Hurrah!!!

India A agree to tour Kenya

Finally!!!! The A tour concept has been revived.

Read this and weep

Summers in England, and a life away from the spotlight

So, Mr Colonel, you of the "There is no exceptional talent in this country" fame, chairperson of the Mumbai Selection Committee, Chairperson of the India Selectors, Vice President of the MCA, Director Elf Academy - what are you going to do?

The swinging ball

and why it wont impact India as much as has been written.

I watched all of yesterday's play between England and the West Indies and saw the Windies climb back from 229/9 to 287/10 on the back of Shivnarine Chanderpaul's century.

And I watched the ball swing, in and out. And here is the thing - if you dont get it right, you are cannon fodder.

Pitch the ball short and the ball will sit up to be hit. Pitch it up a bit too much and thats a half volley waiting to be driven.

If the ball swings too much away from the batsman and you are offering him width. Too much into the batter and there is every possibility of drifting onto the pads.

And thats the last thing you want to do as a bowler when facing India's batsmen.

Now, in the swing stakes, we have Ranadeb Bose, Zaheer Khan, S. Sreesanth and R.P. Singh.

Given the performance of the English batsmen against the West Indies, I am optimistic that swing will be a non factor in deciding the series.

India's U-19 probables

The probables: Rohan Banerjee, Harshad Khadiwala, Abhinav Mukund, T. Kohli, Manish Pandey, N. Einstein, Ankit Tiwari, Saurav Tiwari, Arpit Vasavada, Dhaval Kulkarni, Amanpreet Singh, Srikant Munde, Pradeep Sanghwan, P. Das, Mohd. Arif, Bharat Reddy, Tejasvi Yadav, Srivats Goswami, Rubin Dalwadi, Ravikant Saini, G.V.S. Prasad, K.P. Appanna, Iqbal Abdullah, Swapnil Singh and Mohd. Khalid. Stand-byes: Sunil Raju, Sarthak Mundva, Suffian Shaikh, Nitin Saini and Manish Sharma.

Age is a number

Whats the fuss about Chandu Borde's age? Why is there no fuss about his designation? Whats the fuss about his designation? Why is there no fuss over what the designation entails?

Historically, managers of the Indian team have been tasked with the administrative aspect of touring a country and liaisoning with the Host Board and Media.

Chandu Borde is the manager.

Whats the fuss?

The crux of the Matter

Lara insists that the problems with West Indies cricket ran deep. "It's that we don't have a good infrastructure for young guys to develop. West Indies have a great Under-15 side. I know a 16-year-old guy in Trinidad who's awesome but I worry for him because of the facilities. A mediocre Australian cricketer at 17 or 18 will be slapping everyone all over the world five years later. If you don't have facilities and you don't have employment then you have a negative atmosphere

And that in short, is the crux of the matter.

We often lament on the quality of our sides that take to the field. A lot of debate has been generated/is about to be generated over the squad selected. A lot of ink will be wasted on the identity of the coach.

At the end of three Tests, you might just find that India have carried a couple of passengers, but this is due as much to the fact that the cupboard in domestic cricket is a bit bare at the moment,

is another common refrain.

Fair enough.

So what is being done about it?

Why is it that "A mediocre Australian cricketer at 17 or 18 will be slapping everyone all over the world five years later" ?

Why do our World Champions in the age group level falter on the bigger stage that is International cricket?

What are we going to do about it?

And isn't the answer to that question far more important than the identity of the coach and the team selection to whatever country we are playing against at the moment?

PS:-

"The problem with Munaf," says a top Indian player, "is his background. He comes from the kind of place that most of us would never have imagined, let alone been to. It has been a tremendous journey for him.

He just needs to be handled differently and needs to be understood. We all know of what happened in South Africa but the thing with Munaf is, he actually believed he was fine, that he could play. There is no malice about him, and he does not hide things on purpose. All he wants to do is play and sometimes, his body does not respond with the same enthusiasm."

What will Paras Mhambrey and Kiran More and Makarand Waingankar do?

Homer for coach

With absolutely no reluctance at all, without concern for friends and family, Homer is gleefully putting his hat into the ring for position of Coach - Team BCCI.

Here are his qualifications -

1. Resident of the USA - Hello "We need a foreign coach" lobby

2. Indian passport holder - Hello " Only an Indian can do the job of coach"lobby

3. No International cricketing background - A bow in the direction of John Buchanan. In fact, unless you consider rubber ball under arm with "one bounce outs" and "six and out" and "full toss on the wall is out" as the real deal, he has no cricketing experience at all.

4. Willing to work with players - Not only willing to work with players, willing to do the players work. Homer is a guy who had famously offered to be the lift man at Sportsfield. He will be more than willing to carry the players kit bags (coffins), run their laps for them, keep tossing balls at them during nets all day and then runs their laps for them, substitute for them during catch practice and the run their laps for them, make tea and biscuit mandatory before and after every net and then run laps - you get the drift..

5. Manage players - Like every fan worth his two paisa, Homer will go above and beyond the call of duty and pander to player egos. Homer does fawning adulation better than most.

6. Blogger and so experience in handling media matters - Newspaper wallah's/ TV wallah's khush

7. Resident of Mumbai -Namaskaar Ravi dada Shastri, Diliprao Vengsarkar, Param Pujya Shri Sunilraoji Gavaskar, Mananiya Shri Sharadchandraji Raoji Pawarji.

8. Refers to self in the third person - Shades of Michael Vaughan.. And we know what Vaughan did to those vagabonds from Down Under because they lacked manners.

9. Willing to work with coaching staff - Will play catch with Robin Singh ( since there will be no one else to who will be willing to).. Will work long with Venky Prasad to learn the nuances of bowling juicy half volleys and juicier full tosses at the nets.

10. Work with the BCCI - $20,000 a month is $20,000 too many for a role any lay person on the streets of India is willing to do.Especially when lodging and boarding come free with the job. He will not complain of crowded itineraries- who does not like to fly business class for free and bump up their frequent flier miles? And who in their right minds will say no to staying in luxurious hotels with stocked liquor cabinets?

11. Brilliant with Power Point - who does not like jazzy presentations with lots of buzz words thrown in?
--
Homer will do a stellar job of coaching the team. In fact, he will let the team coach him. And I have already started stocking up on the sledges we will use against the Poms.

Doni, Rahul, VVS, repeat after me - "Kev Pieterson has no taste - in women".

PS:- Sportsfield is a building in Mumbai that houses the whoz who of Mumbai cricket.

Darren Ganga

The West Indies had been heavily criticised for lacking pride and discipline earlier in this match, but that has not been the case over the past two days. Starting with Darren Sammy's seven wickets on Saturday, they have confounded most people's expectations by knuckling down to the point where they have an outside chance of levelling the series.

Derek Pringle 11/06/2007

West Indies are mercurial as a side can be, bouncing merrily this past month between total incompetence and steadfast obduracy.

We saw the best of it at Lord's in the drawn first Test and we have seen it in the second innings here, led brilliantly by the diligent, vigilant, unflappable Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who after four and a quarter hours will resume on 81, his third successive half-century of the series, and abetted by Devon Smith (42), Runako Morton (54) and Dwayne Bravo (49). On this occasion the tourists' batsmen have shunned the flash flippancy that has characterised too much of their cricket and taken responsibility instead.

Mike Selvey at Old Trafford
Monday June 11, 2007

Yesterday's cricket contained two collectors' items, firstly involving Steve Harmison bowling straight, and secondly a series of West Indians at least declining to use their bats as though they were auditioning for the conductor's job at the Last Night Of The Proms.

Martin Johnson 11/06/2007

How West Indies missed him during that flaccid surrender at Headingley. He had batted for four-and-a-half hours to set up the draw at Lord's, and he made another sheet-anchor half-century in the first innings here - an innings that only ended because of the wickets tumbling all around him. The spark for West Indies' fightback may have been provided by Darren Sammy's seven-for on Saturday, but Chanderpaul is the slow-burning wick that has kept that flame alight ever since.

It wasn't a solo effort by any means, although who else could have inspired Runako Morton's monument of self-denial in the afternoon session. Morton's natural game was best demonstrated by the furious swish he took after being given out lbw for 54 - it was the shot he had been gagging to play all innings, but had somehow found the willpower to resist. Instead he had been leaving the ball expertly against the quicks and spinners alike - and replays of his dismissal suggest his judgment didn't entirely desert him.

Andrew Miller at Old Trafford June 10, 2007

The underlying theme of all the reportage of the fourth day's play of the Third Test between England and the West Indies has been the levels of discipline shown by the Windies in the Test in general and the fourth day in particular.

Ganga's leadership has been about instilling discipline and nurturing a good work ethic. Sarwan considers himself a gambler who is willing to take risks.

.....

Ganga, at 28, brings a decidedly more mature approach than Sarwan, who will turn 27 in June. Not that age is the decider, but their temperaments and experiences have been starkly different. Ganga has been bumped in and out of the West Indies team, sometimes inexplicably, but he has been stoic and resilient and has always tried to work out his problems, though it has affected his confidence.

Vaneisa Baksh April 29, 2007

Maybe the fourth day was a one off, maybe it is too early in his captaincy for Ganga to leave his imprint on the team and for us to sit in judgement, maybe I am clutching at straws - but I think that Darren Ganga could be the best thing to happen to West Indies cricket in a very long time.

War of the Roses

The reception Vaughan receives this morning at Old Trafford is sure to be somewhat different. Yorkshiremen, even those born in the suburbs of Manchester, have rarely been afforded a warm welcome in these parts and Vaughan's recent criticism of Andrew Flintoff, Lancashire's favourite son, is certain to cause a reaction. Frank Lampard is unlikely to be the only England player in the past week to be booed in his home city.

Angus Fraser: Vaughan set for battle to silence boos

Although he plays for Yorkshire, Vaughan is a Lancastrian by birth, born just a few miles away from Old Trafford in Eccles. The locals here tend to be forgiving of their own, especially when Vaughan's last appearance here saw him score an Ashes century. But some supporters are predicting a mixed reaction.

Derek Pringle: Vaughan's clumsy denial does not add up

Olive branches are not easy to come by in Manchester but Michael Vaughan will be under pressure to gather as many as he can this morning after his extraordinary broadside against Andrew Flintoff threatened to destroy the England team's recovery after their disastrous winter.

Jon Culley: Moores upset as Vaughan rocks England's boat

Vaughan's comments drew stinging criticism from Flintoff's county, with Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes outraged by what he saw as a breach of the dressing-room code. CuBlogger: My two cents... - Create Postmbes called an impromptu press conference yesterday, describing Vaughan's comments as a "kick in the teeth" for Flintoff. "I think it is completely out of order," he said. "I think it's despicable, and I think it stinks. We are talking about a guy who has given blood for England these past three or four years. Fred was the talisman in the Ashes series of 2005. You could almost say that he was responsible for 11 people getting gongs. Michael Vaughan was among them."

Simon Briggs: Vaughan tries to heal rift with Flintoff

We all know Michael Vaughan to be ruthless, but to kick one of his own when they are down, as he has most assuredly done to Andrew Flintoff, takes Machiavellian into the realms of a personal grudge

Derek Pringle: Vaughan cheap shot arose from Ashes snub

Vaughan and Flintoff met for lunch in Manchester yesterday, where Vaughan was expected to assure him that he had not blamed him for World Cup defeat. "I hope everyone realises that it has been blown up, [and that we] are great mates," he said. "I am looking forward to getting me and Freddie back in the team."

Flintoff was said to be shaken by Vaughan's assessment that his behaviour had a negative effect on morale.

David Hopps: 'Misquoted' Vaughan is contradicted by evidence

I hope this simmers in the background till India reaches Old Blighty, when Andrew Flintoff will be ready to play Test Cricket under Michael Vaughan's captaincy. At Lords. Against India.

Such fun.

People have been questioning our team spirit since the interview with Michael Vaughan appeared in these pages, but it's important to stress two things. The first is that he and Andrew Flintoff are good friends. The second is that the spirit right now is really bubbly. We've got a new coach, we've just beaten West Indies by a record margin and the fast bowlers are excited about bowling on a bouncy Old Trafford pitch. I know you'd expect me to say it, but the truth is that the England dressing-room is a great place to be.

Ian Bell

Yup.. Till the first ball of the Third Test versus the West Indies is bowled.

Indiscipline

How does a team go from 274/4 in 41.2 overs to 307/8 in 48.1?

33 runs scored in 6.5 overs at a run rate of 4.82. For the loss of 4 wickets.

What plausible explanation can there be for a team to fritter away the advantage gained by scoring a ton of runs for the loss of very few wickets?

What is the thought process of the players in the middle as they set about to squander the advantage gained?

Why is it that we lose sight of the art of constructing an innings and sustaining momentum during the slog overs?

Why is it that when we have the opposition under the cosh, we hand them a get out of jail card?

Today...

Get rid of leg-byes. That will add to real cricketing entertainment. At the moment, everything is loaded in favour of batsmen who are physically and legally protected. Bowlers are the ones who suffer.

If the game has to survive, the ICC will have to have 40 per cent of rules favouring the bowlers. No fast bowler will be on the scene by 2009 if the present trend continues.

Makarand Waingankar

The Board of Control for Cricket in India is planning to alienate former cricketers who have aligned themselves with Zee Group’s parallel cricket circuit. Former Indian captain Kapil Dev, who along with Kiran More happens to be on board Zee’s Indian Cricket League, might be sacked as the chairman of BCCI’s National Cricket Academy at Bangalore.

K Shriniwas Rao

Former Pakistan fast bowler Wasim Akram has taken up the task of bringing Indian pacer Irfan Pathan’s career back on track after an SOS call from close friend Ravi Shastri.

Shahid Hashmi

"I'm not an arrogant guy - everyone knows that. People are just trying to make me out as . . ." He shrugs. "Sometimes there's a bit of . . . not jealousy . . . but when you do well you have to understand that the better you do the more hated you are. I understand that.

The Michael Vaughan interview

So this Indian team needs more of consultants or specialist coaches, who can work in tandem with senior pros in the team, to fine-tune the juniors to face the battles ahead. These consultants, designed to utilise their expertise only in specific areas, and nothing more, can be the real motivators. Already, India have a bowling and a fielding coach. Adding just a batting coach, rather than a general purpose coach, should help the team fare better.

Atul Sondhi

Last winter's Ashes series provided a £133m boost for the Australian economy and led to the creation of 793 jobs.

Coach II

Our new coach and our Captain will have a stable working relationship for exactly one series, thanks to the shenanigans of the BCCI.

With no other player groomed for the job, it will behoove the BCCI to appoint Rahul Dravid captain through the end of this cricketing season.

Having stability at the top will give the new coach some leeway and latitude to define the ground rules and implement his vision for the team.

It will also afford him the luxury of evaluating the team over a period of 15 odd tests and 30 odd ODIs without having to worry about establishing a working relationship with the new flavor of the season ( read captain) at the end of every series.

It will also give Indian cricket an opportunity to start grooming a worthy successor to Dravid, first in the ODI arena and later, in Test Cricket.

And I do hope that the new coach is not hired on a yearly contract basis - if he has to do the job, let him be evaluated over a period of 4 years rather than on a per series basis.

An article..

Asked if he's getting a sense of the kind of captain he'd like to be, Dravid says it will take time. "But," he adds without cue, "I do have a sense of the kind of team I'd like to have." Which is?

"Which is, obviously, tough, competitive - a team that is looking to improve and have some fun along the way. Not taking things too seriously, as at the end of the day it is sport and we must have a lot of fun playing it and must play it hard."

revisited.

Where is Laxmipathy Balaji?

Coach

"The players have never worked with Whatmore, how can they recommend his name," a miffed Kapil told news channel Aaj Tak.

a super sentiment from India' greatest all rounder. A sentiment that can be extended to all of the contenders for the post of India's next coach.

Unless Paras Mhambrey ( part of the England tour 1996 that included RD, SG, SRT and AK) is a part of the coaching discussion.

So the question is, what are the criteria for eligibility for the post of India Coach?
--
A 17 hour journey by coach class finds me in sunny Mumbai on the day India (s)elects its next coach.

And amongst the first news stories that I come across during the mandatory stay-up-the-day-to-beat-jet-lag is this.

Obviously the good gents at the BCCI believe , very strongly, that a five day bowling camp takes precedence over training at the Center of Excellence at Brisbane. Which, of course is dwarfed by the Asia-Afro Cup.. Nothing takes precedence over the Asia-Afro/Afro-Asia Cup.

How else does one explain the absence of Harbhajan Singh ( a bowler who, more than most, needs monitoring and mentoring) missing from the "camp".

One of the many issues the new coach will have to deal with.

Good luck Coach!
--

PS:- Was it just me or did any one else see this article bylined Kanishkaa Balachandran yesterday?