Pakistan are the current T20 world champions. Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Mohammed Aamer, Saeed Ajmal and company played some enthralling cricket to claim the trophy last year. Since then, Pakistan have seen another exciting batsman emerge on the horizon: Umar Akmal. Therefore, it defies logic that nobody wanted to buy the 11 Pakistani players in the IPL 3 auction on Tuesday.
 
What's the reason? Let us go through what has been proffered by the men and women involved with IPL. Some team owners have said that the Pakistani players had a problem of availability during the period. That's nonsense. Unlike the top Aussie players, they are available for the entire duration. In fact, West Indian Kemar Roach, a Deccan Chargers buy, will miss the first two games. That's because the Zimbabwe tour of West Indies gets over on March 14 while IPL 3 begins on March 12.  The second Deccan Chargers game will be held on March 14.
 
Another gentleman was heard mouthing that the Pakistanis were not chosen because this was a short auction. There were too few players to be bought, he said. This logic doesn't hold either. The truth is that the owners spent sums as high as $720,000 and $610,000 for the likes of Parnell and Roach, while ignoring Aamer and Gul. Are we saying that the former two are better bowlers than Aamer (who is also emerging as a handy bat) and Gul? Or that the Pakistanis are not even worth $100,000? And have we forgotten that Afridi was the man of the series in the T20 World Cup 2009.
 
One logic being offered is that franchisees were not keen to have Pakistani players because there is an element of uncertainty involving them. Simply put, the relationship between the two countries is already edgy and could always get worse. In that case, the Pakistani players might go back. So why take the trouble?
 
Even this argument is specious. Sure, nobody would want to invest a huge amount in a 'risky' player. But then isn't investing over $750,000 in Keiron Pollard any less risky? What's the guarantee he will succeed? What about investing $750,000-plus in Bond, once a great bowler, now extremely injury prone. Let us not forget he's currently injured too. Besides, he Read more...

Avijit Ghosh IPL, Pakistan Blogs.CMDN.com, Bond, Cricket Blogs, Deccan Chargers, IPL, Keiron Pollard, Kemar Roach, Mohammed Aamer, Pakistan, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, T20, Umar Akmal, Umar Gul

Honours just about even.

New Zealand might disagree and bemoan the rain which ruined a likely march to victory over Pakistan yesterday - and their first significant series victory since beating the West Indies three years ago - but a one-all draw was a reasonable outcome.

Put it this way: New Zealand won a thriller at Dunedin which could have gone either way; Pakistan walked the second at the Basin Reserve against a wretched batting display; and New Zealand had a clear edge in the decider but ran out of time on a pitch which, despite confident predictions that it would be perkier than usual for the bowlers, proved to be another examination of their spirit and perseverance.

There wasn’t much between the teams and that added to the intrigue. Some of the cricket was of pretty poor quality - from both teams.

Pakistan spilt a barely believable 17 catches over the three tests; New Zealand had the batting horrors over the first two matches; but both had bowlers with penetration and skill.

The final test threw up a bright newcomer in debutant opener BJ Watling, who turned on a dazzling little cameo, slipping into one-day mode in the vain chase for victory; and an unexpected bonus in Martin Guptill’s offspin which - and don’t snigger here - might yet turn into a handy backup option on a hot day for the specialists.

Neither team was good enough to get and maintain dominance, and so there could be few complaints at a drawn series.

Pakistan’s best? Teenager Umar Akmal - top scorer in the series on debut with 379 runs at 63.16 - and new ball champion Mohammad Asif, whose 19 wickets at a terrific 19.78 apiece was comfortably the finest return of the bowlers.

As for New Zealand, the batting needs more work.

Even at McLean Park, the best batting surface in the country, there were those among the top six who missed out. Hard questions need to be asked and Daniel Flynn may have used Read more…

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All the talk is of New Zealand’s batting woes of late.

And with good reason. The performance of New Zealand’s top six in three of the four innings against Pakistan during the first two tests raised a pile of questions.

But what about the other half of the game?

New Zealand’s fast-medium trio - Shane Bond, Chris Martin and Iain O’Brien at Dunedin in the first test win, and Martin, O’Brien and Daryl Tuffey in Wellington - more than did their part.

They combined hostility with penetration against a Pakistani batting lineup which - teenage star Umar Akmal and captain Mohammad Yousuf apart - has flattered to deceive.

So all’s well in the seam department. But for how long?

Consider the ages of the incumbents and their current situations.

Bond is 34 and after a spectacular return to test cricket is now gone from the five-day side until at least the test against Bangladesh early in February.

Martin turned 35 yesterday and won’t be around for too much longer. He is targeting 200 test wickets and is up to 174, with four tests remaining this summer.

Allowing for good health and the desire remaining, he could be around for another year.

O’Brien is 33 and leaving for a new life in England at the end of the third test starting in Napier today.

Tuffey is 31 and resurgent, after a successful first test back from a five-year absence from the test game.

And then …

A word around the country with some of the first-class coaches came up with some Read more…

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As Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid prepare to leave the stage, the young pretenders are waiting in the wings

Sachin Tendulkar was 17 when he lit up the Summer of Graham (Gooch) with a match-saving 119 not out at Old Trafford. It was his first Test century, in his ninth match. Nearly two-and-a-half years later, the 23-year-old Brian Charles Lara had the old-timers harking back to Sir Garfield Sobers as he stroked a magnificent 277 at the SCG. It was his fifth Test in the maroon cap. Half a decade later, Ricky Ponting was a year younger when he played his sixth Test. His maiden Test hundred (127) and a 268-run partnership with Matthew Elliott were pivotal in deciding the destination of the little urn.

Last week, two 19-year-olds from opposite sides of the world made brilliant debut hundreds on either side of the Tasman Sea. Adrian Barath’s effort was one of the few bright spots in an another depressing West Indian performance away from home, while Umar Akmal’s technique and poise couldn’t quite save Pakistan in a fascinating Test at Dunedin.

Both have been talked about for a while. Barath was considered special by no less than Lara himself, and those who watched the Champions League Twenty20 in October quickly discovered what the fuss was about. Even in a form of the game where the ugly mow over midwicket is the default option, it was noticeable how much time he had to play his strokes and how beautifully he executed them. The Hyderabad crowds that grew up watching stylists such as ML Jaisimha and Mohammad Azharuddin took to him in a big way, just as they did to the rest of the Trinidad & Tobago side.

Umar had also been cherry-picked from the Under-19 side. Long before he made his debut, those that followed domestic cricket in Pakistan were talking of how he was even better than Kamran, his older brother who also keeps wicket. Lest it be forgotten, Kamran made one of the great centuries of our age, taking Pakistan from 0 for 3 and 39 for 6 to victory against India Read more…

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Pakistan is providing teenage players to international cricket for decades. First major instance is that of Mushtaq Muhammad, playing against mighty West Indies of Gary Sobers at a tender age of 15 years. The vibrancy of our youth cricket has flourished with the passage of time. Recent prime examples are fast bowler Muhammad Aamer and batsman Umar Akmal: perhaps best two teenage players of the recently concluded ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa.

This potential reflects enormity of Pakistan cricket talent. But unfortunately the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is not forthcoming to nurture this youth talent at domestic level. Domestic cricket, and more particularly, youth cricket is a prime prey to the PCB ad hoc policies and plans. PCB top brass always engages itself more passionately with international cricket and give comparatively little attention to development dynamics of domestic cricket. How best domestic cricket is to be scheduled and regulated so that new talent is harnessed to the optimum is not a major concern with our cricket bosses.

To sustain this premise the domestic cricket calendar for the year 2009-2010 can be taken as the best example to elaborate the prevalent ad hocism. The inter-district senior tournament, to be contested by 82 grassroots teams, has been postponed. Instead, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, most important domestic event, comprising 22 regional and department teams has started from October 10. The inter-region under-19 three-day tournament, also an important youth event, has been deleted this year. During the last few years, this tournament preceded regional academies, of 45 days duration, to be supervised by regional coaches and availed by 275 boys, performing well in the Inter-district under-19 tournament.

This is really absurd. The domestic schedule should start from grassroots: senior inter-district and inter-district under-19 tournaments. Regional teams are selected or should be selected from those players who perform well in inter-district senior and regional under-19 one-day Read more…

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Congratulations, Pakistan! Younis Khan's men deserved to win as much as MS Dhoni's boys deserved to lose in the Champion's Trophy game on Saturday. Pakistan weren't just the better team on paper; they were superior on the pitch too. They outdid India in every aspect of the game, including delivering no-balls.
 
We lost because we played mediocre cricket. And that's because without Zaheer, Sehwag and Yuvraj, we ARE a mediocre team. None of our bowlers is good enough to play for Pakistan. Most of their bowlers can walk into our side. The real problem is that we seem to be satisfied with mediocrity. It requires very little for players like Ishant Sharma or RP Singh to find a place in the playing XI.
 
Sharma seems more interested in restricting runs than taking wickets. Just recall how frequently he gets wickets in his first spell. It has been long since he effectively moved the ball. And he seems to lack the fire to bowl fast. His figures 8-2-39-2 will never reflect how ineffective he was.
 
It is the same story with RP Singh. Without pace and movement, he looks like a lamb to the slaughter. Relatively speaking, Praveen Kumar offers a better package: he is a better batsman, a better fielder and certainly has more craft and variation. But, for some reason, Singh seems to be regularly preferred.
 
And one shouldn't dismiss Harbhajan's 1 for 71 (the wicket came of his last ball) as 'one of those bad days'. Like Sharma, he too prefers to restrict a batsman than attack him. I am aware that he has over 200 ODI wickets and that he grabbed 5 wickets in the Colombo final earlier this month. But how consistently does he make effective bowling contributions? Just look at his bowling record in the last 10 games. Apart from the final, he has seven wickets in the other 9 games. One slow bowler who has really impressed in recent times - with his art as well as Read more...

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