Praveen Amre fired for not playing a regional bowler

It has been reported in ToI that Praveen Amre was sacked in the middle of India A tour to England in May and June this year and was replaced by B Arun. This move was initiated by the man in fire : N Srinivasan, the powerful BCCI sec who is also the owner of Chennai Super Kings franchise and perhaps head of TNCA.  He is also at loggerheads with Lalit Modi and is seen as the man behind downfall of Modi from the top position he occupied in the board ranks.

That apart, the reason why Praveen Amre was sacked?  Very much the same which I have thought is behind the sudden influx of Tamil Nadu players in the Indian team as replacements for everything – keepers, batsmen, spinners, bowlers, fielders and waterboys.

Its been said that bunch of Southie players complained to Srini that coach is not playing Ganapathy in the final XI and instead giving chance to Mumbai bowler Dhawal Kulkarni. Dhawal was selected for Indian tour to New Zealand and perhaps he did not play (I don’t remember he did).  Praveen Amre hails from Mumbai too and is one of the famed disciples of Ramakant Achrekar (Sachin being the other).  Pravin Amre had a decent career which began superbly with a debut hundred vs SA in SA. He has had successful coaching stints too with different teams at domestic level.

So if the reports of Amre being sacked on not playing Ganapathy are true, then they reflect to a very serious and a wrong trend in Indian cricket – regional bias and quota system. I have constantly believed that the likes of Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay,  R Ashvin, Dabrinath have been in and out of the teams with an alarmed frequency. A look at their performances does not paint a rosy picture though, but they still keep coming in.

Dinesh Karthik is out one series for non performance, he is back next one without doing any substantial. Right now he is playing in SL riding on 66 he made in Asia cup final.  On 10^th, he misfielded, failed with the bat and blah. He would still open with Sehwag on 16^th replacing Virat Kohli. Tough for Delhi lad cos he has had an awesome ODI year in 2010. He has been consistent in batting and is a wonderful fielder. He floats around, makes runs whenever he is in the team. Way better than Dinesh Karthik, who is forever young. He has been around now for 6 years and is just 24. Unbelievable. Where is Ajay Ratra?  Deep Dasgupta? Parthiv Patel? This lads have been redundant now in Indian cricket as the keeper right now is the captain of team in all 3 formats and does not seem to be failing in near future. 

Saurabh Tiwary is travelling since 2 series now and has not played a single game despite hailing from Dhoni’s own state. What does that mean? Is there a diktat to the tour selection committee to play one or 2 Tamil Nadu players every game? Murali was automatic replacement for Gambhir in Tests, Karthik is replacement for Gambhir in ODIs.  Awesome man!!

Cheekanth is into a deep running mission to Tamil Naduise Indian cricket and that would end in a disaster. No offence for anybody from TN, but are the players selected from TN right now worthy of playing? If there are 3 glittering TN players who are playing awesome domestic and A cricket, get them in the team. But don’t get in the failing stars who are just in cos they have Cheekas and Srini backing them up owing to the clout they enjoy in BCCI.

Conflict of Interest

AC Mutiah has dragged BCCI to supreme court over conflict of interest issue for N Srivinasan, the owner of CSK and BCCI secretary.Actually Muthy or somebody else should also drag Srinivasan and

Srikanth to the supreme court because of following reasons:

1. Srikanth is the brand ambassador of CSK in addition to the head of

national selection committee.

2. Srikanth has got his son playing for IPL in CSK, which he thinks is the easiest way for drafting his son in the national team. As soon as any other player would get injured while on national duty like for example : Gambhir gets injured in the SL Test series or the Aussie ODI series later this year, then his son would be drafted in. Actually he has marked one on one player for every Tamil Nadu player.

Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Yuvraj injured (Any one) : S Badrinath

MSD injured : Dinesh Karthik

Sehwag, Gambhir : M Vijay and A K Srikanth.

Zaheer Khan , Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra (Any) : L Balaji

HArbhajan, Ojha, Mishra, Chawla : R Ashvin

He is onlooking for other set of players who could be mapped to every one of the players listed above.

How good Dabri, KKD and Balaji are, we have seen. Srikanth has got a dangerous agenda for Indian cricket as similar to that Lalit Modi has for IPL.  Both should be shown the door asap for betterment of cricket in India.

On a parting note how about a laughter on a report saying matches in

IPL are being fixed.

Mumbaikar quits blogging.

Homer quit the blogging. Well the world knows me as anti Homer blogger. Somebody who willingly took him on. That was not the case. I was on his side for most of the issues especially when it came to taking on PCB and its headless boss. Or taking on the case of Test cricket. I wasnt quite well with him when he was supporting Mumbai. There was a reason behind it. IMO Mumbai isnt the team it was in the past. And barring Zaheer, Tendulkar there is just no one who could carry the baton forward. The MI players are shit and they fade when taken in same breath as the old greats.

There was an interesting comment on his bid adieu post from my bete noir Prabu. He feels that I copy pasted topics for my blog from Homer. Ridiculous. Disgusting. I have my own ideas and opinions, the world finds them crooked or too passionate or too anti -- something (SL, TN, Pak, .....) but I dont copy paste from anywhere. Not that I can write to soothe anybody and win over comments. I used to bother a lot before for the comments, but now I dont. I write for myself n shall do so as long as I like.

Homer was excellent in his analysis and there is no doubt that I can never do that kind of analysis over rules and other issues. My passion rules over the logic most of the times. I believe in facts and figures too. And the same when quoted put off people who want to see their heroes immortalized here too. Sorry. Not my forte.

I just hope that the Mumbai man returns to the blogging and rethinks. In fact does a Abdul Razzaq or a Imran Khan to blogging.

If not then like its bid adieu to Freddie, its wishing all the best to Homer as well and lot of thinking caps to Prabu to get well soon over his hysteria for me.

Good jab Homer as they say it here in America. Yo Baby.

DK to replace Beeru ?

I hope now with Dk scoring 67 in 1st ODI, nobody would say he would replace Sehwag in ODIs as opener. He tried doing it in Tests for a while, got thrown out. Mr Useless did it in T20s for a while but was found wanting against good teams in Super Eights.

Raj and Prabu(h missing) would be happier men for a while.

Ways Pujara can get into reckoning!

May be Pujara now should switch Ranji side and play from Tamil Nadu or Mumbai. Perhaps only then he would be considered for selection, let go of being selected. And may be dance in a reality show. Play a T20 and have an affair with a Bollywood starlet. Only thing he should not do is score 3 consecutive triple hundreds and then 3 consecutive failures. Bloody fuck, just nobody bothers to see him score runs...Cos he is a Pujara and not Pujhara. And not a "kar" or a Kulkarni in his last name...Or may be he doesnt have anythin to get the Jokers notice him!!

Poor selection

Another farcial selection for the Test tour to NZ. Shades of quota system back in the picture. Kris Srikanth gets 3 from his state : Vijay (OK, he faired decently in Nagpur), Balaji and Kartik. Balaji is max 120-130 kmph and Karthik once had an edge over MS but now he is in as a batsman or an opener (can he threaten Veeru ?)...And then Rohit Sharma continues to be in the team. Good lord for him. NZ babes might get better for him and he would spend more time in clubs than on the nets. Jesse Ryder would have good company :)

And then Dhawal Kulkarni makes his way to the team. Amazing. Just a season with .....and he is into the team. If Karthick can be in the team for some 1100 runs in Ranji, then what the heck has Pujara done wrong ? May be not from Chennai or ...... ?

Selection of Munaf Patel is also a bit questionable as he would be injury prone more than taking wickets. Test batting line up selects automatically. Hopefully nobody would speak again of 5 batsmen theory. That doesnt work for India. Not untill we have a decent alrounder or half one like Irfan.

Sad to see the quota system still existing in Indian team even now. Unfortunately not all are Saurav Ganguly who could ride over the allegations and prove their critics wrong. Lets see what this lads riding on favoritism do. Lets see what specifically the Kulkarni lad does ?