Two cheers for Akashvani

On the morning of the match at Hyderabad All India Radio came up with an off the tube broadcast where the commentators were describing the weather in Delhi which was humid and had rain written all over it and comparing it with the sunny weather in Hyderabad.Even then as the morning peak audience driving all over the country were aghast with a  home test match being done off the tube some who could accessed live coverage of the Test from the ground with Brian Waddle on NewZealand's Radio Sport Network.

However sometime after that morning better sense prevailed and AIR Hyderabad did broadcast live from the ground with a more enthusiastic bunch of commentators.This was thoughtful as the  provincial ITM Cup kept Brian Waddle off air for long periods.AIR could also make for more engaging commentary by providing  their commentary box with a Television monitor.

Small But Thriving community

New Zealand's resounding defeat at Hyderabad coming on the heals of defeat across formats in the West Indies may on the surface look as if the number eight Test team is in a decline as unlike Bangladesh they do not have a large population and cricket playing pool from which to choose their cricketers. However the other result from Townsville where India defeated Australia to win the under 19 World Cup is an encouraging one if we look at the whole tournament.

NewZealand made it to the semis and the West Indies were the only team to beat the Indian side which eventually won the tournament.The basic talent pool is there which will serve the major countries/regions for well over a decade.The small cricket community of ten full members are in safe hands and will continue to have more teams like afghanistan and Ireland who will want to join the high table.

Indeed British Empire has bequeathed a "common wealth" to the Commonwealth of nations and Cricket more than the English language signifies today the bond which brings the commonwealth together.

Afghanistan is the one big example of inroads made by cricket in a completely post colonial setting with little influence of expats.The team that represents Afghanistan has the core who picked up the game in Peshawar but the joy cricket brings to the troubled nation has virtually reinforced nationhood.That Afghans can take on Australia at almost equal level in an ODI is better than they can do in any other sphere.Cricket has provided Afghanistan with an avenue to find joy and camaraderie within the nation and engage with a larger cricket world on terms which are centered on mutual respect.

Deserving Winner of the mace

South Africa won comprehensively and thereby have become the new Test No.1.This is a commendable experience and also announces the arrival of the new South African Nation to the international arena.Their team is a mix of race and colour and the team selection has moved beyond Affirmative action.The South African bowling combination proved far superior to the West Indies.May be if the West Indies had played with three or four quicks, England would have been challenged even earlier this summer.

The most heartening aspect of the series was that Test matches still have a wide following.Even with the Olympics being played large crowd watched the three Tests.Test Cricket as spectacle has not been diminished even a little.The value has gone up in the manner of Vintage wine.

Narayan! Narayan! Rather Narine! Narine!

Narayan! Narayan! chanted the sage Narada.Narayan looks after the well being of the universe. Now Sammy and the West Indies have three Narayans to look up to.Shivnaraine Chanderpaul,Narsingh Deonarine and Sunil Narine. With these three the West Indies rolled over NewZeaLand the old fashioned way, a clean sweep though in a two test series. A better assessment of the series will be had after New Zealand India series where the batting performance of the visitors will be again tested on slow pitches.If they perform better than in the Carribean  one can agree with Harsha Bhogale that the Indian bowling cupboard is indeed bare.

Reclaiming their spot on the High Table

After a convincing victory over New Zealand, the West Indies can a tleast reclaim their place on the high Table of test Match teams.Only the West Indies have been beaten in a Test series by Bangladesh among the first eight full members,although with a depleted side. Subsequently they have won in Bangladesh and blown them to smithereens at Dhaka in the World Cup.This 2-0 win which has followed convincing wins in t20 and ODIs have established the fact that the West Indies are at least a fighting unit across formats.They climb to number 7 position in the ICC Test rankings and have a few years in which to find a few top class batsmen.Bowlers, they already have both pace and spin.With the riches in spin in the West Indies, may be we have applicants for Indian  citizenship from  T&T and Guyana as a place in the Indian team for a spinner may be easier. 

The Wasted Years

Through the seventies India had a reasonably good cricket side.They won series away in the West Indies and England in 1971 and played a close series against Australia albeit Packer depleted in 1978.They also played a few memorable series at home winning against England in 1972-73 and running West Indies close in 1974-75.Players like Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Mohinder Amarnath, Mansoor Ali Khan,Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, Bedi, Venkatraghavan,Engineer and Kirmani formed the core.They were good and performed well and India lost more often than not.All the while everyone was looking for a fast bowler.Till Kapil Dev arrived in 1978, the search was always on.Generally one medium pacer was picked and a batsman who could bowl opened with him. Even though the seventies did not witness the ridiculous incident of a wicketkeeper sharing the new ball, things were bad.Solkar often opened the bowling and even Gavaskar bowled afew overs with the new ball.

The Indian side was often comprising of three spinners if not four and a medium pacer like Abid Ali who could bat.All these Years India had two competent medium pacers: Madan Lal and Karsan Ghavri.However in deference to our famed spin quartet, they never played together for any length of time. Medium pacers who opened with Andy Roberts in the 1974-75 series between West Indies and India in India included Julien and Boyce who have fewer wickets than either Ghavri and Madan Lal.Hoever in that series the two played only two tests together.India  won both of those tests,though they bowled less than 15 overs between them without taking wickets in the fourt test when India drew level.They had bowled with spunk and taken five wickets at Calcutta in the test before this one.

Madan Lal and Ghavri alternated against England in 1975-76 at home and in Australia in 1977-78.In Australia, the left armer Ghavri took eleven wickets in three and Madan Lal took nine in two including a five for.The series was close and if two spinners and two medium pacers backed by Amarnath had played,the team would have been more balanced and could have possibly won five zero, so close were the three  tests that India lost.The seventies, therefore were wasted years when Indian selectors kept looking for Lillee and Thomson ignoring their own versions of Walker and Gilmour.

The overall performance would have been better.

Four teams from two hemispheres

Teams from the two hemispheres are again pitted against each other in the Northern hemisphere at Leeds and Kingston,Hedingley and Sabina Park to be more precise.Even as the world is caught up in the Olympics, cricketers are playing for the top slot at hedingley and perhaps the bottom one at Kingston leaving Zimbabwe and Bangladesh out of the equation.
Poor performance at international level has dogged the West Indies for some time.However, what is surprising is not that the West Indies have remained the bottom team for so long but how the West Indies sank to the abyss with a team that had Ambrose, Walsh,Lara, Chanderpaul, Sarwan and Hooper.The problem was something more than cricket. West Indies now appear to have atleast gone beyond the fear of cricket losing popularity and NBA attracting talented youngsters and has already launched an offensive by playing a home t20 series in the USA.Newzealand Cricket has a stake in that enterprise and cricket is trying to enter a bigger market. IPL and the Indian eyeballs have seen to it that not only will cricket not become irrelevant in the West Indies but anywhere in the World.
Cricket will make some noise at Hedingley, even as London 2012 grabs more attention at the Olympic Games.