No More Tail-Enders

India whitewashed Australia 4-0  ,followed with which many interesting conclusion were drawn after digging numbers like- it was Australia’s 7th loss in a row in India and their worst performance in an away country , its India’s biggest Test series victory(4-0 beat Aus 2013, 3-0 beat Eng 1993, 3-0 beat SL 1994)  , MS Dhoni became first Test captain to win a Test series 4-0 despite losing all the tosses , it was only the 2nd time India beat Australia in three days in a Test . The only other instance was at Mumbai in Nov 2004 , only once before Australia has lost a Test series 4-0 (It was against Ali Bacher's South Africans in 1970) , , India's target at Chennai in 2001 against Australia was also 155 runs. India won by 2 wickets , Peter Siddle became first batsman in Test cricket to score 50+ in each innings at number nine !!!

Statistics hardly matters in cricket so are your past performances , what matters is how you  perform on that particular day .The top-order may have been brittle and the middle-order ready to collapse, but the sting of this Australian team was firmly in the tail .In all the eight innings Australia has managed to stitch together inspiring partnerships for eight , ninth and tenth wicket. The inability of the Indian bowlers to mop up the tail has been as startling as its newly discovered confidence to deal with the cream of this Australian batting line-up.

At different points of time , different teams have done this and if they do it pretty well , you have to give respect to them and not say they are tail-enders .There are players who come after number seven-the  traditional threshold of being considered as a batsman and still averages over 30 , you cant call them tail-enders.  In fact there are no more tail-enders in international cricket who come in , slog and get out , the players now believes in putting a price on their wicket. The modern day cricket demand bowlers who can contribute through bat as well .Thats why we are having more cliffhangers now a days which goes down to the wire hence making the game more unpredictable .

Indeed Cricket is a batsman’s game !!!

   

Kai Po Che

India a nation where it is compulsion to watch cricket but it is prohibited to choose it as a career .Cricket is the first game which every child play in India but with time he realize that he cannot choose it as a career but in his heart of hearts he wants to be a cricketer .The reason for denial is understanding the fact that it demands a lot from you and the outcome is not guaranteed so they convince themselves by watching it ,keeping a close eye on every moment from which ever way possible (even at their work place) whether its television , internet or mobile and by providing expert comments on the play .But there are some who get carried away by their emotions and take a step forward to live their dream of becoming a cricketer .

The reason why I have written such a great philosophical opening paragraph is that today I have watched the movie “Kai Po Che” and the first paragraph is the after effect of that .Well I am not going to discuss the story of movie here but in simple words it is a movie about three friends , in fact a short life span of their life and most importantly it revolve around the second most popular topic of our film industry i.e cricket which is the only thing which most people have enjoyed in this movie without having any contradictory views over it .Most importantly it covered that historic India Vs Australia test match at Kolkata when India dominated the world cricket and beaten Australians in their way. ‘Kai Po Che’ I think this is what is being done to the talent of this country those who want to play cricket and the movie had depicted it clearly .

There are some common element behind any successful coach - a desire , immense talent , some unfulfilled dreams which he fulfills by recognizing the talent in his students and making them realize  what their  innate abilities are and  gets happiness by making them living their dreams .The movie had beautifully captured all the aspect of game that they teaches us a lot (as I always say) about how to be in a team , how to take decisions and how to actually live life and how important it is to have a good mentor in our life .

Many times our film industry had tried to show different aspects of cricket and I am sure many new dimensions will get revealed in future which actually are known to everyone but still we enjoys them as after all our first religion is cricket and we love following it .     

Team India Thrashes Australia

He keeps that unorthodox element in his batting as well ,bat -speed combined with strong wrists as the sphere was sent rocketing to distant corners was the ‘power play ‘ by  Mahendra Singh Dhoni at MA Chidambaram Stadium ,Chennai. Many batsman might also thinks to do the same but there is difference between only thinking and actually implementing it , he takes care of later part too ,probably that’s why he is termed as great finisher of modern days and a captain who leads from front . 

Many players were under radar before the start of Border- Gavaskar trophy and eventually maximum of them have performed in the first test match .After the retirement of Dravid and Laxman ,Sachin Tendulkar had superbly played the role of sheet anchor after not so good start from openers and soaked the pressure and made the things look simple again with his experience in willow wielding craft .He guided young Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in consolidating their innings  ,before getting dismissed by an off-spin that turned sharply from the edge of the rough just beyond the good length area (bowled again !!! ).

The Australian close-in cordon was in and the host was under stress. But Dhoni had disrupted Lyon’s length by getting forward and clouting the spinner to leg without allowing the ball to spin or jump .Then comes the adventurous final session which was the replica of shorter formats of the game where Mahendra Singh Dhoni always fell short of partners but he always keeps his cool and respond to the pressure .Dhoni showed no mercy to the bowlers as he smashed 109 runs in the final sessions and completes his first double century in test cricket.

Both Indian bowlers and batsmen performed in the way they were expected . Ravichandran Ashwin took two 5 wicket hauls , Mahendra Singh Dhoni hits double ton , Virat Kohli scored a ton and Sachin Tendulkar scored valuable  81 , but slight concern still remain about the openers which was compensated though by Tendulkar's message to Lyon by hitting two sixes of the first two balls he has faced in his second innings !! However we should not get carried away by this as England was also smashed in their first test match but came back ! Panesar was not rated much by anyone and he surprised a few , but India seems to be aware of this factor as they were a bit surprised as Xavier Doherty was not included in the team as second spinner for the first test.

The best part is team India won the test match and this time they were not tired and have actually prepared for this important series .The pitch responded the way it was meant to be and ball turned for Indian spinners and favored Indian batsmen more than the visiting players. Hopefully pitch respond in the same way at other venues as well and  India continue to perform well throughout the series.

India Team Lacked Specialist Openers

You might wonder that I am going to discuss the present scenario of Indian team ,than my answer would be a no rather than a expected yes .

Opening position is the only slot with which India had experimented much and the truth is that team India had never found a specialist opener till date. The recent experiment at this position by the India’s most luckiest captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is with Rohit Sharma who is known to  get far more chances than what a player with a history of failures usually deserves got a chance to open as well but the experiment has only complicated the problem .

The point which should be  noted here is that ,in a country with 27 first-class teams with at least two specialist openers in each squad , the  national team is made to experiment middle order batsmen turning out to open the innings .Sachin Tendulkar , Sourav Ganguly , Rahul Dravid ,VVS Laxman , Virender Sehwag and more recently Virat Kohli ,who staked their claims as middle-order batsmen ,have all opened for the country in one format or the other. It is indeed  surprising why a country , with such a settled domestic structure , struggles to find a specialists to do a specialized jobs. Some of the better teams in the world , except India , are looking for specialist in every format of the game. How can you expect team to excel if they don’t have openers , it actually affect the performance of other players .

Team India usually experiments to achieve short-term goals and the team is usually bound to suffer in long term . Dhoni’s trial and error method need not bring in the desirable results with consistency. However looking at his recent tactics , it looks like India is strengthening its bench strength in bowling for 2015 world cup , as I am pretty much sure that our experienced pace attack is going to take charge for team .But how can we don’t have ‘horses for courses’ in batting department when it’s the batting for which Indian team is known for !!

2012 - The Year Of Goodbyes

Ricky Ponting Announces Retirement - And, From This Moment On, There Will Be Only Nice Things Said About Ponting .Thats the only best thing about retirement !!

Herschelle Gibbs ‏

What a player,entertainer of note and an all time great ricky ponting! Always loved his approach to batting... legend

Sanjay Manjrekar ‏

Ricky Ponting came out of that very typical Australian mould of batsmen. He was the quintessential Aussie batsman in style & approach.

Ricky Ponting - a great driver & a great puller ! Thats one thing that really stood out for me. Enriched the game by his feats.

Michael Vaughan

The best batsman I had the privilege to play against ... Ricky Ponting... #Punter Australia cricket will not be the same without him...

Matthew Hayden ‏

Punter, congratulations on a fantastic career. Your departure will be a massive hole in the Australian Cricket team #RickyPonting #Legend

Ajinkya Rahane

A legend announced retirement . The cricket world will miss Ricky Ponting on the field.

Tom Moody ‏

Congratulations Punter on an astonishing career been a privilege to play alongside you & watch from afar, you are truly a great Australian.

Virat Kohli ‏

Ricky ponting what an absolute legend. I am glad I had the honour of playing against him. Take a bow legend respect

Kevin Pietersen ‏

Ricky Ponting RETIRES.... ONE OF THE GREATS! I always got excited playing AUS, so I could watch him bat up close. Well done Punter! Legend

Scott Styris ‏

The best batsman I played against has decided he has had enough. I'm sure there will be some happy bowlers around!

The year 2012 seems to be the year of goodbyes ,first Dravid, then Laxman and now Ponting ,all three carry numbers next to their names ,which eventually are not enough to define the class of these players.

As per expectations Ricky Ponting who has second highest ( 27,471) runs in all international cricket announced his retirement .A aggressive captain , a perfect number three batsman , a great fielder   under whose captaincy Australia touched new heights and dominated the world cricket .Ponting's retirement has signalled another movement in the slow descending of the curtains on an era of batting giants ,as now only Sachin Tendulkar and Jacques Kallies remain the last two of a VANISHING TRIBE of monumental runs and awe-inspiring career longevity !!!!

Sachin Tendulkar had  38 Matches, 55 innings, 2483 (ave 51.72), 8 100s in his belt before Ponting's debut on 8 Dec 1995 ,and since than the debate of who is the better among them is going on . If we consider stats as the parameter than Ponting is ranked after Sachin in maximum records but their are many records which are unique to him. Ricky Ponting is the only man to have participated in more than 100 Test Match victories for his side  , Ponting has hit the winning run in a Test nine times ,which is more than anyone else in Test history.'This is where it started, and will finish'- yes Perth it is , had started his career on that ground and will end it on the same ,seems like a perfect script for a motivational story !

Well , the reason for the retirements of these legends was that they were not getting runs under their belt, in fact ,to be very precise they were actually missing the ball and getting bowled consistently ,which is so unlikely their way .The cricket fans have always praised the growing number of runs of these players but have always criticized the increase of number in their ages for their failure !

The irony is that the man who is playing before the debut of all these players is still playing at the age of 39 and with every retirement , and with his every failure , the question is raised that when is Sachin Tendulkar retiring .The reason for such questions is the expectations and their past performances .They have created so many historic events that people want a long inning from them in every match . I don’t know how Sachin deal with such question ,but i am expecting he will not hang his boot in a bad patch !   

Australia Vs South Africa – Matches Of Unique Records

Johannesburg March 2006 , Australia post down the highest total (434) of one day internationals  and  the chokers of international cricket successfully chased down the target with one ball to spare and made a record total of 438 ,record made and broken on the same day.

Cape Town November 2011 , Australia were struggling at 21-9 that too in a Test match and hits its 109 years low total with 47 all out .

These are some fascinating yet contradicting records which we can expect when two best sides in the world plays with each other .And continuing the recent year trends we have another  match going on at Adelaide which had created many records on the day one of the Test match . Australia inched closed to their highest one day score of 494 after 102 years and finished with 482-5 on day one . Apart from that their were series of records on first day which happened for the first time in international cricket viz Australia became the first team with three individual 100 plus scores on the opening day of the Test match , Michael Clarke became the first player to score four Test double centuries in a calendar year ,Clarke also became the first number 5 batsman to score a double century on day one of a Test . It was also Michael Clarke 21st Test 100 in 140 innings (at 31years-234days) unlike the other heroic performance a few days back by another captain Alastair Cook who also made his 21st Test 100 in 148 innings (at 27years-229days)  and they both had made their debut in India ! Coincidence !Well we have another batsman to complete his 100 tests on 23rd November ,the marauding opener of Indian team Virender Sehwag , record every where !

Well such records are made whenever pitch behave different from its usual nature .But watching someone to bat with Clarke’s dominance is a rarity , dealing quality fast bowlers with utter disdain and at the same time also considered as the one of the best players of spin , has to be special .

Still four days left in the test match with  South Africa still to bat we can expect many more records in the coming days with match swinging in either way or one way as both teams are full of world class top ranked bowlers and batsmen. Oh so much of unpredictability and still we say Test cricket is not interesting !

If You Fail To Prepare, Be Prepared To Fail

The continuous failure of world champions India after 2011 world cup triumph whether its eight straight overseas defeat ,or their early exit from major tournaments like Asia cup , world T20 or the recent exit of top IPL teams like Chennai Super Kings , Mumbai Indians and the winners of this years IPL Kolkata Knight Riders from he Champions League T20 ,the one factor which is common for their such inconsistent performance is lack of match preparation.

Indians were having a task in hand before the ICC cricket world cup 2011 and after completion of the task normally teams get carried away in celebrations and often donot have a future strategy , thats why except Australia none of the country had not only repeated their performances in world cups but also dominated in the cricket .But Indians have not got time to get carried away in celebrations also , the only thing which is keeping them away to perform their best is the busy international schedule.

The modern day cricket demands players to switch between formats  and perform continuously . It is really appreciable the way players have  adapted themselves to this changing demand. But with so much back to back cricket going on ,the technical term “form “ of the players is being replaced by the “day” of the players. With the advent of most uncertain format ,the players performance also became uncertain. They don’t get  enough time to improvise and over come their mistakes  and hence the players who is currently not making any mistakes is said to be in good  touch on the other hand  the one who is not in his best of touch continues to perform  below par .The recent exit of India in the major tournaments is not because it is a bad team it’s the fact that they have many  players who are not having best of their days in the middle and actually have not got enough  time to work on that .No matter whether the team is a world champion or an average team if  you donot prepare well ,you just cannot expect a favorable result .

Maximum players of England and Australia keep themselves away from the IPL so as to prepare themselves for the upcoming series for their nation and the recent performance of these teams proves that they are actually doing it right .On the contrary India plays with almost same team through out the year in all the formats ,and all players compulsorily play in IPL . Proper planning need to be done urgently looking at the terrible failure of Indian team in recent times whether its opting for three different captains and keeping different teams for all the three formats or players keeping themselves  away from the IPLs .However the later doesn’t seem to be fit in the Indian context looking at the competition among players  for each position ,the only possibility is if board itself take decision for the betterment of Indian team .