Off Stump

This piece by Sharda Ugra is a very interesting read, particularly as "cheating" in various forms gets more and more prevalent in professional sport. Btw, Sharda Ugra is (in my opinion) one of the better cricket writers around today and probably the only woman who regularly writes good stuff. Long may it last.

Reading most of the build-ups and previews of the upcoming Ind-NZ series would make you think that the Kiwis need not have even bothered to turn up. And while I would be surprised if India do not win the Test series, I do not think it will be as easy as most people seem to be thinking. For one, India do not play NZ too often and also seem to find it oddly difficult to lift their game when playing weaker sides. Seven test matches is not much but the fact is that they have beaten the Kiwis just once this decade. Also, given that this is sandwiched between two tough series against Aus and SA, there will be the old "take-a-break-in-between" factor to worry about. On the positive side, Dhoni is pretty level headed and won't be complacent and the team generally seems pretty geed up about holding on to their No.1 ranking so that bodes well. The test for them will be to show that they can be ruthless and go for a 3-0 scoreline. The general Kiwi approach should also help given th...

Its ironic that when I started out blogging, I thought my most frequent posts would be on this one. And its turned out to be almost the exact opposite. My personal blogs and the ones I share with Aruna have had a lot more activity. In general though, writing activity has been up so will bring that "Force" on to here as well.