Jayasuriya's bowling saved Mumbai

Sanath Jayasuriya's 3 for 14, the best figures of the tournament, the Mumbai Indians put their off-field troubles aside and pulled off their first win. On a slow Eden Gardens pitch, though not the minefield of the previous game, Mumbai had a nervy start and were 25 for 3 before Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa put on a century stand to see them home.
Good to see a figures like that and Bowler winning a match for his team. Jayasuriya was one of the over-rated players according to me, in the IPL auctioning system. His batting has not clicked so far in the tournament. In the absence of Sachin, he was supposed to be the king pin of batting. Hopefully this bowling performance will pep him up and we will see old Jayasuriya. Although I think Mumbai won't reach the knockout round. - post by landmine

Australian Perspective on Indian team behavior.

This morning I read this insane piece of writing from cricket-blog. Here are few quotes from it.

'In this series against India we have witnessed something different and unusual. The visitors, with the worst disciplinary record in world cricket, have cried foul. After the Sydney Test, a comment by Kumble to the effect that only one side had been playing in the true spirit of the game, was seized on by the media.'

The whole world knows who are the brats of world cricket. My take on this, the fact that Kumble took a strong stance against the spirit with which Aussies played, was a bomb shell on the Aussie cricket. All the TV footage showed what Aussies were up to. The best was Clark standing after nicking one to 1st slip. Cannot stop laughing.

'Kumble succeeded in muddying the waters. It was no longer just poor umpiring. Somehow the poor behaviour of our cricketers contributed to the result. This was brilliantly conceived and executed.'

As far as muddying the waters is concerned, I don't think the whole world (except Aussie Team and few reporters) can be fooled by the statements and the TV footage. Yes, the composure shown by Kumble in all the press conference was commendable. Brad Hogg should have been slapped a ban, then it would have been 10 out of 10 execution. But we Indians are kind hearted.

'Previous successes had not been built around any overt goodwill toward opposition sides.'

True. Aussies don't know how to win matches by playing fair cricket and with true spirit. They killed the phrase "Gentleman's game" associated with cricket for so long. Yes, they became #1 team by doing so.

'Many Australians underestimate Indian people, seeing them as modest, humble, self-effacing types who are often mistreated and misunderstood. Underneath that exterior you will find many with devious cunning, ruthlessness, astute brains and acumen. Just ask Pacific islanders of countries with a large Indian population base.
'

Do you know anything called, "Intelligent"? I think that is what describes Indians best. For a sport being loved by every India and winning it, you have to be ruthless and cunning.

Suggested Reading who don't agree.

One who enjoys the game

Yuvraj Singh walks back after being caught in the deep Annotated

Yuvraj seems to be in his prime form. He is bowling ok, batting superb and fielding excellent right now. Most importanty, he seems to enjoy being in the field a lot. He is total control of his game. Just to see where he is in his career -
Yuvraj's record
My favorite video on you tube-

6 sixes in 6 balls. Only Yuvi can do it.

The Times of India: Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket from across India.

Blogged with Flock

A peaceful day with happy ending.

The most eagerly awaited day after India's dismal performance in World Cup had just gone by. A peaceful day on all accounts means that it was business as usual at BCCI camp and the hype was all about Media's obsession with Indian cricket. In the past few days, almost every cricket lover would have developed an opinion on Cricket India's future and very few people would have predicted events the way they happened today. Rahul Dravid retains captaincy , Greg Chappell offered a different role, Ravi Shastri's name as future Indian coach. All in all, happy ending for everybody. Personally, none of the above decisions are too bad. These may not be too optimistic but again, nobody had a lot of time to think. A hasty decision would have been a bigger disaster.

----->Profile

Rahul is a good captain because he can lead the team by example but BCCI should start grooming a younger leader to replace him in near future. Greg Chappell being involved in NCA is also not a bad move, though it depends on his decision to accept the offer or not. I would suggest a team working with him in tandem to put things in place. If this does not happen then I think we will loose on a lot of initiatives that were started by Greg. Last but not the lease, Ravi Shastri as the national coach. I like Ravi Shastri as a person and have seen him play also. He was not a great player of fast bowling but a good one for Spin (whacked Shane Warne on his debut). Coaching is a different ball game but I think BCCI is now willing to create a team of experts for batting bowling and fielding and Shastri being in charge of that team. I think definition of "Team Manager" is going to be changed now. But that is for near future. Team should start practicing for Bangla tour. What a time for Indo-Bangla cricket clash!

An honest Start and I am not worried about results.

We all know Indian cricket is the richest in the world. Our players are highest paid and board enjoys everything from a government like stature and paid trips to the whole cricketing world. What Indian cricket lacked was, this type of concerted effort. Zee Group annouced an idea about Indian Cricket League. Subhash Chandra who heads the group talk about his brain child.

Subhash Chandra, who heads the Essel Group, owners of the Zee brand, has announced a breakaway cricket series called the Indian Cricket League (ICL). The Essel Group will invest Rs 100 crore (US$ 23 million approx) in the project, which will run parallel to the leagues and tournaments of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The ICL will have six teams with two Indian internationals, four overseas players and eight juniors in each side. At the end of the third year, there will be 16 teams in the ICL.

This is the way to go and an honest beginning at a small level was required. The main idea is to create a pool of talent and not earn money by making national side play enormous amount of cricket.

To achieve its objectives, Zee plans to set up cricket academies equipped with state-of-the-art facilities across the country. Sports medicine would be introduced to ensure players' fitness and a full-fledged record maintained of their behaviour pattern, diet-plan and game statistics. The group will also appoint talent scouts in all 35 states to hunt for young players to play in the ICL.

Professionals at all levels of the game is the only way out. Like we do a job and get paid based on our performance and experience, the same should be applied to the whole institution. I won't be surprised to see people coming in voluntarily to support the cause. I urge former cricketers like Kapil, Sunny, Ravi Shastri to come forward and contribute. It is lot easier to write columns and talk on shows than to actually do it on the field. I think they owe this much to mother India.
The finer points of ICL:

- 6 teams or clubs to play in the opening year
- Talks on with BCCI for gaining access to stadiums
- Executive Board of the league under installation
- Pool of referees and umpires to be created
- Rules committee to form regulations for ICL
- Ombudsman to look into grievances of players
- League to begin with Twenty20 format and move to ODI format
- League to be a joint venture between Essel Group and ILFS Group
- Each team to have a mentor, media manager, psychologist, physio
- Prize money for the winner- US$ 1 million
- League teams to compete with teams internationally
- Number of teams to be increased from 6 to 16 in three years

On Kumble's retirement.

Jumbo's retirement is not a surprise and was expected for a some time now. The most destructive bowler after Kapil Dev had a killer fighting spirit and he will always be remembered for that. I remember his great spell of 6/12 against West Indies in Titan Cup in Calcutta. The figures remained unbeaten for a long long time. He went on to become second bowler in the history to take 10 wickets in an innings. He is the first in modern era. That day at ferozshah kotla was the most amazing day for Indian Bowing history.

clipped from www.ibnlive.com

Inzi retires from One day cricket.

Its been a day of bad news from the world cup. Earlier Bob Woolmer's death had shocked the world and then came the news that Inzi is saying good bye to One day cricket.Ironically, It was the same platform (1992 world cup in Australia) where he emerged as a star for pakistani cricket, steering them to a WC win. He made his debut there. What a sad end to such an illustrious career.
I cannot forget the innings he played in the semi finals. The world watched as Pakistan from nowhere blasted their way to the finals (and eventually winning the WC). He is known for many things like being prone to run outs, Sahara cup controversy in Toronto when he jumped on to the stands with his bat to beat an Indian spectator, his slow pace on the field and many more. But he will be remembered more because of his contributions and records than any thing else.

clipped from content-usa.cricinfo.com Shattered Inzamam retires from one-day cricket Inzamam-ul-Haq has announced his retirement from one-day cricket on a sad day for the game © Getty Images in Test he has made 8813 runs in 119 Tests, with a highest score of 329 against New Zealand at Lahore Inzamam's one-day career was legendary. He played 377 matches over a 15-year career, scoring 11702 runs at 39.53 including 10 hundreds and 83 fifties. He shot to fame as a 22-year-old in Pakistan's triumphant World Cup campaign in 1992, belting his side into the final with a blistering 60 from 37 balls in the semi-final against New Zealand at Auckland. He went on to contribute a vital 42 in the final itself, at Melbourne against England

Australians have their tasks cut out.

clipped from content-usa.cricinfo.com

We're the team to beat - Ponting

Ricky Ponting is confident his squad can erase the "bit of negativity" gained during its five-match losing streak and retain the World Cup in the West Indies. As the squad prepared to leave for the Caribbean, Ponting hoped Australia would be the outright favourites when the tournament starts on March 11.

"I know we're going to be extremely hard to beat," Ponting said at the airport in Sydney. "We're drifting favourites but, once the cricket gets underway, hopefully you'll see some cricket that's going to mean that we still are the favourites going in."

Everybody is saying Australia is going through a down slide after 5 successive defeats. In my opinion, this could be the best thing happened to a team like Australia just before the world cup. They will come back hard at everybody. Expecte a better and stronger Australian team. My personal favorites are Indians but for a great team, Australians are the team to watch.