Rejoice. After 77 years of trying, we are finally No 1 in the ICC Test cricket rankings.  A 2-0 victory over Sri Lanka in a three Test series makes you feel real good.

Here's a review of the series:

Like Sehwag, MS Dhoni often doesn't get much credit for what he does for the team and the country. I agree that the Indian captain's batting style is pretty ungainly. But can anyone doubt its efficacy? Both his centuries were crucial to the team's cause - the 110 in Ahmedabad took India to a position of relative safety; his 100 in Mumbai ensured that Murali wouldn't be able to take a second shot at us. Why complain about methods when it gives you the right results?

The best thing about Dhoni is his level-headedness. At the post-match interview, he told Ravi Shastri that maintaining the No 1 position would be the real challenge. That's a leader with a vision. I would reiterate, make him the captain till the 2011 World Cup.

I was also surprised that Shastri got Tendulkar for the interview immediately after the match. It was good listening to the world's highest run scorer. But I was expecting someone like Dravid.

Dravid's contribution in the series was second to none.  His 177 saved us in the first Test. Otherwise, we might have had a totally different end to the contest.  He had another ton in the second Test and scored 70 plus again in the third.  We saw a new Dravid this time - he was ready to be more aggressive, more adventurous.  One would have liked to know what really brought about the change in his attitude. So why not him? Why does he have to be in the shadows every time?

Two factors clearly went in our favour in this series. Our catching, as Dhoni too pointed out, was pretty good.  Unlike the Lankans who were surprisingly butterfingered, we snapped up nearly everything.

The umpiring decisions, especially in the third Test, also went much in our favour. I would say, it made a difference to the outcome. Dilshan got two rank bad decisions in Mumbai. If something like that had happened to one of our top batters, we would have had a national debate. Besides, Dravid and Tendulkar and others also got decisions to their advantage. That surely Read more...

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Among the hot topics of the summer is the future of 50-over cricket. In some quarters indeed, wherein reside the deepest thinkers of how the game should evolve, it is the hottest topic.

The trouble with the 50-over format is that it has become predictable. No less a figure than Sachin Tendulkar said the other day that the outcome of 75 per cent of matches is known at the toss. Tendulkar has played in 425 of them – only Sanath Jayasuriya has appeared in more – and scored 16,684 runs, 3,682 more than anybody else, so he might have a teensy-weensy idea of what is going on out there.

Tendulkar’s preferred amendment is that the total of 100 overs allocated should be divided into four so that team A has 25 overs, team B has 25, team A finishes off and is followed by team B. He rightly thinks this would go some way to negating the advantage of the toss in day-night matches, which are now the majority.

But it would add a further complication to a game that is supposed to be straightforward. It would not be a two innings match but a one innings match divided by two. Batsmen would not know whether they were coming or going, there would be an unnatural flow to the game, like forcing a river to alter course.

But it is not merely toss and effect, of course. It is the manner in which the players approach the game. Between roughly the 20th over and the 40th in most innings of one-day internationals the game is put in a kind of suspended animation in which the bowlers bowl and the Read more…

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