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| APARTHEID AGAIN ? |
| Saturday, July 26, 2008 |
When the South African cricket team was banned from playing cricket in the late 1960s, it had exposed the worst effect of racism to be practised in sport. The beauty of sport is that it cuts across all barriers--linguistic, regional, colour, caste. But in this case, even sport could not play the leveller in front of heavy racism in the form of Apartheid. Ever since the South African cricket team were granted the right to play international cricket in 1992, Protean racism had long become defunct as far as cricket was concerned and we now see a Dale Steyn rubbing shoulders with a Makhaya Ntini.
Cricket has had its fair share of racism with players resorting to racist abuses with one another on the field creating an ugly picture of the gentleman's game. But the administrators of the game have been wary enough not to let such incidents go overboard to the extent of damaging the spirit of the game.
The recent form of racism is being practised by an Indian. Now do not conjure up mental pictures of a Punjabi bowler abusing a Queensland allrounder by referring to the latter's most primitive ancestors for that issue has been resolved long back. This time it is Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the BCCI and the commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the helm. The issue here is IPL's Indian rival, the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
The BCCI-ICL tussle began ever since Subash Chandra approached the latter for recognition of his league. He was given the cold shoulder but Subash went on to create the league and brought in players like Lara, Cairns, Harvey, Astle etc in its ranks. The BCCI tried every attempt possible to thwart it including bringing lesser known grounds and stadia under its control. But the ICL managed to get hold of the Panchkula stadium in Chandigarh. At this moment, the BCCI realised it had had enough and decided to take on the ICL by forming the IPL. At the end of a hugely successful IPL, most ICL players are left ruing over taking the hasty decision of not waiting a bit longer.
The BCCI recently issued a notice to Piyush Chawla and VVS Laxman to not play for their English counties as they had ICL players in their ranks. This move is described as nothing less than apartheid by Harsha Bhogle in his latest Indian Express column. It would not be a surprise if the BCCI declared, one day, that Kapil Dev never played for India, given the absurdity of such a move. If the BCCI is seriously thinking of grooming youngsters like Chawla, there cannot be a better method than allow them to take part in county competitions and thereby get a feel of the conditions in other countries.
In the past, the Indian cricket's administrators have issued warnings to selectors and players to refrain from commenting on the board's matters. The BCCI would do well to realise that by indulging in such prohibitory acts, it is the game which stands to lose out in the long run.
This has nothing to do with cricket leagues. Delhi cricketer Akash Chopra is authoring a book on the life of a typical Indian cricketer in which he attempts to portray the hurdles an Indian cricketer faces at the domestic level before he enters the international arena. He also attempts to dispel the popular public opinion of cricketers as pin-up boys. The book will be launched in October.Labels: BCCI, cricket, ICL, IPL |
Property of Sheks @ 12:40 am   |
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| BCCI--Board of Cash and Confusion of India |
| Monday, June 23, 2008 |
The forthcoming cricket Champions League is presently embroiled in the controversy of whether to allow teams, featuring ICL players, to participate. The BCCI vice-president, Lalit Modi, made it clear that teams with ICL players would be disqualified. The top two league teams from India, South Africa, Australia and England are slated to participate and Modi's statement is bound to affect England the most, since 15 out of their 18 county teams feature ICL players. And the top two county teams would definitely not be from the exceptional three teams, it is believed.
The BCCI president stepped in, a couple of days ago, and unleashed his 'Pawar'-play. He stated that counties with ICL players would be allowed to play but added a caveat that the BCCI would form the core of the decision making. If this is the case,then England may, very well, be a non-participant since the only thing that England is worried about is ICL players in its county teams and the only decision the BCCI must take now is keep ICL players out.
The whole irony of this issue is that the competition will be held by the England Cricket Board (ECB) and that Cricket Australia (CA) will be framing the tournament rules and fixtures. And here we have a cash-rich cricket board wresting its muscle power, in the name of deciding its own rules, on the other three hapless, submissive cricket boards.
The only sensible thing the ECB can do is to boycott the tournament. But who would take such a drastic step when there are a million dollars at stake? The ECB is yet to arrive at a decision on this while the BCCI has already decided to invite Pakistani teams for the event in case the ECB refuses to comply with its demand of keeping away ICL players.
The other side, the ugly face, of cricket!Labels: cricket, ICL, IPL |
| Property of Sheks @ 12:01 pm |
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| PURE CRICKET |
| Tuesday, April 29, 2008 |
** A double century with this post after more than three years of blogging. Should have achieved this landmark about six months ago but better late than never.
** Mukul Kesavan, renowned writer who authored the book on cricket, "Men in White", (he contributes to a Cricinfo blog by the same name), is not happy with the Indian Premier League and goes to the extent of comparing it with trash in this article. Somwehere in the article he expresses his hatred for Twenty20 cricket stating that bowlers are cast as "extras" or in other words, are redundant.
** If Mukul had watched the inaugural match of the IPL between Bangalore and Kolkata, he may not have made such a statement. Or maybe he would have, given the fact that he hates T20. Any die-hard fan of cricket would acknowledge the Kolkata bowlers' efforts to bowl out the Royal Challengers for a paltry 82. But then, Mukul could challenge this by saying that the Bangalore team was full of Test players who are unsuited for T20. In that case, I would suggest him to watch the Kolkata vs Chennai IPL match in which bowlers of the Chennai team succeeded in their efforts to not give away too many runs to the Knightriders. While it is generally believed that T20 is a batsman's game, I am of the view that it has got something in it for the bowlers too. Any experienced, talented bowler will realise that he has only four overs to produce his best. Taking wickets may not be all that necessary but not conceding too many runs is. It gives him an opportunity to innovate, come up with new ways to fox the batsman and he can then apply these strategies to 50-over matches. I hear someone saying IPL + T20 = death of FOI(fifty over internationals) but I can ignore him/her for the ICC has already planned to conduct an FOI World Cup in 2011 and that too in the Indian subcontinent and I am sure it will be much better than FOI WC 2007 which turned out to be a dampener.
** Another piece of garbage in Mukul's IPL trash can is what he calls razzmatazz provided by Bollywood stars and cheerleaders. Fans like me find the entertainment from the cricketers more fascinating than that by Bollywood stars, one of whom has termed himself the 12th man of the Kolkata team. Somewhere near the end of the post, Mukul compares IPL with the EPL i.e cricket with football. He says that teams in the EPL have a century old legacy attached to them and since the IPL does not have one, it will fail because of narrow geographical base. He must realise that this is only the inaugural series and down the line we might have teams like Ahmedabad Avalanches, Madurai Machans, Cochin Kuttichaathaans etc. Whether the IPL will fail or not, we will know after this inaugural tournament and what comes after that. With one whole month of T20 action, it is too early to say.
** Meanwhile the Indian Cricket League(ICL) is charting out plans to have an all-England team on the lines of its all-Pakistani team, the Lahore Badshahs. There are plans to have South African, Australian and West Indian sides as well.
** The ICL has applied to the ICC seeking recognition. The IPL has requested the ICC to provide it a window i.e include it in the international cricketing calendar. Not to be done in by the success of its neighbour, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) plans to launch its own premier league. The ECB has collaborated with millionaire Allan Stanford, resulting in a Stanford-ECB T20 league. Cricket Australia (CA), who was a victim of the Kerry Packer circus of the late 1970s, is planning its own T20 league.
** Elsewhere in TamilNadu, the trailor and music of KamalHassan's upcoming movie 'Dasaavathaaram' are working wonders. Listening to the music resulted in Malcolm Speed quitting his post of ICC president and watching the trailor frustrated Harbhajan Singh so much that he slapped his Indian team mate Sreesanth and was slapped in return with a rest-of-IPL ban.Labels: cricket, ICL, IPL |
| Property of Sheks @ 12:39 pm |
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| MUSINGS |
| Thursday, April 03, 2008 |
The ICL Chennai Superstars team fails to get a hatrick of three straight series wins. After winning the inaugural ICL T20 and the ICL 50s tournaments, they failed to qualify for the finals after being defeated by the Hyderabad Heroes, yesterday. Chasing a score of 148, Superstars had managed to reach 136 in 19 overs with three wickets remaining. Justin Kemp of the Hyderabad Heroes bowled the last over and in the process, picked up two successive wickets of the first two balls. In came Shabbir Ahmed. It seemed, at that moment, that it was all over for the Superstars when Shabbir sprang a surprise by hitting a six taking the score to 142. All that was needed was one more sixer. But Kemp had other ideas and bowled a tighter delivery and all Shabbir Ahmed could manage was a quick single, almost running out Syed Mohammed, who was at the non-striker's end till then. 5 runs from 2 balls. Syed Mohammed was going strong with a strike rate of 141 and he was expected to hit the winning shot. But he messed up in the process, hitting to the wicketkeeper, trying to 'steal' a single and running himself out, thus signalling the end of the Superstars' campaign in the ICL Grand Championship 2008. Hyderabad Heroes will meet one of Kolkata Tigers and Lahore Badshahs in the finals while Chennai Superstars will vie for the third place with the loser among the latter two teams.
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Presently on, is the other semi-final between Kolkata Tigers and the so-far-undefeated Lahore Badshahs. The Badshahs have posted an imposing total of 182 and the Tigers have just begun their chase.
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The Cauvery issue is back. This time it is not over tribunal observations but over a drinking water supply project at the Hogenakkal area, that lies exactly between Karnataka and TamilNadu. Karnataka is not in favour of TamilNadu utilising the river's waters for supplying drinking water to Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts. The state contends that the centre give permission to implement a similar project to supply drinking water to Bangalore City. TN argues that it will be utilising only that share of the water allotted to it.
There is the usual stuff happening...farmers from Mandya district blocking the Bangalore--Mysore highway, defacing, torching and deflating tyres of TN-bound buses, simmering tension at the border between the two states, regional Kannada parties (some of whom are Kannada chauvinists) protesting, autodrivers in Bangalore frowing at anyone who happens to speak in Tamil, Tamil movies lifted off theatres in Karnataka etc. Editorials in newspapers opine that the only way to solve this issue is by talks. But when talks have been going on for decades and no solution is in sight till date, how could one expect fresh rounds of talks to resolve the issue?Labels: cauvery, cricket, karnataka, tamilnadu |
| Property of Sheks @ 8:34 pm |
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| SHEKY'S CRICKET ZONE |
| Thursday, March 06, 2008 |
The Indian cricket team has finally won an ODI series after six years,defeating ODI world champions Australia. Most of the new players have proved themselves in their very first ODI tournament overseas. But there is a flip side to this.While Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar have been tipped to be the future spearheads,the selectors will now find it challenging to accommodate the likes of Zaheer Khan and R P Singh into the side. Going into a game with four pace bowlers cannot be considered a viable option due to the presence of Piyush Chawla,India's new full-time leg spinner after Anil Kumble. Given that he is able to turn the ball,it is important that he be given sufficient chances so that he can be groomed into someone like Kumble. The best thing the selectors could do is to create a pool of ten fast bowlers from which they could pick the best performers. This might help avoid creating a problem of plenty.
The Indian Cricket League,which was expected to meander in oblivion, while the IPL auction was going on,seems to be growing strong with players like Damien Martyn, Jason Gillespie and Mike Kasprowicz signing up for the T20 grand championship scheduled to begin on March 9. Edelweiss Capital has offered to sponsor Rs.20 crore for the ICL, resolving, to some extent, the problem of sponsorship.However it has to do something innovative, apart from signing in retired overseas players, to live up to its goal of changing the face of Indian cricket.
Two new teams have come up in the ICL. They are the Ahmedabad Rockets and Lahore Badshahs. The former will be captained by Damien Martyn while the latter by Inzamam-ul-Haq, who captained the ICL's Hyderabad Heroes in its last tournament. Hyderabad Heroes will in turn be led by Chris Harris. The first non-Indian team has been created supposedly because of the large number of Pakistani players signing up. However Shabbir Ahmed will continue to play for the Chennai Superstars.
Given the huge number of New Zealanders in the ICL, it would not be surprising if another non-Indian team, say "Wellington Wizards" or "Auckland Fighters" were formed. Picture this:Nathan Astle,Chris Cairns,Craig McMillan,Hamish Marshall,Shane Bond,Daryl Tuffey,Adam Parore,Chris Harris,Andre Adams--most of them phenomenal cricketers. The reason for switching to the ICL is because of the insufficient remuneration and the unstable contracts with the national side. This reminds one of the Australian team of the 1970s most of the players of which signed up with Kerry Packer for his World Series.
With the ICL Grand T20 on March 9 and the second edition of the IPL auction on March 11, there definitely is cricket happening everywhere.Labels: cricket, ICL, IPL |
| Property of Sheks @ 11:38 am |
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| THE FUTURE OF CRICKET |
| Tuesday, January 15, 2008 |
Selectors in Cricket Australia(CA) have decided to anoint Michael Clarke as successor to Ricky Ponting. This move raised a number of eyebrows, including those of Adam Gilchrist, but CA says the decision was made with a vision for the future. Below is the video of Brad Hogg's wicket of New Zealander Gareth Hopkins in the recent Chappell-Hadlee series. Michael Clarke was clearly playing in the "right spirit of the game" similar to the way he played against India.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jdV70DiuEww
As the video shows, Hopkins is not happy. The way he kept turning to look behind on his way back to the pavilion says it all. He is not at all pleased.
Compare this with what happened in the recent Sydney test. Sourav Ganguly stood his ground confident that Clarke grounded his catch. What happened later is history. Michael Clarke's acceptance of having grounded the catch is what is playing in the right spirit of the game. He was definitely playing in the spirit of the game but in the wrong one.
Why didn't the Kiwis react like the Indians did? It's probably because the New Zealand media does not care a damn for cricket. While in India, come the cricket season and the whole of the Indian media is glued to it. There has been a lot of talk on technology replacing conventional umpiring. Experts have even opined that umpires are not needed on the field. But what I am trying to emphasise is how technology can be put to best use in cricket. If Daniel Vettori and his teammates, upon watching the replay many times, had demanded that the umpire recall the decision against Hopkins, Michael Clarke would have thought twice before saying 'Yes' to the question of whether he had taken Ganguly's catch cleanly.
Below is a video of Kumar Sangakkara's dismissal in the Brisbane test when Sri Lanka was chasing a target of 507. Sri Lanka seemed to getting closer to the target with Sangakkara leading the way when Rudi Koertzen played foul.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eTrGdJylv0A
The third umpire could play a stronger role in avoiding such false decisions in future. Irrespective of whether the dismissal is a clean one or not, the third umpire could check with the TV replays and if a decision is found to be false, he could ask the on-field umpires to change their decision. This is more or less similar to what Steve Waugh refers to as a "referral system" in which the third umpire is referred to for the fall of each wicket. This will in turn help cricket boards to know about the character of their players and also helps avoid making decisions like appointing a dishonest cricketer as the captain of his side.Labels: cricket, TECHNOLOGY |
| Property of Sheks @ 3:34 pm |
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| IS THIS CRICKET? |
| Monday, December 03, 2007 |
George Bernard Shaw's quote on cricket "22 fools are playing and 22000 fools are watching". Apparently it is the watchers who are made fools of by the innumerable advertisements. Advertisements have been vying for screen space with the match telecast. You start watching the match right from the start and after a certain point of time, you actually begin to wonder if what you are watching is really a cricket match.
Picture this--During the Twenty20 world cup match between India and England, everyone was watching with bated breath as to whether Yuvraj Singh, after 5 consecutive sixers, would pull off another one. He did so, successfully, and the next second, the ads came pouring in. This, after the ball had not even crossed the boundary. If such ads in the shortest version of cricket can be irritating enough, just imagine the situation in the case of Test matches.
Before the 2003 World Cup, Set Max went around advertising that every ball of every match would be telecast live and exclusive. However, it so happened during the India-England league match that when the match was switched to, after a string of ads, the batsmen had completed the first run and were scampering for the second. It took some time to figure out who was bowling that particular over.
Compare this with the New Zealand-South Africa one-dayer, that was telecast, yesterday, on Ten Sports. No clutter (of ads)! The problem is not with the channels but with the teams. Matches or series featuring India attract the greatest number of sponsors. With the BCCI's cash registers ringing, thanks to the sponsors, Indian cricket has never had it so good. A look around the stadium would present the true picture--Airtel's logo on the grass,Vodafone's logo on the boundary boards and Reliance's ad on the screen. Then Nokia advertising its 1200 and 1208 mobiles, Reliance flaunting its 999-rupee mobile and LG with its slim,silver mobile.
Reliance Mobile's catchphrase aptly sums up this situation--"Yeh India ka Cricket Hai"Labels: cricket |
| Property of Sheks @ 11:49 am |
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| About Me |
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Name: Sheks
Home: Madras, TamilNadu, India
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