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.

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.