Bad Sport

The first test match between India and Australia at Mohali ended up being a classic. It will definitely be remembered for Laxmans class and Ishants defiance, not to mention their will to fight over physical pain. Test cricket is dead, but then, such matches do help revive the memories a bit.

But that being said, with Commonwealth Games on at Delhi, it was super insensitive of the BCCI and all concerned to have the most anticipated test series, possibly more than an India vs Pakistan series, to be help coinciding with the games. We live in a cricket crazy nation and the series just takes the spotlight away from CWG. Delaying this series by a couple of weeks should not have mattered to cricket, but would have made a world of difference to CWG. Abhinav Bindra went on to say “The Commonwealth Games will dominate the news columns. At least I want to live with that illusion.” Imagine our Olympic Gold medal winner having to make such statements.

This whole crap about BCCI being a non government body and the government having no control over it is all bullshit! For a non government body it sure has a lot of government ministers and in some cases chief ministers as head of the state cricket boards! The government should have cracked the whip and told BCCI to take a break of two weeks and then continue with their money making ways!

Irritated!

I don't follow cricket like I used to, but still something like this really irks me!

What did Dravid do wrong in the champions trophy that he is being dropped from the team? He was the top scorer and possibly the only guy who looks like he did his best to get India to a win! What did Raina do right that he is in the team? Who sees talent in Virat Kohli compared to Badrinath or Manoj Tewari or even Abhishek Nayar.

No wonder cricket (probably Indian cricket) no longer holds the special place in my day to day life. :-(

Too Smart...

... for your own good. That is what comes to mind as I see India play Bangladesh in their first match in the T20 World Cup. And the comment is only to do with arguably Indias most innovative captain, Dhoni.

Yes, in his pre-captain days Dhoni was one of the most feared batsman in world cricket. But captaincy has brought responsibility and Dhoni has slowly but steadily moved from the blaster role to a grafter role. While in the same time guys like Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan have won many a game on their own, not to mention Yuvraj and his explosive power. Yet for some reason, Dhoni thinks he is a better bat than all of these folks. Maybe every other game, just for the shock factor he can come one down, but he is now making it a habit and as habits come, this is a bad one.

Now, any one who wants to stick around in Indian cricket (Sreesanth definitely doesn't) knows that they don't wanna piss off Dhoni and telling him to come down to order would piss his off I suppose. But like in todays match, Dhoni came in one down after Rohit Sharma had given a good start. Gambhir has been struggling with form off late and in the company of Dhoni the two were scoring at around run a ball for the better part of 8-9 overs. Dhoni ended with 26 or 21 with one six and Gambhir to a 50 off 44 balls. Thanks to Yuvraj we had a decent score at the end, but left to "out of form but wont get out" Gambhir and "I am better than all" Dhoni, we would have definitely given Bangladesh a chance to smile, again! Who knows we still may...

Now, thats Royal!

Never thought I would see this, at least not in this edition of IPL! The Royal Challengers Bangalore are in the semis of IPL 2009! Yes, yes, you read it right... the co-whipped boys of last year have pulled off the real coup. They have beaten the top 3 teams in the last 3 games and in the process ended up in the top 3!

Hats off to Kumble... that guy is just such a fighter!!

Finally...

Watching IPL has been fun... though I have been only catching glimpses, the sheer mega feeling of the event and the intensity that big money gets from everybody (owners, players, rivals, commentators, coaches etc etc) is worth watching!

Our very own Royal Challengers, the team that we have to support, started off this year too just as badly as last year. Kevin Petersen couldn't do much and it was up to the old warhorses, Kumble and Dravid, who have been the best performers in the team. Just when I was losing interest (again!), they beat Kolkata Knight Riders (this years super strugglers, no thanks to Buchanan) in an unabsorbing yet tight encounter. Todays match between RC and Kings XI Punjab was a forgone conclusion in my mind. With no KP or Dravid, and the team playing 3 wicket keepers (Boucher, Sreevats and Uthappa), I didnt expect much. The batting was patchy, but thanks to some wierd and lusty hitting my Van De Merve, RC got to a decent total. They surprisingly followed this up with an exceptionally good performance on the field and a decent bowling show.

The first worthy win in this IPL season for RC and hopefully a turning point in the the teams fortunes!

Timeless...

In the midst of drastic attempts by the cricket administrators to make the sport more TV friendly (T20, T10 gully cricket) and compete with other sports like football, basketball etc, here is an interesting bit of info I didn't know off until today.

Imagine if we had stuck with the "Timeless" format for tests and we leave the Sri Lankan cricket team to bat on a dead wicket... they will keep batting till the fat lady is in her grave!

Whodunit ? Hedunit!

Sachin has finally done it! He has finally scored a century in a 4th innings victory for India. I have always yearned to see this and in fact have rated many like Inzamam ahead of Tendulkar because of Inzys ability to win test matches or Sachins inability to win them.

Finally, India chasing an epic score in the 4th innings, brings the very best out of the veteran and this 103 n.o. would be rated by many, including him, as one of his best ever hundreds! More so sweet because it happened in Chennai, which will sure help heal those Pakistan inflicted wound.

Thanks Sachin... Thanks!

p.s: Taking nothing away from Yuvraj though, he was just as instrumental if not more in winning this memorable test match! Kudos!

TRP Loses... Sport wins

We have all witnessed the TV spectacle that IPL was. TV viewership of the other soaps and reality shows took a serious beating, thanks to IPL. Many of the Bollywood filmmakers decided to delay the release of their films, so as to avoid competition with IPL. All this went according to the Modi TRP plan and guaranteed that players would actually fight with their respective boards, if needed, to get a chance to play in IPL.

Lets now talk of the most played and viewed sport in the world, Football. In stark contrast to how IPL did things, Euro 2008 has chosen to given give more importance to the game rather than the TRP or viewership. During the first half of the group matches, we had two matches per day and each being played at different times. Now that we have gotten near the end of the group matches, and many of the quarterfinal spots are going to be decided by these matches, the organisers have chosen to play both the matches at the same time. This almost halves the neutral viewership, for e.g. as in todays case, I am watching the Austria vs Germany match and haven't been following the Poland vs Croatia match. They did it so, because, no game should become a dead rubber, if they can help it. In IPL, we didn't have a single such situation of a clash in match timings. No way can the money-hungry-TRP-craving administrators afford to lose viewership.

As made note by me in an earlier post too... there is always going to be more to sport than money. And this simple fact eludes the money-ruled cricket administrators in India!

Mr.Transformer: Tiger To Wuss

My interest in IPL has increased over the course of the tournament, simply because we are able to witness some good spirited performances from old, new and unknown cricketers. But the fact that the Bangalore Challengers team sucks has not helped my interests in any way.

Though the IPL is yet to come even close to the rage following that something like EPL has garnered, I think it has started in the right direction. So, even though I don't care much if Bangalore loses, the caring is not nil either. I think Dravid, Charu and co. have to be blamed for the team selection, coz the team does suck, comparatively. This being said, for someone who claimed fame because be brought back Tipus sword and oozing with compassion for Karnataka, and strong local interests, the business beast inside Mallya didn't take long to surface. His decisions and his comments stink of typical board room moves. You throw people out of a company and then manage the outfall. But in the world of sports, things are a little different, as he has quickly learnt. He threw Charu out and Brijesh Patel came in, what changed ? Nothing! He apparently cut short Venkatesh Prasads opinions when it comes to team selection, what changed ? Nothing! He made the worst of comments against his team captain, what changed ? Nothing! So, Mr. Mallya... understand this... this is unfortunately business in sports, but as you can see, there is a different way of going about the business of sports!

I don't know if, like the EPL, the bottom feeders are relegated and some other team is given a chance. If so, first off Mallya and secondly Bangalore don't deserve to be part of the next edition of IPL!

Obviously shocking

The Indian Premier League T20 tournament is going great guns! I seriously am not interested in the tourney as its hard to not applaud a sehwag slog or a dhoni catch just because they are playing against the Bangalore Royal Challengers. This being said, I find myself spending a good 1-2 hours daily watching live action of IPL and this is exactly the reason why this tournament has become such a big success.

One thing that has come good out of this tournament is the obvious shock that the old guard does not fit into the new scheme of things. Dhoni was right!! There is no place for a Dravid or Laxman or Ganguly in this form of the game. Sachin has not played a single match, else I think he too would have been a failure, though he is the only one who has even a slight chance of success. Each one of these stalwarts is more of a liability in their team, creating batting order chaos and nothing more. Imagine Misbah-ul-haq sitting out of the Bangalore team or Herschelle Gibbs sitting out of the Hyderabad team or Gayle/Brad Hodge not in the playing 11 for Kolkata. Look at who from India is performing well... its rohit sharma, its uthappa, its sehwag, its dhoni, maybe even yuvraj. Basically, the new guard is doing the job and justifying why Dhoni took the bold decision (and all the flak) to drop dravid first and then ganguly from the one day squad.

I hope this tournament lays to rest the otherwise constant crib of each of these states on why their star player is not part of the ODI or T20 squad!

We won... sigh

India just leveled the series against South Africa and have retained the fear of touring the sub continent. This is one of those very rare occasions when the result is in India's favour and yet I feel this sense of sadness. The world No:2 and No:3 test teams have lost a total of 32 wickets in 3 days. The match is comfortably finished by the end of 3rd day. Morne Morkel bowls a good length ball and the ball fights to even go above the shoes of the batsman. Harbhajan Singh bowls the first over of the second innings even though we have 2 fully fit fast bowlers in Sreesanth and Ishanth.

All in all, a desperate attempt for victory by India. We have gone to the extent of making the Green park in Kanpur void of the slightest bit of grass and in fact, it was a bigger dust bowl than one has seen in the most gloomy of days of Indian cricket. I am sure history will remember this series as a 1-1 draw and nothing more. But lest we forget, the more pitches we create like this, the lesser we become as a cricketing nation. In fact, the pitches in all the 3 matches of this series have been disappointing. The first one at chennai was a dead pitch, the second one was more green than it should have been and the last one was more brown that it should have been. I don't believe in changing pitches in India to be similar to Australia or South Africa. The Aussies or Springboks cannot be expected to create a spin friendly pitch and similarly, there is no need for us to make pace friendly pitches. But that being said, we need good cricketing pitches. Test cricket is interesting when matches go the distance, not when things end on the 3rd day, with one team having the obvious advantage, like what happened in the 2nd or 3rd tests of this series.

Anyway, yippeeee... we won! :-(

Silly Billy

The final test between India and Australia is winding down to a draw and the main culprit for the result is probably the lifeless pitch. So much for cricket friendly Aussie pitches! :-) But then, this is apparently the first draw at Adelaide in 10 years! Can't blame the pitch much I suppose. Probably just 2 teams who played well when it mattered and hence the draw.

We had Billy Bowden as the umpire for the 3rd test match along with Asad Rauf, and the same pair officiated in the 4th test too. This was after ICC booted Bucknor off the series. After the 2 tests that Billy has officiated in, what is the general consensus on his umpiring? Was it better than Bucknors? At first glance, and considering the furore at Sydney, the answer would probably be yes. A good umpire is supposed to make the right decisions, be it out or not out. And with this as the context, on a closer look, you would see that Billy has taken the easy route out. He has played it safe by not giving any of the LBWs, even ones which were out. I think Billy's umpiring has been just as bad as Bucknors, just that people won't be as critical because, there is always the matter of the umpire being consistent and secondly, no one lost the Adelaide test specifically because of Billy decision making or the lack thereof!

Outrageous!

I didn't plan to write this post, but I just couldn't contain my anger. Here are a series of events in the second test between India and Australia in Sydney.

A delve into the past... In the 1st test between India and Australia, Yuvraj is unhappy with a very bad decision given and lingers a little longer than he should have. He is held up by the match referee and then let go. The ICC chief is unhappy that yuvraj is let go scot-free. Now to the present... where there is an ongoing investigation against Harbhajan for alleged racist comments against Symonds, one in which the match referee didn't see anything, the umpires didn't hear anything, but the aussies go to media with statements like "we have a strong case against Harbhajan". All this happening in the middle of the match!

Now, lets get to the center of all the controversies and we have many in this match.

1. Aussies are in a spot of bother in the first innings, Ponting is batting on 14 and snicks a ball to Dhoni. He does not walk and the umpire Mark Benson does not give him out. No questions asked, India... tough luck.
2. Symonds is pulling aussies out of trouble, he snicks a ball and the catch is taken. He does not walk and the umpire Steve Bucknor does not give him out. Since Bucknor takes for ages to give any decision, Ishant Sharma continues to appeal. Bucknor complains about him to the match referee for sustained appealing. India... tough luck again.
3. Symonds is now playing well and Dhoni manages to get a stumping very much against the run of play. He appeals to the square leg umpire, who decides to go to the 3rd umpire. The replays show that he was definitely out, but again, the 3rd umpire has other plans. India... not your day, not your test.
4. Another stumping off Harbhajan by Dhoni on Symonds. This time Bucknor who is at square leg doesn't even go to the 3rd umpire. The action replays show that he was out! India... Bucknor eyes are as good as that of a bat in daylight, trust him!
5. Jaffer is bowled by a beauty of a yorker by Lee. Action replays show that it was a no-ball. India... the ball was so good, the umpire was distracted from seeing the no-ball.
6. Aussies see Harbhajan of all the people giving able support to Tendulkar and they can't stomach it. They start their needling and Bhajji responds back in as many words. The Aussies feel pissed and lodge a complaint. India... Shut up, we, the aussies can sledge, your part is to only listen and not react!
7. Michale Clarke into bat in the 2nd innings and slashes at a ball from Kumble and the catch is taken by Dravid in slips. There isn't even an iota of doubt, but Clarke doesn't walk. Indians are flabbergasted and finally the umpire lifts his finger. India... Its after all Clarke, the vice captain of the team, if he is standing his ground, there must be reason!
8. Kumble has taken 2 wickets in a row and is on a hat-trick. A very valid lbw appeal against Symonds is turned down. Since Bucknor is so slow in deciding, Kumble continues the appeal and Bucknor has a word with him on sustained appealing. Hawk-eye shows that the ball would have hit the middle stump! India... when will you realize that Symonds has a contract for one let-off for every 50 runs he scores!
9. India is playing its 2nd innings and trying to save the test, Dravid is decided to plonk is feet down and is playing very well. A loud appeal from Symonds for a brush off the pads, supported very ably by all the close in aussie fielders including the 'preacher' Adam Gilchrist. Bucknor doesn't bat an eyelid and gives Dravid out. A disgusted Dravid laughs his way back to the pavilion. India... if the aussies have to win dravid can't be around.
10. A ball from Hogg hits Dhoni on the pads and bounces up. Ponting dives for the ball and catches it, but comes up grinding the ball in the ground. A definite not out, but there is a huge appeal from Ponting. Luckily the bowler appealed for LBW and Ponting for cthe catch and the confused umpire didnt give either. India, see, you may not be lucky, but at least on this occasion you were not unlucky.
11. Ganguly in prime form has scored run a ball 50 and is looking to save the match. A snick from Lee goes to Michael Clark in slips. There is definite doubt on whether the catch was taken cleanly. Ganguly stands his ground. Umpire Mark Benson instead of going to the 3rd umpire to confirm, instead of going to the square leg umpire to confirm, goes to the opposing captain, Ponting, who gestures to the umpire and to the batsman that ganguly is out. India, you got to understand, Ponting plans on becoming an umpire after his active career and he needs the practice!

All these decisions have brought India very close to defeat, with kumble battling on with the bat. This has been one abysmal performance by the umpires and unfortunately all decision minus one went against the Indiansremoved from the e. If they are bad, they need to be bad to both the teams, not just one! Its about time Bucknor is removed from the elite panel of umpires or at least not officiate in matches involving India. He has been complained on by India in the past, and he still is persisted with. He is the umpire for the 3rd test even. We will be blessed to watch more of his wonderful decision making!

What action will be taken against the belligerent aussies after then very sportmanly conduct? What action will be taken against the umpires, who have made more than their fair share of mistakes and even worse almost all against one team?!?

Hopping Gavaskar!

Anyone who has been listening to Sunil Gavaskar as a commentator would have seen his absolute anger at some commonly used terminologies or common spectator practices. He almost sounded like he was from a different planet! For e.g. He doesn't like the Hindi film industry being referred to as Bollywood. He also hates it when spectators make caps out of the national flag or if the national flag is not with the right dimensions or if the chakra has fewer spokes etc etc.

Considering Gavaskar being such a strict customer, he would have gone bonkers at seeing the streaker at the MCG on Boxing Day and the preferred clothing provided to him thereof!



I must say... the picture shows some very inappropriate stop-gap arrangement by the cops. If the streaker wants to parade naked... let him! But does he have to be covered using the Indian national flag? Can't they get hold of some piece of paper or something? Even if they don't, is it more important to cover for obscenity at the cost of insulting a nations national flag?

Smart move...

ICL just finished its first tourney and gave us a glimpse of what could be. Though I didn't really find the interest to see the matches, the never before heard grounds where these 20-20 matches were played were chock-a-block. There is still no clarity of whether the young players in ICL will ever be considered to play for India. Also, international players who played in the ICL face the effects of BCCI trying to pull strings. But one section of people associated with cricket who are raking in the moolah and not facing any of the BCCI wrath are the commentators.

I remember seeing articles from Tony Greig in the newspapers and on cricinfo.com giving thumbs up to ICL, comparing it to the Packer series in the late 70s. He later went on to commentate as a special panelist for ICL. Surprisingly, I now see Tony Greig in his regular role as commentator with Channel 9 in the ongoing India vs Australia Boxing day test match!

Maybe its time for the oldies in the different international teams (Lara, Atapattu, Andrew Hall etc etc) considered taking up commentary rather than playing rebel tournaments. :-) Its less/not objectionable and yet makes lotsa money.

Secret revealed!

India is on the verge of losing the 6th ODI against Australia. At 189-2, our required run rate was around 7.5 runs an over. With only 17 overs left, India chose to send in Rahul Dravid, who has been in pathetic form. People in the pavilion are Yuvraj, Uthappa and Dhoni himself. Why?

As I write this post, India has just lost the match. We lost the match not because of our bowling, it was again our batting. And the main culprit was our top scorer, Saurav Ganguly. He has opened the innings and scored 85 runs in 110 balls! That is equivalent to scoring at 4.6 runs per over when our required rate is 6.3!! This under normal circumstances would be considered ok, but when you are chasing 318, this is sacrilege. He has successfully managed to figure out the mantra to stay on in the Indian ODI cricket team. Keep scoring runs, no matter what the strike rate or situation. People will remember his 50's and forget how useless and sometimes detrimental the scores actually were. Here are his significant scores after his return to international cricket and the number of balls taken to get these scores.

73 in 99 balls (Strike Rate: 73)
42 in 75 balls (Strike Rate: 56)
39 in 54 balls (Strike Rate: 72)
72 in 104 balls (Strike Rate: 69)
59 in 79 balls (Strike Rate: 74)
53 in 60 balls (Strike Rate: 88) {Sachin in this match was scoring at strike rate of 120}
41 in 59 balls (Strike Rate: 69)
85 in 110 balls (Strike Rate: 77)

He is averaging around 53 in ODIs this year and we have not won a single match because of his performances. In the same time, Sachin and Rahul, the other two oldies have scored match winning innings on multiple occasions, but have a lot lesser average than Saurav. In fact, Rahul and Sachin are the first two in line to get dropped from the team in the "oldies rotation system".

Even in todays match, he played so slow that he left little too much for the rest of the folks towards the end. Today is one of the occasions where his batting has already cost us the match! I don't like Gambhirs technique, but his attitude is spot on. The selectors would be well advised to pack our team with match winners rather than folks whose performances make no or negative impact on the match!

Too much of anything...

... is never good.

India lost to the Aussies at Kochi in the second ODI. This is not surprising and one could hardly feel bad, as the Aussies clearly were the better team. I didn't see the match live, but was witness to the last minute treatment of Sreesanth by the Aussies and later saw what Sreesanth had handed out to the Aussies.

Sreesanth is aggressive and is willing to lose a portion of his match fee every match! I must say, he is going overboard with it! Beyond a point, its no longer funny and it in fact starts getting embarrassing. I know he must have been advised by many people, but he seems to have next to no self restraint. The only way he will be back to his best senses is if he is dumped from the team for a few matches on clear disciplinary ground and then brought back.

This being said, the Aussies have no right to criticize Sreesanth. He was just giving them a piece of what they dish out to everyone in world cricket. What credentials do they have to say that he is crossing the "line"? What about McGrath going after Sarwan a couple of seasons back? What about Ponting shoving Sharad Pawar off the stage so that he and his team can jump around on the stage after winning the ICC Champions trophy? Or all the close-in chit-chat that Steve Waugh and Co were so famous for?


Those who stay in glass houses....

Smoke?

India has won the T20 world up quite handsomely. There was a lot of vindication of the selection of the team, of the captain, of the playing eleven etc. Very sunny days for Indian cricket these.

While all looks well and wise, there are some administration woes under the carpets. The ICL has got as much sympathy or support because it has pointed to many of the problems that ail BCCI and vouched to fight or get rid of them. One of the biggest of these ailments being zone politics. Look at the selection of Team Managers for the last few tours. Ravi Shastri for Bangladesh tour, Chandu Borde for England tour and Lalchand Rajput for the T20 World cup, all from Maharashtra. Now, the post left vacant after Kapil Devs resignation as NCA chairman goes to Ravi Shastri. Ravi Shastri, after his retirement, has been more of a businessman and at best a commentator than an active coach or mentor. I don't have an alternate candidate, but I do question the merit of this decision. Is this the smoke that indicates fire?

BCCI may have bought some time thanks to the distraction from the World Cup win. But if it doesn't get its act together, the well preparing ICL could take the game away from them, pun intended.

I am...

ecstatic!!!

WE HAVE WON!

We have beaten the champions!! And my cocky comment in the previous post of an India vs Pakistan final... well, Nostradamus, thy successor is me! :-)))

Can't Walk, Can Dance

The 20-20 cricket world cup has reached its final stages and India surprisingly finds itself still in the reckoning. Even the Pakistan team should be feeling the same, considering the dismal performance of the two teams in the 50 over ODI world cup.

While I await the India vs Australia match, the other semi-final between Pakistan and New Zealand is currently on. The Pakistan opener Imran Nazir complained of a thigh strain within the first 2-3 overs of their innings. He claimed that the injury happened during the course of this match and nothing to do with the previous match. Remember he got a knock on the family jewels in the last match and had to hobble out retired hurt. The NZ captain, Daniel Vettori allowed him to get a runner and no less than the team captain Shoaib Malik walked in. This of course helped the Pakis tactically, but I wondered how restricted Imran Nazir movement at the crease would be, considering his injury.

I first tried to spot some discomfort when he played the back foot cut. He had no problems and was getting on top of the ball easily. I then tried to see if he can play the front foot cover or straight drives. Though he didn't play any of these shots, he did play the sweep, which needed him to stretch his front foot, which was done quite effortlessly. Next came the towering sixes of Vettori, for which Imran danced down the track should to get to the pitch of the ball and then whack it, again all this done with no discomfort. Before Imran got out, he went on to score a crucial 50 and take Pakis very close to victory. And once Shoaib hit the winning sixer, there was Imran Nazir, running full hilt to congratulate him on the victory! Vettori must be thinking that he shouldn't have been the good guy and should have in fact disallowed a runner, as everyone could see that he sure didn't need one!

Go on Pakis, do what you have to do to get into the finals... we will meet you there. ;-)