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…

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An early exit in the recent Champions Trophy has opened a can of worms in Indian cricket. At a time when the raging debate is about the future of the 50-over cricket, India’s failure to go beyond the league stage has raised a lot of questions, mainly in the bowling department.

In this backdrop, the Challenger Series for the NKP Salve Trophy among the best available India players, including M. S. Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Abhishek Nayar, Yusuf Pathan, Ishant Sharma and Suresh Raina who returned from South Africa, will acquire much significance.

Otherwise, the tournament, at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here from Thursday — that coincides with the richest cricketing event, the Champions League — would have been reduced to just another in the BCCI calendar.

Eight of the India players involved in the Champions Trophy — Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Ashish Nehra, Amit Sharma, R.P. Singh, Rahul Dravid, Praveen Kumar and Virat Kohli — will be turning out for their respective franchisees in the T20 competition, giving more players, some hardly known outside their states, a chance to rub shoulders with the likes of Harbhajan and Dhoni.

Dhiraj Goswami from Assam, Jalaj Saxena from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand’s Ishank Jaggi and Maharashtra’s Ameya Shrikhande are a few of the little-known players who would be keen to make an impression.

Performances in the Challengers have often been considered for India selection. Though major changes in the Indian squad are not expected as Dhoni’s men look to bury the forgettable Champions Trophy and take on the winners Australia in a seven-match ODI series starting in Baroda on October 25, the selectors also do not want to send wrong signals by Read more…

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When India went into the Champions Trophy, we all knew they wouldn’t be the same side as they were for the 18 months, as there was no Zaheer Khan or Virender Sehwag, and injury to Yuvraj Singh worsened the matter.

But absence of these big players, gave youngsters a golden opportunity to put their hands up and shine on the international platform like these absent biggies did a few years back (Yuvraj and Zaheer made international debut during 2000 Champions Trophy in Nairobi), but they failed to grab the attention. Only Virat Kohli managed to make an impression, and that too in the last match when the Champions Trophy campaign was all over for India.

It is obvious that when these players come back into the side, India can again boast of being a tougher and a more competitive team.

But the question is, do we really have the bench-strength to make the Indian team consistently a top side? Are we really grooming talents for the international arena?

Yusuf Pathan has shown his prowess and potential in the IPL but has failed to carry it to the international level. Suresh Raina has come off good and looks promising for the future. Virat and Rohit Sharma are the other two batsmen who have everything needed for becoming successful at the international level but the duo lacks consistency.

Some time back India had a sweet dilemma of picking two or three pacers from the bunch that had RP Singh, Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma with Zaheer Khan Read more…

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It’s an indication of how well matched the teams at the Champions Trophy are, or the result of some capricious pitches, that three of the fancied teams are on their way home well before the end of the tournament. Early season tracks were always expected to be unpredictable, especially after a very dry winter here, but this has had a touch of Russian roulette to it. Teams like to know what conditions are likely to be but it is also a measure of skill when you have to adapt quickly to something unexpected. From that point of view, the cricket has been good.

India didn’t adapt well enough. The bowlers conceded too many against Pakistan and, to be completely honest, were in the process of allowing Australia to put up a match-winning score when the rain arrived. The bowling was the real issue here, not the absence of key players. True, you cannot substitute a Yuvraj or a Zaheer easily, or in this kind of form a Sehwag, but that is the reality of all sport. Teams that rely on specific individuals will always be vulnerable. India need 15 or 16 players playing at a certain level and currently while that could be true of the batting, it isn’t of the bowling.

It might have been a throwaway line from Dhoni when he said that at times he felt he was three bowlers short. In fact in the game against Pakistan, at the 38 over mark, he could have looked around the ground and not found one player he could confidently throw the ball to. Harbhajan Singh, his most experienced bowler, and the bowler who really should have been his bank, his go-to bowler, had an average tournament. But most dramatic, and disappointing for Indian cricket, was the decline of Ishant Sharma and RP Singh. Coming on the heels of similar problems with Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth, it is a question that requires a very serious assessement. Good bowlers bowl well for ten years with the occasional bad period in between, not for two years or a season here and a season there. Could it be too much cricket? Could it too much in the mind? Could it be too little in it?

Inevitably then, the question will be what next? India cannot afford to lose Ishant and RP Singh but for the moment, a period of contemplation might be right. I wonder if players Read more…

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How often does all of India pray that Pakistan wins a cricket match? Well, that’s what it’s come down to, for India to make the semifinals of the Champions Trophy. On Wednesday morning, even as India begin their pre-match routine for a day-night match at Wanderers they will keep a close eye on how Pakistan are faring against Australia in their day game at Centurion.

And it’s not as though India don’t have problems of their own. The prime among them is Ishant Sharma, and the time may have come to leave him out. The state that he is in, a spell out, even only a match or two, might be better than bowling him into the ground.

The conditions will play a big part in determining India’s combination — and Mahendra Singh Dhoni admitted they would track the Pakistan-Australia match before taking a final call on the team’s balance — but either way it’s not a bad idea to give Abhishek Nayar a go.

Harbhajan Singh has had a couple of bad games, but it’s difficult to see Dhoni going the same way as Kumar Sangakkara, who left out Muttiah Muralitharan in the game against New Zealand. Amit Mishra is the form spinner, and given the West Indies’ traditional difficulties with leg-spin, Dhoni would like to have him in the mix, but doing so at the cost of Harbhajan in a pressure game is unlikely.

If for some reason — either an Australia win or an inability to catch up with their net run rate — India fail to progress to the next round, it will be the second time in successive ICC events that India have failed to make the semifinals. Given the reaction to India’s ouster in the World Twenty20, the pressure will be on.

West Indies, India’s opponents, are in exactly the opposite position.

They came to the tournament as rank minnows and anything they achieve will be a bonus. Players like fast bowler Kemar Roach and batsman Andre Fletcher have only enhanced Read more…

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If you brought it up after the event it would seem like an excuse. To say it before seems like being excessively defensive. But there’s no getting away from the fact that India’s campaign has suffered some serious setbacks in terms of the personnel available to pick the most balanced eleven.

When India arrived in South Africa it was the bowling that was the concern, with Ishant Sharma blowing more cold than hot in the absence of spearhead Zaheer Khan. But now, a closer look at who is available makes you wonder about the batting as well. Consider a full-strength side: Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and the luxury of being backed up by either Suresh Raina or Yusuf Pathan.

In the light of Yuvraj’s untimely finger fracture, the situation is completely different. If Tendulkar and Gambhir open, and are followed by Dravid and Dhoni, the rest that follow are all players who are trying to establish themselves in the side or have recently struggled to score consistently. This is not to say that these batsmen cannot do the job, the four mentioned are all more than capable of batting the opposition out of the game on any given day. But what it will do is increase the pressure on these men to score in every game, and that’s not an ideal scenario. What you certainly don’t want is your four best batsmen occupying slots one to four if those that follow are either short on confidence or experience.

Whichever way you look at it, India are one specialist batsman short, with none of Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf or Abhishek Nayar really being able to fill the role.

Virat Kohli, who has been called up as a replacement for the third time in his career, will arrive in South Africa with a job to do, and the sooner he makes it the better.

That said, India have to take a serious look at their overall selection strategy, keeping in mind the busy season ahead. In this case, there were few options for specialist middle-order Read more…

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Abhishek Nayar has been a busy man of late, spending the first half of his day developing his skills on different pitches, and the second half honing his fitness at the National Cricket Academy gymnasium in Bangalore. Weeks after walking on to the field as part of Team India, the 25-year old Mumbai all-rounder finds himself, once again, amongst the Emerging players squad that will play a tournament in Australia.

Nayar’s is a curious case: He has featured in two one-day internationals, both against the West Indies recently, but is yet to register any relevant statistic against his name. He didn’t get to bat in either game, didn’t need to bowl, and wasn’t even involved in a catch or run-out while fielding. He was tipped to bat at No 7 in the third ODI, which India won by six wickets, while the fourth game was washed out after just 7.3 overs.

Unfortunately for him, there’s no immediate guarantee of a Team India return either. With Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid all set to return to the fold, the wait on the sidelines could be a long one. But Nayar isn’t perturbed.

“I think I am the only one at least in this category,” Nayar told The Indian Express. “It’s strange that I didn’t get to bat or bowl in the two matches I played but Read more…

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