Cricket: South Africa India One Day Series

What a stunning fight back by the lower order SA batsmen in the 1st game! Truly remarkable... Never stop believing till the end. Always playing for a win. Never give up...

Double century for Sachin Tendulkar. Over hyped? I am not a fan of centuries and doubles. Buts hats off to the old man's fitness. 3 cheers!

Dhoni's batting in the 2nd ODI was really deadly. Hit flat sixes off the bottom hand. What strength, what eyes, what hands, WHAT A PLAYER!

It was nice to see Yousuf Pathan back in the thick of things. I really look forward to see him perform well. After all, he is Shane Warne's find!

In the 3rd match, nobody was interested. Even more proof of the fact that none of these 2 teams belong to the champions league like the Australians do. All were wanting to relax before the IPL

Why do all ODIs end up in more than 600 runs per day nowadays? Or more than 300 in an innings? I hate to say this.. But if this continues, I will loose interest in watching cricket. This is Bowlers' Mass Murder. Pull back the short boundaries. Resolve the due. Bring the back foot no ball rule back. ICC - are you listening?

Why is S. Sreesanth given an extended stay in the India Team? Does he have a god-father in the selection committee? Is Dhoni over-doing the risk? For the last so many matches, he has turned out to be the most expensive bowler in the team! Just sack him.

Why was a potential all-rounder like Abhishek Nayar dropped from the squad without giving him any chance to perform? Is that fair? Something evil cooking up in the selection process?

India Vs. South Africa 1st Test Day 3

Interesting bullets:

• Sehwag deserves to be a strong contender for the player of the last decade. More on that later, in some other blog post.


• Dale Steyn is the best bowler in the world at the moment. Hands Down.


• Golden Words: Getting out caught behind the stumps is always less embarrassing than getting bowled - leaving the ball.


• The worst way to end the day for the ever so successful Sehwag is to send him to the face the press when all others in the team are too ashamed to face them.


• What is the worst quote of the year (already!)? "I was trying to smell the ball - that's why I bit it". Second worst: "The new ball was very helpful. It started to suddenly move around. The seam came off and then it swung like hell" from Dayle Steyn. Why on the earth would you say such thing when you have taken 8 wickets in a day? Can someone coach them Media Management? Not to reveal all the secrets?


• Not that the NEW-BALL episode is a controversy yet, but where are all the rules? And the rule makers? And the Ball Makers? Why do you need to change the ball every so often? Why is a replacement ball so different than the routine ball, that it can change the course of the match/series?


• Can India save this yet? Yes they can. Will they save this one? They might.


• Can India win this yet? They have, in the past. They still can. But they may not... Based on first 3 days, they don't deserve to!


• What do champion teams do when they are down and out? They gather all their reserve energies, dig deep and bounce back. Is India a Champion team? Will their 9 batsmen play out then (minimum) 9 to 10 hours? . . .

The tennis tournament - ATP Masters Series in Madrid

This is about the Mutua Madrileña ATP Masters Series, currently in progress at Madrid, Spain. This is a very interesting tournament. Mainly because, all the top ranked 12 ATP players (men) play here. This is a really rare event and not like the Grand Slams, where they have their own seeding which can be different than the world rankings.

Surprisingly though, I noticed that the official website of the tournament mentioned above is not good at all. Some of the links don't work. They don't maintain good news or columns. They do not provide good player rankings and schedules. And in comparison, I observed that the official ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) tour website gives a much better analysis of the Masters Series.

I will be personally looking for the Roger Federer vs. Rafel Nadal rivalry. I just hope that they both reach the finals and produce another one of those stunning, awesome display of contrasting tennis styles, that has made them a unique pair. Throughout the last 15 years, I have not observed any rivalry in professional sport that can be compared to Federer vs. Nadal in terms of their skills, Quality of their games, Difference in style and dominance over everyone else in their sport. What do you think?

Long live the champions.

Cheers,
- Ashutosh

Should Anil Kumble resign from the Indian Cricket Team?

In the 1st test match of the India Vs. Australia Border Gavaskar series, Kumble went wicket-less. Its the first time that this has happened in India. There is a clear cut case of Anil being in the playing 11 only because he is the captain and not because he belongs to the best 11 in the country right now.

On top of that - he carried an injury in this test match. Did not bowl when he was needed the most. And when he returned back to the field, he reversed Mahendra Singh Dhoni's aggressive field placements. All and all, a poor performance form the veteran. I think Saurav Ganguly has made a right decision in calling it quits. And Anil Kumble needs to take a clue. In the last test series for India Vs. Sri Lanka, Anil Kumble took 8 wickets in 3 matches at an average of 50 and a strike rate of 100! Prior to that, in the home series against South Africa, he took 4 wickets in 2 matches at an average of 60 and a strike rate of 150!!

At the start of this series, Anil announced that this would be his last test at Bangalore. However, at the end of the match, he made a shocking statement "One bad game doesn't make you a bad player". Maybe, his manager or someone else needs to remind him of the above statistics so that he can find out how many bad games he has had in the last year or so.

I am a firm believer of performance dictating selection, and on basis of both - current form, and captaincy skills - I would choose Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the skipper and Piyush Chawla as the leg spinner to play against the Australian team in the remainder of the series. It will be interesting to see what the Indian selectors say. Incidentally, the team for the last 2 test matches against Australia should be selected soon, so we will come to know what their opinion is.

Of course it goes without saying, that Anil Kumble has been India's only match-winning bowler on all wickets for the last decade or more. However, I think the age is taking its toll and he is near the end of his career.

Cheers,
- Ashutosh