India vs Pakistan

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?

Bowlers lose it for India

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?

Another Final, Another Loss!

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.

Kitply Cup - anybody interested?

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.

Batting with the tail

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.