Virendra Sehwag

Virendra Sehwag always bats like a king...today he was an emperor! He demolished SL attack at will for the whole day to budgeon 284 NO!

With Veeru, cricket is never boring...he is always in some kind of hurry . Plays for the joy of it, nothing less and nothing more. Reminds me of Lance Klusner who played for the joy, victory or defeat can go for a walk, who cares.

Veeru keeps it simple, in his own words "I play ball by ball, throw me a bad ball, I will hit"... and we like it, oh yes we do! One cant feel sorry for the bowlers who just wait for the storm called Sehwag to pass, unable to do anything to control it. He has no qualms about the requirements, no strategic thinking, no thinking caps, no pressure of any expectations, and absolutely no nervous nineties or one hundred nineties or two hundred nineties !!!!!!!!

Yes, he is the same man who was woefully out of form a couple of years ago and who looks funny at times for lack of technique. For all the intelligence of BCCI selection committees, sense prevailed and they kept picking him despite some outcry and has he rewarded them?

Sehwag's interview which I read on cricinfo through Prem Panicker's blog was a sheer delight to read. WIll post a link over here whenever I get time.

What a man! Take a bow, Veeru! Thank you for providing us with the joy of watching cricket and for enthusing life in test cricket for when you bat, the result is bound to be there.

Image courtesy: Cricinfo

SL in India

2 tests down and 1 more to go... here are my thoughts...
Gautam Gambhir is slated to become one of the best Indian batsmen
Sehwag is a treasure to have in the team as he can set up the most improbable of victories and fail without caring a damn
Sachin still has a lot of cricket left in him
India in Tests needs Rahul Wall Dravid, VVS Laxman
Bhajji needs to be chucked out of the team NOW
Spinners Pragyan and Amit need to be given the confidence, freedom and motivation to bowl only to take wickets
Dhoni is doing well...
How the same Mendis who mesmerized Indians on SL soil can fail in India?
I think the Brabourne match is going to be tough without Gauti in Indian team....
The same old conclusion is that India always do well in Indian pitches and Indians look better cricketers when they play in India...

On the other side,

Excellent cricket happening between NZ and Pak - Superb bowling and fighting cricket
Dream Debut for the West Indian Barath who gave Aussies a wonderful Challenge

Some Dope on Doping...

The ICC wants cricketers to be checked for dope.
BCCI does not agree and stands by its players.
Players are sceptical. They say that anti-doping tests when they are playing cricket is fine, but no such tests in non-cricketing season.
The point being contested is as follows:
The new code mandates the establishment of an International Registered Testing Pool (IRTP) of players who are nominated for random testing based on their ICC rankings. Players from this pool have to inform the ICC at the beginning of every quarter (three-month period) of the year, a location and time that they will be available for an hour each day in that quarter for testing. If a player changes his/her schedule in between, then he/she needs to update the whereabouts information to the nodal officer either online or even through SMS. However, if the player is not in the location at the time specified, he/she will have a strike recorded against his name. Three such strikes and the player will have breached the code and can face up to a two-year suspension from the game.
Those in the ICC's testing pool feel that the code infringes on their privacy and personal space, especially during off-season or when they are not playing cricket. They have also raised concerns on a practical level and claim the system has a high risk of catching athletes who are simply not administratively inclined.
(Source: Cricinfo)
FIFA and players like Federer have also raised same concerns.

I think that the players should agree to this rule. There is no point in crying 'breach of privacy' and being high headed demi gods of Indian cricket when all other country players have agreed to it. While you are availing all the benefits that you get by playing ICC tournaments, you need to follow the discipline put by ICC.

Rudi cries sour grapes...

Rudi Koertzen says: “Don’t blame umpires as the players are not honest”!

Now this is an outrageous statement coming from an umpire in elite panel of ICC. What is player’s behaviour got to do with an umpire’s decision???

It is like a judge saying the next day after delivering a wrong judgment ”Don’t blame me for the judgment, you were rude in the courtroom”!!!

Hello?

Until the time the game rises above the pampered egos of umpires and hands over decision making to the technology in order to give justice to the hard work put in by the players, we will have such baseless arguments.

Down with high-headed umpires!

Bangla Create History!

A country which was just born when the Windies were ruling world cricket, took pains, insult and derogatory treatment in world cricket for years, decades only to rise and create history by beating the same Windies in test cricket and that too in West Indies !!! Lovely!
Bangla tigers, Jai Ho!

Pakistan - A Mystery!

Pakistan team, Oh Pakistan team – what art thou?

In Test no. 1, you almost defeated SL and in the second test in innings 1 , you were all out for 90! If that was a blip, you followed it up with an awesome fightback going to 285 for 1 and then unexplicably catapulting to 320 all out!!! I don’t think there is any other team in the whole world which is capable of such contrasting display in just a couple of days!
And to think of it, for god’s sake it was (and is) a batting pitch! Kumar Sangakkara’s batting average on this ground is a near 90! And then SL got the winning total of 172 within 32 overs!!!

That makes Nuwan Kulasekara a superman, doesn’t it? He was simply unplayable yesterday and Herath. Tushara bowled very well too. Pakistan all out for 90 by Sri Lanka and then again last 9 wickets in 35 runs in the second innings without Muralitharan in the team!

Add to that the enigma of a reverse sweep reversing fortunes of a match, a nation and history!!!

I think Pakistan teams will always remain the most enigmatic, charismatic and yet mystifying teams that has ever played world cricket.

Unlikely batting heroes for England!

Move over, Kevin Pieterson, Cook, Strauss and Collingwood. The new English batting heroes are here: James Anderson and Monty Panesar!

Well done, boys. Very very well done indeed! It was a great contest between the bat and the ball and made for a riveting show.

I think that instead of using North, Ponting should have thrown Hauritz along with Hilfenhaus who was clearly one of the best bowlers of the innings for Aussies, at both Monty and Anderson. But what’s happened has happened and the record books have recorded a fighting draw for England at Cardiff.

Paul Collingwood yet again stood like a rock for a long time, I think for a long time now; he has been the Man Friday of English Cricket.

This brings me to yet another important thought on test cricket. Most of the teams have great batsmen in them; very few have world class bowlers. And test matches are not won on runs, they are won on wickets. There is no rocket science here, simple fact: A team that manages 20 wickets in 5 days wins the match. So, it is the teams that have the best bowlers who will be champions and stay champions.

That is why you had WI dominating in the 80’s and then Australians in the new millennium.

Coming back to this game, I think it was an overall a super-credible fighting performance from the Brits on Day 5 at Cardiff to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat.
Thank you to both teams for such exhilarating Test Cricket!