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.