The King offers himself to Team India

Sir Viv has offered to train our players about the art of playing fast bowling.
It's a very generous offer by a guy, who would wallop most bowlers across the world without wearing a helmet.
But like I mentioned earlier, batsmen across the world struggle while playing quality fast bowling.
Our batsmen, barring Raina and Rohit (in that one inning) were woefully out of form in the World Cup.
They played well in the IPL because IPL is shit.
Uncle J-Rod agrees with me here. I asked him on Twitter what he thought of Mohammad Azharuddin's 'expert knowledge' on saying that they played well in the IPL, but not for the team.
(cwbfeed @jcalamur Then I would disregard all comments. Ofcourse their IPL form was better, the cricket is way shitter there.)
If Sir Viv his hired, and however cool it will be to see him in India, I don't know how he'll deal with our boys. 
Personally, our team needs someone like Saurav Ganguly or Ravi Shastri to be special consultant. 
I dislike Ganguly, but he is so full of himself, that he will bring out the best in this Indian side to show that he is a great motivator.
The same can be said about Shastri.
For the sake of Indian cricket, I honestly don't mind that

Previews and predictions

So it's a T20 Ashes tomorrow.
Both teams despite being juggernauts in the tournament, have had their obstacles.
In a group match, England struggled against Ireland.
And in the semis, it was only thanks to Hussey that Australia reached the finals.
England's had a dream run up to now and Australia were slightly jolted on Friday. So knowing them, they'll raise their game in this match.
It doesn't help England's cause that it's a final, but in their defense, they have been playing some fantastic cricket off late. And as Uncle JRod said, KP is donning the role of the elder statesman. For England's sake, I hope that he doesn't become the retarded batsman that he usually is.
The bowlers are bowling well and Swann is their trump card tomorrow.
For Australia, it's about Shane Watson. He's always been a big match player and I feel that tomorrow will be no different. Hussey can't repeat his heroics. That freak of nature happens once in a lifetime. It's like the Hrishikesh Kanitkar four in the Independence Cup at Dhaka in 1998, or (although I hate to mention it) Javed Miandad hitting Chetan Sharma for a last ball six at Sharjah in 1985 (Chetan should be shot for that one. Who the hell told him to bowl Miandad a full toss)
At the end of it, I want England to win this one (that in itself is a first for me), but I feel that the Aussies will take another title home.  After all, they wanted to prove to the world that they have cracked this form of the game at last
For the sake of all of us, I just hope that it isn't a one-sided final. That will be really pissing off.

Mr. Cricket is the man

Ten minutes ago, when Saeed Ajmal took Steve Smith's wicket, I thought that Australia was out of the T20 world cup.
Hell, Pakistan batted like a dream, took out both Australian openers early, had a small fright from Cameron White, but didn't look like they would lose this match.
Michael Hussey had different ideas.
He was batting at a steady pace and before the last over had scored 38 in 20 balls when the 20th over was about to be bowled.
In T20, 38 in 20 is good. Not great, but good.
What the world didn't know was that he would score 22 runs in the next four balls he faced, and won the match for Australia in the process.
When you see a guy bat like that, you just wonder what on earth the Australian selectors were doing by picking him so late in his career.
In my praise for Hussey, I do feel for Pakistan and Ajmal in particular. They tried and almost won.
They probably would have had it not been for Mr. Cricket.
Australia didn't beat Pakistan. Micheal Hussey did

Shane Bond calls is a day

It's a pity that in his nine years as a cricketer, Shane Bond spent half his time recuperating from injury.
Add another two years and he was playing the rebel ICL league, which resulted in his getting banned from the game by the ICC during that period.
Finally, after all the great bowling spells, times of physiotherapy, which was followed by another great bowling spell, Bond has called it quits.
The decision was inevitable. He's 35 and the body would take longer to heal from injuries than it did in the early part of his career.
It is also a pity. I loved watching him bowl. He was fast, could swing the ball and was never called for chucking.
Also, he brought out his best against Australia, which resulted in some brilliant matches between the two sides.
He also loved walloping us during cricket matches and took full advantage of the fact that Saurav Ganguly couldn't play short stuff.
With him gone, unfortunately there is more burden on Daniel Vettori.
Ian Butler and Chris Martin are hard working guys, but they can't penetrate a bowling attack.
But this is not about the rest of the side. This is about Bond, who at the end of the day, was probably the world's greatest fast bowler after England's Frank Tyson to have not taken 100 test wickets

The curious case of Pakistani cricket

So, the Pakistani team fucked us over.
After playing terrible cricket in the initial stage of the tournament, they are now in the semifinals against Australia.
It was something India didn't expect at all.
Team India probably thought that Pakistan, like them, took Aman Ki Asha seriously.
But Shahid and his band of merry men aren't stupid, although they pretend to be. Hell, they won everything last year. This year, despite people writing them off, they kicked South Africa out of the tournament. Before that, they were out as well.
Suddenly, they're in the semis.
While the cricketing world is predicting an Ashes final, I wouldn't rule Pakistan out at all.
You can't rule Pakistan out; in fact, you can never rule Pakistan out. Even if the PCB handpicks 11 random guys with raw talent from the street and gives them a Pakistan cap, they can never be ruled out.
In fact, when there are 11 new random names, they would be a deadlier unit.
So, Australia, get your game in place tomorrow. Your pace attack might suddenly not look so effective and your batting might collapse thanks to some random Pakistani bowling.
You have been warned

Indians and fast bowling

I'll agree that India as a team played like shit at the T20 World Cup.
Dhoni's remarks stating that the IPL parties were responsible for the poor performance will raise questions about his sincerity as a player and a captain, and the team's discipline as a whole. The media being the way it is will use this as a tool to try and finish him off, unless he proves them wrong in the next series we play
If that wasn't bad enough, Yuvraj and Nehra have been involved in an altercation at some pub in the West Indies. They will obviously deny the charges made against them.
Ridiculous, I say.
However, this piece isn't about the partying scenario and the fact that Team India lacks discipline and consistency to make winning a habit. This is a piece about India and the players' inability to play fast and short pitched bowling. And here, I'm going to do a test match analysis, because it is in that format where a bowler can take advantage of the fact that he can bowl fast and short and get away with aiming the ball at the batsman's head rather than the stumps.
For the last 50 years, the cricketing world has always criticized Indian batsmen and their inability to play fast bowling. Fred Trueman during his career best of 8/31 in his post match interview said that the Indian batsmen were scared. And yes, at that time there were. Here, you have a guy bowling at over 90 mph and your head and the only thing you think of is your life, as the concept of helmets and protective gear hadn't come out then.
But since then, things have changed.
Today, batsmen around the world, despite the protective gear available to them, suffer against genuinely quick and quality fast bowling. If I'm not convincing enough, let's look at statistics
Shoaib Akhtar, regarded as the world's fastest bowler averages 34.50 against India. He averages 24 against South Africa and 5 against New Zealand. Now it will be unfair to New Zealand because Akhtar has played only two test matches against them. But against South Africa, he has played five test matches and 10 against India.
But then, Shoaib would be considered inconsistent by cricketing pundits.
So let's take an example of Curtly Ambrose. Ambrose averages 20.99 in tests, which is a phenomenal record in itself. But he averages an unenviable 38.26 against India.
By showing these numbers, I'm not saying that Indian players are fantastic players of fast bowling. Alan Donald, in his career, averaged 17.31 against the Indians. Malcolm Marshall was consistent against all the sides he bowled against and Shane Bond has done phenomenally well against the subcontinent, except Sri Lanka.
Now, why does everyone criticize India and its inability to play quick bowling? Aakash Chopra has been tweeting about how we need to produce fast bowling wickets in India. While I don't disagree with him, Sri Lanka need to do the same thing. For the last 10 years, they have produced wickets to give Muralitharan his wickets. No offence to Murali, though. The man has taken wickets all over the world. The wickets in Pakistan are practically dead.
I think there are a couple of reasons why India is always criticized about their inability
1) India has never produced a quality fast bowler. We've had several fast medium guys. Srinath was genuinely quick towards the end of his career, but that's about it. Ishant was labelled as the next big thing, but he's been bowling like a cunt of late
2) Most Indian batsmen, who have done well against quick bowlers have been smug about it. Funnily though, four of India's greatest players against fast bowling - Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Tendulkar and Dravid have never bragged about their ability. The others, however, look so smug and arrogant that it probably pisses a bowler off. Malcolm Marshall in his autobiography stated the reasons why he disliked Dilip Vensarkar and how he would enjoy bowling fast to him because of his pissing-off attitude.
So, if Indian players need to stop getting targeted, then they need to produce good wickets in India and stop acting like a bunch of pompous idiots. While this will not happen overnight, hopefully in time things will change. Otherwise, teams the world over will try and do their best against India

Azharuddin speaks of Team India fiasco

So, after he received a life ban, this is the first time Mohammad Azharuddin has spoken to a cricket website.
"Obviously if you stay up the whole night, it would affect you. Players should be responsible enough. The game is more important than the parties. Excuses like these cannot be given after you lose. For a player, cricket should come first and everything else is secondary."
Mohammad Azharuddin is appalled by Dhoni citing the hectic IPL schedules, on and off the field, as an excuse for the side's performance.
It's funny. This is from the same guy, who was banned for life for fixing matches that involved his country.
It doesn't matter whether he's guilty or not. It does matter that he was banned and disgraced from the game.
Then he decided to enter politics and stood for elections using a Congress ticket.
Suddenly, without realizing it, he won and became a member of the Lok Sabha. 
Ideally, he should have become union sports minister and legalized betting in all games. At least, we'd know that the IPL and professional wrestling would mean the same thing. 
Now, the media wants his expert opinion on the game and how things are in it. 
Considering his oratory skills, I'm sure that he would be as clear as the Great Khali. At least in Khali's case, we know 100 per cent that he fixes matches. It's his job to do so.
Personally, I blame the media as well for interviewing Azhar. They have no right in doing so.