Panic button in the times of Knee Jerks !

England on the verge of thrashing India 4-0 in the Test series. There are reactions galore. One of my friends said, “What happened all of a sudden that the batsmen, bowlers and fielders; all have failed except for one”.

Geoffrey Boycott  declared, “India look like a pale shadow of an ordinary team”. There are a lot of reactions, over-reactions and knee-jerk reaction with doomsayers abundant.

In spite of a lot of criticism, Dhoni declared, “No need to press the panic button”. Sreesanth said, “This is not the toughest series we have played”. Not much has been heard from the likes of Laxman, Sachin, Sehwag and of course Gambhir.

Facebook, Twitter and all social networking sites are overflowing with snide remarks, tweets and offensive comments about the greed of our players. It hurts to see a team lose like this. I don’t remember Team India playing such spineless Cricket since the 2003 New Zealand series.

For one who predicted a 2-1 or 1-2 or 2-2 result for the series, I too am taken aback. So I decided to sit back and doing a postmortem of the series. Keeping the knee-jerk out, here is what I feel about the series.

What went right for England

England were playing full strength with very few carrying injuries. Playing at home, they had abundant supply of replacements. They had walloped Australia in Australia and were very very eager for the No. 1 spot. They played ruthless, efficient and Champion brand of Cricket, no doubts. They deserve to be No. 1 now and no contesting that either. But if we look closer, so many things went in favor of England. Almost all things.

Home conditions, swinging pitches with bounce and carry.
All top order batters in form and even one who was out of form came out on top as the series progressed.
Their bowlers were definitely in supreme control and never allowed Indian batsmen to relax.
Every Umpiring and UDRS decisions went in favor of England. They got the Bell run-out reversed and sent Dravid packing when there was no clear evidence.
Overall they were fantastic on field and absolutely ruthless in every aspect including gamesmanship.

What went wrong for India

Sehwag and Gambhir in full form and fitness have terrorized best of the bowling attacks over the past 4 years. Both of them were coming back from long lay off and lack of match fitness showed.
Laxman and Tendulkar have done fabulously well for 4 years since 2007, the last time India toured England. Every time there was a crisis, one of these two had stepped in to lift the team. It was just the law of averages perhaps. Both failed in tandem.
During the series, India never completed test without someone breaking down.
Losing 2 out of 11 players on a tour can be tough. Then how about entire half of the team ? Gambhir, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Sachin and then Praveen Kumar were hampered by injuries at one time or the other. Three of them were completely sidelined.
Umpires were reasonably kind to India but UDRS was not.

I have no complaint about the Cricket India played. The best of the teams can lose. But the way they capitulated to the pressure mounted by England to call back Bell was deplorable. For me, that was the defining moment in the series. If India had stood the ground, it would not have escalated into World war-3. But it definitely would have sent a message across. It was all downhill from there. The tough have thumped the soft-bellied meek.

This piece should not be dismissed as rantings of a disgruntled Indian fan. Just remember how England bumbled through World Cup 2011 and then kept complaining about everything including the size of the shrimps served for dinner.

Before we castigate this team for this series, let us not forget they had ‘Won’ the World Cup less than four months ago and had not lost a Test series since 2008. This just was one really sad series where nothing went right for India and everything worked perfectly for England. That will not happen all the times. India will bounce back and we have enough talent to sustain us in the Top-3 if not the top spot.

So, cheer up guys and gals and relax. Tomorrow is another day and Poms will fall sooner than later !

Govind Raj Shenoy for DieHard Cricket Fans

Dead Man Walking – the Indian cricket version

It hurts.

The last time I felt like this was when India were knocked out of the 2007 World Cup in the first round itself.

This time, the pain is worse. Watching your team lose its number 1 ranking is never a pleasant thing, but the manner in which they lost it is the most galling. Its hard to come on Twitter or read any news related to the on-going series because of this. A lot of people have been waiting for India’s reign to end, and now that it has happened, they are in what can only be known as ‘orgasmic’ delight.

The much vaunted batting line up has failed to fire. The bowlers have been inconsistent. The fielding has been in shambles. The players look disinterested in the field. Every other day, a player gets injured. All in all, it has been one of the most depressing and soul sapping tours for an Indian cricket fan, let alone an Indian player.

There is still some light at the end of the tunnel. When England got whitewashed in the 2006 Ashes in Australia, the ECB reviewed what went wrong and took some steps, which has ultimately resulted in their team being crowned as Number 1, 5 years down the line. Even Australia have taken some dramatic steps based on the Argus review of their disastrous Ashes performance recently. While it would be too much to expect the same from the Indian board, I hope that they keep aside their obsession with money for just a while, and take some important and necessary steps towards correcting the inherent flaws present in the system, which is preventing the Indian team from being better than they can actually be. There is no shortage of well meaning former players and other experts with intelligent suggestions; hopefully, the BCCI will take heed.

For what its worth, here are some ideas:

• Appoint someone like Anil Kumble or any other respected former player to review what went wrong with the same team that fought better when they toured Australia and South Africa; and implement the suggestions.
• Something which has been repeated ad nauseum – we need more practice games when we tour abroad. We just can’t afford to start slow everytime we play an away series.
• There is no dearth of talented players in the country, and many of them seem to do well, when they play A tours or other Emerging Players tournaments; but when they make the leap to the international arena, they are being found short. Its not only about the cricketing skills; players need to be mentally ready when they make their debuts. This is where senior players like Tendulkar, Dravid and Zaheer have just vital roles to play. Their best days might be over but now it is necessary for them to train the younger generation in matters which even the IPL can’t prepare them for.
• Players are not machines. Unless the Board realizes that, they will just have to do with the all too frequent injury breakdowns. Review the packed schedule and ensure sufficient recharging time for the players, so that the best team is always available to play when marquee series are round the corner.
• Cricket can be a cruel game. One day you are feted as world champions, the next you are being pilloried by all and sundry for one lousy series. This team is lucky to have a level headed skipper and battle hardened coach who has seen his share of disastrous tours; but some of the players could be psychologically scarred, what with all the spate of cricketers confessing of depression during their playing days and this is where a sports psychologist is handy. Employ one on a full-time basis, so that players learn to handle depressing days like this better.

These are just some ideas, and there are more experienced people with wiser ideas out there. Hopefully, something good can come out of this right royal mess.
Meanwhile, kudos to the English team. They have played like champions and deserve top billing. All credit goes to Flower, Strauss and his band of merry men, who have the attributes necessary to stay at the top longer than India did. While they will look to win a series in India to establish indisputable credentials for the top ranking, they would do well to take note of an opposition who might be following the proceedings keenly: South Africa. With a new coach and a bunch of world class players itching to prove that they are the best, South Africa remain as their biggest threat to the top ranking. At least THAT would be a contest to savor!

Benny for DieHard Cricket Fans
Follow Benny on Twitter @tracerbullet007

England’s Perfect Equilibrium Takes Them To The Top of Test Cricket

At Edgbaston on Saturday 13th August 2011 England beat India by an innings and 242 runs, a mammoth victory that saw them climb to the top of the ICC test cricket rankings, replacing India at the top after their comprehensive 3-0 series victory.

Quite a feat, and to quantify that further, its scarcely two and a half years since Andy Flower was appointed Director of Cricket and Andrew Strauss became Captain of an England side languishing in sixth in the same ICC rankings.

In the past 2 years Flower and Strauss have transformed England into a well-oiled machine which has demolished Australia, Sri Lanka and now India in successive test series, winning 8 out of the 9 series the two have presided over, drawing only the 2009 tour of South Africa.

So how have Strauss and Flower orchestrated England’s masterplan? Let’s start by looking at the bowlers.

The term “hunting in packs” might be slightly clichéd these days but it does accurately describe how England go about their business with the ball. There isn’t necessarily a stand-out bowler that you would throw the cherry to to get a much-needed wicket as you would have in the Andrew Flintoff era perhaps. Instead pressure is built by the whole bowling attack, bowling consistent lines and lengths, asking questions of the batsmen with every ball, testing their patience and technique and not letting them settle or get a free hit at the other end.

Look at how England took Indian wickets Edgbaston. Apart from Dravid in the 1st innings, who got a snorter from Bresnan, the rest of the Indian batsmen gave their wickets away, lacking patience and not being able to cope with the short stuff that was served up. England bowled to plans and India obliged by succumbing to the pressure.

And we’re not talking about inexperienced batsmen here – England’s bowlers have dominated the likes of Tendulkar, Laxman, Gambhir and Dravid in this series, probing away on a consistent line outside off stump and not giving any runs away, waiting for the batsman to try and force the issue and make a mistake, which has invariably happened. If that’s failed, a few short balls has done the job, either way, India haven’t been able to cope with it.

And it doesn’t half help that England are the best fielding side in world cricket too right now. The bowlers know that any edge they induce is almost certain to be pouched. Imagine being an Indian bowler on the second evening at Edgbaston when Eoin Morgan was dropped at slip by the normally-dependable Rahul Dravid? No wonder Indian spirits were so low during that mammoth England innings in Birmingham – India had chances to make inroads, but they dropped a sack-full of chances.

Having a bowling attack like England’s certainly helps, but the batsmen still need to score runs, and right now England’s batting lineup are delivering some big scores. Alastair Cook has broken all sorts of records of late and is taking a lot of the plaudits right now, but all of the top 7 have contributed runs in the last year. Teams know England are capable of scoring colossal totals now and will wonder or even doubt that they’ll be able to compete with that.

I remember the days when England would struggle to pass 300 on a regular basis. Now it is the teams England play, not England themselves that falter with the bat.

Right now England have the perfect equilibrium between their batsmen and their bowlers; the batsmen are scoring big which gives the bowlers plenty to work with and the bowlers are running through batting lineups and giving their batsmen low targets to aim for. It’s a simple game when both components are firing!

Some people have said that England are top of a form of the game that is dying a death and that perhaps their opposition, rightly or wrongly aren’t as concerned about test cricket as they once were and as England still are. It’d be foolish not to acknowledge that fact, but at the same time England can only beat was is in front of them. Australia and India are undoubtedly going through transitional periods, but these things are all cyclical – they will be back. And don’t forget, Australia took great pleasure in tearing through England series after series, so we shouldn’t feel too bad for them!

For now England are top dog and deservedly so. With the first Test Championships taking place in England in 2013, they will be hoping for a long reign at the top of this great game.

Tom Huelin for DieHard Cricket Fans
Follow Tom on Twitter @tomhue1

That’s not funny, MS

Not much to say at this point.

Contributed by DHCF Rishabh Bablani
Rishabh’s personal blog

  

Some Reasons for Defeat in England

Some reasons that I have shortlisted for India’s defeat

1) Selection: The selection of the playing XI has been a bit tricky, India have not picked horses for courses…Selecting Raina ahead of Yuvi in 1st test was baffling and more so baffling by picking raina for 3rs test, after a poor 2nd test Raina should have been replaced. Virat Kohli could have been given chance and he would also have added more value by his medium pace bowling which would have come handy in English conditions and we have been missing a handy 4th medium pace(slow) bowler.Picking Mishra for 3rd test was more surprising, the wicket was very green; on the 1st day of the test it was difficult to find a difference between the wicket and the outfield. India should have gone with all 4 pace attack. Picking Mishra confused me no end because England had 4 left handed batsmen in top 7, hitting with the spin made their life easy.

2) Initiatives: India have failed to grab the initiatives, they made chances but was not able to convert it into something big. India were able to land light punches on England but was not able to give the killer blow on England which was very important. Chances were made like in 2nd test India had England on the mat but still they made a strong come back through broad and swann, which in the end resulted in India’s loss. Even the batsmen have failed to make an impact someone like Gautam Gambhir made a very good 38 in 3rd test but failed to make a big one, some like Abhinav Mukund failed to convert a good start to match winning innings. This is where England have made a big impact, there have been 2 double centuries and 3 100s so far in 3 test matches.

3) Patience: Indian batsmen have not been patient enough to fight it out in the middle. Players like Abhinav Mukund and Raina have given away their wicket too early. They should learn something from players like Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid, and Ali Cook. KP was struggling for form before India series and even during the 1st test where he scored an unbeaten 200, he was struggling for the first 100 runs but he didn’t throw it away, in fact made a fight back against the India. Even Ali Cook had a very poor series till the 3rd test but he made a grand comeback with a double in 3rd test. The impact of the comeback innings shows your real character, it isn’t easy to come back fighting all odds. Someone like Raina is always seen committing same mistake, he should certainly take Cook as an example of how to make the comeback when going gets tough.

4) Runs: I just feel India have not been able to rotate the strike that often easily; they have kind of stuck at one end. Rotating strike regularly disturbs the line and length of the bowlers which India have failed to do it and neither have they taken the attack on English bowlers. Whenever Indian has taken attack on the English bowlers their line and length have been wayward. In 3rd test when MS took an attack on them in both the innings they were found wanting and they were clueless. Indian batsmen have been stuck at same end for long time which leads to pressure, which in turn leads to a wicket. Blaming on the bowlers would be very wrong as batsmen have failed to put up a score on the board. If India would have been able to make a big score in 1st innings, there would have been spring in the stride of bowlers, you would have seen more catching and attacking positions, the bowlers and the captain would have enjoyed the luxury of runs, more pressure would have been created on England batsmen, and more importantly the wicket/pitch would have detoriated which would have benefited the Indian bowlers and spinners specially, India have bowled on fresh wickets which have made batting a bit easy for their batsmen. India has failed to score a 300 in this series so far.

5) Margin of defeats: The margins of defeats in 1st two tests and the way India have lost in this series that is having a huge effect, and coming back from such defeats is never easy. The morale in the dressing must be very low after such huge defeats especially when you are the number 1 team in tests. There was only one man who could have raised the morale of the team, but that man himself has not been able to score a big one. Sachin Tendulkar is the only man who could have raised the morale of the team very easily by scoring a big one, if Sachin was able to score a big 100 then that would have given some thing for the team to cheer about, not only it would have made India make a big total but also made all other players feel happy and good about something. We have had almost nothing to cheer about in this series, other than a few handful performances, we have been poor in this series.

6) Lower Middle order batsmen of England have made a huge impact in this series, someone like Broad, Bresnan, Swann and Prior have added more runs that the top order of India. England have also made comebacks from poor positions, when a team makes a comeback from loosing or poor position it actually raises the morale of the team no end. England would have loved the way Swann and Broad made a comeback in 1st Innings of 2nd test; it would have given them a lot of confidence. Whereas Indian lower middle order like Bhajji, MS have not been able to make a big contribution.
The morale of the team has gone from bad to worse and there has been dropping shoulders too early in the match.

Reasons like No Practice Games, not going to WI, injury to Zaheer Khan and other players actually don’t hold any truth because If you take the reason of Not enough warm up games but then after playing 2 tests and 2 warm up games what has India done in 3rd test, playing 2 test matches and 2 warm up games actually didn’t improve our performance. Reason like not going to WI, we need to consider that WI team was a 2nd string team, and players who went there like MS, Raina have also failed to make an impact in this series. Injury is part and parcel of the game, what happened to Zak was unfortunate it could have happened to anyone at any time you can’t blame excess or lack of cricket to it and since we were the number one team in tests how could we just hope on one bowler to take all the wickets. Even someone like England have faced injuries in this series Tremlett was injured and was replaced by Bresnan who has performed brilliantly with both bat and ball, even their best bat Trott got injured but then Bell has taken his place with utmost responsibility. So players who replace the injured players should be good enough to fill that void in the team to benefit the team.

To end I would say this series have been disappointing but still as a cricket lover winning and losing is part and parcel of the game, sometimes we lose and most often we win. We should stand by the team rather than being critical of the performance. We have been number one for around 20 months which has been a good journey and let’s hope we would reach there once again very soon.
We should accept that England has played well in this series and they deserve to be number 1 but let’s see how long they be number 1.

Ricky Singh for DieHard Cricket Fans

Dear Ravi Shastri, Please Shut Up

With the Indian team crumbling into a miserable heap at the hands of the English seamers, perhaps the time was ripe for an off-field battle between some of the big heads from either camp. But before we get to that, lets make a few things clear about the status quo:

India have no excuses. Losing Zaheer Khan is probably the only piece of bad luck they may rue. Apart from that this is (more or less) a full strength Indian line-up.

1. India are not number one. And in fact they never were, they only ended up there as a temporary place holder in the lack of a true champion team.
2. England could be the real deal. The England’s of the past would flatter to deceive, winning an important series before falling flat in those that follow. Not this one it seems, and once they get their ODI game in order, who knows… the next Australia?

But now to the point of the article.
The Bombing of Pearl Harbor

Nasser Hussain, renowned for having a rather big mouth, made it clear what he thought when Harbhajan was unfairly given out lbw with a big inside edge. His two cents worth included “using incomplete DRS is disgraceful by BCCI”, as he correctly said that Harbhajan could have been there if complete DRS was allowed, and that hotspot is in fact less accurate than the ball tracking system, and yet India have opted for that.

Granted the choice of words are not politically correct, Hussain is more or less right. But this is a very unflattering stick thrust smartly into the BCCI bee hive. How dare he criticize the big shots of India!

The Atomic Bomb

The rebuttal, came from Mr Ravi Shastri. He struck back with this:

“They are jealous about the way the Indian Premier League is going. They are jealous about where India is in world cricket.

“They are jealous about the fact that India are world champions. They are jealous because of the money being made by the Indian cricket board.
“The bottom line is that they have never been bloody No 1 in the world in Test cricket.
“So don’t criticise unless you have been there and know.”

Do you Mr Shastri really think that India is *that* good? That they can flat out accuse someone of being jealous of their cricketing abilities, their money and even more laughably, the IPL? Take a good look at how this series is going sir, and learn some humility and respect. It is 2-0 and looking like 3-0 at the moment. Your commentary sounded like you were at a funeral as it was so depressing to see your beloved team being so soundly trounced. Tim Bresnan, the England number 9, is straight driving your best bowlers like they are club level rookies.

Your “bloody no 1 in the world” are playing like the no 1 joke. Beating a few teams on flat decks by out-batting them does NOT make a world number one team, and you will find out in due course don’t you worry about that. Here’s a fact, if it weren’t for the soon-to-retire VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, India would be third at best. They would have lost to the West Indies.

I used to think you were one of the few grounded and well informed Indian commentators, how wrong I was. You are just as delusional and arrogant as the rest of the muppets you are surrounded by. Funnily enough, as arrogant as they were, did you see the Australian commentators openly brag about how good they are? No. They only beat teams to a pulp and let the scoreboard talk.

Ravi Shastri, grow up and shut up.

Contributed by : Varun Prasad
Original Post : The Cricket Musings