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)
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Rahul Dravid's selection just doesn't make sense

I'm a huge fan of Rahul Dravid. Anyone who has talked cricket with me, and anyone who has followed this blog over the past 5.5 years, would have realized it.

Yet, I really believe it was totally stupid to get Dravid to dust off his blue gear. The very fact that he was named in the list of 30 probables for the ICC Champions Trophy obviously meant that he was always going to be in the final 15. On Sunday, he was picked for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy.

There are various reasons bandied around for his selection, including the inability of India's young batsmen to cope with short-pitched bowling at the T20 World Cup, Sehwag's absence, the need to get Dhoni to play his natural swashbuckling style, Dravid's ability to play the short ball, the fact that the Champions Trophy will be in South Africa (where bowlers get significantly more help), and that Dravid proved he still had his limited-over skills & exhibited them in the 2009 edition of the Indian Premier League.

There are many reasons why Dravid's selection makes no sense.

• If Dravid has been selected because the likes of Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir, etc. got found out against the short ball, what happens if he succeeds in Sri Lanka and flops in South Africa? Do the selectors recall Rohit Sharma? Even if Rohit hasn't shown any improvement in skills against short-pitched bowling?
  
• What happens if Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir, etc. show a marked improvement in handling quick bowling? Do the selectors give Rahul a vote of thanks for his guest appearance?
  
• What happens if Dravid fails in Sri Lanka and South Africa?
  
• What happens if Dravid succeeds in Sri Lanka and South Africa? Do the selectors keep picking him until he announces his retirement?
  
• What happens if Dravid fails in Sri Lanka but succeeds in South Africa? Given that the next World Cup is in the sub-continent, how would that do the Indian team any good?
  
• For all the talk about his performance in the 2009 IPL, he averaged 22.6 with a quite pathetic strike rate of 116.
  
• He hasn't played a single domestic one-day game since March 2008.
  
• He doesn't seem to have played in the Buchi Babu or the KSCA tournaments. So he's basically going into the two series without any sort of match practice.
  
• Even England, and let me re-emphasize that, ENGLAND, after so much talk around recalling Ramprakash, Trescothick, etc., didn't do something stupid!

Interestingly though, in 2006, Ganguly was picked in the squad of 30 probables but left out of the final 15.

An related rant, written nearly a decade ago - "Azhar's recall a retrograde step".

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, champions trophy, dravid, gambhir, raina, rohit sharma, selection, squad

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:57 pm | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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ICC's weather bureau gets into the act

One month ago, the ICC announced that the next edition (let's not split hairs over whether it is the 2008 edition or 2009 one!) of the ICC Champions Trophy would not be held in Pakistan. While the decision on the new venue was to have been announced in April, there were rumours about Sri Lanka hosting the tournament.

Now, the ICC's general manager, Dave Richardson reckons that Sri Lanka was unlikely to host the event because of concerns over the weather. Well, here's what we tell him. We told you so, Dave!. If only you'd bothered to check with us!

We wrote, a month ago, about the impact of the weather.

There's talk of Sri Lanka hosting the tournament, currently scheduled for September-October 2009. But consider that Colombo, the main cricketing centre there with three international grounds, typically has heavy rainfall from end-September all the way till November. The only international cricket venue which will be unaffected by the monsoon is Dambulla, in the centre of the country. Can the pitch handle 15 matches in a span of 17 days? I suspect not!

Besides, as Patrick Kidd helpfully points out, the 2002 edition of the tournament was held in Sri Lanka in the last 15-20 days of September, and two attempts at a trophy-deciding final were damp squibs.

Spare everyone the torture. Just scrap the concept. Instead, ensure that the time that gets freed up helps test-playing countries play each other for at least 3-test series. Spend some time and come up with a way to get Bangladesh & Zimbabwe to improve more dramatically. If this requires a two-tiered test championship, figure out how to do so in the best manner without impacting TV rights owners.

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, champions trophy, icc, rain, sri lanka

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:19 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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ICC rights a wrong

Last July, the ICC wrongly decided that the Oval test of 2006 was a draw. Barely 6 months later, yesterday, the ICC has announced that the original result would stand, i.e. England won the game.

It does seem bizarre that the same organization came to different conclusions. How likely is it that David Morgan, as the ICC President, had his way in return for Sharad Pawar having his way over the ICL being declared 'authorized' cricket?

Instead, the ICC has now left it to individual boards to decide if a game or tournament in its territory was approved or disapproved. What this means is that New Zealand, Pakistan and Bangladesh (the 3 countries mainly impacted by the ICL exodus) can have their players back, but the BCCI will continue to ban ICL players from playing in BCCI-conducted tournaments (& thus be ineligible for national or other representative selection)

Pakistan has been ruled out as the host of the 2009 edition of the ICC Champions Trophy and the new venue will only be decided in April. After the terror attacks in Mumbai in November, India cancelled its tour of Pakistan. Now, Pakistan has responded by barring Pakistani players from playing in the IPL. There's nothing wrong with that. A country has the right (& duty!) to assess threat perception and act accordingly.

But now, we're left with 2 countries being ruled out from hosting the tournament - Pakistan because of the ICC's decision yesterday and India because Pakistani players won't turn up. There's talk of Sri Lanka hosting the tournament, currently scheduled for September-October 2009. But consider that Colombo, the main cricketing centre there with three international grounds, typically has heavy rainfall from end-September all the way till November. The only international cricket venue which will be unaffected by the monsoon is Dambulla, in the centre of the country. Can the pitch handle 15 matches in a span of 17 days? I suspect not!

Do us all a favour - just scrap it!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, ball tampering, champions trophy, icc, indian cricket league, oval 2006, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:47 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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ICC Champions Trophy in Sep-Oct 2009, but where?

At the ICC Board meeting, there were quite a few decisions which would have a short-term and long-term impact on the game.

On the first day, the ICC decided that the BCCI would meet representatives from the Indian Cricket League. This was a result of the ICL folks meeting ICC President David Morgan a couple of weeks ago. The ICC is no doubt serious about a rapprochement with the ICL after the way several Bangladesh players signed up for the ICL last month.

It is in the interest of cricket players and administrators that the BCCI and the ICL arrive at a solution in a reasonable timeframe. While I hope that it can be sorted out by the end of the year, I don't think things will move that fast. The ICL's new season has just started. Zee has invested far too much in the venture to agree to an abrupt end. My guess is that over the next year, negotiations will result in the ICL disbanding and players being allowed to first represent their domestic teams and then a year or so after that, become eligible to be picked for national duty. Will it result in the likes of some obviously talented blokes like Rayudu, Jhunjhunwala, TP Singh, Sathish or Shalabh Srivastava getting picked, or will the youngsters who've played in BCCI authorized tournaments be given priority?

The umpire decision review system will be trialled in four more important series (NZ v WI, Ind v Pak, WI v Eng & RSA v Aus) over the next 6 months. That's a good idea, except that the system as it existed in Sri Lanka should be fine tuned a little bit and then trialled. There are some obvious flaws, and it doesn't make sense to persist with them when series are at stake. In addition, I wonder why the ICC didn't think of trialling the system in ODIs and T20 games. After all, in those shorter forms, the chance of a wrong umpiring decision having an irreversible impact on the result of the match is so much higher.

In order to target having cricket included in the 2020 Olympic Games (venue to be decided in 2013), there would be further research done. It is worth noting that cricket wasn't included in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, but will be included at Guangzhou in 2010. The list of events for the 2014 Incheon Asian Games is not yet published. Cricket wasn't part of the agenda at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Even more farcically, it isn't part of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi because in 2005, the BCCI decided that it wasn't in favour of Twenty20 being included at the games. Was that a missed moment or what?!

The ICC Future Tours Programme is all set to be disbanded with effect from May 2012, as if anyone cares about it anymore!

On the second day, the ICC decided that the 2008 ICC Champions Trophy, which had been moved to 2009 a couple of months ago, would be held between September and October 2009. However, it would only last 12 days and would be held in one city (as against 17 days and 2 cities). The final decision on if the event would be held in Pakistan would be made after India's tour of Pakistan in early 2009.

So let's see how this could go. In Feb 2009, after India's tour, the ICC could decide that it was safe enough to conduct the tournament in Pakistan. But there would still be 7-8 more months to go before the start of the event. Countries could develop cold feet in that time gap, for real and imaginary reasons. So what would the ICC do then? The best option would have been to move the 2008 2009 next edition out of Pakistan, perhaps to West Indies (the 2010 hosts) and allot the 2010 event to Pakistan. By 2010, the concept of the ICC Champions Trophy would be gone anyway!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, champions trophy, icc, indian cricket league, olympics, reviews, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:56 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Quite a weekend, that!

The weekend was quite eventful.

First, Marcus Stresscothick Trescothick revealed in his newly published autobiography that during the 2005 Ashes, England tampered with the ball by using mints to polish the ball. Rahul Dravid must be wondering about how stupid he was, not for using a lozenge, but for getting caught while doing so!

Update: I came across Ricky Ponting's response when asked about Dravid being pulled up. He said

I don't think you'll see us doing anything like that.

Ricky's response confirms that Dravid's mistake was in getting caught. Notice that Ponting didn't say "We never do such things". What he said was "You won't see us doing anything like that". i.e. his team would never be caught by umpires, match referees, opponents (live or on television) doing something like that.

However, remember that the ICC, in July, altered the result of a test match two years after the game was completed! So it may not be a bad ploy for Australia to lobby the ICC to reverse the result of the 2005 Ashes series.

Then, the ICC decided that the ICC Champions Trophy would be postponed to Oct 2009, with the proviso that the environment is deemed fit for an international tournament to be staged and there are no security concerns. In case people didn't notice, the boards that wanted the tournament to be moved or rescheduled weren't all 'white'. South Africa and West Indies had concerns as well. In my opinion, this is certainly not an instance of a racial split in cricket, as is often made out to be!

The move is highly likely to cause a lot of ripples in international series scheduling. The ICC's Future Tours Programme doesn't seem to have too much flexibility to accommodate the tournament in 2009. Looking at the schedule, mid-Apr 2009 to early-May 2009 seems the only time period when there's very little international cricket scheduled. West Indies host Bangladesh in that duration, but come on, who cares about that series!

Amidst all the chaos, India have gone 2-1 up against Sri Lanka in the one-day series with a fairly comprehensive 33 run win in the 3rd ODI. But I still don't understand why Sri Lanka were allowed to recover from 59/6 & 94/7. For some bizarre reason, Yuvraj was persisted with despite having done his job in providing the breakthrough (Kulasekara). He's a part-time bowler, yet Dhoni got him to bowl 8 overs on the trot. Naturally, Yuvraj became less effective as his spell dragged on, conceding 16 runs in his last 2 overs. Dhoni should have brought back Munaf or Zaheer or Praveen (in that order of priority) to try and get the remaining 3 wickets (or at least get Jayawardene out).

Sangakkara needs to do something about Zaheer Khan's stranglehold on him. In 6 matches this year, he has been dismissed 5 times by Zaheer and has barely got a run. In the tests, he was driving away from the body and getting caught in the slips. In the one-dayers, he's been troubled by Zaheer getting the ball to cut in. I think this is because Sangakkara is moving a lot outside offstump when the ball is being delivered, possibly to cope with the swing or just as an attacking measure. As a result, he's forced to play at outswingers and when the ball does nip back, he's caught on the move. In any case, I hope he doesn't sort it out for the next couple of games at least!

Charles Davis, an Aussie statistician, seems to have misread his calendar. After a lot of meticulous & painstaking research, he claims to have discovered that 4 runs had to be added to Bradman's test run aggregate, which would give the Don an average of 100. But he seems to have sent in his report around 8 months too early - 1 Apr 2009 would have been the appropriate date for the story!

Darrell Hair, who had been reinstated to the ICC's Elite panel of umpires in March this year, has resigned and will be coaching umpires in New South Wales. There is some ambiguity about when his ICC contract actually expires - Oct 2008 or Mar 2009. In any case, the ICC is really messing up the quality of umpiring in international cricket.

PS: Forget Beefy, I want to know who the heck writes Pietersen's scripts! He got a 100 and England won his first test in charge. Last week, in his first ODI as the official captain, he scored 90, helped England get 270, got two crucial wickets and England won!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, ashes, autobiography, ball tampering, champions trophy, england, icc, india, pietersen, sangakkara, security, sri lanka, zaheer khan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 5:07 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Squad announcements: India's tour to Sri Lanka & Champions Trophy

The BCCI announced the Indian squad for the test series in Sri Lanka today. Since Dhoni had opted out, citing overwork, there is no designated vice-captain. I guess Sehwag, who was sacked from the role during India's tour of South Africa in 2006, will step in when required. In any case, Kumble has more than enough people to chip in with suggestions (Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman, Zaheer & Harbhajan).

Dhoni had opted out since he was obviously tired, stressed & probably getting burnt out from having played out his multiple roles as captain, wicket-keeper & star batsman almost continously for over a year without ever getting a chance to sit out a game or two. He has done the right thing. On his personal website, Gary Kirsten touched upon the necessity to give Dhoni a break.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is probably the most obvious example of a man needing a break. In my own experience, by the time a player is feeling tired or 'flat', it is already too late to rest him. The rest needs to happen before fatigue sets in. MS is a brilliant cricketer and the sort of man who is happy to play every game, but he knows that it is not practical. Fatigue can lead to loss of form as well as injuries, both of which can adversely affect a player's long-term career.

Like I've mentioned before, the responsibility and right ultimately rests with the player. Unless the players have a mechanism to be actively consulted when the board draws up schedules, they have to play when required to.

My take on there being too much cricket is that players always have the option of opting out of series. Typically the only players you'll see complaining about too much cricket are those that play the most often, and hence are the 'star' players. Surely they've performed well enough to risk skipping a game or a series and not face a piquant situation where they won't be included next time around. Also, if a sufficiently large number of players keep opting out of tournaments, cricket administrators will realize that they may be doing a lot of damage to the golden geese.

Thankfully, the selectors have lost patience with Yuvraj. After his blazing century against Pakistan at Bangalore, he has been quite hopeless. He'll keep saying all the right things about the need to make an impact in test cricket, but personally, despite the fact that he is only 27, I think he should just stick to limited overs cricket. I'm sure he'll do a very good job.

Presumably Dravid & Ganguly have been 'rested' for the ICC Champions Trophy later this year, since they don't feature in the list of 30 probables.

Labels: bcci, burnout, champions trophy, dhoni, fatigue, india, squad, sri lanka

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:34 am | Sledge/Read 3 sledge(s)
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The future of cricket, as I see it

A few days after a Twenty20 Champions League was announced, followed promptly by the ECB's partnership (?) with Allen Stanford for a series of five Twenty20 games where the winner of each game received US $20 million (and the loser got to watch the winner's cheques), it is fairly obvious that the ICC's hold on cricket is being loosened, and big time at that!

For all their talk about how having three forms of the game is so wonderful, it is hard to see how the ICC can come up with a calendar which accommodates enough quantities of test, 50-over and 20-over cricket. In fact, it is all the more baffling that even after these two announcements, they have not said a word about the impact on their vision for international cricket.

Instead, what we got was an announcement yesterday about the launch of the ICC Champions Trophy 2008 in Pakistan. Now that tournament is probably the most despised one-day tournament in the world given how it turns up unnecessarily every couple of years, a year before, or a year after the World Cup.

It does seem as though the ICC is totally oblivious about how the big money flowing in to promote Twenty20 will impact test and 50-over cricket. Assuming that all 3 forms of the game will co-exist, and every year there's one major ICC event lasting a month, it's hard to put up a schedule which accomodates 10 tests per country per year and 30 ODIs, aside from Twenty20 games. So is it fair to assume that in a few years, we won't actually have 3 forms of the game?

You can vote in our poll on a hypothetical scenario where the ICC allowed you to choose the two forms of the game. Which ones would you choose: Tests and Twenty20, ODIs and Twenty20 or Tests and ODIs?.

I don't believe there's enough time in the international calendar to support 3 forms of the game in addition to tournaments like the PLPL, TTPL, IPL, SAWEPL, WSPL, etc. Given that aside from England and West Indies, most other countries have overlapping domestic and international cricket seasons, it is highly unlikely that cricketers would be able to play for sufficient lengths of time in more than one such league.

Brendon McCullum, to pick a random name, could turn out for his IPL team for 3-4 games, scoot off to play 2 games in the TTPL, come back to the sub-continent for 2 games in the PLPL but miss out on the SAWEPL because he has to join his Kiwi mates for a test series against Bangladesh.

If Lalit Modi had his way, McCullum would have to apply to him for a work permit to play in other leagues. In the event that there was a conflict of interest between choosing which team to play for in the Champions League tournament, McCullum's interest would be over-riden by Lalit Modi's brainwave for the day. In addition, McCullum would need to be careful about who he hobnobs with and if he's caught talking to 'rebels', he can forget his pay cheque.

I don't think advertisers and sponsors are quite ready to throw away the 50-over game and the 8 uninterrupted hours of audience attention that they get through 100 guaranteed over-breaks, upto 20 wicket breaks and 1 hour of pre-match and post-match analysis. I believe that the ICC will end up kowtowing to 'market' interests and we will have (perhaps in the span of 5-8 years) two forms of the game, neither of which will seem remotely like the way they are now.

Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would still be playing test cricket, but they'd only play 3-day 'tests' against each other, Ireland & Kenya for 3 years and then move on to 4-day tests. All other test matches would perhaps still be played over 5 days, but there would be radical changes. Over rates would become faster, reaching 100 per day. Teams will be allowed to break-up the total number of overs they receive or bowl across two innings and the winner of the toss would choose from 3 options (1st innings overs faced-2nd innings overs faced): 150-100, 125-125 or 100-150. I'd detailed this out in a post in October 2004.

50-over and 20-over cricket will be merged and we will have 30-over games split across 3 innings of 10 overs each per team. There would be an alternating pattern to each team's innings (A1, B1, A2, B2, A3 & B3), similar to baseball. Each 10 over inning would have 3 overs of power-play, 2 of them at the start and 1 at the end. Teams would comprise 11 players, with only 7 allowed to bat. Boundary ropes would be around 50 m away from the wicket, enabling even scrawny chaps and no-hoper batsmen like Ashish Nehra to hit sixes. On a side note, there'd be some critics who'd complain that the middle 7 overs are boring. But those same critics would complain about the middle 3 balls being boring even if we reduced games to 1-over per innings! There'd be a Dirty-Thirty World Cup, sponsored by Surf (or pick your favourite detergent brand), held every 2 years.

Subhash Chandra would have wound up the Indian Cricket League in 2010 and Zee would thus get the telecast rights it wanted or ownership of an IPL team. It'd really seem like a win-win situation for all. Except that 30-year olds like Ambati Rayudu, Tejinder Pal Singh, R Sathish, Shalabh Srivastava and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala would feel so ridiculous that their prime years were spent (wasted?) in missing out on good money in the IPL and not being picked for India because of selectorial squabbles or because they were associated with the ICL. To paraphrase Marlon Brando's superb dialogue in 'On the Waterfront', they could have had class, they could have been contenders, they could have been somebodies. Instead of bums, which is what they became, let's face it!

Technology would finally be used appropriately in making several line decisions. Someone like Andrew Symonds would never keep getting away with umpiring howlers. Tony Cozier seems so frustrated, he forgets that this wasn't the first time in the last 6 months that Symonds has benefitted.

For a nation that is constantly hunting for 'the next big wrist spinner', Australia will give up their 5-year search for a half-decent spinner and settle on using Michael Clarke (current strike rate: 45, current avg: 20.5) and Andrew Symonds (current strike rate 83, current avg: 36.5) as their spinners in test cricket.

Shoaib Akhtar will be banned yet again, this time for using the Prime Minister's helicopter to arrive in time for a World Cup game. His excuse would be that he was helping the PM with campaigning for the general election.

Labels: champions trophy, future, icc, indian premier league, ipl 2008, lalit modi, prediction, stanford 2020, twenty20, umpires

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:48 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Rude Aussies?



Truth? Or a case of sour grapes?

Australia won the event. India didn't make it past the first round.

Updates

The Bladder brilliantly puts it in perspective - no one died. So we shouldn't be making such a huge fuss of it.

Yes, it showed a distinct lack of grace, lack of appreciation of a host's culture and thoughtlessness towards shoving a 65-year old minister. But if Pawar doesn't want to make it an issue, why bother?

What would my reaction have been had an Indian team won a tournament in Australia and gestured to/pushed some Australian minister/Cricket Australia chairman? I'd not have cared if Aussies had called my team a bunch of Philistines. I'd just point them to the trophy we won. End of story.

Damien Martyn has now apologized. "I didn't mean to offend him and I apologise if I did so. There was nothing in it other than me trying to help him out as there was a crush of people."

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, bcci, champions trophy, martyn, sharad pawar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:02 am | Sledge/Read 10 sledge(s)
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Missed opportunities

Risque as it may sound, the one lesson that each and every team which played against Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy needs to learn is

When you've got Australia by the b@lls, you hold on!

England were 83/0 in 18 overs and I'm fairly sure Ponting was thinking about where a breakthrough was going to pop up from. Then Bell charged Watson and was caught at cover. India, after losing Tendulkar cheaply, were 120/2 in 27-odd overs. They should have got 275 at least. New Zealand had Australia at 4/2 in the 3rd over, and couldn't finish the job.

Yesterday, Ponting was probably on the verge of throwing in the towel when Gayle and Chanderpaul put on nearly 50 in 5 overs. Then, Chanderpaul got out. Sarwan then followed as did Gayle and finally Lara. In a matter of 7-8 overs, the game turned.

Does anyone have a clue about why Shane Watson (2/11 - Samuels & Baugh and 57 chasing 116) got the 'Player of the Match' award and not Nathan Bracken (3/22 - Chanderpaul, Gayle and Sarwan)? I realize Gayle was one of the stars of the tournament, but I think Damien Martyn, much as I dislike him [while Ganesh is an admirer], should have been the 'Player of the Series'. He played a significant, if understated, part in Australia's wins.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, australia by the balls cliche, champions trophy, prediction

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:38 am | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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You don't see this often



We have heard Australia losing, but not often do we get to see McGrath giving away 22 runs off his first 2 overs. I am not joking - it has happened and it's been Gayle all the way till now in the Champions Trophy final at Mumbai. I love this - just as I write this here, Gayle is dismissed and West Indies have galloped to 80/3 in 9.4 overs with Bracken accounting for all three.

Update 1: Now the McGrath we know...


Update 2: Even better now. McGrath turns red and its definitely dangerous for West Indies (88/4 in 15 overs).

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Ganesh @ 3:30 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Can West Indies beat Australia twice in a row?

Australia seldom loses to the same team twice in a row. If at all that does happen, it doesn't tend to have happened recently too often.

England: 2004 ICC Champions Trophy and 2005 NatWest Series
India: Those two games in the Coca Cola Cup in 1998.
New Zealand: Two games in the VB Series in 2002.
Pakistan: Two games in 2002.
South Africa: Two games earlier this year.
Sri Lanka: 1999 and the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy.
West Indies: Two consolation wins in 2003.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 9:05 am | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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Quite beyond me

I'm quite certain that RP Singh (bowling avg. 40, econ. rate 5.7, strike rate 43 in his last 10 one-dayers) and Suresh Raina (batting avg. 18, highest of 34, 141 runs at a strike rate of 68 from his last 10 one-dayers) are in the team for reasons other than what we're led to believe, i.e. as a bowler and as a batsman respectively.

Raina made 19 today against West Indies in the ICC Champions Trophy while RP Singh has so far bowled 4 overs for 29 runs without looking anywhere like picking up a wicket. I could still hope to be proved wrong though!

I'd pick Powar and Kaif ahead of those two just about anyday, especially Powar since he didn't exactly disgrace himself in West Indies and West Indies have three left-handed top order batsmen. We've been critical of Kaif earlier, but I can't find a good reason why Raina should play ahead of Kaif!

At the risk of becoming hoarse, let me point out that the batting line up did it again, 3 wickets down by around the 15th over with only 69 on the board!

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 8:22 pm | Sledge/Read 3 sledge(s)
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ICC-BCCI partnership

In the light of the carping between the BCCI and the ICC over poor pitches, honouring Azharuddin, playing in the ICC Champions Trophy, hosting the 2011 World Cup, hosting the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, bidding for ICC event rights, etc., Anand Ramachandran reports on a developing symbiotic relationship between the ICC and the BCCI.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, 2011 world cup, bcci, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 6:49 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Life's a pitch

To the best of my knowledge, the ICC only has guidelines some nonsense spouted on what constitutes a good wicket for test cricket. There's nothing mentioned about one-day cricket.

CNN-IBN & CricketNext report that a couple of captains and match referee Madugalle have complained about the pitch at the Brabourne stadium for one of the ICC Champions Trophy games.

I am certainly not complaining. I'm loving these low-scoring games. They're far more fascinating to follow than 'Team A 350/8 in 50 overs lost to Team B 351/5 in 47 overs' type of games.

The ICC insisted that venues which would host games in this tournament should not have any advertising/sponsorships associated with them which would conflict with the ICC's official sponsors. As a result, venues like Eden Gardens, Wankhede stadium, Chinnaswamy stadium and MA Chidambaram stadium were left out and Mohali, Ahmedabad, Brabourne (Bombay) and Jaipur were drafted in and allocated games. Given the volume of games at each venue (5 for the first three venues and 6 for Jaipur), the rainy season having ended in most parts of India a month or so ago and the frequency of games (albeit being played on different pitches), it was but natural that the pitches wouldn't be great for batting. Just as bowlers are resigned to encountering batting wickets in one-dayers, perhaps the batsmen also need to reconcile themselves to the fact that the only time they can get scores of 280 and above is when they're facing a pathetic bowling lineup.

The BCCI really ought to make it clear to the ICC that it doesn't think low-scoring games are bad for one-day cricket and that it was the ICC's intransigence which has ensured that the games are being played in tier-2 cricket grounds (aside from Mohali, which is tier-1 and Brabourne, which is tier-7 and last hosted a one-dayer more than a decade ago).

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy, match referee, pitch

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:10 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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We're waiting ...

We're still waiting for the first real competitive game of the ICC Champions Trophy. With only four venues being used for the tournament, the pitches were bound to deteriorate fairly rapidly. The first few games of the tournament held out the promise of some run-fests in the offing, but a combination of factors, such as pitch over-use, good bowling, a few teams coming in after a longish break etc., has meant that teams have been unable to get big totals.

This is a wonderful thing. Like we've maintained all along, low-scoring one-day games are good for cricket, since they really address the constant imbalance of the game in favour of batsmen. Top-ranked teams have had hiccups chasing 126, messed up chasing 196, like South Africa did against New Zealand yesterday.

New Zealand would feel fairly aggrieved. Yesterday, I tried to catch some highlights from the game in the news, but the only cricket news on all channels was about Shoaib and Asif's "Be positive" campaign.

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Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:38 pm | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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Pakistan significantly enhances chances of victory

Pakistan are now officially on track to win the ICC Champions Trophy for the first time. The team thrives under situations where there're controversies and infighting.

A little more than a week after Younis Khan re-accepted the captaincy, the Pakistan Cricket Board revealed that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have tested positive for drugs in an internal test.

Are they out to prove Tim May right? Given they've hardly played any international cricket in the last couple of months, over-work can surely not be the excuse?!

What is it about high profile ICC tournaments and drug intake revelations? Shane Warne before the 2003 World Cup, and now these two!

Given Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer fervently argued for Law 42.3 to be scrapped after his team was accused of altering the condition of the ball, it may perhaps come as no surprise if he now argues that drug testing in sport needs to be scrapped as well.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, akhtar, asif, champions trophy, drugs, mohammad, pakistan, shoaib, shoaib akhtar

Thus spake Jagadish @ 4:05 pm | Sledge/Read 5 sledge(s)
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A lovely sight

It was lovely seeing Sachin Tendulkar in the slip cordon yesterday in India's opening game of the ICC Champions Trophy against England at Jaipur. He's always been a pretty safe slip fielder, but I can't remember him doing duties there for nearly the last half-decade, perhaps after his back started playing up in 1998/99.

The huge worry remains the brittle batting order, a theme I've touched up on last season as well. Once again, three down before the 15th over, even if the target was only 126.

If someone's figured out what on earth Michael Yardy was doing batting for England at #4 with Pietersen and Collingwood cooling their heels in the pavillion, please leave a comment here!

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 2:12 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Lee to make India debut next week

More than six years after he burst on the international scene, Brett Lee has not played a single Test or ODI in India. Australia's first game of the ICC Champions Trophy, at Brabourne Stadium, will probably be the first time he does so!

Given the amount of cricket that's played around the world, and the fact that Australia've played two test and two one-day series in India after his debut, it is very surprising.

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:34 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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A waste of time

Anyone else who thinks that six games, pitting Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies & Zimbabwe to find out who the best two are, is pretty pointless?

If the ICC had a cut-off of eight teams for the ICC Champions Trophy, why didn't they just pick the first eight teams in the list and get the competition moving, rather than an extra stage?

At no point of time in the history of the ICC's rankings have Bangladesh or Zimbabwe come anywhere close to the top 8.

Aside from the once-a-year superlative performance resulting in wins against Pakistan, India, Australia & Sri Lanka, Bangladesh has been pathetic. Zimbabwe has been equally bad, and the fact that it beat Bangladesh in a one-day series does nothing to indicate any sort of ability to play with the other higher-ranked teams.

The ICC Champions Trophy really ought to be called the ICC Champions Atrophy!

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:25 am | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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