Uh Oh!

So at the risk of sounding a fraction deranged, it's time to send the SOS: forget the poker tournaments Warney, your country needs you in India.

The third spinner

35-12-81-6

Is it silly season already?

The pace of Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison will be England’s biggest weapon, because the senior batsmen should all be vulnerable early on to quality fast bowling. OK, the pitches won’t give you much, so you have to be precise and accurate. But the way England have been playing since Pietersen became captain, they’ve got to think positive and believe that they can bowl India out.
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India's grandees had a terrible time against Sri Lanka in July and August, mustering just three half-centuries between them from 12 attempts. Yet no-one is quite sure who should be replacing them. Yuvraj Singh has failed to establish himself as a Test player and other young talents such as Mohammad Kaif have also become stranded in the "promising" category. Rohit Sharma and 19-year-old Virat Kohli, who each scored 105 for the IBP's XI this morning, are not in the squad.

All of this adds up to good news for Kevin Pietersen. England should be sensing an opportunity here, for their next two major series are against India and Australia.

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Recalled fast bowler Ryan Sidebottom has claimed England under Kevin Pietersen can win their two-match Test series in India this winter.

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What a beautiful sight!

(forward fast to 5:10)

Nice going BP XI

Whether planned or not, the Board President's XI have managed to tick just about all the boxes. 455 all out means that the Australians will have to score 306 to avoid the follow on. And getting bundled out 20 minutes before lunch means the Australians will have an uncomfortable 10 minutes to see through before restarting the innings all over again.

The Ganguly selection

and why I believe it is the shrewdest move by Anil Kumble in the build up to the Australia series.

The Indian squad for the first TWO tests against Australia reads

Indian squad

Anil Kumble (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, RP Singh, S Badrinath, Amit Mishra

There have been a multitude of articles, especially in Cricinfo, about the myopia of the selectors and the TINA factor.

I strongly believe that the selectors have had no role in the Ganguly selection - It is a call made by Anil Kumble.

And the reasons I believe this is the case are listed below

1. Kumble has always stood up for the team he wanted - vide Sehwag in Australia, two keepers in Sri Lanka, the unflinching support for Dravid - all demands made for by Kumble and honored by the selectors.

2. This is the first tour in a gazillion years where there has been no controversy within the Indian team in the lead up to the first test. And India has been through the drama surrounding Ganguly's non-selection previously. The last thing the Indian team needs is a distraction, a side show that will give the Australians some talking points.

3. This is the most low key visit by the Australians since the Border Gavaskar Trophy came into existence - no photo ops, no syndicated columns, no spinners, very little Test experience in Indian conditions. With the spotlight squarely on the Australian team ( and its deficiencies), the Ganguly jamboree would be a needless side show.

3. The squad comprises of 15 members - 15. Even in 2001, with the musical chairs between the wicket keepers and the left arm spinners, I don't think we named a jumbo squad going into the Test series. Of the 15, 11 will make the cut. And a Ganguly selection is not automatic. This gives India the option of playing him as a batsman and a 5th bowler if in form or to fit a batsman ( or a bowler) if not in form without raising hackles.

4. And if there is indeed some substance to Ganguly's impending retirement after this series, it gives him ( Ganguly) the honorable way out - he goes out on his terms and we dont leave another hero by the wayside ( as has been our wont).

5. Ganguly's ouster from the team shifts the spotlight uncomfortably on the senior group - every action ( or inaction) of theirs is under the microscope. And it is a pressure the senior group can do without, going into the series.

That said, I think the most interesting selection is that of Amit Mishra.

I have always rated him, but he never seemed to catch the selectors eye.And now he finds himself in the team in probably the biggest series India plays this year. And he is in direct competition for the same spot as the captain.

I don't believe the selectors were brave enough to bring in another leggie ( instead of a left arm spin option) in the squad. I believe this is another Kumble call.

If the intent is to nurture Mishra and to pave way for a smooth transition when Kumble does call it a day ( which I think is the intent behind this selection) , Anil Kumble deserves the Bharat Ratna!

PS:- On more than one occasion, Kumble has hinted that the Australians are there for the taking. The man wants the win, and he wants it real bad. And I don't believe he will undercut himself by making a left field selection, or defending a selection he is not party to, so vigorously in the media!

When a bureaucrat writes...

To whomsoever it may concern,

As a bureaucrat, I have encountered some of the most powerful politicians. Some days ago, I jogged my memory to make an honest assessment of each one of them.. They all had strong points, but I put Sharad Pawar at the top. He commanded the respect of the BCCI members not because of his stature in politics, but because he had been fair and reasonable. That's statesmanship for me.

We have had a couple of highly gracious presidents and Mr Pawar is one of them. How else can one explain his calling up Jagmohan Dalmiya to invite him to dinner, when he learnt that he was in Mumbai, on the eve of the Annual General Meeting? For the assembled press it turned out to be a great photo-op and got the fertile media minds ticking.

Smooth transition

Mr Pawar's lasting contribution was to re-mould the board into a cohesive unit and more importantly, leaving it in safe hands. We now have a highly unassuming yet dynamic Shashank Manohar as the chief of the body to carry forward the vision of Team Pawar.

Seldom have I seen, in my 40 years of association with the game, such a smooth transition and that too to a team that can carry forward his work. By handing over the baton to Shashank, Mr Pawar has ensured further consolidation of the gains of the last three years.

His successor's greatest quality is that he takes every decision after due deliberation and by building a consensus. Once taken, he sticks by it. The ideal example is when he refused to budge on the decision not to allow administrators to double up as selectors.

Can anyone imagine that Shashank is so down-to-earth that he did not have a passport till he had to go to Dubai to attend an ICC meeting on the insistence of Mr Pawar? It is now public knowledge that he does not carry a cell phone! Mr Pawar's policy of horses-for-courses is set to pay rich dividends.

Honorary works

Who can now say that the board should be corporatized or professionalised on the lines of some other boards in the so-called developed world? India's present setup of democratically elected functionaries taking all the major policy decisions has proved to be most effective.

The president and vice-president Arun Jaitley are among the best legal brains in the country. Secretary N Srinivasan is a captain of the industry who understands how to maintain cashbooks when the board is flush with such huge remittances. He has revolutionised the working of the treasury.

Is there a better marketing man than Lalit Modi -- an acknowledged wizard who created the IPL? Come to cricket, and you have Shivlal Yadav, Mohinder Pandove and Sanjay Jagdale who understand the game as players and know their specific requirements. How can anyone say there are no cricketers in the board?

In the last three years, I have heard some people say Shashank and Srinivasan are hardliners. The perception, perhaps, germinated from Shashank's self-effacing persona and Srinivasan's corporate thinking.

Both believe in performance and merit as the sole criteria for assessment. What people do not seem to see behind this veneer is the steadfast adherence to the basic tenets of the board's constitution by the two. Of course, they are no-nonsense men to boot. People will find them impossible to manipulate. As such, the board's consolidation and its unfettered progress are guaranteed.

Lasting legacy

Mr Pawar, on a visit to Mohali to inaugurate the indoor facility, was so impressed with the ground equipment displayed by our curator Daljit Singh that he wanted every association to ape it as a model.

Within a couple of months, the state-of-the-art equipment was made available to all state bodies. Mr. Pawar and his team were responsible for raising the infrastructure subsidy from Rs 4 crore to Rs 50 crore. The results are that today we have ultra-modern stadiums and facilities in Hyderabad, Andhra, Delhi and Nagpur. Rajkot, Pune and Guwahati are on fast track to completion.

Mr Pawar is responsible for creating one of the finest coaching facilities at the Bandra-Kurla complex in Mumbai. Demolition at Wankhede is going on and it will have a brand new facility, as good as the best in the world, ready in time for 2011 World Cup.

Why go that far? The board today has the best headquarters of all the ICC member countries. No more spending big on holding working committee meets or AGMs at five-star hotels. They are now held at the Cricket Centre. Soon a museum on the lines of 'Halls of Fame' in the US, is going to come up.

ICC main man

When you assess people, personal equations do come into play. To illustrate Mr Pawar's sincerity of approach, I must confess I was immensely touched on the day he set right an earlier manipulated defeat into a massive victory.

One of the first things he did soon after he was elected president in Kolkata was to call me to say that he would be nominating me to represent the board at the International Cricket Council (ICC).

I told him that some of us had been fighting for a decade only to restore the highest traditions and ethos of the board on sound fundamentals. One of them is that the president is the supreme leader and his powers cannot be diluted or usurped by any other authority. So, only the board president has the right to represent the country at the ICC and he alone can nominate an alternative director to attend the meetings when he is otherwise occupied.

Again, last year when it came to nominating an Indian for the ICC president, Mr Pawar insisted that I "deserve the position." And he qualified his statement with his indisputable logic. I protested again and reiterated that he was the right person to hold the office at such a critical juncture in ICC's history. Needless to mention his was the most popular choice. He is sure to transform international cricket the same way he has changed the face of Indian Cricket.

The betrayal

Then again, back in 1996 the representatives of all full members of the ICC including the president, the late Sir Clyde Walcott, requested me to accept the position as the next chief. I refused because I had already made a commitment to someone who I thought was an inseparable friend -- Dalmiya. That gesture was forgotten and my fight for restoring the board's good old traditions was dubbed as an offshoot of jealousy for missing out on becoming the ICC chief!

Team Pawar's achievements cannot be discussed in one consolidated piece. Its working and his own contribution can be the subject matter of a deep study for cricket historians; it cannot be a peripheral observance.

In the next part, I would like to relate how Team Pawar addressed some vital issues that changed the face of Indian cricket. Watch this space in the coming days for more on that. The third part will be devoted to the vision and plans of Manohar and his dream team.

Isn't this article reason enough for the richest cricketing body in the world to have a half decent PR cell?

Oh my!!

Krejza, 25, has yet to play a Test, but that will change come the series opener against India in Bangalore next week and already the forthright off-spinner has attempted to plant a seed of doubt in an imposing Indian line-up which has dined on spin as much as the Hyderabad locals have their famed lamb biryani dish.

In Krejza's case, his "mystery" delivery is what has been coined as a "carrom ball" - a delivery held between the thumb and forefinger and squeezed out which spins slightly away from the right-hander.

I think the bigger mystery is Krejza being Australia's premier spinner!

The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman had no idea how to combat Mendis's variations, and Krejza hopes to repeat the tonic: "It's my secret weapon," he said yesterday. "I've been working on that ball for quite a while."

Maybe he should have stuck to that!

N U M B 3 R S

41/1 11.6 overs RR 3.5
49/2 14.6 overs RR 3.2
59/3 19.3 overs RR 3.02
120/4 34.2 overs RR 3.49
266/5 64.6 overs RR 4.09
328/6 80.1 overs RR 4.09

371/6 89 overs RR 4.16

251 runs for the loss of 2 wickets in the period between overs 34.2 and 89 ( 54.4 overs) RR 4.61 - against the first string Australian attack. And this, after losing 3 former test players and one current test selection for 120 runs.

The more I think about what a 21 year old and a 19 year old, part of the "easy-money, wont-do-the-hard-grind" brigade, have achieved, purely in terms of numbers, the more the mind boggles.

Blame the BCCI!!!

The 33-year-old Bangladeshi wicketkeeper and former skipper Khaled Mashud who announced his retirement early this week has accused two former selectors (Farrukh Ahmed and Atharali Khan) having asked commission from his sponsorship deal with Reebok.

"The selectors tried to act as agents. I had brought it to the notice of the board at that time. I felt it was unethical for a selector to accept commission from the players," Mashud said from Dhaka on Wednesday.

"It might have compelled him to favour a certain player. Maybe this was one of the reasons for me to incur the wrath of selectors," he added. "This was immediately after the last World Cup," he added.

Since it was the BCCI that was responsible for 13 BD players switching over to the ICL ( and not mismanagement within the BCB or the treatment of players by selectors), I am sure a way can be found to blame the bribery allegations on the BCCI !!

A memo to the BP XI

1. Bat first
2. Bat big
3. Bat long
4. Dont worry about the Krejza boy. If you bat long enough and he ends up with 5/250, it is unlikely his confidence will get a boost.
5. Batting big and batting long will keep the Aussie bowlers on the ground for the duration of the innings.. With back to back tests to follow, it is in our interests to precipitate a break down.And being on the field for long periods is not exactly going to boost morale.
6. DO NOT DECLARE - under any condition. Pile on the runs, they are an international bowling attack and they should be able to bowl you out.
7. When the Australians bat,slow down the game if there is any semblance of advantage for the opposition.Remember that there are no fines to pay if your over rate is 5 overs an hour.
8. Remember that timed out is a mode of dismissal.. Any Aussie not show up within 3 minutes of the fall of a wicket, appeal.
9. Wides don't matter - Bowl 3 feet wide of the off stump to Matthew Hayden.
10. Remember, THEY ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS. Treat them accordingly.

Thank you Sharda

Sharda Ugra on the RCA controversy

And I am particularly heartened to know that she feels the same way about the new President of the BCCI as I do.