Test Match Report (IND-ENG) 1st Test: Lord Rain God saved the Indian blues

Well, I dont have any obnoxious comments left in me to censure Indian players. But as some of our great players are playing probably for last time in England so its worth while to view a glimpse of their greatness in flicks. So this post is delineating the performance of Indian players in the Lords Match.

1. Waseem Jaffer (5/10) Runs 58+8=66
He played an anchored inning in India's first inning although that inning was deprived of any sheen still good enough to save blushes. He failed miserably in 2nd inning. I gave him 5 points because he is partially responsible for the draw as he played more than 156 balls in the first inning.
2. Dinesh Karthick (5/10) Runs 5+62=67
He was at sea in first inning, dropped the catch of Strauss that cost eventually the match, played a brave knock in second inning.
3. Rahul Dravid (1/10) Runs 2+9=11
He got one of the best delivery in first inning and in second he was bit unfortunate.
4. Sachin Tendulkar (3.5/10) Runs 37+16=53
He along with Dravid were responsible for the pathetic showing of much vaunted Indian top order.
5. Sourav Ganguly (6/10) Runs 34+40=74 and wicket of Cook in first inning.
He brought India back into game twice first by taking the scalp of Cook in first inning when Indian bowling was exposed by the Englishmen and second by saving the Indian doom in the 4th day after the decimation of Dravid, Jaffer and Sachin. He got a beauty in first inning by Anderson.
6. VVS Laxman (4/10) Runs 15+39=54
It was not a great sight to watch Laxman felling with the bells in second inning. His second inning partnership with Dhoni eventually saved the match for India.
7. MS Dhoni (6.5/10) Runs 0+76*=76
Got a debut duck at Lords and started poorly in second inning but his guts and pluck saved the match for India. A great inning under pressure.
8. Anil Kumble (4/10) 2+1= 3 Wickets
He didnt get any chance to play his role and some times he was just looking like an addendum.
9. Zaheer Khan (6/10) 2+4=6 wickets
He started the attack as he has done 5 years back in World Cup final. He was consistent in bits and pieces nevertheless he played his part.
10. Sreesanth (5/10) 3+0=3 Wickets
He was arguably the best bowler in first inning and impressive in the later as well. He will go places.
11. RP Singh (8/10) 2+5=7 wickets
His bowling was as majestic as the batting of Kevin Pietersen. The ball he bowled to Vaughan was one of the best Indian swing ball in the recent past and the short ball that surprised Collingwood was the best Indian bouncer i have ever seen.

Now over to Nottingham with a hope that Fantastic four will fire there. Amen.

P.S. My favourite living legend has just completed his office tenure. My best wishes to him in all his future aims and i hope that i will be able to play a role in his Mission 2020. Amen.

All Time Best Indian ODI Cricket Team

The second and the last post in the current sequence regarding the selection of all time Best Indian ODI Team. Needless to say that i am considering the ODI generation of Indian players i.e. after 1971 AD and minimum qualification for a player is 50 Matches (i.e. He should be a veteran of 50 matches). There is not a huge vier for selection. And the team is:

1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. Sourav Ganguly (Captain)
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Mohammad Azharuddin
5. Yuvraj Singh
6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Kapil Dev (Vice Captain)
9. Zaheer Khan
10. Javagal Srinath
11. Anil Kumble

12th Man Virendra Sehwag/Harbhajan Singh

The openers were obvious choices and we are fortunate to have Sachin and Sourav as our openers. Both are having 40+ averages and both can be called as all rounders. Sourav has taken nearly 100 ODI wickets with a decent average of 37 and Sachin has taken almost 150 wickets with an average of 43 not bad at all.
There was no contest for number 3 slot and Rahul was right there.
There was a huge contest for middle order slots between Vengsarkar, Ajay Jadeja, Kambli, Azharuddin, Yuvraj, Siddhu and Sehwag. Azharuddin got the place because of his exemplary fielding skills. Yuvraj was able to win over Sehwag (for fielding and average) and Jadeja (for strike rate).
Dhoni was an obvious choice for wicket keeper.
People may laugh over the selection of Irfan pathan but he has a great ODI average in bowling as well as in batting(nearly 25 in both). He was given preference over Manoj Prabhakar and Ravi Shastri. All other bowlers were obvious choices.
I have chosen Sehwag as 12th Man over Jadeja because he has a comprehensively better strike rate than Jadeja as well as he is a better bowler.
This is a great team with 4 players having 40+ batting average. 4 world class fielders in Yuvraj, Azhar, Pathan and Kapil. 2 World Class all rounders in Kapil and Pathan. 3 average all rounders in Sourav, Sachin and Yuvraj. 4 players with more than 9000 runs each and 3 bowlers with more than 250 wickets each.This team has scored more than 60,000 ODI runs, 93 centuries and has taken nearly 1500 wickets, what else is required.

All time best Indian Test Cricket Team

After reading and learning a lot these days about all time best Indian Cricket Team i contemplated for a while and then i thought to pen down my Team. This series is divided in two parts ODI team and Test team with my best possible reasons.

My all time Test Team

1. Sunil Gavaskar (Captain)
2. Vinoo Mankad (all-rounder)
3. Vijay Hazare (all-rounder)
4. Rahul Dravid
5. Sachin Tendulkar
6. Mohammad Azharuddin
7. Farokh Engineer (Wicket Keeper)
8. Kapil Dev (all-rounder and vice captain)
9. Amar Singh (all-rounder)
10.Anil Kumble
11. Subhash Gupte

12th Man Sourav Ganguly (as an all-rounder)

There was a close fight between Vijay Merchant and Vinoo Mankad for an opening slot, and Vijay Merchant got the place because of his all round abilities. There was no contest for second slot and Gavaskar was right there.
There were close fights between Vengsarkar, Dravid, Hazare, Sachin, Azhar, Laxman, Mohinder Amarnath and Ganguly for middle order. Dravid and Sachin were obvious choices. Vijay Hazare got the place because of his all round ability. After that there was a close call between Azhar, Vengsarkar, Ganguly, Amarnath and Laxman for remaining 1 place. They all are equally capable batsmen (I am slightly unjust to Azhar). Taking Ganguly as an all rounder will add variety to our bowling attack as he is rather susceptible to fast bowling but he is equally good against Spin bowling. Azhar got the place because of his acrobatic fielding and thus he was able to beat Vengsarkar, Laxman, Amarnath and Ganguly. We need a proper full time keeper. Dravid wont work so i am taking Farokh Engineer over Syed Kirmani and M.S. Dhoni.
There were no great fights for the bowlers. All the bowlers deserved their places.

I have given Captaincy to Gavaskar and Vice Captaincy to Kapil Dev. Sourav Ganguly is the 12th Man in the team but he has been taken for his all round abilities so he has to work really hard otherwise place may got to either Laxman ,Dilip Vengsarkar or Mohinder Amarnath.

Wait for the next article for the the all time Best Indian ODI team.

A visit to a rainy paradise.. Mahabaleshwar

Last Sunday due to enthusiasm of my junior Shiv i experienced the bliss on earth. Mahabaleshwar a place near to Pune (You can reach there from Pune in 3 hrs by public transport). So we reached there to explore things. Our Taxi driver "Raja Hindustani" told so many anecdotes about various films that shot there. It was raining and raining and water pouring every where due to heavy downpour that lasted for about an hour followed by sporadic showers of rain and between all this we captured and relished the nature at its best. Our Raja Hindustani gave an animadversion about the place that this place is second only to Cherapoonji in terms of Rainfall. It was bit fogy and rainy out there so we were not able to make our camera click. Some fortunate pics are located here. One thing i learned there that "Its sacrilege to visit Mahabaleshwar without your girl friend with you". I dont know how much time i will waste in this no so google search.

A trip to Kohinoor "The historical Golconda Fort"

This weekend i got a chance to show my presence in Hyderabad. I joined Manu to reach Fubu's home. Some of my friends (Divyalok, Vivek Ranjan, Ravi Bhushan and Saugata) started for the same from Bangalore and after reaching Hyderabad we all decided to visit Golconda fort during heavy cold rain. But we have the modern incarnation of Manu's boat at our disposal. They call it Qualis.
We first started for the 7 tombs built by Quli Qutub Shah. These tombs are great piece of Indo-Persian architecture. While myself and Divya were enjoying the splendor of the tombs the other party was busy in hearing the cheap jokes on Indian epics by our religious Manu. After devouring the beauty of the tombs we started for our main destination "The Golconda Fort".
Before going into the trip details lets give the honour to the fort by giving few minutes to its history.
This fort was built by Kakatiya empire of Deccan in 13^th Century AD. After that it came under Bahmani sultanate and then to independent Golconda kingdom (under QutubShahi Dynasty). This kingdom was responsible for the birth of “Kuchipudi” dance. This Kingdom was also famous for its Diamond mines (World famous Kohinoor was obtained from its mines).It had its golden period under Qutub Shahi dynasty (1518-1687). The city of Hyderabad was founded in 1589 by this dynasty and the name Hyderabad is based on the Hindu queen of this dynasty. This queen "Bhagmati" after converting to Islam took the name "Hyder". Aurangzeb conquered the fort in 1687 AD by a very costly campaign that took a siege of almost 8 months and in the end he had to use treachery to win the fort. Now the famous fort shows its presence in rubbles and wreckage. I think it’s the only fort to have Hindu Temples and Muslim Mosque both.

We enjoyed every bit of our visit in the fort. Puneet Issar was shooting for a Hindi Film (Highway) in the premises and we had great fun about it. The sound of a clap in certain tombs can be heard up to a huge distance and this shows the maturity of our engineering some 400 years back. We stayed in the fort till 8:00 PM to attend the sound and light show (in the voice of Amitabh Bacchan) about the history of Golconda. The show was truly worth attending and despite of prompting by fellow friends we enjoyed every bit of it.

We consummated the trip by devouring the famous Hyderabadi cuisine. Overall it was a great tryst with the history of Deccan as well as with the old friends. Vivek captured all those memorable moments by his camera and they can be accessed here. Enjoy the rut till we meet again.