Border Gavaskar trophy

The Border Gavaskar trophy of 2008 will be remembered for reasons many for each one of us. My own diary of the series

• The most unaustralian side I have seen. When do you see an Australian team with not a single bowler who has average less than 30. How often you hear of figures like 0/199 in 30 overs for an Australian bowler even if it was in a practice match.
  
• The most sporting (read uncompetitive) Australian team I have seen in recent times. The only episode of unruly behaviour came from the Indian camp in the form of Gautam Gambhir. Perhaps, rightly they have learnt to lose now.
• It was Indian festival all through. The series ran parallel to the most famous indian festival Diwali came as a blessing in disguise to Indians. Begining from Sachin's record breaking run, we had Anil Kumble's grand farewell and Dada's winning farewell.
  
• War of words was started and also won by India for a change. This is primarily because Australians chose to remain silent this time and Indians ... well we had all of them speaking volumes. Once again the focus was not on war on field but off the field. Indians should have surely avoided it especially the Gambhir incident.
• Post series win Indians have been on a rampage giving one statement over the other and claiming that we are the no.1 side in the world now. Australians attained the no.1 status after tasks like beating Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka and beating NZ in NZ. India is far from doing these. India won a series at home which is nothing but expected because home pitches are tailor made. If Indian attains the same win in Australia then may be we can claim to have moved a notch towards the no.1 spot.One more important factor what I felt was the matches were mostly decided by the spin of the coin and not the spin of the ball. Whoever won the toss dominated the match. Had Australia been luckier than probably we would not have been celebrating this.
• The last day of the series was something to watch out for. The aggression with which Aussies came out to bat especially Hayden and the way Indians matched their aggression, it was test cricket at its best.
  
• No doubt Ponting will have more than a few questions to answer over his game plan of preferring to think about the ban in the next series and letting a winning chance slip away in the final test.
• Australians have learnt to lose in spirit. Indians have just started their winning ways. Hope they handle their win maturely by not giving any horrendous statements.
  

Back to cricket

It has been quite a while I wrote abour my favourite topic, cricket. And thanks to Zaheer Khan, I got the topic to write about. To be very precise about my point here, Zaheer khan's comments about australian team are uncalled for. Statements like this australian team is the most defensive australian team are completely uncalled for.  It is clearly evident from the score cards as to who dominated the game. The very fact that Ponting dared to give a sporting declaration with a target of under 300 on a day to finish is enough to show the amount of courage he has and the amount of confidence it has in his bowlers. Then , it was left to India to find out ways of delaying the inevitable and to put it in best words for India, they managed to salvage some pride in this tailor made slow pitch for them. Yes, it is a fact that Aussies are missing a key spinner in their side for this tour, but nevertheless, this match was always under australian control for me and we just managed to sneak through. Hope such statements from players do not start the war of words again and eventually we end up losing the main focus on the game .

Battle of Perth 2

This happens to be the most exciting test match of my cricket crazy years. And hence ,I am writing a daily account of the match here. India are right at top at the moment. Indians began the day well on an aggressive mode with Viru going for the shots. It is a pity Sachin and Dravid failed to capitalize on their first innings form. Dhoni played a hand after a really long time . But the hero of the day has to be Pathan. Sent in as a the night watchman after Wasim Jaffer failed yet another time, he played a gem of an innings. Laxman played his usual best against Australia. RP Singh gave some thrills towards the finish and Indian tail wagged than longer giving Australia a record score to chase. Aussie run chase has begun on wrong note with both openers failing to fire again and Pathan the tormentor again. Ponting seems to be steadying the ship with his aggressive best. This is a cracker in store for the weekend.
Being an Indian fan and also a Steve Waugh fan, I want Indian team to come victorious and as of now the prospects look 70-30 in favor of India. With the early morning conditions , Indians could well peg back the Aussies with some quick wickets. Hail India!!

Battle of Perth 1

With the verbal battle between CA and BCCI over , the focus now shifts to the action down under in Perth. With Australia showing some discipline on the field , no sledging so far in the match and only genuine appeals and Indians putting up a fight on field rather off the field, this match is poised to signify positive cricket again. The focus is on whether Australia can manage to win without their usual sledging and mental game and if India can come out of the mental block of not winning on a pacy wicket of Perth. All in all a cracker of match in store. Hope the better team( for me India :)) wins.

Australia : Down Down

Australians are the champions, in one day cricket, test cricket and non-cricket. Yes, what happened in the one of the first test matches of the new year was NOT cricket. Right from the horrendous umpiring decisions ( a whooping 11 in number) to the 'sportsman spirit' shown by the Aussies have been unprecedented. And I sincerely hope no one repeats also. This Australian team has earned the dubious distinction of being the most 'aggressive' and unfair team I have ever seen play cricket.
When you have players who nick the ball with a loud noise and still stand their ground hoping umpires would rule them not out and the same player who has clearly grounded the ball while taking a catch off the pad appeals his heart out , you know something is not right and this is not a fair game. I had high degree of respect for Adam Gilchrist as he was one of the most honest and fair player in the Aussie team but when he appealed for Dravid's pad nick which would surely be visible to the keeper, it was clear to me, this team is all out in full strength in full cooperation to win the record 16th test by ANY means. Sincere appreciations to Anil Kumble and the Indian camp who have tacked the whole issue very nicely putting across their views in a very tactical way. Till last night I thought it was 14 men against the Indian team including the 2 ground and 1 third umpire, now it is clear it is a 15 member team, including the match referee. I mean how can you give a decision without conclusive evidence. And that too on Australian charges, who have been synonymous to sledging in the past,present and the future. This is not cricket and this series doesn't deserve to be finished. Indian team should call off this series and come back home and teach Australian board a lesson. Teams like Sri Lanka, Pakistan will endorse this move of Indian team if it happens as they have also been subject to hostile reactions.

In a nut shell, the cricket has lost in this game and an over aggressive and unruly 'mob' of men has won. Winning a match is not everything. Winning hearts is more important and Kumble's men have won that.

Australia Vs India : In words

Recently the relations between the Indian and Australian cricket team have gone from worse to worst. From the time India has beaten Aussies in the T20 world cup, there has been a downward slide in the relations between the two teams. But this is nothing new. Since a long time, the arch rivals of India have been Australia and not Pakistan according to me , because the matches played against the formers have been more thrilling than the later. But why this hue and cry now? Relations have touched an all time low now. With Symonds accusing of racist comments from a section of crowd and BCCI playing a deaf ear to the whole episode involving Sreesanth also. As you can't clap with one hand, I feel both the teams are to be blamed here. Sreeshant is to be blamed for staring at the batsman evey ball he bowls. Come on, not even a bowler of Wasim Akram's caliber can manage to dominate the batsman in every ball he bowls. Symonds giving out statements like Indians will have to pay back in Australia , clearly shows the kind of mentality they have. What does he mean, T20 champions have a lot to learn? Agreed he is a part of a champion side, but that doesn't give him rights to make such comments on other sides. With both sides captains and board giving a deaf ear to this whole episode, matters have turn worst. Australia may have won the series , but it is cricket as a whole which has been defeated in this whole series. It is more of a verbal battle than a battle with Ball and bat and the loser is of course cricket.

India the SUPERPOWER

We hear this so often. India has come of age. India is a globally known super power these days and no one can ignore India anymore. But have we ever wondered how true is this?

Take some recent instances which prove this to be wrong. First, the episode of Shilpa Shetty and Jade. This incident still goes to prove that Indians are still facing racist remarks all around the world. This piece of news got all the attention as it was involving a big bollywood star like shilpa shetty. What if it was you or me?

Next, we can take the episode of Mohd. Haneef, who was framed by the australian authorities and when they released him due to mounting international pressure , we see an arrogant Australian Govt. who is refusing to apologise. They fail to recognize this as an insult to to a country and a community rather than an individual. At least, their co-citizen Ponting was reasonable enough to aplogize to Sharad Pawar after the incident during the finals of champions trophy.

And last, the present England-India cricket match, where England are unable to register the fact that they have both the luck and weather Gods pitted against them in the favor of India and are involving in sledging and all other unparliamentary behavior on the field. And to add to this the umpires don't seem to take notice of that at all.

All this makes me beleive that India still has a long way to go. For me, we have not gone much ahead of the station where Gandhi was thrown out of the first class compartment in South Africa more than a hundread years ago.