Arm Ball

Everyone had forgotten about Dravid, the ODI player for 2 years. And suddenly you find him in the probables for CT. He did a fair job in scoring 180 runs in 5 games. And then he is dropped. Why? What are the benchmarks ? What are the reasons ? When the likes of Yousuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma can be given a long run for being young, the likes of Dravid and Ganguly are dropped albeit just for being old. Dravid didnt do a wrong thing in this 5 ODIs he played. 5 ODis is not enough to judge a player.

And that too with a man of Dravid’s stature. Even a fake player like Jayawardhene plays on long in ODIs when he scores 3 ducks back to back. This isnt a way to deal a senior player like Dravid. If this was to be done, then he should not have been included in the ODi scheme as well. Called on the ground of so called weakness of short pitched stuff where the IPL beauties cant play Dravid laid the fears of short ball to rest. Not a single batsman went out to a short ball in the Lankan tri series.

Selectors have shown that they are jokers just like Mohinder Amarnath had famously said 20 years back. That still holds true to this date. Its a sick irony that the likes of Srikanth and Vengsarkar have proved to be same category selectors as the wise fool men as in their times. Who is next ? Tendulkar ? Likes of Hirwani and Raju would decide on the likes of Tendulkar and Dravid ? Cheap way to handle complex affairs. The selectors lack maturity.

Thanks to the quality of players we have (most of the XI) we are way above the mess of Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Else the Srikanths and Dilips are no different than Qasims , Sohails and the Baris of Pakistan and those unpronounciable names from Sri Lanka. Unfortunately the likes of Srikanth and his touts would stay on for long for now. And thats a disgrace to the Indian cricket.

So he decided to change his loyalties to Wayamba and come to India. He also got his good friend and skipper to comment in the T20 league. And what they usually wrote in the newspaper columns or post match presentations is now being uttered in commentary.

FIP is now a Wayamba player and he is Mahela Loserwardhene.

Whoa man.

Indian idiots all the way.

Dhoni as the captain of ODI and Test teams…..

And we called for firing him….

No T20 team so no Younis Khan. Just an award for lone sane Lankan Dilly for his Dilscoop ice cream shot.

Gambhir as Test player.

Dhoni as ODI player. Criticism awaited. Gill babu, get started. I am awaiting for your comment on some XXXk trundler and flat track bullies.

Lol. He is stuck at that point. Get ahead, go further.

Thats the apt recognition for the Delhi kid who has set the world on fire with his explosive batting, with his patience not his natural virtue (NZ) and of course barging the shoulders to the DuckMan Watso….

ODI player MS who led his team to all bilateral wins all over and scored runs @ 61 at an impressive SR of 86, well 10 below his initial one. Criticism awaited and invited. Get started.

Test team :

Strauss and Gambhir as openers with AB as # 3 ??????? Tendulkar at 4. Thilan Samarweera at 5. Wtf. Flat track king in the Test team of year. What substanced innings did he play ?

Clarke and Dhoni at 6 and 7. Apt.

Shakib Al Hasan at 8. Mitch at 9, Broad and Steyn as rest. Debatable.

Why Samarweera. No Mahela thank god. Oodi baba. Character not heard.

ODI team :

Sehwag and Gayle as openers. Gayle ? Not quite. Gambhir would be in. KP and Dilshan. Dilshan in ODI team ? Somebody tell the selectors ODI is 50 overs, not 20. Yuvraj, Dhoni and Freddie apt. Umar Gul fine.

Mendis and Kulasekhra ? Why ? Besides 6 for 13 what did Mendis do ? He was well negated by Indians and former Indians. Still!!!

All in all a very good selection and good awards. Yes one reason cos Indians rule the roost. Unfortunately no Sri Lankan. A lesson : play on lively pitches and win abroad not only BD.

If Saffas lose today, Kiwis just need to beat England and if they lose, they go in a tussle with the Lankans and Saffas on NRR which they should have edge on the hosts and characterless men now made bare in back to back defeats….

Keep blabbering Sanga Silva and Mahela Jaywardhene.

I am relaxed that this guys now would shut their ass up and go sit in the corner with mouths taped.

And adios to Sanath Jayasurya.

A refreshing and candid read from Younis Khan. I rate him and MS as the 2 of the best speaking captains. Very honest, very candid and refreshing.

Thats a sea change frm the character rants and projection of how good we are and process oriented from Lankan chaps. Fit in Sanga or Mahela, they would just sound shit.

Contrast this in the above interview where Osman Saimuddin asks Younis about the extreme nature of Pakistan — sublime to ridiculous. And the chap candidly admits that this is in the inherent nature of the country.

Ditto for MS when he quotes about the fan and media pressure.

One more place where YK goes candid is the reason why he was not willing to accept captaincy post 07 world cup loss. Another place he is awesome is when he suggests how much he had to pump every player for the Australia series which in the end burnt him out and he lost the focus.

I mean in this era of self marketing who would admit the mistakes openly. That takes a big heart to do that. MS, Younis have it. Thats why they are the best of speakers and make it a refreshing read.

I dont bother about the lose twangs like Gayle or Ponting here. Strauss is not even considered. Vettori is too good a man to rip him apart on this area. He is a work man who is trying hard to carry his team on his own shoulders just like Sachin did in 90s.

Who captains Bangladesh, I dont know. Is it Asharhalf or Shakib or is it 650 million dollar baby who was KKR’ed ? I have said the best, I have said who I dont care and I say the worst speakers are Sangakara and Mahila Jaya…..

BAW WAW Mendis took 3 wkts or 4 to prove that Saffers cannot play spin. Is Mendis back ? Ask Pakistanis or Indians. Answer aiwai mil jayega.

Unfortunately for Saffers, time wasnt theirs as AB and Dale Steyn said. Mahila, supposedly an abundance character man sparkled once in a million times and his time was today. So the next games now he would be back to his scoring pattern.

Sanga Singh who is now the “aaankho ka dulara” for every sub continental cricket writer (exclude Indians) was among runs too. I havent digged his post match interview. I saw the scoreline in the office on my iPhone and first word i said was “Damn” when SA scored read 4/121 in 21 overs.

A lot of euphoria has been generated around the statements made by Sanga Singh and people call them as mind games. Whatever they are, they are most boring and repititive. He should learn some new stuff before saying the same stuff which in a short is ” We are trying to win every game , have a process and have a long term goals”. Give us a breather man. We aint robots to listen to the same shit every time you open your mouth.

Learn something from Dhoni who would be ruthlessly honest in stunning the team, media and fans by quoting that bowling was bad, batting was good, XX player was fine or bad. Ah man. India boosting. Yup.

Saffers, as Q says are hopeless in multi team tournaments. I believe this is one game SA played with SL after 2003 tie game which kicked them out of the tournament and ended Pollock’s captaincy.

If thats true 6 years and no game in SA. Alright thats true. SL havent toured SA since 2002. Amazing. Have toured Bangladesh 3 times and Zimbabwe 2 times. No wonder they have inflated averages.

South Africa wont be affected that much as they next play England and New Zealand. SA and SL should be good to go to the semis, though I would hope England and NZ show a bit more character in taking out the character out of the SL team.

Yusuf flopped.

Mendis flopped.

Akmal bros clicked, so did Misbah and Naveed Al Hasan. Who s he ? Is he Rana ? ICL man ?

Other hand NZ lost. West Indies lost.

Perhaps BD would have been better……

Australia would win in another practice game vs England C in England to begin their defence of the title and finally lose it to India in the semi final.

Who said cricket is for youth ?

Perform and keep persisting.

Age doesnt matter. Its just a number. Much for hysteria of the buffoons who know nothing on the game and for whom sustaining the limelight is the only purpose.

How does it matter if you are 25 and keep scoring 20s and 30s remain in the team but a batsman who has had just 5 bad ODIs is dropped for 2 long years. And the man who scores 10700 ODI runs, only 3rd or 4th man in the history to have 10k runs in both formats goes out just cos he is 34. Was 34.

A 40 year old man scores a 98 in the game against India and the 32 year old scores just 1 and 17 and 31 year old hits himself out. And 37 year old takes 5-for in almost every 2nd or 3rd inning and a 26 year old fails after the initial hyesteria.

The top 4 wicket takers are the ones who blossomed in the later years of their careers. The drug abused blonde star who took 40 wickets in losing cause took close to 400 wkts in 2nd part of his career. A jaw broken bowler took 350 wkts in his last 5 years of career when people had written him off.

A 36 year old batsman has scored 9 international hundreds since May 2007 and 7 90s. Out of which many were wrong decisions.

Age is just a number. Fold the number and flush it in the commode of your loo.