Archive for the ‘India in England 2011’ Category

India’s Need For Discipline, Regimen And Belief

Posted: August 3, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in England 2011, Opinion
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 Goutham Chakravarthi

 3 August 2011


For sometime now, England have been the most prepared team of all in world cricket. Their regimen is structured to each individual and religiously followed. Now, it has been hailed as the reason for their remarkable success over the visiting Indians this summer.

India, on the other hand have spoken at length over the Kirsten years that his empowerment methods have ensured that players looked after themselves – deciding as to when they needed the practice and when they needed the break. It worked. Now, it hasn’t!

England’s openers have had an average series and so have Morgan and Swann. But, a winning team is a happy team as none of it is being questioned. Their preparation can hardly be faulted. On the other hand, the whole of India is after its much vaunted stars. Their injuries and lack of preparation being the talking point on all Indian sports shows over the last 24 hours.

Dravid and Tendulkar: Epitome of discipline, preparedness and performance

As is the case in any sport, you get players of all sorts: varying in intensity, talent, physical ability, natural ability, approach and attitude. Some are very hardworking and successful. And some are not so hardworking but sometimes more successful. While the fans and sports writers may marvel at a bowler’s ability to party till 5 in the morning and bowl a scorching spell to decimate the opposition, his peers may not. They would, if anything, wonder how much better he would be if he worked as hard.

It calls for immense disciple on the part of the players to keep at it game after game, season after season. It takes one bad game for a high class baseball pitcher to doubt his abilities: the fastball won’t move, the curve is flat and the sinker doesn’t. A great tennis baseliner starts missing the lines and starts to believe the court is narrower than a tightrope.

All great performers have a regimen they stick to. Cricketers approach off-season meticulously to mend and sew their shortcomings or work on upcoming challenges. As the season or a series approaches, each day is an investment on self to be at the best physical and mental frame when the time comes. Distractions are avoided and negativity repelled. Champions don’t show-up under prepared. Their best weapons are well oiled to be called upon the hour of need, their tricks well hidden from the opposition champion and mind well trained to not give-in to the best punch the enemy can throw. It is a champions’ world and there is no place for wanting to be anything less.

India's many injuries in the series is a case of player empowerment on fitness and injuries going wrong

Champions can sometimes be hard on themselves and believe a little less of them – in preparation – can be overcome with aura and skill. Alas, it will come a cropper against a champion opposition better prepared. It calls for immense discipline to be at the peak always, but champions do so for they want to be the best. You don’t win a synchronized swimming Olympic gold with one swimmer not-in-sync. Team sports cannot afford to carry players not well prepared. It can carry out-of-form players, but not ones who might bring the team down for they are not prepared to last the distance.

England and India might follow different approaches to monitor its cricketers, but, both methods are not fool proof of player dishonesty.

India needs its champions to be honest on their disciplines and regimen and more so to the cause of their team. For now, it needs its players to prepare and believe to be at their best come the third test at Birmingham. They know they have not been at their best these two tests. If they lose, so be it, but they should ensure they lose having given their best.

The fight for No. 1 spot: Will India bounce back?

Posted: August 2, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in England 2011
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 Eniyan V

 2 August 2011

 

The ongoing England India Test series is one of closely followed and much anticipated in the recent past. It’s expected to be a fierce battle between two strong teams, in their prime form, for the top spot in Test cricket. But, has the contest lived up to the expectation so far? Unfortunately, it hasn’t. To the exasperation of the Indian fans, bliss of English fans and disappointment of the neutral fans expecting close contest, the first two tests have been utterly one-sided – England winning by margins of 196 and 319 runs respectively.

Unlike the ODI ranking, test ranking is not officially updated after each match. It’s updated only at the end of the test series. So, India is still the No. 1 team. But, England is pretty much on course to become the No. 1 team at the end of the series. All they need is one more win or draw the remaining two matches to topple India.

Quality players are mandate for a top class team. But that is not adequate. Characters such as never-say-die and go-for-the-kill are required to stamp the authority. England has shown the characters so far in this series, in coming back from 124-8 in the first innings and scoring 544 in just 120 overs in their second innings and ruthlessly dismissing India for 158 in the fourth innings of the Trent Bridge test. England’s 7 wins (including those two glorious Ashes victories) and one draw in their last 8 test series is not just a coincidence. Indeed, England is a serious contender for the No. 1 test spot.

Time India showed their ranking was not an accident

But, what does India hold? After the annihilating defeat, India could feel shattered. Team India could be wondering what led to this. May be lack of preparation, may be the unfortunate injuries, may be poor captaincy, may be the tiring IPL, but definitely not lack of quality and character. India is not the No. 1 team without a reason. In the last 3 years, India faced all the Test playing nations except Pakistan and didn’t lose any test series, winning 8 and drawing level in 3 test series in this period. India defeated Australia twice, New Zealand twice, England, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh once. That’s a remarkable achievement, worthy to be No. 1 in test cricket.

India might go on to lose this series and the remarkable streak could be broken here in England. But, that shouldn’t happen without a fight. The last time India lost two test matches in a row in a series was when India toured Australia in 2007-08. But, India fought back bravely to win the third test at Perth. Such character was fundamental in the rise of India to the summit.

India should show more of such character in the next two tests. Individually, many Indian players have done well in parts. Dravid is amongst runs; Laxman has got couple of fifties; Tendulkar has got into form in the last innings; Praveen is getting wickets; Ishant and Sreeshant have done well in parts. Sehwag, Gambhir and Zaheer could be back in the eleven for the next match. All India needs to do is to regain the focus and hunger for success to stage a comeback in this series. Let’s hope the remainder of the series is closely contested and lives up to the expectation of the clash for the summit.

India Staring At A Whitewash

Posted: August 2, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in England 2011, Opinion
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 Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

 2 August 2011

With players being part of IPL having ruled themselves out stating an injury and it has cost the nation to its no. 1 ranking. As like teaching is a profession, cricket is a profession for players and they look to earn more money and get fame in a short span irrespective of playing longer format of the game. The problem is, in most other professions, the impact is with the person or with the organization, but in a game like cricket, it is a wish for 1.2 billions people and it has harsh impact on their feelings.
When players make their decision to decide which sport to choose from the choices, it will be great / wise if they look from a wider angle rather than from few specific pointers.

India have not put up a fight befitting their ranking so far this series

Engalnd have outplayed India in this series so far. Loss in 2nd test match is primarily on sending Dravid as opener and Laxman at No 3. Not sure who has taken that decision to position these 2 players but not at all a great decision. There have been plenty of occassions where Dravid has had to come in in 1st over itself as no. 3. India would have tried with some lower-order batsmen to open with Mukund even if they last only a single delivery. Laxman should be positioned only at his favorite spot.

Since we are already one down in the series, it is really important to keep our players at the right order as they play freely and confidently at the spot. The Indian batting has looked really odd during these 2 test matches. Even though the conditions here are quite different as there is a lot of bounce and swing, the current team has played lot of cricket (all forms) and they have the ability to cope-up and come stronger, but the way they played is un-imaginable.
Our pace bowlers made a good come back in both innings expect few key areas of improvements. This match is of a huge difference we had to change our batting order which resulted in a loss of the test match on other hand, Bell at no. 3 changed the course of the test match. He set the tone on 3rd morning with his amazing stroke play by punishing all the bad balls to the boundary.
During the last 2 test matches, our bowlers have really struggled against lower order batsmen than the top / middle order. The experienced coach / senior players in the team should have guided the right path for the bowlers as to where to bowl and where not to bowl. It seems like there is no discussion / team cooperation in this regard. On a same ptich, England scored 5 runs per over and Indian team got bowled in less than 2 sessions. The variation in bowling is really missing. They should mix-up deliveries
The non-attacking style of Dhoni needs to be revisited. The approach has now yielded the worlds no. 1 test team to go down to no.2 and will continue to fall further if Dhoni continues the same tactics and doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Even a score of 150 to 175 for India was really going to be difficult to achieve in the 4th innings – we have lost plenty of matches when the score is over 200 on the last innings. Dhoni didn’t have a third-man till the lead went past 275.
On the 3rd morning when Bhajji came to bowl there were only 2 players around the bat, slip and leg slip, but it is not enough on any tracks. If a spinner needs to get wickets there should be at least 3 men around the bat, silly point, short leg and slip. What this makes is, the batsmen have to give respect to bowler by playing soft hand shots. There is a possibility of batsmen making a mistake and end up in either a caught behind, caught at short leg or silly point,  run out,  stumping, slip catch, mishit or sweep popup to the short-fine fieldsman. If there is no one around the bat, there is no risk for the batsmen to get out, the only way the wicket can fall is the batsmen himself doesn’t want to hold his wicket. Even a no. 11 batsmen won’t prefer to do that.
Even if we are going to play to our full strength in next test match, Dhoni should change his approach otherwise it will be definitely 3-0. There has been plenty of Dhoni as the winning captain of world cup, t20 and other tournaments. This is a team game and it is the effort of all the players and not just Dhoni’s alone. Even on the world cup only on the last match Dhoni scored runs. AHe scored only one 50-plus knock through the entire world cup. The selectors should think from that perspective whether he is really fit to be there for both ODI & test cricket. Definitely Dinesh Karthik would have played  much better cricket in both batting and keeping in this series than Dhoni.
All the best to India for the third test match. I’ll feel really happy even if this series ends with 4-0 to England if India can play a fighting come back and lose the match not like what we lost the first 2 test matches.

Day 4, Trent Bridge: England decimate India as Bresnan bags five

Posted: August 1, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket, CouchExpert

1 August 2011


During times when an Indian fan walks along that thin line which separates faith from hope, most often observed when the team isn’t doing well as it is capable of, the common fan’s sword and the journalist’s pen come together to diminish that metonymic adage of the pen being mightier than the sword.

Much of it emanates from the status of virtual invincibility India had attained after topping the ICC Rankings in Test Cricket, only to be followed by the euphoria of being crowned World Champions. In a continent where today’s superstars run the risk of being relegated to the status of forgotten heroes if they fail, sometimes even if just once, immortality would appear an easier wish to attain than consistency. The packed schedules do not favour either.

And along this thin line, the Indian fans started their walk on Day 4 of the Trent Bridge test when they were left to rue with harsh memories of momentum and advantage escaping their grips, at various instances during this test, to hand England a clear sight of victory within the horizon.

In a test where Dhoni’s tradition of shrewd leadership seemed subdued, the scars left by Bell, Prior and Bresnan, by the time England’s second innings came to an end were painful, and India’s morale, gaunt. The Indian skipper’s faith enabled him to appreciate the bowlers who attempted to make the most of the conditions, but it didn’t force him to lay a trap to dismantle the English batting cheaply, even when he’d possessed the upper hand at times.

Bresnan's outstanding all round contribution has given the English selectors a pleasant headache ahead of the 3rd test at Birmingham

This clearly is at the heart of what is disturbing about an Indian fan’s faith at this moment of predicament: it doesn’t worry him enough; neither does it drive him to have second thoughts before lamenting over the captain’s lack of ideas when the England tail wagged once again, as he watched Bresnan and Broad scoring at a rate of more than 6 an over. Third man, once again, bore the greater share of the Wagon Wheel.

Talks of India having to restrict England to a score not in excess of 300, prior to the start of their second innings, seemed imminently laughable as the lead stretched to 477 – leaving India five sessions to battle through. A more than decent outfit was made to look hapless by England’s lower order batting.

Tim Bresnan was unlucky to miss out on a deserved hundred, but he did enough to place the English selectors in a spot of bother as they were left pondering over the moves to be made once Tremlett returns for the third test.

When the Indians came out to bat, it looked as though they were batting in a different wicket to the one in which the third innings of the match had come to a conclusion. Batting through five sessions was never going to be an option and the result clearly seemed to have only one way about it.

Excepting Tendulkar, none of the Indian top seven crossed single digits. At no point of time during this test did the Indians look like a champion outfit – barring the session on Day One where Dravid and Laxman negotiated through tricky spells of seam bowling.

Bresnan’s breezing spell that fetched him four wickets (and the selectors, additional aspirins – for the good) in his total of a five-for was complemented by Anderson removing his man, Tendulkar, yet again, for 56. Like MS Dhoni earlier, Tendulkar shouldered arms to one that nicked back in and was ruled out leg before.

Local hero Broad picked up the Man of the Match after amassing 108 runs and 8 wickets

The ruthlessness of the Englishmen resembled that of Nottingham’s popular folk figure, Robin Hood, while the Indian unit was made to resemble the deceitful sheriff, almost as though the visitors had stolen the sport’s supremacy from the land of its founders. Man-of-the-Match Stuart Broad, whose looks bear more resemblance to Maid Marian than the legendary outlaw, contributed both with bat and ball to lead the yeomen’s charge in conquering Trent Bridge. Bounce and seam, instead of bows and arrows, helped England take an unassailable 2-0 lead.

India’s reconstruction will be as symbolically important as Duncan Fletcher’s role in reshaping a side that probably hasn’t been on morale as low as what it is experiencing now. But the margin of victory – both an exact and significant barometer of English dominance – will linger in their minds for a long time to come.

As for England, the opportunity to top the ICC Test Rankings is a mere win away. Who’d have thought a couple of years ago that this would be a likely proposition? Even among the most optimistic of optimists, this would have seemed a far-fetched ambition, having witnessed what English cricket had been through.

Well done England, you deserve to be 2-0 ahead.

In Defence of the Umpire: Why the World must learn to accept mistakes

Posted: August 1, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011, Opinion
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket, CouchExpert

1 August 2011


The DRS debate has puffed up beyond any imaginable extent, as has the credibility of Umpire Marias Erasmus’ decision making.

It wouldn’t have been a very big deal without the deepening impact of controversies that have arisen during this wonderful Nottingham Test. But it also has ballast as this test clearly has exposed many a flaw associated to the DRS – not least helped by the twitter rant, thanks to Michael Vaughan, whose statement, cheeky as the intent might have been, only added ammunition to a Test that has virtually witnessed anything and everything that a game of cricket possibly can.

I am not saying Vaughan was stupid. His statement was so staggeringly incurious that it appeared as though he rarely made an effort to find the truth of the matter. But more often, that is not how the public, and more specifically the Media, takes it.  Goutham Chakravarthi’s recent article will clearly explain how such an incident can be blown out of proportion.

Vaughan should have known well before hand that his comments would obviously be blown out of proportion

Vaughan’s statement misleads not only the cricket public, but him included. He could well believe that by portraying an image of himself as a considerate conservative, he could exercise the right of every opinion he publicizes, if found controversial, to be disemboweled by those who adore him – a reflection that has been characterized by his heroics back in 2005.

But England can no longer afford their ex-captain’s self-delusions, not least when their quest to top the ICC tables is at its most intense. But what Vaughan has done, knowingly or unknowingly, is to add more fuel to the debate involving the consistency and correctness of technology.  The situation is a mess, in large part because the common man now knows that a cricketer can hoodwink technology to make the tide turn his way.

As much damage Vaseline had done to cricket balls in the past, Vaughan’s theory of the same substance being used in bats to dodge hot-spot has ignited the sparks in those criminal minds of today’s bad world. So for every decision that looks contentious, different sections of the media and public will end up accusing players from the home and/or the away team for ‘cheating’.

Fingers will be pointed at many, endless debates over what is right and wrong will persist, only for the poor old game of cricket to react to all these soulless exercises with disdainful apathy. After all, how much chaos can a sport consume?

What if only one individual was responsible for a contentious decision? What if he was paid to decide what is right and what is wrong? What if was his role to decide whether a batsman is in or out? I am, of course, talking about the Umpire. This is how the sport has been played for over a century.

If his decision was incorrect, fingers will be pointed towards him. The debates will revolve around whether this individual needs time off from the stressful activities and schedules one tends to associate with umpires these days. What Dravid negotiated on a spiteful pitch, with his immense powers of concentration, is what Umpires are expected to do through five whole days – one that translates to a mammoth 30 hours.

They are there because they are the best in the business. You hit some, you miss a few, or you nick one to the keeper or the slips – even if your concentration is unflappable. Likewise, you make mistakes – you may think someone nicked it, or you might have missed an inside edge that could unfortunately rule a batsman out LBW. You do it because you are human, and unlike technology, people cannot outwit you – for a human being is not programmed.

But you are there among the elite because in a sample set of 100 decisions you make, in over 90 instances, you are right. If you are not good, you are demoted and someone with a better consistency rises. But like a cricketer who has been dropped from the squad, you can go back to your roots, work on areas where you feel you require improvement, and come back as a mentally tough umpire targeting better statistics. Asad Rauf is having an unbelievably outstanding series!

Marais Erasmus raised a lot of eyebrows with a few of his decisions during the on-going Trentbridge Test

Indeed, there is a strange karmic genius to this argument – one can rather trust a human over a machine, for one doesn’t know who has programmed that machine. But machines, or rather technology, can be used for verification – instances that require quantifying the degree of an Umpire’s decision-making correctness, one that is done behind the scenes.

I’m okay for the use of technology in the sport, as long as people do not question the motives of those who can overcome it. For every Antivirus, there exists an Anti-Antivirus-Virus. Nothing is perfect, and as long as we learn to accept that, the sport will move ahead with more conviction. Else, the perpetuity of the endless debates will continue until that inevitable day when mankind would end up regretting excess reliance on technology for even the most basic of tasks in life.

Marais Erasmus – yes, you have made blunders. Yes, you have had a very ordinary test. Yes, you are dubiously referred to as the ‘Not-Out’ umpire, but we respect you because of what you’ve achieved to get to where you are today. Technology will make you look silly at times, but doesn’t it do that to all of us?

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