Champion batsmen such as Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and evergreen Sachin Tendulkar have not just made runs; they have MADE RUNS ON ALL SURFACES AND IN ALL SORTS OF PITCHES. Sachin’s superb century in Perth or Lara’s magical 200 against the Aussies in Sydney or Ponting’s magical double century in Melbourne are case in point.

Now, where do the Sangakkaras and the Jayawardenes come? Well, not in the same breadth actually. Statistics may show Sanga having scored 7652 runs in 89 Tests but out of his 24 Test tons, 16 have come at home against all attacks that lack teeth on sub-standard conditions. He has led Lanka well in all formats of the game since he got the captaincy from Mahela but greatness is something which will take time for Sanga to pick in.

Another lion that roars only on Lankan soil is Jayawardene who has time and again set batting records, sadly on his home soil. The man has scored at an impressive average of 66.12 at home in 63 Tests but the average drops down to a modest 43.10 away with nine centuries compared to 20 at home. He is yet to score a century in South Africa and has hit only a single fifty in Tests on testing conditions.

Now, for the man who just reached his 800^th wicket in Tests and retiring on a high—Muttiah Muralitharan. He may be called a chucker by Bishen Singh Bedi but he has more wickets than anyone else in the world. The good Samaritan has often been on the wrong door of critics who have time and again questioned his action, though the governing body got it sorted out years ago.

He has been quite ordinary in Australia, picking wickets at an awful average of 75 plus and has had a stupendous track at home. Out of the 800 wickets he has taken, 493 have arrived in Sri Lankan shores while the rest outside.

While there may be many who would interpret statistics in a different mindset, I have tried to evaluate these three as they have played many Tests. The likes of Mendis, Paranavitana, Dilshan, Samaraweera will be thoroughly tested when they play in Australia. No surprisingly, Sri Lanka has never won a Test in Australia and South Africa, a record that will stand in good stead for some more years.

Their selection would have meant two things — 1. The respect for a player who has served your country for a certain amount of time and 2. You are ready to see whether he has the potential to play at an international tournament despite not being in the team for the last few years.

But alas! BCCI had other ideas and sent a second-string squad, forgetting the very basic rule of mixing youth with experience. I have no problems with Suresh Raina leading the side but I have my reservations against the likes of Virat Kohli being asked to be his deputy. There has to be a logic behind selecting teams as the players are representing their country and are not on a Zimbabwean picnic.

The result? India were humbled by non-entities Zimbabwe in the very first match and on Thursday though the team did pull things back in the second against Sri Lanka, the writing was on the wall. The weak links in the Indian armoury (if I may add so!) was invariably in their bowling.

When an attack has Umesh Yadav (2 ODIs), Ashok Dinda (2 ODIs), Pragyan Ojha (11 ODIs), Amit Mishra (10 ODIs) and Ravindra Jadeja (25 ODIs) in the ranks who when put together have played 50 one-dayers, experience of the likes of Irfan Pathan could have been crucial. Plus, the very fact that Irfan was coming back to the Indian fold would have fired him up to give his best, but the wise men had other ideas.

Result — a literally humbling experience for all the youngsters, many may not find such an outrageous favours being done for them in their futures. Also, the selectors could have tightened the bowling attack by giving Ishant Sharma a chance to gain his confidence back. Agreed, he has one chance too many, but the lanky pacer was not long ago your best bet. The board may not have had too many opportunities of tournaments such as these where they could rest a few of their famed batting line-up but the way they have made some tactical errors have given instant failure.

Time for the wise men to wake up and smell the coffee…. Whilst India could still make it in this tourney if they get past Sri Lanka in their next encounter, but the players have not played well to support their cause in front of the board. The board needs to get back to the drawing board and make some fundamental changes when India goes to Sri Lanka for their next big assignment.

May some commonsense prevail!

As Dharmapuri Dharmasena adjusted his helmet, all he was eyeing was a Pepsi cover drive that will make him hit the Tata Consultancy Services boundary, that was just adjacent to the Infosys intimate shots sponsored by reputable IT companies. Dharma, a Sri Lankan who had never played for his country was a leading run-getter at the IPL, being purchased for a modest Rs 25 crore and was the skipper of Dharmapuri Dons. They were chasing 430 from 19 overs. They were deducted an over for slow-over rate and had been fined $ 10 million for the next five games.

The Dons were up against Bandra Barrons and a win in this match will take them on par with Lucknow Lions, Dalhousie Dodos, Dantewada Dadas, Mangalore Maoists, Ongole Owls and Vizag Winners.

With over 60 teams in the tournament, the time-line for the colossus had been increased to 8 months in a year with Future tour programs of the ICC consisted of only IPL games with Ashes, Frank Worrell Trophy, and World Cup being given preference after IPL.

Sir Sachin had announced that he will finally call it quits this year and will be opening the batting with his son Arjun for one final time in the IPL-13. Sachin had amassed 6000 runs in IPL at healthy average of 65 scoring 20 tons and 45 fifties. His ODI tally had reached 28,000 runs while in Tests he had crossed the 25,000 run mark.

Meanwhile, Dharma scored a magnificent 200 (his fifth in the competition) even as his side fell short of the target by two runs. He went on to bag Parle player of the game and was given Rs 3 lakh for each four hit (sponsored by Sahara) and six hit (sponsored by Britannia).

Business barons sold their properties to purchase IPL teams and close to 55 teams were listed on stock exchanges. A new resolution was passed that players too could be listed (the first of its kind) and better still, the players could be exchanged during the tournament on lease. Now, this rule had come into existence in 2014 edition itself but materialised only during IPL-10.

Comparisons with NFL, EPL were no more existing as IPL had single-handedly raised Rs 1,00,000 crore to Indian economy. So much so that, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections saw various political parties sponsoring teams and even promising a berth in a constituency for ever Parle Player of the match.

With teams battling it out for the Rs 250 crore prize money, the advertisers were spending a modest Rs 1 crore for 0.1 sec of an ad. Such has been the fan following for this tournament that world leaders were having global summit on the sidelines of stadiums which hosted IPL matches. Parliament sessions were taking place at Chepauk, M. Chinnaswamy and at the Eden Gardens with other venues likely to be inducted in the coming months. It was being said that some of the players who played in the IPL were looking to buy a team for Jaunpur.

With cricket reaching dizzying heights, football, hockey, basketball associations were being given money on loan, it was estimated that IPL was all set to sponsor the Olympics 2020!!!!

Chasing a modest total of 148, England rode on Craig Kieswetter’s 63 and Kevin ‘I have found my touch’ Pietersen to seal a memorable win.

With this fantastic win, Paul Collingwood joins the ranks of Bobby Moore (football) and Martin Johnson (rugby) in captaining England to a world title in sports. An achievement in itself, indeed.

What made this win possible?

1. Not overawed by the situation: Most of the teams lose the battle even before they enter the ring as they are overawed by the big game. The Andy Flower coached English side were able to conquer the final blues and for once, Australia was on the back foot straight away. Collingwood called correctly and never let the guard down and kept the Aussies on the backfoot.
2. The lesser said about the importance of all-rounders in this format of the game, the better. Tim Bresnan, Craig Kieswetter, Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Luke Wright, Stuart Broad and the list goes on. This humongous amount of all-rounders has bailed the team out on most occasions. 1983 Indian side boasted of players in the form of Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Dev, Madan Lal, Roger Binny who did the same and how. It’s time other teams armed the all-rounders element into them as they will come handy in any format of the game.
3. Again, taking all chances that come by. Not one run-out was missed and ground fielding was up to the mark. The sub-continent teams such as India need a lesson or two in this.
4. Matching your opponent shot to shot. England have never been known to give it back as good as they get. While brilliant individual stars such as Bob Willis, David Gower, and Geoffrey Boycott have played for the Three Lions, the fact remains that this side have never made a collective effort to conquer the Worlds. But Collingwood’s men have changed the trend and how!
5. Champion sides prefer to play long periods of outstanding cricket and never let the opposition crawl their way back. Now, this is an art which has been mastered by the West Indies’ team of the 70s and 80s and Australians in the last one decade. England, for a change, seems to have stolen the mantra and the change in their fortunes is a proof of that.

If Boycott had to give a commentary on Australia’s indifferent show on Sunday night, he would have said, “Oh! My grandmother would have played better than that.” What say Boycs….

No practice sessions and worse still, television channels showed footage of our super stars playing volleyball on the beautiful beaches. No wrong doing there, but the very point that the ‘so-called team bonding’ exercises were in no way getting the best out of our stars once they stepped onto the field. How many times has a volleyball team or a rugby side or even a football team played cricket during their practice sessions? Well, we all know the answer to it.

Secondly, the attitude and the fitness levels of most of the cricketers in the side is way below-par to be put lightly. The practice sessions will more often than not have pitiable few players who actually undergo the fielding drills with players (God! Do I have to use the term Player for them?) such as — Praveen Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja, Munaf Patel have more excuses up their sleeve than the amount of runs or wickets taken by them during their miniscule career. If that is not enough, the constant injury niggles which the players carry must worry coach Gary Kirsten who is still fit enough to represent Proteas or so he claims. Players such as Yuvraj Singh have been given a long rope by the selectors while many remain on the sidelines despite having performed well on the domestic circuit.

If that’s not injustice, what is then? Players such as Rahul Dravid who did admirably well in the limited opportunities at the IPL have always been neglected for T20s, why? The Indians were bounced out in England in the last T20 Worlds and the result was the same even at the Caribbean. Have we not learnt our lessons? Isn’t it plain logic to be able to practice the rising deliveries before you leave for such a global event? This again brings us to the point of having a practice session (and here I strictly mean batting, bowling and fielding and not other games) before leaving for the tour. BCCI missed more than a trick or two by staging the IPL just concluded days before India left for the Worlds.

Many might say that the IPL has nothing to do with the Worlds but cricketers are all after all human. While late-night parties may not directly affect the performance of the players, but it did play a part in the downfall of the much-famed Indian side. Attitude is not about staring at the batsman after having foxed him for a delivery in an over and being thrashed over in the next five balls, it is about knowing your limitations and playing accordingly.

A lesson which our players haven’t learnt from the Tendulkars, Dravids and Laxmans who have done remarkably in Test cricket and for decades now. The trio go about their business in a workmanlike precision and show their so-called attitude only through their bat and statistics are an ample proof of that.

Attitude also comes a lot from what is called upbringing. Players of current crop see instant stardom without having to work too hard to earn it. With money comes power and with it arrogance. Words such as humility, humbleness does not exist in the Indian stars’ dictionaries anymore. Also, as Australian legend Ian Chappell puts it across, failure teaches you more than succes does. But nothing can teach the Indian team anything if they are turning a blind-eye to everything.

If they ‘dream’ of bettering other sides in any format of the game, the attitude must change and if some players need to given the boot, then so be it. Often, the Indian fans are blamed for going over the top when the team does well or poorly, the problem is with the demi-god status enjoyed by our cricketers. Time for them to be treated as humans. Can we?

Not for the first time has Australia proved to be a fantastic side, ready to recover from any adversities and show their opposition what stuff they are made off, but the way they battled it out must have woken up the great Sir Don from his grave. Mike ‘Mr Cricket’ Hussey (60 not out) literally screamed, sauntered and took turned the game by the scruff of its neck and showed the defending champions the exit door.

There was one big similarity to the Sydney Test and the T20 semifinal at St Lucia on Friday. The demolition squad was led by Hussey and as he played shots all round the park, the biggest fan who cheered for him was his skipper Michael Clarke who whistled and hooted for his middle-order mainstay.

The left-hander walked in when his side was tottering at 13th over with half of his mates cooling their heels in the dug-out. With 70 needed off 30, the Aussies had a task but not too many by their heavenly standards. ‘Prevailing in adversities’ is a quality that Australians indulge in better than any other team in the world, and the match on Friday has just gone on to reiterate it.

Chasing a behemoth 192 for a win to qualify for their first ever World T20 final and they face compatriots England who are making their first ever ICC event final in over six years, the last being the Champions Trophy in 2004 where they lost to the West Indies.

What was most heartening about Friday’s win was that the smiles in the Australian fans are back and that’s not a very good sign for the opponents. Beware Barmy army, with Ashes set to take place Down Under, the battle on Sunday would just be a curtain raiser to that.

Where do we go?

For starters, the basic idea of replacing youth with an experienced hand in case of injuries has been a tried and tested formula for many boards. So, when Virender Sehwag was injured, it was thought that someone in the ranks such as Robin Uthappa or Irfan Pathan would have made the cut, considering their prowess not just with the bat but in other aspects of the game. While Uthappa is a brilliant fielder and Irfan is an all-rounder. But the board gave the T20 cap to Murali Vijay who was an opener and was displaying prime form. Going by the logic, Vijay could have been given the cap had it been any other bilateral series, not an ICC World series event. An experienced hand would not have hurt the Indian think-tank.

Again, if IPL form was a yardstick to judge any player’s presence in the team, why was Yuvraj Singh even in the team? Shouldn’t the Indian selectors crack whip on every single (senior and junior) player who has under-performed and if it means dropping a certain player or in other words, give him a break, then so be it.

Any loss or catastrophe requires some soul-searching for a team and Indian side does not have to look far as chess King Vishwanathan Anand made a billion hearts blossom by beating Veseliv Topalov in his own den in Bulgaria and retaining the world title. For someone who is ranked the best in the orb, winning has been a good habit and Indian team needs to unlearn a little by meeting the master and taking a few tips on how to overcome adverse situations.

Mind you, it is not easy winning when you have to travel 40 long hours by the road to reach your destination and playing a championship match will not be easy. Also, it is time for the Indian board to pick horses for the courses.

Time for the Indian team to keep their chin up and come back hard at its critics.

With India and Pakistan having tasted success in the first two editions of the event respectively, pundits too are backing the two sub-continent teams to perform exceedingly well. With most of the players coming straight after the gruelling six-week IPL in India, the legs certainly would want demand more rest than an heating outing in the middle of the ground. Here we go with the men to watch out for and why……

1. Sanath Jayasuriya: This grand old man of the world cricket continues to turn up with the same passion and fervour as he did when he made his international debut in 1989. With that bottom hand jabs and crisp drives and running between the wickets and his ability to bowl the slow-balls will stand him in good stead on the slow West Indian wickets.
2. Tillakaratne Dilshan: The man who came up with the ‘dilscoop’ and achieved tremendous success in the last edition of WC in England that took his team all the way till the final hurdle.
3. Shahid Afridi: Much before T20s came into existence; this Pathan had been playing each of his innings as if he wanted to finish off things in a hurry. Once he gets going in the middle, there aren’t many stadiums in the world that can are big enough. With those quick leg-spinners, this Pakistan skipper is more than a handful for any side.
4. Rohit Sharma: For someone whose talent has never been in question, Rohit has begun to convert those cameos into match-winning knocks as seen in IPL-3. He has become more patient in the middle and plays according to the situation, a trait found rare in the batsman these days.
5. Yuvraj Singh: An below-average IPL can in no way mean that this southpaw is out of form. All it takes for the Punjab da puttar is a few overs in the middle to get his bearings right and the cherry-hurlers will have their task cut out.
6. Yusuf Pathan: Yet another batsman with enough promise to send the shivers down the spine of the opponents. He started with a bang in the more than a month long IPL but has been mediocre ever since. Time for the lanky lad from Baroda to make it count.
7. Suresh Raina: Stunning show for the Chennai Super Kings. Both with the ball bat and in the field, Raina has been on song. He hits the ball real hard and has shown that his part-time spin is worth its weight in gold. His electrifying fielding efforts just multiplied the options for his skipper MS.
8. M.S. Dhoni: The man with the midas touch. He has been spot-on and has led by example for a few seasons now. He had an ‘ordinary’ season by his own standards but except the Ranchi lad to make it count on the world stage.
9. Kieron Pollard: The big West Indian had a sedate start for the Mumbai Indians but then achieved his rhythm much to the delight of the Mumbaikars and almost snatched a win for his team in the final against Chennai Super Kings but then……fate had been sealed by the one upstairs by then.
10. Ryan Harris: One man’s injury is another man’s entry. That is what happened with Deccan Chargers’ Ryan Harris who was not in the original squad but was drafted as Brett-forever-injured-Lee injured yet again and flew back to Sydney. Harris has been on song in IPL-3 with the ball and one slow and low pitches, the Aussie could be handy as he mixes it up well and is lethal with his slow-ball.
11. Shane Watson: IPL-1 booked him a ticket to the Australian side and he has managed to cling on it ever since. The all-rounder can be swing things for Michael Clarke both with the willow and with the ball.

Well, there are some stalwarts such as Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Gautam Gambhir, Murali Vijay, Herschelle Gibbs, Graeme Smith, Paul Collingwood, Kevin Pietersen, Ross Taylor who did not make it to the squad. Can we have more than 11 players in a team? Your guess is as good as mine……….

All this commenced with a tweet that literally set the match between Lalit Modi and the cricket running bosses of this nation. Soon, like always, news pertaining cricket hogged the limelight which channels churning out exclusives —one after another and even getting news bytes from all and sundry. What is indeed demeaning in all this is the utter disregard to the authenticity of news reports. One news channel ran an hour report on Modi’s involvement in the match-fixing without any quote from anyone……absolutely atrocious. Have we really stooped down to such a low to garner eyeballs?

It is ridiculous how media tends to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. This is not to say that all the reports that have been on air are false or malicious. There certainly is a line to draw and wait for the investigations to see the light at the end of the tunnel before the media monikers give their verdict.

Amidst all this hull-gulla in the last fortnight, one man has convenient reached his 37^th year—Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.  This run-making machine has just had a stupendous IPL with 570 chanceless runs at an average of 47.50. The God has so far preferred a dignified silence on the whole issue and quite remarkably maintained that this too shall pass during an interview on Friday to a television channel. What separates God from the mere mortals is his ability to switch off when he enters the field and let his play talk than his mouth. How I wish the bosses who are responsible of running cricket in this country take a cue from the country’s greatest ever sportsman.

I have always maintained this and I would like this again! Sachin, you may have endorsed countless brands in your life, but cricket for sure can’t get a better, bigger brand than you. There are many cricketers who have played this great game and brought laurels to their respective nations, but never has anyone carried the weight of a billion expectations with such aplomb as you have.

At 37, you have absolutely nothing to achieve in your life barring the blue sky. You have made us proud every time you have played the game and I can’t be more proud than having had the rare privilege of watching you score some sensational centuries in my life. As a cricket worshipper, I expect nothing more.

May you have a safe and sweet day today and play and entertain every under the sun like you have for the last two decades.

Some may call it unnecessary and many may label the treatment as harsh, but the cruel reality has to be accepted by all and sundry. Tharoor with his tweets on his opinions about the ruling government got a lot of flak from the opposition and from his own party.

Sehwag on the other hand stated on the eve of the first Test against Bangladesh early this year that the side was quite ordinary. Was he wrong? Absolutely not, but then he erred in stating the obvious. The moment you begin to state the obvious, the moral police begin to bay for your blood, a scenario which does not show any signs of slowing down in the near future.

Now Gautam Gambhir, Delhi Daredevils skipper after his team’s convincing win over Rajasthan Royals said, “I think Rajasthan was never a threat. Except for Yusuf Pathan, the other guys were pretty ordinary. We weren’t really worried about anyone else.”

That was enough for the IPL authorities to reprimand him of Level 1 offence which states ‘Public criticism of, or inappropriate comment in relation to an incident occurring in a Match or any Player, Team Official, Match Official or Team participating in any Match, irrespective of when such criticism or inappropriate is made.’

Well, if the performance was ‘ordinary’, one can’t expect extra-ordinary shower of praises from the opposition captain. Will he? So what’s the fuss all about? We come back again to the first point — stating the obvious. Gambhir has learnt things the hard way right from the not-so-good on the field scuffle with Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi during a ODI in India.

He followed it up with a match-ban for elbowing Australia’s Shane Watson during the 2008 Indo-Oz Test series. On more occasions than one, a small spark was enough to combust Gauti but this time around, the southpaw was spot on with his remark only to be reprimanded. With the pill of truth getting bitter with each passing match, it will be interesting to see how monotonous the post-match press conferences will become in the coming days.

One thing is for sure — the word ‘ordinary’ will never remain the same in a cricketer’s dictionary. Oh god! Did I utter the ‘unthinkable’!?