The Blame Game

With India's premature and totally unexpected exit from the world cup, the blame game has already started. It is sometimes funny watching media and the experts elevate our players to great heights one day and then find so many faults with them some other day.

If you ask me, the same Indian team under the same skipper and the same coach can make it to the semis given a second chance. Cricket is not only about leadership, strategy, skills and balance but it is also about consistency and the performance on a given day. India, while it had all the essential ingredients, were not consistent enough and did not perform the way they should have. Their exit does not mean that the team is worse than Bangladesh or Ireland.

Anyways, the changes I would definitely like going forward are as follows -

• Coach: I think we should look out for other options. One big quality I would look out for in a coach is the ability to motivate and lead the team. Our next coach should be able to motivate the players and should be a leader. Cricket, like many other games, is won in the mind and we need coaches who are more vocal, gel well with the players and somehow motivate the players to win games for him & the country. Chappel, though great in many aspects, did not seem to have the leadership material in him and it may not be a bad idea to not renew his contract.
• Captain: I have nothing against Dravid and infact, his batting record is quite good after he became the captain. But we need to remember that he is 34 years old now and we need to groom someone for the next world cup. My pick would be to try Yuvraj out. Frankly he is the only one who can take this up right now. It would mean putting additional pressure on someone who has been the best batsman for India in the one-dayers but we need to test the waters now.
• Team Composition: I personally am fine with the current pool of players and don't want to see any big changes post world cup. The only thing we should do is to rotate the players often and give more chances to younger ones like Raina, Kaif, Uthappa, Sreesanth, VRV, etc.

If I need to blame someone, it would be the lack of desire in the Indian cricket team. They did not seem desperate enough to win. We need a team that is very strong mentally and want to win games for the country rather than play technically correct cricket. I have always admired players like Bevan, Yuvraj, Hussey, Robin Singh, Ponting, etc. who probably were not the best technically but have won games for their nations. They are all mentally strong people with a strong desire to win.

The mantra for the Indian team should be - " Winning is not everything, it is the only thing" ....

:PM

The tall Kangaroo ...

I, for one, was not too sure about Australia's performance in this world cup, mainly because of their bowling attack. They have however come out strong, very strong. I did have them in my top 5 and had mentioned that they might replace one of my top four teams in the semis but I did not know at that point that the team in question would be none other than my personal favourite - India.

Australians seem to be hungry, they can't seem to wait to show everyone that no matter what the ICC rankings say, they are the real world champions. Maybe some bad games before the tournament & the drop in rankings did a world of good to them. Not only have they maximized on their strength which is batting, they have also done fairly well with their bowling as well. Right now, they look the best batting side in the tournament. And Bracken, Tait, Watson & Hogg are doing fairly well t00.

They currently look all set to play the semi finals and so do New Zealand & Sri Lanka. My fourth semi finalist would still be West Indies. The equations have become slightly easier to solve with Bangladesh & Ireland in the super eights, but only a fool would take them for granted. Bangladesh, especially, will be a team to watch and I won't be surprised to witness a few more upsets. I would be very keen to watch the following Super Eight games -
Aus Vs NZ (to see if NZ can stop Aus)
WI Vs SA (this will mostly decide the fourth semi-finalist)
Eng Vs B'desh (we have a potential upset here)
WI Vs SL (I think it will be a good game)
Aus Vs Ireland (It will be a record-breaking game)

Signing off for now ..
:PM

Disaster ..

India's exit from the world cup was confirmed with Bangladesh beating Bermuda all hands down, not that I had even an iota of hope. This was always going to be a tough tournament and only the toughest have survived.

India were simply not tough enough ... I feel they were too weak and apprehensive in the mind .. the body language was not good at all. I could have digested the bad day against Bangladesh but the performance against SL was not up to the mark. If you could not chase 255 on a very decent pitch, how can you think of winning the world. In current form and more importantly state of mind, India would have really struggled even if they had moved to Super eight as a result of Bermuda beating Bangladesh. The Indian fans were not just not destined to spend a few more sleepless nights :-)

I am emotionless, for a change. I think it's not worth getting upset. Not that I will stop watching cricket or I have lost hope in the Indian team, but just that I don't want to get into the whys and ifs. I will just hope that we do some serious thinking and start looking towards the future. Maybe the 20-20 world cup is what we should be targeting now :-)

:PM

Big Win & Next Steps ...

The good news is that India is still in :-) I thought the win yesterday, though arguably against the weakest team playing in this world cup, was a very important one and Indians should feel happy about what their team achieved yesterday.

India was hoping to win the toss and put Bermuda in so that they can better their net run rate. But when India was put into bat in overcast conditions and then Uthappa fell without even facing one full over, it looked like that India would struggle to get to 300+. What happened at the end of the day is literally history now, thanks to some fantastic batting by Yuvraj & Tendulkar, intelligent constrained play by Ganguly and finally some sensible batting by Sehwag. The task is cut out for team India now. They need to continue this and win the next game against Sri Lanka.

I have been watching TV channels discussing the permutations & combinations through which India can make it to the next stage in this world cup but nobody seems to be talking about which particular combination is best for India.

If you ask me, it is simple. India needs to beat Sri Lanka, come what may. The best thing to happen will be if Sri Lanka thrashes Bangladesh as well, that too by a big margin so that it would be practically impossible for Bangladesh to match India's net run rate. Also, this would mean that India and Sri Lanka would make it to the Super Eight and the best part would be that India would go with 2 points even though it may end up being the second team in the pool (B2).

Great loss !!

The news about Bob Woolmer's death was a big shock for me. He has been one of the most innovative cricket coaches and his demise is certainly a very big loss.

There has been quite a bit of speculation, especially because of the timing of this event. I personally doubt if it was a case of suicide simply because Woolmer had witnessed lows of equal magnitude & intensity in his career. In any case, there is no doubt that it is a great loss to the cricketing community.

May his soul rest in peace!

Minnows' Day Out ...

And the day I am talking about here is Saturday, the 17th day of March. This is when we witnessed 2 huge upsets - Pakistan lost to Ireland and India to Bangladesh. As a result, Pakistan is out of this world cup and India needs some great performances on field plus a lot of luck to make it to the next stage.

I was watching the India Bangaladesh match so cannot comment on what went wrong with Pakistan but form the scorecard it is clear that their batting let them down big time. As for India, Ajay Jadeja on NDTV quite rightly stated in the post mortem - "India lost because it was not looking to win but waiting for Bangladesh to lose". And I totally agree with him on this. India was on the defensive from the very first ball of the match and they were just waiting for Bangladesh to do something wrong. And on this day, the Bangalas did nothing wrong. Their bowling was very accurate and while batting they went for the modest target with a very positive frame of mind. Well done Bangladesh! Had it not been in the same pool as India, I would have wanted them to make it to the Super 8. Maybe they still will ...

"Team India"

Being a die-hard fan of the Indian cricket team, how can I not reserve a post entirely for the team blue.

Team India plays its first match tomorrow and if my predictions have to come true, they have to get into the momentum from the very beginning. The warm-up matches provided the much required boost and India should look at repeating the performances in the opening game tomorrow. They have to take this match very seriously as we all know that Bangladesh is very capable of springing a few surprises ...

Having played quite a bit of cricket myself mostly as a captain (talking about gully cricket), I will use this space to pen down my strategy for Team India. Let me start with the preferred playing eleven (in batting order) -

1. Saurav Ganguly
2. Robin Uthappa
3. Virendra Sehwag
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Rahul Dravid
6. Yuvraj Singh
7. MS Dhoni
8. Ajit Agarkar
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Anil Kumble
11. Munaf Patel

No surprises here, I guess .. Also in terms of strategy and reasons for picking this eleven here are a few points -

• I am playing Sehwag as an all-rounder and he cannot be wasted in the middle order. If he is playing, he needs to open or at least come in one down. However if he fails in more than 2 games, I would bring in Pathan as a replacement and make him bat at No. 3. I repeat No. 3 and not in the late middle order.
• I will never play Kumble and Harbhajan both in the same game. Kumble will be my first choice and only if he looks unimpressive, I will bring in Harbhajan into the eleven. Tendulkar, Yuvraj & Sehwag should always bowl at least 10-15 overs between them in all games.
• I will never drop Uthappa. He has shown a lot of promise and courage in the last few games and he can provide us with an explosive start especially on the pitches here.
• It is sad that Sreesanth did not find a place in my first eleven but mainly because Zaheer, Agarkar & Munaf have been awesome in the last season. Zaheer has clearly been the best. Agarkar looks a lot more mature and keeps getting early wickets. Munaf has rightly sacrificed his speed and has developed into a very consistent & economical bowler. Sreesanth was good in the last few games and should be brought in case of an injury or total loss of rhythm in any of the top 3 bowlers.
• I will never play around with my batting order. I will always stick to the batting order above especially Nos 4 to 7. I don't mind if both Sehwag & Pathan flop and Karthik is brought in at No. 3 or if we need to accelerate batting second, Dhoni is promoted but in most circumstances it will be good to stick to the same batting order. It may mean that you won't have any surprises for your opponents but I'd rather have my batsmen know their role & position well in advance esp. during the world cup. We can leave the mind games department to Ganguly who anyways will be out there in the field since the very beginning and can change his gloves, bat, locket, rings, hairstyle or whatever whenever he wishes :)

Many have commented that this is the best ever Indian team to compete in a world cup. I totally agree and even though the last team was almost equally good, in my opinion, the 3 most important differences since last time are - maturity of Yuvraj as a batsman, presence of Dhoni in the squad, Tendulkar & Dravid coming in at No. 4 & 5.

Team India looks all set to go all the way. I hope they have a good start tomorrow and carry the momentum in the next 10 games. My mantra for the team would be - "Winning is not everything, it is the only thing!".

Good luck to Team India !!

The "Tie-Breaker"

The cricket follower in me got a major shock yesterday when I realized that I was not even aware of an important rule in this world cup - the tie-breaker rule. Thanks to me wife, I know the rule now and I also want to comment on the same.

Well for those who are in the same boat, I was in till yesterday, this rule is applicable to only knock-out matches i.e. the semis and the final. For all other matches, if the score is tied, the result is a tie. The number of wickets or run-rate or any such criteria will not be considered which keeps it simple. Now in case of a semi-final or a final if the scores are tied at the end of the match, a bowler from each team will be asked to bowl five deliveries at the stumps and one who hits the stumps more number of times is the winner.

I am not sure what happens if there is again a tie .. maybe the bowlers keeping bowling 5 deliveries till the tie finally breaks. I somehow am not too comfortable with this rule. Who cares? (is that what you are thinking). Yes I know and I also realize that the probability of a tie happening in these 3 matches is very low and having some decent way to break that should be good enough. But I would have preferred if even batsmen and fields had been involved in this tie-breaker.

Imagine a team, that has won all its matches so far because it has a very strong batting line-up and some excellent fielders, has now landed up in the finals and guess what, it is a tie. And now it is asked to nominate one of its 5 not-s0-accurate bowlers to compete against someone like McGrath. Is that totally fair? I don't think so. Well you could argue there are many more aspects in cricket today that are not totally fair like the toss advantage in some grounds, use of DL method in certain circumstances, etc. But why add one more to this list?

I would have preferred if both teams were asked to bat for say 2 overs and whichever team scored more runs could have been declared the winner. In case of a tie, wickets could have been taken into account. Now I agree it would be tough to execute such a rule if it is a day match as you may not have enough light to bat and maybe that is one of the reasons why batsmen were not made a part f the tie-breaker rule !!

Give it a thought .....

Forecast - Drilled down

Having predicted the semi-finalists for this edition of the world cup in my first post, I thought it will be worthwhile to go a step further and predict winners for all key matches. Let us start with the pool matches -

Match Winner
WI Vs Pak WI
Eng Vs NZ NZ
Ind Vs SL Ind
Aus Vs SA Aus

And now the super-eight ...

Match Winner
Ind Vs WI WI
Ind Vs Pak Ind
Ind Vs Eng Ind
Ind Vs NZ Ind
Ind Vs Aus Ind
Ind Vs SA Ind
SL Vs WI WI
SL Vs Pak SL
SL Vs Eng SL
SL Vs NZ NZ
SL Vs Aus SL
SL Vs SA SL
Aus Vs WI WI
Aus Vs Pak Aus
Aus Vs Eng Aus
Aus Vs NZ NZ
SA Vs WI WI
SA Vs Pak SA
SA Vs Eng SA
SA Vs NZ NZ
Eng Vs WI WI
Eng Vs Pak Pak
NZ Vs WI NZ
NZ Vs Pak NZ

I'll seriously be very glad if I achieve a hit rate of over 70%. And I am confident I'll do that ...

Now assuming the results are inline with my predictions, the points table at the end of super-eight (including the points carried over from the pool matches) will look like -

WI 12
Ind 12
NZ 12
SL 10
Aus 6
SA 4
Pak 2
Eng 0

Next come the semi-finals ...

Match Winner
WI Vs SL WI
Ind Vs NZ Ind

And guess who will be the world champion this time ... ofcourse India !!!

The "Forecast" ...

I first had the title of this post as "World Cup Predictions!" but having worked in a supply chain company for quite a while, I changed it to The "Forecast". I know that was unnecessary information and hence let me jump straightaway into the cricket field.

The World cup action starts tonight my time and I just can't wait for one simple reason - this is gonna be one heck of a tournament. Did you ask why? Because all the top eight teams have very good teams and each one of them is capable of going all the way. This makes it practically impossible to put your money on any one in particular and this uncertainty is what makes this World Cup, in my opinion, the most exciting tournament in the history of cricket.

Now, let's come to the point - The Forecast !! My semi-finalists of this edition of world cup are -

1. India
2. West Indies
3. Sri Lanka
4. New Zealand

Why these and why not others? Let me try to justify what is otherwise just my gut feel :-)

1. India - is my top team for the world cup. Why? Because I am an Indian :-) (Wasn't that a good enough justification?). Jokes apart, I feel they have one of the best batting line-ups and a very under-rated, yet effective, bowling attack. Tendulkar, Dravid, Zaheer, Munaf & Yuvraj will be the men to watch.
2. West Indies - is my team number 2. Though a little inconsistent, if they get their act together, they will surely be playing the finals. In Lara, Gayle, Chanderpaul, Sarwan & Samuels they have an excellent top order and their part time bowlers - Gayle, Samuels & Sarwan can work wonders for them.
3. Sri Lanka - is going to come out strong as well. They have an excellent bowling attack and a decent batting line-up to back them up. Jayasurya, Sangakarra, Vaas & Murali will be the key men for them.
4. New Zealand - Need I explain? Their recent performances against Australia have made cricket lovers all over the world take this team seriously. They bat very deep and in Shane Bond they have the fastest bowler. The trio is Oram, McMilan & McCullum is too dangerous to ignore.
5. Australia - is my team number 5 and I won't be surprised if they displace one of my top four teams for a berth in the semis. In absence of Lee & Warne and with the fitness of Symonds in doubt, their bowling looks a little depleted but their batting is as strong as ever. In Ponting & Gilchrist they have batsmen who could take the game away from opposition single-handedly (remember the last world cup final ... phew!). And not-so-fit Symonds & hayden can still clear the ropes more comfortably than most of the other batsmen in the world :)
6. Pakistan - is a team that would have definitely been in my top four, had Akhtar, Asif & Razzak been on the plane to the Carrebeans. The bowling department looks very weak. The batting can make up for it though. A lot will depend on how well Yusuf & Inzy contribute to the scheme of things.
7. South Africa - is the number one team. Not for me but as per the ICC rankings. I will try not to justify my ranking of this team .. I will just say that I somehow don't belive in this team. The warm-up matches proved that my gut feel was not all that bad :)
8. England - I will not be surprised if England actually prove me right and finish at the bottom of the super eight table. They surprised everyone by beating Australia recently, but it will be tough to repeat the same in the world cup.
9. Bangladesh - They have some exciting young cricketers and this team could spring a few surprises. The chances are very slim though.

Well .. that was pretty long for a first post. Need to retain some energy to come back and post again. But before I park my pen (shutdown my laptop), I would like to give out the finalists. I would love India and West Indies playing the finals. India because I am an Indian (did you forget that already?) and West Indies because they are the hosts and it will add up to the climax !!