A well Fought Draw

The draw was mde possible by a very composed knock played by Sehwag. Australia have won the series.If only....A good series nevertheless.there are two exciting testseries coming up this year. If India builds on the positives from this series we can have a making of a successful challenger for Australia.

An Old Fashioned Test Shaping Up

The Adelaide test is shaping up the old fashioned way. Runs are being accumulated by the tail after the team's best batsman did well and the wicket is slowing down and Australia will have to play good cricket over the next few days to stop australia from winning their second consecutive win at Adelaide. Everyone has not scored.Why was Karthik not selected for the test. I hope Sehwag rediscovers his batting form and take over from Kumble whenever he quits.making Dhoni a captain will queer the pitch for the ever improving patel and Karthik.

A Vindication

This blog's faith in the Indian team proved prophetic. The end result have confirmed that we were on stronger wicket on account of Sehwag and the medium pacers and their ability to swing.It is great when a result like this happens. Adelaide will be around soon. The entire media is speculating.It will hopefully be a closely fought contest. The last time India played at Adelaide, they won. As Anil kumble said at the presentation, india fancied their chances at Sydney and Adelaide.With a fine tuned team at Adelaide ,India must aim to draw the series and win the home series come october.

That Second test Match in Perth

India is on course to achieve a creditable victory at WACA. We have been optimistic about India's chances here from some time and the columns below would bear us out.However without repeating any well worn cliche, we would like to keep ours fingers crossed regarding the outcome of the match.

In 1977, WACA had hosted the second test.The first had been played at Brisbane and inspite of some good bowling performances and a century from gavaskar, India had lost. Perth marked the comeback of chetan Chauhan, who had last played in 1972-73 against Tony lewis's England team. he made a good 88 and gavaskar scored another hundred and india set Australia 338 runs to win and they did it by a narrow margin of two wickets. Though Australia was weakened by the Packer exodus the bowling still was formidable with Thomson, Gannon, Dymock and wayne Clarke. the overs had eight balls and on the final day India under bedi could have slowed down bowling rate but did not. Also, even at the bouncy Perth India chose to play three spinners rather than both Ghavri and Madan Lal. Madan lal had taken a five for at Brisbane and playing both of them together would probably have changed the series results. But changing from decent spin to mediocre medium pace was still not a thought to be countenanced.

In 1977, it would have been considered a sacrilege if Ishant Sharma was picked ahead of Harbhajan Singh.More about this later.We must enjoy this weekend irrespective of the result. the Australians will try to force a win. India has a chance to level the series and wait for Australia in india later this year.

Why Dhoni is No Gilchrisht

The evidence is there presenting to all of us.Facing similar situation while Gilchrist attacked, Dhoni is defending.A combination of attack and defence will take him to the league of Marsh ,Knott and Boucher. He will have to be more fluent and authoritative to be in the A league with Sangakkara and Gilchrist.Dhoni should aim to become a competent number six with Pathan on seven and Piyush Chawla on eight.That would be a decent mlower middle order for the days after Ganguly and Tendulkar. Hopefully Laxman will be around till a few more batsmen are groomed.

The March has been halted

For the time being at least, Australia has to fight hard to win their seventeenth test on the trot. their sequence at 16 last time was broken by India at Kolkata.This time round australia narrowly reached 16 at Sydney.The chances of stopping them again is available to the Indians.They go into the third day with nine wickets remaining and a healthy lead of 170 runs, and the match looks to be heading for an interesting finish. even if australia are chasing upwards of 450 runs they will try to get them. This will therefore turn out to be a cracker of a match.

Australia on the march

Australia has reached tea with five wickets still left.how often have teams loked forward to wrapping up the opposition only to run into a rampaging Gilchrisht. India will remember Mumbai 2001 while England would still be nursing last year's wounds when Symonds had also joined the party.The catch dropped by Tendulkar may prove costly.

A correction

try www.waca.com.au/events/events-audiostream.asp

Live Audio

For those bored listening to the commentary which though ball by ball is from the AIR studios here is an option.Try www.waca.com.au/events/events-audiostream.asp

You were warned

It is lunch at WACA. What a match so far. In these columns we have been insisting that the Indian medium pacers can be competitive here if only because the Freemantle Doctor allows some swinging possibilities.Sehwag is back where he belongs. The batting form may not be very great but 57 for the first wicket where everybody was talking as if Tait and Lee would wrap up the innings quickly. not only did they not wrap up but a fine if abruptly ended rendition of "The Wall" saw to it that india will fight to the finish. As of now at WACA Australia is trying to play catch up.An interesting match is on at the WACA.

At WACA will Australia come to earth

Apparently, MCG had a subcontinental pitch and India lost the match in four days. I have a gut feeling that at WACA, India will knock Australia inside four days and equal the series in the last test.The reasons are several. For one Australia have given their all and still manged an early lead owing to some questionable decisions. Secondly, for various reasons india will want to do well at Perth. Thirdly, at Perth Brad Hogg or Michael clarke will hardly be a major force. And the team will be reinforced in the form of its only test match specialist in Sehwag. I cannot think of another batsman with more than fifty matches in either form with a performance differential of this magnitude. Barring Lee's speed there is little to choose between the medium paced attack of the two teams. India should be able to get around australia in Perth.

Things Looking Up at SCG

Its tea time at the SCG. India is fighting back. It appears that Australia by batting at the speed that they did have left a window of opportunity for India. Another 100/0 session and the match will be on.A total of 650 will set the match well.

Two Test matches in the Southern Hemisphere

The two boxing day test matches ended in less than four days. While India capitulated without much fight and look in some trouble in Sydney as well, what the West Indian victory underlines is that in a few years the West Indies could be a decent performing unit.What startles me is that the slide started with both ambrose and walls playing alongside Lara and Chanderpaul. Let us hpe this is not a false dawn like the first test against England in 2000. West Indies presence in international arena gives us so many nations actually playing top flight cricket. Remove them and we will be left with no representative team from South America besides the number of countries actually playing test matches would get reduced to two in Europe( England and Wales), one in Africa, two in Oceania and four in South Asia. To stop cricket from becomuing a South Asian sport the West Indies cricket has to be in fine fettle. Here is all the best wishes for 2008 and the New Year Test.

CAG and AIDS Threat

The Times of India in its editorial Outing is Best on 18th October has commented on the Planning Commission's suggestion to legalise Prostitution and homosexuality to face the threat of AIDS. Where the paper takes the readers for a ride is the sentence: "IN September, when a gay rights group appealed to the courts to amend Article 377 of the Constitution which deems homosexuality a crime, ".Article 377 of the constitution relates to Provisons as to Comptroller and Auditor-General of India. So where does a gay rights group fit in the case? The editor does not bother to tell us.The reader has to know that when the TOI refers to the Constitution it means the Indian Penal Code and it does not know the basic difference between an article of the Constitution and a section of an act.The Times of India has been going down the slope quickly but the uninformed writing on their edit page is a new low even by their standards.

Keep Casteism Away

Gail Omvedt writing in The Times of India(29/09/2005)(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1245774.cms) has asked Indians to “ Don’t Cheer for Your country”, and prescribes a revival of Indian sports in schools, towns, villages. The prescription is based on a very superficial understanding of India and Indians. The comparison with the American situation where parents flock to watch their children at play and where Americans cheering Boston Red Sox or the neighbourhood school shows that such phenomenon can be seen in India also.
Omvedt refers to decentralised patriotism called small town patriotism. Such patriotisms have existed in this country for over a century. The rivalry between Mohun bagan and East Bengal in Kolkata, St. Stephen’s and Hindu in Delhi are a part of folklore. Inter village rivalry is also not unknown and the Times of India recently reported on a tournament in Bihar where even gangsters played cricket in a 20:20 format.
Omvedt has written a whole article without naming Cricket and refers to it as “a single game played in lands of the British Commonwealth” and “a colonial gentleman’s game”.
In her enthusiasm to deride cricket, she refuses to see the continuing tradition of indigenous games and sport in India. In the villages Kabaddi and KhoKho are played regularly and in any number of middle class apartment blocks games like Pitto and Kho Kho are played especially in view of constraints of space.
When people cheer Sania Mirza, Uberoi sisters and Rohan Bopanna, they are supporting players of other sports. Gail Omvedt must see DPS versus Modern basketball match to gauge local patriotism.And here local patriotism extends to things like Debate and quizzes. The annual Mukarji Memorial debate at St. Stephen’s in Delhi resembles a football match in terms of barracking.
The article however lapses into obscurantism and assumes that only upper caste people play cricket. The India seen from Nehru Memorial Library is of course very limited, but kids can be seen playing cricket in every nook and corner in Delhi and elsewhere , often with improvised bat and ball. There is a Hindi saying that forbids anyone asking a Sadhu his caste. This applies to the Indian cricket team as well. Class, yes but caste is generally not in public domain. Swaminathan Aiyar told us in the Economic Times that Sachin Tendulkar belonged to lower middle class. We all know that Kambli lived in a chawl in Mumbai and Solkar was son of a groundsman. But do we need to know their caste? Let us promote indigenous sports and also treat cricket as an international sport widely played in India and at the same time refrain from dividing sportspersons on caste lines. And surely Gail Omvedt has heard of Palwankar Vithal who led the Hindus in the Pentangular in 1923.

Random Thoughts

The Indian Cricket team played to their potential and as everybody seems to know, lost in yet another final.This winter BCCI has lined up a series of one day matches involving India. It would be pertinent to note at this stage that most of our celeberated victories in one Day tournaments have come in formats having four or more teams. Besides while we were almost undefeated at home for over a decade in tests, we lost more often than not in ODIs even at home.It is therefore imperative that we do not get hassled with one day defeats and take them in our stride and wait for the major challenge which India will face when England visits for a test series early next year.

The Old Order Changeth

The West Indies had dominated the cricket scene for much of the seventies (ever since they defeated England 3-1 in 1976) and the entire eighties. There had been minor hiccups like losing in the 1983 World Cup and the World series in 1987 in Australia. However they played well consistently in tests. They were served well by their fast bowlers and batsmen. In the nineties they were still competent but the gap narrowed down. They had by now lost the services of most of their famed fast bowlers and some famous batsmen like Greenidge, Richards, Gomes and their brilliant captain Clive Lloyd had retired. Richardson was their captain and Lara had arrived. The series in Australia in 1992 which the West Indies managed to win by 2 matches to 1, included a near defeat and a one run win.
This Series can be said to mark the beginning of the end of the West Indies dominance of the World Cricket. A similar denouement now awaits Australia after the current Ashes series. They may well hold on to the urn at oval or they may not. They have fought well. They have had to face defeat in India and a closely fought draw against New Zealand in 2000-01. In spite of those close calls they rallied. Their batsmen scored runs freely and not only against Zimbabwe. But the weakness to master Bond remained camouflaged until this summer when they have had to play four quality fast bowlers, two of them capable of bowling consistently at ninety miles an hour. Just like the West Indies in 1992-93, they have fought hard and will not go down without a fight. And as long as Mcgrath and Warne are in the team and Ponting, Martyn and Gilchrist continue do play, they will be a reasonably good side. However, World Cricket will go back to having three or four sides at test level which can on their day beat any other side. Its unlikely that the Australian Cricket will disintegrate the way the West Indies have done. Their cricket is better organised to take the passing of a great generation in its stride.
History seems to be repeating itself.

The Real Cricket

Although Cricket officials and marketing agencies like to portray One day Cricket as the major attraction, especially in India,it is high time the test matches are paid attention if cricket has to retain interest in the country.India is currently ranked a poor seventh in ODIs and a healthy third in Test Match cricket.England is ranked sixth and second. Test Match cricket has catapulted cricket back to national consciousness in the UK, so much so that even David Beckham admits to watching test Match Cricket.
Backing the Indian ODI fortunes will result in the repeated failures being telecast and after a time will lead to fatigue.Inspite of our Huge TV audience, Cricket hardly gets the kind of Audience that Channel 4 got this month(13% of all UK nationals watched the Old Trafford Test).Why we have a decent Test side and a poor ODI team is something which will be evident when India is run close by Zimbabwe in the Tri series.

Well Begun is Half Done

If the cliche is to be believed, the West Indies team have beun well,taking the lead in the first innings. They have lost two wickets already, so they may well lose the match. last time when they were here and Lara was firing on all cylinders, they still lost.It will be good idea for the west Indies to continue with this core team and bring back Lara and Sarwan.In the next decade they can build a bowling attack centred around Lawson.