Indian team at Nagpur - chaos abound

Mohinder Amarnath remarked that he wanted MS Dhoni to be ousted but he was not allowed to do so! Who was his choice for replacement? Gambhir or Sehwag? Both of them are not having the best of runs for a long time now. Who else would Mohinder have suggested?

Sunil Gavaskar said that Yuvraj and Harbhajan were made scrapegoats for the debacle in Kolkata! Who else did Gavaskar want to drop?

It looks like there are many ex-players who want change to be introduced but not clear on how or who will the change get impacted!

Nobody wants to suggest that Sachin Tendulkar needs to be dropped purely because of respect for the legend but who will bell the cat? Everyone suggests the selectors to have a chat with SRT - will they do it? Of course, no!

BCCI have insisted that they do not enforce any decisions on the selection committee - what does Mr. Srinivasan have to say?

The additions to the squad for the final test were surprising to many - one of them is Dhoni's CSK team-mate - Ravindra Jadeja while the other is Dhoni's favourite mascot (one who has been part of two World Cup winning teams) - Piyush Chawla!

If Sreesanth was available, maybe he would have been picked instead of Awana! By the way, where is Praveen Kumar now? Was he not the one bowler who came out of the English sojourn with his head high?

What is amazing is the lack of sound-bites from Duncan Fletcher - ten losses since he came on board must have made him tense!

Will Nagpur see a change in Dhoni's luck? Let us see. First, he has to lose the toss to get back his old form!

Oz Series - Comments on Indian team

The Indian team has been facing a hostile press Down Under but the press back home is not good to them as well.

India's ex-coach, Greg Chappell, writes in Hindu on the steps the Indian team needs to take and highlights the areas he had pointed out earlier

Personalities should not enter into it. Just pick the players who you think can do the job.

HINT - Drop VVS & Rahul Dravid and pick youngsters to replace them. 

Players will not respond to cajoling and threats from the coach alone.

HINT - Selection committee (as well as BCCI administrators) should also cajole and threat

fielding and fitness were two things that I identified nearly seven years ago that needed improvement. That it is still a problem is just not acceptable.

HINT - Younger players are the way to go forward

Greg agrees with the go-karting however - one that Sunil Gavaskar was not happy about.

Makarand Wingankar in the same paper, also points out different reasons that are contributing (as per him) to the ills of the Indian team.

newly married couples and whole lot of families with children on tour have certainly been a distraction

Makarand goes on to take a dig at the Master and his son

If he allows a son of a cricketer to practice with the team, he is not the Fletcher that we have heard of.

Indian cricket - Beginning of the End

It might be early to herald the demise of Indian cricket, with three days to go in the ongoing 3rd test match against England. But, that is inevitable looking at the performance of the two teams in the test match - other than half a session when MS Dhoni and Praveen Kumar were fighting back against the English attack, the Indian team has been listless throughout. The Indian team resembles a boxer who has lost two close rounds and has run completely out of steam in the third. The team seems to be going through the motions, just waiting for wickets to fall by chance.

Noted commentator, Henry Blofeld, explains in his own way India's fall from grace. Sachin & Co. have not done well in the series so far while the juniors also have not put their hands up. Can we blame the younger players like Abhinav Mukund, Suresh Raina? No, for they have never had a chance to work on pitches and conditions like these, let alone a team like England at their prime. The current Indian team is a mirror reflection of the English team that toured India in 1992-93 (which was comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Anil Kumble and gang). England should prove themselves on the sub-continent to prove that they can stay on top for a longer period but that is a story for another day.

Harsha Bhogle, meanwhile, talks about three players (Harbhajan, Yuvraj and Zaheer) who are at crossroads. But the problem is not limited to these 3 alone - where is the next generation players and what are the opportunities provided to them? An odd tour to Australia for the Emerging Tournament is what one sees regularly - where is the once famous 'A' tours? Why is BCCI not arranging them? Is it because there is no money to be made there?

The Indians were lucky in many ways to reach the pinnacle in test cricket as well as the World Cup win in ODIs. None of this was achieved by strategic planning by the BCCI. Gary Kirsten, MSD and other senior players planned the triumphs despite the bureaucratic organization that runs the sport. The fact that the ODI World Cup was played in the sub-continent meant that strengthening the batting department was a sure-shot path for success.

Similarly, the test team saw the nucleus remain the same for a long period without any planning for injuries or illnesses (I am not even talking about the retirement of the 3 stars in the Indian lineup). Sourav Ganguly has retired for quite a while now but his replacement position has been filled by Yuvraj, Raina, Pujara. During the current series, Sehwag and Gambhir (for 2nd test) were not available and what did the Indian team do? Go back to Rahul Dravid and the young batsman with no experience of these conditions.

Are there any others on the horizon we can look at?

• In the opening department, other than Murali Vijay and Mukund, Ajinkya Rahane is the only other name that comes to mind. 3 names from a two-tier Ranji format - does it not say loudly that there is something drastically wrong here? 
• Similarly, in the middle-order, there is (as Harsha says, a coalition group of ministers) Cheteshwara Pujara, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma other than Raina. How many of these can stand up and say confidently that they can face the 90mph pace with ease? Look at Manish Pandey - a youngster who showed his talent in one Ranji season but the IPL bandwagon make his head spin around and go on journeys where money mattered more than everything else.
• The wicket-keeping duties when MSD is not available is being rotated between W Saha and Parthiv Patel. Dinesh Karthik has fallen away in form and hence not on the nearest horizon.
• During the last series against South Africa, J Unadkat and U Yadav were among the trio of bowlers on tour. Today, they are in Australia playing the Emerging Tournament along with Vinay Kumar and Varun Aaron. Where is Ashish Nehra who had mentioned that he would be available for test matches after World Cup was over? RP Singh was not deemed suitable for the Emerging Tournament but gets called when Zak is ruled out of the series.
• The spin department shows similarly lack of riches - what happened to the Spin Academy that was launched by the BCCI? Why are we going back to Harbhajan for all overseas tours? If there is no one else suitable, why not go back to the good old Murali Karthik. 

After this series, the Windies will tour India (possibly without Gayle again) and get beaten comprehensively in Indian conditions. All the outpour of today will be forgotten till the next overseas tour - this case, the Australian sojourn. No point in blaming the new coach Duncan Fletcher and captain MS Dhoni - it is the BCCI who has to show some sense in planning for the future. Will the BCCI consultants, Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar, stand up and do something for the country or are they happy to pocket the crores given by the organization?      

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Vaseline and Batsman Recalls

Two off-field incidents made news in the second test between India and England - one obviously was the decision by MS Dhoni to recall Ian Bell after he was run out by the Indian team in the second innings. This led to a huge discussion all around the world whether it was right or not. The Indian ex-players also joined the noise-bytes made over the decision - Anil Kumble and GR Viswanath being two ex-captains from the state of Karnataka who praised Dhoni's decision. Nobody spoke about Viswanath's decision to recall Bob Taylor in the Golden Jubilee test between India and England - a pity that such a decision was not given the right advertisement.

The other incident was about the tweet given by ex-English captain Michael Vaughan. Vaughan suggested that VVS Laxman might have used Vaseline to cheat the HotSpot machine. Obviously, this led to players like Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar to voice strong opinions on Vaughan - in fact, Sunny Bhai even went to the extent of asking VVS to consult his lawyers!! Vaseline too had an earlier connection between India and England test matches - ask John Lever about it. Tony Greig gives a good spin over the incident but this only goes to prove that the English media has very short memory about incidents that do not show their team in a poor situation.

One common thread between these two incidents and the second test match was that England won the matches concerned!

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A dream lineup it would be

As one sees the Pakistan team fighting to win their first match of the series against the home English side, there has been a lot of discussion on the sides of what could have been. Yes, what could have been if India and Pakistan were not two different countries, fighting against each other but ONE. The One country it was before Independence. What would be the test line-up be today? Quite a powerful team, wouldnt it be?


Lets see the playing eleven first

• Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir would be the ideal openers in this team with Salman Butt coming close to breaking the partnership. He will be present in the squad for any injury concerns but not good enough to make the playing eleven.
• Rahul Dravid still holds his side in the Indian team and that is a good reason why he should be playing in this Combined XI. There are not many players in the current Pakistan team who can boast of his numbers other than Mohammed Yusuf but with the veteran struggling to make his mark, Dravid holds his place.
• Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman occupy the next two slots in the batting lineup thanks to their great performances as well as recent form.
• For the 6th batsmen slot, I am more comfortable with the youth of Umar Akmal rather than that of Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh. His talent is visible for everyone to see and playing in such a team will make his temperament only better.
• Wicket-keeper and Captain - no further questions. It is the Indian skipper, MS Dhoni.
• The spinner slot is taken by Saeed Ajmal with Harbhajan being the backup bowler in the squad. Ajmal has been bowling quite well in recent times coinciding with Bhajji's lack of form. 
• Umar Gul, Mohammed Aasif, Zaheer Khan form the pace bowling trio who will be responsible for the new ball attack.  Mohammed Aamer will be the other bowler who will be available for other options. 

With this fourteen, it is highly unlikely that any team would be able to beat in any conditions. This team can be managed by a strong personality like Sunil Gavaskar or Imran Khan. Why not? After all, it is a nice dream for one to have, right?

What do you think? Is there anyone else who will make the team as of today?

IPL3 - Nuggets

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Noticed some points in the ongoing IPL3 - I am sure you will have observed this, as well.

• Commentators - The commentators are typically known to be honest, non-biased, frank and brutal in their insights on the cricket match. In this tournament, the set of commentators at all the venues (including reputed ones like Gavaskar, Shastri, etc), the descriptions are more around the sponsors of the tournament - DLF (Six), Maxx Timeout, Karbonn (Catch), etc. In fact, one commentator even forgot to mention six - he just said 'It is a DLF'!!! Is the terminology being changed here, by Lalit Modi? If someone pays him a bonanza, he will gladly agree.
• Sledging - the international players seem to be a bit less reluctant to voice their intentions on the field in international cricket. It is probably the fact that they are playing in IPL together with players from other countries. But, the attitude of the Indians is not getting better - Harbhajan and Sreesanth are prime culprits - even Zaheer seems to give his opponents a solid hearing (check the video against RCB when he gave a mouthful to Uthappa who was his team-mate till last year).
• Faster Ball - The slower ball in the T20 matches are being over-used so much to the extent that bowlers ball almost all the balls lesser than their normal speed. It is time that the 'faster ball' makes a (re)appearance in cricket now.

What do you think about this?

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More potential revenue for IPL

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All of us cricket-followers must have come across the offering from EA Sports - Cricket 07 at some point of time, if not played it. I am not sure if Lalit Modi has seen this. If he has, he will get a lot more ideas from this game.

Obviously, one would be to get into a partnership with a gaming company to create a Gaming eco-system around IPL. But, that is not my main suggestion for IPL (and LKM).

If you notice the commentary in the matches played in the game, the wonderful voices of Richie Benaud and other prominent commentators can be heard. Of course, the key sentences like 'A great over' or 'Wonderful shot to get a boundary' are recorded in the voices which are played whenever required.

From what we have seen in this year's IPL3, the commentators are more focused on giving the details of the sponsors rather than the happenings of the game - 'DLF Maximum', 'Karbonn Kamaal Catch', 'Max Mobile Timeout', 'Citi Moment of Success' are phrases more heard than the actual commentary. This will get worse next year if LKM is successful in getting the sponsors of the Orange Cap and Purple Cap (this year the deal did not fall through apparently).

These statements can be recorded in the voices of Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar and others. They can be played by the TV producers whenever required in the game. What happens between balls? They can be used to show more ads (further potential to make more money) - every ball can be preceded and succeeded by 1-2 ads. Optimal utilization of time at the best. All the travel/hotel costs of the commentators can be reduced this way. The match can be actually covered by the low-cost television anchors who cost way less than the ex-cricketers.

What do you say Mr. Modi? Will you follow this route next year?

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Sachin Tendulkar's (yet another) Everest moment

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7th March 1987 - Sunil Gavaskar reached 10,000 runs in test cricket - he remarked on the occasion saying that there will be many more batsmen who will scale the peak but everyone will remember who scaled the Everest first.

24th February 2010 - The ODI Everest of double-century in an innings was scaled by Tendulkar. The 200 mark will be breached again in the age of T20s but everyone in the cricketing fraternity (players, viewers, non-believers) will remember this moment.

And what a moment it was!!! It took me one full day to scale back my emotions after I saw the match (on highlights sadly). The shot-making was wonderful, to say the least. Any number of adjectives are less for the legend.

Following the match on Google (with the 'Latest' trending - showing the twitter updates with the word 'cricket' on) - was quite interesting - more 'colorful' than Cricinfo, in fact.

One point to note in the followers was that after the first few runs scored by SRT, the followers were in fact, expecting the double century from Sachin!!! What a prediction? And how correct it turned out to be!!!

Prem writes about other tweets of mention in his article today but those were just the tip of the iceberg. The observations that the Twitverse came up were really enjoyable. It was similar to watching the innings with a 'live' crowd.

In other sites, John Stern (Wisden Magazine) thanks SRT for his knock yesterday. Nasser Hussain in fact, went ahead and told Sky Sports News he believes Sachin Tendulkar may be even better than the great Don Bradman. 


What else can I say? The man seemed to be playing his shots from memory but still doing the math in his mind to find the gaps in the field. The shots, especially the ones where he turned a ball outside off to the square-leg during the Batting PowerPlay, were incredible.


The fact that he was on the field after playing 50 overs was a sign of his endurance. The stroke-play he matched Yusuf Pathan was testimony to his shot-making. The passing of the baton (of score-making) in the climax yesterday to MS Dhoni showed that he was not interested in statistics alone. In fact, he wanted to play another innings for 50 overs (as he told Ravi Shastri after the match) - talk about intensity.



A 175 against Australia and this 200 against South Africa is clear that the man can hit against all the top-sides today and no less competitive. It is a good sign that he has been rested for the final ODI - this tactic will ensure that he remains fresh for the significant battles ahead. The way he has been overcoming all the black-marks (if there were any) in his career means that India will win the 2011 World Cup next year - Let us hope it is true.

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India suffers from over-confidence

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Bangladesh are an ordinary side, said the vice-captain (till yesterday) and captain of this match, Virender Sehwag. This was very much reflective of the mood of the Indian team - bordering on the arrogance and a pinch of over-confidence. The Bangla players were hurt by these statements - they thought of taking silent revenge on the Indians.

When the Bangla captain won the toss, he elected to field. Wrong decision, said Sunil Gavaskar. Sehwag started off in his familiar fashion - the run-rate was more than 6 and India reached fifty very soon. The ball was talking but the openers were lucky to survive the odd danger and reach yet another fifty partnership.

After lunch, the Bangla bowlers started their tricks - especially Shakib Al Hasan and Shahadat Hossain. It was more themselves than the bowlers to be blamed.

Sehwag was taken aback by the pitch, Gambhir by the extra bounce, Dravid by the reverse-swing, Laxman by his one-second laxity, Yuvraj by his hestitation.

Sachin Tendulkar carried on, completing 13000 runs in the process and scoring yet another fifty in his career. Dinesh Karthik fell to the swing while Amit Mishra was dismissed by a well-directed yorker. The bowlers were chipping away ever so slowly. With Harbhajan Singh not playing in this match, the Indian spinners are under pressure to perform here - the ball is turning with bounce. Amit Mishra needs to come to the party and strike. The faster bowlers also have support on this pitch and it would be interesting to see how Ishant and Sreesanth support Zaheer.

At the end of the day, the bad light halted the charge but Sehwag must have got the message repeatedly throughout the day - the Bangladesh team is no more a pushover, not in their backyard.

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