Tag: cricket

Day 81/ 365 – Will the Indian Bowlers please stand up?

~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

Just been extremely disappointed with the current performance of the Indian bowlers. I can’t recollect in any of the recent matches where we have conceded less than 300 runs while bowling first (today being an exception, since NZ only had 280 runs to win), putting tremendous on our batsmen. It seems they cant figure out where to bowl and I am not sure if anyone is even guiding them. If yes, then they dont seem to be implementing that guidance. I cant figure out for the love of God, why is Ishant Sharma still getting selected in the one day team. He really needs to figure out how to bowl, because sometimes it seems that he is absolutely clueless on what to bowl and where to bowl. Only one fast bowler seems like doing a reasonable job and that it seems to Mohd. Shami, however, it seems that he has taken over Ishant’s mantle of bowling wayward in the last couple of games. Bhuvneshwar Kumar does not have the pace without the swing is not a threat at all. On these pitches in the upcoming World Cup, I am not sure how useful he is going to be. What we need is someone who is out and out fast, someone like Mitchell Johnson or a Dale Steyn who even on a bad day are able to scare some batsmen and get wickets. I cant understand why we never have those types of bowlers. I mean we have one of the best pace academies of the world and yet don’t produce a world class genuine fast bowler.

The positives that I see is that we have exactly one year  to rectify all these issues. The wickets in Australia and New Zealand don’t have a lot of swing, but have a lot of bounce and carry and we need to have bowlers who are able to use that. I think this defeat should act as an eye opener for the Indian team and hopefully they get their act together. If not, it is going to be a very bad World Cup for us and we will end up losing the title of World Champions.

Day 43/ 365 – England suffer another defeat

~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

England suffered yet another humiliating defeat at the hands of Australia in the 2nd Ashes test. Simply don’t understand what’s wrong with this team. Most of the articles that I have read online suggests that the team is fatigued, however, not sure how fatigue only applies to the English players, especially when you are winning. This Australian team has bounced back very well under the new coach, especially after their performances over the last couple of years. While they are nowhere near the Aussies of the old, they appear to be winning by bullying the English players by bowling short and into the body. Such tactics always used to work on teams from sub-continent, however, I am surprised that it has worked against the English players who I believe are used to playing on similar wickets. IMHO, the England team is paying just too much attention to one person and one type of bowling i.e. Mitchell Johnson and short pitch bowling. They need to get over it and stop trying to prove that they can play the pull shot. I think they need to check the video of the match where Sachin Tendulkar where he made 248 not out and the entire innings didn’t include any off drives – because Sachin decided to stop playing that shot altogether as he used to get out playing the shot. Similarly the English batsmen need to curb this habit of jumping around the crease like rabbits and trying to pull every short ball, else they are just going to perish.

The 3rd test is going to be played in Perth and while most people have written England off, I am hoping that they provide a fight. They just need to go back a few years and draw inspiration from team India beat Australia on the same ground after an eventful Sydney test. Lets see how the match turns out. I am hoping to see some amazing fast bowling from Mitchell Johnson and hopefully brilliant batting from KP, else it is good bye Ashes for England.

 

 

 

Day 15/ 365 – Bowlers bowled out

~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

So we saw another high scoring game on Wednesday between India and Australia. While India did manage to win, it makes me wonder how the new ODI rules are simply making bowlers irrelevant especially in India where the outfields are superfast, grounds smaller and pitches are a batting paradise. The entire game has been made very lopsided. Earlier, I used to think that the Indian bowlers have lost their mojo, but now I think it is just that they don’t stand a chance against these rules. Reverse swing is a crucial asset for a bowler, especially in dry conditions. But with the two new balls and ball change at 35 overs mark, that advantage has also been taken away. Meanwhile the batsmen have everything going for them. Broader bats, smaller grounds, one less fielder in the outfield – nothing to stop them. If we observe the changes that have been introduced in the game of one day cricket over the last 20 years – most of the changes have been made to make cricket more entertaining – whereby losing the aesthetic value of the game. First came the 15 over rule, which was then extended to 20 overs and has now been reduced to 15 overs again – where in 2 fielders and now 3 can remain outside the circle during this period. Earlier, you could have fielders anywhere and it wouldn’t matter. This gave rise to the batsmen like Jayasuriya, Kaluwitharna from Sri Lanka, Adam Gilchrist, Sachin Tendulkar – the list is endless. Not sure if the bowlers got anything in return. Then the smart men managing cricket decided to come up with a interesting change of allowing 2 bouncers in an over – while this did help bowlers to some extent. Bowling bouncers on Indian pitches is some kind of a joke as the ball sits up nicely to be hit. So the smart men thought.. what else can we do to make it more spicy – right lets now play with 2 new balls at either end and reduce one more fielder from the outfield. So that basically makes bowlers even more handicapped. The truth is – cricket grounds in India have been turned into a slaughter house for bowlers (ours and theirs).

I am not sure how many youngsters out there would really want to take up bowling. What role models do they have? There was Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath, and Zaheer Khan. Who do we have now? I am sure no kid would want to look at Ishant Sharma and be like I want to bowl like him after seeing get whacked for 30 runs in an over. I believe the pitches in this country need to be changed drastically to ensure that our bowlers get a chance to perform, else the rules need to be changed. I completely agree with MSD that in these conditions the bowlers would prefer a bowling machine then them throwing the ball.  There is nothing more awesome than seeing a fast bowler run charging in and send thunderbolts at the batsmen who is ducking, weaving, leaving good balls and punishing the bad ones. But when the good ones start going over and above the boundary rope very frequently, something needs to be changed or very soon we would have ODI’s being played as 4 innings T20 game and that would be a serious blow to cricket.