How's that for spin

How's that for tactics

COACH John Buchanan has revealed he taunted rival teams this summer in the hope they would fire back and spotlight Australia's World Cup weaknesses.

Just like a wall

It was Gavaskar The real master Just like a wall We couldn't get Gavaskar at all, not at all You know the West Indies couldn't out Gavaskar at all.

Check it out

Anil Kumble - An Appreciation

Largely unsung but a champion nonetheless

Enduring the barbs

The man who wouldn't say no

I wanted to go with the ball in my hand

A dignified end to a glittering innings

Kumble the humble hangs up ODI boots

Kumble didn’t get a fair deal

Well bowled anilbhai

Mumbai's Twenty20 team anounced.

Mumbai squad: Amol Muzumdar (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Robin Morris, Rohit Sharma, Vinayak Mane, Abhishek Nair, Nilesh Kulkarni, Iqbal Abdulla, Vinayak Samant, Avishkar Salvi, Usman Malvi, Mussavir Khote, Rohan Raje, Wilkin Mota and Prafu Waghela.

Thoughts..

Looking at Trent Johnson marshal the Irish side today against the Poms, one cannot help but marvel at his tactical acumen, his reading of the game, his understanding of the caliber of his resources and the awareness of match situations.

Ever since he brought the field up against a rampaging Stuart Matsikenyeri with the game on the line, his captaincy has impressed me.

Contrasting Trent Johnson and his 15 odd International ODIs is Rahul Dravid. And the contrast could not be starker.

So here is a thought - we keep harping about Sachins cricketing nous and Rahuls cerebral approach, but in what context? Our emphasis has always been on the hard skills ( batting, bowling, technique etc) - skills that are individualistic in nature.. We pay scant attention to the soft skills ( the flow of the game, the thought behind the game , resource marshaling etc)...

Does this reflect in our cricketing approach also?
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Talking of coaches ( from my earlier post), I have yet to come across one who takes the extra effort to explain the dynamics of the game versus quoting verbatim from the MCC Coaching manual.

How often has there been a case where the coach, in addition to demonstrating how a shot should be played, actually gone on to explain why the shot should be played and how in that particular instance, for that particular delivery, that is the best option by process of elimination?

And when presented with alternatives, how often have coaches gone the extra mile to explore those options vis a vis the ones already available?

Does this approach , in some way, hamper the development of budding cricketers? Cricketers who play the correct shots with their elbows high but without quite understanding the thinking behind their actions..
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Chime in... I would love to know :)

Ye Lord!

How the war was lost before India began its first World Cup battle

Update :-

Indian cricket must reinvent itself

The batting was the cause

Shekhar Gupta on Team India

Wanna improve the game on our shores?

1. Shore up on the standards of coaching within the country

Coaching standards in the country are abysmal. There are no certification courses, no checks and balances on the credibility of the coaches, there is too much emphasis on technique at the cost of everything else....

I cannot over emphasize the impact coaches have on kids. A good coach will make an average kid better, a bad one will make Sachin Tendulkar look ordinary.

And while we cannot control the goodness and badness of coaches, hat we can do is to regulate and structure the coaching in the country. By having proper certification processes, bench marks can be set on the knowledge levels of the coaches.

2. Play the game on bigger grounds.

We don't know how to field, we don't have any ball sense, our fielding is done by rote, the captains don't show any imagination, our fitness is suspect.

Play the bloody game on bigger grounds I say. Once kids have to runs a considerable distance every time the ball goes past them, they will automatically buy in into the need to field better and smarter.

And batsmen will have to emphasize on running between the wickets because not every shot they play will hit the boundary boards.

And one last thing - regulate the weight and dimensions of the bats used in juniors cricket - no undue advantage should be gained by using heavier/meatier bats at that level.
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Restructuring the domestic scene, implementing processes at a national level, debating ad nauseum about how good our cricket team is are only part of the solution.

But if our kids dont start off with the right tools and attitude in their formative years, everything else that we do further down the road doesn't add up to too much.

Today..

Graeme Smith, that prolific diarist, is at it again. The Black Caps maintain tour diaries. Ricky Ponting pens books, as do Glenn Mcgrath and Steve Waugh. Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne are bloggers.

So, where are the Indians?

Do we have nothing interesting to say? Or are we such one dimensional characters that outside of the cricket field, we find ourselves at a loss?

And what about levity? Ever wondered why no Indian journalist ever caricatures our cricketers? I don't mean cartoons - just witty prose that make the cricketers a touch more human!
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By the way, was anyone aware that we have something called the Legends Club ( a Hall Of Fame lite) ? Talking of legends, this one is taking a beating at the popularity stakes.

And to think that I played truant from school to listen to All India Radio's play by play commentary of his 100 in the Irani Trophy with an injured Lalchand Rajput for company all those years ago.
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The Chappell fall out continues- after the selectors, it is the Team India players turn. Hence this and this and this.
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Elsewhere, Harsha Bhogle questions our priorities, and rightly too. Narayana Murthy talks processes and player behavior.

I am glad these worthies are chiming in. If for nothing then for framing the debate instead of inanities like drop them all and such like.
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Tom Alter is “waiting for just one cricket star to apologize”. Wouldn't hold my breath if I were you Tom, not when it is business as usual at the BCCI.
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Finally - New Zealand have beaten the West Indies today in their Super 8 clash. My other finalists look on course.. Touch wood!!

Update :- How 'bout that?

Chappelli on Tendulkar - what are the odds this wont create a firestorm in India?

The fallout begins

Dravid, Dhoni get sponsors' boot
Men in Blue will slip into red with early return from Carribean

Ooh Aah Bumbaiyya

Another Trophy for the Trophy Cabinet!

Match Report - here.

Say Hellooooo

Sfx

Wake up and smell the coffee

Mr. Dayanand Narvekar

Goa Cricket Association president Narvekar said he had told other BCCI members that the team would not make it to the semi-finals. “While on the West Indies tour (in April 2006) I have seen these boys loitering around till one o’clock in the night, smoking cigarettes,” the GCA chief told PTI here.

last I checked, every member of Team India was over the minimum legal age to smoke and drink..

So - start working on improving facilities in Goa, try to curtail the sale of fraudulent tickets during ODIs ( Goa seems to do that more than most), try to put together a half decent Ranji Trophy team - in short, Get a life.

And oh, by the way, you are a Board Official, not a nanny.. Please try to remember that!

Update :- My apologies Mr.Narvekar. I was unaware that you are a politician. Obviously that precludes you from doing your day job right. And it also gives you the license to shoot your mouth off.

Sriram Ranganathan

on a roll!!

Who knew..

people actually listened to what Ms.Bedi had to say :)

One CB series win later

listen to the Poms pap!!

Nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,,,

this

Phew!!!

(This post contains comments I put over at Prem's blog. They may mean nothing, they may mean a lot, but by Jove they amount to a lot of words that I typed in an awfully short period of time!!!.

Since these comments( rather my typing speed) were my feel good factor for the better part of yesterday, I decided to put them on this blog. As always, your opinions make all the difference. Cheers)
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Lets put our selectoral caps on and work through this - we have the Bangladesh tour coming up next- good competitive side but should not tax us. What to do - rest the big three, give the youngsters a taste of International ODI cricket.Then we have the Afro Asia cup- again not a big tourney for us - followed by the three match series in Ireland against Oz. Now there you might want one senior or two, Rahul and Sachin will be my choices because of their cricketing acumen .Then the 7 odi set with england - gives us opportunities to juggle around with Sehwag and Harbhajan and Yuvraj. Th one ODI against Scotland followed by the 20/20 thrash fest. In the interim an India emerging team travels to Australia to play against Oz, NZ and SA.

We will have the Challengers and the Oz tour to India play out almost simultaneously - 10 more ODis to define and refine the team philosophy and the team.Take it on a series by series basis - with the CB series in OZ marking closure on what we want from th team. If we plan well, we should have answers to quite a few of the questions. refining and fine tuning can begin from season 2 onwards.

That is the time bound aspect.. now- let us identify demand and supply - we need all rounders . who are the guys who do a fair job with bat and ball in domestic cricket? who are the guys who are primarily strong in one skill but can be molded into the other?What about openers - we need to have a pool of about 3 solid openers. bowlers - we have a good set of pace bowlers - they need to be handled carefully. who are our spin options? when should we expose our spin options? Is it prudent to play the spinners in a thrash fest like the 20/20 or should they play in OZ with the bigger grounds?We don't want swing bowlers in Oz and hit the deckers in England. What about the middle order? how many pure batsmen do we need. why do we need pure batsmen and what are their roles? how many anchors and how many dashers?

Once we have listed the demands - check against the supply. Out of a pool of 420 players, we should find 20 that fit the bill.. if we don't, there is the NCA, the MRF Pace Academy. Leverage these. Leverage the knowledge base we have in our country. By the end of season 2, we should have about 20-25 players who can be rotated in and out of the team on a per series basis. All along maintain open lines of communication with the players - let them know why they are sitting out.it will be a hard grind - but the results will come- sooner than we expect because, unlike the Chairman of selectors, I believe we have enuf talent in the country to get the job done. sure, the talent is not Sachin Tendulkar like, but do we need 10 Tendulkars?

To give you an idea of what I will be looking for to name my XI here is an example - Abhishek Nayar. Kid has a half decent outswinger and is a left hand bat. But more than that, kid has heart. His two scores (97 and 86) came at a time when Mumbai needed it the most. So, the potential is there, kid can hustle - needs a little work with his skills- one more season in domestic cricket and possible A tour selection and he should be on his way.

phew !!!

Indeed...

Update :- Here is Mephistopheles' take.

Whoopie!!!

Mumbai reach the finals of the Ranji ODI tournament!!!

Update :- Here is the match report.

Hail mediocrity!!!

Exhibit A

• India has a losing record away from home for the last two years
• Also, except Pakistan and Zimbabwe, India has a losing record against all other countries.

Exhibit B

• India has lost 64.7% of its games (away) when setting/ chasing a score in the range of 176-250.
• Of the 29 matches India lost between 2005 and 2007 they were unable to complete their innings 14 times.
• In the range 176-250, of the 15 matches played away from home, India has lost 11 times.
• In the range 176-250,of the 28 matches played ( both home and away), India has lost 17 times.
• The reason the range from 176-250 is highlighted is because - according to every expert there is, matches played in the West Indies will not be high scoring ones.

• Only 5 out of the 16 times India has lost when either setting or chasing scores in the range of 176-250 have the Indian bowlers not been able to get early wickets.
  The plot has been lost more often than not in the opposition middle overs or because the batsmen made a hash of it.
  It gets more interesting - the last match India won over seas when setting a target in the range 176-250 or chasing was ODI # 2274 against Zimbabwe.
• India has a 11/8 Win loss ratio for scores over 275. Discount 2 games that we lost due to D/L and the number looks even better.

Exhibit C

The ability to adapt

At Chennai, the Indian middle and lower middle order crumbled, losing 7/35. At Cuttuck, the top order lost its way, losing 7/90. Two different wickets, slightly different batting conditions, and the Indians unraveled.
India failed to adapt quickly enough at Abu Dhabi, West Indies, Malaysia, India and South Africa on different conditions.

Exhibit D

Starting with Amsterdam 2004, India has shown a chronic inability to hit the ground running,

The Indian team has had a pretty ordinary record coming back from a break following international cricket. They take a while to warm up and get into the groove.

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(All numbers are collated for the Time period Mar 01, 2005 thru Mar 01, 2007)

The numbers were there, the trends were there – we chose to be blind to it.

Despite being cognizant of the fact that we have problems adapting to different conditions, we chose to sidestep the issue.

Knowing fully well that we are slow starters, instead of finding a solution to the issue, we wore it as a badge of honor.

Our bowlers have been our strength for the better part of two years. The batsmen have been limited to making cameo appearances. But hey, India’s strength is its batting isn’t it?

We were the “form” team, we had beaten Sri Lanka and the West Indies at home. Conveniently forgotten in all this was the fact that we made heavy weather of the win at Cuttuck and Kolkata was a washout.

The World Cup campaign was a disaster waiting to happen. It happened.

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“Heads will roll” scream the newspaper headlines. “Off with their heads” shrieks the talking heads on TV. Change the coach, change the captain, change the team, change everything but the issues plaguing Indian cricket.

And then what?

Another World Cup comes around – we are saddled by similar results, another round of breast beating ensues.

And then what?

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We don’t have to look far to find a template for success. Mumbai’s magical turnaround in the Ranji Trophy this year is a wonderful case study on team building, motivation, grooming and winning as a team. Thing is, are we interested?

Our team is mediocre; they are a reflection of us … Lets revel in it.