It could not have been a better time for Indian cricket to evaluate and foresee what lies in the future. Riding high on the World Cup win and successful run in the past, the India’s horrid tour of England proved to be an eye opener in many sense and forced the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), to address the shortcomings and vulnerabilities.
Everything that could go wrong went wrong in England and India dropped to the third place in the ICC Test rankings. It was evident that without seasoned caps India failed to put up a fight overseas and this is something which demanded high priority.
Expectedly, India turned to the young crop of players. Domestic heroes such as Ajinkya Rahane, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav,
Two of the dominating teams in world cricket, South Africa and Australia, boasting of fine talents and supreme fire-power, are all set to lock horns once again.
One team is on a threshold of transition, while the other has new outlook and fresh roles with change in leadership. Australia have positively begun their campaign to retain the top spot, which they’ve decided to achieve by 2014, opponents South Africa are still looking for an answer, a method to kill the tendency to choke, which has haunted them since long.
The last time when Australia locked horns with South Africa, the cricket fraternity was treated with a hard-fought series which saw South Africa winning the ODI series 3-2, but losing the Test series 2-1.
England under Andrew Strauss and Andy flower have improved many folds; they have won most of their recently played Test matches, along with notching up the Ashes in Australia after 24 years. Now, as they lock horns with the numero uno Indian team, a challenge that will take the best out of them, it is important that they contemplate on the factors that may help prepare better and prevent from getting complacent.
The Sri Lanka series cannot be considered as an ideal challenge for the English team, as the Lankans played the Tests series not with the view to win but to build a team for the future under new leader and players. Yet, all England could manage was a 1-0 win!
With their star batsmen Mahela Jayewardene and Kumar
Young Abhinav Mukund has an uphill task ahead of him. Just one series old, the Tamil Nadu opener who has had tremendous success in the domestic circuit is all set to fill in for the maverick Virender Sehwag. Expectations from him may never swell up this much, and this tour could be the biggest test of his skills and character.
Mukund won’t have felt such huge pressure and the burden of expectations when he walked out to open for India in the West Indies, but in England, even his captain cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s eyes could convey or ask a lot when he’ll leave the dressing room with senior fellow Gautam Gambhir to face an attack which looks dreadful on the bouncy pitches and under ideal swinging conditions.
Darren Sammy, the 10th West Indies captain in the last decade has recently finished his tenure which culminated on a mixed note. During his stint as a captain, West Indies performance wasn’t stupendous, neither was it terrible. Under Sammy, whose place in the team has always been questioned, West Indies played 2011 World Cup quarter-finals, won a Test match (against Pakistan) after two years, and most importantly, didn’t allow the no.1 ranked Indian team to sweep the board.
Now, Sammy awaits the judgement on his future as captain from the mercurial West Indies Cricket Board, which has shocked cricket fraternity time and again with their preposterous decisions, unwarranted feuds with players and blatantly overlooking the
The Executive Committee of the International Cricket Council which had an annual meet last month in Hong Kong came up with revolutionary changes and suggestions such as to make the One-Day International format more exciting and the mandatory use of UDRS and abolishment of the runners. But the most crucial decision which was taken by the ICC was to ask all its member boards to discontinue the involvement of politics in the game, which stands out to be a factor which can change its future.
Be it the shocking inclusion of veteran Sanath Jayasuriya in the Sri Lankan ODI team for England series or Shahid Afridi’s desperate appeal to the Pakistan president to interfere in his feud with the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz
Former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara’s sensational speech which had audacious revelations at the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture has got him humongous appreciation from the cricket fraternity, because among the many talented ones and the experienced, it was him who stood out of the league to break the shackles and expose the malfunctioning in the Sri Lanka Cricket. And to do so, Sangakkara chose the right platform.
Sri Lankan cricket’s tryst with politics had slowly, but gradually, started surfacing. Be it the World Cup final loss to India or the succeeding tour of England, there were instances hinting that politicians and those who are wrongly powerful, have their say in Sri Lankan cricket, no matter what
One of the recommendations made by the International Cricket Council (ICC) is to abolish the use of runners in the game – as the batsmen tend to cheat – seems to be harsh and unwise. A batsman, after being one the field for many hours, sometimes under the scorching sun, or sometimes playing in the unbearable heat, may start cramping and it is very natural. By denying a runner to the batsmen when it is desperately needed is like taking away a lifeline.
Runners have been a critical part of the game for more than 100 years and it won’t be wise to chuck them off without contemplating on the possibilities to improve. If the ICC is of the view that batsmen exploit the rule for their individual favour, they should come up
It would have come as a big surprise for many that a player who was dropped from the Indian team few months back in South Africa after the first Test match due to his vulnerability against the short ball, emerged as a saviour of the team on the bouncy pitches of the West Indies. Suresh Raina, unarguably, is one Indian cricketer who has constantly improved his game and skills with sheer hard work and determination that has started paying him back.
Labelled as a player whose skills fitted only the limited overs format, Raina seems to have turned around his fortune in the ongoing West Indies tour. Firstly, he shrugged off the notion that he is not a good leader by winning the One-Day International series in absence of big
In an ideal world, a cricket board won’t axe its senior players or punish them for being rude, especially when the team is at the bottom of the barrel. In an ideal world, a board will field the best XI when they go to take on with the No. 1 side in the world. In an ideal world, a positive mind frame of a governing body will be petrified with the fact that they’ve fallen from the top to the bottom in one go, and would work for the betterment.
But, in the case of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), this is not the ideal world. By the look of things, WICB looks like an organization where personal issues and egos are given more heed than the game, which eventually, is killing their cricket.
The man doesn't need any introduction. He lived during the times of Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly, Jacques Kallis, Marvan Attapattu, Mohammad Yusuf, Ricky Ponting and a few more, yet he excelled and carved out his own niche. They say, there is no one like Rahul Dravid, and there could be no one, with such class, with such elegance, unswerving concentration. The Great Wall of India, Rahul Dravid completed 15 glorious of international cricket on June 20, 2011.
The day which ideally should be celebrated as a prodigious milestone in Test cricket, largely went unnoticed. A few tweeted, while some posted congratulatory notes on their Facebook accounts. It won’t be wrong to say that at a time when Twenty20
The 2011 World Cup was treated to some breathtaking knocks which captured the imagination of all and sundry.
Let’s take a look some of the most memorable innings of this World Cup:
Virender Sehwag’s 175 vs Bangladesh, Mirpur
Virender Sehwag embarked on his journey in the marquee tournament with a swashbuckling 175 against Bangladesh in the opening match. This was an innings which saw rare intent from the dasher to bat through the innings, as he batted till the 48th over of the Indian innings.
Not that, he was not creaming the opposition bowling – he belted 13 fours and five sixes but the manner in which he paced his innings and exuded exemplary shot selection stood out.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has taken a backward step in keeping the minnows out of future World Cups. It’s a blow for the development and spread of the game. The decision lacks foresight. The 2015 World Cup is four years away and ICC could have taken some time to take a decision of such magnitude.
Ireland, ranked 10th, will be most affected. Ireland’s stunning win over England at Bengaluru made the cricketing world sit up and take notice of them. It may be recalled, Ireland had also beaten Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup in West Indies.
The Irish triumph over England not only made the Group B split wide open, but also underlined the fact that minnows cannot be considered pushovers.
Never say die attitude was one of the main reasons why Australian teams of past succeeded – even in most difficult conditions. Intrepid players like Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne hardly let the opponents to surmount them.
The term ‘Australianism’, which has been successfully associated with the country’s most popular game for long and carried by these legends, is gradually diminishing from the present crop. Australia have lost the prestigious Ashes thrice on past four occasions and have now exited the World Cup – a tournament which they have won four times in history with three in a row.
The hopes of billion Indian in seeing the Men in Blue script World Cup glory in their own backyard was kept alive after the team dethroned four-time World Cup champions Australia from the 2011 edition.
The success of Ravichandran Ashwin by opening with the new ball and the meaningful late-order quality that Suresh Raina provides has ironed out some of the wrinkles. However, what is worrying the India team are the failures of the Indian new ball bowlers. After Shantakumar Sreesanth was plundered in the opening game and sidelined thereafter, the two other fast bowlers in Munaf Patel and Ashish Nehra have done precious little to help the Indian team’s cause. That’s not a happy situation to be in
