What does India need to do?

The Cricket World Cup to be hosted jointly in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is only a little more than 7 months away. Currently, Indian team is involved in a pointless Asia cup final playing Sri Lanka, yet again. They will also be playing a three-team tournament featuring New Zealand and you guessed it.. Sri Lanka. There is the tour of South Arica towards the end of 2010 and a possible trip from Australia for a short test series.

This surely is Sachin Tendulkar’s final hurrah and his last chance to collect some hardware before he says bye bye to the limited overs format of the game and solely focuses on Test matches and perhaps IPL. Some Indian players have already mentioned that they want to win this one for Sachin.

Playing in the sub-continent certainly gives the Indian batsmen an advantage but then, it will make the bowling unit look, to put it mildly, ordinary. Of course, playing at home brings along with it a whole new set of pressures.

What do you think? What are the things that India need to get in order for a successful run at the World cup 2011? In terms of batting line up, team selection, bowlers, strategies etc. Chime in.

Captaincy Kaboodle

I am no Mike Brearley, but I have some experience in captaining a Cricket team. The first time I ever captained a team, I was 11 or 12.  There were not many strategies involved back then, because all you are trying to do is just play and hope you win. The skill levels have barely developed and you don’t have  much of a clue. You have a general idea of the concepts of the game and you run with it.

By sheer luck, I became the captain of the Penn State Cricket Club (PSCC) during the course of the  2003 season.  I continued as captain for the rest of the season and the following season as well. I took the lead in the running of the practice sessions and people seemed to be comfortable playing under my captaincy. We won a couple more games that season but I started picking up on the little things that contribute to winning the games.

Manchurian Candidate

This is a “Guest Column” written by a friend of the blog, Gautam.  Back in the day, Mohinder Amarnath called the Indian selection committee, “a bunch of jokers” but Gautam has gone a step further and has unearthed the conspiracy theory behind their seemingly stupid selection moves. Gautam’s rants will appear under the category “Wagle ki Duniya“- The Cricket Couch

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When the British ruled the Indian subcontinent as one of its colonies, they introduced the game of cricket to the Maharajah’s and the aristocrats during afternoon sojourns while trying to relieve themselves of the boredom of governance. (And if Mr. Gowariker is to be believed, even the ladies managed to introduce the game to some of the locals). When they finally left, they left behind a divided subcontinent. Historians believe that the “Divide and Rule” policy was a clever strategy by the British to cling on to the colonial rule and if unable to still do so, the least they would do is leave a divided subcontinent as a scar and mark of their dominance for a period of history. Little is it known that the real reason of leaving a subcontinent with divided nations was to ensure that the British team would not face the wrath of a united sub-continental team for in their time they had scouted some serious bowling talent on the western banks of the Indus and an immense batting talent on the other side of the divide.

Who’s Next?

*This column is cross-posted at my column in CricAges*

If for one fleeting moment, we can push the hullabaloo from India’ disappointing T20 world cup campaign and the debacle of the second unit in Zimbabwe aside, we can actually see a team that is sitting atop the world Test rankings. The long, winding and arduous climb to the top has been a product in the making for almost a decade, riding on the backs of some of the finest cricketers the game has ever seen: Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and VVS Laxman. Two of the five have already said sayonara to the international game and the others, being on the wrong side of 35, are not far away either.

The Ewing Theory in Cricket

**This article has been cross-posted at The Big Tip**

Back in 1998 or thereabout, when ESPN, The worldwide leader in sports, was launching its website, it recruited sports writers and bloggers to enrich the website’s content. While doing so, it secured the services of a sports blogger Bill Simmons who called himself “The Boston Sports Guy“. Bill (or the sportsguy as he is known now) wrote and interpreted the sports scene in an overwhelmingly Boston sports fan point of view. I have been a big fan of his writing and to this day, still read his columns on ESPN.

He had many running features in his columns, such as “The Reggie Cleveland All Stars” (For athletes with black sounding names but are actually white), “Diane Lane All Stars” (For ladies who seem to get hotter as they get older, named for the Hollywood Actress Diane Lane), Tyson Zone (Nothing a person does, no matter how outrageous it is, does not surpise you!) etc. He also had a hypothesized many theories including the one he calls as, and my favorite, “The Ewing Theory“.

New post at “CricAges”

Just posted an article over at CricAges “All quiet on the western front. So far” dealing with the state of cricket in the USA. Have a read and submit comments to let us know what your thoughts are on this. Does Cricket have a thriving future in the land of milk and honey?

Autobiographies

Recently I came in possession of a few books on cricket, including a biography and an autobiography. That made me think what the titles would be if some of the Indian cricketers decided to put their lives on print.

Irfan Pathan – I used to be a fast bowler

Ajit Agarkar – Get your ducks in a row

Sreesanth – Show the other cheek, said Jesus

Yuvraj Singh – Mom’s the word

Ashish Nehra – What happens in St. Lucia, stays in St. Lucia

Harbhajan Singh – Maa ki See, Maa ki do

Sachin Tendulkar – God promise, I didn’t hear it

Sourav Ganguly – Striptease

Rahul Dravid – The Bridesmaid’s tale

MS Dhoni – At the end of the day

Zaheer Khan – Return of the dead

Virender Sehwag – I’m a better clone than Dolly the sheep

Send in your suggestions for VVS Laxman, Gautam Gambhir, Munaf Patel et al. Its open season, folks.