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!