Now some REAL breaking news

Today has been a phenomenal day for cricket newshunters.

First comes the preview of ex-India coach John Wright's autobiographical book Indian Summers where he expresses both reverence and reservations regarding skipper Sourav Ganguly. I guess after a 5 page email it is a whole book that Sourav now has on his plate.

Soon after we get the confirmation that Shahriyar Nafees of Bangladesh is growing in stature as an opening bat with every game.

Then comes the predictable stuff: early dismissal of both Pakistani openers in their second innings (too) on the 3rd morning at Old Trafford. By now it has almost become a part of the deal.

And then the one we all forgot to check out on: The 1st test between Sri Lanka & South Africa at Colombo! Sure we knew that the guests were all out for 169 and that not a single wicket fell yesterday as Jayawardene and Sangakara remained undefeated on double centuries at the end of 2nd day's play yesterday. But that only meant terribly one-sided fare and little more.

Now it means a little more to the record books though - Sangakarra stopped 13 short of a triple century and Jayawardene stopped 26 short of a quadruple. Yes - 374! They have also broken the record for the highest partnership for all wickets with their 624 run 3rd wicket duet.

Pakistan batsmen may learn of that development at Colombo and even find a reason in it to console themselves. After all Pakistan's position in the 2nd Test is vastly better than Ashwell Prince's South Africans, having conceded a lead of only 342 runs compared to South Africa's 587.

That was consolation for Pakistan, but what of South Africa? Well they always have Jaques Kallis. He may just urge his teammates on to another impossible mission by simply pointing out that the lead may be 13 runs short of a winning one!

Cricket buzz

Psychiatrists and plastic surgeons of Hampshire, in no particular order, are having a tough time attending to an unprecedented number of female visitors from various age groups. All of them have a common reason for depression: Not getting that sms even after sighting Shane Warne.

While on medicine, sure you already heard about the invitation received by half the English side for turning up as live demo during a session on 'Joints: All that can go wrong will go wrong' at the world sports medicine forum? Insiders say the boys are sore about the invitation, coming as it did only after the Pakistan Board refused it.

By the way, guess who are the fastest of friends in the Pakistani team?
The openers, of course! They spend so much time together in the dressing room.

Meanwhile, Irfan Pathan has instructed a ghost writer to start work on his autobiography. It will be titled 'The sine wave'.

His skipper Dravid is looking grumpy these days. Reason: He sees no further scope of using the word 'historic' for describing India's away performances in future tours. 'Historic' found its way into the Indian skipper's larynx at the time of 2004 Pakistan tour, charted its course through Zimbabwe and other controversies, got itself another skipper and exhibited lasting power in its new abode till the recent West Indies tour. Some fringe players of India expressed secret envy at the h-word's knack of ending up as every Indian skipper's favourite.

Glenn Mcgrath comes back to international cricket and immediately wants Troy Cooley to make him a 'faster' bowler. The university of biomechanics would do well to stop their usual arm twisting fare and check these Australians for intake of some strange potion that reverses ageing.

The seeds of doubt were sown as Australia kept inducting new players aged 30 that continue to improve with age, and now this Shoaibesque desire from the monumental metronome after attaining grandfatherhood in a veteran Australian side! Reincarnation is a favourite theme these days; and who can say with any authority that John Buchanan was not Getafix in an earlier birth? On that note, I am willing to bet my earnings that Merv Hughes is none other than Obelix reincarnated.

Accomodating international guests is going to be a problem in the sparsely populated Caribbean isles during 2007 world Cup. The West Indian team have discussed the matter and graciously agreed to "take a trip on a sailin' ship" for the nights they have to spend at venues most pressed for hosting space. Maybe the smart Calypso guys plan to maximise performance by staying bouyant.

There's some opposition from the selectors though: Brian Lara's overbearing desire to be a captain is an area of concern with that gesture, they point out.

[sources: unreliable]

5 all out

A side in Yorkshire got themselves all out for 5 runs, all extras.

These were some of the explanations on offer:

"It was a very, very dodgy wicket." Henry Webster, chairman of Yorkshire side Goldsborough, comes up with an international-quality excuse after his side were dismissed for 5. None of the runs came off the bat

"We almost got a run but the batsman turned it down because he'd just been hit on the foot the ball before." Goldsborough captain Peter Horseman explains how it could have been so much better

[courtesy: cricinfo quotes]

Updates:

The Yorkshire Post says: The team's captain, who perhaps understandably did not want to be named, described the experience as both "surreal" and "embarrassing".

To their credit Goldsborough came back and immdtly hit back at the opposition to get them 2 down (with again only 2 extras scored). However the opposition, Goldsborough's North Yorkshire neighbours Dishforth and division four leaders, scored the winning run with no further loss.

That winning run was reportedly the first run to be scored off the bat in the match! Besides putting up that brave defence for not scoring a single run with the bat the skipper of the losing team Goldsborough had more aces up his sleeve.

"When we were nought for four I jokingly said it would be strange if we were all out for ducks," said the captain. "But I certainly didn't plan it like that."

and....

"You would have thought even when we were seven or eight down someone would have got an edge or something to get a run."

If it is any consolation, the side was a second XI. Amazingly all ten Goldsborough batsmen were out caught, which means all hit the ball but none scored.

A fan of the side summed it up just right at Goldsborough cricket club's official website:

"I know it was wet on Saturday, but nobody expected so many ducks."

[Indiatimes article here]

The madness is here

As speculated in the previous post the Indian ISP's are indeed blocking blogspot blogs like the one you are reading now. Amit Varma of indiauncut.blogspot.com suggested a few solutions that enable Indian readers to keep visiting their favourite blogspot blogs till this madness is over (one hopes it will be). The easiest of them I guess is to simply visit http://pkblogs.com and type in the relevant blogname in the box there. Alternatively you can directly go to the desired blog by keying in http://pkblogs.com/blogname on your browser address bar [e.g. for visiting Pavilion View you need to type http://pkblogs.com/pavilionview]

Update, 20-Jul-06: The reign of blogblock is over, it seems.......

Classic sledges - and we all are having some BIG reasons to use them

Here's a load of these sledging masterpieces painstakingly uploaded by some blessed soul on the wiki. And no sooner than I devour the stuff I get completely valid reasons to use them.

Amit Varma writes:

"The block on Blogspot blogs that I mentioned here seems to be spreading across ISPs."

There's a real possibility that you may not be able to visit this and other blogspot blogs unless you opt for the solutions suggested by Amit.

The Ashes 'war' turning out to be a hoax...

What else do you say when a team said to be harbouring a big dream finds excuses left and right to stop trying to win a Test match as early as middle of the 4th day? Decision making is indeed tough business when a long injury list adorns your first choice team sheet; but the English are doing their chances no favour if they constantly allow opposition to sense that they are content trying to 'save' games that they should really be disappointed not to win. Even the 'memorable' triumph at Mumbai 2006 spoke more of Indian surrender than English conquest.

With each cricket match this English side plays the talk of making a war out of Ashes 2006-07 sounds more like a desperate shout devised to conceal murmurs that English cricket is steadily going back to its defensive days of the 90's minus Vaughan's leadership, that they are happier letting opponents lose matches than them winning it, that the English would be more than happy to look for a handful of draws when they land in the Southern enemyland a few months later. And we all know the result of taking that approach against Australians, right Mr. Nasser Hussain?

When Greg Chappell takes over from Marcello Lippi

Amit Varma fantasises about the Indian cricket team playing football, World Cup ishtyle.

Brilliant buggers

Osman Samiuddin vents out his take on all that is wrong about Pakistan cricket and also the amazing 'right's that manage to outweigh them on such regular basis. Makes for good reading if you like the brand of cricket played by the Pakistani bunch.

The impatient Crowe

All of you must have heard of the fable where a patient crow keeps dropping pebbles one by one inside a pitcher till he succeeds in drinking the water inside it. Well here's a Crowe that is quite unlike the legendary bird, at least when we think of the patience aspect. Going by indications this one rather loves picking up stones from such a pitcher and dropping them on unsuspecting soft targets.

Andr-eulogy

'I can be replaced, everybody else can be replaced. But, at this moment in time, Fred (Flintoff) can't be replaced because we haven't got anybody else in the country who can bat at six, bowl at 90 mph and stand at slip. I don't think you'll ever replace that."

That was English quickie Steven Harmison on the eve of a long-dreaded Fred-less Test for the Englishmen against formidable Pakistan. Even for a person as used to high praise as Andrew Flintoff of late, that beautiful thought from a peer must have pride of place adorned in frames of gold on some wall in the Flintoff household supporting most things dear to Andrew.

Now for the Strange World cup

For those who are still in the dark about the Cricket world Cup in its 'Frankenstein 2007' avatar (like I was, until Pratik pointed out in a cricinfo post) this link may be helpful. It is a rather strange format that strains to be foolproof and compromises the basic duration of a quadrennial showpiece in the process. Mutual isolation of the host countries renders the DNA strand like structure of the tourney all the more insufferable.

Come to think of it - the tournament lasts from March 11 to April 28......ONE AND A HALF MONTHS! ICC may as well have "Who awakes wins" on their logo. Seriously hope all the teams are allowed 16 man squads instead of the customary 14 (hotels permitting, of course - learnt that there'll be acute shortage of those!). The last thing we want is a final where a limping Pakistan team struggle to put up 200 on a belter and half-dead Indians struggle to chase it.

As for the Frankenstein part I can only pray that the apex competition in the game does not achieve the opposite of its basic aim of popularising the game beyond its present bounds. The 2003 edition of the Cup was not too successful in that respect, other than the bursting ICC coffers.

There are people that watch cricket once every four years, and they were virtually shooed away by a million inconsequential (mis)matches that had to be endured before the real action started - and ended soon after. Maybe enlightenment will dawn upon ICC some day of this auspicious millennium and they will be able to see that the world Cup is not exactly the stage where cricket lovers around the world would love to see fledgling sides learn their trade.

Dividing the 16 teams in four initial groups instead of the usual two is the first step the 2007 World Cup rulemakers have taken to curtail those 'promotion games' (cannot find any other words for those matches after the soccer world cup where even the 32nd ranked team looks consistently capable of causing an upset) . But in the process the Cup gets an overly long 'Super 8' phase that worries me no end. 24 more matches will be played during this phase, after the 24-match group league, and then only are we allowed to enter knock-out teritory. Hope you're still reading....

On the flip side, that very stage actually offers the cricket world a rare chance to compare the real strengths of so many leading cricket nations in the one day format while playing against each other. [I mean, even the semis and the final may pale in comparison to that cricket feast]. Reminds of the mini world cup of 1985, this Super 8...

Ask You: 03

Sanath Jayasuriya scored 150's in consecutive ODI's [5thODi vs. England, and versus Netherlands yesterday). I cannot recall that to have ever happened. Am I right?

Update: Jagadish says I am indeed.

The 6-6-6 men for Australian batsmen

Cricket funda: Hadlee's comet comes once in 29 years

The only 2 bowlers to take modern Australian batsmen for breakfast, lunch and dinner over full series, Sir Richard Hadlee and Harbhajan Singh, were born on the same day, 29 years apart.

Corollary: If we extrapolate that occurence then someone born somewhere on the 3rd July of 2009 may grow up to manhandle Aussie batsmen again.

Ask You: 02

This is another knock at the doors of my cricket loving friends asking for more. The question would be of purely statistical significance were Australia not the team against which these figures were achieved. The longish question this time has 2 parts:

1) Harbhajan Singh took 2 five wicket hauls against Aussies in the First test of 2004 series in India. This followed the 4 consecutive 5-wicket hauls by him against the same team in the unforgettable last 2 Tests of 2001 series at Kolkata and Chennai. [In between Bhaji played a test in Australia but we are talking home matches.]

Where does this string (of six consecutive 5-fors at home versus Aussies) feature in the list of highest consecutive 5-for innings by a bowler in Test matches between any 2 teams played at any one country?

2) After that six consecutive 5-fors by Bhajji, Anil Kumble went on to take 2 more five fors in the next 2 innings [i.e. 2nd Test at Chennai in 2004 home series versus Australia] against the same team. Surely this string of eight consecutive home 5-fors must be some sort of team record against Aussies, or even against any team?

Wanna test yer CQ?

CQ = Cricketing Quotient

Ankur Nagpal has compiled a fun cricket quiz at Caught Behind. The questions are not exactly TTP type [The Toughest Possible type...] and that makes it fun to try out for all sorts of cricket followers barring, maybe, cricket historians.

Answering is via comment. More answers with interesting takes will make the results more colourful...

TAFHCA and its noble cause

Bad hair styling has always been a necessary evil of both life as well as sport. TAFHCA - The Anti Foolish Hair Cut Association - is trying to do some work on this front. Emphasis is on damage mitigation and rectification, as well as spreading of awareness amongst potential defaulters.

President Zainub Razvi needs to be applauded for her noble efforts to set the ball rolling. While the responses to the work by TAFHCA have been encouraging, the real measure of TAFHCA's achievements is the resistance it faces from some quarters. I am proud to be the Vice President in this inspirational organisation. That demonstrates TAFHCA's sympathetic attitude towards follically challenged (as against tonsured) people unless, of course, they are bent upon causing shockwaves with the 'remainder'.

As part of their regular watchdog activities, TAFHCA has pulled up some Cricketing culprits here while the soccer shockers, growing in geometric progression this World Cup season, have been decried in these lines. [Guess the 'watchdog' metaphor assumed real life proportions in that last mentioned article..]

The truth about Ganguly conspiracy..

...is that it is orchestrated by Fate herself! I mean, who else do you blame when two people on the fringes of national selection (and losing their standings steadily), each having a world of respect and gratitude for the other, are always finding each other to be the persons to beat in order to strengthen their individual claims to re-selection?

Whenever Sourav Ganguly supporters hope to see a big score against his name it has to be a fast bowler named Zaheer Khan, nurtured mostly by Ganguly himself, that comes back to blistering form and picks up his mentor's wicket very cheaply. It happened at the Duleep trophy finals last year, and it is happening again in distant English counties, thousands of miles away from their home nation.

All this happens while another struggler named Sachin Tendulkar tries to claw his way back to international cricket in the same country and their team, India, are playing in the West Indies....Imagine the looks you would get if you woke up an Indian cricket fan who had fallen asleep Rip-van-Winkle-like after Australia 2003-04 and said that to him! Can have a look at this post and its comments discussing the Ganguly misfortune.

Mr. Anecdote once again: the delicate art of captaincy

During the morning session of 2nd day’s play in the St. Kitts Test Rahul Dravid took the new ball as soon as it was due. Sreesanth, during his short Test career so far, has looked the part of a seamer far more often than not. But there was little doubt that Rahul’s decision to override any inclination to grant extended spells to 750-plus scalps of spin wizardry adorning his ranks was his other fast bowler Munaf Patel, one that India has turned to on a number of occasions during this series and the last.

Contrary to Dravid’s plan Sarwan took Munaf apart during that spell with the new cherry. The hammering included 6 boundaries in six balls off one seven ball over. Rahul kept standing in the slips all through that over without once approaching the amused-looking bowler. Instead the skipper preferred an alternate show of solidarity, by giving Munaf another over from that end, and a change of ends thereafter. Munaf promptly got back his lost plot to Dravid’s relief, dismissing a centurion and a 32-time centurion in quick succession.

All of it set up an interesting session review by the experts’ panel during lunch break. Three gentlemen duly appeared wearing the right smiles at the right hour. They were Desmond Haynes, Ian Chappell and anchorman Sanjay Manjrekar. Expectedly the reactions centred on the skipper, the bowler and that one over. Those included question marks on Dravid’s non-reaction in changing field placements after the first few balls of that over as well as his non-communication with Munaf, while generous praise also flowed Dravid’s way for his silent show of faith in continuing the quick bowler even as another expensive over came from him after that massacre.

The discussion up to this point made something clear: like cricket followers, most commentators and ex-cricketers believe that there is only ONE way of doing a thing – their way. I recalled when Ganguly used to walk up to the bowler and bombard him with advices galore. On days that method refused to work, Dada came across as the perfect irritating pest overdoing his leadership and making his bowler look like a mindless idiot.

Now that his successor Dravid exhibits a contrasting approach and prefers to do most of his discussions with bowlers away from the public eye, the ‘inaction’ of it once again gets to us. ‘He is just a new bowler and needed a talk up at the time.’ And why do we react like that? Because neither Ganguly's overtalking nor Dravid's sitting back complies with the way WE think it right to handle the situation!

Perhaps both of the skippers discussed could do better at the times mentioned, and maybe they had some good things to learn from each other. There is another point, though, that we miss. ‘We’, in this case, are the game’s followers, commentators and (surprise) ex-cricketers that would not make great skippers. Fortunately the panel had at least one ex-cricketer today that could demonstrate the missing point in his inimitably anecdotal style: essentially that the methods employed in such situations need not be one and the same for all skippers and all bowlers.

“Well there are a few different ways to do it [a skipper reacting to a situation when a bowler messes it up]. Maybe Dravid wanted to let the young bowler do his stuff and then chat with him during the luncheon interval saying ‘Hey I think there were some lessons you could learn from that’.”

Pardon me that inability to quote Ian Chappell in toto but his opening words were along those lines. As is his wont, Chappell then went on to illustrate his observation by narrating one of those famous little incidents of his from the past when his WMD#1 Dennis Lillee decided to blast Alvin Kallicharan off with a plethora of short balls and got adequately hammered in the process.

“I was inclined to walk up to him in the ground but then thought of letting him go through it all by himself at the time. I went to him later and just said, ‘Hey mate, next time you think of throwing the kitchen sink at anyone would you kindly bother to mention it to me so that I can set fields accordingly?”

Again I may be alzheimering out Ian’s exact words but the above words represent them without twisting their message beyond recognition. Without ever negating his co-commentators’ observations on the specific case in point the tactful man and able commentator in Ian Chappell could effortlessly make it clear that skippers need to weigh their options while handling such situations and the choice is best made in view of its possible impact on the person in question. In the end captaincy is not about handling machines but humans.

Even a viewer who had never seen or heard of the three wise gentlemen on show could have told which one made a grand team leader in his glory days.

Ask whom?

With Steven Lynch enjoying continued success in assigning his bottomless trash-can to take care of my finest email questions I can only ask my reader friends to help me out with this:

Steven Harmison had figures of 10-2-31-3 in the 2nd ODI his team played against Sri Lanka yesterday. He achieved that bowling in a 50-over innings of 319 runs. I do not recall better figures by a bowler in an ODI innings that big. Please let me know when you spot someone who has bowled better than Harmison in a 300-plus one day innings.

[Publishing responders' names in this blog is the only affordable appreciation, I'm afraid...]

On second thoughts, how about firing a quiz question every week in this space? Sounds interesting - except that I must know the answer then!

Update: S Jagadish has come up with a fantastic detailed response to this query (see comment) and completely bowled me over. I am going to post my queries to my friends here henceforth, no need to Ask Anyone!

Robin

He was the quintessential bits and pieces man - a lower middle order power wielder with the bat who could roll his arm over adequately and field like there was no tomorrow. If I were to name one man from the large pool of India's international cricketers who received less recognition than they deserved for their efforts (if not substantial contributions) then it must be Ravindra Ramnarain Singh or 'Robin'. Although he played a few one-dayers for India unsuccessfully in the late eighties, people identify him more as a late-90's player because he was drafted into the side for good only during the tri-nation Titan Cup in 1996, a tournament that India miraculously won beating two great sides.

Robin was 33 years young at the time and only Azharuddin in the side was older than him. 4 years and many ice-nerved finishing acts later, Robin was dropped after an ICC trophy campaign that gave Indian supporters hope and Sourav Ganguly's nascent leadership some more time. He was perhaps still the fittest person in that squad, rivalled on that count only by an 18 year old debutante named Yuvraj Singh.

Robin struggled during that 2000 ICC trophy tournament and in all fairness he did not have the backup of steady performances to see him through the extended lean trot. He was perhaps nearing the end of his international career as a player and the decision to discard him seemed logical. Robin refused to take his omission as a natural consequence though and held it as a manouevre by the team management, if reports are to be believed.

Those were speculations; after all it is rare for an omitted ex-cricketer to be enquired if he is upset and get flashed on the headlines unless you are an ex-captain that died in harness. Part of reports about his disenchantment seemed to be true during the sponsorship row before 2002 ICC trophy when some key international players almost did not go to Sri Lanka. Robin at that time responded positively to the Board's request to get prepared as cover instead of 'showing solidarity with the senior team and refusing'.

But fruitless emotions are no good preventing someone like Robin Singh from being a contributor to the team cause. After a hiatus he was back to his destined duty as a valuable worker bee in the hive of Indian cricket. This time Robin found a role to play beyond the playing arena and assumed charge as the coach of Indian A team. He continues in that capacity to this date and true to form, he does his duties with acceptable end results.

Robin must get overshadowed by other bigger fish in his new trade, once again. I mean, no one was ever heard referring to Robin as the 'guru' of A-team or his wards as members of 'Team Robin'! But malice is never a constituent of people in his mould. This piece about Trescothick could easily be reworded to describe this invaluable Caribbean import of Indian cricket during his playing days. Men such as these think nothing of never getting worshipped like some more fortunate mates for doing their best. They are prepared to smile through hardworking days that lead to obscurity of backpages, all for the crime of not being flashy.

For the moment, the man is in action and has a purpose that is greatly relevant to cricket in his beloved adopted country, and from what we know of him that is all that he cares about in this world.