Archive for the ‘Cricket League’ Category
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Praveen Kumar has been one of the few successful Indian pace bowlers in IPL 3
When 39 year old Anil Kumble is the best bowler in a T20 competition then you have serious issues. This is exactly the story of IPL III this year where Anil Kumble and Muthaih Muralitharan have been the best bowlers by a mile in terms of economy and wickets tally respectively. Even though the overseas pacers have done reasonably well, the Indian pace bowling continues to suffer in the ongoing IPL.
Ishant has been ordinary and the less said about Irfan Pathan’s bowling exploits the better. RP Singh looks jaded and the other young bowlers like Tyagi and Sangwan lack consistency and pace to survive at the international level. So why is India struggling to unearth one good pace bowler to compliment Zaheer in the Indian team? Praveen Kumar has been bowling very well for Bangalore Royal Challengers and Zaheer has been in decent form for Mumbai Indians but that about does it for Indian pacers till date.
Chaminda Vaas who hasn’t played for Sri Lanka for a while has easily out bowled every Indian bowler in this tournament. That says something about the plight of Indian pace bowling in the past few months. So it seems like the selectors are in for a headache when they sit together to pick a team which will best represent India in the upcoming T20 WC in West Indies. Zaheer and Praveen probably will be automatic selections considering current form but who will claim the third seamer spot is anybody’s guess at the moment.
Sreesanth has been poor, Nehra injured and Irfan Pathan not in the 30 probable’s picked for the T20 WC. The selectors might look to play 2 spinner, 2 pacer attack to counter this situation with Mishra or Chawla joining Harbajan in the bowling line up or they could give a chance to a untested youngster such as the promising Mithun or Umesh Yadav who has bowled with pace and heart for Delhi Dare devils. I guess some investigation should be done as to why our bowlers regress after a strong start in their careers to avoid such situations in the future. Is it the money? Is it the fame? Is too much cricket affecting them? Someone has to find an answer to that question.
The team selection will be an interesting one, whatever the combination the selectors come up with. I am not hoping for any drastic changes or any major surprises in the squad so we have to be prepared for Nehra, Ishant to be back in the squad. We will see Indian bowlers leaking lots of runs yet again the onus clearly will be on the batsmen to perform. Bowling continues to be a problem and looking at the IPL performances there seems no light at the end of the tunnel.
Yousuf and Younis Banned for Life
Posted on: March 10, 2010
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Younis and Yousuf recieve life ban
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) shocked everyone with their decision to ban the two most senior players for Pakistan in Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan today. It was known that after the inquiry commission reports the PCB might impose a ban on Rana Naved and Shoaib Malik for a period of one year, but this one was totally unexpected.
The reason given by the PCB for the ban of the two was that they caused infighting, which in turn damaged the team unity. Afridi and the Akmal brothers (Umar and Kamran) were slapped a fine of $24000-$35000 and have been kept on 6 month probation to mend their ways.
The life ban on Yousuf and Younis means that they will not be considered for any future games for Pakistan from here on in any format, but the PCB have allowed them to participate in their domestic tournaments, county cricket and in any such foreign leagues. Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved have been banned for a year from representing Pakistan in any form of international cricket starting now. It was not very clear as to what was the reason for the bans on Rana and Malik.
This now puts the selectors in a predicament as they have punished almost all of the senior members of the squad, and choosing a captain for the upcoming T20 World Cup is going to be a challenge. From the available pool of players – since Afridi has been placed on probation – Razzak might take the mantle for the T20 WC. He is the most senior member left in the Pakistan squad, and he is almost certain to represent them in the 20 over format.
The captain for the ODI’s and Tests will leave the selectors pulling their hair out. Whether they will name Afridi as the captain for all three formats is something to wait and watch. The inquiry commission has certainly left the Pakistani cricket in further turmoil, and it will take a lot of planning by the PCB to get the team on track.
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Whatever may have been the intention, the BCCI have hit the bulls eye with the IPL. The Twenty20 league has been a runaway success accross India and also among the other cricket playing nations. I was rather surprised to see few articles regarding the multi million dollar league in few news papers in America too like Washington Post and Newyork Times. This shows that anything which is packaged and presented well will appeal to the audience. Like most of people I too was little bit skeptical about the launch of IPL due to the glamour of the Bollywood associated with it. I was also worried regarding the quality of cricket to be played in the IPL.
After 21 games into the league I am just blown away by the commitment shown by the players towards this league and the competition has been top notch. The players seem to be enjoying playing with each other and sharing dressing rooms with their so called rivals just few months ago. I was always fascinated by the thought of seeing a scoreboard which reads Smith c Tendulkar b pollock, this can be a reallity in IPL. Yes there has been some controversies in the past few weeks but we can term those as a teething problem for the league.
IPL surely is a boon for cricket lovers. The game lasts only for 3 hours in total and you get to see stars from all around the world under the same roof. The games have been exciting, the players have been wonderful and overall the league has been a success. I just hope that revenue gained from the IPL is channelized in a proper way to improve the domestic cricket standards in India and making that more interesting. Well all in all this has been a successful venture by the BCCI.
So like it or not Twenty20 and IPL are here to stay.
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Five years ago when India won the Natwest finals against England, we had unearthed two batting stars in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif. All of us thought that those two along with Virender Sehwag would form the crux of Indian batting line up in the future. Almost six years after the Natwest final, Kaif is no longer part of the Indian team, Yuvraj is still inconsistant and Sehwag’s one day average keeps diminishing with every innings he plays.
The Indian team though have found few batsmen for the future in Gambhir, Uthappa, Rohit and the captain himself Dhoni. India’s future after Sachin, Dravid, Sourav and Laxman looks really uncertain. Sachin who is still a part of the one day scheme of things is trying his best to help the youngsters in the team with his valuable inputs and that should do them a world of good. Yuvraj and Sehwag being the two most experianced members in the batting line up after Sachin, should take more responsibilty in guiding these youngsters and making sure that they dont fall out like a few have in the past few years.
When Kaif played that wonderful innings against England in the Natwest trophy he was considered to be a captaincy material and was expected to be a part of the team for a long time. Currently he is not even in the reckoning. The youngsters need to realise to be on the top, the performances need to be consistant over a period of time. I still remember Vijay Bharadwaj, who was man of the match in a series in kenya few years ago and suddenly dissapeared from the scene. We can see so many such instances in Indian cricket over the past few years.
Now that IPL has made sure that these youngsters have become overnight heroes. There is lots of money involved in the game these days and its easy to lose focus of the job in hand. When you consider Ishant Sharma who has had just few matches under his belt being auctioned at $950,000 at IPL, you cant help but wonder is this good for these youngsters. When you have players come into international cricket and have few successful games the hype in India is so much that they become overnight stars and dont know how to handle the same. The reason why Sachin, Dravid and Laxman have been so successful over a period of time is due to the fact that they have both their feet firmly grounded inspite of all the hype and hapoola surrounding the game these days.
With so much money involed in cricket these days its easy for these youngsters to lose focus on the game itself. Thats what we saw with Irfan, Sehwag, Yuvraj and few others who had to be dropped from the team to make them realise that you cant be in the team if you are not performing. I guess India has great talent coming through in both batting and bowling and we need to make sure that the IPL’s and the ICL’s dont ruin it for us. The players are currently made to believe that they are greater than what they are and it will be better for them to realise that what matters the most the their performances on the cricket field.
Ten years down, no one is going to remember how much you were auctioned for in IPL. The reason we kept getting great batsmen over a period of time was due to the fact that, playing cricket was their main focus. Now a days, you just need to be a part of one series win and you dont have to play cricket anymore. I will be very interested in seeing in couple years time, which of these youngsters make it through to become the next Sachin or Laxman or Dravid of Indian cricket.
I have been a fan of Indian cricket and I am very excited looking at these youngsters performing so well in Australia. I just hope that this continues and these youngsters go from strength to Strength rather than being weighed down by this recent media frenzy and the money involved. I want India to be a cricket team which is respected throughout the world for their performances on the cricket field rathen than being the financial powerhouse which they are right now. Cricket is India has become more of a business than a sport which was the case 10-15 years back. Hopefully the game survives and will be still be remembered for your exploits on the cricket ground.
No more "Paper Tigers" abroad
Posted on: August 3, 2007
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For a long time since I have been watching cricket India has been labeled as poor visitors(Strictly on cricketing terms :)). The famous title given to the Indian team by the media was “Tigers at home and Paper Tigers abroad”. The Indian team in the past have struggled when they toured as they took too long to get acclimatized to the conditions. When they evetually get used to the conditions it would be too late. I remember watching India tour Australia in 1991/92 and later 1999/00, hoping that there will be some resistance from the team but got really dissapointed as we lost badly on both occasions.
In 2000 when Sachin resigned as the captain of the Indian cricket team following bad performaces by both the test and one-day squads. Sourav Ganguly got appointed as the captian of the Indian team in the later part of 2000. It was really a difficult time for all captains in the world due to the match fixing scandal. The game itself needed some faith reinstalled among the fans by the players around the world. India’s first overseas win abroad after 1993 came in Bangladesh when the defeated the home team by 9 wickets. The win in itself was not much to write home about as the team was expected to defeat the latest entrant to test cricket. The Indian team under Sourav did not have a great 2001 losing all the away test series which included a 2-1 loss to Srilanka.
The end of 2001 brought about one of the greatest test series I have ever witnessed on Indian soil when India took on Australia in a three match test series. India emerged victorious by a margin of 2-1. The series will always be remembered for Harbajan’s 32 wickets and also the great partnership between Dravid and Laxman in Eden Gardens where India came back to erase a 272 runs first innings deficit to eventually win the game. That series in India, kind of sparked a turnaround for cricket in India. Australians were the best team in the world and had come to India with a proud record of 15 straight test wins. After that series India had two new stars in Laxman and Harbajan. The Indian team went to Zimbabwe with the hope to win their first test series outside sub-continent for 16 years but lost the second game after the winning the first convincingly to return with a 1-1 draw. Similar fate followed when they toured WestIndies where they again sqandered 1-0 lead to eventually lose the series 2-1.
Even though we were losing all these series the one good thing about them all was that India were winning test matches abroad if not the series. Since I started watching cricket India have never won a test match outside home except for one series in Srilanka in 1993/94. India had good wins in WestIndies and Zimbabwe and had a great world cup in 2003 reaching the finals. I would attribute most of the success prior to worldcup to the Ganguly and Wright combination. The Indian team had a great tour to England where they won the one-day series and drew the test series 1-1. Ganguly was great with the youngsters in the team and he instilled an aggressive intent in team which was lacking when we toured in the past. The Indian team were no more a pushover and also started to believe that they can do more than just play a part. After the world cup India had a good year where they went to Australia and had a great time returning with a draw in the test series. Later in 2004 Ganguly’s team won both test and one-day series in Pakistan.
The Indian team was doing great with emergance of Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni,Zaheer and Pathan. The Indian team had few problems in 2005/06 with the exit of the coah John Wright and the Captain Sourav ganguly almost at the same time. Greg Chappel took over as the coach of the Indian team and Rahul Dravid was named as the captain of the team. The team had a bad 2006(Expect for their first series win abroad since 1986 when the defeated WI 1-0) which carried over in the world cup where they lost in the first round. Since then the team led by Rahul Dravid has been fighting to spark a turnaround with Zaheer returning into the team and the emergence of Sreesanth, Munaf and RP Singh. Greg Chappel resigned after the World Cup debacle but Rahul Dravid still carries on without a coach for the team.
As I write this article the Indian team is in England winning the second test in trent bridge leading the series 1-0 going into the third test in Oval to commence on Aug 9th. The Indian team would want to come home victorious by winning the test series in England which would be their first since 1986. The Indian team has won 16 test matches abroad since 2000, a record only bettered by Australia who are sitting pretty with 26 test wins. The tag of “Paper Tigers” was given by the media in the early and late 90’s and deservedly so as the team struggled to put up even a fighting performance overseas leave alone winning a test match. The tag has been lifted since the new millenieum due to efforts of John Wright, Sourav Ganguly and currently by Rahul Dravid who are making sure that when the seniors in the team retire the Indian team is one of the best in the world. Sachin, Sourav and Rahul derserve to be a part of a good team for their services in the last decade. I hope that this year turns out to be the stepping stone to the same. The Indian team’s first goal would be the series in England and then the home series against Pakistan before the take on the Australians later this year.
I sincerely hope that the Indian team emerges victorious in all their future series and keep adding to the tally of 16. Go India!
girisopinion
My Thoughts 