Off Stump

For me, one of the few heartening aspects of the disastrous Indian tours of England and Australia in their respective summers has been to see Ishant Sharma bowling his last over of the day with the same gusto as his first, irrespective of whether the opposition have been at 30-3 or 300-3. In a team that's generally looked dispirited all too easily, one of the youngest members has a lesson to teach the others - don't stop trying no matter how well or badly you are doing. Granted that since the second Test against England (at Nottingham) he has done poorly picking up just 11 wickets in eight matches but in his last nine matches prior to that he picked up no less than 45 scalps. And if the top five batsmen with all their experience are allowed so much leeway, shouldn't Ishant who's just a little over 23, deserve some too? Sample some other stats - 1) If you look at bowling records for players upto the age of 23, Ishant is the sixth highest wicket taker of all time.

When it comes to cricketers, I have always had a secret soft spot for those that may not be the most gifted but are really disciplined and work really hard to make the most of their abilities. The perseverance does not necessarily pay off in the most handsome fashion for all of them and many remain relative journeymen when it comes to achievements on the international stage. Its heartening therefore when such men make it to the pinnacle of domestic cricket as captains of national championship winning teams. Cool is not quite the word I used to associate with Hrishikesh Kanitkar during his brief stint with the national team but he always came across as a man with quiet resolve and steely determination. A first class average of 53+ is pretty special and if India hadn't been blessed with their best middle order line-up ever in the 2000s, then he would have definitely played more than the two Test matches he got. Much the same can be said of Mohammad Kaif who in a parallel univer

There's been much brouhaha over India's rapid descent into one-sided football scorelines and becoming what some would term "the world's worst overseas team". And while there's some logic to the cries for wholesale changes ,  revamping the team , and attitude problems , much of it is over the top. About the only two sensible pieces I have read recently are by Ganguly and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan questioning the lack of spirit and fight shown by the team. What's most surprising to me is that some people seem to think that the team (which was ranked #1 till recently and won the World Cup less than a year back) is suddenly a pile of dung. This when there are still several pieces of information (numbers of course) that have either been ignored or not analysed clearly at all. So here's an attempt to balance the books a little. Consider the following - 1) India's overseas record in 5 year segments roughly over the last two decades is as below: 199

2011 was a tumultuous year in the world of cricket with players being sentenced to prison, and entire teams being disqualified from competitions for the first time in my memory of following the great game. In the last three or four months however, activity picked up for most of the teams in world cricket and the focus thankfully shifted back onto the field of play and that in itself is reason to celebrate. Now that we're at the end of all  international cricket for the year (and in fact have even had a couple of games in the new year), doing a 'round-the-world' trip and trying to predict where the teams will head over the next 12-18 months feels like a good way to kick off the new year. So here goes (in alphabetical order of cricketing nations) - AUSTRALIA: As was to be expected, they have taken their recent run of depressing results (the two Ashes losses, losing to India and then surrendering the World Cup after 12 years) to heart and have begun their fightback though