Silly M(a)id-on

Yes, that combination still works!

59/5 off 48.3 overs..not too shabby..

India remain #1..and all is fine with the world for now…

And you, Mr. Amla…MUCH RESPECT sir..hats off!

More later,

Ciao.

Giving due respect to the “Steyn” gun, I present my thoughts on the past, present and future of this Test series in “bullet” points –

Nagpur

• Yeah yeah, Steyn was great..blah blah blah..line and length, and oh the pace…yada, yada, yada. Someday, I will appreciate that bowling performance more than I do right now. Ditto for Kallis and Amla. (P.S. In my last post, when I said that it would be great to see a Sehwag/Gambhir vs Morkel/Steyn, I meant I wanted to see a lovely contest where we could go all “ooh..aah..lovely bowling” for the first 20 overs, after which, normal service would resume and we would proceed to the demolition bit. Obviously, Steyn thought otherwise…)

• Mixed feelings regarding India’s injury woes. It could have been different if India wasn’t missing the middle-order mainstays. On the other hand, would it really have been any different, considering how unstoppable Steyn was? (While we are on injuries, I wonder why Harbhajan Singh never gets injured? :-/)

• The law of averages finally caught up with GG and MSD. 1^st real failure for GG in approx 11 test matches. And 1^st loss for Team India under MSD after 11 matches. That says something, huh! Too bad it had to happen now.

• Selection..uff…the lesser said the better!

Present

• THIS IS NOT DOOMSDAY. It’s ok. We lost. Rather badly, I agree. But it is ok. It doesn’t mean that we are suddenly not worthy of the #1 spot we hold (and hopefully will continue to hold). We lost to a very close #2 ranked team. Who, incidentally, just about managed to draw their “home” series with a team ranked #5. So if anything, this should just reinforce the fact that there is no clear “best” team right now. Just a bunch of very good ones, who will play “pass the parcel” with the coveted top rank based on who plays better when and against who. Until one of them finds the consistency synonymous with the Aussies of yore.

• I hope Laxman and Sreesanth are truly fit and not just hoping to somehow manage through the test. Playing XI – Sehwag, Gambhir, Vijay, Sachin, Laxman/Raina, Badri, Dhoni, Mishra, Bhajji, Zak, Ishant/Sreesanth? Barring any unforeseen injuries?

Kolkata

• The Test Of Love begins on Valentine’s Day. Aren’t you glad that it is going to be at Eden Gardens, a ground we hold great memories of? A ground we love? (Geddit? Test of Love…ground we love??)
• BCCI allegedly wants a dustbowl for Eden Gardens, and I say bring it on! Everyone plays to their strength right? And spin, apparently, is ours. Our batsmen can play it, and our bowlers can bowl it (er…right?).
• There is something about Eden Gardens that does something to Bhajji and makes him capable of taking more than 0 wickets. I checked.
• Just one piece of advice. India will do well to keep in check their fielding lapses. It didn’t matter that much against SL and B’desh, coz they were as awful as us. SA is a different league. (Visions of Saffers flying all over the field…suddenly appearing out of nowhere…)
• India will win this one. And it is going to be better than 2001. Think positive, be optimistic!

India vs South Africa…world number 1 and 2…my two most favourite cricket teams..yeah, this is going to be awesome!

I don’t know why I am so fond of South Africa. It is not like we have a particularly great record against them. It’s not like they are an awesome team..they do tend to choke a lot. Is it because my earliest memory of cricket is that series back in ’92? Perhaps. But whatever the reason might be, they are here and we have delicious contest at hand.

(A lesson in history of these two teams wouldn’t be amiss here, so here you go.)

India goes into this series with a near inexperienced middle order. Rahul Dravid is injured thanks to Shahadat Hossein…

(Shahadat, you are one useless fellow. You can’t even bowl a bouncer properly and you call yourself a fast bowler?? And now Dravid will not be able to play against SA thanks to your uselessness!! WTH!! Test matches are a rarity anyways, and now I’ll have to wait till the IPL to see Dravid in action again…the IPL…do you realise how painful that is for me?? You better not get within 50 feet of me in your lifetime..or I promise..bad things will happen to you…I hope you have a rotten 2010…I hope that you don’t get any wickets this year and get dropped from the team..yes, this is my curse!!)

Sorry, where was I?

Yes, so as I was saying, RD is out because of his jaw and Yuvi and possibly VVS are out too. This means that we get a little peek into the future of Team India with Badri and Vijay and possibly Sharma getting a look in. I am not too happy about playing an opener at #3, but I guess asking for Pujara would be expecting too much from the selectors. And anyways, the BCCI did one good thing by at least scheduling a couple of tests, so one should not be greedy. Also, Vijay has done well with the chances he has got so far. And it is not unheard of in India for a player to bat in a completely different slot than he is used to. So, I can live with this.

Badri, I am happy he is getting a chance to stake his claim for the future. Whether he is able to do anything about it remains to be seen. Sharma, though, does not inspire much confidence in me. He might be immensely talented, but I feel he needs a year or two in the domestic circuit to learn how to do justice to his ability. To learn how to construct an innings. My choice for that slot would have been Kaif. But the lesser I think about that option, the better it will be for me coz I don’t see it happening.

Bowling now. I suppose the lineup should read Zak, Ishant, Bhajji and Mishra for tomorrow? Hope to see Ishant bowl well and Mishra out-bowl the dart-thrower.

For a team I claim to be a huge fan of, I am embarrassingly ignorant of their batsmen. Yes, so Graeme Smith is one of the mainstays. And so is Kallis (By the way, why does everyone hate Kallis so much? What has he done?). I hear good things about AB too. So I suppose they are the ones to look out for?

And their bowling strength lies in their seamers. Morkel, Steyn and Parnell. If at all there are some seam-friendly conditions, a Morkel-Steyn vs Sehwag-Gambhir contest should be riveting stuff.

I am hopeful for an intense competition on-field like Ind vs Aus usually is, but without the nasties.

Gentleman, play!

(RANT ALERT)

I have been in hiding for the last 24 hours. I had to…after the hiding India got. So, the last 24 hours were spent in Denial. That was Stage 1.

This is Stage 2.

You wanna know why you lost the game yesterday, India? You wanna know why?? Here’s how it happened-

- Going in with  3 seamers when the pitch is declared to be a graveyard for fast bowlers? Bad idea. Leaving out Mishra in the bargain? Even worse.

- Dhoni said in the after-match interview “I have never seen so many runs scored backward of point.” (Malik scored a LOT of runs in that area) Really Dhoni? So it didn’t occur to you to put a fielder there for that?

- Yusuf Pathan -> 56/1 and 5 runs. ‘nuf said. Try Nayar. How much worse can it be? You might get a pleasant surprise due to his novelty factor.

- Harbhajan Singh -> 71/1 and 13 runs.  Try Mishra. Seriously.

- Gambhir -> Did the groin inury affect your brain too, Gautam? Basics man, basics…

- Kohli/Raina -> Someone forgot to tell you I guess. You are playing in an ODI. That’s right. O-D-I. One Day International. Repeat after me….One…Day….International. There you go. Remember this for tommorow. Try and “construct” an innings. You cannot blast your way out of trouble here always.

-Dravid -> That was your chance to be the hero. The saviour. And you blew it! Repeat after me….One…Day….International. Geddit?

Losing to Pakistan in an ICC event…and now SA is out of the tournament…sheesh!!

Stage 3.

All is forgiven if you beat Australia tommorow. I’ll help you. I’ll stuff my fantasy team with Australians even if that means using up all my transfers.

Didn’t I say that I don’t think India will go far in this tournament in my last post? Well, I take it back. Now I want India to qualify for the finals. And Pakistan too. And I want India to win the Cup. So there.

With all these discomforting talks going on about ODIs being past their prime, I have been asking myself what exactly is it about ODIs that I don’t want them to die out. Am I just refusing to give up something I have enjoyed so much for as long as I have been following cricket? Or do ODIs still have something to give to the game?

Shane Warne thinks we don’t need them anymore. Harsha Bhogle has a point when he says “If you remove the ODI from the mix, the gulf between T20 and Tests, from a batting point of view, becomes way too vast, and over time you end up with a situation where players are good enough to play either the one or the other.”

Peter Roebuck thinks There Is Life In The ODI Yet. While Dileep Premachandran calls for an overhaul.

There has been a lot of talk about ODIs needing “a context”. Lots of ideas are being thrown about. No more bilateral series, no phony 4-match triangular series, playing ODIs as a build up to Test matches on tours, splitting each innings into 2 etc. Leela made a point about ODIs series being an interesting watch these days only if there is some off-field drama associated with it, and I find myself agreeing with it. But then there wasn’t always some kind of drama associated with ODIs when I used to stay up late and see all those matches, was there? (or was I really fokat those days?)

I mean, all of India’s matches were seen simply because India was playing. All of Australia’s matches were seen because they were the numero uno team and I wanted to see if any of their opponents were giving them a run for their money. Pakistan’s matches were followed cheer the other team because earlier Pakistan losing used to be equal to India winning somehow. All of South Africa’s matches were seen because when they were not busy choking, they used to play good cricket. And for Shaun Pollock.

And now when I find myself trying to write a preview for the Compaq Cup, I don’t know what to say. I mean yeah, I’m happy that India is finally back in action. And I am super excited to see how Dravid will fare and all. But it’s not how it is supposed to be. This series (and the Eng-Aus one) seems so pointless that I am tempted to label it as another Fake ODI Series. As someone commented on someone’s blog (and I paraphrase here because I don’t remember where I read this)

It takes just 4 matches to decide a tri-series, but it takes 7 one-dayers to conclude that England suck at pyjama cricket.

Indeed.