13 After Effects of Dhoni's Retirement from Tests

#Rohit Sharma seen sharpening his wicket keeping skills wearing whites.
#Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin found rehearsing their test farewell speech.  
#Virat Kohli fears he might end up chasing Dhoni's record of away test defeats.
#Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir requests Delhi cricket board to draft them into the present Ranji team.
#Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh performs exceptionally well for their respective Ranji teams.
#An inspired Shahid Afridi decides to retire from all formats of the game for one last time.
#Duncan Fletcher claims he sees a Dhoni in himself and a Virat Kohli in Ravi Shastri.  
#Harsha Boghle says he would miss the long unrelated answers he used to receive when questioned about a test loss during presentation ceremony.
#N.Srinivasan almost collapses, but recovers as the retirement is only from tests.
#ICC's new rule says, even an attempt to play the helicopter shot in tests could get the player a one match ban.
#As a tribute, BCCI has requested ICC to ban the test format. 
#Anushka Sharma replaces Sakshi Dhoni.
#Sachin Tendulkar to pen another book titled, "Retiring Dhoni's Way".

Reasons for the Lord's loss

The reasons for England's loss in the second test against India at Lord's in the Investec 2014 series have been identified:

• A lot of drinking the previous night can unBALLANCE yourself the next day on the pitch.
• It did not ring a BELL whether they needed to get aggressive or preserve wickets to enable a draw.
• Batsmen lacked the STrOKES to score big hundreds.
•  Bowlers did not have a set plan and PLUNKed the balls aimlessly.
• The fielders were not well ALIgned as the Indian batsmen willfully scored runs through the gaps.
• Presence of two SONS (Rob and Jimmy) in the same team isn't good as India proved. They had only one son (Roger's son), though he hardly played any role in the game.
•  The team needed a BROADer outlook towards the game during initial sessions.
• The team needed to have its PRIORities in place while selecting specialist players.
• The ROOT cause of the loss was the lack of confidence in every player.
• Overall the team did not appear well COOKed to bring out all the flavours for a longing victory.

 The team should ensure that it does not get MOOREd and moves on to win the series with a better performance.

World T-20 Team Performances

Bangladesh- The generous hosts that they were, did not even attempt upsetting any of their guests.

Netherlands- They stunned themselves with their extra ordinary contrasting performances against Sri Lanka and England.

New Zealand- Atrocious team selection led to their down fall. Whoever picked up Rangana Herath in the playing XI should face penalties.

Australia- Never recovered from the calypso blast but somehow stunned the cricketing world with their stupendous epic win over Bangladesh.

England- Not even the rain gods supported them.They were seriously short of luck till they ran into their nemesis in WT20- The Dutch.  A certain 'Pietersen' chuckles.

Pakistan- Though they survived the Maxwell tornado, the Bravo- Sammy belligerence was way too hot to handle. Should make sure they do not play India again in any world cup matches to boost their chances of moving ahead.

West Indies- Even rain gods needed help from D&L to stop this calypso charge.

South Africa- They are just not interested in parting with the chokers crown. Even an associated team would fancy their chances against them in a knock out game.

India- Reserved the worst for the last. Dhoni should have more practice sessions tossing the coin.

Sri Lanka- They were unsure about their captaincy. Had no superstars but a few old warhorses and each game had a new hero. Proved once again that cricket is a team game.

Is Fast Bowling Dying?

No. I do not think so. The mean bowling machine called Mitchell Johnson believes in sheer pace. If you feel Ashes 2014 was a one off performance, he proved you are wrong with his intimidating bowling performance against South Africa at Centurion. Not only did Australia get back the Ashes through his fearful bowling, the performance also caused a few careers to end (Kevin Pietersen, Andy Flower, Graeme Swan to name a few). Effects of pace bowling? It might sound debatable but, I would definitely stand up and say yes. 70's and 80's saw the most fearful pace attacks. Both West Indies (Andy Roberts, Malcom Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft) and Australia (Jeff Thompson and Dennis Lillee) had formidable fast bowlers who won matches with their sheer intimidating performances. Pakistan too had menacing bowlers in Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and South Africa had a certain Alan Donald in the 90's. All these bowlers relied a lot on their pace. It wasn't just the line, length and swing that got them the wickets. Pace was the main reason followed by accuracy. 

The present century bowlers rely more on their accuracy and less on their pace. And once the accuracy becomes inconsistent, they get carted all over at that mediocre pace. It has become tough to find fast bowlers who run in and generate speeds which can instill fear in the mind of batsmen. Shane Bond and Shoaib Akthar did show promise with the latter generating quite an impressive pace. Bond had a very short career while Akthar concentrated only pace with absolutely no accuracy. Bret Lee was another find of this century. He turned out to be a great fast bowler for Australia and did torment many batsmen with his pace. Today when most fast bowlers are struggling to touch 140 Kms/ hour, there are a few like Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Mitchell Johnson who are grilling the batsmen at more than 150 Kms/ hour. Pure pace and wayward bowling has never got any bowler anywhere. Also, just good line and length at 130 Kms/ hour does not classify you as a fast bowler. When you have the liberty of two bouncers an over, why not put it into effect? Fast bowling has to be intimidating and that is the only way to win mind games and the match.

I so wish there were bowling coaches who pushed young tear away fast bowlers to accelerate their speed. Sadly, most concentrate only on swing and many push their wards to become the next great swing bowler. The speed is forcibly cut down and the bowlers focus only on movement.  Interestingly, I cannot see or count many good swing bowlers in present day world cricket who has been successful with just their movement. James Anderson is the only name that pops up. Is it required to cut down your speed to concentrate on the swing? No, I don't think so. For example take the names of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Dale Steyn. They all had/ have pace and were/ are great exponents of swing bowling. Imagine being a swing bowler with a speed of 150 Kms/ hour. That is the best any fast bowler can be. Hope the new generation of fast bowlers do not sacrifice their speed for anything. In short, a fast bowler is a bowler who should bowl really fast and one who would instill fear in the batsmen with his intimidating pace.

Where is Cricket?

One good performance is all that is required to save yourself, to be praised and to spread short term memory loss amongst star frenzy cricket fans. Ten continuous failures are forgotten with a single scintillating performance. A disastrous away tour is forgotten after a One day series victory over a lowly ranked team. A belligerent hundred or a fiery five wicket haul needs to be praised but does not cover up your earlier mediocre or even worse performances. Or, does it?

Similarly, the cricketing world, the media and fans have just lost memory of the scandalous IPL. Have all forgotten those episodes? Sreesanth for that fact openly speaks about returning to the Indian team. Is entertainment and money making the only reason to run the sport? Where is the spirit of the game? Where are the sport loving authorities who run the game? Where are the genuine critics? Where is that genre of cricketers who play for the love of the sport? Where are the true fans who love a good game of cricket without prodding much about who the winner is? Where is the sport, CRICKET? Hope we do not end up losing a magnificent sport amidst all the chaos that is surrounding it.

Success at last for Sreesanth

Success does not come so easily to anyone. For cricketers it is all the more enduring because of the numerous talented youngsters out on the field. For Sreesanth it was his hard work that has paid off. He started off his career by sledging Sachin Tendulkar during a challenger trophy match which gave him the initial ladder to success. This was followed by the comical act against Andre Nel after hitting him for a six. All the criticisms by then had taken him to a level which he always dreamt of. What better way than to show faces at Andrew Symmonds and Matthew Hayden to take him to the top league? He was a few steps away from success when his performances back stabbed him. A couple of decent performances in South Africa stood as a hindrance. He pinned his big hope on Harbhajan Singh during IPL and the sardar obliged. Success was knocking on the door by then. The icing on the cake were his injuries, non performances and a big disliking by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. To spice things up he opened the slapgate issue again during IPL 2013. But was he content? No, he needed that big success and the only way he could achieve it was by fixing matches (Wish that towel had entered his pockets much early in his career). Now he stands so successful at what he was trying to achieve all these years-  To be thrown out of Cricket! 
Congratulations Sreesanth...!!

The Australian Whitewash 2013

"This is the weakest Australian side that has toured India", says Sourav Ganguly. I absolutely second that and  hence is the scoreline 4-0 actually portraying a correct image of the actual caliber of this rejuvenated Indian team? I doubt. The Australians were plagued by injuries, lack of quality spinners and team issues. Lack of quality spinners stand out, they did not have a Monty Panesar or Graeme Swann to thrash Indians like the English. What exactly is the reason why  Indians lost to the English team and whitewashed Australians on the same Indian pitches? On a positive note you may say the consistency of Murali Vijay at the top, a swashbuckling innings each from Shikhar Dhawan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the spin twins Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja  played a huge role. But the actual reason has to be that the Australians were far too weak for the Indians.

With IPL about to begin and no white dresses till October  this thought would definitely not be re-opened until the away tour to South Africa. Can the same Vijays, Dhawans, Ashwins and Jadejas perform similarly on the distinctly different  South African pitches against the Steyns, Morkels, Philanders, Amlas, Kallises and De Villerses? Half way through the tour, hope the Indian selectors will not think about the discarded test players. The real ball game lies in South Africa, far away from the dead pitches of India.