Cricket Blog

Well, its time to give out my opinion on the squad that has been chosen for the ODI series involving India, Sri Lanka and Australia. A lot is being said about the exclusion of some “Big” names from the squad and that the players selected are not right for this series. The selectors have flat-out cleared their criteria - Fielding. In a country where people are completely crazy about their stars, this is not a good enough reason. In my opinion, hats off to the selectors for finally putting a greater emphasis on the fielding capabilities of ODI players.

For years we have seen our team to be the worst in fielding, on paper and on Live TV. The bungling old players have had over a decade of playing experience, yet there has been absolutely no improvement in their fielding. Yes they are good in catching, and catches win matches. But catches don’t come every other ball. Every single run counts in ODI cricket, and every time the ball is placed to Ganguly and Dravid, the batsmen always take an extra run.

Well what about running between the wickets. It would be an understatement to say that both Ganguly and Dravid are the worst runners in the Indian squad. Saurav Ganguly has played 311 matches. He has been part of 145 losses. He has been runout 13 times averaging 34.92 every time. Almost once every 11 matches that India have lost. Almost always after getting a good start. Overall he has been runout 23 times. Dravid, on the other hand, has played 333 ODI matches. He has been involved in 160 defeats and got himself runout 20 times. That is once in every 8 defeats. He averages 30.65 and just like Ganguly gets himself runout after getting a good start.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bookmark:

The Indian selectors announced the squad for the first 2 one-dayers against Pakistan:

1. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk,capt)
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Sourav Ganguly
4. Gautam Gambhir
5. Virender Sehwag
6. Robin Uthappa
7. Rohit Sharma
8. Yuvraj Singh
9. Irfan Pathan
10. Praveen Kumar
11. Zaheer Khan
12. RP Singh
13. Sreesanth
14. Harbhajan Singh
15. Murali Kartik

Rahul Dravid’s omission is a big one. Besides that there are not a lot of surprises here, except for Virender Sehwag making a comeback and Praveen Kumar finding a place in the squad. Dinesh Karthik and Ramesh Powar have been left out. So has Piyush Chawla who has been struggling a little after his ankle injury during the T20 World Cup. Mohammad Kaif and Parthiv Patel have failed to reach the 15 yet again.

Bookmark:

I haven’t covered this tournament as it really is a waste of time with no real sense of which players are good enough to be selected for the Indian squad. You cannot decide an international team based on only a couple of matches. The tournament has not been planned properly with only one game against each other and the final. As it stands after yesterday’s match, India Red are in the final thanks to a bonus point.

In the first match, India Blue were led to victory by a solid innings from Suresh Raina who has vowed to come back into the Indian team. And why not, the bloke has all the right ingredients to play a big part in the future of Indian cricket. The match really should have belonged to Virender Sehwag who was the captain and is also looking to make a comeback into Team India. However, quite unsurprisingly, he managed to goof up this chance again. So did Dinesh Karthik. He continues to get out on the Big O in the shorter format of the game and the selectors would really be thinking if we need Dinesh Karthik as a second wicket-keeper in the squad with Parthiv Patel being a much better batsman.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bookmark:

The Selectors of the BCCI are the worst people on the earth. They never seem to want to give chances to youngsters and always prefer people who play for themselves. Ganguly, Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan and Zaheer always score slowly and try to make records for themselves without caring a damn for the team.

This has resulted in poor records for India in the ODI’s and also resulted in the early exit in the World Cup. The Selectors dropped the above mentioned just for namesake and have again brought them back. Can the Selectors justify why they brought them back. Also they need to explain why talented youngsters like Gambhir (who always performs and gets dropped and Rohit Sharma (who gets dropped without playing a game).

I was pretty sure that we would do well in the 20 20 World Cup since we had a young and motivated team. However, I am also pretty sure we will be thrashed by Aus in the upcoming ODI’s due to presence of selfish cricketers in the team.

Bookmark:

Young Piyush Chawla orchestrated a convincing win by India A over Zimbabwe Select in the recently conluded four-day match at Harare Sports Club. After winning the toss, Mohammad Kaif had no hesitation in electing to bat first. Six batsmen got a fifty-plus total, however, not a single one went on to get three figures.

Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, Kaif, Sharma, Badrinath and Chawla all got past the half-century mark in the first innings. For Zimbabwe, Mpofu, Rainsford, Chigumbara and Utseya were the wicket takers. The Indians scored at 3.54 runs per over, which is pretty slow considering that India went with a full strength team and a lot of hopefuls are trying to make their way back into the national side.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bookmark: