Posts Tagged ‘Cricket’
India tour England amidst chaos
Posted on: June 1, 2007
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The Indian team prepare for one of the toughest series after the World Cup. Even though they beat Bangladesh in both tests and one-dayers, Rahul Dravid would be the first one to admit that England would be a different proposition altogether. The Indian team is without a coach for this tour also, thanks to the coach hunting fiasco by the BCCI. The board has not made things easy for themselves and the team with a very poorly conducted selection process which caught the attention of the media world over for all the wrong reasons.
Rahul Dravid has already mentioned his concern over touring England without a coach and also regarding the teams preparation. The good thing about this series is that India got to play South Africa in a three match series in Belfast, Ireland in similar conditions to what they would be facing in England. India won the hard fought series 2-1 and registered their first overseas series victory against South Africa. This series should give India the much needed confidence before the all important tour.
The Indian team selection for the English tour had little surprises, Sehwag was dropped from both the one-day and the test squads as expected. The problem with Sehwag was not the lack of runs itself but the way he had been throwing his wicket away after getting promising starts. The recently concluded Afro-Asian cup was an example of the same. Sehwag got to decent starts in the first two games but played atrocious strokes to get himself out. Harbajan Singh and Pathan were the other notable absentees from the Indian touring party, more so due to their lack of bowling form in the past few months.
The Indian team would be relieved to see Sachin scoring some runs in the recently concluded series in Ireland, in the meanwhile crossing yet another milestone. Sachin became the first batsman in One-Day internationals to cross 15000 runs. A great achievement when you consider that he still has a batting average of 44 and a strike rate of 85. The Indian team would take lots of positives from the series against SA, as most of their batsmen made runs and would also be happy with the performance of Zaheer ahead of the test series. Anil Kumble might be the lone spinner in the team with Sreesanth, Zaheer along with another medium pacer would form the bowling combination atleast for the first test.
The Indian batting order might face a few headaches with Yuvraj scoring some valuable runs in the one-day series, making it very difficult for the captain to leave him out of the playing X1 for the first test starting on July 19th.Well all in all the Indian team would want to finish this tour by winning both the Test and the one-day series against England. Captain Rahul Dravid would be hoping that the seniors in the team including himself, can inspire the team to achieve success on this tour.
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I started playing cricket at a very young age but did not have the patience to sit through a entire cricket match on television. The first game I ever watched was a match between India and Pakistan in Sharjah in 1990. India were chasing a total of 250 odd against a strong Pakistani bowling attack and there walked in a young batsman barely 18 years old. He was none other than Sachin Tendulkar. This was my first look at the great player. I did not have too many memories of the game as it was the first game I ever watched. The only thing I remember was that India lost that game and Sachin got out trying to smash Mushtaq Ahmad for the third consecutive time in an over.
Before watching this game I always thought that Sachin Tendulkar was a model who happened to act with Kapil in the Boost ad which was very famous at that time. Sachin played a brand of cricket which was not that prevalent in the early 90’s. He was attacking and also very positive in his strokeplay when he was at the crease batting. Since that Innings in Sharjah I have closely followed Sachin’s career. I guess Sachin will agree with me that the biggest failure so far in his career has been his captaincy. He has captained India on two separate occasions and both the times it was not that great. He has been a great player and great ambassador for Indian cricket over the years.
In recent times his batting has gone downhill, even though he is still one of the major run getters in this period. Sachin’s major problem has been that he has changed his batting style which unfortunately is not his natural one. He has tried to change his batting style according to the team’s needs which is the cause for his inconsistent performance in the last few years. Sachin has always drawn parallel to another contemporary great Brian Charles Lara who retired from International cricket just a month ago after the World Cup. Lara’s success is based on the fact that he never changed his batting style no matter what his role in the team was.
Sachin on the other hand has been confused with his role in the team and has decided to be more circumspect with his batting being one of the senior members in the team. We all know that Sachin can still be the devastating one-day batsman he was couple of years back. The innings he played against Srilanka just before the World Cup further proves my point. For Sachin to get back to one-day team and make a difference he needs to get back to his strength. I remember him as a fearless young boy standing up to the likes of Waqar, Wasim, Donald, Ambrose and few other great bowlers of this era. He is one of the players who took pinch hitting to a different level, where the shots were not mere slogs but pure cricketing strokes. He has been an inspiration to countless number of youngsters who want to follow his path and become like him.
He deserves to have a send off from Indian cricket just like the way Glenn McGrath had after the World Cup. Being the great player that he is, I guess he owes it to himself. As I was writing this article, Sachin scored his 36th test century against Bangladesh in the first match of the series in chittagong. I hope that Sachin continues this form in to the rest of the season ahead against the English team and the Australians later this year. I hope he also makes a comeback into the Indian one-day team and plays the way we all know he can. For a great player like him it does not take too much to get back to his strength give his fans much more to cheer about in the last few years of his wonderful career. I have been an ardent fan of his and will continue to be the same till the end as he was the one who got me interested in this wonderful game and also inspired me to write about the same.
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After a disappointing exit from the World Cup the Indian team start their season with a series against Bangladesh. This is the start of a long and difficult season for the Indians as they take on both England and Australia later this year. The Indian team start the series on 10th of this month with 3 one dayers followed by couple of test matches. The one day team for India is without the experience of Sachin and Sourav but Dravid has been retained as the captain of the team. Sehwag should consider himself very lucky to be a part of the one-day team as he has not been performing well for a long time now. Even though he scored a hundred against the hapless Bermuda attack, the discipline in his batting is still lacking.
I would have expected India to make more changes to their bowling attack as except for Munaf and Zaheer nobody looked convincing in the WC. As expected Agarkar and Pathan were dropped from the squad to Bangaldesh but recalling RP Singh, I think is a step back. RP Singh was currently playing in English County Cricket and I would have expected him to complete an entire season there to gain some valuable experience as India tour England this summer.
The Indian team to be successful in International cricket needs at least one good fast bowler who is consistent and quick. The batting has been the main concern for the Indian team in the past few months. Rahul Dravid and Dhoni have been the most consistent batsmen in this period and the others in team have been really struggling. Sehwag as I mentioned above has been been the worst of the pack and still finds a place in the squad which is hard to believe. India should be trying out new players in the place of Sehwag and allow him to play in the domestic cricket and fight his way back to the team.
This series is been termed as a “Revenge” series by the media and it brought out a immediate denial from the Indian captain. Even though Dravid says that they are not terming this as the revenge series they will know in their minds that anything less than a white-wash will not convince their fans. There is lots of pressure on the Indian team to get back into their stride after their disappointing World Cup performance and the seniors in the squad like Sachin, Sourav and Dravid should spark the turn around which the team is looking for. They need not be the star performers in this series but their job will be to instill confidence and self belief on to the youngsters in the team.
The senior members in the team have just a few years of International cricket left in them and they should make it count in not only their personal performances but also in leaving behind a strong Indian team when they retire. The Indian team has lots of promising youngsters such as Dhoni, Karthik, Pathan and few others who need proper direction in their careers to become tough and more consistent in their performances. The Indian team has a long and hard international calender ahead of them and they would need to start well by winning both the one-day and test series in Bangladesh. I hope that we would be able to achieve the same in this series without any problems.
Australia Triumph as expected
Posted on: April 13, 2007
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Australia won the Cup as expected and the championship ended on a dark Saturday evening. The Australian team beat Srilanka convincingly in the WC finals to win it for the third consecutive time. The Australian team once again proved that they are way ahead of the other teams in both forms of the game. Everyone in the team contributed when it mattered and Glen McGrath had a dream exit from one dayers being the highest wicket taker of the tournament and also named the “Player Of the Tournament”. This was a fitting end to a great career which spanned over a decade and also coincided with the amazing Australian dominance in both forms of the game.
Glenn McGrath has been a great bowler for Australia with more than 400 wickets in both forms of the game. He has been a part of 3 world cup winning teams, a rare achievement in the modern era. Matthew Hayden became the highest run getter of the tournament with more than 600 runs in the championship and Rickey Ponting became just the second captain in World cricket to lead two World Cup winning teams after Clive Lloyd of WI.
The World Cup Finals itself was an organizers nightmare with the rain before the start of the game. The game was reduced to a 38 overs a side and Srilanka’s best bet would have been to bat first and set a challenging total for the Australians to chase in the finals. The Srilankans lost the toss and Australia did what they did four years ago and batted first. The Srilankan new ball bowlers except for Malinga were trashed by Adam Gilchrist on his way to the championship winning 149. Adam Gilchrist had a ordinary tournament before this game but he performed when it mattered the most. Adam Gilchrist has always been the man for Australia in WC finals as he has two fifties and a hundred in the three chances he has had till now.
This innings almost batted Srilanka out of the game as Australia amassed 281 in 38 overs at almost 7.5 runs an over. Srilanka’s start to the innings was not that promising with Taranga getting dismissed in the first couple of overs.Everything rested on the partnership between Sangakkara and Jayasurya after the early loss. Both these batsmen kept them in the hunt until Jayasurya’s charge against part timer Clarke ended his innings on 63 which also ended Srilanka’s hopes of winning the game. The Australians tightened the screws after Jayasurya’s exit and Srilanka kept losing wickets at regular intrevals. Later the match was stopped due to the rain with Srilanka needing more than 10 runs an over and after lots of chaos Australia were eventually declared the winners of the World Cup.
Srilanka had a great World Cup as not a lot of people thought they would be in the finals. Srilanka played beautifully and the veterans in the team Jayasurya, Murali and Vaas had a great World Cup. These three great players from the island might have just played their last World Cup game and they would feel that they had given their best in the Championship.
Overall the World Cup was a dull event due to the Australian dominance over the other teams and also was too long to keep the viewers interested as there were too many meaningless games towards the end of the tournament in the super 8 stage.
Another tour abroad
Posted on: November 12, 2006
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The Indian team again dished out yet another pathetic performance on the field to loose the all important game against the Aussies. I am sure not many people gave the Indian team a chance before the match as they had not beaten the aussies in the one-day format for a long time now. The batting was ordinary after a good start and bowling was pathetic to say the least.
The Indian selectors need to take some harsh decisions and drop people who are not performing and inject some young blood in the team. Irfan Pathan has been bowling rubbish for the last few months and his batting has also hit a all time low, inspite of which he continues to be in the team. The batting of Sachin and Kaif defied any logic and I was not sure what they were trying to achieve by batting so negetive.
Sachin at the start looked clueless against the bowling of Mcgrath and eventually lost his wicket. If Sachin was finding hard to face Mcgrath, he should have made sure that the strike was rotated and he does not have to face the entire over. Mohd Kaif’s batting in the final overs was also something which could not be explained. Eventhough I would like to give credit to the Aussies on restricting India,but the batting by the Indians lacked any planning. The batting order started out well but sending Raina before Dhoni was a huge mistake which cost India some valuable runs late in the order.
All in all it was again a horrible performance by the Indian team. The Indian team selection to South Africa brings no surprises, except for the inclusion of Anil Kunble and Zaheer Khan. One more oversees tour and this time there is no expectation on Indian team to perform miracles.
Congrats to the Australian team on yet another title win. They proved once again as to why they the number one team in the world.
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The Champions trophy has reached its most important phase where teams battle for the semifinal spot. The favorites have been knocked off and the subcontinent teams have faltered to leave an impression on this tournament. Srilanka and Pakistan have already been knocked out, and India still have a mamoth task of beating Australia to grab the final spot for the semis.
This tournament has been a dissapointment in terms of good tough matches. The only matches which come to mind are Aus V WI, SL V Pak and Ind V WI(Only at the end) as the rest of them have been one sided affairs. The batsmen have struggled and bowlers have enjoyed the conditions, pretty rare on Indian pitches.
With three spots for the semifinal already decided, the India V Australia match seems to an interesting contest. Both the team have had problems with their batting with their bowlers doing a reasonable job. This is the first time I feel in an Ind V Aus encounter that both teams have an equal chance as Australia have been vulnareble with their batting in the last couple of tournaments. It was kind of dissapointing to see the Indian batters struggle once again against the WI.
The Indian batting has struggled since the WI series where they lost 4-1 after having a great run in one-day cricket prior to that. The Indians would be hoping that their most experianced players like Sachin, Rahul and Sehwag would step up to the occasion and deliver the goods on the most important game for India in the last few months.The Indian bowling was a mixed bag against WI with Irfan Pathan leaking lot of runs at the start(may be psychological, playing WI).
I am still unable to get the selection of RP Singh over Sreesanth as the former has not been able to deliver in the last 3 or 4 tournaments. Sreesanth was Indias best bowler in WI and bowled beautifully in the only match he played in the DLF cup. India should realize that we should make use of players who are in form rather than just playing people who they want to succeed. This tournament would be a big confidence booster for India as they visit SA right after this tournament.
Australia on the other hand came to India as the favorites as is the case in most of the tournaments they are involved in. They have had pretty rough time in the champions trophies prior to this and have not reached the finals even once in the previous tournaments. If I know Australia they would want to set the record straight.
I hope that this match provides a great contest and not a one-sided affair like the other matches in the tournament.
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After the qualifying rounds and few matches into the main tournament, we already have a team out of the competition. England let themselves down with poor batting displays in both of their games so far(Vs India and Australia). Apart from the early exit of England the other teams in the tournament still remain in hunt for the semifinal berth. All the games in the tournament except for the couple of them have been one-sided contests, the exceptions being WI V Aus and Pak V Srilanka.
The competition has reached the second phase where even the slightest mistake by any of the team could ensure an early flight back home. The Indians would be really dissapointed with the scheduling of the tournament as Rahul Dravid himself expressed in the post match press conference after their win against England. A 10 day break between two matches is little too much and does not do any good for the preparation of team. The Indian batting apart from Sachin looked very much out of form against England while chasing a below par total.
The West Indians though would be flying high on confidence after defeating Australia in their first game in the main tournament. Their win against Australia has thrown the group open with all the three teams having fair chances of qualifying for the next stage of the tournament. India would be hoping for an improved performance from thier batters against West Indies which would make their life little bit easier. The bowling has done exceptionally well in the last couple of tournaments, with Munaf improving with every game and Irfan coming into his own in the game against England. The Indians would be hoping that their batting can recapture the golden run which helped them to have a wonderful season as a one-day team just few months ago.
The Indians would desperately want to win their next game as it would give them the much needed confidence when they face Australia on 29th of this month. Rahul Dravid has lots to think about regarding the composition of the team especially the batting. I would personally prefer Sachin and Sehwag opening the batting with Yuvraj or Mongia coming at one down. As Ravi Shastry said during commentary on India’s first game Rahul should bat at no 5, the batting spot where he has performed exceptionally well and also would help in the team balance. Dhoni should follow Rahul followed by the bowlers with Pathan being the floating member in the batting order.
The bowling attack I guess would remain the same with Pathan and Munaf opening the attack with Agarkar, Harbajan and Powar backing them up. All in all it seems to be a cracker of a contest with everything to play for. The Indian team would be hoping for their batsmen to rediscover their form and West Indies would be just wanting to repeat their performance against the world champions. Hope we will see a great contest.
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India completed their 2-0 whitewash in the test series against Srilanka and in the process became the second best team behind Australia replacing England.The series was way closer than the final scoreline indicates but the Indian team wouldnt be complaining.The series would be mainly remembered for the controversy surrounding Ganguly’s expulsion from the third test rathar than the happenings on the field.
The Indians would be happy with their performance on the field though as they came through with an impressive scoreline of 2-0 in hard fought series.The Indians were bailed out on numerous occassions by the lower order after the top 5 failed more than once(They contributed more than 70% of Indian runs this series).The lower order batting of Yuvraj,Pathan,Harbajan,Kumble and agarkar along with Dhoni deserves a special.The Srilankan performance was marred by missed opportunities on the field.Their top order failed to convert good starts and their bowlers were unable to dismiss the Indian Lower order.
The Srilankans would like to forget the Indian tour as they were thrashed 6-1 in the oneday series and were beaten 2-0 in the test series pushing them to 7th in the ICC rankings.The Victory against the Srilankans and a creditable performance against the SouthAfricans in one-dayers should give India enough confidence to take on a confident Pakistan next month.
Kumble again was the man of the series with 20 wickets inching closer to the magical 500 mark.Harbhajan was declared the man of the match for his 10 wkt haul.
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After torrential rainfall had eaten into the first three days of the first test and most of the fourth day,the Indians put up a horrible display.There was nothing much to gain for both the teams,but enough time to inflict few psychological blows on each other.In the end we have to say that the Lankans came on top in whatever cricket was possible in Chennai.
Indian batting lacked any sort of application as everyone except for Dravid,Sehwag and Dhoni failed to cross 30 run mark.The much awaited return of Sourav Ganguly was a disaster as he just contributed 5 runs to the total.Well overall the Lankans would be happy with their two premier bowlers Vass and Murali being the chief wicket-takers.
The Indians have to come in with better performance in the second test to win the series which could see them jump second on the ICC test ranking.
girisopinion
My Thoughts 
