Australia back on Top

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 ??

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 .........

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

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

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

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

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.