Bangladesh are indeed ordinary

India were expected to thrash Bangladesh, and when the winning margins are 100+ runs and 10 wickets, it is fair to say Bangladesh were thrashed. Bangladesh had fun for at most 1.5 days - day 1 of the first test and around 50 overs on day 3 of the second test.

There was a lot written about Sehwag's comment before the first test on Bangladesh being an 'ordinary' side. Sehwag was perhaps being politically uncorrect, saying such a thing in Bangladesh, especially when the BCCI had played a huge role in Bangladesh getting test status.

Yet, the facts are that barring a series win against a West Indies 'B' team, they had achieved zilch in nearly a decade of test cricket. There have been a few individual achievements (e.g. Aminul Islam in their first ever test, Ashraful v India in 2004, Shahriar Nafees v Australia in 2006, Shakib forming the 'SLA Atlas' club along with Vettori and occasional bursts from Mortaza).

They did run Pakistan and Australia close. They do indicate that they can be occasionally competitive. However, the reality is that as of the start of this series, they hadn't made 300 in the first innings of a test since April 2006, which was also the last time one of the batsmen scored a first-innings century.

The malaise hasn't just been with the batting. On an average, opponents can expect that one of their top 7 batsmen will score a first innings 100 every time they face Bangladesh.

There was absolutely no need for Sehwag to be politically correct. I'll repeat what I wrote nearly 6.5 years ago.

I wonder why captains are nowadays so politically correct. I'm not saying the captain should do a Richie Richardson and claim that the visiting Aussies have been the worst side to play West Indies in the last 20 years after losing the series. Tony Greig's attempt to make WI "grovel" backfired spectacularly. But why does Steve Waugh not say Australia is going to crush Bangladesh or Zimbabwe?

On a parting note, why on earth did the proceedings break for lunch with Bangladesh on the verge of defeat at 312/9? Why can't the playing conditions be changed to allow captains to opt for extra time regardless of whether it is close of play or not?

Currently, under clause 16.2 of the test match playing conditions, the umpires can extend play by 30 minutes at the end the day (except the last day) if either captain puts in the application in triplicate along with a photocopy of their last 5 years income tax payment statements and if the umpires believe that the extension could end the ordeal for everyone.

Statistical trivia: This is only the 7th time that a side has reached the target in less than 3 balls.

Labels: bangladesh, india, lunch, playing conditions, rules

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:41 AM | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

Mahela: Kotla wasn't a fair wicket for one-day cricket

Mahela Jayawardene sounded very reasonable, it until he told Cricinfo that his team and the Indian team thought that the Kotla pitch was not a fair wicket to play one-day cricket.

I wonder what his opinion was about the Rajkot pitch where 820 runs were scored across 100 overs. Was that a "fair" wicket for one-day cricket? I'm totally on Jarrod Kimber's side when he writes "If these batsmen want to come out with two inches of unprotected space on their bodies, then they can take whatever comes at them".

The ICC's monitoring process is bound to kick in now since the assumption seems to be that all low-scoring pitches are sub-standard.

The Feroz Shah Kotla could be banned from hosting internationals for at least a year, although it is likely that the punishment could be more lenient considering this was the first adverse report by the ICC for a game played at the venue. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that previous ICC feedback implied that the ground conditions were poor.

Of course there was a risk of physical injury for batsmen yesterday. Of course that isn't fair to batsmen. But life isn't fair either, and I'm assuming all cricketers and cricket fans do agree that cricket mirrors life, to a large extent.

Don't bowlers risk physical injury and permanent mental scarring when they run in (some morons run in nearly 25 metres each ball) pointlessly, especially on hot sultry days? They put in their maximum effort, hoping that the batsman would defend the ball near his chest, only to see that it ended up at his knees and the ball ended up over mid-wicket.

So, who is responsible for the Kotla ODI being abandoned?
	BCCI
	DDCA (Delhi & District Cricket Association)
	ICC
	IPL
	Batsmen-friendly rules and committees

Labels: bcci, ddca, delhi, farce, icc, india, pitch, sri lanka

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:10 PM | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

What were the umpires doing at Perth?

During the first over after lunch on day two of the Perth test in the Frank Worrell Trophy featuring Australia v West Indies, Suleiman Benn, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson got into a fracas. The sequence of events, which you can see in the video on YouTube, was approximately this:

• Haddin plays a ball towards mid wicket and sees the possibility of a quick single
  
• Benn, bowling from around the wicket, runs across to his right to cut off the single
  
• Johnson put his head down and ran, reviving memories of Forrest Gump
  
• Benn tries to get to the ball, and ends up looking like he was dragging Johnson back with his hand
  
• When the ball is 'dead', Haddin points his bat at Benn possibly asking him to stop coming in the way
  
• Benn is now really mad and keeps chattering & abusing away
  
• Gayle is standing still, first listening to Haddin's point of view and then to Benn
  
• Umpire Billy Bowden then steps in and asks Gayle & Benn to get on with it
  
• Benn, still very angry, asks Haddin some questions, throwing in a couple of obscenities rhyming with 'chuck'
  
• Benn then bowls an absolute ripper of a delivery that Johnson has no clue about. The batsmen cross over for a bye
  
• Benn is still unhappy and chattering away. He even appears to ask Johnson something, while Johnson practices his straight drive at the non-striker's end
  
• Benn bowls to Haddin, who drives the ball straight back. Benn threatens to throw the ball back (unsure if he was threatening to hit Haddin or the stumps) and Haddin provides a view of his stumps, requesting him to take a shot
  
• That was the last ball of the over. Haddin walks down the pitch grinning and saying something to Benn
  
• Benn tries to point out something to Haddin with his hand and accidentally brushes against Johnson
  
• Johnson pushes Benn away
  
• Bowden finally realizes things could be going from bad to worse and steps in

Purely going by what was seen on TV, there were multiple people at fault here:

• Benn - He had no business tugging at Johnson's shirt and trying to drag him back
  
• Haddin - He had no business pointing his bat and interfering with something that Benn & Johnson should have (and could have) sorted out between themselves
  
• Johnson - He can't be blamed too much because it is unlikely he would have realized that Benn brushing him was accidental. But given the heated situation at that time, pushing Benn away was a bad choice
  
• Bowden & Gould - The umpires are the biggest culprits here. The moment it seemed like Benn & Haddin were in a war of words, they should have stepped in and called a halt to the verbal warfare. They didn't, couldn't, or chose not to. Then, when Johnson pushed Benn away, Bowden was almost apologetically pleading with the players to move on. All this while, Gould, the square-leg umpire, was conspicuously absent, probably day-dreaming about the sumptuous lunch he had just finished

A couple of aspects of today's incident are interesting, and give me a huge sense of deja vu.

Symonds v/s Harbhajan at Sydney in early 2008: Harbhajan patted Lee on the back and Symonds, standing quite far away from the scene of action, stepped in quite unwarrantedly to save his mate's arse from Harbhajan.

Today, Benn ran into Johnson and Haddin batted on Johnson's behalf.

A couple of years ago, during the 2nd final of the triangular ODI series in Australia, Michael Clarke, the bowler, nearly pulled down Sachin Tendulkar's pants in order to prevent Tendulkar, at the non-striker's end, from taking a single.

There was no sign of any apology from Clarke, because he was only doing it hoping that Tendulkar's greatness would have 'rubbed off' on him. Tendulkar also seems to have rather enjoyed the fondling. Gautam Gambhir, who played the shot, did nothing. Of course, it is quite likely that this unwarranted & deliberate physical contact, and the absence of any action around it, 'inspired' him to try a similar stunt a year later.

Today, Haddin couldn't keep quiet, and had to intervene. An issue that could have been sorted out in a few seconds dragged on and on. It's quite likely that there will be follow-ups over the next 3 days of the test.

Benn has now been charged with a Level 2 offence while Haddin & Johnson have been charged with Level 1 offences under the ICC's code of conduct for players.

Clause 2.2.4 refers to "Inappropriate and deliberate physical contact between Players in the course of play during an International Match".

If Benn's physical contact (the act of tugging at Johnson, for I am unaware of any other deliberate/inappropriate physical contact) was wrong, Johnson is also guilty of pushing Benn away.

Haddin would be guilty under 2.1.4 (Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting) or 2.1.8 (conduct that is contrary to the spirit of the game or brings the game into disrepute). I don't think he should be charged with a Level 2 offence because he only brandished his bat (admittedly, that did sort of make the whole incident a lot worse than it could have been) and almost definitely needled Benn.

Am I surprised that Haddin & Johnson are likely to get away with a lesser charge laid against them? Of course, not! We know by now who gets away with it.

Benn should actually feel proud that the Australians seem to be targetting him now. That usually happens to combustible folks who're doing well against the Aussies.

On a related note, Malcolm Conn's ghost-writer has once again forgotten to use the magic phrase "India have been the worst-behaved team in cricket over the last decade" in his latest piece.

Labels: australia, ban, benn, frank worrell trophy, haddin, icc, johnson, match referee, perth, umpires, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:56 AM | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

Re-structuring the ICC Future Tours Programme

The ICC's President, David Morgan, has revealed that the Future Tours Programme (FTP) planned for the period 2012-2020 will relax restrictions around the concept. Teams do not need to play each other home and away over a six year cycle as is the case currently.

What is interesting though is that the current version of the FTP only spans 6 years, and was drawn up in 2006. I find it bizarre that the ICC will be coming out with an 8 year schedule (2012-2020) at a time when a lot of folks, including administrators and players, don't even know what's around the corner 2 years from now. In the last couple of years, cricket has gone through so much change with the advent of private leagues, IPL, Champions T20 league, questions over the relevance of ODIs and tests, etc.

Then again, I'd be stupid if I expected the ICC to actually make any sort of sense.

A two-tiered structure for test cricket, in the form of a test championship, seems a natural solution to rationalize player workload and have better more even contests. Sangakkara has every right to feel aggrieved that Sri Lanka was not included in the ICC's discussions over a 2-tier system. But, does a 2-tier structure mean that a team is shut out from the top tier forever? Of course not.

A 2-tier system does bring with it some uncertainty over whether a team being demoted to the lower tier could mean loss of spectatorship / TV audiences. I'm fairly sure that boards who are opposed to a 2-tier system are mainly concerned about the worth of their TV (& other media) rights if there's no guarantee that their team will play in the top tier instead of battling it out for the wooden spoon. There's no doubt that money from media rights finances the game. So it would be stupid to take on those who pay up the cash!

Yet, if the cycle lasted say 3 years instead of a promotion & relegation every year, TV rights owners have some amount of ability to predict who will play whom where and when. This could mean they are far more likely to dish out the cash than if teams were promoted & relegated every year. The other reason, which I wrote about 5.5 years ago, why an annual promotion / relegation should not be used is to avoid a situation where a team like (say) Ireland just happens to top the 2nd tier in one year, gets promoted to the top tier and gets thrashed by all and sundry.

Assume there are a total of 12 teams - Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe (it is likely that at some point of time, if the West Indies 'splits' and individual island countries compete by themselves, we will need a 3-tier system). There would be 2 tiers of 6 teams each (Based on the current rankings, it would look like - Tier-1: India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia, England & Pakistan; Tier-2: New Zealand, West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland & Kenya).

Only test matches played within the tiers would count for any points. If teams that played for test trophies (Australia-England, England-South Africa, Sri Lanka-Australia, India-Australia, Australia-West Indies etc.) ended up in different tiers, they could still play their 'marquee' series. But the result of the tests and series wouldn't count in the ICC test championship points system. Boards would of course need to remember that if players got burnt out playing the marquee series, then their team's prospects in the test championship could be impacted.

If each team had to play all the other teams in the same tier in test series (of 3 tests each - not more, not less) home and once away, they'd need to play a total of 30 tests (15 home & 15 away) over a 3 year period. That's not much. In the 3 years spanning 2006, 2007 and 2008, 7 of the 9 test teams played more than 24 tests.

The points structure could be fairly simple (10 for a test win, 5 for a draw, 0 for a loss, with bonus points for winning by an innings or anything more than 7 wickets) and also factor in the series result as well as whether the it was a home or away fixture and adjust the weightage accordingly.

There would be no concept of 'Super Eight', 'Super Six', knock-out games or a grand final. At the end of the 3 year window, the team with the most points would be declared the winner of that particular tier. The team that ended up last in the 1st tier would swap places with the team that topped the 2nd tier. In case of a tie, number of series wins away, number of test wins away, points from away wins, etc. would be used to determine who should be ranked higher.

There would also be individual awards for bowling, batting and fielding.

In fact, this sort of 2-tiered structure with equal matches for all would satisfy the demands from the likes of Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, etc. who claim that a 2-tier system would not benefit them.

For the boards, the TV revenue from 'marquee' series is a much bigger factor. So how do they reconcile themselves to it? Perhaps with the knowledge that if they manage their players well, create a large enough pool to pick from and create sane schedules, their best players would still be available for the marquee series.

Labels: burnout, fatigue, future, future tours programme, icc, test cricket

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:33 AM | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

Athers and Kapil are only partly right

On the occasion of Sachin Tendulkar completing 20 years in international cricket, Kapil Dev opined in 'The Asian Age' that Tendulkar had under-achieved.

It depends on how you look at it. For someone who started off playing so aggressively and making bowlers scared of bowling to him, Tendulkar most definitely doesn't strike fear in bowlers any more. But that's true for pretty much every player who has been around for any length of time. I'm sure that towards the late 80s and early 90s, bowlers were queueing up to bowl to Viv. Murali hasn't been too good over the past year or so and there are enough questions asked about his place in the side. Kapil himself was about as quick as Mohinder Amarnath (with Jimmy at his fastest) in the last 2-3 years of his career. Lara's magic only happened in spurts towards the end. Steve Waugh fared little better.

Besides, all players change their styles to suit the team's needs, their own physical & mental state of being, etc. Until around the mid-90s, Tendulkar played in a very aggressive manner a lot of the time. But he could do that because the likes of Azhar, Sidhu and Manjrekar were around. From after the mid-90s, Tendulkar became the mainstay, and the batting revolved around him. From around the start of this decade to around 2004/2005, Dravid took over the mantle as the 'go-to' guy. Over the last 3 years, it has been Sehwag. Even though these changes happened, Tendulkar's wicket would undoubtedly have been the #1 wicket as far as the opposition was concerned.

So he could never ever have gone back to thrashing the bowling around every game, like he used to. In just the same manner as Kapil himself transformed from being a quick (let's say 140 kph types) bowler to being a fast-medium (130-135 kph) swing bowler because he realized that he would never have a long career if he'd continued as a quick bowler. Did that mean batsmen feared him less? Perhaps yes. But given he had now added a dimension of swing to his ability, it made him even better and batsmen obviously respected his ability to "make the ball talk".

Mike Atherton, writing in 'The Times', felt that calling Tendulkar the best ever was not right, because he had the benefit of so much body armour (helmets, better pads, chest guards, etc.)

That's fair enough. Anyone who tries to compare across generations is obviously being stupid. At most, you can compare folks with peers and players who played within a 10 year time period, with sufficient overlap in careers. Only Dennis Lilee would be able to get away with claiming that Mitchell Johnson was a oiag player. Either Lillee's memory is poor, or Aussie define a generation as 5 years.

But the point Athers misses is that those who played in a different era did so when there were no (or very few) ODIs or T20 games, no IPL or Champions League, no talk of burnout, test series had at least 3 warm-up games, etc.

It's interesting to think of how Hobbs, Bradman, Hammond, Sobers, Hutton, Bill O'Reilly, Harvey, Hanif, Bedi, Miller, Sutcliffe, etc. would have coped with all the travel, playing with 'niggling' injuries, spending so much time away from home, playing back-to-back tests/ODIs, playing back-to-back series in the span of a couple of months, etc.

Labels: atherton, burnout, greats, kapil, tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:21 PM | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

Twenty years of Tendulkar

When I think of Sachin Tendulkar having played international cricket for 2 decades, I feel really old. It's been that long? Why, just the other day he was caning that Pakistani leggie wizard all over the park! A few days ago, he almost scored a test hundred, aged 16. After that, he was outscoring the rest of the batsmen on his first tour of Australia, aged 18.

In fact, very early on, I used to feel a bit stupid. Here was a chap just about 2 years older than me, playing test cricket when I didn't even get a chance to bowl in an intra-school cricket tournament although I'd been picked as a bowler!

It is pertinent to point out though that when I knew he'd flunked his class 10 exams and the rumour doing the rounds was that it was because of Shilpa Shirodkar, I was quite pleased with the way my life was progressing.

I had first come across Brian Lara in a newspaper match report where he thrashed the Indian bowling attack (if a "pace" lineup of Sanjeev Sharma & Robin Singh can constitute an 'attack') in a tour game. In hindsight, it would have been so eerie had Tendulkar made it to that tour. We'd now be talking about two greats making their debut at the same time!

When he went past Lara and became the top run-getter in tests, I wrote about how I was in awe of his skills.

Take a look at the list of youngest test players, specifically the ones aged 17 or below. Aside from Sachin Tendulkar, Garry Sobers and Hanif Mohammed, no-one else really qualifies as an all-time great. Even tech start-ups probably have a higher success rate!

The main aspect of his career that has really stunned me is how he has managed to stay so level-headed over such a long period of time, without doing anything stupid (let's ignore the Ferrari fiasco for e.g.) or controversial. Contrast this to how rarely a day goes by without the likes of Yuvraj, Harbhajan or Sreesanth being in the news.

If I had to pick one knock from all his knocks that I've seen, I'd pick the century he made at Melbourne in 2000. It seemed as though he was batting on a totally different pitch and against a bowling attack that was markedly inferior to the one that had blown away the rest of the batsmen. The only other times I've seen an Indian batsman do that were Rahul Dravid at Jamaica in 2006 and Virender Sehwag at Galle in 2008.

So, is it time for Tendulkar to become a little more selective about the tests he plays in? At this point in time, assuming that Yuvraj is now almost a test certainty, Badrinath, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma are in the queue for a test middle-order batting slot, with someone like Cheteshwar Pujara being a 'dark horse'. How do the selectors find out if any of them (or even Yuvraj beginning to bat at #4) are good enough to even have a 5 year career, especially when the volume of tests that India plays is likely to reduce.

Does Tendulkar have anything left to prove now? In fact, has he actually had anything left to prove now for at least the last couple of years? Would we grudge him if he throttled back on his commitments, so that he's fit & firing to help achieve what he seems to indicate would be a great way to sign off - India winning the 2011 World Cup?

Could we make the same argument to have Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman also skip a few tests every now and then? Perhaps yes, but they don't play ODIs. So playing test cricket won't really stretch them physically or mentally. But that's not the case with Tendulkar, who plays tests and ODIs.

Labels: tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:34 AM | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]

Harbhajan is shaping up as an extra batsman

I felt like laughing when the news channels were going ga-ga on the Indian lower order (actually, make that just Harbhajan & Praveen) nearly dragging India to an improbable win yesterday. The reality was that India were pathetic in batting, bowling, running and fielding for almost 90% of the game. Hauritz had 1/15 from 7 overs at one stage!

While Praveen Kumar has, in the last dozen times he has batted, given absolutely no reason to believe that he is ever capable of anything more than a fluke edge down to third-man while aiming to smack the ball over mid-wicket, Harbhajan has been reasonably consistent with bat against Australia, in tests and ODIs. So it wasn't too much of a surprise yesterday that he did well with bat. I still remember that stunning six he hit over point off Brett Lee during the 2003 World Cup league game against Australia, coming in at 6 down for less than 100.

Then again, his bowling analysis of 1/57 wasn't too surprising either, considering that before this game, he had conceded over 100 runs per wicket since Jan 2006 against Australia, at home.

So the solution must be to include Harbhajan as the extra batsman, who bowls some part-time off-spin, against Australia. That would lend a lot more balance, and India could then pick Amit Mishra as the spinner. So the batting line-up should be: Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Dhoni, Raina, Harbhajan, Praveen, Mishra, Nehra & Ishant.

I was hoping that Australia's quicks, and spinners, would bounce out India's middle-order, which would trigger frantic phone calls to Rahul Dravid's mobile phone. In any case, when he would have been recalled, sources in the BCCI would have told the media that they'd only rested him so he could spend an extra week with his family.

The scary bit about yesterday's batting order was that Ashish Nehra was actually at #10, which is frankly out of sync with his ability (batting & mental), and at least 2 places above what his normal batting position should be. Given Nehra averaged nearly 4 times more at #11 compared with #10 (7.6 v 2) before yesterday's game, you have to question the team management's faith in Ashish ahead of Ishant.

Then again, Ishant Sharma averaged 2 at #10 and 6.2 at #11 before the game. So really it was a no-brainer. 'Devil and deep sea' comes to mind!

PS: News for Indian TV channels who're marketing this as the revenge or honour series. India and Australia aren't even on the same field when it comes to 'clashes' in the last 3 years or so - Australia leads 9-5 overall from 18 games, and in the 4 games that were washed out, the match status was:

• Ind 35/5 in 8 ov (D/L target 170 from 29 ov revised from a target of 245)
  
• Ind 9/1 in 2.4 ov chasing 308
  
• Aus 51/3 in 7.2 ov chasing a D/L target of 141 in 26 ov (revised from 195 in a 45 over game)
  
• Aus 234/4 in 42.3 ov

So the actual scoreline could well have ready 12-6 from 18 games, confirming that it really isn't much of a rivalry!

Labels: aus v ind 2009, australia, harbhajan, india

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:54 PM | Sledge/Read 6 sledge(s) | Related posts
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Blogline me | Add to Google | Add to del.icio.us ]