December 6th, 2009
India is the no 1 ranked test team now with this win against Sri Lanka. I guess now the tough part begins - to maintain this ranking. But if some other team takes this away soon, it will be mostly due to that team’s results. This is because India doesn’t really have many tests planned until the next world cup. There is an away series against Bangladesh early next year and then I don’t know what’s next in tests.
With this win Dhoni now has gone his first 10 tests India’s captain without losing any yet. I first thought this might be a record already but then a quick search on Cricinfo Statsguru told me that Gavaskar had gone 18 matches like this when he started. Dhoni has been the main captain only for just over a year now after Kumble retired last year. Prior to that he led India as a stand-in captain a few times.
A couple of amusing news. After some decisions went against Sri Lanka in the third test Murali said the ICC needed to use the Umpire Decision Review System everywhere and not leave it to mutual choice as it is right now. On an unrelated note the use of UDRS irritated umpire Mark Benson so much in the second test between Australia and West Indies that he has decided to retire after this match. Tony Cozier then wrote that the review system doesn’t work.
BCCI has appointed Mike Young as a fielding consultant to the Indian team for three weeks. Mike Young is a former baseball coach. So I started wondering how he can coach the fielders to catch a ball without those mittens, whether he is going to make the fielders more efficient by asking them to not stop after running a batsman out, instead try to make the other batsman out as well (”not bother about that dead ball thing”) and whether he is going to pay any attention to the balls that are hit behind the wicket. But it seems he has been coaching the Australia team for a few years already and they turned out just fine. So we have nothing to worry about. In one of the documents referred on the Wikipedia page about him, he knows this much at least “The ball is about the same size (as the one used in Baseball) but harder…It’s been a real positive sport to be involved in and it is very popular. The players are tremendous athletes”. On the last statement there, do note that he was talking about the Australian fielders and not the Indians.
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, West Indies, Dhoni, ICC, Sri Lanka, BCCI, Baseball, Gavaskar, Kumble | No Comments »
December 4th, 2009
Will Sri Lanka go for a possible win in this match? At the end of the third day of the Mumbai test they are 322 behind with two full days remaining. Of course saving this game will be the first priority and I know for a session or two they will first look to ensure that. But whether they will be just satisfied with that will tell us how far they are ready to go to get to the top of the international rankings.
In the recent years both India and Sri Lanka have won a lot of matches, they have even won abroad and in statistical terms there isn’t much to separate them. India gets more visibility probably because they have won more at places like Perth, Leeds, Johannesburg and Jamaica, and may be another reason is India’s fierce rivalry with Australia in the last decade.
(Source: Cricinfo Statsguru) In the last 10 years Sri Lanka have won 44 of their 96, India won 39 of 105. In the last 5 years it’s 23 of 45 and 21 of 53 respectively. India’s record is better ‘away from home’ - India has won 11 of their 29 matches abroad whereas Sri Lanka have won 7 of their 23. But consider that some of these matches were played against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and we realize that the overall record is not massively different, at least statistically. In terms of the quality of the opposition India has a better records in last 5 years where they have won at least one match in each away series except the one in Pakistan in 2006.
Where these teams are also similar is the apparent lack of the intent to go for it when there is a choice. I think in the third test in New Zealand Dhoni was criticized for not declaring early enough to account for rain to force a result. The situation was a little different then though as India was already leading and so even with the draw India won the series. Here Sri Lanka faces an entirely different situation - they have never won a test match in India. So if they lose or draw this it will be no different anyway. But if they are able to win it it will be a big thing. Of course there will be criticism but the rewards of success are much bigger for them if they win.
The three scenarios appear to be like this, in the sequence of likelihood:
India win: This is where either India gets them for under 333 or just over it and achieve it. India has enough time to do this.
Draw: For this to happen Sri Lanka needs to either bat out the whole time, or score enough runs by the time they are all out that India can’t get those in the remaining overs. So they need either bat very long for whatever no of runs or bat really fast and get more than 500.
Sri Lanka win: For this Lanka needs to bat at least 4 sessions and that too with a high run rate. That would mean they might get 400+ by that time and have a chance to bowl at India on the fifth day pitch. But it’s a delicate balance as if they declare too defensively they will neither leave India enough overs to get those runs nor for them to get India out. If they need to have about 60 overs for a chance they need to make around 510 runs in 120 overs. Not entirely impossible but very difficult - and then you add a chance that India can still get those runs in 60 overs. As we have seen most of the times both India and Sri Lanka seem content to declare only when they know they won’t lose.
But Sri Lanka have in front of them an opportunity to show that they can take these risks in their pursuit of being the no 1 team. If they go for it, apart from other things what it will also mean is that this match will get very interesting to watch!
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Ganguly, Dravid, West Indies, Dhoni, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kumble | No Comments »
December 1st, 2009
Although Sachin has completed 20 years in international cricket, I hope and believe he still has a few more left and this is not quite the time to write summaries of his career. There are many records that he has established or broken already. But it makes me wonder how people can say “he has broken all batting records”, as clearly there are many obvious ones that he is yet to break or achieve. So instead of going over his stats so far I am trying to highlight the things we fans want him to do.
There is a reason for that. Tendulkar had a lean patch starting somewhere in 2004 that lasted till the World Cup of 2007. He did score a few hundreds during this time but never looked like the Tendulkar we knew. People, even players who are supposed to know about lean patches, started writing Tendulkar off. But then he came back to form in the tour of Ireland and England of 2007. Since then mostly he has been in great touch and has been even doing things he hasn’t done much before - like staying unbeaten in a big chase of fourth innings to win India a match, like he did in December 2008 against England at Chennai. So what fun it would be if he starts breaking those other records that are not in his list yet!
The record that comes to mind immediately is a test triple hundred! But before we go there, Tendulkar definitely has had many attacking innings before - I am listing three that come to my mind and I chose these three because they represent three different match situations:
Against South Africa at Bloemfontein, 2000 - India were 68/4 when Tendulkar and debutant Sehwag came together for a 220 run partnership in just 47 overs. Tendulkar scored 155 off just 184 balls. Many teams have exploited such situations to win games, but India wasn’t quite there yet there then. There was hardly any other substantial score from anybody else in both the innings and our bowling’s inability to restrict South Africa prevented India from winning or saving the game. Here is the YouTube link.
Against Australia at Chennai, 1998 - India had conceded a lead in the first innings which was already wiped out when Tendulkar came to bat in second innings. But the match was still open and Warne’s reputation was still intact. Some 60 overs later Warne had been taken for 122 runs and India set a “historical” target of 348 runs to Australia (in the tied test of 1987 Australia had set India the same target at Chennai) and India won the match.
Against England at Leeds, 2002 - Tendulkar came to bat at a healthy 185/2 but what was more important was it 74 overs were alredy bowled in which Bangar and Dravid had seen through the most dangerous period of the match. Then Tendulkar and Ganguly put together a 249 run stand in just 60 overs with both going on total attack in the later part of that partnership. India scored 628 and won the game as well. Here is the YouTube link.
So there are many matches where Tendulkar has played attacking but a huge double/triple hundred while playing like that has been missing. I know there are exceptions, but most of Tendulkar’s great centuries are scores around 150. As far as I remember none of his double centuries were very interesting to watch. He hasn’t scored even a big attacking double century yet.
A triple hundred itself doesn’t seem to be a measure of greatness, but many great batsmen of the current generation have them - Sehwag, (DPMD) Jayawardene, Jayasuriya, Gayle, Younis Khan. Then there are Kallis, Ponting, Dravid, Mohammand Yusuf, Graeme Smith, Laxman who have none.
I guess in general terms Tendulkar hasn’t had a huge attacking innings and it will be fantastic to see him do that!
Posted in cricket, Australia, India, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Lara, Dhoni, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sehwag, Ponting, Ireland, Laxman | No Comments »