A cricket ramble

The India-NZ series has begun.
I had wanted to write a number of things between India-Australia getting over and this one beginning, but unfortunately time wasn't on my side.
New Zealand looks crap at the moment. They lost to Bangladesh, which is like getting a bamboo shoved up your posterior without any lubricant applied to it.
And on day one of the first test match at Ahmedabad, which has one of the shittiest pitches that I've see, they get raped by Sehwag and Dravid.
I love Dravid, but he's been playing rubbish off late, so getting a century was good for him and I'm happy that he did.
However, I was happier when he got that 70-odd against Australia.
Let's face it. We may all hate the Australians under Ponting and Clarke, but you have to accept the fact that they play tough cricket, whether they win or lose.
They're currently getting screwed by Sri Lanka at home, which probably makes England excited about their chances to regain the Ashes.
But KP, surprisingly KP, made what is perhaps the most intelligent sentence he's ever said about the Australian side
But the beauty of the whole thing is that test cricket is alive and well and the Ashes should be fun to watch, as well India-SA.

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan Royals is screwed. (Sorry, Shoeb)
Kings XI Punjab is fucked.
Kochi looks like it is going before it arrives.
And Lalit Modi could die.
Somewhere in the middle, Sunil Gavaskar runs his mouth about how he has nothing to do with Kochi and Anil Kumble discusses a career in cricket administration.
If that happens, I see hope for the BCCI, unless Kumble succumbs to the dark side of the force and becomes another administrative stooge in the larger scheme of the Indian cricket body.

Oh yeah, before I sign out, I dedicate this piece to Abdul Rassaq, who played a brilliant innings that day and was honest about his and his teammates position in the Pakistani side. "We play every match as if it's our last," he said. He is quite right. Going by the spot fixing and the beauty of the CCTV camera, you never know what to expect from that team

The ass-kissing Sachin fan

Sachin Tendulkar. I remember one time when India was touring South Africa under Rahul Dravid's captaincy and Sachin wasn't playing the best cricket at that time. His average had dipped a lot and people were questioning his role in the side, calling him a liability to a young Indian side. But there was this one cover drive that he played off Ntini. The ball wasn't that bad, but Sachin touched it and it went for four. My uncle was watching the match with me and said, "Even if you hate the way he's playing, you look at a shot like that and you forgive him for everything."


That was three years ago and today Sachin plays shots like that all the time. He's been Bradmanesque and remarkable. We all know what he's done over the years and he had nothing to prove to anyone, but nonetheless he just went on like a machine on overdrive and produced century after century and now he's just three away from 100 international centuries.


The Australian series was tough. It could have been two drawn test matches, but thankfully it wasn't. Now with NZ coming down, Sachin should ideally reach his 50th

The many meanings to VVS Laxman

Laxman did it again against Australia

You can't ignore VVS Laxman.
He can't field in the deep, he plays the worst T20 game in the history of cricket and he can't run between wickets in the 50-over format of the game.
But give him a test match - add to that, a test match against Australia, the transformation from Very Very Shitty to Very Very Special is evident.
He did it again and this time with a backache.
What looked like it would be a boring draw ended up being one of the greatest test matches of all time.
Who would have thought that on day one, when the commentators said that the pitch is dry and has no response, that we would get a result?
Who would have assumed that those criticising the pitch on the first three days, when both Australia and India piled over 400 runs, that they would have this as a result?
We owe it to a lot of people for giving us a great test match. Laxman, for one. Ishant for bowling like a madman in the second innings and batting like a veteran in India's chase.
We owe it to Billy Bowden for his rubbish umpiring in a time of chaos. We can never say which was worse: his declaring Ishant out or his declaring Ojha not out. It'll always be a mystery that will elude us.
But we owe it to the game. Test cricket is still alive and kicking and hopefully, Bangalore will also see cricket chaos.
But this is about VVS. As my friend Ipsit says, "A penny for your thoughts on our old friend VVS's tendency to fart around scoring the odd 50 or 100 here and there...and then comprehensively gang-raping the Aussies every two years to ensure that he gets to fart around undisturbed until the next Aussie series."

In the 'Spot'light

I don’t know why I never wrote about the spot fixing issue. I had accepted the fact that throwing away a match for the sake of a few million dollars was something that the game had to accept – perhaps even legalize. So when I was asked on Twitter why I hadn’t written about the Champion’s League T20, I didn’t know what to say. I told the guy that I’d probably club spot fixing with the tournament and make it some a crazy rant of a frustrated cricket fan.

I remember my brother and I discussing Mohammed Aamir when he played the series in Australia. He was a tall, lanky, teenage kid who could bowl consistently at 90 mph – a sight that is regular in Pakistan cricket. He said that the kid looked excellent. And both of us said that he’ll probably throw some matches away. What we didn’t know was that he’d do it so early in his career.

You look at the Pakistani side and wonder why these guys are a bunch of talented, but directionless kids. They had an Imran, who is probably Pakistan’s greatest captain. But after that, they’ve had nobody. There have been busts of brilliance like they showed in the 1999 World Cup, a few Sharjah tournaments and whenever they’ve played India, but what is the other good that has come out of the side? If there isn’t match fixing, there is division within the team over religious differences.

Now if I drew parallels with the current Indian side, I wouldn’t call most of the players our team the best of role models, but I know one thing is certain: they won’t throw away a match. Not for anything else. Like Sunil Gavaskar said in an article recently, the stakes are too high for an Indian player in case he’s caught. The media will destroy him before the court does; the advertisers will take away his endorsements and his IPL contract will get terminated. The last two, of course, is more money than what the Pakistani cricketer would ever dream of even in a spot fixing case. There could be a one-off player who may be involved, like the recent report suggests, but I wouldn’t think it’s one of the bigger names in the country. It sounds more like a Grade C-level player.

Pakistan’s role in this spot fixing controversy has ‘tarnished the nation’, according to Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani. But still there seems to be no improvement in the situation. Asif is seeking asylum in the United Kingdom; Aamir is being pitied and labeled as the kid who was in wrong company. Initially, I came from that school of thought, but now I feel that if he’s 19 years old, he is an adult and is free to know the difference between who is a good friend and who is not. Bottom like, if he’s guilty, he should be banned. I’d feel sorry that a great talent went to waste.

What I find incredible is that these investigations have brought out a lot of murk about the IPL. It already looked shady when you’d see all the players going for after-match parties. And now, you have this.

So I find it ridiculous that the CL-T20 is even happening. Funnily, unlike the IPL, which I would watch at my old office with other colleagues, I don’t know or care what’s happening here. I’m not reacting to a Mumbai Indians loss or a Chennai Win. I don’t know who is in the XI of each side and only look up things because of a client we operate for at work, which wants Champion’s League quizzes and player profiles.

However, I think I’ll start watching the test series against SA whenever it begins. It should be fun, I hope. 

Rankings and rants

The Dambulla stadium is Sri Lanka's Sharjah

Before the Asia Cup began, Aakash Chopra said that India will be playing Sri Lanka for the millionth time this year. It was casually mentioned on Twitter, but I think it was retweeted several times. And why not?
Right now, I'm bored of watching the Tri-Series. I follow the game on CricInfo, but that is also limited. I'd rather follow the score for the England-Pakistan test match, which looks to be another good game of cricket.
Dambulla has become the Sharjah of Sri Lankan cricket. Every limited over or T20 game played in Sri Lanka seems to be in Dambulla. Again...it's understandable, as it is probably the only sporty wicket Sri Lanka has, considering their rubbish test match wickets.
So how do two teams deal with strategy when they meet each other so often in a year? It eventually comes down to luck on who wins the toss in the shorter version of the game. In the longer version, especially in the subcontinent, you need to bat first, put up a total of 600-plus and play out a draw. Unless of course, you're Virender Sehwag, who decides to make 288 in a day.
The boards need to be criticized for this. They schedule so many matches with the same side during the year, that most of the players find it hard to adjust to alien conditions when they play in countries like Australia and South Africa. India's record abroad has improved over the last few years, but it's still a long way from giving us the Number 1 test ranking. We're good, I agree, but we need to be more consistent.
I tend to agree with Kumara Sangakkara about the ICC rankings. If we play in subcontinent-like conditions throughout the year, barring a series abroad, then on what basis are we judged? India has been doing well in tests, but its ODI and T-20 (which I don't even count as proper cricket), haven't been the best in a while. Yet we're number 2 in the ODI rankings. The biggest tournament that we won in the last three years is the VB Series in Australia, which was three years ago. We haven't reached the semi-final of any major tournament involving all the cricket playing nations in the last two years.
My only theory is that since we play so much cricket, the probability of us winning more matches is greater. It's probably why the BCCI decided to work on the test itinerary for 2010, fearing that India would lose the Number 1 ranking. More matches played means the probability of more wins. Thus the ranking. If that is the case, then the ICC has some serious rethinking and restructuring to do.

Why is Pakistan playing test cricket?

I can picture a scenario where Salman Butt tells his batsman, "Come soon. I'll see you before lunch!"
Right now, the Pakistani batsmen are playing shit.
I don't think there's anything else to describe their game right now.
And the funny thing is that people were after Bangladesh's throats when they would consistently lose to sides all over the world.
Pakistan is doing pretty much the same thing. In fact, they're playing worse than Bangladesh right now. It's ridiculous because James Anderson is taking 10-wicket hauls. That's just wrong.
I'd understand if Graham Swann or Graham Onions did something like that, but Anderson?
Even Broad seems to be bowling well.
For England's sake, I hope they don't take this victory as overconfidence during the Ashes. Although Australia isn't playing their best cricket, it's a home series for them and that will always work in their favour.
But Pakistan? They need a lot of work to do.

Pakistan needs help

Like the Joker, the Pakistani team doesn't
have a plan. It's just plain chaos!

Currently Pakistan is playing like we did in the 90s.
Test cricket is about playing in sessions, they say. Pakistan plays like a team possessed in one session. They have a pace attack which I believe is the best in the world right now. Their bowling today is what Ambrose and Walsh were when West Indies started declining as a side.
But the batting is rubbish. It's even worse than the West Indies batting. At least they had Lara, who could do awesome things sometimes.
But these guys need a lot of working to do. They nearly killed the match against Australia and managed to win by three wickets at the end.
I thought that they would repeat a Sydney or a Sri Lanka in that test match, but they managed to survive.
Not in this one though.
It's sad because you have a side that bowls brilliantly and the batsmen throw their wickets away and make a mess of themselves.
What's different from the way we played and the way Pakistan plays now? At that time, we would play badly in all the sessions of a test match, so the whole world knew that we would invariably lose. Here, there is a shimmer of hope for Pakistan when their bowlers bowl like that. Unfortunately for them, the batting is too weak. Quite the opposite of the present Indian team that has a very impotent bowling lineup.
My brother and I were having a discussion when England collapsed in their first inning. He asked me, "How much do you think Pakistan will make?"
"77!" I said.
He laughed and said that they'll make less than 200
"We were laughing today about how they made less than 250 in the entire match!"
They're in need of help. Maybe Inzy should come out of retirement and take over the middle order.
Pakistani cricket is in shambles. It's crazy and it's retarded.
It's probably why I like watching them play.
They're like the Joker. There is no plan. Only Chaos!