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Lahore attack and the future of cricket in the sub-continent!

March 03, 2009 will be marked as a black day in the world of cricket! The touring Sri Lankan team and the match officials were attacked by armed men in broad day light when they were on their way to play the third day of the Lahore test.

What concerned most people around the cricketing world and political circles was the fact that there was not adequate secrurity provided to the players and officials. The terrorists came walking casually and started firing at the players’ bus and Lahore attack on Srilankan cricket team there wasn’t anybody to fire back at them! Sri Lankan ace cricketer Murali was of the opinion that the attack sounded like pre-planned with more leaked out information. Chris Broad the match referee claimed that there was absolutely no policemen around to protect them. All these may fingerpoint to the PCB’s inability to take care of the security of the players and Pakistan’s inability to protect its VIP visitors. It may be recalled that the Sri Lankan team decided to visit Pakistan after India pulled out of the Pakistan tour following the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

It is not just about Pakistan

A lot of people must be happily blaming Pakistan alone! As an Indian and knowing the security system here I can tell you that India is not better either in terms of the law and order enforcement – So is the case with Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. However, the security (Z Category) provided to the cricketers are usually slightly better than that in Pakistan. Basically the entire sub-continent is not that safe.

The future of IPL 2 and the World Cup 2010…

The Champions League was alreadyh called off due to the terror and unfriendly political situations in Pakistan. Now, the future of World Cup is also at stake – not just for Pakistan but for the entire sub-continent. And the immediate impact is for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2. Pakistan players have already pulled out of IPL and some New Zealand, England and Australian cricketers have already raised their concerns about visiting India for IPL. To make things worse, the Indian home ministry has requested BCCI to postpone the event as General elections in the country is clashing with the IPL schedules. I guess, the Government of India‘s stand on this is right! What is more important is the human life, then the democratic process (elections) and then comes cricket. BCCI, Lalit Modi and co may loose some money but anyhow, that money is going to only the players, sponsors and franchises and not the poor of this country (Probably making the IPL event shorter – perhaps 20 days or so – would have been the ideal thing to do)

Whether it’s IPL or the World Cup, I guess cricket – and subcontinent cricket in specific – is not going to have a good time in the near future!

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India’s outting in the Kiwi land…

Recently I was talking to one of my friends who happens to be a great Indian cricket fan.

Definition of Indian Cricket Fan: Somebody who enjoys batsmen under all conditions, but particularly savors flat pitches. He doesn’t care if Zaheer Khan or Javagal Srinath get trashed, break their backs and get no recognition as long as his favorite batsmen have trashed opposition bowlers on his favorite flat pitches

Now coming back to the topic. This person claimed that what we have today is the best cricket team in many years and they will trash the Kiwis. I gently reminded him that many of our recent heroes have won great matches played in the sub-continent alone. I also told him that even many of those technical correct Indian batsmen from the past did not shine in the New Zealand and over importance given to Twenty 20 cricket has actually managed to make cricketers fish brains because they always think for short term.

What we saw in the first Twenty 20 matches is exactly this short thinking problem. If you hit two or three sixes in a row, doesn’t mean that you should hit the fourth one for a six as well. Yuvraj Singh may have done it on his day but that doesn’t happen every day! Gautam Gambhir may pull bowlers mercilessly in India and Sri Lanka but some of the New Zealand wickets are slightly different. And for god’s sake, don’t blame it on conditions. The lack of confidence and patience were visible on the Indians’ faces.

If they have forgotten what had happened in the 2002-03 series, I have a tip for them. If they can – if it’s possible at all that is – try to save as many wickets as possible for the first half of the game. All your heroics can be tried later on the show. If they learn to do this, chances are they may win two or three ODIs and manage to draw the test series. If not, they may get trashed in Twenty 20 matches, ODIs as well as test matches!

And stop blaming the conditions! If you want to be the best side in the world, you should prove yourself in all conditions! Flat pitch bullies!

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The REAL Test Cricket only in Australia, South Africa and England?

If you check the difference between the ongoing Australia-South Africa test match and the Pakistan-Sri Lanka one (or West Indies-England) you will understand one thing. One is real test cricket where as the other two are comedy cricket choreographed for the respective flat-pitch heroes in those countries.

Quality of pitches

It is really pathetic that countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and now West Indies as well are making one sided pitches that suit only the batsmen. Of course, majority of the fans do like big scores but that doesn’t mean that a 5 day match can accomodate only two innings of 600+ runs per innings. The first two tests in West Indies during the past two weeks were pathetic. Even worse was the Karachi encounter of the Sri Lankans last week where Younis Khan became a greater hero. The batting records of the current leading test batsmen are actually farce compared to the greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Greg Chappel or Garry Sobbers. At the moment mostly people get to play in flatter tracks and hence a realistic comparison based on batting average or records is not really worth that effort.

South Africa – Australia Series

The first test match between the touring kangaroos and proteas is looking really awesome where fortunes changed every day. The commitment of these two countries towards test matches is amazing and the battle between them makes me skip every other stupid match around. Only in England I can see the same level of interest which basically means that only Australia, England and South Africa are really serious about test cricket where as other countries are busy selling Twenty 20 cricket or creating a generation of flat pitch bullies.

I wish they spent 10% of the money saved from IPL etc to create 4 or 5 test quality sporting pitches!

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Controversy over Test Ground, Stanford and the IPL lord…

The past few days’ good cricketing action between Australia & New Zealand and West Indies & England have been offset by some controversies. At first it was with the Antigua test ground, then cases of fraud against the Mr. Allen Stanford – the billionaire behind the Stanford 20-20 – and finally the number of FIRs (First Investigation Report) filed against the IPL master brain, Mr. Lalit Modi.

Antigua Test Ground

Antigua was in news twice this week and both for not-so-good reasons. The second test between West Indies and England was abandoned after just 10 deliveries the reason was a sandpit ground which apparently put bowlers at risk. It was pathetic to see how the sand was being showelled out by bowlers’ run up. Finally the captains and umpired called it quits and an enquiry has been ordered into this controversy putting the WICB in huge embarrassment.

Sir. Vivian Richards was of the opinion that the WICB should do justice to the grounds named after him by at least maintaining reasonable quality there in. I am sure the past heroes of the game should not loose their faces due to the current pathetic conditions of their homegrounds.

Allen Stanford admits errors

Another Antiguan, Mr. Stanford – the brain behind the lucrative Twenty 20 initiative in the West Indies – has been charged with multiple frauds related to his company’s insider and illegal activities while listed in the US markets. Stanford has been charged with the way he manipulated the past and present numbers of his listed entity thereby cheating the investors. God alone knows what’s awaiting him now! Antigua, the beautiful island, into shame once again!

Modi bowled by allegations

A similar rich administrator, Mr. Lalit Modi of Indian Premier League has been charged with misappropriation of funds and illegal ways by which he won the RCA (Rajasthan Cricket Association) president role in 2005. As it looks, the change in state politics has affected Modi’s fortunes as his dissidents (apparently jealous of Modi’s IPL stature) and opponents are trying to corner him. Mr.Modi is alleging foul play and has threatened to take all IPL 2 home matches of Rajasthan Royals out of Jaipur. With the RCA elections around the corner and most importantly with IPL 2 gaining momentum, even those who are opposing Lalit Modi can gain a lot of popularity! Nice plot!!

(PS: I could not write about the wonderful 20-20 match between Australia and New Zealand last week. It was the 20-20 at its best with some exceptional hitting, ground fielding and controlled spin bowling)

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England in Dire Staits, IPL auctions and controversies…

It was not a great week for England where they got trashed by West Indies in the first test match at Sabina Park. The visitors received an innings defeat and more importantly they managed to score a mere 51 in the second innings.

It’s really bad to see that the typical problems of teams like India or Pakistan now has gripped England as well. Basically, the team now has several former captains, no proper coach and with Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores getting axed the on and off the field tension is affecting their game.

IPL affecting teams

Another important thing is the greed that IPL has created. I guess with KP and Flintoff getting offers of the tunes of more than 1.5 millions they must be wondering what’s there in playing for the country. This can happen to any other country and as I maintained in the past Twenty 20 cricket and Indian Premier League will spoil all international teams. To make things worse, Lalit Modi even commented that he wouldn’t mind if Cricket Australia sacks Andrew Symonds from their national side because in that case he gets to play IPL second edition throughout the event.

Pakistan Cricket Board in the meantime has not allowed their key players to participate in IPL. Sri Lankan Cricket Board’s ex-chief Arjuna Ranatunga is trying to amend his stand by telling that he’s not against IPL or BCCI.

Basically, the Indian Premier League has created a lot of headache for the international cricket boards and their national teams. I don’t think, it can continue like this forever.

Other highlights of the week

India won the ODI series in Sri Lanka 4-1. Though, India put together great all round performance, they were lucky to get the toss in their favour four out of five times. New Zealand had a great start to their 5 match ODI series against Australia and are now leading 2-1.

The week was otherwise pretty boring as most of the matches this week were pretty one-sided.

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Weekly Tidbits: Australia, Pakistan in more trouble, IPL auctions…

It was quite an interesting week of cricket – ODI cricket for a change, though I would have preferred to talk more about Test cricket.

South Africa mows down the clueless Australians

South Africa won the ODI series 4-1 thereby going on top of the ICC ODI rankings. The last match that was played last week had a new fast bowling hero – Tsotsobe – who ran through the Australian top and middle order after Hashim Amla‘s matured innings gave them a big total. Tsotsobe’s left arm seam bowling is a good asset to their attack which is otherwise dominated by right-armers.

Australia deep down under further

Soon after the South Africa’s successful visit, the Kiwis started their campain in Austraila on a winning note as well. In fact, the New Zealand’s batting lineup is not anything great but the Kangaroos were tamed by the Kiwis in the low scoring first ODI in Perth, mainly due to the lack of confidence with the Aussies.

The Australians managed to create controversy as well with their Wicket Keeper Haddin calling it all wrong and cheating the spirit of the game. With Symonds‘ radio outburst not settling yet, clearly Cricket Australia is not heading anywhere in particular. Moreover, Australia’s decision to rest Ponting came as a huge surprise as this could be the indication that the dashing Australian captain could be soon axed – from his captaincy responsibilities – ahead of the Ashes series in England during June-September this year.

Pakistan cricket in dolldrums

Though with the axing of Shoib Malik the Pakistan team as a whole may benefit, the governance of the PCB and its future took a beating when ICC decided that Pakistan will not get to host Champions Trophy due to the perennial security issues there. On top of that Miandad, the ever controversial Pakistan cricketer, has resigned from his role of the PCB Director. In another setback to PCB, a court has now suspended PCB’s ban on ICL players. With the injury scares, dope scandals still on and no team visiting Pakistan, it’s not going to be a good year for Pakistan Cricket.

India is doing good

The Indian cricket team touring Sri Lanka right now had a couple of good outings whereby they took a 2-0 lead. The Indians, despite lack of match practices, did not look rusty and the batting, bowling and some exceptional fielding of the younger side overpowered the Lankans. It looks like Mahendra Singh Dhoni hardly misses a toss.

The week ahead

England is taking on West Indies in their first test match on 4th Feb where as Australia will play New Zealand in Melbourne and Sydney this week. India’s remaining one dayers in Sri Lanka will also be completed this week.

The high-profile IPL Season 2 auctions will be kicked off this week as well. The main focus will be the English players who are first-timers at IPL.

On a low profile there’s also a Kenya-Zimbabwe match this week.

Looking forward to the exciting week of cricket, in particular the England – West Indies test match and Australia – New Zealand one-dayers.