A humdinger awaits….

Australia is down but to count them out would be foolish. The year 2008 might have been their annus horribilis, but that is only relative to their recent history. They lost to India in India, which except for one series in 2004 (that too with extraordinary help from Nagpur Cricket Association and weather gods in Chennai) has been the way for more than 3 decades now. Of course, they lost a home series in almost 2 decades against South Africa. But the series was a very closely fought contest, with South Africa producing some excellent cricket during the critical moments. Let us not forget that until the 4th innings miracle in Perth, Australia always had their noses ahead in that test. In Melbourne, it was the spirited partnership between Dale Steyn and Duminy that tilted the scales in South Africa’s favor. And in Sydney South Africa might have won the hearts, but lets not forget that Australia won the match.

To sing the death knell for Australian cricket based on this evidence would be myopic. Of course, they will not be the dominant team that they were in world cricket for sometime to come. Not only are they feeling the pain of large scale retirements of some of the all-time greats, they are also confronted with the rise of South Africa and India as a test team. Test Cricket has not been so healthy in a long long time. South Africa has the best fast bowling attack in the world, a high quality batting line up, a confident captain to go with it. India might look the best team in the world right now because of their all round strength but the real test will come when Sachin, Dravid and Laxman decide to hang up the boots. Moreover, Australia for all its fall from peak is still a very competitive team. Their batting has the firepower to produce consistently high scores, bowling would be very effective if Bret Lee can rediscover his form and Stuart Clark can rediscover his fitness. The battle for No.1 is going to be very exciting indeed.

Part of that battle has already begun in South Africa and Australia is fighting every inch to restore their lost supremacy albeit their not so supreme resources. This is the going to be the real test for South Africa; they are the favorites to win this series especially at home. Anything less would be disappointing. This is what separates champions from challengers; this is what Australia consistently achieved for more than a decade. How do you motivate yourself when the best that you could achieve is taken for granted! Now that is South Africa’s biggest challenge, If they win the series it would be more of a relief than a celebration. South Africa, welcome to the Champions’ prison of identity! Graeme Smith might do well to take some tips from Roger Federer on life in that prison…

BCCI at it again!

If you thought untouchability is a thing of the past, think again! BCCI has launched it all over again in a new avatar. Anyone who has got anything to do with ICL be barred from any contact with the outside ICL world. I am glad Lalit Modi hasn’t gone to court asking the ICL cricketers’ wives to be divorced from them. In a country where a proven match-fixer joins the ruling party without any hassles, we are treating professionals who made democratic choices seem like traitors.

Not so long ago, VVS Laxman wasn’t allowed to play for Nottingham because the county had ICL players in its ranks. Now, the god of all gods Sachin cannot play for a NZCPA’s XI because of the presence of Hamish Marshal in the team. Surely, it cannot get more juvenile than this. And the weird part is that even without any of BCCI’s hostility towards it, ICL is a far cry from the standard of cricket witnessed in IPL. Add that to all the non-sense that BCCI has been heaping on ICL, there is no way out for them.

Infact the surest way of suppressing ICL would have been to let it be. After the stupendous success of the first edition of IPL, very few players in ICL would have resisted the temptation to join IPL. In addition, the fact that IPL franchises have fatter wallets to spend on would have ensured that the best of ICL players would have been picked up by IPL franchises. That would have left ICL with no choice but to shut shop.

What would have been a simple market solution has now become a big, messy political and legal affair. ICC is caught in a no man’s land with neither the conviction to support ICL players nor the courage to oppose BCCI! And the respective cricket boards don’t have the backbone to support their own players at the expense of being in the wrong books of BCCI. Also, Subash Chandra hasn’t been particularly smart in striking a bargain with BCCI when the opportunity presented itself. It is a pity that some fine cricketers are lost in this utterly meaningless conflict. How I miss the sight of Shane Bond running in and delivering thunderbolts in test cricket…

Nothing like Cricket......

Finally, I convinced myself to start a blog specifically for cricket. Hopefully that should make me blog more frequently. I have always been skeptic about writing on cricket because it’s meant so much to me that it’s difficult to put in words. But the fact that I have been leading such a mundane life of late, I’ll be happy to do anything to turn my life back to those days when there was nothing but cricket. Gone are the days where we used to spend days on admiring a Sachin’s straight drive and weeks on admiring the way Rohit Brijnath admires the same! Hopefully through this blog, I’ll be able to rediscover that obsession………..