Good Bye Polly

The world of cricket saluted a new fast bowler in Dale Steyn as Pollock bade farewell to the international arena , where he dazzled for long .
The leading all-rounder just probed away on and around off stump, relentlessly all these dozen of seasons with unerring accuracy. Gifted with the genes from one of the finest left-handed batsman Graeme(Uncle) and spearhead of the 60s bowling attack Peter(father), Shaun had carried both abilities. Regarded as the bowler who would come extremely close to the stumps and high arm action, he had mastered the ability to bring back and leave batsman and that unyielding line made life difficult for batsman across the world .The world first saw the glimpse of the orange haired Pollock in the summer of 95. .
The summer of 96, South Africa, discovered a potent new-ball partnership with Allan Donald and this pairing was the catalyst of much of South Africa's success during the latter half of the 1990s. The emergence of Pollock inspired Donald to greater heights as the latter found himself with a partner who both complemented and challenged him. Arguably, the straightest bowler in world cricket, Pollock is able to move the ball both ways at a lively pace pinned down a number of batsmen year after year. At the start of his first-class career, though, he was both slippery and aggressive. As time progressed, maturity and ability to produce performance under pressure came to the fore. The finest hour came in Adelaide against Australia in 1998 when he probed on hour after hour in scorching heat to take 7 for 87 in 41 overs on a perfect batting strip. This was an exhibition of stamina and courage which he never lacked.
Pollock's career has been one of great distinction. In 108 Tests he took 421 wickets -- the most by any South African -- at an outstanding average of 23.11. It was only in the past two years that the average went up from about 21. He made 3781 runs at an average of 32,31 to enter into the cricketing annals as one of the world's best all-rounders.
He captained the country in 26 Tests, forced into the job after Hansie Cronje's fall from grace in 2000. The biggest challenge of his career - to lift a shocked and crestfallen South African side. He had a solid start to his captaincy, where he led SA to victory over Australia. Then he lost some credibility after a 3-0 drubbing in Australia in 2001-02. And, soon became predictable with his captaincy .He was criticized for lack of out of the box thinking. Eventually, he was sacked as captain after the 2003 World Cup, taking the blame for the debacle against Sri Lanka when SA read the Duckworth Lewis sheet incorrectly.

Critiques might argue that he has underperformed with the bat, but most test teams would be delighted to have him in their side even if he never scored a run. But on numerous occasions , he saved the day for South Africa with his batting.
Plagued by lack of pace over the past two years, he took it all with a grace and dignity singularly lacking in players today. Inherited from the great Pollock family, he embraced all the old values of fair play and grace under fire. Needless to say that he was great role model for younger players , with his clean image , and flawless behaviors on and off the field.
Pollock missed the first Test against Australia at home in early 2006 with a back injury and was relegated from opener to first-change by the third. Amidst all this, slowly he became the first South African to take 400 Test wickets. Pollock continued his fine form against the touring Pakistanis next, despite being surprisingly rested for the final Test . Though his nagging brilliance around off stump remained his pace and ability to take wickets at the top of the order has dipped. He made a strong statement by winning the man of the series award twice in a row. Frugal with the ball and useful with bat he offered prized balance and breathing space for his captain.
Pollock wanted to go on his own terms; courtesy the South African selectors were reluctant to clearly decide about his future role. But, he chose the right time before he had to experience the ignominy of being axed.
The future looks bright; as the likes of Morne Morkel and Steyn, who has been earmarked as the successor to Pollock, have shown promise to carry South African Cricket into a new era. However, they have huge shoes to fill in the likes of Pollock and his predecessor, Allan Donald.

Umpires win matches




The Sydney test would be known for the umpiring decisions than cricket on display. It not only helped Australia to take an unassailable lead but also sparked the debate whether technology should be more used to minimize the human errors, so that there is deadlock to the extent that it jeopardizes the tour. Finally it was alleviated when ICC blinked and removed Bucknor from officiating in Perth.
There is still a scope for improvement of umpiring and the way out is to have a pool of umpires which have not crossed the sell by date .Umpires are not only facilitators but have a role of diffusing a volatile situations at various junctures in the match.
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All good things must come to an end. Bucknor has had a long career and before his performance dumps him out of ICC Elite Panel, he must go as a dignified man. Mark Benson, elevated to the ICC Elite Panel in April 2006 should have handled the situation better given that umpires are not only arbiters but have a critical role to play in diffusing tricky situations. Hence it becomes imperative to groom more umpires and have rigorous checks for them before they officiate at the highest level. Also, the role of a captain is significant to ensure that the game is played in the right spirits .Wining is important but at a price that Ricky Ponting has paid.
The Australians are known to play hard and aggressive cricket but sometimes in the process , the spirit is often forgotten .The captain is often termed” as good as his team” and Ricky Ponting must know that a lot of yongsters look upto the present international cricketers as role models .Whether or not the player must exhibit a high moral rectitude and walk if they know they are out or wait for the arbiter to decide as that is his job would continue to be point of contention. More often than not , the true self comes out whether to be what one is or think about the team and still hold ground if it is all about winning . If ICC promotes Cricket, should it also not play a crucial role in protecting that spirit?

A little bit of animated faces , a grin from the bowler , a few words exchanged makes an interesting scene for the viewers. But when it crosses limits , that’s when its not cricket .The Australian crowds can be nasty not to mention the media .In modern cricket, where the stump microphones can catch almost everything and lip readers can interpret what is being said players are under the scanner as never before .That is where the role of umpires and match referees come into the scene ,who can calm the player down. It would be interesting to see if Brad Hogg also meets with the same sentence as Harbhajan did .
Organizations have different cultures, so does various cricketing countries .Some words may be offensive in one part of the world while the same might not be in other parts .Its very hard to demarcate or categorize words which are offensive or otherwise

Meanwhile, the ball is in ICC’s court. To promote cricket and yet maintain the sanctity of the game are challenges it faces currently.
While banning on field chattering may be taking an extreme step but ensuring restraint among players for the usage of words might just alleviate the situation.

Cricket is great leveller is not it ..Just a few days back , India were on a high following their series victory over the arch rivals .
India did everything right on the first day after their openers put on a century stand , thanks to a steller performance from the Indian skipper .

But after that phase , when the time came to put the hands up and to be counted for , Indian batting line up played into the Aussie hand .rahul Dravid got bogged down and took 61 balls to get off the mark and when that happens , the bowlers stick to the line and length , and its hard to score off this aussie attack



India made a tactical blunder by leaving Sehwag out of the palying eleven as he still is a lethal waepon ready to unleash..

Dravid looked scratchy and uncertain during his stay and thought about survival .And thats where the problem started to come .He is taking far too efforts to succeed , when you do that , you often sink more .India would even be more dejected not because th conditions were quite similar to the subcontinent and the pitch had no demons .



having said that the aussie were relentless and unerring .Their fielding truely world class the gives them an extra dimension.India should take a leaf out of the way the openers played .

Its impearative to play good positive cricket and sieze the initiative .India would be ruing on the opportunities missed .
As I kept mentioning in earlier India must now use their weapon Sehwag , untried untested and a wild shot in the dark .But then , this is the time when the risk has to be taken ...lest it will be too late .
The senior batsman will also need to convert their starts into a big one .Somebody from the top four will have to galvanise the team with an epic performance

The best of Ganguly

Career Summary:
Mat I NO Runs HS1 HS2 HS3 Ave 100 50 0

Overall 99 161 14 6346 239 173 147 43.17 15 30 9




Ganguly’s Best :


131 Vs England

After a four year hiatus, and being termed as product of the quota system, Sourav Ganguly played with tremendous composure to carve a sublime 131.
It was an exhibition of batsman ship of the highest quality with a flurry of boundaries on the off side. Connoisseurs relished the silken drives, the sweet timing and the lazy elegance.
Ganguly had truly arrived on the international scene setting the expectations wagging whilst the critics took the usual recourse to explain the spectacle as nothing but a by-product of luck.


144 Vs Australia
Precariously placed at 63/3 skipper Ganguly was positive from the outset He hit the crease running, and drove through the off side with panache and surgical precision Equally decisive on either foot and leaning into the drives he stroked, caressed the ball to the fence. The timing was spot on, and soon the placement matched it. By the time he racked up 144, India was out of woods. An emphatic riposte to his critics, not only did Ganguly set the MCG ablaze with delectably timed drives off either foot , but also sent out a strong signal and did much to set up the series.



239 Vs Pakistan

Depleted with Tendulkar’s absence, India was reeling at 61/4,Ganguly put his hands to up to be counted, stitched a mammoth 300 run partnership partnering with Yuvraj Singh , to bat Pakistan out of the match.. Batting with unusual composure and resolve, the Prince of Kolkatta sent the hapless Pakistani bowlers on leather hunt, compiling a career best 239, his first double ton. What was brought to the fore was the improved footwork and the decisiveness of his stroke-making combined with a shorter back-lift and upright stance.

The Prince of Kolkatta would not have written a better script! .Back to back hundreds and the last one a career best effort , a monumental239 .Critics might say , he has scored those runs against an attack deviod of Shoaib Aktar and an inexperienced attack.
But the credit should be given to the way he took India out of the woods when they were reeling at 61/4 .Ganguly averaged over 50 during his first 2000 runs or so .Post the Tour Down under, 1999 that average kept dropping .He was always found wanting against the short pitch stuff and technical flaw of opening the face of bat soon and play too much on the square on the off side .
This was also the time , when Ganguly was the helm of the affairs and even though Ganguly the captain was doing well , Ganguly the batsman certainly was not .
Interestingly Ganguly's form in limited over internationals hit the purple patch and he was really scoring centuries and the year 2000 saw score 9 of them .
But the poor test form continued where he was either a culprit of playing far too many shots too early or throwing it away after getting starts.


All that changed ,when he was stripped of captaincy first and then unceremoniously dropped from the team .And all of a sudden it seemed all over .

But then there was a change in the selection committee and he got a look in again and corroborated his selection with a classy half century in South Africa.He was the top scorer in that series .
There was looking back since then , turning the year 2007 as the most successful year aggregating 932 runs , with still 3 innings to come .

The fire is still there, what has improved, is his shot selection and the application now and he looked more determined . Moreover he is playing in 'V' initially and then once set displays the entire range of shots.
He always was a seasoned campaigner .
But as they say , when the oil in the lamp is about to finish , it glows at its best.

What a news ! finally Sehwag is back in the Indian team after a five month hiatus .

Virender sehwag has always an enigma and he will remain one .Initially tipped to make it big in ODIs with his ability to play aggresive and fearless shots, he did the opposite. Amidst cricket pundits speculating his premature death in Tests , He made them eat humble pie by scoring hundreds in bowling friendly conditions ,opening the innings .Who can forget the scintillating hundred in Trent bridge and breathtaking 195 in MCG! and Sehwag truly arrived after the superb debut hundred in Bloemfontein in the company of little champion.The acme came with a charactertic six off Saqlain over mid on to register his acme in record books to become the first Indian to score triple hundred .

The runs came thick and fast in longer version of the game but clearly he had to struggle in the one day variety
Reasons were he was found wanting against the deliveries targetted in and rib cage area and vulnerable against out side off stump .
But he poor shot selection and playing a rash shot was awhat was acause of concern

The selection of shots is what i think will make Sehwag more effective .he always had the ability to destroy the bowling

Now that he has got a chance at the expense of one of the most consistent batsman , he should not fritter away this opoortunity .But questions will linger about his position in the batting line up

Ganguly and Tendulkar have done extermely good in the last few matches and it would not make sense to accomodate sehwag here
My ideal thing would be asking Sehwag to bat at no 3 . This is clearly
themost unutilaised place and all the top teams have a solid no 3 .Ponting . Kallis Bell have made this postion their own . and thats where your best batsman should be coming in .

While it was just a matter of time , before the selectors decided to go in for najafgarh maestro
Rahul dravid will get some time to think about his batting .The man who was "rested" is Rahul Dravid who averaged a disapponiting 8.88 in the last ten games , is surely in the most lean phase of his career .Rahul just gives me the feeling that his is unclear baout his postion in the side and hence is not able to score amidst constant shuffling with the batting order.

Having said that , Sehwag will have to score runs to repay the faith that selectors have shown in him lest it might well be his last chance

After all somebody has rightly" it one thing to have talent and its another to use it "

India managed to pull off a sensational victory in the Chandigarh ODI!.What a response by the team ,when they had their backs to the wall. I mentioned in my last blog about the Tendulkar and Ganguly factor .Well,it is corroborated yet again .
The openers laid a solid foundation for the middle order to capitalize.Tendulkar , I think really brought all his experience into play ,and played a sheet anchor role ,after having the rub of the green on his side . He still has a lot to offer to Indian cricket . Ganguly , looked relatively better and played some gorgeous shots . Its been an incredible nine months for Ganguly ,since his comeback against South Africa. Both stalwarts have one thousand runs in the calender year in 25 and 26 games respectively.Dhoni made some really good moves in this game .Promoting Yuvraj and himself higher up the order was a tactical , that paid off in the end . The last over bowled by Bracken was quite critical to the outcome of the match ,where he was clobbered for 20 .

The wickets of Symonds and Hayden were the turning points . Full credit to the men in blue , for they kept their nerves even when everything looked over for them .Moreover, the 48th over by Kartik ensured , the Aussies have an impossible 17 runs to get , from tail enders. From the Aussie's point of view , they should be dejected to lose the game from a position of strength ,25 were needed off 19 ,with a set Symonds at the crease. The Aussie game plan is very much revolving around pyrotechnics of Symonds and controlled aggression from Hayden .Gilchrist has not quite fired at the top and has thrown ,when he looked set for a big one .Aussies were hurt with the sundries conceded, they would have this at the back of the mind the next game .

In addition to this ,Brad Hodge should make way for the inform Haddins . Hodge is clearly struggling

The IPCL ground in Vadodara is a typical high scoring venue .The last time India played here ,the little champion got an unbeaten 100, and India scoring 340 , So,the Mumbai maestro has fond memories of this ground.Interestingly, the team batting second has won four times out of seven.

India should again believe in batting first,which has won them numerous matches ,if they win the toss.


A run feast awaits though!