Can it get better than this?

A bowling line up comprising of Russel,Roach,Rampaul,Sammy and Sunil Narine with back up from Marlon Samuels.On paper, this looks like the best bowling combination in ODIs.The indian team not having Tendulkar will be in for a good contest.Though India nearly lost a Test,they were clearly favourites in that series.I am not quite sure for this one.
Earlier today, my driver asked when the next match was.I only knew about the Brisbane Test and not about the Cuttack ODI.We were in class I in 1971.The first one day match between two tests had taken place some time during the Winter Break.None of us knew anything about it though there were a few who had heard about the Test series in Australia.One day Cricket keeps coming in and out of consciousness while Test matches remain.1971 turned out to be a glorious year for India in Tests though it was only from the winter vacation of 1972-73,that I started following Test Cricket ball by ball.

Test Matches still cannot be written off

The exciting "Draw" in the Mumbai test where till the penultimate ball all four results were possible,has done a great deal of good for Test Matches.And has again established that Mumbai is the main cricketing centre which their ranji record establishes.Delhi is catching up and the attendance for the first and third tests do not give any cause for worry.

As regards the poor attendance at Kolkata, Mudar Patherya has done an excellent analysis on Cricinfo and his arguments can be supplemented by the fact that till 1982, only New ZeaLand was a weak side and the matches against them presented India an opportunity to win and therefore the matches were well attended.Now we beat most teams at home regularly and draw a considerable amount of Tests, therefore Test Cricket while not out of a knowledgeable fan's radar is not on casual cricket follower's agenda.

However those who can distinguish Doug Bracewell from John Bracewell and remember Floyd Reifer, test Cricket will always remin the real thing.

Get the Distraction out of the way

Media and fans have made a big issue of tendulkar's 100th Hundred.I wonder why the hoopla was missing when Tendulkar became the first player to have scored fifty hundreds.However it would be a great idea if Tendulkar plays all the five ODIs against the West Indies and gets 50 ODI hundreds and 100th 100 as well before the Boxing day Test at the MCG lest the campaign for a first series win in Australia is dwarfed by the 100th 100.Now that every run Tendulkar makes is the first such run made in that format in the history of mankind,We might as well celebrate Tendulkar's last few years in International Cricket and I am sure that will include the world Cup Down under.

Test Matches on Television

Two relatively sparsely populated countries have played a gripping Two test series.One that was followed by cricket followers round the world.SABC 3 was the host boadcaster and channels around the world were showing it.The Time difference was such that at least a session and a half could be viewed in India in the evenings.Which of course has been the reason that I have followed Cummins and Philander more than Yadav and Ashwin ,the local debutants this Indian Winter.And this gives me hope for the future of Test Cricket.Inspite of the naysayers and the dwindling Test audiences, test Cricket will never die.It makes so much of low cost programming available to a not very committed audience worldwide that it offers tremondous flexibility.

One can get up in the morning to a test match in New Zealand or Australia and watch for sometime and come back to the match only the next morning, having kept up with basic details on the Net/news.It would be night time in India for the matches in the West Indies and evenings for those in UK/South Africa .The timings in different zones would vary but what is unique is that the Test Match in one's own country would be the least watched on working days except when school children and school teachers return usually after the Tea session.Hence Test Match of high quality or on certain days of any quality would have a passing interest.To that extent a low turn out is not a worry.Since immediate result is not very relevant spending whole days in front of the Television set is not required.
Moreover,Test matches can be dovetailed with international holidays and in case of India with domestic holidays.Consider a holiday in the hills of Himachal for a week for a thousand families in summer for a Test Match involving India and a top contestant outside the FTP.Test Matches can therefore retain a niche.After all inspite of Chetan Bhagat,Amitabh Ghose is also read.Some readers read both.So with Test Matches and the audience.

Akashvani from Trinidad

Last few years I have rediscovered the Radio.However unlike the sturdy two band or three band radio of old, the radio now is available to me on my mobile phone and my desk Top PC.The range and scope of Radio has greatly improved.I can listen to internet radio streams of various Radio stations.I have now for several years followed Grand stand Commentary of Cricket Matchesfrom Australia's ABC radio, the Test Match special of the BBC on Five live cricket extra for all of England's home matches,lot of New Zealand cricket on Talk Sport and incredibly listened to the last time South Africa played in Pakistan on radio Pakistan.However, Akashvani as in All India Radio remains largely internet unfriendly and therefore though I remember Sushil Doshi and Anant Setalvad who brought the 1979-80 India-Australia live to millions of Indian homes, I hardly remember many Indian commentators of present day.Brian Waddle from New Zealand, Jonathan Agnew from England,Fazeer Mohammed from Trinidad,Neil Manthorp from South Africa, Glenn Mitchell and Jim Maxwell from Australia are more a part of my consciousness.

And beyond cricket there is Five Live's coverage of Wimbledon and extensive news and views.Listening to radio commentary conects you to the place the way TV commentary does not these days.Television commentators are hardly local and Walsh in South Africa or Tony Greig in a sri lanka Pakistan series stick out like aliens on earth.The SABC commentators including Aslam Khota and Natalie Germanos speak with enthusiasm and partisan feeling but are good to the ear especially playing in the background.
The mobile phone has brought back Indian Radio stations to our consciousness including the much maligned All India Radio.The absence of FM radio on Blackberry made me chose Sony Ericsson's Experia Arc and through the Android Market, I downloaded Tune in Radio app.Now I can follow SABC 200fm on the move and listen to Indian music from New Zealand and yes a radio station called Akashvani from Trinidad.
Radio experience has widened and the serendiptous find of a cricket match being covered in Tamil and Gujarati on Short wave radio has been replaced by joys of stumbling on new radio stations on the net.And the reception is much better.

An Exaggerated Fear

Harsha Bhogale read Chemical Engineering followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM(Ahmedabad) and is a gifted writer.He has in a recent article on the strength of a poor attendance at Eden Gardens, bemoaned the lack of interest in Tests.He recalls old times to which one can add the full house gathered in January 1977 to watch England wrap up a match by scoring 16 runs required to win.Much as these are heartwarming instances, one needs to analyse the situation in context.In those days a Hindu vs Stephen's match had up to 20,000 spectators watching.Durand, DCM and Beighton Cup matches in football and Hockey were played to packed houses.A full house for a Test was therefore in keeping with sporting activity of a nation trying to build itself into a modern nation state.
That project is complete and Indians today aspire to various kind of options.A straight case study that analysts like Harsha Bhogale may like to anaalyse with all their IIM expertise is that in 1976, CAB had a few tickets for Bihar Cricket Association and dozens of lucky ticket holders from Jamshedpur,Patna and Ranchi went to Calcutta to watch Tests.Today Bihar with its teeming millions are disenfranchised from First Class Cricket.And while Dhoni may be an icon in Jharkhand, nobody in contemporary Bihar identifies with Saurav Tiwary, even though he is from Bihar and plays for Jharkhand only because Bihar is dienfranchised.But Bihar has found ways to stardom as the three KBC crorepatis can testify.
Even ODIs may not get the kind of attendance seen earlier.More active life, hectic school and coaching schedule, semesters, professional courses have opened avenues for the middle class and left them with less time for Cricket in general and Tests in particular.But Harsha need not despair as the Gangothri Glades Ranji Final in 2010 in Mysore displayed that given the occaison and the weather there can be a full house for a cricket match.It is nothing to despair and Harsha sounds to be making a case for bail out.It is certainly not in terminal decline and Harsha is mistaken about Green Park.Enough support has been there so far and also at New Delhi.However if Test Cricket is really dying may be nothing will help.
But Cricinfo and online streams keep getting audience for Tests as well.Perhaps the news about the decline of Test Matches are greatly exaggerated.

The Indian Batting Scenario.

A spirited West Indies fresh from its victory in Bangladesh did frighten the Indians.However this was the Feroze Sah Kotla and for a changeIndia had the attack which is young and give us hope.When an Indian fast bowler matches the West Indian quick at the speed gun, it is heartening and the dropping of Harbhajan caused no problem at all.

It is the batting that unravelled in the first innings and refused to in the second.The pattern is at once good news in the short time frame with the Australian visit coming up and not so much good news in that the only gen next batsman to feature in this match failed in both innings.That for India to be competitive even against this West Indies side, we need the redoubtable trio of Dravid,Tendulkar and Laxman to bat well means that they are presently indispensable.

They could not save the series in England because selectors had not taken Yadav.Had Yadav with his ninety miles an hour bowling been available in England along with Aswin instead of Harbhajan,the team could have fought in a better way.

Which of course means that an in between generation has to be passed over for Kohli and Pujara to replace the seemingly irreplaceable.Moreover with a reduced work load and little ODI and Ranji Trophy, there is no reason these players may be around for three to four more years.after all army officers and policemen do not teire at forty and the do not do any less strenuous work.They become senior Officers and lead by sheer experience.

1974 Once More

The 3-0 drubbing aginst England in 1974 is fresh in my memory for the reason that as a 9 year old this was the first overseas series that I followed keenly.I had passing knowledge of 1971 victories in England and the West Indies but it was Tony Lewsis's team's visit in 1972-73 that initiated us to Test Cricket.Radio in those days was the medium to follow cricket on and from the city of Kolkata to the Santal Parganas town where our school was located and my village were on the same footing.Medium wave for India matches and short wave for matches played in England and Australia.Alan McGilvray and John Arlott were as familiar to us as Dicky Rutnagar and Jasdev Singh.
Perhaps the last two did the commentary when we were beaten 3-0 with the low of 42 all out after having made more than 350 in the first innings.The current series reminds me of 1974 with only one difference that England went to Australia soon after and were Lilleed and Thommoed 1-4 but this England team has beaten Australia 3-1.
All India Radio is not covering this series and Doordarshan does not show tests. My villlage has no cable and only a few "Dish" connections.We still don't have a Dish and electric supply is generally not available.Test Match Special is not available on World Service any more. So children today in similar situations can only read about the debacle.I hope they soon forget.

Afghanistan in Canadian summer festival

Trinidad & Tobago are full of players who have all kinds of experience across format but they are stuggling against Afghanistan.Twenty overs format is a leveller but this surely is an indicator of a rising crickeing power.The only way T&T can win is by Barath playing at his best.That looks as unlikely as India drawing the edgbaston test.

The Unravelling

The team that beat Australia 3-1 in Australia wer surely the favourites.Come the Nat West Series and India will be the favourites. Afterall, the English lost the ODI series 1-6 to Australia and lost to Ireland in the World Cup.India now represents a stage where the gen next have not arrived in Tests though they have in ODIs.We don't really hear of exciting talents from the four day game.Rajasthan are our National Champions and not a single player from Rahjasthan are in the India set up.This is what is worrying.The Test team do not have an adequate back up.No Broad to take over from Flintoff.Remove the five famous batsmen from the team and we could be competing with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.After all had Dravid and Laxman not pulled their weight West Indies could have won.If only the West Indies could play with four quicks nad Bishoo they can beat the Indian team this winter.That will be the unravelling of the Indian team made champions at home by Tendulkar and Kumble.

This is just another job

The indian cricketers are centrally contracted and are professional cricketers.Just like so many of us are policeman,scientists and English teachers.Doing essentially an intermittent kind of work,they are playing first class and list a cricket for less than 250 days a year.Harsha Bhogle in a recent article has spoken about poor scheduling.I am sure many of us in India would like to work shorter days in summer and longer in winter.We cannot have it our way and the cricketers cannot have it that way because the Board gets its revenues from eyeballs watching TV and Harsha Bhogale would know that an India- Victoria match however good will not have a TV viewing comparable even to an India Bangladesh ODI. This brings me to the point that amateur cricket can possibly have that kind of sheduling with Railway Ticket collectors and Bank employees given long playing leave as long as they play for India.After the ZEE Telefilms judgement of the Supreme Court, that pssibility also looks remote as it is settled law that the cricketers do not represent India the way the UN delegation does.They play for the BCCI.It is only because of that an iniquitous system where Bihar having 10% of the country's population is not allowed to field a team in Ranji Trophy while Gujarat and Maharashtra have three teams can prevail.BCCI, Mr.Bhogale,knows that it has a brand with a sell by date and has to exploit it as much as they can.If the players really cared they could have stayed away from IPL auctions and used all that time to play cricket in England to their heart contents as free citizens of a functioning democracy.

The King is Dead or atleast Dying

The undisputed Test Number 1 are on the verge of being displaced.The stay there has been shorterthen that of Australia of Taylor and Waugh or the West Indies of Lloyd and Richards and definitely shorter than the Australian Invicibles. Winning two Test Matches should be in the realm of possibility and they can hang on for dear life.However,the series here and in the West Indies have indicated quite clearly that Harbhajan has gone past the sell by date and the Indian Batting without Sehwag will always struggle.Only the medium pacers are on course to improvement.Yuvraj Singh can possibly play for a few matches but Pujara,Raina and Kohli will have to be given an ordeal by fire in Australia, the coming Northern Hemisphere winter.If we are to rebuild, it may be a good place to start.

478 over four sessions.

The Task is cut out in a typical Longewada situation depicted in the film Border, though the consequences are less daunting.The Eleven Indians have to hold on for dear life over eight hours and if they can do that, they can surely seize the mo0mentum with both Sehwag and Zaheer back for the third Test.Like the IAF coming in the morning.

Too early for an Obituary

Several people especially in India are quick to write the obituary of Test matches.Look at number of people viewing test matches, they say.What they do not seem to notice is that even when most of these ODI and 20:20 followers are asleep on 26th of December,thousands of Indians get up to watch what is usually a neutral Test for them.Thousands of Melbourne folks are at the MCG and Test Match is played in its best atmosphere. The next best is perhaps in the UK.It is fitting that these countries boast of the longest Test Tradition.

It is therefore befitting the tradition that India and england are involved in a marquee series that has the potential of anointing a new no.1 in the World Cup Year.India was the defending Test No.1 and a simple victory or a Drawn Series from position of strength would not have the same kind of impact as this one from a match down can have.

This is a series where the Radio coverage is missing on All India Radio.As the test Match special is available only on the net, the vast cricket following class in the rural areas with intermittent electricity and no free to air terrestrial broadcast on TV is generally left out.There was a time when the "away" ODIs were not covered by AIR and Doordarshan and now the away tests are not covered on Doordarshan and crazily enough ECB has chosen to sell Radio rights of a Test series involving India to an agency which do not have any means of broadcasting.As only Akashvani(and not the T&T version)can broadcast live news and, cricket is news legally, speaks poorly of ECB's marketing department.In effect it has shrunk the size of the possible followers of the series.

Centuries by a debutante and a veteran

Two centuries, one by Kirk Edwards in his first Test and one by Chanderpaul,the most capped west Indies player helped the West Indies to draw the third Test. Helped by the weather, the West Indies managed to draw two tests against the Number one side in the World. A drawn series against Pakistan and a hard fought series against India and the impressive crowd in Dominica augur well for the West Indies cricket.The news of their demise were rather exaggerated, just like decline of cricket in England.

West Indies competitive

With responsive and bowling friendly wickets,suddenly the West Indies appear competitive.Had it not been for Dravid and Laxman, India would have been trailing.What it essentially means is that the West Indies have caught up as far as bowling goes.That Andre Russell, Jerome Taylor and Kemar roach cannot get selected means that the West indies have a bowling which can be competitive.This brings into perspective that even in those helmetless days Lloyd's team was great because of Richards,Fredericks, Greenidge,Gomes, Kallicharan, Haynes and Lloyd rather than the bowlers.With batsmen like those Edwards and company can rattle any opposition.They also have Bishoo.So it is up to Bravo, Barath and company to forge pasures new.Moreover, if cricketers will like to live in Miami and play in the West Indies, cricket as a cultural institution gets weakened.It is not an accident that India has become a cricketing superpower in an age in which more Americans work with work permit in india than Indians in the USA.There was a time that players like Uday Joshi and Dilip Doshi would play County championship to make a living.Today even a full ranji season provides for comfortable living.

Well Begun is half done.

Darren Sammy and his team has manged a cricketing rarity by winning a Test Match. In so doing they have ensured that Pakistan would not win a Test series in the west Indies for the first time on this tour.This may not be a new dawn but the West Indies team through the Brian Lara days struggled not on account of their batting but their bowling and it is here that they are showing depth.Even with a weak batting,a good bowling team can off and on produce a good result.If the batting becomes consistent, the team could do even better.In Darren Bravo and Adrian Barath, they have promising youngsters.
It is the bowling which offers hope.Taylor,Edwards,Roach and Russel are genuine quicks and had it been the pre helmet days, the West Indies would have blown several teams away as they blew Bangladesh away in Dhaka during the World Cup.Devendra Bishoo has played only one test and looks a veteran.Sammy swings a few and sandwiched between genuine quicks and an attacking spinner manages to do well.
Inspite of the presence of a genuine all rounder in Shakib ul Hassan and the mercurial Tamim Iqbal, it is Bangladesh and not the west Indies who bring up the rear in Test Cricket.The West Indies did not lose to New Zealand the last time they played and will not lose to Pakistan this time.A consistent record against three teams for a few years will bring them to a feared middling status from where they can launch themselves.The india series coming up will be interesting and bring back the memories of following cricket from the other side of the Time Zone.

Indian Origin Fast bowlers

A few years back in his blog India Uncut, Amit Varma had bemoaned the absence of indian origin fast bowlers, even outside India. I had pointedout to the numerous fast bowlers plying their wares in England hailing from South Asian origins.Amit pointed out that he was talking of "Indian", origin fast bowlers and those that I was referring to were with Family ties in Pakistan.As a trained critic I wanted to quibble, that those carrying on the heritage of Indian Fast Bowler Jehangir Khan, and nationals of the UK, were of indian origin.However I gave up as even India had produced only Fast medium Bowlers from Kapil to Srinath and I did not know how Amit would view Nissar and Jehangir Khan.I searched my memory and could come with no one but the Guyanese military medium bowler Kamal Singh.

Today,four years on I was happy to note that the Sky Coverage of the Pakistan West Indies test put down Ravi Rampaul as "Fast" Bowler.Rampaul is from Guyana and decidedly of Indian origin and gets into theteam over Edwards and Taylor and generates good pace.What is even more contextual is that Rampaul is contemporary of two Resident Indian Fast bowlers,Ishant sharma and Varun Aaron.The bogey of India not producing genuine quicks and the diaspora also producing quality spinners like Ramadhin but not Fast bowlers has been laid low and the future generation of Indians and PIOs can point out to a few quicks of their own.

Fire in the Belly

Everytime, the West Indies start a Test series,I hope that they will go back to their winning ways.Each series proves me wrong.Besides their cricket, their inter personal problems and their scrap with the administration remain in the news.If they have to come out of the rut that they are in, they have to do that in spite of the system.It is true that the West Indies free lancers have now found an avenue in the IPL.More possibilities are there now than the NBA.However, a working cricket culture is required to keep producing good cricketers.A strong West Indies performance may even make a North American League possible. A 5 AM India time start will have sufficiently big audience in India besides the Desis in the USA.For that to happen, the West Indies must get back to believing in themselves and claw to a middling ranking in Tests.

Australia are still the team to beat

If anything,the World Cup confirmed that in the near future, the team to beat to be considered the winner in an ODI context still is Australia.India are worthy Champions and the fact that they beat Australia at the first available opportunity conferred a legitimacy to their win.Sri Lanka's match with Australia was rained off and as a result,the what if scenario could always have been resorted to.

The Indian victory in 1983 was in a very different world.However, unlike then,India was a title favourite and outside of Sri Lanka or perhaps even Colombo, Sri Lanka's record is not a very good one.India has a very good one day side and that it has VVS Laxman and Dravid, not to speak of Ishant Sharma playing only tests means that India does have a bright future.Not many captains during this World Cup leaving Dhoni would love to have Dravid batting for them.That speaks volumes for the depth and capability of Indian batting.

India should capitalise on this title win and go on to building a team capable of taking on the World.With youngsters like Kohli,Raina,Pujara,Ishant and Chawla in the mix,the future can only be brighter.

Finally the World Cup is Home

india has won the world cup.A thirsty nation has had its thirst quenched.And how?Not through the exploits of their senior pros but their youthful and sub thirty performers.This also means that when time comes to defend the cup,most of this campaigns heroes will still be around.This has been an excellent tournament.it has spread joy and enthusiasm all around .Weaker teams like NZ punched over theirweight and South Africa peaked early.Even so this has been a competitive World Cup

An Asian Final

Just as the Indian team of 1983 would have had little chance of winning it had the Cup been played in Asia,as the India- West Indies series in 1983-84 showed,New Zealand with asimilar team but for a genuine spinner in Vettori lost after gamely trying.
Much of the charm has gone out,the hoopla created by anIndia pakistan match notwithstanding.Since March 14,2001,the marquee contest has been between India and Australia.Ashes has wide following in the UK and Australia.However for the discerning Indian cricket follower an India Pakistan encounters are well normal business.
That said if India has to win the World Cup or even reach the finals,Pakistan has to be beaten.Tjhe last time they were in a World Cup semi final,they had beaten Kenya.The opposition on current form are better no doubt but the team to beat is Sri Lanka.

The Minnow in Last 8

New Zealand were supposed to be the weakest link in the last eight or atleast a little better than West Indies.However what hd gone unnoticed was how their team resembles the 1983 India team.Full of little of this and little of that,they can bat deep and have many bowlers to choose from.And South Africa were complacent.What is the point of resting Morkel and Steyn when you may have only a game left.They are a competent side but not mercurial like Pakistan.However what happened at Dhaka was not choking.It was a collpase brought about by aneedless run out.And not having Boucher at eight aws for once missed.Moreover if you have Kaliis in top six,you can't have Botha come in at number seven.You need a specialist batsman who could have guided the tail.

Business end of the world Cup

We have reached the business end of the World Cup.Only one team of the qualifiers has not defeated a major test playing nation.Even there,West Indies can have the satisfaction of having beaten a team ranked higher than them.The quarter-final line up promises good fare, if only because Pakistan by virtue of topping the group have opened a possibility of a well fought match with the West Indies which would not have happened if they were playing Australia.India Australia,Sri Lanka England also may be good matches.South africa New Zealand clash may be less enticing but Ross taylor can spice up that contest as well.
After three World Cups,we have a secondphase where a weak side has not progressed.Thereby tighter matches are expected.Zimbabwe in 1999,Kenya in 2003 and Ireland and Bangladesh in 2007 qualified and except for Zimbabwe in 1999, they provided little oppsition.Moreover a knock out Quarter final stage is more open and a fast furious spell of the kind Roach,Russel and Rampaul are capable of can rip open the tournament and before we know,India may be playing the West Indies again.

Cricket is an English Game

Those of us and Professor Ashish Nandy who in a book called "The Tao of Cricket",said that cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered in England,should have much to chew after English performance at the World Cup, in South asia of all places.The English approach to cricket at this World Cup has been such that an Indian fan or even players cannot empathise with.While winning is a noble aim, enjoying with an honest effort is the essence of cricket.Neville Cardus would have been proud of them.

What Will be Will be

So the group of death has reached its final few days.this group was tough as number nine and eighth ranked ODI teams were there and any one of Wet Indies or Bangladesh could have qualified.However as the poet Robert Burns so aptly put it "the best laid schemes of mice and men/gang aft agley."And except for South Africa having made sure a quarterfinal position,no other team is in the safe zone.Infact, even if England were to win today,they have to wait for the India west indies Match.
The followers of the game could not have wished for more exciting set of matches even before the quarter finals.

Group B: Still wide open.

Group B is still wide open thanks to spirited efforts by Bangladesh and South Africa over the weekend.This World Cup has had its share of interesting moments and it should be rather interesting second phase.For the tournament, it would be nice to have England qualify for the next round but Bangladesh at home in a quarterfinal at Mirpur against even Australia should be a handful..A good idea for associates would be to give Full ODI status to Ireland and let top nine teams and a qualifier play in the next World Cup.

Bangladesh lives to fight another day.

Bangladesh has proved most of their detractors and those of their fans who lost faith in them and started to walk back,wrong.That the commenators failed to presume that a test centurion can rally number ten and eleven,must not take the spotlight away from Mahmuduallah.May be Kambli and Kumble could have won us the match in 1996 before Eden Gardens erupted.

Bang becoming a whimper

With the third Bangladeshi wicket having fallen,one can hope that England would now get the points required to get into what can be considered a safe zone.A defeat here and the West Indies match would be a must win one and like India not getting past Sri Lanka in 2007,elimination would loom large.However, one would hope England defeats Bangladesh as the quarterfinals should be tough.Which team can say that they would fancy england in quarter finals.Not Australia,nor New Zealand,or either of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The Tigers are still roaring in Chattogram

Unlike the lament of last Friday,there is a real 'live' match to watch on the Friday evening.England have it in them to qualify even if they lose to Bangladesh.There is a small matter of getting across the West Indies which, given their performance against the so called better teams,would be probable.HoweverGroup B is still a little open for Bangladesh.Otherwise the minnows have been shown their places and even at their nadir Roach and Russel give to the West Indies,a firepower that most teams do not possess.

Decades later,still Leader

This was the punchline for a suitings range a couple of decades ago.Sunil Gavaskar endorsed the brand and Gavaskar morethan the brand remainedin people's memory.This thought came to me when Sachin Tendulkar and Veerender Sehwag came out to bat at the Feroze Sah Kotla,yesterday.India needed 190 to win against the unfancied Netherlands.Every person was standing and most were chanting "Sachin,Sachin".This was Delhi and Sehwag was walking alonside.Only when sehwag took guard that a smaller section started to chant ''VEERU,Veeru".Sachin was even in Delhi, the master and sehwag the disciple.
The Delhi crowd demonstrated how Cricketing intelligence in India is truly national and how Sachin holds a place in Indian cricket which is perhaps unparrelelled in the annals of international sport.

Weekend Dhamaka

The build up for the weekend Dhamaka was around the Sri Lanka-Australia game on Saturday and the India game on Sunday.But the Dhamaka happened all itself in the England South Africa game in Chennai.Weather intervened in Colombo and Yusuf Pathan brutally ended the Irish challenge at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

It was the day match on Sunday where England defended 171 that provided the weekend dhamaka.Even All India Radio did not deem it fit to broadcast the running commentary on this match.Group B remains as wide open as it was and perhaps only Netherlands are more or less certain of not progressing to next round.

The Delhi encounter between India and Netherlands will be interesting if only to see what the Indian bowlers can do.

No Match to watch on a Friday evening.

The TV ratings will take a mssive blow as there is no match for a Friday Evening.Well,actually there was a riveting contest expected between the ODI number nine and eight.Or so the schedulers thought.But as Benjamin Disraeli said "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."Statistics did not factor in Kemar roach and also the fact that if a team which hasGayle,Chandepaul,Sarwan,Darren Bravo,Dwayne Bravo and Kemar Roach does not figure in the top half,then the reasons are not primarily cricketing.
This Friday evening,I hope that the West Indies go about completing their unfinished world Cup business when Richardson ran out of partners against Australia in 1996 semi-finals.They should have won then and they may win here and the decline which started with that match can be arrested if not reversed.

Who are the Minnows?

The first team to show that the pre tournament rankings don't matter are the West Indies.By cantering to a win in less than 30 overs thay have given a good news to people as they wake up their various nations.In the past few years there have been so many moments when one thinks that the West Indies are beginning a new phase,only to deceive.We must wait before we can come to any serious conclusion of a resurgence in the West Indian Cricket, though they may do well in this tournament.

Bangladesh are learning the hard way that it is difficult to be competitive on the big stage with any consistency.India has become competitive only from the seventies and Bangladesh are in the phase when India could only do well against New Zealand, especially at home.Banglsdehis can also compete with New Zealand at home and therefore we must give them a few more years.With tamim and Shakib with them for much of the next decade or more, they will have nucleus of a competitive team in a few years.

Group B now wide open

Wth the magnificient victory at the Chinnaswamy stadium, Ireland has opened up the group to any number of possibilities.Even to begin with, the question was Whether it would be Bangladesh or the West Indies.Now it could be Ireland and Bangladesh progressing with India and South Africa or the West Indies and England cannot be written off.So six out of seven teams are still in contention and that is a good sign.
And all the talk about not having associates from the next World Cup appears to be premature.An associate has reached semi final in 2003, another was in super eight in 2007 and at least two associates are holding their own in Group B.Group A Associates are not faring so well.When an associate manages to achieve the highest World Cup run chase,theyhave arrived.This victory over England is more significant than Sri Lanka's over India in 1979 and Bangladesh's over Pakistan in 1999.

International Cricket must recognise Nations

In 1976, as class six student in what is now Jharkhand,I faced quiz question: where are the Indian cricketers playing cricket right now? answered Trinidad & Tobago.It was in the middle of the 404 match at Port of Spain and the quiz master gave that one to our team even though he had West Indies on his answer sheet.Though I was aware of the Test Series, I also knew that the Indians could not possibly be in the West Indies.They could be in Jamaica, Barbados,Guyana in South America or even in those many countries who field collective first class teams.

The next twenty years or so the West Indies had a very good time cricket wise.Today things are different.They are ranked 9th in ODI rankings.If they are allowed to start like afghanistan in Divison Five, in less than a year, several National teams including one from the South American continent will be vying for full ODI status.In fact their Caribbean Four day tournament could be given the status of Division II Tests or they may continue as one team for Test matches.If Soca Junior can be at the World Cup,T&T and Jamaica have every right to be playing at cricket's World Cup.
Imagine Bangladesh running into Jamaica or Barbados at Durban or Perth.The match would be interesting.
The added advantage of having over twenty ODI playing nations besides at least four reasonably big 20:20 leagues, we have a sporting world next only to the Football.Instead of hoping for the west Indies to recover,this would be better way forward.They are small countries but they have bigger playing base than Ireland or even Afghanistan.

A Contest shaping up in Mirpur

The three matches between the current Test sides were rather tame.while the dutch produced some excitement at Nagpur,the Irish are playing a rather good game in Mirpur.With some tight spin it is possible that Bangladesh may somehow pull a win, but instead of eliminating Associates from the next World Cup, it might be a good idea to let only the top six have automatic places and the remaining sides may play a qualifying tournament to bring two remqining teams for the final eight who can play three weeks of interesting cricket as in 1983.

1983 produced some great drama in retrospect.The wooden spooner of 1979, India and qualifier Zimbabwe saw to Australia's exit at group stage and India went on to win going on to prove that past performance don't quite matter in a short competitive tournament.

Some Scheduling

On a Friday,Australia vs New Zealand has been kept as a day game.Makes one long for the scheduling of the first three World Cups.The first two were almost pre television in India and we saw the India semi final and the final on Doordarshan in 1983 and the rest as they say is history.However so lowly was the one day World Cup rated that 1979 World Cup was not covered on All India Radio while the test series with England that followed was covered ball by ball by AIR.The BBC Test Match special which at that time broadcast on the world service as well was what kept us in India clued in to the World Cup.The BBC coverage of up to four matches a day was good. AIR used the BBC feed after India started doing well in 1983 and it was the all Indian team of Ashish Ray and Farokh Engineer who were on the air when india went throughto the Finals.
Of late All India Radio has consigned the overseas test Matches to off tube commentary mode even though India as number one side in this form has a considerable following.All India Radio is covering the India based games live but AIR is absent from the Internet. Even as I write this NewZealand vs Australia game is being broadcast live on Radio sport NZ.

ICC Cricket World Cup

In November 1975,as pre teens waiting for our turn to bat in an evening compulsory cricket game, discussion veered on the Ranji Trophy.Some who were from calcutta had actually seen a few of Ranji matches and they even spoke of the great Eden win over the WINDIES in 1974-75.Amidst all that somebody spoke about the West Indies having won the Pudential Cup June.One particularly well informed kid said," But it wasn't first class cricket." It wasn't and at that time even ODI was not so well known abbreviation nad List Awas many years away.

It has been a long time since then and as the West indies begin their challenge in the 2011 edition of cricket's Worldcup,one cannot but feel about the depths that they have plummeted.Even so for a team which has Gayle, Chanderpaul,Sarwan and Roach must put an extraordinary performance,so that North Americans followers of the game can have more than just Canada to cheer about and the Worl Cup will be really about the world as more than a dozen nations comprise the West Indies cricket team.

To go back to our chat near the Pig sty on the edge of the Junior Small Field in 1975,when a football fanatic said that 1978 World Cup in Argentina will be the real World Cup as only eight teams had taken part in the prudential Cup, our knowledgeable friend counted all the Carribean and East African counties and added them to the six and Pudential World Cup had more teams participating than the Football 1974 World Cup held in West Germany.The Prudential Cup was "the" WORLD CUP.QED