Cricket Talk

Disclaimer: This article is written before the second innings of the third test between India and England.

Before I begin this article, let me add a couple of links from fellow bloggers, Arvind Iyer and Nikhilji.

The first link shows a comparitive statistics of Sachin and Ganguly over the years. It clearly shows Sachin has been much better than Sourav over the years. From the context of the present form of Sachin, I guess statistics doesn't give a broad picture. He has been struggling for the past three test series, and there has been a drought of runs from his willow off late.

Let us go back and look at the career of Sachin. He has been the most consistent batsman in the contemporary times. We, the Indian cricket fans are not used to seeing him reeling with his bat for more than three or four matches in a row. The high standards that Sachin set for himself, with exemplary performances, has raised our expectations from this little master. He has lived up to this for most of the times. One cannot easily forget the times when the Indian batting was totally revolving around Sachin.

One of the great aspects of Sachin's career is his self evolution to suit the team's best interests. From a flamboyant boy who never cared for his wicket in the early nineties, Sachin grew in the mid nineties to a responsible youngster who is determined to shoulder the responsibility of the Indian team. The Sachin saga continued till the World Cup 2003, where we saw him almost single handedly taking India to the finals. Most of the critics of Sachin fails to appreciate the fact that India would not have reached the finals of many tournaments had Sachin not been performing.

There has been a lot of setbacks during the long career which is into the 17th year now. There was a career threatening back injury for the batting maestro in 1999, and his participation in World Cup was at stake. As a player, it would have been disheartening, but the kind of support the Indian team and public rendered him, helped him overcome this. The amazing fact that the whole nation was praying for Sachin would have filled him with the eternal pleasure. This is a privilege not many can even dream of, and the power of people can push the critics' remarks about the success of his career to oblivion. Then came the tennis elbow and various other issues. But, as anticipated, Sachin overcame all these hurdles and made a strong comeback.

The post world cup 2003 saw a new Sachin, revamped. With Sehwag delivering on the top, Sachin started using his experience and play much more composed and contained innings in the middle order, in the test matches. Meanwhile his style remained more or less the same in one dayers, this can be attributed to the depth of Indian batting during recent years. But then injuries and the fatigue started taking a toll on his career. It is commendable that Sachin could maintain a high level of focus and dedication for over 16 years. He is still one of the fittest players in the team. Not many players have shown this level of consistency for such a long span. The 16 years of cricket has given him plethora or runs, credits and experience. But in the course of it, Sachin has slowly started wearing out as well. Now comes the mark of the legend in Sachin, that makes him different from Souravs. Instead of worrying about this issue, he looked into ways of overcoming it. More than anyone else, he himself knows his reflexes are not what it used to be. Sachin readjusted the shots to fit his present strengths. One can see him using the flick off the pads innumerous times in recent years, as one of the most productive shot for him. This strength, the power of battling against the odds is the mark of a true champion in him.

Then came the injury again. Out went Sachin for a couple of series, and came back without much of a match practice. This was inevitable since India had three series back to back, and the team was looking forward to the experience of Sachin in the middle order. Thus he could hardly get time for a retrospection and reassessment of his batting. This can be one of the reasons for his recent dip in form. Moreover, a lot of debatable decisions went against him in these series', which added to the woes of Tendulkar, who has been trying to stay out there in the field and regain his lost touch. On the top of all these, India had a lot other things to celebrate and worry about, such as Kumble milestone, Dhoni factor, All rounder Pathan, Sourav issue and a lot more. So there has been hardly any time to look into Sachin factor, and was pushed down in the priority list. If we see the way in which Tendulkar got out in these series, we can see many a times he got out either lbw or caught behind. This shows a lack of foot movement from him. As far as I know, Sachin's footwork is flawless (he made a lot of corrections over the years). So, its only a matter of match practice before he gets over it. Meanwhile one can see Sachin cheering up and motivating youngsters in the field. The tidbits that he gives to the bowlers alone can make his presence felt in the team.

Now that we have a couple of months before the West Indies tour, I believe Sachin has enough time to get back to his best, and deliver again, as he used to do before. With the kind of trust that he has rendered with his performance, the Indian public still believes in him, albeit the runs drought for the last three series. This should lead to a natural decision from the selectors to retain him in the team for the upcoming series. The media speaks a lot of time about giving ample chances for rookies. Why don't they do the same with veterans? Once a player has established himself in the team and is delivering, one can conclude that he deserves to be in the team with his performance. But when he is struggling, why can't they give him enough chances before making a decision? More than the number of matches, one should look into the time period over which the player struggled. There can be a lot of series' being played during a relatively small span of time. But if the player struggles despite taking a long break, then the selectors should consider the credibility of his position in the team. This can be attributed to the fact that the player gets a lot more time to correct his flaw and make a comeback if there is a long break. And the tests happened over a period of 2 months of non stop cricket, and so there is long way to go before we think of an Indian team without Sachin. People still love Sachin, thanks to Nikhilji for that beautiful and emotional blog showing the Mumbaites' support to Sachin. If not anything else, his career statistics has earned him a place in the team for lot more series' to come. Finally I agree totally with Arvind Iyer statement, so does the millions of Indian cricket fans I guess: "One big reason I don’t want Sachin to be dropped is – because I feel there is no way we can win the world cup without him."

Before I conclude, I highly recommend the link below as it really makes sense of Sachin!

I forgot when I started watching cricket. I prefer the test version to the one day one. Here is my list of Top ten Test Batsmen Currently playing in countrywise order.

Ricky Ponting: The only Aussie who bats like it is a test match and values his wicket.

Rahul Dravid: Mr. Consistent.

Sachin Tendulkar: The reason Millions of people watch cricket

Virender Sehwag: Destroyer at the Top

Inzamam-ul-Haq: The last of the gems mentored by Imran khan. He deserves a graceful exit.

Mohammad Yousuf: Method among what is almost madness.

Younis Khan: If he tempers his temper (and of course his tongue), can make a very good batsman.

Jacques Kallis: He deserves to come in the best all-rounder list too.

Graeme Smith: The youngest in the list (25+ years) and the one to watch out for.

Brian Lara: Talent untapped by lack of discipline.

If you feel I have left out somebody very important, please comment . I shall reply why I have left him out.

I have been watching cricket since 1990-91, and as a result this list of my favorite bowlers will be restricted to cricketers I have seen bowl. The list is in no particular order.

-->Anil Kumble---Never been a big turner of the ball. But for sheer perseverance, patience, discipline and intelligence, he has to be one of my favorites. I somehow think this is how his bowling career shaped. Initially he was played as a spinner, he surprised the batsman with his speed, they played him as a medium pacer, he surprised them with his bounce, he was picked as a quicker spinner with some bounce, he developed a googly which spun. Now when his leg spinners never turned, he has developed a leg spinner that turns a lot, and different kinds of googlies. I cannot think of a more disciplined bowler than this man. I remember in a match against Pakistan, Shahid Afridi hit hom for 20 runs in an over, our man comes the next over and pitches the bowl in the same spot and gets him. Unbelievable. A bowling machine, India's biggest match winner. Hope we get another bowler like him.

--> Shane Warne---5 reasons I like Warne
1) His first Ashes bowl to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford, which turned a mile from outside the leg stump to take the top of off-stump.
2) Bowling Basit Ali around the legs in Bellerive Oval, Hobart of the last ball of the day
3) Wicket of Andrew Strauss in Headingley
4) Bowling performance in WC 1999 semi-final and finals
5) Comes back with a bang everytime you put him down.

Only glitch in his otherwise shining career is his performance against India. The biggest turner of the ball with a clean action. And easily the best spinner I have seen.

--> Allan Donald: I love him for his attitude, never say die. When SA made a comeback to cricket he epitomised the spirit, to prove it to the world of cricket what they missed out on. He was a bowler who bowled with spirit a pace of 140+ come what may, with swing, with zeal, with a lot of movement. And when he had the crowd going behind him, he bowled on a different plane. I hated him for getting Sachin out so many times though

--> Waqar Younis: Here, I talk about the Waqar Younis of early 1990's. And what a deadly bowler was he then. He would change the course of the match in a couple of overs. He was the fastest bowler around when I had started watching cricket. Bowled yorkers with such venom that batsman had to wear extra padding near their toes to play him. I remember him running through sides when it started reverse swinging. Ian Chappell once said,"Ajit Agarkar is so good with reverse swing but doesn't take wickets. Waqar at his peak bowled 5 inswingers and suddenly an outswinger, and got all his wickets. Whereas Agarkar tries too many things and hence is not so successful." A method behind the madness as they say

--> Curtley Ambrose: Deadly with the new ball, deadly with the older ball, almost impossible to score off, and a man who took wickets in heaps. A spell of 7-1 speaks volumes about this guy. On a pitch conducive, he would bowl out teams for below 100 all alone, and this has happened more than once. Again never played in India sadly.

There are a lot of similarities between Graeme Smith and Sourav Ganguly.

1. Both are aggressive left handers.

2. Both have similar batting averages.

3. Both have a lot of flaws in their technique. Ganguly's nightmare against short balls really doomed his career. He went into the backfoot once he realized that the opponents will test him with short balls. As his mind got preoccupied by the scare of short balls, he just couldn't concentrate on his strengths, and his confidence hit rockbottom, and he is reeling now.
Smith is equally prone to such a torture, unless he starts working on his flaws. He tends to drive a lot, and he is dismal if the pace of the ball is varied. He needs to tackle the situations when the ball is not freely coming onto the bat.

4. Both took charge when their team is in a difficult situation. When Sourav took charge, Indian team was hit badly by the match fixing scandal, and there was nobody in the team who could stand up and take the lead. Many people who criticize Sourav now tends to forget this aspect. The more important part is, Sourav is the guy who built the present team India. Before Sourav, Indian team lacked professionalism, and they were like a bunch of talented pool looking for an identity. Once Sourav came, there was an air of arrogance in the team, and the "We don't care who are the champions" attitude came to the team. The team was also blessed to get a bunch of dedicated players under Sourav. Each member in the men in blues seem to back every other member in the field, and the team spirit is high. The famous huddle is implemented by Dada and it is being practised by many of the international teams. Moreover, he changed the age old tradition of respecting the selection committee decisions. He demanded the players he felt were good, and as a result, players like Harbhajan and Yuvi came into the team (This attitude was appreciated in the beginning, but later on, it turned out to be a political issue)
Simliarly, when Smith was taking over the team, South Africa was in a bad shape. With the shocking exit from the world cup and the retirement of Donald, Rhodes and the exit of Klusener, the team looked mediocre, and they had to get rid of their mechanical game plan inducted by Woolmer. To an extent, Smith has been successful, and South African team is as good as any of the top team in the world now.

5. Both are arrogant. This is important as a captain. Here I am paralleling arrogance with aggression. With controlled arrogance, the aggression creeps in. It is essential in this era, where many of the matches turn out to be a psychological competition than physical. Team Australia has been the biggest exponent of this, and now they are not the only ones who do this. How can someone forget the celebration of Sourav in the Lords stands when India won the Natwest finals? And it was considered as an indecent conduct by the cricketing world. They took it as an insult to the Holy Lords. But when Freddie did that in India some months back, it was a true sportsmanship gesture. Great!
The scornful comments that Smith make before every series are some way in which he is trying to gain psychological advantage over the opponent.
But this arrogance is a double sided sword. It can drain the character in you. No wonder Sourav has only a few friends in the cricketing world. And when his career hit rockbottom, there was not many to back him or give him a moral support. I guess the fate will be similar to Smith as well. My gut feeling say that there are not many friends for him also.
Moreover, both of them tend to get carried away trying to gain psychological advantage. This, I guess will get tamed with age.

6. Both of them tend to back the team members to the core. We can see how Smith takes care of the psycho Andre Nel. Similarly Ganguly showed his support to many players when they were facing some or the other crisis. (This can be an arguable issue, as he was a bit biased in lending the support to team mates.)

Hope, Smith doesn't end up with the same fate as that of Sourav.

The Indian selectors do it again!They have lived upto their reputations in selecting the team. This time the axe fell on the unsuspecting Vikram Singh. He did nothing wrong, didn't even get a chance to play, but was replaced in the squad with Munaf Patel.

I am not questioning the credibility of Munaf to be in the test squad. Of course, he deserves it for the spirited performance against England in the parctice match. But, then the selectors could have chosen him for the first test squad, but then they stuck with V R V Singh. Its bad that a person, after getting selected is omitted without even given a chance to prove his worthiness. V R V Singh, so far has always been at the wrong end, either due to injuries or some brave team selection by More and co. Hope he will be able to make up for it in the future.

There is going to be dilemma for the team selection in the second test (the playing eleven). With Yuvraj back from injury, and Kaif grabbing the opportunity given to play a match saving innings in the first test, the coach and the captain will have to take a bold decision. I guess the person going to sit back is V V S Laxman, one of the victims of bad umpiring in the first test. But I feel India has no other choice. And if this happens, I guess Laxman's career is hanging on balance, as he will find it tough to come back to the squad. One thing he can be assured is he won't get the great treatment the team accorded to the former captain Ganguly, since he has strong backing from Dravid.

I feel Yuvraj should be in the team for three reasons:
1. He is in the best patch of his career now. After getting back to back man of the series awards and scoring a century in Pak when all others failed, his confidence is sailing high.
2. He is a left hander, and India doesn't have any other left handed specialist batsman in the squad. This will make a huge difference as it will add diversity to the batting line up
3. He is a very good player of fast bowling. This has been the highlight of his career so far. I place him very high on his ability to play strokes against fast bowlers like Harmison and Flintoff.

And replacing Kaif with him will send wrong signals to the players, which leads to the natural omission of Laxman.

The selection of the bowlers also needs to be watched out. India, I guess will mostly go with two pacers and two spinners format, as they dont have any batsman who can open the bowling with medium fast if we select three spinners. This means Piyush Chawla has to wait a bit long before making his debut. Pathan, Kumble and Harbhajan will mostly make it to the squad. The fourth spot will be a trade off between Munaf Patel and Sree Shanth, both of who have bowled well in this series.

Let us wait and see...

Mohammed Kaif has been in the Indian squad for a long time now. He makes major contributions to the one day squad through his exuberant fielding. He is one of the few players in the Indian team who can retain his place in the squad through their fielding, the others being Yuvraj and Raina.

Kaif lacks the immense natural talent of Sachin, or flamboyance of Sehwag or technique of Dravid, or strokeplay of Yuvi or immense powerplay of Dhoni. He is essentially a hard working cricketer whose shots are not that attractive and always looks out to score through ones and twos. Despite looking very meek, he has a gutsy character inside him. For the past year or two, he has been sacrificed for the better interest of the team. Though he cemented his spot in the team with a spirited performance in the Natwest Finals in 2003, Kaif has not got enough opportunities to prove his mettle after that. In one dayers, he comes at no 6/7 most of the times, and always have been overshadowed by the flamboyant Yuvraj Singh. He has been retained in the squad, for his fielding.He is the kind of batsman who needs some time out in the crease before delivering, and he always got an opportunity to bat when India is nearing victory, or when the wickets are tumbling and the pressure is building up. Many a times, he got too less a time to spend in the crease or, if he gets enough time, team India will be expecting too much out of him. Still he has come out with some match saving innings for the team, as he did today.

After coming back from the injury, he has had a tough patch, and it was looking as though his position in the team is at stake. With Yuvi through the best phase of his career so far,he always fell short of match practice.This has made him a bit rusty, and his confidence was low.These days when young guns like Raina knocking on the door of the national team through their prolific performances in domestic cricket, a stage had come where Kaif needed a good knock or two in his kitty to eanr his place back in the squad.

But then, Yuvi's injury came as a blessing in disguise for Kaif. He got a chance to play a test match, which will give him enough time to spend in the middle of the crease, and regain some confidence and get himself prepared for the one day series. And he took the full opportunity of the chance he was provided with. He came with a patient match saving knock, which again, was very boring to watch, but very effective from India point of view.

In the future, I feel Kaif should come ahead of Yuvi in one dayers. This is because Yuvi is a natural strokemaker who gets settled in the crease very fast, where as Kaif requires some time before he gets accustomed to the conditions. Keeping him at number 6/7 spot is not only worthless for him, but also for the squad. This does not mean that Kaif doesn't fit into the game plan of the Indian team, but I believe its high time India should hand more responsibilites onto the shoulders of this guy. The team can actually build the innings with Kaif or Dravid playing the anchor rule.That will not only reduce the chances of a batting collapse,but also gives a chance for players like Yuvraj and Dhoni to play their natural game towards the end of the innings. Kaif should be retained in the squad, as a team like India, who has a lot of naturally talented players, always need some hard working guys, who always fight to earn their place in the team. Those guys will deliver at the crisis situation, and more important, will send good message across the masses that cricket is not all about talent, but about hard work as well.

Kaif, has much more years ahead of him, where we can expect him to shoulder much more responsiblities for the team. He falls into the league of a bunch of hard working cricketers in the modern times, like Simon Katich and Justin Langer for Aussies, Graeme Smith and Jacques Rudolf for South Africa, Stephen Fleming and Hamish Marshall for New Zealand, Chanderpaul for West Indies, Younis Khan for Pakistan,Paul Collingwood for England, Russel Arnold, and Marvan Attappattu for Srilanka.Let all of us wish him a bright future.