It is often said that the Indian cricket public are not terribly interested in Tests. But a glance at the blogosphere suggests that they are thoroughly enjoying their team’s rise to No. 1 in the world rankings.

When a fellow English columnist (sorry, “ranting Pom”) recently scoffed at the table, suggesting that India were poor under pressure and didn’t deserve their lofty position, he was subjected to a ritual disembowelling online.

For myself, I tend to feel that India are every bit as deserving of the laurel wreath as South Africa or Australia. The problem is that we have become accustomed to the idea of a single champion team, because that is the way the game has been since the early 1970s.

In theory, the concept of three or four half-decent sides scrapping it out at the top of the table – a hung parliament, if you will – should make for greater drama than the monotony of totalitarian rule.

But that is to under-estimate our love of neatness in all things, especially sport. We like to know who the pillars of world cricket are, so that we can look for cracks in the edifice. There is no story as resonant as the fall of a dynasty (as Tiger Woods, a dynasty in his own right, has just discovered).

The ICC’s algorithm does a decent job of turning results into placings, as far as that goes. But the definition of a true champion side is that you don’t need to look at the table to know they are the world’s best.

The other issue with India is that they are a team without great bowlers (begging Harbhajan Singh’s pardon). Their batsmen do the attacking, crushing the life out of sides with Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket Ajantha Mendis, Aussies, Australia, Bradman, Dale Steyn, Glenn McGrath, Harbhajan, Harbhajan Singh, ICC, Mitchell Johnson, Shane Warne, South Africa, Sreesanth, Sri Lanka, Virender Sehwag, West Indies, Zaheer Khan

Two things happened last week that should convince the doubters that the much unfairly maligned Board of Control for Cricket in India is in good hands. The first was the announcement that Mohinder Amarnath was to get the Col C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement award for services to cricket in India. Mohinder fully deserves the honour for he is one of India’s best ever. The kudos to BCCI are simply because some crusty people would have tried to bring to the fore some of the remarks by Jimmy towards the end of his career and so deny him the honour. Jimmy had famously called the selectors a ‘bunch of jokers’ after being dropped from the team and at that stage nobody gave him a chance of making a comeback but Jimmy being the original comeback man got picked again after a change in the selection committee and scored runs too to show that his earlier omission was a mistake.

Thankfully the BCCI did not hold that against him and has given him the award to recognise his efforts for India. Jimmy must be the bravest of Indian batsmen. Despite having his dentalwork disturbed by a bouncer from Malcolm Marshall he was undaunted and went on to get runs in the same innings and after that in the rest of the series too. The West Indian pace battery was never played with so much time and comfort as Jimmy did in that series and even before that series he had got almost 600 runs agaisnt Imran Khan in a series where the great man got 40 wickets and Pakistan won 3-0.

There was disappointment for Jimmy when he just missed out on being India’s cricket coach. The media expectations and pressure to appoint Greg Chappell was so huge that despite Jimmy’s presentation and vision statement being as good as the Australian’s, he did not get the job. We all know what a disaster that appointment turned out to be though it is debatable that it may not have turned out so if there was no stubbornness about insisting on one of the support staff being retained in some designation or the other. The players had the utmost regard for Chappell but his assistant was the one that the players resented and that was what led to the souring Read more…

Administrator IND vs SL Aussies, Badri, BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Greg Chappell, India, Ranji Trophy, Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu, Vijay

If there’s anything like a perfect day, the Men in Blue enjoyed it at Nagpur on Wednesday.  A 99 run win is pretty comprehensive, though, like most Indians, I would have preferred the margin to be 100 or above. With the series tied at 1-1, one can expect a lip-smacking feast in the remaining five games. I have a feeling the series will be decided only in the last game.
 
Ricky Ponting erred badly in electing to field after winning the toss. The defensive ploy came unstuck on a batting paradise. The Indian bowlers looked good in defending 354. But let us not start singing praises till they defend a smaller total or restrict the Aussies to less than 270 when bowling first.
 
My observations on Team India after watching the first two games of the series:
 
1. Earlier this month, the BCCI sacked Robin Singh, India’s fielding coach. On Wednesday, Dhoni’s men showed why we badly needed a new one. The team has too many laggards in the field. The ground fielding is abysmal. Whatever the distance, the throws seldom hit the stumps. And if you are Ishant Sharma, you can even miss from a yard. There are several other below-par fielders in the side. On a good day, Nehra will get 3 out of 10. On one occasion today, Praveen Kumar first missed the ball, then kicked it away. On another occasion he stupidly stepped onto the rope as he caught the ball. Barring Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Virat Kohli, we don’t have any quality fielders in the squad. If we want to mount a serious challenge for the 2011 ODI World Cup, we must improve in this aspect.
 
2. Harbhajan Singh needs to be told that his batting cannot cover up for his ineffective, defensive bowling. He needs to get more wickets. The offie bowls like a fifth bowler who thinks that 10-0-50-1 or so is great work. Even Nathan Hauritz and Ravindra Jadeja flight the ball more. Solution: Drop him for a couple of games. Pressure works. See how all the “drop talk” has improved Ishant’s game. Give Pragyan Ojha or Amit Mishra a chance. See if they perform any better. Read more...

Avijit Ghosh Australia, IND vs AUS, India Amit Mishra, Aussies, Delhi, Gambhir, India, Ishant Sharma, MSD, Nagpur, Nathan Hauritz, Pragyan Ojha, Praveen Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ricky Ponting, Robin Singh, Rohit Sharma, Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Zaheer Khan

One good reason New Zealand didn’t win the Champions Trophy final?

They avoided having to prance about in those white jackets - awarded to the winning team - which made the Australians look like a bunch of cruise ship crooners who had unexpectedly run aground at Centurion but were ready to break into a verse of Copacabana.

Still, the New Zealanders would have tolerated some dodgy dressing up if they’d been able to pocket the title yesterday. They collected US$1 million ($1.34 million) for their efforts, but money comes and goes; in the overall scheme of things that will amount to loose change for some of them once the divvying up is done; silverware would provide a validation for their efforts, plus the satisfaction of a line in the history book as the first two-time winner of the trophy.

And if they had it would have been a remarkable achievement, given that three first-choice players - Jesse Ryder, Jacob Oram (for bowling, if not, at the moment, batting) and the rejuvenated Daryl Tuffey - were lost to injury during the tournament, and inspirational captain Dan Vettori withdrew on the morning of the final with a hamstring injury.

It turned out to be a game too far for New Zealand, who had overcome a poor start to beat Sri Lanka, England and Pakistan in the space of nine days to improbably reach the final.

New Zealand then needed its best players to stand up yesterday. A bad day, then, for acting captain Brendon McCullum to have a nightmare - 14 balls for a duck and dropping a crucial skier - Ross Taylor to miss out again, and Grant Elliott, who carried New Zealand past Pakistan in the semifinal, to get a good ball from Brett Lee.

Above all, an awful day for Vettori to miss altogether. He is the team’s best bowler Read more…

Administrator Champions Trophy, New Zealand Aussies, Bangladesh, Blogs.CMDN.com, Bond, Brett Lee, Cameron White, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Grant Elliott, Guptill, Ian Butler, Jacob Oram, James Franklin, Jeetan Patel, Jesse Ryder, McCullum, Mills, New Zealand, Pakistan, Ross Taylor, Sri Lanka, Vettori

Gosh, is it really over? It seems like barely yesterday that English cricket was in crisis after the rout at Headingley, only a few days ago that we were getting het up about the drainage at Edgbaston. That win at Lord’s was only last week, wasn’t it? And time has certainly flown since I was trying to follow the closing overs from Cardiff on my mobile phone as I was on a plane taxiing down the runway at Zurich.

This was not a classic Ashes in the 2005 sense when two teams near the peak of their powers and packed with all-time heroes slugged it out, but don’t let anyone claim that 2009 lacked drama or tension. Yes, England and Australia had their moments of ineptitude and at times it seemed as if the battle would be over who could make the fewer mistakes, but it was gripping for all that.

It became a cliche in 2005 that someone would “put their hand up and come to the party”. I think that applied even more this series. When there were 20 overs remaining in Cardiff, when England won the toss and batted at Lord’s, when Australia were fighting back in the second innings at Lord’s, when Graham Onions started to bowl on day 2 at Edgbaston with Australia 126-1, when Stuart Broad was chucked the ball at the Oval, when Jonathan Trott came out to bat on Friday at 39-3… these were the small moments when questions were asked of character and England answered.

Australia scored more runs, more hundreds, hit more sixes, took more wickets and held more catches than we did, but in two crucial categories we outscored them: number of five-fors and number of wins.

And this shouldn’t be a surprise. We said at the start of the series that England’s bowlers held the key and that Australia’s attack were weaker. The fact that Ben Hilfenhaus and Read more…

Administrator Ashes Anderson, Ashes, Aussies, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Broad, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, Flintoff, Graham Onions, Harmison, Lord's, Monty Panesar, Peter Siddle, South Africa, Swann

The Oval - I know it is a sweeping generalisation but from my experience South Africans are not known for being the shy and retiring type.

Which is why I was pretty confident Cape Town-born Jonathan Trott would not look like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights when he stepped out at The Oval for his England Test match debut. And so it proved.

He has made a hugely impressive debut by scoring a maiden Test century - becoming the 18th England player to do so and only the third at The Oval behind Frank Hayes and WG Grace.

And we must not forget his great catch in the first innings when he snaffled Australia dangerman Michael Clarke at short extra cover to augment England’s chances of regaining the Ashes urn….

It seems foolish now to wind back a week to when the media was full of speculation that Mark Ramprakash, Rob Key and even the retired Marcus Trescothick could come back for the do-or-die fifth Ashes Test against the Aussies, with Ravi Bopara looking like a broken man after scoring just 105 runs in seven innings at an average of 15.

But the England selectors should be praised for sticking to their guns by employing their next-man-in policy - and that happened to be Trott.

After being named in the Headingley squad but subsequently not used, they finally Read more…

Administrator Ashes Ashes, Aussies, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cape Town, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Jonathan Trott, Kenny Jackson, Marcus Trescothick, Ravi Bopara, The Oval

Cursed him. Within moments of writing my “will they, won’t they” piece on Pietersen and his injury, the ECB announces that the Hampshire batsman has had surgery this morning on the troublesome Achilles tendon and will be out for the rest of the series.

The squad for the third Test will be announced on Sunday and one would assume that Ian Bell, having been in the squad for the first two games, will slot straight in as Pietersen’s replacement. Yes, Aussies, the “Shermanator” is back. And he was out for 7 today against Hampshire.

It would be tempting to play Bell at No 3 and drop Ravi Bopara down the order a place or two to enable him to regain his confidence against the older ball. Bell is averaging 54 this season and must be in prime position although Owais Shah, who did not shine against the Windies over the winter, is averaging 55. Trouble is, Shah has played only four games to Bell’s 11. His bench-warming stint in the IPL could still count against him.

Who else? Well, Rob Key has picked the right moment to find some form. He made 270 for Kent last week against Glamorgan, which almost doubled his tally for the season. Yes, but, it was only Glamorgan. I’m not sure he has done enough, even though he now has a first-class wicket to his name as this photo shows. Jonathan Trott, Bell’s Warwickshire team-mate, is on 70-odd as I type today, which is on par with his season’s average. Read more…

Administrator Ashes Adil Rashid, Ashes, Aussies, Bell, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, ECB, England, Flintoff, Hampshire, KP, McGrath, Owais Shah, Pietersen, Prior, Ravi Bopara, Shermanator

The 5-0 whitewash by Australia in the last Ashes series has been glossed over but revenge should be the motivation

Andrew Strauss must be ruing the fact that secret Ashes bonding sessions aren’t more, well, secret. It’s all very well taking your squad to Ypres to strengthen the team unit, but when it then emerges that you didn’t even manage to get them all on the same bus, you suspect your opponents may take some delight in the news. I still maintain they should have gone to Legoland. Besides being “just what every hero’s been waiting for”, the theme park is perfect for Andrew Flintoff: it doesn’t open until 10am, and if you do miss your ride there’s always another one along in a minute.

Of course the point of going to Ypres was that England were learning important lessons from history; in this case, that Steve Waugh’s Aussies had followed up their trip to Gallipoli in 2001 with a 4-1 Ashes spanking of England that Nasser Hussain can still feel when he sits down. While England’s team bonding has previously tended to consist of a few jars at the nearest Wetherspoons, the Australians have been fairly imaginative about their preparations. Before the last Ashes series they went on an army boot camp where they hiked through snake-infested forests, so you can see why a train trip to Belgium was jumped at by the England dressing room.

Anyway, the sentiment was a good one, although I do worry that this it’s-only-a-game-of-cricket attitude is slightly counter-intuitive. Read more…

Administrator Ashes Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Ashes, Aussies, Australia, Belgium, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brett Lee, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Kylie, Legoland, Melbourne, Mike Hussey, Monty Panesar, Nasser Hussain, Perth

Two matches, two losses and the mighty Aussies are out. And it's not that the wizards of Oz have gone down fighting -- they have been outplayed and outclassed. Sri Lanka, my pre-tournament favourites after India, have given enough indication that this cup is going to stay in the Asian subcontinent.

Wonder if one Mr Buchanan watched Monday's clinical performance. Because Ajantha Mendis, benched for most matches by KKR in the IPL, bamboozled the once-invincible Australians. Ricky Ponting is unlikely to forget this one for a long long time.

Lanka have much to take heart from the six-wicket victory at Trent Bridge. Kumar Sangakkara played a captain's innings, Tillakaratne Dilshan was superb in his 53 off 32 balls, and Aussies just didn't have any clue against Mendis. Angelo Mathews will be a surprise factor in this tournament and Malinga's deadly accurate Yorkers will give the opposition plenty to worry about. Sangakkara was absolutely brilliant in his first match at the helm. This Lankan team will take some beating, and we haven't mentioned what Jayawardene and Jayasuriya can do with the bat. Read more...

Tushar Srivastava Australia, India Asian Subcontinent, Aussies, Blogs.CMDN.com, Buchanan, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, India, Jayasuriya, Jeyawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka, Trent Bridge, Twenty20, World Cup T20, Yorkers

Sri Lanka could do the game of cricket a big favour if they manage to put one beyond Australia on Monday. Because the Kangaroos, hammered into submission by Chris Gayle on Saturday, would be sent crashing from the T20 World Cup in the first round itself if they fail to clear the Lanka hurdle.

Absurd as it may sound, the world of cricket doesn’t need Aussies. Okay, let me correct myself. The game doesn’t need the arrogance of the Aussies. Let me explain myself. A lot was made of the exclusion of Andrew Symonds just before the tournament started – how the cup will be shorn of colour and flair. Agreed, Symo lit up IPL with his pyrotechnics. Statistics bat for the big man. But at what cost? True, cricket is hardly a gentleman’s game anymore but even then, Symonds is hardly an advertisement that the game needs.

Oz skipper Ricky Ponting was quick to justify Cricket Australia’s move to drop Symonds after yet another tryst with indiscipline, but wait! Ricky Ponting? Aussies have ruled the world for long with Ricky at the helm, true. But do we want a captain who bad-mouths the umpire at every no-ball called, who claims grounded catches, who jeers the opposition batsmen, when he’s supposed to set an example? Read more...

Tushar Srivastava Australia Andrew Symonds, Aussies, Australia, Chris Gayle, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Mike Atherton, Ricky Ponting, Sri Lanka