sydney and strong message for other players but you cannot turn around the bowling department overnight. So Aussies will have to go through this period of transition and should be looking for young talent to come back as a strong team.

Smith,DeVillers does Sehwag,Sachin for South Africa

2008-12-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

History repeats in the space of seven days !!! South Africa successfully chase 414 in the fourth innings against Australia in WACA, after India's chase of 384 in the fourth innings in Chennai few days back.

Smith played a repeat of what Sehwag did in the 4th evening for South Africa with an aggressive knock and did bit better than Sehwag to reach his century in pursuit of 414. DeVillers knock was a repeat of what sachin did in cheenai with a watchful and well paced century and reached the target in company with the debutant Duminy. Duminy to an extend played the role Yuvraj played in chennai. On looking at both the run chase, the South African victory was more assured with absolutely no big moments in the course of the run chase even though both India and SA won the match by 6 wickets. Smith and SA is proving to get to the top slot with such fabulous victory and Australia was no match to the SA with hapless bowling performance.

Australia is shot of confidence and needs some big scores from captain Ponting and Hayden and most importantly their spear head in bowling BrettLee. Brett Lee is just out of sorts and has not been able to pick wickets and also proves to be too costly and looks very ordinary without the company of giants McGrath and Warne. Johnson is bowling his best but with very little support in the other end its not easy to tame the SA.

South Africa performance is not just a one off game but it should be attributed for their professional preparation and execution of the plan. South Africa took the help from all the past coach and cricketers who successfully beat the Aussies like Fletcher former England coach when England won the Ashes in 2005 and also took the help from Gary Kirsten as India under him won the home series against Aussies.

Over all South Africa was well prepared for the tough series and most importantly believed in the unit that they can win in Australia. Australia is just short of confidence and aggression which is always associated with the Aussies and without that its not going to be easy.

Dream Run Continues !!!!!!

2008-12-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

Team India continues the dream run with a spectacular victory by 6 wickets in Chennai against the fighting England. Till the last session of the fourth day, england dominated the match in all department but Sehwag changed all that in a blistering knock which changed the course game.

Media is running out of adjectives for Sachin, they have used it all Splendid Sachin,Magical Sachin,SuperStart Sachin,Fighter Sachin etc etc, Hope at least not the critics stop doubting his super natural batting skills and stop writing that he is not a finisher.

Overall this was the perfect test match with all the ingredients of excitement,boredom and clinical finish to the test. England performed exceptionally well given the backdrop of the Mumbai Blast and the uncertainty of the tour. I would have expected the adjudicators to have given the Man Of Match to Strauss. Hundred in each innings is no mean effort and that too in a wicket which was hard to predict the bounce from the third day. England has lot of good performances to go with some confidence, Strauss,Colingwood,Cook and Prior had made decent scores and Swann has been brilliant in his debut with some controlled bowling from Flintoff, they can only improve their performance in Mohali.

For India the only worry now is the form of the Wall (read crumbling), as all of know that he is a class player and one good innings will give him great confidence and should be back in his own soon. I dont think i have to write on the kind of form all the other batsmen are in, Sehwag in his best form,Gambhir full of confidence,Laxman in good nick,Youraj back in form,Dhoni useful contribution and regular cameo from harbajan and off course Sachin. One cannot say the same on the bowling front, Harbhajan was not as good as Swann even though the wicket helped spinners, Mishra needs lot of support from the captain and should be bowling more overs. Zaheer and Ishant has been exceptional even in these dead wickets and showed they can take wickets when it is needed most. Ishant must be worried with too many no balls but i am sure he will overcome with workouts in nets.

India has done well when ever the Sehwag has scored runs and hope he continues to do that in mohali. No doubt that India goes upbeat to Mohali and hope to finish the series 2-0. I am sure England will expect the Mohali wicket to help the fast bowlers, which is their bowling strength, England will also hope their top batsmen Pietersen,Bell and Flintoff come good with the bat to put up a fight.

Indian Team for Test Series.

2008-12-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

As expected cheeka once again proved that he will try his best to push players from TamilNadu. At least now Badrinath should not let srikkanth down, I am sure he will not find a place in the playing XI but for some one ruled out of injury in the last movement. Rohit Sharma and Virath Kohli must be feeling bad for not being part of the team even after performing well against the Aussies. I feel badri is still in the team just b'cas srikkanth beleives that he is good and will come good but i am not sure how long he can take his case in the selection meetings.

Good that Yuvi is getting a change yet again the Indian Team and most likely to play in Ganguly place in the playing XI. Even an ordinary cricket fan knows that Yuvi is a confidence player and if he his given a long run and selectors convey that he is the player for the future. He might not be technically equipped to play good fast bowling in bouncy tracks but if he is confident he can come over that prove successful.

I have a feeling that the series if happens, will be of academic interest alone and nothing more than that. Given the back drop of the Mumbai terror attack, this series will be played under threat and the element of fear in the back of the minds will not let the players to give their best. I also feel that Team India might play soft to thank the ECB for coming to the country to play this series.

As so many observers all over the world have pointed out that we should not given in for terror and cancel sport but as Boycott has mentioned its true that we should not given in for terror but in reality who is going to come for rescue if the stadium is attacked or the English players taken as hostage.

Its tough times for the biggest democracy of the world, I wish and pray that there is no more terror attacks and the country is peaceful.

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt/wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh, Amit Mishra, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, M Vijay, Yuvraj Singh, Pragyan Ojha

Dhoni Exposed !!!!

2008-11-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

Selection Meeting Leak

This episode has clearly tested Dhoni's communication skills and has also proved that he will not hesitate to speak his mind. I am sure the younger players will have more confidence in Dhoni from now on and will also know that dhoni will fight for them if he feels they are good. I am sure the younger lot will try to keep dhoni happy in all possible way to be in his good books after this episode.

Why would Dhoni want to comment on some news article from a small time regional newspaper if it is not true. I feel its the BCCI duty to reply for the comments made in the news article and not dhoni. From the comments made by dhoni i am sure there was some heated exchange between dhoni and the selectors on R.P and if he had threatened to quit on selection matters and that too for a single player, it is not good for him and the team. Since the team is doing well and there is no real contender for the captaincy things have been smooth for Dhoni but i doubt if the same amount of hand holding and backing will be done by the BCCI in the future when india fails to deliver or his own form declines.

This episode has also exposed the other side of Dhoni "Too Much Too Early" No captain in the past has threatened the selectors and the BCCI and has approved that there was leak in the open. Since he has come out in the open to let the media know that this is a leak, he has confirmed that the news article is somewhat true and he his hurt that the discussions have been leaked to media by one of the eight sitting in the selection meeting. I feel Dhoni has to learn a few things from Ganguly on these things, many a time Ganguly was dragged by the media into the selection matters and he has almost all the time kept silent and left it to the BCCI management to handle things.

May be these are the reasons why it was said that its "Too much Too early for Dhoni"

On Expected Lines ................

As expected Team India won the ODI series winning the first 4 games and England true to its reputation of past performances in the sub-continent played poor cricket. I feel the series will end up with outcome as 5-2 and england will win the next ODI and the last ODI and come with some confidence to take on the Indians in the short 2 Test series.

Team India is having the best ODI run in the recent past and players have come up with some stunning contributions with ball,bat and fielding to make sure that winning has become a habit. Gambhir and Sehwag has just provided the start any team would love to have in almost all the games they have opened the innings and one of them have stayed till the crunch overs and made sure get a big score which is the big strength (I am not sure why Sachin should open when both these guys are doing wonderfully well, may be after all its the england side :)). Yuvraj,Raina,Dhoni all confidence cricketers have come up with some great innings which has changed the course of the match favoring India most of the time. Zaheer has been wonderful through out the season and backed up by some fine bowling from Ishant Sharma,Munaf and Harbajan. Dhoni as a captain has been consistent with the tactics, field placing,bowling changes and most importantly winning toss on crunch games.

Overall Team India is enjoying the best period under Captain Cool.

Yuvraj Yuvraj Yuvraj !!!

2008-11-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

Yuvraj has yet again proved that he is real match winner and there is no stopping him when his confidence is high. The runs have come at the right time and must be pushing to claim the place vacated by Ganguly. Srikanth has also been impressed with yuvraj performance recently and has hinted that he is sure to find a place in the test team. As Srikanth rightly observed that Yuvraj is a confidence player and if his morale is upbeat he will perform well. Another striking aspect is when ever he is provoked for bad performance by the media and the past players, he has come out and answered them through his bat. His poor run in Australia and the Srilanka was the talking point and people started raising doubts on his attitude and future, i am sure the same lot of people will start to praise on his performance.

As expected it has been easy for India in the first 2 matches with brilliant performance from Yuvraj with both bat and ball backed by some good seam bowling from Zaheer and company. England has to re-group themself quickly and show some improved performance in the 3rd ODI to keep the series alive. England's main problem is their bowling, i fail to understand, how they could come to india packed with fast bowlers when the pitches here are not going to help fast bowling. Pieterson and Flintoff are the key players and if they don't get real big scores its going to be tough to see match winning performances from others. Both of them showed some glimses of their striking in the 2nd ODI and if they get into the rhythm, players like Collingwood,Bell,Shaw,Bopara can play around them to put up a fight. I think it will happen if they bat first and put some big score to back their ordinary bowling to restrict India.

For India there is lot of room for improvement in the bowling, except for Zaheer all the others have taken the stick.

I have a feeling that the current England team is like the SriLankan team in late 80's and early 90's, they will put up some good individual performance but fail to win matches.

Dhoni the Captain

2008-11-13T05:02:00.000-08:00

India has found the most thinking and lucky captain in M.S Dhoni, what ever he does turns out to be a success. The 2 games he captained the tests, he won the toss and used some tricky strategy to overwhelm the Aussies. India and Dhoni must be wishing to repeat the same against the visiting England team in the ODI and the 2 Test Series. England might spring up some surprise in the ODI but i am sure Team India will dominate and win the Test series pretty comfortably. Having said that the ODI performance will set the tide for the 2 test series.

I am sure the England team must be worried with the current form of the Indian players and most importantly to see the whole team perform together. India starts as favorites and will try to dominate the series early on with couple good games and keep up the momentum to big victory.

Kevin Peiterson and team will be hoping to put up a good performance with contributions from the leading players in Flintoff,Collingwood,Bell,Prior,Shaw and Harmison. England has picked only one spinner in Patel for the whole ODI series and will be banking on the fast bowlers to perform well but in Indian flat pitches it will be a big task. The batsmen will have to play their best to win matches in batsmen friendly wickets and collingwood with his slow medium should be handy. If England has to put up a fight Peiterson and Flintoff should perform well.

Dhoni goes into series with in-form batsmen in Sehwag,Gambhir,himself in full form, R.G.Sharma,Yuvraj and Kholi having good time in the domestic cricket should be raring to go in these kind of wickets. The bowling looks a bit ordinary without Ishant Sharma but Zaheer in great form should lead from the front. India will have the problem in picking the correct combination and it should take Dhoni a few games to settle the team for the long and grueling 7 ODI.

I am not sure why BCCI and ECB should plan a tour packed with ODI, already the season is full and we saw empty stands for such great 4th test in Nagpur. The scenario is not great in Rajkot the officials hoping at least half the stadium will get filled, its a little bit of a overkill. Today the crowd is not coming to the stadium and it will not take long for the people to stop watching the games in the TV, which is feeding the game of cricket with huge sums of sponsorship money.

Exciting Final Day's Play

2008-11-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

Will Australia successfully chase the big total on the final day of the final test of the series ??? I am sure it will not be easy but i am confident that the Aussies will not settle for a draw.

If Australia does not loose Hayden and Ponting before lunch, we have a great game in the final two sessions. I wish Hayden or Ponting plays their life time innings and lite up the day. Clark,Hussey can help the chase and with Watson and white in the side it will be a great chase to watch.

For India, if we manage to get the top order (Hayden,Ponting,Clark,Hussey) before tea, we have a great chance to win the series 2-0. If Dhoni is going to use the negative tactics like he did on the 3rd morning, i think it will kill the charm of test cricket. Dhoni and India were lucky to find break through on 3rd afternoon and make a match. If Australia had been successful in the 1st innings with some lead India would have been in trouble.

I feel the session before lunch is going to set the days progress and the series outcome, for Aussies its a great chance to solve some pride and draw the series. Aussies will go all out tomorrow to make a match and in all probability will go to chase the score.

This is one great chance for both Dhoni and Ponting to help keep up the great charm in this longer version of the game. Looking forward to watch a great final days game.

Farewell to Data the leader.

2008-11-05T04:13:00.000-08:00

Ganguly the most aggressive and successful captain India has ever had will be playing his last test match in Nagpur. Its been a long and eventful journey for Ganguly starting with a brilliant hundred in England and gaining strength on every encounter to finally take over captaincy and rest is history.

Ganguly stands apart for his natural leadership and the strong decision making capability which transformed the team in believing in them self. He was the most aggressive captain India has ever had, he never chose to keeps things with himself and showed the world that he is a fierce competitor and enjoys every bit of it (can any one forget the stripping of t-shirt in the lords !!). He made things very comfortable for the youngsters and he was instrumental in the successful carriers of Harbajan,Youraj,Sehwag,Dhoni and Zaheer. He also managed his senior partners well, that they were never felt ignored and not wanted. The high point is the oversees victory's and taking the team to Worlcup finals in South Africa.

Ganguly was always pegged by the critics for taking selection matters to his hands and made changes as he liked but that was his strength. Ganguly some how pursued the selection panel to get the team he wanted and also enjoyed the board backing to do that. As a player he was immensely successful in both formats of the game, i personally feel that he was more successful in ODI when compared to the tests. In his long carrier he has picked few important wickets which mostly were very vital in the context of the game.

One aspect on Ganguly i really admire is the fearlessness, he never chose to hide his emotions. I doubt if any other player would have come out so strongly against the national coach and still fight back to find his place in the team. Team India was fortunate to have a leader like Ganguly, who just transformed the way the game was played in India.

I wish him all success and sure he will soon start the second innings as Team India Coach.

Jumbo the Gentleman :)

2008-11-04T04:51:00.000-08:00

AnilKumble == Commitment & 200% all the time

Over the past two decades Jumbo Anil Kumble has been the bowling success for India after the aging Kapil retired. Anil is known to be the well behaved and level headed guy in the sport and considered to be the true ambassador for team india. Kumble has been the reflection of a true hard worker with great amount of determination and dedication, he has set a very high level of commitment for the youngsters to learn and practice the same.

Its a very tough decision to retire from the most celebrated profession in the country and that too when one is performing and leading the team with fair amount of success. Kudos to Anil for taking a decision and its meaning less to talk/write that he was forced to retire, In India no one can be forced to retire and if done will not escape the media so lets hail the bold decision and wish no one scrutinize the legends performance.

The great thing about Anil is, even though the country did not recognize his contributions initially because the people were obsessed with batting stars like Azharuddin and Sachin, he did not let that affect his performances.He just kept things simple and settled to basics all the time, even when the whole world of former spinners criticized him of not turning the ball, he never just changed his style of bowling and proved that line and length is more important and has been successful in all formats of the game. He has actually created a new style of bowling leg spin which has proved a success and we already see another person in Ajantha Mendis following the same. We can easily say that he is one bowler in the international context who has not been fined for verbal abuse or on-field/off field issue and has never showed his anger on the field, even though he is aggressive on the field.

Wish him all success in his future engagements.

Kumble in Delhi Test

2008-10-28T05:24:00.000-07:00

3rd Test starts tomorrow (29-10-08) in Kumble's happy hunting venue and the one question in all the cricket lovers mind is "Will the Aussies put up a fight in this test match". Kumble is back to lead the team and fully fit to take his place and with 55 wickets in last 6 tests in Delhi, he must be raring to go and hoping that the favorite ground brings him back to form. After long long years Indian Team Management has a very tough task in picking the playing XI and Cheeka must be wishing that Harbhajan is not fit to play the match so that there is no issues in selection. Harbhajan is nursing a toe injury and is a doubtful starter for the Delhi test.

Aussies are under great pressure to perform and prove that they are as good a team as they were few years ago. This Australian team reminds me the AlanBorder team which was fighting the transition from retirements of Hughes,Lillie,Marsh etc. Pontings top guns are not firing and the Australian media is making things worse by accusing that the seniors are not playing their part and forces few changes in the team. Clark has made it clear in his pre-match interview that the senior players need to come good to save the test series. He has also mentioned that the seniors should be thinking of the present series and not get carried away with the long season ahead (summer in SA,Ashes etc).

Ponting started with a brilliant century in Bangalore but has not been able to repeat the same in Mohali, he has even gone to S.Waugh to get his problem corrected in playing the in- swingers. Hayden,Clark,Hussey,katich,Ponting should score runs and there should be a big innings from these guys to put up a decent score. Bowling has been the weak link and i don't thing S.Clark inclusion will change things dramatically, with Lee losing his wicket taking ability in the dry slow wickets its going to be a uphill task for the Aussies to come back to terms and win the test, having said that, i have a feeling that, if Hayden and Ponting get runs the whole thing will change and the bowlers will get confidence and runs behind them to get the wickets.

The curator has mentioned that as usual the ball will start turning square from the third days afternoon session and the toss is going to be very vital. Kumble might even send Dhoni the lucky man to spin the coin to win the toss and bat first and make full use of the turning track from the 3rd day.

Wish that Australians put up a fight in this test.

Emphatic Victory - Empty Stands - Worrying Trend

2008-10-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

First up congratulations to Dhoni and Team India on the brilliant victory against the world champ Aussies. The whole five days were dominated by the Indian's and never let the Aussies to come back into the game. Dhoni the most successful and to an extend lucky captain in the recent times was adjudged Man of the Match ahead of some brilliant performances from Gambhir,Mishra,Zaheer,Ishant,Ganguly,Harbhajan and the champ Sachin. After long long time we could see a collective effort from the team translating to a brilliant win. Aussies were not in their element and gave too many quick runs in both the innings and their bowling looked very ordinary. Ponting mentioned that the Indian seamers were performing far better than the Aussies in the series. Also their main stay Hayden and Clark are not in form and that shows in their performance, apart from this they seem to be missing the services of McGrath,Warne and Gilli very much. Lets hope Aussies put up a good show in the coming two tests.

My fears on stadiums going empty for Test Series even in India has come true with the Mohali Test. Its worrying to see the empty stands played between equals (India vs Australia :) ), we have been watching some very interesting 3 days and in fact India has been dominating all the 3 days but still there is no crowd to watch the game. The same thing happened in WestIndies when took on the Aussies last summer and i feared that the same could happen in India with the advent of the slam bang IPL (emptystands)and it has happened.

Mohali crowd is respected for being very knowledgeable on the game and come in scores to watch good contests, the Punjab Cricket Association did its best by letting in school students free but that was not enough. The most troubling fact is even on the week-ends we don't see the crowds, even though India was not batting India was dominating the match and it was the most exiting 2& 3rd day in the very important series.

Team India's international commitment is already full and with the advent of IPL and ICL the Indian public is already provided with too much of cricket entertainment. Test cricket which is like the true cricket and the purists cricket with its nature of slow run scoring and battle of mental strength is not liked by the crowds after the slam bang version T20 made its way into the living rooms of millions of homes all around the world. Its time cricket administrators all over the world take note of this depressing trend and do something to preserve the Test Cricket.

Sachin on Top -- We are Fortunate

2008-10-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

I am lost of words when ever i try to write some thing on Sachin, We are just fortunate to have watched him grow from strength to strength and shape up his long innings in the middle. You just can not measure the kind of joy he has brought to the fans with his brilliant performances year after year. Again are fortunate to have Sachin in India and get to watch the whole 19 years of great batting.

How can one forget his test century's in his early days in England and Australia, the maturity in getting runs in the middle of his carrier, one stage he was just the only player to score for India abroad before Dravid,Ganguly and laxman gave him a break.

This is yet another milestone and nothing much for a person like Sachin and wish him good health and luck to enthral fans like me for at least another 2-3 years.

Mohali Test

2008-10-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

Team India and Australia are working hard in preparation for the 2nd test in Mohali, the whether has been a dampener for the teams preparation and also the pitch preparation. Mohali as we all know will be a true wicket for all the five days and the conditions in this season will help the seam bowlers and batsmen would love to see the ball nicely coming on to the bat. Overall we can expect some good cricket over the next 5 days.

With the 1st test drawn, its a 3 test series with interesting battle in the field. I would say both the teams are even with slight advantage towards the Aussies going into the 2nd test. I expect both the teams to play some positive cricket rather than playing defensive cricket. Its very unusual to see that Australia score under 3 runs per over in the 1st innings of a test match. Indian top order has been struggling for form for some time now, hence as expected were playing time rather than scoring runs.

Aussie batting looks solid with Ponting,Hussey and Katich in good form backed by Watson and Haddin. We all know that Hayden does not stay out of action for long and sure he will enjoy the bounce and pace in the Mohali wicket and Clark is good player to fail for too long. The Aussies must be worried about the bowling attack for sure, their spin attack is very weak and India should be planning to exploit this, having said that Lee and Johnson will be very tough to negotiate in helpful wickets.

India's biggest worry is their top order, the fab-4 managed to score some runs but all the four struggled to get the runs. Sachin in particular looked out of touch and his feat was not moving and was playing away from the body against the spinners most of the time. No doubt that he is the champion batsmen the world has ever seen and also as a die hard fan, i wish to see a good knock in Mohali. Ganguly,Dravid,Laxman managed to score runs but as the wicket in Bangalore was under-prepared they had to struggle to get their scores. Of the fab-4 Dravid looked much better and hope he gets big score in Mohali. Sehwag and Gambhir should continue to provide good starts and hopefully gambhir will capitalize on the good starts.

Kumble must be hoping to see a repeat or better performance from his seamers. Zaheer khan and Ishant were just brilliant in the 1st test and Ishant should be just raring to go in the helpful Mohali wicket. Zaheer's past performance has been in patches and has not been consistent meaning if he picks wickets in a test the next will not be that good. Hope he is maturing as a bowler and will start performing consistently. Harbhajan playing in front of his home ground should be hoping to do well but i doubt if the wicket will help spinners much, if kumble is fit the wicket should help him to get back to his stride.

Curse of TN Cricket

2008-10-05T02:53:00.000-07:00

Its has been the curse of TamilNadu Cricket for a long long time now and it just continues over and over now. I am talking about the recent failures of S.Badrinath in the Irani Trophy and the BPXI game against the Aussies. I am sure Srikkanth must be feeling let down so much more than Badrinath himself, Cheeka picked Badri ahead of Youraj,R.Sharma and Kholi for the first 2 test matches. All the three scored hundreads in the practice game and proved the selection commitees selection of badrinath is wrong.

Chances of playing in the XI in the first test is very bleak with fab-4 and the openers in Sehwag and Gambhir are fit and certain to play in the test. If any one of the fab-4 gets hurt and not fit for the 2nd test there will be a chance for him to play the match, if that does not happen i think this is the end of his international carrier and has to slog in the domestic cricket for rest of his cricketing life.

Badri is not alone and he has many many cricketers from TamilNadu in the past who have wasted the chances that has come their way. S.Sriram,Dinesh Karthick,L.Balaji,W.V.Raman,B.Arun,Sharath (has never scored runs against the visiting teams, even though he has scored tons and tons of runs in domestic cricket) the list is just endless.

M.Vijay has been exceptional in the past couple of seasons and has been good in performing in the A matches and he is the next in line to make an impression and the only hope from TN to make it into Team India. I just pray and wish the people who are involved in running the sport in tamil nadu needs to do something to make sure he also does not go the way the past cricketers from TN have gone.

Why Fab -4 is Targeted ??

2008-10-01T02:26:00.000-07:00

Its been written in all possible manner that the Fab-4 will have to retire with grace and in fact i am also one among the other writers who have gone for the kill of players like Gangully,Kumble etc. After looking at the so called young replacements for the fab-4 , S.Badrinath,MdKaif,R.D.Sharma,Youraj none of them can claim a place with performance but for being considered as they have the age on their side, it is a pity that the seniors have to go out just b'cas age is not on their side and in spite of better performance compared to the youngsters.

Take the instance of S.Badrinath and Kaif, both of them had the chance of their life to prove that they are good enough to replace the fab-4 but failed so badly in the Irani trophy. Ishant Sharma had just one good spell to wipe out the youngsters and that too in a not so helpful wicket. Both of them will get yet another chance against the Aussies in the 3 day warm up game and if they don't get to perform, they have only them self to blame rather than to cry out in the media for chances.

I am also little lost on why Gangully is being targeted so badly when all the senior players failed to perform in the Srilankan series. Gangully was the man of the series against Pakistan and played a match winning innings against SA in the home series. The only aspect that is against him is his fitness and age, i don't remember Gangully dropping catches and that costing the match or his slow running costing the game. Its a non issue when other seniors also have the same problems.

Yet another player who was treated badly over the years is Murali Karthick, when ever he had a chance to play for India he has performed well. He was the Man of the Match in the last test match he played against Australia a year ago.He has been very successful in playing county cricket and has been regarded very high by the english legends David Gower,Artheton,Nasser Hussein and many others but he has not been included in the India A or the Boards Presidents XI game against the Aussies. The sad part is selector after selector mentions his name says that he is a great talent and will get his chances but he is already 30+ and if he does not get a chance now, i think its the end for his international carrier aspirations.

I am also surprised on why Dravid and Laxman should be given B grade contracts when Kumble is given A grade even though he also does not figure in the ODI scheme of things. I feel all those who are regulars in ODI and Tests should be in the A grade and others including Sachin should be in the B grade, he has not played many games in the last year with fitness issues. After all these fab-4 had made lots and lots of money in their colorful carriers and they don't need the BCCI contract money (A- 60 L,B-40 L & C - 20 L) its only matter of pride being in the top grade and these guys don't have to prove any one that they are great players.

IMO i feel that the Fab-4 has another 2 good years and all the 4 including Sachin should be picked to play only Tests and BCCI should provide a graceful exit from the ODI.

(Fabulous - 4 (Sachin,Dravid,Laxman & Gangully))

Good Luck Cheeka !!!!

2008-09-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Its great news that Srikkanth has been recommended to be the chairman of the senior selection panel. Srikkanth's playing days were just dynamic and sparkling with all the slam bang stuff on and off the field. One stroke that still stays fresh in almost all the cricket lovers eyes is the square drive he hit in the 1983 worldcup finals which stunned the world with such class.

Fondly called as Cheeka in the cricketing circles and a player who re-defined the way cricket was played in the early 80s with his slam bang hitting in the early overs. He was instrumental in transforming the ODI games into high scoring contests with big hitting in first 15 overs.

Srikkanth was instrumental in shaping up the greatest player the world has ever sean in Sachin, Sachin made his debut under srikkath captaincy and the captain shared his dressing room with the youngest player on the tour and made the youngster comfortable in the tour against pakistan in pakistan. He was also the first captain to rebal against the BCCI for better treatment and payment for the cricketers and he never captained the side again inspit of the test series was the first drawn series in pakistan.

We cricket lovers will miss the comments from the true cricketer who has never worried about coming out with the facts and pointing fingers on failures even if it was the top bross of the BCCI or the top cricketers. Since he is a paid selector of the BCCI, i am sure he will not be allowed to talk much but i am sure he will do justice to the great expectations of the people of India in grouming a top class Indian Cricket Team. Srikkanth has never encouraged half backed cricketers here in tamilnadu and i am sure he will not encourage that in the senior selection too.

Srikkanth has been very much in touch with cricket with his involment with the junior teams and the IPL (CSK) and he knows who is who and who performs in the domestic cricket and has the quality of picking the right talent.

Golden chance for the TN cricketers, if some one performs well, here is the chairman of selctors in your home city to take note of that and take your case to the selection panel. If our state cricketers continue to perform well in domestic tournament but fail to perform against quality visiting teams there is no way he can push their case with the selection panel. We have had lot of selectors from TN in the past but have never helped in the selction process as they have been too diplomatic and wanted to stick to the job but i am sure cheeka is different and i know he will fight to bring in good talent and even go to the extent of quiting if injustice is done for good performers. Great time for TN cricketers, please amke use of the rare chance that comes your way.

Lets hope Srikkanth brings back the great team combination that works as a team to acheive great heights. Good Luck Cheeka.

Pakistan blames Cricket Australia of Double Standards

2008-09-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

Australian team will reach India on September-21st after lot of speculation that they might cancel the tour due to the recent bomb blasts in the capital city. All the news channels carried news related to Australian tour of India in the wake of the bomb blasts and suggested that Australia may cancel the tour sighting security reasons but BCCI took the initiative to put a stop to this speculation and briefed Cricket Australia about the security and assured that the team will be given the best possible security cover, even though one of the venue of the series is Delhi. Australia has agreed to this and will be reaching India this sunday.

Pakistan Cricket Board is not too happy with this development blaming Australia of double standards. Australian cricketers were the first to voice their concerns on security in Pakistan which paved way for cancellation of the Test Series and postponement of the Champions Trophy but Cricket Australia going ahead with the tour to India even after the recent bomb blasts has irked the PCB officials.

Back to cricket, Australia has included many new names and hope to surprise the Indian team including them in the playing XI. After the retirement of the greats McGrath,Warne and performer in McGill and Gillespie the Australian side is lacking in bowling and it was very much evident in the test series in the West Indies. They have included two new spinners and one of them is a 36 year old leg spinner and hopes to make his debut in India. Australia will also be missing Langer,Gilli from the last tour to India and the in form Symonds. Australia will be banking more on the top guns in Ponting,Hayden,Hussey and Clark to come good in all the games and will also be looking for some solid starts from Simon katich. Lee and Clark to spear head the bowling attack with some support from part timers in clark and the new commers.

ROI vs Delhi game should bring back the old legs in shape and give them the much needed confidence to come good against the Aussies. IMHO India starts favorites in the series with bowling looking very good after the Srilanka series with Harbajan,Ishant,Zaheer in good form and kumble is expected to come good in spinner friendly wickets. The big worry for India is the batting, the top 3 (Sachin,Dravid,Laxman) has not scored many runs and Dhoni has not played a test match for almost 6 months now, Kumble must be banking on Sehwag,Gambhir for good starts and hoping the top 3 to come good.

Looking forward to some exciting matches in the Aussies tour to India.

ICC Awards

2008-09-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

It should be morale booster for Youraj to have been chosen the T20 player of the year when he is struggling to get runs in the ODI. Dhoni has been fantastic with all aspects of the game in the ODI format and no surprise that he got away with the ODI player of the year. It has become a habit of taking the best umpire award for Simon Taufel, its the 5th consecutive time he has won the award. He has been brilliant in the middle with near perfect decisions even the pressure on umpires is getting too much with all the technology and the harsh comments from the former cricketers sitting in the comforts. Having said that it also raises questions on the ability of the umpires in the elite panel.Chanderpaul won the all important ICC cricketer of the year award.

If you guys remember, there was a english cricketer with 40 thousand runs with over 100 hundreds and 250 fifty's in the first class cricket Greame Hick , he is calling it a day this week after such monumental contribution to his county team. Sadly for Hick and the cricket lovers all over the world he was not able to produce the magic of scoring big runs in the International Arena.

Ganguly back in Bengal Ranji Squad.

Ganguly the fighter is back to basics and is in the Bengal team for the Ranji trophy, he has also made it clear that he has 2 more years left in the international stage. As we all know he is a fighter and could make a come back but IMHO this is time for him to retire with some respect and dignity, rather than announce his retirement when people would have forgotten him at the international level. I also feel the same way for Kumble, even though he has couple of years more as a player in the test cricket but its better for him to call it quits as captain now and make the transition for Dhoni smoother. I feel its the same for Dravid and Laxman to announce them self not available for ODI, it will be better for them and the selectors to not feel bad for leaving them out of the team even though they have already been side lined.

Some how it has not been the case with the Indian cricketers calling it a day when they are in their prime. Australians,NewZeland and England cricketers do that to an extend, take the case of Border, Marsh, Taylor, SteveWaugh, Gilli, NasserHussain, Gower, Bothem,Flemming and so many other examples. Its time our cricketers follow the same and bow out of international cricket when they are performing.

My Test Squad For Australia Series

2008-09-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

Indian team has the luxury of a full month to prepare for the forth coming series against Australia here in India. Its been long time since the team has had this long break before a test series and should do lot of good for the team and especially for the tired old legs of Sachin,Kumble,Dravid and Laxman.

The below are my players for the test series and this is the team for the whole series as i have never believed in selecting a team for the first 2 tests and leave doubts in the minds of the players.

Kumble (Captain)
Sachin
Dravid
Sehwag
Laxmaan
Gambhir
Raina / Ganguly
Dhoni
Harbhajan
I.Sharma
Z.Khan
Kholi / R.G.Sharma
Ohja /Sreesanth/R.P.Singh/

I think this will be his last series as captain and may be he will lead against England before Dhoni takes over or may be the selectors may surprise by naming Dhoni as captain. In my view Kumble should continue to be the captain for the Australia series and Dhoni can take over the captaincy against England. I have a feeling that Ganguly may get the axe from the team and Raina will take his place and get a chance to play in the XI depending on whether india wants to play 5 bowlers. I feel it will not be fair to select Ganguly and keep him out of the playing XI. As almost 10 of the 13 virtually take their place, its going to be either Kholi or Sharma to play the 12 man and the other bowler in ohja/R.P.Singh/Sreesanth to be the other reserves in the squad. As the series progress we will have choices in making changes depending on the performance. As we are playing in Mohali and Delhi where the ball seams and swings a bit we may even play 3 fast bowlers.

If Dhoni and the top order (Gambhir,Sehwag,Sachin,Dravid & Laxmaan) comes up with good scores, we can even go with the 5th bowler dropping the 6th specialist batsman.

OCT -Thu 9 - Mon 13 09:30 local, 04:00 GMT	1st Test - India v Australia M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
OCT- Fri 17 - Tue 21 09:30 local, 04:00 GMT	2nd Test - India v Australia Punjab Cricket Association Stadium,Mohali, Chandigarh
OCT-Wed 29 - Sun 2 09:30 local, 04:00 GMT	3rd Test - India v Australia Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi
November 2008
Thu 6 - Mon 10 09:30 local, 04:00 GMT	4th Test - India v Australia Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur

Badrinath Fails Again

Its sad that Badri has failed yet again and i am sure this failure is not going to do him any good when the test squad is selected. Kholi has come with a fine unbeaten half century and in all probability will feature in the test squad with shear performance. Badri reminds me of Sharath who scored tons and tons of runs in the domestic cricket but when ever there was a chance against the visiting team he failed and never got a chance to play for India. I wish Badri does not repeat the same mistake again and feel pity for himself, its not going to do any good for his future.

First Ever ODI Series WIN in Srilanka for India

2008-08-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Dhoni and team posted a comfortable victory over Srilanka in the 4th ODI on the reserve day to make history. This is India's first ever ODI series win in SriLanka. It was an all round effort from the Indians with important contributions from Kholi,Dhoni,Raina,Munaf,Zaheer and Harbhajan. For SriLanka the top order failed to fire yet again to put up a chase of a seemingly moderate Indian total. Dhoni and team was desperate to win the series as they have lost 2 ODI tournament in the recent past (kitply & AsiaCup).

V.Kholi provided the start India needed with a solid half century but quickly India was in trouble losing 3 quick wickets. Dhoni and Raina put up a 100+ partnership to reach a respectable total. Dhoni is proving to be a very good batsmen in the recent past with some mature innings and its a real good sign that we have a batsmen who can put his head down and also pep-up run rate when the run rate goes down and when the batsmen is your team captain the whole team confidence goes up. Raina is also gaining in confidence match after match to play some brilliant innings to prove that he is here to stay. Youraj is just out of sorts and not among runs and may be he need to come bit late in the order so that he can free his arms and get back the much needed runs. As expected the lower order Badrinath,Sharma did not have many overs to settle down to get big runs, this is the reason one has to grab the chances that come your way to stay in the thick of action. Once Sachin and Sehwag is back in the team, i doubt if badrinath and sharma will have a place in the playing 11 or even in the team.

The fast bowlers in Munaf,Zaheer and Pravinkumar played their part to perfection in all the 4 matches. Munaf has been splendid with lot of control in the line and length and has been among the wickets, i have always felt that he is a good bowler and little lazy in the out field but watching him in the IPL gave us think differently on him and he proved he can be very good if used properly. Zaheer has been a lot more fit and willing to give the extra effort and that was visible in his bowling figures through out the series. PravinKumar IMO is a ordinary bowler but has a big heart to fight it out, he has been belted for runs in this series but was lucky enough to pick wickets at crucial stages of the game. Harbhajan has been fantastic through out the series both in Test and ODI with lot more flight and direction but the over exuberance at times in the middle is not doing any good.

Over all we have a wonderful,young team in good hands and can wish for some good times in the coming years in the ODI tournaments.

Bradman's Centenary

2008-08-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Today is a very special day for all the cricketers and cricket lovers all over the world its the centenary of Sir Donald Bradman. The man who changed the way the batsmen looked at how to score runs and a reference book for all the cricketers in the world, Sachin must be the most lucky person to have got accolades from the great saying that he saw him bat when Sachin bats.

England Crush SouthAfrica

England beat SouthAfrica by 10 wickets in the 2nd ODI to lead the series by 2-0. Stuart Broad bowled his best to reduce SA to its lowest total in its ODI history. SouthAfrica was bowled out for 85 with S.Broad taking 5 wickets and FlintOff and Harmison picking the other 5 wickets. SA lost too many quick wickets in the initial overs and never inclined to come back to put up a decent score. Stuart Broad used the overcast conditions to full effect and the wicket was assisting seam movement of the pitch which made life difficult for the SA batsmen. Big Flintoff was in good form that he hit the deck and was able to produce fair amount of bounce and seam movement, Harmison had to bowl just 1 over and he took 2 wickets.

I think Smith and team is still to come out the hangover of winning the test series, there are few new faces but the core is from the Test team and the way the team crumbled looked like they are little too complacent about the ODI series. Not sure why on a overcast conditions one would want to bat first after winning the toss, may be the failed run chase in the previous match influenced the decision but it totally back fired. SA brought in Gibbs,Albie Morkel (IPL fame) and few other new comers in the side but none of them were successful. Hope SA puts up a better show in the next ODI.

Team India Praying for Rain

Dhoni and team must be praying for rain to go back winning the ODI series (2-1). Rain has washed out the 4th match and the Srilankan whether department has forecast rain for the rest of the week and hence there may not be any match even on the reserve day and the last ODI on Friday/Saturday. For once the Indian players must be wishing rain to make sure that they need not play the last 2 games to make sure that they go back with a series win after losing the Asia Cup and the KitplyCup.

Missed Opportunity

2008-08-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

Its been a tale for more than 2 decades now that regularly cricketers from TamilNadu throw the opportunity at the International level. The list is pretty big starting from W.V.Raman,B.Arun, Venkatramana,AshishKappor, Hemang Badani and recently L.Balaji,Sriram and D.Karthick and now waiting to get added into the list is Badrinath.

TamilNadu has one of the best infrastructure in India for cricket with dedicated grounds and league system to run cricket. TN is lucky to have very good cricket administrators at every level (state,district,college & school) and has full support from corporates (TVS,Chemplast,IndiaPistons,IndiaCements) ,Govt Banks (SBI,IB,IOB etc) and Railways are all part of the league systems and who have been with the TNCA for decades and helped cricketers and promote cricket in the state. TNCA has announced that they are planning to build a world class cricket stadium with seating capacity of over 1 lakh and this facility will be inaugurated in time for the WorldCup 2011. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Chennai_set_to_beat_Eden_Gardens/articleshow/3405937.cms

In spite of all this support we have not been able to produce cricketers who are regular in the Indian Team over a period of time. We have had glimpses of class from players like Venkatraghavan, Srikanth and RobinSingh to name a few who were regulars in their playing days and after that we have not had a single player who was sure of his place for years now. I am not sure if its our style of game (all aggressive stroke players) or the complacent nature with in our culture. Our neighboring state Karnataka has produced some great players in Vishwanath,Chandrasekar and recently Srinath,Dravid and Kumble who have played important roles for Team India in the past few decades.

Any organization or institution has the mind set of looking into talent from the past performance of the region and the dismal display of TN cricketers have not helped the budding youngsters here to get a positive look unless you are exceptional. I think its very natural in any selection process, you take the states like Bombay,Karnataka,Delhi,Punjab (to an extent), they have had good cricketers all the time, its pretty obvious that a player from Bombay with decent scores gets the nod over a player from say UP,TN because the past players have proved in with lot character and toughness to succeed at the highest level.

TNCA has been one of the best run associations and its hard to believe that with such infrastructure we have produced only handful of players with high quality. Its time the people responsible for running the game wake up and take note of this and bring in innovative methods to improve the confidence level and prepare players for the big stage.

Captain's Lead From the Front.

2008-08-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

India and England were lucky to see their captains play matching winning innings but SriLanka was not that lucky. M.S.Dhoni played a good patient knock to make sure that India reach a respectable total after losing losing 4 wickets for 90+. Pieterson was in a better position with openers giving a flying start of 70+ and had the big hitting Flintoff scoring 70+ in quick time to reach 275 in 50 overs and was 90 not out.

India started slowly with Gambhir looking very ordinary and couple of missed run-outs. Kholi played some nice shots in the leg side and reached 25 to get run-out and Gambhir was out in quick time. Yuvraj who showed sign's of getting back to form with a well timed six over mid-wicket got out cheaply poking to good out swinger. Raina was on the other end grafting, Badrinath the hero of the 2nd ODI played one of the worst shots in the given scenario of the match to throw his wicket. Dhoni came in and played a patient knock to build a partnership with Raina to take the score to 140+. When both the batsmen looked to free themselves with some hitting, there was this terrible mix-up and Raina was run out. R.Sharma scored a quick 32 and finally India scored a respectable total of 237.

Srilankans started very badly with losing wickets quickly to be in a bad stage of 59-6. It was left to captain Jayawardane and Thusara to show some resistance and at one stage Jayawardene looked to take the game from India but it was too much for asking. Good to see Zaheer among wickets in this series and looks more fit to give his best. Praveen Kumar has been among wickets but has been giving away too many runs for his wickets. Munaf a good steady bowler is back in thick of action and among wickets and its good for India. Harbajan has been good through out the series with some steady bowling and Yuvraj filled the 5th bowler slot. For Srilankans their top order batsmen Jayasurya,Sangakkara,Silva were not getting runs and jayawardane must be a worried captain.

India in Beijing Olympics

2008-08-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

After Abhinav Bindra's Gold, India has not had many success in Beijing. Rathore,Saina,Sania and other contingent is all out of the games, the only hopes for another medal is from the Tennis Stars Mahesh & Peas pair and to an extent Anju George.

It was heart breaking for the whole of India and Saina to have missed from a formidable position in the quarter-final. Good that her performance is being noticed and the Netball Federation has recognized her feet to award cash prize of 1 lakh (Yes you read it correct its just 1 lakh) at least they have come forward to recognize her effort. This is the most sad state of affairs of many federations with no funds and no initiative to approach corporates for sponsor's. I am 200% sure that the big corporates like Tata,Reliance,UBGroup,Sahara would have provided funds to reward her achievements with much better cash award, its the lack of initiative and will to do that.

She is young and talented and this is the time to appreciate her efforts and keep faith and provide all facilities to get her ready for the next Olympics. Cash award of 1 lakh in these days will not help in any way but feel bad. I also feel that the corporates should take some interest in special talents like Saina and spend time and money and provide her with what ever is needed to make her the champion. I am hopeful and this will happen in time and its up to the sports governing body to move things in their favor.

India takes on SriLanka in ODI

Dhoni was in the receiving end this time from the sports journalists with the repeated question on " How Indian Batsmen plan to take on the Magical Mendis". Dhoni put it rightly stating that its up to the individual person and what were you talk and plan in the dressing room its up to the player to tackle the bowling on the pitch on a given day. He is perfectly true, even if you see 100's of video its not going to help, how one plays on the given day makes the difference.

Yet another accolade for Sachin from his captain on scahin's absence due to injury and how it affects the team.

"It's not just his contribution with bat and the ball, but he comes up with brilliant suggestions and advice on the field. The impact he has in the dressing room is great."

I think this is the best chance for the youngsters like RohitSharma,Raina,Kohli,Badrinath to prove that they can deliver in the main stage and its also a challenge for Youraj and Gambhir to prove that they can take the responsibility of carrying the team to victory. Good that finally the selectors have given a break to Ishant Sharma and it should do good to him and be fit for the forth coming Australian Test Series at home.

On the side line, Sreeshanth is making waves in Bollywood functions playing host with Mandira. He was left out from the Indian team for fitness problems but was fit to perform a full dance sequence with Mandira Bedi and also kept the crowd enjoying with his acting skills. Good he has a carrier after cricket :):)

Bindra Lives India's Dream.

2008-08-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

Bindra took the world by surprise and India into cheer and celebrations when he won the Olympic Gold, the first in an individual sport for India in Olympic history. As he has mentioned in his post victory interview its just the beginning and hope that the young kids show interest beyond Cricket.

As expected the whole country started to pour in cash awards to the champion and has proved successful sports men will be rewarded and over a period this will change to upcoming sports people will get the kind of encouragement and support to achieve greater targets.Four state governments had announced cash rewards to the tune of 1.4 crores. As usual BCCI also announced a reward of Rs 50 lakh for Bindra and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad gifted lifetime AC first-class travel pass and SpiceJet gave him free unlimited travel for life.

Now is the time for the SAI (Sports Authority of India) to take advantage of the interest and support extended by the corporates into tie-up for sponsors to support good talent in various sports to reach greater high's in the coming CommonWealthGames and the next Olympics. I would even go to the extent of asking people like LalithModi,I.S.Bindra to help run these federations and build infrastructure and most importantly sell the sports and make the transition happen. I think this is the golden opportunity for the federations to take a leaf from BCCI and start doing things rather than accusing that Cricket is eating their lunch.

On Cricket

As expected Srilanka won the match and the series without much of a problem and England won the fourth test to end the series as the losing side with series score line as 2-1.

There is bug difference in how SouthAfrica won the series and Srilanka won the series, SA had to fight session by session to win the test matches, where as Srilanka had no problems they were dominating the series so much that the results were mostly in the expected lines. India's famed batting order played worst cricket in the recent memories and never looked to make a fight and rather they were losing steam to fight as the series progressed. England had some fabulous performances from Peiterson,Anderson,Flintoff,I.Bell event hough they lost the series, where as India had just 3 names in Sehwag,Gambhi and Harbhajan to name with some good performances. SA had some brilliant performance from its captain Smith and the top order never gave up and fought well with Prince,McCanze,Amla and DeVillars coming good at important stages of the game. SA bowlers in Styen,Morkel,Ntini all played their role to perfection and Boucher kept wickets like a champ and scored runs when mattered most. Fro Srilanka it most the two magical spinners all the way and some good batting by their captain and deputy and one has also mention about the fielding and good judgment from Jaywardene on the referral which made lot of difference to the outcome of the game. Overall SA fought their victory and Srilanka won it by discipline.

IMHO its time that the selectors need to think in bringing in fresh blood into the test series also, I can see at least 2 of the top 4 needs to be replaced to bring in the young talent to test. I also feel its time that we replace the aging Kumble and bring in fresh talent so that we have some time to build the team.

Mega Week End For Sports Lovers.

2008-08-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

Olympics kick starts today in Beijing with grand opening ceremony and rest of the world can take some time to appreciate how China has turned around to host the mega event in style.Media reports suggest that China is doing all the is possible to make this a great success and show the world that China has arrived into the main stream. Already they are making giant strides in various business and now into sports.

From India's Medal prospects, the shooting contingent is confident of repeating the feat achieved by Rothore and pretty sure of bringing back couple of Gold this time. We also have the great individual players in Tennis Sania Mirza and the doubles Kings Mahesh and Peas to bring some medals. Good luck to all the participants and China for a successful Olympics.

We also have Cricket this week end!!!!!!

For the first time in years that cricket has been pushed out of the main sports page in the Indian newspapers to give way to the Mega event Olympics. India takes on Srilanka today to play the decider of the series with both winning 1 match each. Even though India won the 2nd test Srilanka starts favorites for the decider with home advantage. The Curator has given hopes for the fast bowlers stating that the pitch will have good bounce and pace, hope its not part of the off the field game plan of the Srilankan think tank. Toss will be very vital on the result of the match, as in all the sub-continent wickets the pitch plays true for the first 2 days and starts to break and keep low from the 3rd day winning the toss and posting reasonable total of say 450+ will always help take the 1st innings lead and put pressure on the side batting 4th.

Kumble must be praying for his top guns to fire in this test, Sachin,Dravid and Ganguly have not scored a 50 in this series and Laxman has only one to credit. Karthik is the biggest failure in the tour with bad performances behind and in front of the stumps , dropping at least 4 catches and not scoring many runs. IMHO kumble just should not play a combination because they won the last test match, its ridiculous if karthick plays this test match in spite of having a reserve keeper in Parthiv Patel.

Sorry about not writing on Indian's big victory on the 2nd test, i was not able watch the match fully so could not write my views on the match. I just thought it would not reflect my opinion if i write based on news paper reports. Any way i will try to write on this 3rd test catching the highlights.

England Dominates Day 1

England bundled out South Africa for 190+ and sitting pretty at 50 for 1. South Africa was at 100 for 1 at one stage and some brilliant bowling from Harmison and Anderson quickly pushed them to 140 for 5 with harmison taking 2 and Anderson taking 3 and reached a personal milestone of 100 test wickets. Panesar and Broad helped to finish of the SA tail with 2 wickets each and it was thumps up for the new England Captain Peiterson on day one on his new role. Ntini sent back strauss early but could not push for another wicket as Bell and Cook played the rest of the day with no problems and stroke the ball well.

Wish the readers enjoy all the sporting actions in store in the coming weekend and through out the Olympics.

Too Early for Khel Ratna

2008-08-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Khel Ratna the most prestigeious award for sports person in India has been conferred to Dhoni for leading India to the T20 World Cup victory and recent ODI series victory. Happy that after Sachin a cricketer is getting this award and it should do a lot of good to Dhoni's confidence. Thanks to BCCI for getting this award to a cricketer.

IMHO its too big an award too early in his carrier. I just can not think that he is greater player than the stalwarts like Sunil Gavasker, KapilDev, Vishwanath,Rahul Dravid, Saurav, Kumble and many more to name who have acheived a lot for the sport. Cricket being a team game and winning a T20 world cup should not have been the criteria for this award. Its pretty early days in his carrier and this award is too big for him.

England runs out of choice to make Kevin Peterson the captaincy, I think Strauss would have been the correct choice with the experience and maturity he has shown over the years of good and bad form. Peterson is a free flowing batsmen and england is adding to the pressure already on him to perform all the time he walks to the field. It should not be any big pressure for both the teams as the series has already been decided.

Splendid Smith spearheads series win

2008-08-03T01:51:00.000-07:00

South African captain played his lifetime innings (150+ not out) to take SA to series victory against England in England after 40 years. SA were chasing a target of 280+ and started well with 50+ partnership but quickly lost 4 wickets with some dubious decisions and were at 93-4 and the game could have gone any way but for the brilliant performance from captain Smith.

Smith was in his best through out the innings, the short arm pull, the unorthodox straight drives and the superb square drives were simply brilliant. From 93-4 he put a 75 partnership with devillers and reached the target with the company of the experienced boucher. Smith just played his natural game and it was treat to see the ball flowing to the boundary between the country and the deep-midwicket in-spite of the fielders in the line. He was under immense pressure as Flintoff and Panesar were bowling their heart out but he never looked getting out and just dominated the bowling. Boucher with all his experience, played yet another gem of an innings to support his captain to reach the total. Boucher has been accorded as one of the best wicket keepers but he has played many important innings for SA and i am sure this knock will get him the respect he deserves.

I think after long long time a captain has made runs in the 4th innings to win a test and series, Ponting and Lara has done this a few times. I doubt if the great Sachin has played an innings like this in his long carrier to score runs in the 4th innings to take the team to victory. I can remember the chennai test where he failed to finish after getting century against pakistan and the 120 run chase in WI which India failed. Even though there is comparing players, this was such a special innings from Smith which i am sure will not be matched in the near future and will stand tall in the memories of the cricket fraternity.

After this innings Smith stands tall in the list of batsmen who have done well with shear determination, even though he lacks the grace of the top cricketers.

Rain Gods Greets 2nd Test

2008-07-31T03:34:00.000-07:00

The curator has mentioned that the wicket will turn square from start of day 3 and mentioned that the test will not go till the last day if rain does not spoil sport. As i write this post the players are welcome with showers to stop the game at lunch time when Sehwag and Gambhir are going great guns with both reaching 50 and total 150 no loss. The whether forecast is not very good and they expect rains all the five days in the scenic cricket ground.

Kumble does not seem to have made any changes in spite of the pitch report and chose to retain the same XI with the hope that all will come good in this test. He himself must also be hoping to come good along with Bajji back to form and if India could post a big 1st innings total (500+) then i think we have a very good chance.

SouthAfrica Dominates Yet Again

South Africa dominated the proceeding on the 1st day bowling out england for 200+ with some disciplined bowling from all the bowlers. Nel playing in place of Styen came up with 3 wickets and Kallis has been bowling well in this series to finish with 3 wickets and Ntini took 2. For England Cook and Bell scored 50's, Cook was too good punishing all the short stuff to the fence and Bell played a patient knock and got out of a beauty from Ntini, Flintoff ran out of partners scoring 38, england bowlers also struck early removing SA captain cheaply.

We can expect some exciting cricket in the coming four days from the top 4 teams.

Srilankan Tigers crush Indian Paper Tigers

2008-07-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Team India succumbs under pressure yet again. India is again in its familiar state after the 1st test in a tour by a huge lose. India was not able dominate even a single session in the four days of the match and after end of day 3 only rain could have saved the match for India. All praise to Srilanka for keeping the pressure on the famed Indian batting line up through out the match and most importantly posting a big first innings total with 4 centurions which also exposed Indian bowling's standard. Full credit to Murali and Mendis for such fantastic performance to prove yet again that the famed Indian Batting line up is made of individual brilliance and can not collectively raise to the occasion and save a match. I can not remember a single test match saved by our Indian batsmen playing for two full days in the past decade.

The second test is starting in just three days break and its going to be tough on the team to pull their socks and come back from the huge drubbing to perform better. I don't think one can make many changes to the playing XI as there are not many bench strength in the team. The obvious change is drop karthick and pick parthiv and i also feel that india should be playing another bowler in the 2nd test after taking a look at the pitch but i am not sure who they would drop. Gambhir has done reasonably well in both the innings and as usual we can not drop anyone from the famed 4 and sehwag, i am sure Kumble does not have the teeth to drop one from the famed lineup to include a extra bowler. Indian teams strength is their batting and India has a chance to level the series only if the batsmen get going, as we have never had bowlers who could run through the opposition on quick time.

Review System

IMHO the review system has not been used properly in the 1st test and i am sure the umpires will use them better in the coming tests. The decision's on Dhilshan and Sehwag proves that the technology can only help to make a decision but the on field umpires should take control of the decisions. As i had mentioned in one of earlier posts, the LBW decisions should be referred only to make sure that the ball has pitched in line and not for the direction and height of the bounce after pitching and sehwags decision proves that right. If the review system is used prudently the system can help to avoid issues but over relying on the technology for everything will kill the charm of the game.

Is Robin & Venkatesh Prasad Accountable

After looking at the shabby performance in the field from the indian team for quite some time i have a feeling that our fielding coach is not accountable. Our fielding performance has been below par for the last year and we have lost couple of tournaments and test matches due to poor catching and fielding. Robin was a great all rounder cricketer and a great fielder as we all known but i doubt that he is able to bring in the best in the field from the players. Its the same with V.Prasad, he has been the bowling coach of the team for the past couple of years and i don't see any player genuinely benefiting from his services. I understand that the coach's are only motivate and teach the intricacies but its up to the players to perform in the field but the support staff should be accountable.

South Africa completes Formalities

2008-07-22T06:14:00.000-07:00

SouthAfrica completed the formalities to win the 2nd test by 10 wickets. Some fine performances from the fast bowlers made sure that there is no surprise. England batsmen never showed any signs of fighting it out, wickets were falling in regular intervals. Broad's late hitting made sure that SA batted again to finish the formalities.

Overall it was a match dominated by SA on all the 4 days with both the ball and the bat. Morkel,Steyn,Prince,devilliers all played their part to perfection. where as for england nothing went right with Vaughan failling badly yet again and come back man Flintoff could not make any big impact in the bowling or batting. Hope England puts up a fight in the 3rd and 4th Tests.

India will be taking on the spinning SriLankans tomorrow in the 1st test and it should be huge pressure for the great Indian Batting line up to face the new found magic finger spinner Mendis and the willy Murali. I am sure mendis will also be under huge pressure to perform in home with such big expectations after the AsiaCup success.

I think toss holds the key in SriLanka, in general the wicket used to play good for the first two days and then start to break a bit and turn square. I don't have to talk about our batting line up, hoping that Gambhir will get a chance and wish he will make full use of it. Kumble may even go with the make shift opener in karthick and include a additional spinner in place of Gambhir. Not sure if the wicket will assist the fast bowlers, if it does then i am confident that Ishant should be among the wickets. A good series ahead and wish we get full 5 days play without any rain.

SouthAfrica set for Big Victory.

2008-07-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

After 3 days of good cricket, south africa is poised to win the match in leeds comfortably provided there is no rain. England is 50-2 at the end of day 3 trailing by 250+ runs, if England has to save the match from here it should be the rains or a life time knock from the england top order. SouthAfrica is sitting pretty with all the top bowlers striking, Ntinin who was out of sorts in the 1st test and in the 1st innings but struck twice in quick time.

I think Prince is playing his best cricket ever with back to back hundreds and both coming when the team most needed them. Prince innings was controlled aggression and near flawless but for few close calls for LBW from flintoff. He played the england bowlers with much ease and struck mighty blows of panesar. AB de Villiers played an important and patient knock to reach his hundred and carried on to score 174 and propelled the lead over 300+.

Not many journalists mentioned about the un-sporting stuff from both the team in day 1 at leeds. I am sure if the team involved was an Asian nation, the whole lot of english press would have painted black for the actions. de Villiers and Vaughan claimed catches which they did not take properly and both the occasion the 3rd umpire had to turn down the appeal. From what we could see in the TV, i am sure the fielders will know that they have not taken it cleanly but still chose to make a claim, its sad that cricket is turning out to be a very un-sportive game these days.

BCCI Flexes Muscle

2008-07-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

Niranjan Shah and the board is adamant to make sure that no BCCI contracted player is involved with any sort of engagement with the counties in which the ICL players are involved. BCCI has stopped Chawla from playing county cricket for Hampshire since there are few players contracted with ICL, the others who have been given similar advise is Lakshman and Agarkar. I feel this is getting little too much and the board needs to show some maturity in handling things like these, 15 of the 18 county teams have ICL contracted players and its not fair to restrict players from playing recognized league.

At some point the ICL management team needs to talk about the status of the league to the ICC and make things smooth for the players involved in the league. ICL has not gone to the ICC / BCCI for recognizing their league and they need to do that first for the league to survive. IMHO With the success of IPL, unless ICL joins hands with the BCCI or any of the recognized board, there is no way it can sign star cricketers and create intrest for the league.

On the otherside the SriLankan Cricket officials are facing with all sorts of issues and have gone to the extent of canceling Test series to make sure their players are available for the IPL. SC has not paid their players since this Feb and has also friezed salary for the senior players for the current season. Sports ministry is rejecting the appointment of Thilakarathna as cricket manager for unknown reasons a day after SC's appoints him and today the SC says that the appointment is valid and he will continue as manager for the series against India. Its great that even under such unstable conditions they perform well and win trophy's.

May be the critics are correct in raising doubts on the commitment from our own young Indian players, after all the players get all the facilities a cricketer could ask for and yet the performance has not been consistent and not many victory's after the T20 WorldCup victory.

BCCI the perceived Ghost

2008-07-16T02:59:00.000-07:00

BCCI is blamed quite often for the lack of imagination and initiative to promote cricket in the rural and urban areas. The BCCI is the ghost of all the other sports federations, sports person and in few cases the general public on the kind of money is generated by cricket and the marketing done by the ghost to make more money. There have been allegations that the board is controlled by few big names time to time and they are the guardians of cricket in India without much credibility. Even in some cases the BCCI has been blamed by its own fraternity (past members and cricketers) for high handedness of the officials on individuals.

Its the kind of acceptance to the sport from the people of the country and the sustained success of Team India in the international competitions and the lack of it on other sports. The kind of work put up by the BCCI (ghost) team in promoting the sports in the country, building infrastructure,marketing, packaging etc etc in a way that the game is today more than a religion in the country. The board took full advantage of the WorldCup victory and the special talents like SunilGavaskar,KapilDev,Sachin helped the game spread even to the nook and corner of the country. The board worked proactively to telecast live the boring 6 day (1 rest day after 3rd day) test matches in radio when TV was not popular and extended that to TV when the same arrived to our living rooms. The board was quick to recognize that the govt can not provide the funds to promote the game and took the first steps to get sponsors from the corporate world.All these are positive effects to the sport, where as other sports federations failed miserably in promoting their respective games irrespective of high success (Olympic victory for hockey).

Basically the hard work and proactive measures taken to promote the game in the early 80's and 90's are bearing fruit today that the Indian Public can not think of any other sports today. One can easily see that kind of change that has happened in the infrastructure side, we have very few centers hosting international games in the past (Bombay,Madras,Calcutta,Kanpur,Delhi) today we have 15+ full fledged centers to host international games with world class facilities and BCCI has a very vital role in this change in infrastructure. In the 80's we could see very few coaching academy and it would be in the city but today apart from the NCA, we have cricket academy in all the leading associations to help develop the game, Again the other sports federations failed miserably in this and mostly gave full control to the government and lost the advantage of functioning independently. One can easily see the difference between the NCA and SAI camp in Bangalore to validate how the BCCI has progressed to a world class promoter of sports. The introduction of the pension scheme for the domestic cricketers has made life reasonable for so many dedicated cricketers.

BCCI has showed the way to other sports organizations on how to promote a game and capitalize on success. Its now for them to take a leaf from BCCI and start working on promoting their sport instead of crying foul that BCCI is raking huge money in the expense of what is due for them. It is for the Sports federations to maintain good relations with the industry to make sure that the corporates support their respective sport instead of depending on the government. The industry and sponsors are not dump to just put money on cricket if it does not produce results, we saw this fact in the last cricket world cup debacle when the industry started to dump cricket but the quick come back to the top with the T20 victory turned the tides back to the sport. There is also this classic example of Sania Mirza making huge sponsorship deals but Anju Bobby george is not making much explains the dependence of government funding for athletics and industry support for tennis and cricket.

Finally the huge money flow into the game has not happened overnight, it has been long years of hard work, good leadership and proactive measures which has brought the fame and money to the sport. The domestic cricketers have benefited immensely
due to this change and as i had mentioned in one of my earlier post, today we cannot see a domestic cricketer starve in the streets where as we hear that internationals in other sports are left in the lurch.

As always there is room for improvement in anything one does and it is applicable even for the BCCI and i am very confident that BCCI will improve and move in the correct direction in the interest of the game.

BCCI under IncomeTax Net :-( :-(

2008-07-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

The Indian Finance Ministry has brought about a rude shock to the BCCI by bringing all commercial dealing by the BCCI under the tax net for the assessment year 2008-2009. As the per the initial understanding, the IT dept is not liable to send any notice to BCCI to comply to the rules as the definition for Trust registered as charity have been made clear in the 2008 budget. BCCI so for was enjoying tax holiday as promoting cricket is a public utility and service. The IPL,matches conducted by the BCCI,TV rights etc will be under the tax net and will be on the high end of 33+ bracket and the IT dept expects the board to comply and pay advance tax.

I am sure the board will fight hard to stop this from getting implemented in all possible way. For once BCCI is fortunate to have a political person as the president in Sharad Pawar, he will go all out to see that BCCI does not pay / pays less on tax. Overall its not a good news for the cricketing community and if this is implemented the funds spent on domestic cricket and infrastructure will be the first casualty and who knows this move may also slow down the development of cricket in India.

No result in Lords Yet Again

Since 2005 Lords has not produced any result in the Test Matches whether its 5 days of cricket or hampered by rain. SA finally drew the 1st test in Lords with yet another fine hundred by Amla the third in the same innings after Smith and McKenzie. England bowlers never looked to finish the SA lineup in the 2nd innings after the good start and blame it on the pitch which did absolutely nothing to help the bowlers and the very slow turn meant that the spinners in Panesar and Pieterson was not effective. Hope we have some sporting and true wicket for the 2nd Test.

IPL draws flak from WADA

The WADA has criticized the IPL management for letting out the name of the player before the B sample verification. The WADA has also mentioned it is a violation of the regulation. As expected it was the Pakistani fast bowler Asif to have tested positive and the future looks very bleak for him. Even the PCB is learned to be very upset with the findings as Asif has been warned earlier for similar issue. IPL by letting out the name of the player has in a way indirectly helped Asif to fight the case with the WADA unhappy with the IPL management. Asif has also denied the reports stating that he has been very careful in taking drugs during the IPL and pleads innocence.

SA Fighting To Draw Test

2008-07-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

Smith and McKenzie scored century's to save the day for SouthAfrica (SA), still SA has a very daunting task of saving the match with one full day left and behind 100+ runs after following on. Smith and McKenzie played the most patient innings to make sure that they provide a good start, both reached their hundreds and Smith got out to a tired cross batted shot. McKenzie and Amla saw the day through without much damage and if this pair can bat through till lunch in the final day i think SA is safe and can go into the 2nd Test with lot of confidence. England bowling was not menacing with all the four waiting for the batsmen to make mistakes rather than induce mistakes. We have a very interesting final day in the Lords, if SA lose from here it should only blame its batsmen.

W.V.Raman to coach Tamil Nadu

As many past cricketers taking to coaching, Raman has been coaching various teams in the past and was successful to an extent in getting the Bengal team to semi-finals in 2001-2002 Ranji Season. Raman who was the coach of TN team last season did not have a great season but was successful in transforming the youngsters in playing bigger roles for the side. Bengal had requested Raman to coach their Ranji Team which is relegated to the plate group from the elite group, but due to personnel and cricketing reasons Raman is staying with the TN team for the current season. TNCA has lot of faith in Raman putting up a better show this time to make sure that TN Ranji team performs better.

IPL Update

The random dope test done during the IPL and the subsequent testing has confirmed at least one fast bowler from the sub-continent has been found to have used drugs during the IPL. Lalith Modi confirmed this and said that the player in question will be made known latter today after confirmation from the Swedish agency. As usual the Indian New Channels started to put the possible player and suspected that it would be Mohammed Asif ???

Pieterson's Ton helps England Post 309

2008-07-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

England starts the 1st test positively with a century from Pieterson and half century's from Cook and Bell. Strauss and Cook started with a 100+ partnership with both of them stroking the ball nicely. Cook took control of the attack with some brilliant strokes on the off side and Strauss joined the party with some good shorts in front of the wicket, Unfortunately Strauss was a victim of bad decision from Harper, the ball pitched outside the leg stump was given LBW. Steyn brought one back in and Vaughan was bowled and Morkel followed removing Cook in quick time and England was in its familiar stage with 3-117 and then came the big partnership between IanBell and Pieterson which was unbroken till the end of days play on day 1.

Pieterson was intimidated with some bouncers from Steyn and also got one in the back of his neck and England were 163-3 when they took tea. After that it was Pieterson's show and the bowler to suffer most is harris and steyn hit all over the park and reached his 4th century in Lords. Pieterson a southafrican by birth and played cricket till recently in southafrica got a very disappointing reception for this hundred with SA captain and most of the players not acknowledging the century with the customary clapping. England is sitting nicely with 309-3 and if this pair could play the first one hour on day 2 its going to be advantage England.

IPL Update

Srilankan Cricket Board has decided to head to the request from the senior players in accepting to negotiating with the ECB to put off the tour during the IPL season 2. The first full test series fall out due to the IPL, the turn of events only suggests that the alarm raised by Ponting on the T20 games effect on Test Cricket has come true. ICC and the cricketing boards all over the world needs to agree upon some solution to this serious problem on hand.

IPL Season 2

2008-07-10T02:34:00.000-07:00

Planning and preparation has already started for IPL season 2, the first cricket board to face tricky issues is the SriLankan Cricket Board. SriLanka has accepted to fill next summer for England team as tour of zimbabawe is put off. England has finalized the schedule tentatively starting April 21st through May 30th, the issue is IPL season 2 starts April 10th and ends by 29th May. 13 SriLankan national cricketers are signed by the 6 IPL teams, which means the SriLankans need to leave with just 10 days into the IPL which in all probability will not go well with the franchises nor the players as lot of money is in stake. The SriLankan Board is meeting this week to decide on this and other player contract issues.

Its very unfortunate that the SriLankan players have not been paid since feb-2008 and in spite of these issues they were able to win the Asia Cup in style but the cash rich board like ours and Pakistan were not able to put up a fight. Hope there is some sort of a solution to this problem which benefits the players, after all these guys are spending their prime years of their life to the game.

England takes on South Africa in Lords.

England has announced an unchanged team for the 1st Test against the South Africans in the Lords. South Africa is banking on its fast bowlers to come good in helping conditions in the Lords. SA has included their 3 seamer Ntini,Steyn and Morkel in the bowling line up and banking on the experience of Kallis,Smith and Boucher on the batting to come good, for all the other batsmen in the squad this is the first time they will be playing a Test match in England.

England is going with the same 11 for a world record 6th time in a row. Kevin Peterson,Vaughan,Strauss are expected to score the bulk of the runs and hope that Collingwood comes back to form after a torrid time last season. England bowling seems good with Sidebottom,Anderson and Board with the seam attack and Panesar's left arm spin. Comparatively SA bowling looks good and lethel with all the three capable of striking in quick time, Steyn has been in great form in lot of 5 wicket hauls in a short span and we all know how good he was even in the placid wickets in India. If England should win a test match against the SA, Panesar should come good ably supported by the seamer's. I feel all tests are going to be hard fought and will be played the full 5 days provided there is no rain.

Champions Trophy in SouthAfrica

2008-07-08T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Champions Trophy scheduled to start Sep-11th in Pakistan is most likely to be changed to SouthAfrica due to security problems. Australia,England and NewZeland have already expressed their concern and few Aussies have confirmed that they will pull out of the tournament if held in Pakistan. Its pretty fair on the players to feel concerned about security when bomb blasts happen in the city where you stay in. The recent bomb blasts in Karachi just a day after the AsiaCup finals has not helped PCB in claiming security cover for players and want to stage the tournament in Pakistan.

In all likelihood, ICC will request SA to conduct the tournament and SA has already started work in anticipation will accept to host the tournament. India has had good times in South Africa in the ODI, reaching WorldCup finals and not to mention the T20 WorldCup finals Victory. The team must be more confident and finally the fast bowlers can heave a sigh of relief to get to bowl in true wickets.

The Selectors have picked the 30 probables in the expected lines giving emphases for the youngsters over the veterans in Rahul and Gangully. With couple of match winning performance in the CB series, Sachin is favored and his mere presence in the dressing room should do a world of good to the youngsters, only worry is that he should be fit after the demanding Test series against the SriLankans. I would not mind if he misses the Champions Trophy to prolong his Test Carrier by another 3 or 4 years.

On the Youngsters in the probables, its nice to see VirathKoli and Jadeja but its very unfortunate that the Under-19 player of IPL Goswami does not find a place and its also understandable that we already have 3 good keepers (Dhoni,Karthik and Parthiv) in the probables. Asnodkar, VenugopalRao, ShikarDawan are the few youngsters names come to my mind who i feel missed to make it to the 30 even after some important performances in the IPL, having said that ODI's are a different ball game from the T20 so i would not be too worried. I would think ShikarDawan should have made it to the 30, he has been very consistent in the domestic tournaments and showed good technique and promise in the IPL. Getting into the 30 itself will give these youngsters confidence a lot of good and work harder to get to the squad as they know that they are just one step away from the Indian Cap.

Tough Contests

2008-07-08T02:30:00.000-07:00

Cricket purists all over the world are going to have a great time in the coming months with some tough contests. England plays South Africa and India travel to SriLanka for the test series, all the four teams are good in their own way and i am sure all the games should be absorbing.

As expected, here is our first victim of excess cricket M.S.Dhoni our ODI Captain. This issue has been raised by many players in the past and with the introduction of the IPL it is pretty obvious that we will have few players unfit due to non stop cricket. Its sad that a player who is considered as the future Test Team Captain has to opt out from the test series out of exhaustion at the age of 27. There is no point in blaming the board on this, its the players responsibility to make sure they keep them fit and prioritize the games one has to take part. No players place is guaranteed in the team, what if Dinesh Karthik comes with a stellar performance and keeps his place ?? Dhoni will be the loser, not the board. I am sure the break will do lot of good to him but it would have been better to opt out of the IPL or Kitply Cup or for that matter from the Asia Cup instead of a test series where he is yet prove himself as a batsmen.

Coming to the teams composition for the test series, i feel the selectors have picked the best possible team within the available players. Good that Gambhir is picked ahead of Wasim Jaffer and R.Sharma included in the squad in place of Youraj, nothing much to discuss about the other legends of Indian batting in Sachin,Dravid,Gangully and Laxman. After a long time we have all the three combination of spinners in the squad and i would think it is little early for Ojha and not sure why Murali Karthik was not considered (may be he is still not fit). On the fast bowling front, i dont think they will play a big part in the series as the wickets are tailor made for the spinners. I also feel there is no need to bring in 2 keepers in the squad for a short tour, this will only create pressure in the minds of the players. Lets see how our famed batting line up fair against the wily Muralidharan and awkward Mendis??

Magical Mendis Wins AsiaCup for SriLanka

2008-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Magical spell by Mendis helped SriLanka win the AsiaCup with dream figures of 6-13, its going to take a long long time for Mendis himself to reproduce such figures. SriLankan players experience and youth combination proved vital at all the important stages of the finals. When SriLanka were batting it was the experience of Jayasurya and Dhilshan to put up a 100+ partnership to make sure that they reach a reasonable total. Jayasurya just dominated the proceedings even though they were tottering at 50+ for 4 with some great display of pace bowling by Ishant Sharma, good that he is back in picking wickets. After some very poor bowling from the seamer's, it was left to the young Mendis to take charge of the game and it was procession from the great Indian batting order. Indian batsmen had no clue on what was Mendis doing with the ball, it was nightmare in the middle for the young Indian star studded batting lineup.

Once again the batting line up looked wanting on experience with all the youngsters choking under pressure. I feel that Sachin/Dravid/Gangully any one of them in the batting line up would have made a difference, at least to put up a fight. India has lost the 2 finals in less than three weeks experimenting with the youngsters, i am sure the results could have been different if Sachin was fit. I think its high time that Sehwag,Youraj win matches for India, rather than playing a few good knocks.

India started of well to put the SriLankan batting to back foot with 90+ for 4, then Jayasurya and Dhilshan played some sensible cricket, with the experienced jayasurya taking control of the match (this was missed badly when India were batting) I.Sharma bowled his heartout but there was very little support from the other seamers. It was left to the spinner Ohja and Sehwag to restrict in the middle overs. It was a pain to watch IrfanPathan gifting away 67 runs of his 10 and that to when the batsmen were struggling, his first over cost almost 12+, I am not sure how he is persisted in the eleven, if the selectors don't axe him now it can only prove correct what MohinderAmarnath once quated as saying "Selectors are a bunch of Jokers".

When India batted, after the first 9 overs it was purely Mendis show, Sehwag as usual threw his wicket and gave the much needed confidence to the youngster. Youraj had no clue on the flipper from Mendis and was castled and then a rank bad shot from the in-form Raina proved that the dressing room was tensed and the same is reflecting in the batsmen, RohitSharma played across the line early in the innings to get caught plumb in front. Dhoni was a mute spectator from the other-end and could not take control of the game. RobinUthappa stayed for some time but Murali proved too clever inviting him to play across the line get caught in front of the stumps, from here it was a procession with the bowling all rounder IrfanPathan playing no part.

Mendis used the pace in the wicket to good effect with some stunning flippers, i feel he is a bowler like Kumble and to an extend like Chandra, he has a very peculiar action and uses his index finger to deliver. I am pretty sure that the batsmen around the world will quickly adjust to this and play normally but he should be very handy if he keeps his line and length and the pitch is quick.

Mr Curator plays his role to perfection

2008-07-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

The Karachi pitch Curator must be too good to provide such wickets all through the tournament. If there is an award for non cricketing skills, he should be awarded for Man of the Tournament. Over 600 runs was scored in 95 overs for the third time in the tournament and it has been a paradise for batsmen and hell for the bowlers. It should be no different for the finals and the toss will play a vital role in the finals outcome of the match.

It was really heartening to see that after a long time India has chased a big total with contributions from all its top order batsmen. In the past it used to be either Sachin,Sehwag or Gangully to score big hundred and few other batsmen used to play around them but yesterday it was from all the top four scoring runs and at no stage the opposition looked to come back into the match. Sehwag and Gambhir started well, Raina and Dhoni played their part to perfection for Youraj and R.Sharma to finish the match comfortably. Murali was the one bowler who could produce some turn and bounce even in this wicket to finish with figures of 2-44 from his 10, all other bowlers looked ordinary in this flat track. Good to see Ishant Sharma getting some wickets in the early overs and surprisingly R.P.Singh bowled a controlled spell to support I.Sharma, seems Ohja is gaining in confidence on every match he plays. Irfan Pathan played his part by gifting 80 runs from his 10, in the last 24 matches he has taken 22 wickets at an average of over 44 and economy rate of 6.25, do we still need him in the XI. Hope Kirsten and Dhoni drop him for the finals and give a chance to Gony.

I am still not comfortable to see Dhoni at No 4, he should be batting at No 6 and that is the place where he can change the course of the match. Also for long term in good tracks like Australia,SouthAfrica or England, i dont think he has the technique to survive the swing,bounce and at times the new ball. He might play some big innings in the sub-continent but i feel it should be for the pure batsmen like R.sharma,Raina to take that position and gain in experience, even Youraj has been struggling to perform in oversees bouncy tracks.

BCCI warns coach Kirsten for writing in his personnel blog (garykirsten.com) on Team India. Kirsten has quickly put the issue to rest by confirming to the board that this will not happen again. Big BCCI is just twisting its muscle in all possible ways to keep its internal affairs under the board rooms carpet.

Australia plays West Indies in the carrebian with absolutely no interest left in the series as Australia has already won the series 3-0.

Team India Must Win

2008-07-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

India is back in its own familiar position where the team must win against Srilanka or pray for rain or a Bangladesh victory against Pakistan to reach the finals. If Srilanka wins todays match and Pakistan wins against Bangladesh, both of them play the finals this Sunday as Pakistan has beaten India in the Super Four stage.

YounisKhan's flawless century and some good partnerships with opener Nasir and Misbah sealed a easy victory for Pakistan chasing 308. Indian hapless bowling and fielding and the killer of the match "Mr Curator" made sure that even scores of over 350+ could be a challenge to defend. One can not take away the credit from Pakistan batsmen for some superb display of controlled aggression which made the chase look very easy. Indian batsmen did well to reach 308 after at one stage tottering at 93-3, Dhoni played a class innings and was ably supported by Rohit Sharma and some contribution from Yuvraj and Irfan helped pep up the score. Yousuf Pathan failed again and the inform Raina played a bad shot early in the innings to get out cheaply. At the break, it looked that India had some advantage as the total was 300+ but after first 15-20 overs Pakistan was firmly in grip of the match and never gave any chance for India to come back.

Seems that in such flat tracks toss is going to decide on the result of the match, chasing seems to be the best thing to do in these flat wickets. I don't understand why Dhoni opted to bat first winning the toss even after successfully chasing 299 against Pakistan in the league phase. I know spat the reply would be that, if we would have won the match these things will not be talked about but thinking from cricketing aspects, India had a 3 day break and should be fresh to go all out with the fast bowlers, the whether is hot and humid under the lights and could drain you in the first 15-20 overs. We could see our players just could not run or field as they normally do under the heat, leave alone the brilliant fielding stuff, Ishant sharma was almost breaking down couple of times while fielding.

Its going to be a tough task on Dhoni to energize the players in just under 24 hours to take on the in form SriLankans in a must win match. India needs to re-think on the combination of the team to put up a better show today, Chawla has been just out of sorts in this tournament and feel ohja can be tried in his place and i would prefer to save Ishant Sharma for the future rather than playing him in this flat tracks. India's strength is its batting and if we win the toss we should be chasing.

LalithModi in Euro-2008

2008-07-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

One has to fully appreciate the IPL Management Team and LalithModi in particular for the efforts he has been making to ensure that the 2nd edition of IPL is a bigger success than the inaugural edition. Modi and SRK have spent the last week of Euro-2008 with their favorite team Germany. Modi was mentioning that, he has learned a lot and will use the learning for the IPL. SRK said that the crowds are just wonderful and he also would like to do certain things for his franchise in the lines of the Euro-2008.

AsiaCup

The tournament has reached its final stages with Pakistan hoping to win both the matches and also prays that SriLanka to beat India. Its not easy for India either, we need to win atleast one match to reach to the finals. India is planning to make quite a few changes, bringing in Sehwag,Praveenkumar,Irfan in place of Uthappa,Ishant and Yousuf (unfit), Dhoni is most likely to play two spinners in Chawla and Ohja. I hope Team India should be fresh after 3 days break but the thought of playing yet another game tomorrow will again dampen the enthusiasm for sure. India starts favorites today with the Indian top order batsmen in good form in flat tracks and Pakistan's lack of quality bowling. Pakistan bowling looks very ordinary in the absence of UmarGul,Asif and Akthar. Afridi suppose to be an all rounder has not performed for a long long time with the bat and mostly finds a place as a bowler in the team. If Pakistan bats second and with a target of say 270-280 I think Pakistan has a fair chance of winning but if they had to restrict the same total its not going to be easy.

Coach Gary Kirsten has come in support of Dhoni's post-match comments on back-to-back matches and understands that its very difficult for players like Dhoni in particular. Dhoni has been playing non-stop cricket since the SA tour last year, there has been very little time to rest and recover from injury. He is also the most sort after personality for endorsements today and IMHO its for the individual to manage time and keep himself fit for the demands of the international carrier.

Srilanka in Finals

2008-06-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

Srilanka made it to the finals with easy victory over pakistan and bangladesh, in all probability it should be Srilanka vs India Finals on Sunday.

On his 39th birthday Jayasurya made yet another hundred of just 55 balls and brought back memories of his hey days. Sangakarra scored his second hundred in as many days and its amazing that he also kept wickets after his hundred. Murali and the googly specialist Mendis bowled out bangladesh for a big victory.

Jayawardane's post match interview was so matured that Dhoni can learn a few things, afterall he is in his early stages of captaincy. He mentioned that the host teams always enjoy few things like schedule,crowd support etc and on a lighter side also said that he will make sure Pakistan plays back-to-back matches when Srilanka hosts the Asia Cup :-)

India for so long was dependent on spin bowling and even today if India has to win a Test it needs its spinner in Kumble to perform well. After the prolification of fast bowling in India, we have lost our own strength the spin bowling. We have not been able to produce world class spinners consistently, it has been too long since we had great spinners in Bedi,Chandra,Prassana and Venkatraghavan. After kumble its going to be tough task for India, as i dont see good spinners in the bench, Chawla seems to be good and needs constant encouragement to keep him going, i feel he should not be exposed to the ODI/T20 games. He is a traditional spinner with flight and loop and invite lot of hard hitting in the shorter version of the game but should do well in Test Cricket. I think its time the board and cricket management starts thinking of finding good young spinners for the future.

NewZeland & Australia win ODI series

2008-06-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

NewZeland and Australia won the ODI series against England and West Indies respectively. The series win for NewZeland must be very satisfying after losing the Test series and other controversy in the ODI matches. For the Aussies it was just another series win for the record books after the test victory.

I think i was little harsh on Collingwood and England in my previous post Spirit of the Game .... Dead ???

After looking into other reports and post match report (repeatedly shown in ESPN) pointing that NewZeland players were equally unsportive in not coming to the customary handshake after the match even after collingwood waiting in front of the NZ dressing room for more than 5-10 minutes. The NZ players action only confirms my scary thought of Sprint of the game being killed by the new generation players.

AsiaCup-2008

It has been in the expected lines so for in the AsiaCup-2008, thanks to the curators for providing such flat /dead tracks that all the games are high scoring games. It has been great batting display from Sehwag,Gambhir,Raina,Mallik,YounisKhan,Sangakarra,Kapali over the past few days. Srilanka with the win against pakistan is sitting comfortably in the super four and its pressure for pakistan to win all the games in the remaining matches of the tournament.

We all understand that its tough on the players in this time of the year in pakistan and the schedule has been very tight for few teams. The schedule is arrived well in advance and the boards are aware of this and the players know what is expected from them, there is no point in cribbing on the schedule for poor performance on the field. Indian bowling and fielding has been pretty ordinary for the past few months and Dhoni blaming the schedule for the stick they got against Bangladesh is not welcome. These are the same guys who were fit for the IPL in the peak of the summer and played back-back semi-finals and finals. I think the pressure of captaincy is slowly catching on with Dhoni, his reply to the lose in the kitply cup and this response here is not going to do any good for him. After all its early days for him, one can imagine how difficult it would have been to former captains who have been in the helm for so long like Azharuddin and Gangully, hope Dhoni learns quickly from these great captains to cope with captaincy pressure.

Spain Wins European Cup After 1964

It was planning and execution by the less fancied Spain with the solitary goal from Torres. Germany with all the big names could not net the ball even once to make a match of it. Spain in all probability looked the best team in the tournament and its great to see them win the cup.

Raina Grabs No 3 slot in Style

2008-06-26T23:36:00.000-07:00

Team India batsmen in Raina and Sehwag made up for some ordinary bowling and fielding performance. Dhoni must be worried man even after a comfortable win chasing 300, his bowlers are giving away 6+ runs consistently and the fielding is not that great. Gary Kirsten should be thinking of including an extra bowler with the teams top order batsmen in good form. I would think that Gony should replace R.Sharma as the fifth regular bowler, i dont think sharma can add value at no 6 / 7.

Raina played one of his best innings in international carrier, he was so confident and getting runs at will sehwag had to play the waiting role in providing much of the strike to Raina. With UmarGul walking out of the field with hip strain, the Pakistan bowling looked pretty ordinary, SohailTanvir was not in his element to carry the extra responsibility in Gul's absence. Full credit to Raina and Sehwag in getting more than the required run rate with some good cricketing shorts and it was not just slam bang hitting. Sehwag picked up steam once he reached his fifty and went on to hit 5 sixes to get to his 9th ODI hundred after 3 years. Wish and hope Raina is retained at No 3 and most importantly performs to his potential. Earlier on it was Shoaib Malik's turn to belt the hapless indian bowling to reach his 2nd successive hundred in the AsiaCup with some good partnerships with Salman Butt and Younis Khan. As expected all the four test playing nations are in the Super Four league phase.

Srinath delivers four match ban for Collingwood for slow over rate, this is the first time i have heard that a English captain being banned. Kevin Peterson will lead the team in the decisive fifth ODI against the New Zeland, i wish rain does not spoil the great game. Australia takes on the West Indies in the 2nd ODI of the series and feel its advantage Aussies.

Euro-2008 :- Its Germany vs Spain in the finals on 29th and going by past records Germany starts favorites.

Spirit of the Game .... Dead ???

2008-06-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

There were days when the rival captains would respect each other and have gone to the extent of re-calling the batsmen after a wrong decision. I can recall the G.R.Vishwanath episode of recalling the England batsmen in the centenary test match and the batsmen scored a hundred, how can one forget Walsh gesture in stopping at the bowling crease with an opportunity to run out the batsmen but decided against in the spirit of the game. Its shame on England and Collingwood to have gone with the appeal against the batsmen when the players got collided. England is suppose to be the custodian of the game and the place where the game is said to have taken its roots has to resort to such unsportive methods to win matches.

NewZeland won the 4th ODI and setup a decisive 5th ODI in Lords for England to level the series. Vettori must be a very happy man to see his team win games in this disappointing tour, its one game away for them to win the series. NewZeland once again was successful in restricting the England to 240+ and won the match in the last ball on a overthrow. NZ had to score just 3 runs in the last over but dragged to score 2 of the last ball, an overthrow ensured that NZ won the match and lead the series 2-1.

AsiaCup Day-2 was again as expected with India and Srilanka winning by a huge margin. Not sure why Dhoni had to come in early in this game, i feel they have lost a good opportunity to provide a chance to Yousuf Pathan to bat freely in the early overs and get ready for the tough games. Dhoni at 4 or 5 is not going to help the team batting order he should be batting at 6 which will add lot of options in the end overs. R.Sharma needs get some runs today and make sure he is in the playing XI, i hope the message would have already gone to him that his place is not guaranteed.

Euro-2008 :- Mighty Germans makes it to the finals with score of 3-2 win over the fighting Turkey. It was the extra injury time goal which sealed the match for the Germans.

Celebrating 25 years of WorldCup Victory !!!!!

2008-06-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

It was great to see the sports pages of Newspapers, headlines in TV News channels and home page of most sports web-sites carrying the 25 years of WorldCup Victory celebrations cowered. The victorious team is traveling to London to auction the golden bat with autographs from the winning team members and the proceeds will be distributed among them. I am sure it will help few of the cricketers who have not been economically doing that well after their playing days.

BCCI needs to applauded for the work they have done before and after the victory, the board used the frenzy and innovated ways to popularize the game and win sponsorship deals. We are very fortunate to have such wonderful structured system in place, domestic tournaments,school level tournaments,world class stadiums, pension for former domestic and international players are all great things to have happened for game of cricket in India and the main reason for all this is the WorldCup victory. My Salute to the BCCI management over the years to have made this happen, i could point two former presidents who i feel had contributed immensely in this, 1) I.S Bindra was the first person to sell cricket and innovate ides to bring in money to the board, 2) Dalmiya, there has been lot of allegations against him but one can not dismiss the amount of good things he has done to the domestic cricket by selling international cricket, he implemented the pension scheme for the players, he made sure that the state associations get a share on the revenues generated by the board. Even now we hear that former hockey,basketball etc internationals live in poverty but i don't think that's the case with even the domestic players as for as cricket is concerned.

On the other side, 25 years have gone after we have won the WorldCup and still waiting... We have had few great cricketers in Azharuddin, Sachin, Dravid,Ganguly,Kumble,Srinath etc but we could not win the WorldCup for so long. The last worldcup debacle proved that team building is something which can not happen overnight with high profile coach's but need to happen over a period of time with good leaders who could bring the best out of the given players and stay level headed. BCCI has take more proactive steps like, getting the game to the village and rural areas rather than the city's to build great teams, the NCA is great start and we should be seeing results in few years from now.

As expected it was one sided games in the AsiaCup day 1. Australia beats West Indies by over 80+ runs in the 1st ODI with star performance from the IPL find Shaun Marsh scoring 84 in his first international match.

Euro-2008 :- First semi-finals between Germany and Turkey should be a great contest.

BCCI takes U-Turn

2008-06-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

It seems that Lalith Modi and I.S.Bindra are more powerful than the BCCI president when it comes to dealing with the ICL. Please read the message from Pawar few days back on the ICL players taking part in the T20 Champions League and the subsequent U turn the BCCI has taken in this respect.

"July 19th Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, has said that all teams participating in the proposed Champions League have the freedom to include players of their choice for the US$5 million multi-club Twenty20 tournament, even it means including players with ties to the unauthorized Indian Cricket League (ICL). But he placed the onus on letting such teams go through on the countries they represent and warned that the BCCI would then have the freedom to take its decision on the issue."

BCCI has even gone to the extent of asking Pakistan to be prepared with their domestic side in case ECB withdraws from this league. Its sad that the ECB is in such a mess that they can't say no to the players and also don't want to face the wrath of the powerful BCCI. I feel that BCCI is using all its powers to make sure that ICL is just dumped, sad that the young cricketers part of the league has to face the uncertain future. We all know the domestic cricketers who joined the league are mostly economically backward and could not resist the lure of big money. Hope BCCI atleast lets the players who are young a chance by letting them get back to their respective domestic state teams for the good of the game.

India Cements regained the Hindu trophy in the local tournament in Chennai, It was again the old horses performing in both the sides to make a match of it. Sharath and Suresh performed to make sure there was no surprises and for Chemplast it was again Ajay Kuduwa (Veteran kerala ranji star) and D.Vasu to perform, Vidyuth who scored a hundred in the semi-finals failed in the finals. Sharath seems to have the luck (atleast in domestic cricket) in picking man of the match, in spite of an all round display by IC captain Suresh (3 wickets and 39 runs) Sharath's 70 fetched him the Man of the Match. Sad that none of the youngsters made an impact in the tournament.

Euro-2008 : Yet another fancied team Italy is out of the contest and completes the weekend of upsets to a perfect finish.

Weekend of Upsets

2008-06-21T23:12:00.000-07:00

It has been a stunning weekend of upsets in the world of sports. New Zeland beats England in the 3rd ODI after losing the Tests and T20 games, West Indies beat Australia in the T20 game after losing the Test series, Turkey upset Croatia in a tie-breaker and Russia beats Netherlands to get into the euro-2008 semi-finals.

NewZeland did well to defend a very small total of 182 with some disciplined bowling and good fielding. From 42-4 NZ Elliott and Mills batted well to make sure they have a fighting total, the wicket was seaming and helping the fast bowlers. England batted poorly to lose wickets at regular intervals, other than Collingwood and Swann none of the others showed any intention to stay and reach the target, most of the wickets were poor short selection. Having said that one has to give credit to some good seam bowling from Southee to return figures of 4-38. NZ has finally won a match in this long England tour :-)

Australia some how is yet to get into winning T20 games, WI won a shortened game with some good batting from the young Marshall and all rounder Bravo. T20 specialists Shaun Marsh and Shane Watson did their best to get a reasonable score of 100+ in 11 overs but that was not enough for the hard hitting Marshall who hit 36 of 15 balls with 3 fours and 3 sixes, Bravo finished the match with a big six. Lee and Johnson were hit for over 50 runs in the first 4 overs and there was no coming back for the Australians.

Euro-2008 :- Nothing much on the results, it was just stunning that the favorites just crumbling under pressure and not so fancied sides in Turkey and Russia showed lot character to fight under pressure and pulling out some great shorts to hit the net.

Pawar powers ICL revival

2008-06-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

Sharad Pawar long time friend of Subash Chandra (Zee TV) owner of the ICL inflicts life into ICL. After the stupendous success of IPL, with the ban on cricketers playing the league and very low TRP rating for the league, it is almost done to the trash.

Pawar has given the ICL new lease of life by leaving the decision on the players involved in the league with the associated board and made it clear that ICC has got nothing against the players and they are eligible for the T20 Champions Trophy planned by the BCCI. Kapil must be a happy man now and should be taking the next logical step by fighting for selection of players from ICL for Team India. ECB is the major beneficiary of this move with many players playing in ICL are already playing in county cricket.

Yet another good game in the carrebian today, as its going to be T20 we can expect tight contest with big hitting WI take revenge for the test series lose. Australia with the new found success in IPL starts Shaun Marsh and Shane Watson should be fighting to gain supremacy in this format of the game.

Coming back to the local cricket politics, its sad that a former BCCI president should create problems to the smooth functioning of the TNCA. For the past 5-6 years the TNCA elections had no surprise and everything was dominated by the India Cements and had good understanding with other corporates like (MRF,Chemplast,TVS,India Piston's etc), now the old horse A.C.Muthiah raising issues on the way elections are conducted for the TNCA. Its sad that it has come out in the open and i am sure things will not be as smooth as it is now and one can expect few court cases and delay in executing the elections scheduled this month end. SPIC has not done anything good for cricket in the recent past, with its own teams in the lower division league from once 1st division champions. It will help local cricketers if he helps building a worthy team and bring back the glory days for their team.

Euro-2008 : Germany wins comfortably over Portugal with a 3-2 score line. Germany dominated through out the match with some great performance from Ballack,Podlosky and Klose backed up by the come back man Schweinsteiger starting with a stunning right foot goal and brilliant passing.

30 Minutes Break !!!!

2008-06-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

It was cruel to see a drawn game between England and the New-Zeland in the 2nd ODI because of bad whether and 30 minutes break in between the innings. NZ were chasing 162 of 24 overs and the revised target was 134 of 20 overs and the game stopped after 19 overs with NZ needing only 7 runs to win.

Why on earth the game needed a 30 minutes break when the players have already finished their lunch and the game was already shortened by rain and bad light. Umpires say that the rules does not allow a break lesser than 30 minutes, i just ridicule the rule and feel that the umpires should act according to match situations and apply some common sense as Vettori has mentioned. It was also some dirty tactics by Collingwood to slow the over rate to such a dismal 13 overs in the first hour and showed the umpires were not at all in control of the match. Sad that the patient 15000 + crowd had to wait so long and go back with such a result.

Somehow these Englishmen make news of even very ordinary things, if it gives their side some cheap publicity, i am referring to Peterson switch-hit short. So many players in the past have innovated shorts which brought them quick runs like reverse sweep,paddle sweep,hitting the ball behind the wicket-keeper etc etc but these English media and board did not care to probe but sensationalize the short played by Peterson, the media and the board got together to probe and come out with a clean chit on the short, even when NZ did not care to raise this as an issue as an opponent side. The English Cricket Media has surprised the world with such funny things in the past and continue to do the same in this information age too :-)

Euro-2008 - Its going to be a great night with rivals Ballack and Ronaldino fight in the quarterfinals (need to somehow make myself awake, as the match starts at midnight in this part of the world). Another great contest in the quarterfinals will be the match between Spain and Italy. I think it should be easy for Croatia and Netherlands facing Turkey and Russia respectively.

Umpires Credibility at Stake

2008-06-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

With the new trail umpiring decision review system to take off from the Srilanka-India series, its going to be immense pressure on the on-field umpires and their credibility at stake. Its true that in a truly professional system there is no scope for any mistakes but if too-many decisions are against the on-field umpires then its going to be tough on them. Overall its a good and bold decision by the ICC to try this out and make sure that human error does not change the course of the match. If this trial is successful, there should not be any restriction on the number of claims (now it is restricted to 3) and i also feel the third umpire should not be used for the LBW decisions, it is just not possible for a electronic system to show the path of delivery, may me it can be used for the ball pitching out side the leg stump,off stump decisions but surely not for the path or to assess the height of the ball for the LBW, all that depends on the pitch. I am sure there will be lots of issues if they go ahead with the Hawk Eye for the LBW decisions.

It is also going to test the true leadership of the on fielding team captains as they are the ones who will make the call to request for review. There is going to be some team planning on who should make use of the option while the team is batting, over all its interesting times and lots of scope for discussions on decisions.

Australian bench strength has yet again proved that they are too good. Katich after two successive century is not sure of his place in the XI for their tour to India. Australia has time and again proved that they play the sport with lot of commitment and give their best in the big stage. As Ponting has nicely put it, they are not demolishing the opponents but grinding them to victory these days, as almost 6-7 players have left the international stage in the past 10-12 months. It will be good to see how they perform in the up coming series against India in India.Its good that BCCI and senior team management has come up with a camp for the Test only players like Lakshman, Dravid, Kumble etc ahead of the series against the Australians.

On the Euro-2008, Italy came good once again to beat France and moved ahead to the quarterfinals. France had to leave the tournament with the lose against Italy.

Australia Wins Series 2-0

2008-06-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

The final score card on the Australia vs West Indies series is 2-0 but i feel the tests were fought much better than the end statistics.

Aussies had to earn the final test victory after some scary movements in the middle with Chanderpaul and Bravo set to take control on the proceedings to finish the game in their favor. It was some controlled aggression from Lee and Clark which put pressure on the WI batsmen to get out defending. Casson returned figures of 3-86 where the pitch had fair amount of turn.
But for two bad days, the final day in 1st test and the 3rd day in the final test, WI did match the world champions in all the departments. If Chanderpaul had some support from the other batsmen consistently, i feel the results could have been other way around. For the Australians it was the surprise success of Katich with big hundreds helped them with good starts and some special innings from Symonds in the crunch stages of the match helped Australia. Australia did struggle with the bowling lacking the ability to dominate the batsmen, Lee and Clark bowled well in patches but could not match the dominance of McGrath and Warne.

Kudos to ICC on taking some proactive moves in taking umpiring mistakes seriously and initiating some steps. Extract from cricinfo.

The ICC Board, had, in March, approved the trial of the review system during a Test series in the current cricket calendar. It will now have to approve its Cricket Committee's recommendations before the Sri Lanka- India series begins. The main elements are:

Umpires should still be permitted to refer line decisions or boundaries to the third umpire as normal without a player requesting him to refer that decision"
The players should be permitted to ask the on-field umpire to review any aspect of any other decision in consultation with the third umpire
The process should take the form and order of: on-field umpire gives his decision; affected batsman or fielding side's captain asks the umpire to review that decision; the on-field umpire(s) and third umpire consult; the on-field umpire gives his final decision
The committee recommended that Hawk-Eye technology could be used by the third umpire but only for the purposes of determining the actual path of the ball up until the point that it struck the batsman and not the predictor function of the technology

Lack of Attitude costs Team India Kitply Cup

2008-06-15T01:14:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Pakistani Team and Good Luck to Team India to pull their socks to perform better in the up coming Asia Cup. Pakistan batted brilliantly to score in excess of 300+ runs and backed up with some decent bowling and fielding. Toss seamed to be vital in the game, it was a reverse to the league game where India scored in excess of 300 runs and beat Pakistan comfortably and now it was Pakistan's turn to beat India in similar fashion but for some fight from Youraj and Dhoni to bring the game closer. The final score line may be closer but Indian batting was never in control chasing the big total.

It was poor bowling and bad fielding from the indian's that cost the finals, R.Sharma dropped a sitter and the way he reacted to that was not at all desirable. He was quick to defend himself giving some reason (lost in the crowd) for the lapse, any good cricketer will first feel bad or don't defend for putting down a catch. I am sure that our media is not doing any good to keep these new found hero's feat in ground.High time that these young cricketers realize that their place is not for granted. Ishant Sharma bowled well in patches but some how seems to have lost the trick to take wickets. Praveen Kumar bowled well but did not get any support from the other end to restrict the Pakistanis. I.Pathan suppose to be a bowling all rounder was feeding the batsmen with boundary's in each and every over and made things easy for the batsmen not to take any risks. Bhatt and Younis made sure that Chawla never settle down with controlled attack and he proved costly to finish gifting 85 runs in his 10 overs. Dhoni's in experience showed in rotating the bowlers, Yousuf Pathan was bowled only 2 overs when he bowled reasonably well. He also used too many bowlers (7) and never seemed to be in control. But for Youraj,Raina and Gambhir to an extent the fielding was not up to the mark with the classic example of praveen kumar who showed no intention of throwing himself to stop boundary's.

Indian batting order badly missed the services of experience batsmen who could come good in crunch situations. Sehwag disappointed once again when the team needs a good start. Gambhir showed glimpses of his class but not carrying it till the end, he has been doing well in the big stage in the recent past but failed today. R.Sharma,Raina,Y.Pathan all had the best opportunity to prove themselves and move to the higher league but failed to latch on to the chance that too after getting starts. Irfan the all rounder coming at the crunch stage of the match just could not raise to the occasion and also wasted some juicy full tosses and created lot of pressure on dhoni watching haplessly from the other end. Its time the selectors take some hard decisions on Irfan Pathan, he has been pretty ordinary with the ball and bat and has been hanging in the team with the T20 finals performance. Yuvraj and Dhoni considered as the future of Indian Cricket atleast in this format of the game, should lead from the front to win matches. Dhoni i feel should be more positive and play his normal game and not leave everything to the final overs, he took too much time to get his eye in, even when the asking run-rate was above 9 runs per over, he was satisfied with singles. Over All the team some how lacked the attitude to win big matches.

Full credit to Pakistan for coming back from a big defeat in the league phase to win the finals comfortably, most importantly they played as a team.

Croatia Beat Germany !!!!!!!

2008-06-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

Just wondering why this header ?? I just could not resist writing on the match between Croatia and Germany. Croatia played some stunning football and it was bad display by the star studded Germany. The first half was full of zest and phase with the ball in the D almost all the time, either it is the Germen's or Croatians. It was some superb passing and selfless game from the Croatians made them win the game, the first goal was a great pass in the D to make things easy for Srna to strike it past Lehmann in the 24th minute and it was missed opportunity from the Germans with Klose,Ballack missing some simple chances. Podolski finally scored for Germany to lose with score line 2-1.

Yet another absorbing 1st days play in the careebian with Australia finishing the day with 226-7. It was again Symonds who saved the day for the Aussies with a fine half century and put up a 75+ partnership with Haddin. At one stage Aussies were at 110 for 5 with the top order back in the pavilion with some good bowling and few bad shorts which cost Aussie wickets. Hussey and Jaques were out for some very ordinary shorts, pulling straight to the fielder. Bravo sent back Clark with a beauty, the ball pitched on the off stump and moved a shade to take the edge from the tentative Clark, Taylor's full length in-swinger got Ponting caught plumb in front. Ponting has been troubled by the in-coming deliveries in the recent past, Ishant Sharma also got him out with the sharp in coming ones, hope Ponting will get over that in time and practice. Now its up to the West Indies to take control of the match, they just need to bat well and post a big total to put Australia in pressure to win the match,provided play is not stopped by rain.

Yet another professional display from Team India to beat Bangladesh by 7 wickets with lots of overs left chasing a moderate total of 222. Gambhir and Sehwag should carry the good starts to the all important finals against Pakistan to take Team India to a series victory.

Will West Indies Level Series

2008-06-11T22:13:00.000-07:00

It was a hard fought contest in the 2nd test between West Indies and Australia, but for Tiffin's dubious decisions WI would have had a decent chance of going into the 3rd decisive test with much more confidence. WI has showed lot of character in putting up a good show against Aussies, one bad day in the 1st test changed the game and Australia won the match. Chanderpaul with 330+ runs in the two tests and Sharwan scoring a ton in the 2nd test has been in great touch, if Bravo and other top order clicks its not going to be easy for the Aussies.

Aussies have had some rest before the final test for the fast bowlers in BrettLee, Clark to get back into their stride and really go all out in this final test match. I think MacGill will not be missed much, with the inclusion of Casson the slow left arm bowler, they have the mix to take all the 20 WI wickets in the test. Not to mention that Aussie batsmen are in good nick with Ponting,Symonds,katich coming good and its time that Hussey comes good in this final test. All in all its going to be an absorbing tussle and we can expect some quality cricket over the next 4-5 days.

On the T20 frenzy, it seems that Antiguan-based billionaire Allen Stanford has designed a 5 match series between England and West Indies which is going to make the England players real rich and the price money is 20 Million which is huge compared to even the richly rich IPL. I am sure Lalith Modi is watching this development closely and with no doubt IPL will get even more richer by innovating sponsorship deals in the coming years to ensure that IPL stays on top.

Good Times for cricketing community all around the world.

Easy For Team India

2008-06-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

Team India players carried the form from the IPL to win yesterday's match by over 140+ runs. It will keep the confidence going for the young Indian team, its nice to see Sehwag is back among runs. Gambhir has been in very good nick and hope he continues with the form through out the season, Youraj has again proved that he is good on flat tracks with a half century. Praveen Kumar and Chawla took 4 wickets each to ensure a easy win for Team India.

Yousuf Pathan had forgettable debut with bat and ball, hope he comes good in the game against Bangladesh. P.Chawla is gaining confidence in every game he plays and has been proving that he can take wickets at regular intervals which is very important for any format of the game. Ishanth Sharma bowled well but some how he is lacking the ability to take wickets since the IPL, I feel that coach and the captain should give him confidence to get back to his best. After all he is the future for Indian fast bowling, even though bowlers in Praveen Kumar are performing well, i feel these guys (PraveenKumar,MunafPatel,IrfanPathan,R.P.Singh) are seasonal players and i doubt that they have the real ability to perform consistently well at the Test Level, these are bowlers who survive on few good performances with the conditions helping them to do that. We need bowlers who can dominate the batsmen and bowl spells where they could finish off the innings, not the kind who pick 5-150+ its not going to help the team win matches. I also feel these players attitude towards the game is very different on every small success from the ones who have played the game long with passion and great respect. I am little worried that youngsters like Rohith Sharma start to emulate these players with every little success.

This is great opportunity for the Indian selectors to infuse youngsters from the India Under 19 team to build a future with the level headed Dhoni in the helm of affairs.

Gony & Yusuf Pathan in Playing XI

2008-06-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

Two Indian IPL star performers in Gony and Y.Pathan is all set to get a chance in the playing XI in today's match against Pakistan. With Sehwag down with fever is a doubtful starter and in all probability R.Uthappa is to open with Gambhir. If the team management decides to play an extra batsmen then it should be Raina and if they decide on a bowler it will be Gony who will make it to the playing XI.

It should be a good contest, Pakistan unbeaten for last 12 matches and with some good rest should be raring to take on the tired but in touch Team India. Bowling looks little worrisome for India with the stick they have been receiving in the batsmen friendly wickets and they have to adjust quick to 50-50 and not think of 6 an over is good in T20 mind set. Wickets are more important in this format and the strike bowler in Ishant should fire and look for taking wickets. Dhoni will be missing the services of Sachin who was in brilliant form in the tri-series in Australia which India beat Australia in the finals with two big knocks from Sachin.

Slowly but surely Euro-2008 is getting into the living rooms, it was boring game between Romania and France ending a goal less draw but Netherlands were just too good for the World Champions Italy with final score line as 3-0.

Wet Welcome to Tri-Series

2008-06-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

As expected the first match between Bangladesh and Pakistan was delayed by rain and restricted to 40 overs a side. Pakistan won the match comfortably with contributions from Salman Bhatt, Mohammed Yousuf, Misbah in batting and Afridi chipping with three wickets. Only batsmen to score for Bangladesh was Ashraful with 50+. Given that its monsoon season for Bangladesh, hope and wish we get full 50 overs of play this Tuesday when Team India takes on Pakistan.

NewZealand lost the 3rd test by an innings with out much fight, except for MacCullam and Flynn no batsmen showed any inclination to fight it out. A quick-fire unbeaten 50 by Oram will help his confidence going. With the overcast whether and pitch assisting seam bowling SideBottom made full use of the conditions to pick 6 wickets to rap up the new Zealand innings. The series started off well with both teams fighting to win the 1st test, the 2nd test could have gone either way but in the 3rd Test but for the 1st day when england were 89-5 , through out the test it was England's game.

Modi seems to be the man behind creating all possible means to make full use of the frenzy the T20 format has created. Yes I am referring to the Champions Trophy for T20 champions from all over the world. The format is like two top teams from each country will fight it out for the Champions Trophy. Its early days in conceptualizing the event and one can only except good things from this man Modi. One sad part is that no one from the ICL is eligible for this tournament even though they play domestic cricket for these teams in their respective country or county. Mode is hell bent on sending the ICL to trash.

Anderson demolishes Kiwis

2008-06-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

It was great exhibition of swing bowling by the young talented Anderson which demolished New Zeland to 120+. Die hard cricketers must have watched two days of great cricket action. 1st day England was 89-5 and Peterson and Ambrose played the waiting game and saved the day and England finished respectably with 350+ in day 2. Anderson and Sidebotton never let the Kiwi batsmen to settle down. The deliveries that saw the back of MacCullum and Taylor was beauty and testimony to great control of swing bowling. The ball seamed of the wicket so much, that only disciplined bowling could keep the ball on target and thats what Anderson did and did that very well. Anderson is a good bowler and it is very unfortunate that he has not been used properly by the England team. He has been in and out of the team because of the senior bowlers like Hoggard, Flintoff etc.

Tuesday 10th, India will take on Pakistan in the tri-nation tourney in Mirpur and the weather news is not that good. I wonder how the various cricket boards schedule tournaments when its monsoon in the hosting country. Anyway lets hope that rain gods show some mercy on bangladesh which almost always is hit by hurricanes and heavy rains. Indian middle order is young and in-experienced with just Dhoni and Yuvraj to have played some amount of the ODI. This should be a good opportunity for the youngsters like Rohit Sharma,Raina,Gambhir to stake a permanent place in the Indian squad. Players like Yousuf Pathan, Ohja should get fair chance to prove their talent in the two tournaments to stay in the scheme of things in the ODI format of Indian Cricket.

Its heartening to see that the selectors have rewarded performance, Gony is replacing Sreesanth, even though he should have been in the original squad in place of players like R.P.Singh who has not shown any sign of returning to form.

I have a feeling that this Tri-series and the Asia Cup will not generate big interest from the viewers as they are yet to recover from the IPL hangover. Also events like Euro-2008 will divide the viewers and yet again its time to fight in the living room to get control of the TV from the women folk back to watching the Great Indian Soaps.

Why CSK lost the Finals ?

2008-06-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

It was a great gesture from Dhoni to say that CSK lost as a team and that he does not want to point at any one turning point for losing the finals. The whole team should be feeling lot better to hear their captain backing the team and not pointing to any individual for the loss.

I am sure CSK Team Management for cricket affairs would have started to analyze where the team went wrong and what were the crucial mistakes committed by the team, starting from the team selection to the last over in the finals. There will be an overall team performance analysis and the finals in particular.

I have tried to bring out the reasons which cost the trophy for CSK.

1. From the team selection point of view, why would CSK need the seventh batsmen in SriLankan Kappuganera in a T20 match? He has scored all single digit scores in the previous 4-5 games and never looked in control. It is the captain who has all along in the tournament said that their bowling is the weak link, then why not take a fifth bowler in Joginder Sharma. Agreed that he has not bowled that well in IPL but he would added variety to the bowling attack and would have bowled much better than balaji in the death overs.

2. Why would Dhoni send in Badrinath after kappuganera? Badri has been in very good form in the second part of the IPL and has won couple of games for CSK. I am lost on why Badri should be sent after the SriLankan batsmen. Its agreed that if he had scored quick runs, we would have talked other wise, but why would some one gamble when you have good batting line up and that too in the finals. I am not blaming Dhoni for every thing that has gone wrong. Its the team management, which includes the coach.

3. Dhoni has been the only captain who has not used the part time bowlers at any stage of the game. Vidyuth has taken lot of wickets in domestic cricket and was selected as an all rounder for the India Under-19 team. Being a left armer he would add lot of variety to the bowling, why not try him even in a single match ?? Badrinath, Raina are bowling regularly for their state teams in the domestic tournaments. I think Dhoni has to make use of these talents better than to just use the specialist bowlers. It becomes quite predictable for the opposition in such a long tournament.

4. Why would a captain finish his successful bowler Goni early and not make use of him in the end overs. Relying on Balaji, who does not have the pace or bite to create doubts in the batsmen to be used in last overs is pathetic. Balaji should have completed his spell by 15th over of the innings, there was a lot of pressure while chasing as the run rate climbed in the middle overs. The main strike bowlers should be used in the end overs. I feel Murali has not been used as a wicket taking bowler through-out the tournament. He was used as a bowler to restrict the run-rate but as the world has seen he is one of the finest wicket taking bowler in any form of cricket. He should have been the strike bowler for CSK but he has been turned out to play a very small part in the CSK run to the finals.

There were lapses in fielding and catching in the finals which also cost CSK the finals but these are bound to happen in a pressure finals where lot other things are at stake other than cricket. Hope CSK will come strong for the second edition of IPL and Dhoni will mature as a captain and use the available resources well.

Victims of IPL

2008-06-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

After the grand success of the IPL, there are few victims of the new found money minting league in world cricket. Great players like Hayden,Sachin,Akhtar are unfit for national duty. Sachin came into the later part of the IPL to help his city team Mumbai Indians and every one thought he was fully fit but, he has aggravated his injury and out of action for Indian teams ODI tournament. Hayden's heel injury is said to have been sustained in the early stages of the tour to the West Indies but i doubt that he should have aggravated an injury carried through the IPL. If players with such good fitness fail to take this format, one can imagine the fate of players like Zaheer,M.Karthick etc who are prone for injuries and again not fit for selection.

IPL is played in the peak summer in India, Even the 3 hours T20 game will drain the players and the way the matches are scheduled with just one day break and hell a lot of traveling as, one home and away is the scheme of things and the kind of noise in the stadiums in sub-continent could take everything from the players.In one of my earlier posts I had mentioned that its very tough on the players and it has proved right.

I am a great fan of Sachin and have come across articles which point to, that he never would want to miss a match and its sad that he has been missing many international matches on lack of fitness. Wish Sachin saves his fitness for some more years to play Test Cricket for India, rather than playing the numerous T20 games.

Empty Stands

2008-06-03T22:11:00.001-07:00

Where have the crowds for Test Cricket gone is the first thing that hits us badly when you get to see empty stands for Test Cricket and that too in West Indies (WI). WI suppose to be a place where crowds swell and fans waiting for their turn to get into the stadium but the stadium was just empty on the 5th day play between WI and Aus. Some brilliant batting by Sarwan and Chanderpaul saved the test for WI, but there were hardly any fans to applaud the great innings.

With the big success of the IPL, i fear that the same empty stands will be seen even in India for test cricket few years from now. BCCI has successfully marketed cricket into the living rooms with whole of the family taking part in the viewing, but i feel it should also keep in mind that it should not end up over doing it. Come 2009, IPL will be played between 1st week of April to end of May, the tournament is followed by the T20 World Cup which i am sure will not get the same attention as it did in the T20 World Cup last time around. I am confident that BCCI will take note of this and keep the interest going in all possible way.

ICC is delving with some idea to bring in the crowds to the stadium with restrictions on number of overs for each innings in Test Cricket, in my opinion it will kill the joy of watching great tussle between the bat and the ball. The idea will make things interesting but take out the sheen out of Test cricket and will become more predictable over time. ICC needs to act quickly to save the game from the slam bang cricket, I am not against the new formats of the game but I plead to save the game CRICKET in the true sense.

Tiffin picks 3 of 5

2008-06-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

In a late afternoon bust from Brett Lee, West Indies (WI) collapsed from 314 for 4 to 352 all out. Lee bowled quick and some great in swingers to unsettle the batsmen. Lee returned figures of 5 for 59 with the help of some questionable decisions from umpire Tiffin. Going to the final day, Australia is leading by 350+ runs and well poised to beat WI in the 2nd Test.

WI was sailing comfortably with Chanderpaul and Bravo batting well and showed promise to take WI score past 400+ with out any further wickets but then at this point Tiffin played a very vital part in 3 dismissals. Bravo played one on the leg side and the ball hit the thigh pads and Haddin collected the ball, Lee and Haddin appealed and Tiffin obliged the same and Bravo was visibly upset. The TV replay clearly showed that Tiffin got it wrong. The very next ball Lee sent in a quick yorker and the ball hit the batsmen outside the line of off stump and again umpire Tiffin raised his finger. The very next over of Lee, the same umpire, same delivery and the same result and this time it was Sammy who was unfortunate to take the wrong decision. Lee (Tiffin) took 3 quick wickets and the rest of the tail just perished. In the mean time Chanderpaul, the lone fighter for WI made his 19th hundred.

I feel sad for the WI and do not understand why the umpires are hesitant to refer to the 3rd umpire on close calls. I feel its time that the technology should be used to the maximum to avoid issues like these, which change the course of the match. I am not saying every decision should be referred to the 3rd umpire but i feel the 3rd umpire should get into action if the replay shows that the decision was wrong. After all umpires are human and bound to make mistakes, all the players and umpires are professionals and i am sure will take things in stride and move on if a wrong decision is made and the 3rd umpire reverts the decision.

There has been lot of instances like this in the recent past ( Steve Buckner IND vs AUS, Rudy Kursten Aus vs SriLanka etc etc) and hope ICC will take some decisions on this soon.

IPL will be Missed

2008-06-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

India had the best 45 days of cricatainment in a long long time, every indian family enjoyed the T20 contest to the core and the success of the IPL needs to be applauded. We should be thanking the man behind the show Lalit Kumar Modi for providing us with such wholesome entertainment.

It was a wonderful finals with all the elements one could ask for in a finals, congratulations to Rajasthan and thanks and good luck to Chennai Super Kings on providing us a fantastic contest. I have no doubt that its going to be even more exciting and big in the next edition of IPL.

It has become a habit of rushing to home in time to catch the action live and talk endlessly on what happened in the previous evening's game and prospects of each and every team in the middle of the tournament, taking sides, heated arguments, lighter comments etc etc

We all are going to miss IPL.

Dhoni crushes Yuvraj !!!!!!

2008-05-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Chennai Super Kings crushed Punjab Kings XI in the 2nd semi-finals of the first edition of the IPL. Yet again it was a one sided game and full marks to CSK for some spectacular performance in all the department of the game. Ntini bowled his heart out and as usual Goni bowled some superb overs in the start and sealed the fate of Punjab Kings XI. I am sure CSK planned well to restrict S.Marsh, bringing in Murali with the new ball and creating some doubt in the batsmen, followed by some superb fielding and catching. Murali's catch to see the back of Yuvraj was great effort and seeing Ntini a fast bowler throwing himself to save the boundary and bouncing back to throw Pathan out is just amazing and shows the kind of commitment and how well the team jells. After losing too many quick wickets Punjab never came back into the game.The gesture by pathan throwing the bat to break few things in the stadium (sure few glass panes would have been broken in the dressing room) shows that they have lost the game there and had no heart to fight back.

Raina and Patel played some great shorts and showed that they can perform in pressure conditions. The drubbing against the RCB chasing 120+ has served the team well to keep their heads cool and play normal cricket and not get over confident.Its sad that Vidyut had to get out early, this has been the big problem with the TamilNadu cricketers, there is lot of talent but fail to perform on the big stage where performances will get noticed.Over all it was professional performance by the Chennai Super Kings.

Its true that in this format of cricket, one cannot count on the past performances and every game is a new game and the performance on that day makes the winner and loser. Doni and V.B Chandra also shares the same view and in fact V.B feels that the game changes every few deliveries. It has been disappointing to see one-sided games in both the semi-finals and wishing to see some high scoring in the finals and all that depends more on the grounds men rather than the players, if the wicket is going to play true it should be a great game.

Rajasthan has a slight edge over Chennai with upbeat on confidence and all the important members of the squad are in form (except kaif) and shane leading from the front with lot of energy should do lot of good to the team, having said that cricket is a game of luck and Doni has plenty of that so anything can happen :-)

Shane(s) Dream Run Continues

2008-05-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

It was a no contest in the 1st semi-finals of the IPL and was a disappointing display by the Delhi Daredeviles. Nothing much to write about the match, it was some brilliant performance from the hard hitting Rajasthan batsmen combined with disciplined bowling and some brilliant catching made it too easy for the Rajsthan to win the game.Delhi lost the game half way into the first session, they were not in control of the bowling and dropped some simple chances which did no good to the team to fight back. As usual Sehwag failed to fire in the crunch games and the team never looked to give a fight from the dismissal of Gambhir.

Shane Watson is having a dream run in the IPL and playing his best cricket ever. He has been consistent with the bat and the ball and the confidence is translated to the other members of the team with some great motivation from the coach and captain Warne. They combine so well as a team that it seems that they cannot go wrong. The Wankade pitch was playing true and the ball came on to the bat nicely and the hard hitting batsmen took total advantage of the same and made merry with some great hits from Shane Watson and Y.Pathan.

No prediction or gut feel :-) for today's 2nd semi-finals, from the overall performances in the league stage Punjab starts as favorites. Chennai has a slight psychological advantage of winning both the games in the league stage but Punjab has played some good cricket since then. Punjab has a very strong batting line up and with S.Marsh going great guns, it takes some miraculous performance from the Chennai to win this contest. I wish the 2nd semi-finals is closely contested and not like the disappointing 1st semi-finals.

Its Delhi Today !!!!!

2008-05-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

I am sure the whole of India is eagerly waiting for the 1st semi-finals to start tonight. Its going to be a tight contest with both the teams evenly balanced and the key players in good form. Taking the Wankade pitch into consideration, I feel Delhi has a good chance to win this contest. The pitch has favored good seam bowling in the league phase and with Asif and McGrath spear heading the attack its not going to be easy for Smith and Asnodkar to belt the ball as they have been doing in the tournament. Smith will be handy but i am not confident that he can raise the run-rate at will. If todays pitch plays good for seam bowlers, its not going to be easy for Rajasthan batsmen (except kaif) as all of them are good stroke players and would like the ball to come on to the bat. As for as Delhi batting is concerned, they have batsmen who play the waiting game in Gowtham and Dhavan, even though Shewag is the key batsmen for delhi, they have good bits and pieces cricketers in Karthik,Dhilshan,Maroof who can chip in with some good hitting in the end overs.

If its going to be belter of a pitch, its advantage Rajasthan as they have the most power hitting players in Asnodkar, Y.Pathan, Watson, Jadeja, Warne and Tanver. Rajasthan has also given ample rest to the top players like Smith,Tanver and Warner himself not playing the last league match should be fresh to play in the semi-finals. As for as Delhi is concerned, batting is their strength and if Shewag clicks i am sure no score will be too big to chase. If Delhi wins the toss, they should bowl first and restrict Rajasthan to 170-180 and chase the total comfortably with players in form like Gambhir,Dhavan should chip in with good contribution. I feel it will be advantage for the Rajasthan side if they bowl first, as Delhi does not have the bowling line up to restrict scores even over 180+. The only problem with the Rajasthan side is, they have not been pushed to the corner in the tournament yet, hence might not react quickly on pressure conditions. Take into consideration that they were not fancied in the early stages of the tournament, so there is no pressure but now they are the favorites and the whole world is expecting to see Rajasthan win, thats a huge huge pressure on the side.

My Gut feeling says that Delhi will win this game and move to the Finals, don't ask me why Delhi :-)

True Cricket -- Test Cricket

2008-05-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

IPL took all the front page space and news headlines in the country with very little space left for other sports and also for other format of cricket - Test Cricket. Two good matches involving England vs NewZeland and Australia vs West Indies ended last week with some spectacular performances. England chasing 290+ in the fourth innings to win over NewZeland and Australia as usual starting the series with a win.

Strauss match winning hundred in the 4 th innings overshadowed RussTaylor's 158 and Vettori's 5 wickets in the England 1st innings. Ponting scored a brilliant 150+ and Symonds came up with scores of 70+ in both the innings to win the game for Australia. Chanderpaul's fighting hundred in the 1st innings went in vain as Clark bowled his heart out to take 5 wickets in the 2nd innings to secure victory for the Australians.

Shaun Marsh Find of IPL

Coming back to IPL, Shaun Marsh going great guns with 500+ runs in 10 matches, KXIP has benefited immensely with his dream run. He has played some brilliant knock and what makes him so special is, he did not slog but played some superb shots from the book. IPL was meant to bring out the best young talent in the country, I am not sure if india has gained much but Australia found a great batsmen in Marsh. He is already in the Australian one day squad and hope veteran Hayden will make way for the youngster in other format of the game (Test Cricket). Its just amazing that, he bats lower middle order for his state (Western Australia) and has just been comfortable opening and got adjusted to the sub-continent conditions.

Advantage Chennai Super Kings

2008-05-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

After some nail bitting moments in the end overs finally Chennai Super Kings has made it to the semi-finals and up against the Kings XI Punjab. CSK enjoys clear advantage over KXIP as CSK has won both the matches in the league. Delhi meets Rajasthan in the other semi-finals and it should be a good contest.

Ntini and Goni bowled some very good overs in the start and as usual well supported by Murali and Balaji in the end to restrict DC to 147 and Raina came good with some good partnership with dhoni to finish of the game with a majestic six. CSK could have won the match much earlier if the openers had played their part well, Parthiv and Fleming has not performed consistently well in the early overs and hope they will come good in the semi-finals.

In the post match interview, dhoni's comments on the bowlers does not stand good. CSK has bowled well in most of the games and restricted the opposition to below 160-180, In my opinion the batsmen has not been playing that well, they have not dominated the proceedings of the game after Hayden and Hussey left. It has been a struggle for the CSK to reach scores of 160+ and hope we don't forget the brushing against the RCB. I also don't understand why he should drop Vidyut who has shown glimpses of character with some good knocks, i dont think there is any chance for Abhinav to prove any thing in this format when he is not going to bowl and bat lower in the order. CSK think tank needs to work on a strategy and play with the full strength and stop experimenting.

I am sure Kings XI Punjab is going to come back with a vengeance to beat CSK after losing both the league games and Preety Zinta will be pulling the Mumbai crowd to support her team with her celebrity status. Its sad that the semi-finals and finals host city team Mumbai Indians is out of the tournament.

Its going to be a power packed week-end for the Indian Cricket enthusiasts and the whole of India as IPL has attracted the whole family to the stadium or hooked up to the TV sets to watch the games.