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MUMBAI, November 2: Rahul Dravid gets a great chance to rediscover his golden touch with the bat when he turns out for Karnataka in their opening Elite Division Group A Ranji Trophy cricket tie against holders Mumbai starting here from Saturday.
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It's time for spin at the Wankhede

The Preview by Sriram Veera at the Wankhede Stadium

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Two coaches, different routes, same destination

Sriram Veera at the Wankhede Stadium

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Rahul Dravid gets a chance to rediscover his golden touch with the bat when he turns out for Karnataka in their opening Elite Division group A Ranji Trophy tie against holders Mumbai starting here Saturday.

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Mumbai’s campaign began on the wrong foot in 2006-07, Bengal gaining the initiative and first innings lead at the Eden Gardens in the season opener, then bounced back to take the title. The Ranji Trophy champion faces another test of character, confronted by Karnataka a season later at the Wankhede stadium.
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Defending champions Mumbai are starting the season on a better note than they did last year. They now have a regular coach and captain at helm, a couple of senior internationals in their ranks and four home games on the trot. But still, their opponents - Karnataka - may just have the edge in the Ranji season opener tomorrow, with two super stars of Indian cricket, Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid, in their ranks
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Mumbai all-rounder Abhishek Nayar recounts his dream season last year and talks about his plans for the coming one
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Play & learn
For the young Mumbai side that’ll be the mantra as they face Dravid, Kumble

What is he happy about?

His team just got blown away by the Pakistanis but that has not stopped Vijay Dahiya from "being happy with his side's start to the season".

Well, good for you Mr Dahiya, but do you realize that you and your team have handed the depleted Pakistanis the initiative on a gold platter? Instead of setting the tone for the rest of the series, you and your "boys" have managed to do the exact opposite.

And if you keep up this attitude going for the rest of the Ranji season, the Plate League beckons.

Let battle commence

Mumbai

Mumbai will look to avoid Railways' and UP's fate © Cricinfo Ltd

Railways, the 2004-05 champions, are currently languishing in the Plate League; UP, their successors, just about avoided relegation last season. Mumbai, defending champions this year, would look to undo the dubious trend prevalent over the last two years: of champions losing their form completely. Mumbai have already played two matches this season, beating Karachi Urban in the Mohammad Nissar Trophy, but losing outright to Rest of India in the Irani Trophy. On display were flashes of exciting new talent but also some phases of ordinary play.

They are one of the few teams who haven't lost any significant players to ICL. To add to the already existing pool, they have, among others, Ajinkya Rahane, the aggressive opener who scored century on debut and also played the Challengers and Iqbal Abdula, the 17-year-old left-arm spinner who can add up as a handy lower-order batsman. Ajit Agarkar and Ramesh Powar may play more of a role this season, given they both find themselves out of the Indian team currently.

A glaring omission is left-arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni, who was the leading wicket-taker for Mumbai last season, with 24 wickets at 20.79. There were rumours that he might join ICL, but that did not eventually happen.

They go into the Ranji Trophy a solid team, playing four out of their seven games at home - including the last one, against Saurashtra

Karnataka

Anil Kumble, who will lead Karnataka in the first two matches, should make a big difference © Getty Images

One of the strongest contenders for this season's title, Karnataka have been boosted by the return of Anil Kumble, who will lead the team, and Rahul Dravid. Apart from the duo who will be available for two games, they will bank on the experience of Sunil Joshi and Yere Goud - who joined Karnataka last season after 11 years with Railways. Although they have lost Robin Uthappa to the Indian team, they have a formidable batting line-up in C Raghu, B Akhil, Thilak Naidu and Barrington Rowland, the men who took Karnataka to the final four in the last season.

Joshi, as always, will lead the bowling attack, but he can turn to a capable few to share the burden. There is KP Appanna, the talented left-arm spinner making rapid strides, and R Vinay Kumar, the medium-pace bowler who took 27 wickets last season. They will be bolstered by the presence of NC Aiyappa, the medium-pacer who has recovered from an injury that restricted him to just two games in the previous season. In addition they have Akhil, who blossomed into a fine medium-pace bowler last season and Raghu, who picked 10 wickets with his offspin.

Karnataka have a new coach in Vijay Bharadwaj after Venkatesh Prasad became the national bowling coach and his successor Rajesh Kamat was pouched by the ICL. Bharadwaj headed a 13-day camp - where batting and fielding sessions combined with drills and exercise formed the daily routine - at the Infosys campus in Mysore as part of the build-up to the upcoming season.

Champions versus Contenders... New Kids On The Block versus Old Dogs.... Us versus Them.

The scene is set for the last game at the Wankhede before it closes down for renovation.Stock up on the beer/coffee/chips/salsa or whatever else you might fancy - The big daddies of Indian cricket are about to play ball!

November 3rd cant come soon enough.

PS:-

Mumbai: Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) organised a ‘Gatorade Gurus’ seminar, an interactive session for the benefit of players, coaches and trainers at the C.K. Nayudu Hall, Cricket Club of India here on Wednesday.

Ramji Srinivasan spoke about fitness, Nisha Verma about hydration science and Praveen Amre about personal coaching. The Mumbai Ranji Trophy probables attended the seminar.
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It has been eight long summers since Karnataka last carried the prefix of 'Ranji Trophy champions.' Not since their extraordinary triumph at the Chinnaswamy stadium in 1999 against Madhya Pradesh has a Karnataka captain held aloft the symbol of domestic first-class supremacy in the country.
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Just two days before their opening Ranji Trophy game but well advance for the long hectic season ahead, Mumbai players got a few words wisdom from cricket’s fitness guru Ramji Srinivasan at the Wankhede Stadium. At a special interactive session; the players had their queries about niggles, gym schedule, on-field training and ways to dealing with chronic aliments answered.

One

year has rolled by since this blog came into existence.

And plenty of Thank You's are in order ( although words do not necessarily do justice to how I feel at the moment)

A Big Thank You to each and every one of you who took the time from your busy lives to spend on this blog.

A Big Thank You to each and every one of you who posted comments and, in doing so, allowed me to grow as an individual and a cricket watcher.

A Big Thank You to all of you who blog rolled me. Not only did you increase the traffic to the site, you made me privy to thoughts and ideas that I would otherwise not have been privy to.

A Big Thank You to all of the other bloggers out there. Your perspectives and insights are the difference between seeing a game and watching it.

And finally, A Big Thank You to all the friends I have made along the way. You matter more than you will ever know.

Meanwhile, Down Under

6 scorecards from the 6 venues hosting Test Cricket this southern summer

The Gabba

158, 544 and 457 in the 3 innings played for the loss of 10, 6 and 5 wickets.
This, on the fastest ground in Australia at the beginning of the season

Hobart

482,363,171* in 2 and a bit innings played for the loss of 10, 6 and 4 wickets
Ben Hilfenhaus 42-6-150-2 and 8-2-29-1
S. Tait 27-2-117-1
J. Gillespie 22-5-74-2

The MCG

277,114, 289 and 164 runs scored for the loss of 10,10,6 and 10 wickets
CL White 5-0-13-0 and 10-0-41-2
Brad Hogg 12.4-2-21-3 and 18.4-4-62-5

Interesting that the most successful bowler at the MCG in the lung opener is a left arm Chinaman.

The SCG

467,601, 398 and 34* runs for the loss of 10, 8, 7 and 0 wickets
Brett Lee 27-4-113-0 and 23-8-75-0
N Bracken 19-7-42-1 and 21-8-69-1
S Clark 27-7-79-3 and 24-7-71-4
M Johnson 32-4-134-0 and 4-0-21-0
S McGill 36-1-183-3 and 19-1-97-1

Adelaide

438, 249, 158 and 77 runs for the loss of 10,10, 4 and 10 wickets
J Gillespie 32-6-97-1 and 8-3-21-1
Dan Cullen 37-3-125-2 and 10-0-43-1
Cullen Bailey 16-2-66-1 and 10-0-37-0
CL White 11-2-34-1

Perth

267, 99, 300 and 193 runs for 10,10,3 and 10 wickets

I expect this trend to continue - runs will be scored by the billion while bowlers will toil. Factor in the drought and summer and I would even venture to say that spin will become a factor as the summer progresses. And with no McGrath and Warne and bowlers not able to blast sides out, it is going to be a long summer.

Lots of runs, bowlers not getting due reward,spin and long playing days means attritional cricket. Something India has been doing as well or better than most.

India play at the MCG, the SCG, Adelaide and Perth ( in that order).

Cant wait for the tour to begin!

Hit them early

and hit them hard.

Pakistan begins its tour to India on the back of a morale shattering loss at Lahore, earning them the tag of chokers.

And rightly so.

They lost an ODI series they should have won, they lost an ODI that was in the bag and the less said about their performance against India in the Twenty20's, the better.

And IMHO, this is the right opportunity for India to hit them hard and early.

The team selected for the first two ODI's is

Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Robin Uthappa, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt & wk), Irfan Pathan, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik

And interestingly, every single batsman/ all-rounder selected in the team is capable of tonking the long ball.And there is no sheet anchor.

And that, I believe, should be the strategy - play Twenty20 cricket over 50 overs.

Pakistan's strength is in its bowling; the batting had looked thin, barring Younis Khan and Md. Yousuf.

If India takes on Pakistan's bowling head on and does play the long ball ( right through the batting order), we will have set the tone for the rest of the series.

And if this means Md.Asif getting 5/100, so be it.

Because I believe that any bowler will be more miffed going for 100 runs in 10 overs than chuffed about getting a fifer.

And like any good sub continental captain, the pressure of expectation and the pressure of having his strong suit turn into his weak link will have an effect on Shoib Malik.

And if we put Shoib Malik on the back foot right from the outset, that will be significant over the course of the entire tour.

In fact, I would hope Delhi sets the agenda in the tour opener ( like Mumbai did in the 1998 series against Australia).

Should be fun!

PS:- On October 14, 2007, this is what I wrote about Rahul Dravid. And between then and now, nothing has happened to change my opinion ( inspite of the firestorm in the media and the blogosphere).

And vindication comes from the man himself

"I have two games, one against Mumbai [starting on November 3], and another against Himachal," he said. "It will be good to spend some time in the middle."

I'll be watching

Anil Kumble to lead 15-member Karnataka Ranji squad

VVS Laxman to lead 15-member Hyderabad Ranji squad

My two tips for India captaincy will be leading their squads in the Ranji Trophy this year.. And they both will have tough games first up - Karnataka plays Mumbai while Hyderabad tangles with Bengal.

Both games should contain useful pointers on which of the two make the grade ( and I hope SRT is not made skipper please please please!).

Vision

VB Chandrashekhar alluded to it. Sanjay Manjrekar speaks about it. So do Siddhartha Vaidyanathan and Sambit Bal, albeit in the context of the Rahul Dravid non selection.

And the leitmotif of these columns ( and most of the posts and comments in the blogosphere) is that there is an ad hoc manner in which the current selection committee operates while Kiran More's team had a much clearer "vision" for Indian cricket.

But, do the results tally?

Here is the list of players who made their ODI debuts between 24 September 2004 through 24 September 2006

MS Dhoni 23 December 2004
Joginder Sharma 23 December 2004
SK Raina 30 July 2005
Y Venugopal Rao 30 July 2005
RP Singh 4 September 2005
S Sreesanth 25 October 2005
MM Patel 3 April 2006
VRV Singh 12 April 2006
RV Uthappa 15 April 2006

Number of debutants - 9
Number of matches - 54
Total number of players selected - 30
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Here is the list of players who made their Test debuts between 24 September 2004 through 24 September 2006

Gautam Gambhir 3,4,5 November 2004
Dinesh Karthik 3,4,5 November 2004
MS Dhoni 2,3,4,5,6 December 2005
RP Singh (India) 21,22,23,24,25 January 2006
Sreesanth Mar 1-5, 2006
Piyush Chawla Mar 9-13, 2006
Munaf Patel Mohali, Mar 9-13, 2006
VRV Singh Jun 2-6, 2006

Number of debutants - 8
Number of matches - 26
Total number of players tried - 31
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Here is the list of players who made their ODI debuts between 25 September 2006 through 29 October 2007

Rohit Sharma Jun 23, 2007
Piyush Chawla May 12, 2007

Number of debutants - 2
Number of matches - 39
Total number of players tried - 27
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Here is the list of players who made their Test debuts between 25 September 2006 through 29 October 2007

Ramesh Powar May 18-22, 2007
Ishant Sharma May 25-27, 2007

Number of debutants - 2
Number of matches - 8
Total number of players tried - 20
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The more things change....