Chi chi, Ricky!!

(image courtesy of cricinfo)

Looks like Ponting's been working away at the vethelai paaku. You know, the ones he's going to adorn the golden plate with when he gifts the Ashes urn to England.

Although he should probably know that he's not in India to be spraying it around as a natural air-conditioner.

Seriously, though? Poor Ricky. What a spectacularly boring way to lose the Ashes.

In other news, this be my 50th post. Which, hello, achievement, considering I'm worse than a three year old with ADD when it comes to these things.

Don't sit on them, South Africa

'Cos, those laurels? Are pretty damn fragile. You know, all the leaves and whatever.

Just heard that Australia defeated South Africa to take an unassailable lead in the Test series. In South Africa. This, people, be a comeback of monumental proportions. Just two months ago, having suffered abject humiliation at the hands of the Saffers in their own backyard, a slew of retirements, losses, Boneheaded selection and equally Boneheaded captaincy, the Aussies looked to be in ultimate Decline. Hell, they even struggled to defeat New Zealand at home a month ago.

Now, though?

Now?

This Hughes dude is scoring two Test centuries in only his second Test, Mitchell Johnson is making the South African batsman quake in their boots, and the entire Australian team with its much-maligned captain, 'out-of-form' stars, posse of greenhorned debutants, is making the so-much-more fancied South Africans pay.

This be Epic, people. While I have never actually thought that Aussies couldn't bounce back to a semblance of their old selves, I never even imagined that it would be this soon, and against South Africa, the very team that not so long ago was responsible for brutally stripping away the Aussie Aura of Invincibility that the Indians had already started to peel away. Poetic justice, even.

Congratulations, Ricky Ponting, to you and your mates. I would so place that laurel on your head right now, but it seems to be have been crushed by quite a few South African rears. Oh well, I'm sure you'll be just as happy with the shiny mace that the ICC wants to give you.

I've not wanted to be a lot of things in my life, and right now, a South African cricket fan is one of them.

Fleeting Impressions and Post-Mortems

A week or so ago, inspired by the kazillion 'looking-back-on-2008's-cricket' articles to come, I sat down to write one of my own. It never got finished, distracted as I was by South Africa's exhilarating campaign in Australia, Bangladesh's attempts at renaissance against Sri Lanka, some entertaining domestic cricket, and the Gayle-show on as the Kiwis faced the Windies. Cricket squeezed the most it could out of even the very last days of the year, and right now, looking at the half-finished draft, I couldn't help but think, 'ah, chuck this'. The game transcends any attempt I could possibly make to sum it up, and 2008 was a more tumultuous year than most for this beautiful game. The normal Powers That Be on the cricket field are all out of whack, and therefore 2009 promises to be an exciting year for the game. I can only provide my fleeting impressions of how cricket this year affected me, because that's all my spectrum is limited to. I don't even play the game (hell, the only sport I took up seriously was tennis, and even that fell to the wayside for academics), but I adore it with an inexplicable passion, and therefore I sit here and type, despite the sleep tugging at my eyes.





The year started off interestingly enough, with the Eternal Drama Queens of Cricket presenting you their ultimate production: Sydneygate, Jan '08. More than anything, apart from all the accusations of racism, blackmail, threats, and the vitriol, it was the actual cricket that disappointed me most. Don't get me wrong - I thought Sydney played host to a fantastic Test match that week, but I was reduced to crying tears of bitter disappointment even as a confused Ishant Sharma gazed dazedly at his captain at the other end when he was the last Indian wicket to be dismissed with just five minutes left on the fifth day to be played out for a draw even as the Australians went completely - and undertstandably, in retrospect - berserk in delight. Mixed dangerously with the disappointment was anger and resentment, as the Test had also showcased every kind of blunder an umpire could possibly make on a cricket field, and the team most harmed by this incompetence from Benson and Bucknor was India. Sure, fine, the umpires make mistakes, we get it, but Sydney '08? Was too much to take in one go. Bucknor adjudging Andrew Symonds not out when he had clearly edged Ishant Sharma to Dhoni... I mean, what the hell? It was probably the only time I have ever seen Dhoni stare at the umpire in abject disbelief, and Ishant was left practically doubled over in agony, clutching his hair, and all I wanted to do was go and give the kid a hug. The bottomline was, at the end of the match, I was left feeling utterly cheated, and I suspected, so did many other Indians and that exacerbated every little ramification of whatever happened in that Test. The true extent of the BCCI's financial muscle was exposed, resentment built, Indo-Australian relations were almost irreparably damaged. I thought it was all great entertainment at that time, really, but this statement from Anil Kumble? Hit home in more ways than one: "Only one team out there was playing the spirit of the game. That's all I can say." in that firm, polite voice of his, barely glazing over a simmering anger... the first time I actually stood up and applauded. Kumble handled the fall-out of Sydneygate so well, and the way the team regrouped under him to record an unprecedented win at Perth... it was the absolute high-point of Kumble's captaincy stint. To have gotten his 600th Test wicket in the same game -the wicket being that of Symonds' , ha - was just a sweet bonus. What a man.





And after that was the triangular ODI tournament, and amidst all the furore about senior players being dropped in favour of younger greenhorns, the seemingly inexplicable faith being shown in a woefully out of form Yuvraj Singh, illegal gloves, verbal sending-offs, obnoxious weeds, shadow-boxing, streakers and rugby tackles, India shone through in the end, shored up by the brilliance of their bowlers and Sachin Tendulkar, and a batting line-up that finally managed to click. The finals were won, and the last-ever CB Tri-series trophy to be hosted by Australia was securely in Dhoni's hands, even as his ice-cool demanour was finally broken with a warm, proud smile as he asked the youngest member of his team to lift the trophy first. Talk about proving a point! Here was where we really got a feel of where he planned to take his team as a captain, and it was a portent for great things to come.



Despite all the euphoria however, our inconsistency as a team was once again highlighted as we struggled to draw the home series with South Africa that followed, leaving aside Sehwag's triple-century on a Chennai featherbed. Folding up for 76 on the first morning of the Ahmedabad Test within 20 overs has got to be one of Indian cricket's most humiliating moments.



Still! All was forgotten as soon after that, the IPL started. And everything else ended.



As a spectator, forgetting those two months ain't gonna be easy (not that I want to). Before the player auctions, I was half-considering ignoring the whole thing, faced as I was with the dilemma of whether I ought to support Dhoni's team or the Chennai team, Dhoni and Chennai being two things close to my heart. That was, of course, happily solved by the fact that Dhoni was bought by Chennai for an astronomical sum, but looking back now, I realise now that even if I'd wanted to, I could never have ignored it. The IPL was everywhere. On TV. On the ka-zillion news channels. On billboards. In TV ads. On the radio. In the newspaper. On the internet. My friends' conversations.



Just. Everywhere. It was mind-boggling. And a marketing masterpiece.



I watched and followed, open-mouthed, mind inundated with Twenty20. There was slapgate, there was glamour. There were half-naked cheerleaders, there was delicious controversy. Endless gimmicks. Great music. Horrible commentary. Non-stop advertising. Good-looking comperes (mm). And not to forget, some great cricket as well. Although admittedly, toward the end of the tournament, as a spectator I felt utterly exhausted and was relieved when it finally ended, leaving behind hungry cricket fans even where there were previously none (Nothing more frightening than having my hitherto cricket-phobic mother come with me to watch a match, and admire Adam Gilchrist's batting).



International cricket went inexorably on - the Indian ODI team, overworked in the unforgiving subcontinental summer, reached and lost a couple of finals, the final of the Asia Cup being the more significant of the two, as Ajantha Mendis rent the young batting lineup into pieces with his uber-mysterious spin bowling, announcing his arrival on the world stage as a formidable possible successor to Muralitharan. It was then that Dhoni decided enough was enough, that if the iterinary wasn't loosened, he was going to take matters into his own hands, and took a self-enforced break from the Test series against Sri Lanka, which was eventually lost 2-1 in a series that briefly exacerbated the whole seniors turmoil in Indian cricket, especially considering that the Middle Order collectively failed against the wiles of Muralitharan and Mendis. Dhoni returned for the ODI series, the bowlers shone with preternatural awesomeness, Dhoni almost singlehandedly held the threads of the fraying batting line-up together, the team made most of the little dollops of luck that came their way, and the ODI series was won, with India left a lot to think about.



Pakistan's terrorism-induced isolation in world cricket finally came to a head as the Champions Trophy scheduled to be held there was postponed (read: cancelled). India went on to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy after that, decimated England in the ODI series, won the Test series as well via one of the more memorable fourth-innings chases in Chennai, finally ending a mixed year with an anticlimactic Plod.

So? I don't disagree that it was a great year for Indian cricket, apart from the whole falling apart in Sri Lanka part. The reasons for this are manifold: things that previously used to be an uncertainty in Indian cricket are now our greatest strengths - a fantastic pair of opening batsmen, excellent up and coming pacers, a solid wicketkeeper-batsman, and an innovative, aggressive captain. Funnily enough, the previously rock-solid middle order turned out to be a little soft this year, though.

A lot has been written about how India finish the year as the no. 1 team. Uh, I'm not too sure about that. Like Sourav Ganguly said, we've played most of our Test cricket at home this year, and lost the only two overseas series that we did play (Australia and Sri Lanka). We have yet to play an overseas Test with Dhoni at the helm. With the Pakistan tour cancelled, his first overseas challenge will come in the form of a tour of New Zealand. I feel that India will falter there, but will hopefully come out of the experience a better team.

Moving on from India, the end of the year showed up who was truly now the best team in the world: South Africa. Topping off an excellent year with a first-time series win in Australia, with two absolutely phenomenal Test matches throwing up some fantastic names like deVilliers and JP Duminy, has given Graeme Smith plenty of reasons to smile, smile so hard his (non-existent) lips crack. 11 wins out of 14 Tests in the year? That's the freakin definition of phenomenal.

Australia, however, start the year playing the last Test of the series they've already lost - a position they haven't been in in nearly 16 years, 16 years where whole generations of cricketers have come and gone, either to bask in the glory of Australian dominance or to get spanked by it. Sure, Australia is in a tough position, presumably brought about by some mistaken belief in their old unshakable dominance, when clearly, with a retired Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, an out-of-form Hayden, Lee and Hussey, lack of a proper spinner, a rash of injuries to key players, and the exposure of the limits to Ponting's leadership, they aren't. What surprises me, though, is the reaction of the Australian media. I mean, the death of Australian cricket? Over-reaction much? Sure the team had a tough year and it will be some time before they come close to being the team they once were, but these post-mortems from the Australian media aren't helping matters any. They seem to have firmly perched their rear on the panic button, and while that is admittedly funny and great to enjoy, it ain't pretty. And here I was, thinking only the sensationalist lookit-me-dammit Indian media did that. It is an international malaise, apparently, and somehow, that's not very reassuring. At all.

And the Australian selectors aren't helping matters any. Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy, I had no idea who Trevor Hohns or Andrew Hilditch was - to me the Australian selection board was just an anonymous bunch of suited men who had the most enviable job of typing out and selecting the best players in the world and sit back and watch them win match after match. Now, though? When faced with an actual crisis situation? They run around, completely confused. Australia have gone through a kabillion spinners for the Test team, some of them not even the first-choice spinners for their State sides, they have persisted with out-of-form players in Hayden and Symonds out of some apparent misplaced sentimentality, denying younger players the opportunity to play for the national team (hello, where's Marsh, Jacques, Rogers and the rest?). All this while, the Aussie selectors have had a team that they could put together like a complete jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces fitting perfectly against each other, forming a formidable team that demanded the highest intensity and great feats to be defeated. Now, though? Now, the jigsaw box has been upended, the pieces are all scattered and several are missing, and the selectors are trying to fill in the gaps with misshapen pieces of cardboard and glue.

So. 2009 promises to be a year which would finally decide who takes over from Australia, and my bets are on South Africa, although India seem to have a great chance as well. Exciting stuff. Also looking forward to the Twenty20 season this summer. I've enjoyed all the exhilarating Test cricket, now I think it's high time for some T20 action.

Oh, and because I couldn't help it, here are my 2008 teams of the year:

Tests
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir ( I know, I know, where's Smith? you ask. I say that while he's had a phenomenal year, I prefer to look at the opening combination as a whole rather than the individual batsmen. As a combo, VirunGauti have always been greater than the sum of their parts. A fantastic rocket-propellant at the start of the innings).
Ricky Ponting (Amla just misses out)
Kevin Pietersen
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (like, duh)
AB deVilliers (has had a great year with the bat, and is an awesome fielder)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni -wk, capt. (Need I even explain?)
Zaheer Khan
Dale Steyn
Ishant Sharma (sorry that Johnson had to miss out, but Zaks and Ishi have been so phenomenal, even on tracks least conducive to pace, and are one of the main reasons India has done so well this year)
Ajantha Mendis (all hail this special spinner. He promises even greater things for Sri Lanka in the coming years)

12th man: Hashim Amla

ODIs
Virender Sehwag
Chris Gayle (br... if I were a bowler, I would be afraid of this combo. Very afraid. )
Gautam Gambhir (highest run-scorer in ODIs this year, and has previously shown the temperament and ability to be a successful number three, as in Australia)
Kevin Pietersen (there's no getting away from this man)
Yuvraj Singh (ah ha ha, after I brainwash him to believe that every opposition he plays against is England)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - wk, capt.
Andrew Flintoff
Daniel Vettori
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
Ajantha Mendis

12th man: Stuart Broad

Here's wishing everybody a happy and prosperous New Year 2009.

Seriously, Ricky?

What is it with Australian cricketers these days?

Is this a sudden need for publicity, is this a way to satiate their burning frustration at getting trampled by India, has this been happening all the time before and I just didn't notice, or is it that the Australian cricketers have finally cracked, or what.

'Cos I? Just can't understand the sudden flurry of books and quote-hangers coming from Down Under.

First it was Gilchrist, then it was Roy, then it was Hayden with one of his gems, and now Ricky Ponting with a surely 'insightful' Captain's Diary 2008.

Or maybe it's just a rush to vindicate their stand in the whole Sydney Jan '08 affair.

To show that the Australians were only missing the halos around their heads, and the Indians their pitchforks and horns.

How else can you explain this and this?

Seriously, Ricky?

There's so much vitriol flying around in thin, corroding innocent guises, and it's just sick.

Maybe it's like Harbhajan put it (fantastically, I might add): The Australians were so busy poring over what new sensational secret they could reveal in their 23464th 'book' that they forgot to prepare for the series.

Huh.

And Ricky? Next time you talk about MS and co. being suited only for Twenty20, check this out:

Twenty20: ICC Twenty20 World Cup
ODI: CB Series 2008
Tests: Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008

My my, that's three on three!

There's so much more I could say, but people both in and out of the blogosphere with better, more delicious methods of expression have said it all.

All I can add is, wow. The Australians? Inscrutable in victory and defeat.

Day 1: Take a bow, Ricky Ponting!

Scorecard and commentary

Australia 254/4 at the end of day 1, Hayden 0, Katich 66, Ponting 123, Hussey 46*, Clarke 11, Watson 0*; Z Khan 2 for 39, I Sharma 1 for 49, H Singh 1 for 71.

After all the waiting and the hype, yeah, we got a full day of cricket. It was a day that mostly belonged to the Aussies - particularly Ricky Ponting - and they're now nicely placed for a big score, provided India's seamers - who're bowling wonderfully with the new ball - don't disrupt their plans with a few quick wickets tomorrow. Interestingly poised.

It was a day that had a weird up and down quality to it, plenty of seriously dramatic flares interspersed with some pretty monotonous cricket. I watched as much as I could, but you really had to look out for the drama. The moments just come out of the blue, and keeps your mind occupied until the next one comes and hits you upside the head. Classic stuff. This Border-Gavaskar tussle has created so much hype, and the matches so often live up to it and so often impossibly transcend the hype, that this is looked upon as an Ashes without the century-old history and the lack of competition. Because, competition? Intense.

The first over of the day - Zaheer Khan charging in and swinging the ball and generally bowling well, Hayden a little circumspect. Third ball of the day, he has a go at a Zaheer delivery outside off - or so it seems. The ball appears close to the edge, the edge appears close to the pad, and it's all generally confusing, but Dhoni collects centimetres from the ground and goes up in appeal along with the bowler and the slip cordon. Asad Rauf thinks about it for some time, decides Hayden did nick it, and lifts the dreaded finger. Out! Australia, 0 for 1! Hayden, Aus's Superman in India, out for a third-ball duck! Couldn't have asked for a more exhilarating first over for the series.

Ishant and Zaheer Khan bowled brilliantly in the first one hour, and troubled both Ponting and Katich (the other opener), both of whom survived several close lbw calls. After that, though, the two settled in, particularly with the advent of the spinners (whom Ponting played very well, so much for the much-anticipated Bhajji vs Ponting battle). The going was still slow, though - the run-rate almost never crossed 3 runs an over. Track was a little low, but appeared great for batting, as after the morning start that assisted the seamers, the bowlers hardly ever appeared threatening.

Australia reached Lunch at 75 for 1 - the rebuilding process well underway. It continued in the second session. The outfielding continued to be hopeless, and Katich and Ponting ran athletically and intelligently between the wickets. They turned on the juice a little this time - while the first session the run-rate was just a little over two, the run-rate here actually touched three. Both Ponting and Katich reached their half-centuries and seemed to be batting almost effortlessly. Zaheer and Ishant bowled well without getting the breakthroughs and Kumble and Harbhajan seemed singularly ineffective. Before Tea though, after a mammoth 166 run partnership, Ishant bagged Katich, caught behind by Dhoni. Ponting was joined by Mike Hussey, and as the teams went to Tea, Ponting had 94 next to his name and looking good for a ton.

After Tea, Ponting did get his century, and what a moment it was ! Hats off to you, mate. I'm not particularly fond of Ponting, but even I had to stand up and applaud. After all the bull-crap that's been talked about before this series about Ponting's dismal average in India, his struggles against spin and in particular Harbhajan, and the fact that his highest score here was 60, and all that he's had to endure, the pressure, the criticism and such-like, him grabbing the first opportunity he got and making the best use of it and proving a point to his critics was a great spectacle.

There was more drama to come when Kumble was bowling. Hussey was looking decidedly shifty at the crease as Kumble went through an inspired spell, and at one stage, with the scoreboard reading 201 for 2, Ponting played one back to the bowler that looked mighty close to being caught and bowled. Kumble appealed raucously accompanied by Dhoni and the close-in fielders to a lesser extent, but Koertzen was unmoved. Slow-mo replays showed that Ponting had indeed scooped back one to the bowler, and Ricky? Was lucky. And Rudi? Was given the Kumble Glare of Doom. An over or two after that, Anil appealed for a close lbw against Ricky, and was turned down by Koertzen again. But seriously, that appeal? Kumble looked so angry and desperate and almost ready to burst into tears, and Koertzen, annoyed by the over-the-top vociferousness (that is totally a word!) of the appeal, frowned and placed his hands on his hips, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to groan or to just magically teleport to Bangalore and give Kumble a hug as he turned away in despair and disgust.

Virender Sehwag bowled beautifully, late as he was brought into the attack, and got the elusive Turn and Bounce. Harbhajan who had rarely troubled Ponting through the day, finally confirmed to us that he still had Ricky's number - he had merely misplaced it till then - by bagging his wicket lbw when Ponting was on 123. Still, Bhajji, would've appreciated it if it had come, say, 100 runs earlier, yeah? Hussey and Clarke continued to plod on, though, but Zaheer Khan, in the last over the day, seemed determined to end it on the terms with which he had begun: he trapped Michael Clarke in front of the stumps with an absolute peach of a delivery. It was a dramatic end to the day, and took away a bit of sheen of the Australian innings, leaving the match better balanced.

... Okay, so general assessment? The Indian seamers bowled well today, but the spinners were mostly ineffective, the outfielding in general was not great, the field placements at times allowed too many easy singles... yet, the Aussies finished the day with an overall run-rate of much less than three, which surprised me. I mean, the cautious stuff in the morning was understandable, having received a setback so early. But why the diffidence throughout? Weren't the Aussies the ones to have made going at 3.5-4 an over in Tests the norm? Why couldn't they have pressed the accelerator at a time when they had India on the mat? In being so defensive, they allowed India to peg back a few before too much damage had been done to the host's chances in the game. Amazingly, despite Ponting's century and his big partnerships with Katich and Hussey, India go into day 2 with the slightest of advantages. Only 254 runs have been piled on, the inexperienced middle and lower-middle order has been exposed (Watson, judging by his IPL performance might be depended upon, but he's got precious little match-practice recently and Tests are a different ball game from Twenty20; Haddin the Batsman I'm not so sure about, but he did play well in the ODI series in India last year, but then again, he has proven problems against spin; White is an unknown commodity, he'll be hoping to pull off a Clarke; the lower order of Lee, Johnson and Clark looks strong; despite all of this, Aussies are so gonna miss Symmo and Gilly) and the second new ball is only 2 overs old. Come morning, and you can expect Ishant and Zaheer to be very dangerous, especially against a tentative seeming Hussey, and a brand-new-at-the-crease Watson.

I'm a little concerned about Kumble. I haven't the authority to judge his captaincy, but I just wonder. Does it really suit him? As in, on the field? He gets so angry and frowny everytime he bowls and he, IMO, just kinda sends out a bad vibe. Also, his Glares of Doom (that make even me squirm, even though I'm watching on TV hundreds of kilometres away) everytime somebody makes a mifield or fumbles a chance is something I don't like. You aren't that great a fielder yourself, you know, Anil.

Aanyway, so things are positioned for a cracker tomorrow. Early wickets are KEY, 'cause anything above 350, and the Indian Middle Order, already under so much pressure, would have to face much more. Let's see what happens, though.

... Oh, and there was a shot between overs that showed Dhoni thoughtfully chewing at his glove's webbing. Adorable! And can I just say that he looks incredibly cute in Test whites? With his uber-cool shades and sweaty and tousled hair and the nonchalant way in which he collected and passed the ball to slips? I'm SO fangirling him now.

... You know, because there just wasn't enough fangirling in this post.