India mistake England to be West Indies

With a depleted team, India managed to whitewash the West Indies 2-0 on the previous tour to the Caribbean. But, if the same mentality is applied towards touring England as well, one needs to judge the stupidity of the Indian team who have lost yet another match against England yesterday at Manchester by 6 wickets. Needless to be said, India saw contributions only from Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Dravid and Suresh Raina who did the scoring while the rest of them that includes Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli failed miserably. However, a target of 166 was still a tough one to reach.

I really give hats-off to Dravid for hitting three sixes and en route becoming one of the two batsmen who could manage to clear the ropes. Despite his style not suiting to T20 cricket, Dravid managed to keep up the momentum which speaks of his hard work in the nets. Dravid's style of play is more suited to test cricket and comes in handy regarding one day cricket. Not only did Dravid score 31 runs but was instrumental in putting up a partnership of 65 runs for the third wicket along with Rahane. Coming to the game, one need not cite the absence of Yuvraj and Sehwag.

With the likes of Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Kohli etc, much more could have been made possible which actually didn't happen. Giving undue credit to some Jade Dernbach would be a waste of time when Dhoni and co felt that everything was over once they lifted the world cup in April this year.England were comfortable with contributions coming in from every batsman who took it to the crease. If not for Hales who scored a naught, there were contributions from Kieswetter, Pietersen, Morgan, Bopara and Samit Patel who came in handy with the bat. More than big scores, there was continuous flow of runs for England.

With so much depth and form in the batting England, nothing much could have been done by the Indian bowlers who got belted one after the other starting from Praveen Kumar. All the option that Dhoni had in hand was to give the ball to Rohit Sharma thinking that a change in bowling might stop runs from being scored at ease. With Rohit Sharma going in for 16 runs off his over, Dhoni didn't couldn't take the risk of trying Raina and Kohli. Dhoni has to be satisfied for crossing 150 and then bringing it till the 20^th over and not finishing somewhere in between.

South Africa has to stop playing cricket

Well, if a team cannot chase down a meager total of just 172, one can no doubt question its credibility in international cricket and especially in the mega event such as the world cup. South Africa have been in the news for all the bad reasons since they made it to the international arena in the 1992 world cup. Since then, bad luck have struck them thrice in that decade and since then, the South Africans have made fools out of themselves and nothing else. South Africa were an unbeatable team in the 1992, 1996 and 1999 world cups under Hansie Cronje.

But since then, they have just been an ordinary team similar to say India, England or New Zealand. They have no one else but themselves to blame for their debacle in 2003 world cup when they were given an over short in the inaugural match against West Indies, when they were unable to defend a 300+ total with an asking rate of over six an over (even after the D-L method was applied) and finally when they needed a run and the batsman simply ducked the ball thinking he could do it in the next delivery against Sri Lanka which ended in a tie.

Now, in the match against England yesterday, South Africa did well to restrict them to less than 175 with some Imran Tahir having a ball with four wickets to his credit. Not even in dreams would the South African captain-Graeme Smith would have thought that his team would be at the losing side when at one stage the South African scoreboard read 124-4 at the end of the 32^nd over needing 49 runs from 108 deliveries with needless to say 6 wickets in hand. Since then, all the South African batsmen could manage was to lose wickets in quick intervals and see that their team lose the match.

I just cannot figure out what exactly happened to South Africa or what sort of magic did England do to get back into the game to come out victorious from nowhere. One can give some consideration to match fixing for, such cases rarely happen and that too for South Africa against England-who are not rated among favorite teams to beat the Proteas. With most of the betters having their say on South Africa, betting rookies can make merry with South Africa losing the game to England. There might be many similar matches like this but, no one comes close to winning and all of a sudden make a U-turn. Only fixers can have their say.

A Virtual Quater Final and so Boring?

The match between the West Indies and England was as good as a quarter final wherein the team which wins would advance to the next round and the team that loses would have to forfeit all hopes of winning the tournament anymore. At the end of the day, it was the west Indies who came out victorious but, not in a manner that most of us would agree. Of course, nothing could be done for the showers that pour down. But, a lot more can still be done for the teams out there to see to that they play 20 overs of cricket uninterrupted by weather. Had it been a one day match, nothing could be done much. At the most, the match could be played fresh the next day.

However, the T20 format of the game is not bound to this condition. A delay of even 3 to 4 hours can still ensure justified cricket, without denying either of the team of its overs or the powerplay. In other words, I don't see the Duckworth-Lewis playing such an important role in the T20 game. One can as well wait for the showers to completely pour down and then start the play afresh. And that too in such a competition that involves all the major cricket playing nations from the world, the Duckworth-Lewis can never satisfy all. Perhaps! Even the West Indies would not have been satisfied despite winning and advancing to the semis.

It was ad to see all the hard work that England put in to put up a decent total of 161 on the board going in vain. The man of the match was not given to either Ravi Bopara who struck a magnificient half century aided with 5 hits to the fence or to Kevin Pietersen who scored 31 runs with a strike rate 164, but was given to Ramnaresh Sarwan first for belonging to the winning team and then for scoring 19 runs at a strike rate of 211. Don't you guys think that it is just foolish to shorten the shortest version of the game of cricket? If the rules for T20 are same as that for ODI, the T20 can rather be called as a reduced version of fifty overs cricket.

Some twenty years back, the one day match used to be played for 60 overs a side, which was then reduced to 55 overs a side. And now the same is played with each team having been prepared to bowl 50 overs. I don't see the T20 format as something special if not for the fact that a team bowls just 20 overs and in some cases, the boundary is shortened. If such is the thiking, there could be four other formats of cricket namely 60-60, 55-55, ODI and the T20. In case the game of T20 is to be enjoyed by the fans all over, I suggest that the ICC drop the Duckworth-Lewis method from this format. When the ICC can come out with a solution in case of matches ending up in a tie, I don't find the reason for ICC to go in for the same D-L method in T20 as well.