Arm Ball

This is unfair criticism for me. I have not attacked the commenter anywhere in this post. I have given the facts and figures for MS batting at no 3. If a blind eye is being turned to the facts, then well nobody can do anything about it. I don’t understand this. I say either, you say neither. I say potato, you say patato. As the famous song from When Harry Met Sally says, it’s a difference of opinion. But for that if you label me a XX kinda person, its just unfair.

Heard of “Agree to Disagree” ? I follow the same principle.

Many times I do say a lot on the thought process that goes behind a certain comment or a post. Thought process which is narrowed or flawed or LIMITED in MY OPINION. I sense regional affiliations gaining core dominance when somebody criticizes MS for not being able to win CSK the 2 IPLs. If MS has said that he got limited talent in IPL, then he must be true. A look at the core of Indian players for CSK and you find barring MS and Raina to an extent, the rest of the lot was awful. Badrinath never fired except 2-3 odd games. Balaji was a joker on the field who didn’t know what he had to do when he had to stop the ball from going to boundary in that match against KKR. Balaji was persisted and routinely he got smacked all over. Captain’s fault ?Or the players fault ? Or is it the franchisee’s fault that they didn’t get talented local players ? And even if the IPL franchisees are city based, the affiliations to it should not be city based. Cynicism should not be there.

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/batting/most_runs_career.html?class=6;id=2009;team=4343;type=year

Click on this link and for yourself find out how much runs did M Vijay (he is a good player), Ashwin, Badrinath made. 60 runs for Vijay, 177 runs for Badrinath and yet he played 14 games. One 50 and 2 ducks. Avg of 20. Care to explain how MS is behind this stats ? Or is it an individual failure of the batsman ?

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/bowling/most_wickets_career.html?class=6;id=2009;team=4343;type=year

Now click on this link and find out how many local lads took how many wickets. Balaji took 13 in 13. Avg of 24.30. He repeatedly went for runs in every game. Take out 4/21 and then it reads 9 in 12 games. Economy of 8.5, only better than Freddie and Gony. And then again the same question : how many local lads here ? The foreign import Murali has 14 wkts and the Goan import Jakati has 13. MS is going to play with the lot of players the franchisee gave him.

Whats more important ? Winning a city based IPL or a country based World T20 or a Test series or a ODI series? For me it would always be country. And I would care a damn he loses in first round of IPL-3 or wins IPL-3 for CSK. They say that a captain is as good as his team. If Dhoni has that leadership skills and it rubs on one team (national) and if it doesn’t rub on other team (IPL) whose fault it is ? captain or team? Despite being publicly pointed out that the fielding and bowling is poor, the Balajis, Badris make the same mistakes, then is it captain’s mistake ? Despite their below average performances this lads were persisted for every game. May be franchisee pressure, may be Kalaingar pressure, who knows.

If CSK had no local icon player, then whose fault it is ? Is it MS or the local cricket association who runs the cricket in the state at fault ? Whose fault it is that the best known cricketer of the state plays for a “North” team of Delhi Daredevils? Whose fault it is to pick the likes of Balaji in the team given that he is no more the bowler he was in his prime? Why did the CSK had to “import” an outsider and ask it to captain its side? Why did CSK franchisee who is from the state itself not bother to pay the $1.15 million for a local cricketer which it did for Freddie? Reason is simple: there is just no talent in the CSK locally. Who were the standout performers for CSK in 2 seasons ? Go figure, you get the answer.

If MS wins a Test series in a land where no other Indian team has won a series or a WC’11 at home, then he would deserve a trillion bows despite the fact that he has won 2 IPLs for CSK back to back or for that matter failed to win a single game in next 2 IPLs.

As for the reply point to point :

1) Also as a captain, his long-term goal should be to promote people to take more responsibility, not do it for them. He can win a few matches by himself today, but he has to teach the rest of the players to do so also.

MS has installed that sense of responsibility in the likes of Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir and RP Singh. This players in addition to the already established players like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan etc in ODIs and add Dravid, Laxman in Tests had that responsibility to win the matches for India. Let’s not forget the role he played in winning the CB series, NZ Odis, SL ODI series where contributions with the gloves and the bat were handy. An average of 46 in ODIs and 36 in Tests (highest for any Indian keeper) is a testimony to this fact.

2) He is clearly ugly with his strokes when he tries to go for big hits. So much so that the big hits happen far too seldom for him to be winning matches. When he grafts around for singles, his way of reaching out for the ball and pushing it into gaps is ungainly, and does not pay off all the time. In short he wastes more balls than he should be doing.

Agreed he hasn’t got the flair and the eye candy ability, but then what matters is runs and he s got them aplenty. 4000 runs in ODIs and 2000 runs in Tests is a testimony to the fact that lad has good batting ability. And his batting average is way better than any other Indian batsmen in ODIs, though he has got lot of not outs. In ODIs may be his boundaries have dried up, but still he scores his runs at almost run a ball. His strike rate of 92 odd runs bears the truth. If he wastes the balls, he makes up for them with his running between the wkts.

3) MSD at 3 cannot be a solution for Rohit’s and YP’s failings. Rohit – given a slot and a security of few matches on the trot has delivered. In CB series Australia for instance. Yousuf as the last specialist may not be the best idea. If he delivered for Warne and not for India, it is not Yousuf who should be doing the thinking, but the think-tank on how best to utilise him.

Rohit Sharma is a waste. I have had said quite a lot about him in this space and if I repeat the same, I would be boring very few who bother to comment J. His batting averages in ODIs reflect his attitude and the truth is he cannot be relied to win matches for India or DC that consistently. Yousuf Pathan delivered in India, he didn’t quite in SA, the results were evident in RR being kicked out. And I feel YP has almost played every ODI after IPL-1 despite the fact that he almost failed to deliver in first few ODIs, but then MS has faith in him and that’s the reason why Rohit Sharma sits out when Tendulkar plays. 3rd position 2005-2009 13 13 3 819 183* 81.90 847 96.69 2 4 1 70 1

I rest my case with this figures for MS at # 3. 13 games and an average of 82 with 2 100s and 4 50s.

Compare that with the current # 3 at ODIs and T20s Suresh Raina :

3rd position 2005-2009 16 16 0 374 84 23.37 483 77.43 0 3 1 37 7