Category — Cricket

Two matches into the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy tournament, a couple of things are apparent. The first one is that the empty stands bear a stark contrast to the billing of this tournament as a mini World Cup. The second thing is that if ICC is going to include minnows like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, they’d better not call this as the Champions Trophy. In fact, the first point I made, is the direct result of the second.

Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are simply not worthy of being included in a tournament like this. Their presence dilutes spectator interest, prolongs the tournament and leads to some embarassing matches, like the one between West Indies and Zimbabwe.

Continue reading at One-Day Mataram…

After looking jaded and out-of-sorts in their DLF Cup campaign, Team India and it’s coach are being panned for too much experimentation and too few results and almost no imagination.

Fair enough, I say! Nothing succeeds like success or fails like failure. If Chappell’s way had continued to produce results as it did for the first half of his tenure so far (India was winning nearly 76% of its ODI matches during that period), everyone would have been gushing about the very same methods that are being trashed in the media right now. So I won’t say too much about Chappell’s methods. But I will say this… that Chappell ought to be more receptive of criticism and suggestions than he is. Closed minds rust away to nothingness, however great the ideas inside them!

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I don’t like the idea of someone being forced to eulogize a ‘national symbol’ to prove one’s patriotism. I want to ask the people who are doing this, to embrace a tiger to prove that they are proud Indians!

At the same time, those who are trying to bracket patriotism alongwith religion should also take a hike.

Sing Vande Mataram if you want to… no compulsions!

But surely you should have no reservations about One-Day Mataram, my cricket blog!! :D

Announcing the resumption of play at One-Day Mataram after a gap of nearly three years, no less!! And considering that I had started ‘One-Day Mataram’ in January 2003, it is perhaps one of the oldest Indian cricket blogs!

I’ve posted on One-Day Mataram about the reasons behind starting that blog and the reason for resuming it now.

But I love to write about cricket. This does not arise from any great, in-depth, researched knowledge of the game. It’s just that having followed the game for so many years with enthusiasm, I have opinions. And what is blogging if not a way to voice those opinions! ;-)

With the 2007 cricket World Cup approaching and a fairly packed itinerary for the Indian cricket team, I thought I should revive One-Day Mataram. And given that today, i.e. September 7 2006, is significant from the point of view of Vande Mataram and that with so much controversy surrounding it, I thought this would be the perfect time to start singing like a canary on One-Day Mataram! ;-)

While I will continue to write about cricket on this blog too, One-Day Mataram will be exclusively devoted to cricket.

And I can’t promise that there won’t be any idol-worship on ‘One-Day Mataram’!! ;-)

Given the state of the second Test between India and SL (at the time of writing) and just under two days left in it, India should look to build upon the lead and pile up a real biggie!

Why so?! … you may wonder!

Well… India’s second innings has shown that if one is prepared to be positive on this Kotla pitch, there’s very little the opposition bowlers can do! Even Murali is, yet, wicketless! And in contrast, if one tries to be too defensive, the pitch suddenly takes on a different character! Ball keeps low, the odd ball spins and bounces when it catches one of the few indentations on the pitch. Essentially… defense, however compact, is fraught with dangers edges or getting trapped in front.

Now if the Indians give the Sri Lankans a sniff of victory by setting a modest target, achievable in over 3 sessions, the Lankans will go for it! And they have enough talent and skill in the top order to render the Indian bowling toothless. So India’s best chance is to put them on the defensive! And the best way to do that is to rack up a huge total that seems imposing right at the outset and which will make the Lankans opt for the safety of a draw! In any case, Arjuna Ranatunga did say in one of the pre-match programmes on Zee Sports that Sri Lanka would rather go back with a drawn series than a lost one! Indians need to build on the insecurity of the Lankans by batting them out of the match.

Once Sri Lanka is on the defensive, Kumble and Pathan can hope to go through the batting line up with relative ease.

In any case, it is now just over 80 overs in the Indian innings and it is about this time that Murali seemed to suddenly turn vicious with his spinners in the first innings. Something for Ganguly and Yuvraj and indeed the rest of the Indian batsmen to think about!

Update: Ahaa!!… Damn!! I’m good! Just after I published this post, I noticed that Murali’s ‘doosra’ had accounted for Ganguly!! Hmmm… another interesting thing to note is how similar Ganguly’s two efforts in this match have been. 40 off 129 balls in the first innings and 39 off 115 in the second!

13 wickets fell on the second day of the Ind v SL test match at Delhi, yesterday. 11 of them to spin!

And all this after the commentators (most of them ex-cricketers) had fallen over themselves in trying to assure us that this would be the best day, of the five, for batting and that the pitch was dead as a dodo!

Hmmm… makes you question the ability of these so called ‘experts’, doesn’t it?!

But then… masters like Muralitharan and Kumble don’t really care about what’s in store between the two sets of stumps, as much as what’s between the two ears!