Vettori - an underplayed batsman

In the 2nd innings of the 2nd Test in Sri Lanka, Vettori scored 140 - almost half the side's runs - after coming in at #8.

I have never undestood why he comes so low down in the order - he's a better & more consistent batsman than some of those higher up in the order. In the last 5 years, he is the leading run scorer in Tests for NZ (2127 @ 42.54 in 38 matches/59 innings). Next is McCullum almost 200 runs behind in more matches & innings. (details)

He is also the leading run scorer among all of NZ's current players; and he is #5 in their all-time list after names such as Fleming, Crowe, Wright & Astle.

That is some elite company to be part of, I don't understand why he doesn't acknowledge his own importance and performance and push himself higher up the order. Perhaps he is vary of looking over confident - I'm sure if he wasn't captain, then he would be playing a lot higher. (details)

Injuries and Rests....

Injury prone Munaf Patel is injured again. He missed India's 2nd ODI against Sri Lanka with a groin injury that is now going to take him out of the rest of the series. The flip side, though, is that Lakshmipathy Balaji has been brought into the national team after a gap of 3 years. Balaji has played 6 of his 8 test matches till date against Pakistan including the wonderful series in Pakistan in April 2004. Balaji took 12 wickets in that 3 match series at an average of 30.75. Only Kumble (15 @25.93) and Irfan Pathan (12 @28.50) had better records in both teams. He followed that up with 14 wickets @32.28 in the return 3 test series in India the following year. He last played an ODI against Sri Lanka back in August 2005, and his smiling face has been missing from Indian cricket ever since. Initially dropped after the Sri Lanka series, he then suffered a back strain that required surgery and a remodelling of his bowling action. A bowler who took his axeing & injuries in his stride has finally made a comeback. Hopefully, his performances from the Pakistan series will be evident again.

New Zealand's promising, but troubling, batman Jesse Ryder is out of the team once again; this time with an injury. Last month he missed an ODI against West Indies due to lack of training due to a hangover on the day before the match. In November, he contracted a mystery illness that kept him out of the test in Australia. All this after he only returned to the team in September after being injured for 6 to 7 months after punching his fist through a glass door in February 2008. New Zealand will be hoping that he returns soon and continues to make an impact like he did in his initial series.

Yet another promising but injury prone cricketer, Shoaib Akthar, has been injured again and will miss the tests against Sri Lanka. Apart from his numerous injuries, Akhtar's under-par performances have come under the microscope many times, most recently being a couple of weeks ago when the then Pakistan captain, Shoaib Malik, questioned his commitment to the team. So below par has been his performances in recent games that Waqar Younis has suggested he quit Test cricket and focus on ODIs and T20s. Recent omissions from the team include a calf injury in Abu Dhabi before the West Indies series and a 5 year ban (which has since been reduced to a fine) imposed by the PCB for violating the players' code of conduct.

In a rather more interesting turn of events, Australia's most-in-form batsman, captain Ricky Ponting, has been rested from the national team for the 2nd ODI against New Zealand. The resting could then be extended for the rest of the series as well. Was this a rest requested by the captain, or an indication by the selectors that the end of an entertaining career is at hand? Stay tuned.

Pakistan lose the Champions Trophy & the Oval Test.... again!

The International Cricket Council has finally decided to move the postponed Champions Trophy out of Pakistan. A tournament that had already been postponed from September 2008 to October this year, was retained by Pakistan purely because of the BCCI backing to PCB. At that time (in Aug 2008), India & Pakistan were pretty close and both countries considered the other to be a stauch ally. Under pressure from BCCI, PCB & the other pro-BCCI boards, the rather powerless ICC merely postponed the Champions Trophy by a year hoping that the situation would change by end-2009. And change they did. The unfortunate terror attacks in Mumbai in Nov 2008 put the 2 countries at loggerheads. Public opinion against Pakistan led to India's tour of Pakistan being called off on the advise of the Indian Government. With the cancellation of that series, with the security situation in Pakistan not improving, with many internation teams still against touring Pakistan, and with the BCCI-PCB bloc breaking up, the ICC took the open option to move the tournament out of Pakistan. Though no alternate location has been announced, based on the alternate venues discussed last year, I would think that Sri Lanka and South Africa would be the likely alternatives. Given their history of raising questions over a visa for Peter Chingoka (Chairman, Zimbabwe Cricket), England & Australia are least likely venues for this tournament.

Pakistan have now lost the Oval 2006 test to England.... again! After having initially lost the match after umpires Darrell Hair & Billy Doctrove awarded the match to England, Pakistan got the result changed to a draw at the July 2008 ICC meeting.However, the custodians of the laws of cricket, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), refused to acknowledge the change in result on the basis that the ICC did not have the authority (Law 21.10) to overrule the umpires' decision. Keeping in mind the stance of the MCC, the ICC have now decided to re-reverse result of this match to a forfeiture by Pakistan. This ping-pong how weak the ICC is, and how easily it is swayed by its member countries. The main "aim" of the ICC, it appears, is to simply avoid confrontation with anyone, nevermind the rationale of their decisions. In my opinion, the ICC should never have changed the decision of the umpires in the 1st place. Over-ruling the umpires' decision on the very result of the game opens such a pandora box that it is not beyond possibilities that teams could start asking for reversals of dismissals on the basis that the umpires were wrong. Don't get me wrong; I don't for 1 moment think that the umpires were correct in awarding the match to England. In his quest to exert his authority as the umpire, Mr. Hair conveniently forgot that as an umpire, his 1st action should be to ensure an environment where both teams can compete fairly. As the umpire, he was not the main event, merely a conduit to ensure that the main event carried on. So, though I don't agree with the umpires' decision, I firmly believe that the umpires' decision should be final. If batsmen are expected to take wrong decisions by umpires, if bowlers and fielders are expected to recognise that snicks might be missed by umpires, it goes without saying that a result determined by the umpires should be accepted by all and sundry. The initial decision by the ICC to reverse the original result was a political one... and I for one am glad that they have rectified that by now making a cricketing one!

January Round Up

It's been quite a while since my last post... and that's partly because the 2009 cricket season in Singapore kicked off on 10-Jan with the Twenty20 Championships (Clubs & Corporates). The weekends then whizzed away with full days being spent umpiring - 3 games a day. Weekdays were spent in making sure that all loose ends at work were tied up before I left for 2 weeks leave on 24-Jan. So here's the catch up on all the happenings in Jan.

• Rain was the real winner in the New Zealand vs West Indies ODI series, taking 2 out of the 5 games and forcing a Duckworth-Lewis result in 2 of the other 3. Officially, the hosts took the ODI series 2-1, finally providing a result after the Tests & T20s were shared. The win helped SA maintain their strong 4th position in the ICC ODI rankings.
• Sri Lanka & Zimbabwe joined hosts Bangladesh in a Tri-Nation series that went closer than what most would have expected. The hosts qualified for the finals by beating SL in their league match, and then fought tooth-and-nail before SL stumbled over the finish line with 2 wickets & 11 balls to spare. Young 21 year old Shakib Al Hasan was by far the player of the tournament scoring 153 runs @76.5, double the next highest run scorer (Jayasuriya with 76)
• Zimbabwe stayed on for a 3-ODI series against hosts Bangladesh which the hosts took rather convincingly at 2-1. With no great performances to talk about, and no real significance to the rest of the cricketing community, I shan't spend any more time on this series.
• Sri Lanka travelled to Pakistan where they beat the hosts 2-1 in the ODI section of their tour of the troubled nation. Dilshan top scored with 255 runs and Gul was the leading wicket-taker with 10 wickets. They will return for the Test series post the ODI series against India.
• India reached Sri Lanka and convincingly beat the hosts in Game 1. 4 ODIs and 1 T20 to go in this series. Game 2 is tomorrow, on 31-Jan.
  
• Zimbawe are in nearby Kenya for a 5-ODI series and lead 2-0 in the series.
  
• Australia's summer appeared to be heading upwards when they convincingly won both the T20s against South Africa. When the world #1 & world #2 shared the 1st 2 games, there were hopes abound that the series would go down to the wire, but the contenders ensured that Australia won no mental advantage ahead of the return series in South Africa by taking the ODI series 4-1 and with it, the title of ODI Team Number 1. Albie Morkel was awarded the Man of the Series for his all-round performance of 105 @52.50, 3 wickets & 2 catches. The final game on 30-Jan ended the almost-2-month-long tour dominated by South Africa who beat the hosts 2-1 in the Tests, lost 0-2 in T20s and won 4-1 in ODIs - clearly Australia has passed the baton on.
  
• England have landed in West Indies for a 70-day tour comprising 4 tests, 1 T20 and 5 ODIs; a good start winning their opening 3-day tour game by 217 runs.
• New Zealand have returned to Australia for the ODI leg of their tour, one that has started badly with a 6 wickets loss to NZ President's XI.

In IPL news, 111 foreign players will be available for the auction ahead of the 2nd edition of IPL. Key players include KP, Flintoff, Clarke, Haddin, Clark, Monty, Shakib, Duminy, Nel and Tharanga. However, poorly performing Australian captain Ponting has questioned if Aussie players should take part in the IPL at the risk of their national performance. The 1st 'transaction' of the transfer window saw Delhi Daredevils swap opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan with Mumbai Indians' bowler Ashish Nehra. The 2nd transfer saw Mumbai Indians' Uthappa swapped with Bangalore Royal Challengers' Zaheer Khan.

Sydney - similarities abound?

The 3rd Test between Australia and South Africa at Sydney Cricket Ground had amazing statistical similarities to the 1st Test. These stats were compiled by me at the start of Day 5; hence not really valid now, but still an interesting read I guess :P

                  | 1st Test | 3rd Test |
1st innings (Aus) |  375     |  445     |
2nd innings (SA)  |  281     |  327     |
== Lead   (Aus)   |   94     |  118     |
== Lead % (Aus)   |  25%     |  26%     |  (of 1st innings)
== Trail % (SA)   |  34%     |  36%     |  (of 2nd innings)
3rd innings (Aus) |  319     |  257/4d  |
== Target  (SA)   |  414     |  376     |
== Target / wicket|  41.4    |  41.7    |  (since SA only have 9 wickets in 3rd test)

As mentioned in the previous post, since Graeme Smith came out to bat with a broken hand, the last stat doesn't hold any more; just take it at it's face value and don't come at me swinging a cricket bat :P

This match also had remarkable similarities to the 2nd Test between Australia and India at the same venue at the same time last year.
Both matches were very important for Australia - last year the fight was on for glory as Australia tried to equal the world record of 16 Test wins on a trot; this year it was for pride as they hoped to bounce back from a 2-0 series loss and get themselves on the scoreboard.
Both games entered the final day with the visitors needing to bat out almost the entire day - last year Australia declared on Day 5 morning leaving India a rather unfanthomable target of 333 in about 2.5 sessions; this year South Africa went into the final day needing a further 314 runs with 9 wickets in hand.
Both games had some contentious umpiring decisions - last year on Day 1 of the test, Mark Benson gave Ricky Ponting 2 lives before Steve Bucknor gave a shocking life to Andrew Symonds when he was clearly caught behind (and I say 'clearly' because I was at the ground when it happened). More umpiring errors followed on Day 2 and then the final shockers on Day 5 - the 'catch' off the pad of Rahul Dravid and the controversial decision by Benson to take the Ponting's word on Saurav Ganguly's catch rather than refer to the 3rd umpire. This year, yet another close catch on the final day and Ponting puts his finger up when even his own bowler wasn't sure, replays showed some doubt, but Jacques Kallis was still given out. Later in the evening as the fight got even closer, Boucher was sent on his way with a shocker from Asoka de Silva.
Last year Australia got past the Indian rear-guard action with 7 balls left in the match. This year Australia got past the South African rear-guard action with 10 balls to spare.
The SCG surely is building up as a great venue for testing photo-finishes.

An Up-and-Down week

This week saw quite a bit of cricket... some rather one-sided, others extremely closely fought... some with exceptionally low scores, others with huge batting performances... Here's a quick round-up.

The 1st international of 2009 kicked off in Sydney with the hosts Australia looking for a consolation win and keep some of their pride. The visiting South African team had already won the series and were looking for a 3-0 whitewash to take the #1 position in the ICC test rankings. What a match this one turned out to be - Australia scored a mammoth 445 batting almost till tea on Day 2. South Africa suffered a major blow early in their innings as Smith was forced to retire hurt with a broken hand. Perhaps the effects of Melbourne lingered as the South Africans didn't look the same dominating team that had been on display a week prior, and they ended the 1st innings conceding a lead of 118 after Siddle took 5. The OZs (except Matty Hayden) had a gr8 2nd innings and Ponting once again showed signs of why the OZs have been so feared over the last few years. Leaving aside the pressure on himself & his team, Ponting declared extremely sportingly, risking it all for a chance to get on the board in this series. Set with a target of 376 in 116 overs, South Africa didn't start well with make-shift opener Morkel falling for a duck. The 1st 8 wickets fell at relatively regular intervals save for a 56 run 5th wicket partnership between SA find of the series Dumminy and deVilliers. But from 202/8 began the fight back. No one in their wildest dreams would have expected Steyn & Ntini to bat out the 25.5 overs required for the draw.... but bat they did, frustrating the OZs no end. Unfortunately, Steyn fell with 8.2 overs yet to play. Just when everyone thought it was all over, out walked the captain - injured elbow, broken finger and all. Odds were still pretty high on an OZ victory at that point, but Smith & Ntini managed to keep the OZs at bay for a further 7 overs, providing a nail-biting finish that saw the OZs win with just 10 balls to spare. Never mind the winners or the losers in this match... the real winner was Test match cricket.

Borrowing a from a Cricinfo article (and thanks to my friend Nichoo for sharing this with me), this line pretty much summed up the atmosphere when Smith walked out to bat against all odds:

They thought it was all over when Steyn was finally adjudged leg-before-wicket to Andrew McDonald following a 50 partnership. But then Smith crumpled his sick note, and the Members Pavilion roared - yes, roared rather than gasped, despite all Australians' desperation for a victory - as his unmistakably fulsome frame came into view, descending the stairs to the compelling conflict zone.

Pretty impressive that he came out to bat with a hurt elbow (albeit a carried injury) and a broken finger. The only more dominant image I have of resilience on the cricket ground is of one Mr. Anil Kumble a.k.a Jumbo walking out to bowl to against West Indies at Antigua with a broken jaw, bandaged face and all.

To be honest, with this game in the week, all other matches pretty much just make up the footer of the post. Normal service resumed in Bangaldesh as the hosts were trounced by Sri Lanka by a whopping margin of 465 runs with one full day to spare. If not for the 1st Test, this match would most definitely have reignited yet another round of "should Bangladesh be playing test cricket" debate, and in my opinion, they really shouldn't be. The competitive Bangladesh tests have been far too rare and far between in the last 9 years and 59 test matches. But, thats an argument for another day.

Over in New Zealand, West Indies beat the hosts in rain-affected ODI #2 taking a 1-0 lead in the series (1st ODI was washed out). WI would take gr8 pleasure from Sarwan's unbeaten 67 and know that their best chance of doing well in the rest of the series depends a lot on Sarwan & his form.
NZ bounced back in the 3rd ODI beating WI so comprehensively that the match was a complete bore to follow. Losing a match with 30 overs to spare must be a terrible disappointment for a young team like WI. NZ once again depended on captain & lead-bowler Vettori to pick 4 quick wickets and restrict the WI from getting any more than 128.

Back home in India, the 2008/09 Ranji Trophy Super League reached the semifinals stage where again there was a massively one-sided affair between Mumbai and Saurashtra; never mind the controversial BCCI playing condition that could have seen Mumbai lose the game despite scoring over 600 runs. The 2nd semifinal between Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh was almost as close as the Aus-SA test, with the game being decided only in the last hour of play. Tamil Nadu were just 2 wickets short in the end, and UP were carried home by a unbeaten 150 by Shivakanth Shukla. The finals between Mumbai & UP will be played in Hyderabad from the 12th.

In other news - Mohammad Asif (remember him?) still does not know if he can play cricket ever again, SCG went pink in support of the McGrath Foundation for breast cancer awareness, Sri Lanka are trying to get India to travel and have even split their Pakistan tour into 2 to accomodate India, the ECB has offered English players a clear opportunity to play in IPL, Pakistan for the 1st time in many years have some form of stability with Malik appointed captain for an 'indefinite period of time', England dive into instability as captain resigns and coach is sacked, and Hayden is given the boot from the ODI team.

And finally, the Cricinfo Awards 2008 nominees are out. Please vote for your favs.

IPL Idol

American Idol started it. UK Idol, Singapore Idol, Indian Idol continued it.

So You Think You Can Dance started a new phase of it. Nach Baliye and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa were spawned from this series.

America's Next Top Model kicked off yet another another stream of reality television.

Now Shahrukh Khan brings them all together... The innovativeness of American Idol (with the uniqueness amongst peers),the dancing capabilities of So You Think You Can Dance, and the beauty-quotient of Next Top Model.

He brings to you - Kolkata Knightriders' Next Top Dancing Cheerleader!