Openers

He made his debut at the age of 21 for India against Bangladesh at Dhaka. He did not start off on a high note, but has worked really hard since then. He remains one of the persistent contenders for that opening post. Gautham Gambhir has played some useful knocks for India since then but just has not made his mark permanent. His not doing so is for many reasons. But, unfortunately has one prominent technical flaw. He tends to come too far across the stumps and expose leg stump and although hstatistics don’t say so, he tends to get out bowled often around the legs due to this. Also, he moves his front leg right in front of the stumps very often and is therefore prone to LBWs.

In his career, he is a few stages juniour to Gautham Gambhir. Aiyudda Robin Uthappa, from Karnataka and more specifically from the Karnataka Institute of Cricket, one thing one should credit him for is his hard work. As a teenager playing age group cricket, Robin used to bat in one match, go on to another match and bat there and a few more matches like that in a day and has even scored a few hundred runs in one day without being dismissed! Well, all that has paid off, but there is still that technical nag. He commits himself to the front foot therefore reducing his options and comforts. Even then, he dispatches bowlers with seemingly limitless forearm strength. Hitting Caribbean medium pacers with the new ball over midwicket for six of the front foot is no joke.

Now these two men are fighting hard for that opening spot and Gambhir seems to be ahead at this moment. Robin is restless at the crease but gets his runs fast. Therefore, he gets to 50ish very fast but then the restlessness gets to him and he gets out playing an unnecessary and pretty stupid shot. He plays with a phenomenal amount of comfort although he is committed on the front foot. If he starts steadying himself and curtails his adrenaline and energy after providing the team with a good start, there is no reason the selectors can give if they drop him.

Virender Sehwag is completely out of sorts and out of form of late but has been bowling well. Nobody really is able to ascertain the cause of this sudden dip in performance. Bottom line – he’s not in the squad.

Sachin has been in and out of the team. (WOW! How often does ANYONE have the opportunity to say that?!!) He wants to open. He has only opened against Ireland, the day before this article was written and did not do so well. We will just have to wait and see.

Ganguly is on a roll, he’s shut his critics up. He performed against Ireland and seems to be going through some good form. But, in the world cup game against Bermuda, he seemed to be playing for himself, some scrutiny will be done.

Too many options, none completely certain and lots to do for the selectors.-BS

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On Chanderpaul

If there is one batsman in the world without flair, its Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Chanderpaul has shown us that technique or no technique, if you’re good enough, you can make it. Chanderpaul has probably the worst looking stance amongst the batsmen in world cricket. West Indies is known for producing weird but exemplary talents - Lara had (has) an odd backlift.

Chanderpaul has a very open stance. This has some advantages and some disadvantages. The open stance means that he needs to get that much more side on in the same time. This results in lots of shuffling and unnecessary movements. But this does not affect his game in any way. Another more significant disadvantage is that sometimes, Shiv might find it a tad difficult to get his body right behind the ball and close that perilous gap between bat and pad. His angle at the crease also results in the opening of the face of his bat. Fortunately, this has been well controlled by him.

There are also advantages. He can see the bowler approaching him with a little bit more ease than the conventional batsmen. Also, - although this is not related to his stance – he has the added advantage of being a left handed batsman. He gives himself a little more room than the other batsmen and this results in anything going a little bit away from him - even with just the angle – becoming a wide ball. Thus, he favours playing square and just behind square on the off side. He also can sway away from those balls which are almost bouncers.

One thing that has to be mentioned is that Chanderpaul is also lucky to have been born in Guyana. Had he played in India, he would have had to go through the staunch Indian coaching system where if you are not text book, you are just not good. Dhoni is probably the only exception to this undesirable rule.

He has scored two hundreds in the present series against England apart from a few other pretty useful knocks. Chanders, keep going.-BS

Underrated? - Srinivas Venkataraghavan

Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan – amongst the greatest people involved in the game of cricket. He has done basically everything related to cricket.

He is one of the technically most knowledgeable people in the world of cricket. It is for this reason that he is the Director of umpires in India and is also part of a host of technical committees. He is versatile.

This fact I borrow from Cricinfo – Venkat has adorned nine roles in all in cricket: player, captain, manager, administrator, selector, columnist, expert television commentator, match referee and umpire. Yes. That is all. He holds the world record for the only person to be in the Elite Panel of Match referees and umpires. He officiated with distinction. He officiated along with the greats like Shepherd and Bucknor.

Venkat was also one of the very intelligent off spinners and is a part of the famed spin quartet of the 1960s and 70s. Venkat got a lot of rip on the ball and brought it sharply into the batsman. Apart from the occasional short one, he was very competent. He was extremely unlucky too at times. Bedi and Chandrasekhar were the attacking spinners and were usually brought in before Venkat and it was only later when either there was not much to do or lot of damage already done that Venkat got to bowl. He always bowled at the ‘other end.’ Nevertheless, Venkat was successful and that usual occurrence of the ball coming into the batsman with Solkar diving in from short leg to pick up yet another good catch is a stamp on any cricket connoisseur’s memory. He also had a vicious wrong one. As intelligent as he is, he bowled to his role in test matches - where he was not the spearhead - by bowling flat and flighted the ball in Ranji games where he assumed the lead role.

What has Venkat been up to recently? He was probably the most inconspicuous member of the squad that was supposed to pick a coach for the Indian team.-BS

Articles to read: The many avatars of Srinivas Venkataraghavan on Cricinfo.

Mudhusuden Singh Panesar

Ranked at number 7 in the test bowling ratings, Monty Panesar is on a roll. His recent performance against the West Indies at Manchester in the game which ended just hours before this article is written says a lot.

Panesar has come of age. His talent is being utilised at the test match stage. The test against the West Indies really showed what he is made of. Critics for sometime questioned his batting and fielding abilities but his fielding performance in the third test at Old Trafford really showed that he’d been working on it.

He was always known to be hugely talented. A wonderful release, using the index finger to the fullest with the rip on the ball, seam pointing towards the right hander’s second slip – every coach’s prayer for a left arm spinner -, the wonderful flight and the ball drifting and curving beautifully into the right hander and then spinning sharply outwards on English pitches is a treat to the eyes. So often he draws the batmen forward and beats him with the flight, the ball moving towards first slip after the pitch. He could always do all this. But it is now that Panesar is showing us that he can do it all the time.

Michael Vaughan’s use of Monty Panesar of late has substantiated the point that Monty has come of age. In the Old Trafford test, Panesar bowled the maximum number of overs; he bowled 51.5 overs in the second innings. Earlier, Vaughan gave him a few overs here and there and usually it so happened that the pace bowlers bowled well early and Monty had to come in later with not much to do, he has bowled less that ten overs in 7 innings in his 16 tests! In one instance against India, Panesar bowled just four overs when 48 were bowled in all.

Panesar has shown determination and guts of late. He has gone on and on, probed continuously and worked hard but got results. In the match that concluded today (11/7/07), Panesar for the first time picked up ten wickets in a match. He has many more ten wickets to come – if he goes on like this that is.-BS

Cricket Today - Chapter 4 - Left Arm Spin

They are said to be the rarest breed. They are sought after world over. Every team in the world is looking out for one. Being a left arm spinner earns you attention however competent or incompetent you are. Being a left arm spinner myself, I realise that the managements of teams believe they have struck gold when they have a competent southpaw spinner. But what is the world circumstance?

The most talked about left arm spinner is an Indian … amm … an Englishman (I stand corrected.) The only real Ludhianvi in Luton is Monty Panesar. He has been considered a revolutionary in the world of English spin – Underwood the second maybe? Although they have contrasting styles, he can be considered an Underwood the second as there has been no left arm spinner of the class of Underwood until – hopefully – Panesar. If Panesar continues without injury, he has miles to go before he sleeps after an eventful international career.

On the other hand there are some less talked about spinners to the likes of Raymond Price of Zimbabwe. Due to the present situation of cricket and politics in Zimbabwe, Price has not been playing for Zimbabwe but has instead gone where all international cricketers go to sometime in their lives, England. The partially deaf left armer is playing for Worcestershire pretty successfully. He deserves much more credit and appreciation than he gets. He has a wonderful release, trajectory and ability for flight and is probing.

Panesar’s gain is Giles’ loss. Ashley Giles is not the conventional left arm spinner. HE has a style of his own – don’t give the batsmen room to play; let him sweep but keep a man there to cover it and get a good loop.

Ahsley Giles, Monty Panesar, Ray Price, Daniel Vettori, Mohammad Rafique, Enamule Haque Jr. and many more. Although they are supposed to be very rare, there are more frontline left arm spinners than the other kinds of spinners in the world.

Daniel Vettori is a highly consistent, disciplined bowler. He does not waver from his areas that often. Unfortunately, the only probable defect with him is that he cant bowl that great delivery.

Too many people; lots more to talk about. I’ll get back with this topic – later.-BS

Simply Inexplicable

The Afro Asia Cup has begun. With a large number of top notch players deciding to drop out of the tournament, interest in the tournament has come down to such an extent that Nimbus refused to telecast the tournament. There’s probably one thing which deserved more attention.

In the Pro20 International between the men’s teams, a huge but slightly inconspicuous error took place. In fact, it was two errors in one ball. Sreesanth was the bowler and Thandi Tshabalala the batter. Tshabalala moved outside leg stump in an effort to give himself room. Sreesanth followed him and went between an almost straight bat and the pads of Tshabalala for a couple without any contact to anything. Then the chaos began. The umpire first signalled wide which in itself was an absolute shock! He also went on to signal byes. Just when there was hope that it was a lapse of concentration, he signalled wide and byes again to another scorer.

The question that automatically comes to ones mind is as to what could have happened to result in this blunder of sorts. Either it is – hopefully – a minor lapse of concentration which in itself just cannot be forgiven in the case of umpires or the more dangerous option of insufficient knowledge of the laws and prima facie that’s the way it looks. How it was let off so easily by the commentators and the crowd is a different but intriguing question.

Either way, this is a big blow to world umpiring, the reputation of Indian umpires and more specifically the career of Vinayak Kulkarni. I suppose that in this issue some questions will be left unanswered – to the public at least.-BS

The series Cricket Today will be continued subsequently.

Cricket Today - Chapter 3 - Leg Spin

Shane Warne retired. That signifies so much. Three words cover half the ideas, thoughts and opinions regarding leg spin today. So Warney retired; who’s left?

We come against another poser – if Shane is not there anymore, who will take over the reigns? I suppose it is safe to assume that nobody in the near future will dominate over most batsmen in such magnitude and with such ease as Warne did all these years at least in the near future. Hats off to you mate.

Take a tour around the world. In Australia, there is Stuart MacGill who is looking to replace Shane Warne, at least in the test side. Although there has been some controversy over the selectors’ not intending to pick him, only time will tell. If MacGill makes it in and gets one good game, George Bradley Hogg will continue to stay out of the test team for some more time. Although there are not that many conspicuous upcoming leggies down under, for the sake of the art, let’s hope Australia hold some surprises.

New Zealand don’t need a leggie with Daniel Vettori doing almost the same thing, but New Zealand have not produced as many spinners as they’d like; Vettori has been the long standing spinner, Paul Wiseman whose career is over and the young Jitan Patel are the only others (none of these three are leg spinners.)

Bangladesh have three left arm spinners so they’ll be looking for an off spinner rather than a leg spinner, someone even part time like Gayle for example.

India have leg spinners, two (one right on top and one moving sharply upwards in the ratings and fans’ hearts) – Anil Kumble and Piyush Chawla. Kumble has quit from ODI cricket and probably has another two seasons of Test match cricket left in him. Piyush Chawla on the other hand is a youngster and has years of international cricket left in him. Judging by the way he has matured between his only test against England in early 2006 and the recent ODI in Bangladesh, it will not be long before he comes of age.

Pakistan has Danish Kaneria. Kanenria is a very effective leggie. He has a nice action, good trajectory, but somehow, he sometimes goes 40 overs wicketless. That is only because of some minor flaw, either technically or strategically and if that is taken care of, he is certainly capable of castling batsmen more often and with more ease than he does at present. No one else in the subcontinent – the subcontinent is supposed to support spinners. Leg spin is the more attractive art, more youngsters are choosing leg spin over off spin but there are still not enough at the top.

England and South Africa have absolutely nobody. Not even in the County circuit in England can you find a leg spinner worthy of the long term national place. Time will pass and we will find out more.-BS

Cricket Today - Chapter 2 - Off Spin

Off spinners? Who? In the international circuit, there is no frontline off spinner with the exception of a certain Muthaiah Muralidharan. Some may argue that Harbhajan Singh is a frontline off spinner. Although this is true, he is not able to keep his place in the Indian side. Why is there this dearth of this kind?

Leg spinners are more than off spinners in number today but there could be more of them. This dearth of off spinners is because of one reason. The common practice today is to become a batsman and bowl part time off spin. But there are the aspiring bowlers. These bowlers – a large number of them at least - choose at a young age to become fast bowlers. And this group of fast bowlers is a rather large percentage of the total aspiring bowlers. And those who choose to become spinners tend to sway towards leg spin because of its being a more attractive art.

Off spin is highly under rated. People take off spin for granted at the juniour levels and any batsman who can barely turn his arm over is ready to bowl off spin. This really should not happen. Cricketers should learn to appreciate the art.

At the international level, Murali is an off spinner who dominates over his opposition continuously. Batsmen fear him for the rip he gets on the ball and the amount of turn he gets. The Australians hate playing him and have got rather original and indigenous ways of reducing the amount of pressure Murali puts on them.

Harbhajan, on the other hand is a very capable off spinner, a little more orthodox than Murali. He is not capable of producing those great deliveries that often. He can nail the batsman with consistent nagging.

Apart from these two, the guys who are hardly in the team – Gareth Batty and Shaun Udal (both England), Nathan Hauritz (Australia) and Johan Botha (RSA who has been booked for an illegal action) – and the part timers – Shoab Mailk, Virender Sehwag and Andrew Symonds (also bowls medium pace) - are all we have. Is that it or does someone have something in store?-BS