Fuck You Mahila Loserawardhene

Fuck you Mahela Jayawardhene. All your character shit goes to hell as soon as you step out of Sri Lanka. Scorelines of 0 and 10 just indicate that you aint good enough outside sub continent for anything. 

Shut the hell up if you cant match your words with the scores from the bat. 

Curious case of Vijay, Dabri and Raina

Here are Raina speak:

I wanted to make sure we rotated the strike, and that we hit the loose ball for four," said Raina, who scored a commanding 87. "When you bat at number three it gives you time to build an innings. When you bat at number seven for India, it's very difficult to score a 50 or a century

Great he scored a match winning super stroked 87 for his home team. Great his one innings got Chennai a win good enough to go semis for now.

But he just spoke garbage. 

He bats at 7 for India ? Since when ? The no 7 spot belongs to great allrounder Ravinder Saheb JadduKha who has made the spot his own.  

At 7 its not necessary to score a 50 or 100 always. Quick cameos depending on situation (240 odd in 45 overs) or stabilising 50s or 100s are need (100 for 5 in 20 overs) are prescribed. 

I do not remember an occasion in last 3 years (since 2008 when he made a comeback post Chappell era) Raina Saheb has batted at 7 for India.  And except useless JadduKha many no 7 players have hit big runs for India -- Dravid at times, Kaif, Uthappa and Pathan have been successful for India at that position. 

Coming in 43rd or 44th over many players have hit quick fire 50s to change the complexion of the game altogether while chasing or setting a target.

Raina is just giving an excuse to prove his failure with bat for India. Here is the reason:

Raina plays for CSK in IPL (and hence for CLT20) and gets money from India Cements owner Nambiarayan Srini. No wonder he is topmost Indian run getter in IPL 3 editions thus far. 

A look at his ODI stats in the 3 years say the picture : 

He has played 58 innings and made 1832 runs at 40 runs per game with 3 hundreds and 12 fiftees.  Great record. Last time he played at 7 for India was in 2008.  In 2009-2010 period he has mostly batted at 5 or 6 for India. Increase the spot by 1 in matches when Tendulkar does not play. 

Deflated figures without consistency.  Good in one tourney, average in other. 

And contrast those figures with the IPL. Awesome records in all 3 seasons.  600, 400 and 500 runs.  Amazing strike rates, innovations, big hits, short balls negotiated and what not. 

When playing for India constantly getting out to short balls, ugly hits over square leg leading to dismissals. Why ? 

Is he fixing the games or chosing the games to play well ? Play well in more money games like IPL or CLT20? Be an average batsman in games for India ? What if BCCI matches ODI match fee as money he gets for IPL game? Will then he play consistently ?

Ditto for Dabri and Vijay. ZVijay today made 68 at amazing strike rate of 130.  He had great IPL. But contrast that to India matches.  

ODIs : 4 games 71 runs and 17.75. Against Zimbabwe, the weakest of ODI playing teams (forget associate teams) he was scratchy and made 10 off 40 balls. 

Tests : 6 games for 259 runs. Highest of 87 vs SL last year.  Just 2 50s. Why ? Is he content with 30s and 40s for India? Does his talent go hiding when playing for India and it comes out in open for CSK and Tamil Nadu?

This guys have to sort out their priorities right, else they would / should be kicked out of the national team for there is no dearth of deserving batsmen. Why is it that all evils today emanate from Tamil Nadu in Indian cricket? Selection issues? Quota selections? Rigged auctions?  No state has had more fringe players than Tamil Nadu in last few years, yet none of those Tamil Nadu players have been able to fix their spots.  Is TNCA and CSK so insecure that it has to fire a coach for not playing a bowler in A tour ? 

filtered

2008-2010

67

58

12

1832

116*

39.82

1897

96.57

3

12

3

148

51

All time XI greats for India

Cricinfo has published its all time XI greats for India. Here's the XI :

1. Gavaskar
2. Sehwag
3. Dravid
4. Tendulkar
5. Hazare
6. Mankad
7. Dhoni
8. Dev
9. Sri
10. Kumble
11. Prasanna

Well the top 4 are perfectly fine. No dispute on that.

No 5 and no 6 are problem.

No VVS Laxman in there? Cant imagine the guy who played one of the greatest Test innings ever is not in the all time great list.

How many times Hazare played? And over how many years? Against how many countries and in what conditions ? Agreed he was one of very early Indian cricketers and cricketers across ages are absurd to be compared.

Still when this excersise is being done, then you gotta take consideration of number of Tests played, against whom, the quality of opposition and the time span.

Sanjay Manjrekar had a comment on Javagal Srinath's inclusion in the list. Why ? He certainly was a very good fast bowler given the era he came in. Had injuries not backed him a bit, then he would have had played more tests than he actually did. He got wickets in placid Indian conditions. His two spells of 6-21 and a 8-for in Calcutta vs Pakistan were splendid spells of bowling in Indian conditions.

Perhaps Sanjay was pissed why he and his father were not included who at best played with defensive mindset to draw the games.

I think in place of Hazare VVS Laxman should have made the cut and in place of Mankad it should have been either Ganguly as left hander or if an allrounder was needed it should have been Jimmy Amarnath for his sheer ability to stand up against Windies pacers of 70s and 80s.

Spin attack is already strong with Kumble and Pras to take care of, only thing this team lacks is seam bowlers and in foreign conditions they need 3rd seamer which could easily be taken care by Jimmy Amarnath.

Pity that Suresh Menon did all the writing for the all time XI for India.

India vs Australia Preview - 1

The Australia Test series is just under a month away and for the test cricket romantics its the best series cricket witnesses irrespective of rankings and personnel. 1990s and 200s have provided some memorable contests between the 2 teams and the balance has been delicately shifted to the either of the team in few years.

Since the disastrous tour of 1991 when India lost 0-4, the Indians have evolved into a tough opposition for Australia. Here is the breakup of the results and matches post 1991 :

1996 : India 1-0 (1)

1998 : India 2-1(3)

2000: Australia 3-0(3)

2001 : India 2-1 (3)

2003 : 1-1 (4)

2004 : Australia 2-1(4)

2007 : Australia 2-1(4)

2008 : India 2-0(4)

So here's the cumulative breakup:

Total : 26

India : 10

Aus : 10

Draw : 6

Included are the Sydney Tests of 2004 and 2008 when India could have been the winners but for Steve Bucknor and....

Included is Chennai Test of 2004 when the final day rains prevented an Indian victory and a Sehwag classic. India needed another 201/210 runs to win on day 5 and Sehwag had hit Pidge for 3 fours in the last over of 4th day. Earlier Simon Katich and Jason Gillespie had denied lower 4th innings target for India as in Sydney earlier in 2004.

So the batting lineup for India is more or less decided:

1. Sehwag

2. Gambhir.

3. Dravid

4. Tendulkar

5. Laxman

6. Raina

7. Dhoni

And the bowling attack should be: Zaheer, Ishant, ?, ?

Given his reputation and his equations, Harbhajan would be one of the contenders and the second spot would be fought between IPL Ojha, Amit Mishra and Ashvin if he comes good in the tour game.

The other 2 reserve batsmen should be Yuvraj and Pujara.

Champions League update thus far

CLT20 is on in full flow and thats the Cricket Ka Asli Muqabla.  There are lot of new faces in the commentary boxes and thats a welcome sign. Saurav Ganguly is in the box and so are Shastri, Gavaskar -- India's finest. Good respite from the likes of Arun Lal, Shiva and company. On the flip side we also have Pommie Bangwa and Russell Arnold. The results so far are as expected.

1. Out of the 10 playing teams 3 are from India and 2 of them have won the first games emphatically when they were supposed to struggle and flaunder in this conditions. The critics forget that it was in South Africa, that India has had their best run in the ICC editions of the World Cup and World T20. A world cup final in 2003 and World T20 win in 2007. So how the teams would struggle is beyond comprehension. This point of view has been pastered on us by Sanjay Manjrekars of the world who refuse to see anything silver lining in the dooms.  Sachin Tendulkar the batsman continued his good form and that pretty much almost covered his unusual errings in the field as captain. Kumble and MSD led their respective teams to victories with ease and they should be good for the semis if they continue to play the same way they did in their first games.
2. Wayamba is as useless as Mahelangakara's character rants. They failed miserably against Warriors and a lot of  that blame has to go on Mahila who fell for a duck. I guess the major reason they failed to win was that the character juice supply was in short and a lot of that did not arrive from Lankan godowns.  Only positive point of their team was old Kulatunga and young Pareira (there are so many Pareiras playing for Lanka, its difficult to track them all) with their positive batting. The praise ends here.
3. Australian teams have had mixed bag so far. South Australia RedBacks beat Lions (SA) by 19 runs on day 2 of the tourney and Victoria, the Aussie version of Tamil Nadu lost their opening game to Warriors who look  good to go the semis route at least.
4. Windies and Kiwis teams had horrible outings in conditions that should have suited them ideally.

As of now given the form RCB, CSK, Warriors and one of RedBacks/Lions look good to go the distance to the semis.

Kumble had figures of 1/10 in 4 overs against Guyana. Harbhajan could not take a wicket in the game against Lions.  When Kumble played Harbhajan often got wickets owing to the pressure built by Kumble from the other end. Since Kumble retired, Harbhajan has struggled in Tests and that has impacted further his ODI and T20 bowling.

Kallis is continuing his good run this year in CL as well and he came good with bat and ball in the game vs Guyana. Dravid had a 33 which was solid and flair of typical Dravid in his peak in ODIs. Unfortunately he grassed a few dollies which prompted few to call for his axing and a well tracked farewell. Uncalled for.

Sachin had a good outing in first game as batsman and his other big names failed. Dumniny, Pollard, Rayudu, Sathish were miserable. Except Malinga none came good in bowling. Sachin is too good a player to repeat his captaincy mistakes in the second game tomorow.

Indian players have had a good outing so far. Unexpectedly Junior Cheeka had a 42 which should fast track his place into national colors. That there are other deserving players than him to get the India cap is another story, he has that advantage of having DAD at high position backed by Nambiarulu Srinivasan, the CSK owner and powerful BCCI sachiv.

So if he finds a place in the ODI team as a replacement for great Sobers in making RavinderSing Jaddukha, it sould not be a surprise as Cheeka would have ensured a good entry behind the door.

Dabri had a good outing again and like his Chennai friend DK he would now come into contention for every team India plays and once in he would be back to usual scoring pattern of 10s, 20s and 30s.  Its good. It keeps our community (bloggers and twitterers) busy guessing who # 6 in Tests and # 7 in ODIs would be. Not to forget that the jokes would continue too.

PS : Thanks SoulBerry for mentioning that this blog is one of the good ones for IPL and CLT20. It means a lot when this blog has more distractors than admirers. Appreciate a lot.

Mumbai Chokers

For this very reason MI is a team who would not win the CL20 or IPL. Except Tendulkar the rest of the team is a mixture of jokers. Good for nothing. Sathishes, Rayudus, Pollards all combined dont make half of what Sachin Tendulkar contributes. I feel for the guy. He gives his all even in a club tourney and the big money makers dont even put the worth of the talent to bail out the team of the crisis.

Zaheer had a forgettable comeback, but thats excused as coming from a break. Harbhajan never takes wickets this days be it T20s or Tests or ODis. And he is still India's no 1 spinner....Get off dude.

The Lions who had just 2 Test players or ones with some international experience ran amok the IPL team which is costliest, belonging to the richest Indian and captained by a guy who has made more runs, scored more 100s than anybody else in the cricketing world. Yet they are unable to win a tight contest. Chokers would be a good tag to label on Mumbai Indians.

Except for Sachin Tendulkar none other were playing a game. And when Tendulkar got out, the game was all over for MI.

There was a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai that more people watched Boppana Quraishi lose the uS open doubles final than Tendulkar and he'd never expected this to happen. Cmon man this is a CLT20, not an India match.

Media is going gung ho about possible India Pakistan combine to play sport. Thats an impossible union ever.  Media keeps imagining things and when they get a rude jolt from Qureshis (Foren mantri) and 10%s (rashtrapati), they get back to usual bashing........

Another selectorial wisdom from Srikanth led panel

India's selectors never learn from their previous mistakes. And thats one of the big reasons India's ODI campaign seems to be in murkier water after running a high on 2008 and 2009.  The selection panel showed its wisdom and richness of thoughts and vision in the selection of BP XI for the warmup against touring Aussies later this month in Mohali.

There are just 6 specialist batsmen in the squad who would obviously play the game should no injury happen. But what if injury happens ?

Here is the breakup squad:

Openers : Gautam Gambhir and Abhinav Mukund.

Middle Order : Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane (in no particular order)

Wicket Keeper : Wriddhiman Saha

Spinners : R Ashwin, Piyush Chawla

Fast bowlers : Jaidev Undakat, Mithun, Sreesanth,

Allrounder : Jadeja

Crap!!

Jadeja is still being pronounced as allrounder. He is not even allrounder at domestic level. Still he finds a place in every team is surprising and disastrously ridiculous. I'd stop following Indian cricket the day he makes it to Test team replacing any of the batting greats.

GAmbhir is rightly in the team as he is short of the match practice owing to injury and the poor run in the Galle Test.

R Ashvin, Mukund are from TN. Mukund is deserving one though. He was at the other end in the partnership that saw M VIjay being rushed in 2008 owing to GG ban for 3rd Test.

Piyush Chawla is as a leg spinner and Ashvin is as a off spinner. If Ashvin comes good then he would exert some pressure on off colored IPL Ojha and Harbhajan Singh. Chawla is unsure commodity as he is being given lot of chances and he has not grabbed them with both hands.

The other side of selectors wisdom is if any of the 3 IPL teams make it to the semis or the finals of CLT20, then one of Dhawan, Kohli and Ashvin would miss out on the tour game as it starts on 9/25. CLT20 ends on 9/29.

So if this teams reach semis or 2 of the teams reach final some vital cogs of Test team would need to rush to India immediately to be part of the Test team......And switch from T20 mode to Test mode.

Dravid, Tendulkar, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Raina and MSD.  4 of 7 batsmen and 2 of the 4 bowlers.  Wow what a good scheduling we've got for the Test series and the tour game for Australia.

Good side of this selection is there are no Rohit Sharmas and Dinesh Karthiks.  What if Cheteshwar Pujara comes good in this tour game ? WIll Srikanth under influence of N Srini include him ahead of Suresh Raina (a CSK member)? or at least as a reserve batsman for the 14/15/16 member team for first test ?

Its clear that selectors have not gone wise from the Nagpur experience earlier this year when RD, VVS had injuries and W Saha had to play as a specialist batsmen last moment when Rohit Sharma also injured himself.

For sure there are similarities between Ijaz Butt and K Srikanth for they never learn from the mistakes and commit new folly every time.

Mr and Mrs ten percent

ICC has sent notice to Kamran Akamal indicating he is under scanner for his suspicious activities all this year for Australian tour, England tour and Asia Cup activities.  TOI reports that he had been notified before the Lord's test too and he had replied to the notice. But the notice reply were found to be ridiculous and so he was charged once again.

This time the PCB was ignored. The notice was sent directly to the rogue keeper.

PCB chief returned to his homeland and received jeers. Still unfazed he declared he wont have any investigation as ICC and Scotland Yard investigation are already on. Actually he meant this

We are incompetent, impotent and idiots. If we launch any investigations then all we are going to do is say "Where is the proof" ? If proofs are unearthed we would ban and fine the players. And then have them submit the appeals and finally revoke the bans and fines. We would turn a blind eye to what the players do while on the tour, whom they meet, how much cash they make, whether they play cricket or do anything beyond that. We are incompetent, impotent."

So in the end its back to the square one. Laughing stock. Amazingly, still nothing would happen. Butt, the bil of Pak defence minister shall continue to be  the pCB chief and continue to say "Where is the proof" and "Innocent until proved guilty". He would be "impotent until proved potent".

If Akamal is charged then why is he playing ?

A search for Ijaz Butt on twitter yields some hillarious tweets even from his own countrymen like "trading off Ijaz Butt" and stuff like that.

Irony is that who is going to kick him out ? The patron ? Mr 10 % :D. Who knows he might be getting some slice of the spot fixing payment from the bookies !! And Ijaz Butt would be getting his share too. Probably that explains the reason why this two buffoons are still in place.

ICC suspends Pakistan captain, premier fast bowler and Veena Malik's ex bf

Start of the day : PCB withdraws  the 3 players on grounds of mental torture from media, bloggers, ex-cricketers and fans. Pakistan envoy to Britain confirms this proving that he is cousin of Ijaz Butt in terms of mental health and wisdom.

Later in the day : ICC suspends 3 players on grounds of corruption under ACSU.

Welcome step.  Some action had to be taken and ICC was the only one who could have taken this action given how impotent and inept PCB is.

What happens to Kamran  Akamal ? He was implicated too right ? Did Shahid Afridi save his ass as Akamal constantly rants Shahid Bhai Shahid Bhai ?

By the way collage below (courtesy : ndtv.com and mid-day.com) should be good enough to nail Salman Butt and Kamran Akamal.  A fitting reply to those who are asking for proofs. Nothing can get bigger than this pictures and the video footage shown by NOTW.

Spot Fixing Stake Holders

Trying to draw a picture who's on what side of the spot fixing scandal. We've had truckload of tweets on the spot fixing stuff, lot of media articles across cricketing nations and conspiracy theories. A lot of turning blind eye stuff, demanding of proofs when they are damning present in the video, linkage to RAW, linkage to India, linkage to corruption within that country, conspiracy from ICC chief and what not.

Backers and Movers

*

Geoff Lawson

*

Rameez Raza

*

Michael Atherton

*

Ijaz Butt

*

Shahid Afridi

*

Mohd Ijaz

*

Salman Butt

*

Yawar Saeed

*

Few Pakistani bloggers

*

Daily Mail

Against

* Indian bloggers

* Indian tweeters

* Indian media

* England team

* English media

* Imran Khan

* Sarfaraz Nawaz

* Javed Miandad

* Few Pak bloggers

* Australian team like Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, N Hauritz

* Micahel Vaughan

There have been few crazy mongers who have gone onto blame Indian establishment for the spot fixing stuff :

* Daily mail linking RAW, ICC, Indian commision (in UK) and BCCI to ruin Aamer's career. I was typing character, thanks to Sangakara overdose.

* Veena Malik, their Rakhi Sawant who's blamed entire Pak cricketing fraternity involvement in match fixing.

* Ijaz Butt who still asks "Whers the proof. Show me the proof."

* Mr 10 % who's asked for interim report from Ijaz Butt.

* Gilani who feels Pak head is down in shame

* Zakhrani and Malik who change their views every single day.

* Haroon Lorgat who feels ACSU is doing good job but it is a powerless and toothless body.

* ICC chief Sharad Pawar who himself is in a mess pledges no action.

The win-win situation to deal with this spot fixing stuff could have been

"Temporarily suspend the named 3/4 players till investigations of Scotland yard are done and some premises either way are established. The tour could have gone ahead."

This also would have set some credibility on PCB's part showing that they were keen to get this mess out of their system. Albeit it was never to happen and there has been same predictable reaction to this entire episode. Those 3 players would still go on to play the ODIs and as Pak would lose 0-5 it would be very difficult to tell which ones were a genuine losses and which ones were spot fixed.