I suppose it is time to look at India's debacle and offer suggestions. Certainly anyone who has seen the WC matches or had a chance to look at some of our cricketers (Sehwag's physique jogging thoughts in Adnan Sami's mind, if it is not too late for him to take up cricket and rescue India) will not hesitate in saying that physical fitness is the biggest factor for us not being competitive.
We are aware that there are no short-term fixes. The right approach would be to put more focus on domestic cricket, do away with regionalism, no deference to established names etc. etc. However anyone familiar with India will tell you that this is a very distant dream at best. The thing that will work in India are rules, if we can implement them. A change in mindset driven by change in philosophies and approach in evaluating candidates. Australia by its own admission has improved its cricket by learning from Baseball's approach to defense (or fielding as we term it in cricket). However in India it is too late to emphasize these virtues on cricketers who have already "made it" to the big stage. They have become succesful a certain way and it is impossible to change this. For example a guy who has scored tons of runs with noodle arms will blame his recently developed muscles if he fails in a inning or two. The way to do this is prevent these guys from even making it to the India team without the fielding and physical fitness.
I believe that India will benefit by copying the base ball philosphy of identifying players by thier fielding position much like the wicket keeper. I think too much emphasis is laid on batting and too little on the fielding. My suggestion would be to identify 7-8 fielding positions that are critical to the team and fill in these places with capable batsmen and all rounders. So, right from domestic cricket these guys are slotted into one or two fielding spots and these are fixed. These players will be referred by thier fielding position e.g. mid-on, mid-off, square-leg etc. The batting order is more fluid and can be tinkered with more ease than the fielding positions in my mind similar to base ball. Dravid's philososphy of "smart fielding" is asinine thinking at best. Certainly being a great fielder does not eliminate the need to bat well but certainly unmistaken emphasis is laid on the fielding and physical fitness aspect. For e.g. I would like Sehwag or Tendulkar be evaluated against a young lad at the same fielding position alongwith the batting prowess which can fit anywhere from 1-7. What are thier specialist fielding positions anyway ??
I eliminate bowlers as they in my mind are specialists and I am yet to see a pure bowler who is an outstanding fielder esp. in the infield. They just have a different responsibility when they are on the field and thier goal would be to take wickets and commit as few mistakes as possibe.
I know there is a lot more detailed thinking that needs to be done on this front but there is no question in my mind that too much is made of the batting position than needed and there is none on the fielding position. This way I beleive Kaif and Raina or some other young kids would have made teh side and avoided this embarassement.
Let me get back to my drink ....
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
Too Tempting Not To Strike Back
Ian Chappel, while not very famous for thorwing his mouth, has come close to that task by writing this article, asking Tendulkar to retire and telling us lesser mortals that Lara is a better cricketer.
I don't think Sachin should retire. I wanted to write a long drawn argument about that one, but I found it better captured here (along with many commets made under that article). To summarize, it is a ridiculous argument. He can still add value to the team. The team is better with him than without him. He is physically fit enough to play. He wants to play.
My 2 cents regarding this issue is this: Yes, he may not be as good as he used to be. That is no reason to retire. In fact, if he retired because his glory days are behind him and not because of his position relative to the team, that would be a very selfish decision. Even out of prime, he holds a spot in the team.
In the same article, Chappel also re-kindles the age old debate between Lara Vs Tendulkar, and it seems that his conclusion is that Lara was, is and will always be the better one. I have no problem with Chappel's conslusion. He is entitled to his wrong opinion.
But I would like to look at it a little more more objectively. How about some stats?
I know I know, statistics are lies. Well, they are lies only is the reader is brain dead or if we draw ridiculous conclusions from them. Let's try and stay away from the crazy conclusions.
"No no no, you can't do that. Sachin has already won the stats game, especially if it comes to one days." you might say. Well, let me know if there is a better way to compare two players whose career has spread over a cpouple of decades with lots of ups and downs. Can't do it on a game by game basis.
Also, I am limiting all these stats to one day internationals. Will do the tests after India loses to Bangladesh in the test series in May.
So I am a finance guy. For me, the better asset to invest in is the one that generates better overall value. If I had to pick between one thats lasts longer and generates value (runs, in this case) at a faster rate (average) and entertains more in the process (4s and 6s) vs some other asset that works lesser time (matches) and delivers relatively lower value and so on and so forth, then I would pick the former. Oh, I forgot to mention, Sachin bowls as well.
"Tendulkar has been a very selfish and building up his stats while his team was going down the dump, but Lara has been winning more matches while accumulating fewer stats", you might say.
I say look at the number of Man of the Match awards. SRT = 48, Lara = 30 (I counted them on Cricinfo StatsGuru page). Implying that SRT was the MoM for 12.5% of the games he played whereas Lara was MoM for 10.2% of the games Lara played. Talk about match winning performances.
Also, SRT has 190 wins in his career Vs 138 for Lara. Normalizing against the number of games played, SRT has won 49.5% of the games he played whereas Lara has won 46.8%.
"Forget the overall wins, India played a lot more games and many of those wins are against minnows" you may say.
First of all, I say "ignore the minnow at your own risk". Then I say, lets look at the statistics for "finals" of tournaments. Thanks to StatsGuru, we should be able to nail that sucker as well.
Wallah, we can. Tendulkar has played 47 (12.2% of his games) finals as opposed to Lara's 27 (9.2% of his games). SRT has won 22 finals (46.8% of the finals he played) vs Lara's 12 (44.4%). Added to that, SRT scored 1954 runs (13.2% 0f his overall runs) in finals Vs Lara's 866 (8.4%).
I could have looked into semi finals, but after a while, it would be like beating a dead horse, so I give up.
Well, in spite of all the numbers, I don't say that SRT us unequivocally a better cricketer than Lara. All I want people to understand is that Chappel has reached an incorrect and hasty conclusion. Even the health issues that Chappel talks about do not hold water. SRT started before Lara and was utilized a lot more by his country and has at least two to three more years of solid cricket under him (irrespective of what Chappel thinks!!). So there goes the fitness discussion.
Ian Chappel has probably forgotten more about cricket than I can ever know. However, in this case, either he has forgotten a lot more than I credit him with, or he just wanted to say something outrageous to elicit such a response from a strong fan base.
I don't think Sachin should retire. I wanted to write a long drawn argument about that one, but I found it better captured here (along with many commets made under that article). To summarize, it is a ridiculous argument. He can still add value to the team. The team is better with him than without him. He is physically fit enough to play. He wants to play.
My 2 cents regarding this issue is this: Yes, he may not be as good as he used to be. That is no reason to retire. In fact, if he retired because his glory days are behind him and not because of his position relative to the team, that would be a very selfish decision. Even out of prime, he holds a spot in the team.
In the same article, Chappel also re-kindles the age old debate between Lara Vs Tendulkar, and it seems that his conclusion is that Lara was, is and will always be the better one. I have no problem with Chappel's conslusion. He is entitled to his wrong opinion.
But I would like to look at it a little more more objectively. How about some stats?
I know I know, statistics are lies. Well, they are lies only is the reader is brain dead or if we draw ridiculous conclusions from them. Let's try and stay away from the crazy conclusions.
"No no no, you can't do that. Sachin has already won the stats game, especially if it comes to one days." you might say. Well, let me know if there is a better way to compare two players whose career has spread over a cpouple of decades with lots of ups and downs. Can't do it on a game by game basis.
Also, I am limiting all these stats to one day internationals. Will do the tests after India loses to Bangladesh in the test series in May.
So I am a finance guy. For me, the better asset to invest in is the one that generates better overall value. If I had to pick between one thats lasts longer and generates value (runs, in this case) at a faster rate (average) and entertains more in the process (4s and 6s) vs some other asset that works lesser time (matches) and delivers relatively lower value and so on and so forth, then I would pick the former. Oh, I forgot to mention, Sachin bowls as well."Tendulkar has been a very selfish and building up his stats while his team was going down the dump, but Lara has been winning more matches while accumulating fewer stats", you might say.
I say look at the number of Man of the Match awards. SRT = 48, Lara = 30 (I counted them on Cricinfo StatsGuru page). Implying that SRT was the MoM for 12.5% of the games he played whereas Lara was MoM for 10.2% of the games Lara played. Talk about match winning performances.
Also, SRT has 190 wins in his career Vs 138 for Lara. Normalizing against the number of games played, SRT has won 49.5% of the games he played whereas Lara has won 46.8%.
"Forget the overall wins, India played a lot more games and many of those wins are against minnows" you may say.
First of all, I say "ignore the minnow at your own risk". Then I say, lets look at the statistics for "finals" of tournaments. Thanks to StatsGuru, we should be able to nail that sucker as well.
Wallah, we can. Tendulkar has played 47 (12.2% of his games) finals as opposed to Lara's 27 (9.2% of his games). SRT has won 22 finals (46.8% of the finals he played) vs Lara's 12 (44.4%). Added to that, SRT scored 1954 runs (13.2% 0f his overall runs) in finals Vs Lara's 866 (8.4%).
I could have looked into semi finals, but after a while, it would be like beating a dead horse, so I give up.
Well, in spite of all the numbers, I don't say that SRT us unequivocally a better cricketer than Lara. All I want people to understand is that Chappel has reached an incorrect and hasty conclusion. Even the health issues that Chappel talks about do not hold water. SRT started before Lara and was utilized a lot more by his country and has at least two to three more years of solid cricket under him (irrespective of what Chappel thinks!!). So there goes the fitness discussion.
Ian Chappel has probably forgotten more about cricket than I can ever know. However, in this case, either he has forgotten a lot more than I credit him with, or he just wanted to say something outrageous to elicit such a response from a strong fan base.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Let's Kick Back & Relax
The previous post was on the 12th of March, and today is the 28th. Just a little over a fortnight's worth of world cup is behind us, and a lot has happened in the mean while.
Pakistan and India have been dealt ignominous exits from the world cup and Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was murdered after the debacle.
I have been doing a decent amount of reading regarding the extra curricular events casting their shadow on the world cup and a little bit about the cricket involved as well. I have no clue who killed Bob Woolmer. I may have a theory or two, but they are not worth the bytes they consume, so I will not talk about them.
There are two things that I will talk about, both today and in the near future.
1. The high quality cricket that we have been witnessing and that we should be focusing our attention on
2. What can be done with the Indian cricket team. Well, the true question is not just the team, but Indian cricket itself.
I will concede that India's loss to Bangladesh was not a normal event. Even with the current team, India is a superior team compared to Bangladesh, no matter what one game tells you. I will start and stop my accolades to the Indian team right there.
The loss to Sri Lanka was shocking. Sri Lanka are a very good team, especially with Vaas and Murali in the squad. But even against that line-up, the target was achievable, and we screwed up, much similar to the 1996 world cup semi finals in Eden Gardens.
Well, now that the dust has settled (at least in the minds and hearts of the fan base), what needs to be done next?
The agnostic sceptic in me tells me that "what needs to be done" doesn't really matter, as it will not be done. Even if we went into the super eights by beating Bangladesh and losing to SL, our performance there would have been pathetic. Australia and South Africa are in a completely different league here. Fanaticism and patriotism aside, anyone who watched the Australia Vs South Africa game can easliy see that India doesn't even play the same game. We did not stand a chance against either of them. Between the hosts and India, I would have put my money on West Indies, not just because they have home court advantage but because we are pretty bad outside the sub-continent and we would have succomed to them rather meekly. New Zealand has been playing amazing cricket in the recent past and they still have a good shot entering into the semi finals. That would have left us with one win against Ireland and maybe one against England and pretty far from the semi finals.
This article list five reasons, just five reasons, but I am sure there are more. So, I ask myslef again, what is the problem with India. I have heard several theories and I will list them, in not particular order:
1. Physical Fitness, or the lack there of
2. Lack of bowling talent
3. Lack of application among the batsmen
4. Age (maybe this is related to #1 above)
5. Politics/regionalism in Indian cricket
6. Match Fixing
7. Domestic Cricket
8. Fanaticism among cricket followers, with mercurial emotions
9. Lack of ruthlessness among the selectors (sticking to names rather than performances)
10. Players being paid too much, leading to lack of application in the game
11. Pure lack of talent
12. Bad coach
I guess there may be another reason or two, but the list seems pretty comprehensive to me.
I really liked this article by Jayaditya Gupta, comparing current cricket to Hockey a couple of decades ago, explaining how the basics of the game changed and India was not able to cope up.
The comparison is scary and far fetched at the same time. Cricket has more money and resources than Hockey had during those days, and that will help us not fall behind the curve too much. However, money will not help us get to the top. We need to do other things for that to happen.
I don't think we could have selected a significantly different team going to the world cup. People might make an arguement about Kaif, Raina and maybe Gambhir, but that would not have had a material impact on the team's capabilities. We have to develop a stronger bench and that means the solution is long term. There is no short term. A knee jerk reaction to scak a bunch of people and fill those spots with younger, less experienced players is not a long term strategy. The players will at best become as good as we are today, but we would still be significantly below par.
As to sacking the coach, that is going to happen and it is utterly useless. Based on what I could get from John Wright's book (Indian Summers), the Indian coach has a very small role to play and even the best of coaches, in the Indian context, cannot do much. The way I see it, this is a lost opportunity for Chappel to write his own book.
So I end with a question to you. What would you do in the short term and in the long term if you were the head of BCCI and were allowed to make any and all the decisions you wanted to make?
While we get some of those thinking gears churning, lets kick back with a beer, relax in a confortable chair (or couch) and follow what will be a great world cup.
PS: While India's exit hurt, this made it all the more miserable.
Pakistan and India have been dealt ignominous exits from the world cup and Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer was murdered after the debacle.
I have been doing a decent amount of reading regarding the extra curricular events casting their shadow on the world cup and a little bit about the cricket involved as well. I have no clue who killed Bob Woolmer. I may have a theory or two, but they are not worth the bytes they consume, so I will not talk about them.
There are two things that I will talk about, both today and in the near future.
1. The high quality cricket that we have been witnessing and that we should be focusing our attention on
2. What can be done with the Indian cricket team. Well, the true question is not just the team, but Indian cricket itself.
I will concede that India's loss to Bangladesh was not a normal event. Even with the current team, India is a superior team compared to Bangladesh, no matter what one game tells you. I will start and stop my accolades to the Indian team right there.
The loss to Sri Lanka was shocking. Sri Lanka are a very good team, especially with Vaas and Murali in the squad. But even against that line-up, the target was achievable, and we screwed up, much similar to the 1996 world cup semi finals in Eden Gardens.
Well, now that the dust has settled (at least in the minds and hearts of the fan base), what needs to be done next?
The agnostic sceptic in me tells me that "what needs to be done" doesn't really matter, as it will not be done. Even if we went into the super eights by beating Bangladesh and losing to SL, our performance there would have been pathetic. Australia and South Africa are in a completely different league here. Fanaticism and patriotism aside, anyone who watched the Australia Vs South Africa game can easliy see that India doesn't even play the same game. We did not stand a chance against either of them. Between the hosts and India, I would have put my money on West Indies, not just because they have home court advantage but because we are pretty bad outside the sub-continent and we would have succomed to them rather meekly. New Zealand has been playing amazing cricket in the recent past and they still have a good shot entering into the semi finals. That would have left us with one win against Ireland and maybe one against England and pretty far from the semi finals.
This article list five reasons, just five reasons, but I am sure there are more. So, I ask myslef again, what is the problem with India. I have heard several theories and I will list them, in not particular order:
1. Physical Fitness, or the lack there of
2. Lack of bowling talent
3. Lack of application among the batsmen
4. Age (maybe this is related to #1 above)
5. Politics/regionalism in Indian cricket
6. Match Fixing
7. Domestic Cricket
8. Fanaticism among cricket followers, with mercurial emotions
9. Lack of ruthlessness among the selectors (sticking to names rather than performances)
10. Players being paid too much, leading to lack of application in the game
11. Pure lack of talent
12. Bad coach
I guess there may be another reason or two, but the list seems pretty comprehensive to me.
I really liked this article by Jayaditya Gupta, comparing current cricket to Hockey a couple of decades ago, explaining how the basics of the game changed and India was not able to cope up.
The comparison is scary and far fetched at the same time. Cricket has more money and resources than Hockey had during those days, and that will help us not fall behind the curve too much. However, money will not help us get to the top. We need to do other things for that to happen.
I don't think we could have selected a significantly different team going to the world cup. People might make an arguement about Kaif, Raina and maybe Gambhir, but that would not have had a material impact on the team's capabilities. We have to develop a stronger bench and that means the solution is long term. There is no short term. A knee jerk reaction to scak a bunch of people and fill those spots with younger, less experienced players is not a long term strategy. The players will at best become as good as we are today, but we would still be significantly below par.
As to sacking the coach, that is going to happen and it is utterly useless. Based on what I could get from John Wright's book (Indian Summers), the Indian coach has a very small role to play and even the best of coaches, in the Indian context, cannot do much. The way I see it, this is a lost opportunity for Chappel to write his own book.
So I end with a question to you. What would you do in the short term and in the long term if you were the head of BCCI and were allowed to make any and all the decisions you wanted to make?
While we get some of those thinking gears churning, lets kick back with a beer, relax in a confortable chair (or couch) and follow what will be a great world cup.
PS: While India's exit hurt, this made it all the more miserable.
Host Toast?
Original Post Date: 12th March 2007
Well, this blog would be no different from the show put up by theWest Indies against India in the warm up game if I hurry to write WI off completely, but the questions remain and we will take a deeper look into the situation. At least the WI have a "rush of blood" excuse for their "swing and oops" performance, I don't.
Looking at the recent performance of this team, the inevitable question that comes to mind is: How much can this team score if Chris Gayle does not contribute to the count?
Yes, names like Lara, Chandrapaul and Sarwan do pop up, but the glaring inconsistency and incapability of the batting line up cannot be hidden.
Wicket keeper batsman Denesh Ramdin should promptly change his title to exclude the latter element (and the former title is not something that he can hang on to with a lot of pride either, given the lazy-ass activities WI cricket fans have gotten used to seeing). Statistics aside, I have not seen contribute in any significant way with the bat in eons. The only reason he is in the team is the fact that the replacement is apparently worse. (How can that be possible?). Take a look at the list of wicketkeepers for the top 8 teams (in no particular order) and see if he is not the unequivocally rightful claimant of the bottom spot, especially in the batting capability hierarchy
Australia – Adam Gilchrist
India – Dhoni
Pakistan – Kamran Akmal
South Africa – Boucher
England – Geraint Jones
Sri Lanka – Sangakkara
New Zealand - McCullum
West Indies – Denesh Ramdin
I may be killing a dead horse here, but this is something I feel really strongly about and hence this topic deserved a verbose belaboring.
It is fair to say that the top contenders have at least 7 players who could be referred to as pure batsmen and one of those seven has routinely helped the team out, routinely being the key word. Apart from Gayle, Chandrapaul, Lara and Sarwan, I refuse to accept anyone else as a fair contender for one of the seven spots. Samuels is the next in line, close but not there yet. Bravo does not come close to that list, and his title of an all rounder is a stretch. He is probably much less of an all rounder than Pathan, but Pathan is a whole another topic, for another day. I would greatly appreciate if Bravo is not mentioned in the Flintoff, Razzaq, and Kallis category. And while we are excluding names from this list, let's throw Pathan out as well.... sorry, I keep digressing into Pathan!! What's wrong with me?
That leaves us with the bowling (and of course the huge black hole in the batting line up). Powell, Bradshaw, Bravo are up there with the best (actually, it should be the "next" category, as Pollock, Bond, Ntini, McGrath, Muralaitharan, and dare I say Munaf (come on guys, he is up there... I will throw some statistics at the naysayer community in the next few days), are the real "best" category). Gayle is also worth mentioning in the bowling category. He has this uncanny knack of breaking established partnerships, and I can get statistics to prove that as well. Samuels is a better part-timer than likes of Shewag, Yuvraj, Shoaib Malik, some of the Sri Lankan part timers and Ganguly. I will not add Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, Aravinda DeSilva (I know he has retired, but I like him) to that list.
If it was a pure bowling show, I would have given the West Indian team as good a chance as anyone else, but there is this nagging thing called batting that needs to be taken care of. WI has fallen well short of the target in terms of proving their batting capability. Their fielding, while not the best in the world, is surely not the bad.
"Where does that leave us?" you may ask. Well my dear, it leaves us exactly where we started. There is little chance that this world cup is where the "Host Curse" is going to be broken. It is an uphill battle for them to reach the final four, but we have seen one too many Cinderella stories unfold in March. Their experience of the wickets may very well play a role, acting as one of the missing spokes in the batting wheel. The four big wigs are each capable of winning the game by themselves on any given day. Four good wins can probably earn you a spot in the semis, but I wouldn't bet on the hosts just yet.
They do have a better chance than Pakistan. Australia, SA, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand are clearly better bets than WI. England, as someone was mentioning to me earlier today, could be the shocking surprise coming into this world cup. I personally do no think England is better than WI. Wither way, the host, for this world cup, is toast.
Well, this blog would be no different from the show put up by theWest Indies against India in the warm up game if I hurry to write WI off completely, but the questions remain and we will take a deeper look into the situation. At least the WI have a "rush of blood" excuse for their "swing and oops" performance, I don't.
Looking at the recent performance of this team, the inevitable question that comes to mind is: How much can this team score if Chris Gayle does not contribute to the count?
Yes, names like Lara, Chandrapaul and Sarwan do pop up, but the glaring inconsistency and incapability of the batting line up cannot be hidden.
Wicket keeper batsman Denesh Ramdin should promptly change his title to exclude the latter element (and the former title is not something that he can hang on to with a lot of pride either, given the lazy-ass activities WI cricket fans have gotten used to seeing). Statistics aside, I have not seen contribute in any significant way with the bat in eons. The only reason he is in the team is the fact that the replacement is apparently worse. (How can that be possible?). Take a look at the list of wicketkeepers for the top 8 teams (in no particular order) and see if he is not the unequivocally rightful claimant of the bottom spot, especially in the batting capability hierarchy
Australia – Adam Gilchrist
India – Dhoni
Pakistan – Kamran Akmal
South Africa – Boucher
England – Geraint Jones
Sri Lanka – Sangakkara
New Zealand - McCullum
West Indies – Denesh Ramdin
I may be killing a dead horse here, but this is something I feel really strongly about and hence this topic deserved a verbose belaboring.
It is fair to say that the top contenders have at least 7 players who could be referred to as pure batsmen and one of those seven has routinely helped the team out, routinely being the key word. Apart from Gayle, Chandrapaul, Lara and Sarwan, I refuse to accept anyone else as a fair contender for one of the seven spots. Samuels is the next in line, close but not there yet. Bravo does not come close to that list, and his title of an all rounder is a stretch. He is probably much less of an all rounder than Pathan, but Pathan is a whole another topic, for another day. I would greatly appreciate if Bravo is not mentioned in the Flintoff, Razzaq, and Kallis category. And while we are excluding names from this list, let's throw Pathan out as well.... sorry, I keep digressing into Pathan!! What's wrong with me?
That leaves us with the bowling (and of course the huge black hole in the batting line up). Powell, Bradshaw, Bravo are up there with the best (actually, it should be the "next" category, as Pollock, Bond, Ntini, McGrath, Muralaitharan, and dare I say Munaf (come on guys, he is up there... I will throw some statistics at the naysayer community in the next few days), are the real "best" category). Gayle is also worth mentioning in the bowling category. He has this uncanny knack of breaking established partnerships, and I can get statistics to prove that as well. Samuels is a better part-timer than likes of Shewag, Yuvraj, Shoaib Malik, some of the Sri Lankan part timers and Ganguly. I will not add Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, Aravinda DeSilva (I know he has retired, but I like him) to that list.
If it was a pure bowling show, I would have given the West Indian team as good a chance as anyone else, but there is this nagging thing called batting that needs to be taken care of. WI has fallen well short of the target in terms of proving their batting capability. Their fielding, while not the best in the world, is surely not the bad.
"Where does that leave us?" you may ask. Well my dear, it leaves us exactly where we started. There is little chance that this world cup is where the "Host Curse" is going to be broken. It is an uphill battle for them to reach the final four, but we have seen one too many Cinderella stories unfold in March. Their experience of the wickets may very well play a role, acting as one of the missing spokes in the batting wheel. The four big wigs are each capable of winning the game by themselves on any given day. Four good wins can probably earn you a spot in the semis, but I wouldn't bet on the hosts just yet.
They do have a better chance than Pakistan. Australia, SA, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand are clearly better bets than WI. England, as someone was mentioning to me earlier today, could be the shocking surprise coming into this world cup. I personally do no think England is better than WI. Wither way, the host, for this world cup, is toast.
Pakistani Dreams Will Shatter...You Heard IT Here First
Original Post Date: 2nd March 2007
As much as I have enjoyed India beating Pakistan in all the world cups they have clashed in, I do feel bad for the current state of affairs for the Pakistani team.
Inzi can deny all he wants, but the lack of players like Razaq, Asif and Akhtar has significantly hampered any slim chances Pakistan might have had to win the world cup.To start off, Inzi thinks he can regain his 1992 form. To understand what his form really was in 1992, all you have to do is look at this scorecard.
While he could be devastating if he can get that form back, I don't think that is a possibility. Inzy is, was and will always be a lazy cricketer, and he already has every excuse to show up lazy in West Indies.
Mohd. Yousuf is by far the most consistent batsman in the Pakistani squad. He can be expected to play a pretty solid Dravid-esq role thoughout the tournament. The only other name worth mentioning is Shoaib Malik. He is far too familiar with the 'lone warrior" role that he has played on several occassions, and I foresee a few more of those for him before the end of the trip.
Shahid Afridi will provide a few fireworks, but I believe many teams (including, at the risk of falling flat on my face, India) have figured out how to tackle him. Not much can be expected out of the other youngsters, at least with the bat. Yes, an occassional half century or a century, but that will not be enough to beat good teams consistently, which is what is the need of the hour.
Pakistan's strength, at least coming into this world cup, was their bowling attack. If even one of Asif or Akhtar had a good day, they would have been capable of defending a 200ish total. With these players "injured", and Razaq actually injured, I am afraid the dent is beyond repair.
Pakistan will battle it out with England for the bottom spot. Australia, SA, India, WI, SL and NZ will all end up ahead of Pakistan by the end of super eights.
Rao Iftekar has shown that he can play a critical role every now and then, Sami has been in and out of the team, and still is a decent cricketer, and Rana Naved still needs to learn to control the new ball better. A lot will rest on the shoulders of Kaneria, but in the end, it might prove to be too big a burden on the small Carrebean grounds.
Yasir Arafat is too inexperienced to make a difference. His performance under pressure is extremely shaky, as demonstrated by the last Indian visit to Pakistan. Azhar Mahmood is also a relatively weak link in this chain.
Added to all this batting and bowling shortcomings is the shoddy fielding display that can be expected from the team. A few dropped catches and missed run out opportunities are in the making, exactly what Pakistan doesn't need with all its other woes.
OK then, where IS the hope? some of you might ask. Reaslistically speaking, there is none. For the over optimistic Pakistani supporters, only hope is if the stalwarts actually perform to their potential in every game that matters and the youngsters aptly rotate their good performance to provide just enough to beat the right team at the right time, and pray to god that rain chips in at the 12th man slot every now and then, pushing them over the threshold.
If you don't believe me, I have evidence for what I just said here:
1 Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt)
2 Younis Khan (vice-captain)
3 Mohammad Hafeez
4 Imran Nazir
5 Mohammad Yousuf
6 Shoaib Malik
7 Azhar Mahmood (replacement for Abdul Razzaq)
8 Shahid Afridi
9 Kamran Akmal
10 Yasir Arafat (replacement for Shoaib Akhtar)
11 Mohd. Sami (replacement for Mohammad Asif)
12 Umar Gul13 Danish Kaneria
14 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan
15 Rao Iftikhar Anjum
As much as I have enjoyed India beating Pakistan in all the world cups they have clashed in, I do feel bad for the current state of affairs for the Pakistani team.
Inzi can deny all he wants, but the lack of players like Razaq, Asif and Akhtar has significantly hampered any slim chances Pakistan might have had to win the world cup.To start off, Inzi thinks he can regain his 1992 form. To understand what his form really was in 1992, all you have to do is look at this scorecard.
While he could be devastating if he can get that form back, I don't think that is a possibility. Inzy is, was and will always be a lazy cricketer, and he already has every excuse to show up lazy in West Indies.
Mohd. Yousuf is by far the most consistent batsman in the Pakistani squad. He can be expected to play a pretty solid Dravid-esq role thoughout the tournament. The only other name worth mentioning is Shoaib Malik. He is far too familiar with the 'lone warrior" role that he has played on several occassions, and I foresee a few more of those for him before the end of the trip.
Shahid Afridi will provide a few fireworks, but I believe many teams (including, at the risk of falling flat on my face, India) have figured out how to tackle him. Not much can be expected out of the other youngsters, at least with the bat. Yes, an occassional half century or a century, but that will not be enough to beat good teams consistently, which is what is the need of the hour.
Pakistan's strength, at least coming into this world cup, was their bowling attack. If even one of Asif or Akhtar had a good day, they would have been capable of defending a 200ish total. With these players "injured", and Razaq actually injured, I am afraid the dent is beyond repair.
Pakistan will battle it out with England for the bottom spot. Australia, SA, India, WI, SL and NZ will all end up ahead of Pakistan by the end of super eights.
Rao Iftekar has shown that he can play a critical role every now and then, Sami has been in and out of the team, and still is a decent cricketer, and Rana Naved still needs to learn to control the new ball better. A lot will rest on the shoulders of Kaneria, but in the end, it might prove to be too big a burden on the small Carrebean grounds.
Yasir Arafat is too inexperienced to make a difference. His performance under pressure is extremely shaky, as demonstrated by the last Indian visit to Pakistan. Azhar Mahmood is also a relatively weak link in this chain.
Added to all this batting and bowling shortcomings is the shoddy fielding display that can be expected from the team. A few dropped catches and missed run out opportunities are in the making, exactly what Pakistan doesn't need with all its other woes.
OK then, where IS the hope? some of you might ask. Reaslistically speaking, there is none. For the over optimistic Pakistani supporters, only hope is if the stalwarts actually perform to their potential in every game that matters and the youngsters aptly rotate their good performance to provide just enough to beat the right team at the right time, and pray to god that rain chips in at the 12th man slot every now and then, pushing them over the threshold.
If you don't believe me, I have evidence for what I just said here:
1 Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt)
2 Younis Khan (vice-captain)
3 Mohammad Hafeez
4 Imran Nazir
5 Mohammad Yousuf
6 Shoaib Malik
7 Azhar Mahmood (replacement for Abdul Razzaq)
8 Shahid Afridi
9 Kamran Akmal
10 Yasir Arafat (replacement for Shoaib Akhtar)
11 Mohd. Sami (replacement for Mohammad Asif)
12 Umar Gul13 Danish Kaneria
14 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan
15 Rao Iftikhar Anjum
A Different Kind of March Madness...
Original Post Date: 1st March 2007
Apologies for the NCAA fans who might have strolled into my space....
The madness I am talking about comes once every four years, in the form of World Cup Cricket.
I will be posting some thoughts in the next few weeks on this topic, and will try to invite people who may have smart(er) things to say about what I have said.
With the event starting in around 2 weeks, there is much to be said about the various teams and their chances. There will be an Indian bias to the arguments and hopes posted here, can't really help it.
Here is how I plan to tackle the next couple of months. I will start with postings highlighting each of the following team's chance to win the cup:
1. Australia
2. South Africa
3. New Zealand
4. West Indies
5. Sri Lanka
6. Pakistan
7. England and finally
8. India
OK---before you jump all over me to find out the order, it is in the order of highest chance to the least, except for India of course....and at the risk of being politically incorrect, the other teams do not deserve a mention.
By the end of the series, we will see where we can place India in the list.....
Will be more than glad to incorporate comments.
Welcome!
Apologies for the NCAA fans who might have strolled into my space....
The madness I am talking about comes once every four years, in the form of World Cup Cricket.
I will be posting some thoughts in the next few weeks on this topic, and will try to invite people who may have smart(er) things to say about what I have said.
With the event starting in around 2 weeks, there is much to be said about the various teams and their chances. There will be an Indian bias to the arguments and hopes posted here, can't really help it.
Here is how I plan to tackle the next couple of months. I will start with postings highlighting each of the following team's chance to win the cup:
1. Australia
2. South Africa
3. New Zealand
4. West Indies
5. Sri Lanka
6. Pakistan
7. England and finally
8. India
OK---before you jump all over me to find out the order, it is in the order of highest chance to the least, except for India of course....and at the risk of being politically incorrect, the other teams do not deserve a mention.
By the end of the series, we will see where we can place India in the list.....
Will be more than glad to incorporate comments.
Welcome!
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