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There are rumours that Praveen Kumar may not recover in time for the World Cup. It was reported in the Times of India that Praveen will be flying to the UK for further treatment.
I can already see Sreesanth waiting in eager anticipation of the diagnosis. But from the team point-of-view, it will be a major setback to India. Praveen Kumar can swing the ball with good control when it is new, but the most impressive thing that I find in him is that pressure does not get on to him. It almost seems to me that he is impervious to it. If the batsmen attack him, he gets back to his mark with just a shrug of his shoulders.
Sreesanth is also a swing bowler and can get wickets with the new ball, but he does not offer good control. He may vary from exceptional to horrible! Sreesanth's career economy rate is 6.01 as compared to a 5.07 for Praveen Kumar. That will be India's biggest loss if Praveen were to be ruled out.
India may then well have to employ the services of Munaf Patel in the XI, who offers an even better career economy rate of 4.78, but is a liability on the field and no good with the bat. "No good with the bat" is the point I was going to come to next.
Praveen is a very handy character with the bat. He almost carried India to win in that Hyderabad ODI where Sachin scored that 175. He batted very well in that series. It was because he got run out that Australia were able to seal the game! He has opened in First Class cricket for Uttar Pradesh and his batting is clearly a cut above Munaf's and Sreesanth's.
The reason why I am placing so much of importance of Praveen's batting is that India may well be fielding a 6 batsman - 5 bowler combination sometime during this World Cup (even though I am dead against it). Nothing else explains Piyush Chawla's inclusion in the 15! If India does play 5 bowlers, Praveen Kumar's and Harbhajan Singh's batting becomes very crucial at No. 7 and No. 8, because both of them are way better with the bat than Piyush Chawla, especially when it is time to go for the big hits. I have already mentioned it earlier on this blog that I don't think Chawla has it in him to be able to attack the faster bowlers in front of the wicket. The best he can do is guide the ball behind the wickets, but if he doesn't find the gaps, it will just result in singles.
Harbhajan and Praveen, on the other hand, can hit even the faster bowlers in front of the wicket on the up. Even Zaheer Khan can do that better than Piyush Chawla, which is why it is very important for India to beef up the lower order batting if indeed the 5-bowler strategy is going to be used.
I just hope that Praveen Kumar recovers well in time for the World Cup... he definitely is an essential cog in India's cricket team.
I know that the table above looks gibberish... but then I like doing gibberish stuff! The top row lists the home teams and the results of their matches against the corresponding away teams are given below their names. A home win is indicated by green colour and an away win by red colour.
And just to make it more colourful, yellow indicates the matches that are due to be played on the given dates, and blue indicates the matches that are not possible (I mean, Mumbai Indians cannot play against Mumbai Indians, come on!).
A few things came to my notice due to the abundance of colour usage. Firstly, I had not realised that KXIP is yet to win a home game (though it's certainly not surprising). Secondly, I was under the impression that only MI has lost just 1 match at home. Now I have realised that even RCB and RR have lost only 1 at home thus far (though they still have 3 and 2 home matches remaining, as compared to MI's 1 home match).
And another piece of information that is not visible from the above table, but just for fun: both of DC's home wins have been at Cuttack. Nagpur and Navi Mumbai, their other two 'homes', have not yielded positive results. The wins at Cuttack were the first wins that DC have registered in their 'catchment' area. They lost all the 7 matches in IPL 2008 at Hyderabad, and then went on to lost 2 matches in Champions League 2009 at the same venue again. Maybe, they should look to shift their franchise's base.
Monday, 8th November 1999 (Hyderabad): He threatened to do it for the first time. But he just ran out of overs against the Kiwis and finished 186*.
Sunday, 8th March 2009 (Christchurch): We were almost sure that he'll get there. But with 5 overs to go, he retired hurt at 163.
Thursday, 5th November 2009 (Hyderabad): What a heartbreak! Not only did he get out on 175, but the Indian tail somehow contrived to lose the plot completely and succumb to the pressure.
Wednesday, 24th February 2010 (Gwalior): Finally, he gets there. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar scales the hitherto unsurmounted peak of a Double Century in One Day International Cricket, finishing 200*.
In the process, SRT has broken some more records - most fours in an ODI innings (25), most 150+ scores in ODIs (5), and of course - the highest individual score by a batsman in One Day International Cricket.
When Sachin reached 179* in 42 overs, the target I wanted him to reach was 230. That's because the highest individual score in all forms of ODIs is 229* in Women's Cricket by the legendary Australian batswoman Belinda Clark in the 1997 Women's Cricket World Cup match at Mumbai against Denmark. But given the amount of frustration MS Dhoni caused to SRT fans like me, I think I should just be glad for the 200 - 200 of the silkiest and risk-free runs that Sachin might have ever scored.
Indeed, there was no dropped chance, one run out appeal to third umpire and one stumping appeal to the third umpire - both which were not very difficult decisions. In fact, except for one ball from Steyn (fourth ball of the fifth over of the match), Sachin was not beaten even once in his 147 ball stay at the crease.
If you are not already impressed, here's another one. After the first four balls that he faced from Steyn in which he did not score a run, there was no other occasion in his entire innings where he let four consecutive balls bowled to him go runless (Thank you Cricinfo for this bit of trivia). Such was the mastery!
He almost toyed around with the young Wayne Parnell (not that the other South African bowlers were spared). His two backfoot punches square on the off side early in the innings to Parnell from around the wicket were the highlights if his innings for me. Even honey can't get sweeter!
In the last 12 months, Sachin has shown that age is having no effect on his body. If anything, it is speeding him up. What else can explain 3 scores of 150+ in ODIs in the last one year? What the heck man, most batsmen would die to get one such score in their entire career!
Amidst all of this, it is so easy to forget that India won the match by 153 runs and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. This means that India have secured the No. 2 Rank in the ICC ODI Team Rankings as on the cut off date - 1st April.
Accolades are pouring from all over the world:
- No one deserved it more than him!
- He is a true champion!
- One of the best knocks ever!
- India's Superman!
- Cricket's best brand ambassador!
- We are priveleged to be living in the Sachin era!
- Sachin's a gem of a person, apart from being a great cricketer!
And he deserves all of it. I am not sure if I will see God when I die. So till then, I am just content watching Sachin Tendulkar.
South Africa tried very hard to pull off an England, and Hashim Amla tried to be the Paul Collingwood. In the end, South Africa choked when the No. 1 ranking was up for grabs. And Amla ended up pulling off an Andrew Strauss (check my previous blog).
I have already blogged a lot about my joy in watching the crowd at Eden Gardens. I read Sidharth Monga's article of Cricinfo - The rot in rotation yesterday, and I must say that it made a lot of sense. I'll quote a bit of what he said:
"In a recent piece in the Hindu, S Venkataraghvan, the former India offspinner, wrote about the Pongal Test in Chennai. "In Madras, this festival [traditionally in mid-January] used to be synonymous with Test cricket at Chepauk," he wrote. "Schedules were carefully drawn so that a Test match was played at Chepauk during the season."
That is like the Boxing Day and New Year's Tests in Australia and South Africa, annual events that people plan for from months ahead. The last time Chennai saw a Pongal Test, though, was in 1988, and there have been only 10 Tests there since. With nine venues and only five or six home Tests a year, it is impossible to develop such Test culture."
India has ten Test venues (alphabetically, no favouritism involved) -
1. Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai
2. Eden Gardens, Kolkata
3. Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium, New Delhi
4. Green Park Stadium, Kanpur
5. M.A. Chidambaram Stadium (Chepauk), Chennai
6. M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
7. PCA Stadium, Mohali
8. Sardar Patel Stadium (Motera), Ahmedabad
9. VCA Stadium (Jamtha), Nagpur
10. Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai (temporarily unavailable due to renovation)
The most disturbing crowd attendances in Test cricket have been at Mohali, Ahmedabad and Nagpur (as stated by Sidharth Monga). And the cities where crowd has been the most disturbing for the visiting team are Kolkata and Chennai.
India plays about 5-6 Tests at home every year. I would suggest that 2 of these are awarded to Kolkata and Chennai every year. In fact, it should be so managed that like the Boxing Test (MCG) and New Year Test (SCG) tradition, Kolkata and Chennai should have a tradition of their own. In the long run, it will help prospective spectators plan their holiday schedules around it. They won't have to wait for BCCI to release the tour itinerary in order to confirm their own travel plans if they are travelling from other cities to watch these Tests.
The remaining home Tests should be awarded on the basis of a ranking system. This ranking should consider factors like last Test official crowd attendance and pitch preparation. Even domestic crowd attendance can be considered. The Ranji Trophy Final and Duleep Trophy Final showed very encouraging signs. And it's high time that Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium is inducted into the list of India's Test venues.
And why only in India - may be, ICC could create a ranking system for Test grounds based on various such parameters. Then, a news flash in the future might read: India climb to No. 1 in Test Team Rankings and Eden Gardens climbs to No. 1 in Test Venue Rankings.
