BCCI – Wolves in sheep’s garb!

Most sort after cricket team bite the dust and bitten it pretty hard. The media celebrated their part quite brilliantly by all sort of criticism and disparagement to the BCCI and cricket team as whole. One can’t deny this uncanny ability of press to make a hero to zero over night. The poster boy Dhoni became a whipping boy, raising star Suresh Raina turned out to be flat pitch bully, rocket launcher Ishant Sharma converted in to run scorer for the opposition! What else, the whole “Dhamaka” we saw last time around with glossy smiles and bhangra steps are settled down like a tempest? Now it is like loser’s battlefield. One can hear and feel the agony and grief if sharpen the ears and mind.

Every defeat and glory has the reason. We applaud and cheered MS Dhoni last time when he won the T20 World Cup and now here after two years we are looking at same MS Dhoni in revulsion for his amateurish way of playing cricket and numerous mistakes he made in the field. Fair enough, the Indian captain made some silly mistakes that even a 5^th grade would hesitant to do but the culprit is not only him, there are few behind the scene hiding and grunting like a beast – still itching for more… BCCI!

IPL was big success, the mercury of over all excitement and anxiety had rose to the top and broken the tube. In IPL we were in a specific comfort level despite of all those hoopla and hype that surrounded the game, whoever wins the cup stays in India! We are late to realize the fact Indian Premiere League is only to entertain us public but in world level cricket we can’t afford to stop raising our bar, need to work harder and better to stay in the competition. South Africa lost the match in semi final, but I would still believe in their ability to beat any team in the world, to evaluate my view look how fast South Africa evolved from ondeday match winners to T20 specialists!? Pakistan came back strongly to fetch the cup this time; washed off all the sin they did in 2007 final match! Srilanka proved to be a tough team to beat. While other countries were preparing for the T20 World Cup Indian team was in a dream zone where they had flower path all the way from Mumbai Airport to the Wankhede stadium the place where ultimately politicians took central stage. It supposed to be felicitation function for jubilant Indian cricket team; the shrewd politicians with special kind of genes in their blood never miss an opportunity to utilize the situations to magnify their own brilliance. The millions of people watched that function all over the world had this kind of bewilderment; did India win the title because of ruling party?

Instead of ridiculing Dhoni and company for the embarrassing defeat let’s try to look at things in a different angle, India was having full of fresh players last time, all of them are young and enthusiastic, few of the old players got chances to show their merit as well. Indian T20 team was real underdogs in 2007. Won the title and lived in the dream, when players were busy receiving appreciations along with some ad endorsements tempt to ignore a simple fact that other nations are practicing and sharpening their skills in T20. Wake up call rung twice, by the time the players realized they are too far behind the team is out of the race!

Fatigue factor is a main issue that Coach Gary Kristen rightly touched up on. But right after making this statement coach turned to look over his shoulder to see how many players are behind to support him faced the reality in its worst form. None of them! Instead Captain MS Dhoni came up to contradict coach’s view “too much cricket is not an issue here” as expected few former players too came forward to support Dhoni. We witnessed it in IPL and T20 World Cup, players are really tired of over cricket, it shows in their body language and the way how they are playing cricket, but the smiling villain BCCI is not convinced yet or pretending to be not aware of this whole situation, they send Indian team straight from England to West Indies. Only for four oneday matches. Trying to be good BCCI extended the helping hand by saying if anybody needs rest they can opt out from the team. The players in their right frame of mind will never dare to do that! Not even Dhoni this time, he is smart enough to pulse the change of tide, add to the misery not everything he does turning out to be just right now days! While pocketing a lot of money from all directions; some one should remind BCCI about a story of a goose that lays golden egg!!!

India's World Cup Defeat – A butterfly effect!

There is stunning similarities between 1987 Indian one day World Cup defeat and 2009 T20 World Cup defeat. In 1987 Kapil Dev’s devils failed to retain the cup they had won so gloriously four years before in England. As installed as favorites the defending T20 champions India were eying for consecutive world cup title; but this time they were carrying hopes of a billion, unlike last time where nobody had put their money on India especially with the absence of Fab Four! Same cycle India had gone through 26 years ago as nobody had believed in a team that Kapil Dev led to their first world cup victory in England!

As I was not grown enough to watch or memorize a live match that took place in India and Pakistan in 1987, last night I had a chance to watch some of the recorded highlights of Indian innings, had a Goosebumps to see some striking similarities in few bowled outs and run outs! Those old fellows must have had the feeling of déjà vu when they were watching the last match that South Africa defeated India!

Almost all the countries have come to terms with niceties associated with Cricket’s newest and shortest form with so much of matches being played over last couple of years. T20 is not as former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad referred, carnival cricket or slam bang cricket. T20 has scope for matters of strategy, cunningness, and tactical planning. Not all Tom Dick and Harry can play T20; it requires massive power, timing and most significantly a huge chunk of luck! Seemingly a small error can get overblown in a result that goes down to the wire as we witnessed several times in IPL.

In India even Muthayya Muralidaran of Sri Lanka used to get mobbed, stunned spin wizard said nothing this sort happened to him in his own home country. I am not talking about Muralidaran here. Indians have this weird propensity to raise a mediocre player to the status of Super Man and praise him left right and center, build a temple and do whatever possible to magnify his good things and rip him apart when he make couple of errors of judgment. Definitely Dhoni is intelligent enough to know this strange behavior of Indian cricket fans well before. “I was told by a senior a few years ago. He said if somebody is appreciating you, don't hit seventh heaven. If you fall on floor, it wouldn't be good for you. So adopt a central path. I try to do so," Dhoni was visibly disturbed and upset by the large portion of the crowd which booed him in presentation party. I suspect that senior is none other than his predecessor Sourav Ganguly, he too had a nasty time to go through.

It was Dhoni’s over confidence that caused the defeat against South Africa in last super eight games though it was a meaningless match. Dhoni retained the same team including the real culprits of the previous game. He wanted to prove a point or two to his critics the defeat against England was just ” a bad day”, look I gonna beat the best team in the tournament South Africa with the same team, he even celebrated the win when India restricted SA for as little as 130 runs. Well, opposition had some other plan in their mind and executed them beautifully, Dhoni was once again on losing side when the game was over, giving more and more chances to the critics to stone him! By the way the Indian captain is known for taking risks isn’t he?

It is not surprising to see the captain is getting most of the brickbats; there are so many other factors also to be counted besides Sehwag issue that left bad taste in everybody’s mouth, Coach is not been targeted much in blaming game of former players this time around, may be because Gary Kirsten is less flashy character than the former coach. Then Dhoni was the one praised far above the ground by every one when he won the inaugural T20 World Cup for India!

Indian Cricket fanatics started shouting for Dhoni’s head just like how it happened to Kapil Dev 22 years ago when his team failed to retain the World Cup. Critics are busy to find and list down the mistakes that Dhoni did in this World Cup similarly what happened to Kapil Dev in 1987! The media reported Kapil Dev had indifferences with Sunil Gavaskar which later on both of them denied identical to the allegation about the rift between Dhoni and Sehwag, Kapil Dev was suffering from decline of his own form as a bowler similar to Dhoni’s own batting form. Kapil Dev couldn’t continue as Indian captain anymore after the world cup defeat….

Let’s hope history won’t repeat all the time or at least this time! Butterfly effect can cause a fraction of a change in same incidents. Remember Dhoni is yet to lose a test match as captain!

Thanks for visiting my blog, thanks a bunch for those who left the comments, I made slight improvement on the layout and included visitors counter as per the advice of a friend. Hope you all will like it, please continue to visit and leave comments.

Faded Blue - The conclusion!

You got to admire Indian skipper for admitting the fact that from here on it gonna be a real test of character not only for him but the team as whole. A team that supposed to defend the title got out from the tournament prematurely was extremely embarrassing for every inidians not only for the portion of the crowd which booed the England players in their own home ground but also every Indians around the globe who watched the match in television channels! Nobody could have imagined it would be this bad when Sourav Ganguly said before the T20 World Cup in England real test for Dhoni will come very soon, first it was West Indies and now England tried and succeeded to defeat India with short balls, as they said “ perfume balls”! The whole Indian team including coaches and other staffs need a reality check for hyping it up instead of pumping it up! Let Sachin’s tongue turn gold as he is the first one to predict this Indian team will win the cup again! The Indians couldn’t win even a coffee cup if that is what Sachin meant in any stretch of imagination; instead they looked up and panicked to see the short balls going like meteoroids! I heard Suresh Raina complained to the captain and coach for being targeted by short balls; don’t be surprised if he files a case to ICC against England players for throwing short balls at him!

It was like " a midsummer night's dream" the victorious Indian team arrived in Mumbai after winning the inaugural T20 cup. Well, a lot of water had flown under the bridge after those happy days of 2007 when Dhoni lead a bunch of youngsters to triumph in South Africa, now even Dhoni’s strongest supporters in the team are having two minds to support him!

Dhoni hailed as a thinking captain, always seemed to have the Midas touch about him, everything had taken for granted that he simply can’t do wrong, even his miscalculation became right calculated and swept on by the euphoria in the wake of his stunning deeds. However his recent inability to carry Cehnnai Super Kings in IPL-2 despite of having a boasted team besides his repeated failure as a big hitter in slog overs contributed to a sharp decline in his cricketing fortunes if not endorsements.

Dhoni will come under increased scrutiny in coming days, the Captain who can’t do wrong did everything wrong in this T20, rather strange decisions one should say like how he promoted Jadeja ahead of himself or Yuvraj, omission of better all rounder Irfan Pathan to replace with RP Singh who just can’t bear to stand in front of the stumps for batting etc. I am sure Dhoni would know his team is ill-prepared for the tournament after the wretched issue over Sehwag that cast a shadow besides back to back cricket that drained player’s body and mind alike.

When the billions of Indian cricket fans were shell shocked over their team’s premature exit from the T20 World cup, it was no surprise for former England captain Nasser Hussein. In his view the Indians exposed in conditions that afforded movements besides their notorious inability to handle short pitched balls. In short India had succumbed under unfriendly pitch that behaved like a drunken bitch!

For sure Dhoni had made some blunders this time, sending Jadeja for stabilizing the innings as he said in presentation party is a good thinking, but he failed to measure a most important fact, how long Jadeja would take to stabilize the innings?! By the time he stabilized the innings the game was over, the opposition won the match! The batsmen who came after him were under tremendous pressure to score the runs. Yuvraj bored of standing inside his crease and came out for a change, wicket keeper rattled his stumps in a flash, Dhoni came and hit hard squire cuts and powerful lofted shots to score some singles when a four or six was the order of the moment! Sticking the bat out of the off stump hoping for the ball to come and hit is not a crime, but you can’t expect that ball to go for a six! It is undoubtedly a big crime that deserves capital punishment! Finally Dhoni gave up and took singles to give the strike to Yousef Pathan hoping he would hit three consecutive sixes to win the game!

Despite of odd victories in abroad the stirring performance in Australia and few outstanding batting displays; Indians are still ill-equipped to bat in conditions other than at home. The Indian performance in abroad was never been consistent enough for us to believe that the Indian cricketers have come of age!

Take a leaf out of Australians!

Indian cricket team had a big issue over the team selection over a period of time, till former Australian captain Greg Chappell has taken over the most difficult work in the world as Indian cricket coach! He re-wrote the rules and regulations for choosing the players for the national side. Later on his larger than himself ego had clashed with even bigger egoist former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly resulting omission of both!

Nobody knows the yardstick for a good cricketer before when a player get selected for national team, now every body became selectors; courtesy to IPL. Public knows who is better spinner than who, and who is better batsmen to play at No.3! Even they can advice you which player is suitable for all three format of the game and who is the best only for T20! The biggest problem here is how to get rid of an established player from the team based on his current form not the sky touching past credentials of a player. India always struggled in this part; they are just not capable of doing it due to the public erection of emotions and strikes that may take place in India. Thanks to the fabulous four for stepping back from T20 by identifying the game as new generation’s cricket!

Let me introduce you a country that can throw away any cricketer, regardless of their status, stardom or experience, criteria is just simple, current form! There are no strikes in the country because of selectors sacking the players, no slogans and no burning effigies. Andrew Symonds gone for fishing instead of attending a team meeting and Cricket Australia asked him to continue fishing. When Symonds had done enough fishing he came back to CA to apologize to take him back to the team. CA has taken him back with one and only warning, the repetition of the mistake can cause him elimination from the national team forever!

Symonds can skip a meal, sex, and Play Station, but not liquor. So when he has been asked to chose from two - play cricket or have beer - the obvious pick for him was what you guessed; the second one! One can easily justify his decision if you are following his career in recent times, he still can play cricket in IPL or Lancashire if he wanted to but unfortunately there is no substitute for alcohol.

Now there is another established player under fire for not scoring runs and bad strike rate. Micheal Clarke – Australian vice captain! He is one player who got a lot of female fans in Australia and England; his innocent blond lady look earned him a lot of male fans too. This amazing feat doesn’t seem to be affecting him at least in his professional life; he wasn’t good enough for T20 from the beginning when he started playing T20 and does he now?! So there is a consistency through out his T20 life. Well done boy. I remember a story of an ex-military man who always claims he is still strong as before. When someone asked him how he could be as strong as before, the 80 plus ex-military man answered he couldn’t lift a rock weighed a tone that located in front of his house and still he can’t!

In 18 Twenty20 internationals, Clarke has scored only 189 runs for an average of 17, but the bigger worry is his strike-rate of 106. This compares to Andrew Symonds (strike-rate 169), Simon Katich (146) and Mitchell Johnson (164).

Even Mike Hussey, hardly a dasher, has a strike-rate of 134.

Australia has always struggled in Twenty20 and Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland admits the time has come for a major overhaul.

India got to learn a lesson or two from Cricket Australia, not the batting or fielding this time for a change, to take a firm decision on player’s selection and rejection!

Dhoni v/s Sehwag – Truth revealed!

As I said before there is a fire underneath that thick white smoke.

There is certain smugness about Indian cricket that financial brawn work better than brains. So much so that instead of putting Sehwag through the fitness check scanner, the administrators simply went by the word of the player who in his part guilty of hiding his injury. If BCCI is having any sense at all, should be warning Sehwag for hiding his injury and give an example for the other players, some disciplinary measure should have been taken to avert him from doing so in future. But it is most unlikely to happen in Indian cricket as most of the cricketers are bigger than the game itself.

In Sehwag’s case BCCI has taken a stand to count all Sehwag’s talent, experience and record to wash off his guiltiness that he did to such an extend to pollute the team atmosphere in dressing room.

Sehwag has been a prolific batsman who gets runs in any surface that too in no time, agreed, but he should have set a good example by opting out from the T20 World Cup by admitting his injury that got struck in IPL. I am assuming Sehwag was little scared of the media for blaming him playing for money in IPL without looking after his fitness, where more important match is ahead to represent hi country. When he knew he was not fit for cricket, Sehwag should have done a favor to the Indian cricket team by opting out rather than going to England with the team and make unnecessary dispute with the captain.

Dhoni was furious for a million reasons, no captain worth his salt will tolerate a player who is so important in team planning and strategy hides his injury. This is the lone reason Dhoni had to have verbal fight with Sehwag, by knowing the attitude of Sehwag he will never step behind when a fight brake out, putting forward all his own reasons to contradict the view of captain and team.

Dhoni also need to be blamed partially for his childish behavior with Indian media. Rather than fighting with the journalists to show the world how he fought with Sehwag in the dressing room and distributing embarrassingly nursery quality piece of paper with nasty handwriting to reveal how bad his own hand writing is, he would have drew more dignity by coming clean on this issue with a proper press meet with calm and cool temperament.

Nobody shed tears after they learnt Viru is departing from England but only one player! He is none other than Rohit Sharma, ironically it was the tears of joy. He get chance to open the batting without any pressure or threat, and till now when this writer is typing this article; he has been doing marvelous job with the bat in opening slot. Grabbing the opportunity with both hands in absolute greediness.

Now Dhoni had revealed great news for the millions of Indian cricket fans that he is not planning to come at no.3 throughout the tournament. It seems like one of his thousands of experiments gone badly wrong. Good thing is he realized it before it gets too late.

The lack of openness, players being unapproachable and unprofessional ways of dealing the media, lack of BCCI’s insights all contributed the shadowy scenario that you find beneath the glossy and polished surface. Now the tempest has settled down, not many damages are done as everyone in opposition had expected. Let’s start a smooth and comfortable run in T20 World Cup especially after entering in super eight with 100% success rate!

A tale of Andrew Symonds!

Andrew Symonds is one of the best batsmen in world cricket today who can easily rip apart any bowler by bat or by baath (talk – some areas they call it sledging!) If he is spinning the ball then you got a nuisance also along with the twirl especially when you are in batting side. But his side will just love him for doing so! He can floor any streakers who comes on his way too!

Symonds had a lot of problems from the day one. He is not that bad though the bad speculation and bad mouthed fellow cricketers tarnished his image. He is not a drunkard like many of you think, he drinks only in special occasions just like me and you do, no body can blame him for having special occasions literally every day isn’t it? And he drink only four Fosters beer, (just to start with) is that a sin? What is the problem for his fellow Australians if he mixes tequila with beer? And they talk about his fights in the bar. He fights only with guys who stare at him; it can be baseball players, football players or simply the bearers who just happened to be in wrong side of the bar. So what?

The biggest problem that Symonds faced in Australian dressing room was his own team mates, there is no Hayden, Gilchrist or McGrath in the team any more and the new bunch of young players looked at him as if they are watching a horror movie! At least this is what they heard about Symonds when they were playing for Australian Junior Cricket Team or their parents asked them to stay away from a person who’s got weird hair cut or ever white lips!

One late evening right after the Australian win against Pakistan; when all the players are returning to their hotel room, one young lad got in to Symonds’s nerves by simply avoiding and ignoring him like cow dung! Raising up to his reputation Symonds chased this young fellow till his room, the budding player was horrified and closed his room door to shake the whole hotel building, Symo knocked and kicked the door, end up making only some noise without the desired result, the young lad was terrified like a hostage surrounded by armed terrorists, shivering like a wet rat! Straight away Symonds complained to the coach. Coach called the young player to his room; he always kept a comfort distance with Symonds even when sitting there in the room.

Why did you run when you saw Symo? Why did you avoid him like plague? Don’t you think it is an insult to a great cricketer like Andrew Symonds? This time Symonds looked at the coach in anger to punch on his nose. Not because of anything but when coach said the word “a great cricketer” he chuckled unnecessarily! The answer from the newbie was surprising for both coach and Symonds!

“I was late to play my Xbox!”

Though Symonds astonished by the answer but the coach found it completely convincing enough and let him go without any punishment or further questions.

When Symonds gone to play IPL in South Africa, he was like a free bird, the Deccan Charger’s coach Lehman, captain Adam Gill Christ were very supportive, and the owner of the team offers a great liquor party every time they win, they offer same party every time they lose too, now this is exciting.

Gilly apparently advised Symo to have a tension less, glamorous life like how he and Heydo (Mathew Heyden) leads. No pressure cooker situations from Cricket Australia, no hectic schedule through out the year, make a huge amount of money that usually you make by playing the whole year for Australia, play only a month or so and relax in your favorite beaches with few babes, get drunk rest of the year. I am dead sure the last sentence has definitely motivated Symonds to make some deliberate problems in the dressing room and opt out of Cricket Australia intentionally! If the money he gets from IPL is not good enough; he can still make a lot from Lancashire by playing seasonal cricket!

IPL was like a party time for Symonds, just what doctor had ordered. He felt as if he was in a different world especially right after the Chappel Cup in UAE against Pakistan. He has been questioned for laughing out loudly, picking his nose, scratching his balls etc. He was tired of answering all these unwanted and unnecessary questions. Top of all he not supposed to get drunk during his stay with the team, now that is unbearable and heart breaking. When he went to South Africa he was like Alice in wonder land in IPL world, beer and girls are the basic thing you get there to start from, then you may improve game by game, every night is a party night. The bosses of IPL believed in a simple theory of “entertain the entertainer in order to get entertained!”

Though Symonds is planning to retire from international cricket by end of this week, he may get better and more devastating in domestic level for years to come. There are two types of people in the world, one who wait for their faith, another who creates their own faith!

"Dhoni v/s Sehwag" Assumption or Real?

There are a lot of speculation over MS Dhoni’s statement to the media when media asked him about Sehwag’s recovery from the injury that he developed during the IPL; Dhoni’s reply was as cool as cucumber

"May be you should ask his physio to issue a press release"

This is where he had gone terribly wrong. It was as if someone is asking an innocent and Ahimsa person; can you give me a stick so I can beat you up left right and center! Unfortunately being an Ahimsa dude Dhoni had gifted not only the stick but also with sharp thorns on it!

Immediatly Dhoni pressed the panic button and made a press conference to clear the cloud.

"This message is for the people of India and for Indian cricket fans worldwide and comes from the whole team, recent reports in the Indian media of a rift between me and Sehwag amounts to nothing but false and irresponsible media reporting,"

Mr.Dhoni, we hope you know the media better than anybody in the business, even you were a favorite kid of media at a point of time. They were just waiting for little bit of controversy or sensationalism to blow out of the proportion with a pinch of salt. To make a sheep a fox or vice versa is not a big deal for the press in any given time. So a statement that you said in the press meet is godsend for them.

On the other side of the coin; did we witness a curious case of “spilling the beans” here? Is there any substance in this gossip?

One could easily say yes!

Dhoni was tired of praising his deputy in each and every press conference he had recently, though Viru couldn’t show his real metal during IPL outing; his International cricket was on the rise; bettered his own position in ICC ranking as well. I would say it was media’s fault all together, why are they asking to Dhoni about Viru’s black mole on forehead or his deodorant brand all the time, not being gay partners it is very difficult to explain folks. If it let it go this way, press may ask next question why Viru is spitting on the ground always when he is out there to play cricket and making his own fielders to step on it to loose their balance resulting miss-fields or why is he losing hair despite of his uncluttered mind?! Instead why can’t you guys ask Dhoni something more interesting for him, about his lady body guards to protect him from ladies fans who suddenly appears out of blue to rush at him from all directions to press their boobs to suffocate him (it can cause a brutal asphyxiated death) or construction of his own temple in his native village? If not all these questions I mentioned above; at least you should have asked about his hair style that resembles electric shocked Simpsons.

On other side Viru is a man with steel testicles not bothers to fight for the captaincy or egoism just like his batting style, when it happens you can scream about it, if it is not then what the fuck, leave it and concentrate on the cricket what others play!

When I said something fishy going on in Indian cricket camp; my friend told me that is what they should not do while playing cricket, other wise it will be hard to find the difference between Andrew Symonds and the whole Indian cricket players?! I puzzled and stared at him in horror to know that he was referring Symond’s bunk over at a friend’s place for fishing during the practice session that earned him punishment from CA. Yeah, you are right; my friend was holding chilled Fosters can. Another real Australian!