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!

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!