IPL 2: My picks

It begins today, the second edition of the Indian Professional League. One of my teams ought to win. I come from Tamil Nadu, so the Chennai Super Kings is my team. I live in Mumbai, so the Mumbai Indians are not a bad lot in my books. I spent long years in Bangalore, so the Bangalore Royal Challengers don't put me off. Quite a bit of my family is in Hyderabad, so the Deccan Chargers won't offend me if they win. I like defending champions, so the Rajasthan Royals are on. And if one of the others win, well, I always love the underdog.

Will IPL 2 go the way of most sequels? Or will it turn out like Godfather? The next month will tell us. Follow me on @cow_corner as I try to twitter my way through the slam-bang event.

Running amok

Am reading the autobiography of a cricketing great and was planning to come back to blogging here with a review of that book but events on a few cricket fields prompted me to rush my comeback. Not that any one was waiting with bated breath, but hey, this is my blog and I am entitled to my delusions of grandeur. But I digress.

At the AMI Stadium in Christchurch, India serenely marched to 392 for 4 in 50 overs. With a score like this, you’d expect the bowlers to just turn up and sew up the match. No, not in today’s times. New Zealand roared off the starting blocks, Brendon McCullum was outscored in a rumbustious opening stand, and the Kiwis lost not because of the formidable total they were up against; they lost because they had an inexperienced middle order. They still managed to score 334, in just a ball over 45 overs.

Over at Kingsmead, Durban, Mitchell Johnson treated us to a rare frightful spell of hostile fast bowling on Saturday. (No malice intended, but the sight of blood spilling from the jaw of Jacques Kallis must have been heartening to bowlers the world over.) But normal service resumed today as a rookie playing in just his second test managed a century in each innings.

The anodyne series between England and West Indies continues at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, and while England might just win this game and square the series, it does not take away from the batsman-friendliness of the series barring the one session of shame for England. Paul Collingwood averaged a shade under 46 before the test started and Matt Prior was at 40.42. Graham Gooch ended his career with an average of 42.58, Allan Lamb finished with a Himalayan 36.09 and that epitome of grace, David Gower managed 44.25. You decide the pecking order of English cricketing greatness.

To borrow a phrase I heard Ian Chappell use long ago, is run inflation well and truly on? Do we need to recalibrate cricket the way we knew it? Or is the game on its last legs? Only the likes of Johnson and Dale Steyn can help preserve the balance. But how long can they fight the elements?

What a game!

It was riveting stuff, it really was. Two teams evenly matched in a low-scoring game. And a last over finish to boot, culminating in a two-wicket victory. A left-arm spinner decides the fate of the game (no, it’s not Monty Panesar, you poor Pom) with figures of 10-2-22-4 (that he made an unbeaten 23 in a chase of 125 adds to the impact). Other dream figures include 10-4-11-3 and 10-3-21-3, both from the losing team. It made me get back to blogging, so you can imagine how much it captured my attention. Pity the teams were evenly matched not in their intensity to win but in their inability to do so.

See the scorecard if you must here.

Oh for those days… redux

If  it was the memory of Les Taylor and David Gower yesterday, it’s BC Pires’ turn today to make me yearn for the halcyon days when cricket was a game. Pires wants to pit Shoaib Akhtar and Allan Donald against Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Botham. But it’s not the matchup that interested me. It’s Pires’ reasoning to arrive at the choices.

…my choices are living cricketers whose grace and elegance captivated me. Never mind their averages: these are men I could watch bat for duck or bowl 90 overs without taking a wicket.

Oh well…

Oh for those days…

Some random surfing on an idle weekend led me to a certain Leslie Brian Taylor, one of an illustrious line of anonymous seamers to have played for England in the 1980s. The Leicester lad played just two test matches, against Australia in that glorious summer of 1985, when England won the Ashes on the back of David Gower’s dream run with the bat. England won both the tests Les played in, but that is not the point of this post.

Les was apparently a genuine No. 11. In a county game against Surrey, Les walks in after the 9^th wicket falls, with Leicestershire still needing 20 to avoid the follow-on.  The bowler is that gentle medium pacer, Sylvester Clarke. And what does the Leicester captain David Gower do? He says, “I just can't do it,” and declares.

Who’s next?

The happy season is on us. Ex-cricketers are realising that playing cricket is not a bad idea at all. First was dear old Harmy re-discovering some patriotism (and, to the surprise of every one including I reckon the man himself, form). He’s even gone to the extent of saying that his return is for the long term and not just for this one series. Whispers confirm that this decision has nothing to do with Stanford and other such trivial matters – Steve Harmison is just out to give his best for his nation.

Hardly had the champagne glasses moved off the lips than similar news shook the cricket world in the Southern hemisphere. Harmy’s Aussie alter-ego, Shaun Tait has put his hat into the ring, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, by agreeing to play in one-day internationals for the Australia A team on their tour of India, thus suggesting that he is ready to stake his claim for the big one – the main Australian team. Brett Lee, your time is up.

A bird apparently saw Marcus Trescothick lug a year’s supply of mint from the local supermarket, but the England team management said they’re not reading too much into it; it is believed that they could not confirm whether the brand name was Murray.

Bat tampering

Even as the media occupies itself with Mintgate, a gentle reader, Abdul Haque Mirza, makes an incisive comment on Sambit Bal’s piece on Cricinfo: License to fudge.

What is this all fuss about ball tampering? Has anybody ever taken notice of “bat tampering”. Applying oil to the blade of a bat is the oldest form of bat tampering. Then use of a dozen of grips (remember Clive Lloyd), long handles, thick blades, curvatures, making holes for free flow (remember Gavasker) – is it not bat tampering? Surely, the answer is going to be – no, no it is a ‘right’ of the batsman to use the most ‘convenient’ bat. If that is the argument, then why the same length and breadth of the bat is allowed for a 5 feet player as it is for a 7 feet player. Of course reducing of a few inches in length in former case and an increase of a few inches in later will make the bat much more ‘convenient’ for the user. If that is not allowed then the practices I have mentioned should come under ‘bat tampering’. There is no surprise that no one has ever given a thought to this because batsmen are always the ‘privileged’ class and poor bowlers are always at the receiving end.

Good shot, sir.

99.94

Some great videos on the great man to mark his 100th birth anniversary here, on a blog rather brilliantly called 99.94. May be we should’ve celebrated the birthday one day ahead to celebrate that tantalising test batting average of the man. Here's the link again.

The original cricketer

You thought that when it was said of Ranji that he “never played a Christian shot in his life” it was just a figure of speech? Well, it appears there is more to it than that, it was perhaps an almost literal reference if this recent story is true: it appears that Jesus played cricket as a child. Read on here.

A lot to play for

For England, there is a lot to play for at Edgbaston on Saturday, as they usher the weekend in with a handy lead of 214 runs with four wickets in hand.

All is forgotten as Paul Collingwood cements (why does that verb seem most appropriate for the man?) his place in the test team again with a handy hundred. (He got there with a six, didn’t he? Well, well, what’s the world coming to? Now they’ll expect Michael Vaughan to score runs as well, those unreasonable media men.) The captain of the one-day team not finding a place in the test team? That’s a sure way to get the selectors into recalling Graeme Hick.

Ryan Sidebottom gets a chance to do another Bob Willis (as a colleague said, it’s more than the bobbing hair, right?) as he steams in to bowl with a not-so-heavy target to back him. That may put paid to the hopes of Darren Pattinson’s comeback, but who cares for Aussies in England any way?

Andrew Flintoff completes a dream return to the test fold. Was he match fit? Did Michael Vaughan over-bowl him in the first innings? Is he good enough to bat at No. 6? All such questions will be forgotten. Until the big man injures himself again. (Can anyone please lead me to an online video clipping of his two overs to Jacques Kallis in the first innings?)

Andrew Strauss will get one more opportunity to prove that he is worthy of the sparkling whites after back-to-back twin failures following a relatively massive 44 in the first test. With Michael Vaughan preferring to give the opposition two quick wickets at the top of the order, the selectors will find it tough to look beyond a reluctant Marcus Trescothick (remember the man?) to partner Alastair Cook. And if Marcus jumps the ship again… well, let the selectors do their job, I’m not paid to do so.

Ian Bell’s not doing too badly, notwithstanding the twin failures in the second test (and that horror of a shot today), but all it takes is one more loss for the wise men to start looking at Ramps and other assorted veterans for the middle order.

Finally for the skipper. Notwithstanding my cruel jibes at him earlier in this piece, Michael Vaughan redeemed himself somewhat by making a whole fistful of runs today (it constitutes 42.5 percentage of his aggregate for the series so far). But no, Vaughan’s not there in the team to make those runs – that’s for Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar to take care of. A win this weekend and Vaughan will be English captain for life, even after he retires. He will also be unquestionably named the best English captain of all time. Mike Brearley, who’s that? And all those whispers about knighthood will be happily amplified.

There is a lot to play for tomorrow.