Bvute & Chingoka are right, let's focus on the cricketing aspects!

The ICC will today come to a decision over how to handle the current situation around Zimbabwe's status in international cricket. Last week,
I posted my views on the topic. They were primarily centred around Zimbabwe's cricketing credentials. I wrote:

Zimbabwe doesn't feature in the ICC test rankings since they haven't played a test for nearly three years now. The last time Zimbabwe won a ODI against major countries other than Bangladesh was in November 2007 (against West Indies). Before that, we go back to November 2003 (West Indies again!). They've been that pathetic.

Let's just give you some idea of how long ago they last played a test. That last test featured Sourav Ganguly as India's captain and Greg Chappell as India's coach. This was the test after the one where Ganguly revealed that Chappell had asked him to quit as captain. In 3 years, so much has changed: Ganguly was out of the side for over a year while Chappell resigned after the pathetic show at the 2007 World Cup.

Zimbabwe Cricket's Managing Director Ozias Bvute had questioned why only the ICC was discussing Zimbabwe when other sporting bodies were not. He pointed out that Zimbabwe was playing in a World Cup qualifier and a Zimbabwean swimmer had won gold medals and broken world records at the World Championship. The chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, Peter Chingoka, claimed that a ban on Zimbabwe would be for political reasons and not cricketing. Like his MD, he also pointed out that there were no moves to ban Zimbabwe from other international sporting events or organisations.

Perhaps therein lies the problem: Zimbabwe have a FIFA ranking of 82 out of ~ 200 countries while Kirsty Coventry obviously can swim. Zimbabwe's footballers and swimmers are not banned from international competition because they are competitive. The time has come to rethink about Zimbabwe's status in international cricket because the cricketers are not competitive, as has already been pointed out last week.

Mike Atherton too says the same thing. Since the 2003 World Cup, which is about the time after which Zimbabwe's cricket started going into free-fall, Zimbabwe have tied with Ireland, lost twice to Kenya and 15 times to Bangladesh, without even going into their performances against better opponents.

Zimbabwe's cricketing credentials are surely poor enough to stop all debate about whether the ZCU should continue to be a full member of the ICC. I suspect the compromise reached, which will ensure that the BCCI gets 1 vote from Zimbabwe, is that Zimbabwe will continue as a full member but without the same amount of monetary assistance from the ICC. The BCCI will do its bit by hosting Zimbabwe in the Duleep and Deodhar Trophies. Other sub-continental boards will also do similar things.

PS: What on earth has happened to Irfan Pathan?! Just six months ago, he was man of the match, winning a test match for India at Perth. He did a decent job in the Commonwealth Bank triangular series as well. He picked up 15 wickets @ 23 each with a good economy rate of 6.6 in the IPL. Now, his bowling has lost all sting and he's repeatedly getting carted around. Is it because of the wickets he's bowling on? Or has he not completely recovered from the injury?

Yesterday against Pakistan, India's opening bowling combination (Pathan & Praveen Kumar) was probably its friendliest & most non-threatening since Abid Ali & Eknath Solkar did the job in India's first ever ODI.

Labels: bcci, icc, irfan pathan, zimbabwe

Thus spake Jagadish @ 3:19 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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Four years wasted

On the verge of the start of one of India's most important test series, it is a good idea to take a trip down memory lane. Four years ago, India ended up competing rather well with Australia, and falling just four wickets short of a totally improbable and unprecedented series win in Australia.

The way the individuals involved in that series overall conveys a picture to me that the intervening four years have been wasted mostly.

It is probably a measure of how well India were playing, or the absence of sufficient backup, that only 13 players played the four tests. This is how the 13 have fared between Australia-2003/04 and Australia-2007/08
Chopra - Nearly out of the reckoning now. Played four tests after being identified as the fall-guy to accommodate Yuvraj at Rawalpindi. His confidence was shot, and he responded with 0, 5, 9 & 1 against Australia in 2004.

Sehwag - Promised so much for a couple of years, giving hope to Indian cricket followers that he would be India's next-generation batting hope along with Yuvraj & Kaif, as he piled up a triple ton, the second fastest double ton, nearly scoring two doubles in a series and almost 100 before lunch on day one of a test. After that, his form dipped alarmingly, and Australia is perhaps his last chance of getting a permanent batting slot.

Dravid - Consistent, as usual, except for the past few tests. But one expected him to make that giant leap and start getting mentioned in the same breath as Lara, Steve Waugh, Tendulkar, etc. (to list out some contemporaries) after his great run last time. But his inability to convert 50s into 100s even as Ricky Ponting scored hundreds for fun means that Ponting now gets categorized as 'great' while Dravid, in the eyes of many [not me], despite breathtaking stuff like the twin gems at Jamaica in 2006, is seen to fall just short.

Tendulkar - Injury and loss of form have contributed to a marked decline in his aura. He is no longer as authoritative as he used to be, or can be! Was the Sydney 2004 innings was perhaps an indicator of things to come? Instead of moving ahead, after his Multan near-double, the consistency has certainly been lacking. Shockingly, he is just about managing one century per year now!

Ganguly - Poor form leading upto the 2003 series in Australia was forgotten once he scored his Brisbane century. Questions about his form didn't quite result in anything, but once Greg Chappell took over, he read out the riot act, resulting in Ganguly being out of the team for a long duration. He's back now though, and in a new & improved avatar, hopefully! Yet, it is plain and obvious that his inability to sort out his batting mess resulted in him losing out on more than a few test matches!

Laxman - Like Dravid, he didn't kick on after the last tour. Every now and then he promised to make the leap from good to very good, and thereby become indispensable. But no, until a couple of months ago, if someone needed to be accommodated in the middle order, or an extra bowler needed to be played, there was every chance that his name would be scratched out. He was vice-captain for three tests. No-one knows why he was appointed, and why he was sacked from the job!

Parthiv - Perhaps his fall was inevitable, given that he was never a good wicket-keeper to start off with. The rise of Karthik and then Dhoni resulted in him being cast aside, despite some ability with the bat. Apparently Parthiv Mark II is a much improved keeper, but will he get the opportunities to succeed or fail?

Agarkar - He symbolizes what this post is all about. If he had done anything after his Adelaide 2003 showing, he'd be the leader of India's pace attack. It is so cruel that although he is just 30, he's never going to make it back to the test side. But he probably has himself to blame, as 7 wickets in 150 overs (6 tests), a strike rate of 128 and an average of 74 in the tests he played after the last Australian tour show.

Harbhajan - In the lead-up to the 2003/04 series, Harbhajan was the #1 spinner, with Kumble missing out on quite a few games (especially on tour). He got injured at Brisbane, but he only had 1/169 against his name. Aside from the odd-game now and then (two hauls in the West Indies, a 7fer against South Africa and a superb showing at Bangalore against Australia and a match-winning show against Sri Lanka), he has done precious little to suggest that India's spin bowling attack is in safe hands when Kumble retires. He has had sufficient opportunities to do so, despite sometimes being at the receiving end of Chappell's ire. It is likely that he may feature in a couple of tests this series. He needs to do something to show that the selectors must continue to have faith in him. There are a few young spinners around and they'd really benefit from learning under Kumble.

Zaheer - After Srinath's retirement, and since Agarkar was unable to show any sort of consistency, Zaheer had a great opportunity to cement himself as India's #1 quick bowler. Yet, far from it, he did poorly enough to get dropped, spending most of 2006 playing domestic cricket in India and England. After that, he hasn't quite looked back. With competition from Sreesanth, Munaf, RP Singh and a rejuvenated Irfan Pathan, he needs a good showing in Australia. But he most certainly is nowhere near where he ought to have been. He is nearing 30, and should aim to play test cricket for the next 3-4 years at least.

Nehra - He played one test after the last tour of Australia and hasn't played a ODI since September 2005! He either kept getting injured, or bowled pathetically. Even if you ignore the one test he played in 1999, he has played 16 tests in 6 years, and is now totally out of the reckoning as far as a place in the Indian team is concerned, and he's not yet 29. What a real waste!

Kumble - He's probably the only one who has made progress after the last series in Australia. He is now captain, the #1 spinner for the side, has 1000 first-class wickets, is at #3 on the all-time wicket-takers list and even scored a test century! He is definitely conceding more runs per wicket, but he's getting the wickets quicker than before, with some beautiful changes of pace [up and down!]. He probably has 2-3 more years of test cricket still left in him - sufficient time perhaps to get 50 wickets a year and end up behind Murali on the wicket-takers chart, and on the way help nurture the next generation of Indian spinners.

Pathan - A surprise package last time around, he was named the Emerging Player of the Year in 2004 and by 2005/06, was considered all-rounder material. Yet his bowling fell away shockingly, and he spent nearly 1.5 years without playing test cricket and wasn't picked too often for one-day cricket either due to his own bowling form, entrances by Sreesanth & RP Singh and Zaheer's comeback.

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In summary, the Indian team has regressed majorly since India's last tour of Australia. The intervening four years have been wasted. India should have been challenging Australia for the top spot. But now, they've to contend with Sri Lanka, South Africa and England.

Labels: agarkar, akash chopra, australia, dravid, ganguly, harbhajan, ind v aus 2008, india, irfan pathan, kumble, laxman, nehra, parthiv patel, sehwag, tendulkar, wasted, zaheer khan

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:48 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Massive cleanup

The BCCI selectors today announced the test and one-day international squads for the tour of England. The three major omissions are Sehwag, Harbhajan and Munaf. On the face of it, it is tough to argue with their exclusions. Munaf's body is probably as fragile as Nasser Hussain's fingers and Shane Bond's bones. Pathan misses out too - he's obviously shot on confidence.

Joe Bloggs/Ramdin/Ramakdin Sehwag has been pathetic in both forms of the game for a year now. After nearly making a century before lunch at St. Lucia, his test match innings scores were 31, 65, 0, 4, 4, 33, 0, 8, 40 and 4. Essentially, a walking wicket 60% of the time.

His one-day numbers are even worse and he should have been dropped a year ago or so. He, along with the likes of Slater and possibly Stuart Clark, will forever make cricket fans scratch their heads: Why on earth have they not adjusted to one-day cricket, given the way they play test cricket?! In the last year, his one-day scores are 9, 8, 1, 10, 9, 17, 65, 0, 18, 11, 19, 12, 46, 2, 114, 48, 30, 21, 45, 52 and 8. The one hundred in that list came against Bermuda.

He scored, on an average, 26 runs every inning. Is that acceptable from a top-order batsman in one-day cricket, when that's the slot everyone's queuing up to bat in? Look at the top run-makers in ODIs - seven out of the top 10 batted in the top four.

It really is high time he was dropped.

Harbhajan's exclusion from the one-day team was expected. In the last year, he's picked up 20 wickets from 13 games, but in 8 out of the 13 games, he picked up just one wicket. Given that he was the sole spinner most of the time, and except for the series in South Africa, the rest of the games were played on wickets which would definitely provide some sort of assistance to spinners, his performance was pathetic as well.

But it is strange that he was dropped from the test team. He played a key role in India's series win in West Indies, picking up 11 wickets in the 2 tests he played, including cleaning up the tail at St. Kitts and bowling beautifully in West Indies' first innings at Jamaica.

Surely if Dhoni is good enough to be a ODI vice-captain (presumably that implies he's being groomed for the captaincy), he can function as a test vice-captain too, ahead of Tendulkar. Exactly what did Laxman do wrong in South Africa?

Labels: england, harbhajan, india, irfan pathan, munaf, sehwag, squad

Thus spake Jagadish @ 10:10 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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The Irfan Pathan dilemma

Every game that Irfan Pathan plays in, he reduces his chances of making it to India's playing XI during the World Cup. So, to increase his chance of playing a game, he should be asking the team management to not pick him.

But if they don't pick him now, they probably won't pick him for the real action anyway.

I predict that Pathan will play at most two games in the tournament - against Bermuda and Bangladesh.

He's bowling at around 115 kph. Fifteen kilometres per hour faster than what Anil Kumble possibly bowls after he's been administered general anaesthesia or a sedative.

It's easy to forget that he's only 22. He's not someone I'd call over-rated. He has the ability and the brains. Maybe it was a bad idea to pick him for this tournament when he was clearly not ready to feature in it. Beginning from India's tour to the West Indies last year, he averages 15.6 with the bat and 39 with the ball (economy rate 5.9 and best bowling of 2/20) from 14 games.

The other person who's cocked up in two consecutive games is Sehwag. Maybe someone should make them both injured and India can get some decent replacements.

Labels: 2007 world cup, india, irfan pathan, sehwag, world cup, world cup squads

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:03 pm | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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