Cricket: From the Far End

Right. Sachin, Saurav and Rahul must be shaking in their boots now, now that Flintoff is going to play the fourth ODI. Didn’t he take five wickets and restricted India to that small total of 329 just two matches earlier? I remember once Sri Lankans made a big deal of Vaas and Murali not playing in one of the matches against India - about how it made simpler for India to compete. India were horrible in that series anyway and in the following year they beat Lanka by 6-1 even when these two were present.

When Indians decide to gift runs and wickets, it doesn’t matter who is the recipient. Their county bowlers can bowl at them and still win. And when they decide to apply themselves mostly it doesn’t matter who’s the opponent.

It’s not as if Flintoff has been blowing India away either. Fine, he did help England win the Ashes once, and also was the beneficiary of India’s match-gifting mood in the Mumbai test in their earlier tour, but does that make him a threat equal to a combination of Richards and McGrath? Against India in 23 matches, he averages just over 29 (4 fifties) while batting and has taken 29 wickets. There is no doubt that he is a tremendous player, but if having been good against the Aussies is to be taken as general greatness then India has a player who has done it often and is not even in the ODI team. Sure he can hit a 100 tomorrow or blow the Indian top order, but so can many other players at least while batting or bowling.

Saurav Ganguly, as frank as ever, in this interview to Cricinfo. My favorite from this story? Having helped India win the test series now, he hits one at Greg Chappell “You don’t need a professor at this level….you don’t need to treat international players like students“.

Three times in ODIs and twice in tests! Two of these were wrongly given out. Sachin has missed a hundred on five occasions in this single tour, including the three games played in Ireland against South Africa. So for statistics-crazy Indian fans (like me), this could have given Tendulkar a total of 44 ODI and 39 test hundreds.

Usually in a series where India plays well, there are lots of centuries scored by batsmen. This time only Kumble has made one, none by the top order, despite India scoring 481 and 664 in two of the innings. In the ODIs so far, Tendulkar has two 99s and a 93. Dravid has a not out 92. In tests Tendulkar has 91 and 82, Ganguly a 79 (which counts because he was wrongly given out), Dinesh Karthik a 91, and Dhoni has a 92.

But India has won the test series 1-0, the ODI series against England is 1-1 currently with 5 more to play, India won the ODI series against South Africa 2-1, and won the ODIs against Ireland and Scotland. So more wins and less centuries, kind of opposite of what usually happens!