Country v Club and who wants to play for the West Indies

The IPL which kicked off within a week of the ICC World Cup has once again triggered off the standard country v club debate. Sri Lanka has issued a firman to all its players to report for training camps on the 5th of May. Duleep Mendis says:

“The first half of the English summer is not going to be easy and we want the players to report for training and to concentrate on getting used to the change of playing white balls to red.”

I suppose Murali would be the only Lankan staying back but we may just see Lasith Malinga get injured around the 3rd/4th May and then recover just in time for the last few games for MI.

Moving across the world to the Caribbean, Sir Viv Richards in a BBC interview once spoke of the pride of playing for the West Indies.

When we first started, it was just the fact and pride of wearing that maroon cap and blazer. All of the older players wanted to simply achieve those goals.

To me, that was of vital importance. If you can deliver the goods while dressed in that gear, then whatever monetary gains you achieve are due to you – but at least you will have done the crawling stage before you can walk.

A couple of days back, WI announced their team for the home series against Pakistan.

Kieron Pollard will miss the five-match series to play for Mumbai Indians in the IPL, while Bravo, who, like Pollard, had opted out of a retainer contract with the West Indies Cricket Board, will skip the two-match Test series that follows the ODIs to join Chennai Super Kings.

[...]

“It was mutually determined that Pollard would be best served by being allowed to hone his T20 skills in the Indian Premier League, which will bring future benefit to West Indies cricket,” the release stated. “He will not play in the series against Pakistan, but remains committed to West Indies cricket and will be available for future selection to the West Indies team in all formats.”

About Bravo, the release said: “Dwayne Bravo, who is also contracted to an IPL franchise, will play in the one-day series against Pakistan but will miss the two Tests in order to participate in the IPL. Like Pollard, Bravo also remains committed to West Indies cricket and will be available for future selection to the West Indies team in all formats.”

It is no shame to choose club over country. Well, West Indies is not strictly “a country”.  And there is much more money to be made outside the Caribbean. But I wonder whether the last line “committed to West Indies cricket” needs to be taken with any degree of seriousness.

When we first started, it was just the fact and pride of wearing that maroon cap and blazer. All of the older players wanted to simply achieve those goals.

To me, that was of vital importance. If you can deliver the goods while dressed in that gear, then whatever monetary gains you achieve are due to you – but at least you will have done the crawling stage before you can walk.

World Cup T20 – Day 4

It was raining, maan. M/s Duckworth and Lewis decided the fortunes of Zimbabwe and England in contrasting fashion.

But rain apart, three significant points about yesterday.

There’s Mahela playing in Guyana and there’s the rest of the Sri Lankan team who are still in Colombo. The most tragic of them is Dilshan whose only big shot in the two matches he played was the one he mistimed yesterday. And let’s not even bother about Jayasuriya coming at number 8.

West Indies entered the field dropping their fastest bowler Roach and taking in left armer Benn – a full circle from where Clive Lloyd chucked the spinners in 1975-76 and went for his famous all pace strategy.

And England had their best batting performance in all of T20 – courtesy two South Africans, an Irishman and a 25 year old from Grantham, Lancashire. Do they even speak English in the dressing room.

Leaving you with this entry from the West Indies score card:

Kieron Pollard   st. Craig Keiswetter b. Swann 0    0   0   0   0

Pollard got out without facing a ball. Not a run out mind you but a stumping off a wide. Hence this anomalous scoreboard entry.

World Cup T20 – Day 3

India outclass South Africa

Australia outclass Pakistan

Suresh Raina of course has made himself a permanent selection for the Indian team in T20 and ODI. Barring any dramatic injuries or loss of form, I would be penciling his name for the next World Cup along with MSD. His innings of 101 had three main dimensions which clearly demonstrate his class

• Quick observation of the South African bowling tactics and appropriate adjustment including his stance in the crease – predictable seam bowlers bowling just short of length, looking for bounce all of them of similar pace.
• Setting the pace of the innings and gradually increasing his strike rate thus avoiding any pressure of the run rate on himself and his partners at the other end
• Willingness to stay at the crease doing both the role of the anchor and the scorer

The Australia Pakistan game as well as the Pakistan Bangladesh game on Saturday had a key commonality. The top order scored heavily upto the 14th-15th over. Then a few wickets fell and the scoring simply stopped. Australia for example were 161 in 16 overs. They ended up with 191 scoring just 30 in the remaining 4 overs and losing about 6 wickets. Pakistan on Saturday had a similar story.

India on the other hand did the reverse. Their run rate in the first ten overs was hovering around the 6 rpo and the second half Raina, Yuvraj and Dhoni went for the runs, 75 runs in the last 6 overs.

South Africa tried a similar tactic with Kallis, Smith and DeVilliers giving it a whack in the last 5 overs. But their fire power was not good enough. At the end of the 16th over, India were 126/3 while RSA were 126/2. In the next 4 overs India scored 60 losing 2 wickets, RSA scored 46 losing 3 wickets. Clearly India’s firepower is slightly better than RSA.

One may ask whether relying on the end over firepower is a sustainable tactic. Maybe not but remember that India were without Gambhir and Vijay, a much improved batsman in this format, got out for a golden duck. Under normal circumstances, the first three of the Indian batting order have the capability to take the scoring in the first half of the innings to above 7-8 rpo.

However, South Africa would really need to open up their thinking processes. Their bowling plan, well prepared in the dressing room, was followed to the T mechanically and one must say precisely. However, the Indians kind of figured out the line and length of the bowling and were benefiting from their moving up the learning curve. Their batting was another prepared plan – with a mental target of 160-165. They thought they can follow the plan and kick up the gear in the closing overs. The extra 20 runs was considered unimportant.

Moving to today’s matches, first match for Zimbabwe and the pressure is on their opponets Sri Lanka who need to win. SLA lost out to New Zealand and thus have the stress. Zim on the other hand had a couple of wins in the warm-ups – against Australia and Pakistan no less. They even had an official T20 (or maybe an ODI, I forget) win over the West Indies very recently.  So it’s back on Mahela and Kumar Sangakkara.

England also make their first appearance with KP’s mind more occupied with the birth of his child than on the tournament. West Indies of course had a good win over Ireland but their batting was disappointing.

We are yet to see any major upsets in this tournament so far. Today is as good a day.

World Cup T20 – Day 1

New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by 1 ball and 2 wickets

West Indies beat Ireland by 70 runs

Three things came up as significant today

1. Ground Conditions: Slow pitches, slightly sluggish outfield, large dimensions (at least at Providence) queers the pitch towards the slower bowlers and the spinners. In fact the worst bowlers in the SLA v NZL match were the two fast bowlers Bond and Malinga. So we are likely to have

• Low scoring games i.e. 130 – 150 range
• More and more teams starting their bowling with a spinner
• Dibbly Dobbly bowlers will have their places in the team assured

It’s not as if sixes and fours are not possible. Darren Sammy and Jesse Ryder showed it is possible. Obviously, the hitting has to be done with a touch more effort than normal. Bad balls of course help as it did Sammy.

2. Classic batting: Mahela Jayawardene showed the value of class. Though he ended up in the losing side, his innings was evidence that T20 is not just slam bang stuff. Considering his partner Dilshan (3 of 19) was completely off the grid, the run rate of 6+ in the first 6 overs tells you how much Mahela contributed, without a single slog.

It also tells me that Gautam Gambhir is likely to be a key batsman for India. Technically and temperamentally, he is the best in the current Indian line-up and ideal for this kind of hybrid of aggression and attrition. The other players will have to bat around him with their 2 over blasts. After Gambhir, Dhoni has the right ability for this kind of innings but he would be coming too late in the order to be effective.

3. Fielding standards: From the crap in IPL, there’s a sea change in fielding standards, especially catching. Darren Sammy seemed to have Spiderman’s web shooters stretching out and catching everything. So that’s a big change

Watching on television, one discovered a lost art of commentary – silence. Commentators actually shut up for minutes letting the TV audience watch the game intently. And the topics of discussion were shots, strategies, form, players – not blimps, forefronts of technology, carbon kamals, certain individuals, sweat equity, etc.

Today big day for Afghanistan. Like Eliza Doolittle making her first presence in high society, the boys from Kabul enter the world stage playing their spiritual neighbours India. They promise a surprise.

In fact it is a complete sub-continent / South Asia day in West Indies. Pakistan play Bangladesh in the next match.

Cricket News This Week From Harsha

He is probably the only cricket commentator on air today for whom the mute button is not required. But he is an equally articulate and sharp writer. Harsha Bhogle writes about three big events of the cricketing week

Pakistan:

Big landlord arrives, cleans up the shed; next landlord puts the old chickens back in. The cricket lover, like RK Laxman’s common man, looks on, perplexed and neglected. To be honest, the Pakistan cricketers don’t have much sympathy around the cricket world, but what of the fans? What about the little eight-year-old who wants to wear a replica Pakistan cap and cheer for Afridi and Yousuf and Younis? What happens to him? His heroes, and those who manage his heroes, frequently seem to have less passion for the team and the country than he does. His lot is to be let down. I wonder if people blinded by egos even realise that.

Match Fixing in general (one of the allegations laid by the PCB on its players):

On that count, India have been blessed. The results will be good one day and bad the next, and fans will be delighted and frustrated in equal measure. But when the disease of match-fixing threatened to infect India, the eight-year-old (and the 30-year-old who behaved like the eight-year-old) had proud people to look up to. Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble, Laxman, Ganguly, Srinath – these were men of character. Fine cricketers they might have been but fine people they were too. Their solidity, as much as their results, took cricket through its testing years.

IPL begins:

Meanwhile the IPL, as a cricket tournament, has crept in.

IPL News Block out:

I don’t know the details of the dispute but I do know that if I took great pains to produce a product, if I licensed it to somebody and a third party used it for profit, I would be very upset.

There are some other strange events happening. West Indies are hosting Zimbabwe and in the five matches so far, a tour game, a T20 International and three ODIs, Zim have won three – the tour game, the T20 and the first ODI.  Barring the last game which WI won by 141 runs, none of the matches have seen the WI really dominate. They apparently haven’t realised that they are not playing Australia but Zimbabwe which does not even feature in the ICC rankings. Sample this, in the second ODI, WI have a small matter of 209 runs to score in 50 overs. From 44/1 they become 85/4. Sometimes you wonder where does all that talent go? It’s a rum one.

And this one from the tour match between Bangladesh A and England. BD A second innings in the 64th over 160/5 with Mohd Ashraful (imagine a former captain and a prodigy now resigned to being in the A side) gets out. Ten overs later,  the total is 362/6. Saghir Hossain retires hurt conveniently. Dolar Mahmood (66 of 19) and Shuvagato Hom (91 of 42) with 17 fours and 14 sixes make mayhem of long hops and full tosses. They were hitting 24 runs of an over. It was that crappy.

Anyway Deccan play Kolkata in a few hours time. See you then.