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Yesterday’s game between the Rajasthan Royals and the Deccan Chargers can be best described as Shane Warne literally arm-twisting the result to his corner with some canny cricketing decisions. It has to be said that the man can outsmart most of the other captains in IPL2 and it is no wonder that he was able to do it to Gilchrist as well, not that Gilly is new to how Warne thinks about the game — given that both of them have played for a decade for the Aussie team.

Many folks, including me, were thinking what was Warne trying to promote himself up the order in two games in a row — yes, he had tried it before also and the result wasn’t impressive. Yet, he did it again, believing that his presence in the middle and leaving Yousuf Pathan for the last three-four overs was the only way to go about chasing runs. Eventually, his decision did deliver and Jaipur Team won from a position that was pretty gloomy at one stage.

A lot of noise was raised about India’s batting on the fourth day of the last of the two test matches between India and England. Some newspapers even dug up some uninteresting statistical figures to exemplify how slow was the Indian batting during their fourth innings on a very crucial fourth day of the test match. But considering the situation of the match, was batting carefully and yes, slowly, really that bad a decision?

As far as I can see, India didn’t do anything really so horribly wrong. The team had lost some quick wickets and the likes of Tendulkar and Laxman somehow managed to look out of form. With a lead of just about 200+ runs it was only natural for Gambhir to hold anchor at one end as he tried his level best to make sure that the Englishmen didn’t gain anymore advantage. In fact, his effort should be applauded. One can only imagine how difficult it was for a batsman usually so intent on playing his strokes to restrain his natural instincts and grind out a match-saving innings. Just imagine what would have happened had Indian lost six or seven wickets at the end of play and in the end managed a lead of just about 230 – 250 runs?

That kind of a score surely wasn’t going to be easy to score on a fifth day track but it wasn’t impossible. So, the team was right in making sure that they didn’t hand over any leverage to England. By batting slow, India made sure of two things. Firstly, the time factor started working in India’s favour and secondly, any chances of England really going for a run chase were halted. Indian being bowled out quickly might have made for good TV viewing but should entertainment be the result of India losing the advantage of winning the series 1-0?

After the Harbhajan versus Hayden show that ended with the Indian off-spinner coming on top during the test series between Australia and India, it is Yuvraj Singh versus Pietersen. It takes no guessing to say that Yuvraj may be the most disliked of Indian players for the English skipper. The very apparent hostility began after the incident of the T20 match where Yuvraj pasted Stuart Broad for a record number of sixes. Ever since then, he has been a thorn in the English side to the extent that he has single-handedly contributed to England’s defeat on more than one instance. Take the case of the one-day series that was held in India. Yuvraj was again in sublime form and responsible to a large extent for India winning the series so comprehensively against the Englishmen.

Again, during the one-day series Yuvraj got Pietersen out with his vastly improved left-arm spin bowling. This seems to have further fuelled the English skipper’s frustration — a part-timer that Yuvraj is supposed to be, has been able to get Pietersen out quite a number of times — once even in the two-match test series. So, it was no surprise when during a match conference, Pietersen branded Yuvraj’s brand of bowling as rubbish and termed him as a “Pie chucker”.

Well, the point that Pietersen has comfortably afforded to ignore is that the man whom he has gone about terming as something of a nonsense bowler has been able to get his wicket repeatedly. The England side couldn’t lay out a plan other than mouthing off and verbally abusing Yuvraj and he continued to bat beautifully in the test series too. Flintoff, Prior and Pietersen have all tried their level best at disturbing Yuvraj’s concentration at the crease by constantly trying to involve him in verbal duels and even succeeded once, but in the end just look at Yuvraj’s average in the test series and his contribution to the Indian cause.

The verdict? For the moment, it is advantage Yuvraj, pie chucker or not, as it is nobody really seems to care what kind of bowler he is as long as he is getting the rival team captain’s wicket and scoring tons of runs.

England appears to have no clues to handle the Indian bowling which has been at its incisive best against the visitors. The more encouraging fact is that the Indian team no longer seems dependent upon dusty pitches or the presence of three spinners to win. They seem to have found a potent bowling combination in the form of Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma. In fact, the biggest difference among the two sides in terms of the capability of taking 20 wickets to wrap up the match has been in the form of Zaheer. He has been bowling exceedingly well both with the new and old ball. He has been a constant trouble for the early top order by making the ball swing into and away from the batsmen and then to make matters worse for the English side, he keeps returning with the old ball and still manages to swing the ball either way.

The year 2008 has really been among the career best for Zaheer. He has fully matured into being the spearhead of the Indian bowling attack. Even Wasim Akram remarked on a TV show that how Zaheer’s method of hiding the seam position of the ball and making the older ball move reminded him of his own bowling when he was trying to master the skill of bowling on dead sub-continental pitches. This comes as no surprise because Zaheer has really impressed everyone with his consistency match-after-match, be it the tests or the one-dayers.

One reason for his excellent form could be the increased fitness level of the left-armer. He has a tendency to depend on that leap when delivering the ball and a toned down waistline looks like aiding that movement. Further still, he has gone about bowling both in marathon spells and short bursts without getting too tired. Furthermore, as a senior bowler, he has been a positive influence on Ishant too and the young Delhi bowler himself admitted that how instrumental Zaheer was in teaching him the nuances of manipulating the old ball after it loses its shine.

The first test match between India and England was a must watch. India played some excellent cricket on the field and great performances of Sehwag, Sachin, Gambhir and Yuvraj really pulled away the match from England and not forgetting Dhoni’s captaincy. Hats off to the entire team effort! I also have full respect for the English team for showing their faith in our security measures and coming back after the terror attacks.

With the rate MSD is going and the cool approach will prove him to be all time best captain India has ever seen, but surely he has to go a long way to prove that. Kapil Dev is the man to beat as an Indian Captain as we have our only World Cup under him!

Regarding Dravid, it is sad that he is not contributing yet in all these glorious wins. It would have been very nice if he had contributed even a little bit more than he did. I do feel good that the selectors and his friends including Dada are supporting him in his bad times though.

The joy that Yuvraj expressed about winning the match with Sachin, the humility that Sachin showed by dedicating his innings and hundred to the people of Mumbai, and the dedication that Sehwag showed by mentioning about Sachin’s contribution in the 1999 Chennai match were all so real and very very emotional. It clearly showed that the strength of our team is about sharing happiness with each other’s success and sharing pain by giving support to fellow team members who are not in the best of forms and who need the support.

They gave all of us a reason to cherish the victory especially after the Mumbai terror attacks. Way to go India, you’ve made us so proud!

The first test match between India and England has brought forward one question often asked from the Indian team. Why they still don’t have a decent all-rounder? There are two ways of looking at this question. One view is that although there isn’t someone like Flintoff in the Indian team, the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer have been pulling in their weight with some good batting scores. Further, as far as the fifth bowling option goes, Sehewag and Yuvraj could be a useful combination. This way the team has a genuine batsman at number seven in the form of Dhoni.

The other way of thinking is that the team needs to have one genuine match-winning all-rounder. One really can’t expect every batsman to struggle against Yuvraj’s bowling the way Pietersen has been doing and even Sehewag is still more of a part-time option. The presence of a genuine, worldclass all-rounder would mean that there are still teeth in the number five/six bowling options and the number seven batter has the ability to score a qick 40 – 60 odd when needed. Some time back, it looked like Irfan Pathan would solve this puzzle for the Indian team but he has had one of the most dramatically dented young careers that can be remembered. He isn’t even a shadow of what he was before — he is bowling slow off-cutters these days and his much fabled swing has vanished.

The very idea of accommodating an all-rounder (if they can find one) in the Indian squad could itself raise a lot of questions. Who should be dropped? It has to be Yuvraj Singh unless he can pull of some whirlwind centuries in the immediate future. There is a strange concept that appears to have entered the Indian selectors’ mindset. They seem obsessed with having a pace bowler who can bat well. First it was the supposedly superiorly talented Agarkar and then Irfan was called the next Kapil Dev. What about trying out a spinning all-rounder? Is that such a bad thing to have in your team?

India has been performing rather credibly over the last two-three seasons in test cricket. This has largely been due to the combined effort of an incisive bowling attack and some very good batting performances. The bowling continues to look good but the last six months or so have set off some tongues wagging about the fact that the middle-order is losing its credibility. For starters, Dravid’s from has nose-dived and he no longer looks capable of resurrecting the innings. On the other hand, Ganguly has bid his final goodbye to the game and his replacement — Yuvraj is still trying to cement his place.

Now, once again, the much famed Indian middle order has struggled against the Englishmen. They did so against the Lankans and during the first half of the test series against Australia and are again struggling to get going against a restrictive England bowling attack. However, I still truly believe that we shouldn’t rush into making conclusions. A string of few poor performances from the likes of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman shouldn’t lead us into taking drastic actions. The reasons are simple:

o We cannot possibly replace such world class performers overnight. Just look how Aussies are struggling to plug the holes left by McGrath, Warne and Gilly’s retirement.
o There aren’t any immediate replacements so good that they can be actually looked upon as worthy contenders for filling these shoes.

Seriously, the likes of Kaif, Raina, Rohit Sharma and even Badrinath don’t look like real world beaters. True, unless tried we shouldn’t be creating a perception about their talent but from what has been seen so far, only Badrinath looks like good enough to be given a decent run in the middle order. The most probably solution lies in picking and persisting with at least one of these young talents for one particular series and finding out how good he really is. This way when the present giants of Indian batting do decide to step aside or are actually dropped from the squad we aren’t left clueless, searching around for probable worthy contenders.

If the last test series against Australia is compared with the happenings of the day two of the first test match between India and Australia, one style of Indians getting dismissed emerges — the Indian batsmen are a bit susceptible against off-spinners who can make the ball dart in at a fair pace. This is something Krejza did in the last test match between Australia and India and got a bucketful of wickets and now Swann seems to have got the Indians hopping a bit. Why is it happening? This is something difficult to answer. None of these two can be regarded as outright world class bowlers, since both are pretty fresh on the international scene. Again, the Indians are used to facing a lot of spin bowling on the placid wickets. So why is it happening repeatedly?

I say repeatedly because it happened when Mendis bowled against the Indians in the Emerald Island. The so-called carrom ball that he bowled and got a lot of the Indian batsmen lbw was again a ball that darted into the pads of the batsmen. The reason could be a bit of complacency. How?

For one, the Indians pride themselves on playing on the on-side. This means that most of them tend to remain a bit rooted on the backfoot and work the ball on the on-side. This has two impacts, one — they tend to wait for the ball to spin and come in towards their pads, second — this makes them a bit susceptible if the ball bends in a bit too quickly. The pattern of dismissals against all the three bowlers is very similar. The batsmen get trapped in front of the wicket or get bowled. One would suggest that the Indians need to become a bit more front-foot oriented when facing off-spinners on the sub-continent but then they have scored tonnes of runs milking the bowling on the on-side and this technique of theirs would be encoded in their DNA by now. How they solve this problem is a bit beyond me, but I guess my theory is worth a look?

This sort of a thought might seem a bit too imaginative but the fact is that there is a definite pattern in the way the England team has played against the Indians. On Day One, the English batsmen were so defensive that they seldom tried to challenge the Indian bowlers. Most of their batsmen tried to remain pre-determined just not to get out and scoring seemed like a secondary affair. This was something that the Indians aren’t used to. In almost every test series at home, including the last one against Australia they have had the opposing team trying to score against them and take chances. This in no way means that the Indians didn’t bowl well on the first day — Zaheer was in fact simply superb, but the fact is that the pace of the game didn’t really suit the Indian temperament.

Bhajji got frustrated while bowling as the English batsmen just didn’t try and manoeuvre his bowling. Even at the press conference, he openly said that the English tactics were too defensive and were bordering on negativity. Day Two — well, the scenario still didn’t change much. The Indian batsmen just weren’t allowed to drive the ball on the up, something that the whole of the top order loves to do. Gambhir, Sehewag and Dravid all seemed a bit bored by the English bowlers bowling outside the off-stump, quite short, not giving much scoring opportunities to the Indian batsmen. The dismissal mode of our top five batsmen suggested one trend — not one of them got out to really good or wicket-taking ball.

Nearly every batsman looked like getting out to casual shots. Now this casual shot selection could be a matter of lapse of concentration or just that the lack of scoring opportunities and the speed at which the game was being played had made them a bit irritated.