Forgotten past of Indian Cricket

Hrishikesh Kanitkar will always be remembered for his four of Saqlain Mushtaq which fetched India a victory in independence cup final against Pakistan. Good that he also won a Ranji trophy and would be remembered for that in more keen followers of the game. But his achievement brought me memories of several other players who played just few matches for India and were forgotten thereafter.

So here I am, jotting down as many names as I can remember.

1. Vikram Rathore (chhote miyan who opened wih Sachin in 96)
2. Paras Mhambrey (disastrous introduction to international cricket in 96)
3. Ashish Kapoor (replaced Rajesh Chauhan in trinity)
4. Salil Ankola (these days I don't see any of his serials also)
5. Devang Gandhi (Steve Waugh's invincibles ended many careers like him)
5. Vijay Bhardwaj (unlucky with his eye-sight problem)
6. T. Kumaran (impressive debut in Australia 99 but somehow lost his way)
7. Tinu Yohanan (A keralite before Sreesanth)
8. Sairaj Bahutule (This guy replaced Anil Kumble :( )
9. David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh and Sujit Somsundar (Karnataka trio )
10. Nilesh Kulkarni (Wicket of first ball in a run marathon)
11. Abbey Kuruvilla (did well on WI tour 97 but faded away after that)
12. Avishkar Salvi (Still there in domestic circuit but limited international presence)
13. Amay Khurasia (one inning against SL in 99 series was very good)
14. Noel David (selection was more controversial than Doherty's or Beer's)
15. Gagan Khoda (for a long time only Rajasthan player to have played for India at least in my memory)
16. Sharandeep Singh (considered better than Harbhajan by people such as Prasanna and Bedi)
17. Sreedharan Sriram (yet another wud-be all-rounder explored by Indians)
18. Rahul Sanghvi (Unfortunate for having to compete with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh for a spot in team)

And now the list of wicket keepers before Parthiv Patel rescued India!!!
1. Saba Karim (Unfortunate end of career)
2. MSK Prasad (keeping was good but batting was not up to mark)
3. Sameer Dighe (Age and performance both counted against him)
4. Ajay Ratra (same problem as MSK)
5. Vijay Dahiya (seemed better than all other alternatives. Don't understand why he could not play more)

Indian Cricket and English Football

As I write this, England, the financial powerhouse of Football, are going to take on Slovenia in a do-or-die game in few hours time. A favorable result in this game would guarantee them a ... no not a world cup...but a place in last 16. With all those stars (or are they) of EPL they are struggling to make it past first hurdle in an EASY group. They were touted as a force to reckon with after Spain and Brazil. This article draws parallel between Indian Cricket team and English Football team. My only wish is these fears don't come true. We have already been flabbergasted in last two Twenty20 world cups by lesser teams of which we were supposedly masters before the advent of the Great Indian Tamasha. The only soothing fact is that the IPL is after this world cup.

Junior Senior debate in Indian Cricket

Almost a decade ago India were mauled by Australia and Pakistan in the then annual tri nation fixture in Australia. Parallel to that India U-19 team led by Mohammad Kaif won the world cup. The senior Indian team was able to win only one match in whole series. Former Pakistan keeper Moin Khan said that Indians lacked 'gutso' apart from Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja. As far as I remember that team included Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly. Srinath was also in that team.

A year later these stalwarts along with some fresh blood (Harbhajan Singh) stopped Aussie juggernaut in a historic test series. Two years later they reached the finals of ODI world cup. I cited these because these examples just go to show even the best took time to settle. VVS Laxman made his debut in 1997 but became reliable as a batsman only in 2001. Harbhajan Singh came into picture in 1998. Again he became a permanent face only in 2001. Yuvraj Singh was the part of that world cup winning team in 2000. He made his debut in late 2000, became an important player only in 2002. Even Gautam Gambhir is in India colors since 2004 but could cement his place only 2 years back.

Not everyone can be as good as Sachin, Dravid or Dhoni to cement his place after one or two series. The standard of domestic cricket is so low that players find it difficult to make the cut to highest echelon. That is why I believe, we should be patient with youngsters. Of course there will be disappointments like we had with Hemang Badani and Ajit Agarkar but given the current state of domestic cricket we have to live with it. Stop vitriol against Vijays, Jadejas, Rohits, Virats, Ishants etc. Some of them will fail but we can have better players from this pool itself. Virat has improved a lot since I saw him first in 2008 IPL.

More importantly the selectors should stop tormenting these players. Choosing players based on IPL performances should be stopped. Also, a young player should be told clearly of expectations from him and reason for sidelining him. Mohammad Kaif was sidelined without any proper reason. Dinesh Karthik is not a team member but a stop gap arrangement. Whosoever gets injured from 1-7 he is called as replacement. How can a player improve if he is not played regularly? Sudeep Tyagi was made to carry drinks for so many matches and then sidelined after one failure. Ojha, Mishra and Chwla are all talented but by rotating them unnecessarily you are denting their confidence. One more thing is to choose horses for courses. While Mishra looks good for longer version of the game, Ojha is better as far as shorter version is concerned. Similarly, Tyagi, Ishant and Sreeshanth look to be test material. Don't play them in ODIs and T20s and then discard them on the basis of their performances in those formats. Similarly Nehra, Praveen RP, Dinda can be tried in shorter formats. ZAK looks good for all formats except the shortest. It is high time now that someone other than Yuvraj is tried in test team. May be Virat Kohli or Cheteshwar Pujara should be given chances.

Please stop this unnecessary junior-senior debate. The seniors were juniors themselves and had their own shortcomings during their young days and they are not going to play forever. Sensible selections based on strengths and weaknesses of players will go a long way in making India the strongest cricket nation.

"Gutted"

Saying "gutted" after India's early exit is an understatement but that is because I can't think of any other word to express my feelings. The defeat is not always unwelcome. We lost in 2007 WC in first round. But that defeat helped us improve. We found victory in Twenty20 WC 2007. We also got a deadly combo of Gambhir and Sehwag. Harbhajan was back to his old ways. RP Singh and Sreeshanth were clocking 140ks. As if this was not enough we got new talents in Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar. Rohit Sharma batted with gutso and elegance in Australia, that place for ultimate test. Less than a year had passed since our World Cup fiasco but we were right at the top.

All this was followed by the IPL 2008. An event which was thought to give impetus to Indian Cricket. It gave. It gave money. It gave Yusuf Pathan, Manpreet Gony, Swapnil Asnodkar etc. Rohit Sharma was a major success here also. Yusuf Pathan and Manpreet Gony were drafted into Indian squad. Gony lasted as much as his abilities but I am sure that Yusuf Pathan has outlived his ability. Thank God, Asnodkar failed in subsequent editions. After that our 'fast' (forgive me for using this word) bowling resources have taken a beating. The new talents (Tyagi, Mithun, Vinay) have not been tried well. On the other hand Ishant, RP,Sreeshanth and Munaf are so woefully out of form that barring Sreeshanth (due to his state team lacking quality) no one can be assured of place in the state team. Our batters could hit the ball miles on benign pitches but that illusion also gave way after yesterday's performances. They can still hit miles but only against below par domestic bowlers.

Who to blame? MS Dhoni, Gary Kirsten, Lalit Modi, Sharad Pawar, Niranjan Srinivas or Srikkanth? I don't know.

What now? I thought last year's defeat would be an eye-opener but no it wasn't. I do not have much hope this year around. I did not follow the IPL this year and I wish Pakistan wins this time around too. For full two years Pakistanis will go gaga about their performance in all dirty web fora and all those IPL following Indians will bear them. May be that would be an eye-opener because it is cricket following public which needs to open its eye now.

India vs Australia. Again.

India would most probably meet Australia in the second round of the twenty20 world cup but I am not talking of that. The news of Australia playing tests in India this winter has left me excited. This means we would not have to bear with the silly seven match ODI series. Just like the series with South Africa was riveting I believe this would be far more competitive.

The move by Indian board to have a series with Australia shows that we are concerned about the test ranking. And arranging a series with a strong team shows their positive attitude. However Australia would be a tough opponent to beat so it is a kind of double edged sword. And no its not an overkill as matches with Australia are so exciting that we can have a series every year. And yes we also visit Lanka in July. So 8 tests remain this year which is a very good thing considering players like Dravid, Laxman and Mishra who only play in tests.

Comedy of errors

India and South Africa are ranked 1 & 2 respectively in test cricket and 2 & 3 respectively in ODIs. Very little separates these two, at least in the sub continent. It was no different in the first ODI between these two teams. But as they say, India may not be the best team in the world but it is the most exciting team to watch. If you had any doubts they would have been cleared after watching last match. South Africa required more than 60 runs at an asking rate of about 13. In fact it is not easy to get those runs in one over forget about getting it in 5 overs with Steyn and Parnell on the pitch. It was here that Indians decided that the match was too one-sided. The solution? Well, transform Steyn and Parnell to Gibsy and Smithy respectively and yes transform Sreeshanth and Nehra to... guess what? Yes you are right. Mashrafe Mortaza. Now we have a game on. Yahoo! The end result will be decided by who blinks first. And it has to be South Africa because Indians were sleeping till penultimate over. So, once again our meticulous planning and execution injected much needed life in the most lifeless form of cricket. Can you imagine cricket world without India?

Indian Team in New Year

Ian Chappel says that India are not a long term no.1 because they don't have the bowling firepower to take 20 wickets against top notch sides. M S Dhoni was quick to retort by saying they can prove otherwise by staying no. 1.

So how good is this Indian team? I believe an all rounder's absence is not a problem in test matches. I don't remember a genuine all rounder in both the great sides West Indies (75-90) and Australia (99-07). If there is one format where specialists thrive it is test cricket. As far as batting is concerned India have problem of plenty. Even when Dravid and Sachin were not in good form India didn't perform poorly. I believe replacing batsmen is not as difficult as replacing bowlers is. Remember Aussies had no problem replacing the likes of Waugh brothers while the struggles of Aussie bowlers after departure of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne are there to see. So it all boils down to champion bowlers as pointed out by Chappel. Yes we do not have any great bowler currently. Take it with a pinch of salt but Zaheer and Harbhajan currently are not greats even when compared to Indian greats only. However one thing which is good is that we have 4 bowlers available all the time. In 1990s we had hard time finding the third seamer to accompany Srinath and Prasad. We played ordinary bowlers like D Ganesh, David Johnson, Paras Mhambrey etc. That changed with the advent of Zaheer and Nehra. Later on we got Irfan, Sreeshanth, Munaf, RP Singh and Ishant. None of them have been consistent but at different times one or two of them have been in superb form to provide us with necessary sting to dismiss opposition. Ishant and Sreeshanth look to me as genuine world class bowlers in Test Cricket. So, my point is even if we don't have someone of the ilk of Kumble now, we still have 4 men who can combine well to give desired results. Well I agree that this requires proper selection and intelligent manoeuvring of bowlers when taking the field. Yes an auto pilot luxury is still not available to Indian Captain and Coach.

India is no.1 in test cricket

So, finally India is no. 1 in the ICC test ranking. Any Indian cricket fan would be proud of this achievement. It all started after India beat mighty Aussies (the best team I have ever seen play till date) 2-1 at home. That was the time when under Sourav Ganguly we started our journey to become a powerhouse. I remember the problems plaguing the team then.

Anil Kumble was ineffective outside sub continent. He changed that in 2003-04 Australia tour. India always lacked genuine pace attack to rattle opposition on green tops. They have not found a great seam bowler yet but likes of Ishant Sharma, Sreeshanth, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel did well after Srinath retired. Not all of them have been consistently delivered performance in last decade. Perhaps only Zaheer Khan is consistent. But we always had one or the other pacer coming in and doing well. Add to it the performances of Irfan Pathan, R P Singh and L Balaji. Our opening woes were partially ended by Virendra Sehwag in 2002 while opening became our strength with resurgence of Gautam Gambhir. Adam Gilchrist's advent meant that a wicket keeper had to bat as well as a middle order batsman if not better. That problem was taken care by M S Dhoni in 2005. Batsmen struggled in 90's to do well outside the sub continent except for Sachin Tendulkar. Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman in their unique way of batting ensured that Indian team became TEAM INDIA from ONE-MAN-ARMY.

Much has been done but much more remains. With India playing only two tests in next 10 months this stay at top wont be long. It would be interesting to see how India copes with retirements of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman. Signing off on positive note I believe that it is much easier to replace batting greats rather than bowling greats.

Challengers

I have always looked to Challengers trophy with a lot of hope. Every time I expect to see some new player emerging out of shadows of biggies already there. I have not been disappointed in last 10 years. Be it Ashish Nehra or Piyush Chawla who came to limelight by bowling out Sachin Tendulkar or even M S Dhoni. Its importance may have diminished with the advent of the IPL as domestic players get a chance in that tournament to rub their shoulders with senior international players. However, not every player is capable of doing well in the shortest format of the game. I believe a similar tournament with four day games is also necessary to give more exposure and recognition to those who are doing well in longer format. I know it is very difficult to squeeze that in given the tight schedule of Indian team but if we want ourselves to be a world beating like Aussies and West Indians of yore we need to do this urgently.

This is because we don't have a competitive domestic tournament of the likes of those in Australia. So younger players will get their chance only if we either overhaul the system or arrange such tournaments. Overhauling seems very difficult given the political clout of state associations but these and similar arrangements can be done. We should also have frequent tours of India A and Under-19 teams to countries outside the sub continent so that players are not found wanting on their first tour abroad. Imagine someone who has played on docile pitches of sub continent throughout his career and then faces the fury of genuine fast bowlers on bouncy wickets. How can we expect him to perform well if he is not a prodigy? Not everyone can be a Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid. Same is the case with Indian pace bowlers. they have to drudge on dust bowls before they make their mark. My opinion of Prasad was of a mediocre bowler before he burst into prominence in England in 1996. He even bagged 'CEAT cricketer of the year' award in that season. Without improvement in domestic cricket management we can not be consistent performers in international arena. Some champions can give us a temporary no. 1 spot but continuous replenishment is assured only by strong bench strength. We don't have a dearth of talent, we just need to polish them well.

Disappointments galore

So Indians have crashed out of yet another ICC event without making it to knock out round. It is very disappointing especially because they have been doing very well for past two years or so. Agreed they were missing 3 key players but that should not be used as an excuse for this. They could have easily won against Pakistan had Harbhajan, R P and Ishant given even their average performance. While Harbhajan had an ordinary series, other bowlers, namely Ishant and R P, have been struggling since June.

The next series is against Australia and due to nature of wickets in India we perhaps are not that dependent on pacers but still we require 3 pacers due to powerplays and ball change rules. Sreeshanth and Munaf showed a lot of promise in recently conclude Irani trophy but one match wont make a season. Sreeshanth to me has always been a top class bowler in longer version but i doubt he would be able to contain runs in limited overs format. However, Munaf should be given chance ahead of R P and Ishant. He ahas improved his batting of late and his fielding is slightly better than what it used to be few years back. Given the batting skills of Yusuf Pathan why not replace him with Nayar or Irfan Pathan and hope they are able to bowl few overs of gentle pace. Winning a series against this resurgent Australian team would give a lot of confidence to Indians and let us hope that our young pacers find form in this series.

Loss to Pakistan

Perhaps I am going overboard in analyzing Indian team's performance so early. However I can't stop myself from writing after what happened yesterday. It would be too harsh to single out anybody for yesterday's debacle because cricket is a team game. But I think bowling was really pedestrian yesterday. Harbhajan had an off day or may be he performed to the level his previous performances suggest. I have noticed over the years that Pakistanis play Harbhajan very well. In fact they play off spinners very well. So, when India's best bowler failed, disaster was in the offing. R P Singh and Ishant Sharma bowled a very poor line and length. May be the figures don't suggest this but I am talking of not only this match but others also where Indians have failed to adapt according to situation. Pakistan should have been restricted to 260 after we had them on mat at 65/3. Yusuf Pathan continues to struggle in this format and I believe it is the high time we give Abhishek Nayar a chance. Kohli should be given some more chances as it would be harsh on him to judge by one performance. I believe one should play bowler who can perform well and not have notions that 3 pacers and 1 spinner is the norm. I believe Amit Mishra can perform much better than Ishant or R P on any pitch going by their current form.

All is not lost yet. India had some positives from the game and it felt nice to see Gambhir and Raina doing well after all that piffle about short pitch stuff. Indians have always raised their game to new levels when playing against Australia in the past and I wish this team comes out with flying colors tomorrow.

India Sri Lanka Final

As expected India are up against Sri Lanka in the final of Compaq Cup. What was unexpected is the debacle of India against some quality bowling by Lankans. This is the second batting collapse in last two tournaments. what is disappointing for Indian fans is the fact that all the top four batsmen had starts and they frittered it away. The pitch was difficult under lights but after being set they could have carried on to have at least a face saving loss.

Today is the final and I want to see India victorious in the finals in Sri Lanka after a long time. At least I don't remember any recent victory of India in Sri Lanka in any tournament involving more than two teams. Despite the loss I still believe India is a better team than Sri Lanka and some good bowling up front backed by some spine in batting may see India through. I hope Dhoni gets lucky today with toss.

India in West Indies

India are in the West Indies to play a 4 ODI series. I don't know why the BCCI scheduled just a 4 match tourney, but then many decisions of the BCCI are beyond my comprehension. However, this event gives a chance to a cricket crazy nation to see whether the debacle of Dhoni boys' in England was just an aberration or the team is in decline.

West Indies don't seem to be a formidable opposition esp. in absence of Fidel Edwards, but those who watched last ODI series India played in Carribean would vouch for the fact that West Indies can be very menacing in their home condition. India have looked a very good side in ODIs in last season triumphing over Sri Lanka, England and New Zealand in style. This time bowling looks more potent with RP Singh, Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar in pace department and Harbhajan in spin. Also, to assist these players we have more-than-just-decent part-timers in Yusuf, Jadeja and Rohit Sharma.

It is going to be interesting to see how Murali Vijay and Badrinath perform. Vijay has looked solid as a batsman and should make most of the opportunity he has got in absence of Tendulkar and Sehwag. Badrinath has one more chance to prove he is worthy successor to legends of Indian Cricket in not just limited over format but also in the test cricket.

Around a week's break must have rejuvenated Indian players and now the run-a-ball innings of Dhoni and Jadeja could prove to be very useful in this format. There are not much expectations from this Indian team and it will only help them. For me, India are the favorites to win this series provided they are still not carrying niggles.

IPL and EPL

So the dreaded thing has happened. With all the hype and glitterati of the IPL, very few of us would have thought India will not reach semi finals. But then the only test playing nation Indians have defeated is Bangladesh. Yes, they are still better than 2007  World Cup squad. But they lost to West Indies (without a significant contribution from Gayle) and England. England is the same team which was branded "chokers", a group of snobbish players and a team lacking talent after their loss against Netherland. Now the same team whose players play insipid county cricket "bounced" us out of the tournament as the Cricinfo reports. At the beginning of this tournament i had no hopes from England but they have left Indian team in hopeless situation.

With all the glitz and glamour of the IPL Mr. Modi and co. wanted us to realise what good the IPL has done to India. May be the IPL has made life easier for an ordinary domestic cricketer but scheduling it so close to an ICC event was bound to leave players jaded. Remember all these Indian players were subjected to intense pressure in their respective teams for about 40 days. A bit of pressure is good but to have 14 twenty20 games within a span of 40 days is just too much. I never thought anyone in India will celebrate dismissal of Tendulkar by Warne. But commercialism did that too. Team bonding? What is that man? Now they want 2 IPLs a year and add to it the Champions League. Where is the time for test cricket or for that matter any form of international cricket?

India is fast turning into England of World Soccer. All hype and no value.