CricDigs Blogs

Kevin Pietersen wasn’t the most popularly chosen captain and some former English players had reservations about a player being made the skipper when his loyalty was being questioned by the people (i.e. with regards to him being a South African by birth) but even then KP had the audacity to publicise his differences with the England coach — Peter Moores even before being officially appointed. While Moores has been fairly successful, at least by England’s standards, KP hasn’t done that much to prove his selection as the captain.

He did start of very well by out-playing the Proteas at home, but since then the team has done little to say that they have been inspired by KP in any way. Perhaps, the only reason he was made captain is that the team has no real options. Collingwood never looked like a good leader and there aren’t many seniors in the English side. The present situation is getting a bit ugly and is similar to the Ganguly-Chappell tussle that happened a few years ago.

There is a similarity in the news we hear about the ongoing coach-captain conundrum. Just like Ganguly and Chappell were said to have different approaches, both KP and Moores have admitted that they have a real communication problem and just can’t get along for any sort of agenda. Michael Vaughan’s selection is said to be only an addition to this problem. Both KP and the coach are in agreement when it comes to them not being able to like each others’ approach.

Now, sports channels are saying that Pietersen may even stand down from captaincy if Moores isn’t replaced (or axed is it?). Shouldn’t the cricket boards check out whether the coach and the new captain are on the same pedestal before appointing someone? But I guess it is difficult to guess or foretell how people get along with each other, relationships of every kind get messed up and cricket shouldn’t be any different.

Just like India is benefiting immensely from the presence of a young, aggressive and wise captain in the form of MS Dhoni, South Africa too are reaping the benefits of a leader who can actually make a difference and is doing so at this very moment. His selection as the Protea’s skipper was a bit controversial and came at a difficult time with Pollock just having ended a rather dull run as a captain. At that time, most people and experts had commented that the team just had no good captaincy material to groom or count upon and Smith was just an experiment that most thought would fail miserably. Well, it seems that the man in question has proven nearly everyone wrong. Not only has he cemented his place in the side as a very dependable opening batsman, he is now amongst the best captains in contemporary cricket.

The man is seldom perturbed on the field when marshalling his resources and his imposing physical presence comes in combination with a very relaxed and thoughtful approach. His team has enjoyed a very successful tenure in both the test matches and one-dayers. He has dealt with every issue that looked like fragmenting the team. The question of racist selection and the quota system for selecting coloured players has plagued the team for some time now but Smith never got himself messy with the controversy. He again faced a difficult time when the team’s middle order lost the big-hitting, and Smith’s personal favourite, Justin Kemp to the ICL. Even then, he maintained his calm and never bad-mouthed Kemp’s decision.

At that time, Pollock’s role as an all-rounder too was being questioned but Smith believed in the experience and maturity that Pollock brought to the dressing room. He backed the likes of DeVilliers — more of a batting wicket-keeper back then to stake a claim for the middle order and his confidence eventually paid off. Just look at DeVilliers now. He has been among the team’s best batsmen this season and played a significant role in securing a win during SA’s historic chase at the Perth test match against the Aussies but DeVilliers would confess himself that the win was set up by Smith’s courageous century.

Cricket in South Africa is till trying to deal with disruptive issues like that of racism and the lack of experience in the team. However, when it comes to delivering on the day that matters they can be assured that they have one man who knows how to get the best out of his men — Graeme Smith.
(someone who was ridiculed as a ‘white’ and unjust selection at one point)

Barry Richards just said that Ponting is still stuck with the McGrath-Warne era in his mind and is used to setting field for these bowling legends. This point of view even has some compatibility with what Ian Chappell has been saying for some time now. All this talk begun after Australia lost the series to India and then that historic Perth Test to South Africa. Ponting really looks confused when it comes to pencilling a winning combination. Hayden says that he can and will contribute to the Test side but his future is under a thick cloud. Ponting again has no creditable options when it comes to the blunted Aussie bowling attack.

One should ask him, where is the trademark air of arrogance and the tendency to babble away at any given opportunity? Yeah, right. The mind and the body don’t react very well when you are under continuous scrutiny, do they? Ponting even went on to blame the pitch at Perth for their defeat. This is rather new. We were accustomed to Ponting only rubbishing the sub-continental pitches. One good batting display by the Proteas and a historic run chase and his whole mindset has done a U-turn. He was never humble, neither did anyone call him respectful or wise but everyone believed that he was a fighter to the core. A fighter — Really? Didn’t hear any other fighters in the game whine and have such flickering mindsets like Mr. Punter.

He had it good with Warnie and McGrath doing their magical acts and getting wickets by the bucketful. With them not around and no Gilchrist to haunt the opposition’s bowlers, the world is falling apart for our world champion skipper. Hayden no longer has an “obnoxious little weed” to confront or “third-world conditions” as he had stated after facing defeat in India. So why is he failing so consistently? Will Ponting please explain this to us? Krejza doesn’t look like the supposed ace he was termed as after his debut against India as he failed to have any impact on the SA batting order. In fact, he has been replaced for the Boxing Day Test. Ponting had stated that they still have a lot of bowling options back home. Where are they? Don’t expect too many answers. This has been a perennial problem with Ricky — too much chattering with little substance.

All empires crumble. Some just hang round longer than others, and at their zenith it seems as though they will be there for ever. But they all go down eventually. The greatest empire Rome fell and now the cricketing empire imagined by Allan Border, forged by Mark Taylor and defended by Steve Waugh is falling and crumbling too fast. Faster than the current economies of the world.

Everyone knew that the empire was declining but after Australia’s loss to South Africa at WACA one must be suprised at the rate of decline. Alex Brown writes, “No batting unit had ever achieved such a feat in Australia, yet the South Africans completed the task with such ease and poise as to defy comprehension that this was their first Test victory on Australian soil in 14 years”.
The Aussies are only a pale shadow of their past and their number one ranking is more of it’s past glorious conquests than recent performance. The Aussies are crumbling and the world watches. “Australia will officially abdicate Test cricket’s throne if South Africa emerge victorious in Melbourne and Sydney, and on the evidence of the past week, it is a distinct possibility”.

The takers of the crown are the Proteas and the Indians. Both are neck to neck in the current rankings with Smith’s men leading by a whisker. But days are not far when the struggle for supremacy over the crown between India and South Africa starts. Mark Anthony and Augustus Caesar fought for the crown of Julius and now Dhoni and Smith will fight for Ponting’s throne.

Hail the new world champions.

As it turned out the fifth one day between England and India started out with the impression that this match was going to be an actual contest for a change. This was primarily because from the third over of the English innings, their batsmen showed some intent to actually try and score big. This momentum was taken forward by their skipper and probably the best batsman in their line-up, Kevin Pietersen. He went on to score a 111* — called a Nelson in cricket. He pulverized the Indian bowling to all corners of the ground in Cuttack. However, one aspect of the English batting still stood out. On such an easy-paced track, their batsmen just couldn’t get the hang of our slow bowlers. The much-improved part-time bowling of Yuvraj too, it seemed, was difficult for them to manoeuvre. This seems rather strange. None of their middle order batsmen are adept at stepping out of the crease and hitting the bowl over the inner circle of fielders.

In the end, England did manage a decent 270+ plus score. But to his disappointment, Pietersen realised why had MS Dhoni had chosen to field even after winning the toss. He had factored in the dew factor. When the Indian innings started, it was apparent that the ball was getting wet much faster. This factor alone meant a dampener for the English side as their spinning options now stood ruined. Pietersen looked frustrated and dismayed as the Indian batsmen got the runs with nearly 8 overs to spare. He looks like lost for any ideas that can get his team out of this hole, they have dug themselves in. There are already rumours that some of his players have started commenting that he isn’t the ideal leader as people had thought him to be.

In fact, there are reports in the British media that he himself struggles to keep up with the disciplined training regimen that is a part of every international sport side. All these things were swept under the carpet when he captained the side for the first time and outplayed South Africa, back home, in front of the home crowd. Now, that the things are getting difficult, it is obvious that his team is looking up to him to motivate them. He did try and do a bit of that by notching up a century, but when on the field, his presence isn’t as authoritative as a captain should be. Once again, the question of a gifted players necessarily not being the best captain has surfaced. Looks like Flintoff may be in contention.

MS Dhoni or Mahi as he is popularly called is excelling at the art handling the Indian team. I personally believe in what Sunny Gavaskar had once commented – captainship is all about man management and isn’t about being the greatest or the most gifted player in the side. In our case, this stands absolutely correct. Just look at our history of captains, Tendulkar and Dravid are perhaps the greatest Indian batsmen of this generation but who has excelled at being the captain? First it was Ganguly and now Dhoni. Both of them weren’t looked upon as captain-material even when playing at the state level and certainly don’t have the prettiest of batting techniques. Both of them aren’t in the same class as that of Tendulkar, but while the little Master’s stint as a captain was miserable, Dhoni, like Ganguly, is having a great time. Reason?
He is an expert at using his available resources.

There have been many examples in the past few days about Dhoni’s skills at keeping his team together and getting the best out of them. He has been instrumental in getting Sehewag’s confidence back. Yuvi certainly has reacted very well to Dhoni being in-charge. On the other hand, the perennial under-achiever — Zaheer Khan, has come to the fore under Dhoni’s watchful eyes. In the fourth one-dayer against England, the Indian captain wasn’t very sure about the bowling areas that should be picked up by his pacemen or how to thwart the rampaging Owais Shah. Faced with a difficult situation, Dhoni did exactly what he is best doing is at — he dug into his available eleven players to find the person who could solve his query.

He immediately put Zaheer in-charge of the situation, making him even set the field placings for Ishant and company. Zaheer has reacted very positively to his role of being the senior bowler in the team and such gestures by the captain would only engage Zaheer’s attention in a more positive way. Again, Dhoni was very clear that he didn’t want Amit Mishra — India’s latest bowling discovery to be exposed to the English batsmen on placid Indian pitches. He foresees Mishra as a force with a number of test matches coming up and doesn’t want to take any chances to spoil the young man’s confidence. During the game at Bangalore, Gambhir was finding it hard to catch the wet, slippery ball. Once he did manage to take a catch, it was Dhoni who threw his keeping gloves at Gambhir — the message was clear, he understood Gambhir’s predicament with holding on to the wet ball but made it clear, though in a light-hearted manner, that the team couldn’t afford missed chances.

For once the Indian team has a captain in the form of MS Dhoni who looks fit to carry the burden of people’s expectation and still maintain his all-conquering ways. His wisdom has been the glue that has held together a team full of young hopefuls and seniors who are looked upon as demi-Gods. Had it not been for Dhoni, the rift between the seniors and the young guns of the Indian team might have become a reality. What Dhoni really needs is the unquestioned support from the Indian selection committee and a selection panel that behaves like Dhoni himself — ignoring regional preferences or personal likes/dislikes. However, what has transpired in the last few days is suggestive of the fact that the Indian Board might be falling back in its old self-destructive mode.

Why is that when the team was gelling so well and looking very much like world beaters, the selectors had do raise this issue of selection of Irfan Pathan over RP Singh? This series may be against a weaker English side, but it is very important for the Indian team. This is first time Dhoni would is captaining in his nation, knowing that he is now the man totally in-charge, skippering the side in one-dayers, test matches and T20. This is the first time that Dhoni might be feeling the pressure of international cricket with so much cricket being cramped together. So what it basically means is that Dhoni needs the least number of issues that could tamper his peace of mind, especially those regarding his very own team. This is where the selectors have played a spoilsport.

Agreed, RP hasn’t been performing very well for a few months but the fact is that Irfan too has been badly out of form for more than two seasons. He might have redeemed himself to some extent by performing well in some T20 matches, but he isn’t even a shadow of his former swinging self. His pace and swing are both absent and he can at best be described as a containing bowling option — something he isn’t a champion at!! He has been playing in the Indian domestic league and was most probably working upon his bowling and focus. What wasn’t needed was to push him prematurely in a series where bowlers are getting carted all over the place. Irfan needs to get bowling practice and play more test matches to get his confidence back as Indian’s wicket-taking option.

This is probably why Dhoni didn’t want his return to the team to be hurried. History has it that the Indian selectors and captains have seldom had good working relations. When Srikkanth came to the fore, it seemed that things would change as both he and Dhoni appeared like approaching the game in the same way. Now, with all the drama being reported over Dhoni wanting to step down as the captain because Irfan’s selection was pressed upon him, it might be that the selectors are again functioning out-of-sync with what the captain.

I honestly believe that for once Tendulkar has put his own interest before that of the team. This is with regards to the fact that India was already 3-0 up in the ongoing one-day series against England and Sehewag and Gambhir were establishing themselves as a reliable opening pair. The opening slot had been a problem area for the Indian team for time. After trying out many combinations, for once the Indians have a pair capable of opening the innings both in the one-dayers and test matches, not to mention Gambhir’s explosive exploits in the T20 appearances he had made. For his own benefit and that of the team, Gambhir and Sehewag should have been given the liberty to carry on tearing into the opposing team’s bowling in their typical manner and this seven-match series against England was the perfect platform for the Sehewag-Gambhir combo to mature as a ‘pair’ and silence any questions that may have been raised against their temperaments/techniques when it came to opening the innings.

However, the selectors chose otherwise. For some strange reason, rather than using this series as an opportunity to try out the likes of Badrinath, they went back to calling upon Tendulkar — that too when the series had already been wrapped up. Was Tendulkar’s inclusion really necessary? Was there really a need to offset Gambhir’s batting position for the fourth one-dayer? After struggling for nearly three seasons, Gambhir had finally arrived at the international scene and then for some stupid, unconceivable reason Tendulkar was chosen to open the innings with Sehewag and Gambhir had to demote himself to the one-down slot. This is where I am questioning the wisdom of Tendulkar. Wasn’t it apparent to him that Sehewag and Gambhir is the pair for the future and they really enjoy batting in each other’s company? In all probability, Tendulkar was asked to choose his batting position. Did he do justice to the young and upcoming Gambhir, who is in the form of his life, to come down the batting order? Couldn’t Tendulkar fathom that this might again disrupt Gambhir’s peace of mind and shouldn’t he have been looking out for his younger counterpart in the team?

I didn’t like Greg Chappell like most other people, but once there had been a report of how Tendulkar had insisted that he would open the innings or he had to be dropped from the team!! Some newspapers highlighted the fact most members of the team felt that Tendulkar’s presence was more wanted in the middle order. Since we were all in a Chappell-hating mode at that time, this issue didn’t register in many people’s mind but now it seems to have come up again. Isn’t Tendulkar prioritising his convenience above the team’s best interest?

I wrote a tribute story on two players we have grown to love, Dada and Jumbo. It’s found at http://christopherdavid007.blogspot.com/2008/11/legendary-farewell-for-two-legends.html

Hope you come and take a look at it (It is quite big). But worthwhile reading never the less.

MS Dhoni has made it clear that he and his team would chose playing for the country rather than committing themselves to the highly lucrative Champions League. He said this in response to the fact there could be a clashing of fixtures — the opening Test against England and the Champions’ final are very close to each other, nearly overlapping dates. Dhoni has a unique problem as he is perhaps the only player who is bound to be involved in Champions Twenty20 tournament, as a skipper of the Chennai Super Kings side that many vouch would reach the finals. This is why even the BCCI has requested a re-scheduling of the opening test against England.

However, Dhoni has put all speculation to rest, making it clear that playing for national pride and representing the country came before any other commitment.
Recently, there were reports that he had commented that Yuvraj was a much better-looking player, when in full flow, than either Sehewag or Sachin. Well, that point too was blown out of proportion. The media seems to be having a field day picking on everything that the Indian captain does. Perhaps, they are forgetting that this man is too grounded and iron-willed to let them get on his nerves. He is good enough to answer any doubt that is raised against his team and confident enough of his abilities to silence all his critics with his demeanour and performance rather than verbally fighting them. What Dhoni had innocently done was made a simple personal observation regarding how he adored a Yuvraj inning, when the former Indian vice-captain is in full throttle.

Further, Dhoni has managed to blend in the young blood of the team with the older stalwarts like Tendulkar and Laxman. In fact, now Dhoni has made a rather smart suggestion. He has indirectly pointed to the fact that the present scenario, wherein Tendulkar is bound to return only after being rested for the first three one-day games, is perhaps perfect for the Indian team. The youngsters realise that they are the future of the team but they cannot afford to be laidback in their approach because of the presence of the more experienced and established players in the team. Vice-versa, this thinking is applicable to the veterans of the team too — making sure that everyone in the squad is competitive but not insecure.