England’s Ashes obsession

England media seems to be obsessed with Ashes. There does not seem to be any other series or events in cricket that they can think or write about. It is good to be prepared for an important series but England should not forget that there is a test series against WI and a small matter of a cricket world cup (T20) in England itself before they pad up against the Aussies in July. I see more articles in English media about Ashes than the current cricket series in WI. Is this the reason behind poor performance of English team in WI? They are thinking too much into future and not concentrating on present.

One could have understood the anticipation if there had been any expectation of competitive cricket between the two teams. But looking at current form, it looks to be one sided contest with Aussies once again favourites to stream roll the Englishmen.

In 2005, we had a good series not because it was Ashes but because it was a contest between top two teams in the world. Now it is looking like an uneven contest.On one side, we have world’s top ranked team who have just vanquished the #2 team and also on a upswing after the low point last year and on the other side, we have #6 ranked team which has just lost to #7 ranked team and the rankings can even get swapped if WI does better than expected in return series scheduled to be held in April-May in England. The England team’s current goal should be to play good cricket in that series and try to salvage some pride before talking themselves up about Ashes. On current form, they have no chance against Aussies hell bent upon proving that they are back as THE top side.

NZ-India: Fifth ODI

India lost another dead rubber. This has been a trend with India for last few series and should be corrected if India wishes to become and stay at #1 ranking in world. The way ICC ranking works a dead rubber is as valuable as any other game in terms of gaining/losing points and treated equally.

For a change in this series, India batting did not fire and whole team was out before playing out the allotted overs. The batting lineup appeared to be on auto-pilot with none of the batsmen except Rohit Sharma trying to apply themselves according to the situation and play slowly but steadily. The batsmen need to realize that not all pitches would be batsmen friendly and there will be times where good old accumulation will be more useful than slam bang cricket.

After batsmen, it was bowlers turn to disappoint as they struggled to maintain tight line and length. It was as comprehensive and emphatic loss as could be.

The only silver lining that one can see is that this loss will keep Indian team grounded. Now they won’t be complacent in test series and would know that in case they slip, NZ team is good enough to take advantage of that and can cause upsets and surprises. Such a pathetic display in Tests could have affected India’s chances of win in test series in NZ after a long time very badly. Hopefully team will be more watchful now.

NZ-India: Fourth ODI

Another ODI, Another good pitch and another massacre and same result. India bt NZ again to take series 3-0. This is first time India has beaten NZ in NZ in a bilateral ODI series. It is all getting repetitive and boring. Better contest was expected between these two teams based on India’s old record here and competitive cricket usually played by NZ in limited overs game but the way pitches have changed here in last few years, it looks like going to be a one-way traffic in this series and test series later.

Virendar Sehwag played a blinder and Gambhir played an anchor role around him to make the target look real easy. Multiple rain breaks did not create any problem for them and they coasted to an easy victory. The one-but-last break occurred when 19.2 overs were bowled by NZ and had there been no further game, the match would have been declared abandoned and India would have missed out on a well deserved victory.

NZ needs to put a lot of thought on how they want to handle Indian batting machine and the way things are going they have a tough task in hand for Test series also.

The flat pitches

There is a lot of hue and cry in English media about flat pitches being made in WI in the current series. Media has been blaming defensive attitude of WI team bemoaning that they are interested in playing for draw only and pitches and playing tactics are designed just to achieve that.

One could understand the frustration of English media with how the series has shaped up so far. Nobody expected WI to give any fight to England. But now WI has a very strong chance of winning the series, leave alone drawing it. English media has not been able to come to terms with reality of its team’s strength and looking for excuses to downplay pathetic display of English cricket team.

I am not sure why would people blame pitches in WI. We had one result, one game had very close finish and it was defensive tactics by England which led to WI escaping with draw. In the current match also, England made a very slow start when they knew they need to win this match to square the series. They just managed to score just 258 on first day in 90 0vers. There was clear lack of intent on their part, so how is this fair to blame WI pitches and team for defensive tactics.

WI had series lead before the final test and it was expected that they would be content with draw and onus was on England to force the pace and look for result. They have clearly failed in doing so. 

And why would having dull draws in test cricket lead to death of test cricket. There have been more results in Test crickets in this decade than ever before. Teams score quickly resulting in higher scores and bowlers getting more chances to get wickets resulting in more results than draws. Test cricket did not die when we used to see more draws so how come these draws are going to cause death of Test cricket. I can understand English media’s grief on losing the series but England losing the series does not lead to death of cricket esp. when we had some great test cricket last year between India-Aus and another great match is in progress between Aus-SA.

Instead of bemoaning WI tactics, English media should question team preparedness and players’ attitude. When was the last time the super heroes – Flintoff & KP played a match winning inning – be it tests or ODIs? They are merely showmen who play a good inning once in a while and the whole media goes ga-ga over them.

From a  neutral observers’ attitude this series was between two teams ranked 5 & 7 respectively in the world and cricket was of the quality of the lower rungs team as expected and result is not surprising as though teams are looking closely matched but WI has shown more intent and hunger to win.

 

<Update> On the last day of the last test, England showed some intent and aggression to force a result and they nearly got the required result. Had they applied themselves more in the earlier part of the series, the result could have been different. But as  things stand today, they are #6 ranked team in test cricket.

NZ-India: Third ODI

India won the third ODI too to take a 2-0 lead in the ODI series. The Indian batsmen fired again and in the end the margin of victory came out to be a pretty decent – 58 runs.

NZ gave India a good scare towards the beginning and end of run chase. The start they got from McCullum and Ryder had made the chase look achievable before they had a couple of run outs. Towards the end, Mills & Southee again created a scare as they kept up with the asking rate for quite some time. The drama in Patel’s over and Pathan coming over to complete Patel’s over resulted in the breakthrough India was looking for.

The first ball which was no-balled in that over led to heart burn for Indian fielders and expectedly so. It was no-balled after it was caught and batsman had refused to go. If it was a no-ball, umpires should have signalled it immediately and not waited for batsmen to “appeal” against it. Had NZ went on to win the match, there would have been a lot of hue and cry over this and Indians would have felt cheated.

In the first half, Indian batsmen dominated NZ after a slightly sluggish start and India made highest total scored in NZ by any team. Nearly every batsman joined the party and hit big shots at the expense of NZ bowlers. Sadly, Tendulkar was forced to retire hurt and he could not take a shot at 200 in this form of cricket.

Among the Indian batsmen, nearly all of them had at least one good score in NZ so far except Gambhir. He has not yet fired in any of the games so far and it will be critical for India’s success in Test matches for him to have some confidence and form before we start test series.

NZ tried well yesterday and the total was always going to be too large to chase and the best they can get from this series is a draw. So far, India has dominated them and it looks unlikely that this is going to change now.

NZ-India: First ODI

India beat NZ quite comfortably in the first ODI. This is how it happens when Indian batting fires and this is how it is going to happen on this tour. India batting did not do as well as expected during T20s and India lost both of them but this is not going to happen all the time.

India made explosive start with Sehwag at the fore-front and he tore apart Kiwi bowlers from the word go. The rain break also does not seem to affect him and India kept going at steady pace. Tendulkar was the first to go. NZ is among the few places where Sachin has not scored any ODI century and he should correct this in this tour which is his last in all likelihood. On his dismissal, Dhoni walked in at #3, an interesting move which I would take up in another post. Yuvraj struggled a bit on this pitch but after his dismissal, first Raina and then Pathan combined well with Dhoni and took India to a big total.

NZ innings started poorly with hero of T20s McCullum out cheaply and never got the momentum to challenge Indian total. The rain break also came at a very inopportune time since a wicket had just fallen which increased required total in D/L calculations. Meanwhile, Indian part spinners bowled well and restricted NZ top & middle orders.

Overall a thoroughly professional display by India.  I still believe that NZ team is much more competitive than we saw yesterday and they would still give India a good fight in this ODI series. The series is far from over and Indians should not get complacent after winning the watch so easily.

SL Cricketers attacked in Pakistan

Today we saw a shocking incident in which terrorists attacked SL cricket team while they were on their way to stadium from hotel for cricket match. This was a professionally planned and executed attack and highly audacious since attackers were aware of the fact that SL team would be well guarded and still they went ahead and attacked SL cricket team.

My initial reaction was that probably cricketers got struck in a cross fire and were not direct targets but after reading the reports it is pretty clear, they were the target of attacks. This is going to have a long term adverse impact on cricket in subcontinent not just Pakistan.

We have always believed that terrorists will never target cricketers in this part of the world as this will result in them losing people’s sympathy. This used to reduce risk perception to cricketers in our eyes and the only perceptible risk was that cricketers can get struck between a crossfire unintentionally and this can be handled by controlling their movement when they are here. But when terrorists have decided to mark cricketers to be their targets then they are just sitting ducks and this can happen anywhere not just in Pak but also in other sub continental countries.

Lets see what kind of impact is there on Indian cricket due to this. As far as Pakistan goes, it is pretty clear, we are not going to see any major cricketing nation visiting it for some time now.