Category Archives: Format

Virender Sehwag’s Record Breaking 219 [Infographic]

Virender Sehwag has always had a game suited for ODI Cricket more than Test but for some inexplicable reason he seems to play big innings in Test matches more so than ODIs.

Yesterday, Sehwag decided to do some catching up and not only with a fantastic hundred but a double hundred. He broke Tendulkar’s 200* which was the world record before.

Here is a infographic I made about Sehwag’s journey to the world record-breaking 219 runs.

Shewag_219_infographic

Hopefully Sehwag takes this murderous form to Australia where India will play a test series starting 25th December 2011.

Tables Turned: Australia Choke, South African Win

Today South Africa won a Test against Australia. South Africa won by a handsome 8 wickets. But the drama and mayhem from the day before was truly stuff of Cricket legend.

The first day ended with Australia on 214/8 with Micheal Clarke not out on 107. On day two, Clarke went on to score 151, while Australia scored 284.

South Africa was then blown away by Australia for a paltry 96.

Australia started the 3rd innings with a commanding lead of 188 runs. Australia was all set for a victory and guess what? They choked. Bowled out for only 47 runs it left South Africa to get 236 to win. The second day had started with the 1st innings and ended with the 4th innings resuming.

No more drama unfolded and the match was won with only 2 wickets being lost in the 4th innings.

Both teams in one innings managed so score over 200 while in another could not manage to reach 100.

Usually South Africa known to be chokers, especially against Australia ended up winning from a difficult position. Australia on the other hand did something they never do, which is choke when victory is in sight.

Both these teams are not ranked #1 and it is now over 2 years that Australia has been ranked behind India in Tests. Also England is the worlds #1 team. The world of cricket has truly turn around. 😀

(post inspired via @mani0993)

Link: Score Card

5 Reasons India got White Washed – Slip to #3 rank in Test Cricket

Way back in 1993 in January/February – England toured India. They were considered to be the better test side but ended up losing the 3 test series 3-0. Today with a 4-0 victory over India, England has avenged its defeat. They have also moved to the top of the ICC Test Rankings, while India which went to England as #1 has not slipped to #3.

 

Image Source

Here are five reasons India lost the series 4-0

  1. Batting Flopped: India’s best batsman in this series was Rahul Dravid who scored 3 centuries. No one else scored a hundred and the Indian team scored 300 runs only once.
  2. Bowling Flopped: The bowling derailed from the first day onwards. Zaheer Khan was out of the first Test with an injury, Harbhajan Singh was similarly gone after the second. Amit Mishra did not impress with the ball. Praveen Kumar was probably the most impressive and was leading India’s bowling attack. Considering he has made his test debut only a month ago, leaves a lot to desire about India’s bench strength.
  3. Bad Selections: Rohit Sharma, arguably India’s best batsman from the younger lot, was not picked to play Test matches. Munaf Patel was left stranded while a late addition into the team like RP. Singh was immediately picked for a match.
  4. Too Much Cricket and Injuries: India did not play a single test match without injury problems. The first test saw Zaheer Khan injured, second test saw Harbhajan Singh injured. Third Test started without many more injuries but it ended with Praveen Kumar being injured. After the fourth Test Sehwag and Ishant Sharma are returning to India after injuries. The number of players being injured probably resembles a rugby team and not a cricket team. This is probably because of way too much Cricket being played over the past couple of years.
  5. BCCI: The BCCI seems hardly interested in Test cricket. There is no explanation possible for a tour of England with only a single practice game. Guess what India is touring Australia in December this year, and according to schedule, India has only one club level practice game before the Test series.
What are your views? Take a poll on what was responsible of India’s debacle here. Do drop in your comments.

What makes Laxman very very special?

Way back in 1998 Laxman was still making his way into the Indian team. He was in the ODI squad in Sharjah. The opponents at Sharjah were the mighty Australians led by Steve Waugh. Sachin Tendulkar was playing the innings of his life and on the other side watching him was VVS Laxman.

Laxman was completely out of depth in that match and had a few nervous moments.

It is ironic that VVS Laxman has chosen to make Australia his favourite opponents and pressure something that he thrives under.

Just that today’s (5th Oct 2010) match into account. He managed to come out with an injured back, hang around and put together an impossible win taking India to victory by just 1 wicket.

So what makes VVS Laxman very very special?

VVS Laxman has scored 7490 runs at an average of 47.40 in Test cricket. This is a healthy no for any test cricketer but what makes him special are his match winning innings. We must have lost count of the times Laxman scores run when India truly need those runs.
In the table below are the runs scored and averages of Ponting, Tendulkar and Laxman in the 3rd or 4th innings of a test match. These numbers are usually much less flattering than career stats as all these innings are played under pressure and on a 4th or 5th day pitch.

Runs Average
VVS Laxman 2877 50.47
Tendulkar 3939 43.28
Ponting 3487 43.85

The table above shows that Laxman average while chasing or setting victorious scores is higher than his career average. No wonder VVS Laxman is India’s go to man.

What could be India’s squad in 2011 ICC World Cup?

This year we had a tough cricket; even Indian team had hard luck in the ICC T20. There is nothing to be blamed with neither the selectors nor the commission. The Tri series leaves nothing to be described about our team young legs. The ICC WC 2011 is around the corner, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh going to host it. At this point of view, Indian team should concentrate on their game i.e. bowling, fielding & should consider few players to play their natural game.

Hopefully the lord of the venue, Sachin Tendulkar will be playing. The opening pair will be very strong such that Sachin & Shewag will start the innings. Even the top order batsman will be filled out with Gambir, Raina & Yuvraj.

The middle order will be taken care by our captain Dhoni. The lower middle order is the biggest question, no real guesses at all. The top lower order batsman will be Harbahjan. When it comes to seamer’s, Zaheer will be in the playing eleven. These eight players will be confirmed; only in case of any injuries there might be few changes.

The areas to be focused by our team will be specially bowling & fielding. There are really big hitters in the squad, so no problem with that. When it comes to bowling, the economy of Indian team bowler is almost above Five & half. If this continues then the runs we concede in one match by our bowlers will be surely above 280+. The target becomes tough, in case of early wickets of our batsman. We lost the game. Next is fielding, there was few many misfield by our young legs in the Tri-series. This should be avoided in the ICC WC.

Thus Players should be focused in fielding. When it comes to the playing 11, I left 3 players, in that one will surely be an all rounder, then the other two will be a seamer.

Which players can be filled in that gap??

My guess will be, Praveen Kumar, though he can swing the ball in both directions & other possibility will be either Sreesanth or R.P. Singh. The all rounder will be Yusuf. I personally feel that, playing eleven with 3 regular seamers will be a correct choice.

What are your views and thoughts on India’s chances and tactics for World Cup in 2011? Drop in your comments

Related: Indian Cricket team for World Cup 2011

Dhoni goes from being Captain Cool to Captain Clueless

India has had a rich history of Batsmen who had wrists of steel and footwork fancier than a gazelle. But they have always had a problem facing short balling and always had a issue with unearthing good fast bowlers. India has always suffered when fast bowlers gave the batting order some chin music but off late India has had the Dravids and Tendulkars to deal with the short stuff and manage.

But the T20 World Cup does not feature these old guys and we have new young breed of batsman who instead of playing a straight forward drive end up playing the scoop. The performance of our batsman must have left MS Dhoni popularly nicknamed as Captain Cool as Captain Clueless.

The curious case of being clueless

MS Dhoni won the toss on two occasions and decided that the pitch had a bit in it for the fast bowlers and so decided to bowl first to get early breakthrough. So far so good, but then India had two pacemen, one spinner and 5 part times spinners.

So India ended up opening the bowling with Harbhajan Singh a spinner and used up his three overs with the new ball on a seaming wicket. So what followed against Australia and West Indies was pretty similar that part time spinners went for sixes and fours all the time and the only respite was when the batsmen thought of taking it easy.

Strangely Indias big win against South Africa came while batting first and that was when Indian batsmen played out the new ball and hammered the older one.

India is pretty much out of the T20 World Cup and will have to beat Sri Lanka and hope that Australia beat West Indies. Too many ifs and buts and frankly not so good for us fans who like a straight forward victory march.

Dhoni is not to be entirely blamed for the bad show as some of the fancied names like Murali Vijay, Y Pathan and R Jadega have hardly made their presence felt.

When Ravindra Jadega bats at number 9 and bowls only 2 overs as a part timer then we are playing with 10 and a half players instead of 11. But then I did warn you that it is Captain Clueless who is picking the team. 😛

Is Duckworth Lewis method unfair in T20 Cricket ?

The ICC T20 World Cup in the West Indies has unraveled two new players. No they do not play for any team and don’t bat or bowl or field for that matter. They are not even controversial umpires. They are mathematicians who came up with the Duckworth-Lewis method of calculating target scores in case of rain shortened matches.

Image Link: Rediff

Duckworth-Lewis method is a statistical method which involved calculating progressive scores based of past scores in One Day Internationals along with using wickets in hand as a resource to score more runs later on in the innings.

Take for instance the match between England vs West Indies. England scored a fantastic score of 191/5 in 20 overs. In the second innings it rained and West Indies had to scored 60 runs of 6 overs. So instead of scoring almost over 9.5 runs an over for over 20 overs it left West Indies to score 10 runs an over for only 6 overs.

I think West Indies can count themselves lucky. I think the problem here is that in a T20 match giving wickets a lot of importance as a resource could be counter-productive unlike in ODIs.

For instance even if a team has lost 6 wickets in 15 overs and has scored 120 runs they can still put up 160-170 runs with the last 4 wickets. The last 4 wickets can be more effective in 5 overs of a T20 innings than a 12 overs of a 50 over match.

So do you think T20 cricket need a different way to calculate scores and chuck the Duckworth-Lewis method atleast in this format of the game. Do let me know through your comments.

It is back to catches and sixes at the T20 World Cup

I sat down to watch the first match in the T20 World Cup featuring Sri Lanka and New Zealand. I saw some boundaries and sixes being hit. There were a few catches too but the good news is that when someone dived and took a catch it was a ‘catch’ not a ‘Karbonn Kamaal Katch’ and neither were those big hits over the fences called ‘DLF Maximums’ they were simply called ‘Six’. IPL can truly be forgotten now, its time for International cricket all over again.

The T20 World Cup started off with a thrilling match. The venue was Georgetown, Guyana which is the only cricket ground on the South American continent. The match started of quite slowly reflecting the slow nature of the pitch in the middle. The Kiwis bowled a tight line but a brave and courageous innings by Mahela Jayawardene who scored 81 Runs of 51 balls. Sri Lanka ended up with a low but fighting total of 135/6.

Image credits: Cricinfo.com

New Zealand started of aggressively but were grounded and slowed down but continuously losing wickets. New Zealand finally needed 10 runs to win of the last over and Lasith Malinga was due to bowl. Nathan McCullum the brother of Brendon McCullum the super start T20 batsman decided to arrive to the part and scored of the runs with one ball to spare.

This way New Zealand pick up 2 points and will be expected to top the group as their next match is against Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka now play Zimbabwe and they have to win otherwise they are out of the World Cup. I doubt the Lankans will allow that to happen, but only two days ago Zimbabwe did beat Australia in a practice match.

After the New Zealand vs Sri Lanka match, West Indies squared off against Ireland. Ireland has great memories of winning against Pakistan during the World Cup in 2007. It also was played in the West Indies.

But any such hopes of Ireland were quite easily dashed of by a under strength West Indies who had Chris Gayle, Jerome Taylor and Suleiman Ben on the injured list. Dwayne Bravo led the West Indies and the Windies never really soared with the bat and managed only 138/9. But the West Indies bowling was far too good for Ireland and they were bowled out for a meager score of 68.

Darren Sammy from West Indies took 3 wickets an scored 30 runs and also took 4 catches. No prizes for guessing who was man of the match there.

Tomorrow India take of Afghanistan in St Lucia and Bangladesh take on Pakistan at the same venue.

India’s Afghan challenge will bring back memories of Caribbean disaster in 2007 World Cup

Remember the ICC World Cup in 2007 in the West Indies. India was places in a easy group with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bermuda. India lost its opening games against the supposedly amateurish Bangladesh team and was knocked out of the World Cup within a week.

Tonight the T20 World Cup starts again in the West Indies and India start of their campaign against another supposedly amateurish team called Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan more known for war, bombs and violence has managed to put together a Cricket team and will take heart inspiration from Bangladesh’s upset win over India and try to emulate them.

Somethings that could worry India …

Afghanistan seems to have some decent fast bowlers who can trouble the batsman early on. Sometimes this works in a T20 format where some weak teams can cause havoc in 3-4 overs but not have the ability to match up for 50 over game.

India also has not made things easy they are not playing a single warm-up match. This could be a bit of a issue as the Indian team players were all playing in the IPL and are match fit, but they have not spent time together as a team in match situation. This they will try to figure out in their first game against Afghanistan.

So do you think India will be up for the Afghan challenge or will India get a little nervous? I am an optimist like any Indian cricket fan, so I think Afghanistan has no chance tomorrow against India. 😛


5 Lessons to learn from IPL for Test matches being watched by empty stadiums

There are many who think IPL is far too commercial and I have even heard comments that it is more about money than sports. Those are debates which will keep on being discussed but I went to see an IPL match in Mumbai Stadium recently and I was pleasantly surprised at how good the experience is for someone spending a lot of money to view a game from the stands.

Last time I visited a Test match I had a pretty rough time and spectator comfort was something I was pretty sure the organizers had never even considered. Worse part was I felt like a fool who went to watch a Test match in a near empty stadium.

#1. Buying Tickets

For buying tickets to a Test match you have to go through a great deal of trouble. Most times you have to know someone inside the Cricket Association to get decent seats or take a chance and by tickets. Compare the IPL scenario. Almost a month before the tournament started they put out advertisements and took the help of the internet to make booking tickets extremely accessible.

#2. Food and Beverage facilities

Food and beverages were readily available during an IPL match whereas during Test matches it if very difficult to manage to get decent drinking water. With a ban on carrying water inside the stadium watching a Test match for 6 hours without even water being available at times can be too much for a spectator.

#3. Public Announcements and Interactions

There were many public announcement and a lot of interaction by the security guards and ushers which made things very good for people especially older people. IPL organizers had music being played between overs and also during the breaks. Ofcourse it is fancy to criticize the use of cheerleaders during IPL matches but fact not many cover that interaction of the organizers with the crowd is at a great level.

#4. Selective Venues

IPL matches are played at selective venues only which allows the stadiums to spruce up without worrying if they will host another match. This would be the same if a venue like Brabourne in Mumbai and Kolkatta’s Eden Gardens were assured of a Test match every year. This would allow the local state association to plan for better facilities.

#5. Importance

IPL matches are given importance by various board dignitaries and officials. But when have we see the top honchos of the Board watch a full Test match or watch atleast a full day. If the board give’s a Test Match importance it will automatically take care of the four points I have written above.

So do you agree with me or not? Do let me know by dropping in your comments.