Thursday, April 22, 2010

Why Harbhajan is out of Mumbai Indians in IPL4

Assuming there will be a IPL-4, Harbhajan should start looking for a new employer.  I mean, the stupidity of this guy never fails to amaze me. Lets do a quick recap

He was dropped immediately after his debut series for "questionable on field behavior". (I always wondered what "questionable behavior" can someone have on field. The only probable explanation now seems to have been refuted with the announcement that he is marrying a girl)

Then he was thrown out of the national cricket academy on disciplinary ground. (Well, now come to think of it, may be my first guess was right. We'll watch how that wedding goes)

Then he had an altercation with police who didn't allow a male photographer friend to his hotel (Hmm.. ok I'll stop trying to force fit these into my conclusion)

Then he was reported for illegal action.. and thankfully this time they were talking about his bowling action (finally.. a cricket related controversy)

He publicly criticized the coach for dropping Dada.

He walked on the ramp.. that's not a problem at all. But look at his stupidity.. If you have hair like that, will you ever remove your turban? Hell, I'll even convert to Sikhism to hide such hair.. Gosh.. 

If you are still here, I promise.. no more such pictures of Bhajji without his turban..

He called Symonds a monkey.. which was not so bad, if you come to think of it. I've been called worse names than that.. sometimes even by my own family.. and I've called people by worse names.. but whenever I call someone such names, I ensure few things 1) They should be no more than 8 years old 2) should be smaller in size 3)should be with their parents.. This is my survival tactics.. If I have to call someone who is twice my size and has a history of drinking problems, I stick to "Sir".. look at this picture and just imagine how close we came to having Amit Mishra as our leading spinner in Tests.



With all that, just when you though Bhajji was a complete idiot, he gave us hope.. He slapped Sreesanth.. and one began to think "hey, this guy is not so bad after all.. I always knew he had some hidden qualities".. Bhajji became our hero.. Even his full tosses looked like deadly doosras and his yorkers looked like well flighted off breaks.. all was well with our world..

And that's when this happened... I can't even imagine how stupid one can be to make this mistake..  how can he break the most basic rule.. every child, growing up, has learned this at his mother's knees.. every religious book teaches you this.. this is the first lesson you learn when you enter school.. that is.. you never never mess with your boss's wife


The worse part is Nita Ambani seems to be enjoying this. Don't be surprised if Bhajji is calling Subhash Chandra for an ICL contract.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

After IPL is nationalized

There is a humorous trend going on in twitter - #AfterIPLisNationalized

I joined the band wagon and tweeted like crazy. Here are ten of my selected tweets on this subject (You can view all my tweets here)
  1. Pakistan will ask their players to infiltrate the border to play in the league 
  2. % of IPL revenues will be used for building new cricket stadiums in Afghanistan
  3. Pakistan will ask donation from US to set up PPL. Much to US's anger they will allow Taliban to field one team.
  4. Fielding positions will be defined in hindi. Teesra Aadmi (third man), Acchi Tang (fine leg), Khisko (slip) etc 
  5. Arundhati Roy will start a "pitch bachao" andolan.. No heavy rollers will be allowed on the pitch
  6. Jharkhand team will have Dhoni, Saurabh Tiwari and 9 Dhoni look alike Maoists.. carefully selected by Shibu Soren
  7. For matches between B'lore and Chennai, SC will allot the number of drinks each team can have during drinks break
  8. Mandira Bedi will play for KXI once the women's bill passes in the parliment
  9. Mumbai Indians will be called Mumbai Manus.. team will have only Marathis. Atul Bedade will be the batting coach
  10. There will be a new team.. UP's Bhayas.. On field it'll have 9 fielders and 2 Mayawati's statues.. 

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Is Warne throwing in the towel ?

I saw these tweets by Shane Warne yesterday night..
"Apologies to all royals fans, very shattering to play like that tonight in such a big game ! Out of ipl ... Such a shame, our young players"
"Sorry meant to be our young inexpeirienxed players have learnt a lot, we are all hurting , sad feeling to be knocked out, goodnight all"

One can understand how dejected and disappointed Warne must be feeling after being knocked out of the tournament.. But there is one small problem.. they are still not knocked out.. at least not mathematically. At the time of writing this article, here are the team standings
Team          Points         Matches Left
--------        --------        ----------------
Mumbai        18                    2
RCB              14                   1
CSK              12                   2
DD                12                   2
RR                 12                  1
Deccan          12                   2
KKR              10                   2
KXI               8                     2


So given that there are 7 more matches to go, only team that has been theoretically knocked out are Punjab. Even KKR, who are two points below RR in the table have a chance.


RR has two problems, they have just 1 match left and their net run rate is pretty poor compared to other teams in contention. It goes without saying that the next match is a must win for them, which will take them to 14th position. RR should also hope that Mumbai and Punjab win their remaining matches, which would make the job difficult for other teams. Although RR can still win by a big margin and improve their net run rate, there is even one possibility that net run rate won't come into picture. Here is how - 

Teams Winner
CSK DD DD
KXI Deccan KXI
RCB Mumbai Mumbai
KKR RR RR
KXI CSK KXI
DD Deccan DD
KKR Mumbai Mumbai


And the points table at the end of it would look something like -

Team           Points
Mumbai 22
DD 16
RCB 14
RR 14
CSK 12
Deccan 12
KXI 12
KKR 10


So RR is definitely not out of it by any means. Admittedly, their job is difficult and not completely in their hands. But one wonders why Warne is throwing in the towel with one more match to go. 

On a related note, did anyone notice Warne signaling for a strategic time out against Mumbai from the dug out? One small problem - it was sixth over of RR innings and that time-out belonged to bowling team (Mumbai). One wonders if captaincy is taking its toll on Warney now.

Monday, April 12, 2010

If I were Rohit Sharma..

Once upon a time there was an Indian cricketer called Devang Gandhi. Don't worry if that name doesn't strike a chord in your brain, because it means you are normal and, in any case, brains don't have chords. However, if you are one of the 9 people who still remember him and you are not his family, then I'll strongly recommend donating your brain for research (I'm contemplating on doing the same).

Devang Gandhi made his test debut for India in 1999; scored 75 in his second innings, and was the top scorer for the team in his next innings, with a score of 88.
This is when his life took a really interesting and unexpected turn ..... Ian Chappell made a prediction about him. Chappell predicted that India had finally solved their opening problems (remember that those days Sidhu was considered the best Indian opener since Gavaskar; and Sehwag was a name yet unheard of). Chappell, on the account of those two innings from Devang Gandhi, was convinced that he had the makings of a successful opening batsman and could go on to play for India for a long long time. Gandhi scored 6, 4, 0 in his next three innings and looked so out of sorts against Australia that he was dropped from the team. He never played for India again. Last I heard of him, he was also dropped from his domestic team (Bengal), announced his retirement from first class cricket and was busy giving tips to youngsters on how to become a successful test opener.

A similar inflection point came in JP Duminy's career in 2009. Chappell, wrote a long piece, on how Duminy is a great in making. Read that article and count the number of times he compares Duminy to Tendulkar and Ponting. Well, Duminy, till then had a decent test career; 10 innings 389 runs and average close to 50. In the 10 innings of post-Chappell-prediction-era he has scored 129 runs and his career average has dropped below 30 (check this out). His vulnerability against spin is now well documented and his stock has fallen so much that he was ignored for the first half of the IPL this year (admittedly, initially few matches were due to injury), despite top scoring for his team in last year's edition. There are question marks about his continued selection in the SA team now and one wonders if his career is going in the same direction as Devang Gandhi's (On a serious note, I hope not. He is a fantastic player to watch and I hope he rediscovers his form).

This is the reason why I would be really worried, if I were Rohit Sharma. Chappell has been calling Sharma a great player in making since that last one day tournament India played in Australia.  Chappell, during that series, mentioned on air that Rohit Sharma was a strong contender for carrying India's middle order in test cricket and take over the mantle from Tendulkar. One wonders if this is what is preventing Sharma for getting selected in the test team. But Sharma was still scraping by, since Chappell hadn't put that prediction down in writing. All of that changed this week, when Chappell wrote this piece.

He says:
"And here was Rohit, a young Indian batsman of abundant skill, displaying the complementary nerve that is required to succeed at the highest level. The question is not whether Rohit has the skill to make it as a batsman in all forms of the game but whether the selectors will ignore his talents for so long that his best years will be past when he's finally chosen."

So, what "best years' Chappell is talking about? Sharma has player 42 ODIs for India with an average of 25; an average that's closer to Agarkar's than Tendulkar's; and a strike rate of 72; more Dravidian than Dhoni-esque. The question we need to ask is why he is still part of India's ODI team and why he is picked for India's T20 world-cup squad, over Virat Kohli (but, then we are forgetting that it is Srikanth who selects the team these days). In any case, Rohit Sharma shouldn't worry too much about his position in the current team. What he should be really concerned about is, now what happens to his career, now that Chappell had made the prediction and, this time, in writing. Out of all the things that can damage a batsman's career, Chappell's prediction is the worst; way ahead of a Shohaib Akhtar's beamer, Darrel Harper's finger or even the cheerleaders.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Meet the future captain of Pakistan cricket team...

You heard it here first. Note down the date, time and place, because today I'm going to make a bold prediction,  a prediction about who will be the captain of Pakistan cricket team in two years (which means predicting the 17th captain after the current one, not an easy task by any means).

And the player is Nasir Jamshed, a left handed batsmen who player 12 ODIs for Pakistan in the past, scored 349 runs at an average of 35 and strike rate of 101. Not earth shattering stuff, you are saying? And some of you would probably have noticed from his cricinfo page that he is already 20 years old, almost 11 years older than the current captain Shahid Afridi, who himself has been playing cricket for 14 years now. So neither stats nor age is in favor of our guy. Then why do I think he is a candidate? Hear me out and it'll all make sense.

Over the years, selectors of national teams have used different criteria to select the squad and the captain. Do you go with the naturally gifted players or do you go with the ones in their peak form? How do you balance between raw talent and work ethics? Do you look for a consistent player or the ones who can change the games on their own? These are probably some of the questions national selectors contemplate (unless, of course, they are Srikanth)

Hence, I was pleasantly surprised when the newly appointed chief selector of Pakistan, Mohsin Khan, showed great clarity of thought and articulated the criteria of selection. “My criteria of selecting players are discipline, fitness and performance and I will not compromise on any of it.", said Mohsin Khan. Then, he promptly went ahead and appointed Shahid Afridi as the captain of the national team. Makes sense, doesn't it?. If discipline is one of your key criteria for selecting the team, then who else is more suitable to lead the team than Afridi. The guy has recently been banned by ICC for tampering with the ball and have been fined by his board. He has threatened to quit his domestic team when he was overlooked for captaincy. He also has an extremely rich history of excellent disciplined behavior; be it mid-pitch collisions, tampering with the pitch (video), threatening spectators with the bat, just to name a few examples. One can understand what Mohsin Khan meant when he said that he will not compromise on discipline. He clearly means business.

So now, once we know that how serious the chief selector is, can we look at the domestic circuit to see who else fits the bill. Of course, one need to be cognizant of the fact that the talent displayed in domestic circles doesn't always gets translated to international arena. But all we need to look for is the early signs, signs that show a next Tendulkar in the making or in this case the next Afridi.

That's why, I almost jumped out, shouting Eureka, when I read this article in Dawn (for those who are wondering - no, I was not in my bath tub at that time and I was completely dressed). Nasir Jamshed has been fined for cheating in the school exam. Wow! the signs of another Afridi in making is unmistakable. Not only did he cheat, but he was also caught "red handed". If this doesn't convince you that he has all the right stuff to be Pakistan's captain, I don't know what will. I'll be watching this guy's career with considerable interest.

And by the way, I believe Ramiz Raja, after hearing about this incident, is planning to write an artcle called "Give Nasir a break" and "legalize" cheating in exams (a sequel to his earlier article about ball tampering). His logic would be something along the lines of - the entire exam system is unfairly biased towards hardworking and intelligent students. So to offer a even playing field to guys like Nasir, we should allow people to cheat in exams. We are in for interesting times.