Will Randiv be another Kulkarni?

As the second test match was progressing towards a dull draw, one news-item barely made headlines yesterday - Nilesh Kulkarni retired from first-class cricket after playing for Mumbai the last 13 years.

He played in 3 test matches for India, bowled in 2 of them and took 2 wickets in his career after turning his arm over for 738 balls. That is real disturbing for him, especially considering the fact that he took his first wicket off the first ball of international cricket (He is the only Indian bowler to achieve this feat). In fact, he is part of a very elite list of 12 bowlers in the history of cricket.

Now, let us look at these two figures:

1. 70-12-195-1
2. 64-14-212-2

 The first one is that of Nilesh bowling to Jayasuriya and Mahanama (mainly) at  R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo in 1997. After his first wicket in the debut test, he did not take any other wicket in the match while watching the Sri Lankan team score almost 1000 (952 to be exact).

The second one is that of Suraj Randiv in his debut test, bowling against the Indian team scoring 669-9 (as of 4th day). He took the wickets of Sehwag and Dravid on the 3rd day of the match but later, has not been lucky as Mendis or even Dilshan.

Let us only hope that this dreadful pitch does not cause Randiv to lose his test spot - Murali's retirement means that obviously he will play more tests rather than just the one more played by Nilesh.

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Questions to ICC on test cricket

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The story doing circles around the cricketing world is centering around the decline of test cricket. The latest test in Sri Lanka saw the hosts score more than 600runs for 4 wickets in almost 2 days. India started their reply by scoring close to 100 in their short time before close. The pitches had nothing for batsmen, which will be reinforced by the Indians over the next few days (hopefully).

Does it help anyone's cause? Who is to be blamed for the match situation? What is ICC's stance on such a pitch? Once a team wins the toss and piles on the runs, they are not in a position to lose. Why so much emphasis on a single toss of coin?

When pitches are really bad for batsmen, history has seen the umpires take decisions to stop further cricket from being played. Why not on such a pitch which harms bowlers? Who will follow test cricket if future matches are also played on similar wickets? In the T20 era, is it not prudent for the ICC and the respective Boards to ensure that exciting cricket is played? What can be done to improve the quality of cricket? ICC Test Championship will help but how will you avoid such pitches from being prepared.

Can neutral venues help? The recent test series between Australia and Pakistan in English grounds was interesting enough to bring back memories of golden era of test cricket. Neutral venues will discourage the home teams to exploit their advantage of preparing pitches. Another option is for ICC to manage the groundsmen at all test-playing countries. They will be held responsible for the pitches and the quality of out-fields that are prepared.

There are talks of day-night test matches, pink balls being used. But will that solve the problem? Why not go back to uncovered pitches? Give more powers to the bowlers and prevent them from being extinct.

Is the ICC thinking? High time, it did. Or are they content with the moolah they are raking in ODI/T20 tournaments? Looks like.

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SSC Test - Sri Lanka gain early advantage

Another 3-0 sweep of the Session Dashboard for the Sri Lankans on the first day of the second test match at SSC, Colombo today.

The team on both sides saw a lot of changes: Welegedara was out - Sehwag must have been happy (considering that Sehwag got out to him in both innings). Malinga & Muralitharan were known absentees. Gambhir was ruled out. Very surprisingly, Herath was kept out. All the four frontline bowlers who got 20 wkts in the first test for SriLanka are absent while India retained the same 4 bowlers.

The Lankan batsmen, especially Dilshan, looked like they were on a TVS bike and zoomed away at high speed. The Indians have been facing problems with their bowling Exide engine throughout the series and today was no different. After lunch, everyone thought that the Dabur Chyawanprash they had, might have energized the Indians but BPCL Speed was missing in the bowling as well as the Cello Pin Point accuracy.


Another interval came and went by - the Boost break making no difference to the scorecard. The Lankans seemed to be on a Maha Choco run-making spree, thanks to the placid pitch. Centuries were scored once again by the same batsmen as the first test match, their team proclaiming Pepsi Dil Maange More. Sonata Time was running out and the Indians did not have the Milk Shakti to stop the batsmen.

The Indians, at the end of the day, would do well to take a Royal Stag drink and rest for the day. They will also find out that the Dainik Bhaskar papers will not be kind to them on their performance. Videocon televisions will show the lack of proactive moves from the Indian management. 


Tomorrow, the new ball will still have Kiwi polish and the Indians can still make good use of it by remembering (via Memory Vita) how they did come back on the 3rd day of Galle test. If not, all their Big Bazaar clothes will need extra wash on the morrow. Will the Reebok shoes of the Indians show an extra spring in their step tomorrow?

Stats show that SriLanka haven't lost at home after winning the toss in last 10 years - evidence today showed that they will not lose this record so easily. The Indian batsmen will do well to take a leaf out of the Lankans and Concreto cement their feet on the crease when they get their chance. MS Dhoni will do well to make an Aircel or Maxx Mobilink call to Azharuddin and find how he can win a series in SriLanka. All the Orient PSPO fans of the Indian team are waiting.

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Galle Test - Sri Lanka go up 1-0

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The Indians managed to delay the inevitable till the tea-break. Unlike Sehwag's expectations of rain, there was no further delay in the Sri Lankan victory. 800 wickets landmark was breached by Muralitharan, triggering celebrations in the crowd.

The following stats tell a story on its own:

• 10 of the 20 Indian wickets were due to Muralitharan and run-outs(2) He will not be present in the playing eleven next test match. Who will take these for Sri Lanka the next match? Malinga, who took 7, will however be still present. Will the burden be too much for him?
• 52 overs were played out by Mithun, Ishant, Ojha along with VVS Laxman in the 2nd innings. The other 7 accomplished batsmen - 64
• Malinga and Herath scored 115 during their partnership - 100 less and the follow-on would have been averted by the Indian team. Even with the partnership, if they had scored 44 runs more in the first innings, the Indians could have played out the match for a draw.
• Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha bowled 32.1 and 31 overs respectively. How many wickets did they get? 0
• Herath bowled 45 overs in the match - 1 wicket to show for his efforts. Think what will happen in the next test match without Murali.
• Sehwag scored a century while VVS, Tendulkar and Yuvraj scored fifties. Sangakkara, Paranavitana scored centuries for Lanka while Herath and Malinga scored surprising fifties.
• Gambhir played 5 balls in the match for his 2 runs.No other contribution on the field. In fact, he dropped a half-chance. Match to forget for him.
• MS Dhoni lost his 2nd match as captain. Importantly, first match after his marriage was a loss. His record in test series show him improving as a batsman after the first match. Let us hope this stat is true.

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Galle Test - First Test of Series Syndrome ails India

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At Galle, India is slipping down to yet another first-test-of-series defeat, thanks to poor decision-making by their batsmen in both innings. Except for Sehwag in the first and Sachin in the second, the others failed. They did not try and score runs against the bowling attack that was marked by good spells by Malinga and Muralitharan. Forget scoring runs, other than Rahul Dravid, the batters could not occupy the crease for a long period of time.

Sehwag, Laxman got in but threw away their wickets while Dhoni (1st) and Sachin (2nd) were victims of exceptional balls by the Lankan bowling - the Indian bowlers should learn from the opposition on their incisiveness.

The Indians again suffered from the Lose-First-Match-of-Test-Series Syndrome - this has been their Achilles heel for quite some time now. The team has lost quite a number of first tests, especially overseas. On Twitter, Prem Panicker mentioned various reasons - insufficient warm-ups as well as attitude of individuals not to practice before important series. Of course, the Boards do not take the practice matches into their mind when creating the iterinary of any series. The individuals also dont take the time available to work on their technique. Of course, this is nothing new that only the Indian team suffers from this syndrome but nothing has happened with changing selectors, coaches or captains. One only hopes that there is a change in players' attitude but that is asking for too much, no?

Back to the series, only the rain can save the Indians now. If not rain, the pair of VVS Laxman and MSD Dhoni should do a miracle. Murali must be relishing the prospect of getting the 2 wickets for his 800.

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Galle Test - India let Sri Lanka get away further

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India, thanks to the exploits of their pace bowlers, made a comeback in the first session of the 3rd days play. Ishant Sharma, in fact, gave Jayawardane the same treatment that he had given Ricky Ponting in Perth before taking his wicket. Mithun gave him good support at the other end, not only restricting the run scoring but also taking wickets.

In fact, they were the only ones who looked like taking wickets from the Indian attack. They started the bowling in the morning, took a brief rest and then come back to take the second new ball, restricting to around 340 for 6.

Herath and Malinga then took the attack by its scruff, scoring their highest first-class scores. Prasanna Jayawardene was the one who started attacking the bowlers and strengthening India's position. This is where the Indian bowlers gave away the match - now, only a draw could be the favorable result for the Indians.

The Indians started their innings after the declaration at tea. Gambhir was dismissed cheaply by Malinga - his batting has been going downhill, even though slightly, for few matches now. Probably, his rich vein has gone the other direction now - whatever reason it may be, he needs to re-align his radar back to his high-scoring ways. Sehwag had no such problems - he was away, putting away the bad balls while controlling the ones that threatened his body and head.

Rahul Dravid - he must have now gone ahead of Inzamam-ul-Haq in the number of run-outs - lost his wicket after settling down. Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed by the magician, trying to attempt a sweep. Sehwag continued to prosper and it is very likely that he will add to his tally of centuries tomorrow. Laxman has been promising so far - hope he can go on to score a big one.

3 days gone and India still is not in dire straits. They can still make a match out of it, at least think they can. 320 is the first target that the Indian team has to scale (interesting rule for follow-on here). The Indian team needs to show their batting strength and combat the Lankans on the last 2 days. Will the rain-gods help India also?

Session Dashboard - The Lankans still lead the Indians by 4.5 - 1.5. The first session was all India's while the Lankans came back in the second. The third session was dominated by the Indians though the Lankans took 3 vital wickets. With 6 more sessions remaining, Sri Lanka needs to win more than 3 sessions in the next 2 days to win the match. What will India's response be?

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Galle Test - Sri Lanka take opening day honors

India has seldom won the opening day honors on an overseas test match - today was no different. After a long time, the opening attack had no left-arm bowler with the new ball.

Did that make a difference? Definitely. India missed the services of Zaheer Khan, not just as a bowler but also as a mentor to the young Ishant Sharma. Ishant bowled well very rarely in the midst of a flurry of boundary balls. Mithun was much better in his spell in the day, getting the wicket of Dilshan early. Few half-chances were missed - resulting in the large total at the end of the day. Pragyan Ojha was able to extract quite a bit of turn on the first-day track - indications of how Murali will play his 'tricks' later in the test - 800 wickets does not seem far away now. Harbhajan seems to have hurt his hamstring, which will impact the bowling to an extent. Sehwag bowled well in his limited capacity but that will not be enough.

Once the toss was won, it was a matter of putting a large total in the first innings of the match. Sri Lanka have done that so far and all evidence points to a dominant performance with the bat. How Indian batsmen (whenever they get a chance) will reply, will determine the result of the match. Of course, if weather permits, that is.

MS Dhoni must go back in time and bring out his tricks that he tried against the Aussies (bowling to a packed offside field of 8-1) and inducing mistakes from the batsmen. So far, the first day sees the session dashboard 3-0 in favor of Sri Lanka - all sessions won by the home team.

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India and Sri Lanka down the years

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SriLanka and India have played test matches against each other for less than 30 years - all of it noticeably present in my memory all those years.

The last 2 series each home and away has resulted in same victory margins for the home team (2-1 for Sri Lanka and 2-0 for India). Will it be any different this time?

The first series was in Chennai where the Indians escaped defeat in the very first test that Sri Lanka played. Duleep Mendis scored centuries in both innings and the Indians were probably complacent in their attitude against the debutants. No winner in the first series between the two teams then.

India toured Lanka next under the captaincy of Kapil Dev - the matches were more famous for the biased umpiring decisions made by the Lankan umpires (neutral umpires were not in vogue then). The current Chairman of Selectors, Srikkanth, bore the brunt of most of the decisions. The Lankans won their first series 1-0 leading the Indian captain to announce that the Lankans will find it difficult to win outside their home soil for some time.

Sri Lanka travelled to India twice in 86/87 and 90/91 for 4 matches, losing 3 of them to the guile of the Indian spinners. The terror situation in the Island also prevented many matches to be conducted there. Again in 93/94, the Indians made a clean sweep of the test series, winning all the 3 test matches.

In between, Azharuddin's team to the Isle won a series for the first time in the history. This was majorly due to centuries by Vinod Kambli, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sachin Tendulkar as well as the bowling performances of Kumble, Prabhakar and Srinath.

Sourav Ganguly masterminded a successful chase in 2001 but lost the other 2 test matches thanks to the guile of Murali, the magician. Similarly, Mendis and Murali bagged handful of wickets on the last trip in 2008 despite Sehwag and Gambhir's pyrotechnics. The series also saw the introduction of the UDRS system (which is missing this series).

The Indians clearly have a hold on the Lankans but at home, the Islanders gain strength in a very invisible manner - mediocre batsmen tend to become Bradmen and run-of-the-mill bowlers gain fangs!! The Indians have their tasks cut out to regain their No.1 position.

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India's lineup for SriLanka - still unsure about bowling

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India finished their only warm-up match against a Sri Lankan team today, before their first test match.

The batting attack seems to be settled with Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman & Yuvraj occupying the first six slots. Yuvraj made his case count with a half-century in the match even as others (excluding Gambhir) disappointed.

The bowling line-up, though, is a different issue - the main strike bowlers are missing, thanks to injuries to Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth. The opening bowlers will be Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel. Mithun being too inexperienced, will be left out from the playing eleven. Ishant had match-practice in the warm-up match while Munaf could not make it to the match in time. Whether the bowlers will make an impact - in fact, it is quite challenging for the bowlers to take early wickets also. The performance in the match was not anything to evince any confidence in the attack.

In the spin department, Harbhajan was down with fever this week and hence didnt play in the lone match - SriLanka is his favorite venue in general - hopefully, he will be able to make a mark. The Indian team is looking at him to take the lead role for taking 20 wickets. Pragyan Ojha seems to have edged out Amit Mishra for the supporting role, having taken more number of wickets. Of course, most of them might have come at a time when the Lankans were trying to score quickly but nevertheless, the attack looks weak.

Both teams would struggle to take 20 wickets and therein lies the Argentina-like strategy that India should take (for lack of other choices). You score-We score more. What happened to Argentina was visible in the World Cup 2010. Will the Indians succeed? Time will tell.

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Zaheer and Murali spice up the Lankan test series

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India is playing Sri Lanka in another series - for a change, it is a test series at home. Yawn.

Just as things were getting predictable and boring, Zaheer Khan and Muralitharan decided to spice up the series by their announcements in the last 2 days.

Zaheer Khan has been ruled out due to a shoulder injury. In his place, comes in the rookie Mithun (from Karnataka). There is a lot of pressure on the Indian bowling attack now - Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma, who have had no match practice after the IPL (forget longer versions of the game), will be expected to lead the new ball. Mithun is more of an insurance - expected to play only if one of the two gets injured. Zaheer is missing a series again due to injuries - surely a routine inspection of the fitness of bowlers (if not the entire team) is needed. Will the BCCI take heed? Dont think so.

Murali, on the other hand, will play the first test of the series as the last of his career. He has not made up his mind on the ODI/T20 career but is sure that he will play for Chennai SuperKings in IPL - intesting, no? I would not make his case as one who is plunging into the T20 just for money but questions do arise to the common man. His absence would have made India the favorites if not for Zaheer's absence. Who will lead the Lankans' spin attack? Rangana Herath has done well recently and would be expected to step up to the challenge. Mendis will be a threat once again (one will remember the earlier series in Lanka when he ripped apart the Indian team).

The injuries have started even before the Indian team left the shores. Will the list continue during the series also? One hopes that the usual suspects (Sehwag) do not extend the list. Only time will tell.

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Test matches - what is India's next gen?

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India starts off a new series against Sri Lanka, trying to gain points and retain their No.1 ranking.

The team contains the veterans - Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar - in the middle order. I am not trying to mention anything about phasing them out of the team here. This post is about identifying who can replace them in the next 1-2 years. From the current prospects who can be groomed for taking over?

1. Yuvraj Singh - Yes, the same person who made Rahul Dravid open in the test series in Australia. He was expected to take the slot of Sourav Ganguly and make it his own. But, he has flattered to deceive. The lad has not shown much interest in the test match arena and seems to be going down in form in all forms of matches. Can he come back?
2. Rohit Sharma - classy batsman, who has made a comeback in the ODI arena. Obviously a batsman with the best temperament and technique.
3. Badrinath - made a good start against the South Africans at home on his debut stint. Needs to work on the short ball. Can definitely be groomed on the 'A' tours for gaining more confidence against the international bowlers.
4. Cheteshwara Pujara - thanks to his domestic performances, has been hailed by the media as the next Rahul Dravid. Not so great performances in the last 2 seasons pulled him down but his scores in the latest 'A' tour shows him as a good prospect.
5. Suresh Raina - acclaimed as a future great by Greg Chappell and Wisden but has not been doing anything of note in the longer version.

It is time the selectors give these youngsters ample chances in international cricket wherever possible (stand-byes in senior test series or 'A' tours to Australia, England or South Africa). They need to be ready when the legends say good bye.

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