A feast “First Class”

Its like table is full of traditional dishes with some continental food for taste and still there is no taker!! The beginning of fresh Indian cricket season is finding difficult to have similar amount of crowd, which its predecessor had at the end of it. The first IPL season had every thing in it; Indian heroes, foreign players and more importantly the jammed packed crowds, despite there were only fourty overs to be played in three and half hours. The final of the IPL marked the end of Indian cricket season. It was expected by cricket fans like me that now there will be more people to watch the domestic players in action, but if the beginning of this season is any clue to go with then I am sure this year’s Ranji Trophy and Deodhar Trophy will have similar kind of destiny.


BCCI’s committee chaired by great Sunny Gavaskar decided that now all the domestic teams can have not less then four foreign recruits from this season, also added the fuel to my feeling that this year will be full of crowds at Indian cricket grounds. But then other then Baroda Cricket Association no body seems to have taken care of recruiting foreigners. BCA also did not go for hi-fi recruit and satisfied with Dilhara Fernando from Srilanka, who’s IPL stint with Mumbai Indians are more or less forgetful. Similarly Maharashtra Cricket Association had approached even low key player named Inamul Haque Jr. from Bangladesh. The biggies of Indian domestic cricket, likes of Delhi, Mumbai and Karnataka cricket boards dismissed the very idea of having foreign players in their teams, few of them fearing the future of talented local players and few of them had enough strong players to compete well in this year’s season and get desired results. May be the decision of recruiting foreigners came a bit late, actually it came on the very eve of the curtain raiser of this years season. May be next year after expected success of this year’s IPL, local boards may re think and make a strategy to pour in some sponsors and rope in some foreigners in their cricket. Its blessing to have good players from overseas in your team. We will focus on that in my future blogs.


Despite of what I have said above, there is still few mouth watering domestic matches we have either experienced or still going to have in next few days. It all started with Australia-A tour of India. Though the second unofficial test was a wash out but the first one has star studded international line up. Robin Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, Mohammad Kaif, Subramaniam Badrinath, Piyush Chawla and Virat Kohli were part of India A team where as Australia A were represented by Simon Katich, Doug Bollinger and Bryce McGain who are going to be part of their test team which is going to play four tests in India in October. It was a draw match but not before some tough batting by Kaif and Kohli in particular. These A tours are certainly good for future of Indian Cricket. Once the seniors get retired the players who are going to replace them will not be unknown quantity and ready for international cricket for sure. Similarly they also know their opponents because they have already played against them. If that was not enough there is a Tri nation tournament currently going on with New Zealand A is latest addition. David Hussey and Cameroon White joined that Australian A team and Peter Fulton, Michael Masson, James Marshall were part of New Zealand A team. Badrinath and Yusuf Pathan showed their class in India A’s success, where David Hussey and Cameroon White were big contributors in their side’s victories. Sadly in New Zealand will have to go home with out getting birth in finals.


There was another tournament went unnoticed by many fans. It was “Mohammad Nissar Trophy”, which was inaugurated last year with Mumbai winning it at National Stadium, Karachi. This time it was played at Delhi’s Firozshah Kotla ground against Sui Gas Pipeline Ltd the winners of Pakistan’s domestic tournament “Kaid-e-Azam Trophy”. Here also Delhi team was captained by Virender Sehwag and was well companied by Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli and Ishant Sharma. Where Sui Gas line up was having Mohammad Hafeez as captain along with Misbah Ul Haq. Though Delhi lost on the basis of conceding first inning’s lead, Aakash Chopra and Virat Kohli just missed their double centuries in second innings. But again they were not able pull big crowds.



If this is not enough, we going have mouth watering Irani Trophy this year. As Australian tour is coming up, selectors have chosen virtual Indian side to play for Rest of India against Ranji Winners Delhi team. Delhi team will have all those names played against Sui Gas Pipeline team where as ROI will play sans Tendulkar and Ganguly. The authorities of Reliance Stadium at Baroda, who is going to host this match has make this match open for all. So at least this time we can expect crowd in big numbers. All eleven players from Indian test team will be playing for the either side. The monsoon had its last showers in Gujarat last week so we can expect full five days of great cricket. Players will also test their arms and will shape them for the big one “Border Gavaskar Trophy”. There is another good match in prospect; Australians probably will be playing against Board President’s XI at Jaipur from 2nd October. Let’s hope that BPXI will also have few internationals in their side. Indian cricket probably having this feast after many years, since the international schedule is so tight. Thanks to postponement of Champions Trophy this year, Indian public can see their international cricketers playing domestic cricket. Even the “free bird” Sourav Ganguly is playing Club level tournament going on at Mohali. If we complain that because international players are not playing domestic tournaments like their counterparts play in England or Australia, our stadiums remain empty, then probably this complain has no base in it looking at this year’s attendance during “A” tests, tri series and Mohammad Nissar Trophy. Hope the “Open for all” invitation at Baroda will pull sizable crowds. Barodians are known for their enthusiasm and huge participation during Garbas but they don’t have any excuse as Navratri still has week to start.



Did I forget to mention that ICL is also going to start from 10th of October??? !!!!


Stumps!!!


"I don't think he understood me, and I certainly didn't understand him."
Murray Goodwin explains there were some communication issues with Mohammad Sami during their match-winning stand in the Pro40

Yardstick!

Definition

Noun[C]
a fact or standard by which you can judge the success or value of something:

So, the day of reckoning has come for one of the finest left handers India has ever produced. Well at least for media persons from India it has. But for me it’s bit too late for “Dada” to sum up his decision on whether to stretch his career or not. For me it came early this year only when he was dropped from Indian ODI team despite making more then 1000 runs previous year in the same format of the game as well as in the other form of the game as well, which we call “real cricket”.

As there is one phrase in English “missed the bus” he certainly missed the bus in early 2008 on two counts. One is to recognize that current captain and the selectors are now looking beyond him and have a vision for next world cup and he has achieved every thing in One day cricket and he is sitting next to the “Great” Sachin Tendulkar when you talk about Indian ODI cricket. The second count on what he missed the bus was that had he call it a day and not waited this long and had came with definite statement that now he wants to concentrate on test cricket only where he lacks few runs and century, I feel he would certainly have been picked for this years Border Gavaskar Trophy, regardless of his poor form in last series. So by waiting for his chance to play in Champions Trophy, even after he was not even considered, he has not only lost his ODI place but perhaps he has lost chance to play “any” international cricket from now onwards. Or he has only chance to play if one or two of remaining of seniors play very poorly or get injured in near future. It feels sad for a fan of Dada, like me to see him in this position. For a guy who always believed in his own abilities to make come backs not only once but twice, has to rely on other’s luck.

There is always an other side of the coin, off course if that coin is not from the all time block buster “Sholay”! As per BCCI’s newly paid employees, Dada has been dropped because of his form or lack of it during last tour of Sri Lanka. Then a simple question comes in every cricket fan’s mind, that if he was having disastrous form then who was in form? We only have to exclude Sehwag and Gambhir and to some extent Laxman.. Else, I don’t see any one has “cracked” form. The other two main stay of the team, Tendulkar and Dravid also struggled. Dravid totaled 148 runs which are 52 runs more then Ganguly and Tendulkar made 95 runs which is one run less then Ganguly. They may suggest that Dravid was looking good to come back in the form. Well if you say this that looking good coming back to form a month or so before all important BGT then we all can laugh and clap. As far as Tendulkar is concerned, he can’t be dropped because he is “Tendulkar” and just “few runs” behind to overhaul Brian Charles Lara. So, who remain? Dada. Because they want to drop some senior to bring “fresh legs” in to the team.

They also say that he is a liability on the field. But has any one of them observed our test captain’s fielding? Who waves his hands in the air when some one midfields on the ground but shy away from the bowler on whose bowling he misfiled the ball? Or the second best catcher in the world who missed few important catches in last series which could have turned the balance in neutral if not in our favour? Dada has always been poor fielder when it comes to chasing the ball during his entire career, but I have perhaps never seen him dropping sitters, he is good catcher if not the best and safe one as well.

Leave all the performances who excelled and who have not in Srilankan series and who has fielded well and who has not , even then for me Dada deserved his place in this test team, at least for first two tests. To support my views I got one small statistic for you. Since January 2007 when he made a come back to test team few months back in South Africa, he has played 6 test matches in India, with 11 innings and has made 745 runs with whopping average of 74.50 with 3 fifties one hundred and one double hundred (his maiden). Why can’t our selectors think with the logic that the series is going to play in India and thus Dada has strong case? If they can re call Mohammad Kaif for his performance in “domestic cricket”, then Dada has played against one of the better international quality attacks. So, if a player has played well against domestic attack can deserve a place, then why not an international cricketer with such enviable average in home conditions can be ignored? Only because that guy is young and having “fresh legs”? Then what about that tons of experience Dada is loaded with?

So, the definition of “Yardstick” as I have quoted at the start of my post, from Cambridge Dictionary, has no relevance with thinking of our selectors. Things may change with new set of selectors arrive. They may not even change and India made good results out of this team and may retain BGT, who knows? But one thing is also sure that BCCI has still not learnt unlike their counter parts in Pakistan to give fitted adieu to their cricketers, who has given their team many success not only in India but also abroad. If they can’t respect arguably the best captain of India has ever seen, then there is less chance that they will respect other cricketers. But there are always some exceptions.

It was shocking moment for me when I read the breaking news on T.V. channels about his exclusion from Irani Trophy team. I certainly expect him to take retirement from International cricket, if he is still been ignored from new bunch of selectors (I have avoid to write jokers). But even if he does that, I will still say that he has again missed the bus, because he will not be retiring with head high, retiring on his peak. Because people will always remember him for the last series his played.

All the best Dadi! May god give you the strength to take one of the most avaited decisions of your cricket career.

Stumps:

"Boycott can say what he wants. He once batted the whole day and hit just one four"

Virender Sehwag takes recourse to history to hit back after Geoff Boycott referred to him as "talented but brainless"