Are the oldies required in the present setup?

If one looks at the scenario superficially, then the oldies would nowhere be near in their scheme of things. But I feel presence of Rahul, Sachin and Ashish rendered solidity to our line up. Moreover, they can pass on their valuable experience to their successors. If we consider Sachin and Rahul, they has come to the fag end of their career. They have nothing to prove in their illustrious career. In my opinion, the most important reason is for the youngsters to understand that no one can take their place for granted. The youngsters, like Rohit Sharma, Sreesanth, had become so casual and reckless, that they took their place for granted. No doubts about their potential to replace their worthy predecessors, but they were falling short in their attitude and their willingness to learn from their mistakes.
Therefore, the sudden reinforcement of our oldies should give them tremors in their belly and wake them up from their deep slumber.
I accept that their presence is going to be pretty short, but I’m sure that even their short presence should be worthwhile experience for all the stakeholders!

Tendulkar becomes a Deity, that he is.

It is hardly surprising for an average Indian to see Tendulkar in this avatar. In India, as they say, Cricket is a religion and Sachin is the God. But it could the other way round for any other Cricket fan.
The daily express in the London has posted that the supporters in Delhi commissioned artists to create icons of Tendulkar as the monkey god " Hanuman".
The works show him holding a bat instead of the more traditional mace.

JAI HANUMAN JI KI

The 360 degrees player......

Can u people notice it. Yes, tats right. Virender sehwag has add the pull shot into his arsenal of shots. In the past, opposition bowlers shared the opinion of not giving the room for him to drive. Sehwag was target in the rib cage and he was cramped for space. Now that can't happen anymore.

Now with this adjustment, he game has become more complete. Now it the bowler turn to devise a contingency plan to counter this hurricane sehwag.

எப்படி போட்டாலும் அடிக்கறான் .......

Is the present Indian Cricket team the strongest ever!

Is the present Indian team the greatest ever?. It is very tricky question. As a die hard cricket fan, it is very tempting to say yes. But we need to realistically analyze their performance before coming to a reasonable conclusion. The recent performances have been very encouraging. Indians are on a roll, they have trounced almost every team that it has confronted with. Since the Asia cup final, we have comprehensively beaten Sri Lanka twice on their own turf. We have beaten Australia at home (2-0), England (both home and away), West Indies. The list is a bit lengthy.

If we look at the one day squad, it is perfectly balanced. We've never had such a wide range of stroke players who can clear the ropes at will. Sehwag, Yuvraj, Raina and Pathan fall in this category. On the flip side, we have players who can drop anchor and render solidity to batting. Sachin, Gambhir and Dhoni fall under this category. Sachin adds value to batting, even his presence can make youngsters charged up.

If we look at the bowling, we never had so much variety. A left arm swing bowler, a right arm express fast bowler, a couple of finger spinners and a couple of part timers. In my opinion, our bowling could be our weak link. We lack a perfect third seamer who is a match winner.

The real icing on the cake is having M.S.Dhoni as our captain . Unlike, other nondescript captains, he is charismatic and led the team from front. Moreover, he is cool headed and down to earth inspite of all the successes. We can clearly say that the team is safe hands.

Our test team is very solid but that is bound to undergo a period of transition after the departure of the heavy weights. As far the as the recent performances are concerned, everything is rosy. I guess, it is very premature to draw any conclusions. Our boys need to sustain the high performance for a long period of time.

Is it the beginning of the end of the Australian dominance in cricket ?

Sports have been a fascination for us since ages. Great athletes have also been great entertainers. Sportsperson are able to do difficult things quite easily, which would have been unimaginable for people like you and me. Novak Djokovic returning a Roger Federer serves without any fuss. Usain Bolt doing a 100 metres dash in 9.79 sec with a yawning gap. Bret lee bowling a delivery at 95 miles per hour and astonishing we find Rahul Dravid cover driving it for a boundary. So what separates the good from the great? What separates the great from the legend?

These are the questions which have tormented all connoisseurs of sports. The answer is that most of these sportspersons are naturally gifted. Every Tom, Dick and Harry can’t become Tiger Woods. If one can cover a Bret lee ball boundary which most us can’t even see it coming. So we have to accept the fact that these guys are naturally gifted. Another feature which differentiates the sportsperson is practice. They toil for hours to get the perfection. The feature of sportspersons can be their passion. They have an inherent drive, hunger which keeps them going. The important thing is that they are able to sustain that hunger and drive through out their career. We can understand from the fact Sachin Tendulkar is able to sustain the intensity for around 20 years.

It is understandable to find individuals dominating their sport for quite some time. But it is just incredible to find a team maintaining their dominance over a long period of time. We have seen the Brazilians dominate the game of football, West Indies dominate cricket for around two decades. Next is the Australian cricket team. Australian dominance can be dated back to early nineties under the captaincy of Allan Border. Border can be given credit for forming a solid team. Of course, the team under border can’t be called as invincible. But definitely it was a solid team. It went on to win the 1987 World cup. The Australian team gained a proper direction under the captaincy of Mark Taylor. It came close to winning the 1996 world cup. The Australian team became really ruthless under the captaincy of Steven Waugh. Steve was handy batsman. He advocated the concept of mental disintegration under which the bowlers and fielders were given a free rein to torment the batsmen with words. Obviously his team consisted of a bunch of talented, professional and great players. Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz were simply outstanding in bowling. These guys would probe into a batsmen’s weakness by relentlessly hitting the right areas.

Opening was in the hands of Mathew Hayden, Justin Langer. Both would invariably give a solid start to the proceedings. Ricky Ponting comes at number three who is considered on of the best batsmen in the world. Steven Waugh, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist yielded a solid middle order. During this period Australian dominance was almost taken for granted. Not many sides were able to challenge their supremacy. However Waugh’s team was not able to win a series in India which he famously termed it as the last frontier.

The next leader was Ricky Ponting. Ricky was able to maintain the supremacy to some extent. He was able to capture the last frontier. However the team started signs of weakness after the departure of great players like Glenn McGrath, Warne, Gilchrist, and Langer. Their replacements were not able to emulate their worthy predecessors. Many weaknesses were brutally exposed. India sensing an opportunity handed them a 320 run defeat. It was Australia’s biggest defeat in around 18 years. The defeat was so comprehensive that the Indian dominated them in all departments of the game. It was also so humiliating that everyone is running for cover.

I’m sure the other teams are going to take inspiration from this point of inflection and bring the Australian hegemony to an end.