QED!

This is the first and last post from my end. A thoroughly boring and drawn out WC helped along by the elimination of India and Pakistan in the first round. No excuses or justifications are needed to explain India's elimination. They played lousy cricket and I think for most part they started confusing the adverts that they shot (scoring sixes and chicks) with reality. When it came to actual match, a mere pin prick in the form of Bangladesh was enough to burst the Indian team's bubble and the bubble of expectations of a few hundred million fans. As an average fan you started to realise that something was drastically wrong when you see the players longer in the ads between overs than batting on the field. This def. holds good for tendulkar and Dhoni for the series.

Someone in Dubai sitting in the ICC HQ must definitely be given a medal of honour for designing the most boring WC schedule ever. The fixtures seem to go on for ever and ever and by now it feels like the WC started before I was born (and that was a mighty long time ago). If my permutations and combination formulae are correct then we will be playing 52 matches in all including the 3rd place 4th place loser match. In this entire boring list of fixtures there have been/ will be 5 matches of consequence
1. Ind v/s SL that sealed India's fate
2. SA v/s Eng that sealed England and the Windies fate
3. Semi Final 1
4. Semi Final 2
5. Finals

Yes, that is right. 5/52 ~ 9.61% Which means that more than 90% of the matches were crap. QED!

Can India do it today?

If India win today, it will not make them hot favourites to win the WC, but it will calm the nerves of millions watching the game back home.

Here is a thought from Harsha Bhogle in IE

So, maybe, we should all ‘just cool it’, sit down and watch India vs Sri Lanka if we want to, and should India lose, be large-hearted to say well played to our soft spoken, less hyped and polite neighbours. And accept the fact that if opponents win they do so because they played better, not because we played badly. The idea that we are the centre of the universe was found to be flawed many hundreds of years ago!!

SL looks like a team possessed...esp after they defeated Bangladesh in style. Their running between the wickets was much better than India and their fielding is anyday better than this Indian team. Bangladesh had a few blips in their fielding on that day and they paid for it.

After seeing the woeful Bangla batting, how I wish if we had scored 30 more runs on that day!!! The balme should be put squarely on the batsmen who did not click and the batsmen who were in the middle for considerable amount of time for not picking up ones and twos.

I hope the match lives up to its reputation and we see a wonderful exhibition of cricket. Definetely India is going into the match as second favs, so a win today would be a bonus for any Indian fan.

I am quite amazed, not with the fact that Sri Lanka thrashed Bangladesh as they rightfully deserved to be, but by the fact that Sujith is still contributing to the Blog! After the fantasy league debacle, I was under the impression that we would have abandoned the good ol' Blogger.. but yippee we haven't!!

Anyway, to come to the point - today's debate is not about the suicidal nature of Pakistan cricket or the murderous nature of the consequences of a defeat.. Cricket is transforming itself into the frenzied sport of Soccer but thats not the point too. The point is one that is engulfing me with sadness and apprehension (which are increasing day by day). It has to do with how each day, a nation or a third class national team is making it to the Super 8s and here we are... connoisseurs (ya, spelt it right without Word web, thanks to "Akeelah and the Bee") of Cricket - actually IndianCricket sit around tight and hoping, waiting for the ill-fated day when the same Sri-Lankan gang may romp over our expectations and World Cup ambitions....

Why doesnt the match happen today and get the fuck over with!

Reality Check for India

It is not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog that matters!!!

And with virtually teenagers in their side, Bangladesh walked away winners against an established professional team India. Thoough all is not lost for India (say unlike Pakistan), we have to again depend on permutations and combinations to get through to the next round. We now have to definetely beat Bermuda by a higher margin than SL and win against SL (well that is not as easy as one might think) and then hope that Bangladesh screw up against Bermuda on NRR!!!

So often India has shown this complete lack of application when it comes to playing a team which bowls straight and fields like tigers thereby restricting run scoring. Every single batsman is to be blamed for this poor performance. To think that if Zaheer and Munaf had not scored that 30 odd runs in the end, this match would not have even had run as close. Robin, Sachin, Dravid, Yuvraj and Ganguly could not take singles and rotate the strike for long periods of time. And if they had scored that extra 20-30 runs in that 15-40 over period (I am talking about a extra run an over, which is no high ask), this game would have been different.

And please lets not assume the Bangladesh team to be a minnow or India to be a Super Power. Both are wrong assumptions. We are as bad as a minnow one day and as good as Aus another day. Lets hope that the inexperience of Bangladesh will reflect somewhere in their campaign and we will benefit from it.

Warm-up match: Ind vs WI

Terrific performance by India against a side which is playing in their home conditions and is pitched as one of the favourites to present a challenge in this WC. Whereas the prev warm-up match showed our batting capability in scoring a huge total in some difficult circumstances, this one showed our bowling strength which can reduce a good team to a 2-digit score.

This match was full of individual performances. Let me start with the bowling.

Zaheer - What a comeback he is having. He wants to make up for his notorious 2003 final performance against the Aussies. He is showing great control with the ball and has become a more mature cricketer. Guess the English stint helped to a great extent. He will be our bowling mainstay in this WC and I think he is going to make a memorable outing this time.

Agarkar - He started off in the wayward-Agarkar manner but came back into the match with the recent-effective-Agarkar form. The way he slides the ball into the batsman or bowls that masked quicker one, makes sure that the batsman will be expecting something different each time they face him. The most experienced pace bowler in the team he should be sharing the new ball with Zaheer.

Both these bowlers took only 1 wicket each, but the manner in which they controlled the WI innings was commendable. Its nice to see the opening bowlers concede less than 4 runs each. This means that Dravid has an option of getting 12-14 over completed with close to 55 runs conceded in the first two power plays.

Munaf - Well he was a revelation yesterday. He started off as a quick bowler and is rumoured to be able to reverse-swing!!! He did the maximum damage to the Windies. He has proved beyond doubt that he is the best 3rd pace bowler in the team with this performance of 6-2-10-4.

Pathan though he got 3 wickets was not exactly all that impressive. He sprayed all over the wicket. If he could atleast play half as well as he started off, India can play 5 bowlers and use Pathan as an allrounder. Kumble got one over and seeing the first few balls itself one could make out that Taylor had no clue of the bowler he was facing. The problem with Kumble is that the Pakis/SLans etc have already figured out how to play Kumble so he might not be as effective as one might think.

Uthappa - Coorgis are considered to be one of the toughest races in India. He proves that point to a great extent. He is playing like the Sehwag we knew 5 years ago. If it is there to be hooked, he will hook it, if it is there to bhe hit he will hit it. No two ways about it. Incase Sehwag doesnt click in the Bermuda match, I think he shud be a straight replacement for him.

Karthik - He is another player who seems to have come back strong. From a keeper who could bat, he has become a batsman who can keep. Dhoni is partly responsible for the maturing of this cricketer. He seems to have become a tough lad. Looks well built now and the confidence is showing in his batting. Initially I remember him to be the single-nudging, place to 3rd man and take the single, give back the strike sort of player. But now, he is a boundary hitting, 3 down batsman. He gives a lot of option and a selection headache to the team management.

So all in all it was a good showcase of India's challenge in this WC.

The first upset of the series..

Since I do not have access to the cricket telecast, all I write would be heresy... taken off of public media such as cricinfo.com. Of course, I would attach to it my vishesh tippandi ... I have a feeling that the word tip came from tippandi itself, but rest about that feeling later. But atleast, that way I do promise to lay off comments such as - I was second only to Dada's wife to notice his new Puma shoes.. and the likes ...

Anyway, now back to the point. Unlike tennis, you do not come across many upsets in Cricket - and even as Tikolo's men tried to upstage WI again and were relatively unsuccessful, Bangladesh pulled off their first victory over New Zealand. And considering that NZ just whitewashed Australia, it seems by the commutative property, Bangladesh may have the potential to thrash Australia big time! Ok, just joking - Eat your heart out Mashrafe Mortaza..

Now, coming back to the point... so this was the first time Bangladesh defeated NZ, overseas, actually anywhere for that matter. Unfortunately for them, their fate was sealed with this one statement that Fleming had to add - "The result shows how tough the seven-week event is going to be. The only other positive for us is that this wasn't a pool match." And appending to that, it was not even a legal One Day International - so much for the upset - now who is going to be more Upset?

India v/s Netherlands - Warm up match

It was good to see cricket sitting at home after a long time. So first of all let me wish Team India all the best to do well in this world cup. And may the best team win!!!

Set Max transmission means we will have to listen to Bishop, Holding, Dujon etc etc...So I think one good idea would be to mute the channel and watch the match. The match was a bit boring in the middle so Tony Cozier starts giving all the gyaan about West Indies under colonialism blah blah...

In all probability India would be opening with Sehwag and Ganguly. It was nice to see Dada in his new Puma shoes...well I noticed it :) Sehwag was lucky to get a very nervous bowler at his end and invariably he started with a four and pounded some more. But his dismissal suggests that he is very much out of form. Everyone knows that he is no technical batsman but a gap so big between bat and pad has been a recent phenomenon I should say. Dada perished trying to poke at a loose and wide ball. There was no necessity for that, but I think he should not have any trouble in this series. Uthappa looked good while he was there, especially in his pulls. I slept off once he got out and RD and ST were at the crease.

RD & ST: Hitting form

Started watching the match again when Netherlands were batting (Liverpool-Barca match bhi aa raha tha). I dont think Netherlands would be a good side to test our bowling strengths but still they did a tidy job. But the notable thing for me is the good form of RD and ST and how we managed a score of 300 with just two half-centuries. This is pretty good stuff from India and they have been consistent in getting scores around 300 for some time now. So strategy from now onwards would be to score 300+ scores whenever they bat against whichever opposition.

And in the other match Bangaldesh beat NZ. NZ beat Aus convincingly last month, so what is happening to the form guide. Is world cup mein kuch bhi ho sakta hai!