The Ashes 2009: Second Test at Lord’s

Incredible!! That is the only way one can describe the way England came back into the series and won the second test at Lord’s. This test match truly belonged to Freddie Flintoff who has announced his retirement from test cricket at the end of this series. England had a great start in the first innings and although the middle order frittered away this great start, they had a decent total on the board. Mitchell Johnson who was so successful as the spearhead of the attack in South Africa seemed like he had a bottle of vodka for breakfast. Nothing landed on the proverbial penny or 3 feet on either side of it. Then when Australians came out to bat Jimmy Anderson produced a fine spell of swing bowling to rock Australia back. Once the Australians conceded a 200+ runs lead, their only hope of saving the test match was praying for rain.

But this test will be remembered for the classic British heroics of Andrew Flintoff. This was his last test match at Lord’s and therefore he had to produce some heroics. He did that in the only way he can in his own style. There are lots of articles written about his antics on the final day and some of these are really noteworthy. Peter English titled his article “Flintoff, bloody Flintoff” and Dean Jones commented that he played a great game but the pity was that he is not Australian. I think these gems like Flintoff, Kapil Dev, Botham, Tendulkar, Imran Khan, Graeme Smith have something wired differently in their brain that just gets them to behave abnormally under pressure. That is why all of them are greats. Well played Freddie!!

I thought Strauss did a wise thing by batting despite having the option to enforce the follow on. Chasing 100-150 runs in the fourth innings is not a very good prospect. Also once the target was set at 500+ runs, the Aussies must have realized they cannot win. This ‘not enforcing a follow on’ is a new trend that is emerging these days and I think the captain puts a lot of premium on his bowlers in reaching this decision. Bowling continuously to get 20 wickets on the trot is a herculean task and in a tight schedule you do not want to lose your main frontline bowlers to injuries. You have got to keep them fresh. Plus a quick fire 200 odd runs makes the job of chasing the target that much difficult.

The umpiring in this test match was very pedestrian and almost all the dubious decisions went England’s way. One can live with a few wrong decisions as long as the umpires are consistent about it but here it was a bit inconsistent. Once in a while it is good to see the Australian side on the wrong end of the stick. Be that the lbw/caught dismissal of Ricky Ponting in the first innings or the dismissals of Phil Hughes and Mike Hussey in the second innings. To their credit the Aussies took these blows on their chins and made no mention of this in the post match comments. From what Shane Warne has been telling on the commentary they have some unique methods of showing dissent in the dressing room that is. For example, he mentioned Michael Slater dumping his bat in the toilet, so that he would not use it again would you believe? Broken chairs, broken glass etc must be routine ordinary stuff. I wish there was a gallery of these pictures after some of the most controversial dismissals. Like Ganguly in Sydney.

Emosional Attyachar (with Apology to DevD)

While the Ashes series has generated a lot of excitement, we have the other two series going on in parallel, West Indies vs. Bangladesh (The wooden spoon contest) and Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka. I can only call these matches as emosional attyachar for the players, for the officials and for the fans.

Look at the state of affairs in the West Indies. Their players have been through a lot. First the Allen Stanford fiasco where the players lost a lot of their hard earned money and probably their life’s savings due to bad investment decision. Secondly, they have lost a lot young players to basketball where there seems to be a lot of money. So the team is in shambles, there is a continuous dispute with the board and they play with their second or third string players. How do you expect this team to put up a fight?

The other series has Pakistan which if you ask me needs to go through a thorough rebuilding process if they have to stop these 90 all out and 9 wickets out for 35 runs sort of scores. They are a collection of individual contributors not a team at this stage and the situation at home is not helping them. Sri Lankans on the other hand seem to have recovered rather rapidly from that ghastly attack in Lahore. Their team under Sangakkara is showing a lot of character and they have played some good quality cricket in the T20 championship and in this series too.

So there is the reason for my silence on these two contests.

The Ashes 2009 : First Test at Cardiff

New venue, unknown ground conditions and a series opener. We had all the ingredients for an absorbing game of cricket but barring the last one hour of the final day there was not much to keep people interested. England batted well in the first essay but failed to capitalize on some good starts. Someone should have scored a big hundred and ensured that they would not lose the test match. They posted a middle of the road total and the Australian response was great. Now here is a team that absolutely thrashes the opponent into the ground and ensures that they stay on the ground. They built up a massive lead and put England under pressure. They used the ‘sledge’ hammer too to get the results they wanted. Pietersen was provoked and lost his wicket when the need of the hour was to stay.


The only interesting session was the last session when Collingwood was fighting a lone battle to save the test match and Australians were coming at him with everything. He played a gem of an innings. Once he got out, he left a small window of opportunity for the Aussies to claim the last wicket in about 12 overs. That is when the drama started and Australian skipper Ponting once again showed his ugly side. They claimed catches that did not exist and appealed and put a lot of pressure on the umpires. Monty and James Anderson stuck around and as the number of deliveries kept reducing the Aussies became more frustrated. These scenes were reminiscent of the scenes against India (Sydney) or South Africa. I wonder why Ponting did not use Hilfenhaus or Johnson to claim that last wicket. Aussies are making a habit of having the last pair frustrate them and they need to show the same level of ruthlessness to stop the tail from wagging. In this case it was the difference between 1-0 up in the series and going to Lord’s with a 0-0 score line.

Sunny @ 60

Sunil Manohar Gavaskar turned 60 last weekend. He has been a cricketing hero to a lot of people of my generation who grew up listening to his exploits in the test match cricket. I was in primary school when he went on his first tour of the West Indies and I was quite upset to see a few new names on that tour. Because I did not have their photos in my collection!! Very soon that was to be set right because after that tour he became a household name in Indian cricket.

On that team we had Ajit Wadekar as the captain for the first time. He had become the captain because of a casting vote used by Vijay Merchant. The new players, whose photos I did not have in my album, were Sunil Gavaskar, Rusi Jeejeebhoy(wk), P. Krishnamurthy(wk), Jayantilal Kenia (Opening) and D. Govindraj (medium pace). India returned victorious from that tour and Dileep Sardesai, Eknath Solkar and Sunny along with Ajit Wadekar were responsible to a large extent for that result. Sunny did not play in the first test but in the remaining four tests he scored 774 runs ( 8 innings, 4 hundreds including 1 double) surpassing Sardesai’s 642 runs (8 innings, 3 hunreds including 1 double).

It is very difficult to write anything about Sunny’s records because he has so many of them. I think he brought professionalism into Indian cricket and that to my mind is his single largest contribution other than hundreds of runs he scored. He has carried on with the same professional attitude post his retirement and his comments during the tests are worth a listen. He is a true Indian at heart.

I am sure like in the test matches, Sunny would have taken a fresh guard, reassessed the situation and will go on past the milestone.

Well played Sir, and here is wishing you a great great Century.

The Ashes 2009 - Curtain Raiser

I I have been away for the past couple of months or so primarily for two reasons. Firstly I did not feel motivated enough to cover the India NZ series because it was kind of one sided. The only reason for me to cover that would have been if things had not gone per the form guide. Less interesting series, but I watched it all the same. The second reason is that these past 2-3 months have been completely flooded with the T20 games. We had the IPL-II and then the T20 World Cup. Like to watch those games but that is slam-bang cricket not classic cricket. This time though there was some level of strategy in IPL because the teams had more experience and the choice of venue brought the bowlers in play.

Now Aussies are in England for a revenge series and they would like to retain and defend the Ashes. For Ricky Ponting this will be a personal agenda for he was the captain of the Australian team that handed over the Ashes to the Poms in England last time. That is an unforgivable sin as far as the Australian public is concerned and any captain would not like to be in that situation. Having already committed that sin, the only thing Ponting can do is to comeback and thrash the English team and win the Ashes in a convincing manner. But that is easier said than done. In my opinion both teams have undergone massive changes some planned some unplanned. They are rebuilding and therefore it is going to be an interesting contest. Aussies are a step ahead in their preparation but they are away from home turf and they have the motivation to win. England on the other hand are a bit demoralize after Pieteren fiasco and the happenings on their Windies tour. But they are capable of putting up a fight. Hence I am quite eager to see the start of the first test match.

Finally John Buchanan is in the news again. After his controversial stint with KKR in the IPL he has been chucked out and has been recruited by the English team as a consultant. Now that should bring a smile on Punters face because John will cast one of theories again and will spoil England’s preparations. Some of the old Australian players have already expressed their opinion and I liked the comment from Shane Warne. He said that John will probably conduct a boot-camp and have Freddie and Pietersen with bruised knees. On John Buchanan and his preposterous theories one can only say that the dog’s tail will always curl up.