The cupboard is bare beyond Zaheer

The Indian selectors might still put up a brave face and say that the pitch for the Eden Garden test match is not going to be doctored but the fact remains that until this is done, the chances of India winning the final test match are rather slim. The reason lies more in the depleted bowling resources rather than the inability of the batsmen to handle short-pitched bowling. It seems that after Zaheer's initial burst, there are no other Indian bowlers who can even induce some pressure on the batsmen, leave alone actually bowling them out. This is when, just about four months back the entire Indian media was overwhelmed with "so many younger bowlers coming through", now where are they? Was that wishful thinking or the tendency to bloat-up things that has become endemic to media coverage for Indian cricket.

Afridi for full-time captaincy?

I must have heard it wrong or there is something even more wrong with Pakistani cricket than I had imagined until now. If reports are to be believed some folks in the PCB are planning to make Shahid Afridi as Pakistan’s permanent skipper. I don’t have anything personal about the guy — that might be the general impression since I am a hardcore Indian cricket fan, but I don’t think he is even close to having the temperament that international skippers are supposed to have. For starters, I doubt his presence in all formats of the game not because he isn’t a decent player but simply because it just doesn’t look that he is pushing himself to establish himself
as a comprehensive international player. He has never been seen complaining about the lack of test matches he has played or the careless manner in which he has repeatedly got out just when the team looked like winning an ODI game. Add to this, the fact that he has never been consistent at any place in the long list of batting order swaps that have been hurled at him, make him a very susceptible kind of batter… destructive yes, but consistent enough to lead by example — I very seriously doubt… at best he is a T20 captain since owing responsibility is not really emphasized upon in the T20 format.