The age of Kris

We might be in for a change in attitude towards transparency in selection matters. I am hoping, against all history and most logic.
If there is one thing that Kris is, it is that he is talkative. Straighttalking? I can't say. Probably more of someone who has little control over what he says, is what he is more likely to be.
The BCCI does not stand a chance with a gag order.
So either we have a very short Kris Srikkanth tenure or the BCCI comes to accept the fact that Kris will talk and write bullshit.

Yuvi's back OR Will someone show me the method in this madness?

In what is probably the first piece of real good news that Yuvi must have heard since his name was announced for the tour of Australia (getting nominated for a meaningless ICC Award notwithstanding), he has been named captain of the Board President's XI that will take on the Aussies in a four day encounter starting Oct. 2.

Clearly behind Kaif and Badri in the race for a Test spot, it seems that some of us were wrong to conclude that Yuvi was behind Sharma and Raina as well. If Kaif and Badri do not make the most of their opportunity, Yuvi could be back in whites sooner than we expected.

As ever, the selectorial brain continues to excite and befuddle. If his obvious outrageous talent is the reason he was in the scheme of things, then casting him into Test wilderness after two bad matches in OZ was premature. Similarly, if his percieved inadequacy on tough wickets against tough bowlers was the reason he was dropped, he certainly has not demonstrated any great improvement in technique to merit a recall.

And what of those thoughts that flew in the wind - something about a knee surgery to prolong his career?

But I am sure there is great method in this seeming madness.

Others who seemed to have slipped off the radar, but have made the cut for this team include Chopra and Sreesanth.

McGain's pilgrimage

CWB's Bryce McGain is an IT geek.

Is it coincidental that he is likely to make his international debut in Bangalore?


A city that is not only famous for its trees, pubs, bad traffic and embarrasing policemen, but is the spiritual home of the global IT industry.

Are his surroundings likely to inspire him to emulate the Bangalore geeks Dravid and Kumble?

Has Ranatunga just broken a murderer's heart?

If someone had to grow some balls, it is not very surprising that Ranatunga inspired it. Anyway, it is quite sad that it needed one of the smaller, less powerful cricketing nations for the breach to occur. Any suggestion that the acts of the SL cricket board are motivated are entirely lacking in evidence. But this is not a courtroom. Mr Chandra is a known International Man of Mystery.

The BCCI had been a good provider. Puts food on the table. Buys the silk and took you out to the movies. The sex was just about all right. Did not move mountains, but satisfactory.

As Ranatunga grew fat and sedentary and spent the afternoons watching The Bold and the Beautiful, something just wasn't right - it was never perfect of course, at the back of his mind and elsewhere, and now it was festering..

Now you have eloped and left the BCCI wondering what's he got that I ain't got?

Can Ranatunga handle the wrath?

"There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard."

Bhogle vomits

Harsha Bhogle has repeated the argument seen on blogs ever since the ICL rose - test cricket is like classical music, franchise cricket is pop - what the market wants - by demanding Tests, are we not forcing our opinions on the market, and if the market demands differently, won't it rebel??

"We can make it aware of the glory of classical music, continue to offer it, even give it a premium tag but we must be aware that in the end the consumer wins."

Yawn.

Question is: will we continue to have performers like MS Subbalakshmi who refresh and revolutionise classical music - sticking to that discipline despite the riches and fame that popular music offered.

A Soulberry epic and the nature of the beast

Soulberry's patience with a blogpost means that we have what is an epic by blog standards. Sure, it is a derivative work, tipping its hat to both Orwell as well as JRod, but in the end it is more than a sum of its parts. And as if my sense of anticipation wasn't already peering over the edge of the cliff, this post has me licking my lips in anticipation of a free fall (one that I know will hurt from memory). Well done!

The hurt from Sydney required the euphoria-balm of Perth. If not for Veeru and Pathan and the rest, I can imagine the dark feelings I'd have been harbouring right now. Those sections of our personalities that we spend an entire lifetime attempting to surprss, require only one cathartic moment (or a series of events) to grow and take control - The Exorcist, Bhool Bhulaiyya style..

I saw the ugly Indian cricket fan grow inside me, and I wrote about it, disdainfully observing the effigy-burners outside my self, but fully aware that there was one within me. Thank god for Perth, thank god for the tri-series, for the ruffian within had a good reason to go back within his shell. Phew, I am sophisticated again, I can glibly talk about the games many 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune', how you 'win some and you lose some'..

Or did he?

What is the nature of this beast? Is he separate from the remaining, more respectable (the reading, English newspaper reading, DVD-purchasing, argumentative) parts of my self? How different is the effigy burner from the joyous dancer at India Gate when the young ones took everything at Jo'burg, or the one who lost his voice in the swooning Mumbai crowd? Are they the same person, only manifesting differently to a changed cricketing environment? Very primal - comfortable when winning, or even losing by an inch, but lose badly or raise a suspicion of being cheated out of a win, and there is no damming this ugliness, like an mother beast with its cubs and back to the wall.

I am without sophistication. This is me, the cricket fan.

Kohli throws his hat in

Virat Kohli seemed competent in the just concluded ODI series. He did not cement his spot because he was filling in for Sehwag, but clearly Dhoni likes him, and so does Sehwag - so we will see a bit more of him in the one-dayers. And now, he has scored a valuable hundred (unbeaten on 167 at a strike rate of 77 as I write this) in the Mohammed Nissar Trophy against a more than competent attack.

Chopra's hundred was less significant because he is trying to break into an opening partnership that seems to have been sewn up between Sehwag and Gambhir, with Jaffer still in the mix somewhere. But Kohli wants a spot in the Test middle order. Kaif, Badri, Raina and Rohit (even Yuvi) are still ahead of him in the queue, but he will get another chance to perform in the Irani trophy to shout even louder.

By itself, this is a good reason to pay the selectors.

Giving up the ghost. Not!!

For those who do not already know, the new ICL ads are out, and to my jaded eye, they were refreshing. None of the crass Bollywood nonsense and the superstar hype that characterised the IPL ads, and the ICL marketing of previous years. Here's a sample:


Are they trying to be the Thinking Man's (okay, let me rephrase: The Non-Vegetable's) domestic 20-20 competition?

In other news, the ICL has poached some Bangla heavyweights (this is not an Inzamam joke) of yesteryear, as well as a few promising youngsters.

The ICL is not giving up yet. Let's hope they can carry on until they break the BCCI monopoly on domestic cricket.

Irani chai

Few questions for the selectors when they pick the Rest of India squad:

Since both Test openers will be playing for Delhi, what is our second choice opening line-up?

Will the middle order comprise the same people that were befuddled by Mendis? Any chance we might get to see Badri, Yuvi or Rohit?

Who will share the new ball with Zaheer? This selection might give a clue regarding Sree's future, and the selector's plans for Praveen in the Test side.

The break from blogging was prompted by a job and location change. With a new job and an apartment in strange Mumbai, I will try to be more regular.

Slapper and slappee

The slapper has since prospered, the slappee (also known as the weeper) has seen his fortune go downhill.

Where Bhajji has seen a revival of fortunes, and wickets in the bag, Sree has been asked to "prove himself in domestic cricket after a fitness-enforced break. Ouch.

Spin of the dice

Is there any such thing as a pecking order for India's emerging spinners? Or is it a game of chance, the selectors picking names from a hat?

Not so long back, in fact a very short while ago, Piyush Chawla was the next big thing - successor to Anil himself. Today, he is a discard - no rhyme, no reason, but a certain Younus Khan might have had something to do with it.

Prgyan ojha watch his step, no saying when the dice will favour Mishra. Piyush will now learn how to deal with the slog sweep before he gets back.

Murali Kartik's been emerging for a decade, but it is certain now that he will only get a call when he least expects it.

Be (Ti)wary

For the third Test, the only reason I'd think of dropping either Dravid or Ganguly is if Kumble would consider a fifth bowling option. Yeah, so Rohit Sharma has been warming the benches when he might as well have been perfecting his game at home. It's easy to look at Yuvraj and say see what years of being benched in the Test squad did to him, but the more critical ones will recognize the merits of travelling with the team and Yuvi's portion of the blame as well. More importantly, it would be bloody crazy to blood Rohit in a decider against Murali and Mendis - he might take forever to recover. Let's not repeat Manoj Tiwary's trial by fire-breathing-Lee.

A change of guard?

Is this some kind of change of guard in Indian batting? When did India last win a Test match without fifties from any of Sachin, Saurav, Dravid or Laxman? I decided to find out, and looked back through victorious Indian scorecards. We came close to it in the infamous Mumbai Test match against the Aussies (Murali Kartik versus Michael Clarke), but barring that, there were none until I got bored of the whole exercise by 1996.

Retirements or not, Indian batting is moving beyond their tremendous influence.

Vaughan and Dravid

Which style do you prefer? Dravid's terse letter to the BCCI, communicating his reluctance to continue as captain, or Vaughan's teary press conference? Even though Dravid left me confused, and at the back of a series win, searching for answers, I am now, very happy that he spared us his emotions.

Walking wickets talk

A 'walking wicket' is how Dravid and Collingwood have been described of late.

Collingwood walked into what might have been his last Test innings, and rescued a crumbling England in the company of Kevin 'Ego (isn't it refreshing to have Andre back?)' Pietersen.

The noise for Dravid's head is not that loud, but the irritation among the fans was clear. Ok, he hit a 90 there and a hundred here, but for a team challenging the top Test team, such a confused batsman at number 3 was a weight on the shoulders.

The subtext that King Cricket talks about, referring to Collingwood's repeated portrayal as a gritty, doughty one, is equally applicable to Dravid - who like Collingwood has broken the mould (or "the Wall") from time to time.

Dravid made some runs today, finally looking comfy against Mendis and Murali. His innings was pretty much a press release that he will only go kicking and screaming into retirement. Which is certainly good for Indian cricket, because the incumbent will have to keep doing well domestically and in ODIs. Gambhir is proof.

Rohit can wait. Owais must wait.

B-Texing a statistical itch

Among the criticism that Sehwag has had to swat away, a significant one is his dismal second innings average. At 28.91, it is easy to see how much it drags down his career average.

As I write this, he is batting at a run-a-ball 45 in an unbeaten opening stand, continuing on a year where he has set out correcting this statistical anomaly. Until 2008, his best second innings year was 2004, when he averaged 37. Since the beginning of 2008 (i.e the Perth Test), he averages 56.

Sehwag's Holy War

The High Priest spat on the face of the heretics.

As he carried his bat, each shot reminded us of the doctrinal principles: no shot that he plays is 'irresponsible'. If they're within the realms of the possible, then they must be played - match situation, pitch and quality of the bowling are not important.

Slap-spit-slap-spit for those who dared to suggest that pulling from above his head and two feet outside off to get caught at square leg was irresponsible. Slap-spit-slap.

And a smack for you Sir Geoffrey.

The Flintoff concept

England made up for a lack of spine in the batting, with an injection of spunk in the bowling. I guess that's what Freddie allows England to do - with bat as well as ball, he permits the batsmen to relax a bit. Nasser Hussain might call for wholesale changes in the composition of the batting order. Truth is that with fit Freddie around, and even a slow wicket, each run scored counts for a bit more, making the batsmen a bit more than the sum of their dismal individual selves. With a bit more from the batsmen, England can be back to challenging some good teams.

P.S. Is it wrong, really wrong, to be a fan of James Anderson?

Tame elephant

India's inability to capture wickets on placid tracks in recent times has only been matched by Pakistan. India has been more succesful on pitches that are more difficult for batting. There were great swathes of the Sri Lankan innings where the bowling looked just too docile. For how long will India continue to blame pitches where they only need to look West and South. Until a few years back, Pakistan was great at getting wickets on shirtfronts, and Murali has been pegging away for Sri Lanka in the most heartbreaking conditions. Ishant the Messiah has not blasted away everything in sight, and Kumble and Bhajji seem to increasingly depend on helpful conditions. Kumble will need to take a harder look at his bowling resources - perhaps even consider a third, or different spinning option for the next Test.

Dhoni missed

Kumble's bowling is not kind to wicketkeepers and Kartik is its latest casualty. Dhoni is firmly perched now as India's best keeper, and he can partly thank the amount of cricket he's been playing. Sri Lanka is a bad place to drop catches. One can only hope that things don't go the way of Australia in 2003 when getting the edge was lesss than half the battle won. Not only does he need to get much better at keeping to Kumble, but he needs to bat out of his skin now.