Archive for the ‘Cricket’ Category

The Oval Wrap Up and The Lord’s Prospect

Posted: September 11, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket – The CouchExpert

11 September, 2011

With just a day’s gap between the two ODIs in London, the drive from Kennington to St. John’s Wood have had the players reflecting over a result that is yet to witness a tilt in scales. In an awful collision between hope and reality, the Indians finally came through a game that witnessed their best chance to finally rope in a result to their favour.

The Indian top order crumbled by the time ten overs were bowled in the day, with vice-captain Suresh Raina falling to a heinous shot which, given the situation, was way out of bounds. In an act that reacted to insistence on largely relevant public opinions, featuring MSD’s determination and Ravindra Jadeja’s place, the innings was laudably rebuilt on a weak foundation by the two.

Jadeja's Man-of-the-Match performance wasn't enough to hand India its first victory this series

There are many who’ve voiced their mistrust over Jadeja’s place in the squad. For the youngster to respond the way he did speaks a lot on his temperament, a trait that is worth its weight in gold. Sure, there are a few glitches already in his relatively short career so far, but even the best sportsmen have had their share of mistakes committed when young.

India, yet again, finds itself in a conspicuously difficult situation; even if it seems apparent that the previous ODI showcased their ability down the order. Ashwin, with his intelligent innings late in the game, surprised many with his cheeky approach.

The Englishmen, on the other hand, just do not seem to run out of fuel. Bopara, a player who has been under the scanner since his return, steered England to victory. Munaf’s bowling, with an economy rate that would have sent a shiver down one’s spine had it been recorded on a Ritcher Scale, did no favours to an already depleted Indian morale. RP Singh, thankfully, looked a much quicker (and fitter) bowler than the one witnessed at The Oval a few weeks ago.

But nothing seemed enough to stop the Kieswetter cannon ball from firing explosives to give England the start that they needed. A charge down the track against Praveen to heave the ball into the midwicket boundary was a shot that would have had the heads of NY Mets coaches turn towards the youngster. Bopara and Bresnan, towards the end, acted as able catalysts to help England add another win to their tally this series.

As the game moves in to the Lord’s, it is only memories from the past that would shed any light into India’s hopes. England will look to play an unchanged squad, whereas the Indians, hopefully, might consider handing Varun Aaron his debut. That he might be raw and inexperienced doesn’t matter, his very inclusion could see an increase in the number of viewers who would turn on their TV sets on Sunday.

This may tell us something about the state of Indian fans around the world: the romantics are a tiny minority, the ones with oil of vitriol up their opinion glasses are high in number, but there may not be enough to lend energy to effect a turnaround at Lord’s. Righteous contempt seems called for, but it is never within the Indian nature to do so. You just have to ask the cold-blooded criminals who’re yet to be tried by the government – they could narrate tales longer than Navjot Sidhu on how fortunate they are.

If the Indians have to do something, they’ll have to do it without an iota of sympathy from the enraged fan.

Match Report: 3rd ODI,The Kia Oval

Posted: September 10, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Goutham Chakravarthi

For a brief while, India were on top on Saturday evening. Two spinners bowling in tandem, ball stopping on the batsman occasionally, ball turning occasionally, it looked as though the moment for a win over England had arrived. Ashwin had the ball on a leash, dropping it on a full length, luring the batsman to have a drive at it. Every ball dipped and turned.

Jadeja made an impressive comeback to the side with both bat and ball

Trott played for spin when it went the other way and Bell kept getting hit on the pad. India liked the conditions and sensed a win. The heavens opened up and overs and time were lost. When they came back, it was a greasy outfield and the ball became wet. England batted deep enough and sensibly enough to ensure India wouldn’t go back home with any series victory.

A green wicket and another lost toss ensured that India had to bat first for the third game in succession. Bresnan and Anderson found holes in the Indian top-order by moving the ball both ways. Though the pair would have liked to pitch it up a bit more given the conditions, they sliced through the top in their opening bursts to have India four down within an hour.

Raina fought hard, but threw it away with an ugly swipe to leave India 5 down for 58. As much as Raina is comfortable in the shorter format, he needed to show the restraint the situation demanded. His shot was reckless and disrespected the situation India found itself in.

Dhoni played the rearguard action well. With the ball moving less and less as the afternoon wore on, he opened up to play some bold stokes. Jadeja, after having finally landed inEngland, played a splendid innings. He was fluent through the off side and England obliged by bowling to his strengths. His fluency on the off-side backward of point off either foot stood out. In the company of an equally impressive Ashwin, he took India to a total that looked beyond their reach two hours earlier.

Ashwin and Jadeja were the biggest gains for Indian from this game. Both have been around on the fringes for quite sometime now. They first gave India a chance by putting on a rapid partnership of 59, and then put the brakes on England with their spin. Jadeja is a restrictive bowler who looks to choke the scoring of runs. With the wicket offering occasional turn, he became doubly effective.

Ashwin looked menacing. Often, he is criticized for trying out too many of his variations – offies, offies with round-arm action, top spinners, arm balls and carom balls. Today, his offies drifted, gripped and bounced. He looked threatening and left Trott clueless when he set him up for his carom ball. Stokes looked ill at ease against spin and seemed relieved when Ashwin finally bowled him.

Bopara held the innings together with an impressive innings

On the other hand, it was an important knock for someone like Bopara. He didn’t resort to panic sweeps when the ball started to spin. He kept waiting for loose deliveries and the Indian seamers, who were a big let down for Dhoni in this game, kept giving him a full toss or a short ball every over to relieve the pressure built by the spinners. He finally fell done in by the impressive Ashwin right at the finish line. But, he looked the part though he might be a better option at 5 than at 6.

How England will find the right slots for their first choice players might indeed prove to be a jig-saw puzzle over the course of the remaining two ODIs in England and the 5 ODIs in India. Kieswetter looks a powerful option at the top, but his defensive game is suspect. It might not be a bad idea to bat Bell and Cook at the top and have the option of Kieswetter at the back-end of the innings to take advantage of the bowling powerplay. He has proved to have the game to take advantage of fielding restrictions. They are unlikely to do that especially with him getting good runs at the top and might like batting at the top of the order in India as well.

On the positive side for India, many of their youngsters have shown promise. It will be a surprise if Varun Aaron doesn’t get a game on Sunday given the poor show of the seamers that practically cost them the game on Friday. England will look to seal the series with a win on Sunday.

The Myth About Captaincy

Posted: September 9, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, Opinion
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Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

Kapil Dev, Allan Border and Clive Lloyd led their respective teams to their first world cup titles

The hottest topic that is discussed during any series in the sport of cricket is about captaincy and captains. Captains from both winning and losing team will be called up after the completion of every match to talk about the positive and negative of that day’s match. The Indian media is very famous for the creating hype about the series and also the way they convert small information into an atom bomb which sometimes results in good players being dropped. (One example is the former Indian captain Ganguly). In case the Indian team ends up losing the series, they invite former players from India and other countries to discuss their failures and especially about the captaincy.

Recently the Bangladesh captain and vice captain were sacked from their responsibilities for losing in Zimbabwe. Every country is king on their home soil irrespective of the opposition. Even though Zimbabwe had not played much cricket over the years at international level, they will have played a lot in those conditions domestically. It is really difficult for any team to play against a team which has not appeared in international arena for few years.

Even the first test match between Pakistan and Zimbabwe was very closely contested wherein Zimbabwe players missed several opportunities of catching Pakistani batsmen. Generally it is Pakistan who are renowned for missing opportunities while fielding. It was a nail biting finish to the first ODI as well. Even though Pakistan is better side than Bangladesh with the amount of experienced cricketers in their side, they still found it difficult to win a match against them convincingly so far.

In the recent years, there has been improvement in the Bangladesh cricket team. They should be given some more years of time to stabilize at the top level. At present they don’t have any players who have got good experience in International level to lead the team.

Fans, reporters, former players, editors across the cricket world often talk about the captaincy. There were astute people who were good captains between 1970 and 1990 – like Clive Lloyd, Allan Border, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Mike Gatting.

Clive Lloyd led the West Indies to 2 consecutive World cup wins in 1975 and 1979 and to the final of 1983. The WI team during 1975 through 1983 had got real talent comprising of great fast bowling and excellent batsmen.

Kapil Dev became  the first Indian captain to win the World cup in 1983. He led a team which had a good mix of quality batsmen and bowlers.

Allan Border became first Australian captain to win the World cup in 1987. The team had real class batsmen and good quality bowling.

Starting 1990 there has been only a marginal improvement in terms of captaincy. There are still a lot of talk towards some of these captains being great captains – Mark Taylor, Arjuna Ranatunga, Wasim Akram, Nasser Hussain, Shaun Pollock, Steve Waugh, Richie Richardson, Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Grame Smith, Kumara Sangakkara, MS Dhoni, Andrew Strauss as they have won more no. of matches and tournaments for their respective countries.  Are they really so?

These captains lead a team which had got at least 2 out of 3 bases covered with some of the best cricketers. Qualities like very good batsmen, best all-rounders and great bowlers. There is nothing really great when you leads a team which has such brilliant talents. Even 50% of the players perform, the team ends with a win. None of these leaders really took over the team when it was at the bottom 3 or 4 in the ranking table and finished their career as captain in the top 2 position.

It seems almost mandatory rule a team should have a captain and a vice captain. To project that for every team players have been picked and given the position to lead. None of these captains really led their team to a tournament victory with less skilled players in the team.

Some of these captains holds the skill of utilizing talents existing in their team at the right time of a match / tournament and succeeded with good results. It is part of a job of a captain. There are only few eligible players who can be considered as emerging captains like Shakib Al Hasan, Misbah-ul-Haq and Bredon Taylor. Their teams are currently in the bottom 5 of the ranking tables. Let’s see their performance after 2 years as how they transformed their lead role talent to form their teams to next level.

Preview: 3rd ODI, The Kia Oval

Posted: September 8, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India in England 2011
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket – The CouchExpert

8 September, 2011


India’s battle with England this summer, thus far, has hardly possessed any dramatic interest. In the past, when Indian cricket had been through plenty of such phases, there would always be an instance of one player whose image would bring to mind a personal battle of absolute resolve. The truth, however in this series, is more prosaic; while there were a few performances that had glimpses of excellence, the overall picture, though, was seemingly fogged.

With absolutely nothing to lose henceforth, it would make sense for India to adopt Admiral Farragut’s ‘damn the torpedoes’ approach during the Battle of Mobile Bay. The influx of youth has helped the unit remove scarred egos, with Rahane’s good run of form being a huge positive. He has looked comfortable for someone who’s just arrived in to International Cricket. Coupled with Parthiv’s blitzkriegs at the top of the order, there have been plenty of positives to derive from the approach.

While some of the players handled the English attack with grace, the overall result has been the same – odd emotional moments in a failing quest that few people are taking seriously. The seriousness debate could have half a point – there were always going to be questions about the crowd that otherwise would have been generated had injuries not affected the celebrity stars.

The success of Rahane would surely give young Aaron a boost in confidence. He must be handed his debut soon.

Despite various signs that indicate a depleted level of interest, thanks more to the weather than the lack of stars, the battle might not be joined until the reverse fixtures commence in India later this year. But what can currently generate interest is to expose some of the young stars and offer a glimpse of what the future has in store for Indian cricket. The failure, to say hand a debut to young Varun Aaron would end up demonstrating the chronic weakness of Indian selection.

It is easy to forget that change in fortunes can still fetch silverware for the Indians this series. The Indian cricket fan’s substantive liability is to forget the opportunities that still lie ahead when times are bad – he becomes besotted with pessimism. The response so far from the team has been forceful, but grossly inadequate.

England, on the other hand has lost its One Day talisman with Irish roots to injury. Morgan’s injury could prove a blessing in disguise for ex outcast Ravi Bopara, who is trying is hardest to cement a place in a side which once struggled to pick a squad on credit alone. It is strange to observe how a chunk of past memories are formatted when times change for the good.

England must ride on this wave while it still lasts, and their current opponents are prime examples of what dark times can do. With a bunch of youngsters being given a fair run this series, Dernbach and Stokes have opportunities to pose additional headaches to the English selectors.

Bopara will slot in to fill the injured Morgan's place in the England XI

Alastair Cook’s doubted limited over skills were put to rest with the innings at Southampton, additionally backed by a few good performances in the same format against the Sri Lankans prior to the Indian series. His success has set a predicate that Cook, as a batsman, can now be relied on in the shorter formats of the game and practically, on incommodious leadership issues, if they may exist, along the way to definitive deal.

The trouble is, success will not always walk into the hands of the Englishmen. If England’s new found aggression is about ruthlessly wiping out enemies, as they’ve demonstrated in the recent past, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for even Captain Cook to take a leaf out of Admiral Farragut’s book: Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead! Weather permitting, of course.

Why reduce overs in cricket?

Posted: September 7, 2011 by Editor in Cricket, Opinion
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Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

You never have a football match reduced to 15 minutes a half because of rain or a Grand Slam final reduced to best-of-three sets because of rain or inclement weather. When was the last time you saw a badminton final reduced to a one game affair? Or do you reduce the golf major reduced to a 6-hole final round? So, why only cricket? Who gives them the power to reduce a 20-overs per side game to a 5-over contest and call it a game? Are they afraid of refunds? Or, are they worried that the TV crew will have to work a day extra to set-up their cameras and have less time to move to the next stadium?

Cricket is unique because it has three distinct formats. When overs are the distinguishing factor from one format to the other, how do you call a 20-overs per side game as a T20 game one day and a ODI the other?

The ICC should come up with a new set of rules for the game of Cricket. The teams travel to a cricket country once in 4 years to play a full series. During that time there might be unavoidable circumstances that rules out the entire match irrespective of the purpose of the series. The first ODI between India and England was washed out because of rain. The series will be decided only with the remaining of the 4 matches. The system doesn’t look meaningful. At any cost the series should happen as is either by extending the schedule or reducing the number of days between the next match.

The farce of calling a 20-over per side game as ODI is unique to cricket

There are a lot of other things involved in a series, like preparing the ground, infrastructure to the players and other officials, facilities to the fans and visitors to be handled by the home board. But there should be a backup plan from ICC or respective boards in the case of a match not being held for a reason, and then it should be compensated with in that stipulated period. The 2nd ODI between the teams had been reduced to 23 overs due to heavy rain. The match should be played as per the number of over scheduled. A 50 over game or a 20 over game at any cost should not be reduced. How can a 50 over match be reduced to 23 overs and it is considered as ODI match?

It doesn’t happen in many of the other sports as well as space. Take an example, due to unexpected circumstances a 10th standard public exam can be cancelled and it will be rescheduled. It will never be reduced from 100 marks to 5 marks exam. When a match is measured between 2 teams over 50 overs, how can it suddenly change to 23 overs and measure that performance as an ODI? It doesn’t make any sense.

Even during the last IPL final, the 20 over match was reduced to 17 overs per side. Why should the final of a tournament to be reduced due to rain. To bowl 6 overs it hardly takes about 30 minutes. For 8 PM IST IPL matches, the fans used to arrive at the ground by 6 PM and they will be very happy leaving the ground 30 minutes after the schedule by the playing the quota for a 20 overs match rather than have number of overs reduced.

In case the stipulated overs are not complete on the given day, the ICC/home board should schedule the match to a next day bearing all the cost and other infrastructure. For every space, there is back up plan for execution, why is it there not in cricket? Whether fans, reporters, advertising agencies and etc will be available or not, there should be at least few camera troops from ICC/home board to record the match and telecast it later. ICC can still earn their broadcast charges form their respective vendors / advertising companies by broadcasting the match next day.

The current system looks like ICC/home board want to run the matches because they doesn’t have a backup plan and they want to ensure their profits are met irrespective whether the players / teams / billions of fans across the globe will feel happy or not. Let’s try to play the games as is instead of reducing the overs for any unavoidable circumstances and changing the reality of the game thus reducing the spirit of the game.

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