Tour de UK - signed off with a victory

I'm typing this from Dubai airport on my way back to Singapore from London. I need to kill 7 hours of transit time and there is no better way than a blog to share my experience in UK.

Exactly two weeks back i landed in heathrow at 2.30 pm eagerly waiting for my sister to pick me up soon so that i reach Leicester in time for Super 8 match between India and WI. As i reach home, my brother-in-law was waiting with Glenmorangie scotch to enjoy the match. Four hours later, Defending champions were thrashed by one man - Dwayne Bravo, arguably the most energetic cricketer in the world.

Two days later, me and my brother-in-law assembled in his friend Hakkim's house to enjoy the match in big screen (Courtesy: Projector). Remember, India were in a similar position in the T20 World cup 2 years back needing to win both against England and SA to qualify for semi-finals. All were going gaga over Yuvi's heriocs of Six 6s off Broad & hoping for a repeat, happily munching chips & puffs but little would we know Jadeja would walk in ahead of Yuvi? Men in Blue's campaign ended there and all my plans of getting big banners and carrying catchy logos to Trent Bridge against SA were gone.

June 16th - on my brother's birthday we (me, brother-in-law and Hakkim) headed to Trent Bridge. This is the first time i'm watching a International match live from ground. Trust me, it was an awesome experience and i enjoyed it fully though we lost again. Weather in britain is perfect for such outings. As a perk, we were shown on camera thrice in Sky Sports. First time, we were busy eating bonda's which my sister prepared. Second while waving 4 board for Mahela Jayawardene's boundary (we went for a double header - SL Vs NZL & IND Vs SA). And third time during India's match just before Smith & Gibbs taking the field. But over all T20 2009 was a bitter outing for India.

My brother blamed me for India's disastrous campaign. After i landed in UK, India lost 3 out of 3. I was desperately waiting for Caribbean tour to start to prove my brother wrong. And yeah its Yuvi again who saved me with his scintillating ton. My tour de UK thus signed off with a victory.

Much much more than cricket, i loved my stay in my sister's house. Charming kids, caring bava & my lovely sister. It was a dream come true and without any doubt my best overseas trip. I'm hoping for a reciprocal tour from them to Singapore in October when my parents are joining me. If that happens, none in this world would be happier than me.

Worthy Champions

As Afridi scampered the winning run in Lords, I just imagine the roar which must have hit the crowds watching the match in Pakistan, a frenzy which engulfed the whole of India when Sreesanth latched onto the tame shot by Misba at the Bull Ring two years ago. What a moment it would have been for the people of pakistan who are having a tough ride for the past two years. It is extremely sad to see the common man getting entangled in the power struggle between Taliban and the overnment.

One of the worst things to happen is to live as a refugee in one's own country and that has happened to the people of the NWFP. Let's hope that things get back to normal,though the situation is worse, at the earliest because anything is possible in this world, Pakistani cricket team just showed that to all of us.

For people like me who believe the game is becoming more methodical, batsman friendly and slowly losing flair, this win has come as a respite. It was worthy to see that the finals was contested by 2 teams which were the best bowling sides and also having the most audacious talents. I can never forgot the Diliscoop nor Afridi's Top spinner which claimed Gibbs in the semi finals.
I believe this tournament has done a lot of good for the world of cricket. We have seen Pakistan and West Indies asserting their positions after some years of turmoil.

The ills which have been affecting the Pakistan cricket has been numerous, indiscpline of the players, drug issues, death of a coach, a messy cricket board, constantly changing selectors, a captain who before the tournament didn't seemt to have the backing of the entire team, the list go on. Despite these, the team suddenly came alive and went on to become the champions is something amazing, something which I believe is the essence of sport. These guys played a cricket which was entertaining throughout, AKmal, Afiridi, Younis, Shoaib, Gul, Ajmal, Razzaq lot of entertaining performers.

I don't know why but I didn't like the Sri Lankan cricket this time much except the batting of Dilshan. To me they were lacking the flair in the game and the body language was not entertaining. Tough luck to them.

Only thing which I believe that has not changed in the tournament was South Africa's exit.

Lets hope this win for Pakistan brings their glorious days back.

Same result, different screenplay for South Africa

One more chapter added to the history of The Proteas, a history which they are attempting to rewrite at every big tournament on the world stage. However hard they try, they are not able to erase the blemish of chokers tag they carry, a small exception being the 1998 Champions trophy win at Dhaka.

If it was the rain gods at Sydney in 1992, Shane Warne & Donald at Edgbaston in 1999, it was Afridi and Gul today at Trent Bridge, the result the same in all instances, only the screen play differing. Any person who saw the match or the highlights today cannot question Pakistan's victory today, for a T2o match, I would say it was absolutley clinical victory.

The way Kamran Akmal started was an indication of the things about to come on the day. Akmal's cameo was the best knock of the day, his straight drive of Steyn which landed up above the sight screen still afresh in my memory. After Akmal went over Afridi took over, certainly not fluently. He was trying to pull Kallis for consecutive balls but managed to whip the air alone. The next ball was what can be termed as one of the important points of the match. Afridi is a guy who goes all out, just like Shewag, he never cares what happened the previous ball, Kallis boosted by the 2 previous balls dug in another short one which pulled over mid wicket for a boundary, Afridi's first.

That over showed the shades of the recklessness shown by Donald in the final over of the 1999 world cup semifinal, Donald failed to see Klusner's call for the run and was sticking to the runners end, which spelled doom for South Africa. Here too, after Afridi had pulled him for a boundary, Kallis bound by recklessness or ego dug in two more short balls dispatched for a 2 and a boundary. From there was no stopping Afridi, until he himself decided that today's batting is enough and scooped a catch. Had Kallis been more resourceful, he would have frustrated Afridi and we all know that a frustrated Afridi is error prone.

Younis and Shoaib guided Pakistan to 149 after Afridi's dismissal, 20 runs short compared to their momentum during the middle of innings, which was more than enough for them.

A target of 149 would not have been a formidable one for this South African line up had they got an explosive start. However they were never allowed to bat freely from the start by Pakistani bowlers. Razzaq made sure that South Africa never slipped into top gear and he almost had Smith miscue to Gul, which Gul failed to hold on at mid-0ff. Smith didn't last long and was out to a frustrated shot the next over.

Then came Afridi into the attack with Gibbs & Kallis, the team's best players of spin batting, the contest was always going to be interesting.

1st Ball - Slightly over pitched and turning wide, driven through the covers for an exquisite typical lazy Gibbs cover drive.


2nd Ball - A typical leg spinner delivery, Gibbs committed too early and hence couldn't adjust to the ball which scurried in


3rd ball -Tapped to mid wicket for a single


4th ball - Bounce and late spin which left Kallis bamboozled.


5th ball - Single to square leg


6th ball - Outside the off stump and kicked in with bounce. Gibbs was expecting a ball like Kallis had, but this one came in and rattled the wood work. Gibbs was again at the receiving end of a beautiful ball, certainly not like this one, but good enough to catch him off the guard.

In the second over of his spell, Afridi bowled a clever delivery from the back of his hand which skidded instead of bouncing on the track. De Villers failed to spot that and tried to cut him which got an inside edge, because of the low bounce, which hit the stumps.

The spinners reined in the run rate by bowling intelligently. Umar Gul came on 13th over and bowled a spell which was mesmerizing. Ball after ball landed in the block hole offering nothing for the batsmen. The game was almost closed before it came to the last over.

One feeling which I got was at the fall of De Villers wicket, Boucher should have come in instead of Duminy. The reason is Afridi and Saeed Ajmal were bowling in Tandem, with Kallis at the other end there must be somebody who should be able to accelerate the score and also who is adept at playing spin. I bet Boucher on any day is a better player of spin than Duminy, that shuffle might have made the game more competitive.

I feel that during the crunch matches, South Africa try to be cautious and curb their aggressive instinct, perhaps they are curbing it too much. I hope to see Sri Lanka get to the finals, if they do it will be an interesting finale to this edition of T20 world cup. Sri Lanka and Pakistan are the best bowling sides in the tournament, it would be interesting to see them clash.

I would love to see Pakistan win the cup, they be raw but they are pleasing to watch.

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.

Game of uncertainty - Kick starts

Its been a year n half since the last post in this blog and now its time i kick start it again as World T20 kick started in grand style y'day.

As i'm typing this, Chris Gayle has murdered Bingo for 27 runs in an over at The Oval. Man, he is a real terror in this format of the game. Score card reads 71 for none in 5 overs chasing 170.

Back y'day how many gave chance for the dutch men? Is England complacent or over-rated? Yeah... Over-rated.. Most definitely. I still think English team without Freddie & KP is no better than a minnow. That said, a minnow beating another in a thriller.

And today kiwis were made to sweat by the scotish and boy Ryan Watson smashed Iain'o Brien for 18 in the first over. After setting a challenging target, they made a mess of it with their bowling & sloppy fielding. Fielding coach needs a kick on his back?

Its 11.47 pm in Singapore and i can't wait for the clock to tick 12.30 am. So, whats up in the stores for the Men in Blue? I enjoyed a video posted in cricinfo - No-Hopers to Show-stealers. its amazing to see how world cricket has changed in 2 years since then.

Two years down, the core group of that triumphant young brigade remains same, this time well oiled having the experience of IPL under their belt, they really fancy their chances of defending the crown on June 21st. Well, i'm a certainty at Trent Bridge for India Vs SA super 8 game having booked the tickets, i'm hunting the web for the final tickets at Lords. Hopefully i get it.

So who to watch out for today? For bangladesh - It has to be Shakib Al Hasan - Number 1 allrounder in the world (???) as per ICC ratings. He may not be a star as number stated but he is an impressive and impact player. For Men in Blue? Guess who? Raina - My bet.

Get set guys.. Jaya Ho !!!

P.S : Windies almost closed out on aussies score. Need 19 of 37 balls with gayle on 84*. Hope they dont collapse.

P.P.S : Gayle's gone for 88 now. Chanderpaul comes in and announces his nickname - "Tiger" (???)

P.P.P.S : I've learned this from FIP (Fake IPL Player). nah, i'm not him but a fan of him :)

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.

Team India (c) Benson (b) Bucknor

Symmo might call it as good-old classic test match, but sadly this classic will be remembered only for its controversies.

Ricky Ponting - a Boon or a Bane to World Cricket?

I remember Ponting commenting on Murali Karthik to walk off the field when he nicked one to keeper in a dead rubber few months ago when Aussies toured India, it is the same Ponting who stood to his ground after nicking the ball to Dhoni when he was on 13. He went on to make a 50.

It is the same Ponting who is appealing for a catch to dismiss Dhoni at silly mid off which television replay clears shows he turfed it. Shameless he went on arguing with media that he didnt turfed. He even spurred words at Dhoni for not walking off.

Is Ponting the 5th umpire? When did he bagged the umpire's cap? Raising his finger and dismissing Ganguly. I have no doubt in my mind that Ricky is the most arrogant cricketer i have ever seen. Is there a way to control his over dominance ? Yes, there is. For the best interest of the game, i agree to Peter Roebuck's comments by sacking Punter from captaincy.


Man of the Match - Mr. Bucknor & Mr. Benson

In my book, Man of the match should be awarded to the person who won the match for the team. So it should have gone to Bucknor & Benson than Symmo. Sadly, the team is World Champions Australia.

How can a team win when 11 players competing against 14 (including 3rd umpire)? How can a umpire trust on a player & skipper whether the player took the catch or not especially when both of those didn't walked off when they nicked the ball to first slip & keeper respectively. Isn't it funny to ask a player rather than asking square leg or television umpire?

When 8 decisions go against you, it means one team with 11 players is competing against a team of 19. It doesn't augurs well for 16th straight world record test wins for aussies. It may sit well in record books, but world knows about this victory for ever.

Harbhajan "Bhajji" Singh was made bunny to dig hide all these umpiring controversies by terming him 'racist'. Australians according to me have no rights to talk about sledging. They being the poor sledgers of the game have now became "cry-babies".

Amidst all these controversies surrounding this thriller test match, it will also be remembered for the innings played by "Sultans of Sydney" VVS & Little Master.

"Only one team was playing with the spirit of the game, that's all I can say," Kumble's words rings sound in all ears. Lets hope both teams playing with the spirit of the game going into Perth.