Is there something wrong with the speed gun ? Ishant is clocking 150 kmph on a regular basis . I think i saw some 10 to 12 deliveries above the 150 mark with the fastest being at 153 or somewhere. This has to be jotted down as a memory , you never know when you will see such pace from an Indian bowler again.
Just hope Ishant continues with his form and retains this kind of pace , which made him a hot commodity three years ago.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
WE WON!!!
Whatever I might have thought in my disgruntled ,drunk and dizzy moments , my darkest thoughts and desire for revenge at a toss so deliberately miscalculated has been wiped off by this great victory.
Yes !! India you have done it for the great little man of Indian cricket. Dhoni for all his faults in selection has proved that a man with courage is better than ten intellectual , calculative wizards. Yes! Dhoni you proved that Valour has its place in today's world.
In a sense it is poetic justice that India won this cup , this was the team that challenged the might of the Australians throughout the last decade , it was a team which played tough cricket in its quarterfinals and semifinals and won at a critical stage. For someone of my generation who has no memories of the 1983 victory , it is a great sense of pride and achievement.
Time to soak in the moments of pride!!
Yes !! India you have done it for the great little man of Indian cricket. Dhoni for all his faults in selection has proved that a man with courage is better than ten intellectual , calculative wizards. Yes! Dhoni you proved that Valour has its place in today's world.
In a sense it is poetic justice that India won this cup , this was the team that challenged the might of the Australians throughout the last decade , it was a team which played tough cricket in its quarterfinals and semifinals and won at a critical stage. For someone of my generation who has no memories of the 1983 victory , it is a great sense of pride and achievement.
Time to soak in the moments of pride!!
India -Sri Lanka World cup final (Timidity of Indians)
First of all it's important to discuss certain issues first. I have not posted a follow up to my first article on Indian Pacemen dropping pace. I wanted the madness surrounding the World Cup to die down a little before posting an opinion on this perennial weakness of Indian teams.
Watching the final has been a tumultous , heart-aching exercise in futility. It requires no genius to guess that Sangakkara pulled up the coup of the century by bluffing beautifully at the toss. It shocks and saddens me to see an international captain resort to 'Ghetto Tactics ' to gain any kind of advantage in the final. It is a well known fact (TV replays proved it) that he lost the toss in the first go and then capitalised on the sleepiness of the match refree and the ongoing confusion created there on.
However expecting anything different from 'Sanga' was preposterous , the man is a downright phoney who fakes everthing from his accent to sportsmanship. What should irk Indians and their fans is that Dhoni did not stand his ground , he knew that he had called correctly , he should have stood firm and told the match referee in no uncertain terms about his call. The fact that the Indian captain budged was the only reason that the sleepy Jeff Crowe called for the coin to be tossed the next time. Now one can argue about sporting spirit, ethical behaviour and ramble endlessly; this still doen't prove the fact that our captain showed extraordinary timidity in accepting an unfair call.
The boggling fact is that India is the powerhouse of World cricket today and its captain should have told the referee and the Sri -Lankan captain to bugger off in no uncertain terms , I am sure that the ICC would not have had the courage to do anything on this and for once we would have had a genuine Badass captain who would have got under the skin of the opponent. (Sourav : We miss you mate)
The crux is that India lost a Golden opportunity to bag the cup and most probably will stifle in a chase , as i am writing this i desperately want to be proven wrong.
It would be a crime if Sri-Lanka won and then dedicate this victory to a man with a questionable bowling action , ask any self respecting cricketer and he will tell you that the man has not bowled a single legal delivery in his career , medical studies and all that Jazz be damned.
It is only through the support of Mera Bharat Mahaan that the 'Javelin thrower' as referred by our famous (cricket sardarji) has survived so long in international cricket.India have thrown their heavyweight behind the man everytime the ICC came close to banning this man , Jagmohan Dalmiya was the ICC head honcho when the spinner was first called in Australia and India supported our neighbour with an eye on future votes and position in the ICC.
If not for anything else India and its captain owe a World Cup to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar for his unbridled genius , passion , technical superiority and being a thorough gentleman. I just hope that the lure of IPL and its moneyed thugs have not stolen the most crucial thing of our cricketers --------Their Heart.
Watching the final has been a tumultous , heart-aching exercise in futility. It requires no genius to guess that Sangakkara pulled up the coup of the century by bluffing beautifully at the toss. It shocks and saddens me to see an international captain resort to 'Ghetto Tactics ' to gain any kind of advantage in the final. It is a well known fact (TV replays proved it) that he lost the toss in the first go and then capitalised on the sleepiness of the match refree and the ongoing confusion created there on.
However expecting anything different from 'Sanga' was preposterous , the man is a downright phoney who fakes everthing from his accent to sportsmanship. What should irk Indians and their fans is that Dhoni did not stand his ground , he knew that he had called correctly , he should have stood firm and told the match referee in no uncertain terms about his call. The fact that the Indian captain budged was the only reason that the sleepy Jeff Crowe called for the coin to be tossed the next time. Now one can argue about sporting spirit, ethical behaviour and ramble endlessly; this still doen't prove the fact that our captain showed extraordinary timidity in accepting an unfair call.
The boggling fact is that India is the powerhouse of World cricket today and its captain should have told the referee and the Sri -Lankan captain to bugger off in no uncertain terms , I am sure that the ICC would not have had the courage to do anything on this and for once we would have had a genuine Badass captain who would have got under the skin of the opponent. (Sourav : We miss you mate)
The crux is that India lost a Golden opportunity to bag the cup and most probably will stifle in a chase , as i am writing this i desperately want to be proven wrong.
It would be a crime if Sri-Lanka won and then dedicate this victory to a man with a questionable bowling action , ask any self respecting cricketer and he will tell you that the man has not bowled a single legal delivery in his career , medical studies and all that Jazz be damned.
It is only through the support of Mera Bharat Mahaan that the 'Javelin thrower' as referred by our famous (cricket sardarji) has survived so long in international cricket.India have thrown their heavyweight behind the man everytime the ICC came close to banning this man , Jagmohan Dalmiya was the ICC head honcho when the spinner was first called in Australia and India supported our neighbour with an eye on future votes and position in the ICC.
If not for anything else India and its captain owe a World Cup to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar for his unbridled genius , passion , technical superiority and being a thorough gentleman. I just hope that the lure of IPL and its moneyed thugs have not stolen the most crucial thing of our cricketers --------Their Heart.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Dropping Pace: A Fashion (World Cup Woes)-Part 1
Among all the brouhaha of the cricket world cup , one goes through a lot of analysis , comments , write-ups and columns regarding the strengths and weaknesses of teams . You will find sundry cricket experts pontificating on the various merits and demerits of teams playing. The funny part is that these same qualtities or the lack of thereof are known to everybody who follows cricket , however the diktats of commerce has ensured that you are force fed the same banal tones time and again.
One comment which however sounded somewhat true and also gave rise to many sour memories is Harsha Bhogle's description of Indian fast bowlers dropping pace as a fashion. Now you can count on the fact that Bhogle always writes and speaks his mind even if he has to taper it down sometimes maybe due to commercial obligations of channels or portals.
The reason why I wanted to bring up this issue was the unrelenting mass orgasmic frenzy of our channels in projecting a quite ordinary Indian side as favourites even before the world cup began. Yes! we are number 1 in test cricket and probably second in ODI's , however one look at the squad selected for the world cup should have told all the pundits enough about the capability of this team to progress further.
And No! there was no need of an ecstatic Krishnamachari Srikanth making the prediction about the best team being picked and all that for people to believe otherwise.(Should have put suspicions in the minds of fans already).
Why that great fast bowler Praveen kumar was picked was beyond my understanding? In fact the 'legend' has been continued in the team for the past two years on basis of two or three mediocre performances and 'Baba Dhoni's' umpteen blessings on anybody from Maya's territory. It obviously escaped our selectors minds that the man cannot surpass 125 kmph in his dreams and would have been cannon fodder on Indian wickets.
The other pick was our perennial old man with a stoop "Ashish Nehra" , I am sure we will be blessed with a Tushar Kapoor hit before Nehra achieves full fitness. I am not going to talk about Harbhajan for this is a post about fast bowlers and the man obviously wants to ditch spin since he darts his deliveries at batsman foregoing the art of spin when the collar gets hot. (A seperate post therefore should come on the most overrated player of our generation)
Now the crux of the matter is pace , show me an Indian who says he doesn't care about an Indian tearaway bowling at 150 kmph consistently and I will show you an impostor. Do we have such bowlers the problem is yes we had! What happened to Ishant Sharma when he was bowling above 150 in Australia in 2008? if he dropped pace was there a system which took him under control? Our captain obviously has 'Alti-Plati De Ghumiake ' on his mind so you always find him rooting for great talents like Chawla and Praveen.
It is another ingenuity of our system that we call a gambling captain a brave captain , see! it keeps the money tickling in.I don't think Ishant ever found any support from the captain or the team management and we have squandered a golden opportunity of breeding a thoroughbred.What do you expect from a person who publicly criticised Sreesanth for his agression and made his displeasure clear. This treatment was meted out to a bowler who was outstanding in South africa.
There is obviously a rotten stink of parochialism in our selection as the above selections would point out. The end result was that Sreesanth came under tremendous pressure to perform in the first match and got hammered. Our great saviour and leader needs to purge his cricket brain of all cobwebs and learn about effective leadership and for heaven's sake chide a player behind closed doors and not in front of everybody. The behaviour is all the more surprising considering his affection for a certain Chawla again from 'Maya's territory'.
Obviously the captain sees more to Chawla then even his state teammates see in the legspinner who makes Narendra Hirwani look like Shane Warne.
What was the harm in trying a partnership of Ishant and Sreesanth along with Zaheer for the world cup , the theory is at least we had three bowling spearheads and not 'put the ball there' kind of bowlers like Munaf whose grunt is more effective than his bowling.
Yes! dropping pace has become a fashion but when you ground your thoroughbreds to dust you don't expect them to have the same thump in their hooves. A case here over the IPL overkill and too much unnecessary cricket.
This is a long post with a second part.
One comment which however sounded somewhat true and also gave rise to many sour memories is Harsha Bhogle's description of Indian fast bowlers dropping pace as a fashion. Now you can count on the fact that Bhogle always writes and speaks his mind even if he has to taper it down sometimes maybe due to commercial obligations of channels or portals.
The reason why I wanted to bring up this issue was the unrelenting mass orgasmic frenzy of our channels in projecting a quite ordinary Indian side as favourites even before the world cup began. Yes! we are number 1 in test cricket and probably second in ODI's , however one look at the squad selected for the world cup should have told all the pundits enough about the capability of this team to progress further.
And No! there was no need of an ecstatic Krishnamachari Srikanth making the prediction about the best team being picked and all that for people to believe otherwise.(Should have put suspicions in the minds of fans already).
Why that great fast bowler Praveen kumar was picked was beyond my understanding? In fact the 'legend' has been continued in the team for the past two years on basis of two or three mediocre performances and 'Baba Dhoni's' umpteen blessings on anybody from Maya's territory. It obviously escaped our selectors minds that the man cannot surpass 125 kmph in his dreams and would have been cannon fodder on Indian wickets.
The other pick was our perennial old man with a stoop "Ashish Nehra" , I am sure we will be blessed with a Tushar Kapoor hit before Nehra achieves full fitness. I am not going to talk about Harbhajan for this is a post about fast bowlers and the man obviously wants to ditch spin since he darts his deliveries at batsman foregoing the art of spin when the collar gets hot. (A seperate post therefore should come on the most overrated player of our generation)
Now the crux of the matter is pace , show me an Indian who says he doesn't care about an Indian tearaway bowling at 150 kmph consistently and I will show you an impostor. Do we have such bowlers the problem is yes we had! What happened to Ishant Sharma when he was bowling above 150 in Australia in 2008? if he dropped pace was there a system which took him under control? Our captain obviously has 'Alti-Plati De Ghumiake ' on his mind so you always find him rooting for great talents like Chawla and Praveen.
It is another ingenuity of our system that we call a gambling captain a brave captain , see! it keeps the money tickling in.I don't think Ishant ever found any support from the captain or the team management and we have squandered a golden opportunity of breeding a thoroughbred.What do you expect from a person who publicly criticised Sreesanth for his agression and made his displeasure clear. This treatment was meted out to a bowler who was outstanding in South africa.
There is obviously a rotten stink of parochialism in our selection as the above selections would point out. The end result was that Sreesanth came under tremendous pressure to perform in the first match and got hammered. Our great saviour and leader needs to purge his cricket brain of all cobwebs and learn about effective leadership and for heaven's sake chide a player behind closed doors and not in front of everybody. The behaviour is all the more surprising considering his affection for a certain Chawla again from 'Maya's territory'.
Obviously the captain sees more to Chawla then even his state teammates see in the legspinner who makes Narendra Hirwani look like Shane Warne.
What was the harm in trying a partnership of Ishant and Sreesanth along with Zaheer for the world cup , the theory is at least we had three bowling spearheads and not 'put the ball there' kind of bowlers like Munaf whose grunt is more effective than his bowling.
Yes! dropping pace has become a fashion but when you ground your thoroughbreds to dust you don't expect them to have the same thump in their hooves. A case here over the IPL overkill and too much unnecessary cricket.
This is a long post with a second part.
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