sree kp...

while everybody is taking sides either with kp or ecb... one thing with which everyone seems to agree is that the kp-gate could have been managed better...behind closed doors...sans selective leaks...

since kp-gate is flooded with inane articles...for...against...i don't want to waste much time in adding my two cents...

having said that...however...i particularly liked shane warne's views that a parent body and captain should be capable enough to manage different personalities...characters...

that its not important to be liked by team mates...as every player in the team is there to do a job...and its the job of management to work around players to achieve team goals...

this is where strauss and ecb have failed in my view...

we too have a case here that desperately need attention and i genuinely feel dhoni in general and bcci in particular have failed in managing a career...

sree santh's...

he is a character...he can be a drama queen...he can be all this and that...

but he can bowl...

when he bowls...the upright seam and swing is a delight...not only to fans but purists alike...

he might pump fists returning back to his mark...he might appeal a bit long laced with drama...he might stare a batsmen on his follow through...but he is not the first bowler to do that...he will not be the last bowler to do that...

he can go overboard at times...but one thing which is clear and indisputable...he wants wickets with every ball he bowls...he is an attacking bowler with a heart...

he is what we see...but we don't necessarily see what he is...

if only he is not judged by his every expression...every flux of his muscle...every delivery he bowls...his every move on and off field...

if only we don't follow him like he is a terrorist that can explode a bomb any minute...we might still able to save a career...

a bowler who can bowl...a bowler that team india needs so desperately...but don't want to admit...

i hope and wish that when he makes a comeback...he would be given due space but more importantly the management will do away with the glasses tinted with skepticism whenever he is around...

ps: thanks balajhi of @nbalajhi to rekindle that old flame on twitter...

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sehwag is the real god...

one can question the failing eyes of rahul dravid... baying for the blood of vvs and his failing knees... one can even question sachin whom we fondly call cricket god...

but no one can question sehwag...

the moment you see him looking like a tool by playing one of the most daftly manufactured shots... you will, without fail, see someone saying "well... this is the way he plays..."

we want everybody to come out of their comfort zone be it gambhir, dravid, vvs or even 'god' sachin... but we will always be ready to resign with "well this is how sehwag plays..."

whenever some question is asked of a batsmen in international cricket... the very batsmen is expected to come-up with answers to show his mettle... to show his acumen... but with sehwag you keep laying an open bait with the knowledge that he will keep falling to that trap like a religious ritual...

this reminds me of a famous joke (without hurting the sentiment of anybody...)

there was this sardar who whenever saw a kela lying on the road exclaimed... "o yaar... aaj phir isspay phisalna padega..."

viru praa ji... tussi real god ho ji...

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team india performace review...

our bowlers need helpful conditions to be successful...

our batsmen don't...

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viru's double...

here's to the inevitability of the record... and many more if he somehow finds odis interesting...

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what last 'draw' test tells us about team india chances in australia...

thank you golandaaz of 'opinion of cricket'... his latest post "India v Australia - An Early Preview" made me write at sp after a long time...

i liked the way he concluded the post...

Not all wins are equal. Neither are losses. Some loses reveal a lot more than we are willing to read into. India's 4 Test match losses in England were not just shocking and humiliating but it also served an indicator of many collective missteps that no one is willing to talk about. Also a win-loss transaction is not a zero sum game. What England gained from the 4 wins, India lost far more than that. England simply confirmed their standing, India brushed the loss aside as "bad luck" and swept their real problems under the carpet. India are no longer as good as they were a year back and it will show in Australia.

specially the last line... to me india is not as good as year back was so profoundly revealed in last test against west indies team... we somehow managed a 'draw' while weakened west india team was further weakened by injury to their captain sammy... we managed draw against west indies which was reduced to only three front line bowlers and a part timer in samuels at home on such a pan cake of a pitch where a debutant, well almost, in ashwin who is not even a proper batsman scored almost run a ball...

imagine if sehwag not made those runs he did upfront at the pace only he scores... we either would have lost or played for a draw... and that's the pinching reality...

it seems that its written in the contracts of our illustrated seniors that run making has to be left to sehwag they can just carry on doing things at their own pace and comfort...

in england we suffered from this aspect more than anything... there was no one in the team that could have forced the issue or arrest the slump despite no one from our illustrated seniors looked out of form there...

at the twilight of their careers they need the push from upfront more than ever and its not a joke if india looks like batting on different pitch once sehwag departs... so our chances in australia lies how well sehwag plays for if he fails there we might have a repeat of england... in spite of having the experience of more than 37000 test runs and more than 100 centuries at our disposal between fab 3 at the other end and dhoni stubbornly refusing to improve as a test bat...

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warm-up games were better in my days...

so, it seems, we have seen apple falling from tree and discovered the law of gravity...

the parallel of above analogy for team india's beyond dismal performance has boiled down to warm up games...

even the bcci has seen the light and asked for one more warm-up game before the boxing day test... and lo... all team india being slow starter problem will be solved... 

this thought it so nobel and yet so simple that i am surprised how we missed it...?

more warm-up games...

i am sure (not even) the second xi players (which is a norm now for warm up games) will give enough match practice to our team... they will indeed push us so hard that we will be properly warmed before the boxing day test... never mind the fact that if that was the case... we would have been giving the same medical treatment to england team by now that we have been receiving... from the second test onwards...

this reminds me of what gary kirsten said in his last public appearance before he took the offer of coaching south africa team...

Kirsten thought before he joined the team, the Indian team did not know how to prepare for a game.

“If I had to rate it out of 10, I thought the way the Indian players practised was about 1 or 2. Basically, what I realised was there was no connection between preparation and play. We just upped the ante on our preparation and we had real purpose to everything we did and then the Indian team probably became the hardest working and preparation team in the world. From 2 we went to 7 or 8.”

are we missing a real story here...?

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is dhoni getting exposed...?

dhoni, the captain, has every trophy in his cupboard that can make any captain envious...

in one day cricket he is undisputed king and one of the most valuable batsman...

but when it comes to tests... the doubts start to creep in... with his keeping... and batting...

dhoni wicket keeping of late is almost everything that has made kamran akmal the butt of all jokes...

he is not going for catches... fumbling with regular takes... standing some steps back only to gift himself some much needed time... and before you jump on me that in english conditions keeper requires bit of time to cover for late movement... you obviously missed the west indies series...

it screws our slip cordon is one side-effect...

dhoni collecting ball below knee is a regular feature... as is ball dissecting him and first slip with him stuck on his feet...

india could have still afforded his keeping services given his batting was as stable as is expected of wicket keeper batsman... but here dhoni is regressing fast to say the least...

when india plays at full strength... the batting line up of viru, gambhir, dravid, sachin, vvs, raina/yuvi/che precede him... followed by a lower order crisis man harbhajan singh... who has played more match winning/turning innings than dhoni for quite a while...

one can clearly see the class in batting line up... and invariably at least two out of first six batsmen clicks for india big time and we manage to score a decent total if not outright winning total to give our bowlers a chance to force result... so dhoni not scoring on consistent basis goes un-noticed... india winning more matches than it loses also glosses over dhoni poor form with bat...

so when team india loses (like in this series with england)... or plays understrength team that requires dhoni to step up as batsman... he gets exposed...

a lot of dhoni being the next gilchrist is based on his odi career... while in tests he is yet to prove his credentials with reasonable consistency...

he was and never will be a technically sound test batsman... his play is based on percentage cricket... so when there is slightest movement in that percentage towards bowler... he obviously finds it difficult...

even gilchrist was not technically accomplished batsman... a lot of his batting was hand eye coordination... but what differentiated him with dhoni is... he trusted his instincts...

if a batting line up of viru, gambhir, dravid, sachinn, vvs, raina/yuvi/che, dhoni followed by bhajji cannot make dhoni confident enough to go for shots... be the player he promised... be the player he can be... wonder what will...

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dravid hyperbole...

dravid contrary to perception is one of the most aggressive... most ruthless player one would come across...

only his method is different...

when players like sehwag will smash you to submission... dravid will kill you step by step to the point that you will stop seeing light... you will yearn for the mercy... he will sap your last ounce of energy... he will kill all the hope that gave you the reason to keep coming back... and then he will kill that reason too... slowly but surely...

dravid is the kind of torture tale that one reads... that how late one kept his victim alive while torturing him by taking one limb at a time...

but of late he looked like the victim of the walls that he built around himself... he would often get the start but then the torture was as equal on him as on his fans... he showed some sparks in between but those were too far too few...

the questions were being asked and rightly so... so in that regard... he could not have timed his two centuries more perfectly... for his sagging career...

suddenly you can see pundits are falling over one other to get the dravid pie... the wall that seen as crumbling has suddenly taken a new lease of life... like tendulkar he too seems to have got the 'second wind'... not many thought was possible given his struggles in doing things that was his second nature...

but on the back of two successive centuries... now everybody is hailing him as the ultimate crisis man...some even went on to proclaim that he is the lone crisis man in the team...

as if all this while when dravid wasn't performing... team india didn't face any crisis at all...

all this while team virtually carried him on the hope that dravid will show his class... and when he has started to show it... is it necessary to praise his contribution at the cost of ones that helped him stay in the team for as long as he did... at the cost of those who gave all the space he needed to perform the way he is performing now...?

why it is necessary to belittle the contribution of one to show the greatness of other...?

ps: just saw the tweet that dravid is recalled to the one day team... well well... india, it seems, has already started preparation for next world cup...

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please save my blog...

i have never played competitive cricket beyond club level... in my school and college days i used to be a decent opener and reasonable off spinner...

i have never seen test cricket live from the ground... not even an one day international... just couple of first class games and some ipl games...

i don't even know if i can even bowl a decent bowl at international level... or even face a worst international bowler...

but i do dare to blog on cricket...

i said dare... coz these days, whenever i feel disappointed about certain aspects of team india performances... try to argue a cricket point... i am forced to shut up...

the words are being invented to describe my sheer ineptness...

ipl chastity protector...

twitter trigger happy fan...

the world's no.1 cricket team fan...

a keyboard warrior..

i have been made to stand on the desk... "how dare you question the decision of team management... do you even understand how difficult it was...?" 

"you armchair pundit... you twitter happy fan... you pass judgement sitting on lounge in the comforts of your home... do you even know what it takes to face a 90mph ball snorting at your face...?"

i am losing confidence now...

for i know the next time i even show slightest disappointment or try to make a point... they, those have the grip of international cricket, would bludgeon me to submission using truck loads of stats as sticks to show me how it was not possible and how your observation lacked any cricketing sense coz of your background...

although most of them too have not faced a single dross of ishant... never shared a dressing room with players... never been a part of team management... but who are we to question them...?

they are the ones who have been bestowed by almighty to set the guidelines that would tell me when to feel disappointed or elated with performances of individual player or team... i dearly follow...

suddenly my observations, however genuine (obviously from my point only), have lost the right to be well argued... or dissented in conclusion... and to show my daredevilry and sheer ineptitude its necessary to call me names...

please save me and my blog...

i used to be a simple fan of team india... and believe me when i say that it is not my fault that the team i used to follow, that was not even in cricket radar not many years back, has now become world no.1 ranked test team... 

or is there already a name been invented for my predicament...?

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