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.