Sunil still Sunny at 60.

Sunil Gavaskar, one of the best cricketers to have lived in India, turned 60 today. If you ask me whether I have watched Sunny play, it is a plain no. I have never seen him play, hence the question arises how did I call him great.

One reason is his stats speak a lot. Though it is true that Stats don't convey a lot about the quality of cricket, I believe they are an important parameter to gauge an era which didn't have television coverage as these days.

There are two things which fascinates me about Gavaskar
1. The 774 runs (in 4 tests avg 154.80) he scored in his debut series at Caribbean in 1970 - 71
Though the Windies pace attack was at the foothills of ascent in the series, it cannot be treated with disdain as it had Boyce and Sobers in it. Any player scoring at such a frenetic pace in his first series is certainly special and Gavaskar illustrated it.

2. The next thing which comes to my mind is the 36* he scored in India's first World Cup ODI match. For an opener to carry the bat thru 60 overs and score just 36 is something which we cannot even dream now.
Even he wants to correct it if gets a time machine it seems.

Scoring 10,000 runs in Test cricket in an era which was not competitive as now must have required enormous amount of temperament, technique and concentration. And we need to agree that he scored them with elegance.

One thing beautiful about Gavaskar is that he never afraid to speak out against England and Australia dictating terms in the world of Cricket. Things have changed a lot these days, with India emerging a power because of the money it brings into the game, would be happy if he criticises that also.

And certainly he is one of my favorite commentators (Don't think Nadesh likes him much), he doesn't seem old enough to be 60 for me. Gavaskar is still Sunny at 60.

PS : Wrote this post on Sunny's birthday but forgot to publish it :(

India's armour exposed?

Imagine watching your favorite team, the reigning champions play against a team which they can beat 9 out of 10 times in the T20 format at Lords. Won't it be a treat to watch?

It was not a treat for Nadesh, who had flown all the way from Singapore. I know how furious Nadesh will be when India loses a match they ought to have won. Luckily his stay with his Sister and her kids must have been refreshing for him.

I was a bit disappointed(too much of cricket has reduced the enthusiasm) after watching the T20 match between India and England, a match which we lost by a meagre margin of 3 runs, a loss which I would term was rather tame.

Everybody was arguing that India lost the match and the previous one just because of their inability to play short pitched bowling. Though I would accept that India are not adept at playing the short pitched stuff, I can't accept that they lost because of the short pitched bowling. I would rather blame the loss against Dhoni, not for his captaincy but his inability to play quality bowling.

As we all know Shewag's injury had resulted in the reshuffling of our batting order, with Rohit moving to the top. But it exposed our fragility of our middle order which revolved around Yuvaraj. If Yuvaraj is gone, then we have practically no middle order, as we all know that Dhoni has been sorted out by almost all teams.

In order to rein in Dhoni you need not strain overself and bowl short pitched stuff or try yorkers (he can dispatch yorkers with disdain), just run in and bowl a neat disciplined off stump line at a bit short of length and see the results. You can see Dhoni slicing and cutting the air, hitting the ball 1 in 5 times. In this match though Dhoni's strike rate seemed pretty impressive at 150.00, (30 runs of 20 balls, 3 fours) you should not forget the fact it had 2 fours which were edged towards the 3rd man region.

These apart, I do agree that Dhoni is an innovative captain who can think out of the box. Though his move to promote Jadeja backfired, I believe we cannot fault him too much as it might have gone the other way also. Only thing which frustrated me was that, Jadeja should have realized that he is costing his side the game and must have started slogging earlier. We would have got some boundaries or he would have been out. His knock put pressure on Yuvi and Gambhir, both of them eventually getting out to improve the run rate.

I cannot understand why Dhoni promoted himself during the dead league games and devoid Raina of the much needed practice for a guy touring England for the first time. Going forward, Dhoni must be more thoughtful with the batting order, if not that would be the spell of his doom.

One more thing which irritated me was Bhaaji's 8 wides in the 18th and 20th overs. I believe that's one thing which cost us the match,

My Verdict - India needs to improve batting against short pitched stuff, but that alone was not the cause of our exit. Tactical errors and batting by Dhoni were important points.

Not a Gentleman's game anymore

The past few days have been really horrible. News channels, papers, internet and mail boxes are flooded with mails against Australian cricket team and Steve Bucknor.

Sydney test will certainly be remembered for long, not just because Australia scored their 16th successive record equaling win, but for providing an aftermath which will be a blot forever in the history of cricket.

Lets look into the issue of Harbhajan. Though there is no conclusive evidence that Bhaji has called Symonds a monkey, lets assume him that he had. Bhaji did not call Symonds as a monkey straight away, all of us know that Symonds had a big go at Harbhajan after which only bhaji spoke. So, if Harbhajan gets a ban, then Symonds should also get it for provoking him. If it had been truly a Gentleman's game, Pointing should not have reported this to the umpires itself. What happened was not Gentleman's behavior but Aussie spirit, or thats what Ponting and fellow Australians say.

I can't stop myself from laughing whenever I read the what Ponting and CA chief James Sutherland said. (Ponting said that " We played the game in the right spirit" and Sutherland "It has always been the Australian way to play the game of cricket hard but fair").

I don't believe Australia is such a bad country where no one knows the meaning of the words Spirit and Fair. A humble request to my Australian friends, please gift Ponting and Sutherland a dictionary on our behalf.

Australia are the World Champions and may play the game hard, but are the playing it in a fair way and in a right spirit?
Is sledging your opponents vociferously right spirit? Is claiming a catch when it has been grounded spirit? When it has been decided that players will give indicate whether they have taken a catch cleanly or not, Clarke should have acted in a proper way. That is what Kumble meant by saying "Only one team was playing in the spirit of the game".

At the same time, when Kumble has come out with such a strong statement, then he must make sure, in future whenever Team India takes on to the field, his boys should not appeal for a wicket unless otherwise they know for sure it is a wicket. In case even if one of them sees that the ball didn't hit the bat, he must inform his team mates when they are appealing. Can they do it? Lets wait and see.

The biggest disgrace in the happenings over the past few days had been the handling of Steve Bucknor. I agree Bucknor had a poor test, but he didn't have a vengance against India. Ponting was given out when he was not out, Sachin was given not out when he was out. BCCI should have bought this to the notice of the ICC after the series was over and ICC should have talked to WCB pointing out that Bucknor has aged and asked them to take a decision. Instead, everything was done so clumsily. BCCI should be blamed for riding the media wave with respect to Bucknor. We need to remember that it was of this same Bucknor that we won the test series in England.

Under all these confusion everybody seems to forgotten the failure of Yuvraj, dhoni and Jaffer. With the exception of Dhoni's first innings at SCG, the remaining 11 innings altogether played by these three was nervy and incompetent. We need to remember that these three were not even able to manage what Kumble has managed to score in the series and in the last innings. Australians have easily sorted out Yuvi and Jaffer. In case of Dhoni, you don't need a big plan to get him out in the longer version of game on wickets like this. With no foot movement and an obscure technique(which might be good on flat wickets) he will not be a force to reckon with in future, unless otherwise he reinvents himself, just like Dravid did a few years ago when everybody wrote him off. I don't even want to think of Dhoni captaining India in the longer version of the game in the next few years. Think Laxman might be suited for the job until we get a good one.

It is really sad that a very good test has finally turned out to be so sour.

Now the onus is on the Indian team to go out and remove themselves the tag of sore losers. Lets play hard cricket, but in a fair way and in the right spirit.

But a sincere request, please don't call Cricket a gentleman's game anymore.

Can Indians do it?

Nadesh and myself started this blog during the world cup. India's defeat lowered our morals and our laziness compounded it. At last I am breaking the shackles. With India touring Australia, we believe we will be writing consistently from now on.

With India touring Down under, I can't resist my temptation to see the intriguing battle between the Indians and the Aussies. Watching cricket being played in Australia is always a pleasure. The grounds will be big, each with its own aura and not to forget the nice commentary from Channel Nine (especially after watching the Pakistan series in our DD, this is a welcome change).

As everybody knows, it is going to be the last Australian tour for the glorious five of Indian Cricket (Sachin, Kumble, Dravid, Dada & Laxman). I didn't want to miss the action, that's why bought a dish tv today.

I want to watch Laxman pull Stuart Clark, Rahul Dravid leaning on his front foot to play a glorious cover drive of Breet Lee, Saching play one of the straightest straight drive of Mitchell Johnson, resurgent Dada coming down the track to loft Hogg over deep mid wicket, the scene of Anil Kumble galloping towards the pitch with one of the fiercest eyes, just like a vulture looking at its prey.

Oho, I can't wait.

But can we win the series?

Though we boast of one of the best batting line ups in the world, it is going to be quite tough. Our middle order might be robust but our 0pening is a concern. Though Wasim Jaffer was fluent against Pakistan, I doubt he will be finding it tough in Australia. The reason is Jaffer doesn't have a fluent game on off side, Flick and the jab on the leg side are the shots which Jaffer plays with ease. With bounce going to be in abundance in Australian pitches, it will be difficult for Jaffer to score. He has to settle quickly and play the waiting game which means the other opener has to attack. Can we pick Shewag? I believe we should not, Shewag was struggling against Mumbai in the Ranji trophy, so it will be a gamble to play him against the Aussie attack which seems to be lethal despite the absence of Warne and Pigeon. (Gambhir and Akash Chopra scored centuries in the same match). Dinesh Karthik had a poor patch against Pakistan, but his attitude and confidence showed in England might sneak him ahead of Shewag. Or will the go with Dravid as an opner? Any way the opening is going to be scratchy.

Its a known truth that whenever we get a good start our middle order will consolidate on it. But the Big four certainly will want to disprove it and will be batting with a determined resolve.

If a test match needs to be won, we need to bowl out the opposition twice. Taking 20 wickets against Aussies is not going to be the toughest task of all. You need to every ounce of your strength to do so and with an attack lacking a genuine swing bowler, it is going to be really difficult. Zaheer & RP Singh must come to their form of life to give India any chance of winning the series.

I will be happy If India wins the series, but the situation makes me believe its going to be a 1-1 drawn affair if our bowlers bowl their best. Or else it is going to be 1-0 or 2-0 for the Aussies.

No matter who is going to win, we can certainly see some good cricket. Buckle up to watch the series.