Days Cricket

The result of the ODI series being played in three continents have confirmed that the ODIs give an equal opportunity to weaker teams.Indian ODI squad, though can hardly be called weak and they are entirely in a world of their own.For them ODI defeat in 2007 World Cup is more significant than the loss in series after series of Test matches.Therefore defeating England 4-1 is a mission which will wash away the embarrassment of having lost at home to them after 28 years.To this end they have persevered with retaining Pujara and Rahane for the last match even though the series is won.A five day final would have given Pujara some practice for the series against Australia next month.But to BCCI and its captain ODI is the form of the game to cherish.

The view is not shared by South Africa, England and Australia.They have euphemism to camouflage resting in place for keeping the best players ready for the Test series ahead.They can also bring in bigger audience for tests and have their cricket revolving around their Test teams.Australia has a successful t20 League but there is no window and the Test players usually miss the tournament.In India the IPL reigns supreme.The ODIs come next and Days cricket comes last.

The decent following of Ranji  Trophy this year shows that In India too decent following of Tests and days cricket is possible if planned well.

Small World

Kevon Cooper was missing from the T&T's line up in this morning's Carribean T20 match( last night's actually)between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago.He has gone to Bangladesh to participate in the Bangladesh Premier league.Chris Gayle, Kemar Roach and Marlon Samuels are missing from action in this edition of Carribean t20 as they are playing( Samuels is injured now)  in the  KFC Big Bash in Australia.Nationalities and distance matter little in the world of the t20 leagues.Players play across continents and for different franchises.So much so that a player is often eligible to play for two or more sides in the Champion's League t20 meant for top teams from different leagues.This gives the cricket leagues a following which is more flexible than in football. It also makes a small world in cricket where followers follow the various national teams, provincial  sides and clubs and franchises wherever they exist.This makes for a phenomenon where many neutral international matches are watched on  TV and enjoyed on the radio by the supporters of not teams per se but of Cricket.It is therefore that I remember Alok Chakraborty playing for Bangladesh Central Zone against the MCC much before Bangladesh gained Test status and when I see the Bangladesh Central Zone scores on the net, I am immediately reminded of the last ball from Wilson which Alok played to draw the two day match coming in at Number 11.

Added to this is the joy that one can experience when one  finds a player looking like Sehwag playing against Rohtak Road Gmkhana at the Siri Fort Ground and discovers that the player is indeed Sehwag playing in DDCA Super League.

Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark

Saurashtra are playing Punjab in the Ranji Semi final at Rajkot.They had lost the match up with Punjab at the league stage and would find it difficult to offer strong fight to Punjab.Punjab are without Yuvraj Singh.Jiwanjot Singh is in such good form that Yuvraj will hardly be missed. Saurashtra however will miss their runmachines, Pujara and Jadeja.The duo are in the one day team for the ongoing One day serie against England.Ravindra Jadeja is doing a star turn out there and his bsence here is reasonable.However, Pujara does not make the final XI and is hardly likely to play in Ranchi. The management ought to have released Pujara to play the semi final unless they want to replace Gambhir at Ranchi.

It is first time in many years that Ranji Trophy is attracting  attention it desrves and the Board should have scheduiled the semifinals after the England series to allow Indian players to get into shape before the Australian series..Saurashtra playing without Pujara is like Hamlet being staged without the Prnice of Denmark

Commentary from Trinidad from Radio St.Lucia

I started following the Carribena T20 through  a serendipitous surfing of Internet radio stations.At a little after 5.30 in the morning I tuned into Andrew Mason and another commentator talk about batsmen called Sarwan and Chanderpaul. Guyana was playing Barbados at the Queens'Park Oval and Barbados managed to lose the match chasing 110.They also lost their next match to Combined College and Campuses after being reduced to 0/3 after the first three balls. Laments about the once strong Barbados side aside, this tournament gives me hope for the West Indies Cricket.The West Indies have an advantage in the form of friendly time zone for radio and TV for Cricket's biggest market India and the passionate following in Australia and another potentially large market Bangladesh.

A T20 match played at 8pm and another from  5.30 amIndia time would siuit the Indian Television and radio audience perfectly.A series involving top four Mushtaq Ali Trophy Teams( Indian t20) and top four regional Carribean taeams will have a large following in India.Moreover, full houses at the Queenspark Oval gives hope that sufficient people could watch these matches.In a tournament like this, plenty of Indian first class and List A cricketers can get used to playing fast bowlers by running into Tino Best, Jason Holder,Kemar Roach, Andre Russell and the odd pacer the Campuses throw up.A tournament like this would take little over two weeks and the ideal time would be in summer, when with schools closed, lot of youngsters can see these matches.

I am looking forward to the next week of the tournament in St.Lucia. At least the second match is prime time for me with cricket over the earphones in the warm quilt playing on even as I keep falling asleep and waking up to Ramsaran bowling a hattrick ball.

Where is the logic, Mr. Bhogale?

Harsha Bhogale in an article on the ESPNcricinfo website, on the topic of Smaller contingent for home ODIs has wandered on a subject that is illogical to say the least.He feels that India has too many first class teams playing and that is the reason why the Ranji Trophy standards are poor.He reaches that conclusion based on Amol Mazumdar's ability at age 38 to score century on demand.( He scored five this season playing for Andhra Pradesh.) Chemical Engineering and PGDM at IIMs are hardly the training required to inculcate critical reasoning and Harsha Bhogale may be excused for reaching a conclusion based on  context which is not logical.

That Amol Mazumdar can at this age score runs at will is no indication that he has lost his ability to bat well. Sitanshu Kotak,Jacque Kallis, Shivnaaine Chanderpaul amongst others are scoring runs pretty much with a similar average against different bowling.For a country with more than 1200 million people, Mr.Bhogale , 27 first class teams are not more but less.What Harsha Bhogale fails to see  is that the teams don't represent the country's demographics. Bihar and Chaatisgarh between them have a population bigger than all Test Match playing nations.Cricket is played and followed everywhere from Baccheli to Raipur and Gopalganj to Araria.Yet, the BCCI does not find it odd that such large states are unrepresented in First Class cricket.At the same time a combined Gujarat or Maharashtra team will be stronger and have a bigger catchment area.Having 27 teams perse only means that the game is thriving and not limited to a select few.Cricket will grow and more first class teams will find a place under the Indian skies.A country with 28 states and seven Union Territories can have possibly 35 teams.Players from bigger states could move to smaller states.Players from Maharashtra representing Arunachal pradesh or from Bihar representing Manipur or lakshdweep will only add to a feeling of a large but united country.

The Indian Bench strength

After a small break, the English Team is back for the ODI leg of the tour.The two List A Games have demonstrated that Cricket is thriving in India. The India 'A' side that played the visiting England XI had plasyers who were not involved in the ODI against Pakistan or the four Ranji Quarter finals. Similarly, the Delhi team which beat England did not include Sehwag, Gambhir or Ishant Sharma. This augurs well for India. The bench strength is pretty good and the only worry seems to be in the spin department.However for all the clamour being made, We must recall that Ravi Shastri, Maninder Singh, Shiv Lal Yadav and several others held fort after the great spinners and Dilip Doshi faded out and before another golden age dawned in the form of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.The gap between Doshi's last Test and Kumble's first was nearly ten years and in between while Kapil Dev and the seamers bowled well and winning series in England as well besides the World cup in England, Hirwani, Sivaramkrishnan and Maninder Singh did win us matches at home.So this is not the first time and will perhaps not be the last.In Ravindra Jadeja, We have found a Shastri and from the wide pool of talent available, India will remain competitive.

If a team cannot accommodate Pujara for ODIs, it must be very good. Pujara's One Day average is next only to Michael Bevan's. Therefore,India's dip against Pakistan is not very relevant and India starts favourite against England.

CMJ to Akashvani

Reading about CMJ's(Christopher Martin-Jenkins) sad demise brought memories not only of all the evenings spent in North Bihar village, every summer listening to TMS on Shortwave Radio.Later TMS moved off Short wave and I discovered it on the net in 2000. CMJ had been a firm and lucid in his comments and his loss will be mourned by all his listeners.

However listening to All India Radio commentary this season has been a revelation. Not only the commentators give you their opinion on subjects ranging from Ganguly as India coach and Kumble as Team Director, they also inform us on how M J Gopalan played both Hockey and Cricket and chose the1936             series over the Berlin Olympics.This is a world far different from the TV commentary, which includes a former AIR commentator, but refuses to call a spade a spade while the Radio commentators do not even hesitate to call it a shovel.The TV feed is usually late by  a  ball than AIR's and while this sustantiates s AIR's claim to be the authentic and the only radio news provider it becomes difficult watching TV with sound switched off and radio commentary playing along. For a change though it helps in seeing things with the knowledge of what is to happen.

I wish All India Radio finds a home for its commentary on the internet and refrains from doing off tube broadcasts.Sponsorship will follow and a core team like TMS will help.