ICL, BCCI and Cricket….

The Indian Cricket League is possibly the biggest competitor to the BCCI since its inception. One area where they have unquestionably trumped BCCI is in having a website. Normally, it takes about a month to build a presentable website – 3-4 months if you want to do an elaborate job. BCCI could have had one 10 years ago, and I’m still waiting for them to establish themselves in cyberspace.

The threat to BCCI’s monopoly has been much discussed. Ironically, had BCCI not been as successful as it is, ICL would probably have had no competition and with the amount of money they are able to throw around, would have hired the whole Indian team and most of the fringe players as well. In effect, it is the success of BCCI and the Indian cricket team (which in my opinion is extremely competent – in fact it is India’s only competent sporting team competing at world class level – and its players are trained in India unlike some of our neighbors), which stands in ICL’s way.

At best, ICL is an entertainment show like “Chappar Phaad Kay” or others of that ilk. In Harsha Bhogle’s words it comprises of “has-beens and never-will-bes”. Mr. Bhogle is probably right with the possible exception of Mohammad Yousuf, who along with Ponting was the best batsman in the World in 2006. What it has achieved however is that it has roused the BCCI into action, and for that reason alone it has some merit. It can never be a serious threat to BCCI unless the clubs which are currently associated with State Associations which are members of BCCI switch affiliation from BCCI to ICL. ICL seems to have no ambition in this direction. I’m not entirely certain why BCCI reacted as petulantly as it did to ICL.

The broader question of monopoly is an interesting one – not from the point of view of whether or not there should be one, but whether there is one in the first place. The ICL website states for example that BCCI refused to “recognize ICL as a cricket league”. I wonder why that is necessary. BCCI does not own cricket, either in India or anywhere else in the world. I don’t think they can direct any player not to play in the ICL either. So why has ICL sought BCCI’s permission at all? Is it because the BCCI employs all the fine players in the country – the very ones who do not make up a “reasonably competent cricket team”? Without involving BCCI (if not willingly, then by positioning themselves in conflict with BCCI), ICL would just be another game show. Indeed ICL has sought BCCI’s attention, because such attention legitimizes ICL as a cricket thing.

Any agency which was genuinely interested in cricket and in administering the game well in India would have started at the bottom – built new clubs and invited existing clubs, built high quality local leagues, non-televised ones, in a handful of big cities with a cricketing tradition. Then they might have built an inter-city league based on these leagues. It would have built new facilities in those cities and a new parallel cricket structure to that of the BCCI affiliated clubs. It would have funded schools to build age group cricket teams and developed inter-school leagues. It would have built up loyalty. But that would have taken genuine effort and brought no immediate returns. I doubt whether Kapil Dev or Zee TV are interested in that sort of thing (and I’m not referring to over hyped fast bowling speed gun competitions, where the fastest bowler bowls at 125 kph). ICL does propose the creation of residential academies as a kind of a talent feed for their league. The prospect of a factory churning out cricketers must make traditionalists squirm. Considering the fact that it took Sachin Tendulkar 5 years of near full time serious organized cricket to get from being a rank newcomer to an India player (and he is a genius), one wonders what sort of time frame these academies have in mind.

Unless ICL can convince ICC to discard BCCI, they are not challenging a monopoly in any real sense, because the ICC has no intention of entertaining two Indian teams. The great thing about cricket is that it has traditionally been a truly international sport. I certainly hope that what we accept as the Indian cricket team remains a monopoly in the sense that there is only one national Indian side.

In any case Counterfeit BCCI is not the kind of challenge BCCI needs; for cricket’s sake.

Note: This article also appears on desicritics. It has been revised keeping in view the first comment on that post. Thanks to the author of that note and apologies for the error…

Too many malfunctions…. handicapped India on the brink of series defeat.

Ravi Bopara, who wants to be England’s Sachin Tendulkar and Stuart Broad who wants to establish himself as an ODI all rounder produced a measured, level-headed 99 run stand in about 25 overs to steer England to an important victory at Old Trafford in the ongoing NatWest series.

Old Trafford is reputedly the quickest wicket in England these days and there was ample evidence of this as Sourav Ganguly and three Englishmen fell due to the extra pace and bounce on offer. India have had 6 performers in this series so far – Tendulkar, Dravid, Yuvraj and to a lesser extent Sourav Ganguly and the spinners. The pacemen have been dismal and the fielding has been less than fleet-footed. Against an English side which seems to discover new talents almost every game, carrying 5 passengers and 11 poor fielders has been an enormous handicap. The 1-3 score line is fair at this stage in the series.

Rahul Dravid can take whatever decision he wants to at the toss, but if his (fast) bowlers don’t support him, anything he does is doomed from the start. A great example of this no show by the pace bowlers, was Zaheer Khan’s no show in his second spell at a crucial phase in the game today. As Bopara and Broad were trying to establish themselves, much of the commentary seemed to disagree with the Indian captain’s strategy of persisting with the two spinners instead of bringing back his pace spearheads and go for the kill. I would not go so far as to suggest that this belief was based on a overly simplistic connection between pace and effectiveness, but i would suggest that peoples view of the Indian ODI pace attack (especially with the older ball) varies sharply with Rahul Dravid’s. In my view, Rahul Dravid has got it right. Why do i think so? Just take a look at Zaheer’s two over spell – overs 35 and 37 of the innings where he went for 15 runs in 2 overs. Of those 15 runs, there were two four balls – one drifting down leg (after expressly setting a field with fine leg square and the extra fielder on the off side) and the other short and wide outside off stump. Any batsman worth his salt with some batting ability (which the English tail doubtless has – more on this later) would have hit both. Add to this one unbelievable backfoot off drive which Chris Broad might have been proud of, and you have Dravid’s trump card failing him miserably. RP Singh doesn’t look like he can lead an attack and so his efforts as a support bowler ought not to come under too much harsh criticism.

In 50 overs, there is a limit to what the captain can do with his bowling changes given the 10 over restriction. The spinners were bowling well – they were beating the bat and inducing errors. With a bit of luck one of them might have broken through. It was not to be.

Should India have made more than 213? Take into account the following:

1. India’s long tail (because we don’t have a player who can bat and bowl – like Flintoff or Broad or Giles)
2. The English pace attack – superior to Indias in quality, depth and pace
3. The English batting’s efforts against the Indian new ball attack – in my view they played too many strokes and gave India too many wickets – the dismissals of Pietersen, Bell and Ganguly, and Tendulkar’s stubborn refusal to hook or pull should give you a good idea about the wicket.

Considering all that, Tendulkar and Yuvraj played terrific innings. Both were dismissed just when they were about to take the attack to English bowlers. After three good games, Dravid had a failure and Dinesh Karthik further underlined the fact that he’s not quite ready to play the number 3 role in ODI cricket. He seems in many ways to be the anti-Sehwag. Sehwag was able to establish a great batting rythm in Test cricket – his natural ability to hit the ball, along with the opportunity to bat without the pressure of the run rate enabled him to play his game in his own comfort zone. In ODI Cricket, the same Sehwag lost his ability to be discerning in his choice of balls to hit and basically tried to the wham bang approach, which didn’t work. With Karthik its the same. He seems to be far more comfortable building an innings in Test cricket. In ODI cricket, the pressure of having played out a maiden the previous over seems to get to him. This may be a hasty judgement, but like Sehwag he seems to have found it difficult to make the adjustment – albeit from the other side (if you see what i mean). Dhoni fell to a beauty from Panesar – the sort of ball spinners dream about.

There are questions about the batting line up though. The obvious question is – if Tendulkar and Ganguly were going to open the batting, why did the selectors pack the reserve batting with two opening batsmen and a wicketkeeper batsman? Should Tendulkar and Ganguly be opening at all? In Tendulkar’s case it seems Ok – because he seems to play better opening the innings. He can also play in the middle order – and do well by any standards, but as an opener he’s in a class by himself – on this England tour in 7 matches against top opposition, he’s reached 50 4 times in conditions where the new ball offers the severest threat during the innings. With Ganguly its a similar matter, but in his case his limitations with regard to rotation of strike and running between the wickets, in addition to his own obvious preference seem to dictate this. The rotation of strike issue is uncharacteristic. It seems to be a recent problem. But its serious problem for India because not only does it slow down Ganguly’s own scoring, it puts extra pressure on the player at the other end because he’s effectively denied the strike for a large number of deliveries.

India need to rethink their batting order for the next game. The Dinesh Karthik experiment is not working. Neither is the Ganguly experiment in my view. India have little choice on the 5 bowler front. It is also a sound strategic idea in the long term.

Right now though, they need to stem the rot and win something. Teamwork worked in the Test series. In the ODI game, its time for someone to put up a marquee performance in the 5th game. If India cannot find XI contributions, they must find 1-2 extraordinary ones. Like the NatWest Final in 2002. That result confirmed the reputation of Ganguly’s team. Yet that particular game was a result of India playing absolute rubbish when they were bowling and for all but 30 overs of their run chase. That win was down to the individual brilliance of Kaif and Yuvraj more than anything else. India need a brilliant hundred or a brilliant spell from somewhere. Given their recent track record, the former is more likely. And it is Yuvraj who threatens most to find an innings that will blow England away and destroy their momentum more than anyone else in the Indian line up.

Lets wait and watch……

Do India lose because of their batting or their bowling?

This post is in part a response to a comment on my earlier post about the 3rd ODI between England and India at Birmingham. I suggested in that post that the bowling was the primary cause of India losing the Birmingham ODI. The table below can be read as follows:

W,L – Win, Loss; SA – Runs/wicket scored, SR – Runs/Over scored; CA – Runs/wicket conceded, RA – Runs/Over conceded.
These results from India, Australia and Sri Lanka take into consideration matches involving India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, England, South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies only.

(Please click on the image for a larger view)

The choice of Australia, India and Sri Lanka was determined by my perception of the three teams. I percieve Australia to be the best batting and bowling side in the world (high SA, SR, low CA, CR); India to be one of the best batting sides and one of the worst bowling sides (high SA, SR, high CA, CR); Sri Lanka to be not as good as India as a batting side, but superior with the ball (medium SA, SR, low/medium CA, CR). This perception was largely borne out the numbers. Extracting these numbers from the Cricinfo database is time consuming and hence i have limited it to these three teams.

The numbers show that Sri Lanka inspite of scoring slower than India in almost every year has a better win/loss record, simply on account of its superior effort with the ball. The difference between an economy rate of 4.5 and 5.0 is 25 runs. Australia are consistently successful mainly because of the consistently low CA numbers. A case in point would be their record in the year 2007. They won the World Cup, but also endured a streak where they lost 6 out of 7 matches just before the world cup. In those six matches, here is their sequence of totals: 200 all out chasing 293, 291/5 chasing 290, 252 all out, 152/8 in 27 overs, 148 all out, 336/4, 346/5. The totals they conceded in these games are: 292, 290, 253, 246, 149, 340, 350.

For both India as well as Sri Lanka, their best years have coincided with their best bowling years – where they have managed good economy rates and good bowling averages. Not surprisingly, lower economy rates almost always mean better bowling averages (CA). Even in 2003, when India reached the World Cup final, their economy rate of 5.16 is bloated because of a 7 match home series where they conceded over 6 runs/over in 6 out of the 7 games (they lost that home series 3-4).

The moderate quality of the Indian bowling is indicated not just by economy rates, but also by bowling averages. They have been unable to take wickets consistently enough in the long run. This is easily indicated by the fact that our best ODI bowlers invariably average in the late 20’s, while Australia’s and Sri Lanka’s average in the mid to early 20’s.

Averages are not meaningless numbers, they reveal quality or lack of it.

If we go back to the comment on my earlier post, the reference to the “daft” shots by Tendulkar and Kartik is telling. I point this out not because i think this is a one off, but because i suspect this is the generic argument offered by most people. If India lose, the first question is – what did the stars do? And that is a fundamentally wrong question to be asking. If “daftness” is to be questioned, then RP Singh, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel would have to be asked the same question about twice an over. “Why did so and so bowler offer up a leg stump half volley?” – “Why did the spinner drop it short and let the batsman cut?” – “Why did so and so bowler drag it short and wide?” – these questions can be asked over and over and over again because that is what the bowlers do more often than not.

Bowlers make the play in cricket. Batsmen have about half a second to make their choices and take action. Thats why bowlers win games, batsmen prevent them from being lost – this is enduring mantra of Test cricket. Simply because a team has great batsmen and moderate bowling, does not mean that this mantra goes out of the window! The “daft” strokes were an error of judgement – sure. But by that count, each of the Indian bowlers made an error of judgement alteast once and over – and they bowled 50 overs. 50 (only a ball park figure) errors of judgement at the very least and you get a 280+ total against a batting line up which is not amongst the best in the world.

Do the batsmen make errors of judgement? Sure! But their errors of judgement result in their career records and their records this year (posted earlier). The bowlers errors of judgement lead to the economy rates and strike rates described above and three consecutive 280+ totals being conceded.

So while it may not be the in thing to do, it is a sad fact of life. For all the demands about “team” and all the habitual rants from fans (im not referring to the author of the comment here) about players being “selfish” – these very apostles of the team ethic, forget the first rule of a team – that it is as strong as its weakest link, not as strong as its strongest link.

India’s best bowler has delivered 8 no balls in 12 overs in the last 2 games. Enough said!

Wanted: A Coach for Team India (and a PR official for BCCI!)

I just saw this on Rediff. It is a statement from Niranjan Shah. In keeping with the finest traditions of writing weblogs, i consider it my solemn blogistic (see journalistic) duty to reproduce it here and ensure that BCCI’s advertisement is read by as many potential India coaches as possible. Here goes:

I KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
a) Working closely with the Selection Committee and interacting periodically with the Review Committee to be set up by the Board.
b) Should have the ability to plan and manage programs for the elite cricketers
c) Should be capable of building positive relations with the public and media.
d) Should be capable of motivating players and thus helping them to optimize their performances at all times.
e) Should be familiar with the use of performance analysis software packages.
f) Should be available to conduct clinics and workshops for the local coaches
g) Should have excellent communicating skills as he is required to communicate at different levels like players, team management, selectors and the Board
h) Should be capable of providing the team with tactical expertise

II KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERTISE
a) Should be a qualified coach with minimum level III coaching accreditation from Cricket Australia, England or India
b) Should have played at least level of First Class cricket.
c) Extensive coaching experience and expertise in working with elite cricketers
d) Should possess basic IT skills to be able to operate the match analysis program
e) Should have been a coach of an international or national team or a coach at an elite Coaching Centre of international repute
f) Should have basic knowledge of Indian cricket, Indian player pathway and Indian culture and ethos
g) Should have basic knowledge of Sports Science and Sports Medicine
h) Should be capable of handling the team under high pressure situations
i) Should possess outstanding organizational skills
j) Should have knowledge of the international coaching trends
k) Should have experience in using the video technology.

III GENERAL INFORMATION
a) The appointment as coach shall be for a period of two years, starting from October 1, 2007.
b) The job requires a great deal of time away from home traveling with the Indian team both in India and Abroad
c) Terms and conditions are negotiable

Without reading too much into it, the sequence in which the “Key Responsibilities” are stated is quite telling. Of the 8 key responsibililties (III(c) effectively renders everything else redundant by stating that terms and conditions are negotiable lets not be pedantic here), cricket related responsibilities feature 2nd, 4th and 8th. Relations with the media and the cricket board figures in 3rd, 1st and 7th place. The 5th and 6th points are irrelevant in my view because software packages can be learnt (and in any case India employ a full time analyst for this very purpose. Besides, how can this be a key “responsibility”? For more see II(d)), while clinics for local coaches can be conducted by specially hired expert coaching instructor. Is it prudent to burden the national coach with this added responsibility?

But this aside, the Key Responsibilities section reveals little doubt that this is not an advertisement for a national team coach by a cricket board, but is an advertisement by a cricket board singed to the scalp by Chappellgate. Further more, it is a statement crafted by an amateur and hastily at that. What exactly is the difference between coaching a “international and national team”? There is well established time honored cricket specific terminology – the same might have easily be conveyed by saying that the candidate should have prior experience of coaching international or First Class cricket teams.

Seriously BCCI – please hire a Public Relations person. It is precisely to avoid things like these that firms and institutions employ people exclusively to convey well-framed, concise, clear messages to the right recipients at the right time. And if this is the work of a PR person – please dip into your formidable bank balance and enroll that person in a Public Relations course. If s/he refuses, fire that person! I make typos in my blog – lots of them, and this does weaken my advice to you, but it is well meant. There are worse things you could do than put Niranjan Shah or Sharad Pawar out in front of the hounds from the press. The press doesn’t deserve that kind of daily attention. Niranjan Shah or Sharad Pawar are always news stories – even if they just sneeze. If a PR spokesman faints, he might just get 2 lines somewhere deep inside the newspaper. The PR person will be the voice of the BCCI (and by that i do not suggest that s/he will frame the message). All this is elementary – how can an organization float million dollar tournaments on the one hand and not want to find the budget for a PR person? The PR person checks the English and checks for nuances which may reveal more than the message intends.

So please put out an advertisement for a public relations professional. Nothing elaborate – no image make overs or anything of the sort. Just someone who can convey a clear, articulate, concise message (BCCI’s message) in correct English/Hindi. It will make the new coach’s job much much easier too…..

Bowling, Fielding hurts India yet again……

The Indian bowling had a third consecutive sub-par day as India went down by 45 runs to England in the third ODI of the 7 match series. India have to win 3 out of the next 4 if they are to win this series now and if the bowling and fielding keeps performing the way it has been (more the bowling than the fielding), then there is little chance of that happening. The batsmen will have to play out of even their extraordinarily proficient skins to win with the kind of bowling that India have. India have nobody who is able to control the runs and their best bowler (Munaf Patel) has developed a problem of overstepping and bowling occasional wides – something he didn’t have earlier. He bowled 4 no balls in 5 overs today to add to the 5 he bowled in 8 overs yesterday.

India have to control proceedings with the new ball especially against a scratch pairing of Cook and Prior. It is not as though it is Gilchrist, Hayden and Ponting they are up against. England have greater fast bowling depth compared to India and even without Flintoff and Sidebottom, they are able to play 3 bowlers who are quicker than all the Indian bowlers in the ODI squad barring Patel. This pace edge is further accentuated by India not bowling as well as they can bowl. The inexperienced spinners have done an admirable job inspite of having to come on to bowl with the opposition innings in excellent shape. It would be completely different if Powar could come in at 80/3 instead of 120/1.

Just as a comparison, the the 6 (or 7, depending on how many batsmen they played) India batsmen have averaged 36.83 runs/wicket in these first 3 ODI games. In comparison, the top 6 (or 7) English batsmen have averaged 45.63 runs/wicket in these games. To put this in perspective, of the top 50 run-getters in ODI history, only 3 – Bevan, Richards and Greenidge average over 45 runs/wicket with the bat. India have conceded 280+ on 3 consecutive occasions now inspite of having good times to bowl in each of the three games. If they keep this up, people are going to forget very quickly that this Indian bowling line up took 56 out of 60 English wickets on offer in the Test series!

There are limitations with some of the batsmen as well. India have still not found a quality ODI batsman to add to Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar and Yuvraj. I can see Sehwag returning in a hurry if things don’t improve. Due to the performance of the bowlers, they have been forced to play 5 bowlers even though none of those 5 bowlers qualify as anything other than tailenders with the bat. It puts fierce pressure on the top 5 batsmen (+Dhoni). It forces Ganguly to hold one end up as he did today instead of attacking. 280 is not chased everyday. India keep conceding it everyday though!

There needs to be a serious rethink with the bowling tactics as well as strategy. The problem with the bowling – especially the fast bowling, is even though three pace bowlers are played, if any of them are missing for a game due to injury or illness, it cannot be said that they would be missed. Out of Agarkar, Zaheer, Sreesanth, Munaf, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan, it would be impossible as of today to clearly mark a first choice pace attack. If ever there was an example of musical chairs in the Indian pace attack, it is now. There is depth in numbers and talent, but there is no consistency. These blow hot blow cold performance must drive Dravid and Vengsarkar and Venky Prasad up the wall! Contrast this with the current Indian batting line up. If you look at the 5 mainstays – Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj and Dhoni, for just the year 2007, their record reads as follows (not counting minnow matches):

Ganguly – 540 runs at 45 in 10 innings
Tendulkar – 570 runs at 47.5 in 13 innings
Dravid – 648 runs at 58.9 in 13 innings
Yuvraj – 349 runs at 49.8 in 10 innings
Dhoni – 290 runs at 41.42 in 11 innings

Those are records any team would kill for…… Yet, India have win loss record against non-minnows in 2007 which reads 8-6.

I don’t buy the argument that India play on fast scoring grounds on easy paced tracks. India plays on the same tracks that every other side in the world plays on. You don’t see Vaas or Pollock or Ntini go for 6 or 7 runs per over in every second game. India ought not to fall into the trap of lowering expectations from the bowlers simply because they can’t meet the required high standards. They won’t win consistently with bad bowling and the batting will not bail them out every time. Besides, the batting is entitled its off days as well (much rarer than the new ball bowlers having off days!).

Theres nothing India can do about their fielding, because you can’t replace Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar simply because they are not Jonty Rhodes in disguise. If Munaf and co were to bowl well, India would win inspite of the fielding deficit. The best way to get some balance would be to find an all rounder. Thats why Irfan Pathan is so priceless.

The outcome of this natwest series depends on whether or not India’s new ball bowlers recover some semblance of control. If they do, India will win. If they don’t then England will. India’s beleagured bowlers will do well to remember that they have yet to face the Pietersen and Flintoff willows in full cry. When that happens they might just bottom out.

The value of being a "profile player"

There is little doubt the if viewed dispassionately, Sachin Tendulkar’s reaction to being sawed off on 99 amounted to dissent. He first indicated to the umpire that he’d missed the ball, then walked away, then when he found from the English players’ reactions that the umpire had ruled in their favor, he looked up in surprise, threw his head back and let it sink in. He then walked away leaving nobody in any doubt that he disagreed with the call. It was only towards the end of this that his innate courtesy began to take over and by the time he had begun to walk back, he was Ok.

It is here that his reputation and his standing in the game came to his rescue. If he’d been say Gautam Gambhir reacting like that, Roshan Mahanama would have definitely hauled him up. But he’s Tendulkar and like every other player in the game, he has a reputation. Sreesanth and Nel have poor reputations i suppose, Shoaib has an iffy reputation, the ugly Australian tag hurts Australia, Michael Atherton is forever associated with dirt in the pocket, Ganguly with tardy overrates as captain. Ganguly’s is infact an interesting case. There was a time in the early years of this decade when Match referees used to watch him like a hawk. Then came a bit of a lull and he has now returned as one of the elder statesmen. Unless things get out of hand, most match referees are likely to take the view that there is little that Ganguly and Tendulkar can be advised about dissent.

It points to the few things -

1. That match referees, especially in the matter of penalizing players have become less controversial and consequently better at their jobs.
2. Teams have begun to understand the referee system better. For example, India have said nothing in the press about the umpiring. A few years ago, there would have been some indiscreet comments by an Indian captain or coach, or for that matter any captain or coach in the face of some of the rough calls. Instead, what we’ve seen this time is India having a “quiet word” about the “standard of umpiring” with the referee.

So all in all there seems to be better communication between the match managers and the teams. Things did get out of hand in the Test series and to their credit Vaughan, Dravid and Dennis Lindsay settled it exactly the way it needed to be. Sreesanth got fined for shoulder barging and he deserved it. In this second ODI Collingwood got fined for slow overrates and the rules suggested that England deserved it too.

All in all, in contrast to last years Pakistan series with headstrong characters like Darrell Hair and Inzamam Ul Haq who managed to make a pigs breakfast out of things, this time around all concerned have been sensible.

Most tellingly, Simon Taufel’s comment about being more upset about his LBW decision against Tendulkar at Trent Bridge because Tendulkar was a “profile player” was telling. It suggests that umpires and referees are not going to be wooden in their implementation of the playing conditions. Its a fine balance, and i think that the umpires and referees have got it right.

This is not to suggest that Tendulkar was not guilty of dissent. I suspect that if you lined up the ICC panel of referees, they would be evenly split in their judgement in the matter.

Its just that refereeing has evolved and seems to reach some maturity as referees become more and more experienced.

The favor is returned…. bowling frailties remain….

India won the toss in the second ODI at Bristol and produced the sort of batting display that one has come to expect off this experienced line up. Playing with the extra bowler (a move which was to prove priceless later) meant added pressure on the batsmen. The Gloucestershire faithful at the County Ground were treated to some expert batsmanship. This was India’s 39th score of 300 or more in limited overs cricket, since their maiden 300+ score in 1995 at Sharjah against Pakistan. Then as now, it was Tendulkar at the top of the order who gave the innings impetus. Had it not been for his wretched luck in the 90’s, he might have had 4 international centuries during this England tour – 2 against SA, and 2 against England. This was possibly also his most commanding innings on this tour so far. Once Tendulkar had left, Rahul Dravid came in and produced the sort of innings which had made him one of the finest middle order ODI batsmen in the world in this decade. He paced his innings brilliantly without ever losing momentum. He reached 50 in 43 balls, and his next 42 runs came in 20.

There was a period during the innings, after Tendulkar had fallen where India were a wee bit careful. It was also when the English second stringers were bowling. The commentators – amongst them 2 former international captains and one former international coach, were unanimous that Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh were missing a trick by not putting their foot on the pedal and letting Mascarenhas and co. As it happened, it the lull didn’t last and the four major English bowlers were taken for 93 runs in the last 10 overs. Dhoni came and went and by the end India had reached a score England had never successfully chased before.

When India bowled, it was a familiar story, but for Munaf Patel. He went for 70 in his 9 overs, but took 3 wickets. One might have said that those figures do him no justice, but for his generosity with wides and no balls. Clearly he still hasn’t perfected his modified technique and needs to work on his no balls. If you look at the 70 runs he conceded though, his wides and no balls alone cost him 19 of those runs (not counting the runs scored of the resulting extra deliveries). A further 12 were the result of inside edges (the cricinfo commentator called them “lemon” cuts). In addition to these 3 edgy strokes, he beat the bat a few other times. Other than that, he showed the priceless ability to hit any length he desired and stick to it – an absolute imperative when the ball isn’t swinging or seaming. He brought India back into the game after Agarkar had recieved his second straight hammering. The Indian catching was uncharacteristically sloppy.

That it didn’t prove fatal was down to what in my view was the ball of the match. Piyush Chawla beat Kevin Pietersen not by the straighter one, but by the in-drift in his normal leg break. The ball was delivered from reasonably close to the stumps, and drifted in towards middle stump. Pietersen was beaten by the length and was comprehensively defeated. Watch. It turned just enough to beat the bat and the pad and sneak through.

There after it was a case of ensuring that England stayed behind the eight ball. The pressure of the run rate would do the rest. India did well to stay ahead and the 9 run margin flattered England in the end. But in a sense it was fair, because what England have demonstrated in these two games is that they have superior talent lower down the order as compared to India. Chris Broad, Chris Tremlett, Andrew Flintoff and Dimitri Mascarenhas, all have all round ability. I just wonder though whether England needed Mascarenhas in their squad given that the first three were already playing. Might Monty have made a difference? The Indians would probably have played him better than the Englishmen played Powar (who bowled his classical off breaks with delightful guile) and Piyush Chawla, but even so – England lacked variety and they already have Paul Collingwood to bowl in Mascarenhas’s style. On the other hand, India at the moment seem to be a team of two halves – specialist batsmen who have done quite well, and a pace bowling department which seems to offer a choice between many equally limited options. RP Singh and Munaf Patel were accurate enough, but the senior experienced bowler – Agarkar, seems to have been targetted by England. If Zaheer is fit for the next game, it might be an interesting decision for the team management.

All in all, it was a win delivered by the batsmen and the spinners. There was little in the wicket for pacemen, and by and large they were not good enough to “not get hit” (something Wasim Akram laid great emphasis on in his bowling). He once said that his experience in ODI cricket had taught him mainly to avoid getting hit (“maar se bach jaata hoon”). It is a valuable lesson RP, Munaf and co can learn from these situations.

This series is nicely set now. England are the better balanced side, with greater depth in batting and fast bowling. They are also the better fielding side. One Day cricket allows them to still be beaten by 3-4 special performances. Today it was Tendulkar, Dravid, Munaf and the spinners who made it happen for India. Unlike in the Test series, this promises to remain the model of Indian victories in the ODI game unless India become a crack fielding outfit and a competent all round bowling outfit.

Oh yeah – and they need to keep the flu away, or atleast pass it on to the next door dressing room!

A Case Study defeat……

England beat India by 104 runs in the first match of the 7 match Natwest series at Southampton. It was the perfect home match for England. The visiting Captain won the toss under a heavy cloud cover. Consider the factors. In the test series, the red ball has swung prodigiously for the same Indian bowlers under similar conditions. The white ball swings more than the red ball. Consider also the predicted effect of the dew in the evening, which might make bowling difficult and negate any possibility of swing as the ball would get wet every time it was hit along the ground. All things considered, it probably made more sense to chase, and that is what Dravid chose to do.

For the very beginning, it was apparent that the bowlers had not turned up for the contest. There was no hint of wicket taking menace the English batsmen made merry. Alistair Cook and Ian Bell helped themselves to hundreds and Kevin Pietersen had his fun in slog. There after, it was England’s pace bowling edge (which Ian Chappell so presciently referred to) which came to the fore. Sourav Ganguly managed to run himself out and from that disastrous beginning India never recovered. With runs on the board and a freshened wicket, England’s pacemen ran in with a vengeance, as if to put behind them the demons of the Oval Test where they had been rendered so tellingly ineffective. Once Tendulkar and Yuvraj had fell in the same over from James Anderson (who seems to like the blue of India), there was no way back.

Anderson also seems to have a special affinity with bowling under lights. His career record now reads 103 wickets at 27.03, in contrast, his record bowling under lights reads 29 wickets at 20.72.

The sluggish Indian fielding side was also shown up on the larger than usual ground at Southampton. There is little that Robin Singh or anybody can do about this in the space of 2-3 weeks. What it will require is rigorous off season work directed by someone like Robin Singh. Even that will bring only minor improvements.

All in all, an off day for India. Dravid’s proud record of never having lost an ODI to England as captain was broken today. A look back at the first West Indies v England ODI earlier this season reveals that England won with similar ease batting first, only to lose the next two games when they were chasing.

Will history repeat itself?

For now though England’s pace edge has proved decisive……

Shashi Tharoor and a flawed analogy…..

Shashi Tharoor asks in his weekly column in the Times of India – Are we afraid of risks? The context – Rahul Dravid’s decision to bat a second time (or in Tharoor’s words – “After piling up a lead of 319 in the first innings, Rahul Dravid declined to enforce the follow-on against a demoralised and all-but-beaten England team. Dravid, a man I used to respect, sought to justify this pusillanimous decision by claiming his bowlers were tired.”)

The author starts by offering his vision of “new India” – in the form of Santhakumaran Sreesanth’s comically bad imitation of a kuchipudi dancer in the throes of the Ramayana War. For some odd reason, this was more than an fluke six connected by a hopeful number eleven. Andre Nel (the South African Sreesanth if you will) was allegedly trying to “intimidate him”. The “old India” in Tharoor’s view is represented by Rahul Dravid – scared of losing, diffident, cautious, all to its own detriment. His juxtaposition between the old and the new is telling and i will reproduce it here:

What Sreesanth demonstrated in Johannesburg was an attitude that has transformed the younger generation into a breed apart from its parents’. It is the attitude of an India that can hold its nerve and flex its sinews, an India whose self-confidence is rooted in the sober certitude of self-knowledge, an India that says to the future, “come on; I am not afraid of you.”

Dravid demonstrated, haplessly, that the dead hand of the older India still clings on — an India that is afraid to take risks for fear of failure, an India without the courage of self-belief, an India that is all too willing to settle for 1-0 than go for 2-0. This is the India that did a deal with the Kandahar hijackers rather than the India that threw out the intruders of Kargil. We have the capacity to be, in any field of national endeavour, both kinds of country. But I have no doubt that the attitude I saw on the fourth day of the Oval Test is unworthy of what the real India is shaping up to be.

Mind you, that last line suggests that the old India, represented by Rahul Dravid (and i assume the team think tank) is “unworthy” of what the real India is shaping up to be – Sreesanth! Now, if it seems that i am oversimplifying things, it is only to make the point that this is precisely what Mr. Tharoor has done here. He runs roughshod over some of the most complex areas of modern policy, strategy in pursuit of what is ultimately a flawed argument.

The argument is flawed, because it ignores cricket. Based fundamentally on this crucial oversight, Tharoor goes on to murder cricket and whole bunch of other things. Dravid’s unfortunate usage of the term “armchair critic” does not escape Tharoor’s attention – he suggests that if this were a valid position, then theatre critics would be completely worthless (i can see bollywood’s finest smiling inwardly at this idea). Once again Tharoor misses the point of Rahul Dravid’s comment. Dravid was asked to explain his decision to not enforce the follow on. This gist of his response (you could actually hear it in his own voice by clicking the audio link on this page) was that he took multiple issues into consideration and took his judgement based based on “what i see and know”. Now, the armchair critics line was unfortunate, but seriously – to ignore the gist of his reply and cotton on to the one little bit which is juicy (there is no other word for it) is to do the man a disservice.

By the way, i found yet another example of this kind of ridiculous cherry picking in the press. This is the transcript of Dravid’s interview to a Indian news channel, where he allegedly suggested that the obsession with the world cup was unhealthy. Here’s how this interview got reported in the press and the media. Yet, when you look into the actual transcript, Dravid did not suggest that the obsession with the world cup was unhealthy in this interview. He merely confirmed something that he had stated before, and his interviewer was aware that it was a old opinion because she brought it up!

Coming back to Mr. Tharoor’s argument, it is intriguing that he finds Andre Nel’s actions to be “intimidating”. I don’t find them intimidating at all, anymore than i thought Sreesanth’s behaviour at Trent Bridge was intimidating. Could it just be that Mr Tharoor’s article is a case of the old India writing about the new and the old India and making a case for the new?

If Rahul Dravid is unworthy of India, then India is not worth living in. I would rather be part of Dravid’s India than Sreesanth’s. The first represents world class quality, mastery of ones art, correctness, toughness, unforgiving competitiveness, solidity, reliability, an understated brilliance masked by an iron will and unbreakable discipline. The latter is an immature India, thriving on chance, unreliable, with much to learn. It is not hard to choose between the two.

Mr. Tharoor has written extensively about Nehruvian India and his column on the even of our 60th Independence Day was ironically about independence and democracy and Mr. Nehru’s work towards ensuring that a fledgling nation developed strong democratic traditions. That surely was more Dravidesque than it was Sreesanthesque. Mr. Tharoor’s point about fearlessness is well made, but he is wrong in assuming that the fear that his generation perceives is similarly percieved by Dravid’s. If he were to take a moment and think about it, there were equally good and equally manly arguments (the choice of adjective is admittedly a tad uncharitable here) for and against enforcing the follow on. There were also very sound cricketing arguments both in favor of and against enforcing the follow on.

I offer the following with great deference to the views of India’s candidate (withdrawn because there was no prospect of winning election) for the high office of the Secretary General of the United Nations. Of course i do not take into account high politics, diplomacy and statecraft in making this reference – but that sort of thing seems to be optional:

What i would like to see is an India which has the wisdom to accept both decisions with good grace, without dragging a great player’s name through the mud (“Dravid, a man I used to respect…………”), regardless of the result. If we could in addition to this simple courtesy also refrain for misrepresenting nuanced positions by cherry picking from them, it might make us better than we are today.

India v England, ODI Series Preview…….

The longest bilateral One Day International series to date on English soil commences in a few hours time in the port city of Southampton. If the balance of power was difficult to gauge before the Test series, then it is even more so with the One Day series.

On paper, India are the superior side. They have had the better of England irrespective of personnel, especially in India and on neutral ground. In England, they beat England in 2002, and lost 1-2 in 2004 in the Nat west Challenge. England hold no terrors for India. However, in a game designed for the cameo match winning solo, England possess two of the world finest match winners in the modern day – Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. Its the kind of thing which makes One Day cricket a lottery. The number of close run chases decided by lucky outside edges should tell you a thing or two about the arbitrary nature of the contest. Cricketers try and cloak this arbitrariness with “whoever does well on the day will prevail” – a line that has been done to death, by everyone, from the Bangladesh captain against Zimbabwe to Sourav Ganguly before the World Cup Final.

This arbitrariness also allows pretty much the whole range of predictions to be made. From the English newspaper the Independent comes the prediction that the return of Andrew Flintoff and Ravi Bopara may just avert a whitewash. Further they say that anything better than 2-5 would be demonstrative of improvement in England’s ODI fortunes. Ian Chappell on the other hand finds both sides evenly matched and predicts that pace will be the decisive factor.

With Flintoff making a comeback, and with Tremlett, Anderson and Broad also likely to play, the English attack looks strong. Flintoff gives them the decisive edge in my view, because he can be the 5th bowler. India will try and make up the 5th bowlers overs from Yuvraj, Tendulkar and Ganguly. One out of Piyush Chawla and Ramesh Powar will play – not a daunting prospect for the Englishmen, especially on good English wicket. In Test Cricket, India have been hurt over the years due to a limited bowling attack. While One Day Cricket provides batsmen greater scope for affecting the result in ODI games compared to Tests, fielding – another area where India have traditionally been behind the curve also has a greater bearing on events. The top Indian ODI batsmen – Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Yuvraj, supported by the peerless Mahendra Dhoni (his record as a specialist wicketkeeper batsman in ODI cricket is unmatched in ODI history) have overcome this handicap repeatedly and successfully.

Chappell is probably right though, in damp conditions, especially with dew expected to be a factor under lights, England pace edge – provided by Andrew Flintoff as the 5th bowler, might play a important role. The teamwork from the Test series will become vitally important, especially when India are in the field.

The rejuvenated Ganguly and the peerless Tendulkar will return at the top of the innings for India as the captain announced. This leaves the number three slot open for Gambhir, Karthik, Utthappa or Sharma. My guess is that Dinesh Karthik will bat at number 3 in the Southampton game, all though Gautam Gambhir has been amongst the runs. Seperating Ganguly and Yuvraj in the line up also gives India the opportunity have left-right combinations most of the time unless both fail. It also gives India to opportunity to play 5 bowlers. Ramesh Powar and Piyush Chawla may both play if that is the case. If not, then Gambhir will in all probability join Dinesh Karthik in the eleven. Karthik would then bat at 6, while Gambhir will bat at 3.

The bowling offers more intriguing choices. Munaf Patel has returned to the squad. This puts RP’s place under pressure in my view, because he has the tendency to be mercurial. He looks innocuous for a large part of his spell and goes for plenty of runs, but ends up taking crucial wickets. Patel offers greater control and has been Indias best ODI bowler in the last 12 months or so. However, it may be difficult to blood Patel straightaway, and Agarkar, Zaheer and RP may be India’s seam bowling line up.

It remains to be seen whether India’s ODI side can extend its unbeaten record after the World Cup (series wins v Bangladesh and South Africa). What is at stake here is much more than an ODI series victory. A ODI defeat in England will mean that there will be brickbats at the ready when the players step out of the airport in India – a great Test triumph forgotten.