August 4, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Not quite the road to perdition

From Sam Komaravalli, United Kingdom

	Test cricket is alive and well and predictions about its imminent death are premature and misleading © Getty Images

Preparations have begun. An elegiac lament has been adopted as an anthem by a notable few. Some have even begun talks with the funeral directors for a fitting tribute and a suitable coffin, nails and all. The leitmotif tune of rigor mortis seems to be echoing in the distant corners. The Citi moment of ruin can’t be far behind ably followed by the Citi moment of slow death. Is Test cricket on a Zimmer frame slowly meandering towards the precipice of damnation? Going by the recent news bytes on its near certain demise, and unless drastic action is taken urgently, Test cricket as we know it may not exist in the same form, if at all. Amid this unfounded pessimism, one would have to wonder if Test cricket is so fragile that it can be blown away by a format that relies so heavily on grunt than grace; enormous than elegance; razzmatazz than refinements; strength of willow than strength of character; brawn than brain; frenetic than fortitude.

As we embark towards the abyss of the unknown, it is natural to give gloom a helping hand. Would a format that stood the test of time for over hundred years not possess the strength of disposition, appeal and character to withstand the new kids on the block with their fancy wares? Surely the Wiis and the PS3s have yet to discard the need to indulge in a bit of scrabble or monopoly. Okay, I lie. Just a bit. No, a fair bit actually but let me not beat my own argument here. It would look pretty daft.

For the die-hard traditionalists, with or without the hallowed MCC membership that is nothing more than a glorified snoozing zone, such glum sentiments are not welcome. However, the calls for change they can’t be ignored. There was a time in the past when the mere mention of a tinker or two raised the eyebrows so high that a few have had accentuated battle-scarred foreheads ever since. Now, they just wince and grunt despairingly like prisoners do when they are short-changed on their daily dose of crack.

The sanctity of cricket is being adulterated, they groan in typical rigid tones. What is so sanctimonious about Test cricket anyways? Has it been baptised in Scottish Highlands spring water with no expiry date? Has it had some divine outpouring of sanctified blessings from some guru stranded in the Himalayas with no GPS? Cricket is evolving and Test cricket finds itself stranded on its own for its custodians are hesitant to tinker, timid to adapt, and tentative to evolve.

In a recent speech at the MCC Working Committee meeting, Rahul Dravid said: "Test match attendances around the world have dropped. You want to be playing in front of crowds. Apart from England, attendances are down." And that the crowds elsewhere are dwindling faster than Mohammad Kaif’s chances of making a comeback. Okay, I made the last bit up, but heck it’s true.

Australia too has drawn very healthy crowds for its home Tests. I guess they’re never short of an excuse to buy beer, sound each other off with strewths, gidday mate and not hesitate to hurl abuse while all the time talking about playing cricket in the true spirit of the game. English grounds are like stretched soup bowls with a max capacity of 28-29,000 at Lord’s while the MCG and the Eden Gardens, for example, can draw anything up to 100,000. In the context of stadium footprints, even 20-odd thousand at these huge stadiums in India or Australia look thin on the ground. So, let’s forgive Dravid this flawed observation and move on.

Do attendances determine the longevity or success of the game? Playing to empty houses isn’t much fun. Just ask Michael Bolton. Recently Hayden rued: “When Sachin Tendulkar became the highest run-getter in Test cricket (in Mohali last season) there were only a handful of spectators in the stadium. So, something needs to be done.” Something is being done, though it isn’t the ICC that is wasting its breath over this.

	A packed house at the Adelaide Oval © Getty Images

Lalit Modi, enfant terrible in the scheme of things, has blitzed the comfort zone. “One needs to go out and capture the fans. I think that's the most important thing right now,” he says and who can disagree with him. It is about retaining fan base and attracting new spectators. The ICC revels in inaction. As such, it neither has the will nor the desire to pull heads together and be proactive. Again, its ineptitude is in stark contrast to those who run the IPL.

The IPL, for all its crassness and overdose, has proven that allegiance can be bartered. Recent chilling admissions by Daniel Vettori and Gary Kirsten that players may choose IPL over country are a case in point. When Chris Gayle uttered those dreaded words a while back on not giving two hoots about Test cricket, he probably didn’t envisage others to feed off him.

Cricketers have a choice now. Something they haven’t been privy to all these years. No longer are they married for life to country. A divorce can be fashioned with relative ease and players are free to ply their trade at the expense of country commitments. Such a scenario can well determine the longevity and popularity of Test cricket in its current form.

Or will the organisers of Twenty20 leagues spell their own doom with their overzealous avarice? Lack of direction and strategy from the top tier can have a lethal effect on operations. Cricket is at the crucial crossroads. There is a temptation to treat Test cricket as a seriously ill patient in pressing need of a quintuple bypass.

Thankfully, Test cricket is not dying by any stretch of downbeat imagination. It needs some fine tuning; a bit of DIY to keep up with the times. It also needs the custodians to take a grip and ensure Test cricket takes precedence in the yearly calendar. A two-tier Test system wouldn’t be amiss either. Night cricket, coloured balls, and what have you do contribute in enhancing its appeal. One-sided contests can be avoided with the likes of Bangladesh shunted to the second tier. The pool of Test-playing nations can be increased by providing Test status for Kenya, Ireland and Afghanistan. This gives an incentive for the teams in the second tier to aspire for the top tier. Moreover, the ICC needs to work with the IPL and other leagues and not perceive them as a threat.

Twenty20, ODIs and Test cricket can co-exist and strike a common ground. The IPL needs an exclusive window. The magnitude of its lure and attractiveness is enormous. By no means is Test cricket dead and neither is it on course to a sudden arrest in its fortunes. However, the authorities must ensure that the exodus is restrained. Priorities have changed. This is what being professional is all about - having a choice. Test cricket is alive, but it needs to live and breathe easily without being suffocated by other formats. So, save on the obituaries for now. Nothing beats the balance Test cricket provides between bat and ball. Nothing can supersede the theatre, the drama, the enjoyment and the pride that one associates with Test cricket. Nothing can emulate its experience, but unless it embraces the changing times and demands, it runs the risk of becoming a forgotten experience. Cricket’s landscape is altering. It remains to be seen whether Test cricket gets on board or becomes a mere bystander and a victim of its apathy.

Comments (16)

April 13, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Pakistan cricket

Karachi symphony

The dejected feeling of happiness and distress when you visit a precious place where you grew up with innocence and faith in a future that only promised peace. My heart broke by just glancing at the pitch that lay there in the centre. Brown and rolled; often criticized; often cherished. A center of attraction where hearts broke; and love won. Where there was a time when the silence in the park was overwhelmed by a roar of thirty thousand passionate spectators, adding another hundred and sixty million set of eyes that glared at this stadium through the lens.

The day India visited Pakistan for their friendship tour; some people may not know this ... but an official holiday was announced at Karachi, and I had never seen it so empty. No cars moved, no men walked out side. It was like everyone was smothered by the event of watching Shoaib Akhtar bowl to Sachin Tendulkar. No one cared about victory because cricket was back. India would smash a glaring 346 and Pakistan dauntingly replied with a total of 6 runs short.

This was a place where Mohammed Asif was introduced to world cricket as a leading swinger. It was Shahid Afridi's home ground. It was a place where Sir Vivian Richards whispered 'Murghi-Murghi-Murghi' (Chicken-Chicken-Chicken) to a Pakistani wicket keeper after he extensively appealed in vain. It was a place where Sir Vivian Richards smashed 181 runs in a world cup match: An event my father witnessed being there, and he often tells me stories about it. It was a place where Mohammed Yousuf completed his 9th century in a calendar year, piling up the world record of scoring the most runs in a calendar year; something Sir Vivian Richards embraced previously. It was a place where England battled it out even in the dark; just to ensure a victory. And they did. And who could forget Kamran Akmal's outstanding century, taking Pakistan from 39/6 to an Innings defeat.

There is a history piled up in that lawn of grass. A history of facts I can't even state in an article; because I'd need a book. And then I came back to the emptiness, staring at the blank screen switched off. And I felt low because the terrorists had won and I wondered why, because the instability was influenced by a war we weren't involved in. And I sometimes wondered, looking at that park ... about roses that bloomed in deserts and died through thirst. I would think about the oceans of pain and vengeance that stormed through hearts we never knew. The victims of terrorism and wars. Cricket was destroyed, and hate grew further. And by just looking at that park I wondered if I could just discover a part that might understand human depression as a whole. If only I could know why people commit wrong deeds for the right reasons.

If I could hold a magic wand and fill in the stadium with thirty thousand peace loving souls, I would. And then reality bit me. I recalled the firing Team Sri Lanka must have heard. The eight policemen who died protecting them. It was almost dark, as I closed my laptop and walked down to the stands. My Uncle, who is a PCB official was done with his work. We drove out of the ground; and I looked into the sky which had transformed into an emerald made of sapphires; a sky bleached with a tinge of darkness that surrounded my dead stadium: A place I proudly called 'my' home ground. The towers of floodlights beamed out hazards of red lights, reminding me that the soul of The National stadium still exists; like its heart still beats with the flickering of those bright red lights ... telling me it will live again.

Comments (56)

April 3, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Comment on commentary

There has been increasing discussion on several forums on the web, not least of which is the ever active rec.sport.cricket discussion board about the quality of some of the cricket commentators we seem to get on TV nowadays. The views expressed by most contributors are along expected lines with some commentators coming in for flak for reasons as varied as bias bordering on jingoism/hero worship/unbridled and mindless one-way praise, lack of clarity, sheer monotony of voice and pitch etc etc. And, in a way, it brings to mind the experience of watching India play Pakistan in the 1996 World Cup quarters at Bangalore.

India had run up a challenging enough target, and it helped that the rules then resulted in Pakistan having one less over to get them in, due to slow over rates. But it was a decent batting wicket - not one of those 435 ones, mind you, but decent enough - and in Sohail and Anwar, Pakistan had an opening pair who were every bit as destructive as the more celebrated pairing of that world cup, Jayasuriya and Kalu. So, when the local boys, Srinath and Prasad, opened India's bowling, it did not take Sohail and Anwar too long to have us, 40000 local boys/girls/men/women/children, watch in mute disbelief as the ball began disappearing faster than hot cakes. The image of a white ball disappearing into the crowd against the backdrop of a Bangalore night sky stands out - as does the memory that the intense internal tussle between a cricket fan, who would like to applaud good shots for what they were, and an Indian team supporter, who couldn't bear to watch the mayhem, was clearly being won by the latter. We found voice when Anwar and Sohail fell, the latter after the rather memorable moment of eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between batsman and bowler, and things went downhill for Pakistan from there.

The point is that as fans, we probably have the luxury of harbouring biases and supporting our team, though I suspect that as self-proclaimed lovers of the sport, we have a duty to enjoy good cricket for what it is. However, it is not a uniquely Indian phenomenon, because I have watched - or listened with an ear cocked to find out - how Australian crowds reacted to India's performances in the 1985 "mini World Cup" (aka Ravi Shastri's tournament), in a match in which Australia were 37/5 even before we had shaken the sleep out of our eyes while watching it live on TV. And to my relief, the response was about as enthusiastic as ours was while Anwar and Sohail were on a rampage. I suspect, therefore, that unless you are faced with such glittering talents of the sport like Warne, Tendulkar, Lara, or from an earlier era Kapil Dev, Botham, Hadlee, Imran Khan, Richards, Sunil Gavaskar, to name a few, it would take a lot to get out of your supporter mind set and get into fan mode. But this is neither about fans nor mindsets, but about commentators.

When we first caught cricket on TV, it was amazing to be able to listen to the likes of Benaud, Chappell, Harvey, even Tony Greig, talk about the game as it unfolded. Here were people who you only saw on grainy black-and-white newspaper photos, or on the occasional newsreel. Unlike the radio commentators we were accustomed to, these people did not need to give us a blow-by-blow account of the game as it happened - they realised we could see that. But what was special was their ability to make an observation which captured the essence of the moment without being anywhere near as verbose as this piece. Sample, for instance, Chappell's "that could mean the match" when John Reid dropped a rampaging Kapil Dev off a well-disguised, well thought out Hadlee slower one, at a moment when New Zealand needed Kapil's wicket in the semi finals of the aforementioned Shastri's tournament - Kapil did eventually win India that match.

Unfortunately, those days seem to belong to an older, almost genteel era, when commentators knew how to appreciate the sport and the action, and all of its trappings. For all that, few Indian fans - self included - had heard of Henry Blofeld till he came along in a Sharjah tournament and went gaga over, of all things, earrings!! Most Indians probably remember him fondly for that, and that alone. Today, however, commentators are increasingly becoming as one-sided as the fans themselves. I was shocked, for instance, to hear that one Kiwi commentator, and ex-cricketer, thought that the home team should "crush India to dust" after running up 614 runs in the second test. And then there is this other commentator, who sounds English, and whose unbridled enthusiasm for all things Australian must be nauseating even to Aussie supporters. It is nearly as bad as listening to a current-day motorsports commentator and his eyes-only-for-the-current-world-champion-and-proud-of-it tendencies. Another once-eminent commentator, who we all loved listening to, has today descended to the level where all of what he does is tinged with an anti-BCCI flavour, though I am not sure he is alone, or without followers in that pursuit.

In conclusion, I think we all like our commentators to be observers of the game - people who can give us a view that almost shames us into appreciating the sport for what it is, and emerging from our "fan" cocoons. Unfortunately though, in this age of intolerance, these people have also become too intolerant to teach us how to enjoy the game. How is it relevant to my opening comment? I suspect that, like my email buddy and me, they too are over reacting to issues surrounding the sport, than to the action itself.

Comments (7)

March 31, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Talking about Walking

Amid all the drama there is a small gesture that is cricket’s stand out act of graciousness, walking. In many ways it epitomises the gentlemanly character of the game. It is honourable, humble, chivalrous. Yet although we nod deferentially to batsmen who walk, we remonstrate if our players are criticised for staying put after a convincing appeal. Bar a scattering of stumps, walking just isn’t expected however much it is admired. Standing until the umpire’s finger goes up has long been a right of batsmen everywhere.

So walkers are a rare breed. Giving oneself out is an unnecessary sacrifice, heroic beyond the vast majority of batsmen, whether at Lord’s or in the backyard. Walking may have an air of the saintly about it, but it also has a mild whiff of the foolish. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that it just isn’t worthwhile.

Yet walking could become more common amid the confusion of the new decision-review system. If not to ensure right trumps wrong, then at least to save face. Given that technology can both vindicate and vilify players, they might be inclined to err on the side of fair play. Of many examples in the recent South Africa-Australia series, take Ricky Ponting in the first innings of the third test at Newlands.

With two referrals still in the bag, Ponting walked when he was given out caught behind off Albie Morkel. Looking at replays, there was evidence to suggest that Steve Bucknor may have been wrong. 'Hotspot' showed no mark and slow-mo no edge. Had Ponting asked for the referral, Bucknor may well have been overruled. The Australian captain assumed that Hotspot would reveal a nick. It would be a waste of a referral and incriminating. He knew he was out, so he walked.

There was no frustrating halt in play, no exasperation at the ambiguity of the referral system, no philosophical debate about the nature of ‘irrefutable evidence’. Whether motivated by fair play or prudence, moments like this illustrate how cricket’s spirit can also be its arbiter.

Obviously there will be occasions when batsmen do not know whether or not they are out, and they are right to leave it to the umpire to decide. Equally obvious is that there will be occasions when batsmen know they are out but there is no appeal from the fielding side. To expect them to walk in these cases is ambitious.

But when batsmen do know they are out – which happens more often than not – and the fielding side enquires, the ready availability of technology to prove that they are could give batsmen reason to depart of their own free will. This must be a good thing, for the success of the referral system and for the sake of cricket’s good name.

At the end of the day, there will always be a gap between the laws of cricket and the manner in which it should be played. If the new decision-review system gets the official go-ahead, the two might come just a little closer.

Comments (34)

March 22, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Curiouser and curiouser

Now Cape Town. Australia skittled out and South Africa, with new openers, a stand-in captain and an air of pessimism, somehow contrive to grind Johnson and his cohorts into the dust as though we were back at Perth or the MCG. I just don't get it.

No doubt some of you will suggest, Mark Nicholas style, that this is the wonder of cricket. It is so unpredictable. It's a funny old game. Isn't it marvellous? Well, yes it is, from a spectator's perspective. I've always preferred to watch two well-matched but ordinary competitors scrap for victory than a well oiled machine rolling over feeble opponents.

But the human brain also strives for patterns, for frames of reference. And that is my problem. I can't work out if what we've been glued to for the last three months is two ordinary teams taking it in turns to beat one another up, or two fantastic sides engaged in a titanic struggle for world supremacy.

You see in cricket there is no form book. There is Wisden, of course, an entire universe encapsulated in the shape of a yellow brick. But the good editors of that august publication do not entangle themselves in the sordid business of telling you which team is best. In despair I turn to the ICC rankings. They tell me Australia are best, by a small distance from South Africa. I can live with that. Problem is they also tell me that both teams are better than India, by a slightly smaller distance, which I couldn't even live next door to.

Eureka! The answer. It cannot be that South Africa, Australia and India are all fantastic. That would be a cricketing golden age and I refuse to accept that we have done enough to deserve one of those. Therefore, they must all be equally ordinary. Apart from India.

So there you have it. The ICC rankings are wrong, India are best and the rest are following them in ragged bunch, with England wheezing along in the rear and hoping that ominous pounding sound they can hear is the beat emanating from their I-Pods and not Bangladesh about to overtake them.

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March 16, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Strange goings-on in Cricket

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February 12, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Penalising a genius statistically

If not for Sachin and Sehwag, India would have struggled to pass triple figures. Thanks to Cricinfo, you can check every one of the nine centuries scored by Tendulkar when India have lost. Perth, 1992. Edgbaston, 1996. Cape Town, 1997. Wellington, 1998. Bangalore, 1998. Chennai, 1999. MCG, 1999. Bloemfontein, 2001. Sydney, 2008.

To many, the very mention of these matches would evoke memories of some splendid innings by Tendulkar. See the scorecards, see the fall of wickets and you would struggle to chose the best among these centuries. In case you were fortunate enough to have watched these matches, most would make it to your list of Tendulkar's best. See the scorecards again, see the number of centuries in the 'India' column and the same in the opponent's column. Not much of a difference. Check the result. It was a convincing defeat. And now see the scorecards again. Erase the name Tendulkar and many of them would make for India's own version of the Sabina Park collapse.

India lost these matches mainly because the rest of the batsmen hardly made any runs or the bowlers were too profligate. And yet the only thing the only Indian to have lent dignity to these matches is reminded of is that they were not matchwinning centuries, simply because the other batsmen failed and India lost. What was Tendulkar's fault? He made runs when others did not. If so, then that was the bigger fault of his closest competitor in this era - Brian Charles Lara.

Only 31% of Sachin's 50-plus scores have come in winning causes. Perhaps if his team-mates had matched him in half these matches, the figure would have risen to 35%. And then he would have become the greatest Indian Test player. And oh, I forgot Tendulkar would have had six to seven Man-of-the-Match awards in victories and maybe a better average too. Apparently, these are important "logical" criteria for being a great player. Thus claim the authors of the Holding Willey report.

The authors are not the first and neither will they be the last to use this really bad statistic to quantify match-winning ability and believe they have presented a logical argument. I have heard such arguments being wrongly levelled against Tendulkar many times and every time I have seethed in anger. This time I decided to let it go against all those who throw a few convenient statistics and question his match-winning ability. Fact is, ability is not quantifiable. And I hope at least some of you concur with me.

If you think, this is just a ranting of a Tendulkar fanatic, let me dissect some of the other criteria the report talks about and lay them bare for all to see. Each of the criterion is actually more indicative of the team's ability to support their champions than the individual itself. Percentage of 50-plus scores in victories: Lara - 29%, Ponting - 70%, Hayden - 63%, S. Waugh - 60%, Richards - 50%, Gavaskar - 16%, Sehwag - 39%, Dravid - 37%.

Man-of-the-Match awards in victory : Lara - 4, Hayden - 8, Ponting - 10, S. Waugh - 13, Richards - 4, Gavaskar - 4, Sehwag - 4, Dravid - 5, (Richards and Gavaskar's Man-of-the-Match awards aren't accurate as they played in an earlier era.)

Average in matches won : Lara - 61, Hayden - 55, Ponting - 62, S. Waugh - 69, Richards - 52, Gavaskar - 44, Sehwag - 52, Dravid - 66.

Averages (Overall, Home, Away): Lara - 53, 59,48. Hayden - 50, 58, 42. Ponting - 54, 60, 50. Waugh - 51, 55, 47. Richards - 50, 50, 50. Gavaskar - 51, 50, 52. Sehwag - 51, 51, 51. Dravid - 52, 48, 56.

From these statistics, the ranking would read thus: Steve Waugh, Ponting, Dravid, Sehwag, Gavaskar, Richards, Lara and Hayden, barring one or two minor changes. Guess what, according to these numbers, Lara is way below Waugh, Ponting and Dravid. And how many of you agree with this?

In general most of the Australian greats would have pretty decent numbers when you compare any statistic related to matches won. The reason being that the team has rallied brilliantly behind them and helped them win matches. In effect, this statistic tells us more about a team's performance than about the player himself.

The final word shall not be mine but of Nirmal Shekhar's from Sportstar who had this to say when Wisden didn't deem it fit to include any knock of Sachin's in their list of 100 best innings in 2002: "Surely, you cannot penalise a genius for the mediocrity around him." And that's precisely what the statistics in the likes of the Holding Willey report do.

Comments (36)

February 10, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

How Relevant is Law 41.5 Today?

I assume the law was drafted to counter Bodyline tactics, which was probably fair enough since in those days batsmen didn't have adequate protection and were not trained to deal with that form of attack - targeting the body rather than the stumps. One of the stronger arguments of the day was that it went against the spirit of cricket. But honestly, when we have restrictions on how many bouncers can be bowled per over, these arguments become irrelevant. Batsman today expect short pitched deliveries and are adequately trained and protected to face them.

Today the spirit of cricket is usually only invoked to divert attention from an ugly incident. There can be little doubt that the game has shifted firmly in favor of batsmen nowadays, and all this law does is take away a legitimate form of attack for the bowling side. The law has virtually cast a death sentence on one of the more interesting fielding placements in cricket - the leg slip. Which is a shame. When the fielding side can have someone at short leg, and two men out at behind and in front of square on the on side it is pretty clear what the tactics are. This is legitimate and considered a test of the batsman's ability to handle short deliveries aimed at his chest. Why then do we have to stop short of a full out attack and restrict the number of fielders that have to stand behind the popping crease on the on side, for tradition?

There are already laws, notably 42.6, which protect batsmen from dangerous short pitched bowling. Bowlers are penalized with No Balls, warned a couple of times and if they persist in banned from bowling further in the match. The skill of the player facing the deliveries is taken into consideration. Similarly, negative tactics are also put in check. So while the law is woven into the rich fabric that is cricket history, I believe it honestly has no place in Test cricket today, or even limited overs cricket for that matter. It takes away attacking fielding positions for both spinners and fast bowlers and therefore also specific lines of attack, which could only add variety and intrigue. If nothing else, at the very least it gives the appearance that the game is not batsman-centric, something we might well forget with all the new restrictions and laws in the shorter formats of the game.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Australian Cricket

Forget the Ashes, England

The hysteria surrounding 2005, when England thrillingly won to breathe life back into the contest, was a good example of how much they revere the contest, and how much it means for them to win. There were some that hadn't ever seen the urn in England's trophy cabinet following its capture in 1989 and subsequent long term possession by Australia. I don't blame them for going mad and then giving MBEs top the victorious team. They did the same for the English Union team when they won the World Cup in 2003, having knocked off, you guessed it, Australia for the title.

England were widely rumoured to be treating this tour as an 'Ashes warm-up'. How that has now backfired spectacularly. Their reliance on Kevin Pietersen is beginning to grow with every Test, especially with the continually lean showings of Alastair Cook and the spineless Ian Bell. Their bowling, apart from the luckless yet venomous 'Freddie' Flintoff, is rather frail. Stuart Broad is developing but can't hide a lack of real pace. Ryan Sidebottom is steady and accurate, but can be negotiated by a good batting line-up. He went wicketless at Kingston, and that might be playing on their minds. The less said of Harmison and Jimmy Anderson the better. Neither are the answer for England's bowling woes.

Harmy is way too inconsistent and has problems with his attitude. Now that he is on the wrong side of 30, they need to cut off from a talented but highly enigmatic bowler. Anderson is a real conundrum. He can bowl prodigious swing at a good pace at times but when he has an off day, which is quite often, he can be plundered for many runs. He was highly ineffectual in the last Ashes series, and the Australian batsmen will be licking their lips if he comes into contention for a place. Monty is certainly their best spinner. And one would hope he finds his mojo, as he can be considered a far better spin bowler than anyone Australia can muster at the present time. England needs to have a long think, and so do all you Pom supporters out there. Do you really think you can win the Ashes with this inconsistent bunch of underachievers?

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February 7, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Another year. Another bowler

He got out to Mendis only once and Murali twice. They never made him look like a novice. But when you are Tendulkar, unless you make the bowler look like a novice, it counts against you. The one-day series would have provided redemption chance but yet another injury deprived us of the fascinating encounter. With Sri Lanka not being commercially viable to BCCI, it seemed the revenge duel might never take place. But, How quirky fate can be? With the humbling still fresh in memory, Tendulkar gets to face M&M again.

Even if this series had been years later, one can bet Tendulkar wouldn't have forgotten his miserable last series. Champions don't take failures lightly. And the best players are doubly dangerous when they are looking to avenge for failures. Murali has already spoken of revenge. It is to the credit of Dhoni's men that there have been nothing more than whispers about Sachin in the pre-series coverage. More than his scores, I would be curious about his methods against M&M. Will he take the bull by its horns? Unlike in Tests, when he seems sometimes caught between attack and defense, ODIs demand him to attack more - which is his natural game. This will work greatly in his favour.

I guess he might treat M&M with the respect their varying experiences call for. He will probably try to work Murali around. In ODIs, Murali is probably the bowler he has played most cautiously after McGrath. And as for Mendis, expect nothing less than a first-hand demonstration of his batsmanship that made many pundits place him only below Bradman amidst batting greats.

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January 17, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

The Scourge of our Times

Why do I harbour such ill-feeling towards the moderately talented? Well, ever since I read Lalit Modi's autobiography (Modi, Modi, Modi 'A Rich Man's World') I have started to see the activities of Vikram and his cohorts in a new and sinister light.

What is the biggest problem in the world right now? I think we all know the answer. Unofficial cricket. Let's be frank, it's the scourge of the modern age. It is sickening to think that even as you're reading this there are gangs of rebel cricketers hanging round on street corners all over India. Wealthy residents of Delhi are frightened to leave their homes lest they encounter some unofficial cricket. Only this morning, I had to confiscate a bat from a group of eight year olds playing in the local park. Had they sought ICC clearance? Had they hell!

Thank heavens then for the BCCI and their efforts to save us all from these dangerous insurgents. This dedicated band is working tirelessly, literally one, sometimes two afternoons a week on our behalf. You might say that they seem to be doing very well for themselves in the process. But you'd be wrong. They don't drive top-of-the-range cars because they like it. They don't wear expensive suits because they want to. It's just part of the job. In order to infiltrate these gangs of international desperadoes they have to think like them, act like them, get paid more than them.

The ICL rebels are undermining Test cricket and grabbing the cash to play in a pointless domestic Indian league designed purely to make vast piles of money for the shadowy clique in charge. Let's be clear, that is something that the BCCI simply will not tolerate. You might not like Lalit Modi or Shashank Manohar. But that's because you're a neo-colonialist and frankly you deserve to be crushed underneath a heavy roller pushed by Jesse Ryder. So join with me and stand up to these rebels, these ICL bullies, with their half-empty stadia and pink tracksuits. Go along to New Road, stand by the pavilion and tut loudly as Solanki strolls out to bat. If you meet Paul Nixon in the queue at the butcher's, pretend you don't know who he is. And if you see Dinesh Mongia flagging down a taxi, it is your moral duty as a cricket fan to steal his ride.

Let these people be in no doubt about two things. Firstly, that there is more to cricket than money. And secondly, that the BCCI know where they live and where they do their grocery shopping.

Comments (29)

January 11, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

An Elephant Story

'Is that near Darwin?' asked Roy.

Suddenly, Mitch hurried to the front of the front of the line, his tusks gleaming in the setting sun. 'Skip, Skip, come quick!'

'What is it boy, can't you see I'm busy?'

'It's Haydos, Skip. He's not moving!'

Haydos had been around as long as anyone could remember and in his day had been a feared warrior. Always the first into battle, he would stomp up and down, waving his trunk and bellowing, smiting fear into the hearts of his foes.

But now he was a pitiful sight. His great bellowing had become a timid whisper. His arthritic hip meant he could no longer stomp and there were days when he couldn't even keep his trunk straight. The evil day could be delayed no longer. The law of the herd was harsh, but they could afford no stragglers. Punter knew that the time had come for the old campaigner, just as it came for Warnie, Pigeon, Gilly and the other one. Just as it would come for him one day.

'G'day, Haydos,' said Punter.

The old elephant was sitting down and tried to struggle to his feet.

'No, don't worry mate. No need to get up.'

'Just needed a rest, Skip. I'll be back on form for the next mission.'

Punter remained silent.

'What is it, Skip?'

'Thing is Haydos, we don't need you for the next mission.'

'Oh. Right. Give the younger elephants a chance. Good idea. Happy to stand aside this time, for the good of the herd.

'Or the mission after that,' continued Punter.

There was an awkward silence.

'Guess this is it then,' said Haydos.

Punter looked down, rubbing his trunk in the dust.

'Guess it is. Right. Well, I'll see you then.' Punter turned to walk away.

'Skip?' asked Haydos, for the last time.

'What?'

'Will you do me a favour and break the news to Roy. I don't think I can.'

'No worries mate,' said Punter.

And so the great old elephant lay down to sleep under a coolibah tree. Punter marched to the front of the herd, trying not to dwell on the day, fast approaching, when he too must lay down in the shade. He looked at the line of expectant faces. 'Right,' he ordered, 'keep a nice tidy line. By the left, quick march!'

'Incompetent oaf!' muttered Lee.

'Silence in the ranks!' shouted Punter.

And on they marched, the great, noble herd, trampling almost everything that lay in their path though sometimes they had to take the long way round.

Comments (11)

January 8, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Predictions for 2009

England is a real mess at the moment. KP has resigned from the captaincy and there will be no Peter Moores. England is a shadow of the team that won the 2005 Ashes, although some of the heroes are still lingering around. Flintoff is still a force to be reckoned with, and KP is a genuine superstar batsman who can by dynamite against any opposition. However, their bowling attack is pretty flimsy, as is their choice of Bell at number three. Bell has never made a Test century unless another batsman has passed the mark before him, and while stylish, he just doesn't have any steel in his spine.

India and South Africa will define excellence in 2009, and while India are looking as good as ever, South Africa have the advantage due to their finely balanced bowling attack and the coming of age of several of their players (Namely De Villiers and Amla). India has a classy team, led by two fine fast bowlers in Zaheer and Ishant. Ishant has the mark of an all time great, and will continue to improve as long as he doesn't break down due to his somewhat frail physique. Their problem is their aging veterans, who are approaching their use by date (Namely Dravid, Laxman, and Tendulkar, although the latter two players have a year or two left in them).

Dhoni has a lot of charisma, and leads the team well, but India will not be able to challenge South Africa unless they win important series away from home. If they can beat the South African team outside of their comfort zone, then they will be the top side. In the meanwhile, they are probably one of the better limited overs sides around. And there is plenty of good young players coming through that could have a great affect on Indian cricket for the next few years. Look out for them at the 20/20 World Championship.

Sri Lanka have looked terrific since introducing Ajantha Mendis into their attack. While they will have to worry about how to replace Chaminda Vaas in the near future, they have a good team that can give any team a real shake on their day. They do tend to rely on Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakarra too much, but when they go strong, they will surprise. They could well provide India with some anxious moments if they tour there, especially if any turners make an appearance.

Pakistan, thankfully, are making some tours this year, including one to Australia. I'm glad they are getting some international cricket this year after a 2008 they'd rather forget. There will be no Mohammad Asif because of his idiotic drug taking, but Nasir Jamshed is a talented young opener, and they still have the services of Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir and Yasir Arafat, not to mention the Britney Spears of cricket, Shoaib Ahktar.

New Zealand may bloom this year with their youthful team, but India is their first obstacle and their relatively pedestrian attack will struggle. A lot will fall onto Tim Southee, Kyle Mills, and the ever-reliable Daniel Vettori. Hopes will ride on the crop of young batsmen coming through (Jesse Ryder, Daniel Flynn and Ross Taylor) to find their feet this year. Keep your eyes on Flynn. He is a player who loves a scrap.

The West Indies had a long year, but the talent is there. Their fast bowling is a problem, but Jerome Taylor is still a damn good bowler. And Gayle, Sarwan, and the Shiv form a formidable batting trio. It is the rest of the team that needs to lift to match their depended-upon heroes. Another frustrating year looms.

Ah Bangladesh. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same. Any improvements were blown open by irresponsible batting, inadequate bowling, and a generally undisciplined approach, although they gave Sri Lanka a serious scare in their recent Test series by reaching a 4th innings total in excess of 400. Sakib Al Hasan looks to be an allrounder of immense promise, let's hope they nurture him well. Don't be surprised if they pull off a shock in the World 20/20.

Alrighty, looking at the schedule, I'll now make my predictions. The top Test run scorer of the year will be Virender Sehwag, although I reckon Michael Clarke will run him close this year. Both India and Australia have quite a few Test series this year. Sehwag always scores heavily, but Clarke is a batsman that is on the improve every year and his maturity has been evident this summer via several fighting knocks.

The top wicket-taker will be Mitchell Johnson. 'Johnno' had a good year in 2008 to finish equal second highest wicket taker, and I reckon he will enjoy the responsibility of being the number one. England will be facing an immensely improved and dangerous Johnson in England this year.

The top ODI run scorer will be, on a limb, either Gautum Gambhir or perhaps Kumar Sangakarra. Both are accomplished, and will face a glut of ODIs this year. The top ODI bowler is harder, but I'll go with Ajantha Mendis to elude second year syndrome and be a real force. Give us your opinions and let's get some lively discussion going.

Comments (79)

January 1, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Pace like fire

Although all four were bowling right-arm fast, they offered the full spectrum of artillery, namely: Andy Roberts - fairly short in height, his bustling round arm action allowed him to bowl outswingers with the new ball that were difficult to pick up in the air. His deceptive pace, late swing, nagging accuracy and low delivery trajectory saw him collect a lot of lbw and caught behind dismissals.

Michael Holding - not called 'Whispering Death' without reason, he had the most fluent, languid fast bowling action in the game's history. A champion middle distance runner in his youth, he naturally favoured a long run up to the crease and his effortless poetry in motion belied a capacity to generate great pace and bounce. Without warning, he could disrupt the batsman by going off a short run up to send down even quicker deliveries (was he the game's greatest ever exponent of mixing long-run and short-run deliveries?). Holding's stamina and athleticism also meant he could bowl all day if required.

Joel Garner - if you are 6ft 8ins tall and have a reach-for-the-sky action where the ball is being delivered from a height of ten feet, then what you lose in pace will be made up for with bounce. Garner's ability to make the ball rear up off a good length on seemingly dead pitches made him an extremely awkward proposition in the era before bowling machines would be able to simulate such bounce in net practice. He was the perfect support bowler after opening spells from Roberts and Holding.

Colin Croft - like Garner, a member of the awkward squad but for different reasons. Where Garner went vertical, Croft went horizontal with a curious windmill action that allowed him to slant the ball away from left-handed batsmen and worry the right-handers with uncommon inswing. This crosswards bowling line was accentuated by his delivery point wide of the crease. Never a candidate at risk of being warned for running on the pitch, I felt Croft often got away with the opposite in putting his feet outside the crease at the point of delivery. So there you have it.

I salute Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft as the greatest fast bowling quartet who bowled together in cricket history. Can you think of a better quartet? For example, are Larwood, Allen, Voce and Bowes turning in their graves at such heresy?

Comments (7)

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Genius?

In essence, this is a piece on genius. Who qualifies as one? Most importantly, is Laxman one? In order to justify that inexcusably long first paragraph, I begin by paying obeisance to my economic roots and making a few assumption/statements (none too far-fetched in my opinion): a genius is someone who is special; who, if in an academic field, thinks and acts and theorises at a level that the normal man can only dream of; who, if an artist/sportsman, is someone blessed with infinite amounts of 'creative power or natural ability' (OD); who, therefore, is a pioneer of sorts; who is far ahead of his times, innovative, inventive and different. Laxman's a man who's hard to catch or just isn't flashy enough to be under constant media glare. Interviews come at a trickle. And in the precious few, he's never verbose, not even close. But, he's not as soft or as silent as the media portrays him to be: he does say what he wants to say, perhaps more politely than most of the younger lot.

What interests and appeals to the cricket-lover in me is his take on any cricket-issue, his comments on the state of the game, the pitch, batting, slip-catching, they are mature, intelligent and incisive, indicative of a man who is a sound cricketing brain. Cricket-wise he is an extremely good strategist. Azharuddin, one of India's best captains ever, still believes he should be made captain and it really is a pity that we haven't seen enough of Laxman the Captain. Unlike many, I wouldn't judge him by his IPL stint simply because we just didn't get to see enough of him; however, that being said, he showed little of the spark or the genius a Shane Warne did, even in his initial few games. In conclusion, I think it would be far-fetched to term Laxman a genius, purely on academic terms; I don't see him as someone who has the 'vision', who sees the game from a level above the modern-day thinking cricketer.

'Creative power or natural ability': both interesting terms. Laxman has wrists of God, his flicks and clips of, not merely his pads but off deliveries a good two stumps away from his off-stump are special and unparalleled (no, even Azhar couldn't produce the shots he does). Blessed with tremendous amounts of natural ability, he's managed to 'create' his own range of strokes: different, silky and very, very special.

Every batsman has his own style and in a way, it may be argued that every batsman 'creates' his own style based on what comes naturally to him. But, what makes VVS stand apart is how different his predominantly wristy style is: the scale of the deviation from the batting manual is immense, far too much to be in the 'permissible' range; and yet, unorthodox as it is, it is still extremely effective. It is a manner that is new comprising of shots that are outrageously distinctive, testimony to his creative powers that can only be derived from his phenomenal natural ability. He definitely will not be a pioneer, simply because his batting is impossible to replicate. And he is different, though not a man ahead of his times (in fact, some may argue that he is slightly behind given the difference in his Test and one-day records).

If being innovative is bringing to the game something that it has never seen before, then Laxman, perhaps, just fits the bill. His stroke-play is unique, 'ground-breaking' even (a cruel adjective for such a gentle batsman). But, in a broader sense, innovation might also imply a continuous tendency to adapt, to learn, to change. And though, even after so many years of watching him bat, some strokes still leave me awe-struck, I can safely say that it is pretty rare that they'll shock me. The fact that he continues to retain his place in a line-up so star-studded shows that he's made adjustments, some technical, some mental, to the way he approaches his batting; the fact that he will always remain, in many eyes, someone of unfulfilled potential probably indicates that he hasn't done enough (or couldn't do enough) to continuously adapt to bowlers who began to see more of him. He's still managed to stay a couple of steps ahead, but it probably isn't quite enough to catapult him into Genius Inc.

Purely on natural ability, Laxman would make the cut. But, otherwise, taking all other grounds of qualifying into account, he'd probably qualify as a 'limited genius': one who probably requires a whole set of pre-requisites to actually come into his own. Most important, amongst those, is an opposition who is unashamedly attacking, a fielding captain who is not too familiar with his game and Laxman in a mood to be instinctive, to bat with abandon. There are few occasions where this happens: the most recent being that brilliant 109 in Australia, but otherwise, by and large, bowlers have learnt not to feed his strengths.

Laxman's response has been to mellow down, to solidify his defence, to let his instincts be guarded, in a strange way, in a quest to maintain his place in the side, he has limited his genius: it has proved productive, his innings are still punctuated by those magic flicks, but whole innings of magic are few and far in between. He's realised that the costs of continuing to try and live by the sword greatly outweigh the benefits of curbing his natural instincts. You won't see those beautiful but frustrating twenty-eights anymore, it's the gritty seventy-two that's become his trademark, valuable contributions, running around with the tail.

There's a lot to Laxman's batting that's brilliant: his timing, his much-praised hand-eye co-ordination and when in full flow, his invincibility against even the greatest of spin-bowling. It's not just his wrists that have got him to where he is. But, those very wrists have made him special - that have separated him from other greater mortals; that have flummoxed, with their snapping bite or their yummy roll, the best of bowlers; that have taken him to the brink of genius. He's there. Almost. And that's how it should be.

Comments (3)

December 31, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Change masters

	Hoepfully, Simon Katich will get the cricket ball more often in the future © Getty Images

From S. Giridhar, India

How often have we heard the expression, “Here comes ... the man with the golden arm” and even the most despondent supporter of the fielding team that has been defied for hours by the batsmen perks up with hope! What kind of legerdemain does this occasional bowler consistently serve up that over the years the change bowler has acquired an almost Robin Hood kind of charm? How many matches have they simply turned on the head because they wobbled the ball or spun the ball when the more accomplished comrade had almost thrown in the towel?

Recently, as South Africa against all odds ran down a target of 414 runs on the last two days of a Test, there were three big partnerships, each of them inexorably taking the match further and further away from Ricky Ponting and Australia. As I ran my eyes down the bowling column I saw Andrew Symonds had not bowled a ball and neither had Simon Katich. Would it have made a difference?

I don’t want to use Australia’s travails to base my story but as I cast my mind back for more instances of matches lost because the golden arm men were absent I cannot but stumble upon two significant India-Australia matches.

The first and most obvious one is the greatest comeback win ever in cricket history. Kolkata, March 2001 … India in their second innings, following on, are 200 for 4, down and out for the count. VVS Laxman is joined at the crease by Rahul Dravid. How well each one of us knows this piece of our history! I recall this only to demonstrate that Steve Waugh too had no change bowlers with golden arms at his disposal while Dravid and Laxman constructed the most monumental of partnerships. Steve had only his twin Mark and Ponting to relieve his main bowlers. By no stretch of imagination do either Mark Waugh or Ponting qualify as true change bowlers. Maybe for a change of ends, maybe when a match is petering out into a draw, but certainly not bowlers who will change the course of the game with the magic ball!

And the second example from India v Australia - this time it is Adelaide in December 2003. India in the first innings on their knees at some 180 for 4, miles behind a mammoth Aussie first-innings score. Dravid and Laxman get together and again proceed to put together such a long huge partnership that it seems they have been batting since Kolkata. What does Steve Waugh have at hand this time as change bowlers to break this pair? Mark again and Simon Katich, who with his left-arm chinaman stuff is different.

And having set the table so to speak, let us look at some of the occasional bowlers who have done enough to be spoken of as change bowlers who do not merely provide respite to the main bowlers but produce the golden ball regularly. Do I begin with the Virender Sehwag - Sachin Tendulkar - Sourav Ganguly trio? No rather let me begin with a chap who must be about 63 years today. Old timers reading this will immediately realise that I am talking of that quintessential man with the golden arm, Doug Walters. Walters, one of Australia’s best batsmen in the 60s and 70s, played over 70 Tests and was regularly called upon by all his captains – from Bob Simpson to Bill Lawry to Ian Chappell – every time they faced a road block. He would run his 10-12 paces and produce almost with predictable regularity the away-swinger or the in-dipper to break partnerships. The record books say that he took 49 wickets this way. Many changed the course of the match. If one averages out his bowling stats it shows that Walters bowled only around eight overs in a match and got a wicket for every 11 overs bowled.

If you allow me to use Walters as a bench mark, I can then set some kind of criteria and identify other men who can claim membership in this 'hall of golden arm' fame. So shall we look for the change bowler who has not bowled more than 13 overs in a match on an average and whose strike-rate is not poorer than a wicket for every 15 overs bowled? So we must consciously exclude from our list cricketers who are in the genre of batting al-rounder and restrict our search only to the genuine change bowler.

I am not going to begin this by trawling through statistics but would rather let my memory help me. I will recall the names of all those batsmen who in my view (time, memory, loyalty, emotion - all these will contribute to my selection) probably are change bowlers and not more than that. How do they measure up to the “Walters Gold Standard for Change Bowlers”? My mind reels out these names:

Mudassar Nazar from Pakistan – who can forget the furtive way in which he ran up to bowl medium pace, ball clasped in both hands looking almost stealthily at mid-off and mid-on as he began his run-up; Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan from New Zealand; Paul Collingwood from England; Chris Gayle, Viv Richards, and Larry Gomes from West Indies; Symonds, Michael Clarke and Katich from Australia; Aravinda de Silva from Sri Lanka and of course Ganguly, Sehwag and Tendulkar from India. Enough on the plate for some study! Here are the numbers against these gentlemen. Gritty to good to great to greatest batsman, all in this list!

(Bowler, Tests, Balls, Average overs per match, Wickets, Type, Strike Rate wickets/ overs)

Doug Walters, 74, 3295, 7.4, 49, Right-arm medium, 11.2
Michael Clarke, 41, 1294, 5.3, 18, Left-arm slow, 12.0
Virender Sehwag, 65, 2323 6.0, 29, Right-arm offspin, 13.4
Andrew Symonds, 24, 2010, 14.0, 24, Right-arm medium & offspin, 14.0
Chris Gayle, 74, 5867, 13.2, 66, Right-arm offspin, 14.8
Craig McMillan, 55, 2502, 7.6, 28, Right-arm medium, 14.9
Aravinda de Silva, 93, 2595, 4.7, 29, Right-arm offspin, 14.9
Mudassar Nazar, 76, 5967, 13.1, 66, Right-arm medium, 15.1
Paul Collingwood, 40, 1287, 5.4, 14, Right-arm medium, 15.3
Sachin Tendulkar, 155, 3880, 4.2, 42, Right-arm everything, 15.4
Sourav Ganguly, 113, 3117, 4.6, 32, Right-arm medium, 16.2
Nathan Astle, 81, 5688, 11.7, 51, Right-arm medium, 18.6
Larry Gomes, 60, 2401, 6.7, 15, Right-arm offspin, 26.7
Viv Richards, 121, 5170, 7.1, 32, Right-arm offspin, 26.9

A look at the bowling stats of these gentlemen exposes the error that I made in including Richards and Gomes in the list. Sorry, but if they are going to take a wicket for every 26 or 28 overs bowled it means that their team waited a very long time for their golden arm to show up! So out they go.

I am also tempted to drop Astle from the list because he too takes around 19 overs to produce a wicket but since he has over 50Ttest wickets I think he is doing something that my analysis is missing. So he retains his place in my pantheon of change bowlers with golden arms.

While doing all this, we must also be vigilant to ensure that bowlers who are bordering on being regular bowlers do not sneak into this exclusive club of change bowlers. Symonds at 14 overs per match I think is dangerously close to being viewed as a regular bowling option rather than as a change bowler but let us not be too strict with him and include him in this list. Do you feel good Mr. Symonds or do you feel offended that I clubbed you with the change bowlers?

Oh by the way I looked up the numbers for Simon Katich and he seems to be doing exceedingly well and may well end up on top of the heap by the time he puts his cricket kit away. His strike-rate is right at the top but he has only 13 wickets to show so far. That will surely change but for that he will need another captain, not the current one! I can see why Ian Chappell and the brigade of Aussie experts were baffled at the extremely limited use of Katich as a change bowling option during Australia's recent visit to India.

Please don’t tell me that I have missed out more obvious names because I know that already! I deliberately waded into this piece leading from memory and only validated those names against certain criteria.

For instance surely I ought to find a better representative than Collingwood for England in this list! Jog your respective memories and pull out worthier names. Like my cousin Babu, an avid follower of cricket for the past 55 years, who was peeping over my shoulder as I typed this article kept insisting that I must add Chris Harris and Greg Chappell to this list!

In fact, not disheartened by the fact that I have not added those name,s Babu is now hissing in my ear that I must explore and validate his hypothesis that good change bowlers make the best thinkers and the best vice-captains in cricket history. Now that is something I will leave to someone else.

I am only certain about one thing. Change bowlers produce the magic ball because they are batsmen, think like batsmen and when they get the ball in their hand they outwit the batsman using a batting brain. Howzat?

Comments (15)

December 27, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Inbox World XI

Comments (133)

December 10, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Not a time for symbolism

We Indians love our cricket. But we can't see poor English blokes coming here against their better judgment because they are getting a chance to play Test cricket for England in the event of big names opting out. Will the visiting English fans be given round the clock security, in the unlikely event that they come here to cheer their team? How can we, after an attack as horrendous as this, assume responsibility for the safety of foreigners, when we can no longer guarantee the safety of the locals? I am a little skeptical about the response I will get if I walk into a police station and ask for security because I feel unsafe.

India is unsafe at the moment. Five major attacks have taken place around the country this year - in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati and now Mumbai. India has now become a convenient target for the terrorist groups, which can no longer immigrate militants to the western world that easily anymore. If there is a militant group, with sophisticated weaponry at its disposal, intent on finding a vulnerable point in a country as big as India, they will find it. Our establishment is not prepared for unprecedented attacks, and pretending otherwise to the outside world is only hurting us Indians in the end.

The game should be played in an atmosphere of joy and calm. Touring abroad is all about enjoying the foreign culture and playing the game with the players' minds on the game, not getting locked up in their hotels. Let us not reduce the sport to a torturous obligation for the players and their families. If a strong message has to be sent to the terror network, the authorities should once and for all stop being politically correct, extend their vocabulary beyond 'we strongly condemn the attack' and get down to business.

At this point in time, I shall refrain from speculating on the ongoing investigations and possible roots of this attack. When the Test series gets underway, the last thing anyone wants to see is empty stands. Charging the locals half their wages for a lone ticket will be a stamp on the unofficially accepted notion that the Indian cricketing authorities are woefully ignorant and illiterate as far as the understanding of the game is concerned. Let the gates be thrown open. Not literally, of course.

Comments (9)

December 3, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

India must tour Pakistan

India is burning over the fact that terrorists had Pakistani connections and some have gone as far as saying an open war on Pakistan is the only option. Safe to say, India will not nuke Pakistan as America nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in response to the Pearl Harbor bombings. However, the common consensus is that India should have nothing to do with Pakistan and should cut off all cricketing ties with immediate effect. How such a move will bring accountability to those who committed such atrocities or bring closure to Indians and Pakistani's, barring religious, cultural and ethnicity differences, caught up in the Mumbai bombings is anyone's guess, with your guess as good as mine.

If India do cut off cricketing ties with Pakistan and cancel the upcoming tour to cricket deprived Pakistan as a strong indication of their intentions, it will leave Pakistan, like Zaheer Abbas said, as "orphans in the international cricketing community", conveniently overlooked and forgotten.

It is a well known fact that the BCCI are the power brokers of International Cricket who use their financial muscle to pull off stunning power play moves that smaller and comparably weaker boards can only dream off - Not bad for a nation that was considered a minnow, financially, for the past 50 years or so. In regards to the "postponed", more or less a synonym for the "cancelled" Champions Trophy, make no mistake, India's stubborn backing of Pakistan in their futile attempt to stage the Champions Trophy on schedule is what gave Pakistan the opportunity to hold the tournament same time next year. If India and Pakistan give each other the silent treatment, as the media would have us believe, what happens to the Champions Trophy? Will it go ahead? What about the 2011 World Cup? Will countries continue to boycott the matches held in Pakistan but not India, for the next 2 - 3 years leading up to and including the 2011 WC even if Pakistan fork out a fortune on unprecedented level of Commando - type security that India are willing to provide to the English Cricket Team?

Pakistani fans have long argued that Pakistan is as safe as India, but are irked over what they claim as "hypocrisy and double standards" when foreign countries tour India but alienate Pakistan, in the same way an individual feels alienated, lost and helpless when bullied by fellow peers. Assuming for the moment that India is as safe as Pakistan, touring teams find India the more attractive proposition simply because of the wealth it generates - a simple risk - reward proposition, really. Even at this moment, teams will turn a blind eye to touring Pakistan but will think hard before refusing to tour India.

Besides political tensions and the fact that the two countries are arch rivals who continue to squabble over the disputed region of Kashmir, India have stood by Pakistan. If India abandon Pakistan, then, in effect they have left Pakistan cricket to suffer a slow, painful death with no hope of respite. Commentators have sympathized with India's current predicament and have suggested that Cricket will suffer. I respectfully disagree. The only country that will suffer more than anyone else will be Pakistan, who, after these attacks have lost their biggest backer in the BCCI. Players will opt out of coming to India, but that is no more than a short term knee jerk reaction. As an ardent Indian cricket fan, I am happy to report that Indian cricket will resume business as normal as soon as Reg Dickason okay's the tour

Comments (6)

November 25, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The best bowling attack in the world

The ingredients are intoxicating to say the least. A left-armer who can make both the new as well as old ball talk. Zak has shown a terrific understanding of the use of the angles whenever he comes on to bowl round the wicket to the right-handers. And his phenomenal ability to reverse swing early only means that the batsmen can relax at their own peril. Add to that the tall lanky Ishant who with his nagging accuracy and the ability to extract disconcerting bounce even on the most placid of wickets has made it amply clear that he is a force to reckon with at all times. The pressure exerted by these two is unbearable which forces batsmen to commit errors.

The performance of Hayden and Ponting, the two bulwarks of the Aussie batting line up, against these two is a testimony to this fact and had a massive bearing on the ultimate result in the most recently concluded Border-Gavaskar series. Both these bowlers make it very easy for someone like Bhajji to come and bowl to the new batsmen who have not yet got settled in the crease. Furthermore, we are spoilt for choices too and can pick anyone from Mishra, Munaf, RP Singh and Sreesanth to name a few more.

India has a long and impressive history of producing good batsmen, but sadly we have never had confluence of great bowlers at the same time which explains our poor win record. Agreed , that the quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra, Venkat had their time in the sun, but even they will admit that they could not win as many matches as they would have liked particularly abroad and the presence of a good fast bowler would have definitely helped them.

Kapil Dev shouldered the burden of bowling throughout his career and only K Ghavri and M Prabhakar lent him some support for a brief period of tme. The story was the same with Anl Kumble who ploughed a lone furrow but nevertheless still did a fabulous job as a strike and stock bowler throughout his career. But now I feel that the tide has turned and now we have a bowling Attack that can take 20 wickets in most conditions and on most wickets.

Bowlers are the unsung heroes of this game and it is a misnomer that bowlers will win you only Test matches. Australia has won the last 3 World Cups because their bowlers had pulverized the batsmen into submission. And take the latest ODI between England and India at Bangalore which was a curtailed 22 over match. The magnificent performance of Zak, Munaf and Ishant in the 3 powerplays was decisive. A new dawn is being quietly ushered in Indian Cricket which I feel will be the best in its history.

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November 21, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Time for Cricket 2.0

Irrespective of the form of cricket, we need a clock like in soccer or basketball. There should be a certain amount of allowed "injury time" like in soccer. And the clock should stop for unforeseen delays or delays caused by the batting side. The clock refreshes after every hour. And if 15 overs are not bowled in that hour, the main bowler of the bowling team should not be allowed to bowl the rest of the innings or even better, the number of overs a team is short by should be multiplied by one more than the current run-rate of the batting side and those runs should be added to the batting side's score.

Also, umpires must be allowed to make a judgement before the start of play about whether they think play will last the full day. This should be done in conjunction with local officials and weather-people. There's no point going on like nothing has happened then all of a sudden whipping out light meters. That doesn't make the slightest of sense and literally casts a poor light on the professionalism of the game.

Further, cricket should be about maximizing resources: if there are lights installed at a stadium, they must be used at any cost if needed, irrespective of what the captains agreed to do. (This will prevent farces of the kind that happened in Kanpur recently). And the ICC must also scrap the rule that you need at least a one-hour delay to be able to shorten a lunch-break. The lunch-break should be shortened to 20 minutes in my opinion anyway. Similar rules are also needed in Test cricket. Why is the morning break shorter than the afternoon break? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They should be equal and absolutely symmetric.

There are a lot more things cricket needs to implement to make sure that focus is kept on cricket. Instead of referring close boundary balls to the third umpire, what cricket needs is linesmen standing close to the boundary. They should easily be able to tell. And calling front-foot no-balls should not be the prerogative of the field umpire. They should be concentrating on caught-behinds and lbws. No-balls should be called by the third umpire - institute the free hit in Test cricket too, so that the batsman can take advantage of it.

Also, if the field umpire makes a blatantly wrong decision, the third umpire must be allowed to overturn it immediately. All this talk about "cricket is a great leveller" or "it's like life, you take the rough with the smooth" is more suitable for enthusiasts who're locked in the Victorian age in my opinion. I'm a modern fan and I want to see the game be played properly, and the right decision to be taken no matter what. It seems almost farcical to not maximize the available resources in order to preserve some "time-honoured" traditions...I for one am not for tradition.

If people think the review system takes time, a good idea may be for the field umpire to have some kind of miniature hand-held screen which relays videos from the third umpire of the current delivery, so that he can have a look again (possibly with Hawkeye assistance for lbws) to be absolutely sure he has made the right decision. Of course, there should be a time-limit to that too. I mean if people can use iPhones how hard is this to implement? Also, sightscreen delays: I think they are really uncalled for. I think all stadiums should have a huge fence or wall of some kind built around the back and sides of the sightscreen.

Last but not the least: The umpires themselves. Not the umpiring, but umpires. First of all they should dress for the weather. It's stupid to see someone in dark trousers and a dark shirt umpiring in searing heat in the subcontinent. He's an umpire, not a business executive or something. What's more, that means that he is not in a relaxed frame of mind and affects his decision-making. Soccer referee wear is fine with me. Also, please, umpires, stop ambling around the field to get things done. Life moves quickly, so should you and the game. It takes an eternity to get those light readings done and it doesn't help when you walk like you're in the park for God's sake. Walk faster, and get on with it.

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November 18, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Who's Yuvraj?

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November 14, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

A plan for Tests

What has not been mentioned though is that the timing and arrangement of Test matches in India always seems arranged in a completely ad-hoc and seeming random manner. Let me explain why I bring this up here. Almost all sports all over the planet has fixed routine that lets the fans anticipate their commencement and even perhaps plan their schedules around it. Having lived in the United States for the past half a dozen years, I have come to know that if the leaves are turning colors and the air is cool, it must be time for football. Or if it is October, the New York Yankees are wondering how much more money they have to spend to win some play-off games. The first weekend of February means skiing on Saturday (just a personal tradition) and Super-Bowl on Sunday. March equals college basketball. Similarly, boxing day and I am always scouring for news from the MCG and come NewYear's day it will be Sydney.

In contrast to all of this, the schedules for Test match series in India and without fail decided on only at the eleventh hour, told to the public at eleven thirty while the actual stadium are only readied at 11:50. By that time it is entirely too late or useless to even contemplate trivialities such as the paying fans. Further, we are told there is a rotation system for allotments of matches to grounds in a big country such as India. So why can somebody not publish a schedule which shows for instance that Nagpur hosts a Test match every third year in the second week of November? Or that Mumbai hosts a Test every three years in the first week of December etc?

The point here is that the sporting events mentioned previously are so much better recieved than Test matches in India because it lets followers be part of a tradition. Lets them be part of a fraternity of fellow cricket lovers. More importantly it lets for planning in lives getting ever busier. For instance if the people of Nagpur knew that a Test match will be played every three years on the fourth week on november, I am ready to bet good money that many would arrange to save their vacation time for those days, buy tickets in advance, plan to meet up with friends at the grounds and indeed do show up to watch cricket.

Now, there are some historical reasons behind the ad-hoc cricketing schedule of almost all countries bar England and Australia which first established their cricket seasons and all new comers to Test cricket had to work around it. But surely Indian cricket is now in a position to enforce a well defined season of its own. Now more than ever, when we actually have a team (almost) worth their fat paychecks. More importantly, India being the generator of the greatest share of money in cricket owns the responsibility of nurturing and promoting cricket in all forms including tests at home. A diminishment of Test cricket in India in all likelihood will not be good for the game elsewhere. So will the BCCI please stop wasting its energies fighting the ICL, ECB, CAB or any other organization with a three letter acronym and tell us what games to look forward to for the next couple of years?

Comments (2)

November 3, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Who's next?

Well, it can, as it is proven here. And so who's next to quit? Rather, who next for the media to target? Well, this is not even a 1 dollar question and the answer is obvious. 'The Wall' cracking brick by brick, 'The Wall' crumbling, feeling the pinch, the only one of Fab 4 who has not fired, and so on. A lot is written about him, a lot is being discussed about him, and I am pretty sure a LOT is going through his mind. Otherwise, you don't see him miss a straight ball and get castled (2nd innings, Delhi).

As experts say, it is tough to score when you're not in a relaxed frame of mind. So, will he be back in runs in a new stadium, a new pitch, and significantly in his wife's city where he averages 65+? I don't know. But, all I can say is he is one big innings away from finding his touch. When I say 'BIG', I mean a 100+ score.

The upcoming Nagpur test will be remembered for events like Dada's last test, Laxman's 100th test, Dhoni's first as official captain, India regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Harbhajan's 300th test wicket (on 299 now), the Fab Four playing together for one last time and Kumble being with the team for the last time (maybe to lift the trophy). But, this could also be a last for the man I am talking about it. Will he call it quits if he fails twice in the next test? Should he? Does he still have something to offer to Indian cricket?

Comments (67)

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

It's all about wickets

Kumble's very style of bowling revolves around NOT turning the ball big; it is not highly relevant whether it was motivated by a relative inability or was by design. I have not played cricket at any serious competitive level but through years of watching the game intently - and also watching the master in action through the years - I have stumbled upon what I think is a good example to demonstrate not only the effectiveness of Kumble's style but also how incredibly difficult it is to emulate it.

Hold the ball seam-up and aim to hit the middle stump off a full length at moderate pace. Two, repeat One. Three, get the ball to bounce a few centimeters closer to the offside than where it pitched previously. Four, now repeat One through to Three with leg-breaks! As hard as turning the ball a long way is, it is even harder to achieve pinpoint precision and near-absolute control over how you want to bowl the ball. This is exactly what Kumble achieved and repeated over 18 years and over long spells, relentlessly building pressure on those at the receiving end.

For, while Kumble knew exactly what he wanted to do, the batsman would have no way of reading his mind. He might be able to pick him off the hand and spot the googly before it was bowled, but how would he be able to foresee extremely subtle variations in line, length and pace? Combine this with fastish pace and the ability to generate disconcerting bounce almost at will, seemingly like a fast bowler bending his back and it is easy to see what a hard time batsmen must have had at the crease when facing Kumble.

This is why, for all the video-analysis that batsmen must surely have done to deconstruct Kumble and for all the fool-proof theories that were thought up time and again to counter Kumble - the most popular being to play him like a medium-pacer - he was as effective and successful as he had always been right up to the India-Australia series played in Australia earlier this year. And that's not all. He combined an indefatigable body with a brilliant cricketing brain and used his lethal accuracy to work batsmen into an inextricable position which would seal their doom before long.

The flipper would trap them plumb when they launched into an extravagant sweep and a startlingly slow, flighted one would catch them groping from too far back inside the crease. To this fan of chess, Kumble's bowling was the closest you could get to a marriage of chess and cricket. Ironically, it was his fast-bowling contemporary and towering legend Glenn McGrath who came closest to emulating Kumble's approach, although in his own inimitable way. This unfortunately feeds the cliche but it is also interesting to note the similarity in the approach of two of the most effective bowlers of their time.

Before I conclude my humble tribute, perhaps the greatest testimonial one can offer to Kumble's achievements is the way the masses, as opposed to the purists, viewed him. The masses did not fail to perceive the 'lack' of spectacular turn in his bowling but on the other hand, they, unlike purists, were obsessed with results rather than aesthetics. Therefore, Kumble's effectiveness was not lost on them, which was largely glossed over by purists until his 24 wicket haul in Australia in 2003-04 forced them to sit up and take notice.

Much like the hope of a Sachin special would be expressed when India faced a daunting target, the hope that Kumble would run through the opposition would be expressed when India had to defend a low total on a crumbling wicket. Long before Kumble's indispensability to the Indian cricket team was recognized by experts as equal to or more than Sachin's, the Indian cricket-loving public had already understood how crucial he was to the team's fortunes though they may not have spelt it out in write-ups with copious words.

Like the man himself has put it so eloquently, it's all about wickets at the end of the day and in the wicket-taking sweepstakes, Kumble towers over all but two bowlers in the history of Test cricket.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The Gentlemanly Sportsman

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The 5th element

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Goodbye Jumbo

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The Jumbo has landed

Even as the rest of the Indian batsmen got out or gave their wickets away, he stood their at one end determined to fight it out till the end. With his limited technique he defied the Aussies, focussed on playing out every ball and taking India closer to safety. However as fate would have it, with just five minutes to go three wickets fell in one over leading to the defeat. How much it would have hurt the man is for anybody to guess.

And then with the whole Indian and Australian press waiting for his sound bytes after the most controversial Test of our times, he kept his cool and came up with one single statement which said more than a five minute speech would have.

Determination, commitment, composure and dignity are words which cannot be strung together to define any other sportsman better than him. Not many Indian cricketers have left the game on their own terms, but then the timing of Kumble's departure has been spot on, much like his deliveries.

Never once has he given less than 100% on the field and the moment he's recognized that there were factors beyond his control which would not allow him to do so, he's stepped down. Memory doesn't serve up any names of Indians who have retired as captains and he definitely deserves to have done so.

There are two kinds of great players. There are those whose very presence lights up the arena and then there are those whose absence speaks more about their contributions. India have been lucky enough to have one of each kind play in the same era.

It is only fitting that he should have been carried on the shoulders of his team mates on his farewell lap, on the ground which has been lucky enough to witness the great man at his best, time and again. Goodbye Jumbo, and thanks for all the wickets.

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November 1, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

ICL v IPL

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October 16, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Nothing 'rebel' about it

Comments (2)

September 16, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

The future of cricket is here

Batting: Neil Broom: A right-hand middle order batsman. Broom had been a quiet achieve, with lots of contributions, but to few big scores. His average in the high 30's in both forms shows ability, but the chances to step up under pressure have not occurred - this is a chance to shine.

Bowling: Jeetan Patel: Off-Spinner. Patel has not got a great record, welcome to the life of a spinner in Australasia, but has played above himself in a NZ shirt. Also a death bowling specialist, something NZ always needs. These should be his conditions for a change.

Australia A have the most battle hardened players on show, it is clear that in the last two decades, anyone regularly making an Australian domestic team could be close to international cricket elsewhere. Their strength is aggressive batsmen capable of big scores fast, and aggressive pace bowlers capable of big halls. The weakness is spin.

Cameron White has yet to show even a domestic level of spin ability, he should be targeted by the Indian batting. Players to watch Overall: Cameron White: A right-hand middle order batsman, and Leg spin bowler. His batting should win games, captaincy might win games, and his bowling could lose games. Using his bowlers well and stepping up his own bowling effort will be the keys for success.

Batting: Adam Voges: A right-hand middle order batsman. Seems the most likely to step up a class, particularly in the one day arena. Hits hard and often, also very at good at closing an innings. Voges needs to learn how to score hundreds to become an international, hopefully this is the message from the selectors. As such he should bat higher than 6.

Bowler: Doug Bollinger: A left-arm quick, Bollinger had a very poor record till last season he sparked. Could play in the Border-Gavaskar, left arm quicks are valued everywhere.

A Point to Prove, Shaun Tait: Has shown in the past that he is the quickest bowler around at the moment. Is he well rested, or will the scatter gun miss the target. He needs to learn control and some variation in is second life.

Possible Performer: Peter Siddle: Has had good reviews and has also been noticed by the Australian selection panel. His record looks excellent. If he can stay fit enough to show it.

India A This is a line up some nations would want to swap with whole sale. It's time that the players who have been there step up, and the ones who want a go to show that they have got it. The batting is a mix of those who couldn't keep a place higher up and those who deserve a go. It looks, skilled, inventive, hard hitting, and competent. The pace attack is not sharp, but should be skilled. The spinners are useful with Chawla's leg spin likely to be telling. It is a surprise that a third spinner has not been selected.

India A's strength is that they have the longest middle order in the competition with some capable batters right down to the more experienced bowlers. Both the other sides look a bit weak at this level after number 6. The weakness is teamwork. So many of the players in this India A side will be looking out for themselves, they may forget that the team needs to win too.

Selecting a batting order here will be a nightmare. The biggest problem will be leaving quality players too late in the order to have an effect. Badrinath should bat high enough to show his class as a constructor of big innings as he has never been given the top team chance the others have.

A Point to Prove, Robin Uthappa: Is capable of more than he has shown recently. He also has the advantage of 50 overs to bat. He should be capable of influential innings.

Enjoy the tournament.

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