A quick SWOT analysis

The absence of Ganguly from the pre-series camp in Bangalore makes it quite clear that he's not going to be picked for the Tests. That's a good opportunity for Rohit Sharma, the most likely candidate for Ganguly's slot in the eleven, to cement his place in the Test side. I hope they give him a run of four Tests, and not rotate the one open slot between two or three newcomers during the series. The replacement of Ganguly with Rohit will strengthen the batting, in my view, although I would have liked one more opening to have been created in the middle order. As for the bowling, the pacers are looking in fine fettle: Ishant, Zaheer and Munaf all impressed in the Irani trophy. The odd guy out is captain Kumble. He's averaging 40 plus per wicket these days, and looked far from threatening in the Irani Cup match. In fact, Chetnya Nanda of Delhi looked more likely to get a top order batsman out. I feel Kumble will be India's Achille's heel by blocking a more deserving spinner (on current form) like Amit Mishra or Pragyan Ojha. Even in captaincy, he lacks the dynamism, confidence and astuteness of MS Dhoni. The only match where Kumble is likely to be an asset may be his favourite hunting ground - Ferozeshah Kotla, Delhi. I hope he gets a bunch of wickets there and announces his retirement. It's painful to see one of India's greatest bowlers (in home conditions) struggle like this.

So what's your ideal team to take on the Aussies? To check out mine, you can go to this article in DNA: Kaun banega selector?

All competing for one vacancy!

The Irani trophy will be a showcase of talent, but to what end? Only one place in the side is open, it seems, that of Ganguly.

Long live the leagues

On the mass defection of Bangladeshi players to the Indian Cricket League, most people have focussed on what it tells us about boards like that of Bangladesh and the players' lot. But to me it's more fundamental than that. It shows that cricket is finally going the way other major international sports like soccer and tennis have gone: the leagues, clubs and circuits are primary, while national contests get pushed to the periphery. With TV providing the main sporting audience, it's now a question of bringing international talented players together in formats like ICL and IPL and that can actually be good for the game, and also globalise it more effectively than by say getting cricket into the Olympics. A fuller exposition on this is in an article I wrote for DNA: Why cricket should go the soccer way

Double speak on fading stars

"Australia have ceased to think that their team’s fortunes depend on one or a group of individuals to get them victories... Australia have learnt to live without their star players," says former Australian coach John Buchanan in an interview to DNA. In the same breath, he says he's surprised by Sourav Ganguly's omission from the Irani Cup, a sentiment also expressed by Ponting. I can only surmise that either their Kolkata IPL connections are a factor, or that they prefer to have Ganguly in the Indian team. Because, when it comes to the Australian team, they've wasted no time in moving on from Gilchrist, Martyn, Langer, etc, and that's the key to their success over so many years. The message from Buchanan and Ponting seems to be that Australia doesn't need fading stars, but India does!
Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, appears to be more on the side of youth in this matter, defending Gary Kirsten, India's coach from South Africa, who had suggested Dhoni is ready to take over the Test captaincy from Kumble. "Kumble is 38, for goodness sake. He has back-to-back series against Australia and Pakistan coming up. How long do people expect him to carry on?" The question, Mickey, is how long the seniors expect to carry on, because I doubt any of them will retire of their own volition with so much money coming into the game. And that's also why it's hard to give them a nice send-off, like the Australians do by hinting to a senior player that maybe it's time.

For whom should the bell toll?

Kirti Azad pretty much hit the nail on the head I thought. "The decision to drop Ganguly itself is not wrong as his form in recent times has not been impressive. But the question is why the same treatment shouldn't be given to Rahul and Sachin, who are out of form as well," he said at a function in Delhi. But instead of generally venting my spleen on this, I decided to do a little tallying up, and came up with some interesting results. Check them out at this article on DNA - For whom should the bell toll?

Why Kirsten is right

Whatever prompted Gary Kirsten to come out with it - that Dhoni is obviously ready for Test captaincy - he should be commended for setting off a debate on what is in everyone's mind. For me, his follow-up remark was more telling - "but there's no rush". Why on earth not? That's the question I've raised in an article in DNA where I've compared our two captains - Why Dhoni is a better captain than Kumble

Of form and fitness

The previous post Who needs the famous five? predictably had strong reactions for and against. We're talking of players who have become icons over the years with the joy they've provided to fans. I've admired them too and have no intention of belittling their achievements. But to me it's more important to see India play somewhere near its potential, and currently the test team is not doing that. The loss to Sri Lanka was embarrassing not because they lost, but the manner in which they were rattled by Mendis. How can Dhoni, who is just a wicketkeeper-batsman, figure Mendis out in a couple of one-days, and the fab four fail to do that in three five-day matches where they could even afford to block everything? And don't forget we avoided an even more embarrassing loss at home to the South Africans only with the aid of an under-prepared pitch in the last test at Kanpur. And, was it an accident that the teams led by the fab four failed to make it to the semis of the IPL? I think it's not a question of their talent. I think their fitness and reflexes are letting them down, affecting their form and attitude. Yes, there are older players on the circuit, like Jayasuriya, but look at their fitness and fielding. Dravid has been one of the best slippers in the game, but how frequently do you see him drop catches now? To be in denial of this is unfair to fans who want to see India win in Tests and know that we have the talent for it. Or at least let's develop new talent, instead of seeing our icons struggle. Isn't it a pain to see the greatest bowler on sub-continental pitches going at over 40 runs a wicket, as he has done against South Africa at home and on spin-friendly tracks in Lanka? How can anybody expect him to magically do better against the Aussies?

Who needs the famous five?

It's a pity Dhoni let the Sri Lankans off the hook in the last ODI after having them down on the mat six down for a little over a hundred runs. His inexplicable denial of three overs to Munaf Patel showed a lack of killer instinct that has characterised Indian sport over the years. But no matter. I think Dhoni and his young team have again shown they are - on current form - playing better than their more illustrious counterparts in the Test team in all aspects of the game. I think it is Dhoni who should lead a young Indian Test team to take on the visiting Australians later this year. More on this in an article I wrote for DNA: Now change the Test team.

Dhoni da jawab nahin

Dhoni got most things right in the third ODI. First, the playing 11 was perfect, given the available resources. Although India again could not finish off the Lankans after getting them down 94-7, the bigger problem remains the batting with four out of seven failing. So I hope Dhoni ignores the exhortations of the TV commentators led by Tony Greig to play five bowlers. But, if he does induct a fifth bowler, it should be RP Singh, because Pathan has become too slow to be able to take wickets. Four pacers bowling the first 20 overs at the brittle Lankan lineup seems tempting, but whom would you drop? By rights, it should be Yuvraj, but that's too tough a call at this stage. Maybe in the fifth ODI if India lose the next one.
The second thing Dhoni almost got right was the batting lineup, with Yuvraj moving up to number three. But sending Badrinath ahead of Rohit was wrong. Rohit's just had a couple of failures. He shouldn't lose his batting position so easily, after having shown his class over the past year.
The third and most important thing was to win the toss and bat because the ball did more for both the pacers and spinners in the cool atmosphere of the evening. And he topped it up with a captain's knock to rescue the team. It's a pity he ran Raina out, though, when he was looking set for a big one.
The one area where Dhoni continues to expose his rawness in captaincy is the field placement. Munaf bowled without a slip to Mahela even though that was the last recognised batsman standing. And Bhajji had no forward short leg for Mahela even though the ball was turning and jumping. The Indians allowed the Sri Lankan captain to bat himself back to form with a 94, and he can make them pay for it in the next two ODIs.

That's why we need referrals

"Excuse me?" exclaims Homer's blog, detailing the double standards evident in two ICC match referees' interpretations of offensive behaviour by players. While Aleem Dar let Flintoff go scot-free in an SA-England match, Chris Broad slapped Munaf Patel with a level 2 offence for a far lesser misdemeanour in the second ODI between India and Sri Lanka. Broad's harshness also rekindles the white-man-not-taking-the-brown-man's-word argument that snowballed into a crisis after the Sydney Test when Mike Proctor banned Harbhajan Singh. So, when I saw pictures of a Cuban taekwondo fighter kicking a match referee in the face after some dubious decisions at the Olympics on Saturday, I thought it isn't far-fetched to expect a similar incident in cricket one of these days if the ICC persists with arming undeserving people like Broad with so much power. And yet, there's an easy way to prevent such ugliness, and this was evident in the Test series. I mean the referral system, of course, which defuses all the rancour in the middle, just like it did for tennis. More on this in an article I wrote, titled Back to the middle ages, because that's what it feels like to watch cricket again without the referral system which has been put on the back-burner after its trial in the Tests.

More luck than pluck

It was astounding to hear Dhoni after the toss - that he really wanted to bat first but couldn't with makeshift openers filling in for the injured Sehwag and Gambhir. This despite playing on the same Dambulla pitch where they got bowled out for 146 two days back. Wonder if he still feels he should've batted first after bowling out Lanka for 142 and levelling the series? The fact is that if he had done the right thing in the first ODI in terms of the toss and team selection, India would've been 2-0 up.
Anyway, kudos to Dhoni for holding things together at the end and squeaking through to a victory. The replacement of Ojha with Praveen Kumar was also a good thing even if it was obvious, and likewise about bowling Zaheer Khan seven overs on the trot. It was also great to see Badrinath grabbing the half an opportunity he got to prove his worth. But many holes remain.
Predictably, Pathan failed as an opener. Even though Kohli got important runs, the way he got out reminded me of the IPL where he displayed this tendency to give it away even on the few occasions when he does get going. Yes, he's a youngster, he did lead India to an under-19 world cup, and we should give him a long rope - but not at the expense of more deserving players who are not in the team.
The lack of penetration in the Indian bowling was again evident when we could not finish off the Lankans even after getting their six main batsmen out cheaply. We missed a bowler with pace like Ishant. And, at Galle, we'll rue the fact that India does not select a wicket-taking bowler like Amit Mishra.

Welcome new blogger

Think outside the box, MSD

Sachin and Sehwag injured. No other opener available. So shove the newbie into the vacant slot and let's see what happens. Didn't work? Okay let's try Pathan who has a reasonable technique...
Basically, the injury to Sehwag has exposed the fact that a 16-member team has been chosen with no contingency for an opener getting injured. Now it is left to Dhoni to find a partner for Gambhir by a process of elimination and he has four more shots at it. So I thought we should give him a hand at it.
To me Kohli was the wrong choice for the team itself (as Sampath said in response to my previous post Dumbness at Dambulla), because he hasn't done enough to deserve the position ahead of others available and the selectors should've taken his IPL flops into account.
Now I think they will push Pathan in, but that would be a mistake on two counts: 1) Pathan can use his feet well to spinners, and he can be put to better use if he's asked to chance his arm against Murali and Mendis to throw them off their rhythm, 2) His bowling has become so pedestrian that it may be better to replace him with somebody with more zing, although RP Singh and Praveen Kumar have also gone off the boil.
The out-of-the-box idea would be send Yuvraj in as opener. Think about it. He's a sitting duck for Mendis and Murali, anyway, because it's unlikely he can get his feet moving overnight. He has to go back to domestic cricket and work on his technique against spin. At the same time, with Sehwag gone, there's no harder hitter than him in the team. So why not send him out as opener and give Vaasy the heebie jeebies?

Dumb at Dambulla

Yes, Mendis continues to mesmerise. But the real damage was done before he came on to bowl. Four of the top five batsmen fell to the Lankan pacers, even when they're without the services of Maharoof, Malinga and Fernando. Dhoni said after the toss that the wicket had grass but would not help the pacers. Duh!? There was clearly both seam movement and bounce in the morning, and the Indian top order got bogged down and then threw their wickets away thinking they had to get quick runs before Mendis and Murali came on. It's a pity Ishant Sharma, who rattled the Lankans in the Tests, has not been made available to Dhoni. But if Dhoni is not going to give his bowlers the advantage of bowling first in helpful conditions, then I guess it makes no difference. India's homework was zero on the Dambulla pitch, which has grass imported from Australia, and has produced low scores for teams batting first recently. If only Whatmore had been our coach!

Too poor to win?

India is too poor a country to pour resources into sports. We are so liberal that we can't do what the Chinese are doing, or the East Europeans did before them... These were also the kinds of excuses that used to be trotted out to justify the 'Hindu' rate of economic growth at one time. With political will and leadership, India need not be such an under-achiever in sports, even without having to resort to draconian methods. And it's more about professional administration than resources alone. Just look at cricket, where we have by far the richest board in the world but lose to tiny Sri Lanka, anyway. I think the real problem is a lack of appreciation among those who run the country of the 'soft power' of sports. I've written about this in more detail in an article for DNA - No sports please, we're Indian.

Big blow or big relief?

MS Dhoni says the absence of Sachin Tendulkar is a big blow for India leading up to the one-day series with Lanka. Before that, he said players of the calibre of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid don't have to prove themselves.
All that these statements tell me is that Dhoni is settling in nicely to the political side of his role as captain. It's all very well to say nice things about players when you know they are not going to be in your team.
Actions speak louder than words, however. It's quite well known that it was MSD's strong opposition that kept Ganguly and Dravid out of the one-day team Down Under. As for Sachin, Dhoni must have mixed feelings.
Tendulkar did hold the innings together in the finals of the tri-series in Australia, although the main credit for those victories should have gone to the bowlers. Anyway, his form and fitness have been poor since then - a duck in the only innings he played against South Africa, a groin injury that kept him out of half the IPL, a below-par scoring rate in the IPL, an average of just 15 in his six innings of the Test series in Lanka...
But more importantly, Sachin's absence saves Dhoni from having to split India's terrific opening combo of Gambhir and Sehwag. So methinks Dhoni would be counting his blessings while lamenting the "big blow".

Will the younger lot handle Mendis better?

Before the start of the Test series, I wrote an article about the Mendis threat - The man with the golden finger. It basically suggested two things -
1. That Mendis would prove to be a bigger threat than Murali.
2. That India's ageing batsmen would struggle despite their experience.
Now the question is if the younger one-day batsmen will fare any better. I think they will, except for Yuvraj.

Will the younger lot handle Mendis better?

Before the start of the Test series, I wrote about the Mendis threat in The man with the golden finger. It basically made two points: 1) That Mendis would prove to be a bigger threat than Murali, and 2) That India's ageing batsmen would struggle against him despite their experience. Now the question is if the younger one-day batsmen will fare any better. I think, except for Yuvraj, they will.

Cricketkeeper 2.0

Hi. I'm back. Apologies for going AWOL without a word. Wanted a rethink on this blog. Conclusion: I'll be posting here regularly, and also linking to the best stuff on cricket I find on the web.
I'm also writing a web column these days, one or two a week. Here's the link: http://www.dnaindia.com/columns/sumit-chakraberty

A tale of two captains

Shoaib Malik caught a lot of flak after putting India in to bat first in the third ODI at Kanpur. The last time these two teams played there, India chose to bat first and got bowled out cheaply. Teams batting first have averaged only 225 on the Green Park strip because of the overnight moisture. Dire warnings about how the pitch crumbles in the afternoon prompts teams to bat first, but these have always proven unfounded. It gets dustier and slower, but paradoxically easier. In fact the spinners too are usually more effective in the first innings when the pitch has more bite. Pakistan lost despite putting India in to bat, and not because of it, in my view.
There were other reasons for the loss. Ganguly being dropped off the first ball was vital, because that could have opened the floodgates on a track helping the pacers in the morning. Although both Ganguly and Tendulkar perished after getting set, they gave India a rollicking start and also saw off the main dangermen - Umar Gul and Shoaib Akhtar.
The second factor was the way Yuvraj and Dhoni went after the spinners around the 34th over. This was awesome batting, but then Pakistan played only one fulltime spinner unlike India's strategy of using two experienced ones even at the cost of playing one batsman less. Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi are part-timers and their limitations got exposed. Even then, I thought Malik did well to bring back the pacers as soon as the onslaught began. He gambled on getting rid of Yuvraj and Dhoni before being forced to complete the spinners' quota. Shoaib did get Dhoni, but not before he sent a few more to the fence. Yuvraj however stayed almost till the end and made the big difference. Malik can't be faulted entirely for using the left-arm spinner Rahman at the end, because he did beat Yuvraj in flight to get him caught at square leg. But his last two overs went for 30 runs and I wonder if Afridi, being more street-smart, might have handled the pressure of bowling to Pathan and Uthappa better.
Malik also failed to utilise Afridi's batting, by sending him out to open. Afridi is even more erratic in his batting these days, and to expect him to suddenly do his stuff against the new ball was asking for too much. Any deviation catches him out, as Pathan reconfirmed. Afridi can thump the old ball, off both spinners and medium-pacers. Besides, his presence low down in the order is a constant menace to the opposition who know they can never assume the game is in control. These are the same reasons why I think India should employ Sehwag down the order instead of opening.
Now, turning to the other captain, Dhoni, I think he's lucky to be 2-1 up in the series and also lucky to have caught more bouquets than brickbats. In Kanpur, India's shortage of batsmen might have shown if the Dhoni-Yuvraj partnership had been broken earlier. These two have combined in two outstanding partnerships to give India both its victories in the three matches so far. To expect them to do that again would bne stretching the law of averages. I think Dhoni got the combination right in Mohali where we did get 321 even though we lost the game. Sehwag should again play in place of one of the bowlers in the next two ODIs. Gwalior is usually a spinners' track, and so one of the left-arm pacers should sit out there. In Jaipur, I would bench Murali Kartik.
Of course, having won the last ODI, Dhoni is likely to stick to the five-bowler format. If he manages to win the series in spite of that, it would validate Wasim Akram's pre-series analysis, pointing out weaknesses in Pakistan's bowling, with Shoaib Akhtar not fully fit, and no wicket-taking spinner like Danesh Kaneria in their ranks.
Dhoni I thought escaped brickbats for losing the game in Mohali, which all analysts predictably blamed on the bowlers. I think India lost by choosing to bat first. We have seen before that heavy dew in winter day-nighters in the north makes any total impossible to defend. India came close to winning only because of Pakistan's ineptitude, first in Rao Ifthikar dishing out half-volleys for Harbhajan to smash 38, and then a couple of set batsmen, including centurion Younis Khan, getting out to wild shots in the end although the asking rate never went out of hand.
Not so long ago, Ganguly was not only criticised for losing, but also suffered a ban due to an excruciatingly slow over-rate after he chose to bat first in a day-nighter at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata against Pakistan to mark the BCCI centenary. So it's quite a contrast that Dhoni got away scot-free after winning the toss and making India lose by bowling and fielding in the heavy Mohali dew.
The thing with heavy dew is that once the ball and pitch get wet, there's no movement at all both for medium-pacers and spinners. So the batsmen can simply play through the line of the ball. And since the ball zips on to the bat after pitching, it flies to the fence faster too. This is going to be a major factor in the next two ODIs which are day-nighters. I don't know much about how heavy the dew gets in Gwalior, which has traditionally favoured spinners, but certainly in Jaipur it will be a big advantage to bat second. In fact, day-nighters in such conditions, which favour one side to such an extent, become meaningless.
Going by India's record in such matches, fans will be praying India loses the toss and Pakistan chooses to bat first, having lost while chasing at Kanpur. Somebody should analyse the number of games India has lost in the last two years after winning the toss. I suspect it would be around two-thirds of the time, which would be ironical because it's supposed to be an advantage to win the toss.