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