Is The Final Chapter Over For Sachin

After Ian Chappell's recent advice to Sachin, that "He should try to find an honest answer sitting in front of the mirror, to the question that whether he should continue playing: And the answer would probably be a 'No' ", the whole India including the so called experts have criticised Ian for making such a comment. The so called experts have hit back at Ian saying that its for Tendulakar to decide and he should not be the one to suggest a player like Sachin to call it a day.

I think criticising Ian for this doesn't show all these experts and ex-players in good light. As far as my view is concerned and i know that most of the true fans of Sachin would also agree, he should now seriously think about what he is actually trying to acheive by elongating, in what has been an extraordinary carrer but sadly and inevitably well past its peak. What Ian has simply said is a fact that none of the cricket lovers can deny if they be honest and yes that includes Sachin himself. And for that matter we all know that Australians arent really known for holding back on saying the truth.

Ian very appropriately compared Sachin with Brian Lara, emphasizing on the fact they started in a pretty much similar way and have been doing similarly good till about 4 years back and when Tendulakar suffered a few injuries, his acumen as a batsmen started showing signs of a slowdown. While Lara almost carried on in the same vein as he had been doing for almost one and half decade since he began, Tendulkar's abilities started deserting him. Yes the very fact that despite the ageing process catching up with Lara he still manged to gather himself and play some extra ordinary innings when his team needed it the most, may be, just may be not to that level of perfection as he used to do in his early years. I have been observing the way Lara has started playing since he has crossed the age of 30. What he does to perfection, is that he tries to create an impact not by slowly building his innings as a new batsmen would do trying to make his mark in the squad, rather he does that by playing to the tune of what i call the 'Great Player's inherent ability to affect the way opponents play' i.e. they would not truly raise thier game to a higher level all the times, rather thier style of play would make the opposition fear them and thier would be a negative impact on the mental aspect of the game of the opponents and ultimately on their game as well.

A Brian Lara or for that matter a Steve Waugh would always try to maximize the affect they have on the opposition and ultimately would come up with performances their teams always required them to deliver at critical junctures in almost all the games. How else would one explain the ability of Steve Waugh in producing just the right innings at the right time with a probability of almost a 100%. He would rarely fail at critical junctures which sadly is false in the case of Sachin. Now even Ricky Ponting is growing in stature and is challanging the little master real hard. Ponting has been touching that mark of excellence as a caaptain as Steve Waugh did and helped Australia in critical games. Who can forget those famous lines: "You just dropped the cup sonny" to Gibbs, from him in '99 world cup when he played that critical innings to see Australia through and ultimately calim the championship. I have to agree their is something about these Aussies, they have a tendancy to beat anyone at their own game. One of my friends put it very beautifully, when we were watching the Aus Vs Brazil soccer World Cup match. He said "Give them a season in Kabaddi and they will beat us at that too". They do have a true sports culture.

As i write these few paragraphs there is news in the media that Sachin has hit back on Greg saying "No coach has ever questioned his attitude even in passing". What a pitty Sachin that you could not show enough maturity to handle it, even if he did question your attitude, which i expected from you. The complete episode of his face off with Greg has been mentioned in the media. Greg asking him to bat in the middle order and him insisting on an openers slot. I am not trying to balme Sachin in here by saying that he didnt show maturity. All i am trying to say that the way he reacted was not good in the end for both him and Greg and ultimately for team India. He could have avoided or diffused the situation knowing pretty well that being an Australian he wouldn't mince any words. If he was very open and straight with waht he said, then it made sense for Sachin to have resolved the issue amicably, but not by having an ego issue with him and living dangerously in the dressing room after the face off.

So now i will have to blog next, on what all Sachin said as i think its immature on his part and i think now i will also be able to justify a lot about what Greg said, and people didnt beleive. I think by coming in the open against Greg all seniors have vindicated his statements only and not done any good to their reputations in cricketing world. As more and more news reaches us, I think Greg will, and infact has already come out clean from all this sh** that Indian cricket is in at the moment after the World Cup debacle.

To elaborate further on why Sachin should retire, i would also want him look deep within and really answer one simple question. Does he think that for the passion that he has for playing cricket ODI's specifically he is justified in denying a fitter and probably a future Sachin his place in the Indian team. I think the answer is 'No'. It would be sad if Sachin's passion to play, no matter what he achieves for the team (he might get a few more records , that is for sure) denies another Sachin his 2-3 years of internatinal cricket or more generously put deny all of us the chance of witnessing another young Sachin taking on a team like he did in that summer against Pakistan in '89. Oh what a luck day it was and will always reamin for Indian Cricket....may that day come again and a new Sachin comes to the rescue of Indian Cricket. Is Sachin listening....?

The Australian Juggernaut Marches On

ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 :: Australia Vs Bangladesh :: 31st March 2007

As i sit in front of my workstation blogging this away, all the news channels in India are beaming pictures of an Australian win over a hapless Bangladesh cricket team. No matter how much Dav Whatmore and all Bangladesh fans would have wanted their team to repeat what happened on that day at Cardiff when Bangladesh defeated the mighty Australians, the defeat that Bangladesh faced was as inevitable as the fact that their will be a certain winner of 2007 edition of ICC Cricket World Cup, when this tournament ends.

Being an Indian their are bound to be some comparisons in this blog to the way India played against Bangladesh and i will try to find out where exactly did India falter. And what a blunder it proved to be in the end. The Indian cricket team would be watching all the games sitting in their homes on TV. As a famous Bollywood personality so emphatically says in one of the advertisements running these days "Cricket ka asli mazaa to ussey TV par dekhney mein hai" (The real fun of watching cricket is in watching it on TV). Nobody would have imagined that this is what the Indian cricket team would be doing after the initial round of this huge tournament.

Well as far as the match played yesterday b/w Australia and Bangladesh is concerned Australia once again proved how mighty they are in terms of their batting coming into this tournament (they had posted 6 totals of 300+ coming into this game in consecutive innings) as they romped home without losing a wicket, and some overs to spare! It was a rain affected match and had to be reduced to a 22 over match which i think reduced the margin b/w the two teams. Because its very difficult for a team to sustain good performance for a longer duration than for a shorter one. But this leveling out of the two teams because of a shortened game, dint actually come into play once Australia took to the field.

Being a 22 overs a side match, it was very much like a 20-20 match between the two sides. As soon as Bangladesh started their innings first on the pitch that looked good for strokeplay they started in a whirlwind fashion as if they wanted to post a total of around 180-200, which they eventually fell short of in a big way managing only 104 in 22 overs and losing 6 wickets in the process. Major contribution coming only from the captain and a couple of others. Their very promising young guns failing to deliver in the big game. Now i have to mention this one thing for sure, McGrath becoming the highest wicket taker in World Cup games surpassing the Great Wasim Akram a.k.a 'Sultan of Swing'. When he was bowling he was using all his experience to make the Bangladesh batsmen trying to induce a false shot from their blades. How beautifully he bowled was also evident from the fact that he got wickets despite the Bangladesh top order batsmen (to their credit) were trying to hit 'pigeon' out of the park and succeeded too in doing it to some extent. He smartly varied his deliveries and importantly the pace after he got hit a couple of times. But each time he was eventually able to induce a false shot from the batsmen and end their short stay at the crease. The weapon McGrath uses all the time is of course his immaculate line and length but the skill that he possesses which is the BIG difference between him and the ordinary is his ability to think ahead of the batsmen. He beats the batsmen in thinking ahead of him and that the mark of a genius and it applies to a batsmen in exactly the same way.

To compare his bowling performance to how Indian bowlers bowled at Bangladesh's top order, its all to evident that though both Zaheer and McGrath were attacked by the batsmen it was McGrath who used his thought process to outwit the batsmen. The perfect example was Ashraful's wicket. The first delivery that Ashraful played, he tried to play it towards the fine leg from outside the off stump and trying to scoop it above the fielder at fine leg for a four. It was a funny shot and certainly in his entire career McGrath wouldn't have seen any batsmen play that kind of a short to the first delivery he faced. It was as if he was continuing from where he had left in Cardiff (he had got a 100 in that game). In the next couple of deliveries McGrath got spanked with one sweetly timed horizontal bat shot from Ashraful in the midwicket region. It looked like the young Ashraful had got stuck into McGrath but in the the very next delivery, the Australian great rolled his fingers and made the ball loose a couple of miles which was enough for Ashraful to mistime the short and gave a high catch to Ponting at mid-on. I cannot understand why a similar approach of varying pace/ length was not taken up by Zaheer what with all his experience playing international cricket for 7 years now.

Sticking to this game i think the Bangladesh approach was good and the correct one in the circumstances but their implementation had a far too visible inexperience at its core. As Dav Whatmore has been saying what he demands from his team is that "they go out in the middle and enjoy playing the game as they are learning with each outing", i thinks that exactly they were trying to do and feel short in their implementation. When i compare this to an Indian side, i always feel that they fall short of even the fact that, whatever they decided in the team meetings sitting in the dressing room, they simply forget trying to implement what they had decided so it doesn't even come to a level where they fail in trying to implement a strategy but they seem to forget what it was in the first place! That's why i advocate that all the team members should carry a copy of the plan on a piece of paper in their [pockets and refer it to at times on field to stick to what they had planned. A simple remedy i guess for the forgetfulness syndrome with the Indian team. Remember how Bob and Hansie Cronje tried to do the same by having Cronje's being plugged into a walkie talkie type of a device so that they communicate when on field and stick to what they decided in the dressing room and also vary the strategy as the situation demanded.

Coming back to this game, when Australia came into bat they proved yet again why they are referred to as being the mighty ones as the two openers showed how exactly to take care of a smallish total and at the same time rub it into the opponents. They did it in style chasing the paltry total in quick time with their trade mark style and confidence which seems to rub off on to every player like a infection generating from that great captain Ricky Ponting. I have never seen a more confident cricketer than him in whatever cricket i have watched to this day, also someone like a Gilchrist would only come closer to him. The way he conducts himself not showing emotions (mark of a true leader) at all in case of adversity or in case of his team doing well is just amazing. Compare this to a Dravid or a Ganguly for that matter, who would show emotions at the drop of a hat and wouldn't really concentrate on what needs to be done on the field to get the team into the right situation, they just linger on with the thought of defeat in their minds till the fat lady sings and its all over. While a Ricky Ponting would always be worried from inside at his team being under pressure but would always seem to be thinking all the time about what needs to be done to get into the right situation, whether its batting or bowling.

While India's batting and bowling both were in shambles against Bangladesh, the Australians didn't budge at all from their approach that they take of showing to the world "how its done". They look like the one team that cannot put a foot wrong in this age of aggressive cricket. The only team(s) that comes close to them in that matter is probably the New Zealand or a South African team.

I think i have spoken enough on the Australians and i seriously think that they will go all the way to create history own the prized trophy, third time in a row.

Now, i am itching to write something on the Sachin Tendulkar 'The Master', what with everybody in India asking for his retirement. After Ian Chappell also commented on him "that he should look into the mirror and find a honest answer: which would definitely be that he hang up his boots", i will probably write my next blog on this topic which is grabbing the headlines in Indian newspapers.