Indian Cricket - the road ahead ...

India's poor performance in WC 2007 has filled 100 billion people with dissappointment, pity!, anger and what not. Team India is passing through a horrible time that no one would even dream of. All coz of the tendency of just screwing it up when it matters. Had they shown some sort of mental fitness, the scenario would have been 180 degree different. But alas, it lies all messed up.

Just with this funny performance, several things come to my mind like :

• India is the second-most populated country in the world. The country where cricket is followed more than religiously. The pujas and the maha-yagnas conducted all over the place for cricket.
• Financial and social benefits that the players enjoy in this cricket-mad country. On every second nukkad the children are seen playing the game.
• The players that were selected for the mission world cup. Their attitude being reflected in the game. Also hinting about the training pattern for world cup.
• The heros in Sachins, Sehwags, Gangulys and Dravids having more than 40,000 runs under their belt. Two world-class spinners in Kumble and Bhajji.
• The rich and wealthy BCCI.
• The importance of the game for being heard in the parliament sometimes.
• The mixed 'luck and results' that India had in the past. The shameful loses to the glorious victories.
• The opportunity ahead, the things that could put things in place.
• The need for a more effective selection process, encouraging the game at grass root level.
• The performance based payments that could keep players on their toes. (Of course they make most of their wealth through ads, but the players, specially seniors will feel really bad if they are in the lower bottom half)
• The rotation policy for the having the best team for the best event. No point in playing the best 11 in Ind-Ban series and winning it 3-0 or 5-0 or whatever. Having a world cup to world cup agenda, almost like the 5-year plan (or rather unlike the '5 year plan')
  
• I just sometimes sit and wonder about the time when Indian cricket board will feel and groom the passion the budding kids show, for the kids play mini-cricket at their homes when its raining outside!

cheers!

Just for Fun

A funny mail which comes in my email-inbox so many times that i am putting it here. Enjoy alternative jobs opportunities for fallen stars of Indian cricket team.

India may be Out ...

ICC don't want to forget India even though India is out of the league after first round. ICC fined India for slow over rates against there final match of first round in Cricket World Cup 2007.

India was one over short of its target with respect to allowed time which made ICC match referee Jeff Crowe to fine Indian team.

As per the rule captain will lose 10% and rest of the team will lose 5% of their match fee.

So along with Fans and Advertisers, ICC also showing real path to Indian team.

Anil Kumble Announced Retirement

India’s leading wicket-taker Anil Kumble has announced his retirement from one-day cricket and he will continue in Test cricket only.

Kumble has 547 Test victims and 337 victims in one-dayers and last performed in ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 against Bermuda.

Kumble's best Test match performance was against Pakistan where he took all ten wickets in an innings in New Delhi in 1999.

He will be seen performing next against Bangladesh in May in two Test matches.

Records at world cup ..

There have been a lots of occasions of sudden ups and downs for any player or team in the previous editions of the tourney. It took some of the tough players to storm hard at the opponent teams, and when the time was really tough, the tougher players have risen to the occasion and have seen their team through.

This reminds me to quote the players who have played a vital role in the world cup wins for their countries. Lets have a look at some of the previous records:

Man of the match at the finals of each world cup

1975 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Clive Llyod (102 runs)
1979 world cup : West Indies --> MoM : Viv Richards (138*)
1983 world cup : India --> MoM : Mohinder Amarnath (26 and 3-12)
1987 world cup : Australia --> MoM : David Boon (75)
1992 world cup : Pakistan --> MoM : Wasim Akram (33 and 3-49)
1996 world cup : Sri Lanka --> MoM : Aravinda de Silva (107 and 3-42)
1999 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Shane Warne (4-33)
2003 world cup : Australia --> MoM : Ricky Ponting (140*)

Since 1992 world cup the 'Player of the world cup' is being awarded. The players who left their mark even if their teams may not have lifted the cup that year :

1992 world cup : Martin Crowe, captain of New Zealand was really consistent with his bat and also brought in innovative idieas with slog over approach in first 15 overs and spinner in Deepak Patel leading the bowling attack.

1996 cup was dominated by the then minnows Sri Lanka, spearheaded by Sanath Jaisuriya with his extra fast performance with the bat and a good supportive role with the bowl.

1999 world cup saw a desperate attempt from the Zulu, Lance Klusner of South Africa who almost took RSA in the finals almost single handedly. Effort in vain for the very unfortunate run-outs in the history of cricket.

2003 event saw the Indian master blaster at his best, hitting on target in almost all the matches but the Big final against Australia. In the process, he took the team to finals with the help of his team members, also scored the highest runs in the world cup.


2007, hain koi jawab ?

India's early exit: Advertisers Nightmare

India's early exit put advertisers in a tragic situation. As India's early exit will result in fall of viewers for other matches and viewers loss will upset advertisers as they have put lots of money for advertising during this World Cup 2007.

As CricketWeblog says:
In a One-day match, there are around 5,000 seconds of ad time. Currently, the rates are Rs 1.25-1.30 lakh for matches not featuring India which may reduced 1 lakh as India is no more part of the next stage. This may mean a drop of up to Rs 150 crore in advertising revenue for the broadcaster.

Advertisers are demanding for bonus spots and/or discounts as reported by Rediff. Also advertisers are reducing there budget for advertisement from the previous alloted amount like Videocon reduced it to Rs 10 crore from 20 crore.

On the contrary it may benefit channels showing TV serials as there TRP will get near to normal again so are there ad rates. Also hotels and restaurants which don't had TV sets for there customers and facing tough time in the evening slots.

Whats on Stake if ...

As all the analyst and big guns are from leading newspaper and news channel are already gave there thought about the loss, if India gets out in first round of World Cup 2007. They also mentioned that Advertising and Media industry will lose lots of money(in crores). Apart from this losses, the other effects it will bring us are:

• It may lead to loss of Mandira's charm. (Definitely we don't want that to happen)
• I read somewhere in newspaper that many Indian couple wont get a good sex life for a couple of week or till World Cup 2007 ends.
• India TV scenarios will be back on track of Saas-Bahu serials leading with K alphabet. (God Save us)
• News channel will have to find/make new breaking news everyday to serve people from India.
• And finally it will waste my share of Rs 250 for cable connection which i shared with six other friends in Pune.

To save us from all this losses only Indian Cricket team can do something today. My best wishes are with India to make a victory against Sri Lanka with a good form and new records and to show our presence in second round.

Jeeto India Jeeto !!!!

Rollercoaster Ride on cards

India managed to beat Bermuda convincingly by 257 runs keeping hopes alive of going into the Super 8s.. the Indian team supporters have already been through a Rollercoaster Ride..

• First the warmup match victory against Netherlands which was better than the win against them in CWC 2003 so we were supposedly on the right track..
• Next up the match against the West Indies.. this is always tricky coz the moment u beat the host nation all the fans there will start booing u in all ur games.. we secured a win n got boos for sure.. coz we beat them by 9 wkts.. the win made the fans back home feel we are all set to dominate this time round like we almost did last time except for the Australia games..
• So here we were up against the Minnows Bangladesh.. in the first few overs it became crystal clear we had a fight on our hands the way they fielded throwing bodies all over the place n the disciplined bowling by their pacers n spinners also their batting showed they knew how to handle the situation something we could learn..coz we lost the match during our batting we being unsure whether to grind it out or to attack in style..
• The good thing that happened was that this win for Bangladesh makes Group B real interesting coz Sri Lanka n India can't take things lightly any more..speaking of whom when we go on to play them on this Friday no matter what happens between them n Bangladesh we have a chance why coz
• In World Cup games the scenario reads.. in the 5 games played so far Sri Lanka has won 3 n we the remaining 2..Arey woh log jyada jeeta na.. so whats good re? ya but we won last two times with big margins.. courtesy Ganguly (183), Dravid (145) n Singh (5-31) helping India to a 157 run victory in County Ground,Taunton, CWC 1999 and courtesy Tendulkar (97), Sehwag(66), Srinath (4-35) n Nehra (4-35) helping India to a 183 run victory in New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, CWC 2003

A Record Breaking Day

The twelfth match of World Cup 2007 between India and Bermuda was full of records. Here is the list of few broken and/or equaled records:

• India's 413 for 5 against Bermuda broke the record for the highest total in a World Cup match. Before this Sri Lanka had this record from 1996 World Cup to till now with a score of 398 for 5 against Kenya.
• India manage to win by a large margin of 257 runs against Bermuda which broke the previous record of largest margin of Australia's 256-run win against Namibia in the 2003 World Cup.
• India also managed to equal South Africa's recent record for most sixes in an inning by knocking 18 sixes against Bermuda.
• Malachi Jones of Bermuda became the first bowler to take a wicket with his first delivery in a World Cup with Robin Uthappa's wicket.
• Virender Sehwag marked his first century in World Cup matches by scoring 114 off 87 balls against Bernuda. Also he created third fastest century in World Cup by knocking 100 runs in 81 balls.
• Bermuda with five ducks in its innings equaled the record of most ducks in the World Cup matches.
• Ganguly equaled the record of most sixes i.e. 25 sixes in World Cups of Ricky Ponting also playing ten less match then him.

Apart from this records hosts West Indies secured its place in second round of World Cup matches by beating Zimbabwe while Pakistan got the way for early exit.

If you are aware with any more records for the day which is not mentioned here then please add it here using Comment section.

Bangladeshi, Irish minnows pull off BIG WC upsets ..

It was Bangladesh and Ireland, the teams which ruled the 5th day of the World Cup.

Right from the word go the Bangladeshi boys just dominated the big on paper Indian side. Be it blowing, batting, fielding.. they were better in every part of the game. Moreover the Indian boys just could just show glimpse of boys with winning attitude.Winning the toss the Indians chose to bat first. With almost every batsman struggling to play the Indians were all out for a formidable total of 191. The Sehwags, Dravids, Tendulkars did not look comfortable against both the seam and spin attack of Bangladesh. With Saurav Ganguly (66), Yuraj Singh (47) and a vital contribution of about 30 odd runs for the last wicket between Zaheer and Munaf saw India posting a a150+ score. Chasing a small total, the Bangladeshis looked all confident specially the 17 yr old guy Tamim Iqbal smashing Zaheer-Munaf-Agarkar trio all over the place. Tamim scored a quick fifty putting India in a very tough to recover position. Munaf's quick two wickets revived the hopes of 1oo million ppl back home in India. But Mishfiqur Rahim and Saqibul Hasan played out matured innings to see Bangladesh through.

With this result Bangladesh is all set for their remaining Group B ties - with Bermuda and Srilanka. On the other hand India have a do or die situation in their matches against Bermuda and Srilanka.

Another big upset for the day was Ireland's victory over Pakistan. Ireland continued their dream run in the world cup by crushing Pakistan, in their second WC match. The Irish attack bundled out the Pakistan batting line-up for 130 odd runs and made the stage for their batsmen to finish of things. Ireland managed to get the total with 50 spare balls and 3 wickets in hand. The result ensured a place in second round for the debutant Irish boys while the humiliation sent Pakistan packing with no hopes of qualifying in the next round.