Unacceptable!!!

A loss to a 'B' side of England on home soil is just unacceptable. I think the entire team including the highly touted coach, Greg Chappell, should be forced to give their match paycheck to charity or something (or better yet to the Indian fans who came to the Wankhede stadium to watch such an atrocious performance). What a shame!
As I mentioned in my last post, it was an absolutely foolish decision on Dravid's part to field after winning the toss. I don't know about anybody else, but this would have NEVER happened in the last regime. Honestly speaking, Dravid has been out castled by his opposite number in two straight high profile test series now (Flintoff being the SECOND reserve skipper on his team).
It has been a HUGE step backwards by the Indian team regardless of what happens in the ODI series.

What were they thinking???

I know it's not the sole decision of Rahul Dravid to bat or field after winning the toss, but he has major input in it. Some might call Dravid's decision to field first as brave, some might call it cocky. I, myself, would like to take a much simpler route and call it foolish. Why would you want to bat last on ANY test wicket, let alone the wicket in Wankhede where the wicket is going to become slower and slower as the match goes on?
A lot of people are also questioning the 5-5-1 composure of the side, claiming that India should have packed the side with one extra batsman being 1-0 up in the series. I, myself, don't have a problem with that. Dhoni and Pathan have shown enough batting abilities in the past 6 months or so that they can be almost called all-rounders. But, that brings me to my initial point. If you are a batsman short, why not bat first when the conditions are supposed to be best for batting on the first couple of days? I don't quite understand that move.

Now what?

The game of cricket has been played around at international level for almost a century and a half. The recently introduced ODIs (yes recently when compared to the history of the game) has changed everything. And even within the ODI context, the cricketing landscape has changed over the years.
First, most of the matches were played in England and were 60-overs apiece. Then, when the matches were shortened to 50 overs, a score of 230-240 was considered a very good one. A score of 260+ would be inevitably a match-winning one. Nobody dared to change that. And then came the 1990s and with it came the S-word - Slogging. The likes of Mark Greatbatch, Sanath Jayasuriya, and Romesh Kaluwitharana took the world by surprise. Suddenly, even a score of 280+ weren't considered a safe bet anymore. Sri Lanka and Australia routinely chased down totals of 280+ in the 1996 world cup. Then came the likes of Shahid Afridi, Adam Gilchrist, and Virendar Sehwag and the score of 300+ became routine. And it was around the late '90s that India showed the world that a score of 300+ was chaseable when they successfully chased down 315-320 against Pak in the Independence cup in Dhaka, which at the time was the highest score chased by a team batting second. And as if all this was not enough, the new PowerPlay rules have neted a few extra 20-30 runs to the eventual total.
And then came March 12, 2006. Something amazing happened on this day. A team scored 400+ for the first time in ODI history. And not just barely, they reached well over 400. 434 to be exact. Wow!!! Well, that's not as unthinkable as it might seem. Teams in the past have gotten very, very close to 400. So, it was only a matter of time until somebody finally broke the 400-run barrier.
But,in a matter of another 4 hours or so, something UNTHINKABLE really DID happen. Something that NOBODY had imagined. Something that NOBODY thought was possible. At least not in our lifetime. The opposing team successfully chased down 434. If ever there was an instance where ANY number of adjectives weren't enough to describe the event, THIS was it.
The Aus-SA match was something much bigger than just another cricket MATCH. It might have given a new dimention to cricket. It might have given a new life to cricket. We don't know what's to follow. Nobody knows. But, this match has opened up a whole new pathway for cricket. What it did is give hope to teams batting second that ANY total is chaseable.
In 1996, it was 398. In 2006, it is 438. At this rate, in 2016, we'd be talking about 500+. Unthinkable? You'd suppose so. But, don't bet your house on it. You might just lose (as many gamblers probably did today...). That's the beauty of this great game of cricket. Lets just hope that the next decade or so is as much fun as the past decade has been.

400???

As I am watching the India-Eng match, I am also keeping an eye on the Aus-SA ODI. Aussies are about to score the first 400 in ODI history. As i type this, they are 380 after 47 overs. And as much as I hate the Aussies, I find myself rooting for them to reach 400...
Update: And what do you know, 3 deliveries later they reach 400...AMAZING!! (Well, actually 7 balls later since Kallis was stupid enough to bowl 4 straight NBs in the 48th over...are you freakin' kidding me???)

Re: Processes & Challenges...

...and Rahul Dravid keeps on dropping the catches (referring to Collingwood's drop in the 2nd inning). If you wanna win big matches under your captaincy, Mr. Dravid, you'd better hold onto your catches.

AK 47!!!

Another day, another milestone for a spinner. One day after Murali reached his 600th scalp, it was the Indian AK 47's turn to reach a milestone of his own taking his 500th wicket. What a great achievement for Anil Kumble. A lot of critics will still say that he can't really spin the ball at all. But, wickets are wickets and he's got 500+ of them against his name. Lucky? I think not.

P.S. Of all the pub that Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman, Tendulkar, and Ganguly got in the India-Aus series in Aus in 2003-04, which felt more like a series win than a draw, it was Anil Kumble who got 24-25 wickets in 3 tests. He didn't get his due but he went about his usual business of taking wickets.

Processes & Challenges...

Memo to the captain Rahul Dravid: Stop talking about processes & challenges for the team. Just hold your damn catches. Today's dropped catch of Flintoff by Dravid might prove a costly one, if it isn't one already (67* as I type this). This is the 3rd easy missed catch by Dravid in the last 3-4 test matches. So, I would kindly like to suggest to the Indian captain to practice his damn catches and HOLD onto them. I know it's a little harsh since he is one of our better slip fielders. But, such is the pressure being an Indian captain and at times it can be an unforgiving job.

Indian cricket & the "F" word...

With the latest influx of the fast bowlers in the Indian cricket team, it seems that the Indian team might finally have turned the page. With Kumble on his last legs and Harbhajan as ineffective as he has ever been, fast bowlers have become the best bet as far as the bowling options go. At least in my life time, spinners have ALWAYS dominated the major victories in the test arena (apart from a select few, which was a rare sight). Even when Kapil was in his prime, it were the spinners who were winning the matches for India. Same with Javagal Srinath. Lack of fast-bowling options and depth were THE biggest reasons India were almost never able to win away from home (in tests).
Of course, it is probably a little premature on my part to make such a bowl statement. The current lot has a lot of distance to travel before they can be viewed as match winners. But, the Pathans, the RP Singhs, the Sreesanths have certainly got abundance of potential. Not to mention the Munaf Patels and the VRV Singhs of the world. And of course, a few of them who seem to be past their prime but in reality they are still not - the likes of Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra. The latter three are still young enough to compete for a slot in the eleven, albeit it will be extremely difficult. They not only have to show the selectors that they can stay healthy, but they also have to take a lot of wickets in the domestic circuit.
All in all, it will be intersting to see the eight fast bowlers I mentioned above to fight out for 2,3, or even 4 slots in the eleven for the next couple of years. If nothing else, it will at least create a healthy competition amongst one another and it will add to the depth of the team.
Your thoughts?

Great Murali!

Bow to the wizard! Murali became only the second man on the planet to reach the 600 wicket plateau after Shane Warne of Australia. But, what's more amazing is that in 35 tests he has only taken 60-odd less wickets than Warnie. All the chucking allegations aside, Murali is one of the greatest bowlers in the history of Test cricket. Perhaps second only to the aforementioned Shane Warne. I hope the cricketing world recognizes this great achievement rather than flare up another wave of the chucking controversy.

Thoughts of the week

Javagal Sighting?

So I turned on the Cricket match between India and England on the first day of the match and who do I hear in the commentary box? None other than Javagal Srinath, arguably the second greatest fast bowler ever to play for India. I was pleasantly surprised hearing Javagal's voice; it's great to see him back touring with the Indian team, albeit he is on the other side of the line representing the media now. Hopefully, he will be able to pass on some of his cricketing knowledge (bowling mainly) to the young fast bowlers in the team.

Gupte, the Greatest?

According to Sir Gary Sobers, the late Indian spinner from the '50s, Subhash Gupte, and not Shane Warne, is the greatest leg-spinner in the history of test cricket. Well, being only 25 years of age, I have never seen Gupte play, but I am sure if Gary Sobers is saying that there must be some truth to that. It makes me very curious now and makes me wanna see an old footage of Gupte's bowling.

...and the hits keep on coming.

The WI cricket team have fallen to a new low, a phrase I am sure that has been used repeatedly over the past few years, after trailing in the ODI series vs. NZ 0-4, at home no less. They seem to have become the punching bag for the test playing nations. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Modest Inzy?

In a recent interview with PTI, Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq compared himself against the modern greats of today's cricket, ranking himself behind Tendulkar, Dravid, Ponting, Lara, and Kallis. Said Inzy, "Oh,Inzamam comes way behind them".
Well, that got me thinking. Who exactly are the Top 5 batsmen of the past decade or so (combined ODIs and Test)? More or less, it's the same names that Inzy mentioned above. But, I think he is being modest not including himself in that elite list. I rate Inzy much higher than Kallis in the overall scheme of things. Kallis is up there but in today's cricket strike rate is almost as important as batting average.And that's where Kallis loses major points in my book.
My top 5 of the past 10+ years (in order): Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, Inzamam, and Dravid. (Yes, Kallis is at # 6 and Hayden at # 7).

Flashes of old Dravid?

I know India won the 5th ODI and ended up winning the series in a going away fashion. So, I shouldn't be complaining about anything. But, really, after watching Dravid bat the way he did chasing a not-so-modest total with an extremely modest batting line-up, I had to write this post.
Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Dravid. Over the past 4-5 years, he has put a lid to all his critics who used to say that he wasn't an ODI batsman. But, something was horribly wrong the way he batted in this last match. 50 runs out of 82 balls just isn't acceptable in any ODI's let alone when your team is chasing 286. And my good friend, Pratik, would vouch for me since he is big on the Strike Rate.
India ended up winning the match in a convincing way, but had either Yuvaraj or Dhoni got out immediately after Dravid, it would've been an extremely difficult chase with the RRO already upto 7+ an over. With kaif out of form, Raina being so inexperienced, and no Pathan as a savior, Dravid's innings would have put a tremendous amount of pressure on the batsmen to follow. The way Dravid was playing, I think he was safely assuming that Dhoni and the rest wouldn't falter and Yuvraj would go on till the end.
And this is exactly why I put Rahul Dravid in the second echelon of the batting greats in today's ODI cricket, behind Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, and Inzy Haq. And the same goes for Jacques Kallis, although I think Dravid has gotten much better in this regard than Kallis. It's not only the average that is important in ODI's, it's also the Strike rate. Surely, Dravid has improved over the years but he still isn't in the class of the above players I mentioned.