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.