India Tour of Austrailia 07-08: 3rd Test review

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan's pre-match article on the 3rd test match between India and Australia had an interesting comment:

"Despite all the portents India can take heart from one fact: they've recently pulled off surprises in bowler-friendly conditions abroad. Like in Headingley in 2002, Kingston or even Wanderers in 2006 and Nottingham last year, they have stood up and taken on the challenge."

When I had read this I I had hoped if there could be a repeat at Perth.
Post match it appears that India are on there way to win the pace battles in near future. And given the unpredictable nature of Indian team, I am now beginning to doubt there capabilities to win on pitches which are expected to help them. Look at what happened at Sydney and Melbourne earlier. Both places where India had a chance. But post Perth, one thing that I am confident about is that Indian pace battery is there to stay and has the potential to become world beaters in future.

It doesn't pay to be smart

Recently read this study from USA TODAY - It doesn't pay to be smart - about how people with IQ in most cases are not as rich as there IQ and have nearly the same rate of bankruptcy as people with IQ of 80. It doesn't take me much to get convinced with the outcome of the study because this is what I have been seeing all along my life in India.
People with highest IQ in any class end up being scientists and with most of the research being controlled by the government they end up working for the government which is the worst paymaster in India. The students who are a shade below end up being doctors and engineers who are decently rich to get along with life. The next lower rung of students is an anomaly in my theory and they end up in arts and commerce and a few of them make it big with the finance or such sectors. But when they make it big it is BIG. The last rung of students become the politicians or rogues and everybody knows who is the richest of all in India.
So for me the lower the IQ in India the better it is, if you want to get rich that is. :)

Postscript: Happy Independence Day to all the Indians.

India's Tour of England - Second Test review

Some jelly beans, Great inspired bowling by Zaheer Khan, the unintentional beamer by Sreesanth which made Kevin Peitersen too loose his concentration, excellent batting by the Indian top order and some really helpful conditions on the first day made it possible for the Indian team to register its sixth win in England, Micheal Vaughan's century not withstanding.

It was a great contest between India and England and a treat to watch. Every time you checked the scores from office on www.cricinfo.com something had happened and you rued being in office.

Read an interesting statistic on www.cricinfo.com post match - in its last 12 tours India has a won at least one match in 10 of the tours and in at least 4 of these series against major cricketing nations, India has drawn first blood and taking a lead in the series only to let it go. Lets hope this does not happen this time around against England.

In my first article on this series I had said almost all of the earlier tours of England, India have lost the first test and that has caused them to loose the series. The only tours they have not lost are the ones where they have not lost the first test. After the rain gods saved them, it seems that history will be repeated, India will now not loose this series and there are high chances that we may even win the series given that the pitch at the Oval has always been a belter.

Lets hope that it is not a repeat of India's famous tour to Australia in 2003-4 where we drew the series after saving the 1st Test, by some inspired batting from Saurav Ganguly and then winning the 2nd Test after a memorable knock by Rahul Dravid.

Postscript: the advertisements on Star Cricket are on the rise again and Sachin Tendulkar's Aviva advertisement is now on air again after a hiatus. Happy days are round the corner for the sponsors of the Indian Cricket team and the players.

Back to normality.

India's Tour of England - First Test review

After a tantalising fight, India was finally able to save the match courtesy some gutsy batting by MS Dhoni and the Rain God. Had it not rained for the last 3 hours of the match India would have surely lost this match. Today's papers are full of reasons of Indian teams sorry state in this match. My own analysis is not very different from them. We bowled really bad on day 1 of the match and that was the major difference between the 2 sides. After that India was always catching up with England.

One thing that surprises me these days about the Indian cricket is the way we play spinners. Gone are the days when we used to treat the spinners with disdain. Shane Warne's performance against India is pathetic. Muralitharan's average against India is worst when compared against other countries. Performance of spinners from other countries against India in past is not even worth mentioning. So it is very surprising when one sees Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly giving respect to spinners from Bangladesh and then again to Monty Panesar, both when he toured India and now when India is touring.

I don't know what has caused these changes in the playing tactics of Indian batsmen against spinners, but we continue to play this way then one thing is for sure that we are going to loose out on what is our strength. In our continuous pursuit to improve our performance against the quickies it seems that we are forgetting the art of playing against the spinners. And this is not going to take Indian cricket forward. Nobody ever improves by forgetting ones strengths while removing the weaknesses.

India's Tour to England -- Pre tour thoughts

The Indian Cricket team starts its tour to England tomorrow with a Test Match at the Lords Ground. The newspapers have been carrying articles on the past tours of Indian Cricket team to England. The one consistent feature of all the tours barring the 1986 tour is that we have lost the first Test always. Even in the famous last tour where we almost one the series had it not rained in the last Test, we lost the first Test quite easily, with only Ajit Agarkar saving grace with a cherished hundred at the Mecca of Cricket.

This time around, my patriotic self, would like to see that we repeat the 1986 tour, winning quite comfortably. But my realistic self, says that given the Indian performance in the tour matches till now and the still undecided batting order, we may land up in a familiar situation. This is the last chance for the famous trio of Indian batting, Sachin, Saurav and Rahul to leave a lasting impression. Sachin has already shown his intents in the tour match with a match saving knock of 177 against the England Lions team. Saurav, though lacklustre till now, have in the recent times shown a penchant of staying on the crease for longish periods in both versions of the game, so he can be counted on for at least staying on the crease and wasting time if not on scoring runs. This may be helpful for us in case we have to save a Test. Rahul have always been reliable and had been India's best bat overseas. He is sure to come up trumps this time around too.
Of the other players I have great expectations from Dinesh Karthik. He has shown a lot of improvement in recent times and I would place my bets on him.

In the bowling department, the Indian pace attack, though dependent on Zaheer Khan, I would trust Sreesanth to get wickets and along with the ever reliable Anil Kumble could be the match winner. I don't have much faith in the other bowlers. But to win a match, it is the bowling that has to come good. Lets hope it comes good this time around, like it did in the first Test in the latest series against South Africa.
And lets also hope that the Indian team does not let go the initial advantage like it did in South Africa.

Best of Luck India!!

Indian Cricket -- then and now

Read this interesting article on cricinfo about India's first Test match ever, against England in 1932. It was all praise about the Indian team and how they had England in trouble during the match on atleast two occassions in the match.
My observations from the article about the state of Indian Cricket then and now is that it has not changed, few quotes from the article show that:
1. "they play the game in the most attractive manner" it was true then and it is true even now.
2. "Their batting depends on too few men" it was true then and it is true even now. We still depend on 3-4 batsmen to take us through. All others are there to make numbers.

And then as it says that we had the english team in trouble but it was we who lost. How often this story has been repeated in Indian cricket history, I can't remember. It was the story then and it is the story now. Seems we don't learn from our history and moreso the Indian cricketers.

Good luck to them on their English tour this monsoon.

What difference a Wheel can make

Recently this article on The incredible story of Tata Motors and the Rs 1-lakh car on Rediff.com, about how Tata Motors turned around from the lows of late 1990s and how it transformed itself from a truck making giant to a leading car manufacturer.

I would like to share one interesting part of this article which gives an interesting insight in the mindset of rural India. Mr Wagh mentioned in the para was invovled in the designing of the latest Tata offering Ace and he narrates his experiences when researching in the early part of the development of Ace.

Before starting the project, Wagh did something no one at Tata Motors ever had: He talked to customers. The three-wheeler men inevitably insisted on a cheap, dependable truck that could go from village to market carrying, say, 200 chickens, a ton of onions or potatoes, or 2,000 eggs. One night, as sunset approached, Wagh stuck with one rickshaw driver. "I kept asking the question. Why? Why? Why do you want a four-wheeler?" Wagh remembered. Finally, he got the real answer. It turned out it wasn't really a problem of chickens or eggs. "If I had a four-wheeler, I would have better marriage prospects in my village," the young man said. Drivers of three-wheelers are looked down upon in India. Wagh realized that four wheels had emotional, not just practical, appeal.

Even in the wildest of my dreams I could not have thought that an extra wheel to man's vehicle can enhance the marriage prospects in rural India. Interesting isn't? Is this the reason why truck drivers have such a good image in the villages?

Bangladesh's growth in Cricket continues

Yesterday's match in the Cricket World Cup 2007 between the first (England) and the latest (Bangladesh) Test playing nations throws up yet another instance of how fast the Bangladeshi cricket team is matuaring. Thier recent win against South Africa surely have boosted Bangladeshis and it showed in yesterday's match.
Despite being cleaned up by english bowlers in less than 40 overs and not posting a challenging total, they didn't gave up and put on a decent fight streching England to nearly 45 overs. That is really a good job done by the bangladeshi bowlers. Making the English take more time to reach a not-so-challanging target. As per fashion it can be said that they were helped by the poor form of english batsmen, but then you still have to bowl well to ensure that the poor form continues. And that is why credit must be given to the Bangladeshis.
In their match against India in the World Cup, there was a banner which said "Bangladesh: World Champions 2011" and that time it looked like wishful thinking but not any more. If the recent improvements continue my take is that the Bangladeshis would be a force to reckon with in the next World Cup. They won't be pushovers then!

Pandian v/s Geetha

Recently read this interesting article on Shobha Warrier's blog at http://notanobserver.rediffiland.com "Of Cabbages and Men" about how the growth of organized retail sector in India is a double edged sword - it benefits some and kills some.

I say that, that is how capitalism works. It lets people who wants to grow, grow more otherwise someone else will grow more than you and overtake you.

Had Pandian, the vegetable seller, who was doing well, been a growth oriented person, he would have thought of setting up a bigger shop instead of letting himself be confined to the street where he started his life as a business man. This would have made him grow big and make his life more stable. Who knows if would have grown so big that Reliance would have felt threatened by him. Didn't Dhirubhai himself had the same humble beginnings as Pandian. Maybe he would have created many more Geethas and much earlier.

It is a dog-eat-dog world and one has to be constantly on one's toes and ensure that one is not eaten up someone at the back.