Rahul Dravid makes an ODI comeback

When Rahul Dravid's name was announced in the list of probables a couple of months back for the Champions Trophy, it almost made it certain that he would make it to the final squad. Were the selectors not to be serious about considering him for the final India Team they wouldn't have bothered to take this risk - or as some critics may say, take this backward step. Now that Dravid has indeed been selected for both the ODI squads - the Champions Trophy as well as the Champions Trophy, I would like to congratulate the selectors for making a wise decision.

For many years now, India's selectors have made too much of a fuss over the age of a cricketer, and the selectors always seem to have been worried about getting the team right for the next World Cup rather than for the immediate requirement, as if all the cricket that is played in the four years between two World Cups doesn't matter, and they are all practise matches leading up to the championship. I can understand a few new guys being blooded six to seven months before the World Cup and that too if it appears that the team is facing a certain weakness in or more departments. But dropping players who should be sure selections to make way for risky newcomers doesn't make any sense. Over time, some players drop form, get injured or need rest for some or the other reason and new players automatically make it - organically. Those who show promise will continue to be fielded and some of them will eventually become regulars. The not so good will fade out. This is a natural process, and unless there is an emergency requirement, I don't see much reason or merit in forcing something. Rarely has this strategy paid dividends in this past. Let's hope that Dravid's inclusion will set a right precedent for the selectors of the future. That the selections to represent India will be on the basis of merit and merit alone. If someone is 40, and still good, great!

Champions Trophy: India outclassed by World Champions

At the end of over no.42, India were not too badly placed at 197 for 4, with Mohammad Kaif and Mahender Singh Dhoni doing duty for India in the middle of the Punjab Cricket Association Ground at Mohali, Chandigarh in the last league match of the ICC Champions Trophy 2006. Things took a turn from there on, as the World Champions took control of the match, first with the ball and then with the bat. Riding on controlled late spells by the pace duo of Lee and Mc Grath and superb knocks from skipper Ponting and man-of-the-match Damien Martyn, Australia thrashed India by 6 wickets and qualified for the semi-finals in style.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Dravid won the toss, and as expected, elected to bat. Considering the recent form of the Indian batsmen, the team got off to a reasonably good start. Tendulkar and Sehwag laid a good foundation, though Tendulkar himself got out cheaply for 10. His opening partner however struck form at the right time – there is something about Sehwag, for a man badly out of form (he had 54 runs from his previous 6 innings), he is almost arrogantly confident. In the very first ball of the match, Sehwag swung the bat and guided the ball to the third man. Not once did he look out of touch against Lee, Mc Grath or any of the other Aussie bowlers. Compare this to the in-form Tendulkar, who took his own sweet time getting settled down, opening his account not before he had faced a dozen balls already. Sehwag had already raced to 21 by then. Dravid continued with the good work and the platform had been created. What was needed now was for the stroke-makers to come to the party.

Therein India failed, and miserably so. Raina coming in before the free-playing Pathan was a wrong ploy, and it cost India dear with him failing even to rotate the strike. This was the period when Lee, who had been expensive earlier, sent down a maiden 43rd over, following it up with just a single off his next over. India should have reached in excess of 275, and fell short by a good twenty five runs. In the hindsight, you could well say that the way Australia batted, even 275 would not have been enough. But twenty five more runs would have put further pressure on the batsmen, and what would have happened then, you would never know. However, that was not the case and the Aussie openers ripped the Indian quickies apart without ever really playing a risky shot. Pathan and Munaf did not have the pace to rattle the batsmen, and both Gilchrist and Shane Watson settled in comfortably. While Gilchrist scored his first two boundaries against Pathan, Watson scored his first two against Patel. When they were bowling a fuller length, the line was too wide and when it was dug in short, either didn’t have the speed to make it count. 26 runs were scored off the 7th and 8th overs and from there on the run rate never fell below 6 till the 25th over. Skipper Ponting joined in the fun later and scored a brisk 58. Not afraid to come out of his crease, he never really allowed Harbhajan or Mongia to really dominate the proceedings. While Mongia impressed with his spinners, Harbhajan should have bowled a more attacking line. He bowled too flat and too defensively, and the batsmen were quite happy to let him do that. Among the two, Mongia was the one who looked like taking any wickets. And he did that in his very first over. At 111/2, Damien Martyn trodded in, to play his most memorable innings in recent times. Martyn started off catiously against the spinners, but when he finally opened himself up, he was on song. Much like his skipper, Martyn used his feet well against the spinners. Including a beautiful inside-out drive over the cover fence against Mongia, he struck eight lucid boundaries. When he finally flicked a low full toss from Patel to the midwicket boundary, Martyn broke Australia’s jinx against India in the Champions Trophy. For India, it was all over.

Champions Trophy: India's duty to the World of Cricket

On Sunday, the 29th of October 2006, the Indian cricket team will need to shoulder a huge responsibility. It is in all likelihood, not going to be a very important match for India, as they will probably beat the West Indies in their next match and seal a place in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy. But the importance of the match is much bigger - India will be doing duty for the entire cricketing fraternity.

For too long now, one team has been dominating the world of cricket. Australia's incessant reign at the top has resulted in the game becoming less charming and less popular. The Indian cricket team has a chance now to send them packing back home. An early exit by the Australians will be a refreshing change. You could argue saying that even in the previous editions of this trophy, Australia have made quick exits. But they were one-off, knock-out matches, which could be called flukes. That's not the case here. The once-mighty West Indians dealt them an early blow this time. But unlike last time, they have a chance to recover. England could have sealed their fates, but they pom-pommed their way to a defeat. So, the mantle is on India's shoulders now. Send the Aussies home early and do the world of cricket a favour. It will be upto the Englishmen then, to retain the Ashes, and clinch the deal for the world.

Cricket on bad pitches: I am loving it

Vivian Richards says that the pitches prepared for the ICC Champions Trophy are not good enough for One-day cricket. Rickey Ponting obviously agrees with him. So does Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Murlidharan, Navjot Singh Sidhu and the rest of the cricketing world. The CCI president is so shocked by the under-prepared wickets that he wants the final of the premier cricket tournament shifted out of his own ground! And he must be right because the ICC wants the decision reversed( no, no it's got nothing to do with the fact that ICC read in the reverse reads CCI, just that they always take the wrong decisions, that's all!!). But I am loving it.

A completely doped out Pakistan defeated favourites Sri Lanka. The permanent underdog Newzealand outclassed the Proteas and then the West Indies, beaten-to-the-pulp-by-Lanka shocked World Champions Australia in a classic cliff-hanger. Three matches so far in the main league of the Champions Trophy and Three upsets. What more could one ask for? The berated ICC Trophy is suddenly alive and kicking - all thanks to the severely criticised wickets.

Slowly but surely One-day cricket has been losing its charm - everything seemed to be falling into a very monotonous pattern. If you want to be less harsh, you could say that there were four or five patterns from which the captain was free to choose one depending on the situation and his own style and supply of substance in the team. Lets look at some of the ingredients:

1. Captain A elects to go with one traditional opener and one of the swashbuckling variety( Dravid and Tendulkar). Captain B prefers a high-risk, high-gain flamboyant couple to open. ( Kaluwitharana/Jayasurya).

2. When the going gets tough in the middle, fielding captain A who has saved 4-5 overs of his opening bowler's spell for the end-burst, brings him back for a 2 over spell to help him get a break-through. In this rule, there are almost no exceptions, so no captain B at all

3. Captain A experiments(sic) by promoting batsman no. 7 or 8 to no.3. Captain B does not. He prefers a regular batsman at no.3

4. If 3 to 4 wickets fall early, god save the viewers because now is consolidation time. So batsmen 5,6,7 will rotate the strike like good school boys, take singles, dispatch the occasional bad ball to the boundary et cetera. God really save the viewer if 5,6 and 7 fall too because now the game is as good as over.

The last 500 One-day Cricket matches have been played like this. The first 250 were fun because it was new. The next 250 were not because of the first 250. Thank god for the CCI and the ICC Champions Trophy wickets. The monotony has been broken and One-day cricket is fun again. A television commentator (think it was Tony Greig, but am not too sure) had once remarked that Cricket is at its best when the ball dominates the bat by just a little margin. He was almost right, except for the margin bit. Cricket is at its best when the ball dominates the bat by more than just a margin !!!

A new trouble for Pakistan Cricket: Nandrolone

Somehow this ICC Champions Trophy is not a very auspicious tournament for Cricket. This is in addition to the fact that it is not the right tournament anyways. Where is the point in having a tournament like this six months before the World Cup? The format this year (of the main phase of the tournament) is exactly the format of the earlier World Cups( 1975 & 1979, 83 and 87 were different in only that there were two matches now between each team in the pools).

Well, lets not meander away from the point - and the point is a substance called Nandrolone, which is now rocking Pakistan Cricket. This latest trouble for Pakistan Cricket might also mark the arrival of the drug-menace in the world of cricket. No, I am not discounting Warne's popping of the pill his mummy gave him, but Warne being Warne, and the fact that it was an isolated case made it a little less dangerous. What's making me more than a little uneasy about Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif is 1) the fact that 2 guys have been caught together, both for the same banned anabolic steroid called nandrolone, and both are Pakistan's new ball bowlers, and 2) they are from Pakistan and the fact that the tests were carried out, not by a neutral body like WADA but by Pakistan internally, and that Pakistan has on its own recalled them from the Champions Trophy.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has acted in the most appreciable manner and its efforts needs to be lauded. The recall of Akhtar and Asif means that Pakistan will suddenly need 2 new guys to open their attack in their match against Lanka tomorrow.

Nandrolone, the substance consumption that Akhtar and Asif have been found guilty of is not new to the world of sports. Linford Christie, Merlene Ottey, Dougie Walker and many other illustrious sportsmen have been banned after having been caught for Nandrolone-abuse. And this makes it all the more dangerous for Cricket.

Globalisation of cricket, My Foot!!

So China is getting serious about cricket. And United States tried its level best to host one of the matches of the next world cup on its soil. So Bermuda is no more just a triangle, but also a leading cricekting nation....My foot!!

The ICC first needs to take a long hard look at the state of the game in the countries which have already been playing cricket for years now. The picture ain't beautiful, and only once the decline there has been arrested should they go about acquiring newer territories. The Champions Trophy 2007 has just begun, and we are already witness to the pathetic state of the Zimbabwean cricket team. And this was not sudden, it has been a gradual decline, and the ICC should have stepped in and done something about it, if it is really serious about promoting cricket. In the Caribbean and England, Cricket is no longer the leading sport. Newzealand is stuck in some kind of a limbo. For as long as i have been following cricket, there has been no major upswing or downswing. They have never been a leading force in the world of cricket, and whenever they manage to win a few matches, it's always a surprise. Shane Bond was the last big thing which happened, but hardly does anyone have a clue where he is for most of the time. That's also true of the Newzealand team though. When they play their first match of the ICC Cricket Champions Trophy 2007, it will be their first serious cricket match in 7 months. Bangladesh surprises once every year, but that's about it. That leaves you with just India,Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia. So the net result of the globalise-cricket drive is 4 serious nations, down from 7 or 8 a few years back. ( Have left out South Africa, because i need a little more time to understand where they are at the moment, anyways their rise has more to do with government politics than ICC politics)