Insipid ...

Insipid ... i can just about imagine the discussion at the team meeting before the first test between India and Sri lanka... the Indian team cannot possibly leave out a senior, that is just not done you see. In Indian society, seniority is everything, ability... thats ok, good sometimes, to have it around when your in a really tight spot, but seniority is everything, basically means you don't have to do jack for as long as you want since you did something about 5 years back, which, of course seems like yesterday, some actually think it was yesterday, since the TV channels have nothing else of note to show.

It is beyond comprehension why every Indian team slips back to the same problem, Mr Ganguly actually looked like he was changing things during his captaincy, but , as has allways been with Indian cricket, people don't know when to move on or step aside or take a break, or prioritize...

If India has to keep going into a test in "familiar" conditions with 6 batsmen plus a wicketkeeper batmen and only four bowlers there is very little chance of India ever being a team that can consistently challenge the best in the world in test cricket... in the off test, with one bowler doing an outstanding job, is the only victories India will get, never the team bowling performance, non of the, 'hunting as a unit stuff'.

A lot of people were surprised by the way the South African selectors have dropped and shocked some of the so called legends in the South African team, every time they have done this , whether they have done this with the intention of getting a better performance or because they have to implement a system of 'positive discrimination', it has worked in some way. Shaun Pollock, probably one of the top ten all rounders in the last 25 years of test cricket was given more than a nudge... if anyone has been watching the new brigade of South African fast men bowl you would see the merit they see in getting some young promising men into test cricket when they are still bowling fast.

That of course brings us to the quite fascinating point about fast bowlers in India over the last 10 years. If you want to see them bowl fast you have to catch them in there first two seasons, after which they become ginger, dodder up and let it float in with the seam up bowlers.

Some statistics are absolutely staggering, if you have the time and patience look up the bowling averages of all the Players who have bowled for India in test matches at home since around 2003... it is shocking!

oh boy..... we have a winner!

oh boy.... we have a winner.... wwwwwwwe have a winner... in the right corner , wearing the dark blue pajamas...weighing in at just over 65 kilograms... today he is 23 years 132 days... hailing from
Moratuwa...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajantha Balapuwaaaaaaaaaaaaaduge Winslooooooo Mendisssss...

wake up everyone, we just missed the bus.... boy oh boy oh boy!

the jack is out of the box.

obviously... the boys are working hard!

those of you very jobless, or cricket obsessed people out there would have picked up who i am picking on...

... what a dys cricket, the second test indian vs england, sunshine and the prospect of watching SRT and SCG bat... and hoping for a glimmer of VVSL.
... unfortunately i forgot to mention in my wish that i was hoping to watch something entertaining, not just watch them bat, but thats exactly what i got.

Watching Sachin prod at Ryan Sidbottom makes my pulse slow to the point where i am probably in the same mental state as Sachin himself, not enough blood flowing to the top story.

It is such a shame to watch him live today on one channel and with a simple click watch a replay of the Sachin pre tennis elbow( to be referred to as TE for now on).
I just hope somebody out there has the mustard to tape a couple of comparison innings and show it to the man, if he has already seen this and is still batting like this it is a crying shame.

saurav, has and will be the most loved and vilified cricketer of this generation, he is the typical bong who has no clue how inept he is and rides of his inert overconfidence and carries his weight through... and i hate to say this, but is some style ...eh, dada.

The hook/pull of Tremlette was quite super, what set the day up was the off side play... beauty.

Jimmy Anderson seems to have a lot in common with Ajit Agarkar. David 'bumble' loyde, when he is not doing his imitation of "Pelvis Resley", calls this breed of bowlers... 'daisy' bowlers. Whatever you want to call them, i am not sure how many you can carry in a team in the hope that on there "day" they can win a match singlehandedly.

Sreesanth... get a life mate.Go out, meet some women, drink a few beers. bowling a cricket ball is NOT complicated... your mind is messing with you. It is all up there is the top story. ...And the next time your walking to the top of your run, look into the crowd, enjoy yourself a bit, when you turn to start the run, pick a spot your going to land the ball and bowl as fast as you can.

When did Mr Bucknor disguise himself as Mr Simon.T?

...Somebody going to get a hurt real bad.

... May the KUMBH meLa begin.

ahhh..ha ... Mr side-bottom

Ryan Sidebottom... thank you mate.

Well... the man is an inspiration. One would have thought that with the debut he had and the rather unique distinction in the making, (being the only father and son combination to have played only one test , the debut), he would have played out his county career without too much fuss and faded away into the cricket quiz books that sell ever so well in the Indian subcontinent.

I have to apologize to my large (mythical) readership for my elongated absence from this space. I have to make a confession now. One of the reasons i started this blog was, i was hoping to discover if i have the capacity, will etc to write on a consistent basis about the one thing i spend most of my time and energy on.

I have discovered one thing for sure, i am irrationally effected by the performance of a few teams in international cricket and even more effected by the adequateness of the modern game.

For god's sake... that was the worst world cup in the history of world cups, any sport.

I was really hopeful, the eternal optimist in me, that the final would be a great match and we would have something positive to remember cricket world cup 2007. As it turned out... utter farce. I was squirming at the thought of all the kids around the world looking at there dads and mums and begging them to change the channel. It hurt to think of all those people who never watch cricket or have never watched cricket and have tuned in to watch this big thing called a world cup final.

It's very simple, the future of the game has been seriously jeopardised and that joke of a governing body does only what it has always done, blame all and sundry for anything that they think might have gone wrong, which in itself is a big achievement cause, as the showed again they seemed to have watched a completely different world cup from the rest of the world, as they clame it was a "very successful tournament".

Coming back to Mr Sidbottom. Sir you are an inspiration, but i hope you have the courage to realize that your beautiful clame to fame was the possible record that stood for six years, which, if you play another test for England will be lost.

Well after having a very difficult last few months at work i have been forced into a break with a 'dental' problem... this of course means that in between tripping on my anti-biotic s, dealing with pain and sleeping i will get to watch some cricket.
cheers to that.

The Uglier Side of the Game

The worst traits of human quality have been laid bare during this World Cup tournament. I am sure a lot of people have been saying this WC will be remembered for all the wrong things: murder, retirements, resignations etc, but there is something much deeper that is the cause of all this. A thrashing in a test series never solicits this sort of knee-jerk reaction from every nook and corner of the world, but the ODI game does. Even though all cricketers say that Test Cricket is the "real" game, it seems to be the ODI game that ends their time in the middle. What a shame for a game that is so much greater that just a 100-over duel in the middle.

Eventually, like all wars and crimes, this effect can be put down to commercial reasons and perhaps much more. Human follies like ambition, anger, insecurity and jealousy have come to the fore in this tournament as never before. Expectations are woefully inflated and anything short of reaching the finals seems to constitute failure. Why is so much importance given to this tournament and this form of the game? This is not like football, where WC is the be-all and end-all of the international game. Here, test cricket is the main thing, but still the ODI game is influencing decisions in the test arena. That is quite unpardonable. A 5-0 Ashes whitewash didn't produce such extreme reactions. Perhaps that's why Australia is the most successful team: not only are they the best and most confident, they have the best perspective. They lost the Ashes and haven't looked back since. Other teams have lost test matches (England) and won ODIs (SA, England, NZ) and thought everything would be fine for the WC, but clearly not.

ODI cricket draws so much money for the national boards and the ICC, that it now assumes the centre-stage in the game, at least when it comes to decision making. Failure in this form of the game means it is no longer a sustainable sport and so both the people (who mostly prefer ODI cricket) and the boards think it essential to take action and put undue pressure on the players and staff. This not only affects their performance in the middle but also exacerbates the situation off-field. Players quit, coaches leave and captains resign. The weight of expectation created by the frenzy, hype and commercial aspect of the ODI game brings out these worst qualities: ambition, greed, envy, anger and meekness.

For all of us who truly love the sport, all this comes at a huge cost and big disappointment. We like to watch good cricket and are not particularly phased by who loses or wins. In cricket, what's more important is how you play rather than how you perform. You'd rather see a classy 50 in a losing cause by a team you support rather than a grinding match-winning 100 by another player from the same team. Cricket is much more than a sport where only winning and losing matters. A winner is a winner, whether they win or lose. The only loser in this story are we who enjoy the game, who'll never get to see Lara bat ever again.

BCL

Read Rahul Bhattacharya's article in cricinfo The last king of Trinidad and not much more need be said on this, one of the saddest days ever in the history of the sport.

Easter ode to Eden

The World Cup meanders on, one exciting match, but most of the exciting action is happening in India. The BCCI were very responsible yesterday and today by retaining Dravid as captain and making people like Ravi Shastri coach, since he is closely linked with Indian cricket, is a respected critique of it, and will now have the opportunity to contribute to it directly. Whether by selecting a "young side" for the Bangladesh tour, the BCCI mean dropping Sachin, Sourav and Harbhajan we'll have to wait and see.

But today, on this Holy weekend for 2 billion people around the world, I want to address a different issue of the BCCI. Some time last year, the Subcontinent won the bid to host the 2011 World Cup. This was a great source of joy to all of us who may be there at the time and get to watch cricket's next flagship event. Some time in July last year, BCCI secretary Modi suggested that the Finals would be played in a brand-new stadium built in Delhi. That of course excited a lot of people, especially me, as I feel India's Capital needs a world-class and Big cricket venue. This would be the best opportunity and would also showcase India's Capital a year after it hosts the Commonwealth Games. All in all, it would be great for Indian cricket and the World Cup in general. The statement Modi made was very categorical and hopeful.

However, in December the BCCI back-tracked, as is so common these days, and said that the Finals would be hosted in Mumbai. That's one of the most disastrous things I've heard in my life. Since Pawar has come to power, virtually all international cricket matches played in India have been played in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat! What the hell has happened to the rest of India? Here and there some ODI games have been played at Goa and Jamshedpur and Guwahati, but most Test Matches of note and the Champions Trophy were played within these three states; may be a couple of games at Mohali. The rotation policy of venues seems non-existent, and even then, there are way too many venues in the fray. Sure India has 1.1 billion people and so you need to have many venues to take cricket everywhere and make everyone happy. That's fine for ODI matches for touring countries, but I still feel test matches should be circulated within 6 or 7 venues in all.

With no disrespect intended, unless they build a new stadium in Mumbai (there's no space to do so in that city), Wankhede and Brabourne are definitely not worthy of hosting a WC Finals. I have watched Test Matches in all major test venues in India, except Mohali, and can safely say that Wankhede was the worst of the lot. Not only was it the smallest stadium and least impressive of grounds, it was also a horrible venue: broken wooden seats on rusty iron beams, bad access to the ground, crowd that booed its greatest cricketer, and a generally below-par venue to watch a good cricket match; even though Mumbai is the centre of the cricketing universe. It will be a shame if this stadium hosts the 2011 Finals. Brabourne is probably a better venue, but the size of the stadium and quality of pitch remains disappointing. Just because Pawar is BCCI President doesn't mean that Mumbai has to host everything!

Whatever happened to India's, and perhaps the world's, greatest venue, the Eden Gardens? 110,000 fans, beautiful outfield, outstanding pitch, fantastic stadium set on the north side of the world's largest urban park, overlooked by the imperious High Court, attended by among the most knowledgable and passionate of spectators. EG provides it all: it is the obvious venue to host a WC Finals in the subcontinent. However, according to the BCCI, it won't even be fortunate enough to host a semi-finals in 2011. What a shame! OK, fine, Pawar hates Dalmiya and so Calcutta will get nothing (there's not been a test match there since March 2005), but Dalmiya is no longer at the helm. What's the problem now, revenge? Mumbai still got its fair share when Dalmiya was in power!

In my mind, there are only three world class venues presently in India taking everything into account. Eden Gardens easily takes the cake, but Mohali and Bangalore's Chinnaswamy are the other two that come 2nd and 3rd. If they built a new stadium in Delhi, I'm sure it would be equally worthy, but sadly neither of the Mumbai stadiums nor the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai are as good as they should be, let alone as good as the ones mentioned above. Being a half-Bengali, half-Punjabi from Bangalore, I may be considered biased, which I'm sure I am, but you only need to visit (or even see on TV!) matches at these various venues to realise what I'm trying to say. I hope the BCCI changes its mind some time in the next 3 years.......

Not knowing how many teams will play in the next World Cup and what the format will be, it is too early to speak, but it has already been decided that the Opening Ceremony will be in Dhaka, the two Semi Finals in Colombo and Lahore and the Finals in Mumbai. What kind of games, if any, will Calcutta, Bangalore, Mohali and Chennai host? May be Ireland vs Bangladesh!

What else can I say.......

Have we been silent for the past 10 days because of shock or remorse or disgust? I'm sure the answer is a combination of all the above emotions. But certain things also make our silence humorous. The funniest thing being that yesterday a nation of 1.1 billion people were supporting Bermuda, a country 17,000 times smaller! Hell, there are as many people living in Bermuda as there are in my neighbourhood. So, for them to be playing an international game is like us taking our evening cricket team to the World Cup! This to me is just hilarious. That a country with 66,000 people can produce a team while India with 1.1 billion people struggle to beat much smaller nations, nations which should have much smaller talent pools and so on. Something's grossly wrong with the world. Mind you, Bermuda put up a good fight and I'm sure when Bangladesh were 37/3, a few Indian hopes were rising out of slumber while Bangladeshi nerves must have been jangling.

India's performance against Sri Lanka notwithstanding (India should have beaten them; chasing 250+ against Sri Lanka has been like a walk in the park for India over the last 18 months), it is India's performance against Bangladesh that will come to haunt them. May be it was just the way the coin flipped at the toss that hurt Dravid's men the most. Two weeks into the tournament we know it's much better to chase a target (unless you are Australia), but at the time I'm sure the team decided to bat first: mainly because Bangladesh should be an easy team to win against and so batting first would give good batting practice to India's batsmen and then the bowlers would have an opportunity to bowl B'desh out cheaply and provide a huge boost to India's NRR. Similar to what India or SL did against Bermuda and Aus or SA against Holland. Unfortunately none of that happened as people with a combined experience of about 2000 matches and 40,000 runs buckled "under pressure" against a team with maybe a fifth or tenth of those statistics. Pressure cannot be an excuse. It is brought upon the players not only by 1.1 billion supporters, but also by the players themselves who have set a high standard in the game; make no mistake about that. They are 11 out of 1.1 billion because they can handle that pressure and still perform to compete with the best in the world.

The fact that they buckled two times out of three in this World Cup means that something in the system didn't encourage them to perform. I still think the biggest factor was that Sachin did not open the batting. Yes Sehwag, yes Uthappa, yes Ganguly, but when it comes to opening the batting in One Day International Cricket, only one man stands. As far as I'm concerned, you could do anything with the other three batsmen coming in at 2,3 and 4, but SRT had to open. He loves leading from the front. He also possesses the technique to attack and defend in the early overs and well, he has 15,000 runs and 41 hundreds, most of which have come opening. People talk about his fading days, but I'm not one to speak too early. He scores 100s after comebacks; in spite of Ganguly's return to the side, I think it was Sachin who looked the best and most accomplished batsman on India's tour to South Africa. He didn't score a 100, but scored two 60s and a 40 in 3 tests and that's pretty good going considering how the others performed. The main thing is, in ODIs he loves opening and can make the best attacks look pedestrian. It was a shame that after the WI and SL series at home, the two WC warm up games and the two WC group games, he still came in at No. 4 against Sri Lanka. Sadly, he couldn't perform. I think he'll play the next WC, but that's the least of my interests or worries. WC cricket and ODI cricket in general are over-rated and it's high time the BCCI gave more importance to the real thing: Test Cricket.

However, these happenings on the field pale into insignificance when we consider what this WC will really be remembered for. It may be remembered for Ireland and Bangladesh (even though they will both be steam-rolled in the Super 8s by the other 6 teams), but to me it will be one of the most tragic in modern sporting history. In a way it may be prophetic that cricket's two biggest countries won't be involved in it any further because who would want to tarnish their great sport by winning a WC that will always be shrouded under a cloud of murder! It is the most ghastly side of the sport that has shown its face and tragically, it is only these incidents that propel cricket to the banner headlines of espn.com or cnn.com or even bbcnews.com. When Lara scores 400*, does anyone outside the cricket-playing world know what's going on; when Sachin scores his 35th hundred in his Capital city, does anyone get to know; when Warne got his 700th wicket, did anyone get to know? Of course not! People will hear around the world about the Boston Red Sox beating the New York Yankees, but when it comes to cricket it is only ball-tampering, match-fixing, drug-abuse and murder than puts it on world view. What a wonderful outreach and popularisation campaign. Shame on one-day cricket. It is the main culprit in all this: there's too much money, too much commercialisation and the game has lost out in the bargain. So much so, the next time there'll be a cricketing frenzy in India, it will be for the Twenty20 WC in September, not for India's tour to the World's 2nd best test playing nation. As far as I'm concerned, I'm eagerly waiting for July 19 Lord's or may be a bit of revenge on the 10th of May.........

The hope of audacity...

Oh ... what a match we saw yesterday... Canada took on Kenya and gave us all what we have been thirsting for... hope.

Hope that we can still, somehow, under some pretext, find a way to emigrate to Canada, and resurrect our cricket careers. Careers that have been stubbed out, by bad selectors who never saw the potential, bad umpires who gave us out the day we were going to score a triple hundred and break all schools cricket records, and of-course the wretched 'system', that doesn't allow sportsmen to grow to there full potential, what with exams and other tests always interfering with the "peak form" of the season.

Damn it... why were we not informed of the desperate need for a cricketer who can bowl straight and present a straight bat. We would have all gladly excepted the challenge... of crossing the great seas, hook or by crook, to get an opportunity to play the great game, at it's greatest spectacle, against the best teams.

Oh Mr Bhatti, your gallant efforts to confuse the batsmen with your flight and guile are a tribute to your ability to find a way, you have filled us with hope. The tradition of deception of the 'left arm' bowler has been given a new dimension. The perfect blend of Wasim Akram and Bishen Bedi. Ganguly would have been proud of your ability to fox the batsmen with your change in pace, of your run-up.

We have to be most grateful to the great organization that governs this wonderful game. They have, more than any other team or individual, given cricket a great boost by giving every failed cricketer (a lot of cricket-fans) the chance to prolong there dream.

The 'dream' is beautifully designed. Designed as well as the great religions of the world, give hope, there is nothing like it.

The beauty of the system set in place by the powers that be, it has been created to be the opposite of every other sport in the world. In Cricket, unlike all other sport, the largest and most important tournament is used to give "exposure", "encouragement" etc, to the 'up-and-coming'. Who will, after the tournament is over for them, be sent back to where they came from, and asked to qualify for the next WorldCup, at which point there will be some votes required from associate members(as they are referred to).

In most other sports, the teams that need "exposure", are given the opportunity to play smaller tournaments and individual players of merit are encouraged to play in the best professional leagues in the world and take that experience back to there national teams and grow the sport with a long term goal of seriously wanting the sport to spread.

But then... where would we be today without hope.

Thank you sir... Mr Bhatti.

umpire |ˈəmˌpī(ə)r| noun(in some sports) an official who watches a game or match closely to enforce the rules and arbitrate on matters arising from it

The following is a post by Pro/Mark(Mr PCV Mallik)
Due to technical reasons he is unable to post it himself.
cheers Mark.


At last the games have begun. After all the hype, the drama, the injuries, the visa troubles, the unbuilt stadiums, the 16 teams, the arrivals, the Gavaskar-Ponting spat (I don't know what Ponting's going on about; he even admitted to being reprimanded more than anyone in history and yes, we still feel he's been let off easily!) and the 3-hr opening ceremony, finally the games have begun and West Indies have crushed Pakistan. A match between the two most mercurial teams could be anything, but this opening game was wonderful to set the tone for the cup. West Indies should now at least make it to the Super 8s and that guarantees local interest at least till the 4th week of April, so already we are better off than the last two cups, where the home-teams had failed to clear the preliminary stages. Commiserations to Pakistan but the tournament and cricket in general needed this sort of high-octane start from the home team.

Now for the real point I want to make. Over the past several weeks, analysts have written about every conceivable team, player, strategy, semi-final combination, injury (basically the drama I alluded to in the 2nd sentence of the previous paragraph), but they have forgotten what I think will (it always does) play a huge role in determining the outcome of matches and hence the tournament. And that, of course, is the umpiring. Granted they try their best and do deliver what they think is the correct decision on the field. However, that to me would suggest that all teams/players lose some and win some decisions in the end and it balances out. Even when I look at things in a completely unbiased fashion (believe me, I can!), I can't help but seeing the gross injustices that umpires carry out in the middle. Do they even realise they are playing with people's careers, dreams, aspirations and the most important thing, the correct decision. Here I'm not even referring to the Oval Test fiasco of last summer, but virtually every umpire on this planet is guilty of making some of the most shockingly blatant decisions. Sure they are human and can make mistakes, but this many, even humans can't be excused of so many errors. If the errors fell equally among all teams/players, then I wouldn't mind them, but their deterministically non-random nature is what bothers me.

Hence I think once more in the World Cup as well, it will be the X-factor, the factor (read umpire!) that determines who has the most luck and turns out to be successful in the tournament. How often have you seen Ponting edge the ball to 2nd slip off a no-ball (go on to make a 100), get caught the following game at square leg and another no-ball is called (this time the umpire apologises later for calling the no-ball wrongly; goes on to make a 100), is plumb lbw but not given (goes on to make a 100), asks Srinath to "go f****** bowl", is not reprimanded (goes on to score a 100), is dropped on 90-something in a test match they should have lost against Bangladesh (goes on to make a 100)........ the list goes on and on. Similar lists can easily be created for equally unlikable, not particularly talented, but hugely successful players: read Matt Hayden, Jacques Kallis, and even bowlers (Donald, McGrath) and they'll tend to come from predominantly two nations, the two most successful in recent years as well and the two that play the least attractive cricket: Australia and South Africa. Who are the top two favourites for this Cup??? Who are the top two ranked teams?

The other end of the spectrum talks of really great players who get the short end of the stick: how often have you seen Sachin given caught behind off the shoulder; dropped at point but given out; ball gone above his head given caught-behind; reached his crease, bat is kicked up, given out run-out; given out then called back by the umpire (gets out the next over, actually out surprisingly); heck, he's so used to being given out that he has even walked when he is not out!; given out lbw when the balls hits the middle of the bat and given out caught-behind when he's left the ball. The list is endless. Which is why I find it even funnier (or may be ominous) that Steve Bucknor took the umpires oath. Sachin has famously said that having Bucknor umpiring is like facing the best bowler in the world every ball! A similarly virtually identical list can be found for another man named Lara (he was actually out only for the 2nd time in the series against Australia when he scored 226 in Adelaide; his previous 5 out of 6 dismissals in Australia in 2005 were umpiring boo-boos). And he continues to walk; even in the opening WC game! Then you have the bowlers (of the past again!) like Waqar and Gough who would bowl their hearts out (and apart from fielders dropping catches produced by their bowling) umpires would play their familiar role of not giving a plumb lbw or caught-behind. I've seen it too often to enumerate!

Anyway, that's enough of my rant. The point is that umpires do a woeful job (however difficult it might be; yes, I would do better) and this WC will be no different (oh, how I would love it to be!) and many matches and moments will be decided by them, not the players or their quality. Hence I find it amusing that there is never any analysis on this aspect of cricket. If I can hear an inside edge onto pad (given out lbw) through my TV after the sound has travelled through various radio, sound and electrical signals over 10,000km, how the hell can the umpire miss it standing 22 yards away with a microphone shoved up his ear??!!