India - Sri Lanka Test Cricket; Paul Predicts !

I went to Facebook to ask Paul the Octopus about future of Indian Cricket and he gave me this report !

India Sri Lanka third test drawn. Sri Lanka retain the Rubber they won in 2010.

Colombo, 1 April 2013: Third Test between India and Sri Lanka drawn. Replying to India's first innings score of 1002 / 4 Declared, Sri Lanka made 1278 / 3 at Tea on Day-5. This is the 14th successive drawn test between the two countries since the Candy Test win for Sri Lanka in 2010.

Play was called off because all the Indian bowlers were exhausted. Ishant Sharma, Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha were admitted to a Colombo Hospital for saline infusions. Harbhajan Singh, who went wicket-less in the series announced his decision to retire from Test Cricket from the hospital bed.

Virendar Sehwag set a new record for bowling maximum number of overs in an innings by a non-regular bowler. His figures of 57-0-209-0 were the most economical in the test.

Mahela Jayavardene broke his own record for the highest score in a test innings. He had made 416 in the previous drawn test at Candy. Here he scored 432 not out with the help of 57 fours and 7 sixes.

This is the first occasion when three batsmen scored over 300 runs in a test. Earlier Sehwag had scored 307 and Kumar Sangakkara had made 301 before he was run out by India's fifteenth man Amit Mishra. India had 4 substitute fielders on field for most part of day-5.

India made a request to the Umpires to allow anyone from the galleries to field for them. Umpires did not allow this request. But they allowed Coach Gary Kirsten to substitute for substitute fielder Murali Vijay who collapsed at the long-leg boundary.

Sri Lanka Captain wanted the Umpires to allow India to use their substitute bowlers to bowl so that Mahela could complete his 500. But the Umpires refused citing the ICC guidelines which allowed only the first 11 players to bowl.

Jayavardene won the Man of the Match award. He was also declared the Man of the Series for scoring a monumental 1013 runs in the 3 test series. This is an all-time record. He also held three catches that were offered by Indian batsmen in the whole series and was declared the Best Fielder.

Sachin Tendulkar added 2 more centuries to his kitty to record 63 Test hundreds. His tally of runs now stands at 17683 runs form 198 Tests. Cricket enthusiasts are now waiting eagerly for his 200th test. He is expected to reach the milestone against Sri Lanka later this year at Kanpur on 9 May 2013.

Suraj Randiv won the Best Bowler of the series for picking up 6 wickets in the series. This is the first time a bowler has managed to take more than 5 wickets in a 3 test series between India and Sri Lanka since Muralidharan retired in July 2010.

Zaheer Khan who missed the entire series due to a groin injury, announced his retirement from his home in Mumbai. He made a passionate plea to the ICC to allow substitute bowlers to bowl in Test matches to prevent further bowler burnouts.

He cited the premature retirements of Srisanth, R. P. Singh, Munaf Patel and R Ashwin after the previous India - Sri Lanka series. He also pointed out Lasith Malinga's decision to play only T-20 Cricket in future; which was due to repeated injuries suffered playing Test Cricket on subcontinental pitches.

Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Gary Kirsten and Arjuna Ranatunga have extended strong support to Zaheer Khan's suggestion. But Bishen Singh Bedi pooh poohed this suggestion and said bowlers were getting lazy these days. He said Harbhajan' s retirement was good riddance of a Chucker. He wanted the ICC to order bowlers to bowl without bending arms, legs or any part of their anatomy in future.

Sanath Jayasuriya made it clear that he was not going to retire any time soon and will play on till his body permitted. He said he was hopeful of making a comeback during the next series to be played in India. He expected his experience to come handy on a tough tour of India.

Who will retire first? Rahul, Sachin or Sanath ? Log onto our website and cast your votes. Or Type (RAH) for Dravid or (SAC) for Tendulkar or for (SAN) Jayasuriya on your mobile and send to 01042013 !

A Revolutionary Idea for the Revival of Pakistan Cricket!

As the Indian cookie is crumbling in Galle, Pakistan players are basking in the glory of the support they received in England during their T-20 Series win. Clearly the Aussies are more unpopular than we ever imagined. We know almost 99% of Indians and 100% of Sri Lankans hate them. But even the Poms? Who says there is 'Racism' in Cricket?

There was an interesting suggestion to Pakistan Selectors on BCCI blog that I have come to enjoy these days. This inspired me for a further innovated suggestion. The question is will the PCB buy this?

There is a system in my daughter's school. Every single student in the class will be made the monitor for a fixed period. They will give the schedule in advance and the kids are a happy lot. Thus the brilliant and the bullies can't take others for a ride. Absolute democracy. Hope the forever budding democracy that Pakistan is; they will like this idea!

Everyone in Pakistan team deserves to get Captaincy. It is such a shame the Greatest Show Pony of Pakistan Cricket has not got his due. Shoib Actor, I mean Aqthar should get the Captaincy once Salman Butt decides to retire after the next series.

So Pakistan Selectors should try Captaincy by rotation. One Captain for every month of a year. The twelfth man can become Captain in December. More number of players can be accommodated in the next Calender year.

Getting a second or third chance at Captaincy depends upon your talent, performance, consistency, longevity and of course the clout with PCB. This will encourage and even force every player to play well under every Captain. You always know the guy under whom you are playing today will play under you some day. Thus Pakistan Cricket will get better and better.

And most importantly, this will help us break the sequence of Pakistan Captains going into premature retirement; one after the other. Shoib Malik got married and has started to work as a 'Ball Boy' to Sania. Mohammad Yusuf has retired for the time being. Yunis Khan doesn't even know if and when he retired. Afridi has retired at a tender age of 24 years. Right now, we are waiting for Salman Butt to retire!

Please, Please and Please, Mr. Ijaz Butt; consider this suggestion and save Pakistan Cricket. I believe in the 'Love thy Neighbor' principle. We all love Pakistan Cricket, Shoib Aqthar, Sania Mirza and even Shoib Malik! I am not even asking for Intellectual Property Rights of this idea. We want Pakistan Cricket to flourish, otherwise where will we have Characters like Afridi and Actor Miyan?

Pakistan; A Team of Ex-Captains !

Pakistan will play the 2011 World Cup with the unbeatable record of having 11 Ex-Captains in their playing 11. Any team in future can only equal this record, never be able to break it !

Well, unless the ICC decides to bring back the Super Sub. Even in that event, only Pakistan stands with a chance to break their own record. No other team in the world of Cricket can manage to muster so many Captains !

How will this happen ?

The story unfolds thus...

Shahid Afridi has resigned and has tipped Salman Butt to succeed him.

Salman Butt will lead in next two matches. As is a recent convention with Pakistan Cricket, he has to retire and then come back just before the World Cup, simply because it is played in India. Butt loves Indian pitches.

Shoib Aqthar will be the next Captain. He will demand for the Captain's Cap because every other player has had one. But he will be banned for 2 weeks and 6 days by PCB for misbehavior with team-mates. He will be recalled before the WC.

Umar Gul will replace Aqthar for one ODI and will suffer a hairline fracture somewhere in his body.

PCB will then support a Wicket Keeper Captain in Kamran Akmal since other two Asian teams have one. Akmal will drop all the catches due to distraction of Captaincy. He is dropping them even without it. He will be forced resign from Captaincy halfway through a match due to rebellion by 9 other players.

As a compromise formula, his little brother Umar Akmal will take over for the rest of the match.

Imran Farhat will accept Captaincy because PCB will tell him he can be accommodated in the playing 11 only as a Captain. As is his wont, he will goof up his chance and will be sacked after the first match.

India - Pakistan talks are failing and both sides are hurling verbal missiles at each other. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari wants to show how fair they are to the Minority Hindus in Pakistan. So he asks PCB to appoint Danesh Kaneria as Captain. His tenure as Captain will be cut short due to serious riots in Rawalpindi, rumored to have been triggered by intemperate comments by the 'Rawalpindi Express'.

When the going gets tough, the puff gets going. Mohammad Asif is the best fast-bowler in the subcontinent today. Nobody doubts his action. The problem is with his actions, away from the oval. He will Captain for one match and then take a break to attend to court cases regarding the Narcotics case.

Since there will be no one else willing to take up Captaincy, Mohammad Amer will be made the Pakistan Captain for the 2011 World Cup. Wasim Akram believes Amer is smarter than Wasim himself was at 18. Isn't it good enough reason for him to be made the Captain ?

Since the batting cupboard is so empty, all the usual suspects will make a comeback. They all will join hands to save the prestige of their Country !

Thus the playing 11 will be...

1] Salman Butt [Ex-Captain by Chance]
2] Shahid Afridi [Ex-Captain by Choice]
3] Yunis Khan [Ex-Reluctant Captain]
4] Shoib Malik [Ex-Unpopular Captain]
5] Umar Akmal [Ex-Compromise Captain]
6] Mohammad Yusuf [Ex-Retired Captain]
7] Kamran Akmal [Ex-Dropped Captain]
8] Mohammad Asif [Ex-Doped Captain]
9] Shoib Aqthar [Ex-Doomed Captain]
10] Mohammad Amer [Ex-Captain in waiting]
11] Danesh Kaneria [Ex-Rioted Captain]

The 15 member team will be completed by Umar Gul [Ex-Injured Captain], Imran Farhat [Ex-Captain forever] and two more 'Future Ex-Captains'!

Now beat this if you can !

High Fives: Cricket World Cup vs FIFA World Cup!

With the artistry of the South American teams yielding ground to the dominant football of the European teams for the second episode running, the FIFA World Cup has run out of steam in India. 95% Indians supported either Brazil or Argentina. The other half, like me don't know Soccer!

Looking at the devastated looks of surrogate fans in India, I am convinced Cricket World Cup is infinitely better! Even though there are a million reasons, I will enumerate the best 5.

1] One size doesn't suit All: FIFA World Cup is a four yearly event with the highest viewership of all sporting events. But it is too monotonous. We know there will be 90 minutes of kicking around; often not only the ball. Then an extra-time and then the shoot out. It just hasn't evolved sufficiently over the years.

Cricket World Cup on the other hand has evolved from 60 overs a side to 50 overs a side. We also have the T-20 World Cup to add to the already burgeoning itinerary. There is a justified demand for a Test-World Championship too! Such a cafeteria choice for the fans.

FIFA World Cup is like a small road side shop that serves same stuff to millions of its customers. Cricket on the other hand is like a Super Market waiting to offer variety entertainment to millions. You can watch the same match for 5 days at a stretch or get it done in one day or even in 3 hours. The choice is clear!

2] Fair for the not so fair skinned: FIFA World Cup is being played since 1930 and they have 32 teams contesting in every event now. But just 7 teams have managed to win the Trophy in 80 years as we are watching the 19th episode.

South American teams have won it 9 times and an equal number of times by European teams. In spite of such wide-spread popularity, it is dominated by a handful of Countries. No Asian or African team has won it. Not even Russia or China! Even Australia never came anywhere near the Cup!

Cricket World Cup was born in 1975. We have had 9 Cricket World Cup events so far. At the most 12 teams qualify to play this game at the top level. We already have 5 nations winning the Championships. West Indies, Australia, India, Pakistan and even the tiny Sri Lanka have won this Cup.

ICC World Cup is a lot more fair to the brown color than Soccer. We have England, New Zealand and South Africa who are capable of winning the Cup sooner than later in future. I don't see any team out of the top 5-6 winning the FIFA Cup. Forget about winning, South Asian teams don't even qualify for the main event.

3] Changing with times: Complaints against the mandarins of the ICC apart, Cricket World Cup has embraced change much better than any game, especially the recalcitrant FIFA. Use of Technology has taken the game to another level.

There still are mistakes committed in Cricket, but not blunders like what happened at the current episode of the FIFA Cup. England and Mexico will vouch for this. Sepp Blatter is apologizing to England after giving the match on a platter to Germany who have never looked back after that Phantom Goal of Lampard!

4] The Australian Angle: Australia have hated the Poms ever since they remember. They always wanted to prove their supremacy over the English. Soccer is the only game where the Poms have consistently done better than Aussies. England have won a Soccer World Cup which Australia haven't and that hurts.

But the Poms have yet to win the Cricket World Cup if you discount the T-20 Cup they won this year. Some solace for the exiled people down under! And what is worse is there is no Steve Buckner to officiate at FIFA World Cup!

5] Fan Mania: Boris Becker once famously declared, "I just lost a match, nobody died". I remember Andres Escobar with utmost sadness. He paid with his life for a matter as trivial as a self goal. Soccer World Cup isn't just a game for many manic fans.

If Cricket fans were to be as mindlessly mad; Chetan Sharma, Mike Gatting, Hershelle Gibbs and Abdul Razzack wouldn't be alive today. Thanks to the middle class values, Cricket still is a Gentleman's Game in spite of Andre Nel, Shoib Aqtar, Sreesanth and most of the Aussies!

I would prefer to be a Cricket fan and live with a lesser popular game than be a Soccer maniac and be a mercenary!

The John Howard Ouster; 5 Pawar Points!

Your past sins will visit you in your future and can turn life into a hell. So take care of your present! Said a Sage thousands of years ago. How true it has been proved with John Howard and his Country!

The Speed and fury with which the former CEO of ICC, then Steve Waugh, Mervin Hughes and sundry Australians have come out against the ouster of John Howard indicates things are rotting at ICC. Speed called PCB Chief Ejaz Butt a 'Buffoon' and declared Sharad Pawar knows nothing about Cricket!

I hardly know Ejaz Butt, even the Pakistan players don't know him! So I am not qualified enough to talk about Butt.  But coming to Pawar; Malcolm Speed has a point. Sharad Pawar will be hard-pressed even to recognize Indian players, leave alone managing the ICC.

But what lead to the rejection of Honorable Mr. Howard? It is all about Pawar, I mean Power! Here are the 5 Power Points aka Pawar Points!

1] The Stubborn Kangaroo and the Wily Old Fox: John Howard is like a stubborn old Kangaroo. He wants to hop from one Political forum to another and has too many things in his sack. He was Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister. He is past 70 and ideally should have stayed clear of this 'rat-race'.

We can't accommodate two big balls in the same 'rat-hole' the ICC has turned out into. Pawar is junior to Howard by age and hierarchy. He will never be comfortable with a former Prime Minister in his office. It also is the revenge of a Minister who was once pushed off the podium by Howard's countrymen. Right now, it is the 'Day of the Wily Old Fox'!

2] Survival of the Fittest: ICC is run by the jungle-law and the famed Darwin's theory! Sri Lanka will never forgive John Howard. Mere mention of this name causes 'Hair Raising' experience in the Emerald Islands. I now suspect they sold the Asia Cup Final to India to keep Howard out of the ICC.

All the Lions of Lanka had come out in support of the lone Tiger in their team when he was blamed of 'Chucking'. Today, the Lions supported the old fox to rout the Kangaroo. So what did the Lions tell Pawar? Chuck De India !

3] African Safari and Shahid Afridi: Love him or hate him but you can't ignore Robert Mugabe. He has some influence in his Continent. South Africa, until recently a staunch Aussie supporter voted against Howard. So did the West Indies. Is there an African angle to this twist in the tail of the Kangaroo?

But why did Butt support staunch enemy India? How can people forget Afridi's ball-biting act during the tour down under and how the Aussies capitalized on it to disgrace Pakistan? They were willing to do anything to see an Aussie fall down under and bite the dust!

4] The Dog finally wags the tail: Australia and England have wielded disproportionate power in the corridors of ICC for too long. The tail has wagged the Dog during all these years of Colonial domination. The Dog was released from the leash in 2005 when the Center of Gravity of the Cricket world shifted to Dubai.

It is now a Dog eat Dog race for power. Speed today is worried the power center will shift further down south to Mumbai. It shouldn't hurt the financial interests of the ICC. India is where the booty lies!

5] Kangaroo out of Kangaroo Court: In spite of assertions to the contrary by David Morgan, Pawar definitely is not comfortable with Johan Howard. But then Australia had bullied New Zealand into supporting Howard when the Kiwis wanted their own John Anderson to be nominated.

Aussies have always bullied the Kiwis, but Kiwis have stood behind their mighty neighbors almost all the times. So secretly even the Kiwis will be happy over this snub. There is no place for a Kangaroo in the Kangaroo Court of ICC! Some justice that is!

Finally where are we headed now? The Divide was always there. Diplomacy can perhaps stifle the flow of bad blood for the time being. But it will spill over when there is another gash.

No doubt the Aussies are hurt. But as I mentioned at the beginning, it is the collective revisiting of the past follies! Aussies had to pay for them. I am not complaining. Majority of those outside Australia will not either!