India take a 2-1 series in ODI series vs SL

India went 2-1 up in the ongoing ODI series in SL vs SL. And today's win was another example of the depth in the batting team has despite:

• Absence of Tendulkar and Yuvraj from the team.
• Presence of Rohit Sharma in the team.

There were a few milestones set in this victory like:

• Gambhir scored his 11th ODI ton, 6th against SL.
• Pathan and Raina scored 3rd 50 partnership in 7 innings together.
• Gambhir and Raina have already scored 1900 runs in 29 innings together.
• Raina has scored now 3 50s in last 5 completed innings.
• 288/5 was highest score chased down in SL vs SL.

And Tony Greig was made shut his mouth by Suresh Raina who was very vocal earlier on his inability to play short balls. True there were some attempts by Mathews and Malinga to bounce him out, but this is subcontinental pitch, Raina had enough time in his hand to duck it out or play a pull. 

Gautam Gambhir was outstanding today in his 100, but Sehwag was reckless, Kohli and Dhoni were scratchy.  Pathan kept a cool mind to support Raina chase down the tough target and that should settle the debate for the # 7 spot for short term, if not for long term.  Once Yuvraj Singh makes a come back, the debate can be reopened who goes out to accomodate the player of the World Cup. 

Irfan Pathan was good in bowling too taking one quick wicket to reduce Lanka to 3//20 with Zak taking 2 from the other end.  Bad news for Jadeja of course and his half brother -- IPL winner Yusuf Pathan.

But it was sinful to let the Lankans race to 286 from 3/20. The bowling attack has been a worry and the likes of Ashwin and Rahul Sharma havent been no better than Harbhajan Singh when it comes to take wickets.  Dinda gives 100% in every game, but his 100% is not good enough to get him wickets or stake a claim for the # 3 seamer in the team.

Only good he did today was to bounce out Sangakaara who would now get 4-6 week to enjoy travel, food and hotels (read Straight Point's tweet).  Umesh Yadav, if he gets more opportunities, I am sure he would develop into a better ODI bowler and would have more variations. He has that quality which very less Indian fast bowlers have had in present and in past -- genuine pace.

And scoreline of 5, 0, 0 is good enough to dump the non-performing Nohit (Rohit) Sharma out of the playing XI. If this is not good enough, then the fans are not sure what more does he needs to do to be out of the team and give a chance to Manoj Tiwary or Ajinkya Rahane. 

Ever since Sharma made his debut in European tour of 2007 vs SA in Ireland, he has been hailed a guy with lot of promise, flair and ability. But leaving out the Zimbabwe tour of 2010 when he hit 2 100s, 2008 CB series when he played a match winning 66* vs Australia with Tendulkar in company at other end and the WI series of 2011 (home and away), he hasnt showed any glimpse of that ability and flair. He does not have the attitude or temperament to succeed at the highest level. The captain and selectors should now KNOW this. 

He is also been hailed as best of the young lot in terms of quality and pleasure to eyes when he plays those shots. But if you take a look at the other players of his age group then he is left lot behind.  Ever since he has made debut in 2007, he has played 83 odd ODIs with very few substantial innings.  Virat Kohli debuted a little less than year from Sharma and he has been regular in the team only from 2010 Australia ODI series, but from there on, he has been an exceptional ODI batsman already scoring 3000+ ODI runs, 12 hundreds and one Test 100 in Australia vs Australia. He should be in line to come at # 3 in the Test match vs New Zealand starting in less than a month in Hyderabad. 

Ajinkya Rahane and Manoj Tiwary have impressed the fans and experts in whatever limited opportunities they have got at highest level. Rahane has had a wonderful IPL and more than that he has got a lot of time to spend with legendary Rahul Dravid in RR dressing room this IPL and that would definetely help him in the long run. He should be the one who should replacing Dravid in test team and probably come at # 5 or 6 with Laxman moving to # 3 slot (if selected).

There are a few weak points India has to care of before the team can come back on track and find its consistent winning run which led to the world cup victory.  #4 batting spot in ODIs and bowling attack composition are few of those.  Sooner they are addressed, better is for India. 

And a decision on the coach has to be made soon who is quickly nullifying the good work done by Gary Kirsten in 3.5 years.

England's #1 ranking in danger

The top ranked Test team and supposedly the only custodian of Test cricket in the world -- England have lost comprehensively to South Africans in their own backyard by innings and 12 runs. While the margin might look pretty ordinary on the outset, but if the scorecard is to be looked upon, English team should drown themselves in ocean of shame and despair after all the bloating and trumpeting done by the patronizing media. The so called best bowling attack in the world could not take more than 2 wickets of the opposition and in turn lost 20 wickets soon. 

The so called top class bowlers like Swann, Anderson and Broad went for runs and few of them even returned wicketless. All this for the top ranked test nation. We were continously feeded stuff by English journalists how good their Test team is and how good English cricket is.  Perhaps they fail to understand that they have been able to win only 1 game out of last 6 they have played against top class test teams (exclude West Indies).

And their next trip is to India where the fans and Indian players will not want to let them go back with any result less than a 4-0 whitewash!!

Resumption of Cricket ties between India - Pak

India are set to play a bilateral series with Pakistan after 5 years and the move to resume the bilateral ties is a welcome one. In today's era of cricket when there is no one dominating team like Australia of 2000s and West Indies of past, there are 4 or 5 very good teams with little separating the other one, it makes sense to play against every other opposition as much as possible to avoid a situation in the global tournament where you dont know what to expect from the other team.

The ties were frozen after the  2008 episode and though India continued to play the neigbhouring country in ICC tournaments, the participation in IPL and bilateral tournaments was frozen. And the resumption of the bilateral ties will give a chance to the next generation of India's players to know what it is playing against that team and what pressure really is.  Its time the politics is separated from cricket when it comes to the games between this 2 countries. The political landscape between this 2 countries is hardly going to change, no matter what measures are being employed by respective governments, the element of mistrust and communication gap shall always persist. So why let the game of cricket suffer.

There have been some political voices opposing the move and most of them have come from the state of Maharashtra, but they hardly make any sense or hold any relevance in the interest of the game.  Though there are no rheoterical statements from the right wing parties to dig the pitch or not let the players from that team step in Mumbai, there have been some opposition from cricketing players and they have been political. Kirti Azad is a well known BJP MP and his opposition is more of a political ritual, the opposition from Sunny Gavaskar is amusing. It hardly makes any sense to oppose the resumption of the cricketing relations between this 2 countries. Its an unsaid truth that the 2 countries shall never be friendly with each other. The relations shall never be "normal" or "warm" or "friendly" as long as the political setup in that country doesnt give up its obsession with anti India tirade. Having said that the players from both the countries shall benefit by playing with each other. Their game is going to improve and the team that learns more shall benefit in the longer run in international cricket.

Both teams in limited formats are young and very soon India shall have a young team in Test matches too and if this teams play test series once every 2-3 years then the game shall benefit. We hardly see any hard fought rivalries this days after the decline of Australia as a dominating team and India's batting prowess in last 2 overseas tours.  So if India and Pakistan are able to resume their rivalries leaving out the political drama out of the game, then only the world of cricket shall benefit and any such move should always be welcome by the fraternity that wants the game of cricket to evolve and get better at all times in the present and in the future.

Back to the blog

Back to back 4-0 defeats in Tests were deflating, add the CB series insult and pain of losing to Bangladesh in the inconsequential Asia Cup were good enough reasons to keep away from blogging on cricket. And IPL, it stopped being serious cricket ever since Srini's croonies found IPL as platform to claw into Indian team and doom the fortunes. Add the agony of seeing Shahrukh Khan's team win this IPL (no offence to Gautam Gambhir, he is one of my fav batsman). So this were good reasons to stay away from blog. 

Periodically I kept checking if Google deleted my blog, luckily it did not.  So this is the end of the hibernation for me and I can assume that I am back on the blogging scenario. Though old fashioned, but the single reason of following Indian fortunes in blues and whites keep me going. 

A lot has changed in the cricketing world since the last post. Australia have lost to England in ODIs and that has  given a false booty to obnoxious English media to believe that their team is really going places. Well, if you ask me, they are a bullshit ODI team who wins only in their backyard riding on the caveat of seaming and swinging conditions that aid their bowlers. The same set of bowlers struggle abroad and the same set of batsmen like Bopara, Bell and of course Trott struggle to make runs abroad. 

Pakistan lost a test series in 2 years and also the ODI series to SL. SL won their first test series after Murali retired. Sangakarra made 100s and went past Don Bradman.  SA is in England and they are making noises about their chances in England about winning and gaining the # 1 ranking in Tests.  Pakistan are now no 4 and sadly that is at India's expense. 

Back in India, the ODI team is in Sri Lanka to start the new fresh season which is going to be a vendetta season. England and Australia tour India for 4 tests each and nothing short of 4-0 win would be acceptable. Also the Kiwis tour India in August and September and then the World T20 is in place. 

The ODI team has been declared. Tendulkar, as he has been doing, has "rested" during this series in SL. Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan are out of the team. Good thing. Vinay Kumar is injured and Irfan Pathan is back in the team. Good thing again. Selectors have chosen a full strength ODI team almost (barring Yuvraj Singh who should return to the ODI and T20 fold once he has full fitness and GOD willing that should be very soon). So India should focus to win this ODI series 4-1 at least and get a good start to the season which is going to be very critical from batting point of view.