Oh ! Mercy ..save us from these graveyards

Oh Lord !! have some mercy on us poor souls !! That is how the bowlers from both sides would have prayed after being mauled again and again in these 2 tests. YK and MY pillaged again on the Indian attack but there were some crumbs of comfort for Zaheer in the end. The test almost had that 'timeless' look about it and dragged on forever with no possibility of a result.

We now move on to the real test - perhaps - at Karchi. Media reports pointed out that the same dynamic duo of Zahid and Basheer - who did duty at Lahore and Faisalabad had gone ahead to Karachi. Hopefully, they have not carried the cow dung plaster they had put in these 2 wickets with them.

The blog will take a minor sabbatical. I may not regularly update for the 3rd test and ODIs since I am travelling. Other than the regulars Nagu, Ram and Sai Anand - I am not sure who else reads this but it will be nice, if they leave some comments.

Dhoni bludgeons Pak bowling

It was another drama filled day at Faisalabad and Mahendra Dhoni has shown that he can be trusted to deliver when te chips are down. I am pretty sure that Dravid/Chappell duo would not have braved a 5 bowler policy without the comfort of having Dhoni (and Pathan). Dhoni not only saved Rahul and India the blushes but effectively bludgeoned his way into an attack that was almost running away with the match. VVS had perished in the 90s after a dour innings and Rahul had run himself out (perhaps more due to the magic by Imran Farhat rather than RD’s fault) but Sachin walked away when he was not out. The laws of the game clearly state that if you glove the ball you are out but that should be the gloved hand holding the bat and his hand had come off. With SRT showing benevolence to Pak, we missed an unusual treat – Akthar who was not notching up new limits in the radar gun, while bowling to Sachin would have been a good confrontation to enjoy.

It was then left to the new youth brigade of Indian lower batting to salvage something and salvage they did with lot of gurs, plenty of gumption and tremendous insularity to brush off the verbal vollies of Afridi. Dhoni was particularly impressive in the majestic hooked 6 of Akthar and tamed Kaneria easily, especially that reverse hit was indeed cheeky. Pathan went into a defensive mood and repeated the mistakes of RD and VVS duo by allowing the bowling to get on top in later stages but played some wonderful strokes when India was chasing the follow on traget. Pathan easily could have gone to a score of some 70+ threeby ensuring that he got a 100 on day 4 but now that will require a lot of support from the longish Indian tail.
The game appears to be heading for a draw unless something special happens. I am pretty sure that Pak will try an open with Afridi in the 2^nd innings and we may get to see the 6X6 over he has been promising.

2^nd day report

It was another powerful hitting display by Pakistan and Afridi ensured that whatever little life was there in Indian attack is completely snuffed out. Finally, when it was all over, India was starring at a mighty 588. My feeling that these huge Pak totals are going to be a headache considering the ODI series ahead. Pak batting has become so confident that they can overhaul any total put up by Indian batsmen (and perhaps one can argue that the reverse too is true but every time it is so difficult to resurrect against an attack that is a couple of notches better than India’s). Sehwag followed his trend of a 30s after a big test score and when play ended, India was clearly in the backfoot but ready for another long fight back next day.

Afridi shows who is the Asli Pathan ! clobbers Irfan Pathan

I almost went into a procrastinating mood rather than update the blog since it was another depressing day for Indian bowlers and I wanted to excuse myself under the pretext of laziness. Finally, what forced me to get to work is the last session, when the till then competitive game was forced to a run away for Pak.

Perhaps the first in the history of test cricket, India decided to go in with 3 left arm pacers and at the outset the strategy was not bad. But, as usual, the Sourav sena had started the effigy burning and this time they have added Rahul’s effigy too.

The strategy could have paid of if Pathan has not been such a let down since he not only wasted the new ball but finished India with a horrible 2^nd new ball spell. Afridi, who was in unusual slow scoring mode till then, restored normalcy by feasting on Pathan and 6s and 4s flew all over. Afridi wanted to perhaps settle the argument, who the Asli Pathan is, once and for all.

It was also a day when Simon Tofel negated atleast a clear couple of LBW shouts off Kumble against Inzi and when I think that there is still Kamran and Razzaq in the pavilion, this test looks to be a goner from India’s point, unless weather intervenes or RD/VS duo do something big. I am almost tempted to say, Pathan who looked invincible just 2 tests ago, is a candidate for being dropped in the next test – since his balls arrive at marginally higher speed than that of Kumble, at the batsman’s end these days.

India mulls 5 bowlers selection

Indecision, last minute drama, mid pitch hungamas before toss, decrees from BCCI mandarins are all recipes that typically make up Indian pot boiler of Test selection. This time around, the word is that SG might drop out and they might play 5 bowlers. But, this is as usual, conjecture only and anything can change between now and the time the line up card is handed out.

Pakistan, on the other hand have made their mind up ahead of time. They are replacing Sami and Rana with Asif and Razzaq. Sami is neither in the best of form and nor in the best of health and Rana – India got lucky, perhaps. Razzaq is still full of guile but slower and Inzi and Woolmer perhaps thought that there is no point in giving extra bounce to Sehwag.

Weather seems to be a worry but not much of a worry as it seemed a few days ago. All in all, an even keel opening to start with for the 2^nd test – with perhaps 2 evenly matched teams. Both strong in batting and weak in bowling. My take at this moment, I will give a 5% edge to Pakistan because of the conditions, their depth in batting and their form. Indian bowling, with the 5 bowlers plot not withstanding, lacks the bite to take 20 wickets against a line up with 8 genuine batsmen.

50 Not out !!Mankad-Roy record stays put

On a gloomy Lahore afternoon, where hardly 3 overs were bowled in a complete day, Viru managed to get out and theyby not overhaul the 50 year opening partnership record of Mankad and Roy (413) by a mere 3 runs. Rahul must have cringed on seeing Viru attempt a 3rd upper cut off Rana and get a feather touch to the keeper. Viru had shocked the media by saying that he does not know who Mankad-Roy were !! Does not make much news, according to me because that is Viru for you. Anything conventional - goes out of the window. I will rather have a swash buckling opener, who does not know history of cricket rather than some one who knows it all but bats dourly (Ah! don't spring on me saying what is the connection between knowing history and batting care free. Well ! that is where the so called stereo typing comes into play).

We move the circus to the next test venue- Faisalabad now. From what the weather pundits say, the climate is going to be no different from that in Lahore and I guess, real cricket will begin later in the 3rd at Karachi.

Viru show, the only show in town !!

It was another extra-ordinary day of pummeling of Pakistan bowling by Viru and at times it looked that he was practicing in nets. He played in an audacious manner, which only he is capable of and stroked boundaries at will against pace and spin alike. No bowler made an impression on him except perhaps Shoiab to some extent. The sequence of 4s he hit off Rana, Sami, Kaneria, Afridi, Malik within the same over would have thoroughly demoralized the Pakistan attack and it was another story of total subjugation. Dravid played the perfect sheet anchor role but still hit plenty of graceful on side strokes that reflected his class. With records tumbling by the minute, it is a pity that the weather had intervened so many times. There are only 3 higher test partnerships in tests ahead of this pair but the most important one is a mere 3 boundary balls away – that is the 50 year old record of Vino Mankad and Pankaj Roy. After that there are only 2 other higher test partnerships left.

576 RS Mahanama & ST Jayasuriya Sri Lanka v India Colombo (RPS) 1997
467 AH Jones & MD Crowe New Zealand v Sri Lanka Wellington 1990/91

Viru has a very good chance of joining the select band of Bradman and Lara, who have 2 triple hundreds in tests but none of these records really bothered him as he was later quoted in this interview

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/pakvind/content/story/233296.html

What struck me extra ordinary in this interview was the way in which Viru took on Shoiab and dismissing him with customary non-chalance. I would have expected a more politically correct approach but again – hey ! with Sehwag, there is nothing conventional. I was one of the doubting Thomases about Sehwag’s pre-tour preparation. I was concerned by his pot belly ,extra weight and more important his reluctance to even practice in nets. But, perhaps he is a kind of player with a different mindset (yaar !! ye sub practice vaGairah is for those lesser lights!!) and different type of approach (kya farrukh patha hai..he Shoaib ho na Sami ho, mere hath me bat hai).

I hope that the weather does not play spoil sport again on the 5^th day.

Stand and Deliver - Viru Excels

On a day curtailed by rain and bad light, Viru let his bat do the talking. What was amazing about Sehwag’s innings was his nonchalant dismissal of the Pak attack, which incidentally was way ahead in quality than that of the Indians. Sehwag was not in the greatest touch, coming into this match and I was a critic of his extra weight and reluctance to take up organized nets but in the cricket dictionary of Viru, none of this matters. With minimum fuss about those areas, where traditionally opening batsmen revel – foot work, Sehwag stood and delivered an amzing 20 boundaries in a score of 98. There were some glorious cricketing shots, interspaced with flashes over slips and Viru’s sudden change of fortune must have made Inzi feel that it is not going to a cake walk. Dravid on the other hand was rock solid and did what he is best at – stone walling.

From what I see in the weather predictions (which by the way is not that reliable for those cities of the outlands from the N.American continent), there might be more intervention of rain/bad light. If that is the case, then a draw is very much on the cards unless a total surrender takes place in the next 2 days.

Massacre continues and Dada drives in a knife !!

The Massacre of the Indian bowling continued on the expected lines and Afridi was planning for 6X6 over, when it ended in only 27 runs. I have seen India buckle so many times but this kind of utter helplessness was seen for the 1^st time – especially when Pak was able to declare by Tea on 2^nd day with a near 700 score. I am not going into the details of the clobbering but suffice to say that it was not totally unexpected for all the readers of this blog. I have been preparing them for several days, warning the pitfalls ahead. All one has to do is to look at my past posts and appreciate how I had pointed out that Afridi will be the ‘big’ killer of Indian bowling.

Mumbai Mirror carried had story that Dada had backed out of the opening role, after the spat with Dravid and pointing the main reason for the pull out – he was not informed in advance. http://www.mumbaimirror.com/
Go to the Sports section and then click on the heading ' Did Sourav back out'

Again, not entirely unxpected because Ganguly and his backers live in their own world, where they can not see what they do not want to see. This is going to cast a long shadow on Indian cricket and by the time this is over – Indian cricket will end in pile of trash for sure, where all that will be left will be bitterness in tons.

Blood bath on Day 1

“There are many more wrong answers than right ones, and they are easier to find.” goes the famous quote and I thought how apt it is - for an opening line to sum up the opening day at Lahore and more important Rahul Dravid’s state of mind.

After promising hard, bouncy tracks for almost a month, Pakistan presented a pitch that can be at best described as comatose that had resulted in a blood bath for Indian bowlers. I have been hollering through the roof top that all this talk about Shoiab is meaningless unless Indian bowling pulls up it socks and it did not exactly do that. Dravid lost an important toss but more important lost an important notch in the captaincy status – when he ‘accommodated’ (as many a news paper article including Telegraph pointed out) Dada. Don’t tell me that Dada is brought into the XI for the useless overs he can bowl or for his (non existent) batting. I can understand how Dravid would have felt since after all this is not the 1^st time I have seen this. It happened to even SRT and made him throw up the towel.

On a day, Indian bowling was visibly below par, Pakistan batsmen had an easy time and as happened so many times in the past – all out of form batsman wait for Indians to show up and revive their carriers. Younis Khan, who could not put bat to ball in the ODI series against England, had a double dip, feasting on the pedestrian attack and as much as 40 4s were gifted on an unresponsive pitch. Pak can easily declare by tea on 2^nd day with 600+ score and thereby effectively eliminate one of the 3 results possible. I am almost convinced that India weighed down with all the Dada Saga is on the back foot – not only in this test but for the whole series.

SCOOP !! Mystery Phone call to RD/GC. 'Include SG' Decree

Mumbai Mirror dropped a bomb, when they came out with this article in the Thursday paper.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/nmirror/mmpaper.asp?sectid=6§name=Sports&sess=143414491

Two significant quotes from this article :
A source close to the team said that there was pressure being applied from some quarters to include Sourav Ganguly in the playing XI for the first test that begins at the Gaddaffi Stadium on Friday.

But one story doing the rounds is that a call was made from India telling the captain and the coach that Ganguly must be included, come what may. We couldn’t either get that confirmed or denied.

Although the article is written in conjecture, it is significant to note that Rahul Dravid spent the whole day with a glum look. That by itself is no news but the day happens to be his 33^rd b’day and rumor mills are working overtime to attribute things to the above said phone call.

I hope that this is just plain rumor and will meet its natural death but otherwise this will cause a wedge (nothing new; well anticipated in advance, the moment SG was inserted somehow in the 16) and polarize the side. In the mean while, the pro and anti SG factions are continuing their duel, as if the next nuclear war is reported.

The worst part in the above article is the Pak captain Inzi shooting arrows. Hardly, 6 months ago – the entire Pak team was on each other’s throat (in 2004 tour, remember the medical investigation of Shoaib to find whether he faked an injury). Well ! victories can weld a lot of faults and gloss division.

Personally, I have become sick of the whole thing. SG does not merit a selection into the XI on cricketing basis IMHO. Let the game begin and the let India come out on top; everything else is secondary and I really don’t care what happens to SG, one way or other.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn ! ahead of Lahore test

The sound bites from the players, the ‘expert speak’, the ‘ex-players’ take on the situation, the columnists..hmm all of them are pretty much saying the same thing. It is an evenly matched 2 sides…weather in Punjab… to include or not to include (you know whom !!) blah blah blah. It is kind of okay to read this trash for a couple of days but this seems to be going on, right from the day the last test ended against SL at A’bad and that is where it gets boring.

The real game is still a 2 days away and no clarity has emerged on what the Indian team’s thinking is about the playing XI. There is no clear consensus about how the wicket is going to emerge too since that can assume its own shape in the next 48 hours. Well !! with no special news to report, I am going to confine myself to some observations of mine, after watching the videos of Eng-Pak ODI series.

Here are my 2 cents :

• Pak batsmen were in wonderful form during the series (except no.3 Younis Khan (Well !! you don't have to watch the video to say that - most of you might say but I am giving the above comment based on the dominance and the range of strokes. Form Index - Kamran, Inzy the very best, Butt - provided glorious starts, Afridi & Razzak - typical cameos that can propel a 250 score to 350. Kamran can be a big threat and he seems to score at brisk rate (when I compare the team scores) and he is a busy kind of player. A 4 here and a 4 there and he seems to be off to a galloping pace out scoring Butt
• England looked spent. Except for Flintoff the rest gave up too easily and I did not see anything from the bowlers but for all the dominance, the series was not a runaway Pak victory. It was still 3-2 but perhaps by the final game, Pak took it easy

• I was looking to see whether Shoaib bowled any of the wicket taking slower balls. He did bowl many but from what little I cd see in the highlight (for example, the delivery that got Trescothick in 2nd ODI, they were the old fashioned slower ones - not the new looping type beamer like that fooled Vaughn for example in tests. Shoaib also got a steep bounce and made the batsmen flinch and give dolly catches to close in corden. When Eng bowled in the same pitch, not a single delivery climbed like the way it did for Shoaib
• Rana is no push over. I still remember the thrashing he received last time at the hands of VS (was it a 24 run over but he bowled him too). Rana is a genuine wicket taking bowler now and from the 1 inning he played, he is not exactly a mug with the bat too.
  
• Finally, England could have made a match of it, especially after winning the 1st ODI but they were out batted by Kamran and Inzi and the bowling of Shoiab and to some extent Rana.

India need not fear Shoiab - afterall it is going to be 10 overs max. They must plan more in their bowling and fielding. How to contain the quick scoring openers and Inzi (and perhaps Afridi since he seems to enjoy so much psychological advantage over India)

Indecision at the top

The practice match Vs Pakistan A petered to a draw but not before the inadequacies of Indian bowling were exposed. Faisal Iqbal helped himself to a 80+ score, which was reported by crickinfo as a 100 in the headline for a while but later retracted to a more correct headline ‘Faisal defies Indians’. Crickinfo has the scribes in Lahore – Siddarth Vaidyanathan, Dileep Premchandran but still could not live up its reputation, in the coverage of this side match.

Zaheer seems to made some penetrative spell on the morning of 3^rd day but nothing of the variety to say ‘ah! Here we go,,we have rediscovered our number 3 medium pacer’.

The duel between Wasim Jaffer (WJ) and Gautam Gambhir (GG) was pretty much unresolved with marginal delta marks going to WJ for his 2^nd innings effort and to GG for his 1^st innings aggressive stroke play.

My take is - go with WJ. He is in terrific form and a little more tight in defence than Gambhir. Here is what might prevent WJ from not making it :-
- General tendency to stick with who is already there (GG)
- I remember GC's comment about GG after the Kotla test against SL. By then, GG had failed twice and was in real danger of replaced by WJ in the 3rd at A'bad. GC said something to the effect " GG is not much of a talker and if we drop him, he will withdraw into a shell" or something to that effect (don't ask me for links.. I am sure, it must out there somewhere).. GG got one more chance in the 3rd and wasted that too. Incidentally, I could not see the connection between a taciturn and scoring runs in matches. I guess somehow GC found the relationship or the media mis quoted him (as happened many a time before).
- VS too preferring a status quo approach- by willing to go out with GG.
- WJ differentiated himself by a small delta in the 2nd inning over GG (but by then the match was lacking any competitive interest from a bowler's point). WJ did not do anything great (than GG) in the 1st. Infact, GG seems to have played more positively in the 1st.
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I wish it is WJ, who is going to VS' partner at least from the point of view trying out something of an unknown dimension. I am sure, given a chance, WJ will try and redeem himself. He knows that this his final chance. A failure here will mean that he has to stick himself to the maidan cricket and Wankhade, turning for M'bai. GG will probably get more chances since he is in the ODI scheme of things too.

Dungu Vs Gangu and Pedestrian beginning by India bowling

The Dungu Vs Gangu stories still filled the airways for the 2nd day in running. The punches and counter punches were exchanged with great fervour in forums, chats and blogs. Pawar added his own twist by giving a vote of confidence to Dungu (RSD). Dada for his part, ignored the RSD slams and landed with the other 3 in Pak. ( On a lighter vein !! there must be a huge shortage of RSD effigy suplies in Cal by now !!)
I am pretty sure that the last word in this saga is yet to be told.

Let me turn to the 2nd day of India Vs Pak A game.

There was so much pre tour hype about Pakistan bowling that most pundits concentrated on how Indian batting will perform against Shoaib & co and promptly forgot about the Indian bowling. On a day, when Agarkar is the best Indian bowler on view, I guess it has to be a sad day for anyone turning their arm around in this country.

Zaheer khan talked about his shortened run up, his new quest for wickets and a new energy to redeem past failures. But, alas 7-0-43-0 figures only reflects the clobbering he received from Imran Farhat and Hazan Raza and none of above improvements he was promising. ZK has let India down so many times ( how about WC 2003 finals for example) that the above promises sounded hollow for the most part but I was still willing to give the benefit of doubt since there is no other bowler worth the salt, around. Is this going to be another round of disappointment and humiliation? I have rarely seen ZK rediscovering himself, once things start to go wrong but I hope I am wrong this time. ZK has to mend his ways quickly, otherwise – it is heading to the old ways of John Wright – Sourav era.

The rest of the bowling was nothing worth mentioning – R P Singh (dubbed Raw Pace Singh in forums) got carted off and Bhajji was ineffective for the most part. Pathan was ok but not incisive enough to make inroads into some A team.

Well !! if this is what is going to be the story against an A team, wait till Inzi, Butt, Afridi come around and feast on this toothless, uninspiring, pedestrian pie throwers. If I am Dravid, I will be almost tempted to play both Kumble and Bhajji now since ZK seemed to have had a horrible day. Ways to go – bowlers – unless, things turn around quickly, the leather hunt seems to have just began.

Raj Singh, at it again !!

Raj Singh Dungarpur(RSD), perhaps knew that the 1^st day of the tour match is going to be not much of a news maker and promptly made up for it y’day, when he came out with fire against Dada. http://ia.rediff.com/cricket/2006/jan/06raj.htm

I may not disagree with most of what RSD is saying but this is not the time to wash dirty linen in public, especially when the tour is just starting. In any case, all it did was to raise some hot air in chat rooms and blogs – when the for and anti Sourav groups dueled it out. RSD of course, promptly did the old hat trick of denying the whole thing.

The tour match started with all round news black out. Crickinfo for some strange reason did not cover it live and with 500 spectators on the ground, Indian team would have felt that something must be wrong here. Normally, they are used to 10 times that crowd watching them practice in nets. Anyway, based on sporadic news culled from here and there (chat rooms, blogs, Geo TV bulletin and phone calls to friends), it was finally clear that India is batting. When it all ended, the first day was not bad from the point of warm up. Gambhir (GG) Vs Jaffer (WJ) duel is still undecided, although I feel that GG has now got the edge. He seemed to have played more positively and he is also the current opener (the old adage of status quo maintenance). Another observation is that just 77 overs were bowled. If this is any indication of Lahore light during winter, we can pretty much assume a draw since neither side will be able to take the 20 wickets of other (unless there is some abysmal failure of the batsmen).

Circa !! can't get out of troubled times

Ganguly, the other day heaved a sigh of relief, quoting that ‘2005 is over atlast’. But, his opening week in 2006 does not seem to have began in the right stride and seems no different from the year which ended. Dada has been pulled by Hariharan for running on the pitch while bowling, during the Ranji game against TN at Eden gardens and later he was admonished for coming back to the crease late, when the ‘bad light’ period was over. I have been very critical of TN bowling this season. They have been horrendous as a lot and are definitely missing the key wicket taking ability of Balaji and Ramkumar having forgotten everything.

Rajamani Jesuraj, after have a very good season last year, has not been showing the same class until the late evening burst at Eden gardens yesterday. IMHO – Ganguly’s next few weeks can be dictated to some extent on how he bats on the 2^nd day, especially against Jesuraj. The rest of the attack is pretty toothless and the unknown quantum will be the under-19 fast bowler Mahesh, making his deput. For argument sake, if he strokes a fluent 100 on 2nd day, will it count as a forceful enough inning for coming into the XI at Lahore ? Kiran More will have his hands full since he is the rep. going to join the tour selection group (GC+RD+RSD).