CricDigs Blogs

ICC Champions Trophy 2009 Cricket Schedule. Finally, ah and I mean finally the postponed ICC Champions Trophy has been scheduled to take place in South Africa (once again the same great venue) between September 24 and October 5 2009 as per the official meeting held in Dubai.

http://www.clbuzz.com/icc-champions-trophy-2009-cricket-schedule/

Schedule: Jul 31 to Aug 3 (10:00 GMT)

Teams & Venues:

Durham v Sussex
Chester-le-Street

Gloucestershire v Glamorgan
Bristol

Kent v Derby
Canterbury

Worcestershire v Warwicks
Worcester

Somerset v Notts
Taunton

Surrey v Leicestershire
The Oval

Lancashire v Yorkshire
Manchester

Middlesex v Northants
Lord’s

Nearly every cricket fan in England, even those who consider soccer their religion has his eyes fixed on the third test match of the historic Australia-England rivalry and it seems that all roads in are leading to Edgbaston. For starters, this is not a traditional venue for hosting Ashes test matches and this trend started only recently. Secondly, the pitch conditions could severely affect the chances of the side batting first. In fact, some local cricket experts here are so sure about the ball swinging during the first morning that they have bought tickets only for half the day for the opening morning’s session. The reason — they believe that if England are put into bat first, they will not survive for more than 40 overs or so, notwithstanding the fact that there is McGrath or even Brett Lee or for that matter, even Mitchell Johnson is hopelessly out-of-form. This combined with the ongoing debate over Flintoff’s decision to hiatus from test cricket and Andrew Strauss’s request that he should be consulted before English players are leased for the IPL are making things only more interesting.

If you watch the ongoing Ashes series for just about 10 mins or so with pacemen from either side bowling, one thing becomes significantly clear — no matter what time of the day it is, the speed guns remain continuously around the 86+ miles per hour mark. And if the combination of Mitchell Johnson and Siddle from Australia or Anderson and Flintoff from England is in operation, watching ten to twelve balls continuously in the 90+ mark seems so normal. Even someone like Stuart Broad is bowling around the 87 mph-mark with ease. The point I am trying to make is, that these are the bowlers took little or not part in the IPL2. It seems that the break they took while most of the other bowlers were trying to fire in the block holes of batsmen has borne its fruit. I believe that playing non-stop in the T20 can be taxing and may be this is a hint that resting your top bowlers for non-international games is a good idea. But then, BCCI wouldn’t buy this theory, would it?

Just as the World Cup T20 is about to get underway, there have been lots of opinion from players who had participated in the just-concluded IPL2. Most of them are of the opinion that the telecast of the IPL merely days before the World Cup would not make a significant impact on the viewership and cricket was bound to cut across any sort of TV boredom. However, among all these opinions, the best was the one expressed by Jacques Kallis of South Africa when he compared the IPL to a marathon and the World Cup T20 as a ‘sprint’.

I guess that is the best way to compare and differentiate between the two tournaments. The IPL meant that the teams had to be consistent for 14 games or so while the World Cup in England is much less accommodating and there is no time to get into the gear or get used to the conditions except for the initial matches against the non test-playing nations like Ireland and Scotland.

There is some bad news for the Indian team, no matter how much the BCCI tries to play it down. Zaheer Khan — the man in-charge of India’s bowling for the forthcoming T20 World Cup is injured and his fitness may be a cause for worry for the entire length of the tournament. In the given scenario, will it make sense for Ashish Nehra to be sent-in as the back-up for Zaheer?

Nehra was in excellent form in the just-concluded IPL2009 and except for one game of the semi-finals, he bowled brilliantly with reasonable if not lightening pace. Further, he too is in the Zaheer mould, trying to move the ball in a subtle manner to keep the batsmen guessing. Further, he would be hungry for getting back to the international arena and this could be an added incentive for him to bowl hard and the conditions in England too would suit him.

England has defeated the WEST INDIES in the second one-dayer also and has won the series 2 to nil. However, one wonders how much should we read into this ‘series’ win considering that the West Indies were already reeling under a lot of criticism and internal issues even before the series began and had got the drubbing of a lifetime in the test series prior to the ODIs.

The England team too has not found any noticeable new talents or strategies that they could use in the future. Their captain — Strauss still remains a predicament when it comes to opening the innings in ODIs and KP is still to strike form again. This leaves the bowlers — Stuart Broad won the man-of-the-series award but one would have to question the wisdom of awarding him when the batsmen got out to atrocious shots rather than the claimed ‘over-the-top’ bowling performance. No wonder T20 is taking over. In that format, even mediocre teams like the WI at least look like an international unit.

At the very outset, it does look stupid to put-up this question, but the fact is that if you look at the Indian squad for the T20 or even their core ODI team, they really do not look like needing too many specialist spinners. I might be going a bit beyond reasonability when suggesting that Bhajji too needs to keep scoring some runs to keep his chances firmly grounded in the team’s plan. Just look at the team — the number of off-spinning options is multiplying with every passing season.

They started with just Sehewag and now Raina and Yusuf Pathan have joined-in along Rohit Sharma and all of them look good for bowling four-five decent overs. I really do not see Pragyan Ojha or any other specialist spinner being given a chance. Bhajji shall remain the only one who has a genuine chance of playing and that too, as long as he can bowl well and blitz a bit with the bat in nearly every match. There are just too many good seaming options warming the bench every time the team picks-up just four specialist bowlers.

With the final of the IPL2 season being some hours away and the second edition of this premier T20 event about to end, I wonder what have been India’s gain in terms of having discovered players who could play at the international level. Pandey from the RCB is one young guy, only 19 yrs though, who has caught the attention of many folks. Raina’s consistency is something that has been appreciated by many observers and similarly that of RP Singh. But in terms of discovering outrightly new talent, I guess the gains have not been too extensive.

Pandey is just 2-3 matches old and it is too quick to make any judgments right now. Khan — the left arm seamer from Team Jaipur made an initial impact but it is hard to fathom what the future holds for him with his bowling action being questioned by nearly every reasonable cricketing brain with an opinion. What would have been really useful is the discovery to two reasonable all-rounders who could back-up the present squad for T20 and ODI or at least one real speed-rattling fast bowler. With the kind of batting at Dhoni’s disposal, no one is really looking skywards for another batting hero anyways.

So the final line-up for IPL 2009 has been sealed with the Royal Challengers Bangalore winning their semi-final game against the Chennai Super Kings. It is now going to be a one-time showdown between Deccan Chargers and the Bangalore Boys as they seek to win the title after performing miserably last season.

And that is the point I am really trying to make — both the Chargers and Team Bangalore were literally whopped last season in their 14 respective games but 2009 has seen an ocean of change in their fortunes. Both the teams had new captains this year, i.e. Kumble and Adam Gilchrist and the results are there for every one to see. Neither Laxman nor KP could influence the teams to any noteworthy performances and it took the aggression of Gilly and the canny thinking cap of Kumble to turn around things for their teams and see where these bottom-ranking teams from last year have reached — the finals.