Sometimes the future is upon us when we least expect it. Just the other day, there was no batting slot in the Indian team. The so-called Fab Four had locked up the middle order, and later the opening pair had settled themselves in. Now Ganguly is gone, Dravid and Laxman are injured, Yuvraj is yet to score a century after Ganguly’s retirement (although he averages 44 in his last ten Tests, as opposed to 36 overall), and suddenly there are all kinds of possibilities.

A Wridhiman Saha, who would have been mentally prepared for a five-day education from beyond the boundary during the Nagpur Test now finds himself at the deep end. Badrinath gets a chance to make the leap from domestic superstar to international star; Murali Vijay, already being spoken of as the long-term replacement for Dravid, can consolidate.

Of the two reasons for infusing fresh blood – injury and consistently poor team performance – India are dealing with the first. “In the last three or four months we have had someone or the other getting injured and dropping out of the team on a regular basis,” was the philosophical attitude of skipper M S Dhoni, who has said often enough in the past that one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity.

It wasn’t so long ago – in 1996, in fact - that an injury to Sanjay Manjrekar brought in a young man who evolved into the backbone of Indian cricket. Rahul Dravid hasn’t looked back since.

Depending on whether you call the core of the Indian team in the past decade and more the Fab Four or the Big Five (with Kumble) or the Super Six (with Sehwag), it is becoming increasingly difficult for the surviving members of these exclusive clubs to play together in recent matches owing to injury.

The foursome of Kumble, Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar played together in a record 86 Tests; add Laxman to that list, and the world record is still theirs, with 65 Tests. Bring Sehwag into the equation, and that lot has played 36 Tests together. (the record for six players doing so is held by Australia, 40). These are impressive figures, and speak of a settled team over a long period. They speak of remarkable skill and consistency in all conditions, against all opponents. These are marks the next generation will be aiming at. It would be unfair, of course, to expect a whole new ready-made bunch to slip into the shoes of the masters and carry on as if there has been Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Badrinath, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble, Laxman, M. S. Dhoni, Misra, Murali Vijay, Nagpur, Pragyan Ojha, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Wridhiman Saha, Yuvraj

Sachin Tendulkar joined an elite group of Test players when he took the field against Bangladesh last month. He became just the fifth person to play Test cricket in four different decades having made his debut as a sixteen-year-old against Pakistan at Karachi in November 1989. Let’s have a look at the players he emulated and how they performed in the Reliance Mobile ICC Player Rankings.

The first man to achieve this most remarkable of feats is also unique in that he participated in Tests in five different decades. That man is Wilfred Rhodes, who started his career as a specialist left-arm spinner in the 1890s who didn’t bat any higher than tenth in any of his first nine Tests. However, by 1912 he had graduated to opening the batting with Jack Hobbs and that pair still holds England’s first wicket record partnership in Ashes Tests with the 323 they added at Melbourne in February 1912. Rhodes also holds England’s record partnership for the tenth wicket too, and by the time he was recalled for his final appearances in 1930 he was back to number 10 playing as a spinner.

Batting-wise, he achieved 646 points and fourth place in December 1913 after he scored 152 against South Africa at Johannesburg in the match that Sydney Barnes took seventeen wickets. However it was with his bowling that he really hit the heights. He spent a total of twelve Tests at the top of the bowling tree between 1904 and 1907 peaking at 823 points. He was unfortunate that despite ending his first-class career just 31 runs short of the 40,000 run / 4,000 wicket double, he never topped the Test all-rounder table thanks to South African Aubrey Faulkner who reached his peak around the same time Rhodes did.

Jack Hobbs made his Test debut in 1908 and ‘The Master’ was only toppled from his lofty perch at the top of the Batting Ratings for one match in the entire period from 1912 to 1928 (by South African Herbie Taylor in 1923). He peaked at 942 at the end of 1912 which is the third-highest points tally ever achieved. His opening partnership with Herbert Sutcliffe was legendary and he spent more than a quarter of his Test career with a Rating of over 900 points. His career records of 61,760 first-class runs with 199 centuries will never be beaten and no-one else has ever scored a Test century at the age of 46. Even when he finally ended his international career Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Aubrey Faulkner, Bangladesh, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, ICC, Jack Hobbs, Johannesburg, Rhodes, Sachin Tendulkar, Sydney, Sydney Barnes, Test Cricket

It’s a tricky scenario. You can’t really bet your hard-earned money on one team when the two best Test sides lock horns. But if you simply cannot hold yourself back, the loopholes need to be analysed.

South Africa have more than proved themselves on the international arena with scintillating performances on a consistent basis while Team India is touted as the next big thing in the cricketing fraternity. So if nothing, the two Test series will at least decide the ruler of the ICC rankings, at least for now.

The South African team was initially scheduled to play five ODIs but an interference of the cricketing boards, in a bid to save the fading excitement and grace of Test cricket, saw the itinerary being altered to a couple of Tests followed by three 50-over deciders.

Whether or not the encounter between the two sides will live up to the label of the ‘Majestic Combat’ is to be seen. Now, that is because, both the teams are struggling on various fronts.

If there has ever been a team worthy of replacing the Aussies at the top of the pack, it has been South Africa, hands down. Similar to Roger Federer’s supremacy being challenged by Rafael Nadal time and again, it has been the Proteas that has given the Champion Aussie outfit a run for their money every time the two sides have met on a cricket field, at least in the recent past.

The famous Johannesburg ODI where Australia scored 434 runs only to be chased to death by the so called ‘Chokers’, is an example that supports my above statement very aptly.

Getting back to the loopholes of both the teams, South Africa, the second ranked Test team, have not been in the ‘Test-groove’ in the recent past. They played two Test series against Australia (at home and away), sharing a trophy each. The only other Test series they have played is the one against England that concluded recently. It was drawn 1-1.

Their pace attack comprises of only two big names - Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. The spin department is not worth the time and space in the blog. With India being among the best players of spin bowling, Paul Harris and Johan Botha will have to come up with something Read more…

Administrator India, South Africa, Test Cricket Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, ICC, India, Ishant Sharma, Johannesburg, Rahul Dravid, Shahadat Hossain, South Africa, Sreesanth, Sri Lanka, Test Cricket, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan

Economics and politics dominated an auction that left a pair of veterans counting their blessings

If you’re Mohammad Kaif, a lottery ticket would be a smart move, while Damien Martyn could do worse than contemplate the tables at Bellagio or Caesar’s Palace. Neither man has played international cricket for more than three years, and Kaif’s performances in the inaugural Indian Premier League – he didn’t even make the Rajasthan Royals squad for the second season in South Africa – were as ordinary as Martyn’s brief flirtation with the nearly forgotten Indian Cricket League.

The Royals, captained and coached by Shane Warne, bought out Kaif’s $675,000 (£412,000) contract before the auction to free up the space that they then filled with the classy 38-year-old batsman who was once Warne’s brother in baggy-green arms. If that raised eyebrows, there was bemusement when Kings XI Punjab, who have appointed Kumar Sangakkara as captain in place of Yuvraj Singh, splashed out $250,000 for Kaif, whose batting is usually conspicuously devoid of the power and pizzazz associated with Twenty20 cricket.

Many of the headlines in England on Wednesday will focus on the lack of interest in Graeme Swann, but the Twitter-friendly off-spinner’s IPL tale is far from over. The auction represents only the most high-profile route into the league. There are other ways. Both the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings have injured players that they can replace before the action begins on 12 March. In Mumbai’s case, they will have only the $100,000 that they spent on Kyle Mills last season, but Chennai have a whopping $1.55 million to draw on, having seen Andrew Flintoff go under the surgeon’s knife yet again. Don’t be surprised to see Swann or Doug Bollinger, another who attracted no interest, fielding a few calls from agents over the coming days.

With the auction taking place in Mumbai, a city subjected to the worst terror attacks ever seen in India, there was little doubt that the story of the day was the shunning of the 11 Pakistan players on the auction list. When Richard Madley, who usually helps sell antiques and Read more…

Administrator IPL Adam Voges, Andrew Flintoff, Blogs.CMDN.com, Chennai Super Kings, Cricket Blogs, damien martyn, Doug Bollinger, Eoin Morgan, IPL, Kings XI, Kumar Sangakkara, Mohammad Kaif, Mumbai, Richard Madley, Ricky Ponting, Royal Challengers, Shane Warne, Swann, Twenty20

In the latest world rankings, released after the Joburg and Hobart Tests, England are without a single batsman in the top 20 for the first time, by my reckoning, since 2002.

Andrew Strauss has slipped seven places over the course of the series with South Africa to No 21 and Kevin Pietersen’s fall has been sharper: down from No 4 at the start of the year to No 26 now.

Pietersen has fallen behind Paul Collingwood (up to No 22 despite not scoring a hundred in his past 11 Tests) and he is only one bad innings away from falling to England’s fourth best batsman with Alastair Cook in 28th place.

Heck, by the end of the Bangladesh tour, Pietersen could even have slipped behind Ian Bell, who is at No 32 and rising.

Four, or even five, batsmen in the top 30 isn’t in itself a bad thing. We’ve had as few as three in recent memory - and no more than six. Sri Lanka and Australia have only four each at the moment. South Africa have five and India have six, but England have two more than New Zealand or Pakistan and one more than the Windies.

That reflects our overall world Test ranking of fifth. The problem is the lack of one or two superstars. Depth is one thing, class is another. There are six different nations represented in the present top ten and England’s finest is 11 places outside that list.

This may be only temporary - Strauss could slip back into the top 20 next week if VVS Laxman (No 17) pays for a poor match against Bangladesh - but it has been a long time since we were without any top 20 representative. Pietersen had been in the top 20 since 2006 and was as high as No 3; before him there was a Trescothick or a Vaughan to fly the flag and, apart from a slump in 2000 and a brief dip in 2002, Graham Thorpe was in the top 20 between 1995 and 2003.

Before him, Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart were regulars in the top ten - and briefly, in 1992, we even had the No 1 and 2 batsmen in the world, in Graham Gooch and Robin Smith. Read more…

Administrator Views Alastair Cook, Alec Stewart, Andrew Strauss, Bangladesh, England, Hobart, Ian Bell, Joburg, Mike Atherton, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paul Collingwood, Pietersen, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thorpe

Over four wonderful days in Mysore last week, Indian cricket reconnected with its romantic past. With every season, the past recedes further and the romance is strengthened by distance. We remember things that never happened, recall events through the filter of fantasy. Heroes of the past are larger than life; the triumphs they authored take on a hue that current successes will take a long time to match.

Yet, except for the detail that Karnataka failed to win the title, the Ranji Trophy final was probably the best the team was involved in. Especially since unlike in the past triumphs, the heroes were future stars rather than established players. But it was more than that. For one, there was more action, more excitement than in the entire one-day tournament that was being held around the same time in Bangladesh.

The final was at the other end of the scale from the IPL – it needed no gimmicks, no hype, no commentators paid to sing its praises. Spectators didn’t have to be enticed into the stadium with promises of heart-stopping action on field and off it. There were no cheer leaders, and yet fans clung on to trees, occupied nearby structures, hung on to every available space.

More importantly – a throwback to an earlier era – they cheered good cricket from both teams. After Ajit Agarkar’s final catch, there was a stunned silence where disappointment, relief (from tension), excitement were all nicely mixed. The faces said it all. And then there was spontaneous applause, as the visiting team were given a standing ovation.

It is tempting to say that the Ranji final transported us back into a more innocent time but that would be taking it too far. This was no innocent knock in the park; some of the player behaviour was appalling. The teams played hard, and sought to take every advantage in the modern fashion. Quick reaction from the umpires and the match referee might have kept the emotions of an Agarkar in check. There was too the terrible sight of a team lining up to hurl abuse at a dismissed batsman.

But when this match is recalled years from now, it will not be the player behaviour or the official weaknesses that will be recalled, but the quality of the batting and bowling, and Read more…

Administrator India Domestic Abhimanyu Mithun, Abhishek Nayar, Agarkar, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dilshan, IPL, Javagal Srinath, Jonty Rhodes, Karnataka, Manish Pandey, Mumbai, Mysore, Ranji

The third IPL auction - a more low-key affair than before given that many big names had already been bought and there was a cap of $750,000 - has concluded in Mumbai.

As predicted in The Times, Eoin Morgan was the only England player to find favour, picked up by the Bangalore Royal Challengers for $220,000. Middlesex, Morgan’s county, are resigned to barely seeing the left-handed batsman next season. They have given him their blessing to compete in the whole IPL, in return for which the county will receive 10 per cent of his sale price - about £13,500 in English money.

The IPL starts in mid-March and goes on until April 25. If Bangalore reach the final, Morgan will have to hotfoot it straight away from Mumbai to Guyana, where he will be expected to play for England in their opening World Twenty20 match against West Indies. That tournament concludes on May 16 and Middlesex may see their man for a couple of weeks before he will be required again by England in a one-day series against Australia.

He then goes back to Middlesex for August before having to turn out in blue yet again for a one-day series against Pakistan. Just as well he isn’t a Test cricketer - yet. And at least Middlesex will see more of Andrew Strauss, a useful enough replacement for Morgan, than they might usually do.

Here are the winners and losers from the rest of the auction:

Winners

* Kieron Pollard: the West Indies all-rounder, left, was a huge hit in India during the Champions League Twenty20 in October, particularly during the first of his two matches for Trinidad against New South Wales, when he scored a fifty at three runs a ball. He can bowl well too, and justifies the maximum bid of $750,000 that Mumbai Indians paid for him.

* Shane Bond: the New Zealand fast bowler also went for the maximum $750,000 to Kolkata Knight Riders. His reserve price of $100,000 was fairly low, but bidding was frenzied Read more…

Administrator IPL Andrew Strauss, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Eoin Morgan, graeme swann, IPL, IPL III, Kemar Roach, Kieron Pollard, Middlesex, Shane Bond, Sohail Tanvir, Tyron Henderson, Wayne Parnell

South Africa coach Mickey Arthur has yet to be convinced by the controversial Umpire Decision Review System, admitting he has ‘misgivings’ over its application.

The newly-adopted system was at the centre of a handful of flashpoints during England’s tour to South Africa - with TV umpire Daryl Harper criticised for his review decisions and the length of time taken to decide.

And Arthur, an early champion of the review policy, concedes he has yet to be convinced by the UDRS in its current form.

Arthur told the The Wisden Cricketer magazine: “I was always in favour of the UDRS but now that we have seen the system in operation for a decent period of time, I have mixed feelings.

“Incorrect umpiring decisions can affect the results of matches and also players’ careers so I felt that anything that could bring more correct decisions had to be good for the game.

“The system is definitely more good than bad but I do have some misgivings. We have to standardise the use of the UDRS across the world by using all the tools available. If ‘Hot Spot’ and ‘Snicko’ are used in one series but not another then the system is half-baked.”

Arthur has also raised questions over the fallibility of Hawk-Eye, suggesting the predictive system has yet to win over all cricket professionals.

“I’m not 100% convinced about the predictive element of Hawk-Eye and I don’t think many players are either.

“The other issue that needs to be clarified is the amount of time taken to decide whether to call for a review. I understand that in Australia it has been 10 seconds.

“In our series against England we were given 25. I think it’s fair to say that both Read more…

Administrator South Africa, Views Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daryl Harper, David Richardson, England, Hawk-Eye, ICC, Mickey Arthur, South Africa, UDRS

A Bollywood scriptwriter could not have done a better job. Two 12-yearold boys meet in Bangalore as they get their first break for the state.

One is a dasher who has modelled his game on Virender Sehwag, from audacious crisp hitting down to the hop-skip run-up off-spin.

The other idolises Rahul Dravid, cover-drives elegantly and works the ball off his hips like a pro, the perfect foil to the daredevil.

The two then rise through the ranks and open the batting for India in a World Cup.

Meet Mayank Agarwal and K.L. Rahul, the Karnataka boys who tucked into the Hong Kong attack like it was a hot serving of bisibelebhath (a South Indian rice preparation) on a cold, rainy day.

The target was not big and the attack fairly pedestrian, but with the serious threat of rain, the chance that lost points would make India’s match against England a must-win, and a tricky pitch that was up and down, the stage was set. Thankfully, the actors did not fluff their lines.

Agarwal, stockily built and exuding power, reminds you of a boxer waiting for the bell to ring so he can get stuck into his opponent.

As soon as the ball is in his range, and that’s a pretty broad one, he gets stuck in. Driving fearlessly on the up, with the gift of timing, he effortlessly and regularly hits sixes over extra cover, and provided an example on Sunday. His favourite shot, though, is the cut, and it’s easy to see why, given how effortless his strokes look.

“The timing and aggression are a gift I’ve been given by God,” says the student of Jain College in Bangalore, whose alumnus include Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey.

“Today I just played my natural game. Rahul kept telling me to play the ball on merit and Read more…

Administrator India Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Manish Pandey, NCA, Rahul Dravid, Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, World Cup

England’s decision to allow “jaded” captain Andrew Strauss to miss next month’s tour to Bangladesh will leave many fans scratching their heads.

At a time when England are looking to lick the team into shape for their Ashes defence against Australia at the end of the year, it seems odd for the skipper not to be leading his troops from the front. Instead, it will be a “very excited” Alastair Cook who takes charge.

Strauss certainly does need to do something about his form. His team were fortunate to tie the four-match series 1-1 in South Africa after scraping two draws in Centurion and Cape Town by the skin of their teeth, and the captain himself was way below his best with the bat, scoring just 170 runs at an average of 24.28.

But rather than an extended rest, he could consider that the best way for a test batsman to regain his form is to play in a test. And given that Bangladesh’s bowlers are hardly the most fearsome in world cricket, shouldn’t an out-of-touch opener be relishing the opportunity?

Now the tour of South Africa is over, England have a four-week break before they leave for three Twenty20 matches in the Middle East ahead of the trip to Bangladesh.

Isn’t four weeks enough for Strauss to recharge his batteries before getting out there again to try to do what a batsman does best — and bat? Read more…

Administrator England Add new tag, Alastair Cook, Bangladesh, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cape Town, Centurion, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, South Africa, Twenty20