This, That and Cricket

I eat what my mom eats

2011-10-28T20:04:00.001-07:00

Herbivore mom + omnivore dad = herbivore kids.

Omnivore mom + herbivore dad = omnivore kids.

Movie: Delhi Belly

2011-10-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

Very funny!

Cricinfo Mobile App

2011-09-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

This is a screenshot of the live ball by ball commentary screen in the official Cricinfo mobile app. Can you spot the commentary buried in here?

Anaconda

2011-05-22T20:28:00.001-07:00

Ever wondered what happened to the giant snake after being hacked to death in the 1997 movie? It is on display at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco -

Baby Gaga

2011-02-26T05:41:00.001-08:00

BBC News - Breast milk ice cream goes on sale in Covent Garden

Initially l was apprehensive, but apparently "...lt's pure organic, free-range and totally natural."!? Free-range?? Enna kodumai sir ithu.

World Cup Dream

2011-02-18T20:08:00.001-08:00

It’s the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India on Apr 2, 2011. In a thrilling final, India is chasing a stiff target for victory. A calm and assured century from Sachin Tendulkar guides India steadily towards the target. As the winning runs flow from his blade, millions of fans around the world scream in joy!

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 Champions – India.

Man of the Final – Sachin Tendulkar.

Man of the Series – Sachin Tendulkar.

Could there be a better fairy tale ending to such a wonderful ODI career?

Oh, what a dream. Will it come true? Hope so!

Angry Birds

2011-02-12T15:09:00.001-08:00

“What are you doing on the phone, Appa?”

“I am playing Angry Birds.”

“Everybody is playing it. Even Aachi is addicted to it!”

“Yeah. It is fun. Want to try? You just attack the pigs by slinging the birds at them.”

“Why?”

“Because, the pigs ate the birds’ eggs and the birds are angry.”

“Pigs don’t eat eggs, do they?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I think pigs eat everything.”

“Anyway, it is silly.”

“Okay. So, what do you want to do?”

“Will you paint with me?”

“What? You would rather create something than addictively bomb and destroy green pigs?”

“What??!”

“Never mind. You paint, I will watch.”

Steyn vs Tendulkar

2011-01-05T00:57:00.001-08:00

Hundred number 51 wasn’t easy for Tendulkar having had to survive through Dale Steyn’s fiery spells of relentless swing bowling on the third day of the ongoing Test match against South Africa. But it ranks very highly on his extraordinarily long list of awesome knocks.

What an outstanding display of cricketing skills this contest was. As Steyn bowled ball after ball of accurate late outswing deliveries, Tendulkar countered by some excellently judged leaves and playing with soft hands when squared up. And squared up he was on more than a few occasions, with the ball either missing the bat or finding the edge and dropping short. In my two decades of watching cricket, I haven’t seen such an outstanding display of sustained outswing bowling. Steyn was remarkably accurate and consistently got the ball to swing from different lines. While Tendulkar faced and survived without ever dominating more than two-thirds of the deliveries bowled by Steyn on the third day – Tendulkar faced Steyn’s entire first spell of the morning uninterrupted – he was too hot to handle for the other batsmen with four wickets falling at the other end. This battle between Steyn and Tendulkar was more than worth the sleepless night I endured to catch it live and yet another reminder as to how exhilarating Test cricket can be.

Sehwag, Tendulkar and Akhtar

2010-12-24T00:02:00.001-08:00

Sehwag narrating a fun incident on the field involving Sachin Tendulkar and Shoaib Akhtar -

Movie: Kick-Ass (2010)

2010-12-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

Having no idea about the movie except that it was an action comedy based on a comic book series and based on Netflix’s guesstimate that I would most likely rate it four stars, I watched Kick-Ass last weekend with low expectations and boy was I pleasantly surprised!

It starts off slowly with Dave, a high school nobody, bothered that ‘thousands of people want to be Paris Hilton and nobody wants to be Spiderman’, deciding to don a costume and fight crime as ‘Kick-Ass’. A couple of mishaps and millions of hits on YouTube later, he gets caught up in the revenge plot of superhero ‘Big Daddy’ and his daughter ‘Hit-Girl’ against supervillain Frank and his wannabe villain son Chris aka ‘Red Mist’. From then on, the movie coasts forward, alternating between super funny and ultra violent, and ends literally with a bang. The action sequences are brutal, stylish and over the top, borrowing heavily from Tarantino, especially ‘Kill Bill’.

The highlight (and apparently a point of controversy) of the movie is ‘Hit-Girl’ - the foul-mouthed, brainwashed, well trained 11yr old assassin. She takes a bullet at point blank range and goes for ice cream afterwards; she orders weapons while drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows; she is thrilled to get a switch blade as a gift; she handles weapons like toys. Mouthing crude expletives that would put rappers to shame and brutally massacring villains, she is dynamite on screen.

A must watch, if you don’t mind a 11yr old mouthing expletives and kicking some serious ass.

Today is Tomorrow

2010-10-28T20:25:00.001-07:00

When my wife told our 4yr old daughter that she can have a lollipop the next day, she promptly asked the next morning ‘Amma, can I have a lollipop? Remember yesterday you said that I can have one tomorrow? Today is tomorrow, right?’.

10/10/10

2010-10-10T23:19:00.001-07:00

Endhiran in the afternoon and Tendulkar’s delightful 100 in the evening. Could there be a more entertaining Sunday? It is like one of those swirl ice cream cones, you know, the one where some genius figured that you don’t have to choose between vanilla or chocolate but can actually have both together! What about the sprinkles on top you ask? Well, that would be too greedy.

India vs Pakistan

2010-06-20T22:59:00.001-07:00

An intense, hard-fought, tug of war match with a nail-biting finish complete with tense face-offs, ugly verbal duels and a roaring victory cry – a delightful treat for all Ind-Pak cricket fans. Paisa vasool. Who said ODIs are dying?

Robin Singh or Sachin Tendulkar

2010-04-26T23:21:00.001-07:00

Analyzing the IPL final, most have questioned Mumbai’s tactics while praising Chennai’s. Fair enough. But, while captain Dhoni gets the accolades for Chennai’s tactics, it’s coach Robin Singh that gets the brickbats for Mumbai’s strategy. All through the season, Sachin’s captaincy was been widely praised. He was even awarded the viewer’s choice award for best captain. But, as soon as they lose, Robin Singh is blamed. Why?

Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan of Tendulkar. And, I am not trying to blame him for Mumbai’s strange tactics. I just find this media double standard amusing.

CSK wins IPL 2010

2010-04-25T21:51:00.001-07:00

What’s up with captains inexplicably promoting Harbhajan Singh as a pinch hitter? Dhoni did it in the ODI against Sri Lanka in December 2009 (If folks don’t remember, that’s the match where the Indians scored their highest ODI total of 414/7). Today, the Mumbai Indians did it against CSK. Sure, Harbhajan has swung wildly and has connected a few over the years, but there is no excuse for promoting him ahead of Rayudu, Tiwary, Duminy and Pollard.

It was a rather disappointing end to Sachin’s excellent run in the tournament. But, having scored over 600 runs in the tournament with a strike rate of over 130 with just three DLF maximums, I think he has proved that proper, consistent, skillful batting does have a place in Twenty20 cricket.

Happy Birthday, Sachin!

2010-04-24T15:46:00.001-07:00

If Tendulkar’s feats last year were awesome, this year it got even better - five centuries in seven Tests with an average of 84.25 and more than 900 runs at 65.28 from 17 matches in ODIs! The heartbreaking 175 against Australia was bettered by the super human 200* against South Africa. And, he has left his impression on the newest format ofTwenty20 cricket as well, topping the batting charts in IPL2010.

Thanks for the runs, Sachin!

Movie: The Hangover (2009)

2010-02-24T23:10:00.001-08:00

There are chick flicks, romantic comedies that target the female audience. And then there are dick flicks, raunchy comedies that target the male audience. The Hangover, falls in the second category.

Set in Las Vegas, the gags involving a missing groom, Mike Tyson, a tiger in the bathroom, a missing tooth, a baby, a stripper and a naked Chinese villain among others are outrageous and funny. The jokes are raunchy but not juvenile. And, the script is clever enough to keep you engaged. The guy who plays the oddball Alan (I have no idea who he is) in the movie is brilliant!

Ultimate batting machine

2010-02-24T05:21:00.001-08:00

The superman exists…and he’s Sachin Tendulkar! (I just watched Watchmen a couple of nights ago). History was made today at Gwalior with Sachin scoring the first ever double century in ODIs. While no adjective can adequately describe the inning, the statistics - 200 off 147 balls with 25 fours and 3 sixes, tell the story sufficiently and succinctly. It’s fitting that the greatest one day cricketer (greatest cricketer, period, for fans like me) ever now holds the record for the highest score. Congratulations Sachin!

India vs South Africa, 2nd ODI

2010-02-23T22:28:00.001-08:00

The good thing about the last ball win in the previous match is that it exposed the folly of going in with only three specialist bowlers in the playing XI. I don’t understand why we need eight batsmen to bat out 50 overs, especially when batting is our strength. On the other hand, more often than not we have seen one or more of our specialist bowlers have a mediocre outing. Going with one bowler less only further exposes the weakness in the bowling department. Hopefully, one of the specialist spinners – Mishra/Ashwin will replace Yusuf Pathan for today’s game.

India is No.1

2010-02-20T17:10:00.001-08:00

After an incredible nail biting finish, Indians have retained their spot at the top of the ICC Test cricket ratings. Congratulations Team India! My wishes came true - Paul Harris was treated like the mediocre bowler that he is and to add icing to the cake, the umpires even wided him quite a few times for negative bowling!

Just when the teams seem warmed up after a win each, the series has come to an abrupt end and that is hugely disappointing. Just one more match to crown the true series winner would have been great.

Essentially, the matches were a tale of two first inning batting collapses. While the Indians collapsed in Nagpur unable to cope with Steyn’s outstanding swing bowling; the South Africans collapsed in Kolkata, to some mediocre batting (the bowling was good, without being great).

Despite the positives – centuries by Sehwag, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dhoni; good bowling by Khan and Harbhajan, there were a few disappointments. This was a wonderful opportunity for the youngsters – Ishant, Mishra, Vijay and especially Badrinath, to shine but all failed to grab. The opportunity, that is. And personally, I had hoped to see more of the battle between the no.1 batsman (Gambhir) and the no.1 bowler (Steyn).

After a tightly fought Test series, it’s time to move on to the ODIs.

M Vijay

2010-02-20T16:20:00.001-08:00

Still very early, but, I hope he doesn’t end up like the other openers we have had in the recent past – Aakash Chopra, SS Das, Sadagopan Ramesh, Dinesh Karthik etc. who were impressive the first few games but could never raise their game beyond well made 30s/40s.

India vs. South Africa, 2nd Test Preview

2010-02-13T04:54:00.001-08:00

Typically, I rate Test matches involving India as -

Good, when India wins
Better, when Sachin enthralls with a totally awesome inning (or two!)
Best, when Sachin enthralls and India win

This time, I am slightly adjusting my ratings as -

Good, if Paul Harris gets thrashed
Better, if Paul Harris gets thrashed and goes wicketless
Best, if Paul Harris gets thrashed by Sachin and goes wicketless

Yep. I don’t care if India wins or not. Well, actually I do. But, I am really hoping that the Indians teach Harris a lesson or two.

Gambhir vs. Steyn/Morkel and Sehwag/Sachin vs. Harris, I think are the key matchups for India’s batting. As for the bowling, turning pitch or not, I have no idea how we are going to get twenty South African wickets. Maybe Sreesanth will deliver a miracle?

Dinner Conversation

2010-02-10T21:47:00.001-08:00

Here is a conversation I had the other day with my three and half year old daughter during dinner -

She: Appa, I want to marry you.
Me: But, I am already married to Amma.
She: Okay, can I marry Venu mama (uncle)?
Me: No, he is too old for you.
She: Hmm. I will marry Amma then.
Me: Ha ha. But, she is a girl.
She: That’s okay. Sometimes girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys.
Me: Hmm. Ahh. Ahem. Who wants to eat Rasgulla?
She: Me!

the cricket song

2009-12-27T20:35:00.001-08:00

C.R.I.CK.ET.
C.R.I.CK.ET.
C.R.I.CK.ET.

I cannot get this out of my head! Not sure what I am talking about? Watch this video.

Here is one more hilarious one from the same guy -

Why, Karthik?

2009-12-21T21:12:00.001-08:00

As a Tendulkar fan I can’t help but ask, did you have to hit that six, Karthik?!

Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal

2009-12-21T20:26:00.001-08:00

On my recent trip back home, I visited the Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal, a national monument in Madurai which was built as a grand palace complex in 1636 AD by the then ruler of the Madurai region, Thirumalai Nayakar.

One of the best known landmarks in Madurai, its huge pillars have been captured on film by many a Kollywood directors. The song Kannalanae in Mani Ratnam’s Bombay was beautifully shot here.

Thanks to some recent restoration/renovation work, the place has gotten a face lift. I have mixed feelings about the paint job on the stucco work though. It looks too clean and colorful. I would have preferred a somewhat antique finish befitting the age of the building.

Baffling batting order

2009-12-15T00:47:00.001-08:00

As I write this at the half way mark of the ODI between India and Sri Lanka at Rajkot, India have posted their highest score in one day cricket – 414/7, giving themselves more than an excellent chance to go up 1-0 in the series.

The batting display was superlative. Sehwag continued his excellent form and smashed 146 off 102 balls, aided brilliantly by Tendulkar (69 off 63) and Dhoni (72 off 53). With 43 hits to the fence and 12 over it, there were plenty of excellent strokes. Being a Tendulkar fan, I immensely enjoyed the two upper cuts he played in 15th over against Fernando’s bouncers – first, initially ducking, before deciding at the last moment to cut to third man and the next, even better, swaying slightly and delicately cutting it fine, just wide of the keeper.

Despite the batting heroics, I found Dhoni’s shuffling of the batting order, baffling. Instead of using his experience to shore up the inexperienced lower middle order (especially, with Yuvraj out to injury), from his usual position at five, I couldn’t understand why he had to promote himself to three. This is even more baffling considering that he came up at the expense of Gambhir, who arguably is the best top order batsman currently in the team. Gambhir, pushed down to five, looked totally out of sorts in the lower order.

Next, Harbhajan was promoted ahead of Kohli and Jadeja. If the Dhoni – Gambhir swap was baffling, this was outright illogical! I mean, with more than 300 on the board and more than 10 overs still left to be bowled, what was the need to send a bowler to throw his bat around, ahead of a specialist batsman and a batting all-rounder? And what kind of message does that send to the youngsters – that their captain thinks a bowler with no batting technique, can bat better than them on one of the flattest of the batting pitches you would ever see? In the end, after Harbhajan’s ugly swipes failed, both Kohli (27 off 19) and Jadeja (30 off 17) played smart cameos proving Harbhajan’s promotion wrong.

Bowlers lose it for India

2009-09-26T20:20:00.001-07:00

Despite the absence of Sehwag and Yuvraj, everyone knows that India’s bowling is their weakest link, especially considering that the loss of Sehwag and Yuvraj has considerably weakened their part-time bowling options. So, shouldn’t they have bolstered their weak bowling attack with another specialist bowler?

Classic Shaving

2009-09-20T23:02:00.001-07:00

Over the years, I have tried everything from the disposable plastic razors to the Gillette Mach3s to a variety of fancy electric razors in search of a comfortable shave.

A couple of years ago, I chanced upon an article in the internet and discovered the lost art of ‘classic shaving’ - lathering up using shaving cream & a decent natural bristled shaving brush, and shaving using an old fashioned safety razor with a single double-edged steel blade. After years of razor burn and irritation, I have been enjoying close, comfortable shaves ever since.

While the initial cost of getting a classic shaving kit might seem expensive, comparing the cost of the currently popular Gillette Fusion cartridges (a few dollars) to the double-edged blades (a few cents), it’s easy to see the cost savings in the long run. Also, the steel single blades are probably more environment friendly than the plastic cartridges.

To every man looking for a comfortable shave, I say, ‘ditch the plastic five (or is it six) blade razor and switch to the single blade safety razor’.

Karma or Coincidence?

2009-09-07T21:40:00.001-07:00

I am a Hindu. But, I don’t believe in a personal God, prayer or rituals. So, on our monthly trips to the Hindu Temple in Livermore, I spend my time napping in the car waiting for my wife and daughter to return back with some prasadam.

Last month, as we were getting ready for the trip, I threw on a t-shirt that had some funny quote involving beer. Answering my wife’s disapproving ‘Are you wearing that?’ with a curt ‘Yes’, I made the 45 minute trip from our home to Livermore.

Usually, I park the car in the shade, roll down the windows, push back the seat and settle down for a quick nap. But, this time, the weather was hot and parking was hard to find. So, I ended up parking in the sun, switching on the A/C, turning on some music and watching some guy treating his new Toyota Camry to a car puja.

When my wife returned back, I mockingly pointed the car puja guy to her, who was now walking around his car with bowed head and folded hands following the priest’s orders. As he concluded the puja driving his car over four lemons placed under each of his car’s tires, I remarked how the lemons would have been better served as lemonade for the hot weather and how the moron and his car ritual has provided some humorous material for my next blog post!

We settled down in our seats and got ready to leave, only to realize that the battery having powered my A/C and radio for 30 minutes didn’t have enough juice left to turn our engine on! After calling AAA, who said they would be there in 30 minutes, only to call back 45 minutes later to convey that they won’t be there for another hour, searching for and finding a jump-start kit at the temple’s office, fumbling with the kit and managing to start the engine, we were finally on our way back home after a 90 minute delay.

As my laughing wife whispered ‘karma’, ‘No, this is not God’s vengeance for my blasphemous behavior’, I said, realizing that I have gotten myself into a no win situation, ‘This is just….me being stupid’.

Dravid is back. But, why?

2009-08-16T15:14:00.001-07:00

Dravid is back in the India ODI squad replacing the injured Sehwag for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy to be played in September. But, why?

When Dravid was dropped from the ODI squad two years ago, it wasn’t just because of his poor form. It was also because, then at 34, he (along with Ganguly) was considered a misfit in the youthful team - with an emphasis on fielding and running between the wickets - for the future that the captain and selectors envisioned. Now, two years later I can’t see how he could have turned younger, unless the captain/selectors have doubts about their youth policy.

The Indian batting in the last couple of years has had the right balance of youth (Raina, Rohit, Gambhir) and experience (Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj) and has had some remarkable success. Despite the recent loss at the T20 World Cup and Rohit’s poor performance, I don’t see any reason to panic and abandon the youth policy and fallback on experience. Sehwag’s injury should have provided an opening to another aspiring youngster waiting for his turn (Badrinath/Vijay/Kohli/Pujara?) and not Dravid. In the short term, Dravid’s selection has added some balance to the team, but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the future. I mean, when Sehwag is fit and available, who would he replace?

Or, maybe this selection of Dravid in the team is just a one off replacement for Sehwag, providing him the opportunity to sign off from ODIs on his own terms? I certainly don’t have any problems with that.

Pets are welcome but your kids are not!

2009-07-25T12:03:00.001-07:00

You know how you hear about these old women living alone with no kids but lots of cats, ‘cat ladies’ as they are called? Apparently, some of them are hoteliers.

Looking for accommodations in Carmel, CA, I found this -

If you have trouble reading the image, this is what it says -

Children: Quiet, well behaved children over the age of 5 are allowed in designated rooms only. We strongly discourage children under the age of 6 years old. Please let us know if you plan to bring a child

Pets: Pets are now welcome in all guest rooms. We charge a $20.00 per pet, per day fee. Please refer to our Pets page for details of bringing your pet and let us know if you plan to bring a pet.

Huh?

2009-07-10T22:22:00.001-07:00

A relative visiting from India talking to my wife at a party in an admonishing tone – ‘Enna, appadiyae olliyavae irrukae, sappadavae maata polla…’ (You are thin as usual. Don’t you eat well?). The same relative talking about her daughter-in-law with pride to someone else at the same party – ‘Ava nalla weight korachita. Kalyana time eppadi irundhalo athaey mathiri nalla olliya irrukka…’ (She has lost a lot of weight. She is nice and thin just like she was on the day of her wedding).

India XI against W.Indies

2009-06-26T00:33:00.001-07:00

As a weakened India without Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer and Raina takes on West Indies in a four ODI series starting tomorrow, Dhoni has a variety of options to choose his playing XI.

Middle Order: With all the usual batsmen available in the team, the middle order is pretty much fixed with Yuvraj, Dhoni and Yusuf at 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

Openers: Gambhir can be partnered to open with either the regular, but inexperienced opener Vijay or one of the other middle order bats who have some experience at the top – Rohit or Kartik. Even though Rohit had mixed results as an opener in the Twenty20 World Cup, I am inclined to take one more chance with him.

No.3: Three batsmen compete for this spot – Rohit, Kartik and Badrinath. Badri probably deserved this chance a year or two ago, but, I am not very sure if the same can be said now. With Rohit being my choice for opener, I prefer to slot Kartik here. Another option might be for Dhoni to come in at three and move Kartik down to five.

No.7: Normally, I would prefer a specialist bowler here instead of a all-rounder. But, considering the weakness in the top order, two all-rounders compete for this spot – Jadeja and Nayar. My preference is for the spinner Jadeja.

Bowlers Harbhajan picks himself. Ojha loses out to the all-rounder at 7. As for the medium/fast bowlers, my first picks, at least for the first couple of games are Ishant, RP Singh and Nehra.

With that, my playing XI for tomorrow’s game is -

1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Rohit Sharma
3. Dinesh Kartik
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. MS Dhoni
6. Yusuf Pathan
7. R Jadeja
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Ishant Sharma
10. RP Singh
11. Ashish Nehra

India out of T20 World Cup

2009-06-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

The West Indians had exposed the Indian top order’s technical inability to cope with fast, accurate short-pitched bowling the other day and the Englishmen exploited it to perfection today bouncing India out of the Twenty20 World Cup.

England came in with the obvious strategy to bounce the Indians and Dhoni’s own response was to promote Jadeja playing his first match of the tournament ahead of the in-form Yuvraj as a pinch-hitter – apparently to ease the pressure off the other star batsmen (Yuvraj, Dhoni and Yusuf). If that was the intention, he should have at least been sent at three ahead of Raina, who was absolutely at sea facing bouncers in the previous match. In the end the pinch-hitter could neither hit out nor get out! When he did eventually get out after scoring 25 off 35 balls in the 14th over, leaving 67 runs to be scored off the last six overs, it was a little too much even for the icy cool Pathan (33 off 17 balls).

Earlier in the day Harbhajan and Jadeja did well to restrict England to 153, particularly after Pietersen (46 off 27 balls) was threatening to lead them to an above par score. But, the Indians conceded too many extras and weren’t sharp in the field. Also, it was baffling to see RP Singh who was most economical bowler on either side not finish his full quota of overs.

Well, this is a reminder that you still need to master the basic cricketing skills to be a successful T20 player. Rohit and Raina – both exceptional talents – need to work out their technical flaws if they are hoping to make it to the next generation Test team. Dhoni, probably needed this break. He has a very talented team at his disposal, he just needs to keep things simple. Hopefully, he will come back - along with some clarity in thinking – rejuvenated.

Dhoni’s batting

2009-06-13T17:38:00.001-07:00

Dhoni’s batting on Friday against West Indies has drawn a lot of criticism. Minimizing risk doesn’t mean you shouldn’t rotate strike! Watching him struggling to get singles was tough.

He seems to be struggling to find the right batting position for himself. He seems to be randomly coming in at either 3 or 5. As I said earlier, instead of a fixed position, his batting strategy along with Gambhir should be to take less risk than the others, holding one end up at least until the 15th over allowing the other batsmen to be aggressive at the other end. This means, Dhoni’s batting position is not fixed. He walks in when Gambhir gets out. If Gambhir bats through an innings he doesn’t get to bat (unless the other specialist batsmen are all back in the hut).

Strategically, yesterday’s batting order was perfect (Dhoni came in at the fall of Gambhir’s wicket), but the execution wasn’t.

India’s Batting order

2009-06-07T15:11:00.001-07:00

Yuvraj’s late blitz yesterday helped India reach an above par score of 180. But, that didn’t seem possible when both Dhoni and Gambhir were struggling to force the pace in the middle overs.

Dhoni thinks of his role as providing a solid anchor (cut out risky shots, keep the strike rotating, run hard, play safe without getting bogged down, put the bad balls away) at one end, allowing the other stroke players to be naturally aggressive at the other end. I completely agree with this strategy and his role. I also think Gambhir could, should and often does perform a similar role at the top of the order. So, instead of slotting himself at the fixed position three, Dhoni should slot himself as replacing Gambhir.

In fact, instead of a fixed batting order, each batsmen’s position should depend on the wicket to fall. My batting order would begin with Gambhir and Sehwag as openers. Dhoni will be slotted to follow Gambhir. Raina would follow Sehwag (or Dhoni if both Gambhir and Dhoni fall before Sehwag). Yuvraj would follow Raina (or Dhoni if Sehwag, Gambhir and Dhoni are all back in the dugout). Yusuf follows Yuvraj/Raina/Dhoni with Irfan and the tail following Yusuf.

The idea is for Gambhir/Dhoni to hold one end up with the other stroke makers taking up the risk of scoring aggressively at the other end. This means, if Gambhir bats through the innings, Dhoni will not get to bat (unless all the other batsmen – Sehwag, Raina, Yuvraj and Yusuf are all back in the dugout). Based on current team composition and form, I think this is a good batting strategy.

Team India at the T20 World Cup

2009-06-06T15:12:00.001-07:00

Four specialist batsmen (Gambhir, Sehwag, Raina, Yuvraj), three of whom are part-time bowlers; two specialist pace bowlers (Zaheer, Ishant); two specialist spinners (Harbhajan, Ojha); one all-rounder who bowls spin (Yusuf); one all-rounder who bowls medium-pace (Ifran); one wicket-keeper batsman (Dhoni), who is the captain. I love India’s team composition for this world cup!

Twenty20 vs. Test Cricket

2009-05-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

Chris Gayle’s comments regarding Test cricket has re-ignited the discussion regarding Twenty20 vs. Test cricket.

I like to compare them to the other form of entertainment that I enjoy – movies. While Test cricket can be compared to Drama Films (plot-driven, engaging story lines, well-developed characters), T20 is more like a Summer Blockbuster (big budget, special effects, outrageous action). While the genre of movies one likes is a matter of personal choice, the genre itself doesn’t guarantee entertainment. There are as many boring dramas as brilliant blockbusters. So, while I personally prefer an interesting drama, I am not necessarily against blockbusters. I absolutely love the choice offered by the variety of genres.

Similarly, I love Test cricket. To me, an intense over of Dravid’s defense against Warne’s guile on a fourth day pitch has more drama than Pathan’s heaves for ~~sixes~~ DLF maximums. Then again, my initial apprehensions about T20 are slowly withering away. It does seem to be as much about skill as (though maybe not necessarily traditional cricketing skills) luck. Otherwise, how do you explain the consistent success of some quality Test players in T20? Now, after a couple of seasons of IPL, I do enjoy the twists, thrills and exciting finishes (however artificial they might be) of an occasional T20 game. I am thrilled by the choice of another genre in cricket.

As with movies, there will be passionate debates over which genre is better and which is not. And, while the debate rages on, the genres would still co-exist – similar to Hollywood dramas holding their own against flashy blockbusters.

Or, at least that’s what I hope for.

Non-Vegetarian Feast

2009-05-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

After reading this blog entry – Worshipping Ghatothgaja – I got nostalgic about wedding feasts and hence this post.

While vegetarians drool about kalyana sappadu (wedding meal) as the ultimate feast, where i come from (a village near Madurai in South Tamil Nadu, India), it is the kari sappadu (meat meal) that is the king of feasts.

For the uninitiated, inspired by the 'self respect movement' of Periyar, the community leaders of our village at that time (yes, we had forward thinking leaders and no, we didn’t have bare-chested nattamais who start every sentence they speak with a screaming ‘aieee’) advocated ‘self-respect weddings’ wherein the wedding ceremony is not officiated by a Brahmin priest and no conventional Hindu rituals are performed. Somehow the leaders missed to spell out that we can do away with the Brahmin meal as well. They were probably busy plotting other social reforms. So, we still serve vegetarian food on the day of the wedding. But, a full fledged non-vegetarian feast aka kari sappadu is served for guests the following day. While we invite everyone in the village and every Pandian (Tom, Dick and Harry) that we have ever encountered in life to the wedding, the guest list for the kari sappadu is limited to just friends/family that we actually care about. And, friends/family who we don't care about, but who we have to invite because they had previously invited us for a kari sappadu in their family.

The morning of the feast starts off with a light breakfast of pooris with minced goat meat curry and idlis with ezhumbu sambhar (sambhar made with lentils and pieces of goat bones). My favorite is the marrow inside the bones in the sambhar. Now, there are a couple of different ways to get the marrow out. Irrespective of technique, the first step is to suck all the sambhar off the bone. This is to make sure that the bone is dry and cannot slip out of the hand during the marrow extraction process. Next, you hold the bone and flick your wrist with just the right force to get the marrow out – too light a flick, the marrow stays inside the bone; too strong a flick, the marrow might fly out and land on someone else’s plate! Or, if you have exceptionally strong teeth, you can chew through the bone and get to the marrow. Growing up, I usually outsourced the extraction work to grandma or dad.

For lunch, the feast is served on a banana leaf starting with the kola urundai (kola ball). Now, I don't know the origin or meaning of the 'kola' but this is essentially a spicy fried meatball made with finely minced goat meat. Crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, this is usually gulped down before the next item can even be served. Next comes the boiled egg. The other side dishes include chicken 65, chicken curry and goat fry. The main course includes chicken and/or mutton biryani (not the dry version made with long grain rice elsewhere in India, but the the soft cooked Madurai version made with the short grain jeeraga samba rice), followed by white rice with rasam and curd. For dessert, the traditional payasam is served. The chief guest (the groom) and a selected few would get the special dishes – goat liver fry, thala curry (curried goat head) and moola curry (curried goat brain). The special items are served to a few only because the goat has a small brain (obviously).

No, I did not forget to mention the vegetarian dishes. Kari sappadu is all about 100% pure non-vegetarian food. Sometimes a small batch of potato or cauliflower curry is made and set aside for any unexpected vegetarian guests. This is served to a guest only after he/she convinces the host that he/she absolutely cannot have meat due to health reasons.

The number of items in the menu may be small, but believe me you will be overwhelmed by the hospitality of the hosts who would make sure that you have eaten enough for a week. As soon as you down a kola urundai, another two would magically appear on your leaf. When you are half way working on the biryani another serving would be heaped on. Your cries of 'Please no, I have had enough' would be heard but interpreted as 'Oh yes, please serve me some more'! Finally, after you have convinced the host that you are done for sure, you would be served a malai vazhaipalam (bananas grown in the nearby hills. These are puny in size compared to the regular bananas but are much more tastier). The meal is ended by gulping down a glass of ice cold sweet lime nannari sherbet (sweetened lime juice with flavoring made from the nannari plant) followed by a loud belch.

After the feast, everyone relaxes on spread out jamukaalams (hand woven bright colored carpets) by chewing betel leaves & nuts and playing rummy (the card game) all through the afternoon.

Kari sappadu day officially ends with a simple dinner of veechu parota (thin parota)/virudhunagar paroto (layered, fried parota)/kothu parota (minced parota with eggs) with chicken chalna (gravy).

Democracy

2009-05-10T22:30:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered about the true value of your vote in a democracy? Apparently it is Rs.500 according to the politicos of DMK in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Shame on you, Shane

2009-05-10T22:12:00.001-07:00

It’s been a couple of days since Shane Warne was caught sipping beer during Rajasthan’s match against Bangalore and still no action has been taken by the IPL. Shame on Shane and shame on the officials for not castigating him.

Mother’s Day

2009-05-10T06:23:00.001-07:00

To all moms out there – especially my own and my daughter’s – Happy Mother’s Day!

Déjà vu – again!

2009-05-09T20:54:00.001-07:00

Sachin and captaincy doesn’t seem to go together, does it? It didn’t work in the 90s and it isn’t working now. The move to drop himself to number four to prop up the middle order and the move to send the in-form Duminy to open the innings both failed. He correctly identified the problem – openers were not providing consistent starts and that in turn was putting pressure on the young middle order who haven’t been able to cope. I am not willing to believe that he made the decision to ring in the changes to the batting order to solve the problem, especially after I read this. As the Mumbai Indians are getting ready to face off Bangalore in a must win match for the franchise, the problems with batting still exist and the right way to solve it is for Sachin to do what he does best – score runs, lots of them, at the top of the order.

Déjà vu

2009-05-06T22:32:00.001-07:00

The Mumbai Indians in IPL2 remind me of the BCCI Indians of the 90s when the rise and fall of the team depended on the performance of one man – Sachin Tendulkar! Hope the team picks itself up, as the only thing I am following with interest in this edition of the IPL is Tendulkar’s batting.

Tendulkar turns 36

2009-04-26T17:45:00.001-07:00

Sachin Tendulkar turned 36 on Friday and this past year has presented us with some awesome memories. His hundreds – 109 against Australia, 160 against New Zealand and that record-breaking 103* against England in Tests and the superb 163* against New Zealand in ODIs – were all for a winning cause. Except for the mediocre tour of Sri Lanka, he has been in amazing touch throughout the year including becoming the highest run-getter in Test cricket.

The remarkable feature of his batting this year has the been his controlled, risk-free approach. After Sehwag’s extraordinary innings set up the record chase, Tendulkar’s batting was so calm and serene that despite the long odds, it seemed like a win was inevitable! Even his 163* against New Zealand though enormous in magnitude was not a violent, bludgeoning innings. It was an assured, flawless, innovative, perfectly paced masterpiece.

Thanks for the wonderful memories, Sachin. Here’s to another great year - Cheers!

Anaconda

2009-01-11T13:29:00.001-08:00

Watched this 1997 B-grade action-thriller(!?) about a monster snake the other night. The silliness and predictability of the plot combined with the fake-looking computer generated snake executing some atrociously funny stunts made the movie a good late-night time pass. It would have been more fun had the snake died choking on J Lo’s butt while trying to gobble her up, instead of being blown-up and hacked to death!!

Amazing Sehwag sets up improbable chase

2008-12-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Playing tough, patient, flair-free, textbook Test cricket over four days, England had slowly but surely, tightened their grip on the match, leaving India to chase an impossible 387 in 120 overs on a deteriorating pitch.

History indicated a win was impossible. The odds were long to even contemplate a draw. But, apparently nobody told Sehwag. He batted with purpose, didn’t allow any bowler to settle, repeatedly cut and slog swept with amazing ease on his way to becoming the highest run-getter in Tests in 2008.

His simple, yet atrocious batting has left India to chase a difficult but not impossible 256 on the last day. His blistering innings of 83 off 68 balls has single-handedly raised the hopes for an improbable win!

Bad light and absurd rules

2008-11-20T22:25:00.001-08:00

After India’s dominance in the first two games, the third ODI between India and England showed some semblance of a contest before bad light ended the game handing India another win under the D/L method. Earlier a foggy morning had already delayed the match by 45 minutes reducing the match to 49 overs per side.

Though India would have probably won the match anyway, it is ridiculous that bad light ended the match when floodlights were available at the ground. And, even though the match started 45 minutes late, the players had a full regulation break for lunch (even after the England captain requested for a shorter break). Apparently, both are due to some insipid ICC regulations, despite some recent changes to the rules after that absurd match in England. Given the circumstances, and the rules, the officials could have at least shown some foresight and reduced the match to a 45 over game. A 45 minute delay resulting in a 2 over reduction when everyone knew light would come in to play is downright stupid!

Instead of trying to layout specific rules which are half-baked anyway, ICC should just outline some generic guidelines and allow the officials use their judgment to determine the best course of action to get a complete game as much as reasonably possible.

Goodbye Ganguly

2008-11-11T01:04:00.001-08:00

A career that began with a century at Lord’s in 1996 has come to an end with a golden duck at Nagpur in 2008. In between, one of the greatest one day batsmen and India’s most successful Test captain Saurav C Ganguly has provided us with some wonderful memories – the debut at Lord’s, the spectacular run at Toronto in 1997, the big hitting blitz at the ‘99 World Cup, the thrashing in dying light at Leeds in 2002, the thrilling ‘chin music’ counter-attack at Brisbane in 2003, the double hundred against Pakistan in 2007 are a few that immediately come to mind among countless other one day innings.

More than his outstanding one day career and a fulfilling Test career, Dada’s legacy would definitely be his exploits as a captain. Taking charge during the aftermath of the match-fixing controversy, he was the first to bring a sense of professionalism to the team by bringing in a professional coach in John Wright. Unlike most captains before him was able to influence the selectors in getting the team he wanted. He had an uncanny ability to identify talent and, most importantly he backed the players he trusted to the hilt. Yuvraj, Kaif, Sehwag, Harbhajan and even Dhoni were all unearthed by him. He was able to motivate, inspire and extract the best from his players. I think Dravid’s one day game changed and prospered for the better after he was entrusted the additional responsibility of keeping wickets. His greatest accomplishment is the confidence and winning attitude he brought to the team; In the words of Steve Waugh

he injected some toughness and combativeness into a side that had often tended in the past to roll over and expose a soft underbelly.

All were not roses in his career though. If the performances in Australia and the win in Pakistan in 2004 were the peak of his accomplishments, things went downhill from there. His batting became listless, leadership uninspiring and his spat with Greg Chappell eventually forced him out of the team. True to character, after everyone had written him off, he came back to the team in early 2007 and the last 18 months has arguably been his most consistent run as a batsman.

He may be gone, but he will forever remain as the God of offside stroke play.

Tendulkar's little gem

2008-10-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

I have been too lazy to blog recently, but I just could not let Sachin's little gem of an innings on the first day of India's third Test match against Australia yesterday at Delhi go uncommented.

Similar to the delightful innings of 71 he played at Perth earlier this year, this little gem of 68 was an composed but authoritative innings, full of fluent and sometimes thumping strokes. The circumstances then and yesterday are eerily similar. At Perth, he came in with the score reading 2-59 and built a partnership of 129 runs with Dravid setting up the platform for a memorable win. Here, he came in with the score reading 2-27 and built a partnership of 130 runs with Gambhir and has hopefully set up the platform for a win!

And the similarities doesn't end there. Between those beautiful on the toes back foot punches through point, cracking cover drives, glorious on drives, a delightful late cut and a thumping slog sweep he unleashed in this innings, the shot of the day was when very much similar to the shot he played against Lee in Perth, he nudged the same bowler's fast and furious short ball over slips for four!

India vs Sri Lanka - Preview

2008-08-16T17:38:00.001-07:00

After the loss in the Asia Cup finals, the Indian ODI Team faces off Sri Lanka once again in a five match series starting tomorrow. As in the Test series, the focus will be on how well the Indian middle order handle Mendis and Murali, especially with the absence of Tendulkar.

While the core of the team remains unchanged from the one that played the Asia Cup, there are still six changes in the squad -

Zaheer and Harbhajan back for Sreesanth and Chawla - With Ojha preferred over Chawla based on his performances in the Asia Cup and Sreesanth asked to prove his match fitness, an easy decision of seniors coming back to replace the juniors in the team.

Virat Kohli and Badrinath come in for Uthappa and Ishant Sharma - Uthappa was expected to make way for Sachin, but with Sachin out to injury, Badrinath gets a chance. Ishant gets a rest, but why did Kohli get his spot?

Parthiv Patel for Yusuf Pathan - With Dhoni complaining about non-stop cricket and even skipping the Test series, the selectors have recognized the need for a backup keeper in the team. Parthiv gets the nod over Karthik, though nothing really differentiates the two - both performed poorly in the Test series. Nevertheless, this should give Parthiv some confidence going forward. Yusuf Pathan is unlucky to miss out. He didn't do much wrong in the Asia Cup and if someone had to make way for the backup keeper, it should have been his brother Irfan. While Irfan is the better bowler in helpful conditions, he looks distinctly off-color otherwise and considering the slow pitches in Sri Lanka, Yusuf would have been the better choice.

Munaf for Gony - As I recall, Munaf was dropped for the Kitply and Asia Cup tournaments after a lackluster performance in the CB series wherein questions about his fitness and commitment were questioned. With Gony not grabbing his couple of chances of well enough, Munaf is back. This can mean only one thing - the selectors dropped Munaf more as a warning to get his act together and had every intention of bringing him back. Munaf could now either come back strong or get complacent realizing that there is no better to replace him. Either way, Gony must feel used!

Murali Karthik - He bowled well against Australia and Pakistan last year, but unfortunately got injured. Though he has recovered now, he finds his place in the queue behind Harbhajan taken by two spinners in Ojha and Chawla. Very unlucky for him and am not sure if the selectors even remotely considered his name!

Despite the threat of Mendis and Murali, I still believe our strength is batting and that we should stick to a five bowler strategy. Here is my playing XI for the ODI series -

Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Suresh Raina
Yuvraj Singh
MS Dhoni
Rohit Sharma
Irfan Pathan
Harbhajan Singh
Praveen Kumar
P Ojha
Zaheer Khan

Fabulous Four - Beginning of the End

2008-08-11T23:31:00.001-07:00

With Sri Lanka wrapping up an easy win, a very disappointing series for the Fabulous Four of Indian Cricket - Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly comes to an end.

One way to look at their failure is to consider this as an aberration in their wonderful career and a watershed moment in history when a talented spinner in Ajantha Mendis made a remarkable debut. After all, I don't think there has been any other series where all four collectively failed and based on his performance so far, Mendis (especially in tandem with Murali) does look like a quality spinner to watch out for. Plus, if these four with all their natural talent and vast experience couldn't perform, who else could have? Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma? I don't think so. Olympics and the upcoming ODI series should provide enough distraction to forget this failure and move on!

But, the other way and I think the right way to look at this is as the beginning of the end of a wonderful chapter in Indian Cricket. The build up to the series couldn't have been better - the all young ODI team in good form was rendered clueless by a new spinner and the stage was set for the aging champions to show the new kids on the block how it's done. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. If these four with all their talent and experience could not produce a decent performance in even one innings, what is the point of persisting with them? If their talent, form and experience is not making a difference, then what value do they bring to the team? If their aging bodies and slowing reflexes has overwhelmed their talent and experience, how are they superior to other players waiting in the wings?

This doesn't mean that all four need to be dropped and replaced with the Rohits and Rainas in waiting. I cannot confidently name one player that absolutely deserves a spot over any of the fab four. But, this does mean that the playing field between the seniors and juniors is level now. Instead of being considered automatic picks, they need to be compared and evaluated against other players. Instead of being assumed superior, they need to compete for their place with the rest. Instead of blindly preferring the old masters, the selectors should take a chance and opt for some young blood. It's not the end, but the beginning of the end.

What happened to Kaif?

2008-08-07T01:18:00.001-07:00

Trying to write up a preview of the third Test match between India and Sri Lanka, I was looking up the members of the Indian squad and then it hit me - whatever happened to Mohammed Kaif?

Midway through India's last Test series against South Africa, when Sachin Tendulkar was ruled out of the series after aggravating his groin injury, the selectors announced Kaif as his replacement. The fact that he was picked over other middle order batsmen like Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and S Badrinath, was surprising, but, considering his prolific domestic season, completely justified. Though he was not expected to make it to the playing XI (and he didn't), it offered him a glimmer of hope of staging a comeback and offered us some insight in to the selectors' thinking. It seemed like the selectors were not ready to push the youngsters in to the Test arena without them first providing some credible evidence of delivering on their promising talent.

Now, only a couple of months later, he finds his place in the squad being occupied by Rohit Sharma! What has changed? Was Rohit's performance in the IPL Twenty20 enough to displace Kaif? I was against Kaif's selection then, but, am equally against his replacement now.

For me, it's not about Rohit vs Kaif, it's about having a consistent selection policy. It's about treating your players right. Imagine how Kaif must be feeling - first surprised at getting recalled, then elated at the opportunity, only to be bewildered and confused at being dropped! And, I am willing to bet that no one possibly called him offering an explanation.

India win Galle Test to level series

2008-08-03T18:56:00.001-07:00

After three days of intensely fought competitive cricket involving spin bowling - spinners running through and batsmen countering them - an unexpected, fiery spell of fast bowling by Ishant Sharma on the fourth day of the second Test match between India and Sri Lanka at Galle, tilted the match in India's favor, helping them win the match by 170 runs.

And a what a well contested match it was! If Mendis shrugged off Sehwag's assault to take 10 wickets, Harbhajan shrugged off his indifferent form in recent times to match that effort. The Lankan top order's composed batting was matched by Gambhir's crucial fifties. Until Ishant's spell sprinted forward India to the finish line, both teams were running close all through the match.

The real difference for India, of course, was Sehwag's heroic, assaulting double century. In the very first session of the match, he had tamed the 'unreadable' Mendis, dismissed the wily Murali, calmed India's nerves and single-handedly laid the platform for a memorable win.

Apart from methodically and completely destroying the spinners, his best moment was not during one of the 250+ runs he scored in the match, but the one run he didn't score in the third ball of the 81st over - the one that would have taken him to 200 with last man Ishant at the other hand. He refused the easy single to shield Ishant and waited until the last ball of the over to get to his personal landmark! That moment once again exemplified his style of batting - treating each ball in its own context. Forget text book technique, his simple approach to cricket is what every young cricketer should be taught.

Mendis spins Sri Lanka to victory in the Asia Cup finals

2008-07-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Ajantha Mendis' spectacular spell of 'mystery' spin bowling rendered the in-form Indian batting lineup chasing 274 clueless and led Sri Lanka to a comfortable run win in the Asia Cup finals on Sunday. He ended the day with astonishing figures of 8-1-13-6!

Introduced into the attack in the tenth over with India cruising at 76/1 on the back of a blistering 60 off 34 balls by Sehwag, the Indian middle order facing him for the first time, struggled to read his flicked deliveries and were deceived out in no time. Only Dhoni who played him as late as possible reading the deliveries off the pitch was able to handle him a little better but with Mendis reducing the Indians to 98/5, it was just a matter of time before Sri Lanka wrapped up the win.

Earlier in the day, Dhoni took the field with an extra batsman, called right and put Sri Lanka to bat. Despite Jayasuriya's awesomely aggressive 125 - 26 of which were scored in the one RP Singh over (three sixes and two fours), with Ishant picking up early wickets, Sehwag and Ojha bowling tightly in the middle and RP Singh cleaning up the tail, India had restricted Sri Lanka to a sub par 273. In the end though, it turned out to be 100 runs too many!

Mendis or not, it should be noted that Dhoni made two tactical mistakes even before the match began - one, he chose to abandon the five bowler tactic that was so effective in the tournament & opted instead to strengthen the batting with a seventh batsman (Uthappa) and two, having won the toss, put the Sri Lankans to bat. Both these decisions were particularly bewildering considering that he justified these decisions as playing to his team's strength - batting. Since batting is our strength, my logic dictates that we should back our batsmen and bolster our bowling with an additional specialist. Also, instead of putting our weak bowling to test by bowling first, we should bat first, trust our strong batting to put up a big score and ease the pressure on the already weak bowling.

Looking ahead, the Test series coming up in a couple of weeks promises some thrilling cricket with the prospect of India's batting Trinity facing this exciting new spin sensation!

Another Final, Another Loss!

2008-06-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Pakistan re-grouped after their thumping on Tuesday to score a clinical and convincing win against their nemesis and favorites India in the finals of the Kitply cup in Bangladesh today.

Just when everyone was expecting the tri-series to meander to an end and were wondering if the intensity of India-Pakistan encounters have diminished due to both an overdose of such contests and the recent decline of the quality of Pakistani cricket, this loss for India has brought back in to focus its bugaboo for the last few years - losing finals!

Once again, India's weak bowling came apart at a crucial time when assaulted by aggressive, attacking batting. Instead of dismissing the loss attributing it to the bowlers having an off-day, India should seriously re-think its team composition.

India has always tended to counter its weakness in bowling by bolstering its batting. I have never been and probably never will be a fan of this strategy. I mean, can anyone remember the last time when the seventh batsman made a difference in a game for India? On the other hand, there has been plenty of times (especially finals) when the fifth bowler - the lack of one - has adversely affected the team.

Instead of going in with just three specialist bowlers, one bowling all-rounder (Irfan Pathan) and making up the fifth bowler with batting all-rounders, India should always go with five bowlers. We have to trust our formidable batting line-up and beef up the bowling by bringing in another specialist bowler. After all, this five bowler tactic did prove worthy in the CB series, when India beat Australia to win an ODI series final after a very long time.

India XI for the Kitply Cup

2008-06-08T06:24:00.001-07:00

Except for Tendulkar missing in action due to injury, the Indian squad for the Kitply Cup in Dhaka is mostly the same team that tasted success against the Australians earlier in March. Here is my playing XI for the series in batting order:

Robin Uthappa
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Yuvraj Singh
Rohit Sharma
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan / Yusuf Pathan
Manpreet Gony
Piyush Chawla
RP Singh
Ishant Sharma

Kitply Cup - anybody interested?

2008-06-08T06:11:00.001-07:00

A rather inconsequential ODI tri-series involving India, Pakistan and Bangladesh begins today in Dhaka. With the teams themselves treating the series as practice matches for the upcoming Asia Cup, not too many are interested in the Kitply cup. Nevertheless, it could still provide answers to some questions arising on the heels of the IPL Twenty20 extravaganza.

After being used to weeks of hectic Twenty20 cricket, will fans find the ODIs slow paced?

Will the players be able to adjust their style of play for the longer version?

With the IPL being a hit in Pakistan and the Indians having cheered Tanvir and Akhtar, will an India-Pakistan encounter evoke the same partisan passion as before?

With Tendulkar injured, Dhoni for the first time gets a chance to field a team of youngsters for a full series. Can the youngsters impress?

Will Yusuf Pathan and Manpreet Gony, drafted in to the team based on their excellent performances in IPL, prove skillful in the 50-50 format?

Well, we don't have to wait long to find out.

IPL - Players review

2008-06-04T23:24:00.001-07:00

With the Rajasthan Royals capping their impressive run in the IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament with a thrilling last ball victory against the Chennai Super Kings in the finals on Sunday, it is time to look back and analyze the performance of the players involved.

Icons and Superstars
Among the icons and superstars of Indian Cricket (Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Kumble, Harbhajan, Zaheer) only Dhoni and Sehwag had any real impact in the tournament. Dhoni impressively led his team to the finals while also scoring over 400 runs with an average of over 40. Sehwag's 400 runs and his consistent opening partnership with Gambhir went a long way in taking Delhi to the semis.

As for the other batsmen, Laxman and Tendulkar missed most of the matches to injury; Yuvraj could not live up to his big hitting expectations; though Dravid topped his team's batting statistics, he could not really motivate or inspire his team mates; Ganguly played a couple of incredible knocks, but they were just too little and too late.

Among the bowlers, none left a mark, except Harbhajan's slap on Sreesanth's cheeks!

Former Stars
None of the former stars (Kaif, Agarkar, A Nehra, L Balaji, Parthiv Patel) performed well enough to get noticed, though it is heartening to note that both Balaji and Nehra have both recovered from injury.

Twenty20 Champs
Some of the new generation Twenty20 cricketers - Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Venugopal Rao, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla - performed consistently well and enhanced their reputation as the future stars.

The rest - Munaf Patel, P Kumar, VRV Singh, Joginder Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Wasim Jaffer - seemed to have lost their mojo. Ishant Sharma in particular was disappointing considering the high price that Kolkata paid to get him and Dinesh Karthik missed an opportunity to get back in to the selectors radar.

Foreign Recruits
Most of the big names in international cricket - Shaun Marsh, Shane Watson, Jayasuriya, Sohail Tanvir, Shane Warne, Graeme Smith, Sangakkara, McGrath, Maharoof, Ntini, Albie Morkel, Adam Gilchrist, Mike Hussey, Hayden, McCullum - were spectacular. Especially Marsh and Watson, who emerged as the two best performers in the IPL.

Pollock, Muralitharan, David Hussey, JR Hopes, Stephen Fleming, Jayawardene, Bravo and Umar Gul did not exactly set the stage on fire, but had a few good performances.

Mark Boucher, Kallis, Salman Butt, Gibbs, Symonds, Kamran Akmal, Ponting, Cameron White, Akhtar, Vaas, Asif, Chanderpaul, Shoaib Malik, Afridi, Fernando and Steyn were abject disappointments.

Emerging Talent
This was an ideal opportunity for some of the local boys to showcase their talent and a few - Manpreet Gony, S Dhawan, SA Asnodkar, Goswami - managed to shine through, but none better than Yusuf Pathan who had a wonderful tournament capped by a man of the match performance in the final.

Overall, the Foreign Recruits ensured the high quality of cricket throughout the tournament and played a huge part in making the IPL a success. The biggest disappointment has to be the performance or rather the non-performance of the Icons and Superstars of Indian Cricket.

It's Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals

2008-05-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

The IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament is winding to a close with an exciting final on the cards between the Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals tomorrow.

Both teams won their semi-final games in contrasting but emphatic style. While the Royals batted the Delhi Daredevils out of the competition through outstanding strokeplay, the Super Kings knocked out the highly rated Kings XI Punjab through accurate seam bowling.

Their ride to the final has also been in contrasting style. Chennai - a pre-tournament favorite and lead by the league's highest paid player - started with a bang, struggled in the middle and managed to pull off some crucial wins in the end. Rajasthan - the cheapest team in the league and the pre-tournament underdog - started badly, but cruised through the tournament otherwise.

Despite their differences, both teams are lead by immensely talented, inspiring leaders in Dhoni and Warne. I do not know if the two best teams in the league are facing off tomorrow, but certainly they are lead by the two best captains.

So, who are the favorites to win tomorrow? Unpredictability has been the hallmark of Twenty20 cricket, with luck and nerves playing important roles as well as pure cricketing skills. Tomorrow's Champion could very well be the team that handles pressure better. Analysis aside, I am just hoping for a fitting finale and a thrilling contest!

IPL - entertaining but not engaging

2008-05-21T23:50:00.001-07:00

It's been a month since the opening match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and despite any initial apprehensions some might have had, it's been a huge success.

From huge sixes to quick wickets; outrageous stroke-play to brilliant hat-tricks; improbable wins to inexplicable losses; one-sided contests to last-ball thrillers; SRK dancing to Mallya whining; players getting slapped to CEOs getting sacked; inspiring leaders to clueless captains; failing favorites to winning underdogs; Australians getting cheered to Indians getting booed; spectacular fireworks to skimpy cheerleaders; awesome centuries to painful ducks; delightful cameos to devastating spells; athletic catches to dropped chances; insightful commentators to well, Ranjit Fernando; highs to lows and everything in between, it really has been an entertaining month of Twenty20 cricket!

But, despite all the entertainment, there is a sense of detachment for fans like me - expats who are far away from the action with no real affinity towards any particular team and inconvenienced by time. It's like watching a typical Bollywood blockbuster - entertaining for sure, but not engaging. After waking up early to catch the first couple of matches live, I now watch mostly the highlights and sometimes the replays.

IPL is fun, but it hasn't quite managed to evoke enough passion to lose sleep over - except when Tendulkar is batting!

The Giant Pool of Money

2008-05-17T18:47:00.001-07:00

I chanced on an excellent episode of This American Life today on KQED radio titled 'The Giant Pool of Money'

A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR news. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

The program does a fantastic job of explaining to the listeners how the subprime mortgage crisis happened, and has led to the current global credit crunch. Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson describe the events in simple terms through the personal stories of some of the people involved in this financial chain - borrowers, brokers, bankers and investors. Download the podcast here while it is free.

Celebrating Puberty

2008-05-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

When my phone rang in the middle of the night last Friday, I woke up startled wondering who on earth was calling at such an odd hour. 'This better be important', I muttered to myself as I picked up the phone and heard my cousin from India announce that her daughter has 'come of age' and that they are having a 'Sadangu'. Half asleep, angry to be woken up and surprised that she called at all, this piece of news overwhelmed me! I froze, struggling to find the right thing to say; thankfully, my wife nudged me and whispered 'congratulations'. I muttered the same and handed the phone to her, heaving a sigh of relief.

Congratulations? Is that what you say? Actually, did I need to know this? Did anyone except the parents need to know this? And does it have to be celebrated through an elaborate ritual with guests? While Hinduism is loaded with rituals, this particular practice of celebrating a girl's puberty is distinctly Dravidian and as far as I know this is only observed by non-Brahmin Tamils. Traditionally, when girls were married off as soon as they hit puberty, the celebrations served the purpose of letting everyone in the community know that the girl is available for marriage. But, does this still hold relevance? While puberty is an important milestone for a girl and deserves celebration, it should be a personal and private affair. Instead of announcing the news to the whole world, take the girl shopping, take a vacation, send her out with her friends - anything to make her feel special, not embarrassed.

As for my daughter, I would be happy and proud when she transitions from a little girl to a young lady, but I sure won't be calling up anybody in the middle of the night!

Sambar Noodles

2008-05-04T21:04:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read that right. Apparently, the folks at Maggi have paired the South Indian Sambar with Chinese Noodles! As curious as it sounds, this is a flavor combination that I will not be trying any time soon. What next, Idlis in Schezwan sauce?

India wins, series drawn

2008-04-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

For the first time in the series, on a surface that suited them perfectly, the Indian bowlers dominated proceedings in the third Test match and bowled out the South Africans in their second innings for just 121. The South African top order that performed admirably well in the first innings struggled to score and once Sehwag broke through the defenses of Kallis and Smith, Harbhajan and Ishant ran through the rest of the lineup.

Earlier in the day, Ishant and Sreesanth had frustrated the South Africans with an often lucky partnership to help India stretch its first innings lead to 60. Although they lost the openers, the Indians knocked off the 62 runs required for victory quite easily, squaring the series and thereby managing to hold on to their number two ranking in the ICC list.

For an Indian fan this was a rather disappointing series; other than Sehwag's triple century at Chennai and the fascinating contest the first two days of this Test match provided - that's three days out of the 15 days of cricket (well, actually it was three out of 11, since the last two matches ended in just three days) - there was nothing else to cheer about. Hopefully, with IPL coming up soon, there is plenty to look forward to.

After the Indian collapse in the second Test match, I struggled to understand how a team that had performed reasonably well on green pitches in recent times could bat so poorly. Agreed, the South Africans bowled incredibly well, still, 76 all out just didn't make any sense. This Kanpur pitch, if nothing else, has provided a way to compare the performance of the South African batsmen. In the first innings, faced with a dry, cracking pitch, their top order batsmen played to a plan, batted with purpose and at least for the first half of the innings tackled the spinners with ease. In the second innings though, the same batsmen seemed lost, struggled to score and looked baffled against spin!

I guess as a batsman, irrespective of how well you plan ahead and mentally prepare yourself for the kind of shots you need to play on a given surface, on alien conditions, it is indeed difficult to execute your plans effectively - sometimes you succeed, but sometimes you fail. The collapse was probably not due to lack of plan or application, but just a lack of experience playing quality pace bowling on such green-top pitches. And that makes those wins in Perth and Headingley even more incredible!

Kanpur Test interestingly poised

2008-04-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

The third Test match between India and South Africa is interestingly poised after India ended day two on 288r for nine - 23 runs more than the 265 the South Africans made on day one.

The crumbling pitch with uneven bounce made batting hard, but that was only until Laxman came in to bat. He batted with such elegance and composure that you wondered if he in fact relished such conditions! And just when it looked like he along with a very determined Dravid had tamed the conditions, both fell to totally unplayable deliveries from Morkel leaving India tattering at 123 for four.

And then Ganguly stepped in and took charge. He ran hard for the singles, rotated the strike, put away the bad balls, never missed an opportunity to score and remained unperturbed when the odd ball bounced or turned viciously missing his bat. In short, it was the perfect innings for the conditions. Though he missed a well deserved century, this innings of 87 should rank among the very best he has ever played. He was ably helped by cameos from Yuvraj and Dhoni; though Dhoni should be kicking himself for the moment of madness that ended his innings.

Two days, 553 runs and 19 wickets later, the match is still evenly balanced with neither side holding any distinctive advantage. After a rather dull two Test matches at Chennai and Ahmedabad, it has taken a dry and deteriorating pitch to produce two consecutive days of fascinating cricket!

Kaif to replace Sachin

2008-03-30T14:31:00.001-07:00

Sachin Tendulkar has been ruled out of the second Test against South Africa after aggravating a groin injury. As I said earlier, he should have been rested for this series in the first place. I mean, how hard could it have been for the selectors to pull up Sachin and say - "Sachin, you have been terrific all through this tour of Australia, and as a reward, you get a paid time off until after the series against South Africa. No, don't worry about the team, we are going to pull in Yuvraj to replace you and he along with his teammates should be able to cover for you. And, if they cannot, well, someone will get fired! So, now go on, relax, recuperate and enjoy your time off.". I hope it is not a serious issue and that they would give him an extended break and keep him out of the third Test as well.

In a surprising move, the selectors have announced Mohammad Kaif to replace Sachin. He probably deserves his place based on his performances in domestic cricket, but again, why wasn't Karthik considered? As I said before the start of this series, he deserves another chance. Plus, picking him opens the possibility of resting Dhoni, who is possibly the most overworked player in the team. Anyway, it doesn't matter much as realistically, Sachin's replacement is not going to make it to the playing XI.

It is now almost certain that Yuvraj would get to play; But, considering how the bowlers struggled in Chennai and that we are not going to see bowler friendly pitches, it is not a bad idea to pick a fifth bowler instead. Piyush Chawla or Irfan Pathan could be picked up, although Irfan might get in anyway to replace the off-color RP Singh.

Scintillating triple ton from Sehwag!

2008-03-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

Virender Sehwag treated the crowd to some scintillating batting, scoring the fastest triple century in Test history, at the M.A. Chidambram Stadium in Chennai yesterday. What an exhilarating joy ride it was - stroke after scorching stroke flowed from his bat all day long as he scored more than 250 runs in a single day! And, nothing could stop him really, not even Paul Harris' tactic of bowling well outside leg. He either stepped out and drove inside out or reverse swept - one almost going for a six - never once slowing down. This innings will be remembered as much for the simplicity of his 'I see ball, I hit ball' temperament as the audaciousness of his stroke play for a very long time!

It's hard to pick out a couple of shots as the best when his whole innings - filled with 41 fours and five sixes - was like a highlights package! But, a couple of moments stood out for me. One was when he just stood in the crease and cut a good length ball on the off stump behind point for four and Arun Lal in the commentary box exclaimed - "Coaches tell you to get to the pitch of the ball; if you did that, you could never put that ball away for four!". That shot summarized Sehwag's game - his talent lies not in sound technique, but in backing his blessed hand-eye coordination with good shot selection. He rarely moves his feet, but, when in form, stays beautifully balanced.

The other was the last over before tea. Most batsmen would be content to play safe the last couple of overs before a break, especially if they had just scored a double century in blistering hot conditions, but not Sehwag - he clobbered Ntini for 15 runs in the over, including a smashing four off the last ball and nonchalantly walked back to the pavilion. That attitude showcased his simple approach to batting - playing every ball on its merit, without worrying too much about what had happened before or what is going to happen next.

With good support from Jaffer and Dravid, he has turned the match around and put India in a position of strength. With two more days of play left, the Indians can force a win from here, but, will they?

Squad for South Africa Test series

2008-03-23T20:35:00.001-07:00

The Indians have announced their squad for the first two Tests of the series against South Africa. Unlike the last time when they made some bold changes to the ODI team, this time the selectors decided to stick with the tried and tested. Though nothing different was expected, three players could consider themselves unlucky.

Gautam Gambhir - After an exceptional outing in the Twenty20 world cup and an outstanding run in the recent CB series, he is knocking on the doors of Test cricket. More than the amount of runs, the way he has scored them is impressive. He has a good technique, handles both pace and spin with aplomb, and seems an ideal fit at number three.

But, with two strong contenders for the number three spot - Dravid and Laxman - already in the team, he has to miss out. Another option might be to pick him as an opener; but, there again Sehwag is in good form and though Jaffer did not fare as well in Australia, it's just wrong to drop him after just one mediocre series, especially considering the valuable contributions he made all through 2007. It's just truly unfortunate for Gambhir that he cannot make it to the team when in such a good form!

Yuvraj Singh - Though he has been included in the squad of 14, realistically, he stands no chance of breaking in to the playing XI barring injuries. Agreed, he failed to use his opportunity in Australia to seal a place in the side, but one more chance for such a talented player is not such a bad idea. If the selectors really believe that he is the future of Indian batting, then he needs to be picked more regularly in the team now - when he has a chance to flourish without the burden of pressure - than later.

But, the question is who does he replace? I think Tendulkar could have been rested for this series. Obviously not because of lack of form, but because he truly needs to rest. As much as I would love to see Tendulkar bat in every match, I would rather see him take some deserved breaks in an effort to prolong his career. While he is too important a player to be rested for an away series this could have been the perfect opportunity to give him a break.

Dinesh Karthik - Well, he has not done anything spectacular to present his case, but he hasn't done anything wrong either. After losing his place as a wicket-keeper to Dhoni a couple of years ago, he forced his way back in to the team as a specialist middle-order batsman and adjusted reasonably well as an opener. After a mediocre series against Pakistan and not making it to the playing XI in Australia, he now finds himself being cast away! If Yuvraj deserves a place after his debacle in Australia, then Karthik too deserves another chance.

With Sehwag back in form, it is that much difficult for Karthik to get back as an opener. So, what should he do now? Should he go back and try to work his way in as a middle-order batsman or should he continue to hope for a spot as an opener? Will he work his way back in the team or just fade away like those other short-term openers like Sanjay Bangar, Sadagopan Ramesh, SS Das and Akash Chopra? Only time will tell.

Madras Filter Coffee

2008-03-21T12:20:00.001-07:00

There is nothing better than a good cup of coffee to kick start your day. And, as a South Indian, when I say coffee I mean the traditional Madras filter coffee!

While the taste for filter coffee is easy to acquire, mastering the art of making one is not so easy. Working the traditional filter to make the decoction needs a lot of practice and plenty of patience. And, of course you cannot use a coffee maker as it is intended for use with coarse ground coffee, while the traditional filter coffee is made with fine ground coffee.

Then, one day while sipping a café latte at Starbucks, I realized how similar it was to the filter coffee; I mean, both are made with concentrated coffee (espresso for the latte and decoction for filter coffee), milk and a little foam on top! A little research and $200 later, I ended with a shiny new espresso machine that makes perfect decoction (or rather, espresso) every time within minutes and without the hassle!

So, now I enjoy my Leo coffee every morning - Italian style! Truly, 'kaalathai vendra rasanai idhuvae'!

Team India - The Next Generation

2008-03-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

By winning the CB series, India's next generation of cricketers have proved that they have the technique and temperament to compete with the best. Here is my review of the players in batting order -

Robin Uthappa - Showcased his hard-hitting capabilities while chasing 318 for a victory against Australia in the league phase, but otherwise had an average series. He seems ideal at number 6, but in a Team packed with low order hitters, he will miss out if the team goes in with five bowlers unless he is willing to adjust his game as an opener. He proved that he has the temperament to be an opener when he curbed his aggressive style and gave India a solid start along with Tendulkar in the final. Remains to be seen if he can develop in to a solid opener who can mix caution with aggression and provide the team with consistent good starts.

Virender Sehwag - I strongly believe that though he should be a sure pick for opening in Tests, he has been too inconsistent in recent times to be considered an automatic pick in one dayers. After the first few games in the league phase, Dhoni quickly recognized him as the extra batsman in the team and rightly kept him out for the rest of the series. Robin Uthappa should be given an extended run as first choice opener, with Sehwag as cover for the openers in case of injury. If the pitch conditions demand an extra batsman instead of the fifth bowler, then Sehwag is an ideal pick as he can also bowl off breaks.

Sachin Tendulkar - The fact that at 35, after 18 years of cricket, he is even in this next generation team tells a story doesn't it? Clearly his experience at the top of the order adds stability to the team. He started the series with a string of fluent 30s followed by single digit scores in three games and just when the critics were getting ready to slaughter him, roared back to form with a cracking 63 in the must win game against Sri Lanka. He then took charge in the finals and led the team to victory. If his sublime innings of 117* in the first final was a perfect example of a well paced chase, his 91 in the second final was another magnificent innings grafted patiently against tight bowling and extremely good fielding. Who can ever forget those beautiful upper cuts he executed off Mitchell Johnson's bouncers! Irrespective of age, he still is India's best ODI batsman and in fact ended the series rated as the no.1 batsman in the ICC ODI rankings.

Gautam Gambhir - Was the most consistent batsman for India through the series; topped the batting charts for the series with 440 runs at an average of 55.00 and a strike rate of 82.70; and his beautifully paced 113 against Australia that almost took India to victory was the best innings by an Indian in the tournament! Ferocious cuts and pulls are his trademark shots, but he also showed nimble footwork against Murali's off spin. He sure has grabbed the number three spot for himself. He, more than Yuvraj deserves a place in the Test XI.

Rohit Sharma - Impressed everyone with his compact technique and athletic fielding abilities. Seemed capable of playing both in aggressive mode and in accumulation mode, but fell several times to casual strokes. Surely talented, but, needs to be seen if he has the mental strength to develop in a to consistent middle order batsman.

Yuvraj Singh - He was touted as India's best bat and expected to marshal the inexperienced middle order, but his horrid run continued in the one day series as well. Except for the delightful 76 against Sri Lanka wherein he showed how devastating a batsman he can be, and a quick 38 in the final he had a very ordinary series.

MS Dhoni - Known for his outrageous shots and hard-hitting capabilities, he never really got a chance to showcase his firebrand style of cricket. Instead, with the top order failing too many times, he found himself in situations where he needed to rebuild the innings and accumulate runs. By suitably adjusting his game, he has proved that he is a versatile batsman. Particularly, the 88 he accumulated in the washed out match against Sri Lanka and the 50* he made, also against the Sri Lanka, without hitting a single boundary were well crafted innings. But more than his batting, he impressed everyone with this captaincy. Having gotten the team he wanted, he marshaled the players very well. If I were to pick one decision that highlighted his captaincy, its the one he made regarding Sehwag. With the batting collapsing a few times, he dropped Sehwag and instead brought in the extra bowler. By reinforcing the bowling, he took pressure off the batting and this five bowler strategy, I think was crucial in India eventually winning the tournament.

Irfan Pathan - Pathan, the batsman never got going - it did not help that the captain sent him in at number three a several times - except for that 31 in the must win match against Sri Lanka; Pathan, the bowler started the series well, but lost his edge as the series wore on. He is a decent swing bowler who can be very good if conditions suit him and a capable number seven batsman and when in form allows the team to go in confidently with a five bowler attack. I never understood the ploy of using him at number three - in good batting conditions, there is no point in sending him ahead of specialist batsmen, and in difficult batting conditions, he doesn't have the technique to cope! Dhoni should use him wisely and make sure that he is not over worked.

Harbhajan Singh - He overcame controversies and crowd hostility to consistently choke the runs in the middle overs and picked up some important wickets as well.

Ishant Sharma - The find of the series, no question about it! Bowled beautifully in the test series and emerged as India's strike bowler in the one dayers. He bowls fast, extracts good bounce, swings both ways and has the stamina to bowl long spells - what more can you ask for! We can only hope that he doesn't fades away like many other Indian bowlers (think Balaji, Nehra and even Pathan & Munaf who aren't nearly as lethal as they once promised - at least not consistently) in recent times.

Praveen Kumar - The surprise package of the tournament, he was the man of the match in both the must win game against Sri Lanka and the final! To say that he played a major role in India winning the series is an understatement - another wonderful prospect for Team India.

Munaf Patel, Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla - Each played their part in one match or the other. But, Sreesanth has a tendency to blow hot & cold, and Munaf is injury prone & a poor fielder. It's to Dhoni credit that he managed them well all through the series. Unless they step up their game to justify their talent, they are sure to lose their spots to Zaheer and RP Singh when they return.

Zaheer Khan, RP Singh - These two were expected to be India's front line bowlers, but both were out to injury.

Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary - Not too long ago Dinesh Karthik and Suresh Raina were touted to be the future of India's middle order, but Rohit Sharma and Uthappa have beaten them to the team. Though they did not get a game in the series, whenever they came on the field as substitute fielders, one could feel the enthusiasm they brought to the team. The fact that these guys are waiting in the bench should drive those in the team to always be at their best, and that is good for Indian cricket!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

It's the 14th of February today and it's time to celebrate love and express your affection for that special someone in your life; unless, of course, you are single and alone or a Shiv Sena activist! Yes, the 'Sainiks' were out this year again, burning cards and protesting the holiday.

Though celebrating Valentine's Day is a very recent phenomenon in India, unlike many other western imports (fast food joints, big box retailers etc.), it's a much welcome import. A land that gave us the Kama Sutra and that quintessential expression of love - Taj Mahal - had somewhere down the line lost its tradition of love. Any overt expression of love became frowned upon. And, I am not even talking about love before marriage; I am talking about married couples having to repress expressing their love for each other! Except for honeymoon couples in holiday spots, how many couples hold each other's hands in public? How many parents hug or otherwise be romantic at home in front of their kids?

Looking beyond the commercial aspects of the holiday, the underlying spirit of expressing love is definitely worth celebrating (and much needed) in India. In fact, more than youngsters, it provides an opportunity for the older generation to finally express their affection for each other a little bit more openly. If my grandmother buys my grandfather a Valentine's card, would the 'Sainiks' rip it out of her hands and burn it? I think not!

What Not to Wear

2008-02-03T12:43:00.001-08:00

When I first heard that the appropriateness of actress Shreya's attire at a recent function in Chennai was discussed with fervor in Tamil Nadu , I wondered if that show on TV where two oddly dressed gay guys and a hot girl discuss celebrity fashion (Fashion Police on E!), has now gone global to Kollywood as well. But, apparently it was the state's politicians who were discussing the subject and that too in the state assembly!

To be honest, she was the only one who was appropriately dressed for the occasion. I mean, it's a movie function after all and it's supposed to be about glitz and glamour. Amidst all those somber looking guests, she was the only one who was even smiling!

On a serious note, while the new generation of young Indians are leading the nation to a brave new world, incidents like these expose the narrow-minded social chauvinism that is still prevalent. What's more bothering is the fact that no major social organization came in support of the actress. Whatever happened to editorials and opinion columns in newspapers? Where are those feminists and women's organizations? Shouldn't the movie fraternity have come out in support of her? The only voice of protest has been from individuals in blogs and online forums. Why is that people who burn effigies of umpires for giving a wrong decision against their favorite cricket player, keep quiet when the very concept of democracy is threatened? Some might think that I am overreacting; after all nothing came off the issue, but, if we don't question such attitude, we will never end it.

Similar to the IT revolution that has changed the economic outlook of the country; we need a social revolution to bring in the next generation of politicians to better represent the new India.

Harbhajan race row - case closed

2008-01-31T23:11:00.001-08:00

Finally, there is some closure to the Harbhajan Singh racism controversy after Judge John Hansen cleared him of the racial abuse charge, and instead penalized him for using abusive language. The full text of Hansen's judgement can be found here.

Compared to how Mike Procter, the ICC match referee handled the same case, Hansen seems to have approached the issue much more methodically and sensibly. He has documented the evidence, explained his analysis and justified his conclusions, leaving no room for debate. If only Mike Procter had handled the issue similarly, there wouldn't have been so much drama!

Earlier, when Harbhajan was first banned, I had blogged that though Harbhajan should be punished, he shouldn't be named a racist. Echoing similar sentiments, Judge Hansen in his report says -

"...But in my view even if he had used the words “alleged” an “ordinary person” standing in the shoes of Mr Symonds who had launched an unprovoked and unnecessary invective laden attack would not be offended or insulted or humiliated in terms of 3.3..."

He is essentially implying that even if Harbhajan had used the word 'monkey', he still would have cleared him off the racial abuse charge!

Tendulkar delights India with his 39th test hundred!

2008-01-24T01:03:00.001-08:00

Sachin Tendulkar's yet another commanding century was the highlight of the first day's play in the 4th test match between India and Australia at the Adelaide Oval. He started off slowly, but once past 50, dazzled with some magnificent strokes, especially against Brad Hogg.

Coming in with a pre-meditated intent to attack Hogg, the early part of his innings was dominated by cuts, slog sweeps and a huge hit over midwicket for six. But, past 50, his feet started moving better and he unleashed those superb drives straight down the wicket. Particularly severe on Hogg and Michael Clarke, his straight six off Clarke and subsequent cover drive for four that took him to his 39th hundred were the shots of his innings today.

Riding on Tendulkar's 124* and half-centuries from Sehwag (63) & Laxman (51), India have reached 309 at the end of play, but with Australia scalping 5 wickets on a good batting pitch with some outstanding bowling from Brett Lee, the match is evenly poised.

India would be hoping for Tendulkar(124*) and Dhoni (6*) to get them past 400 and that depends on how well they handle the new ball on day 2. Australia would want to end this partnership as early as possible and run through the tail. Either way, day two promises some exciting cricket!

India stops Australia short of 17th win at Perth!

2008-01-19T16:29:00.001-08:00

Australia's bid for a record 17th straight test match win was brought to a halt by India at the WACA in Perth. India convincingly beat Australia in what must rank as one of their greatest wins ever! On a pitch where nobody gave them a chance, with a second string bowling attack, coming off a heart breaking last minute loss at the SCG, this win was a tremendous team effort!

Here are the highlights of the match -

Anil Kumble winning the toss and choosing to bat - With so much talk about how the pitch is going to be fast and bouncy, and Australia bringing in Shaun Tait to go in with a 4 pace attack, it would have been the easy decision to bowl first. But, Kumble took the tough choice, which paid rich dividends at the end.

Tendulkar and Dravid's partnership - Kumble's call to bat first paid off mainly due to the partnership between Tendulkar and Dravid. Dravid back at his no.3 spot, played a wonderful innings, but, it was Tendulkar's inventive stroke play that was the highlight of the partnership.

Pathan, RP Singh and Sharma's bowling - India's second choice attack (all three played only because of injuries to Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and Munaf Patel), instead of trying to exploit the pace of the wicket, played to their strengths - keeping the ball up and swinging. Theirs was the most consistent pace bowling by India in recent times, swinging the match India's way.

Laxman's partnership with Dhoni and RP Singh - With the big 3 failing in the 2nd innings, Australians were with a real chance to get back in the game, but ran in to VVS Laxman. With runs worth their value in gold, he patiently grafted every run in the company of Dhoni and later with RP Singh. Dhoni too, curbed his natural style and knuckled down to scrapping every run possible. This was one of the most determined batting efforts by India in recent times. To me, this was the most intense and definitive passage of play in the whole match - ugly to watch, but beautiful in intent.

Ishant Sharma vs. Ricky Ponting - What a wonderful passage of play this was - a rookie troubling one of the most accomplished batsmen in this era! Excellent pace bowling by Ishant had Ponting missing, fending, swaying, hopping, mistiming and finally edging to Dravid.

Michael Clarke's innings - Clarke exemplified the Australian winning attitude. Batting with confidence and controlled aggression, he lead Australia's charge towards an improbable win. While he was at the crease, an upset was definitely on the cards.

Sehwag bowling out Gilchrist - With Clarke batting fluently and the new ball due in 10 overs, Gilchrist was preparing to launch an assault - he had just brought out his squash ball and stuffed it in to his left glove (remember the world cup 2007 final?). In an inspired move (or, maybe just lucky!), Kumble tossed the ball to Sehwag and he obliged bowling out Gilchrist around this legs, exposing the Australian tail and snubbing out any chance of an Australian win.

Tendulkar - Masterful!

2008-01-16T06:21:00.000-08:00

Rahul Dravid, who looked totally out of sorts as opener at the MCG, was slowly but steadily batting himself into form at the SCG and today at Perth, back at his usual no.3 spot, he finally found his groove and hit some glorious shots - especially through covers, on his way to a composed 93 that helped India reach 297 at the end of day 1. Though, a loss of quick wickets towards the end means Australia holds a slight advantage in the contest.

But, it was Tendulkar's innings of 71 that set the match up for India. Coming in with the score reading 2-59, he showed urgency in running, looked composed, and generally showed positive intent from the beginning. But, the way he adjusted his game to the Australians' tactics of bowling short to him was the highlight of his innings. He stayed well balanced and swayed out of the short balls on the middle and leg; but, anything short and wide was cut fiercely over gully and the slip region. One shot in particular stood out - in the 32nd over, Lee bowled a short one at 145km/hr, Tendulkar swayed out of the way, and as the ball was about to pass him over, gently guided it over slips for four. An exquisite shot, minimal in effort, and delightful to watch!

Contrast this with his innings in the 2nd test match in the series against England last year, where not in the best of form, he still managed to score a very useful 91, which along with contributions from the openers and a very good spell of fast bowling from Zaheer Khan helped India secure a win. Then, unsure of his form, he handled the short pitched bowling very differently - he swayed, ducked or left the short balls and many times took blows to his body rather than trying to pull or hook. He showed great humility and determination not to fall prey to England's tactics, eschewing shots he wasn't confident of executing right. And, of course when the ball was full, he dispatched it magnificently through covers.

This ability to adjust his game to different situations is what makes him a true master.

Team for the Perth Test

2008-01-13T21:32:00.001-08:00

Yuvraj Singh's failure in India's warm up match against ACT Invitational XI has essentially ruled him out of the team for the rest of the series. Unable to replicate his ODI form, he has scored a meager twenty eight runs in four matches - so much for shuffling the batting order around to accommodate him in the eleven. He must be disappointed that he couldn't use the opportunity to cement a spot in the team after being in the sidelines for so long.

Another player who has been struggling for runs in the series so far is Jaffer. He has fallen in all the four test innings so far to Lee's scorching pace. Though he scored a useful 92 in the practice match, it wasn't a confident innings and on a fast bouncy pitch in Perth, he could be a liability. It is a tough call to drop him - he was in very good form all through 2007 and still should be India's first choice opener. But, with Sehwag exhibiting some form - he scored a typically aggressive 73 ball century in the practice match; it's worth a gamble to try him as an opener at Perth.

Yuvraj's replacement Karthik offers a couple of options. One option is to play him as the other opener and restore the middle order back - Dravid at three and Laxman at six. The other option is to keep Dravid as the other opener and play Karthik at six. With Laxman being so fluent at three and Dravid settling in to the role of an opener after a horrid match at the MCG, the latter option sounds better.

As for the bowlers, Kumble, Ishant and RP Singh select themselves. With Perth promising to be a fast and bouncy pitch, Pathan should be brought in for Harbhajan.

With that, here is my team for the Perth Test -

Virender Sehwag
Rahul Dravid
VVS Laxman
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
Dinesh Karthik
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble
RP Singh
Ishant Sharma

The Sydney Test

2008-01-11T21:37:00.001-08:00

Stumbled upon this excellent summary of the controversial events of the Sydney Test - "The Most Discussable Match".

Harbhajan Singh a racist?

2008-01-07T10:21:00.001-08:00

Harbhajan Singh has been banned for three test matches effectively cutting short his Australian tour after he was found guilty of racism for calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey" during the second test match of the ongoing India-Australia test series. In the words of Mike Procter the match referee - "I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Harbhajan Singh directed that word at Andrew Symonds and also that he meant it to offend on the basis of Symonds' race or ethnic origin."

A three match ban for calling someone a monkey?! And how in hell did it constitute racism?! I mean I call my daughter a "naughty little monkey" as an endearment! At first glance the complaint itself sounds silly and the punishment unfair. But, there is some history to this story - when the Australians toured India in Oct 2007, Symonds was called a monkey by certain sections of the crowd first in Vadodara and later in Mumbai and Symonds took offence to that as being racist. Then too there was a debate as to whether to interpret the crowd's behavior as a racial comment or merely as a playful taunt to Symonds' perceived boorish antics. We would never know what those people were really thinking when they were taunting him, but we definitely know for sure how Symonds felt - insulted, humiliated and a victim of racism. And that by itself is reason enough to stop calling him that. While it is highly arguable that the crowd behavior in Vadodara wasn't racist, it's a separate debate; Once Symonds explicitly took offense to that behavior as being racist, it is reasonable to expect any decent human being to stop insulting him like that. The Mumbai crowd didn't, and hence their behavior inexcusable. And for the same reason, Harbhajan's behavior is also inexcusable.

Does this mean Harbhajan is a racist? No, I don't think so. There was a lot of chirping from the Australians when Harbhajan was batting and it is totally plausible that Symonds said or did something to really offend Harbhajan and Harbhajan responded in kind. I believe Harbhajan called Symonds a monkey not because of his ethnicity or race but because he knew it would tick him off. So, while I agree with Mike Procter punishing Harbhajan, I am not convinced that "he (Harbhajan) meant it to offend on the basis of Symonds' race or ethnic origin".

On the other hand, this incident should have never escalated up to the match referee in the first place. Every team sledges, Australians more so than others; and every individual has his own level of tolerance for what is over the limit and what is within (remember the jelly bean incident with Zaheer Khan?). If the Australians felt that Harbhajan was crossing the line, they should have first tried to work things out by talking to the Indian captain off field instead of running to the umpires. Aren't they the ones who advocate the "what's said in the field remains in the field" argument? Its just shameful that an issue which could have been easily solved over a couple of beers has been escalated to a player being banned.

The tail wags, but....

2008-01-03T23:15:00.001-08:00

The Indian batting lineup redeemed itself at the SCG after a dismal performance at the MCG, riding high on VVS Laxman's glorious 109 and Sachin Tendulkar's sublime 154*. But once again, India's tactics while batting with the tail was baffling to say the least and this time it was Tendulkar who was the culprit. His strategy of trusting the tailenders and sharing equal strike with them worked pretty well with Harbhajan, who scored a very useful 63. And that partnership between them essentially enabled India to get closer to Australia's score and eventually go past it.

Once Harbhajan got out, one expected Tendulkar to take charge, farm the strike and be more aggressive. But, Tendulkar was happy to rotate the strike around to both RP Singh and Ishant Sharma, both of whom outscored Tendulkar in their partnerships! Agreed, Ponting made things harder by pulling back the field when Tendulkar was facing the bowling and bringing the field in for the last 2 balls of an over; but, it was frustrating to see Tendulkar neither show any intent to protect the tail nor be aggressive in scoring runs. Its to the tailenders credit that they were able to last longer than expected.

Nevertheless it was a controlled, well-paced, expert innings from Tendulkar, who after a couple of near misses in 2007 has scored his 38th test hundred - an innings that has put India on top...for now.

Boxing Day Test: Dravid to open?

2007-12-25T01:45:00.001-08:00

The eagerly awaited Boxing Day Test between India and Australia is almost here and based on the team that they fielded in the practice match against Victoria, it seems almost certain that Yuvraj would play at the expense of Kartik with Dravid opening the batting alongside Jaffer.

While it may seem fair to Yuvraj who has been knocking the doors of the team for quite some time now, and has quite literally barged his way in riding on a masterful 169 against Pakistan, it is quite unfortunate for Kartik who excelled as opener in the series against England a couple of months ago. Agreed, Kartik didn't make any meaningful contributions in the recent series against Pakistan, but much of that was due to the enormous pressure exerted on him by the voices questioning the validity of Yuvraj warming the bench, and I think he deserves another chance.

And, Yuvraj's entry in the middle order means Dravid has to open the innings with Jaffer. One might argue that Dravid on numerous occasions has come in to bat at three within the first 10 overs and hence it isn't a far stretch for him to open. It isn't far but it is still a stretch! Being a team man, Dravid has said that he is willing to make the adjustment to be an opener, but again, I repeat, it is still an adjustment and it is not going to be easy. While it might be easy to move up and down the middle order, it is not easy to change roles - opener to middle order or vice versa. If it was easy, then he would have excelled as an opener much earlier in his career; Sachin would have excelled coming in at four in the 2007 World Cup. If it is easy, I would rather have Sachin and Ganguly open the innings, drop Jaffer and get a fifth bowler in! Now, that looks like a winning team on paper, and that's exactly what it is - a dream team in theory, but one that wouldn't work in practice. Also, the Indian middle order has revolved around the solidity that Dravid provides batting at three. Why compromise that in such a crucial and tough tour?

So, my choice of openers for the match are Jaffer and Kartik. As for Yuvraj, he is a fighting for a spot in the middle order and though very unfortunate, there just isn't any room for him in the team at this moment.

My Indian team for the Boxing Day Test at the MCG -

Wasim Jaffer
Dinesh Karthik
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly
VVS Laxman
MS Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan
RP Singh

Batting with the tail

2007-11-30T22:26:00.000-08:00

India has won the first test match against Pakistan and VVS Laxman's partnership with MS Dhoni had much influence on the outcome. But, consider this - when Dhoni got out exposing the tail, Laxman had scored 49 runs off 89 balls. One would expect a specialist batsman in this situation to try and farm the strike as much as possible, facing at least 3 or 4 balls per over. But, by the time the innings wrapped up, Laxman had faced only a further 45 balls scoring 23 runs, while the tail enders had faced 89 balls to score 45 runs - that translates to just 2 balls per over being faced by Laxman! Its even more baffling if you consider when the tailenders got out - Harbhajan Singh takes a single off the last ball of the 75th over and gets out the first ball of over 76; Laxman takes a single off the 1st ball of over 79 and both Zaheer Khan & Munaf Patel get out the same over leaving Laxman stranded on 72!

Contrast that with the previous instance when a specialist Indian batsman batted with the tail through the end of the innings - when Dhoni did it in the first test match between India and England in July 2007. In that innings, after Laxman fell, Dhoni scored 39 runs off 71 balls with the tail scoring 9 off 49 balls - that translates to a much better 3.5 balls per over being faced by Dhoni.

It is probably not fair to judge Laxman based on one match, but it would be interesting to compare his career statistics when batting with the tail against other number 6 batsmen.

Tendulkar vs Ponting

2007-11-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

During the current ODI series between India and Pakistan, an "expert" panel on TV was discussing the current form of Tendulkar. Though everyone agreed that he was India's best player on current form, one of them questioned his performance compared to Ponting. He opined that Tendulkar has scored heavily through 50s and 90s, but is not as consistent as Ponting. I was curious about the validity of his remarks and checked out the ODI batting statistics for Tendulkar and Ponting in the last 2 years (from 1/1/2006 - 11/18/2007).

	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
Tendulkar	49	2053	141*	46.65	3	16
Ponting	47	1981	164	49.52	5	14

courtesy - www.cricinfo.com

As one can see, there is literally nothing that separates the two. This has been the story of Tendulkar the last few seasons. There are few critics out there who speak with a stubborn attitude that he is past his prime and try to justify their views by ignoring the facts. Shouldn't these "experts" be held accountable for their statements?

Dravid focusing on his batting...

2007-10-18T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dravid's ODI career batting statistics -

	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
Career	333	10585	153	39.49	12	81
As Captain	79	2658	105	42.19	2	25

Dravid's ODI statistics in the last 20 games he captained -

Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
20	561	92*	40.07	0	5

Dravid's ODI statistics after he quit captaincy -

Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	100	50
6	51	31	10.20	0	0

Reason given by Dravid for quitting captaincy - to focus on his batting!

Shouldn't read too much in to this, but couldn't help chuckling!

- statistics courtesy of www.cricinfo.com

Indian cricket needs a rotation policy

2007-10-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Indian cricket is at a crossroad or so it seems. Most critics seem to want a younger team. One day cricket is a young man's game and there is no place for the aging seniors who are past their prime, they say. And there are others who point out that India's one day game still largely depends on the big three. Tendulkar is the only Indian batsman in the top 10 of ICC's batting list; Ganguly has aggregated the most runs so far this year; Dravid, though going through a lean patch, is still a formidable bat. Performance, not age should be the criteria for selection, they argue.

To be honest, both are right. Yes, we are dependent on the big three, but they cannot go on forever. Pretty soon they are going to hang their boots, no question about it. We need younger players to take their place. But, I don't think there are any young batsmen currently in waiting that can match their skills. Sure, they are fearless, aggressive, strong, athletic, confident, eager to prove themselves and very exciting prospects, but, none of them is a Sachin, at least not yet.

So, what do we do about this dilemma? Should we continue with the seniors and later when they retire, be left with a young team with good prospects but no experience? Or should we just drop the seniors, invest in a young team and hope that with some experience they would go on to deliver on their expectations? Fortunately, we don't have to pick either of these extremes. As the BCCI itself announced for the Ind-Aus series, rotating the players is the best way to go. Although BCCI announced its intention to rotate, it didn't spell out any details as to how, when and who they would be rotating.

Well, this is my attempt to formulate a rotation policy. First, we need to spell out the goal - what do we hope to achieve through a rotation policy? As I see it, the problem is that we have three aging but terrific cricketers, who may not be at the peak of their powers, but are still good enough to make it to team. But, by persisting with them are we denying some deserving youngster who given the chance might play better? Given the reluctance of the seniors themselves to walk away and without any obvious reason to drop them, how do we find out if the players in waiting are better than the ones that are currently in? The youngsters have been given some chances this season, but not very regularly. Plus, their performance cannot be compared accurately. How do you compare the 40s that Uthappa makes in the 3 games he gets to play vs an average of 45 that Ganguly makes playing 30 games which could very well include a string of 0s followed by a big hundred? Also, when a youngster do gets a chance, he is under enormous pressure to perform as he never knows if he would get another chance. Unless the guy is as talented as say, Sachin, the odds of him proving himself better are pretty slim! So, we need a rotation policy to compare the performance of the juniors with the seniors. Also, we need to know if the youngsters we are placing our bets on can really deliver on their expectations. If they can't, we need to know soon, before the fab 3 retire! Otherwise, we would end up with un unproven and totally inexperienced team. With these as the goals, lets proceed.

First, lets figure out the pool of competing players at hand for the various batting positions. Lets start with the openers - Tendulkar and Ganguly. The players vying to take their positions are Gambhir and Sehwag. We should slate Yuvraj and Dhoni at number 4 and 5 respectively and leave them alone. So, for slots 3 and 6 we have Dravid, Kartik, Rohit Sharma (maybe Badrinath and Manoj Tiwary deserve an outside chance, but, I think they would have to wait a little longer). No, I haven't missed Uthappa. I think he needs to be tried both as an opener and a middle-order batsman. Pathan is perfect at no.7, at least when he is in form! We need to find a couple of more players that fit the all-rounder bill to challenge him. Until then, we are stuck with Pathan at 7 and hope that he stays in form. So, there you have it, our pool of batting contenders. I am not going to talk about the bowlers - I don't think we have enough of a talent pool there! Plus, they rotate themselves out every few matches with either an injury or horribly bad form!

So, we have 8 batsmen competing for 4 slots (1, 2, 3 and 6). I think the best way to rotate the players is to come up with an open policy upfront and stick with it. We can't carry 4 extra batsmen in a team of 15. So, the first job is to whittle one down. The easiest (or the hardest, depending on how you look at it) way is to rest one of the big three for each ODI series that we play. We can probably start with Dravid as he is going through a lean patch anyway and rotate out the other 2 similarly. Now, that we have a manageable pool, the next task is to pick the number of games a player would get before being rotated out. I think 3 games is a good stretch. We need to make sure that at least one senior is always played to make sure the team is not totally without experience. Since, we have already rested one of them, the other 2 seniors playing in a series should rotate themselves out every 2 or 3 games. Now that leaves 3 slots open for the juniors and 5 of them competing for it. Again, we apply the same rule - everybody gets 2 or 3 games in a stretch before being rotated out. For example, if we rested Dravid for the next series, then the rotation could be something like below -

Sachin & Gambhir opening for 3 games; rotated out with Ganguly & Sehwag for the next 3
Kartik & Rohit making up the middle order for 3 games; with Uthappa rotating out one of them for the next 3.

And for the following series, Ganguly would be rested and the rotation would be -

Sachin & Gambhir opening for 3 games; rotated out with Uthappa & Sehwag for the next 3
Dravid & Kartik making up the middle order for 3 games; with Rohit rotating one of them out for the next 3

And so on.

If we stick with this rotation policy irrespective of results, playing conditions, and form of the players, after a season, we can easily compare the performance of all the players. Everyone would have played almost the same number of games. Nobody would have any extra pressure to perform as every player knows he would get another chance and more importantly that he would get the same chances as everybody else. Now, with the data in hand, we can easily figure out who deserves a permanent place in the team and who doesn't belong here. And maybe if there are still batting slots open for competition or if the seniors are still going strong then we can bring in the Badrinaths and Tiwarys to the pool and continue with the rotation for the remaining slots.

There you have it, my rotation policy for the Indian batting lineup. This policy makes sure that the seniors get a break; the youngsters don't just get a chance but chances.; nobody is worrying about being dropped; enough time for everybody to plan for their game; the selectors and captain don't have to scratch their heads trying to figure out how to 'rest' the seniors; there is healthy competition among the players; and best of all its fair and consistent.

Sure, there are downsides - we could be rotating out in-form players with players out of form and with the possibility that our strongest team may not be playing every game, we are bound to lose a few matches. We should remember though that winning is not our immediate goal; identifying the winning team is. Hopefully, with all the churning, the cream would float to the top, just in time to replace the fabulous three. Then, winning would naturally follow.