It will be a world cup of blogs, pods and tweets

Posted: February 13, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, Opinion, World Cup 2011
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Goutham Chakravarthi

13 February 2011

Bangalore

It is almost incredible that the world of cricket media fails to see beyond what’s with the experts. Numerous debates on the future of television coverage have raged the TV and internet space newly only to see predictable conclusions in the form of pay-per-view and HD television as its future. But I cannot fathom why there isn’t enough importance given to a whole lot of discussion, analyses and literature the non-experts’ section of the cricket world has to offer.

Largely it is a pile of waste that comes out post-game on TV or in the press. Cricinfo is among the most sought after sources of information for fans who want more than what they get on TV: pods, humour, debates being most prominent among them. But even then, Cricinfo still throws a large amount of the same rubbish all other forms of media do – pre-match predictions (templated and boringly predicatble), sound bites, injury rumours and of course a whole host of ex-cricketers not worth an ounce as experts.

It is beyond doubt that some of the best cricket analyses come from bloggers. Perhaps because these are people who enjoy watching the game and in no hurry to meet a deadline. Often these articles and opinions are far more interesting as they tend to have different flavours of perspective. Largely intelligent and even successful people on various counts of life are able to relate to various events on the game that sometimes escape even seasoned experts and journalists.

It is hardly surprising that pods like Test Match Sofa or Test Match Special are a lot more enjoyable today than a group of great ex-cricketers who give you the score every second ball or call an ingenious Laxman flick with a sponsor prefix to it. May be a day is not far off when technological advancements make inroads into television coverage where a bunch of people from across the globe connect to call the action and those who prefer their version over the official version can choose to listen to it. I would any day take Andy Zaltzman cussing over a piece of action than an ex-cricket go “he’s only gonna get better with age” everytime he sees a promising youngster.

Recently, there have been stories of journalists not being too happy with cricketers’ tweeting. Some seem to think cricketers have now taken over their jobs. Some recently have found cricketers taking a dig at their writing offensive. Ryder and Swan are a lot more fun with their tweets than many of the journalists taking offense to their comments. May be, for lesser spontaneous cricketers, they can try becoming their ghost tweeters. Much of today’s cricket journalism is bland.

Today’s writing largely remains ancient as it was decades ago when newspapers recounted the day’s events when live action didn’t reach the majority and as a result the writer unfolding the sequence of events allowed the writer to paint the game to the readers. It is a largely different world today where instant tweets even as the events unfold have become the norm (not to mention cricket coverage on phones and over broadband).

May be, that is why slightly unorthodox but mighty fine observers like Andy Zaltzman are entertaining and sought after. Great captains of yore who read the game well and inform of the likelihood of events to unfold still hold fort. Still, Opinion columns are predictable and so are post-game analyses. May be, they are going the way of player interviews that are repeats of the same thing time and again. Our experts ask the same questions, the players give the same answers and the writers write the same things. No reason why the consumer to this feels cheated.

Not sure if am being callous here. But I do believe that the best coverage out there is by the fans – amateurs who do it for fun and hobby but with as much dedication and application as the pros. Talented bloggers like Arnab Ray (Great Bong), Adam Wakefield (Bleacher Report and often in the Inbox section of Cricinfo), Subash Jayaraman (Cricket Couch), John vd Westhuizen (Cricket Guru), Brendon Layton (The Straight Bat) will provide interesting views to rival the best that goes around everywhere else. Of course, cricketwithballs, boredcricketcrazyindians, thealternativecricketalmanack keep us all entertained with their brand of cricket literature. And I hope that the best our of tweeter cricketers continue to keep us all entertained with that information their boards and press don’t want them to give us.

As much as a world cup it is going to be of Bhogle, Chappell, Boycott, Roebuck, Baum, Booth and Houwing, I will keep my eyes open for the best blogs, pods and tweets.

And may be, some of you will check out this space for more.

Calling the Right Shots: MSD is the Man

Posted: February 4, 2011 by thecognitivenomad in Cricket, India Cricket, Opinion
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Chandrasekhar Jayarama Krishnan

Head of Cricket, CouchExpert

4 February 2011

Indian cricket has hardly been without unpleasant instances of brusque departures of captains: not least when Mohammad Azharuddin was forced to walk out after a tryst with match-fixing, a series of incidents that left the global cricketing community embittered. Zonalism, politics and self-worth are not easily untangled, precisely explaining why mistrust had often been an element within the Indian cricketing scenario.

Captains have also often been known to under utilize players in the squad who they didn’t favor. A captain even as late as Saurav Ganguly was known for his suspected treatment of Sunil Joshi, where in the Karnataka spinner was just given two overs in a game, and also sent up the order against an attack where his batting wouldn’t speak for itself. Naturally, he failed to impress and slowly faded in to the wilderness.

Yet, the current Indian captain is one who trespassed the urge to establish the primacy of Indian cricket over the Imperialists. The T20 world cup victory in South Africa has taken Indian cricket a lot further than anyone could have ever imagined with the IPL being the greatest consequence. A bunch of raw, talented youngsters, under his leadership, proved their worth to bring home the trophy. It is very easy to forget how it all started.

MS Dhoni is a captain of great deeds, but confirmed greatness yet awaits him. He has undoubtedly been one of the better captains around since Stephen Fleming, who, in Shane Warne’s words could have made it to the World XI squad in lieu of his captaincy alone. Yet, Dhoni realizes that all this isn’t enough – not when half the nation looks to bite him over his suspected incorrect moves during various periods over the recently concluded series in South Africa. As the saying goes, when the game bites, it takes a huge chunk.

But that the meager voices in corners of India calling for a change in captaincy – on the old principle that people who live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones – is easy to gainsay. He’s never tried to reach beyond himself. For one, his penchant for moves from out of the blue – opening with off spinner R Ashwin, throwing the ball to Suresh Raina during a crucial period of play, restricting the Aussies to within 200 in a day on a Nagpur wicket to slow the rate down – are not remotely as ransom as they may seem.

He has always followed his instincts, and more often than not, has backed them up with phenomenal results. Yet, achieving what by far is one of the prouder results from outside the subcontinent, in a land where we have never fared well, goes for a toss. Cynics can be forgiven for disclosing the idle state of their common sense during that period, for I can only see the funny side of it.

In some ways, it is fair to say that Dhoni would have aptly fitted in as a captain during the earlier decades when the team didn’t boast of too many superstars. He’s definitely one of those guys who can portray a team which is significantly greater than the sum of its parts. It takes a shrewd mind to do that, and he is one of the best in the business.

Dhoni’s strokes of genius have often come during periods where India have looked pedestrian, during the course of a test match, after weathering long stretches of ineffectiveness. From out of the blue, a plot is devised, a trap is laid and a pretty scorecard turns its tables. Restricted menace in India’s bowling attacks have often meant that they are likely to be dominated eventually, but clever moves at the apt time have helped India stay way ahead of their game.

These days, the role of a captain is often underplayed. Back then, teams did not have a bunch of analysts with their laptops, cunningly devising a strategy to attack a player’s weakness. The simple and pure art of observation is a lost one, but a rare few have retained it – the subject of the topic being one of them.

Much can be extracted from the current make-up of the Indian squad, but one thought that reassures us every now and then, even if the cynics hate to admit it, is to have the rope tethered around Dhoni. Sure, his batting form hasn’t been the best of late but I’m one of those guys who’d love to believe that he’ll bring the best out of him, and the team, in front of the home crowds during cricket’s biggest event. He did it in South Africa during the inaugural World Cup pertaining to the shortest form of the game – it isn’t hard to imagine him repeating that feat in the upcoming tournament.

Its a shame that great performances alone go noticed in big tournaments, and captaincy is barely a fact that is stressed on. It’d be interesting to see how captains rally their teams this World Cup, for after a very long time, we see no clear favorites in the tournament. If there did exist a Captain of the Tournament award, I’d definitely put my money on MSD.

The thought of looking for an alternative captain, then, is an admission of having a potent weapon on the playing side and a tactically shrewd thinker on the mental side. The question is: is there an alternative? Quite vividly, I see no one. At least, not yet.

Australian Open 2011: Rafa Slam, Too Much Too Soon

Posted: January 26, 2011 by rjsays in Australian Open 2011, Tennis
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Rajat jain

Head of Tennis, CouchExpert

26 January 2011

 

When a player as great as Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer loses a Grand Slam match, the event goes beyond being just the matter of a player winning and a player losing. It delves deeper than anyone can imagine. After all, there must be a reason why Rafa lost today in Melbourne, or why Roger lost in Wimbledon last year. These two have a winning percentage of more than 80% and probably much more in a Grand Slam, hence the occurrence of a loss is rare.

 

With this, the winner is almost overshadowed in the process (unless it is the other one of them, of course). As a Rafa fan, it was painful to see Australian Open’s update on facebook with all the depressed looking pictures of Rafa. Just like it would have been for Roger fans at the end of Wimbledon, when this picture was flashed ad infinitum on the several pages of media.

Right since he won the U.S. Open, it was rare that any conversation involving Nadal would not include the term “Rafa Slam.” It is another matter, that this feat has not been achieved in Men’s tennis for over 40 years now. The hype is not without substance—Rafa was clearly the best player in the world till now, and has tasted success before. But then, I see things going too far in trying to compare “Rafa Slam” with Rod Laver’s Career Grand Slam. I saw tonnes of articles on the same, and an entire fan base was busy arguing which one is a greater accomplishment.

And then, the small matter of people considering a possibility of Rafa winning six consecutive slams—French Open is his’ for the taking, and probably Wimbledon too.

Everything, today, makes no sense. What we only know is the winner of this tournament alone will have a possibility to run for a calendar Slam, and that would be too remote.

When Rafa publicly told that winning all four Slams consecutively is next to impossible, and that he is not the favorite going in to the tournament, he had a point. He knows his body is fragile, he was battling with a flu before the tournament began, and he is more prone to being upset on a hard court than Federer. Yet, we pondered all over the news as to who will have the upper hand should they meet in the final—Federer or Nadal. The same happened in the U.S. Open during the semis, and the same happened this time (although, to be frank, Ferrer d. Nadal sounds a lot like Federer d. Nadal).

I believe the reason we saw Rafa sobbing during a changeover was not because he unable to finish the ‘Rafa Slam.’ It was probably because for the second time in a row, his journey at Melbourne was being cut short due to factors outside his control. And a part of it, obviously, was because of the hype surrounding this remote possibility. As much as Rafa downplays these records, greatness, and any kind of statistics, all this talk would have gotten into his head, surely.

And yet, the media has nothing to lose. The title “Rafa Slam?” has been conveniently replaced by “Rafa Slammed!” An already big story turned into an ever bigger one. Media is a necessary evil in everything regarding any profession. And it is a small price to pay for such professionals who earn big bucks, anyway. Or is it?

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India-South Africa Series Recap: Dhoni’s Captaincy Unimpressive

Posted: January 26, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India Cricket, India in South Africa 2010-11, Opinion, Series
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Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran

Bangalore

26 January 2011

I have been watching cricket over last two decades and am a great fan of Indian cricket. I am sharing my comments on how I look at each game in the last series in SA and what ways we could have improved / done well. There will be definitely other cricket fans who will disagree to my comments, but this is something what I feel they can improve on.

MS Dhoni: Too defensive?

—This was one of India’s better performances on SA soil. In short, India played better cricket than SA in the whole series (Test, ODI, and T20). They gave a very good fight and managed a decent show.

—The top order of Indian team batting line-up failed to show their strength in both ODI and Tests. There had been few notable performances in the bowling department, but they should have done better in their batting. This Test team is one of the best Indian sides in recent years and they had a good opportunity to win the series on SA soil, but their inconsistent batting and inefficient captaincy gave an edge to SA in making it 1-1 easily and also win the ODI series.

—Looking at the each day’s play closer with session-to-session, it was not really as tough a series as expected. India would have outplayed SA if Dhoni had put some effort in being more aggressive with his captaincy. He is not as attacking captain as other Indian captains of yesterday, but one should at least make an attempt to learn something either by experience or looking at the way the past cricket captains’ performances.

Below are some of the highlights where Dhoni should have taken a much better decision than he eventually did

Test Matches:

1. Should have attacked SA batsmen in 1st innings of 1st Test, especially on Harbhajan’s bowling.
2. Should have shown some amount of fighting spirit in the South African 2nd innings of the 3rd Test. By setting a field of 5 fielders outside the ring in a Test match will allow the opponent to play comfortably. At one instance, it given a feel like 3rd test involved some match fixing. Kallis was not comfortable playing, but there is no effort from Dhoni to put pressure on him.
3. When you have bowler with 300+ Test wickets, one should have three fielders round the batsmen irrespective of match condition. Spreading a field will not give any confidence to the bowler. If Dhoni had bothered to set even a 10% attacking field while Boucher-Kallis were batting, I think we would have easily won the Test series
4. It looked at one point, Dhoni was not interested in bowling out the opposition as Indian team would be in trouble if the target was less than 200 with 120+ overs to bat on.

ODIs:

1. As a captain Dhoni should have tried to stay till the end of match in the 3rd ODI. There is much to learn even looking at Botha on how he likes to stay at the crease.
2. In the 4th ODI, he should have brought in front-line bowlers when SA lost 5 wickets for 140-odd. As an outsider, I can very well judge Duminy is good against spinners, it was really bad to see Dhoni bowl the spinners at him till he got settled.
3. In the same game, while chasing their target and there was possible chance of rain later that night, why didn’t the middle-order batsmen try to stay on for some period in the middle when Kohli is playing a superb innings?
4. In the 5th ODI, again after the loss of de Villiers when Duminy walked in, no fast bowler was brought into the attack. If Dhoni is so confident on the spinners, at least he would have tried with pace at one end. Zaheer bowled exceptionally well against left-handers. It was very difficult to understand the strategy of Dhoni in not bringing Zaheer on with the series up for grabs.
5. When everyone clearly knows it’s going to rain heavily during 2nd half of the day, no body in the world will win the toss and elect to field especailly with the D/L method in place. It gives a feel like Dhoni had decided not to win the series when he sent the opponent in after winning the toss.
6. While chasing a mammoth total (also since we didn’t scored more than 225 in the series), one would have tried with pinch hitters especially Harbhajan / Zaheer. These 2 players are sometimes more sensible than the top-order players. No idea why Dhoni came at no. 4 only thrown his wicket.

In short, it is really Dhoni’s incapability of captaining the side that has lost the opportunity of winning both the Test series and ODI series.  In my view, the selectors should think whether Dhoni should continue leading the side. I am unable to recollect if there has been an instance wherein Dhoni has led India to win a series with his captaincy skills alone.

Appreciate your patience on reading this post!

India v South Africa ODI Series: A Look Back

Posted: January 25, 2011 by The CouchExpert in Cricket, India in South Africa 2010-11
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Prasad Moyarath

Bangalore

25 January 2011

India playing five one day internationals against South Africa in South Africa, just one month before the World Cup in India raised the eye brows of many Indian cricket aficionados. In the past, India could never do well against the hosts in the fast and bouncy pitches there. What will Indian players gain by playing matches on fast and bouncy pitches when the World Cup is going to be held in the flat batting tracks of the subcontinent? – This question puzzled many except those in BCCI. To the Indian surprise, all the matches were held on comparatively slow pitches and the Indians came out of the series winning 2 out of the 5 matches. Only the time will tell what the Indian team gained out of this series but a post mortem of this series reveals many interesting facts.

Sehwag, Praveen Kumar and Gambhir returned to India even before the start of the series with injuries. With Piyush Chawla, Ashwin and Rohit Sharma in the squad, the first two matches were looked upon by many as chances for the Indian selectors to try out these players before declaring the Indian team for the 2011 World Cup.

Team composition for the first two matches clearly proved that the selectors or the team management didn’t have any well thought out plans. Ashish Nehra looked completely out of sorts and Rohit Sharma sent in as replacement for Sehwag batted at No.4 and No.7 in the first two matches. Indians were beaten outright in the first match but won a thriller in the second despite Dhoni’s lackluster captaincy almost presenting a victory to South Africa. Even when it was very clear that India’s only winning option was to bowl out the South Africans, Dhoni kept persisting with part time bowlers and brought back Munaf only when the South Africans were very close to a victory. Luck was with Dhoni and India on that day.

Tendulkar returned to India with an injury and Parthiv Patel was sent in as a replacement. Indian team for the World Cup was announced and that seemed to confuse the team management more. Lack of a specialist opener forced the team management to thrust the role of an opener on the World Cup discard – Rohit Sharma and Dhoni didn’t have the gumption to use this contingency to test the disaster management skills of his team. He could have opened with Kohli and promoted himself to No.3. Though India won a thriller in the third one dayer through some hard hitting by Yusuf Pathan and presence of mind of tailenders, rain denied a century to Kohli and an outright win for South Africa (though they won by D/L Method) in the fourth one dayer.

Fifth one dayer showed the display of individual brilliance by Amla and Pathan. Cricket fans wondered what would have happened had Amla been caught by Ashwin at 70 and Duminy given out in the second ball he faced and rain not interrupted South African innings. Though South Africa won a thriller as shown by score card, apart from Pathan and Parthiv Patel to a small extent, none of the Indian batsmen took the fight to South African camp. Though the official Man of the Match was Amla, there was no doubt that the fifth one dayer would always remain etched in cricket lover’s memory for Yusuf Pathan’s innings.

India lost yet another one day series in South Africa but the fact that this team went down fighting even without 3 reputed players is a consolation. Indian team management and selectors never had a plan and was confused on the selection of players. They neither selected the team with an aim to win the series nor with an aim to give exposure to World Cup players. But with days to go for the 2011 World Cup, this series also exposed many weak links in the Indian side. Ashish Nehra’s lack of form and the inconsistency of Yuvraj, Raina and Dhoni are sure to create sleepless nights for the team management and selectors. Lack of a good fifth bowler was clearly visible from the way South Africa recovered several times after an initial collapse. A world class side should be able to overcome any eventuality and this Indian side’s inability to overcome the opening problem that surfaced due to the injury to openers will pose a question mark on the quality of team selection. Rohit Sharma and Murali Vijay turned out to be complete failures and it got forgotten due to the fact that they were not included in the World Cup team. Kohli, Pathan, Zaheer, Munaf and Harbhajan did something of note.

A diffident captain, a brittle middle order and a bowling attack with inconsistency written on it, this Indian side has flooded the minds of Indian cricket aficionados with doubts. “The big learning from this game is to keep wickets in hand for the last ten overs” – the parting words of the Indian captain summed up the whole picture. Did Dhoni become Indian Captain without knowing the basics of the game?

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