Yes, the incident is unfortunate and did bring back memories of a match in 2006, when Baz McCullum took off the bails when Murali completed his run and then went to congratulate his batting partner, Sangakkara, on having reached his century. He failed to notice that the ball hadn’t been returned back to Baz. Everyone appealed and it was given out and Fleming didn’t bother revoking his decision to appeal. That dismissal cost us a fair bit as Murali was providing good support to Sanga,who would’ve stretched our lead further to ensure that the Lankan bowlers had more to bowl to in the final innings of the match.

It was the same here, except that Bell had packed in his gloves to go have his hot cuppa tea.

However, this incident was worse because there was the clear egging by Morgan, who has always displayed himself as a very street-smart player, to get back to his crease, all of which went unheeded by Bell.

The umpires asked Dhoni whether he wanted to keep the appeal on, to which he replied in the affirmative.

However, what makes this whole “recalling Ian Bell” incident farficial is this.

Strauss and the coach, Andy Flower, had the nerve to go and ask Dhoni whether he wanted to keep the appeal as such.

Did they really have to be a pair of babies to go and ask Dhoni to return the toys which he stole from them?

Naturally, Dhoni wouldn’t have wanted to be cowered by the demand made by the two, so he said that he wanted to discuss it with the team. The booing by the crowds, as well as the possible negative opinions which may have been formed of him (as if bad publicity about the preparation for the tour wasn’t hard enough to handle), would’ve persuaded him to overturn his appeal.

Besides, how bad would it look if, despite a personal appeal, he didn’t revoke his decision? People might even go to the extent of misconstruing it as disrespect for the two Andys.

Therefore, enough with the praises from the ECB and the ICC about how “the spirit of cricket was upheld by the two teams”.

That’s rubbish!

There was much more at stake for both teams than the Spirit of Cricket (it eventually proved to be less for England as Bell added a further 22 runs before actually getting out), so they decided to revoke it. I don’t think no-one’s conscience felt the pinch!

So, get over it, everyone, and focus on the great batting display being provided by the Englishmen!

I normally don’t post the nonsense which people usually ask me to do so on my “esteemed” blog via e-mail. Just hit the delete button and move on with life.

However, this video, which was sent by a James Fick from Rubicon, the official drinks sponsor of the English T20 competition, was too good not to post (no, I wasn’t given a free case of drinks for plugging Rubicon!)

It involves Murali and Swann being given a challenge, whereby a drinking glass is placed on a stump and a 50p coin placed on the edge of the glass. Whoever manages to knock the 50p coin without touching the stumps or the glass wins.

The IPL website guys keep coming up with some hilarious questions to ask on their website.

As an example, for some reason, Robin Jackman seems to have accumulated a cult following during this year’s IPL. It might be because of his genial way of commentating.

One of the questions asked during a match, when he was commentating, was “Would Jackers have been a force in the IPL?”, to which an overwhelming majority answered yes. In another match, to the question “Is Jackers prophetic?”, there was a huge majority saying yes!

Yesterday, during one of the matches, Harsha Bhogle asked Simon Doull whether New Zealand players were nicer than Australians, to which the obvious answer came “yes”! Later in the match, when Brad Hogg was commentating with Simon Doull, the IPL Pulse question was “Are New Zealand players nicer than Australian players?”, to which 88% answered Yes (I’m able to remember the figure since it was such a hilarious question). Doull fell into fits of laughter, while poor Hogg was speechless….all he could say was “I love Indian people”!

2. Brad Hogg

For some reason, the commentating team for this year’s IPL seems more tolerable than previous years…

Actually, let me rephrase that : the IPL commentators this year aren’t the type who talk for the sake of talking.

However, there are still a few of those type remaining.

Most notably, Brad Hogg has been absolutely unbearable. He seems to be in a permanent state of excitement (looks like someone’s been put just adrenaline in his water glass instead of water itself) and has a really unbearable accent which makes him sound like an NFL commentator (I have no idea how that comparison came about, that’s the first thing that came to my mind).

Yes, there’s Danny Morrison as well, who has been in a permanent state of excitement since IPL 2008. However, he doesn’t always resort to stating the bleeding obvious all the time. Instead, his excitement does provide for some good entertainment.

It really IS difficult to describe why, but I just can’t seem to stand Hogg’s commentary…maybe it’s because of the combination of ‘stating the bleeding obvious’ and ‘hyper-excitement’ that makes him terribly unbearable.

3. Lack of crass commercialism

This IPL has been much more entertaining than the previous year. A number of reasons for this:

-          No ads in between overs

-          No flying balloon

-          No sight of Lalit Modi on TV

-          Lack of crass commercialism in general.

Also, the introduction of the ultra slow-mo camera has made the whole viewing experience much more enjoyable. I’ve always been fascinated by the whole ultra slow-mo technology and the IPL has fed me an overdose of it!

Also, the hiring of Archana Vijaya to the IPL panel has made the viewing experience much more ‘enjoyable’!

However, I do find one of the presenters extremely annoying. There is one called Shabnam, who comes on with an extremely fake accent and asks pretty lame questions. Knock off the accent, ‘gal!

4. Chris Gayle

How does he do it?

This guy is so laid back, he doesn’t have to take any effort when hitting sixes. Even I find it difficult to hit sixes when playing with a heavy wooden bat in softball cricket!

I like watching sixes where there is a genuine effort made (see Paul Valthaty).

I don’t enjoy watching sixes made by guys like Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Kieron Pollard because they all seem to be what we call in Sinhala, “kanaa shots” (lucky shots).

However, there is an altogetherly different pleasure in watching Gayle hitting sixes.

Perhaps it’s the lack of emotion he displays when hitting sixes. From his reaction after hitting a six, you’d think that he’s just played off a dot-ball.

Leave all the poetry aside, I want many more Gayle-storms!

5. Kumar Sangakkara

Some ( I suppose, many) will curse me for life for saying this, but I’m secretly happy that Sanga is failing as a captain for the Deccan Chargers.

This hate might seem a bit surprising, considering the fact that he led us to 2 ICC event finals during his captaincy.

However, what really irked me was when people started ‘mourning’ the loss of ‘one of the best leaders we ever had’ when Sangakkara resigned as captain of Sri Lanka.

Come on, anyone who properly observed his fielding tactics and team selections would realize that he doesn’t really have the tactical nous and the likes, which are pre-requisites for captaincy. Yes, he was a good speaker and all, but being able to speak nice and diplomatically doesn’t qualify you in any way as a captain.

Most of the tactical nous that he displayed as Sri Lankan captain was the input obtained from Mahela Jayawardene, so Mahela was actually the captain from 2006-2011, albeit the unofficial one for the last 2 years.

Therefore, I wanted Deccan to lose as badly as possible so that people can realize that, even with a pretty good team, he’s not really all that good unless he has Mahela by his side.

However, Mahela is just unfortunate to be captaining a side which was selected without consideration to the possible team combination. The players whom the team management selected during the auction were mostly the rubbish ones. For some reason, they let most of the good guys go.

Despite the fairly rubbish side that Kochi has, Mahela’s still managed to get them to 5^th place, which is 2 places above the Deccan Chargers. I shudder to think how dominant the Chargers would have been if Mahela was put in charge of them!

Personally, I would have had Cameron White captaining the side since he’s been an extremely successful captain with Victoria, leading them to the final every year in the Australian T20 competition ever since it started. Yes, he’s been pretty scratchy with the bat, but a super captain for a shit batsman is a damn fine trade, I say!

Let me tell you one thing…

Sourav Ganguly is the KING of comebacks!

You have someone like Ajit Agarkar, who has made so many damn comebacks to competitive cricket that everyone keeps calling him the King of comebacks.

But this guy, Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, when he makes a comeback, he makes it count! (go back to December 2006 and IPL 2010)

His recall in December 2006 to international cricket coincided with one of India’s greatest moments in test cricket (India winning their first ever test match in South Africa) and his recall as captain of Kolkata in IPL 2010 saw him become the 4th highest run-scorer with 493 runs in 14 matches and saw the team missing qualification to the semi-finals due to net-run rate.

However, his reputation was tarnished big-time earlier this year when he went unselected in the auction (despite fellow old-timers like Dravid, Gilchrist and Laxman being selected). To rub salt into his wounds, this was after he had jacked up his starting price to $400,000 (from $200,000) after having been promised by a certain franchise owner that he would be picked up by them.

It all descended into a farce when someone wanted his name to be put up for a second round of auctions but no-one bid for him then as well. Subsequent attempts by Kochi to rope him in was also dashed by the other franchises.

However, he’s now back in the IPL, albeit with the man that ‘disgraced’ him, Subrata Roy. Funnily enough, as one article on Yahoo! Cricket mentioned, he’s back in the team which is being captained by a player who was brought into the Indian team by him!

Bengal’s love for Ganguly

I had the good fortune of working with a person from Kolkata on a project. When I asked him whether the public disappointment and outrage over Sourav Ganguly’s non-selection by any franchises was real or whether it was just over-hyped by the Indian news-channels.

He said that it was very real and that there were actually protests against Ganguly’s non-selection by the franchises.

He then told me of a match he had attended in the currently ongoing IPL. When I asked him whether it was easy to get tickets, he said that it wasn’t a problem at all. I was surprised at this. He then mentioned a line which showed how much Bengalis really loved him.

For every empty seat at Eden Gardens, there is a Ganguly fan out there who can’t accept a Kolkata team without Ganguly.

One was Navjot Sidhu. I don’t think I have to tell anyone as to who he is. I don’t know much about Sidhu the player, but Sidhu the pundit I know plenty. He loves to deal in……how do I say it? Let me give an example. One of the panelists had said that Canada might prove to be a slippery customer. To that, Sidhu added “As slippery as an eel”. You get it, right?

However, despite all the jokes and the merriness, Sidhu does have some strong opinions, which many people might find it hard to take seriously largely because you don’t really know whether he’s joking or serious when he’s talking!

The second was Tony Greig, another who is famous for his trademark commentary lines, such as “the little Sri Lankans” and “it’s all happening here at the *insert stadium name*”.

Last, but not least, was Sourav Ganguly. Now, it’s because of this man that this post is coming up.

The pre-match discussion program had featured a segment where Dermot Reeve, former English cricketer, explained the decision review system.

After that, Harsha then threw out the question “Why is India fighting tooth-and-nail against the UDRS?” into the open.

Tony said that it was important because he wouldn’t want to see a situation where, say, Tendulkar or Sehwag got out to a bad decision and it changed the outcome of their campaign. Sidhu strongly voiced his approval.

However, the actual reason for this finally came out into the open when Sourav Ganguly put forth his views. Now, IMHO, Sourav was the perfect person to answer this question as he was part of the only series when India used the UDRS (in the away test series against Sri Lanka in 2008, where India got only one review in their favour, as opposed to the 10-20 decisions that SL got in their favour).

He gave what I felt was a funny reason. He said that, apparently, the Indian players were doubtful that the angle of the cameras being used for Hotspot were correct.

However, Tony intervened. He was, FYI, part of the commentary team for Ten Sports for that series. Tony said that India didn’t use the UDRS well but Sri Lanka had used it perfectly.

They didn’t talk anything else interesting, just a whole load of giggling after that.

However, now we know the reason why India have always opposed the UDRS. It isn’t really about the “100% accuracy” that MS Dhoni and co. keep talking about. It’s about the ANGLES, apparently.

Is anyone capable of shedding some light on what Sourav actually meant by this? I’d be more than glad to incorporate it in the post (with due credit) if someone can give me a good explanation! J

This article was originally written for Clear Cricket.

The last few years have been quite a time for Sri Lanka. As far as limited over matches are concerned, there’s a sense in Sri Lanka that we are finally on the right track to achieving the type of consistency that is appropriate for the calibre of players that we have. Our performances were good, but not world-beating, under Marvan Atapattu. Mahela Jayawardena brought about a sense of ruthlessness, but his poor batting form in the last 1-2 years of his captaincy ensured that the ODI team was lacking direction.

I was very skeptical of how well Kumar Sangakkara would fare as a captain, largely because I felt that he was of the “wedi katha, adu weda” type (translates to “more talk, less work” from Sinhala to English). However, he has proven me wrong on all fronts, as he has been one of our best batsmen since he took over and, for once, I actually look up to him to make a big score for us. He’s led with aggression when required (who can ever forget the 93 that he made against India in Rajkot in late 2009, which, IMHO, was better than Dilshan’s 163) and can bat with caution when required (I feel the instances are countless to specifically mention one).  He has actually become the cornerstone of our batting.

The squad was pretty much on expected lines, although I was hoping against hope that Chaminda Vaas would get picked, considering how well he played in the last IPL and the way he performed as an all-rounder in the English T20 competition last year. However, the selection of the 2 Chamaras, Kapugedera and Silva, as well as that of Ajantha Mendis are what have irked many people in Sri Lanka, but some selections tend to be too baffling that it numbs fans into just praying that the team as a whole performs well.

The openers have a settled look about themselves, Dilshan knowing his role as the aggressor and Tharanga knowing his role as the not-too-aggressive opener. This opening partnership conjures images of the very successful former opening combo of Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu, though, to be fair to Tharanga, Atapattu didn’t really score as fast as Tharanga does.

The performance of the middle order is what I feel will decide how far we go in the World Cup. In Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, we have 2 experienced veterans who can both attack and accumulate as and when the need arises. If any bowling attack can get them out cheaply, then the onus will be on Thilan Samaraweera to bail the team out.

Samaraweera, in my opnion, is one of the most underrated players in Sri Lankan cricket. Ever since Russell Arnold retired (after the 2007 World Cup), Sri Lanka has struggled to find a player who can steady the ship and rotate the strike and ensure that not too many wickets are lost in the last 10 overs. Thilan has the capability to do that, but has not been trusted too much by the team management. Due to the insecurity about his position in the side, he is often caught in two minds, whether to attack or to accumulate. I hope that Sangakkara defines his role clearly as the innings-builder so that he can play an extremely useful part in our campaign.

Angelo Mathews is another player who will play a vital role in the team. In addition to his medium pace bowling, which is perfect for sub-continental conditions, his batting will complement Thilan in being an innings-builder. However, I hope he would bat a little more consistently so that he can play a role as a genuine no.6 batsman.

Thissara Perera is the “boy with the golden arm”, the guy whose bowling seems unthreatening but somehow gets wickets! His big hitting is also something to look out for, though additional consistency would greatly help.

Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara complement each other, as one attacks with his pace and swing, while the other attacks with good old-fashioned accurate bowling. Dilhara, as the reserve pace bowler, will bring a lot to the table if he plays in any matches, with his canny changes of pace as well as his genuinely fast bowling. Murali will want to shine in his last World Cup, so don’t be surprised to see an extra spring in his step. This might be the only World Cup Rangana Herath plays in, so expect him to come in with his big bag of tricks. He is one of the most underestimated spinners in Sri Lanka cricket, but always does justice to his talent when selected (he even performed much better than Murali during the tour to India in late-2009).

Sangakkara seems to favour Ajantha Mendis a lot, I assume, due to his supposed ‘mystery’! For God’s sake, he barely troubled the Englishmen during the Champions Trophy 2009 and didn’t trouble Adrian Barath when he scored his maiden century recently, so I would most probably expect him to get carted all over the place during the tournament and replaced by Rangana Herath (hopefully).

So, to wind this up, Sri Lanka have genuine potential to take home the Cup for the 2nd consecutive time in the sub-continent. There is a good balance of youth and experience, and everyone is fit and ready to fire on all cylinders. It all boils down to consistency!

Prediction : World Cup Winners.

Source

It’s still sinking in for me. Why?

Because, even though our batsmen have not struggled too much in Australia, it’s been our bowlers who have let us down. It’s largely due to the fact that our bowlers find it difficult to adjust to the bouncy pitches of South Africa and Australia. However, we never have this problem in England or New Zealand because the focus in these countries is more on good swing bowling, which our lads can do pretty well.

What’s been the reason for the turnaround?

In my honest opinion, perhaps this series win is the only real benefit we’ve got out of Trevor Bayliss as a coach. His record as coach has been pretty piss-poor during since he took over from Tom Moody after the 2007 World Cup. We’ve never been as bad as West Indies, neither have we been as consistent as we should be. However, I’m pretty sure that it was Trevor, along with the expertise of the batting coach Stuart Law, that helped us get this series win.

However, it would be criminal on my part if I didn’t mention Champaka Ramanayaka, the bowling coach. Initially spurned by our Board, he plied his trade with Bangladesh, the results of which have been showing for quite some time now. Finally, realizing their stupidity and shedding the thought that local coaches are not good, he’s been picked and what a find he has been.

He’s made Malinga much more fit and consistent, he’s turned Kulasekara from a subcontinent-only bowler to an all-pitches bowler, he’s even done a lot of good with Thisara Perera, whose bowling wasn’t really much to write home about when he came into the side.

Sanga should also be applauded for literally leading from the front with his aggressive batting. Sanga has, until recently, never really done justice to his batting talents, often getting starts and not converting them into something useful. However, I’ve seen a real change in him since he’s taken over the captaincy. He’s looking to take the attack to the opposition bowlers rather than just milking singles even when there are boundaries for the taking.

I’m sure people who watched the two matches closely enough would have noticed that Sangakkara always appealed when the ball was going wide. I presume this was to ensure that the umpire wouldn’t call a wide. I found this pretty daft, but funny! J

A really good tour ends tomorrow with the last ODI at the ‘Gabba. Ricky’s being sent to play a FC match with the Tassies, so poor Clarke will be captaining again. After having tried to smash Watson’s knee, he might try to smash Clarke’s face by hitting a six in the direction of the dressing room.

Cheers!

It isn’t often that you see Sri Lanka beating Australia in any form of the game, anywhere, let alone in Australia.

Moreover, the fact that it was pretty comprehensive makes it all the more sweet.

For me, there were a number of deciding factors.

Many would agree with me if I said that these factors included Suraj Randiv’s bowling, Dilshan’s and Sanga’s batting.

However, the real deciding factor in the match was our fielding during the whole innings.

The boys were leaping around and saving a helluva lot of runs during teh first 10 overs. The pressure created by the lack of runs was the catalyst for the collapse of the top order, leaving the Aussies at a paltry 44/5 after 11 overs.

Yes, we could’ve bowled better. However, it was only because we had restricted them during the first half of the innings, we were able to restrict them to a very gettable total of 134/8.

This win also resulted in our first ever silver-ware from Australia.  I sincerely hope that we can bring home another trophy within the next week!

In other news, I’ve been purchasing some cricket literature in the last few months.

I got my copy of W.G. Grace Ate My Pedalo by the legendary Alan Tyers. It’s a really delightful read and deserves a separate post (though I haven’t read it fully yet), so await the mid-review later this week.

Ah, good thing I didn’t forget. Here’s a comic which I continue to find amusing, even a week after I first saw it. I don’t know how many of you would’ve seen it, so, enjoy!

Pierce Brosnan aka James Bond for ICC's undercover work?

There’s going to be nothing in this post about any fire or water in my belly.

The reason I put that as the title was only because that was the first phrase that came to my mind.

Anyways, it’s been nearly 4 months since I’ve put up a proper post on this oft-neglected blog, the main reason being that I always had to carry my laptop outside my apartment to surf the net (off someone else’s Wi-Fi connection).

Well, the next para’s going to be a quick re-cap of the happening in the cricket world during the last 4 months:

India pWNed Australia once again, Dhoni lost a series in Sri Lanka for the first time, Pakistan cricket fucks themselves in the ass once again, Ijaz Butt can’t keep his mouth or his butt (sorry for the pun) in check, Bangladesh clean-sweep New Zealand in the ODI series (who would’ve thought that the Banglas would get their first ever ODI series win against a major test-playing nation by way of a cleansweep?), West Indies name the royally-named Darren Julius Garvey Sammy as captain, Suresh Raina breaks his Test Duck, BCC!‘s batsman Cheteshwar “Chѐ” Pujara impresses all in his Test Debut, Sachin Tendulkar continues to score runs as easily as me taking a shower, Lalit Modi is kicked out of IPL, Preity is kicked out of IPL, Shilpa is kicked out of IPL, Australia’s reserve bowler (James Pattinson) gets injured, lalalalalalalalaaaaaaaa…………..

Phew! That was quite an exhaustive paragraph!

Onto more serious things.

Sangakkara has started off the Australian tour in style with a really good 110 off 95 balls against a full-strength Queensland side. Thank goodness for that…at least we don’t have to rely solely on Dilshan for some aggressive innings. Chamara Silva also did well, playing at more than a run-a-ball.

Mahela impressed today with a good 58 off 35 in a T20 against a depleted NSW side. However, Angelo Mathews played the type of innings which makes you think, WTF? 24 off 33, especially against a second-string NSW side, isn’t really a very good performance, but, heck, I’m just hoping that the real Angelo Mathews turns up against Australia!

Moving onto Pakistan vs. Australia, it was a real shame that Pakistan had to lose yesterday. If only the damned Pakistani batsmen had showed some more balls (not literally, of course! ), they’d have stood a chance of winning, especially after a double-wicket maiden from the Grandpa of international fast bowlers, Shoaib Akthar. Hmmpphh!!

Well, other than that, Kochi have officially been terminated. WHOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

….

….

….

Oops! I just read the fine print. Apparently, they have 30 days before they are actually terminated.

BOOHOO!!

I just hope that the BCCI is able to find some fault with 5 other franchises as well, so that we’d have just 2 franchises playing each other in 3 matches (one home, one away and the final) to decide the winner of the IPL. It’ll be done and dusted in 1 week, max!

Sudden work opportunities, work pressures, blah blah blah have been the reason for the inactivity and so I promise to put up a post by the end of the week.

There has been no shortage of activity in cricket, so you have every right to expect a really good post to compensate for the inactivity!

Cheers.