How English is the English team?

I'm happy for England. I really am. How many teams can boast of going to Australia and beating them on their home turf this decade?
Only South Africa managed to do that two years ago.
But then, when you look at it, out of the current playing XI in England, four are South Africans.
My brother came up with this theory and I think that it's a very valid point. Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior and Jonathan Trott, four key players in the English side are South Africans. They're not the type like Monty, who lived in England for all his life, and then got an England cap. These guys are players, who were rejected by South Africa for not being 'good enough', went to England, got citizenship and are now playing for their adopted nation.
If we go by that theory, we should take an entire lot of fast bowlers from Pakistan - given the chaotic scene in their cricketing world, give them passports and Indian citizenship and let them spearhead India's fast bowling attack. Hell it'll do wonders to us.

South African Andrew Strauss, who captains England
smiles as he looks at the reclaimed Ashes

I'm not taking anything away from England. The side has played cricket that makes me love the game even more. They have been aggressive, always at the opposition and just gone and if I were to use a word: fucked Australia in every department of the game.
My only question is how English a victory is it? Four South African players, a Zimbabwean coach, a South African great as your former bowling coach doesn't make it too English, does it? Hopefully, by the next Ashes, if someone reads this post and flames me, they would have a full-strength English side that is ready to actually beat Australia

Rankings and test cricket

A lot of people are calling it India's final frontier.
Ever since the Indian cricket team were ranked number 1 by the ICC, the expectations have obviously gone higher.
One thing that I have noticed about the present Indian side is that they are slow starters. Ever since they got the number 1 ranking, they have lost most of the first test matches of the series in the last one year. The one against Australia at Mohali was almost a loss, if it weren't for Laxman and Ishant's heroics at the end. They got rammed by South Africa last year at Ahmedabad and it was a similar case against Sri Lanka, when we toured earlier this year. The first two matches against New Zealand were boring draws, before the Nagpur match turned things around for them.
So where does this leave them in the series against South Africa?
South Africa themselves haven't been doing too great. They drew with a Pakistani team that is desperately hoping that they don't get banned from the international cricket arena; earlier in the year, they drew with an English side that seems to be getting better by the day and they drew with India in India. It's nothing to write home about, but funnily these two sides are ranked one and two by the International Cricket Council.
England on the other hand are actually playing like a number 1 side. They have been consistently good; have been playing competitive cricket and are no longer the whiners that they were. It's almost like role reversal when I see them in the Ashes today.
Cricket today is viewed in a different way. It's more about the T20, as Chris Gayle said, which is unfortunate. Thankfully, you still have packed stadiums during an England and Australia match and Indians have colonized the world, so even if India were playing Zimbabwe in a test match tomorrow, there would be a decent crowd present.
I'm looking forward to this test series. India's fast bowlers have always done well abroad. Hell, someone like Venkatesh Prasad managed a 10 wicket haul against South Africa in 1997, so it'll be no surprise (unless of course, they decide to bowl like shit) that these guys do well.
My only concern is about the batsmen. They've done well in Australia, England and NZ, but South Africa has always been a problem. Hopefully, they rectify this problem.
As for England, let's just hope that there is a time that they have a test tri series between England, India and South Africa before the rankings take a whole new turn.

The Australian Phoenix

We're two test matches down in the Ashes and England has the psychological advantage going into the third test.
England have been playing really good cricket off late. They drew a series in South Africa; they did well against Pakistan at home and they even won their first international tournament in the form of the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.

Although this may be the end of Ponting's career, Australia
will be back to the top of the summit sooner than later

Australia on the other hand have been on a downward spiral. Several of their best players retired at the same time, making their shoes hard to fill. Their captain is woefully out of form and their vice captain is batting like a cunt. Even that 80 was a piece of shit innings. He has batted better than that and he knows it. Hussey is doing a good job in the middle, but he needs to convert those 50s into larger scores.
The bowling is rubbish.
Siddle is good in bursts; Harris is good, but very unlucky; Johnson and Bollinger are inconsistent; Watson is a bits and pieces bowler and batsman, come to think of it and there is nobody in the side as a specialist spinner.
I heard someone tell me today that this is like the decline of the great West Indies.
But I disagree.
Australia may be playing like crap now, but they've always been a side to rise from the Ashes. I still maintain that they have a chance of reaching the final four of the 2011 World Cup in the subcontinent. I will not rule them out of anything.
Let's face it: I watch cricket because of this side and the way they've played the game over the years. They've played it tough. Yes, it's been dirty at times, but it's been tough cricket. They never say die and although they may lose this tournament and Ricky Ponting, in the process, they'll be back on the top of their game by 2015, if not earlier.

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.