"Hey, this match is far from over!"Ajit Agarkar, though, was quite oblivious of the hopes he continues to produce in rival camps.
"Dhoni lets opponent get away in middle overs...I am seeing this coming loss as a blessing in disguise - may be now he will be forced to rethink his strategy in middle overs.. he will see that he is winning INSPITE OF it and not due to it...but then these opponent batsmen,they get out just as I see a silver lining - and perhaps give MSD a chance to carry his poor strategy to the KO's."
"ASHISH NEHRA AMAR RAHE"
7.3
Sharma to Kohli, 1 run, bouncer, hit in the air and falls safe in the mid-wicket region. Ashutosh comments on the speed Sharma is bowling, "Has any one bothered to notice the speed at which Ishant Sharma is bowling, his fastest is at 152.2Kmph and he's averaging at almost 150kmph."
Junior cricket, at my son's club anyway, is predominantly played in the V between midwicket and fine-leg. dominated by strong boys who can play the 'hoik' to every ball. Most bowlers at this age can barely get the ball to the other end without a few wides each over. A far cry indeed from the Azar Maidan in Mumbai where I recently watched a group of very young lads with impeccable batting techniques facing a bowler who bowled doosras on request! These Indian kids were probably not deemed "elite" and will probably never grace our tv screens but their rudimentary skills suggested that something (or somebody) has got to these youngsters at an early age and set them up with a framework that they can extend as their bodies grow stronger. Cameron Tradell was one of the few coaches who was able to get the message across to my son (and friend) that playing straight was a long-term goal that would outlast the temporary glory of scoring cheap runs exclusively through square leg. Try telling a seven year old that technique is more important than runs - this was the first time playing straight made sense because of the use of a unique bat that rewarded the boys for hitting the ball with a full face. It absolutely pinged off the sweet spot when they hit straight down the ground and all of a sudden, the hoik was yesterday's shot!
Ponting himself was a junior prodigy, brought up on a classical technique and clearly coached by someone who knew how to coach a kid properly. We are reminded today that soon he will no longer stride out to bat for Australia at number three, arguably our greatest ever in that crucial position. I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Ponting again in this country unless our junior cricket system can encourage kids who can bat for long periods and play straight. Not unless we can find ways to encourage coaches who can see the big picture and can find ways to communicate those simple techniques to young minds who cannot easily understand why a single to mid-on is less preferable to a boundary through square leg. That's the difference I see at the grassroots level between the Asian countries and Australia at a very young age.
"Again, assumptions galore here, without much emphasis put on the essentially different nature of the games. I would like to put forward an argument here.
India's sports culture has ensured that India's performance in various games depend on the ratio of athleticism-to-skill involved in that game. Let us take a game like Football. While it is also a lot about skill, the skill comes in only as the final 20-25% of a player's making in the overall picture; the first 75-80% of a great football player is great natural athleticism.
As the skill portion increases in a game, India tends to gets better at it. Hockey needs slightly higher proportion of skills as I see it.I Cannot cite many more examples right now. But whatever variation it is, all outdoor games were created PRIMARILY for athleticism. Both Football & Hockey fall in that category. All other outdoor games like rugby are also in the same league - if anything it is even more about physical athleticism. All others except cricket.
Cricket stands alone as virtually the only game where athleticism requirement percentage is so low (maybe down to 20-25%) that LACK of it can be COMPENSATED by skill. I doubt if any other outdoor game could have 'achievers' like Ranatunga and Inzamam, to cite two. Those are extreme examples, but cited only to get the point across. They would not have a hope in hell to compensate the lack of athleticism by their skill in ANY other sport like football, even if they had the skill of Maradona within them.
Conversely, their being better athletes would NOT contribute to their being much better cricketers or even better catchers. Inzy was the best catcher in his side. Inzamam in fact got fitter once and promptly aggregated 9 in six WC matches in 2003...no wonder that after getting dropped he came back heavier both in girth and scoring ability.
The whole point of so much is: It is NOT guaranteed that other team's sporting performances in athleticism dominated sports will be replicated in cricket, the only skill dominated outdoor sport where a player - albeit a very talented one - playing for 21+ years is having the best year of his life while approaching 38 and is looking good for more.
Just having many countries beginning to play cricket does NOT guarantee that India's position will then become as lowly as it is in other 'athletic' sports. The subcontinent clearly has a special talent in this particular game called cricket. A game in which hand eye coordination is as much required as extreme mental powers of concentration required for long durations to avoid EVEN ONE mistake (applicable to batsmen, mainly).
If it were not so, India would be no match in cricket for New Zealand, England, South Africa and Australia. Countries that are quite good globally at some very athletic sports like rugby or football. Teams whose fielding and running between the wickets hails from another world compared to the Indians' (on their poor days, which are many).
"Gambhir bimari hai" [Player Gambhir is the disease]
