End of road for Murali

So its all over. Career of much debated bowler Murali is all set to end in few days time. At least in Tests.  He would be eyeing 800 wikats against India, that is US.  Murali was the lone SL bowler who bowled endlessly from one end all over the years and seemed to be non stop. But he is a human after all and in 2009 he started to diminish in his aura and wickets stopped coming.   If SL had their way, they would have had Murali bowl all 90 overs in a day in the test matches in their own backyard. Not to forget that he has bowled most deliveries in Test cricket. A debate would always continue on the topic how many of those deliveries which took 792 wikats were legal ones or how many of them were illegal ones which still got him wikats and a place at the top of bowling charts to end up as most prolific wikat taker.

He has left behind the likes of Shane Warne, Anil Kumble, Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram, Richard Hadlee and West Indian greats Marshall, Walsh, Ambrose, Holding and Garner in wikats tally.  He had his share of cheap wickets against hapless Zimbabweans and Bangladeshis.

176 wikats in 25 against this 2 teams. Warne had 17 in 3 against this 2.

Exclude 176 and his record comes down to 616 from 107.  As good as 5.7 wikats a Test match.  Most of those wikats came on super boring pitches of SL aided by run machines Sanga, Mahela, Attapattu and Samarweera who kept on going and going and going for days together.  And then Murali would come and bamboozle the visiting teams. England, SA, West Indies, NZ, BD and Zim sank without a fight. Aussies and Indians did put some fight and Pakistan surprisingly until 2009 won.

Murali when toured SA or Ind or Aus was not among wikats.  He has a poor record in this countries. He did not tour SA since 2002. And in the meantime he travelled Zim 2 times (2005) and BD 3 times.  He took 9 wikats 2 times and almost had perfect 10 once.

He won SL test matches with 5 wikat hauls as good as Sehwag sixes or Ijaz Butt u-turns.  How many of those victories were memorable or hard earned ? Very few. Did he win in India or Australia or South Africa ? No. How many times did he dismiss Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Sachin Tendulkar in his career ? Don’t forget Brian Lara whom he got many times but was hammered mercilessly every time he faced the legend.

Who were his victims ? The poor players of spin in Lankan conditions when the batsmen would bat long for 3 days and then unleash Murali’s illegal deliveries on them.  SL won 44 Tests when Murali played.  Drew a lot more and lost a little less.

He had an illegal action, he bowled illegal deliveries, he had Jaggu Dalmiya installed at ICC to have the rule changed to accommodate his illegal bowling, had a strong character (the only one with real character) captain in Arjuna who fought for him.  All this ensured Murali would continue to bowl his illegal deliveries at batsmen at behest of an optical illusion of bent arm.

Whats his legacy ? Chuckers are now assured that sooner or later they would be allowed to play, thanks to a faulty 15 degree rule made by ICC to benefit and accommodate illegal bowlers like Murali, Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed and Lasith Malinga.

For me like many others he would forever remain a Chucker and an illegal bowler who by means of strong headed captains and administrators found a way out to bowl despite having illegal action.

Butt does another Buffongiri

http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/current/story/466320.html

Another Buffongiri from biggest Buffoon of World Cricket.

What about Butt ? Who bans this dickheaded oldie ? What about his inappropriate statements and actions ? No accountability ? Mr 10 % defends this buffoon and thats why he stays on.

Pakistan middle order fails again sans Umar Akamal

Pakistan play to lose. When they are off the field they fight and plot each other's downfall. They secretly meet at former captain's place and take oath on name of GOD to dislodge Younis Khan. On the field they have a brain freeze.

No matter Shahid Afridi is captain or no captain, he is bufoon just like Ijaz Butt. A duck.  Responsibility is never a strong point or atttribute for this forever 17 lad.

Mindless batting followed by some sensible batting by junior bugger is good enough for Pakistan to hand the game to their nemesis, the yellow fugly Ausssies.

Shahazib made 0, Afridi made golden duck, Kamran Akamal made 21, Shoania made 21 and Umar Akamal fought a lone battle to keep Pakistan in game.

I pity Pakistan fans who must be feeling disgusted for every inept performance the seniors and juniors dish out on every outing in the middle.

PS : Mohd Yousuf is planning a comeback to international cricket after Wasim Akram brainwashed the disgraced former captain.

MSD snubbed Srikanth in his wedding

MSD must surely not have invited Kris Srikanth to his wedding in DehraDun.....Srikanth must have said if he came to the wedding he would be accompanied by his croonies -- BossaDK, Dabri and Vijay.

MSD is not comfortable with BossaDK as later is always a replacement for him in the team. So he would not like to have taken any chances to invite Bossa just to avoid any further embarrasment in the wedding.

Srikanth is fumed over this snub and he is planning to dislodge MSD from skipper hood next series and looking forth to make one of Chennai Fooper Kinker captain.

PS : Post meant for fun. Srikanth fans from Japan (somebody posts comments in Chinese/ Japanese/Korean stuff on every post), please do not get offended.

Desparate IOA

IOA is getting desperate to have the India – Australia Test series rescheduled as it overlaps with totally incoherent and needless Commonwealth games in October.  Well this 2 events are totally parallel to each other and bear no resemblance.  India is not playing in the CW T20 tourney and so it does not matter if the Australia test series overlaps with the games or not.

The tests are going to be played in Mohali and Bangalore, far away centers from capital. So it would not matter to IOA for loss of any viewership (who would watch CW games anyway).

Asking sports minister to intervene on this issue is just another issue for IOA to get evens with the BCCI as it failed to convince later to send full strength Indian T20 team to play in CW games at the expense of Test cricket.

Power and Howards

Sharad Pawar is now ICC president after accumulating experience of 3 years as BCCI chief and 2 years as ICC vice president. And that qualifies him to be the ICC president. If that means an able candidate is not a sure shot conclusion.

That’s the grounds on which BCCI shot down John Howard’s candidature for ICC vice president post.  Addition to India, 5 other boards shot down Howard’s candidature. SL had its own reasons (just cos Howard had termed Murali a chuck, which is true) to block him and so did Zimbabwe (he refused to send Aussie team to Zim and as a result no Aussie team has travelled to Zim for a test series since 1999 and Zim team to Aus since 2003).

Sharad Pawar’s credibility is well known to everybody in India.  Failing crops, farmers suicide in his native state, mismanaged food economy and higher inflation rates for food items besides alleged stakes in failed Pune IPL bid and other IPL entities are some of the blots on his CV.

So Sharad Pawar being an ICC president is not a very enthusiastic piece of news for India, albeit a shameful one.

Malcolm Speed has following insights to offer on how Pawar attended ICC meetings:

“The man who is to be the next ICC president, Sharad Pawar, is the Minister for Agriculture in the Indian government - a serious full-time job, feeding 1.2 billion people. He is a good and fair man but he will be working part-time as ICC president and, take it from me, he knows little about cricket administration. I was present at several ICC board meetings he attended. ICC meetings generally last two days. Pawar attended for one hour and was then replaced by one of the Board of Control for Cricket in India apparatchiks. They were concerned that he was too busy and would be too reasonable.”

Not sure if that’s true or out of malice. But the flip flop of Pawar  clan over the IPL stake issues have put him in a very bad light.  He is confused so as which job to approach full time and part time. Whether serving as federal minister or going as ICC president or serving his own and his family’s vested interests in ventures like IPL.  He is a man chosen to do the job just out of vote bank politics and John Howard was rejected just cos BCCI did not want to upset Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka for its future vote bank politics.  Nobody cares about Pakistan and if the man is quizzed why he opposed Howard, the man would make up a lame issue and then do a u-turn over it.

So if Howard was rejected for ICC post for some reasons, then same reasons and additional ones apply for rejecting Sharad Pawar as ICC president, but that wont happen. For next 2 years the ICC members would need to engage translators and language therapists to understand what Pawar is mumbling in the meetings.

Who knows even his daughter Supriya Sule could attend ICC meetings as his proxy!!!

Motivation for Australia

Even if Australia are seeming out of spirits and loose on character they would be joyed to see that their Test opponents are Pakistan, who have won just 1 Test in last 3 and half years. And who are led by certain Shahid Afridi who last played in the forfeited test series 4 years back, somebody who does not have penchant for patience. 

And a team which has consigned its 3 best batsmen into retirement -- Inzamam retired, Younis banned and Yusuf withdrawn.

Australia once they take field on test series would forget ODI drubbing they've got from England who are surprisingly on a high.

2-0 to Australia. No doubt. 

Shahid Afridi meanwhile is reluctant to carry on playing Tests after this England tour.  Before he retires, Ijaz Butt would have banned him for few months for losing all the Tests and ODIs.

England are not Ashes favorites. YET!!

Aussies have lost 3 ODIs on the trot to England side without Jonathan Trott and the English media are gung-ho about the Ashes rematch later this year. I am not sure how an ODI series win would impact Ashes result when the players on both teams change and the conditions of play change (Australia host this year Ashes).

I should say I m not sure how winning an ODI series would make England favorites for Ashes. They have not displayed anything spectacular in Tests this year to be called favorites. They have won T20 tournament and surprisingly have won 8 or 9 ODIs on the trot without Jonathan Trot, so that wont have any bearing over Tests. They have won 4 Tests against Bangladesh and there is no novelty in there. Everybody except West Indies wins against them home and away. So whats so special about England winning 4 Tests against them?

Australia are 3^rd and England are 5^th (or 4^th) in the Test rankings. And Aussies have had a lossless summer last year thanks to the quality of teams touring last summer (WI and minnow Pakistan).

Here is an excerpt from Graham Thorpe on England’s Ashes chances:

England have a real opportunity to whitewash the tourists and continue the kind of winning mentality that should hold them in very good stead in the lead up to the Ashes. You can run through almost every department and find that England have the upper hand, which tells you a lot about the dominance the side currently have.

Strauss is leading the side from the top of the order with authority and conviction; Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan are class acts in the middle order; James Anderson and Stuart Broad look by far the most threatening pacemen; and Graeme Swann and Michael Yardy have the upper hand in the spin department.

Eoin Morgan wont be a sure starter in the Test team when Trott, Collingwood and Cook return (may be one of this 3 could fail against Pakistan and Morgan could hold his place), Yardy does not play Tests (or he is not a Test standard). 

Anything England wins for a while makes its writers believe they are the best in the world. They said the same thing for football despite having club stars who failed as a team in the World Cup Football. They suffered 1-4 defeat to Germans despite all fire and flame on the disallowed Lampard goal.

Predicting an Ashes result is too early right now. England and Australia both would play 4 Tests minimum and the end of English summer and Indian summer (Australia play 2 Tests in India) would give a picture on starting XI of both teams to take field on GABA.

India's XVI for Sri Lanka

India has declared 16 players for the yet another Test series vs Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.  Its going to be the 3rd series in 3 years between the two teams and hopefully for next 3 years there wont be any series between the 2 teams. 

The usual culprits (no pun) return to the test team making it the usual colored look. Dravid, Laxman, Ishant etc etc return for the Test series. 

Also returns is Wriddhiman Saha. Shocking. He was a dead as a dodo in the Nagpur Test vs South Africa and just after a Test, he returns. 

Dinesh Karthik was ignored. Good for this blog, not so for others. 

Also returns is M Vijay. Srikanth makes sure he keeps one Tamil Nadu player in every team he selects. Last series he had 2, Dabri missed out this time. 

If M Vijay was not present, Dinesh Karthik would have been. Guess the reserve slot (Wicket keeper or opener) is fixed for a Tamil Nadu quota. 

There are many tweets where people have questioned Srikanth's agenda for Chennai (Read Tamil Nadu).  I believe Srikanth has not chosen anybody outside Chennai too. I am not sure from where one Ganpathy hails, but Dabri, Vijay and Dinesh Kartik are sure Chennai duds. 

Dilip Vengsarkar was from Mumbai, but for Jaffer he did not push anybody from Mumbai who did not deserve a place in final XI. Srikanth is different. He needs his states players to serve a hidden agenda.  Guess he is in post for another 3 months and by September he would be out. I just hope he does not stick around to select World Cup team. Else it would be half Chennai Super Kinks team playing in Indian blue.

Yuvraj also returns. That means he was dropped on basis of fitness and not form. He did not play a single game to prove he was back in form. So as his latest tweet read "This elephant is back in fitness and raring to go" proves he assumes he is back in fitness. 

If thats true we wont know till he plays the 3 day game or the first Test.

If he fails, Suresh Raina is down there to pressurise him. If he keeps going he would benefit the national team. He is yet to hit a test 100 since Bangalore 100 against Pakistan. And a hundred or a big innings would be due for him to prove his worth in the # 6 slot. If not there are several other contenders -- Pujara, Raina, Sharma and Kohli to grab the place. Yes Aniruddha Srikanth is in there too. 

There are 3 spinners in the team. Mishraji, Ojhaji would be one of the spinners that would play alongside Bhajji. And its going to be one of Sreesanth and Ishant accompanying Zaheer in the new ball attack. Selection of Sreesanth is again questionable. What worthy he has done all this while is not known to us (at least). He seems to be another quota selection (making for loss of R Ashvin).

16 players for a 3 Test series is a bit too much. Usually teams name 14 players for a Test series and usually one or 2 players are released to play for their respective domestic teams.  We have not seen that happen for India and wont happen till the likes of Srikanth are around as egoistical regional headed selectors chefs.

Big day for England

England takes on its  2 oldest foes in the cricket and football.

Australia in the NatWest cricket series where its on the brink of an unexpected series win -- first in 13 years.  And in Football it takes on Germany.

Will they win ?

They are running high on luck and may be one of the games could see some luck, England could go on to achieve something unparalleled in their history of games.

They havent been to World cup football semis since 1990 when they lost to Germany on penalties. And since 1997 they have not beat Australia in a bilateral ODI series.