The Stats Says It All

Sky Is The Limit

ICC World Champions

ICC T20 Champions

India (2011 and 2012) became the second team after Australia (1987 and 1988) to hold  both the senior and world cups at the same time !!! Now we want the T20 WC also the next month..!! Not a tall ask ! At all..!!

On Sunday August 26 ,2012 India (200,2008,2012) U19 team became the only team after Australia(1988,2002,2010) to win the world cups three times and that to in style by beating Australia in Australia and hence letting the Aussies to have a first lose in finals ever of U19 WC history. The two most deserving side made it to the final but unfortunately we can have only one winner .

2011 World cup -India Won by chasing in which Mahendra Singh Dhoni played a Captain’s Knock , 2012 U19 World Cup -we won by chasing where their captain Unmukt Chand played a  very responsible inning , 2010 U19 World cup Virat Kohli played the same watch winning knock and made his way to the Indian team ,so the doors are now open for you Unmukt Chand !! The young man has showed enough maturity to handle the pressure and in building his inning ,with the prefect combination of singles and calculative risks. As I say it often that holding their nerves and finishing things off is the one area where India has improved tremendously ,thats why a situation where ideally any one will take single we do it by hitting four or a six !!...you can thank to T20 cricket for that .  

2007 inaugural T20 WC , Two World Cups(1983 ,2011) , Three U19 World Cups (2000,2008,2012) champions first showed the world that Australian are beatable and now have truly dislodged them from the top position and looks all set to dominate the world .Well the pathway was of course not easy and how can we forget the man behind this change ,the one and only India's greatest captain ever Sourav Ganguly ,whose good work was further carried over by Mahendra Singh Dhoni ,captain really play big role !

India’s have far better record at home than Australia or England , it takes a lot for any team to beat India on its own turf ,it’s the other countries who have not improved their play according to the Sub- Continent conditions .India’s performance overseas has also improved over the past years , the Test No. Ranking , and Winning World Cup Overseas says it all . With such performance India’s future seems to be in safe hands.

Start Of A New Era In Indian Cricket

So  Pujara is 'Dravid', Kohli is 'Laxman' and Raina is 'Ganguly'. But what joy that Tendulkar is still 'Tendulkar' !! The maestro is  the only statesmen left from those  fab four and is getting younger with each passing year so we actually donot need any youngster to take his position !!!!

We all were very concerned about the replacement of Dravid , Laxman and Ganguly ,here is the first set of probable replacement for them . Actually we should not call them as replacement because it will be a stupidity if any one even try to attempt to do that because they were experts in their work and their each heroic has a statutory warning that –“These stunts are performed by an expert, Dont try them yourself “..!! The youngsters should try to play to their potential and try to give their best in the roles assigned to them .

With the bowling department already going through same phase ,with only  Zaheer Khan left as an experienced campaigner ,these two match test series with New Zealand is the real test of all the youngsters because it just doesn’t get better to prove your potential  against a considerably inexperienced team that too at the home soil . The presence of Tendulkar and Zaheer is certainly a moral booster for youngsters as they just can not get any o ne better to guide them and work with their weak points . The real test of these youngsters will be against England and Australia later this season which will surly give them confidence to perform well in the overseas series . Well, we have no options left and its good t hat youngsters have enough time to get some test experience that too on home grounds by playing against both weaker and  stronger teams .

    

Very Very Special Laxman

If test cricket is real cricket than he is a classy willow wielder of this format , if  cricket is the game of building partnerships than he is a master at it , if you consider Australia a dominant force in world cricket than he is the one who dominate them !!!!! A perfect middle order batsman with seemingly soft exterior and steel in his  bones. At troubled times this graceful right-hander absorbed pressure in the middle order who have the potential to bat even with the number eleven batsman and altered the scripts of the matches, he is Very Very Special Laxman who did so with timing and elegance, finding the gaps with a surgeon's precision with his  stylish wristy flicks.

When things are not going in teams favor and batsman are having a pavilion bound procession his best comes out. VVS Laxman has the special ability to perform under pressure, in fact his best comes under such situation thats why he is known as “God of fourth innings”.

 He has played many match winning innings for India and turned the result of match on his own . Laxman's 16 year long career is full of many match winning innings among which the one magical match winning of 281   against Australia when India was playing a follow on ranks  6^th      among the Wisden’s 100 best test inning, which is still a best test match innings by an Indian. In fact he had magnificent 1,236 runs in 15 tests against Australia which includes the  gem of the innings of -200 not out (Delhi) , 178 (Sydney),167(Sydney) , 73 not out (Mohali) .

VVS Laxman along with Rahul Dravid were considered the pillar of Indian batting line up in test cricket and together they have saved many test matches for India .With Rahul Dravid already hanged his boot , the decision of Laxman to call it a day is really a great set back for Team India . Test cricket would never be same without these two great legends .They were the ones whom every bowler feared of, they use to play with team first attitude and their retirements are also for the betterment of the team.

It is being rightly said that "Great men are remembered for what they did when they were alive, not for how they died ".Thank you for all the memories VVS , you were a wizard among muggles .Cricket World will mourn, Aussie cricket will celebrate !!!! 

Color Represent The Format

The more colors you wear  the lower the grade of cricket from tests to one dayers to T20 . With the launch of new jersey for T20 ,the difference between the format is even more clear. As Mahendra Singh Dhoni mentioned that people recognize the format with the color of the jersey and with the new jersey of India for T20 it will be easier for the people to recognize the format even more easily now .

The formats are actually recognized by the color of the jersey by a common person .The colors are according to the nature of the play , that’s why the IPL is most colorful !!!! Earlier all  teams use to wear a same color jersey and their only identity was cricket .With the advent of new formats the teams started to get recognized by the color of their jersey .In fact jersey is being used to depict their national identity ,with all the impressions of the color , the logo of their board , the national flag and of course their name . IPL tops the list as the color is being used to represent their respective franchisees.

Commercialization or entertainment , what ever may be the reason but the fact is that the crickets pure format i.e. test cricket is still played in white jersey .It takes a lot for any team to get away from those colors and attain a test standard and even more from a player to show his skills and qualify to wear a white jersey and play test cricket where your play will speak for you and give you a recognition. 

India Is A Land Of Spinners

No doubt  the Indian  turf is considered as batting paradise , so what should the bowlers do on such wickets ,just wait for the 50 overs to get finished ! Of course not . It is also true that apart from batsmen friendly the Indian soil have produced greatest spinners of game .In fact the lists of  both batsmen and spinners  highest run scorer and wicket taker are crowded with sub continent  batsmen and spinners , but the modern day cricketers seems to be strong believers of the fact that cricket is a game of batsmen .

Gone were the days when the Indian team use to have a specialist spinner over which the teams strategy revolved .With the advent of T-20 and busy cricket schedule the cricketers likes to live in crowded numbers ,and spinners especially donot actually put enough effort to adapt themselves with the changing batting technique. It is because of this negligence the spin department looks tamed these days .If we talk about the spin department in Indian team it was believed that Harbhajan Singh will fill the space created by Anil Kumble but rather than adapting his spin skills to the changing batting style he started to focus on not to give runs to the batsmen than focusing on taking wickets.

Spinners are still considered the wicket taking option in all three formats of the game ,if not the regular ones the part timers have been asked to do the job for the team .Its high time that players start taking it seriously and take it as a field of specialization .India had produced many great spinners whose experience should actually be used to enhance the skills of his present spinners, after all it’s the bowlers who wins a match for a team by taking all 20 wickets .No body actually wants to watch only 6’s,every one wants to see a good contest between bat and ball ,and for that cricket has to rise itself in all department ,than how could the spin department loose its pace .

The performance of the Yuvraj Singh in world cup is the recent example of how the spin skills of a player can be enhanced with the help of our retired masters of spin. If the game is changing with the batting style, the spin department is the next such area which can bring the next change in the game.