Club Vs. Country & The Tour to the Caribbean - My Two Cents

The World Champs on their First tour. 

A stand in Captain and Five heroes of the dream run are missing. 

Club versus Country is being shouted out from every website that cares about Cricket.

April 3rd 2011, just 2 months back I wrote one of my most emotional blogs about Indian Cricket. Pride oozed through my veins as Team India lifted the cup & brought joy to a nation.

But even before it could all sink in, the biggest T20 cricket league set in motion a cricket overdose. 90+ games played between 10 city teams. In the past anyone who enjoys cricket would have followed the IPL with a lot of passion. But this time around, fatigue set in. Even worse was the fact that a lot of the players were wearing different jerseys this time around, you lost touch with the teams. I guess another aspect of this is that I am writing about Indian cricket, sitting in another country. Away from the hungama & action back home. Am sure I'd be watching the matches in the evening if I was there, cheering the Super Kings to victory. Instead I was looking at the points table and hoping the Gayle force didn't knock the stuffing out of Chennai. (it was fun seeing him bowled for a duck)

But it was not that IPL caused the stir. It was players choosing to play the IPL instead of taking a break and coming back refreshed for the West Indies tour. Six big names, Dhoni, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Zaheer, Yuvraj & Ghambir had to sit out of the tour for different reasons. Injury & Fatigue.

Think back a few weeks before we realized that Ghambir and Yuvraj would not be playing either. Not everyone was upset at the entire team. Club vs. Country debates were not as heated. The tour was being looked at in a very different light. It was an opportunity for Ghambir to seal his spot as the next in line for captaincy. A chance for the world cup hero Yuvraj to make a permanent spot in the test side (something he has tried to do ever since Ganguly retired). But then they got injured while playing the IPL. That's when everyone posed their arguments on what mattered more. Club or Country?

Of course Country matters more. It matters more because of the pride involved. It matters more because of the affect it has on the team's ranking. It matters more because of the joy it provides an entire nation. And it matters because we don't think about all the money that's involved in the sport when someone represents the country. We don't think if they have alterer motives when they play for Team India. But when the same player comes out to bat for the Super Kings or  the Knight Riders, we smell the money. But there's the problem. That's what the IPL is about. A chance for the players to make a lot of money, while providing us entertainment in the evening. If in the process a player gets injured or chooses to play a few league games after a long world cup campaign, we shouldn't grudge the players that much.

With the amount of cricket Team India plays, it's about time a Player Rotation policy was instituted. How long can we depend on 6 to 10 players. Yes a Core is needed. But it should be a core of 20 if not 30 players. Barring the opening slot, each of the players replacing players is matched player for player.

West Indies is a team like India in the '90s. You never know what will happen. When playing against a team such as them, it does not matter if the Top 6 are there or not. The youngsters can win on their own. Or lose to a blinding spell of cricket by the Windes. We need to give them a chance to prove their mettle. Maybe Kholi will be the man to fill the gap when Sachin or Dravid finally say adieu. Raina may shoulder more responsibility with captaincy and become a mainstay in the team. And the new comers will provide the bench strength for the future challenges in England and Australia.

Other Views:


An Interesting Article was by Harsha Bhogle on the similar subject. He has a point. It's the players decision not the boards.

Tom Alter on the other hand, had nothing good to say about all the players taking rest. I'm not sure I agree with anything he said.


At the end of the day, if we really want the best team on the field all the time, we need to have some gap between the tours, or build a bench that's the best at all times.

Rahul.

An Emotion that's difficult to express - Ecstatic

2011 ICC Cricket World Champions - Team India - happiness beyond measure. 


A couple of days ago I blogged about The Last Hurdle. As a fan I really wanted India to win, but I was nervous that Sri Lanka would be a banana peel that would cause India to slip up.

But never the less, I was up at 3.30 in the morning to cheer the team on from Ball 1. It was amazing to see the team contain the Sri Lankan batsman until the batting power play, but at the end of it when the score read 275, I felt really nervous about the team's chances & when we lost a couple of early wickets it felt like 2003 all over again. But then, slowly but surely Ghambir and Kholi consolidated the innings and brought back hope. It was such a thrilling match. I couldn't even take my eyes of the screen. When Dhoni walked in at the fall of Kholi's wicket, to keep the momentum & the left-right partnership going, I thought for the first time that we may be on our way to the cup. But every time a commentator said something good, or bad I was looking for wood to touch, nails to bite. So many miles away I could feel the tension. I felt like I was there, every time Chak De or Vande Mataram played it boosted the tension and you felt for Dhoni, Ghambir and Yuvraj.What must they have been feeling? The weight of a billion hearts on heir shoulders. As we inched ahead, the thoughts of an Indian win started surfacing, but tried not to think those thoughts for fear that it would jinx the team.

But when Dhoni hit the last ball for a mighty six, I let out a load roar, felt such happiness, exuberance and delight. Pure Happiness, "We are the champions". A few tears rolled down my cheeks. Tears of Joy. Team India did it.

All these days, I've seen friend after friend put up status messages on Facebook during the match. Almost running commentary of what was happening on the ground. I found it funny, to comment about a cricket match on Facebook. But then it happened. A few minutes after that Six, there I was, putting up a congratulatory message of my own, liking status messages of the Indian win, trying to be a part of something great.

After the match, as the scenes of celebration were unfolding, you could see tears in the eyes of so many. The players, the support staff and even the fans. It was so clear how much this series meant to all of us. We are champions in 2011. All credit to Kapil and the 1983 team. But this victory is for the current generation. It resets the clock from 28 to 0. Here's hoping it stays at 0 for a long long time to come. :)

All I can say is... Thank You Team India, you brought so much of happiness to so many. Congratulations you deserve all the accolades you will receive.

"A Fan Following" - Rahul

The best photo of the victory is this one... Sudhir Gautam, the biggest Indian fan that you see at every match, with the flag painted from head to tummy got a chance to hold the cup. Very nice gesture by Sachin.

And India broke the jinx as I hoped... "An Host Team Won World Cup".

Bleeding Blue more than ever before..

2011 ICC Cricket World Cup - One Final Hurdle

The hopes of an entire nation on the shoulders of 11 men (not to mention the support staff). I've not felt more passionate about the Indian team in a long time, it's a wonderful time to watch cricket. This is just a fan's perspective on the road to Saturday.

Leading up to the World Cup, Team India was playing really well, they handed New Zealand a white wash, took South Africa to really close in an away series and raised the hopes of many. Which is why seeing India scratch around to beat the minnows was sad, they have not been the most convincing world beaters, but here they are. One step away, from making people stop talking about something that happened 28 years ago. The team is at a stage they were at 8 years ago when Saurav Ganguly brought India to the doorstep of the World Cup, but the final was too big a hurdle for Team India to cross, despite all the improvements in the tournament, the Aussies were just too good. But now, this time around there were no world beaters around. There are a bunch of teams that  really really closely matched. It makes for some amazing cricket to watch.

Watching the group matches with England or South Africa, was meant to be the appetizer for the fans and the tough tests for the team before the main event of the knockouts started. The matches went back and forth & watching the team skittle away good positions to tie one match and lose the other was heartbreaking. But it brought back the hunger to watch the team play, watch the team succeed. I've always been an ardent follower of the game, but over the last couple of years, I've not spent late nights in front of a TV watching a cricket match.But this world cup has made me wake up at the crack of dawn to see my favorite team battle it out for the glory.

The road to the quarter-finals was paved for India, despite a mediocre performance against some of the teams in their group they still came out second, with the only team to beat them a cut above. That's when this World cup changed though. An India - Australia quarter final. A match against the world number one team. The team that denied them glory in 2003. India outplayed them in Ahmadabad, another all round performance by India's left arm spinner and finisher Yuvraj. I could not watch that match live. But I think I watched the highlights 2 or 3 times. It was fun to see them lose to India. The rivalry has been so tense with Australia over the past decade & it has  produced some epics. The end of an Era. After 1999, for the first time, the world cup will leave Australia.

But even that match seems so insignificant now, in comparison with the one that followed. India vs. Pakistan. The second semi-final, a chance to meet their sub-continental neighbor in a match for all the marbles. The match took on some epic proportions, with anyone who had anything to do with either country saying something or the other. The premiers of both nations used the match as an opportunity to try and mend broken roads, and many of us thought of the "what if" questions again. One country, one team. Imagine the possibilities.

The world descended on Mohali, all eyes were on their favorite teams. The world remembered the significance of an India-Pakistan match. All Indians will say one thing, when it comes to the world cup & India-Pakistan matches, India is undefeated. Everyone in India was hoping that record remains untarnished. But at the same time everyone knows that Pakistan on their day can be the best in the world. This world cup had seen some of their best performances and seen them beat all comers (except of course for a piece of brilliance from Ross Taylor, that handed them their only defeat in the tournament till that point). The alarm went off at 4AM, and we were there, in front of the laptop with the match on it's way. What a match it was. Despite having a lot of packing & moving to do, we were transfixed. It was India-Pakistan. It was a world cup semi-final, it was India's best chance to go for gold (and that too at home). After a see-saw battle with during India's innings, the team battled their way back into the match with really good bowling spells from their second line quicks & an ever improving Yuvraj. And towards the end even though it was quite certain that India would pull it off an make it to the World Cup final in Mumbai, the tension was still in the air, you found your self unable to move till the last ball was bowled & you saw Kholi throw the ball in the air and signal India's victory.

With that win, a lot of cliches stayed true. South Africa continued to Choke at crucial moments, New Zealand reached the semis and lost & India beat Pakistan.

As team India travel to Mumbai for the Final, to face Sri Lanka, a team who have been incredibly dominant in this tournament (their only loss coming at the hands of Pakistan), all eyes will be on Wankhede, to see if India can pull off a victory and break one cliche that's been certainty since 1975. No Home team has ever won the world cup. It does not help that the team that they are facing was the one that won the last sub continental world cup, or the team that one the last world cup before Australia began their dominance or most importantly the finalists of the last world cup. Team India will need to play well to win & I sure hope they do. All the best Team India

"A Fan Following" - Rahul.

A few useless facts:
1. The last 3 surviving teams in the tournament are also incidently the finalists of the last 3 world cups.
2. The finalists of the last 2 world cups are now the finalists of this world cup.
(for anyone that's been under a rock for the past 15 years, the team in all of the earlier finals was Australia)
3. The only teams to have knocked out Australia since 1996 in a world cup are the 2011 finalists, India & Sri Lanka.

Where's has my Cricket gone?

IPL - A runaway train - a wreck waiting to happen (Players Won, Fans and Cricket Lost)

The first season of the IPL was wonderful, with new teams being formed, a concept developed and icon players in each of their teams. It was a gala of cricket with some of the best names thrown in for a bit of fun. T20 cricket was just evolving, people were already calling ODIs dead and test matches was the premium product that was served in small doses. It was a great event with really high quality cricket and all the teams played brilliantly.

Despite the tournament moving to South Africa for a year and then coming back to India a year later, all 3 seasons of IPL provided wonderful entertainment and action for all involved. The amounts of money involved was ludicrous for 6 weeks of cricket, but India is the money spinner of cricket, and more money for everyone can't be a bad thing right? Maybe it can. Over the last 3 years, for a lot of the cricketers the importance of international cricket has gone down. They have started calling themselves Professional freelancers (Flintoff, Symonds). Folks are retiring prematurely to play jut T20 cricket, all sort of stuff happened with the cricketing world. No other cricket league has since formed, which has the scale this one does.

But early retirement and professional freelancers not withstanding, the rest of the world still thought of international cricket as the holy grail. No one is quite sure anymore what the priority for Indian cricketers is. There was a time when cricketers were dropped from the national team and they slogged and slogged in domestic cricket to make their way back. Even Saurav Ganguly had to fight his way back to international cricket before the IPL. But now, cricketers who have been pushed aside by the selectors still have a flood gate to fill their pockets, the glorious IPL.

This year has been nothing but scandal after scandal for the IPL. To be quite honest I didn't understand all the nitty-gritties and legalies of why RCB and KPXI were removed by the BCCI. Purely from a fan's standpoint, all I could care about was that I would have 2 less teams in the IPL to watch. Two teams that I had enjoyed watching. RCB for the way Shane Warne had groomed the youngsters who were playing with him into good players, who eventually represented India and KPXI, just because I liked watching them lose. Don't know why, but I didn't really like the team. Months of speculation and at the end of the day they were cleared and IPL was all set to have 10 teams. That's a good number, the season should be fun.

But then this auction came along and left a very bad taste. Why does the league need an auction every 3 years.Why can't it be like 10 companies operating for the best cricketing talent in the world. the spending cap makes sense to level the playing field, but if you have 16 players in your squad today, shouldn't you get the first right of refusal for each of them. Shouldn't players get to choose who they play for? So tomorrow if Delhi wanted to buy Dhoni for $2 Million, shouldn't the three parties hash it out like a company and trade for players? New players show up on the scene, set a salary cap for them until they have played for their countries for a year or two (or set a number of games as the criteria), at the end of the day these are companies, they are not going to throw a huge chunk of money at every player that comes along. But these player retention, open auction, uncapped player rules along with the amounts of money shelled out for the Indian cricketers makes the head spin.

Do you think Irfan Pathan would have any more incentive to try and get back into the national setup with a paycheck that reads $1.9 Million. He was a brilliant fast bowler, a good all rounder until he fell out the form and the national team. I really think he could have a second burst like Zaheer and become one of India's better players. But would he still have the incentive to do that?

Then there's also the simple fact about how you build team loyalty. Come on, if the entire structure of the team changes every 3 years, how can you really keep following that team. Think about it this way, you come together as a team today, build strategies and skills together. Now as long as your core stays you can grow, but changing the entire team means re-building from scratch. If one or two guys move to a different team, that may give you some money to go get some new talent and will create an interesting situation when you have that one player in the opposition you knows your tricks. But putting them all back in different places causes chaos. That's why I think the Chennai team is best placed with the number of players they have retained and retrieved, the core has remained, I would always support my home team, but I feel for the internationals who follow the IPL, they may had some favorite cricketers, Gilchrist & Symonds maybe and would have built and affinity towards the Deccan chargers. But now one's the captain of Punjab while the other is in Mumbai. It devalues the franchises.

And then people keep asking the question if future players will now aspire for the Indian team or an IPL team. IPL is a distraction for the fan, international cricket at the end of the day is the real deal. Do you think if the Indian team starts doing badly in international cricket, people will still like the IPL. People would start looking at the price tags more cynically and would start criticizing the salaries.

So now I ask the question. Where has cricket gone in all this mess?
I say, let's forget the IPL for a while. Look forward to the World Cup, the real cricket.
This entertainment extravaganza will come and go.. Hopefully some better Tests and ODIs will follow so that we forget this ever happened, until the auction comes around 3 years from now. (or maybe by IPL 7 people will learn and things will change. Hey, we can always hope!)

Rahul.

The One Day Overhaul

What do we do with ODI Cricket?

One Day Cricket the literal middle child of Cricket. Years ago, it was the dynamic, young version of cricket that would bring in some interest to the great game of cricket. Face it, how much ever we all love test cricket, no one could claim to have the time to watch 5 days of action. The one day game made sense. But fast forward to our generation and ODIs are today where Tests were back then. No one has the time to watch an entire day of cricket. People want fast satisfaction, introduce the 20/20. All said and done, the format is a raging success (due in major part to the IPL). Test cricket now is strong and most matches have results. The influx of ODIs and Twenty 20's have ensured that the style of cricket has changed (Tests have gone down the road of old wine, I suppose). So, that leaves us to ask, what of ODIs? Does cricket really need 3 formats?

The number of experiments that have been done with ODI's over the years tend to suggest that there is a problem with the format. There is a cut that does not seem to heal. Think about it. ODI's started as a 60 over game and very soon it was cut down to 50 overs a side. That's the format that most of us would remember growing up. 50 overs a side, fielding restrictions in the first 15 overs, no bouncers and amazing cricket. ODI's in the 90's was a joy to watch, with enigmatic players and fierce rivalries. The generation of Waqar, Wasim, McGrath, Warne, Walsh, Ambrose, Donald ensured a balance between the bat and ball. Brilliant batsman emerged who destroyed them. It was all part of the fun. But as time went on, pitches became better, bowlers were not as special.ODI's lost their balance, batsmen started dominating and the changes came in thick and fast.The One Bouncer Per Over, allowing bowlers to use all their skills. The Super Sub, allowing captains to swap out a player at one time in the game. The Free Hit, you can't get out the ball after a no-ball. The Power Plays, changing up the 15 over fielding restrictions into 3 slots. The Batting Power Play, giving control of one of the power plays to the batting side. The Referral, letting players question the umpire's decision. Some of these changes were for the good. They made sense, the bouncers and the free hits improved the quality of the cricket. The Batting power play introduced a new tactical angle to the game.

But none of these changes have been able to address the major problem of ODIs. The Middle Overs.The time in the game between the fielding restrictions and the final 5-10 overs where the batting team consolidates and the the bowling team tries to get it's weaker bowlers out of the way. It produces some dull cricket. The problem has been exaggerated with the introduction of T20s. The reason T20s are a success because they just cut out the problem in the ODI game. It's just a shorter, faster version of it's predecessor. But, I feel the T20s are missing something. They are missing the soul of the game. The game is too fast. It does not provide a chance for the a player to test all his skills. It does not allow a plan to be formed. And although T20 is the format of choice today, all of us would agree that ODIs are something different. They have a place of their own. All of us will remember sitting in front of our TVs and bitting our nails during a thrilling ODI. But not too many of us can remember too many T20s.

England and South Africa have already changed their domestic one day competitions to 40 overs a side. Shorter the game, shorter the boredom? Hmm.. I don't think so. That may not be the answer. 40 overs or 50 overs. It does not make too much of a difference. If there is a talk of a over haul. Over haul it the right way. Turn it out side down, inside out. Come up with something new. Something that will work. So is there an answer?

So, what do we do? Cricket Australia thinks they have the answer. Make the ODI a mini Test match. Break it down into a 4 inning game of 25 overs each.Okay, it's not a revolutionary idea. It's one that's made it's rounds in cricket for a long time. It's been whispered and discussed but never tired out. So here's it's chance. But how would it work? It would be no better than 2 back to back T20's if the teams restarted each innings with all 10 wickets intact. Don't worry, CA has the solution. Not only would the new ODI format carry over the runs, but also the wickets lost in the previous innings.What that means is that a batsman can bat only once and the second innings could potentially see only tail enders at the wicket. This may produce some really lopsided contests.

I think the CA model warrants and honest trial. People are assuming that the second innings could see only tail enders bat. But that may not be the case. You may land up seeing that captains are smarter than that. If they loose 2 or 3 wickets in their first time out, they are going to send out the tail enders to hold up the innings, so that the rest of the batsmen can have another chance the second time around.There might be a total re-structure in the way a team is selected. They may want 3 openers, 2 middle order batsmen and 3 all rounders in each team to bring in the balance. But there are other things that they could try. This is a 4 inning game but each person gets to bat only once. Am also assuming that each bowler will get only 5 overs each. So why not split the wickets as well? You can loose only a maximum of 5 wickets in an innings. This will allow teams to use their batsmen strategically based on the nature of the nature of the game and the pitch. They would also need a new follow on rule. So if the team batting second does not get within 100 runs of the oppositions score they can be asked to follow on. Of course the innings victory concept would still remain, if the team batting second bowls out the opposition twice for less than their first total. This may be an amazing way to watch the player cope with the pressures of the test match in a single day.

The 2011 World cup in South Asia may be the last of it's kind if the trials go well and world cup doesn't. I don't know how many people will miss it and how many will embrace the brave new world. But I don't expect major changes overnight after the world cup because if the world cup goes well Haroon Logart said nothing would change. And in India I don't expect the World cup to be a disaster. But I don't think that's the right attitude. It's a good idea and it should be at least tried at the international level as an experiment in bi-lateral series. It will take time to evolve and it must be given that opportunity. Maybe it should be a choice for bi-lateral series for teams to decide what format of ODI's they want to play, that would help experiment with ideas a the highest level.

Well.. just my thoughts..Also read what Harsha Bhogle & Dean Jones had to say on Split innings One dayers... I think the first article has some really valid points. But Dean Jones' idea would dilute the quality of the competition.

Rahul..
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POST SCRIPT: August 13th 2010 - Too many changes too soon.

Today, Cricket Australia (CA) announced that they have approved the Split innings one day competition for the upcoming one day season. The players are not happy that it will be all season long as they feel it will affect their World cup preparation, but the board says they have done what the fans want. That's not my problem with this change. The problem I have is with the number of changes they are making.

They could have just made the game 25 overs per side, with wickets carrying over, but they have tweaked it much more.. I think it will confuse players and fans. Here's the rundown of what they are doing,

• 45 overs a side - First innings will be 20 overs and the Second will be 25.

This one gives the second innings more time.
It makes sense. It's more important. It decides the game

• 12 players per side. Any 11 can bat and any 11 can field.

My biggest problem is with this change.
Cricket is a 11 man game. Stick to that.
This was tried before in a different way with the super sub and it didn't work.
Why again? It does not add value.

• Two Bouncers per over - Enough said.

This change is cool.

Enough of 400+ scores, go bounce those batsman out.

• 2 Balls throughout the game for each team

Really? - One new ball at each side which goes throughout both innings.
I don't know how this will work.
One ball may wear out more than the other, one may swing more than the other.
Where do you keep the other ball - with the umpire?

• 12 Overs for a bowler throughout the game

Yeah OK. So I need only 4 bowlers in the side.
That's good for most international teams, who don't play 5 bowlers anyway.
I think we may see teams playing just 3 specialist bowlers now.

• Insane Field Restrictions - Overs 1-5 = 2 fielders outside the circle; 6-20 = 4 outside; 21-25 = 2 outside, 26-45 = 4 outside & NO POWER PLAYS.

The first innings is slap, bang, boom and the second is supposed to even it out.
Yikes, all the best to the cricketers to remember this.
The power plays didn't add much to the game, it don't think it will be missed.

The trial is a big leap in itself. Why muddle with the entire game. This is trying to bite off more than you can chew. They are either trying to kill the idea or drive away the traditionalists. I still hope the trial goes well, but at the end of it some committee comes together and says, "Split innings makes sense, but these other rules don't".

Let me sign off with this quote from James Sutherland about the changes.

"The public told us to act and we have," he said. "The fans told us, through formal research, that they like ODI cricket best, but they want to see it refreshed and they want to see it with a short-form identity that is distinctively different from fast-emerging T20 cricket.

Read the entire article at Cricinfo

Rahul...

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IPL on YouTube

I was really excited when I came to know that IPL would be available on You Tube and that they would be streaming the matches live was even better. But, then I heard that the matches would not be available in the US. That was a crushing blow... I thought that we would get to watch the IPL matches live. That would have been fun. Anyway, we at least got a consolation prize with the upload of highlights. Something is better than nothing I guess. A 3 hour game in 30 Mins is not so bad.

IPL On You Tube!

Rahul

On The Offside There Is GOD...

Many years ago, Rahul Dravid famously made the statement, "On The Offside, There is GOD, then there is Saurav Ganguly". This statement was reflective of the batsman whose smooth timing on the offside was better bar none. That was a phase of Saurav's career where he wasspoken about in the same breath as Sachin or Lara. Of course their careers have gone in different directions since, Saurav's career has been a colorful one.


I was planning this post ever since the day Saurav Ganguly announced his retirement, but I wanted to wait for his final innings to get a complete picture of the man. His retirement series was as colorful as the rest of his career, it showcased the Saurav of old, but with definite aspects of the man who came back to regain his place in the team and show that he is made from a harder metal than many made him out to be.

What defines this man? What makes him so special to us? Ganguly, Good Or Bad, has always managed to evoke a great deal of emotions from the Indian Fan.

• He was the fluent opening bat who came to the middle with Sachin to create the most explosive opening partnerships of their times. It was a time in Indian cricket when you felt that if these two guys clicked, India would win, but were they to fall, that would be the end of the game, most of the time.
  
• He was a spinners nightmare. Anyone who has seen Saurav in his prime, must have seen him waltz down the track and loft them out of the ground. He did it with such consistency and such grace that it was inevitable that if a spinner bowled when he was at the crease, he was going to get hammered.
• The style of batting did not change from One Dayers to Test matches. He was the graceful and explosive middle order batsman, who brought some difference to a middle order filled with right hand batsman.
• He was a useful military medium bowler who bowled those innocuous slow deliveries that every batsman felt he could whack him out the ground... but, landed up getting themselves out.

This was Saurav of the old, the man who was an integral part of the team in the '90s... But with the dawn of the new millennium the world came to see him in a all new light. This man, took over "arguably" one of the toughest jobs in the Cricketing world or maybe even all of sport. He took over the Captaincy of India. A time when fans were disgusted with the skeletons that were falling out of the closets of their cricketing superstars.

But for the new captain, who some where in his consciousness must have felt like a lamb to slaughter, took up the job and made the team his own. One might even say he took to it like a Duck takes to Water.. (Note : I know it sound ridiculous, and it's one line with two cliches, so forgive the puns. Ridiculous Sentence Intended!)

He took the team to the knockout trophy in Kenya and managed to go all the way to the finals. What Ganguly managed, weather he managed to win or otherwise, was to build a team with attitude, a team that went where no Indian team had gone before, a team that was not scared to tread on tradition and wanted to win at all cost. He infused the team with energy and brought out an aggressive streak that was always evident in his batting.

He took the team all round the world, he beat all comers (at least once). He made sure the tag of Tigers At Home and Bunnies Abroad was buried and the world just spoke of them as Team India. That was perhaps Ganguly's greatest achievement, he turned a bunch of talented individuals into a team. An image to this respect that stays in our mind was the huddle on the cricket ground at the fall of a wicket. They all get together to push one another on.


But, for all the good that was happening in the team, Ganguly's fortune changed. With a change in the team management came Greg Chappell. I guess there can be no talking about Ganguly without referring to Chappell. During the 2003-04 tour of Australia, Ganguly visited Chappell to get tips on improving his batting, that relationship evolved into a partnership that was supposed to take India to the next level, but landed up being a battle of the egos. They both lost that war. But Ganguly was the bigger loser, being stripped of his captaincy and losing place in the side. But in retrospect, that one year in the wilderness toughened him. He was no longer the fluent and hard hitting batsman of old, so he re-designed his game and became a gritty accumulator of runs. The new Ganguly was more consistent, more reliable and so much more calm. It was noticeable that this was not the man who bared this chest in the holiest of holy places in English Cricket .. Lords.

The new Ganguly reached the old heights, that his previous avatar had been touching on a consistent basis and at times he even surpassed them. The registered his first and only Double Century in Test Cricket and also notched up a century in front of his home crowd at the Eden Gardens.

All in all it was a career of 3 parts. One young man making is way in the game and turning heads. A gritty leader who was India's best Captain and the Hero re-invented who came back to reclaim his glory. In his captaincy, Saurav Ganguly had made the team his own, so much so that the team that we see today on the field and some of the guys we look to as our cricketing superstars were groomed by him, they are all His Boys. It was evident in his last test match, when Dhoni handed him the captaincy for the last 3 overs that, it was the place he felt most comfortable. At the top of the tree, as the leader. You could see the smile. The man who took Indian cricket to it's greatest heights only for him to fall to his lowest of lows was back at the top of the mountain and he was leaving the cricketing world, with his head held high, as the best Left Hand Batsman India has ever had, a legend in his own right and as the King of Kolkata and for a brief while, all of India.

Rahul.

Also Read : Writing A Cricket Eulogy

Congratualtions Team India

Well That's a Test Series Win For India.. And what do you know, Anil Kumble scored a century.

Well it's been a while coming, they have started winning matches and recently series overseas and we have started expecting it more and more from them, especially from teams we feel they are equally matched against.


Congrats Team India, That's an impressive win.

Rahul..

OBITUARY

I regret to Inform you that the Live cricket scores that were once available on this Site are no more.

The Source feed seems to be dead.

Here is the link to the Grand Inauguration that we had for the feature

"Cricket On Rahul Blah"

So I felt it is fitting to give it a similar end, with a blog to mourn the Cancellation of the feature.


Who knows, if a new feed shows up somewhere, We might have cricket on Rahul Blah after all.

Regards.

Rahul

Cricket at Rahul Blah

Some New Features have been added to Rahul Blah today.

1. During any on going cricket series, you can see the live score right here on my blog.

2. You can also get quick updates on the latest happenings in cricket with the new Cricket news section..

Enjoy these new additions and let me know what you think about them...

Cheers...

Rahul

P.S : Do Let me know what else would be good here.. Movie Reviews? Headlines? Lemme know.

Where did you go???

Well that's the end of India's winning streak while chasing. They lost the match by just one run. Kudos to the West Indies, not a single person gave them a chance of winning even a single game against the mighty Indians... Lest we forget the are the current ICC Champions trophy winners. Well it just goes to say how unpredictable this game is... Anyone can win a One day Match.. But!!! This blog is not about the outcome of the game persay... It is about a really interesting incident that took place during the West Indian innings...

Irfan Pathan is running and bowls to Ramnaresh Sarwan who taps the ball into the onside and goes for a run, the ball is beautifully fielded by the Indian youngster Suresh Raina who proceeds to throw the stumps down. Sarwan had his nerves about him and tried to get back to his crease.. Well it's a close run thing... All the players including Virender Sehwag who was standing at square leg turn to Square Leg umpire to appeal...Only to find to their surprise that he is not there... The Umpire Billy Doctrove was instead at the far end the ground literally facing the umpire at the stumps... Our West Indian umpire had gone down to the boundary ropes at the end of the previous over to say something to the groundsmen and the umpire at the bowlers end Arshad Rauf called for the next over to start without noticing that his partner was not on the field... Well, even though Sarwan was in as shown by T.V. replays, Rauf called the ball dead and asked the bowlers to restart the over...Sarwan was in so there was too much controversy over the ball being called dead, but what if he was out of his crease, ans the ball had been declared dead, would the Indian team have agreed to the decision...

But the rest of the over was very interesting to see Sehwag standing in his position at square leg shoulder to shoulder with Doctrove to macke sure he does not run away again somewhere I guess.. And in the next over when Doctrove was at the bowler's end and the batsmen pinced a leg bye, he as so confused by the incidents that had just transpired that he lifted one leg as a signal and then he lifted his other leg... When an appeal was made against the batsman he still looked a little confused... But he got his wits about himself soon enough and business as usual resumed....

This must be one of the funniest moments in cricket in the recent past after Sreesanth dancing efforts on taking his first wicket in a one day game....

Cheers,
Rahul....

Calypso MAGIC...

Caribbean Tussle

Rahul Dravid and his men have been in the Caribbean for a week now. They are trying to get an old monkey off their back. They need to defeat the West Indies convincngly and break the record of not having won a series in the Caribbean for the last 30 years. Looking at the West Indies of today, the Indians definately start as favorites, but they will not be meek pushovers like the Zimbabweans or the Bangladeshis.

The last time the Indians were there, under Saurav Ganguly's captaincy they were a team on the rise, but they did not manage to win the series. They lost the 3 test and levelled the series. The Indian team is 3 in the world in both forms of the game and the West Indian team too seems to be confident after their demolition of the Zimbabwe team recently.

With "Brian Charles Lara" at the helm no one knows what to expect from this stalwart. Can he inspire his boys to defeat the the mighty Indian team which has had quite a few shake ups in the recent past but still looks very strong with new stars like Dhoni (Now the Number 2 batsman in the world in ODIs), Suresh Raina and Sreesanth coming to the fore. I believe that the Indians will win the series hands down but in this game you never can say. The Caribbeans in their home environment with the tremendous crowd support may just spur them on to something miraculous and it will also be interesting to see how the young Indians do in hostile conditions.

There are a few worries in the Indian camp with injures to Ramesh Powar and S.Sreesanth but they should be strong enough to come out of it and be ready to take their place in the team in time for the 2-3 one dayer. Sachin Tendulkar has been the foucs of all the attention in the Indian media off late to see if he can recover in time to join the team for the Test matches and the World would be in for a special treat of seeing two of the world's greatest batsmen on the same stage maybe for the last time in test match cricket.

The test matches are still a while away and we hope sachin will be fit in time for the series, for no other reason other than it will be great to see that dual.

The Indians play their first one dayer later today on a pitch that is supposedly a green top. With the pace attack that the Indian currently boast of it should favour the Indian team. With a solid win over Jamaica the Indians should be really high on confidance.

A Second Chance

Ravi Shastri was recently quoted saying that the selectors should be ruthless in selection and old players should not be given another chance unless the current crop does really badly and there is no more backup for them. This would seem to imply that no matter what Ganguly or Zaheer or D.Mongia do in first class cricket, he feels they should not be given a second chance. I feel we should never forget some of these cricketers because they have match winning abilites and the door should never be completely shut on any of them. If the door has to be closed, let them close it themselves with mediocre performances.

Burnout

Player burnout seems to be a major issue for players these days. I feel there is a very simple solution to the entire issue. Most cricket boards contract 25-30 cricketers for the national team every year. Which means they feel they are good enough to represent the country, they should put in a rotation system in place where the best cricketers play maybe 3/4 of the time and the rest of the time they can be rotated with the second rung players. They could take 18 people on tour instead of 16 and implement the policy, this also gives you more injury cover. 18 would mean 3 bowlers, 3 batsmen and 1 wicketkeeper on stand-by. That is sufficent cover for all the players on the field. The schedule cannot get less exhausting and this is the best way forward. Like Kapil Dev said, they are professionals and if they feel they need a break let them take a break.


Rahul Murali Venkataraman
(Correspondent http://rahulblah.blogspot.com)

Writing A Cricket Eulogy

With the Indian team for the first test against England being announced today, it looks like it's the end of the road for one of India's greatest captians. But is it too soon to write him a eulogy. He would want to fight back and try and stage a comeback. But with the chaiman of selectors making it clear that the team is looking toward the future, makes it almost immpossible for Saurav Ganguly to make it back into he team. So I'm writing a Eulogy although my heart feels it's a bit immmature.


Saurav Ganguly has always been measured against a different yardstick in Indian cricket.Maybe he was unfortunate to be born in the same generation as two all time greats in Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. He made his one day internation debut in 1992 where Sachin also played and unfortunately he was not ready and he failed.He was dropped from the team and at the time must have been considered another selection mistake. Four years hence at Lords the home of cricket Ganguly made his test debut against England. He was in brilliant touch and he made a spectacular century.That was the beginning of a wonderful carreer. He was to go on and become one of the most feared batsmen in the game. In 1999 in the world cup in England the astonishing innings he played against Sri Lanka at Taunton sealed his status as a great player.

In the year 2000 when the Match Fixing controversy dealt a knockout punch to International Cricket and had Indian Cricket at dead center, Ganguly was appointed Captian of India. Ganguly changed the way Indian Cricket looked and played, he brought in a type of aggression that was alien to Indians at the time. The team scaled all new heights, Youngsters got opportunites and grew into stars because Ganguly fought with selectors and made them persist with them. Players like Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan all owe Sourav Ganguly a lot for where they are today. The five years Ganguly led India, the team reached the finals of the Champions Trophy twice, and were joint Champions once, reached a World Cup final, won the Natwest Trophy. Beat the world champions at home after being down 1-0 in the series, Levelled the series against them in their own backyard, beat Pakistan in Pakistan... These are no mean feats for an Indian team. He took Team India to a point where they were close to being considered the best in the world.

Rahul Dravid once called Ganguly -- God on the Off Side and that's exactly what he was... The ease with which he stroked the ball through the covers was breathtaking. The way he stepped down to the spinners and wached them for six was awe inspiring.

It is truly ironic that the team against whom he announced himself to the world is the same team against which he career might just have come to an end.

Saurav Ganguly the man will be remembered as one of India's greatest captians. Lest we forget he has over 10,000 runs in one day cricket and has the second highest number of centuries in the game. He averages over 40 in tests and has 12 centuries. He is a great player. And he should be treated as what he is a Great who has given a lot to the game.

SOURAV GANGULY BEING THE MAN THAT HE IS WILL NOT TAKE THE SELECTORS DECISION LYING DOWN AND IS BOUND TO FIGHT BACK. ALL THE BEST TO HIM.


Rahul Murali.

And That's another one day international victory for India...

Well..The Hutch Cup already won... It was time to put the icing on the cake and that's exactly what the Indian team did.......Fabulous performance by M.S.Dhoni... The ease with which he hit those sixes was mind boggling.. Y.Singh has shown some incredible maturity and the theam has become spectacular at chasing down targets...
It would really be delightful if they could just learn to defend the scores that they post. They actually have bowlers who are awsome when things are going their way.. They just need some people who will put their hands up in the bowling department when things are not going too well for the team.Irfan,Zaheer,Agarkar,R.P.Singh all bowl around the 130 kph and that is just not enough these days.... Except for R.P.Singh who is new to the team, the rest of these guys started their carrers bowling at 140 kph atleast. Agarkar and Zaheer were definately up there. We do have bowlers in India who can generate that pace... But unfortunately they are injured. Balaji and Nehra are two bowlers who can consistantly get up to that place.. But if they are not fit there is no place in the team for them. The Pakistan Under 19 team today decimated the Indian U-19 team is the finals but there was one stand out performance and that was P.Chawla he returned with figures of 4 wickets for 8 runs in 8 overs and the control that he showed was spectacular.With A.Kumble having at best a few years left in the tank this kid is a great prospect for Team India in the future. His batting was not half bad, he as left not out at the other end on 25. Here's hoping he does well and makes it to the team. World cricket could some quality leg spinners... It ain't Warne's exclusive club.. I Harbhajan Singh does not get fit in time for the England series it may not be a bad idea to give this youngster a run.. Although that said it may be a bit too early because he is just 17 years old. An Indian team filled with people who swing the ball. A team that's hunting for spinners. Who thoght we'd see this day. England are in India with 3 spinners 'caus they know it's gonna turn... India will always find some spinners somewhere but what they need is pace and one man who could provide it is the much hailed Munaf Patel.. He was called in once to test the Indian batsmen out against some serious pace. He ahs been given a opportunity to play in the BPXI against England. If he makes a mark, it would be a great idea for the selectors to give him a look in.... It would bring some tremendous variety to the Indian attack.

The whole world knows that I am an ardent Ganguly supporter... I still believe the man deserves a place in the 16 and I he plays or not is up to to Dravid and Chappell... Remember in test cricket he gives you another bowling option and he has become a very solid batsman.. He is no longer the flamboyant Ganguly of old but he can definately be relied upon to score some steady runs and brings some stability to the team. He is a much improved bowler and his Ranji figure prove that. Where do you put him? That's the big question.. He has offered to open the innings if it means he can stay in the team.. Well that's an option that Dravid and Chappell could consider. Or if Dravid wants to open himself thats fine too. Ghambir is not a touch on Ganguly and between the two of them Ganguly is better any day. This is an option... Sehwag and Dravid as 1 and 2 with Ganguly at 3 Sachin at 4 Laxman at 5 Yuvraj at 6 (if he is fit in time otherwise Kaif) Dhoni at 7 Pathan at 8 Kumble at 9 if Bhajji is fit then put him at 10 and at 11 have Sreesanth. This is my pick for the England series. This looks like an attack with variety and can offer Dravid a lot of options.. Yuvraj,Sachin,Sehwag,Ganguly can chip in with the ball if required...

I don't believe I'm saying this, but I don't think Ganguly should be considered for the One Day team's first 11 anymore for the simple reason that there's a lot of exuberence there that's doing really well... But again keep him in the 16... He's a valuable asset who can come in as cover if someone gets injured...

All in all this Indian team looks like it is heading in the right direction. All it needs is one more quality bowler and for it's current stock of cricketers not to get complacent and to continue performing... For that we need a bench that keeps pusing..If the under 19s can reach the finals of the world cup there is definately a talent pools there waitng to be tapped.. Remember Yuvraj, Kaif and Pathan have come up through the under 19s....

Congratulations to the Indian Teams both the seniors and the under19 for doing so well and here is hoping that the Indians decimate England at home and build a world beating side that may lift the 2007 world cup....


Rahul Murali.

(An avid cricket fan who just like the rest of you Indians out there is very very very opnionated...)

I came across this blog and thought it was fabulous.

Love of Cricket... go to the CNN-IBN site for details...
This guy is really articulate and is a newscaster who is a pleasure to listen to. This particular blog by him on Cricket is very frank.

Here is His Post.

I write this while watching the Lahore India-Pak one dayer like millions of other Indians. When you have cricket on air, "news" in the conventional sense seems boring, even irrelevant. Twenty years ago, I might have seen myself as just one of a handful of cricket nuts, someone who would line up hours before a test match at the Wankhede stadium just to catch a glimpse of my heroes. Today, it seems that the entire country is filled with cricket addicts. More importantly, cricket is no longer a seasonal sport. Switch on your television set, and there is a good chance that there is some international cricket match being played somewhere in the world.


This proliferation of the game has had its impact, not just on the way the game is played but also on the manner in which it is covered in the media. Sports, and cricket in particular, is no longer back page news. More often that not, an Indian victory will find itself on the front pages of the newspapers, with even the venerable Hindu (whose sports coverage remains the most comprehensive), now choosing to place cricket as a front page lead story. On television news channels the cricket deluge is even greater. More and more news channels are investing in cricket programmes, in cricket guests, in cricket trivia. Sports channels may cover the match "live", but news channels also want a slice of the action. Indeed, for many ex-cricketers, the news channels are now a bonus, a chance to make extra money and, in their own way, contribute to the game. Some like Ravi Shastri, Navjot Sidhu, and IBN's very own Krish Srikkanth have become "star" analysts, experts whose every word is latched onto. The current players are also much sought after, even if all that some of them have to offer is a rather banal soundbite after the game. There are some international players who will charge you a 1000 dollars just for a two minute interview (flashed on the screen as an EXCLUSIVE in capital letters). At one level, the cricket punditry is valuable. Would you rather listen to someone whose played 50 tests or someone who has never scored a run or taken a wicket in his life? Indians are obsessed with the game, can you deny them the opportunity to participate in the national debate on the sport, which is now part of the entertainment industry above all else?


And yet, you wonder: is there a cricket overkill? Alongwith the "dumbing down" of the media, is cricket too becoming caught in the trivia trap. One particular channel seems to spend almost all its prime time programming analysing who is the better captain: Rahul Dravid or Saurav Ganguly or worse still, what Chappell and Ganguly said to each other on the breakfast table. Another channel starts an sms poll on whether Tendulkar is finished as a batsman after a couple of relative failures. A third holds public debates where you have to decide which player is the "mujrim". A player can be a hero one day, the next day he can be lambasted as a villain. A lot of idle chatter passes off as intelligent comment. But when you have 24 hours of news time to fill, then chatting about cricket is sure to get you more television rating points than talking about whether the left will withdraw support to the UPA government.


Let me clarify: we at IBN are part of this cricket mania. Given half a chance, we will plaster our prime time with LOC (love of cricket, which I do believe is the most intelligent cricket programme on news channels at the moment). And yet, I must confess a tinge of regret. We cover the cricket, but barely pay attention to the crisis engulfing other Indian sport. Knocked out of the Davis Cup by Korea, languishing in hockey and football, do we really care? Its no longer enough to blame these sports for failing to do enough to "market" themselves, or not throwing up stars. The fact is that these sports are caught in a vicious cycle of anonymity today, and we in the news media are contributors to the exclusion of certain sports from the public consciousness. I plead guilty. Maybe, the world cup football in June this year will be an opportunity for redemption. Till then, enjoy the cricket.


Posted by Rajdeep Sardesai at 18 : 32 hrs

Courtesy CNN-IBN(www.ibnlive.com)