Ponting must go

The Boxing Day test match looked like a case of “oh not again” till the end of Day 2. That was when the Australians showed some fight and created a situation from where it would have been very difficult for any side to lose. They had put close to 400 runs on the board and had 7 opposition wickets down for 198. At the crease was a batsman playing his second test match and the tail. No one in his wildest dreams would have given any chance to the SA team at that stage, including the punters who were predicting an Aussie win.

Day 3 of that test match was a defining moment of the series and possibly of a new era in test cricket. I would call it the moment when the Australian stranglehold on the championship crumbled. SA not only wiped out the deficit but actually took the lead. From then on it was a downhill slide for the Australians and only one team showed the discipline, the courage and the brains to win this test match. You can read a very damning analysis of that day from Peter Roebuck in his article “Timid effort produces a disastrous result” or Peter English’s article “It’s not funny anymore”.

In my books the blame lies squarely with Ponting and he must resign as a captain. He selected the wrong playing eleven and then his field placements and bowling changes were less than ordinary. A captain is expected to make things happen but the manner in which he let the advantage slip clearly showed lack of will or faith in his teammates. In both these test matches so far, the Australians have not been able to claim 20 wickets nor have their batsmen scored runs. Ponting cannot blame the pitch or the luck simply because these are the demands of the modern day schedule. I cannot see this Australian outfit troubling the South Africans in Sydney too. A 3-0 whitewash looks like a fair result under the circumstances.

Scoreboard : http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ausvrsa2008_09/engine/current/match/351682.html

Christmas Gifts

I was thinking what I would gift the various players if I were Santa this year. Here is my list:

1. Virender Sehwag: Just a wish that he continues to be himself.


2. Gautam Gambhir: Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. After he finishes reading the book he can share that with the umpires and then pass it on to the Australian cricket team as his gift to them.


3. Gautam Gambhir (Again); 3 free lessons in shadow boxing from a reputed gym in Delhi.


4. Rahul Dravid; A bag of cement. The wall needs repairs. May be a tour of Bangladesh would be the right tonic he needs.


5. Sachin Tendulkar: Well he is God himself. I would wish for 10 more centuries from him next year.


6. VVS Laxman: Nitro-powered batting shoes.


7. M S Dhoni: He has got all his wishes fulfilled. A movie date with Deepika Padukone is the only thing I can think of.


8. Yuvraj Singh: Since MSD is going with Deepika Padukone, he can go with Ranbir Kapoor.


9. Bhajji: A week’s stay in Bangalore sharing the room with EAS Prasanna to discuss merits of flighting the ball.


10. Zaheer Khan: A few smiles. He needs to pick a handful of opponents to fight not the entire team.


11. Batsmen facing Zaheer Khan: A mirror vision so that they can counter the reverse swing.


12. Ishant Sharma: A free treatment at Berkowitz. He looks awful in that short hair cut and his bowling has suffered too. Look at the number of no balls he bowled recently.


13. Amit Mishra: A tread mill.


14. Munaf Patel & R P Singh: They get a license to start a tea stall near CST station. They have carried the drinks quite regularly and that practice should help them.


15. Sreesanth: Who is he? Let us give him a television acting contract so that he stays away from cricket.


16. Ricky Ponting: He almost needs a dedicated Santa with so many gifts coming his way.

• Hair and Nail extensions: So that he has more to chew on in tense situations he is getting in regularly.


• Stock of moisturizer: Stop using the spit Ricky.


• A weekend date with Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson to thank them for Sydney.


• A group photo with Bhajji, Symmo and Hayden in the same frame and smiling for a change.


• Eleven players who can win a test match for him.

17. Mathew Hayden: An autographed picture of Harbhajan Singh.

18. Andrew Symonds: Free lessons to learn Punjabi language.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays !!

Shining South Africans Fading Australians

The South Africans pulled off a magnificent victory coming from behind and have clearly wiped out the chokers tag associated with them. They were patchy in the first innings and I thought they let the advantage fritter away after taking three quick wickets on Day 1 and then conceding a lead of 94 runs. That was almost a situation from which very few teams have recovered and against the Aussies at Perth it was a tall order. They chased down 414 quite nicely and the batting of Smith and AB de Villiers was a joy to watch. Fine resolute innings from both these batsmen, who were ably supported by the top order, ensured a record-breaking victory.


I don’t want to take anything away from the South Africans but I think the Australian side is rapidly fading. They don’t have the ability to take 20 wickets consistently and have struggled in the recent past in both batting and bowling department. They have no bowler who is even half as threatening as McGrath and Warne. Hayden, Ponting and Symonds are struggling with their batting form. This is the second test they have lost to visitors at Perth.


We are going to see a change in the rank order of test playing teams pretty soon and Australia is not going to be at the top for long.

Champions at Chennai

All the people who say that Test match cricket is boring and is doomed for extinction, you should read the synopsis of the just concluded first test match between India and England. What an enthralling game!! We had all the ingredients of a perfect test match. Perfect wicket, perfect weather, tough and gritty performances and magical changes of fortune we had it all. If you ever wanted a script for an advertisement for Test cricket, here is an example. Who would have imagined that India will win this test match after they conceded a first innings lead of 75 runs and failed to bowl out England briskly in the second outing?

Secondly I think whoever doubted Sachin’s contribution in the second innings of a test match to seal a victory for India, should see this innings of his. He was in superb control throughout and he showed why he is still the master. He played a fluent innings full of confidence and I believe he was also influential in guiding Yuvraj through the patchy start. He must be vividly remembering that test match against Pakistan at the same venue in January 1999 when we lost to Pakistan by 12 runs after he got out. This time he shepherded the innings and ensured that he stood there when the winning runs were scored.

In my mind England lost the plot on Day 4 when after having built a substantial lead they failed to speed up the scoring. They did not impose their superiority on the Indians and as the scoring rate dipped to an abysmal low they also lost quick wickets. That allowed the Indians to get their chin up.

And then Sehwag came and played a blinder. When he is in that kind of mood, the opposition can just watch him play and pray that he makes a mistake. On the Sunday afternoon, I was switching between “Gone in 60 Seconds” and the test match. Partly because I am superstitious person as far as cricket is concerned and did not want India to lose wickets and partly because the movie had started before Indian innings. On the cricket channel it was “Gone in 60 minutes”. He clobbered the English attack out of the park and immediately put them on a defensive stance despite having a lead of over 350 runs. Such was the power and speed of his scoring that by the end of day four, the target was well within the reach of Indians and all three results were a possibility.

I think this Indian team is now building a reputation for itself and is certainly championship material. It has a perfectly balanced attack that can routinely take 20 wickets and a good batting line up that can take the gauntlet. The combination of Sehwag and Gambhir at the top of the line up makes all the difference. I would possibly rest Dravid and promote VVS to No. 3 and bring in a fresh new candidate in the next test match. As far as England is concerned I think they would have to think hard for their available options. Strauss, Collingwood with the bat were good but were not fast enough and Flintoff bowled his heart out for his captain. The rest of the bowling was pedestrian and made no impact.

Thank you England !!

As an Indian and a test match aficionado I am so happy that the English cricket team has agreed to come back and resume the tour and as I write this the first test match is under way.

I quite understand the state of mind of the players when they must have heard of the terror attacks on Mumbai. I was in a similar situation when I saw the WTC Tower 2 being blown away right in front of my eyes on live television. As a business traveler I had stayed at the Marriott in the WTC and the Millennium Hilton across the road and on numerous occasions I had taken the Path train to the WTC station. As I saw the terrible events, it dawned on me that this could have been any one of those days and that shook me. As time passes and one starts thinking rationally, one takes it as a part of modern day life and moves on. I guess the English team also must have gone through the same process. Change of the venues and the security audits were additional measures to ensure that India means business.

Thank you England and thank you KP. We respect your courage and the determination to not let the terrorism push us into the shell and defeat the spirit of humanity.

A Lazy Week

The past week or so has been very quiet on the test match front and I would like to share some other related topics that I have been reading about. The India-England ODI series has started but judging by the pace of the first three games, I would not be surprised if we win this 7-0. Anyways, I am not covering any ODI topics here.

The over rate controversy has been hounding Ponting back home and he is not smart enough to ignore the noise. As Dilbert says about the inDUHviduals, he opens his mouth only to change the foot. The best response from him would have been an improved over rate against NZ and that would have silenced the critics. We can expect his “Captains Diary” being published any day now. He is creating some news bytes every day to attract attention from Indian media. He took a jab at Gavaskar and then went on to praise Ishant Sharma very lavishly for his spell in Perth. On the over rate controversy, I read a very interesting blog by Comedian and satirist, Andy Zaltzman on Cricinfo. His suggestions are really very “out of the box” and I quite like the soccer like reduced-men proposal. The cricket administrators need to think positively and use the infrastructure that is available today like the computers and online score boards to improve the game for the spectators. You can read that interesting blog here. http://blogs.cricinfo.com/andy-zaltzman/?addata=blog_az_comms.

As I write this the first Oz-NZ test is almost nearing completion. Australia should win this test barring some miracles. Once again one got to see the fragile Aussie batting line up, but I don’t think the NZ team has the batting required to put pressure on the Australians.

PS: I finally had that bottle of Fosters yesterday.

Sydney Avenged

With India winning the Nagpur test match squarely and the series 2-0, I think justice has finally been done for that one dreadful afternoon in Sydney. The Australian captain and the team coupled with incompetent umpires had robbed India of a few wickets and possibly a win too. I would have settled for a draw as a fair result for that test match.

It is quite comical to read Tim Nielsen's comments on the 8-1 off-side field that MSD set to throttle the Oz batsmen. He is now talking about the spirit of the game. So my question to Nielsen is very simple. Since when did the Oz cricketers start thinking about the spirit of the game? Isn’t the spirit of the game violated when:

• Glen McGrath bowls a consistent off-side line to Sachin to dry up runs?
• Brett Lee tousles Gambhir's hair after the double century?
• Symonds refuses to walk when he nicks a fat edge in the Sydney test?
• Ponting comes charging from mid off to question the Not Out verdict on Sehwag?
• Jason Krejza removes a bit of leather from the cricket ball?
• Oz players resort to sledging involving all members of the players' family?
• And I can’t stop laughing on this one, a captain of the Australian state side throws his wicket-keeping gloves at a ball that was running past him very rapidly. Isn’t that against the spirit?

Mr. Nielsen please answer these questions with your hand on your heart and then talk about the spirit of the game. You cannot be having one set of rules when you win test matches and another when you start losing.

Personally despite all these happenings I am a very happy person because India is back to the winning ways. I had stopped drinking Fosters beer after the Sydney test in protest and I think now I can drink that bottle of beer once again with a smile on my face. :)

God alone on off-side..

“On the off-side, there is God and then there is Sourav.” This is how Rahul Dravid once described Dada. He could not have said it any better. For years the opposing teams deployed an army of fielders on the off-side and Sourav pierced that wall with pin point precision. All left handed batsmen are a delight to watch due to the natural grace that they have in their strokes. Dada’s off-side play was possibly several notches above the rest. The Nagpur Test was the last time when the “Fab Four” of the Indian cricket played together. It was the last test match for Sourav Ganguly and quite appropriately India won the Test match and the series. One also got a to see a final glimpse of Dada of the past when MSD temporarily handed him the captaincy after taking the 9th wicket. What a great thing to do! Both of them probably play the game from their hearts and therefore they don’t hold back anything.

Dada’s exit was as dramatic as his cricketing career. Almost scored a century in the first innings but got out against the run of the play on 85. He would have joined an elite club of individuals scoring a century on debut and in the last match. As things turned out, he did join an exclusive club, but of another type. He scored a Bradmanesque blob in his final innings. It was sad to see the figure of one of India’s finest captains walk back slowly to the pavilion.

Sourav brought spunk to Indian cricket. He changed the way we Indians looked at the opposition in the past. Under him we were not the underdogs who always looked at the other foreign players in awe and considered them superior. He played the game as an equal and was never bogged down with the status of the opposition. Therefore in his books it was perfectly OK to make Steve Waugh wait for the toss or to take his shirt off on the famous Lord’s balcony. He led the team by example and his tone-setting century at the Gabba on the 2003-04 tour of Australia will be remembered for a long long time. He was expected to face “sweet chin music” from the Oz pacers, but he came out and attacked every short pitched delivery aimed at his rib cage.

Controversies have also always followed Sourav on and off the cricket pitch. In his very first overseas tour there was an alleged incident where as a reserve player he is supposed to have declined carrying drinks to the team. His bitter showdown with Greg Chapell has been well documented.

I think Indian team is going to miss this great cricketer and a colorful person. He has made Indian cricket stronger and can look back with pride as MSD continues the Indian uprising. Well played Dada, it has been a pleasure watching you bat.

Jumbo takes off

Yesterday on the last day of the third test match at Kotla, Anil Kumble announced his retirement from test cricket. I must confess that personally I never liked Anil Kumble as a spinner. I never put him in the same class as Bishen Bedi or Shane Warne. He was more a medium pacer who had tremendous variation and control as opposed to a turner of the cricket ball. Having said that, I always admired Kumble for his humble persona and his meticulous planning. Be it with his game, photography or his general state of preparedness. He always seemed to be a studious person who went about planning with every bit of information that was known to him. His bowling too benefitted from this planning because he would think and plan each dismissal.

Kumble was also a die hard servant of the game. I still recall him bowling in West Indies with his jaw strapped in place with heavy bandage just because he thought India had a real chance of winning that game. His never say die spirit set an example for many young cricketers on how one should keep the game above personal achievements.

He goes out with his head held high and with the knowledge that the reigns are in the hands of another capable person, MSD. Well played Jumbo and hats off to you!!

Mr. Gilchrist, you have lost your marbles

What a shameless display of commercial greed by possibly the only modern day Australian cricketer who could have been called a gentleman. I am talking about the storm created by Gilchrist just before the launch of his biography “True Colours”. What an appropriate name indeed.

Don’t get me wrong, I am, well I was, a huge fan of Gili. For the skills he had, the attitude he had and more importantly the manner in which he played the game. However when he accuses Sachin and Indians of playing foul during the Sydney test and the Monkeygate affair and in the same breath ignores the actions of his fellow colleagues Symonds and Michael Clarke one starts questioning his every single action. Was he a sport in claiming a catch of Rahul Dravid in the same test match when the bat was nowhere near the ball? Was he fair in using a squash ball in his gloves while batting in that world cup final? Do the standards of his fair play change with the situation of the game? If we carefully start analyzing some of his performances then I guess the mask of a true sportsman that he wears starts peeling off.

Mr. Gilchrist, in the greed of getting some eyeball attention to your new biography in the largest market for cricket, I think you have just gone a bit too far. I and a number of Indians are going nowhere near that book of yours. I feel very sad that after those wonderful years watching you play this one image of yours creates a more overpowering image in mind than the rest. You are not my hero anymore.

PS: Read in the papers today that Sachin, in a television interview, mentioned that he was possibly the first person to wish the Oz team as they returned to the dressing room after 'winning' that Sydney test.

Aussies bite the dust at Mohali

The second test match of the India-Australia series being played at Mohali proved to be the proverbial waterloo for the world champion Test cricket side. They were comprehensively beaten by a very strong Indian side in every department of the game. I have never seen the Indian bowling to be so incisive in a long time and it was a welcome change if you ask me. For a long time now the Aussies have gone around the world with their nose in the air attitude, so it is good to see their backside on the ground here. My best moment was when Ishant got Ponting out in their second innings. The sight of the ball going through the gap between the bat and the pad and rattling the woodwork was very very satisfying.

I think MSD is a born leader. He has that magic ingredient that brings out the best out of any team that is at his disposal. His changes are aggressive, his directions are very subtle but effective and he is so calm and collected in the middle of all this. I remember the instructions he gave to Amit Mishra in the last over of Day 2. He said in Hindi something to the effect of "Bowl the next one round the wicket on his legs". The penultimate delivery was bowled round the wicket and a googly, Michael Clarke padded and was out LBW. The manner in which he changed the batting order in the second innings also indicated a sense of purpose to finish things. He looks like a captain who wants to take charge of the situation rather than sit and wait for things to happen. He also has a very mature head on his shoulders. His post match interview was so much “feet on the ground” experience that one wonders how he manages to stay calm. There are no excited high fives or shouts or dancing around the wickets. BTW, Dhoni made a subtle remark in the post match press conference about Amit Mishra, and said that it was good to have a leggie in the side "who could turn the ball". Did he mean to drop a hint to Kumble? I think Kumble will find it very difficult to retain his place if he does not take a handful of wickets in the next test match. The time has come for him to hand over the baton to MSD.

Ishant Sharma is another player who has improved with every outing since that inspired spell at Perth in the last series. He has made a habit of beating Ponting's bat and makes him look like a schoolboy trying to learn the art of playing deliveries in the corridor of uncertainty. I think by the end of the tour, Ponting would be nervous wreck trying to remember how to bat against Indians. Ishant is developing into a great bowler and the good thing is that he has a number of years still ahead of him. He creates those awkward angles and his height also makes it possible for him to get bounce off the good length deliveries like Joel Garner.

Amit Mishra made a big difference to the balance of the Indian attack. For once we had four bowlers who all bowled different styles and all bowled well. So there was no respite for the Aussies to clobber the weakling. Amit has a Warne like loop to the bowling and is not afraid to flight the ball. He is slower than Piyush Chawla and takes time between his deliveries too. He should be a handful on a turning track.

One other event that happenned post this match was the 80% match fee penalty imposed on Zaheer Khan for his send-off to Hayden. Now by any yardstick of fairness Matty Hayden is not a gentleman cricketer. He has tried to get under the skin (pun intended) of the Indians many times in the past. I completely agree with Sunil Gavaskar’s comment that the match referees tend to be biased against the Indians (or brown skin). Ponting walking over to the umpire to question Sehwag’s dismissal is not considered as dissent by the same match referee. Ponting even got away with his direct remarks to Sehwag. There are numerous instances in the recent past which support this hypothesis. This is absolutely one sided and if the balance of the game is so much tilted towards the fairer skin, then they should abandon the whole idea of having a match referee.

So all in all a wonderful game of test match cricket. India staying on top since the first step on the field and not letting off the pressure. I hope they win the series going on from here. Let us wait and watch.

Read Peter Roebuck’s article from the "The Age" titled “Australia's cricketers and the wearing of the saggy green” at this URL:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/cricket/australias-cricketers-and-the-wearing-of-the-saggy-green/2008/10/21/1224351252086.html

Lord's Test Match

There is a halo surrounding the Lord's cricket ground for cricketers and followers. It is called the Mecca of cricket and therefore visiting Lord's is like a pilgrimage. If you look at it really rationally, this is just another cricket ground with a 22-yard strip and the ground is not even perfect, it has that dreaded slope from one side of the pitch to another. But there is an awful lot of history behind this and trust the Brits to make a huge drama out of anything that remotely has any history. Having said that, I agree that because of all these traditions and stories a visit to the ground is magical.


I had the fortune of visiting this ground in June 1986, when India played the first test match of that tour at Lord's. As luck would have it, India won that test match. I was doing a project for TCS at Citibank in London and there were a bunch of us from the same batch in UK at that time. We decided to go and visit the game on day 3 , a Saturday. The previous day India had started the batting in theor first innings and Sunil Gavaskar was not out overnight. He had not scored a century at Lord's ground and all of us were hoping that he would get one on that day. The discussion on the tube journey to the ground were so animated (and loud) that we got under the skin of some Brits who were also going to see the game. One of them even said that or friends here believe that Sunny Gavaskar is going to score a century today. Unfortunately as we settled down and getting used to the game, Sunny got out. Those days, there were no live action replays in the stadium and we had to wait till the evening to watch the highlights on BBC to figure out how Sunny got out. The disappointment of that dismissal was more than compensated by Dilip Vengasarkar, who scored a ton. This was a classic test match century and hats of to Dilip on scoring three centuries on the trot at this famous venue.

The atmosphere at Lord's is almost like a picninc. Most people come prepared with food and there is plenty of food and drinks available for sale. The whole day is spent in eating and drinking and getting some sunlight. Watching cricket is an aside for these folks. In the afternoon the entertainment was provided by a lady on the terrace of the building behind our stands. She wished Richie Benaud, who was on television commentary team with a message and did a little act of strip tease.

The stadium is superb and one can walk around the stands to catch up glimpses of history. I was thrilled to see the balcony where Kapil Dev had stood with the Prudential World Cup trophy in his hands in 1983. Great time and great memories.

Scorecard at Cricinfo: http://ind.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1986/IND_IN_ENG/IND_ENG_T1_05-10JUN1986.html

Test Match Cricket

I am a great fan of cricket in general and classic test match cricket in particular. Test matches can be quite dull at times but with the introduction of the new 90 overs per day rule, the game has become very aggressive and very often we see a result by the end of 4th day. The thing that excites me most in test cricket is the mind games that the captain and the bowler plays to out fox the opposing team. The subtle change in field placements, a change in the bowler or a go at the batsman's patience using various tactics make the game very intersting to watch. (If you watch it intently and follow what the skipper is trying to do that is). It is the classic edition of the cricket and in my opinion this form of the game will survive all the tides of time.




I still recall my childhood days when there were 2 may be 3 series played in a year and the only way to follow your team was through radio commentary or the newsprint. I used to have an album of photos from various newspapers, cut from our own copy, from the neighbour's copy and at times from the 'raddi' that the local shopkeeper had to wrap the groceries. It was fun. The radio commentary brought with it the commentators who could paint the picture for the listeners using their vivid imagination and word play. I got my first cricket book from a petrol pump as a free gift and the most important part of that book was the field placements. That map was the reference while listening to the commentary till I memorised the various positions.

The history of test match cricket is replete with some great rivalries like the Ashes series, the India-Pakistan series or the India-Australia encounters off late. I will write about some that I like the most in my next post.