Injuries or Not: You Cannot Put-up Excuses for Being White-washed!!

Okay, so the Indian team is lacking seven or eight of its most key players. Agreed that finding equally good replacements so quickly is not easy. Yes, fielding even eleven fit players is a major headache for Indian team in England at the moment so talking about winning or losing seems secondary...right? Absolutely Not!! For starters,  an international cricket team that is literally swimming in money cannot put up such school kid kind of excuses. Did these cricketers complain or back-out when they were being asked to play cricket beyond their body's tolerance levels? Did they do anything to suggest that they were being overworked besides losing one match after the other? If not, then these players have absolutely no right to criticize the way the games are being managed or the way in which the Indian cricket team's itinerary is planned. If the Board is indecisive and
weak in its management skills or is simply a bit too greedy to ensure the fitness and overall well-being of the players, can't the six, most senior players in the team approach the Board on behalf of the entire Indian Cricket Team and brief them about their demanding schedules and how it is wrecking their bodies? This post might seem to present a lot of questions rather than expressing opinions but the fact is that such shoddy performance and being white-washed 4-0 by England and now, seemingly also in the one day series, is just not acceptable no matter what is happening among the cricket board of India or the players: they are both responsible to answer the followers of the game. 

Rahane: One Good Thing For India on England Tour 2011

In all fairness the India tour of England 2011 is nothing short of a complete disaster. The main players have struggled as wells as the youngsters and every time the opportunity came for the big names to deliver, expectations were nipped in the bud by carelessness. Yes, reasons such as excessive cricket and tiredness have been floating around with the skipper, MS Dhoni, himself expressing views that seem to underline the demanding schedule that this Indian team has. However, one question remains to be answered: would the same questions be raised had the Indian team won or at least, drawn the test series against England and still retained their number one spot in ICC test rankings 2011?


Most probably not and this is exactly what I want to put forth-the Indian cricket board and Dhoni too seem to offer the seemingly rightful explanations only when a problem arises. What happened to sticking to the same logic even if the team is managing to win?

Usually, honesty does not seem to be most people's cup of tea as long as the going is less than tough. Coming back to the debacle of the Indian team touring England, one small speck of brightness has come forward in the form of Rahane. This man has shown the temperament, class and to some extent, the technique as well, at least in the two games he has played so far on the England Tour 2011.

Firstly, he is not apprehensive about the short ball and secondly, his ability to play well against pace and seam along with his stance, make him a more than useful opener. Rahane seems to be manufactured for the opening slot, as if he has emerged from a cricket academy's blueprint for the opening batsmen. How far will he go, how many runs he can score and whether he can help India win the 2011 ODI series against England remain to be seen but in Rahane, the Indian team has found one small, but significant, reason to smile. 

Copeland Bowling: Aussie Back to the Adam Dale Era?

Just looking at Day 2 of the test match between Sri Lanka and Australia, I could not help but notice that the newly capped player in the Aussie line-up, i.e. Copeland, is quite similar in his bowling mannerisms to what Adam Dale used to do nearly a decade back. Some of you might not recall Dale but he was a bit of an odd streak in the world of fast bowling, i.e. if you could call him a fast bowler. Dale never had the pace or the aura of a typical Aussie bowler. For starters, he was a bit vertically challenged, didn't have broad shoulders and never bowled with any real, frightening sort of pace. So, how did he manage to get into the Australian time you ask? Well, Adam Dale was the epitome of a nagging sort of bowler.
He would merely keep bowling outside the off-stump day and night, until the batsmen lost their composure and played a short that led to their dismissal, courtesy of the excellent slip fielders that the Aussies have always had. On pitches that were a bit bouncy or those that were a bit sluggish scoring-off somebody like an Adam Dale was nearly impossible at times. Now, Copeland is quite similar, hardly bowling beyond 125 km/hr but still he does not leak runs at any stage and is excellent for keeping the over-dominant test batsmen that we find today.