War of Words from Kiran More !!

The Ganguly episode takes a new turn almost every hour, even after he has engineered his way into the 16 (not again, ugh !!). Kiran More seems to be staging a one man war against Dada, when he demanded an explanation from him (through a letter to Nirajan Shah), when Dada failed to turn up at Surat Ranji game against Gujarat. Niranjan Shah, for his part did a vole face and said – ‘no explanation will be asked. What can we do if he does not play’?.

For a long, long time, the Indian players have been taking it cool and not bothering to play in Ranji games, unless they are thrown out once and for all or their position threatened. The Maharajas (a.k.a Test team) of Indian cricket never bothered about turning up in such remote places as Siliguiri, Anathpur, Surat and Rajkot(with no big 5 star comforts) unless the situation was desperate from their personal angle (Well !! I can hear about a few exceptions here and there but for the most part the above statement is true. Who cares about Ranji trophy. That is for the poor souls who have to brave the late running, dirty Indian trains, indifferent state associations, absolutely useless umpiring, no crowd support, dirty little unknown hotels and of course sordid tales like the Dharmasala match - where they poured water on the pitch and staged a mini war amidst 2 factions. For the shear pleasure of watching a WWF boxing match - nothing can beat the sleazy games played by the Delhi administrators and selectors
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IES20051226085526&Page=S&Title=Sports&Topic=0).
For the record, Dada has sited ‘personal reasons’ for his absense from Surat and I am sure that the last word on this subject is yet to be written.

In the mean while, Dinesh Karthik put up quite a show at Wankhade but a trifle too late for VB Chandrashekar to do anything. In my books, Karthik is streets ahead of Parthiv in keeping and batting (show me one inning of Parthiv, even in a Ranji) but unfortunately, he does not have suitable backing and that has been the sad story for 5 decades for TN players.

A relook : There has been a number of Sachin Vs Shoiab match ups in the past and I can say Sachin has generally emerged the better – when you count the overall stats and also how he played Shoiab in important games (like the World cup); but here is one video worth revisiting. Sachin is bowled neck and crop here, in front of a massive crowd at Eden. Those were the days, when Shoiab just ran in fast and hurled it as far as he can let it go; but, these days, he has developed other weapons like the slower ball (he is even batting better, after having gained the trust of Inzi, who sent him as night watchman and he did not do bad at all). Indian batsmen need to watch their backs. In the midst of all the Sourav drama, let them not forget that here is a much superior team ready to fight at their own back yards.

http://media.putfile.com/Shoaib-Akhtar-To-Tendulkar---YEAH