Skip to main content

The big day dawns

Its a nice coincidence that Dhoni and Sangakkara are both wicket-keeper batsmen who captain their teams. The former's probably the better captain but the latter is clearly the better batsman and their keeping is roughly equally good. Which is what the two teams are as well. Just look at the line-ups - one legend on each side, two all time national greats (Sehwag, Zaheer for India and Sangakkara, Jayawardene for SL) plus a clutch who would like to be remembered as all time national greats (Dhoni, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Gambhir for Ind, Dilshan, Malinga, Mendis and Matthews for SL). Predicting a winner is almost impossible. All I'm hoping for really is a close, evenly fought battle unlike the last 4 World Cup finals. Trouble is if you look at the matches these two teams have played over the last two years (and they've played a lot as Sidharth Monga points out flippantly :-)) there have been just 5 games (out of 34) that could be deemed close. So that plus the WC finals recent history does not augur well.

No reason not to hope though ......post tomorrow's game, I'll publish my"review" and World Cup XI, that should be some exciting time-wasting :-)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Et tu?

As a single sport website, I think Cricinfo has brought about a revolution and the fact that they were bought by ESPN is testament to how highly valued they've become. Their editing and approach to articles/opinion has been refreshing to say the least and even though they seem to have had a lot of editorial staff movement they've usually maintained very high standards. Off late though, both in their headline styles as well as in actual content, there seems to be an occasional slippage of standards and an inching towards the modern media sensationalism which is a bit of a pity. This piece  by Siddharth Monga is a classic example. Granted that the last two press conferences by Dhoni and Sehwag  indicated clearly that the captain and his deputy did not agree on this aspect of selection but "discord", "dissent", "public sniping" feels rather presumptuous and heavy handed. Yes, it is a team sport but there is no reason why everyone on the team needs ...
1 comment
Read more

Quick singles: Why the double standards?

I'm no fan of David Warner's but for once, I'm firmly and squarely on his side . Sportspersons are probably treated the most unfairly by public opinion (and often the media) whenever they are involved in pay disputes. "Oh, look these millionaires are complaining about not getting paid enough" seems to be the gist of the general reactions. I find this attitude inexplicable at best and grossly hypocritical if I'm feeling less charitable. Like the rest of us, all athletes have the right to fight for what they think they should be paid. That is the fundamental part. In addition (and unlike many of the rest of us), most sportspersons operate in the knowledge that they only have a short period available as a performer, and therefore only a short period to maximise earnings. Most people that I know would behave exactly the same as Warner and his colleagues are doing. So why all the hue and cry?
Post a Comment
Read more

A kick up the backside

Its very interesting (and revealing) that so many Indian cricketers pull up their socks and become better players once they've been dropped from the side and left out in the cold for a while. The trend is even more prevalent currently when the selectors have a larger pool of good players to choose from. Dravid (from the one-day team), Kumble, Ganguly, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan, the list goes on. In fact, the only people I can think of who haven't been dropped at any point in recent years are Tendulkar (in any form of the game), and Dravid (from the Test team). This article in the TOI attributes their post-drop performance improvements (at least in Yuvraj's case and a few more as well) to anger. I'm not too sure I agree. I think its more a generic Indian mentality of taking things easy and getting soft and comfortable too easily. Its a national trait and one that needs great guarding against. I've discovered the hard way how getting physically unfit or slack...
Post a Comment
Read more