A tale of two captains: Ricky Ponting and Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Ricky Ponting and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are now two of the greatest captains in terms of the success ratio, but wait, there is one big difference. While India continue to prove why they are the number 1 side in the world with more victories abroad, Australia’s graph continues to have a downward slide!! Ricky Ponting’s success ratio has come down considerably in the past two years which is also clear from the fact that Australia is now ranked 5^th in Test Cricket. Ponting’s own batting form has let him down and stress is taking its toll on one of Australia’s greatest batsman.

While the ashes may not be Ponting’s worst series in terms of the runs scored (India ‘01 was worse), Australia’s inability to win matches and series as frequently as they did before, is adding to his trouble. I personally don’t think he has changed as a player, he still plays his favorite pull shot with perfection, but his team has changed over the years. Some of the greatest cricketers that the world has ever seen have now retired and most of them are not easily replaceable. They were specialist for specific positions and responsibilities – Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Shane Warne, Michael Bevan, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist to name a few – who knew what was expected and played fearless cricket. While it has been a long time since the Waugh brothers played, the rest were all a part of a strong Aussie side under Ponting. Some of the current players including Shane Watson, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin have enough experience and skills but somehow are not able to pull of those famous wins.

The captain is only as good as his team when it comes to winning and Dhoni is now reaping the benefits of having a team that consists of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. These are big names having played for years together at almost all venues across the world. More importantly, they have had their share of losses and now know how to keep the winning habit going. To the world of cricket, India is now what Australia used to be 5 years ago. There has been a lot of talk in the media and from former players that in a few years time, India will face the same issues that the Aussies are facing now. It could be true but I am not convinced about that. Each of our players wont retire at the same time and the likes of Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Raina, Pujara, Kohli, and  Rohit Sharma will be core of the Indian team 5 years from now.

Dhoni is a good leader and his batting responsibilities are considerably lesser as compared to Ponting. From now onwards, every time Ponting fails, you’ll hear more people going against him, and every time Australia fail, calls for his head will only grow stronger. His team mates are showering him with full support in the media while some of the Aussie former greats feel Ponting’s time is up. It is a big achievement for a cricketer to be a part of a world cup winning squad; Ricky Ponting has been a part of it twice and as a captain. While this surely would be a highlight of his career, he will, unfortunately, also be remembered for having lost the ashes thrice as a captain. Injury has forced him out of the Sydney test and he’ll be hoping from the sidelines, for an Aussie win.

Australia are in danger of losing one of their big heroes !!

Black Tour for the Black Caps

So Daniel Vettori is planning a vacation and the destination is ….  definitely not the Indian subcontinent. In the last couple of months, NZ skipper along with his Black Caps have played 10 One Day Internationals, or ODIs, distributed evenly between India and Bangladesh. Never would they have imagined the outcome of all those 10 ODIs. NZ managed to lose each of them and while the 5-0 result in this series shouldn’t be surprising, India did offer them a chance by resting all their key players.

So what’s wrong with the Kiwis. They started out well in the test series against India after a 5-0 humiliation against Bangladesh, and convincingly drew the first two games. Surely the pitches weren’t helpful either and Harbahajan Singh’s comment that “ The pitch curator should get a contract to build national highways” sums it up appropriately. In the third test though, India were back and shut out NZ in an expected manner. A 1-0 series loss didn’t look to bad for the Black caps though.

The ODIs again showed the inability of the kiwi batsman to adapt in foreign conditions like the subcontinent. A 5-0 loss to Bangladesh was purely as a result of the lack of experience of playing against top spinners. Shakib Al-Hasas and Abdur Razzaq have been bowling well for Bangladesh and NZ hardly got runs against them. Similarly in the first three games against India, their batsman hardly challenged India with a total and when they finally did in the fourth ODI, Yusuf Pathan had other ideas. India were definitely playing a second string side but were still expected to win all after Bangladesh’s 5-0 win. The fifth game just summed up one of New Zealand’s most disappointing seasons in recent years. All out in 27 overs and India had won even before a regular innings break! Well, they’ll soon be playing another Asian side in Pakistan and while I don’t expect them to lose all again, Pakistan could prove to be dangerous opponents.

And just when they’d had enough of the Asian opponents, Vettori and his team will back in two months time for the biggest tournament of all; World Cup 2011. Again they’ll be playing on Asian pitches, and again they’ll be facing a strong, vociferous and partisan home crowd. The good thing for NZ is that nothing can get worse from now on. The other good thing is that they now have enough experience of these conditions and should be better players when they arrive back for World Cup. At least I hope to see them start winning some games and do a bit better in the World Cup.

 I am not sure of the statistics, but I think this could be the first time ever that INDIA was unbeaten at home!! It has been a great year for Indian cricket and its surely time for India to win a series in SA while continuing their great form in 2010 !!!

IPL Player Retention !!! 2011

Indian Premier League, more commonly known as IPL, will most likely be held for the fourth year in a row in 2011. This 4^th edition of IPL is scheduled to be held within a week from the day of the World Cup 2011 final in Mumbai. Some would call it wrong timing and cry over the tight schedule; others might call it an overdose of cricket, while some like me wouldn’t mind it at all!! There is definitely a big interest in the IPL and the fourth edition comes on the backdrop of a lot of controversial happenings right from the accusations against Lalit Modi to the expulsion of the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. Both these franchises might still play in IPL4 from what I gather based on the latest news articles. IPL has only grown ever since its inaugural tournament in 2008. Fans packed the stadiums across the nation and I can tell you from my first-hand experience that all of the home games for Mumbai Indians were sold out during the first edition (I can safely assume it was the same during IPL 2010, IPL 2009 was held in South Africa due to the security issues coming out of the Mumbai attack).

Come 2011, IPL will now have two new franchises in Sahara Pune Warriors and Kochi. Kochi has just about managed to meet the BCCI deadline after agreeing to resolve their internal conflicts related to the ownership pattern. The deadline for retaining players is now over and some of the franchises have surprised us by not including the big players while Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) stuck to their most trusted players. Mumbai Indians have now retained Sachin Tendulkar (There was no question about it), Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga and Harbhajan Singh (Only 4 players are allowed to be retained). CSK have kept Dhoni, Raina, Murli Vijay and Albie Morkel.  This retention means Mumbai Indians and CSK have now half of their spending power to buy the rest of the players. Mumbai Indians always wanted to retain more players and I’ll be surprised to see if they don’t bid aggressively for Zaheer Khan and Saurabh Tiwary. While these two franchises will bid for players with less money in the bag, Deccan Chargers, Kings XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders have not retained even one. These franchises definitely have the spending power but I am not sure if it is worth losing Adam Gilchrist, Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum, Yuvraj Singh, Saurav Ganguly ( kolkata might lose a large chunk of their fan base if he doesn’t play for KKR), Andrew Symonds from the squad. Dravid and Kumble have been let into the auction as well by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The player auction, scheduled for January 2011, will be highly interesting with some big players available and two new teams in the battle as well. With Pune and Kochi being bought for $370 million and $333 million respectively, IPL is well on its way to being the biggest and richest sporting league in the world. (It has always been the richest cricket league anyways and was valued at $2 billion a year ago). I hope we don’t have any other controversies related to IPL and would like to see IPL get bigger and better!!

Labor Day Weekend 2010 !!!

Labor Day 2010 plus good weather meant that people would always go places for the “Long Weekend” A group of us decided to embark on a journey which was one of the most random events to start off but ended with us having seen (and conquered)  two of the highest mountain peaks in New England; Mount Washington and Mount Mansfield. So in a span of two days we drove from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and then over to Vermont and back to Massachusetts.

1^st Stop: Mount Washington: We quickly reached a consensus of taking the Mt. Washington Cog Railway to go atop the mountain. The ride, as the train guide explained, takes one through 3 different climates which was hard to believe at first but was absolutely true. Along the ride which was about an hour starting from the base of the mountain and reaching the top, we moved from a hot and pleasant sunny climate to a more windy and cool climate to one of the coldest climates ever with winds almost blowing us away. We could barely stand outside on the mountain top near the viewing area. The adverse climate put paid to our hopes of getting some good pictures from the mountain. They say Mount Washington is known to have one of the worst climates in the world and with what we saw in summer, I have no doubts that this place will be unbelievably tough in the winters. We managed to survive and click some pictures and heading straight to the café for hot coffee. Not sure how much it helped to stay warm, but we all had a reason to have one. The journey back down was much easier since we were heading toward a much better climate zone. Just a quick mention, most of the peaks in the Mt Washington area are named after US presidents. I am sure they did not discover either of them but good for us to know about it. Back into our car and we had to decide what next? The plan was to move closer to Vermont and the break for dinner.

2^nd Stop: Church Street Market Place in Downtown Burlington: Apart from noticing the well lit up downtown Burlington area, you just cannot miss one thing: The Cows. They were everywhere in the marketplace, atop some of the restaurant roofs, in pictures, posters, miniatures. I hope by now you know what I mean, but these cow statues and pictures are just about everywhere. Not surprising then to know that at one time in the history of Vermont, this green state had more cows than humans. After walking for a while in a chilly marketplace area we decided to have dinner. Searching for hotels to stay was a bit tough with most of them booked on account of Labor Day but we did end up with one close to Stowe, Vermont.

3^rd Stop: Mount Mansfield: Woke up on Sunday to find the weather on the cooler side. Had some great breakfast at the hotel where we stayed. (Cheese Omelet, Home Fries, bread, juice and coffee) We were headed straight for the famous Mt. Mansfield in Stowe, Vermont, but stopped on the way to check Bingham Falls. Walked a small trail to reach to these falls and took a few pictures. It was a nice and quiet place and none of us ventured into the water. (Probably due to the chilly weather) We then made our way to Mt. Mansfield through the auto road which was a steep and narrow road between the mountains until as far as we could drive. We parked the car and then began our trail to reach the top of Vermont’s tallest mountain peak. After hiking through the mountain and trees with wind blowing faster as we moved closer to the top, we almost reach the top most point of the mountain. We could see the border of Canada (not exactly SEE), New York and Lake Champlain. Again, a few pictures here and we were headed back to the parking spot. Got into the car and drove straight to Lake Champlain. We had a quick stop at this place http://www.lakechamplainchocolates.com/ . Had the best Masala Chai – Chocolate drink ever and loads of sample chocolates to taste

4^th Stop: Lake Champlain: One of biggest attractions of Burlington is Lake Champlain. States of New York and Vermont share their borders with this lake and a part of Canada as well. We took the Lake Champlain cruise which took us around the entire water body. We boarded the ship just when the sun had started setting and were able to catch some amazing views of the mountains and the lake at sunset. A complete rainbow across the lake added to what was already a great scenic view. It’ll be best to explore this place more rather than comment on it right now. I highly recommend a Vermont trip to one and all!!! This is definitely one of the best scenic places in the north east of USA, if not in USA. It rounded off our amazing trip and we headed back to Woburn, MA for some Indian food and back home. Looking forward to some more trips now !! J

Spirit of Cricket or the lack of it !!!

India and Sri Lanka "have been playing each other almost every second month in the last eight months" in the words of India's best spinner Harbhajan Singh which clearly shows that the India - Sri Lanka rivalry is not only becoming common but also boring to watch and PLAY for the cricketers. At least there was something uncommon about today's game (16th August 2010). The scorecard will show Virender Sehwag unbeaten on 99. For someone who missed watching the game, there are bound to be questions like how could he not score that one extra run or did the other batsman, Dhoni in this scenario, score the winning runs or was there an extra conceded by the bowlers.

Well!!! International Cricket Council (ICC) has been trying hard to imbibe the Spirit of Cricket theme in each of the cricket playing nation's players and even named the recent Australia Vs Pakistan series as the Spirit of Cricket series. This one delivery bowled by Suraj Randiv changes all that. Lacking sportsman spirit, Randiv deliberately bowled a "no-ball" wherein he overstepped by such a large amount that he has made himself a laughing stock in front of the entire cricketing fraternity. Sehwag as usual smashed it over long-off for a huge six and raised his bat in celebration, only to be told moments later that his six will not be considered , as India had already won on account of the no-ball. Rightly so, Sehwag was disappointed and retorted by saying "This is not the first time Sri Lanka has done this, they may have done it with other teams but with India it is the second time." The first time they did that was when Lasith Malinga bowled a wide down the leg side and conceded 4 wides while Sehwag's idol Sachin Tendulkar was left unbeaten on 96.

Randiv might deny his deliberate no-ball attempt but this incident has already put his young and budding carrier on a controversial path. Cricket fans around the world seem to echo the notion that in spite of what happens when a no-ball is bowled, the runs scored by a batsman should be added to his tally. While this controversy has just started to flow across websites and blogs throughout the world, ICC officials and match referees will be pondering whether to take some action against Randiv and whether they can make some minor "tweeks" in the rules of this beautiful Gentleman's game.

We'll wait and see what happens later but for now, lets rejoice this Indian win and a bonus point which will give us an advantage in the next round of the ongoing  tri-series. Go India !!!