The Great Cricket Debate: India’s #1 Status and The BCCI

There is a lot of rankling outside of the sphere of India and her fans that, India have basically lucked in to the #1 Test Side status, since they have not beaten neither Australia nor South Africa in a test series away! (Apparently there is an unwritten rule in test match rankings that you had to wrest the #1 status from the cold, dead fingers of the previous holder of the title).

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.

The World According to Ejaz Butt

If Ejaz Butt were to be in charge of our history books:

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.

CLT20 Team of Names

As the all important Champions League T20 tournament comes to an end — Okay, Okay, I was only kidding. I am a bit jaded with all the T20 matches going on and finding it hard to keep up. Especially, with Ejaz Butt issuing statements left and right and not knowing who took what money where, it has become doubly tough to keep your head straight about all the goings on in Cricket these days.

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.)
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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.

History of the Penn State Cricket Club

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.

Ten Things about Group Captain Sachin Tendulkar

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.

Slowing Down Simon Hughes

Former Test Match Special commentator and current columnist for The Daily Telegraph, put together a laundry list of 10 reasons why England will be the number one test side. These do not include getting Freddie Flintoff back or a secret project that has been teaching Steve Harmison to bounce the ball within the cut strip.

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.

The ECB Situation

When it comes to administrative ineptitude, Cricket boards across the world will give the George W. Bush administration a run for their money. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) absolutely takes the cake with their inefficiency, lack of backbone to follow through with their own decisions and the punishments they hand down to the players. The England and Wales Cricket Board (EWCB technically, but ECB for our discussion here, as no one except for the Welsh care for the Wales part of the Board.. Also, I heard the Cardiff pitch sucks), is slightly better than the PCB but not by very much.

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).