Sehwag and Gambhir are 5th most successful opening pair in Tests, very soon they will be 3rd.

Idea of moving down Sehwag to middle order is outright foolish and replacing Sehwag at the top with Rahane, who is a # 3 in domestic cricket for Mumbai, is even more foolish.

The opening pair of Gambhir and Sehwag have added 4028 runs together on top in Tests and they stand at 5th in the all time list of highest partnership runs. And by the end of year they have a very good chance to surpass SL pair of Attapattu and Jayasuriya (4469) and now defunct Strauss and Cook (4711). 

Statistically if you take a look at the topmost pairs then this Indian pair is quickest to reach 4000 runs (79 innings). 33 of 79 innings they have opened together have been 50+ runs (10 hundred and 23 fifty), again that's amongst the best. Their average is the best amongst top 5 pairs. 

More figures can be found at following cricinfo link:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283663.html

Its true they have not been able to replicate the form in last few tests overseas, but then the batting has suffered slump collectively.  

It is very essential that the pair is given ample amount of time to recover its mojo and be back amongst runs. And I am sure they will be back among runs and very soon you shall see the best of this pair. Its in ages that India has got a stable opening pair in Tests after years of frequent changes after Gavaskar and till Sehwag and Gambhir came together. 

Let Rahane be kept to put pressure on Suresh Raina for #6 slot instead.

Shelf Life of a England Test captain

Shelf life of an England Test Captain

Post South African Series loss under old captain -------- Losing South African Series under himself.

Graeme Smith is one helluva happy man after a hattrick of claiming 3 "leader of men"  of England team.  Nasir Hussein in 2003, Michael Vaughan in 2008 and now Andrew Strauss in 2012.

Whatever be the reason behind Strauss's retirement -- loss of form or series loss presented to the media, the real reason seems to be the mishandling of KP episode.  Now that Strauss is gone, KP's return to the England team must be fast tracked !!!

Pakistan have lost their killer instinct

Things on the field have not been GREAT for Pakistan team in terms of the results in their bilateral series. At least in ODIs. They won Asia cup after 12 years, fine. But they lost 0-4 to England and 1-3 to SL and are trailing 0-1 in  their own backyard (middle east is their home away from home since 1980s) against Australia.  True, that there have been very little or no controversies off the field or any act of stupidity from their players like it was at its peak in 2009-10. But results have been failing them off late. 

They have now a stable coaching setup -- head coach is reputed in subcontinent, the bowling coach keeps changing, but do Pak really need bowling coach? Mohammed Akram is their new coach in bowling department. Captaincy hasnt changed hands except Hafiz replacing Misbah in T20Is and later being dumped in shortest format for good (probably).  So what's the reason behind the consistent failures?

The batsmen are collapsing, the bowlers can't bail the team out every time they go in middle. They have a good attack in terms of fast bowling and spin bowling alike, but the selections are inconsistent. Mohammed Sami is back in one series, out next. Spinach man is out one series and in next one.  Umar Gul is failing to find his mojo in ODIs with his stock deliveries regularly failing him.  Wahab Riaz, the WC semi-final hero, is out and in, then out and in thereby losing his confidence. 

Saeed Ajmal is world class bowler, no doubt. And so is Shahid Afridi who is now a true bowler with his batting reduced to ridiculous standards. And their vice captain is surprisingly (underestimated) #1 ODi bowler in world.  Spin department is in good hands, but the fast bowling department is chopped and changed every series. I cant recall if a bowler has got a longer run (2-3 series) in Pakistan. 

IMO the reason they are losing more than they are winning is, the Pakistan team has lost their aggression and killer instinct. Being an Indian follower, I know how much we used to hate Pak winning everything in India in 1990s when they had a superb bowling attack in Waqar, Akram, Aaqib Javed and of course Saqlain Mushtaq. Any bowler out of the blue used to come against India and find himself in wickets. How can anyone forget 7-37 from Aaqib Javed including his hattrick in 1991 Sharjah. Or for that matter the creepy character -- Javed Miandad, Aamir Sohail (1992 and 1996 World cup acts in games against India are still afresh).  Even in the days of Inzamam there was little bit of aggression in the team.  No matter what the situation would be in a match, the team would always put up a fight and more often win from hopeless situations. Now they lose out of winning positions and collapse in heap.  Even in helpful Middle Eastern conditions.

Pakistan look best when they play the game in the way they were famous to play in 1990s. Even though if they lost, they enthralled fans. But now even if they win, they are more boring to watch. Except for Shahid Afridi, there is no player who is exciting to watch in terms of aggression. Kamran Akamal looks foolish when he tries to get aggressive. The poor lad has made a comeback in the team after 18 months after getting clearances from all sorts of PCB committees.   

And hell there is no Ijaz Butt in PCB. Zaka Ashraf is leading PCB with no controversies. And that's making Pakistan cricket a little bit dull to follow.  

Cmon guys show some aggression. Put up some dance upon fall of a wicket something like Shoaib Akhtar did or Afridi does. Run wildly from boundary line to  bowl a ball with jaws and mouth shaking like Waqar Younis and bowl some toe-crushing yorkers making batsmen looking foolish. 

World T20 should be a good place for Pak team to start showing some aggression and killer instinct.

Loud Mouth Ashvin

It will help Ravi Ashvin to keep quiet and let his ball do the talking instead of being a loud mouth in the media. Every day we read some kind of statements from the spinner and mostly it puts him in the bad light. He has been growing tall as a spinner in Tests but his fielding skills remain slow and his running even more ridiculous. Not to forget how big a failure he was in Australia where he leaked 100 runs almost every innings and got very few wickets in return.

"Pressure is off me" said Ashvin a few days back in TOI. Well the pressure of playing for India and succeeding never eases off dude and if you fail few times, a motivated Harbhajan Singh is ready to bounce back in Tests as well. 

So keep the mouth shut and keep taking wickets in heaps of dozen!!!!

Kiwis clipped in BiriyaniLand

The new look India's test team won its first test in 16 years without names reading as RS Dravid and VVS Laxman in the team sheet. And this time the team at opposite end was New Zealand who have their wings clipped and fighting ability abandoned somewhere down in the exotic NZ locales. 

They could not play Ashvin who took 12-85, his best match figures and they collapsed in a heap. Unworthy opponents.

159 and 164. 

No wicket for Zaheer Khan, no runs for Sachin Tendulkar. What next for this lads ?

Srikanth's contribution to the team as a national selector will be continued implants from his home state, while most of them failed (Vijay, Mukund, Badrinath, Dinesh Karthik), Ashvin has continued to find success in home tests at least and is contributing to the wins. So as long as it lasts!!!

The biggest find of this test was indeed the coming of age of the much hyped (on the blogs) Cheteshwar Pujara (who justified the hype) and continued increasing the century count we have been used to see at # 3 spot in Tests for last 16 years.

A tribute to cricketing achievements of VVS Laxman - 1

It was the summer of 1996. School life had just ended and it was a time to step into the college life. The pre-engineering exams were just done. India had lost to SL in the World cup semi-final in Eden Gardens and the agony and pain was still afresh in the mind. In the meanwhile India had played in a couple of meaningless ODI tournaments in Singapore and Sharjah before they embarked on England tour. A 23 year old lad had debuted in the Singapore tournament which was more known for the record Jayasuriya or Afridi created in terms of fastest 100. It was Dravid. And in England touring party one name had created flutter which people termed as "quota selection".  That lad had scored back to back 100s in first 2 Tests in England including one in Lord's. That was Saurav Ganguly.

Few months later, I had just decided to drop out of the engineering college I was in after a disastrous first semester exams to try my luck in another college. And it coincided with the Titan Cup followed by a South African test series, first on Indian soil. It was Ahmedabad Test and a new lad had debuted in that test. Some very long name ending in Laxman.

Yeah right. VVS Laxman. Vangirappu Venkata Sai Laxman, hailing from Hyderabad, then known for delivering Azharuddin to Indian cricket.  His debut wasnt very auspicious. That test was more known for a deadlier spell by J Srinath destroying SA single handed. 6-21 led India to first ever Test win over South Africa.

The class of 1996 had been formed which in future would go onto make a golden history in Indian Test cricket.

The boy was forgotten soon. He continued making Test appearances often and used to get lost in oblivion. The new formidable Indian middle order was just getting formed.  Ganguly was at # 3 then, Tendulkar was immovable at 4. Dravid came in at 6 after Azharuddin.

Tours of SL and WI in 1997 followed and VVS Laxman failed to make any significant contributions in those tours. That was a time of disillusionment in Indian cricket. Lot of new faces came in and they faded very soon. David Johnson,  Dodda Ganesh, Noel "Who" David were few of those obscure cricketers who came in and faded soon. Not to mention Abe Kuruvilla, Sujith Somsundar and of course Vikram Rathore.

The turning point came in Laxman's career in 1998 when it was Mark Taylor's Australia team to tour India for a full Test series after 12 years (ignoring one off test in 1996).  The highlight of the series was Tendulkar vs Shane Warne battle. Nothing else mattered then.

It was Navjot Singh Siddhu and VVS Laxman who formed the opening pair then. Siddhu set the stage in almost every innings with his sixes off the spinners of Australian team. And Laxman quietly did the job with 50s and 30s in that series. 

But his marquee moment was yet to arrive and that was in Sydney 2000.

--- To be continued

India the world champs in U-19 format too

And India are the undisputed kings of 50 over cricket, be it senior level or the kids level at U-19. Winning a world cup in Australia by beating Australia is heroic and the credit goes to Unmukt Chand and his team for doing an encore of what Md Kaif did in 2000 and Virat Kohli did in 2008.

Great stuff guys. 

The victory sounds sweet cos it came in the tough batting conditions of Tony Ireland stadium and the team sweated it out in all games to win the tournament. There were no free wins.  And it was in Australia. 

And if few of this lads could graduate to the national team, especially in fast bowling department, then it shall be a prize well earned. Fast bowlers, I repeat, not the lads belonging to the clan of Venky Prasad, Munaf Patel, Vinay Kumar etc.

Enuff ranted!!!

VVS Laxman

VVS Laxman is the Kishore Kumar of Indian Cricket. Serene, divine, calming.

Enough Said.

England lose their #1 ranking

England are no longer the #1 in Tests and they are no longer in T20Is as well. Very soon they shall be disposed off the undeserving spot in ODIs as  well.  England have lost the Test series 0-2 to South Africa and the latter are the new # 1 in Tests, at least for a while.   For long time in the media including cricinfo, we were fed with the stories how good this England team is and how close they run to the greatest Australian and West Indies team, about how world class their bowling attack is which comes good only in seaming and swinging conditions, how good work culture the team has and all that crap. Yet despite of all this there was a Kevin Pietersen episode who shredded the claim of world class team ethic in the dressing room. The so called world class bowling attack failed to come good when it mattered most.  They took only 2 wickets in the opening test and the team dominated only 2 of the 15 days of Test series.

The South Africa didn't choke this time and the credit has to go to the World Cup winning coach Gary Kirsten.  They outplayed England in all departments and even though they did feel the heat occasionally, like good teams they found their way out and in the end came up trumps.  Beating England in England twice in a row is a significant achievement. And in the times when the English media boasted about the greatness of their team. Overhyped players like Ali Cook, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad (who had a miserable series with the bat) and of course Ian Bell failed to rise to the occasion and in the end the team bite the dust. The England team, if they were so good, should have held the #1 spot for long time, but they could just hold it for a year. India, with so called shortcomings, managed to hold it for close to 2 years.

The result was forthcoming. During the entire year the England team failed to play like a #1 team. They lost in desert safari to Pakistan, actually whitewashed 0-3, hung to a 1-1 draw in SL and then lost 0-2 to SA, managing to beat WI by 2-0 in between.  Strauss failed to make runs, the ECB had trouble with their best player and he stood out of the team when it mattered most for him to play. The selections were flawed, the ego battles ran supreme and when it mattered the #1 team failed to rise to the occasion and the crown was lost.

They now have a tough Indian series ahead and Indian team shall make it a point to avenge to the 0-4 drubbing last year. Historically England have never played well in India over past 25 years. They lost 0-3 in 1993, 1-1 in 2006, 0-1 in 2001 and 2008.  And this time the result shall be no different.

English media shall now tear apart the team and that shall prove that there is no middle ground in English cricket, either their team and media is outright foolish or they are extremely proud. Right now its time to play the losers music and may be drown the head in shame after a display not worthy of being called a # 1 team.

Perhaps ECB is right in dropping Kevin Pietersen

The KP drama every day leaves the followers with more twists and turns than what Jack Bauer managed in the entire 8 seasons of epic "24" teleserial.  When one thought that finally the episode would be over with KP releasing the apology in a video statement, they were wrong. KP had done more damage than what ECB first thought. And KP has paid the price. He wont play the final test of this series. And ECB have done the obvious which might have been hardest thing to do for them in recent times. 

But they were left with no choice. KP didnt offer any chance to them.  Team unity comes over whims and fancies of any player, no matter it is  KP or any one else. Sending scathing texts about the coach and captain to the opposing team is just ridiculous and outright stupid. KP has paid the price for it and perhaps cost England the #1 ranking in Tests at least. 

He was given 6 hours to set things right owing to the texts he sent, but KP already had done the damage and there was nothing he could have done to win his place back even after all sorts of back-down from the stated positions all this while. 

I think ECB has done right to drop KP and set a precedent in world cricket that no player is indispensable, no matter if he is best player and in-form player. Team spirit and unity come first. And the worst price they are going to pay would be the loss of # 1 ranking in Tests.

ECB are to blame in the way they have managed KP all this years, but KP is no saint either.  Playing IPL ahead of Kiwi Test series wasnt right and so were his demands to pick and choose games / series he wanted to play. Moreover his behavior within the dressing room and outside it left a lot to be desired and led to questions if he was matured enough. But one thing that went always in his favor was his batsmanship. He is England's best player.  And now he stands lost, stands lonely and mocked.

Perhaps this ouster is temporary and is short-lived. Perhaps it is not. The ODIs against Saffers and T20 world cup follow, it remains to be seen if KP makes it into those teams. But for now its ECB leads in the ego clashes against KP.

Test team selection

My tidbits on the Test selection and T20 World Cup selection:

Test Selection:

This will be the first series in 17 years India plays without Rahul Dravid and ironically its against the same team, it last played against. New Zealand in 1995 in India.   And his spot has been up for grabs. There have been a lot of contenders for his spot. The # 3 spot has been very critical in modern day Test matches and more often than not Dravid has been termed as virtual opener(less since Viru – Gautam opening) in Tests. And there have been 3 contenders:

·         VVS Laxman

·         Virat Kohli

·         Cheteshwar Pujara

VVS Laxman has been the fallback guy whenever Dravid has been not playing (injury or rest) and his most prominent innings has come in at the # 3 spot. So till the time he plays around, the # 3 spot should go to VVS Laxman.  And the talk of this series been a farewell series for VVS has been farfetched. India play next 10 Tests at home within 1 year and if Laxman is gone, then Tendulkar is the only experienced hand in the middle order.  That will not be a very good idea to lose 2 experienced middle order folks back to back and so it's imperative that Laxman stays around at least for 10 Tests, form and fitness permitting.

The top 4 should read as Sehwag, Gambhir, Laxman and Tendulkar.  Tendulkar is back after the break and he should be rejuvenated and keen to set those critics wrong.  Also the talk of having a replacement for Sehwag in overseas tour is wrong. He is 33 and is in good form.  He has had a quiet Australian tour, but with Sehwag, you never know when he will be back to destructive best. And for revival of Test fortunes, its important that the experienced hands remain at helm on the top of order.

Kohli goes in at 5 and Pujara at 6.  Good thing is Raina is back in the fold and that should be good for his confidence. The next 10 tests are at home, so the short ball talk should not bug his mind.   But for now Raina should be warming up the bench with Pujara getting in a look.  

Reserves: Rahane, Raina

Rahane as a reserve opener is again a farfetched talk as the lad has always batted at 3 in domestic cricket for Mumbai.

Bowling:

No Harbhajan yet. Fair enough, he hasn't found form yet. A stint in English country hasn't helped him either.  Ashvin continues to be the prime spinner and supported by Pragyan Ojha.  So this two lads should be the pair bowling to hapless Kiwis and nothing less than a 2-0 win should be expected and accepted.  And guess who's the 3^rd one. Piyush Chawla!!!!

Bizzare selection, but that's been the way of Mr Kris Srikanth's term and this was the last team his committee selected and it would be on its way out by the end of September. That shall be a relief.

Ishant Sharma has been fast tracked into the team and I am not sure if he has had match fitness.  Injuries and lack of match fitness have been few of many reasons for the 0-8 scoreline on away tours and it seems that the selectors haven't learnt anything from those tours.  Zaheer Khan and Umesh Yadav should be the 2 fast bowlers followed by 2 spinners in the playing XI.

Overall the team looks good enough and since its NZ, the results should be in India's favor.  And it shall be an awkward moment for the players and of course the serious followers of Indian cricket to see no Rahul Dravid stepping in on the field after 16 long years.

England as #1 ODI team is a joke

Holy Shit. England are new # 1 in ODIs too. A team that was knocked out in the Quarters of the world cup, a team that lost 0-5 in India twice is now # 1 in ODIs. And on what basis ? 10 out of 10 wins in 2012. Darn!!!

England give two hoots to ODIs, they dont care a damn about this format of the game. They have even discontinued the 50 over games in their domestic setup. None of their players has ever scored 6000 runs in ODIs and a handful of players have played 200 ODIs. 

Such a team is # 1 in ODIs.

And a team like India who has had few bad series in last 2 and half years are # 3.

Update:

Here is the breakdown of the W/L for the last 2 years (01 Aug 2010 - 04 Aug 2012)

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;home_or_away=1;home_or_away=2;home_or_away=3;orderby=won;spanmax2=04-Aug-2012;spanmin2=01+Aug+2010;spanval2=span;template=results;type=team

And its clearly evident that England have a w/l ration of only 1.33 whereas India, Australia , Pakistan and South Africa have better win loss ratio.  The best team indicates its SA and then India who have W/L ratio of 2.0.

By what standards England are # 1 team, no one knows. ICC has got it all wrong.

I hate to say it but it seems ICC rankings seem to be biased towards England and am not sure what ICC sees in the results that the fans dont see or the cricket followers don't see. England as # 1 ODI team is a big joke and it casts a question mark over validity of ICC rankings algorithm!!!