Archive for the ‘Gavaskar’ Category

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No 1 ranking, Dhoni and new “consultant”

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

India is the no 1 ranked test team now with this win against Sri Lanka. I guess now the tough part begins - to maintain this ranking. But if some other team takes this away soon, it will be mostly due to that team’s results. This is because India doesn’t really have many tests planned until the next world cup. There is an away series against Bangladesh early next year and then I don’t know what’s next in tests.

With this win Dhoni now has gone his first 10 tests India’s captain without losing any yet. I first thought this might be a record already but then a quick search on Cricinfo Statsguru told me that Gavaskar had gone 18 matches like this when he started. Dhoni has been the main captain only for just over a year now after Kumble retired last year. Prior to that he led India as a stand-in captain a few times.

A couple of amusing news. After some decisions went against Sri Lanka in the third test Murali said the ICC needed to use the Umpire Decision Review System everywhere and not leave it to mutual choice as it is right now. On an unrelated note the use of UDRS irritated umpire Mark Benson so much in the second test between Australia and West Indies that he has decided to retire after this match. Tony Cozier then wrote that the review system doesn’t work.

BCCI has appointed Mike Young as a fielding consultant to the Indian team for three weeks. Mike Young is a former baseball coach. So I started wondering how he can coach the fielders to catch a ball without those mittens, whether he is going to make the fielders more efficient by asking them to not stop after running a batsman out, instead try to make the other batsman out as well (”not bother about that dead ball thing”) and whether he is going to pay any attention to the balls that are hit behind the wicket. But it seems he has been coaching the Australia team for a few years already and they turned out just fine. So we have nothing to worry about. In one of the documents referred on the Wikipedia page about him, he knows this much at least “The ball is about the same size (as the one used in Baseball) but harder…It’s been a real positive sport to be involved in and it is very popular. The players are tremendous athletes”. On the last statement there, do note that he was talking about the Australian fielders and not the Indians.

Posted in cricket, Australia, India, West Indies, Dhoni, ICC, Sri Lanka, BCCI, Baseball, Gavaskar, Kumble | 1 Comment »

Premier test rivarly

Monday, October 20th, 2008

What a rivalry! If we count since the start of 2000 (just after the time when Australia had started their first streak of 16 wins in a row), Australia has lost only 12 matches, 6 of them are against India! If we don’t count the dead rubber games the lost games are 7 (which is an unbelievable record). Of those five are against India (Kolkata, Chennai in 2001, Adelaide in 2003, Perth earlier this year and now in Mohali). The loss at Mumbai in 2004 was after they had already won the series. The two other real losses of Australia were in the Ashes 2005 against England.

In Australia in the same duration, they have lost only 3 games, two of which were lost when the series was still open - both were against India. The third one was the Sydney dead rubber against England in 2003.

Compare this to 14 wins against 4 losses in Ashes for Australia, only two of which were when the series was still open, and it’s easier to decide which contest is the premier one in test cricket in this decade. And for those who still like to bring up the McGrath-Warne factor from time to time, India won the 2001 home series against Australia by beating them in the matches when these two played. England’s wins at Birmingham and Nottingham were when McGrath didn’t play. We won’t count Mumbai (2004), Leeds (2001) and Sydney (2003) in this, the series were already decided by then.

Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Chappell, Dhoni, ICC, England, McGrath, BCCI, Ashes, Ponting, Gavaskar, Kumble | Comments Off

Don’t fall for the trick

Monday, January 7th, 2008

The ban on Harbhajan may all be just a trick to divert Indian team and board’s attention away from the horrible and biased umpiring in the second test at Sydney. I hope they don’t fall for that trick and keep their foot down for both the demands BCCI has made - that the ban should be off and Steve Bucknor must not officiate in the third test at Perth. In fact I think the BCCI should go further to ask that:

  • The Sydney test should not be considered an official ICC test
  • Both Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson should be out of this series
  • Kumble should say that what he decided with Ponting before the series about taking the fielder’s word about a catch is off now
  • Sachin should make a public statement about what he saw and heard during the Harbhajan incident as he was right next to him on the field, now that the match referee hasn’t considered it when he said it to him. Since Symonds has already made his views public, Sachin doing it shouldn’t matter ICC-rule-wise
  • The ban and the allegation on Harbhajan should be off

    • I hope the BCCI does not try to negotiate this thing out so save some television/sponsor money. It has enough to pay both the parties, and save the national image this time. From the news it seems players are still in Sydney, wanting BCCI to make some firm decision. I think it will be a big mistake if BCCI tries to negotiate here - it may end up reducing the ban but may have to compromise on the umpiring as typical negotiations go. So in that way the ban might have been made here to distract everybody from the umpiring.

    Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, ICC, BCCI, Ponting, Gavaskar, Kumble | No Comments »

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