Malinga for Gayle

Since the beginning of the 4^th edition of the IPL, two names that have made rounds were Lasith Malinga for his devastating bowling and Chris Gayle for his mind blowing batting. Lasith Malinga was the highest wicket taker in the tournament and Chris Gayle the highest run-getter. And, much to anybody's surprise, those two players are responsible for their teams to qualifying in the finals of the champions league T20 tournament. In yesterday's second semi-finals between Mumbai Indians and Somerset, Lasith Malinga scalped four wickets to see his team make it to the finals of the tournament needless to be said.

In the game, if Bangalore was a batsman's paradise, then the pitch at Chennai was exactly opposite to that when batsmen found it hard to score despite there being several wickets in hand. Most of the time, both the teams had scored equal scores at the end of a particular over. Moreover, the losers of the game - Somerset had been ahead of the Mumbai Indians until the 17^th over if their over comparison is made. But, it was Malinga who completely devastated the Somerset batsmen. The batsmen from Somerset team could not get enough runs towards the end of the innings.

The Mumbai Indians read the pitch well and did most of their scoring towards the end of their innings and not going for the kill right from the beginning. However, looking at the batting of Mumbai Indians, they scored 51 runs in their powerplay compared to 35 from Somerset and were always lagging behind when it came to their scores tally. This clearly shows that the Somerset tried to relax a lot during their batting with wickets in hand during most of the time. In the end, they fell 10 runs short of the total what Mumbai Indians put up.

It was Rajagopal's quickfire 25 off 12 balls which proved costly for Somerset. That was the advantage that the team batting first always has in hand when the last few overs happen to be slog overs where the batsmen go in for the kill which the team batting does not have. However, in the batting of Somerset, if not for Kieswetter and Hildreth no other batsmen could do anything with the remaining batsmen getting little opportunity to show their skills. One thing for which Harbhajan Singh needs to be applauded is for having Malinga bowl the last two overs which were crucial which saw 5 wickets from Somerset falling.

Alas! Mumbai couldn't lose

One has to wonder is it because of the absence of the star batsman Sachin Tendulkar which is responsible for the Mumbai Indians to perform so badly despite winning the match. There is absolutely no doubt that towards the end of the match all the fans and supporters of Mumbai Indians would go home with a smile on their face but that would not be the case with their heart beats. They heart beats might have simply doubled looking at the way the batsmen of their favorite team played. Mumbai Indians did Warriors (who got their winning runs in the last ball of the game against RCB) yesterday.

One can go through the batting chart of Trinidad & Tobago to see that they couldn't play their complete 20 overs. This is one mistake that teams seldom do. Yesterday, it looked as though Trinidad & Tobago had accepted defeat even before half of the match was still awaiting. They played just 16.2 overs with 3.8 overs still left in the play. Anytime, in cricket, more scores on the board makes the opposition to concentrate more and work more in an attempt to achieve victory. At the end of the game, no doubt T&T would be cursing themselves for their debacle.

With a total of 98 giving the Mumbai Indians a run for their money, one can imagine what would have happened in case the T&T had played their full quota of 20 overs. The T&T team kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and even the batsmen who came in later didn't ever think of undoing the damage that their seniors did. They could have just played their natural game when at that point of time, winning was totally out of question for T&T. There have been many matches where mere totals have been defended and huge ones chased down successfully.

It would be worth mentioning Yuzvendra Chahal's 13 run over in that 98 ball innings of T&T that managed only 98 runs. However, coming to the Mumbai's innings, criticisms would have poured in from all over for such an approach. A win at the end might not be able to stop all tongues from wagging against Mumbai. Two sixes from Mumbai came in from number 8 and 9 batsmen when Harbhajan Singh and Malinga were the ones who were responsible.Another major mistake that T&T made was opting for only 5 bowlers like a programmed device. In the end T&T got everything wrong which doesn't mean Mumbai had everything right.

Result comes as expected

Well as all of us (or at least most of us) expected, the result of yesterday's match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Mumbai Indians ended as per plan which relied on Chris Gayle. We have repeatedly on our blog cited the chances of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in case Gayle is able to continue or not. If Gayle could keep up his momentum then the RCB win or else no. Exactly the same happened when Gayle scored 89 runs to demilitarize the Mumbai Indians whose lone satisfaction was Sachin Tendulkar's 40 runs which was the highest any Mumbai batsmen could score.

Added to Chris Gayle, there was Mayank Agarwal and AB deVilliars who supported Gayle in his big hitting. In fact, it was Chris Gayle who allowed Mayank Agarwal to relax by taking most of the responsibility on his shoulders. Of course, AB deVilliars came after Gayle was dismissed. By then, he had scored 89 runs at the rate of almost two runs for every ball he faced. There can be no words that can praise Chris Gayle at the moment. If Gayle's devastating batting was one way, there were confused bowlers from Mumbai side. Sachin Tendulkar didn't take the risk of trying another bowler.

As usual, Lasith Malinga was the strike bowler for the Mumbai Indians who though didn't take any wicket could contain runs when his stats suggest that Malinga was the least expensive bowlers who gave away runs at the rate of 6.00 runs an opver from his quota of 4 overs. Sachin Tendulkar made a mistake by handing the ball to Rohith Sharma who went for 14 runs his lone over. With someone like Gayle striking at his best, this was something uncalled for. Whatever, Mumbai Indians had nothing to fear about because a defeat was always on the cards for them.

It was just fascinating to see Sachin Tendulkar trying too many things to settle scores with Gayle's team, one of which was bringing in Harbhajan Singh at number 3 after Bizzard got out. Of course, Harbhajan Singh had a promising start when he hit one huge six outside the ground off the bowling of Mithun, three deliveries after striking a boundary of the same bowler. But, i the end all that he could manage was a mere 13 runs. That was the first six of the Mumbai Indians and the next one came off the bat of Lasith Malinga who was in at number 10.

To boost one's confidence

There are teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe who might just make one's life in many ways though their contribution to international is negligible. The teams mentioned above are one such teams against whom a victory is guaranteed unlike the case with the other 7 teams out there. In case some team happens to encounter either of the teams mentioned and in case that happens in a season where the ICC is bound to reconsider the teams' ratings, then, the team facing Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would have to consider itself lucky for, because of that their rating would definitely continue to raise.

I can recall the way South Africa made it to the number spot in ICC's test rankings in the late 2007 by beating the West Indies and Bangladesh with Australia losing to India in the Border - Gavaskar trophy. Similar to this, in yesterday's encounter between the Mumbai Indians and the Guyana team, the Mumbai Indians needed absolutely no effort needed to overthrow their opponents. Starting from Sachin Tendulkar and Kieron Pollard, everyone made their contribution felt if not for Saurabh Tiwary who got out for a naught. Of course, even Ambati Rayudu scored a mere 4 but that was towards the fag end of the innings.

Lack of game planning was evident in yesterday's match with the Guynese captain - Ramnaresh Sarwan opting for not more than 5 bowlers who bowled their complete quota of 4 overs each. A little bit of risk taking usually helps in getting back into the game and if that doesn't, nothing to worry. Atleast the captain would be satisfied that he made use of the options available to him to the fullest extent whatsoever. The Guyanese innings saw just two hits out of the ground compared to 9 alone by the man of the match Kieron Pollard alone in a T20 game.

I had totally forgotten until now that Guayana was facing a team that stood on the top in this year's IPL and had international players like Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar and Lasith Malinga to name a few. Despite ending up on the losing side, one has to give the Guyanese a pat on their back one, for scoring a decent 153 with over 7.5 an over and two, for not losing all ten wickets in a failed run chase. Only Christopher Barnwell was found ending up with a strike rate of more than 150 compared to three from the Mumbai Indians' side.

India breakdown into peices against Australia

Anyone who would have watched yesterday's match between India and Australia would have just declared Australia as the winners of the world T20 even before the semi-finals of the tournament is decided. India was the only opposition that had a chance to beat Australia with the West Indies and Sri Lanka being underdogs in the tournament. The moment Australia secured a win against India, all would have just crossed their fingers. India was one of the teams to have won both their league stage games. of course, even Australia have won both their league stage games against Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The only difference between the Indian fielders and the ball boys was that the fielders were inside the boundary while the ball boys were outside it. There were more instances where the ball boys collected the ball and handed it over to the fielders than the fielders themselves stopping. The ball full-tossed itself 13 times in the duration when Shane Watson and David Warner were at the crease. The Aussies had more number of sixes than the number of fours which happens rarely and the case stands even more rare with India being the opposition. Putting it simple, Indian bowlers were tired of trying too many things.

Despite the score being too high, Harbhajan Singh could manage one over maiden which is definitely a feather in his cap. Though Harbhajan Singh went wicketless, he was the pick of the bowlers when he gave away runs at a rate of 3.75 runs an over. It was evident that Australia are poor players of spin bowling when a part time spinner like Yuvraj Singh scalped two wickets though he gave away runs at a rate of 10.00 runs an over. But, the frontline bowlers like Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan were completely failures with the ball who were among the major run donors.

If that was what happened when the Aussies were batting, here comes Indian batting which saw only one face that was Rohith Sharma. One can go through the scorecard to see only Rohith Sharma scoring 79 runs which was the only score more than 20. There were the likes of Murali Vijay, Gambhir, Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh but could only walk back disappointed. Harbhajan Singh was found to score 13 runs which was more than any other batsman barring Rohith Sharma. One has to thank God for the Aussie bowlers finishing the match in 17.4 overs which saved the viewers 10 minutes.

The fate of batting records these days...

In today's world of cricket, it would not be wrong to say that records are created rather than achieved by anyone. The latest one would be the 47th test hundred by none other than SachinTendulkar. Until a decade back, there was only Sunil Gavaskar who had scored more than 30 centuries in test cricket. But, today, there are five others excluding Gavaskar namely SachinTendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, Steve Waugh and Mathew Hayden who have scored 30+ hundreds in international test cricket. It was somewhere in late 80s when Gavaskar achieved this feat.

But, the remaining six have done it in the past decade. It took 36 years for someone like Brian Lara to break Gary Sobers' record for the highest test score of 365* and just 6 months to break Mathew Hayden's score of 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003. There was a time when the bowler used to bowl the ball at the batsman the way he liked, with no restrictions upon the number of bouncers that a bowler can bowl in an over unlike it is today. There was no rule of a bowlers being prohibited to bowl further incase he bowls a dangerous delivery that is referred to as beamers in today's cricket.

Gone are the days when a test match used to yield results despite a team putting up a 700+ total. Yes, it is possible in today's cricket provided the team should be facing either the West Indies or Bangladesh for that to happen. One has to indeed thank the ICC for banning Zimbabwe from paying test cricket. In today's cricket, a total of 700+ on the board needs no further reason for it to be termed a draw in most of the cases. In today's cricket, a bowlers' main idea is to just bowl maiden overs than to get the opposition out.

No blaming the bowlers when the life for a batsman is made so easy that even tail enders like Harbhajan Singh & Mitchell Johnson can boast of 50+ scores and a debutant like Ravindra Jadeja can take the opposition bowlers for a ride. Batsmen need not bowl if they don't feel like. But, as the team loses wickets, bowlers will have to get in and take to the crese irrespective of whether it is his cup of tea or not. Finally, the bats that are available today can be considered to be those made of springs than willow that was the case a decade ago. The bats have so much power in them that a solid defence can find the ball go past the boundary.

Added to these would be the extended powerplays, batsmen friendly pitches, a free hit off a no ball and the advent of the T20 cricket. This can give rise to a lot of Sachins and Sehwags and less McGraths and Kumbles. Thanks for the entertainment ICC!

Curators play for India

Well, rumor has its say that the curator who will be preparing the pitch for the 2^nd test between India and South Africa- Prabir Mukherjee is asked to prepare a turning track which will be a special one exclusively for Harbhajan Singh we can guess. After losing the 1st test match at Nagpur and that too by a margin of an innings and 6 runs, India have to look out for some or the other means to settle the series by winning the 2^nd one scheduled at Nagpur and with it secure their number one position in test cricket which India is now enjoying.

This is not the first time that India will be going in for a track that will best suit them and a track that is sure to trouble the opposition. And the main weapon for India and that too against South Africa is no doubt the spin bowling department and more so when they are playing under home conditions. The secret is now revealed that India will be playing South Africa at a turner in Kolkata where unofficially India will have the upperhand. This is not the first time that India has taken such a stand when it is hosting its opponents.

If India's past series' against South Africa alone is considered, in the last tour in 2008, India lost the second test at Ahmedabad after the first test ended in a draw (which saw Virender Sehwag scoring his 2^nd triple hundred) by an innings and 90 runs. In that particular match, not only did India go all out for a score of 76 on board but, the spinners returned with just 5 wickets between them. And, in the 3^rd test at Kanpur, Indian curator took no sorts of risks and prepared a turning track where Harbhajan Singh had 7 scalps and spinners in particular taking 14 wickets en-route to their 8 wicket win.

So was the case in 2004 where the 1st test at Kanpur ended in a draw with Harbhajan Singh taking just 4 wickets and Kumble taking 6 in the 1st innings and going wicketless in the 2^nd. Once again in the 2^nd test at Kolkata the track suited spinners which Harbhajan Singh made full use of when he was found taking 10 South African wickets. This was also the case in the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2008-09 where two test matches ended in draw with the pitch aiding batsmen and the remaining two tests being won by India where spinners had their say.

Selection only partly responsible for India's loss

Well the moment India lost their first test match to South Africa, the first person to whom all the fingers pointed towards happens to be the selection committee, followed by the captain and in some cases the coach. I don't think that anyone reading this post needs to be reminded specially that cricket is a team sport unlike badminton and table tennis. It was of course not a good selection when someone like Saha, Badrinath and Abhimanyu the included in the squad. If the scorecard of the match is given a close look at, Badrinath and Saha did play upto expectations and Abhimanyu was not included in the playing XI.

Not much was expected from Saha and Badrinath but, they did live upto expectations when Badrinath scored 56 in the first innings that included a 40 run partnership along with Sehwag in the first innings. Later on in the second innings, Saha had his say when he scored 36 runs and stood for 150 balls or 30 overs and almost 2 hours at the crease. All these despite not guaranteed a place in the coming test. Even Murali Vijay was pretty decent with the bat when he scored 32 runs in the second innings. Most of the damage was first done by the bowlers when they let the South African bowlers cut loose.

It is justified the way the Indian bowlers despite playing in the home conditions could allow the South African batsmen not only to pile up 556 runs on the board but also allow a 300+ run partnership between Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis. If there were no Laxman & Dravid in the squad, there were Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni and Gambhir who could have solved the issue related to batting. Of course, Sehwag and Tendulkar came up with hundreds in the 1^st and the 2^nd innings respectively. But, Dhoni and Gambhir were absolute failures with the bat in the Nagpur test.

In the bowling department, if not for Zaheer Khan's first spell in the first innings, even he was not upto the mark and so were the other bowlers viz Harbhajan, Ishanth Sharma and Amit Mishra. The bowling department indeed requires some or a lot of refinement. For, someone like Sehwag had to bowl as a full time bowler and that too in a test match under the conditions where the South African batsmen were in full bloom. Luckily Sehwag got a wicket which is a different issue altogether. No matter what the first test squad had to say but, the inclusion of someone like Raina and Sreesanth would be just another blunder for, the former is a new comer to tests and the latter battles injuries most of the time.

Injuries to Laxman & Sreesanth

Well the latest news is that Indian middle order batsman VVS Laxman and Sreesanth would be out with injuries for the second test against Bangladesh that would be starting on January 24th. This is something fishy one can say. For, when someone like VVS Laxman has to sit out of a test match due to injuries is a great loss not only for the team or himself but also for the reason that he sustained injuries while dropping a catch rather than holding onto one. How funny isn't it? On the otherhand, Sreesanth's selection should be thought about twice by the selectors from now onwards.

Statistics suggest that Sreesanth is available only for one tenth of the total number of matches that are played by India. And out of that Sreesanth is found giving a so-called splendid performance in only one out of the ten games he playes. The last time a considerably better performance by Sreesanth was in the second test against Sri Lanka where he picked up 5 wickets to earn the man of the match. Including someone like Sreesanth would be just a waste of money and efforts for, he is given a practice only to be termed unfit for most of the games played.

Though the fact is that injuries are not welcomed by any player nor anyone is happy with being injured and hence forced to warm the benches, one has to take care not to be injured. Though sounds funny, this is not exactly the case whatsoever. The only place where VVS Laxman plays is the test match and all he does is to bat and of course field that is inevitable. One would have hardly seen VVS Laxman bending his body to dive in an attempt to pull off a stunning catch. Most of them remember Laxman for dropping catches in the slips and the fact that DineshMongia was chosen over Laxman for the 2003 WC for Laxman's lack of fielding abilities is still fresh in our minds.

Neither does Laxman play the other formats of the game nor does he involve himself in other roles be it bowling or serious fielding. But, Laxman can make news for sustaining an injury. There are lot other players who would be waiting for a chance to make it big at the international stage but have to settle for something less due to lack of opportunities. Injuries to someone like Dhoni can well be understood for his multiple roles of a wicketkeeper and a batsman. So is the case with Harbhajan Singh who is to a little extent quite handy with the bat as well and can field in any position. But, when Laxman & Sreesanth are forced to miss out due to injuries, it is not a risk worth taking.

Bowling coach needed to silence critics

Just three days before the start of the tri series involving India , Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni comes out shouting regarding the absence of a bowling coach with Venkatest Prasad being sacked after team India's disastrous world T20 and the ICC Champion's trophy that followed last year. All these with the fact that India has been doing well even without the presence of a regular bowling coach. India won the bilateral series against SriLanka last month and also the test series that preceded. Though it is a fact, its necessity is not clear.

There has been bowlers like Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Aashish Nehra and others who have been found doing a fab job for their team in the series mentioned. Though the bowlers mentioned have not been awarded the man of the match award, their service to their team can never be turned down whatsoever. It would not be a tough call for the BCCI to ask some retired bowler to take over from the point where Venkatesh Prasad had left. But, one has to question the BCCI for not doing the same. Does the BCCI doesn't find the necessity of hiring a bowling coach for India?

Whatever may be the case, though team India has been faring well in all the three formats of the game, it should not be forgotten that all these victories have been achieved at home and India has not seen touring any nation. The last time India toured any country was New Zealand way back in April last year which India won by a 3-1 margin. Since then, India has hardly toured any strong cricketing nation and whenever India has toured, they came back empty handed like it happened in the ICC Champions trophy- in South Africa and the World T20 in England.

One need not cite the tour of West Indies which India won by a margin 3-1 with the West Indies being a team solely for Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. However, a loss against the same can make heads crack. Moreover, Dhoni's men would be playing a tri series, the result of which has been bitter at most times. All that team India can do in a tri series is to reach the finals of the same and compromise being the runners up. And this time as well, reaching the finals of a tournament would not be a tough guess with a team like Bangladesh always there to guarantee this to India.

There Is Really Something In Dhoni

Well that was one thing that the earlier captains namely Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid could not do and Mahendra Singh Dhoni could. Winning a tri series final for India. I still remember the then Indian captain Sourav Ganguly making it to the finals of a tournament that included three or more teams on eight consecutive occassions until the jinx was broken when they lost a match to Pakistan at Holland in september 2004 and got disqualified from the tournament, allowing Australia and Pakistan to move further. The list also includes India's world cup final in 2003 and the abandoned finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2002 in Colombo.

Oh! Yes..had the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy been played, India would have ended up victorious. And after the loss to Pakistan at Netherlands, India's run to the finals of a tri nation series finals continued, when they made it to the finals yet again in 2005, in a series involving Sri Lanka & West Indies, followed by another one at Zimbabwe involving Zimbabwe (obviously) and New Zealand. Then in the Asia cup 2008 yet again a loss in the finals to Sri Lanka at Karachi. Earlier to that (Asia cup 2008), India had lost the finals of a meaningless tour that had just three matches before the finals was played involving Pakistan & Bangladesh.

And that time, India went into the finals undefeated until it lost to Pakistan in the finals. However, this time, team India and especially Mahendra Singh Dhoni was lucky enough to have lifted a tri nation trophy. Not only was he the captain of that Indian team that won the finals of the tri nation tournament mentioned above, but also scored a handy 56 that boosted the total well above the 300 run mark. And so was the case when it came to their bowling counterpart especially Harbhajan Singh whose fab job with the ball is needless to be said.

Beating the same opposition to which it had lost earlier indeed brings in much satisfaction. Last year, at around the same time, just before the Asia cup due in Pakistan, there was a similar tri nation series that involved India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in which India won matches against both Bangladesh and Pakistan only to lose the finals to Pakistan. This time, it was Sri Lanka who replaced India and India replaced Pakistan. And India did deserve to be victorious despite some loose batting from Sri Lankan batsmen and a drop catch of Jayasuriya by Virat Kohli. However, disappointment still lies in the fact that India could not reclaim their number 1 spot in ODIs despite winning the final.

Something Else Haunting Team India?

Well this has been the debate of all news channels not only regarding the shocking exit of team India from the T20 world cup, but also losing all the three matches that the team faced. Adding to that was the fact that Virender Sehwag's shoulder injury was not well dealt with by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. This was confirmed when Dhoni publicly admitted of having the fact that the services of Virender Sehwag is bould to miss the T20 world, indicating that his injury was a serious one. This just added fuel to fire and nothing else. Anyway, Dhoni did no good by keeping the Sehwag issue secret. And it is still not clear as to what was going on in the minds of Dhoni when he included Sehwag despite being aware of his injury.

Even without Virender Sehwag, the Indian team could have made it to the semi finals. And if this would not have been the case as some may think it to be, they should not have lost all the three matches they played. There was Yuvraj Singh, Rohith Sharma, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir and Dhoni himself who could have made for the absense of Virender Sehwag. And on the other hand, there were also decent bowlers like Harbhajan, Irfan Pathan and R P Singh. Having such players in his team, the absense of Virender Sehwag would have hardly made any difference I guess.

I wish one take a glance at the Australian team way back in 2003 when they lost key players like Steve Waugh (who retired months b4 the WC), Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie and Shane Watson and still not only won the world cup but also won all the 11 matches they played. And if one blames the Indian Premier League for this debacle of the team, I say that it is nothing but foolishness. Had IPL been the reason behind India's downfall, then wasn't there anyone in India who got that idea before the IPL began? And had anyone knew that before hand, any reason for their silence? I say that the IPL provided some match practice for the Indian players (in particular) prior to the world T20.

News channels suggested us that the Indian players were reluctant to go out and practice cricket prior to matches against England and West Indies. Perhaps! This might to a greater extent have taken a toll on the performance of the Indian team. Anyway, the reason for that is not the disscussion at the moment. However, I feel that it was the bad grouping of teams that to some extent led to the bad performance of team India. India were grouped along with Ireland and Bangladesh against whom winning was not a big task. If the reason of Australian early elimination was due to the fact that they were grouped along with strong teams viz West Indies and Sri Lanka, so was India who were grouped along with minnows.

It looked as though India never needed a tough match practice before facing either Ireland or Bangladesh. Their entry into super eights was confirmed and so was their wins against both the teams. Had India faced any strong team, even a loss would have gived them a wake up call regarding the way they were supposed to approach a tournament that featured all the major cricket playing nations of the world. So is ICC the new culprit???