Ind SA - Third Test Grades (Not pretty if you are SRT or RD fan!)

Oh Man, after the great performance in the first test match, India reverted back to its old habits and lost a test series 2-1 that Sout Africa had no business winning, atleast not the last one.

Wassim Jaffer. Grade: B+
He has a bad habit. He follows a good innings with a bad one. Looks like he is always playing to keep his place in the side. I was disappointed when he lost focus towards the later part of Day 1 and gave away his wicket. That is where the advantage on Day 1 was lost. However, he was the least of India's problems.

KD Karthik. Grade: B
His Batting cannot mask deficiencies behind the stumps. While the official scorecard shows 7 byes, there were a lot more missed keeping chances.

V Sehwag. Grade: D+
Your batting in first innings is in the Lara-Ponting league while the second is more the Afridi league. He single handedly destroyed the coach's great move of having him open with another bone-headed shot

All Dravid/Tendulkar fans to skip this part

Rahul Dravid. Grade: F-
You are officially the first member of F- Club. If someone does not tell you that you singlehandedly lost the game for India, they are lying to you. Also, most of the bowling decisions back-fired and hence this would be one test match, you would like to forget in a hurry. Between, when the runs dry up, why do the Indians not look for singles and twos and rotate the strike.

Sachin Tendulkar. Grade: F-
Second member of the F- club. Who are you? I am sure that you are an imposter trying to ruin the name of ST. 14 runs of 62 balls with 1 four is but a shadow of what ST did in his career.

Maybe the CBI should investigate if ST has been abducted by space alien wanting his batting skills in the inter-gallatic match and replaced him with a poor and shoddy replacement.

On a serious note, i think it is not blasphemy to suggest that Sachin's game has fallen a lot. I don't know why, but someone in the dressing room should tell Sachin that he is but a shadow of the great player that he was. He no longer creates sleepless nights for opposition bowler and has many more bad innings in the last 2 years than the rest of his career combined.

Oh, by the way - i do know he scored a 64 in the first innings.

Sourav Ganguly. Grade: B
I think he made a statement in the overall series on his toughness. Makes me change my mind - i would rather have people with toughness than finesse. I do have to say that he did not help India's cause by exposing the tail in the first innings. How? Ganguly had 7 overs with the tail-enders (Kumble and lower):

• Over 1: Kumble faces Pollock the first ball because the batsmen crossed on the Sehwag dismissal. Kumble is dismissed on the 4th delivery
• Over 2: Ganguly takes a single on 3rd delivery
• Over 3: Ganguly takes a single of the first ball. He also agrees to a single with Zaheer on the last ball. Zaheer is dismissed of the first delivery the next over.
• Over 4: Ganguly gets strike of 3rd ball, gets a four and also a single off the last ball
• Over 5: Ganguly takes single of 3rd delivery, Sreesanth dismissed with the last delivery
• Over 6: Single of 4th delivery
• Over 7: Ganguly dismissed of the first delivery.

VVS Laxman. Grade: D-
How can you give up a wicket in such a situation in the second innings. Outside tendulkar and dravid, you too should owe up for this loss.

Kumble: Grade: C
Bad run with the bat. In a long time, i haven't seen you have an off-match. My first reading was that you were trying too much and that you are not suited to bowl around the stumps (like a left arm spinner!)

Sreesanth. Grade: C
Quiet game, with the bat and the ball.

Zaheer: Grade: C+
Had a good game with the ball though the stats did not do justice to his effort, not in the first innings. In the second, he was to support Kumble in running down the opposition - he kept his side of the bargain

MM Patel: Grade:D
I thought India played with 10 players. Nope, MM Patel replaced VRV Singh. What difference did it make? Made no difference in bowling as he was given ONE over in second innings. In terms of batting, the south african bowlers were relieved that they were not going to bowl to a wild VRV.

Ganguly as captain? Gimme a break!

A sense of perspective has never been a quality that India's cricket fraternity has possessed

I liked this sentence and fully agree with the author (Dhileep Premchand's analysis on India's recent test win) on India's passion / obsession called Cricket. I wanted to blog on this over the weekend by trying to find evidence of over-reaction within Indian media after India's splendid test victory in south africa

Alas, i did not have to wait for long because Ajay Jadeja was the first to mouth-off calling for Ganguly to replace Dravid as the captain for the World Cup. This, inspite of what all of us can now see - Ganguly was thrown off the team because he was getting obsessed with Captaincy that he failed to remember that batting contributions was required to be retained in the team. Now that this has finally dawned on him and he is batting as if every innings is his last, we saw a remarkable amount of freedom & responsibility in his batting - something Greg Chappell wanted and has now gotten.

In this situation, why would the Indian board want to hand captaincy to Ganguly? More over, people should realise and accept the fact that Ganguly's days as captain are over and he is on his last days as an international cricketer (maybe a year or so is the maximum left in him). Let us enjoy these days and not want to upset the already tipsy apple cart called Indian Cricket.

More than anyone else, Ganguly deserves it.

Cricket - SA Ind Test Day 3 Random Musings

Some random thoughts during the match today:

• I think it is a relief having the commentary after the endless nuisance that was dished out in the name of entertainment during championship trophy when the likes of Rohit Roy, Mandira Bedi and Charu Sharma contributed ZILCH to cricket discussions
• Case in point, when Laxman was playing well - Sunny notes that Laxman would be a better batsman if he could get more comfortable going across and playing on the backfoot. That would enable him to counter the likes of Ntini and Nel. Hardly had the sentence been spoken, he goes on the backfoot and edges to the first slip. Providence! But above all good cricket commentary.
• If Andre Nel is not bought to books by the match referee, they should scrap the rule.
• What a shot! Tailender charging to a fast bowler and hitting for six is priceless!
• What a dance! On one level it was pure adrenalin, on a different level, the gyrations made me wince
• Why did you have to go for the second! bad decision!!
• Liked the cameo of Sreesanth and VRV Singh when it lasted!
• First over, first ball and SA is on pressure
• Gibbs is GONE! What a ball. I am no more upset at the India's last wicket gift to SA
• Superb Catch by Sehwag. Did not realise that he had so much movement on the field
• Great bowling performance. SA could be wishing they had Sreesanth and Zaheer instead of Ntini and Nel
• Gross! Vikram (or Vishal!) is trying to ape Sony's non-cricket shows and it is bad. ESS should stick to cricket
• Sreesanth, you can be aggressive without walking into the batsman
• If Sreesanth is not bought to books by the match referee, they should scrap the rule (Amla's dismissal). On second thoughts, Sreesanth will be bought to books and Nel will be let go free
• Kumble is being neutralized well by the SA batsmen by sweeping behind square
• That is OUT! Harper, how did you miss it? Prince had a thick edge to the keeper
• That is OUT! Harper, how did you miss it? Boucher had a thin edge to the keeper. Two bad decisions by Harper in one afternoon
• That is end of play. India should be reasonably happy.

And in fast developing news ganguly ...

Breaking news of Sourav Ganguly, ex-Indian captain having a mild coughing session. With increasing interest, the press in south africa awaited his every single move -his arrival in SA, his first practice and patiently waited for more meanigful substance and they were not disappointed - literally.

After his one hour practice, Sourav Ganguly stood aside for a whole one minute and thought of his next action. Being out of the Indian side, he might have lost his touch with the small details of practice - a few real time SG critics/experts across the field agreed amongst themselves. Just when the debate was drawing to a close, Ganguly moved towards the refreshments section and took a bottle of ice-cold aquafina mineral water and drank the contents for well over 15 seconds (as measured by cameraman vikram gautam).

The breaking development happened when he bent down to put down the bottle when he choked on the final few drops and the media was there to capture, in real time, the mild cough session. It started with his face turing slightly red and then he coughed for a minute - starting with a mild bengal tiger purr and finishing with an eccentric high pitch wheeze-like noise.

How this affects India's chances in the first test against South Africa, let us turn to our expert panel - Harsha Bhogle, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Wasim Akram. Question to you all experts - Is Ganguly justified in coughing and harming India's chances in the upcoming test match or is it his tendencies to draw attention to himself .......

And thus died the sanity of the indian news media in south africa on a sunny summer morning. Dada, welcome back but you would know that i said it first here, that the media is going to make a tamasha of your every single move.

Dada, remember this: TO

Dada., now that you have packed the rooshagullas and are catching a flight for South Africa, please hear just 2 words from me: Terrell Owens aka TO

You don't know him - here is a quick primer:

• Terrell Owens is an obscenely gifted wide receiver in american football whose self-indulging tendencies has overshadowed his achievements on the field. Sounds very familiar?
• Not once but twice has been driven out of town because of his lack of respect for his teammates. Sounds very familiar?
• He called his employers & their football organization as 'class-less'. Sounds very familiar?
• He suffers from wears-my heart on the sleeve-but-cant-keep-mouth-shut syndrome. Sounds very familiar?
• Criticizes the coach as being against him. Sounds very familiar?
• In San Francisco, TO cost his coach the job (read John Wright). Sounds very familiar?

Now that you are back in the side, i hope you would only think of aiding India when we have not been having a great tour of SA. I respect your contributions to indian cricket as it's most sucessful captain and would hope you would do nothing to sully your reputation, your coach, your captain, your organization, your country and most importantly YOURSELF.