June 25th

June 25th: Marks the most anniversary of the most significant event in Indian cricketing history. It was on this day 27 years ago at Lords that India defended a paltry 183 to pull off a surprising win over the (then) mighty West Indies. I was too young to remember anything about that match. And actually learnt about this great happening only in 1992 at the time of the Benson & Hedges Cup (the 5th World Cup). 

This post is to remember the players who won it for India on that day. Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Srikanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Yashpal Sharma, Kirti Azad, Sandeep Patil, Syed Kirmani, Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Balwinder Sandhu. A couple of all time greats of the game, some good & some just average players in this list but everyone will be remembered for what they achieved on that historic day.

P.S. Hoping for another victory in my lifetime soon

Cricket Fatigue

I guess its official now. I am fatigued from the overdose of cricket. And have lost track of the games. There was India-Zimbabwe T20 international going on and I had no idea about its timings. BCCI lean fast or your loyal fans will start deserting you if you overdose them with this mediocre stuff.

The Horror in Zimbabwe

It may not have been in the news much but there was a tri-series being played in Zimbabwe. (Actually it still is going on, but India are out). A severely "rested" India, the unknown Zimbabwe & the too-familiar Sri Lanka. India's bunch of youngsters were no match for the other two teams, losing both games to Zimbabwe & one to Sri Lanka.

This was one series which showed that there is too much cricket being played. If there was an international series planned to put Indians off cricket, this was it. The Indian fan is truly fatigued off excessive cricket now. But the players shouldn't have been. Most of them are new and had a great chance to consolidate their future but none really grabbed the opportunity.

First a look at the positives.

Rohit Sharma got his first 2 international centuries. Virat Kohli consolidated his team position with a couple of good knocks Amongst the bowlers, Pragyan Ojha was good and Ashok Dinda was ok. Ravindra Jadeja did a decent job as an all rounder, scored some runs & bowled much better after the T20 World Cup Horror Show.

Now for the negatives
Too many people made their début. Did so many really deserve to play for the country so soon?

Suresh Raina became the first player to captain India without playing a Test match. But his captaincy wasn't up-to scratch. Forgetting to tell the umpires about the bowling powerplay was a real embarrasment. Not taking the batting powerplay when India had a chance to get a bonus point was just poor thinking. And more was expected of his batting.
Fast bowling options are pretty thin. Dinda, Vinay Kumar, Pankaj Singh, Umesh Yadav all made their ODI debuts though none really looked like taking any wickets.
Murali Vijay was found wanting as an opener.
And running between the wickets & fielding were pathetic as usual in spite of a pretty young team.

And the worse part of it is this horror show is not over. There are still 2 T20s to go against an increasingly confident looking Zimbabwe.

P.S. - Asia Cup team has been announced with Yuvraj Singh being dropped. Hope he doesn't end up the Vinod Kambli way. Good chance for Saurabh Tiwary though.
Elsewhere, South Africa whitewashed West Indies 5-0 in the ODIs.
England thrashed Bangladesh 2-0 in the test series. Tamim Iqbal, at the age of 21, can now be safely called the best Bangladeshi batsman ever.

P.P.S. - World Cup Football fever is now fully on. Don't know who will follow the Asia Cup during that.