Please change your bookmarks from this free hosting wordpress.com to my self-owned site: http://thecricketcouch.com (Won’t ya? pretty please, with sugar on top?)

Also, I have started a collaborative cricket opinions site “Clear Cricket” where we have 20 odd writers from around the globe chime in with their analysis and thoughts about the happenings in domestic and international cricket of ALL the major cricketing nations. Check it out. Add it to your blog roll, rss feed and all that jazz. (http://clearcricket.wordpress.com). Follow the clear cricket tweets as well @clearcricket

I was roped in by the good folks at World Cricket Watch to enter a debate with one of their columnist, Matt Wood (who is an Aussie living in Canada). So, Matt and I, started an email back and forth, conducted over a few days discussing India’s #1 test status and the workings of the BCCI. We thought we could include a discussion on the upcoming Australia’s tour of India but the debate quickly got out of control and so, we left it out for another time.

Click here for the debate published at WCW. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome.

1. Brutus did not actually stab Julius Ceaser. Ceaser tripped on a rug and fell on a butter knife that Brutus was holding for the King.
2. Jackie Kennedy actually was the second shooter on the grassy knoll.
3. Elvis never left the building. He is still hanging out by that dimly lit corner.
4. The Jews in ’30s and ’40s Germany committed mass suicide. They were part of a cult and it was just a 9-year long ceremony.
5. Maradona cleanly headed that ball in for the goal.
6. Radio killed the Video star.
7. Two plus Two is most certainly Five.
8. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
9. Ricky Ponting is the most liked cricketer in the history of the sport.
10. Tom Cruise is the sanest person in the world. Well, next only to Mr. Ejaz Butt.

However, I found just enough time away from the twitter and blog barrage coming out of the spotfixing controversy to look over at the CLT20. All he international teams with the unknown players, its always interesting go through the squad lists and check out for stats that really stand out. Or, squad pages where the photographs look like they put them together just before the teams took the field. In my opinion, the Central Districts page is extremely funny (in a very unprofessional sense) but JRod thinks Pakistan’s page pwns all other squad profiles. Oh well.

One thing that caught my eye during my CLT20 perusing was names of some of the players. There are some interesting ones. Nothing of the magnitude of Dwayne Leverock who was immovable as the rock itself. I put together a list of names and imagined what they might be up to on the field and if not for cricket, what they might be doing in their regular 9-5 lives. Without further ado, here is the list of names that is way better than any list of names that you can come up with. (As always, all of this is made up and there is no truth to it. At all. Not one bit. I like to keep it that way. As you can tell, my only goal in life is to impress Ijaz Butt with my ability to make up shit, like he always does.)
——
Jamie How – Captain, Central Districts. Jamie made an appearnace as an answer to the perennial question of who is gonna be made the sacrificial lamb up the order before the actual batsmen like Vettori, Ross Taylor step in and play. With his technique, he always astounded you, “how did How get in to the squad?” or “How has How managed to have a cricketing career as a batsman?”.. there are just too many questions. Far too little answers. In fact, so many that we have decided to replace his last name with a symbol – “?”. He would be the “Prince” (TAFKAP if you prefer that instead) of Cricket. Brian Lara and Ashwell be damned, I say!

Michael Klinger – Captain, South Australia. He is such a delight for the cricket editors world wide. When he batted in the CLT20 with such authority belieoing his pre-tournament form, headline writers drooled over the possibility of writing “Michael helps SA Kling on for victory.” On a side note, he has been rumored to have auditioned for a walk on role in the Star Trek movie as a native Klingon speaker.

David Hussey – Victoria. From urban dictionary, definition of a Hussey is, “Used to describe an attractive girl, often one that is a few years younger than ones self. Girl must be young and not particularly smart, but also
flirtatious and appealing and have friends that are older guys. In this meaning, the word does not in anyway mean that the girl is a slut or anything of that nature”. Need I say more?

George Worker - Central Districts. A capable middle order bat, George works his butt off to stay in the squad. If not on the cricket field, he gets a sex change operation and cruises to his/her beehive and hangs out with the queen.

Here comes the meat and breakfast of the team, Shane Burger (Highveld Lions) and Robin Uthappa (Royal Challengers Banglaore). In not only providing the beef in the middle order, they have that ability to come up the order like your first meal of the day but can also provide the clean finish you need. On off days, they can be expected to hang out at your local food joints with buddies fries and chutney.

Brad Patton – Central Districts. Brad typefies the ferocity and aggressiveness that his great, grand father General Patton displayed during World War II. In his free time, Brad gives rousing speeches and writes poems incorporating “Through a glass, Darkly“.

Jonathan Foo – Guyana. Easily the winner for the coolest name in cricket award, he elicited mentions from “Dada” himself during a pre-match analysis that Jonny Foo belongs in a Bruce Lee movie rather than a cricket field. As incredibly racist as that may sound to you [since Foo is of Asian origin], let’s move on. During the off-season, Jonny moonlights as Mr. T and smacks people down with the words, “I pity the Foo”.

JJ Smuts – Warriors. Jon Jon with his sexy little gig as the left-arm orthodox spinner, does pretty much everything in unorthodox manner. The seam positions when he bowls are missionary and doggie. Sometimes, he induces so much side spin, he bowls people through the back door.

Lonwabo Lopsy TsoTsobe – Warriors. Though Lonwabo is recorded as a left arm fast bowler, he is only tso tso. In his time off the feld, he promotes the various teas produced and sold by the South Beach Beverage Company.

Garnett Kruger – Warriors. Garnett with his little known middle name “Freddy” mows down the opposition nbatsmen with his fast medium bowling. He even appears in their nightmares and knocks them off, in some kind of alternate universe, scary version of “inception” twist which dismisses them in real world as well.

12th Man: Dillon du Preez – DdP Playing for RCB confuses the hell out of everybody. Should we call him “Dillon” like Matt Dillon or like the rapper “Jermaine Dupri”? He gets bonus points for he has a female namesake (Total bombshell, I might add) that plays cricket as well. In his future, he could have a TV talk show called “Shooting the breeze with Dillon Du Preez”.

The Office of International Students at the Penn State University publishes a weekly newsletter “Global Lion” and features stories about various aspects of the foreign students’ life at Penn State. In the current issue, a story about the long history of the beautiful game of Cricket at Penn State, written by yours truly, was published.

Click on the following picture to open the link (PDF) and skip to page 12 to learn about the many lives Cricket has lived at Penn State.

Source: AFP

On September 3, 2010, Indian batting ace, Sachin Tendulkar was awarded the honorary rank of group captain by the chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF) for his contribution to cricket. Instead of an honorary award, what if he really was a group captain in the IAF?

1.  Tendulkar will be the first airman to fly 200 sorties in one day. Everybody knew from the day he entered the Indian air force and started flying them planes, he was gonna be the one to break the 200 barrier. Some thought this day might never happen and have to live with the fact that a Pakistani group captain had the record for the most number of sorties in a day.

2. When Tendulkar enters the peak of his prowess as a true dog fight legend, his wingmen would be extremely terrible. They would be so inept that they can’t even do the one job that is asked of them — hold one end up with some fake firefight and pretend to shoot at the enemy here and there.

3. For the majority of his flying career, he would be saddled with hand me down jets from the previous era which malfunction constantly with failures at the most inopportune times. During an epic battle against an archenemy, he would get 136 kills over the skies of Chennai and leave the rest of the squadron to shoot down just 17 more, as his back engine was fouling up but alas, that wouldn’t happen!

4. In the “Battle of the Hero Cup”, when senior and more experienced fighter pilots like Devil Kap were dithering over whether they could deal the deciding blow, Young Tendulkar would volunteer to take control and launch in to a certain suicide mission, only to emerge victorious.

5. While performing in an air show at his local base, he will be booed by the Bomb(ay)er crew.

6. In the middle of a quadrennial world air show, he would have to retreat to home base to take care of some personal stuff. He would return to set the sky ablaze but only for the rest of the squadron to fuck it all up during the one day he was away.

7.  Tendulkar will be recognized by the best damned fighter pilot that ever lived, who had a 99.94% kill rate, as the only one that flew the machine like him.

8. When everybody started thinking he has lost his “Top Gun” ways of destroying opposition and wonders loudly that it is time for him to hang it up, he will resurface as the “most calculating killer” and continue on.  Less Risk, More Kills.

9. He will fly planes through sandstorms and pull off unbelievable maneuvers against the best air force in the world, so much so that the enemies start having nightmares about him.

10. An Air force documentation company would like to record the exploits with a little bit of Tendulkar in it.

I take a look at the route the current test number one side, India took to get there and evaluate England’s chances of achieving the same .

The article is published at The Reverse Sweep as part of their 100 days till the Ashes Feature. Read on. Your comments are most welcome.

While everyone has been focused on the spotfixing scandal involving the Pakistani players, the goof ups by the ECB are flying under the radar. The English pride themselves in the rule of law, the power of democracy, and general hoity-toity-ness. take out or rearrange sentence?]. By their own rules, one of the fundamental tenets when it comes to someone being accused of any wrongdoing is that the person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

All you have is a shady agent/bookie caught on an undercover sting carried out by a tawdry tabloid, claiming that he has connections with the Pakistan players and can spotfix. There is no proof (not yet, anyway) that would be admissible in a court of law, that could bring about a criminal case against the players and perhaps, get a conviction. For starters, the tape could have been made after Aamer and Asif bowled the no balls. As was noted in this Guardian news article, it is going to be extremely hard to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even if a court case is brought on at a later time and the evidence incriminates the players and leads to a conviction, all these things have not happened yet. There is no legal case filed against the players and yet, everybody is treating them like criminals. There have been allegations of impropriety and accusations are flying in from all directions, thick and fast. I say, Hold on a minute. The burden of proof is with the accusers and not the players. The players don’t have to come out and prove their innocence.

Image Source: Getty Images, BBC

Giles Clarke, the ECB Chief  who happily ran around holding hands with thatscamming twerp Allen Stanford like they are BFFs, all for a chance at loading up their coffers with ill-gotten money, treated Mohammed Aamer at the post-series ceremony at the Long Room in the Lord’s with so much disdain like he had leprosy* or something. Why the fuck did you hold the presentation ceremony indoors in the first place? What were you afraid of? Boos? Get a grip. If the people who have paid through their noses feel cheated by the allegations and want to let the players know exactly how they feel, then let them. Freaking pussy, this Giles. I guess all the Clarkes are pussies at some level (I don’t know most of them but let’s assume I am right on this one since includes Michael Clarke).

Image Source: The Independent, UK

If the ECB was so convinced that Aamer and the Pakistani players are guilty before any concrete proof has been produced, why even continue with the tour?  How sure are the ECB that by sitting down Aamer, Asif and Butt the stink of the allegation would somehow magically be cleared off Pakistani team? Oh wait, what’s that? ECB stands to lose close to $25 million if the ODI and T20 leg of the tour does not go on? Well then, let’s compromise our morals for money. Sounds a lot like the crime the ECB and everyone else with a primary education in Cricket is accusing Aamer for.

The PCB, as screwed up as they are, are at least, in my opinion, doing something right – which is, the players will be treated as innocent until there is concrete evidence to the contrary. The whole “he said, she said” is not going to work. The ECB (the beacon of justice that they pretend to be) needed to do it as well. They should have let Aamer and Asif continue to play for Pakistan in the ODI and T20 portion of the tour. That would’ve been the most civil thing to do. But they caved in to their own ideas of public pressure and a media circus and forced the PCB to “drop the three players from the rest of the tour, although not formally suspend, while investigations continue.” What a farce!

Let us see how up with the times the ECB is. Kevin Pietersen – preens too much for my palate – tweeted, seemingly by mistake, his displeasure at being dropped from the English ODI and T20 teams. By the time he realized, it was too late and too many people had taken a screenshot of the tweet (including friends of the blog, Lizzy Ammon and Thoughts from a Dustbin). Of course, Pietersen “apologized” later on saying some bullshit about how his thoughts didn’t come out the way he wanted and it was not meant for the public domain. Geoff Miller, the ECB selector, when asked about his views in Pietersen’s rant, responded thus:

I don’t like that kind of language and I don’t use that language at all. I don’t follow Twitter and I’m not a great believer in that kind of thing. I don’t think it is necessary.

Take your time getting to 2010, Geoff. What was that thing I said about hoity-toity?

*-The Cricket Couch does not believe that people with leprosy should be treated with disdain.

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But the Sri Lankan Cricket Board didn’t think so. Earlier today, they handed down, at the end of their own internal investigation – this must be the quickest ever investigation in the history of internal investigations – a one-match ban to Suraj Randiv, and loss of match fees and loss of match fees to the apparent instigator Tillakaratne Dilshan, as well. You already know the circumstances surrounding the controversy, so I won’t rehash it.

At the end of the match, when Sehwag realized he didn’t actually get to his century, he in his unique way, brushed it off, saying that teams do these sort of things to prevent the batsman from getting to a personal landmark. By then he had not seen the replays and wasn’t really aware of the egregiousness of that no ball. A spinner who doesn’t really bowl no balls oversteps so much that his back foot is at the popping crease. So this was a premeditated effort to deny Sehwag his century. When asked later, Sehwag agreed that it looked very intentional and premeditated, and reportedly not as generous or forgiving as he was at the end of the match. (Would you be? I am not so sure.)

However, reports came out later that the bowler, Suraj Randiv, had apologized to Sehwag and even Sri Lankan Cricket did too. Sehwag accepted it and it was time for all of us to move on, with the knowledge that even Sri Lanka, two time recipient of the ICC Spirit of Cricket Team award (’07 and ’08), is not above cheap tricks. As Sambit Bal, The editor of Cricinfo put forth: “The bowler apologised, the batsman accepted; where do the rest of us come in?“

That’s when the Indian media machine stepped in. In the only way it knows to analyze (I am using the term analyze very loosely) any situation, it blew it out of proportion. Every damn network started piling on. They brought in people to transcribe the conversation picked up by stump microphone (as one anchor put it – real people who know real Sinhalese. Who said investigative journalism is dead?). They were positive it was Sangakkara who made Randiv do the dastardly act. The real people who know real Sinhalese told the anchor, “Sangakkara told the bowler not to give the batsman a run”. Of course. Which captain ever tells his bowler not to give away the winning run? Game, Set and Match. Some started comparing the situation to all the other times any Indian cricket player was ever wronged. Sydney 2008 was duly hashed and rehashed. The racist card couldn’t be played as those real Sri Lankans are of the same race as these real Indians. As much as I am not a fan of Sangakkara and his over appealing, sweet talking tactics, he was quickly sullied without proper proof. But after the SL Cricket Board’s punishments have come out, it has become clear that Dishan played the instigator and advised Randiv to bowl a monster no ball. The raving TV anchor is not going to apologize to Sangakkara but that is only to be expected. The story quickly moved on to demonising Dilshan.

I had a few conversations during the day on social networking sites and just good ol’ fashioned chats with some friends. The topic revolved around, not the usual “OMG, how could Randiv do that?” but more on the lines of, “Did SLC have to do this? Was the punishment too much?” [especially considering Mr. Broad Jr is getting away with only a portion of match fees docked for throwing a ball at a batsman and for general wussy-ness].

With just the video evidence, it is hard to prove that Randiv’s action was pre-meditated. People bowl big no balls and wides. Ask Steve Harmison. He has bowled a ball so wide, it bypassed the keeper, the pitch and went straight in to the hands of second slip. And so, yeah, it happens. I asked one of my friends from my undergraduate days – he is a trained umpire in the Asian Cricket Council – and he responded thus: “The umpire should have called the ball dead and cautioned the bowler for misconduct if to him it was delibrate, as he is empowered to under the “preamble” spirit of cricket points number 3 and 4. Clearly the offence”intention” to deny sehwag occured before the noball was bowled.” However, one cannot get inside the head of Randiv to know for sure, what he was thinking. The ICC couldn’t have interfered in this as technically, Randiv has not broken any of the game’s written laws.

I commend the fact that SLC Board decided to step in and nip the issue in the bud and do their own investigation, through which they have determined that Dilshan prodded Randiv to bowl the no ball. Good on them. In my opinion, Dilshan should at least have received the same punishment as Randiv, if not more. Dilshan is an experienced international player and should have known better than to resort to such idiocy. If he felt so compelled to deny Sehwag, he should have taken the ball and bowled that over instead of Randhiv.

But did SLC had to do this in the first place? No, of course not. There may be any number of reasons why they did it. It’s possible that the Board was ticked off with the team losing the 2009 Spirit of Cricket award to the Kiwis, or,  may be they are just really good Buddhists, or they are dependent on BCCI for solvency and so wanted to avoid any drawn out, media driven controversy.

I wonder if SLC Board would have been this stringent and swift with “justice” if it weren’t Randhiv – a relative newcomer on the cricketing scene – but one of their main bowlers and the following match was a semi-final or a final. But that’s neither here nor there. So what have we learned from this?

The spirit of cricket is a big bogus thing. In the current days of big time commercialization of cricket, the old practices of what used to be a “gentleman’s game” is slowly but surely drifting out the window. Secondly, Indian media is a non-stop non-sense circus where street corner preachers are masquerading as TV anchors blowing every possible issue out of proportion and propagating the view that one of ours was wronged and so we will drag you through hell. Thirdly, SLC Board cares about its team’s “spirit of cricket” image for one reason or another and they decided to display it by over-penalizing a new comer.