The shit fight of the pigs!!
Well it had to happen sometime. The ugly spat between greg and ganguly that stunk the cricketing world was expected at some point. There were definitely going to be cries for his head. Come on, how long are you going to patronise a guy who just doesnt perform. Having men at the right places helps in indian cricket and ganguly is not short of those. What bothers me is that ganguly still gets a lot of support from the public and petty issues like regionalism come into the harsh spotlight during these occasions.
Having said all that i have a bad feeling about greg. He may be a frank talker and all but some reports about him make me extremely uncomfortable. Especially the one by harbajan. Frankly i dont rate harbajan's attitude very highly but there must be some truth in what he said. The apalling part was the incident when greg told harbajan that he seemed to be underperforming under dravid's captaincy. Now i agree that many of us at several points would have had that feeling that harbajan wasnt giving his best under dravid. But is that what ou expect a coach to say. I agree with all the no-nonsense bit but frankly this is nonsense. How can you expect a person to perform under you when you make allegations like that. Greg seems to have barged into indian cricket with a club and seems to be blindly swinging around. The present truce is surely temporary and i see a huge threat looming over ganguly. I beleive that secretly within the bcci walls he had been told to perform or perish. Interesting road ahead for indian cricket.
Drop Ganguly , Now! FULL STOP
Again , the 'final' stumble.
And as usual , india stumbled and fell into deep shit in the finals. Sorry for the indiscriminate usage of words but thats exactly what happened. In a see-saw match , indians did all the wrong things at important moments and made sure that they lost the match. After a great start given by sehwag and - er the other guy they threw it away. It took a rear fight from kaif to pull it back into india's favour although the ease with which they scored 270+ gave a sign of things to come.
Fleming and Astle pulverised the indian attack that had looked good so far and decimated it into complete submission. They nearly lost the match there but no - in a typical indian way there came a burst of good overs that saw the noose tightening. Astle , however was still there. However small it may be , i cant forget the dropped catch by Raina. The situation was close then and the catch was a sitter. i dont want to speculate but i think the match would have been much closer had that been taken.
Another forgetful final for india and another 'almost there' .
Bond , Shane Bond
The name stands between india and a possible victory. Indians always have certain nemesis in each team who wreak havoc and spoil their party. From McGraw to jayasurya to inzamam , indians always give away a psychological upper hand to particular individuals and bond is in that league. After scaring the indians in the first match bond will come back from hiding to launch a fresh wave of attacks on the indians as they take the field for the finals. Ganguly and co can be rest assured that they are going to be tasted on pacy short pitched deliveries - their eternal sore point. It is my belief that the result of the match will be directly contingent on how indians tackle bond. Forget the technical aspects , it is more a psychological game. The mere sight of bond charging up to bowl may just give a few batsmen the jitters. As much as new zealands quest for a final victory is contingent on bond, india's depends on sehwag. I know that he hasnt performed so far in this series but if there is one man who can take on bond and dent his confidence , it is sehwag. It will be an interesting clash tomorrow between them and the winner of that little duel might just end up helping their team win too!
An upward trend?
After two consequtive victories indians must be on a high. The taste of this temporary sucess must be sweet for greg , who amidst all these failures has remained calm ; quite surprisingly. So Zimbabwe have all kinds of nightmares to expect when they take on the likes of sehwag and dhoni or so one would expect. This is where indians rise their level as extreme entertainers. A team like australia would hardly have raised a passing interest when they play zimbabwe but indians , given their vagaries and extremities will make all the matches interesting. So dont be surprised if indians just manage to make this match what it is called - a match rather than a mismatch. Dont ridicule them if they struggle to scrape through making zimbabwe have illusions that they are a team on a rise. But also dont get flattered if someone just manages to latch up a rapid fire century and propel the score to bizarre levels.
A pessimistic beginning,,,,
I begin my musings on cricket after a long pause. Somehow the disastrous performance of this indian team , guided by gregg chappel , seems to compell me back to this blog. And so obviously i begin this new phase with pessimism and critisism ; one that holds enough justification. Following their insipid - if i can be generous enough to call that - performance in the tri series down at srilanka , the indians moved into africa to begin disastrously by registering an ignominous defeat in the hands of new zealand. The only hope is that they will fare better against zimbabwe a side that is weak and broken. Even that may just be a pipe dream given the state of this team. This is obviously not a good news for greg.
And now much as he would like to avoid , let's focus on greg. His appointment followed a rosy period under john wright ; a period of sucesses and falures interspersed with each other. Greg was expected to deliver better results. Results that would take the team to the pinnacle of ratings and snatch the world champion status from the aussies. Now what is hapening is the exact anti thesis of this dream ; a steady slide to oblivion for a team that is losing confidence by the day. There are already some rumblings within the hazy order of indian cricket's politics. Greg had begun to complain. Traces of greg-ganguly conflict seems to be emerging. I am forced to wonder whether this spate of sub standard mockery is just a reflection of the off-field politics. Given india , its a shining possiblity. India needs a man like john wright , a quiet affable guy who could make compromises and shape people by giving away as much as he extracts. in constrast greg projects the image of a strict trainer who would be really enraged by little excesses and deviations. Whatever the reason , it is not sufficent to justify this kind of sporting quality. Are the vagaries of form so accentuated for the indians that they show drastic changes from a world class team to a good team and ultimately a pathetic bunch that comes out reasy to lose.
If india loses to zimbabwe it will start murmurings in the elite corridors of the sport's ardent critics. The focus will obviously fall on greg, the man who had been at the center of the recent transformation. He better make the team deliver!
Ganguly Again!
As india slid into another ignominous defeat the question on everyones lips was how long is ganguly going to be patronised. It is becoming abundantly clear that ganguly's low form isnt a passing cloud. He is losing his grip on his game and on the team. One could not help noticing the desperation in the man when he came on to bat at ahamedabad. After seeming to be on a roll in the first two matches the indians have lost the momentum to the pakistanis , who , fuelled by some strong batting are looking favourites to win the tournament. What happened? The answer is simple : a captain is facing the lowest slump of his career.
Anyone would know that cricket is a team game. It not only takes a collective effort to win but also a collective will to win. How often have we seen a brilliant effort in the field or a cameo with the bat or an inspiring spell with the ball lift the game of the team as a whole. Human emotions and feelings are highly infectious. When a captain is struggling even to put bat to ball it gets to the entire team. Even players in the peak of their form begin to feel dispirited. Remember the last india's tour to australia? It took one inspiring knock from their captain in the first test to set the tone for the rest of the series. It is now working the other way around.
Then, i guess that ganguly's suspension for the next 6 games is a welcome break. Welcome because it would help the cause of both the indian team and ganguly himself. It would give him some time to think away from the heat and pressure and critics braying for his head. Perhaps we can see a changed man after this break.
A captain woes
I remember the time when India as a team were unbeatable at home. It was also the time when they were distressingly poor overseas. After innumerable whitewasheses whenever they travelled overseas the cricket lovers were forced to concede to the fact that they were just not good enough. I am thinking back on it because it was also the time when our 'dada' was synonymous with towering sixes and sugary off-drives.Those were days when the spinners especially leg-breakers had nightmares of ganguly dancing down the pitch to his death tune and carting them above their head for massive out-of-the-ground sixes.
Well , it takes no special knowledge to state those days have ended. For one , indians are winning overseas that too test matches , for another they are struggling to draw at home and the most important one is our beloved 'dada' has just forgotten what batting is. It is becoming increasingly difficult to even relive those bright memories after seeing some shocking and pathetic displays of non-batting.Irony has strange ways of asserting itself and it wouldnt be a matter of pride for our 'dada' - the way he was dismissed ; by spinners - in the bangalore test - looking clueless,confused and lost.One word? pathetic!. Being as kind hearted as i am,i forgave his string of poor scores (not that me 'forgiving' him mattered at all) - that reads interestingly 21,12,12,2,1, however i can never reconcile with the way he was dismissed. Hey Courtney walshes and Glenn Mcgraws, you guys can no longer claim the right for being dismissed foolishly.Our 'dada' has the prode of place no Forgive my language and forgive me for pitting walsh against ganguly for the former was one of the greatest in his department and the later...er...what is his department anyway?. on-field Spectator?.
Ganguly is in a huge pit that he has dug for himself and is now struggling to climb out. Perhaps its time for a change. There is a limit to human endurance and i beleive ganguly must not be made to endure anymore of this painful agony nor the spectators must be made to wince at that sight of a supposedly world class batsman moving awkwardly and standing there not even realising how he was dismissed. Forget pacers trying to bounce him , or bowlers using intimidatory tactics ,ganguly i think no longer gets even a thought from the opposition captains. He has attained a new level of batting where its a free for all. If he is causing any confusion in the opposite camps it must be between bowlers fighting to bowl to him. So congratulations india for drawing the series with pakistan with a ten member squad. Great work!
