Oh no! I would not want to believe so in such a meaningless system. I was deeply disappointed to know about the selection of Kohli and Ojha into the national team for the Sri Lankan series. It is not that I have something against them… these two are fine players who should in some time given their talent hopefully make it into the team. However where in this world today are their places being earned. A U19 player with a few fine performances under his belt automatically means a direct fast-track passport to the national team. That’s the Indian selection policy for you, grinning to the brim on the queries of their western counterparts on how can they unearth such young talent! The problem with this is that these talents are half-done cookies no way ready to do the full-monty, last the long mile.

Taking some examples of a few players who have surfaced for India under this policy, isn’t it obvious to look and see where this system stands today.

Mohammed Kaif came, dazzled, prodded for long and got dropped… no where in the scene today.

Raina, Pathan, Parthiv all came under the bandwagon… all initially dazzled and fell flat. Raina took the grind of the domestic circuit, excelled and was rightfully rewarded for a comeback. Pathan looks pale for quite sometime and Parthiv is still terrible with his glove work. Yuvraj Singh may be the biggest glimmer of that policy and yet after so many years, he is not an established player… in comparison look at Sangakarra. Gautam Gambhir went through the grind and established his supremacy in the domestic system followed by Badrinath. It took Gautam years to get back in and the other still the third choice bench warmer watching some u19 guy get a fast track ticket. The point is some of the ones who have made a better comeback distinctly are the ones who have gone through the grind and improved their game and temperament.

These fast-tracked guys may do well but recent history has shown them to get blunt quickly due to their lack of roundness and finesse in every aspect of the game and mental ability. More than this, the important question is why then have a system at all! Why have a domestic circuit… a larger and more competitive pool of cricketers battling it out! To start with, first of all, the domestic circuit has to be considerably trimmed down, with far lesser teams involved, rather than being politically correct and offer a zillion teams of states, smaller than the colonies I have lived in. The second aspect is if the domestic circuit be defined as the next level of the system, ensure the policy is in line with no by-pass surgeries unless a talent really oozes to the likes of being a sheer genius.

Surely, the reports on some members of the recent u19 world cup winning team, forging their age, don’t look false to me. Looking at the system offering them a fair better chance, it looks believable! And that would be sad for all parties involved in the game especially some deserving hard working cricketers.

At end of the day, after so many years, the selection committee has to introspect on this policy and see how well it has worked, as it stands today. And for importantly, what we are loosing in the process, a breakdown of a system, which is never being given a chance to show us what it has got.

In yet another bizarre twist to Pakistani cricket, the PCB chief steps down from his position on a day when their political president also steps down and the strange part is Gen. Musharaf’s resignation had everything to do with this. Are we looking at some sworn loyalty syndrome? Or is there a lot that meets the eye in terms of his relationship and personal fortunes with the patron-in-chief?

Whatever may be, it could well be the light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistan with respect to cricket, when it was getting increasingly murkier with gross spineless management.

One can hardly take him seriously looking at the number of bizarre flip-flops decision made when he was at the helm. Nevertheless, his flip-flops would uniquely make him remembered in the cricketing circles and hopefully, Pakistan would hire some good administrators and sort out all their cricketing issues.

Compiled a list of flip-flops under his tenure from the cricinfo site:

Mushtaq Ahmed: Soon after coming to power, sacked Mushtaq as assistant coach, citing Justice Qayyum report that pointed to his links with match-fixing. Re-hired him soon after for World Cup 2007

General staff: Sacked 80 PCB staff, and then promptly re-hired them

Doping tribunal: Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were banned after they were found guilty of using steroids, only for the decision to be overturned within a month despite both admitting usage, after an appellate tribunal was set up

Constitution: Promised PCB’s constitution would be ready within a month of his appointment. Changed the date three times, and kept on extending it until it was finally ready in January 2008, some 14 months after the original promise

Resignation: Handed in his resignation during World Cup 2007, withdrew it about a week later after it was rejected by the patron

Foreign coach: Said specifically after World Cup 2007 in a press conference that no foreign coach would be appointed for Pakistan. Appointed Geoff Lawson a few months later

Younis Khan: Said, after Younis Khan had turned down the captaincy, that he would not be made captain again. Yet for Pakistan’s tour to India in end-2007, personally appointed Younis vice-captain - he became captain when Shoaib Malik got injured.

ICL
Announced no player in the ICL would be allowed to play for Pakistan or in Pakistan domestic cricket. Except Inzamam-ul-Haq, who was allowed to play a one-off Test as farewell and reportedly given a Rs 1 crore golden handshake for it

Announced Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Mushtaq would not be given NOCs to play county cricket because of their ICL links. Yet both were given one soon after

Promised Mohammad Yousuf that he would play in the IPL, having paid him to come out of his ICL contract. Currently the matter is stuck in legal limbo forcing Yousuf to miss the first season of both leagues

And can we forget this episode which is still raging and puzzling cricket fans all over the world

Shoaib Akhtar: The board stated publicly that Shoaib didn’t have to pay any fine in order play in the Champions Trophy, only to then say three days later that actually he does.

Whatever!!

It’s been a long time since India truly went through a Sri Lankan nightmare. The last time around was when the likes of Jayasuriya in his peak form was carting the Indian bowlers into retirement and the crafty Aravinda milked them dry out of anything that flowed through their nipples. Surely Venkatesh Prasad would fully endorse this view.

This time around, Sri Lankan quite easily beat India leaving them with a rather unique trauma of succumbing to spin. Well played Sri Lanka… Mendis or not, there were more positives from the performances of the overall team that quite significantly made them the better of the two teams.

India with its fabulous and highly experienced batting and bowling line-up got kayoed by this team which one can see has just two experienced hands in the batting with Kumar and Jayawardene and two in the bowling with Vaas and Murali. The story is about all their new in-experienced team members that contributed their part at various times to snatch victory for them and also very clearly reflected the failure of the experienced Indian bowling attack to cut through them. The batting may have failed due to the sheer genius attacking duo of Murali and Mendis. But what explains India’s bowling attack that was relatively poo-poed by an inexperienced batting line-up? The word ‘unimaginative’ sums up their performances.

Harbhajan told the media yesterday that it was the exceptional performance from Mendis that did India in and if it was not for him, it would have been a different story. I really wish he keeps his trap shut and learn from Mendis and not talk in a pompous glorification of past quality performances. Not quite long ago, Harbhajan was like Mendis… always attacking the stump with the maximum probability in favour of taking a wicket. Now he is a redundant, mouthing no-brainer with a complete lack of imagination in his bowling, where he is stuck with two idiotic lines of angling the ball outside off-stump or firing it up their pads. Contrary to what Harbhajan and a lot of people feel, India was also terribly let down by their bowling and fielding. Mendis was not just the only difference. How do you explain so many wickets falling to the newbie bowler Prasad, who bowled pretty ordinarily? Was there anything exceptional in his bowling? How can Harbhajan explain how their tail enders piled on this many runs in the end, when the Indian bowlers were in operation? So please cut all the garbage talk of Mendis being the sole difference in the results. Sri lanka was still better than India in “all” departments whether Mendis or not.

As for Mendis, the million dollar question is what if people figure out his release in the near future. Seriously how much of a difference is that going to contribute to? Shane Warne, Murali, Harbhajan and Kumble’s actions are totally figured out and yet they have picked so many wickets so far in their careers. The point is that Mendis will continue to do fabulously well, as long as he continues to bowl in this line and length he showed in this series… always at you, at the stump maximizing his probability of taking a wicket. Irrespective of how you figure out an action, it will always be tough to play him.

The golden question for me is how the rest of the world face up to him in tests and how he handles the pressure of his fame.

As for the famed Indian batting attack, my forks and spoons are not out for them and will wait for the Australian series, if ever the selection policy is to remain as it is today. However I was deeply disappointed with Dravid in this series for the fact that 8 months down the line, he is still succumbing to that incoming delivery either getting bowled or trapped before and shows that the big crack in the wall has not been worked on. For sure he knew he was cornered with very failure, because his second innings had some purpose and grit and it looked like he made a conscious decision to get out of this rut which has stuck on to him for this long. No… not just because he scored some runs but for the manner in which he scored that looked heartening for otherwise yet an another bleak and highly disappointing series for Dravid.

The joke of this series was perhaps on the thought that Mendis was part of the Kolkatta Knight Riders in the IPL. Now I would like to see Sharukh Khan’s dancing gig now!

For umpteen years India persisted with the lone off-spinner of Harbhajan Singh and for umpteen more years it looks to stay the same. To be fair, Harbhajan is a great spinner who has entertained us with his skill and won many matches for us. But as years have gone by, it looks to me that he has become a victim of his own reputation and often bowls to save his face from getting pummeled by the batsmen, rather than aggressively bowl to architect victories like in the past. That reputation to protect, that ego to quench often ends up with him bowling negatively or pointlessly to stop scoring off him. With that, he lost his original art of spin bowling which made him what he is today.

We like to harp forever on glorious past performances… it’s an Indian thing. The more I see Harbhajan off late the more I believe he is going the Danish Kaneria way. Picking wickets after bowling umpteen overs and conceding that many runs. Does it matter how many wickets one takes when the opposition scores over 500-600? That is the biggest criticism of Kaneria and Harbhajan is following suit.

When I watched him in Australia where he bowled fairly well, I was beginning to think that he was getting back on track but still far away from what he used to. The shockers came in the subsequent series at home where he looked as flat as a rookie. Sure he finally came up with a good performance in the recent second test against Sri Lanka to contribute towards a crucial win. But his consistency is alarmingly dwindling and this one good performance would seal his place for 20 more tests with pointless performances. In the process, how many will go by with very ordinary bowling.

The problem here is that there are none in the ranks to challenge him and push him. There is a complete lack of quality off-spinners in the country. We have an excellent leggie in Mishra and a fairly good spinner in Ojha, which again surprisingly the better of the two Mishra was not picked for this current Sri Lankan tour.

This is not a call to drop Harbhajan but to seriously start considering… if he can consistently bowl well, good for him and India. But looking at his dwindling consistency, India better quickly start looking out for the next off-spinner and start featuring him. Alternatively, they should consider dropping the idea of entertaining an off-spinner for the mere sake of variety and question whether it is contributing to a win. Why not feature two leg spinners then? I’m not convinced that variety in styles plays such an important role. It does when the quality is good… otherwise we might be better off featuring two quality leggies and my choice is Amit Mishra.

As of today Harbhajan is in his comfort zone, untouched and not at all debated and has learned the art of survival with these occasional good performance that keeps his plate warm. It is for everyone to realize that its getting colder by the day.

One thing which we have safely come to expect from the English players, support staff is the amount of straight faced and totally silly, plethora of excuses they can come up with. From Pollution being the reason for loosing a test to hard cooked omelets, the kind of excuses which have come out and get accepted are simply amusing.

The latest of which has been that of Ryan Sidebottom who has yet another back strain, which may lead to him not be able to play in the next test and their bowling coach Ottis Gibson blames the hotel beds which are different in very venue to be the cause of these recurring injuries.

Surely this is the first of its kind.

In that case, Ryan Sidebottom should now carry his own bed from his home along with his kit every time he tours.

Maybe it would be simpler if they sleep on the floor.

And hearing this, there would probably be large scale research going on there in the hospitality industry to score brownie points off their competitors… Like a “Dear ECB… Stay at out hotel… we got Sidebottom’s bed and James Anderson’s shaving kit”

In the case of England, the opportunity for an excuse is limited and challenging. When this is no opportunity for the standard excuses such as “we are playing too much cricket”, what better way is it there for the coach to explain to puzzled people on the spate of consistently recurring injuries to some of their premier players.

How ridiculous!

The buzz in world cricket is now on Zimbabwe with some nations primarily led by the ECB leading a vote towards getting them stripped out of their ICC elite panel membership and cutting the much needed funding for the growth of their cricket if there is any such thing.

From the administrators of the game, sports journalists to players like Atherton and Gower, the call for the crucial support of India and the rest of Asia for this referendum has primarily been the voice in the media with the spotlight on India having to look beyond being selfish on money and power and do this for the sake of humanity and morality.

So what morality are they talking about seriously? Yes the current political regime is bad and there is a genocide coupled with large scale corruption that has left an already fragile nation in tatters. But then if morality is the word today, why should any nation then have any cricket or moral political ties with England itself, who as the sidekicks of another associate nation, the United states of Apathy, have done no less in their exploits in Afghanistan and critically Iraq with the flimsiest of excuses and with no shame or impunity.

Where does this morality stand for the millions and millions of people slaughtered in Iraq, where an everyday law abiding, educated tax paying citizen have to live with a mere 30 minutes of water supply and electricity in a day and rationed fuel! How come nothing is done when several developing nations around the world are crippled under the huge price rise of fuel largely due to the exploits and plunder of these nations in the middle east to create instability. How come there is no move to strip the US of its associate status or funding under moral grounds for their gross human rights violations in Gauntanamo bay? Sounds like a clear case of the have’s and have not’s.

If morality then is only a question of what affects their citizens especially their expatiates living in nations like Zimbabwe, it sounds hollow to rake this as a reason for other member nations to look beyond power or money and act on morality. Morality my foot! Morality is only another form of politics!

While it may be debatable and wise to consider not having Zimbabwe as part of the elite panel of cricketing nations, I am still wondering if it makes sense whatsoever to cut their funding. The fact of the matter is these administrators are employed to solve these issues and it is obvious that they did nothing in the last 8 years when arguably the situation was not this bad. Other than cutting funding, what alternative financial solutions did they come up with in terms of funds regulation and distribution.

There is a definite need for a significantly higher contribution in funding to be distributed to the smaller cricketing associate nations and that is not happening. Take the classic case of Ireland in the world cup where the issues they faced on administration was an absolute shocker. When Ireland qualified for the next round which they were not expected to, there were hardly any funds to support their extended stay. You can read more about this on the Sledgers and sandbaggers blog.

The point here is there is too much dependency on nations from Asia to supply the money and it is ridiculous that the other nations don’t care about trying to change their policies to generate some funds. If nations like England are going to forever pick and choose which tours to undertake and skip in the name of political backing or morality and escape the ICC loophole of a whopping fine for skipping a tour in case of a political directive, where are these smaller nations going to make any money and where is there going to be any interest in the general local public which is critical for the growth of the game in the region. There is already a talk on the English players on not wanting to participate in the Champions trophy in Pakistan. Reminds me of an old Prodigy song called “fire starter”.

If these nations are really bothered about the wellness of cricket or whatever morality they want to talk about, let them tour and help cricket. Let them tour and generate money and local interest. No amount of Shakespearean style classical quotes on morality and high ground is going to change anything.

By the way, did you know that Mugabe was actually bestowed an honorary knighthood by the queen of England some time back!

Work has caught up to me… now that I have none of the comforts offered by a salaried job and have to work my way through for a living, it’s been apparent that cricket just got thrown out of my life for the last couple of weeks… not a single match was watched by me and the only sporting action which I had managed to catch was some glimpses on the amazing football euro championship tournament.

So the realization that has hit me is why it is extremely crucial for the twenty-20 format to take a much more significant and prominent role in world cricket today. There is endless amount of pessimism among cricket journalists and former players (mostly unknowns) on the state of cricket today and where it is heading towards. Almost everyone is signaling the death of test cricket due to twenty-20. And it sounds ridiculous, no different from the time when ODIs were introduced in the break away league several decades ago. But cricket proved them wrong and it will again.

Test cricket will remain. There is no question of that getting knocked out of the equation as it is the highest pinnacle which every fan and player loves about. However one thing is apparent that an overhaul is needed and improvements have to be introduced to address the concerns of dwindling audiences.

One day internationals just have to go and replaced with the more efficient, exciting and spectator friendly format, Twenty-20. At the end of the day, it is also time for the administrators to realize that in today’s fast frantic lifestyles that people lead, there is little time one can spend on recreational pastimes which would last for a whole day. Coupled with that is the amount of cricket being played, it is logical and sensible for the truncated format to replace ODIs.

Cricket around the world:

A cricketer, Yuvraj Singh will present the man of the match award at the Euro 2008 match between Switzerland and Portugal. WTF?

The most comical episode ever in the history of world cricket was the sight of Stanford landing his helicopter at Lords (The home of cricket) with his so-called cricket classical greats (read cronies), typical ‘men in black’ style. A blatant show of a cabinet filled with money was childish and was in such bad taste. The English media all of a sudden starts talking about how it helps impoverished cricketers. One can only let out a wicked smile. What this person in question wants in return is something none wants to address. Either way cricket needs a Stanford… definitely for comic relief.

Shoaib Akhtar’s ban got reduced to a couple of months. The PCB continues to be a totally clueless organisation. The only wish is to cut the drama each and every time and create such a big scene.

A PCB cricket administrator sends threatening emails to the team on performance. Goonda-raj alright. While there might be popular support for him on this episode, at the end of the day somebody should remind him what his job is and what has he done to his cup of tea before sipping someone else’s.

England are having fun thrashing the New Zealanders while Australia faces uncomfortable questions against West Indies but continues to win.

Andrew Symonds misses his team bus by ten minutes and is fined an undisclosed amount by Ricky, Clarke and co. A good way to recover all those unpaid beer bills.

And to finally spread the cheer, here is Merv hughes in an interview with cricinfo. Some of his simple views are amazing and still continue to draw out some chuckles. This guy rocks!

For somebody like Sachin Tendulkar, who has played cricket for close to 20 years and the other, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who just seemed like yesterday to me when he made his debut, has gone on to overtake Sachin Tendulkar as the highest paid Indian cricketer in terms of endorsements, is quite staggering to me.

Dhoni now makes a whopping Rs. 3.5-5 crore per year in endorsements only which is marginally better than sachin who makes Rs. 3-4 crores annually. The difference is marginal but not to me considering Sachin’s demonic status in India’s cricketing world and how the little boy from Jharkhand has shot to fame and money like a nuclear fueled rocket. Remember all of these are estimates from the market and there is no way a cricketer would actually come out and disclose the amount of money he makes by the side, so you can safely add a cool 40% more to this for each of these guys on all the silent deals that pass by.

5 crores in spending 2 hours to a day in a shoot for about once every 3 months is whopping. In contrast, on a lighter note, how much do we bloggers who write about these guys day-in-and-out and the game make? Zilch or pittance that we would be better off begging out of a railway station.

And to think of the fact that Harbhajan singh wanted to buy a Hummer out of his IPL money huh?

Just to put the record straight, I have no problem in cricketers making money… all I wish is these advertisers want to consider putting less than a tenth into us bloggers who are actually concerned about the game and write about it.

On yet another lighter note, I found on a discussion forum, an overzealous fan that claimed the following.

Bradman never had to face quicks like Sharma and Irfan Pathan. He wouldn’t of lasted a ball against those 2, not to mention a spinner like Sehwag.

I do not know whether it was his sarcasm but whatever it was, it killed me for twenty minutes laughing my way off into the hospital for stitches.

Seriously they have! Because how meaningless in context are these so-called knockout rounds in the name of Semi-finals and finals are in the IPL! Let’s face it… in the case of a tournament having a large number of teams say the world cup where it is impossible for all the teams to play significant number of matches against each other considering a tournament that has to be spectator friendly, cannot go on for months. Hence it makes sense for the officials to divide them into groups and the leading contenders of the respective groups face off in a do-or-die clash all the way to the final.

But in the case of the IPL, does it make any kind of logical sense at all… after all, there are only 6 teams that duel with each other for well over 1O matches in the league stage. The concept of introducing a semi-final or final format is absurd and is only for the romantics that get a kick on the idea of the given team on that day that wins as the real winner.

So to me, the winner of the inaugural episode of the IPl are the Rajasthan Royals… congratulations to Shane Warne and his team!

Ah! It feels good to watch some cricket now in the name of semis and finals and not really bother about it!

The clear pre-tournament favourites for many was the most disappointing team in the tournament. A batting line-up filled with explosive stars like Gilchrist, Gibbs, Symonds and Afridi was supposedly the sure-fire hit for twenty-20 cricket, yet they failed miserably. To be fair, on another year, the same people like Afridi and Gibbs could well have taken apart every opposition to boring sports psychologists. But then, the catch with these guys has been the big tag called ‘inconsistency’.

Gibbs is not part of the South African team. Why? Dropped due to his recent lack of consistency and form.

Afridi… can you associate this guy on dependability and consistency? With his bowling yes but certainly not by his batting.

Gilchrist… though he has been their best player with many good knocks, there has also been his fair share of out and out failures. A look at his recent form while he was playing for Australia also shows signs of dwindling consistency. After all, didn’t he not go for an entire world cup with ordinary performances and then magically fired in the final with a great knock.

So their coaches/management should have considered the risks behind fielding their players, should have thought well in building a right base of local talent, which they have out and out ignored. Is there anyone from the local lads who had a decent run? Without a shadow of doubt they were the worst of the local talent compared to the other teams. The management simply did not invest enough on hunting the right people.

After all the teams who are there in the semi-finals are the ones who have paid attention to their local talent base and quite clearly these so called lesser knows were the toast to their success. Teams like the Kolkatta Knight riders who had a good local talent base but choose to ignore them took a very deserving stick.

But the biggest and the most disappointing aspect of the Deccan Chargers was their bowling. To be honest, it has been the single most valid reason for their failure not their batting. One look at the stats and you can see that their win ratio largely depended on their strike bowler’s performances. The likes of R.P. Singh and Vaas looks washed out and flat and on a serious note on Vaas, he ought to hang his boots and give the lamp over to Maharoof. RP may have once been among the contenders of the purple cap but quite honestly with the exception of maybe 2 matches, none of it was flattering for someone with a good international experience.

It was nice to see Gilchrist keeping his faith in Vijaykumar and Ojha who both seem to have some ability. And the biggest mystery would be the faith in Sanjay Bangar for such an extended time, where each match was a disaster. I did not find Laxman’s captaincy inspiring and he often looked totally clueless. Rohit Sharma was the next best player after Gilchrist, whose slump towards the end took out the only working teeth in their batting attack.

Seriously thinking, this batting line-up could have taken the rest apart, maybe next year but the management has to have a very serious look at revamping and strengthening their bowling attack and spend significantly time and faith into understanding the abilities of their local talent and pick out the better ones.