INAIA IS NOW the world’s top team in Test cricket. The move to ensure that india plays more Tests is a step in the right direction and can help this format regain its popularity

For cricket’s hardcore devotees, the purists who insist that Test cricket is the real form of the game, September 24, 2007, was no day for celebration.

It was the day Mahendra Singh Dhoni led a team short of full strength — a squad for which top batsmen such as Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly had made themselves unavailable — to victory in the ICC World Twenty20 in Johannesburg. The game that we knew, relatively gentle, moderately fashionable and acceptably paced, took on another dimension.

It was not as though fans suddenly woke up to the joys of big hitting to the detriment of all else —after all, the subcontinent has been serving up flat decks in one-day internationals (ODIs) for some time now. It was just that India’s administrators, who till then considered Twenty20 cricket a creation of marketing men in England, wholeheartedly adopted the shortest version.

If sociologist Ashish Nandy’s assertion that cricket was “an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British” was a bit of an exaggeration, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) strove to make this a reality with T20s. The hurried establishment of the Indian Premier League ushered in the era where T20 is king.

One-day cricket became popular in India after the country won the World Cup in 1983. T20 got wide acceptance in 2007. Now it is to be seen whether India rising to top position in Test cricket leads to revival in interest in this variety of the game.

When India beat Sri Lanka 2-0 to become the No. 1 Test team in the world, the men counting the coins in the BCCI’s vault discovered there were things that didn’t figure in a balance sheet but they mattered a lot to the game’s stakeholders.

Suddenly, being the best in the world, rather than briefly occupying top spot thanks to a quirk in the rankings system, became the goal. Reaching the top has forced the board to request the visiting South Africans to convert February’s five-ODI series into one comprising two Read more…

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When the Indian Cricket League emerged as an unsanctioned competition, there was gnashing of teeth, frothing at the mouth, voodoo dolls at the ready and an almighty hue and cry from cricket administrators screaming about the dangerous monster that is cricket that has not been endorsed by the BCCI and the ICC.

At the time, back in August 2007, the ICL was heavily criticised as an agent attacking the fabric of cricket, and its financial lures were derided as blood money only to be taken by international cricket’s player mercenaries.

NZC boss Justin Vaughan was quoted as saying: “Events such as the ICL could have the potential to compete with official international events and erode their value. Added to this, the proposed rebel league is scheduled to directly conflict with the [New Zealand] tour to South Africa as well as the start of our domestic season.”

How ironic, then, that it was never the shambolic ICL that threatened the weave of the game. As NZ Cricket Players’ Association boss Heath Mills predicted at the time, it was always the “official” BCCI-endorsed Indian Premier League behemoth that had the most potential to disrupt the primacy of international cricket.

It is the IPL and its ilk that are now competing with official international events and threatening to erode value. If the reports in the Sunday Star-Times are to be believed, the Indian domestic tournament and its clones, little brothers, and off-shoots are most likely to lure the players away from the black cap - and these players and the international cricket that they play are the geese that lay NZC’s golden eggs.

The NZC chief executive also said at the time: “We depend upon the value of the media rights associated with official international events to provide a majority of our income. It is therefore in the best interests of New Zealand Cricket not to support unofficial events such as the ICL.” But the ICC, and NZC, share of revenue from these domestic events is minuscule. They might be official but they are much smaller money-spinners for NZC than the status quo: a strong NZ side that other teams want to play, complete with highly recognisable players that the Read more…

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India deserve to be the best team in Test cricket after reversing their fortunes since the heavy loss to Australia a decade ago

Last Sunday, Bollywood luminaries and team-mates, his childhood coach, Ramakant Achrekar, and those he grew up admiring gathered at the south Mumbai residence of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, owners of the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise, to celebrate two decades of Sachin Tendulkar in Test cricket. There was even Asha Bhosle – of Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha fame – to sing that classic from Umrao Jaan, Aankhon ki Masti (The Magic of these eyes).

Tendulkar was a John McEnroe-admiring curly-haired bully of eight when the movie was released in 1981. But as much as he would have enjoyed the evening, it wouldn’t have been a patch on what had happened earlier in the day, as victory by an innings and 24 runs over Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium took India to the top of the Test rankings for the first time.

To understand what it meant to Tendulkar, you perhaps need to go back a decade, to a Test tour of Australia when he was captain. A magnificent 116 at the MCG turned out to be a mere footnote as Steve Waugh’s side annihilated India 3-0, the margin that had been predicted by Jaywant Lele, the BCCI secretary of the time.

Those were the worst of times. The morning after the Mumbai victory, Rahul Dravid, who aggregated 93 runs in those three Tests a decade ago, spoke of how things had changed. “Back then, people were happy if we won one game,” he said. “No one expected much more on overseas tours. These days, when you play for India, you’re expected to win wherever you go.”

He and Tendulkar have played as big a part as anyone – Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, both now retired, were the others at the forefront – in scripting the turnaround over the past 10 years. In the post-match interviews, several of the players and coaching staff spoke of the last 18 months, in which India have beaten Australia, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, but to get to the heart of the revival, you have to go back to Eden Gardens in March 2001.

When folk refer to Edgbaston 2005 as The Greatest Test, a lot of Indians are Read more…

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At the heart of this latest tussle is the footage that television channels air as part of their news bulletins and the streaming of matches by websites

Cricket’s governing bodies are winding up to serve a yorker to television channels and websites, opening the innings in what promises to be another hard-fought contest between news organizations and the sport’s administrators.

At the heart of this latest tussle is the footage that television channels air as part of their news bulletins and the streaming of matches by websites. The organizations that run the sport across the world are consulting each other on how best to crack down on the “unauthorized” use of match footage.

Arun Jaitley, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and one of India’s top lawyers besides being a member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), chaired a two-day discussion in Hyderabad in October on drawing up a framework for regulating the use of video clips. Representatives of the International Cricket Council (ICC) also attended the preliminary deliberations.

“Cricket bodies lose revenue worth several hundred crore (rupees) owing to unauthorized streaming of cricket footage. It’s also a loss of revenue for the channel with broadcast rights for a particular series. We are looking to curb this practice,” said Jaitley. The illegal streaming of international cricket matches by websites threatens the Indian governing body’s own online channel BCCI.tv, which is in the pipeline.

The cricket boards have authorized a team led by BCCI member Lalit Modi to arrive at a possible regulation or a revenue model, Jaitley told Mint. Broadcasters could be invited to discuss the matter with the cricket boards, he added.

The TV channels said they were surprised at the move. The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), which represents 14 leading English and Hindi news channels, already has guidelines Read more…

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A notable feature of the ongoing Ranji Trophy championship is the virtual absence of off-break bowlers in the higher end of the bowling honours list.

This ought to be seen as an unhappy development in a country for which this type of finger spinners — with the ball breaking into the batsman’s body allied with flight and line and length variations with a high intelligence quotient of the practioners — have played a distinguished part and has been regarded an important cog in the wheel of India’s bowling arrangement.

The decline of quality off-break bowlers has been a gradual feature in the last two decades and in this season the sheer anxiety of being called for illegal action has eliminated this particular facet of the game in India.

Harbhajan Singh is an exception though since 1998. The off-break bowler in the current Ranji Trophy Super League bowling honours list is Bengal’s Saurasish Lahiri with 17 wickets in four matches.

He is followed by Tamil Nadu’s Ravichandran Ashwin with 13 wickets from five matches. Ashwin has been included in the Indian team for the two Twenty20 matches against Sri Lanka.

Former India and Himachal Pradesh’s Sarandeep Singh is a way down third in the list. But after ten years in first class cricket, he was called for bowling with an illegal action in the Mumbai-Himachal Pradesh match recently.

Harbhajan Singh was lucky. A rookie off-spinner ten years ago, his action was sorted out in less than two days in London by former England off-spinner Fred Titmus.

New Zealand’s left-arm spinner, Stephen Bock was once reported to have said: “He (Harbhajan) was not within cooee of a legal action”.

But Titmus who was instructed by the ICC then to rectify his action along with the MCC Head Coach Clive Radley felt that there was not a lot wrong to the naked eye at normal Read more…

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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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Indian pitches are difficult to predict. Even Gods refrain from doing so simply because you never know how they will behave on D-day. Analysts and observers have made their points about the centre wicket at the historical Brabourne Stadium, but no one knows what the 22-yard strip — for the third and last Test between India and Sri Lanka beginning here on Wednesday — actually has on offer.

As usual, the curators promised ’sporting tracks’ for the first and second Tests at Ahmedabad and Kanpur respectively. The phrase has been used and abused to no end and well, neither of the wickets was even close to ’sporting’.

For the third Test match, experts have come out with different opinions. Some predict that it is going to be ’sporting’ (again!) wicket, some say it will be unpredictable and a few believe it is going to favour the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh.

Test cricket has returned to the picturesque venue after more than three decades and hence, it won’t be easy to predict the nature of a pitch which has been rarely used. The local or domestic matches here are played on the side pitches. During the 2006 Champions Trophy, the wickets here faced a lot of wrath for their slowness.

However, Milind Rege, CCI’s cricket-in charge, promises a sporting track calling it a “true Test wicket.”

“There will be bounce and pace at the start and as the game progresses, the spinners will get some help. Batsmen will also enjoy batting here as it is a true wicket,” the former Mumbai skipper added.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had nothing extraordinary to say on match-eve. “It looks like a normal Mumbai track with the same soil, of course. There will be a bit of bounce for the fast bowlers and as the game progresses, you will see the spinners coming into action. They Read more…

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The thought itself is too exciting. If it turns into reality, it will give rise to tingles and inspire jingles. If India beats Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium over the next five days, it will become the world’s No.1 Test team in cricket. Oooo.

Think about it. Right up at the peak with enough time to inhale the rare air. Perhaps that really means having too little oxygen and too much time.

According to a rough schedule on the ICC website, in the next ten months, India are slated to play two Tests in Bangladesh and even two in Zimbabwe. New Zealand are slotted in for three Tests in October-November 2010. Seven Tests in ten months is not what No.1s should be doing.

The same ICC calendar shows that in 2010 England are playing 12 Tests, South Africa 11, Australia could squeeze in ten and New Zealand have nine. Even Pakistan which these days cannot play a match on its troubled soil, might play nine Tests next year including ‘hosting’ Australia for two Tests in England.

So, even if it happens the No. 1 ranking for India will be a historical moment of trumpeting, but it will only be a moment. This will be the result of the BCCI’s miserable scheduling which took place a few yesterdays ago when there was no IPL to serve as a distraction. Today all future scheduling will revolve the IPL’s six weeks which could well become eight weeks in 2011.

The bigger pity is India’s Test team contains a small but very influential clutch of cricketers who have spent a decade pushing their team forward at home and abroad. Along with Mr T, to have batsmen of the quality of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman play seven Tests in ten months is like limiting an artist’s access to canvas and paint. Or, if artistic metaphors are not your choice, try telling men building a house that their use of brick and cement is being restricted to mood, rather than measure.

Then, this No.1 will mean little to the world. India will neither have the chance to retain control and possession of it by playing enough Test cricket and establishing an Australia-like Read more…

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The first class cricketers in the country and many stakeholders have a legitimate right to know how the BCCI’s special committee picks players for the annual retainership, also known as the Central Contract.

There are cases where no explanation is needed, however, in several cases the BCCI has to make a convincing statement.

The chief selector, the captain and coach of the national team and the secretary are part of the special committee. It’s not known whether Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Gary Kirsten were asked to give their inputs; however, K. Srikkanth must surely have consulted his colleagues.

The yardstick

To start with, performance with the bat/ball in the previous season is the only yardstick the special committee can consider while awarding contracts. If performance for the national team in Tests or One-Day Internationals is the basis, then one is left wondering why Mumbai’s Rohit Sharma figures in Grade ‘B’.

He has not been capped in Test cricket so far. In the previous contractual period Sharma played against England, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies and he scored 152 runs in 11 innings in which he remained not out five times. His scores were 11 not out, 3, 28, 8 not out (against England), 25 not out, 4 not out, 15 (against Sri Lanka), did not bat and 43 against New Zealand and 4, 0, 11 and 1 against the West Indies.

Thereafter, he was dropped for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and for the ICC Champions Trophy and he did not figure in the seven-match one-day series against Australia. He had suffered an injury during the Buchi Babu Tournament in Chennai.

He has since recovered, as evident from the selectors’ decision to name him captain of the BCCI President’s XI match against Sri Lanka.

Now, Sharma may be one of the brightest talents, but he doesn’t seem to have fulfilled the potential. He has played 41 matches and scored 695 runs. This, in itself, tells the Read more…

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In the last fortnight a man called Dhiraj Parsanna, who is usually only ever thought of when a Test match comes to Ahmedabad, set off a weighty discussion in world cricket. The former India spinner, who is now in charge of the pitch at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium in Motera, was pilloried for producing a surface variously described as a landing strip, a road or a bowlers’ graveyard, depending on who you read.

Certainly there wasn’t enough in that surface to force a result, as 1598 runs, including seven centuries drowned the bowlers out in a tame draw. But the reaction that a draw produced – and this is hardly the first dull draw in the history of the game – was worth a chuckle. In the previous Test played at Ahmedabad India had been rolled over inside three days by South Africa, and Parsanna was lampooned for producing an excessively lively surface. Perhaps he over-reacted, and erred on the side of caution this time around, but the same can hardly be said of his critics.

The most cynical among observers went to the extent of saying that the Board of Control for Cricket in India, previously only accused of neglecting the longest form, was now somehow deliberately sabotaging it. Experienced cricket watchers quickly drew the conclusion that the Board was intent on hastening the end of Test cricket and was therefore serving up pitches that produced only the most boring of games.

The moans and groans restarted in earnest when the second Test began at the Green Park in Kanpur. India won an important toss and the top-order, which had failed quite spectacularly in the first Test, made amends, with Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid producing innings of high quality that pushed the score above 600. Not again, not another surface tailor-made for flat-track bullies to bolster their averages, went the refrain.

Well, in less than four days, we’ve had a result, with a fast bowler being the Man of the Match. What’s the score with the groundsman here, then? Should Shiv Kumar, who tends the 22-yard strip at Green Park, be handed a fat bonus? Perhaps more games should be Read more…

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