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Lankan tigers roar!

The first test match between India and Sri Lanka has been something that I was looking forward to due to the changes in umpiring rules. Though it was exciting to see that a couple of umpiring decisions were taken after referrals to third umpire, the whole match was pretty boring with the clueless Indians succumbing to a superior side that was brimming with confidence, skills and professionalism.

Ajanta Mendis, after his heroics in the Asia cup, led by the wizard of spin, gave no chance to the Indians to even put together a decent fight. If you consider the rain affected time, the Lankans managed to beat the Indian in roughly three days, a feat that Australia has been doing for a while.

Momentum favored Lanka

Following their Asia cup win, the Lankans really managed to maintain the momentum. The good thing with them was that the majority of their one-day players also figure in the test team and hence the momentum clearly favored them. The decision to debut Mendis was a great one and the youngster did not disappoint the selectors, his captain and his country men. The Indians on the other hand have been fielding a bunch of middle-aged men that have been lacking match practice and athleticism for a while now.

The Twenty20 hangover

The Indians (and their cricket body) are also not really getting out of their T20 mode yet. Though the side claimed to have the best test batsmen combination on earth, that was only on paper. Moreover, they lacked a game plan against the best spinning side in the world! There have been complaints that the placid pitch did not add to the spirit of the game, but that was only a lame excuse and the batting collapse cannot be forgiven.

In the meanwhile, the Indian cricket think tank is busy taking on ICL and the English Cricket board in order to secure more money via the T20 format for the future as well. They are also helping out Pakistan’s cause to make sure that the Champions trophy is played in the neighbor country. Among all these high profile agenda items, test cricket seems to be taking the backseat. The Sri Lankan board at the same time is reiterating the fact that they have a clear plan for the test cricket. Arjuna Ranatunga even made a statement that the Sri Lankan players should quit IPL 2009 in order to take part in the England tour completely. I liked that attitude of the Lankans.

I hope that in the coming matches, the Indians would regroup and adapt. As I mentioned in the last post, the ideal thing to do was not to play all five or six old men together but rest one at a time and rotate them with youngsters. The case is the same with the spin bowlers as well (even if it would mean that Kumble has to rest in a match). If not, the Indians can expect a 0-2 or even 0-3 loss at the hands of the Lankans.

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BCCI flexes its muscles again!

BCCI has barred VVS Laxman and Piyush Chawla from playing for English counties Nottinghamshire and Hampshire respectively – all because some players from their side are joining the rebel ICL league.

I am not sure if BCCI and its money power is crossing limits. If the English Cricket Board does not have any problem here why should BCCI poke their nose into what the counties might decide? In fact, it’s not just the above two counties, but it seems around 15 counties have their players signed up with ICL!

While VVS Laxman – as an experienced campaigner – would not mind loosing a county stint, the youngster, Piyush Chawla, is loosing a golden chance to play under English conditions. Chawla so far has not got enough international exposure under testing conditions and will be really feeling bad about this whole politics.

Another Twenty20 league!

The English Cricket Board has just announced their Twenty20 championship league that will be starting in 2010. The majority of the league teams will be from English first division counties and only two teams will be participating from outside England. One of them is tipped to be the IPL champions from India.

If all test playing countries start their own annual Twenty20 championship events, I am sure ICC can soon wind up majority of the Test and ODI schedules! And I am really sad that IPL instigated this kind of a trend mainly driven by monetary aspects than feel for cricket.

I am not against the Twenty20 game, in fact I like the shorter version if these championships do not last for more than say 12 or 15 days! If a single event last for 40 or 45 days and 4 or 5 nations start having their own T20 leagues you can imagine what will happen to ‘real cricket’!

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Indian test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka

The Indian team for the test series in Sri Lank has been announced! There are no real surprises after the ODI captain and wicket keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni opted out of this tour due to the need for some good rest.

The inclusion of Pragyan Ojha and Rohit Sharma into the test squad is the right move. Both of them definitely have shown much more maturity than their age demand and have been professional in their approaches. Ojha could also use this opportunity to play with an experienced spin legend like Anil Kumble. Rohit Sharma, I feel, has nothing more to learn to qualify for the test team but just need to learn to stay at the crease a little longer.

Yuvraj Singh’s omission is a very good message to youngsters that ‘performing in patches’ will not help anybody to be part of the test team. I always thought Yuvi doesn’t have what it takes to play test matches and extremely low on temperament to play longer. He is a poor player against spin bowling and Sri Lanka has some great spinners around right now.

In the pace bowling department, I thought Manpreet Gony could have been given a chance ahead of Munaf Patel as the latter has the history of getting injured or loosing confidence half way through test series, more often than not. Gony is a better batsman and fielder as well. Probably, the selectors are over worried about the fact that Sreesanth is not available for this tour to open along with Zaheer and Ishant Sharma has been looking a little bit different of late as compared to his form in Australia last year. The decision not to consider Irfan Pathan for the sub-continent wickets sounds reasonable as well.

Now that the team is selected, the team think-tank needs to do a couple of things to get the results right and also to nurture the youngsters for the future. As a basic rule probably they should allow only three out of the big five (Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly and Sehwag) to play in any match together. Otherwise, the youngsters will not get any chance to perform along with the experienced ones. I hope that Gary Kirsten and Anil Kumble will give some thought to plan towards the future. Also the big six (with Kumble) should realize that time has come for them to rotate and slowly retire over a period of one to one and half years.

Dhoni opts out
Dhoni’s decision to opt out of this test series sounds more like a ‘forced’ supporting act to his statements earlier in the press. While players definitely need some break and probably have rotation policy what they have to cut down is the number of one-dayers and Twenty 20 matches. Hope he gets some good rest and greater number of endorsements during his much needed break from test matches. Or is it a silent protest against the selectors for not considering him for the test captaincy of an aging team?

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Zimbabwe Issue – Political, Racial or Cricket related?

The International Cricket Council (ICC) met this week in Dubai to talk about a number of ‘cricket related’ matters including that of Zimbabwe’s membership status with ICC. The issue probably have been instigated by the English Cricket Board rather than other test playing countries. The compromise or the main outcome of the meeting is that ‘Zimbabwe will pull out of the World Twenty20 championship in the larger interest of the game’ that has to be held in England next year.

I have always wondered if the Zimbabwe issue is really related to cricket or racism. The England players, the English team and even the government there have always been criticizing Zimbabwe for various governance issues other than cricket. Or was it really cricket related? We all know that various white players from that country chose to play for English counties since the last few years. Several English (and some Aussies) players weren’t willing to play there as well. Personally, I feel that Zimbabwe is not such a bad place in terms of human rights, nor is it a target of Uncle Bush for the usual stupid reasons.

Colin Gibson, the ECB spokesperson even made statements such as the tickets for the matches involving Zimbabwe was under sold or were under threat. With the current compromise the plan is to include another associate country (probably not even as good as Zimbabwe) in the Twenty20 championship event. Hope that will result in a packed crowd and will satisfy the Englishmen.

After the ICC meeting, the Zimbabwe delegates also showered praises on big brother BCCI and Powar and co for their strong support, whatever that means. As a token of gratitude, Zimbabwe has agreed to play more matches with India which will definitely improve our flat-pitch bullies‘ batting records, BCCI’s pocket and also the fame that they are the saviors of the underdogs. Also Powar rises to the Nelson Mandela stature now!

If ICC, BCCI and ECB have genuine interest in resurrecting Zimbabwe as a cricket playing nation, they should come up with some proposals to lift their game and even help moneywise, expert help-wise and with some reassurance. The other option is to have a two-tiered (First division and second division test leagues) test match schedule plan from ICC which will be in the true interest of the game. Otherwise, things will go nowhere with respect to Zimbabwe as well as the overall growth of the game of cricket to other nations!

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5 reasons why Geoff Lawson will go out soon!

Geoff Lawson, the coach of the Pakistan cricket team, is in the focus for wrong reasons after creating a scene in the post match press conference yesterday. The ex Aussie test player apparently got angry with the media personnel who were ready to pounce on him following consecutive losses suffered at the hands of India and Sri Lanka.

While Geoff Lawson may have been a very good fast bowler for Australian test team years ago, I doubt whether he was the right pick to coach Pakistan. The following are the reasons why he would not last long in the sub-continent.

1. In the past one year there was not any signs of exceptional performance from the Pakistan team except for reaching the Twenty-20 worldcup final. Pakistan lost both the test series they played against S.Africa at home and India in India. They had a winning streak of 12 ODIs in a row but 11 of them were against minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

2. Other sub-continent coaches like Bob Woolmer, Tom Moody, Dave Whatmore and Greg Chappel were emotionally matured to handle the press, tough math situations and the fanatic fans. Geoff is not tough enough as he was always found either too excited or disappointed in the dressing room during tight matches.

3. Geoff had the worst timing to take over as coach, after Pakistan lost their main batsman (Inzamam) in the form of retirement, got a not-so-natural leader as the new captain and lost edge as their fast bowlers are either not the best around or not available to play due to various scandals. In addition, the selection policy and roles have always been an issue (Wonder why Shoaib Malik should captain the side while somebody like Younis Khan is there in the team)

4. At the moment, what Pakistan needs is probably a homegrown coach who can deal with the local sentiments better and will be under less pressure compared to a foreign coach. We don’t want anybody to have the same fate as Bob, right?

5. Geoff is in the same situation as Greg was in 2006. Some straight wins initially was to be followed by controversies along with governance issues with the respective cricket bodies. At the end it is the (foreign) coach who becomes the scapegoat. Everybody else will be always right!

According to me the best coach for Pakistan (and even for India) would have been somebody like Tom Moody who was so good and matured in handling the fans and press as he was with players. Is he still available?

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World Cup ’83 still cashing in…

BCCI recently felicitated all members of the ’83 Prudential World Cup winning squad in a colorful function. Along with that all players of that squad was given a cheque of Rs. 25 Lakhs each!

While Kapil’s devils really did a good job in fetching the World Cup to India, I thought, probably it’s time Indian fans and BCCI put that story behind and started thinking of something else. Also, as we all see, most of the members of that squad are well settled (financially) in life after taking up lucrative careers as coaches, commentators and administrators and making good enough money! They don’t have to earn so much of retirement bonus right now for something that was done 25 years back.

Forget about the history! It’s high time the pay packages of our current cricketers are brought down big time as this ‘one sport country’ is not getting anywhere with respect to other sports. We are in a pathetic shape when it comes to international events…in fact, so pathetic that even a silver medalist in an Olympic event is treated like a national hero (or even at par with the father of the nation) and became a display piece all around India – thanks to the sponsors, may be. If BCCI is cash rich and made a few millions out of the IPL event and sponsorship, let them not forget the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) part of life. Instead of making our rich cricketers even richer, they should concentrate on such social aspects too.

In a country where inflation is touching 13 year high and the industrial/agricultural growth is tipped to be slowing down, let us not waste our human resources and valuable time over too many Twenty 20 tournaments and then sharing this huge income (generated out of common man) with cricketers and their team owners alone.

With all this money coming in I think even the cricketers are putting their financial needs ahead of national interests. Soon, the cricket will become only an entertainment factor rather than a national pride. Let our cricketers fight hard for every thousand rupee they are making and let other games be treated at par with cricket! Will that ever happen in India?

Non-cricket story: Recently, I was chatting with a friend about the Software professionals’ salaries. They (includes yours truly) are a pampered lot like our cricketers as well. Engineers in other industries do a lot of hardwork and get paid probably one fifth of what a Software Engineer gets…