Balls..

What lasts for roughly a day of cricket takes over 75 days to create. It is what goes inside a ball that consumes time. The very core of a cricket ball is a grey-brown ball of cork-rubber. Workers, with narrow sheets of cork and string lying about them, create these cores. They wrap small, flat strips of cork around the grey-brown cork-rubber ball, and then a wet wool string around the composition tightly until it is mummified. This is laid in a wooden bowl and pummelled into a sphere with a wooden hammer.

This process is repeated, with further layers of cork and string - five in all.

Cherry pickin’

And yet, it is surely an oddity that failed balls never come back to the manufacturer. Indeed, one might think that this highly regulated professional sport - in such turmoil about the possibility of tampering - would wish to have its officials in charge of the balls from the moment they are released by the manufacturers to the moment they are handed over to the fielding captain.

Cow corner

I asked if there was a limit on how much balls could bounce back. Yes, they said, a foot and ten inches; anything more than that would be deemed illegal. This was amazing, and I told them: pitches in Australia were already the sort that encouraged bounce, and yet their balls rebounded three more inches than an SG ball? The SG ball could bounce seven inches more before it was deemed illegal. So why didn't they use a different material inside the ball to make the ball bounce more?

It is an interesting thought - instead of importing Kookaburra balls (there werent enough last year and they wore out pretty quickly), why not modify the existing SG balls as Rahul Bhatia has suggested?

These new balls will be strictly for domestic cricket (including games between visiting and domestic teams) until they gain currency on the international stage.

The BCCI could facilitate a channel between the ball manufacturers and the players, thus allowing for enhancements and/or improvements

Now that is a Committee worth constituting :)
--

And on a slightly different note, this

That showed that the first-class players are still scared to voice their opinion in front of others, fearing retribution from their state associations, and even though the administrators present agreed that there are some associations which are being run like personal fiefdoms, there is not much the BCCI can do about it, unless some person uses the PIL method to ensure that there is a regular change in these associations.

Worth a read.

Before I forget..

My team ( given form) for the first Test versus Australia at Melbourne

Akash Chopra
Wasim Jaffer
Rahul Dravid
Virender Sehwag/Sachin Tendulkar
Yuvraj Singh
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Ramesh Powar
Anil Kumble
S.Sreesanth
Munaf Patel

XII Man - Manoj Tiwary

Today..

But as he bowled just short from over the wicket, India’s most successful batsman on bouncy foreign pitches misread the length. He came forward and then, realising his mistake, seemed to hesitate whether to play the ball or leave it alone. By the time he had decided to move his head away, it was too late.

A blow by blow account of the Blow.

Sharad Pawar, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president, has called a meeting to discuss women's cricket structure in New Delhi on Saturday.

And though the men's player contracts issue is likely to overshadow it, the meeting is likely to have a heated argument over the administrative structure of women's cricket.

About time too.

Thankfully, Team India captain Rahul Dravid’s injury isn’t serious, but there would have been a crisis had it actually been so.

For the want of a vice captain, a series...

“Our treasurer N. Srinivasan and vice-president (Central) Shashank Manohar will form the two-member committee that will look into the contracts issues after the Bangladesh tour,” said Rajeev Shukla, vice-president (East) after the meeting.

Here is a question -just how many committees can our "Honorary" Vice Presidents be part of? Shashank Manohar is on 3 at last count ( including the hunt for India's next coach), ditto N.Srinivasan.

Given that the job profile is "Honorary, how much justice can these worthies do to their responsibilities?

And where does the BCCI draw the line with respect to the number of concurrent committees at any one time?

The Indian team, unfortunately, is an assortment of variegated individuals: most think differently, talk differently, feel differently, and even chase different goals.

Indeed, it is not very often that Team India gets down to chase the same dream. Until that changes, we can only expect sparks of individual brilliance and sporadic victories.

Which does not quite add up.

I cannot quite understand the imperative for everyone to be homogeneous. We, as a nation and as a societ, are a diverse group.

And this is reflected in our cricket.

Our cricketing culture, our approach to cricket, the thought process associated with the game, are all a reflection of Indian society.

India's cricket cannot be divorced from India itself.

And while it is wonderful to think in Utopian terms, reality is a bitch.

We can either sit back and harp on India not playing as a team because of our differences, or we can marshal those differences as a motivating force.

Everybody plays cricket for different reasons. If those reasons can be channeled to drive the individual, and thereby the team, why not rejoice in the fact that we are different but still pulling together?

“Swapnil and Iqbal have the strength to go a long way. Both have variation in their bowling, control in their loops. They just need to be consistent. I will rate Iqbal higher than Swapnil because of his line and length. But Swapnil is not far off the mark. Iqbal has already achieved success for Mumbai, Swapnil may also achieve similar success for Baroda,” said National Cricket Academy coach Padmakar Shivalkar, who was a left-arm spinner himself.

I am impressed and a tad overwhelmed ( tears of joy and all that).

The elder brother also feels that there’s too much media attention on his brother. “It is better for him if he’s not hyped too much in the media. He’s young and you never know but if something unadvisable just pops out of his mouth, he can be in trouble with the Board.”

So young, so talented, so afraid.

For now, we hope that the tall man in Kolkata can work wonders with the Indian team just the way yoga is believed to do in most cases.

I hope not.. An 8 -10 hour Yoga session spread over 4 days is not going to do wonders. What can make the difference is if the players follow their routines regularly and in earnest.

If they do, we may see some changes over the next year. If they don't, its business as usual. Either ways, the onus is on the players.

And can the Indian media please get off the "wonders" bandwagon. ( our approach to cricket anyone?)

Sharath's career spanned 15 years and he was the first Tamil Nadu player — and so far the only one — to have played 100 Ranji matches.

S. Sharath retires.

"It's difficult to say. I'm 35, I can go to 37 and then I may think I'll push it for one more year. I'm not thinking far ahead, just about one or two years then if everything goes right I'll just keep on playing. If everything goes wrong, I'll say `Thank you very much,"'

Murali talks retirement.

After having taken one step forward, under John Wright and Chappell, Indian cricket has just taken two steps backward. But who cares, as long as we play with josh.

Gee.. This is constructive.. Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

Young Ishant Sharma, the tallest man on view, was clearly having a problem in bending down in time to pick up the ball.

On a couple of occasions, he took his eyes off the ball, resulting in misfields and his throwing technique was so poor that the ball mostly eluded the wicketkeeper.

Ishant tends to throw the ball with a high-arm action and as a result fails to get any real power behind it. He needs help to rectify it quickly.

Now, this is constructive.. A problem identified, a solution proposed.

Also, and this is important, I have met Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid personally for an astro-numero-dice session. From their physiognomy (a person’s features, expression, facial characteristics), lines on the palms, shape of fingers and Western astrology (I know their birth data), I confirmed that they would do well. I still stand by it. Therefore, at least till 2008, there should be no question of retirement. However, 2009 is a different matter.

Astro-numero-dice session? Please, sir, can I have some more?

One of their overseas players hails from the north-west frontier of Pakistan; that is Younis Khan, who not only scored 308 runs in the match, but yesterday achieved a career best with the ball;

Younis Khan Superstar.
--

Finally, an Ideas Exchange with Ramachandra Guha - fascinating read.

All of you have a wonderful Weekend. Tally Ho!

Friday levity..

This column by Malcolm Conn.

What starts off as a comment on the choices facing Cricket Australia vis a vis the Zimbabwe tour becomes a no holds barred attack on India.

Which is a bit rich given that Australia continues to have diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe and had no qualms in previously hosting Zimbabwe, despite Mugabe's excesses.

But what tickled my funny bone most was this gem

Only last month, that nexus was graphically highlighted again when India walked away from an agreement with Australia to play three one-day matches in Ireland next month.

India will now play South Africa in a meaningless match worth millions in television rights.

I suppose the three ODIs would have been a lot more meaningful if Australia was party to those millions in TV rights eh?

Today..

The World Cup could not have gone to any other team but Australia, the untouchable, the unbeatable, the unplayable, the unbelievable, which has emasculated its rivals and exhausted the vocabulary

Rohit Brijnath runs out of adjectives to describe the Australians.

Poor attitude doesn’t mean hoping your team loses or, to give it a more sinister motive, conspiring against your team. It means you are not willing to go that extra mile, extra yard sometimes; that the extra effort is not attractive enough.

Harsha Bhogle on attitude.

In effect, what this means is that the BCCI feels it can bribe their way to a better-performing team. If they do perform now, and we hope they do, all the fingers can wag at them and say: ‘they play only for money’.

Amit Gupta on the new contracts.

It was almost like those days in the pre-Greg Chappell era when fielding and catching drills were a euphemism for going through the motions.

As reported in these columns, the players have strong reservations and most are probably looking to the Big Four — captain Rahul Dravid, senior-most pro Sachin Tendulkar, former captain Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble — “for guidance.

Meanwhile, in an interesting development, Tendulkar has chosen to go back to his old style of playing with a heavy bat in a bid to bat his way out of rusty form.

Day 2 of the 5 day camp.

A good performance from the respective national teams contributes to a feel-good factor; an air of general malaise hangs after a bad show

Vijay Parthasarathy finds parallels between Indian cricket and English football.

Friday, April 27: The diary chances upon an article on Glenn McGrath. Written by Steve Waugh, it's 11 things you didn't know about Rhino a.k.a. Ninger a.k.a Nuff Nuff. For one, Pidge loves the Lord of the Rings trilogy — see, fast bowlers can be discerning — and he "gives the choc-top ice creams a real touch up." He likes creepy-crawlies, and likes them better when he can slip 'em down a neck or two: the diary always wondered if Michael Bevan's jerkiness at the crease had entirely to do with getting in position. Number 11 is particularly good: "Regularly wears cricket whites that are short in length prompting Allan Border to say to him in one of his first games, `What are you waiting for pal, the floods'." Waugh's writing is often gawdy: his autobiography is sprinkled with wildebeast and headless-chook similes. But, mitigatingly, he has an eye for detail.

His description of McGrath arranging his breakfast is why former cricketers must write. Writes Waugh: "Eats the same breakfast each morning on tour. He places his two fried eggs on separate pieces of white toast before making sure the yolk is perfectly positioned in the middle, before trimming the overhanging egg white edges with surgical precision. The contents are then cut into quarters after being doused with a three-second barrage of salt. It's a real shame to see him eat it such is the masterpiece he creates."

S. Ram Mahesh's Caribbean diary.

So the contention that ICC should have its best umpires (Taufel at least) for important clashes goes bust in light of some past decisions.

Atul Sondhi on neutral umpires.

Here's a thought

for the BCCI honchos to make a quick buck and also settle the monies owed by the BCCI to the players -

Every day of every game that Team India takes the field, the BCCI should organize a running race - between the President, Vice Presidents, Honorary Secretary and the Chief Administrative Officer of the BCCI.

The race will entail a run along the perimeter of a cricket stadium.

The race can be organized at the Wankhede itself, thus saving valuable money in petrol and other charges.

Neo Sports could sell this as a PPV event.

Ad spots could be sold at a premium.

Tickets could also be sold at a premium for spectators at the Wankhede .

Willow TV can be given the overseas rights to this event, thus bringing in revenues in $$.

For entertainment ( as if the sight of Sharad Pawar racing Shashank Manohar and IS Bindra and Lalit Modi was not entertainment enough), we could have the respective local association heads with pom poms in their hands, cheering on the runners.

Think about it - India plays 3 ODIs and 2 Tests in BD - a grand total of 13 days of competition between the BCCI honchos.

And it gets even better - The England series has 28 playing days which translates to 28 days of racing.

and Australia - could we extend the CB series by 30 more games please?

A welcome side effect of all this running ( in addition to the moolah raked, that is) will be that the BCCI honchos will get slimmer, svelter bodies ( that are sure to elicit cat calls at Mount Dubai).

Its a win win situation for all!!

Har har!!

PS:- Too much time and a little angst can drive people potty.. For an example, see above :)

Those cheap bastards..

Cash-rich BCCI has not paid cricketers for last 7 months

This is a Board that "walked away" from a deal worth 50 crores because it did not want to get into "all these sort of things".

This is a body whose President hand delivers a check worth INR 8.02 crores to the CAB after it deposed of the incumbent ( who, incidentally was opposed to the said President).

This is a Board that came down heavily on player endorsements while it itself is not averse to signing mega deals.

When it comes to making money and flogging the cricketers to death in this pursuit, the BCCI is second to none.

But God help us all if this Board will release the monies it owes or has promised the players.

What will Pawar do?

Strong evidence to frame Narvekar, rules JMFC

After clipping the players wings and talking tough with the ICC, I would expect the Maratha strongman to behave likewise with one of his own.

Will the BCCI President ask the BCCI Vice President to step down?

And will the players politely tell Mr. Narvekar that while it is not criminal to smoke cigarettes at their age, perpetrating and abetting in fraud is.

Such gracious winners..

Bombed out: Sri Lanka's losers return to warzone

Sri Lanka's losers return

From correspondents in Colombo
May 03, 2007

SRI Lanka's World Cup cricketers returned to an elaborate welcome home today after being stranded in London after Tamil Tiger rebel air raids in Colombo.

The team was received at the VIP lounge of the Bandaranaike International airport where Buddhist monks, Hindu and Catholic priests and Muslim clerics conducted services to bless them.

Officials said they returned on Qatar Airlines after Emirates, on which they were originally booked, pulled out of Colombo after Sunday's Tamil Tiger attacks near the airport.

Sri Lanka Cricket, which had organised elaborate plans to welcome the cricketers who reached the final in the Caribbean, said another welcome ceremony had been arranged in the city, 35 kilometres away.

Emirates and Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific suspended their flights to Sri Lanka after Sunday's air raids.

The guerrillas used two light aircraft to bomb two fuel depots near Colombo after crossing Colombo's airspace.

Sri Lanka lost to Australia in Saturday's final in Barbados by 53 runs.

Agence France-Presse

Today..

All those who nurtured the hope that the Australians would have a bad day at the office were left disappointed in the end. Nobody from the Australian team took sick leave, privilege leave or casual leave as they went about their work in real earnest to stamp their authority on the game and show the rest of the cricketing world who was the boss.

Sunny G raises a toast for the Australians.

I am no expert, but I don’t think all is lost. Nor do I believe that India must blindly adopt what Australia or England does.

Wrights John.

The feud between the Indian cricket board and the International Cricket Council (ICC) could get worse. The reason? The ICC was selling green coloured Indian team t-shirts and caps as official merchandise during the World Cup in the West Indies. And the BCCI is not happy.

Calcutta: The Bangladesh-bound players, one understands, have “reservations” over the contracts couriered to them last week, but they’ve got to sign on the dotted line before heading for Dhaka/Chittagong.

writes LP Sahi.

Although the Board of Control for Cricket in India has made some noises to the effect that it would like to see India's players sign their central contracts before the tour of Bangladesh, it is difficult to see this happening, given the extensive work that will go into the lead-up to the actual signing of the contracts.

writes Anand Vasu.

8 more days before we know the outcome on this one.

There are few surprises in the choices, although there is no back-up wicketkeeper or specialist spinner in the side. Ravi Rampaul returns while there is an overdue call-up for allrounder Darren Sammy.

No Tino Best, no Omari Banks, no Marlon Samuels.
--
India plays its three tests against the Poms at Lords, Trent Bridge and Kennington Oval. Here are the scoresheets from the early part of the County Championships on these three grounds.

Kennington Oval

Surrey v Yorkshire
Surrey v Hampshire

Trent Bridge

Nottinghamshire v Leicestershire
Nottinghamshire v Glamorgan

Lords

Middlesex v Northamptonshire

What is interesting is the number of runs scored by the teams so early in the season. Also interesting is the number of wickets taken by the spinners.

Given that we travel to Old Blighty later in the English summer, if the current trend continues, expect drier wickets with a lot more runs and with the spinners coming to their own as the game progresses. 3 spinners anyone?

Blink

Certainly that's what we've always been told. We live in a society dedicated to the idea that we're always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. As children, this lesson is drummed into us again and again: haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think. But I don't think this is true. There are lots of situations--particularly at times of high pressure and stress--when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world.

A lesson for our captain.. And a must read for us - Malcolm Gladwell's website

Today..

"We are all disappointed with our World Cup performance. Maybe our best wasn't enough and we look at you youngsters here as future players who one day might win the cup for us. I want you to make full use of the facilities here, which weren't there when we were playing.

"Have fun but while training be focussed and enjoy it. Training is not punishment and if you look at it that way, you might as well be at home. If you train well now, you can enjoy the later part of your life,"

Kapil Dev interacts with the newest batch of kids at the NCA.

The morning session would be devoted for general fitness drills and fielding practice while the afternoon session would be for nets.

Even the Pankaj Gupta Indoor Centre has been readied in case the rain came down.

All set for the camp prior to India's tour to Bangladesh.

Everywhere teams are obsessed and stimulated by their sporting enemy. But Australia's cricket team has had nobody to provoke it to greatness. It makes them a unique and interesting team.

Rohit Brijnath laments on the lack of competition for the Australian cricket team.

what might actually be happening is that the board might make all the players on the tour sign a document stating only the amount of money they will get for each one-day and test.

Contract season is upon us.

The decisions of this workshop will then be forwarded to the BCCI’s working committee for ratification. Going by the mood, it could be a mere formality.

Sans comment.

The World Cup semi-final surrender should have forever ended the myth that Fleming is the cricket world's top captain.

Ouch

Team of the tournament
Australia come close for maintaining their 100% World Cup record in the 21st century, and three cheers for them, etc. But for unwavering commitment to the cause, a refusal to cave in to pressure, and a self-belief that bordered on the delusional, the winners are the ICC, whose only show of weakness - until their elite umpires and match referees ensured the tournament ended in low farce - came when Malcolm Speed admitted the whole thing had gone on too long. Now that's leadership!

The weekly Spin.

"I'm not afraid to say I am spitting mad. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. To this day I do not know why I did not get an opportunity to play,"

No gag orders here. Mercy be!

What slump? About $15 million worth of ad money is already committed to us for the next financial year. No sensible media buyer can ignore cricket.

Yup..Which is why the BCCI will never get its house in order.

Let the debate begin..

How legal was Adam Gilchrist’s “hidden ball”?

The Cyborg Batsman

Was the "squash ball in the glove" within the rules of the game? And if it was, where do we draw the line as to what is allowed and what is not on the field of play?

Today

Tiger talk.

Indian think-tank look for quick revenge in B'desh. Shastri, Dravid & Co to dodge afternoon heat in camp meant for B’desh acclimatisation ! Pretty self explanatory eh ?

Amit Gupta on what the 5 day camp my hope to achieve.

‘Making the India squad is like passing Class XII… I’ve still got to graduate and, then, do my Master’s…’

How can you not like this guy?

BCCI joint secretary M.P. Pandove, however, was in the dark about Shah’s remarks. “I have no idea. This hasn’t been discussed within the BCCI. I don’t know how it is possible,” he told The Telegraph.

heh!

Meanwhile. CMJ chimes in with his two cents.

Makarand Waingankar on coaching and the role of coaches. He should know, he got Paras Mhambrey over from Bengal to Baroda.

And finally, Manny.

An unmitigated disaster

and a golden opportunity.

The ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 is a text book example of a badly managed, badly run mega event.

And in that debacle lie lessons for the "Asian block" as they get together to host the next edition of the World Cup in 2011.

For starters, the logistical aspect of organizing a tournament of this scale. The 2011 tournament is spread across 4 nations and they will do well to recognize the problems faced by traveling fans from different nations.

The 4 nations, and in particular India, will do well to limit the games to a few select stadiums instead of making people traverse the length and breadth of individual countries and playing in remote outposts ( wouldn't categorize Pune as a remote outpost but seriously, is Nehru stadium seriously going to be a WC venue?).

I would volunteer to suggest 4 venues in India - Bangalore, Kolkata, Mohali and Mumbai. Limit the cricket to these 4 places ( all of the stadiums come equipped with flood lights and all four are metros).

The BCCI and the World Cup organizing committee in general, would do well to recognize the impact of matches conceded ( 1996 and 2003) and to include this in their scheduling.

The 2007 World Cup was too long - the ICC has promised to truncate the length of the tourney in 2011.

The 2007 World Cup excluded the very people whose joie de vivre it was set to celebrate - the Asian nations will do well to schedule the tournament in the right season and not go gung ho on the ticket prices ( Arent tickets already overpriced - 1500 rupees to sit on a stump of wood with two nails sticking in your butt along with 100 people crammed in space for 50 seems overpriced to me).

The BCCI would do well to start upgrading the in stadia facilities of these venues as a priority and follow that up by upgrading the remaining stadiums.

As regards the boring part - unless Australia implode spectacularly or the other teams grow by leaps and bounds over the next 4 years, expect more of the same.

The 2011 tournament gives the "Asian block" a picture perfect opportunity to showcase everything that is right about cricket and the passions of its fans.

It also gives India the unique opportunity to showcase its centrality as a cricketing powerhouse and to match its bluster with its organizing skills.

The onus is on us to make the restore the World Cup to the showcase event it is; to restore the flagging interest in the multitude of viewers and to put the "mega" back in the mega event.

"We may be the richest Board in the world and yet may have one of the less influential teams in the world, but by Jove, we know how to put on a show " should be the guiding light for the BCCI.

Trivialities like "no confidence motions" against all and sundry can wait.

Speaking of which - my initial reaction was "bit rich of the Board, whose own workings veer between bad and terrible , to pontificate on the ICC's workings".

Thing is, being imperfect is no impediment to being critical of the other. I only wish that the BCCI, while pontificating on the "excessive bureaucracy" of the ICC, had an alternate plan or blueprint in hand to address the situation.

It is all fine and dandy to criticize, but it would help if that criticism was accompanied by something constructive, instead of

Lalit Modi, the BCCI's vice-president, who called on Speed to be replaced by someone from Africa or Asia who "understands the problems of a majority of ICC members".

which is no plan at all.

(Cross posted on DesiCritics.org)

Shame on me..

Fool me once, shame on you.

Jan 09, 2007
The Cricket Board will conduct a workshop for curators of all the state associations and units affiliated to it in March this year.
.....
"The last workshop was conducted three years ago and that is the reason it has been decided to have one more workshop for the curators," Shetty added.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Jan 20 2007
The Technical Committee, chaired by Sunil Gavaskar, also decided to take steps to prevent doctoring of wickets in the Ranji Trophy. From the next season, members of the Pitches Committee would monitor the
preparation of wickets for four days preceding the tie, said Shah

Fool me thrice, I am the village idiot

Sunday, April 29, 2007
Even as Rahul Dravid & Co will be busy negotiating the Bangladeshis for much of next month, the Indian cricket Board will be conducting a full-fledged summit of the pitches and grounds committee.
....
In fact, this is the first time that the Pawar-led BCCI administration has undertaken a full-fledged summit of the pitch committee members. The last time all the five zonal heads got together and met the BCCI top brass was way back in 2002-03, when the then Board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya convened the pitch committee’s summit in Kolkata.

And what it with BCCI officials and their mouths anyways? Verbal Diarrhoea?

Don't they realize that when they open their mouths, their collective credibility goes for a toss.