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!!!

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. 

Weekend games

The weekend results of the IPL were expected with Chennai pitch suiting the franchisee with choke’em and win sort of play, Deccan expectedly lost. Mumbai struggled and KKR won something. But the compelling and enduring image to last for long times in the cricket followers is going to be the wild celebration from DADA when he bowled out KP and his allround performance got his campaign back on track.  Its never enough to see DADA  in action and its like revisiting those golden years of his and Tendulkar’s partnership at the ODI top level and then those countless partnership runs in tests. And not to forget his captain marvelous record!!

Great thing even today is how his lads respect him even being in the opposite IPL teams like Sehwag, Harbhajan etc and of course Yuvraj Singh providing him with some hair styling tips.  Nostalgia is at its peak when I watch Ganguly in action.

This IPL is proving to be most open in its history except the Dhakkan Dischargers who now seem to win nothing. Perhaps they wont win anything, cos  they are limited in talent and application.

8 of 9 teams have won minimum 3 games and no team has won more than 4. 4 teams are tied at 8 points and 4 at 6 (till the RCB vs RR game).  The next few games should give pointers to who’d be the top 4 to play in the “play-offs”.

IPL Team Review - 2

Another weekend begins in the IPL tamasha and this time it’s the turn of CSK, Pune Warriors, KXIP, KKR and Dhakkan Dischargers to play their games in addition to the much anticipated return of Sachin Tendulkar after being injured in the opener. Any action is too short to see Tendulkar in action, really even after 23 years of watching him play.

The IPL has seen a few teams like:

•       Pune Warriors
•       Royal Challengers

being inconsistent with their matches. Winning few, then losing a few. And then there are few evil teams who are hated more than they are loved:

•       Chennai Super Kinks
•       Kolkata Knight Riders

Whose every defeat is cheered and every win is greeted with boooos.

But the standout teams are:

•       Delhi Daredevils
•       Rajasthan Royals

Who are not only consistent, but also winning the games comprehensively. Its been a delight to watch the twin hundreds scored by the players belonging to this teams – Rahane and KP.  Especially those 6 fours in S Aravind’s over were awesome display of orthodox batting. Unfortunately they were 4s, not 6s, else Rahane would have been in the league of Yuvraj Singh (6 6s) and H Gibbs.  Media didn’t cover much of those 6 fours,  but Rahane has proved enough that he belongs to the highest level and he certainly should find himself making a Test debut soon replacing Dravid, who incidentally is his IPL captain. No doubt that Rahane would be benefitting a lot from Rahul Dravid in terms of wisdom and temperament by sharing the dressing room with him.

Mumbai Indians look insipid without the talismanic Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh is too classy as a captain, something that baffles his fans (including me) the way he approaches few games. In one of those low scoring games against Delhi when they were blown away for 92, Harbhajan didn’t care to bowl and went with 5 pacers.  Unfortunately his best fast bowler had a back problem, so he didn’t play that game. He has been ineffective as a bowler this tournament thus putting a lot more questions on whether he can ever be the bowler he was a few years ago.   The team doesn’t have a replacement for Tendulkar at the top and though they have rotated a lot of openers with Levi, none of them has actually provided them the starts that would boost the scoring.

Tendulkar needs to return back sooner than later before its all over for the MIs.

Saurav Ganguly has led well, but has flopped as batsman and that’s hurting the Pune team. Though they have Ryder, Uthappa, Mathews, Steven Smith in their lineup, the team’d hope a lot more from their legendary captain to score more runs.  Ashok Dinda has again boosted his confidence playing in IPL thus proving a lot to his detractors that he is from the tribe that thrives in IPL (likes of Jadeja, Ashvin, M Vijay etc) but fail miserably in international arena.  Or may be Ganguly is handling him well than Dhoni did in those ODI tournaments.

Punjab team is more reliant on its foreign players and they don’t have quality domestic players. Hussey, Marsh and Gilly form the Aussie trio playing for this team, but till now none of them have come good and that’s hurting the team. Add to it the drama of the owner who had an ugly spat with the match officials over dismissal of Shaun Marsh in that game against KKR. 

Deccan Chargers have lost 4 games of 4, 2 of them in last over. They just don’t have personnel to arrest this slide and are expected to be wooden spoon winners this time around too (lastly in 2008).

The big letdowns:

•       Suresh Raina
•       R Ashvin
•       MS Dhoni
•       Praveen Kumar
•       M Vijay
•       P Valthaty
•       Virat Kohli

The top 3 of this list have been playing in the champion team of last 2 years and this season they are big flops. Though you never say “finished” for Dhoni, but I think its time up for Raina for time being. He’d be too valuable to be dropped from CSK, but unless he doesn’t turn the tide with some consistent and big scores, he would be finding himself out of the contention from the starting XI in any format of the game. And given his T20 reputation, he’d be a big loss given this is a T20I world cup year.

Praveen Kumar is a poor bowler after his injury and he has got hit for runs, pace has dropped, no wickets have come up too.    Pragyan Ojha and Rahul Sharma are better spin bowlers than R Ashvin, but CSK connections and royal backing from CSK folks, he continues to play every game India plays in every format. 2 wickets in 6 games are poor returns, given the highs of 2009 – 2011 he has had with this franchisee.

The positive points (From Indian perspective) are:

1.      Munaf Patel is among the wickets and though he is a creepy character too, but lot better than the likes of Praveen Kumar, Vinay Kumar and Ashok Dinda who bowl at same pace, don’t take wickets. So he should be one of the contenders to come back in the limited overs team.
2.       Zaheer Khan has played every. Better news is his fitness looks good.
3.      Umesh Yadav with economy  rate of  6 and S/R of 14.  And pace too.
4.      Ajinkya Rahane in batting.