Aussies boxed out on day 1.

What a day it was. I could never believe after a convincing victory at Perth the Aussies could put up such a shoddy performance. While the Kangaroos started in some aggressive style but full marks to the English pace men who bowled their heart out on a bit bouncy but playable wicket. I felt it was playable as the English openers played with all ease and comfort to take the first innings lead. This English attack reminds me of John Snow, Bob Willis and Peter Lever which gave a torrid time to Bill Lawry’s team under Ray Illingworth.

Only a super miracle can save Aussies from this test match. With over 4 days left and both the English openers beaming with confidence a mammoth lead is in sight for them to comfortably win this match and go 2-1 in the series. The three men pace attack was so accurate today and as a result all the victims were caught behind the wicket backed by some sound catching by Mark Prior.

Well you never know what can happen in cricket. England has to really make a mess to lose this test match. That looks dim at this point of time as the Melbourne wicket will ease out a bit and it will be a delight to see the stylish , elegant left hander Cook, cook up another century by baking the Australian bowing a sunny day at the MCG

Inconsistent Australia loosing its shine

I cannot recall any period in Australian cricket where the morale is so low that they are facing defeats after defeats in all form of cricket .Something drastically wrong and it is time that the problem is fixed soon. The last time the Aussies went through a ghastly patch was during the packer walk out when most of their best players walked out to join Kerry Packer. Australia had to bring in Bobby Simpson from his retirement to play against India. Subsequently we had Kim Hughes leading Australia but he also could not bring the leadership and ultimately it was Alan Border who revived Australian cricket. Michale Clark for some reasons has not met the selector’s expectation. He has been very inconsistent in his performance. It s time some radical approach is adopted by the Aussie selectors to rebuild the team before the world cup.

With the world cup very near problems are galore for the Aussie selectors. Need some really great solutions to overcome this crisis. In the early 70’s Bill Lawry went through some series of defeat with England and Windies but they quickly overcame this with Chappell brothers taking control of it. Australians are great fighters but unless something is planned on a war footing the Kangaroos will be seeded low in the probability of defending the cup.

India strengthens English hope for the Ashes

The demolition of Aussies in the two test series has raised the hopes and spirits of Andrew Strauss. This is a great opportunity for the England team to win the ashes in Australia. Having said that a wounded tiger will always come with double vengeance and there is no time for relaxation for the English team.

Spin has been the weakness in this tour and I am sure Swain will be dreaming to bowl at the Aussies with his tantalizing off spinners. Historically off spinners have been a threat to the Australia. Great off spinners like Prasana , Illingworth have always troubled Australia in their territory. Hope the Kangaroos take tips for Ian Chappell and Doug Walters to counter Swain. Aussies needs to look at the overall team get players who are in form. The current crop looks jaded and out of form.

I am eagerly looking forward for this exciting series..

Second time a wicket keeper shines in Asia cup final

In the 80's or mid 80's I recall India won a Asia cup final beating Pakistan in the Gulf. That final was dominated by the grey haired Surinder Khanna the wicket keeper from Delhi who played a strokeful innings which enabled India to reach the target in style. In the just concluded Asia cup Dinesh Kartik again a wicket keeper who came in as a last minute as a replacement for Sewhag stole the show with his breezy innings in the finals. Looks like some stigma is attached to wicket keepers playing a key role in the Asia cup finals. All said and done a good morale booster for the team as we get ready for some test matches and finally the big one the world cup.

Everything worked for India. The dead seam attack suddenly came alive and broke the batting of Sri Lanka. Also for some strange reasons the standard of fielding really went up in all the matches. While the batting looks solid and good on paper the bowling department needs to be further strengthened for our bowlers to perform consistently. Consistency is what will help us lift the world cup. Today in the Asia cup the batting and fielding was consistent but the bowling needs lots of improvement to achieve the consistency.

Hope Garry with the selectors is working on some strategy to raise the consistency in bowling. Before we vacillate any further we must spot a good bowling coach you can bring the sting and life in the pace department.

Eleventh win in last 5 years.

I believe in the last 5 years we have beaten Pakistan 10 times and we lost 7 times in one day international. Yesterday's win will be the 11th win. Having restricted them to a reachable total we as usual gave it up and had to wait for Baji to finish after a field altercation with the BAD BOY OF PAKISTAN CRICKET SHOAIB AKTHAR.
Raina did not let the India fans down but he still needs to be more consistent when it comes to consolidating the team position. This I feel he should learn from MSD as he is also the favourite of Dhoni.
Thanks to the young legs our fielding looked better , more agile and sharp. But what let us down has been the poor opening pace attack. The current attack reminds me of Abdul Ismail and Ajit Pai who used to bowl for Mumbai. But with their pace they were menacing only in Ranji and Duleep trophy. High time we look at a good bowling coach before we start going to the days of Bishen Bedi where the opening bowlers were used to remove the shine. I am also seriously concerned about Jadeja. He is mentally not tough after the controversy that hovered over him on IPL.
All said and done beating Pakistan in any form of sport is a moral win for the country. Well done MSD

A saving grace ... world cup preparation still unanswered

The postmortem after the Zimbabhave tour did not happen thanks to the thumping win in the last two T20 matches win. But have we learnt any lessons from this trip? This is something to ponder. The last few years we dominated both forms of cricket but the sting and zing has gone missing off late firstly due to the IPL match where greed and girls drained the entire stamina and energy of the team. Yes while the players made lot of mulla but the nations pride in the official T-20 matches and the recently concluded Zimbabave series dipped abysmally low. With lot of controversy floating in the air the focus of the cricket administrators has completely drifted in a different direction and as a result the game has been suffering a lot.

The chairman of the selector has no clarity in what he speaks to media. Each time he is sending different kind of messages which is really baffling the cricket fans of this country. We have the world cup fast approaching and there is absolutely no plan or any focused strategy to aim and win the cup.

God help the Indian cricket otherwise they will once again let the crazy Indian cricket fans down with some poor cricket.

Think long term when choosing a captain

This morning I happen to see a very interesting point made by Imran Khan about the frequent changes in captaincy in Pakistan. As all of us are aware that Imran was Pakistan's most successful skipper for many years. But after his departure there are over 18 captains come and gone and that has truly brought down the leadership qualities and team spirit. India had also frequent changes in 70s and 80s but since 90s there has been some consistency starting from Azar, Ganguly, Dravid , Kumble and now Dhoni. In spite of Dhoni's recent poor performance the selectors have place faith on him. A good decision in the long term for Indian cricket. On the contrary Australia had only Border, Taylor, Steve Waugh and now Pointing. Here again the new captains had been appointed as the earlier captains had reached their peak and retired. Frequent change of leadership in form of games or even the corporate world will not yield any results. To stick to one leader is always great but in the case of Pakistan even their board has too many issues with heads exiting on a very regular basis.

Great moments for England ....

After nearly 35 years England finally manged to win their first ICC trophy in the shortest version of the game. This time Collin Wood and his team was consistent right from the start. This was very visible in every match they played. I have never seen a English team playing with such confidence and high energy. It was a fine display of great bowling , alert fielding and consistent batting performance. I could not see the inning of England in the final as I had to catch a flight. But moment I saw the the Aussies very restricted under 150 the writing was on the wall for England to win with ease.

While KP stole the show on the batting front but Sidebottom and Swan were just too good through out the tournament. The angling deliveries from Sidebottom and the tantalizing spin from Swan really caught napping every batsman.

Truly deserved win for England and I hope they continue this in the longer version of the game.