BCCI demands that ICC stop multi-team events

In a dramatic development following India being knocked out from the 2008 2009 Champions Trophy last month, it is learnt that the BCCI has served an ultimatum to the ICC to stop conducting multi-team ODI events, especially those involving 4 or more sides. It is believed that the ultimatum also includes a clause whereby ICC members would also not be allowed to conduct such tournaments. The BCCI has also imposed a gag order on media outlets that use the words 'chokers' and 'Indian team' in the same sentence / paragraph / story / site.

The BCCI has evidence that India's "performance" at such events (won 0 out of the 3 events that had 4 or more teams - 2006 ICCCT, 2007 WC and 2008 Asia Cup) was significantly correlated with the number of teams participating. Additional evidence, in the form of having won 14 out of 20 bilateral series India played in during the same period, provides the BCCI enough statistical data to back its argument.

After all, if the ICC really wants cricket's Harlem Globetrotters superstars to turn up, they must be guaranteed at least a second round spot. Or else, the BCCI will obviously pick up the stumps, bat & ball and walk away home.

Sources within the BCCI are extremely pissed off that this attitude hides India's actual on-field performances, including some bizarre captaincy against Pakistan where the skipper MS Dhoni hid himself at #5 during a chase of 300+. In Yuvraj's absence, Dhoni was clearly the side's best batsman. So why he sent Kohli ahead of himself and Raina was difficult to understand.

This wasn't the first time he showed a lack of leadership though. During the T20 World Cup, he batted at 4 against Bangladesh & Ireland, and went in at #6 against England.

The Champions Trophy showed us that this 2009 Australian side, which would have been thrashed by the 2007 version, was still so much better than the rest of the field? Surely it's not as though the Australians have improved. Far from it, the rest of the teams have regressed - mainly Sri Lanka, India & South Africa. That can't be good news.

As for the on-going Champions League T20, I'm finding it hard to cope with the multiple acronyms floating around (CC v RCB, SCCC v T&T, NSWB v SS, etc.). Also somehow, the quality of cricket seen at the IPL seems better. Perhaps some of the CL T20 teams are getting in on a country-based quota. For e.g., would the other losing semi-finalist (Chennai Super Kings) from the 2009 IPL or the domestic T20 tournaments in Pakistan / Australia or South Africa have been better than Wayamba or Otago?

In a move that wasn't too much of a surprise, Cricket Australia picked a rookie spinner for the 7-ODI series in India.

Australia have been quite clueless about their spin bowling options for nearly 2 years now. Now they've picked 22 year old Jon Holland, who has a total of 21 domestic wickets from 23 innings, at an average in excess of 45.

Of course, it is entirely likely that he will succeed in India, and justify the selectors' wisdom!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, australia, bcci, captaincy, champions league, champions trophy, dhoni, icc, india, spin

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:46 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Breaking news: Pietersen and Moores quit as England's captain & coach

According to Sky News, Kevin Pietersen has quit as England's captain. Cricinfo reports that Peter Moores, England's coach, has also resigned.

This follows the publicized clash of views between the two that required hurried intervention by senior folks at the ECB.

Pietersen had been named England captain 5 months ago.

I guess we'll have to await confirmation from the ECB, but this is about the worst thing that England cricket needs now with a tour of West Indies starting in a couple of weeks and a team that hasn't beaten significant opposition for 3 years now, the last one being the home win over Pakistan in 2006.

Now who'll be made captain? Strauss? But he isn't in the ODI team. Vaughan? Isn't that a retrograde move? Flintoff? He was cast aside after the 2006/07 Ashes thrashing. Collingwood? He gave up the job 5 months ago and I'm not sure how much of a certainty he is in tests because he seems to be in the team on a per-test basis. Cook? Far too early! My guess is that the ECB, if it does accept Pietersen's resignation, will opt for Strauss as test captain & persuade Flintoff or Collingwood to be the ODI captain.

As for the coach, that's a toughie because the main candidates that people have talked about are associated with either Pietersen or Moores. Andy Flower is a Moores pick while Graham Ford was being backed by Pietersen. I guess that also rules out Warne!

Do I love it when England cricket is in trouble? Of course!

Update: I just had a rather evil thought. Does it seem like Pietersen doesn't quite enjoy it when things don't work out the way he wants? He quit South Africa claiming that the system was unfair. Now he's quit as captain because he can't have his way with the coach.

Labels: breaking news, captaincy, coach, england, pietersen

Thus spake Jagadish @ 7:19 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Strauss' jarring note

I get a feeling that Andrew Strauss is totally pissed off with Kevin Pietersen beating him to the captaincy. Either that, or he's just being brutally honest. Sample some of his quotes when he spoke to AFP and The Guardian.

• I would have liked to have done the Test job and, to that degree, I am disappointed I have not been given the opportunity.
  
• It is a brave decision because KP hasn't done much captaincy before.
  
• I think he does play for the team. I think that selfish aspect is overplayed. He would probably admit in his youth he was a bit like that but I don't think he is like that so much now.
  
• Captains have to be respected and that is something you cannot buy.
  
• There are so many different aspects you have to worry about. It's not just about preparing yourself and the team for the match but also dealing with the selectors and the media. You find there is not much time to concentrate on cricket and it can become dispiriting at times, as Michael found. It's a brilliant job but a really difficult one and, apart from in one one-day match, Kevin has never experienced that. This is a potentially tough time for the team.
  
• We are going from having the best captain England has ever had to someone who has never done it before. It is hard to say if Kevin will ultimately be successful.

Personally, I think England are rather hung up on this whole business of unifying the captaincy. There's no reason why sides can't have separate captains for tests and one-dayers. In fact, the only time England actually won a tournament with 4 or more sides playing was the Akai-Singer Champions Trophy under Adam Hollioake in 1997/98.

My vote was for Strauss to be made test captain and Pietersen to do the job in one-dayers. That way, he could gradually get a hang of things and if Strauss wasn't doing a good job, he could be handed over the test captaincy as well.

Labels: captaincy, england, pietersen, strauss

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:33 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Kevin Pietersen is England's new captain

Yesterday, Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood resigned from their captaincy roles. Vaughan had taken back his test captaincy from Andrew Flintoff while Collingwood had replaced Vaughan, who resigned before he was pushed.

Kevin Pietersen was announced a few minutes ago as England's new captain. The bit in the media release that made me cough was this:

I have learned a great deal about leadership from playing under both Michael and Paul and fully appreciate the level of responsibility that comes with the job of captaining your country.

The operative word being 'your country'. Was he telling the reporters, the people of England and England cricket fans that he didn't think England was his country? I hope the usage of 'your country' was as a possessive pronoun because he does have some history. He recently did say something totally stupid in a chat with 'The Times' correspondent Paul Kimmage. This is how that conversation went:

Paul: Do you get weird fan mail?
Kevin: Yeah (he says with a grin), pictures of girls with their tits out.
Paul: That's outrageous.
Kevin: I know — but look, it’s your nation, not mine.

Labels: captaincy, collingwood, england, pietersen, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:33 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Tendulkar opts out of captaincy

Former India captain Sachin Tendulkar has apparently opted to continue being referred that way by declining the captaincy of the test team caused by Dravid's resignation in September.

I am really elated and strongly hope that the news agencies and sources have got it right!

Labels: captaincy, india, tendulkar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 4:22 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

The right captain for India

Following Rahul Dravid's surprise resignation as India's captain last Friday, the BCCI will announce the captain for the one-day side later this evening.

There are many options: Tendulkar, Dhoni and Ganguly being the front-runners. There are several counter-arguments against them becoming captain as well, the primary one being that the captaincy could interfere with their batting and drag down their performance levels.

So here's a left-of-field option. Since the beginning of the 2006/07 season, after the tour of West Indies in 2006, he averages 26 with the bat. Remove his century against Bermuda and the average dips to 21.5. Remove the games in Bangladesh and the meaningless Afro-Asia games and the average dips to 18.3.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest it was right to drop him for the one-dayers in England. Yes, my choice for the one-day captaincy is Virendar Sehwag.

After all, it is highly unlikely that his batting could become worse.

Oh, and by the way, I strongly believe that Dravid was basically pushed to the limit. From whatever I've read about him, he's not the sort of person to throw in the towel because the captaincy was affecting his batting. Maybe he never got the squad/XI/support staff he wanted. Maybe having ex-captains in the dressing room hampered his style. Maybe the absence of a full-time coach meant there were far too many things that he needed to take care of.

Labels: captaincy, dravid, india, sehwag

Thus spake Jagadish @ 2:34 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

England have a new one-day captain

Paul Collingwood is England's new one-day captain, replacing Michael Vaughan, who resigned the one-day captaincy earlier this week.

The significant additions are Michael Yardy (remember him? He batted like he was on a skateboard, moving all over the crease and no-one could figure out why he was batting at #4) and Alastair Cook.

Labels: captaincy, collingwood, england, odi, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 8:13 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

England take first step towards winning the 2011 World Cup

Barely two weeks after he'd emphatically declared that England were better off with him as the one-day captain, Michael Vaughan decided to quit before he was pushed. He was most certainly misquoted, if you read the ECB media release, for this is what he actually said.

Since Michael Vaughan's team's disappointing performances in the World Cup, Michael Vaughan has been giving careful consideration as to what is the best way forward for the England one-day team and Michael Vaughan's own role within the side.

The only basis on which he'd find a place in England's one-day side was because of his captaincy. One-day cricket is far too fast-moving for England to accomodate such a single-dimensional player (assuming that his fielding and batting count for little in comparison to his captaincy). Clearly, all that spin about how experiments with separate captains for tests and one-dayers weren't so successful had conveniently brushed aside the facts that Ponting won a World Cup while Hollioake led England to a surprise win in Sharjah a decade ago.

Better late than never! We've rambled far too often about Vaughan's hopeless batting record in one-dayers.

But what is also interesting is England's record when he was captain. A positive win-loss record (32-22 from 60 games) seems quite good, until the realization hits us that 43 out of those 60 games were played against half-decent sides (Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka & West Indies) and England won 17 out of those games. Ergo, England've been quite poor even when he's been in charge. There're two implications here:

1. His team has always been pathetic. So there's no evidence of his captaincy skills having ever helped his team.
2. His captaincy skills in one-day cricket were a little over-rated, since his inability to adapt to one-day cricket also meant he used the same captaincy principles in test and one-day cricket.

Which obviously leads me to ask what he was doing in the side in the first place? Despite him claiming that he will continue to be eligible for selection as a ODI player, I'd find it bizarre if he was picked. At least now England can get in a significantly better one-day batsman and plan for the next 2011 World Cup.

Labels: 2011 world cup, captaincy, england, odi, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:56 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Remember me? I used to captain you guys in test cricket

That is what Michael Vaughan, named England's skipper, would probably tell his teammates before the second test against West Indies at Headingley.

Vaughan has not played in a test for 17 months now. His last test match was in Pakistan in December 2005. How long ago was that?

Paul Collingwood hadn't yet scored a test century and was almost always the first one to be cast aside if one of the incumbent batsmen returned to action. Darrell Hair (yes, him!) was umpiring in test cricket. Marcus Trescothick was a couple of months away from his first last minute exit from a test series. Shaun Udal was playing test cricket. 2006 hadn't yet begun, which means Mohammad Yousuf was 1788 runs away from what he'd end up with. Shoaib Akhtar was not yet persona non-grata while Mohammad Asif hadn't yet "arrived".

It is totally perplexing that Vaughan gets to walk into the side after such a long layoff from test cricket, and as captain! I'm not the only one who thinks so. Read what Vic Marks, Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Martin Johnson have to say about this.

Labels: captaincy, england, vaughan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:37 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

The first captaincy change - Shoaib Malik is Pakistan's skipper

The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that Shoaib Malik is the new Pakistan captain until the end of the year.

Other captains expected to be cast aside in the near future, as a result of their teams' performances in the World Cup, are Brian Lara (possibly both tests and ODIs) and Michael Vaughan (ODIs).

I do expect Stephen Fleming to quit as captain, possibly handing over to Daniel Vettori.

The one captain on thin ground would possibly be Rahul Dravid while no-one knows what would happen to Prosper Utseya.

Labels: 2007 world cup, captaincy, dravid, england, fleming, india, lara, pakistan, shoaib malik, stephen fleming, utseya, vaughan, world cup

Thus spake Jagadish @ 4:33 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]

Baffling field placement

Yesterday, as Daniel Vettori ran in to bowl the 5th ball of the 44th over against West Indies, he was on a hat-trick. Skipper Stephen Fleming had placed a silly-point for Collymore, the number 11. Strangely, there was no short-leg or backward short-leg.

If I were the skipper and the opposition was 176/9 with 6 more overs to go and no half-decent batsman at either end, I'd pressurize the batsman with a lot of fielders around the bat.

After Collymore kept out the hat-trick ball, Fleming moved the silly point out. I found that baffling. I've seen that happen so often. Is the ball after a potential hat-trick ball any less important? Why do captains do it? Yes, the bowler didn't get 3 in 3, but by moving the fielder out, you're probably reducing the chances of getting 3 in 4.

If I were the skipper (and I've never skippered anything higher than teams representing my college and workplace), I'd keep the fielders in even after the hat-trick has been averted!

Labels: captaincy, field placement, fleming, new zealand, stephen fleming, vettori, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:07 am | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - | | Tweet ]